Polhena Beach, Sri Lanka

We had decided to take a train from Galle to Matara on monday morning. We got into the railwaystation well before our departure time and tried to order tickets, but unfortunately the railroad tracks were going through some maintenance. So no trains for the next weeks. There was one bus replacing the whole train so it was extremely crowded. We were once again lucky ones and got ourselves seats (even though this meant there was  people pushing you from sides all the time as there was simply no space.)

T.K. Hotel

In Matara we took a rickshaw to T.K. Green Garden Hotel (we had a list of few hotel names and this was the first on the list) and negotiated the price for the room (aka halfed the amount they were initially asking). The T.K. is quite a big resort with 2 seperate apartment blocks and a big garden (with the owners cute doggie Jessie waggling after you) surrounding it all. It's very close to the sea and small strips of beach are everywhere. On the first night we were enjoying beautiful singing/drumming of our neighbours, souding to Mariska like spiritual chanting and Buddhist storytelling but Jaakko thought they might just have been drunk Sri Lankans on holiday.

Beach road

Unfortunately it is Christmas holiday times also for Sri Lankans so the public beach is totally overcrowded (only by men, local women know better and stay away from there.)
So we went up looking for other places to stay around the beach road and found "Sabine Guesthouse" along the coast with a piece of "private" beach.

We saw small lizards and a few big varaans basking in the sun around the beach area, some domestic animals, stray dogs, rocks full of crabs and lots of bugs. There should be crocodiles living here in the wild but we haven't seen them yet!

Galle, Sri Lanka

Arriving to Galle we were least to say tired. We took one of the rickshaw touts marketing cheap rooms in the fort area. On our way we saw a lot of Buddha statues and shrines, though this town is multireligious with buddhists, muslims, hindus and christians crowding the streets.

Fort seen from Railwaystation

We arrived to the first hostel, a fancy one with over double the price what we agreed to pay. No problem, they took us to the next place. Also a fancy one called "Frangipani" (meaning a white flower tree). They have two buildings with rooms to rent, facing eachother with a quiet street inbetween. Luckily they had one fine backroom without window but access to a shared balcony that suited our needs and budget.

Street next to Frangipani motel

Staying in there we made friends with our neighbour; a swedish metalguitar hero Michael and learnt to drink Arrack (Sri Lankan coconut liquer). The fort area is nice and full of old Dutch memorabilia, like VOC buildings, churches etc. From time to time it was hard to say had we ever left from Hoorn ;)

 Dutch church

VOC building (united East-Indian company from Dutch colonial times)

After walking around the fort few times we decided to half our maintenance costs and only eat outside the fort. The center has a lot of shopping to offer and we found a big supermarket to buy everything we needed for a right price. Around the christmas eve the whole town fort got a lot busier - European airports had been opened again after the snow had melted. So in the end we were lucky having our room as there was daily people being send away coming to ask for vacancy during christmas.

Our Christmas "tree"

We celebrated christmas by fetching a breakfast full of surprice-buns and cakes from bakery; you never know what you will find inside, spicy vegetables or sweet cream or for us uneatable stinky somethings. And we changed our daily fried rice meal to a bucketful of expensive pasta. It was time to move on forward away from 'touristtown' and it's popular fortwalk.

Arriving to Colombo, Sri Lanka

We had a nice nightflight from Chennai to Colombo - We got a rickshaw from ZamZam in Chennai to the airport around 20:30 and spent almost an hour sitting in trafficjams (the airport is under 15 km away from ZamZam Guesthouse). In the airport our cheap airlines had "special" securitycheck lines so it was good we arrived 3 hours in advance to our flight.

The flight with Spicejet was fast and pleasant. We even got free bottles of water during the flight. We landed around 2 am in Colombo and filled in the Visa papers, got stamps and picked up our luggage. For our surprice half of the airport is 24/7 shopping mall for bigger household items, like fridges, ovens, washing machines, tv's and even guitars.
Our grand plan was to leave one of our big backpacks to the luggage drop for the next 3 weeks in airport. Unfortunately this was not possible because we were lacking padlocks (how to seal a backpack with them is still a mystery to me), so they refused to take our luggage in. So we decided to take a Bus to the city and go to the railwaystation (hoping that they also have luggage drop available).

We found the bus fastly and went to sit in it. This was around 4:30 am. After waiting 10 minutes in the bus we went to ask from the driver when is the bus leaving. In 10 minutes he said. So we waited a bit more and after 10 minutes asked same question and were rewarded with the same answer. Thats ok, we waited a bit more until it was past 5 am and after that we decided to take a taxi.

We, feeling tired and hungry, got to the railwaystation, found a left luggage office, bought some mandarins, cakes and drinks and took a morning train to Galle enjoying the scenic views from seaside railroadtracks and spotting tropical beaches and also traces from the disasterous tsunami of 2004.

Chennai, Tamil Nadu

We took a nighttrain from Mysore to Chennai. The train was surprisingly clean and smooth for Indian standards, atleast for a while. After settling down for half an hour an Indian boyschool class of 12 year olds invaded our wagon. This was nice for a while (they finally had a chance to practice their english which wasn't good at all yet), asking politely our names, nationalities etc. Their teachers were walking up and down the train counting the boys and their seatnumbers while looking with who they would share the compartment. Two friendly chubby female teachers decided to change their berths from our compartment for others (so they would not have to climb up the highest beds in their sari's) so the kids felt they had freedom to go a little wild; not sleep when they were told to. Unfortunately the boys got then also a little too friendly with Mariska asking how much money she has, about bankcards, camera and so on. We decided at this point to turn off the lights hoping that they would get the message and try to fall asleep. A couple of them decided instead to keep Mariska awake begging for coins. Only after multiple threats about getting their teachers (and Mariska waking me up to intervere) they decided to play good little boys and atleast pretend to be sleeping rest of the night.

Winter on Chennai Beach, notice the man with a woolly hat

Chennai is again a big city, this time equipped with a beach (too strong currents for swimming though). We are staying in Triplicane district in Indian Zam Zam Guest House in a small cell like room. Atleast the price is ok, 300 inr - 5€ / night.

Zam Zam

Chennai feels a lot less "westernised" than it's (IT) counterpart Bangalore - so we are forced for a change to live with a diet of pure indian food ;)

From here we have flights at midnight to Colombo, Sri Lanka. From Colombo we are planning to leave directly to Galle, and from there finally back to some beaches.

Mysore, Karnataka

After escaping with a morning bus from Bangalore to Mysore we arrived to slightly more fresh air in a smaller city. We ended up bargaining with hotel inthrowers about their accomadations and decided to stay in "Chandra Palace". Our room is ok if you do not miss a view - there is a brickwall ½m from our windows blocking everything.

Maharaja's Palace

On the first day we went walking around and checked the famous Maharaja's Palace. It was beautiful, but a bit boring as it was just a palace, reconstructed by british a hundred or some years ago. The stars of the visit were a friendly elephant and two camels on the palace yard.

The second day we took a rickshaw drive to Chamuti Hill with an active pilgrimage temple and Nandi (Shiva's Bull vehicle) monolithic statue. We got a blessing for happy future with a long piece of red yellow cotton wrapped around our wrist with under it the kumkum-(red powder) dot that most hindus wear between their eyes. 

 Chamuti Hill

After that we visited some local workshops to see how incense, silken carpets/sari's/pashminas and sandalwood items are manufactured. Mysore is the only place where sandlewood-trees are growing so lots of woodworks, oils and jewelry are made and sold here. Mariska couldn't leave without buying a little overpriced but cute brown bead necklace made of sandlewood that has a nice woodfragrance when you rub it. Unfortunately all the hindu temples look a lot less majestic after seeing Hampi. 

 

 Hungry cow eating a bike

Bangalore, Karnataka

We got woken up around 5:30 by a nice busboy chanting "BangaloreBangaloreBangalore". So we stepped out still half sleeping and picked up a rickshaw to our hotel. After this things started happening, the driver tried to bargain us to drive to "his" hotels, he did not know where our hotel was etc.

After a littlebit of driving around we found our accomodation in Chickpet's market district. But when we got to the door of the hotel it was still dark and locked, no problem, a night janitor came to open the door and said they have no vacancy. This was awesome news for the rickshaw man that told us to go to his place for only 700 inr/night. Luckily I had beforehand written down  some addresses & phonenumbers from nearby and we got a spacious luxury room from Chandra Vihar Hotel only a few hundred meters away for under 500 inr. The Rickshaw driver took us there but then started to demand double payment for his original doubleprice. (Rickshaw drivers are refusing to use mandatory faremeters). Luckily we were in front of our future hotel and not in some dark alley, so he anyway slightly becomming aggressive decided to rather leave then kill us ;)

After a nice morning sleep we walked down to Lalbagh Botanical gardens. This Vondelpark away from home has some nice friendly monkeys, giant silk trees, a lake and lots of young lovers.

 Monkeys in Lalbagh garden

Otherwise Bangalore looked ugly, crowded and is just a busy city. It was also the place where we have seen most smog this far.

 View from our balcony (a quiet moment on market street)

Our Hotel was in middle of a loud neighbourhood, the City market area. We ended up experiencing with local bakeryitems filled with mysterious fruits/vegetables and abusing room service. Also the urban Indian streetfood - curries/dals served in bananaleaves, juicebars etc were present.

Silkworm tree, spot Mariska

 We also visited the Karnataka State Science Museum and spent hours walking searching for lakes/parks.

Hampi, Karnataka

On the bustrip from Gokarna via Ankola to Hampi we met a friendly Indian man called Mani. He talked out loud about his work as a cook in two restaurants, one in Kudlee Beach and one in Hampi where his family lives. He invited us to come to his Dhanlaxmi Restaurant so he could cook for us and show his family. After 5 hours waiting for the bus in a chabby roadhotel in Ankola we finally could get in the already full (with tourists and luggage in the walkingpath) loaded bus. We had some trouble finding an empty bed, which just seemed to not be there anymore. So the chaotic busdriver send a single man to sleep together on a bunk with another man so that we at least got what we payed for. The ride was cold as the window didn't close completely and the whole  road was shakey so we both felt sick afterwards. 

 Virupaksha temple

Main Bazaar road

We stayed the fist nights at the Hampi Bazaar in Vicky's Guesthouse. It had a nice view on the beautiful Virupaksha Temple from their rooftop restaurant. Despite the magnificent surroundings I felt more and more sick for a few days and nights so we couldn't do much more then short walks and then fastly, feeling suddenly very dizzy or sick, back to the guesthouse for bed or toilet. Luckily we could find enough western food in Hampi so the few toasts and mint-teas I could keep inside made me slowly get better. 

  

 Gate to Vittala temple, once covered with marble statues

We took a longer walk through ruins to the Vittala Temple where on the way we got blessed by a local baba giving us the red bindi-dot between the eyes. Many Indian people there asked us to make pictures of them or us with their children, which I found very nice moments of happy smiles. 

This place is really the most beautiful place and has a very relaxed atmosphere. We have been climbing over rocks and ruins with monkeys at Hemakuta Hill, feeding bananas to Lakshmi the holy elephant, and chilling in the many rooftop loungy cafes and restaurants full of matresses and pillows on the floor. So take off your shoes at the door, lay down, order herbal tea (alcohol is prohibited and not easily available in Hampi), eat a veggieburger, smell the insence and stare at the glow-in-the-dark artworks and other spiritual images of gods and godesses being put everywhere where they possibly can be.

 Hemakuta Hill

After looking around through the cosy small streets of the bazaar we found at the deadend of a street a little cheaper and nicer place to stay; Kiran Guesthouse, a familyrun place with a colorfull comfortable room. The next days we visited some more temples (Krishna, Jain and more) and monolitic sculptures (Ganesh and Nandi), we sat down at the Ghats and watched women manually do laundry at the river that runs around the bazaar, we walked through the banana plantage and we enjoyed spotting or being walked over by more monkeys/goats/dogs/cows/sheep/cats/cockroaches. 

Bananas

 The last days in this almost surreal beautiful town surrounded by rocks we ordered bustickets for Bangalore, traintickets for Mysore-Chennai and flighttickets from Chennai to Colombo - Sri Lanka. On the 11th of  december we went to Hospet and waited there for the nightbus to Bangalore.

 Monolith Ganesh

 Worshippers and a toad-god (Shivas reincarnation)

 They were all laughing at this guy for asking us to take a photograph of him

Gokarna - Kudlee Beach, Karnataka

On tuesday 30th of November we said goodbye to Benaulim Beach; the friendly locals and shopkeepers from Kashmir, especially Altaf from Timetravellers Shop where we spend many hours chatting, checking out his books and Jaakko teaching him to play guitar.

We took a rickshaw to Margao, then a train from Margao (Madgaon Trainstation) to Gokarna. With only 3 platforms it was still very confusing where we had to wait and in which train we had to jump. Luckily we were not the only tourists going to Gokarna so we followed eachother everywhere like cows, while wondering and asking around. As expected the train arrived an hour later than planned. The trains are quite dirty in here. We took our seat next to a sleeping man, there was place for 6 so we put out backpacks on the bench, Jaakko sat next to them and I sat next to the man with 1 seat inbetween. During the trip the man slept deeper and I kept hoping he wouldn't fall in my direction as his dirty looks made me feel itchy and I already saw imaginary fleas everywhere. A nice thing was that along the way many salesboys kept walking back and forth offering chai, soda's, chips, candy, samosas etc. Three hours (and many staring looks of man acting like they've never seen womans legs in shorts before) later we arrived on Gokarna Road Station. Trying to ignore the taxirickshawdrivers screaming for tourists, we walked to a local bus that would bring us to town.

We already picked out a guesthouse beforehand so we knew where to walk. We have a nice spacious room on the thirth floor with our own bathroom, a squatting toilet this time and  only cold water. A big plus is our balcony surrounded by palmtrees with a hammock (hangmat) and also it's the first time that  we have a mosquitonet over the bed. 

Balcony

After arrival we walked through the Main street and witnessed how more relaxed this pilgrimageplace is. Guru's, baba's and Ghandi-look-a-likes mixed with Indian tourists and western hippies on every street, alley and open doorway. This holy town is flowing with spiritiual energy, they say the moment you enter you will lose all sin and bad karma.

Ghats to holy watertank

Streetview, Gokarna

"Abbey Road", Gokarna

 On wednesday we walked through the small streets of this town and were happy to notice that the layed back atmosphere of the night before was still there in daylight. When we saw a sign saying 'Kudlee beach' we decided to follow it, as we knew it wasn't more than 2 km away. We witnessed many different natural landscapes on the way climbing upward untill at some point I wasn't sure anymore if we took the right way. After asking a bypasser we heard it wasn't far anymore, "just follow the creek". Around the corner it looked as if we came from inside a split rock mountain with a small waterflow. We carefully stepped on the rocks and jumped our last steps right into the sand; Kudlee Beach! A small paradise for beachlovers, hippies and yoga/meditation practioners. 

The main (and only) road to Kudlee beach

We were a bit overheated so we looked for a nice shady beachshack where we had some fresh lemon-mint juice and an avocado shake while enjoying the view. We took a 'luxury' way back to Gokarna Beach over sea by a small wooden taxiboat.

In the afternoon Jaakko started to feel sick and stayed in bed with fever that luckily disappeared after nightfall, bananas and tender care.

The next day we tried to reserve sleeper bus to Hampi but unfortunately somebody had cut down the towns phonelines - no internet nor phone on any travel agent - they told us to come back later. but we managed to buy tickets eventually via mobile phone and tonight we are taking a nightbus to Hampi.

Gokarna Beach hillview