Agra & Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh

From New Delhi station it was only 3 hours in a much more relaxed AC (airconditioned) train. When we arrived we took a rickshaw to backpacker-area Taj Ganj, all hostels are very close to the Taj Mahal.

Streetparade in Agra

We stayed in India Inn, which seemed to have a muslim staff and a group of old men gathered every day for bidis, chai and chat. Almost every restaurant has a nice view over town and Taj Mahal. All souvenirshops sell out on small marble figurines, postcards and other kitch items of the... 

Everybody, Westerner and also loads of Indians, come to see the... 

As you see there is not much more to Agra than the...

Of course we walked as close as we could get to this mausoleum, built in 17th century by the emperor in memory of his wife. A little overrated and slightly overpriced entrance fee made us decide to do it the low-budget-way; via a millitary back-entrance we had a great close-up view on the Taj, shared with only a few grazing cows and a silent river, in stead of with hundreds of men waiting in line to have a glimpse of 'the teardrop on the face of eternity'.

On our third and last day we took a local bus to Fatehpur Sikri. A fortified ghostcity with beautiful red sandstone Indo-Islamic palaces of Emperor Akbar dating from the Mughal empire in the 16th century. 

The area with ruins, palaces, pavillions and courtyards is nowadays on the World Heritage List and the mosque is still in use. Many women come there to pray that their next child will be a boy.

The mosque gates (tallest in Asia)

Less nice to see was the many begging children following all tourists around asking for money, chocolate, ballpoints etc. We gave away our entrancetickets to a poor boy as he claimed to get a meal for it in return.

Back in Agra we took a nighttrain to Bundi in Rajasthan.

Delhi continued

Change of plan. Because the nighttrain to Varanasi was overbooked (suffocatingly crowded with very poor people and no place to even sit, while we payed for two sleepberths) we decided to get out of the train. We stayed a few more days in Delhi, in the cheaper Sky View Guest House this time, to figure out how to exactly spend our last month in India.

One of the days we spend in the National Museum. I really liked the exhibition of traditional Indian miniature paintings. Furthermore lots of historical 'art' like coins, weapons, traditional clothing and pieces of ancient temples and other importan buildings. 

Coincidence or not, we always seem to share a museum with huge groups of schoolkids that literally ALL want to shake our hand! I must say the Indian schoolchildren are having the best manners I have seen in India and maybe in the whole world. I love it when I see a big smile appear after answering 'your country?' or 'your name?' or simply waving 'hi' and 'goodbye'. Parents teach their children from very young age to do that in the streets too.

We shortly visited the War Memorial Arch and India Gate, as we both didn't feel so well. We started coughing more and more and felt very tired. We both got a real cold due to enormous temperature difference and Jaakko spend most of the time on the toilet so we didn' t mind staying in bed for a day or two.

After planning our Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan-trip, we decided the first place we would go is Agra; city of the worldfamous Taj Mahal.  

Delhi

After a short 2½ hour flight we arrived back home to Europe, or that is atleast how it felt when we were walking out of the aeroplane; for us the temperature had dropped from +35 to mere +25 degrees. Shivering cold in our t-shirts!

We took a taxi to the infamous Pahar Ganj neighbourhood in search of hostel. We settled to Hotel New Hindustan, as they had promised warm water, free wifi & TV. Unfortunately the wifi does not work and TV does not have any english channels. But we decided to stay anyway as we needed room only for two days.

Delhi itself is huge and chaotic; for the first 24 hours it felt awesome and lively but the next 24 hours started to be enough of big city "atmosphere". Pahar Ganj has a nice labyrinth of narrow dirty but nostalgic streets and one big crowded tourist shoppingstreet. 

We decided to leave most of the sightseeing for later as we anyway need to return here for our next flight. Tonight we are taking a nighttrain to Varanasi.

Kochi, Kerala

After finishing our holiday in the sun we took a local train to our next destination; Fort Kochi. The train was discreetly only one hour too late and took 90 minutes to travel 45 km. After arriving we spent the first hour looking for a budget place to stay with our rickshaw driver. Finally we settled to Fort Residency Homestay, and went walking around the city. The fort itself is a quite small tourist trap with few colonial buildings/churches standing around (no fort tho...)

Chinese fishingnets

On the early evening something unexpected happened, it started to rain heavily, and our hostel was totally flooded. Our room, located a meter below ground level was rapidly turning into a swamp so we evacuated the premises and started to claim our money back. After an hour of waiting and wondering what to do, the guys running the place had called their friend from another hotel to rescue us. We got a nice and wet motorcycle lift (all four of us without helmet and with our heavy backpacks on our back) to our current lodge; Bastian Homestay. 

Here we are surrounded by a friendly family, slow internet and their cute but over-active 5 year old daughter Gigitta, showing off her great english vocabulary, acting out charming hindidances and making us join her girly games.

On fridaynight we watched a Kerala Kathakali show. It's an arty theatreshow with stories from Hindu mythology. The actors wear beautiful makeup, the play is in mime (every different movement is explained beforehand) and is accompanied by drums and singing. 

One hour before the show began we watched the actors prepare for their role; by meditation and most important the makeup, they mentally and physically become the character.

Saturday we took a local bus to Ernakulam, the busy part of the city. Kochi exsists  of a few island-like suburbs which you can reach by bus or ferry. It was nice to see such a modern India for a change, we even ate our lunch at Pizza Hut! After walking through town we took a ferry back to Fort Kochi.

For the weekend we were asked to take care of the house while our landlords went to visit their family. So we nicely had the house for the two of us and could since long time use a kichen by ourselves.

On Tuesday the first of March we flew to Delhi from Kochi airport.

Mararikulam, Kerala

From Allepey it is a short rickshawride to Mararikulam. We read that Marari has one of the most peaceful undevelopped beaches of Kerala so we had to go and see. It seems that there  are only very expensive packageholiday resorts here so it was hard to find a budget-accomodation. Luckily we received a phonenumber from one of the guys from HeritageHome to call Marari Beach Villas where we now rent a cottage near the beach.

Our home for the next days is a 40 year old fishermenshut. It has a new attached open air bathroom, hammocks around it in a green palmgarden, it is close to a church and a quiet beautiful beach. Again the meals from town are 10 times cheaper than the resortprices. After paying a few nights for delicious but overpriced curries in our resort, we now get ready made food from the townmarket. Also the local bakery offers nice pastries (fried dough filled with spiced veggies) and we get fruits from the veggiemarket (our small pocketknife matches watermelon and papaya-size very well). It feels a little like primitive camping at home, away from home.

The Cottage

At my birthday I was sick with an all day lasting extreme headache. It was the day after our arrival, again a shame I couldn't get out and explore. I just stayed out of the sun in our cottage with the fan on and in a hammock in the shade dazing off into short sleeps. Jaakko came home with very cute prinsess-cake, with pink frosting and yellow stars on it, to celebrate. Our landlady brought us fresh pineapplejuice (still not sure if it was a gift or that it will appear on our bill) and Raju, the landlord kept every day asking politely how I felt.

 Road to village

 Outdoor bathroom

After two days of lazing around in bed I felt better so we now visit the beach daily and Jaakko brings us 2 meals from town which, thanks to their big size, we can divide over lunch and diner. A Keralan meal contains lots of rice and 3 to 6 little bags with spicy sauces, spicy veggies, tastemakers, sambal, raita etc. All will of course be eaten by the right hand only.

Homely diet of rice and curry

What the neighbours are up to?

Marari Beach

 Bathroom guest

Alappuzha, Kerala

The morningtrain from Varkala was very full so in stead of a seat (what we paid for), we ended up in a sleeperwagon with two sitplaces left. After we put our backpacks away the salesmen started walking back and forth with food and drinks. Jaakko ordered a veg-biryani meal as breakfast, which appeared to be too spicy for my empty stomach, so I nicely ate choco-coconut cookies all the way.

When we arrived a rickshawdriver drove us to Vrindhavanam Heritage Home. At first sight it seemed way too fancy (= too expensive) for us, but we got their price down from 1000 to 400 rupees per night. As we didn't plan on staying long there it was ok.

Alleppey Beach

 

 "Canal"

We first visited the beach, a short walk through a very peaceful part of town. We worried a little if there would be any restaurants nearby as we stayed not very close to the centre. The only two places we found we checked out; we had deepfried bananas in dough and chai with poor hardworking men in a shabby mens place, in the other which was a meaty eathall for muslims we only ordered pineapplejuice. Luckily at nighttime the streets came more alive and we found a nearby shoppingstreet with cheap good Keralan meals. Our hostel served food too but overpriced and in the end you get the same food.

The HeritageHome is a bit of a young peoples-partyplace with loud music all night and day. Some of it showed their good taste and Jaakko could nicely play along with his guitar in the garden, but some was very bad. (especially when you like to sleep, also in the morning...)

What we came to Allepey for is the canals (some completely green with lily) and for seeing the backwaters. We took a boat with rowingman for 5 hours and it was beautiful nature!

 Our luxury boat, behind a houseboat

 

 Ducks!

Varkala continues

Ayurvedic clinic & patient

During the two weeks we stayed in Varkala we arranged 3 days of Ayurvedic massage. Everywhere along the cliffs the massages are offered so we first visited a few different rooms and made the choice to have it at Kairali Ayurvedic Clinic. The owners are family of our landlady at the moment; I got massages from her sister and Jaakko got treated by her husband (aka our landlord). Very excited about our first massage we woke at 8 am and walked without having any breakfast (was requested) across the silent sandy street to the clinic. We both disappeared in seperate rooms and had to undress completely. The treatment started with a head/hair massage, followed up by a full body massage and ended with a facemassage and cleansing mask. The oily massage works with energies of the body and makes you feel very relaxed. Next to the unusual fact that a stranger is touching your naked body another discomforting but at the same time hilarious aspect is the washing afterwards. She makes you sit down on a chair in the bathoom and washes and soaps you, a bit stunned with what's happening you cannot do much more than passively undergo the finalizing of the treatment, feeling like a very old disabled person. The massage itself was good and pleasant though I hope she didnt mess up my inner balance because I felt extremely tired and a little sick and dizzy. Furthermore it is great fun to try to roll from 'on your back' to 'on your tummy' when you are completely covered in thick oil!

Varkala has a nice market, all colorful hippie-stuff from Hampi, Radjastan, Kashmir and Nepal. Batik bedsheets, patchwork walldecorations, sarongs, bags, printed shirts with hindu-gods and funny multicolored alibaba's and fishermanspants (the unmissable baggy diaperpants in which you find almost every young tourist in Asia - again another 'freedom'-centred subculture seems to have fallen into cliches and dresscode).

We bought a few nice items and decided to send a package with useless clothes and other things home. Now with less weight in our backpacks we happily continue our trip, with in the back of our mind the next 'big' flight we will have; Kochin (Kerala) - Delhi. We exactly have a month to still spend in Kerala so up north we go to Alappuzha; Venice of the East.