Kochin

Several days in Kochin, a pleasant place. An old port town, with marks of Portuguese, Dutch and English. There are very old trees growing in the middle of pavements in the streets of the port, several griths in width, with young leaves growing from their trunks and branches. More cats on streets than dogs, and they're not afraid of people at all, although they walk cautiously. The Indians, the goats and the fish eat the coconuts pulp, I don't like it too much. Big chinese fishing nets along the dock, lifted and dipped by 5 men. The variety of sea food that they fish out is great, and very delicios, as the traditional South Indian food. The guest houses area is near two big churches - Santa Cruz and St. Francis. It's really amazing how strong is the faith of people all over India. Although the gods change, the worshipping of statues is same, and sincere. I'll never understand this. Farther right is the Bazar, there are shabby buildings, that are overgrown with moss and plants due to long time and moisture. Families live in them, spices and oils merchants hold their shops, and communist activists make their ideological work. Now they're fighting agains Coke and Pepsi (may the Force be with 'em).

Then begins the Jew Town, although the Jews are long gone. Now it's an area of art galleries and spices market. The synagogue is still there, though, empty and light, maintained (pretty well) by Indians. On saturdays and holidays (Jewish) it's closed :)

From Kochin down south lies a big network of water channels, called backwaters, with plenty of cocunut palms and other vegetation on their shores, little houses between them, women are working on farming or collecting some plants, going up to their neck in water, never mind the snakes and all other things in it, and the tourist floating on cruise boats and watching all this stuff.
Peace and Shana Tova :)

Mangalore

Mysore was a nice town, although I was hassled a lot, people were trying to sell me everything, from cocunuts and incense to pineapples and opium. I made sight seeing for two days. I went to the Devaraj market, full of colors and scents. I also visited an art gallery where there are some beatiful works of a Russian painter, Nicholas Roerich, who spent some time in India. At evening I wandered on the streets and got inside a gambling place. Apparently, people were trying to guess a 2-digit number to get 100 Rs. There was a lot of excitement in the air.

After Mysore I moved to Hassan, pretty noisy town, surrounded by villages with some nice sights. First, there is Shravalabelagola (don't know who's responsible for the name). There are two hills in the village, people are supposed to climb them barefoot. On the first, there's a complex of 14 Jain temples, and on the second, a huge monolith statue of some Jain deity, I didn't even try to remember the name. It was going through renovation, but still, looked very impressive.

Next day I visited Halebid and Belur, two villages close by. They have Hindu temples with amazing stone carvings, so much details, great amount of precise work.

Then, I returned to Hassan and took a bus to Kushalnagar. It surprised me to find out there are Tibetan settlements in Karnataka. The Tibetans are very kind and peaceful people. The monasteries are quite big, there are thousands of monks around.
















There are few temples in the monasteries, the biggest is the Golden temple, which has a huge hall with giant statues of Buddha and 2 other guys, I'm not so good with names :) When I got there, there was a morning ceremony, hundreds of monks were sitting and chanting, some hit the gongs, some played flutes, all very synchronized, so the noise had its charm.

I got to speak to a friendly monk, named Ngaway, he showed me around and was very nice. The settlements are a refreshing change from the rubbish of nearby Indian villages. The secular Tibetans work hard, some of them make beatiful art stuff, carpets and thanka paintings.
























The next day I got on a bus to Mangalore, a big modern town on the west coast. It's a mix of religions here: I've seen catholic nuns and women covered with burka on the streets. I finally found a relatively cheap air tickets from Calcutta, so October 24 challo Bangkok! :) Tomorrow heading south, to Kerala state.

Damn't, I can't believe I gotta edit HTML!!!

Mysore

Exploring the ruins in Hampi wasn't an easy task, because of the huge area and the heat. In the 4 days I spent there, climbing the boulders' hills and discovering new temples and buildings of the ancient city, I never got bored. On the second day, I crossed the river, walked through rice and banana fields and climbed 500 stairs up to Hanuman (monkey god) temple. There were lots of monkeys on the way, I gave some bananas to the small ones, and then the big ones came, they were really rude. In the temple lives a friendly baba, a young guy, he speaks well English and is fun to talk to. The views from up there are great, as far as one can see there are boulders in piles, and the buildings seem really small compared to them.

Hampi has so much energy, just sitting under one of these rocks gave me vibrations. I left yesterday on a night train, the ticket was to Mysore, which involved changing trains in Bangalore, the high-tech city of India. I thought about leaving my bag in the cloak room, explore the city for a while and catch a train to Mysore. The station was going through some renovation works. In India it means people have to walk over the renovation site. Hundreds of people coming out of the train, crowded together on the stairs without banister, trying to get out of the platform. As soon as I got out, I took the train to Mysore which was leaving in a few minutes. So much high tech for me, although the plasma screens in the waiting hall of the station were nice. I got to Mysore around 11. Mysore is known for manufacturing sandal wood oil, the maharaja's palace and the ashtanga yoga centre. Since I have no time to learn yoga now, I went to the other attractions. A friendly rikshaw driver took me to the working people quarter, where I witnessed the process of making beedees, the Indian hand rolled cigarettes. It was cool, the guys work with speed of a machine, making thousands of pieces in a day.

After visiting an oil shop I came out with my sense of smell in a state of shock, the guy poured so much different sorts of oil on me. Then I went to the palace.

The architecture was impressive, vast halls with gold decorations, beatiful wood furniture, paintings and statues. The paintings were made in a Victorian style, the maharaja, maharaja's wife and their children in various combinations, all looking very rich and stiff. I really didn't like the big elephant tusks on the walls. Very bad karma.

Hampi

After a few days in Kutle beach I decided to move on. The next destination was Hampi, a village with ruins of an ancient Hindu empire capital. It's located more than 200 km east from Gokarna, and there's only a local bus in low season. It was a long journey, but since the road was flat, it was ok. The place is amazing, the ruins are spread around a huge area, impressive temples and hundreds of gigantic boulders.



















It's hard to believe humans did this amount of work, especially in the ancient times. There was a full moon yesterday, and also a lunar eclipse, the sky was full of lightenings and the whole scene seemed to be taken out of some fairy tale.

Gokarna

I spent 2.5 weeks in Dharamkot. It's hard for me to stick to one place, so I learned some music (flute and table) and also some Hindi to keep my days busy. The weather was very wet, it rained most of the day. I made some thinking where to go next. September is supposed to be really beatiful for trekking in the north, the monsoons are just over, the air is clear and the views are amazing. The south is on low season now. I decided to go south. I loved the mountains of the north, and still I think these places are the most beatiful parts of land we've got, but I needed a break from them. I've got until end of October to hang in India, and I wanted sunshine, heat and ocean. I travelled on the night bus to Delhi and dropped most of my stuff there, and then a 2 days train down south. I got a sleeper ticket and it was a great journey. People were passing all the time, sellers of food, drinks, faked jewellery, magazines etc., and lots of beggars too, mostly children, sometimes cleaning the floor or doing acrobatic exercises in the narrow aisles, also old women and crippled people. If I got change, I gave them. The train crossed places I visited half a year ago on my way north, on the second day morning it entered Mumbai, in few hours it went through Goa and around midnight I got off in the south, a town named Karwar, in the northern edge of Karnataka state. I spent the night on the train station and went to Gokarna on the morning, switching buses on the way (luckily, very short rides). I was very excited and happy when I saw the ocean at least. The weather was beatiful, few people were around. First I was in Om beach, which is shaped like the Om symbol.


















It's a 3 km walk, sometimes in the jungle, to the town of Gokarna. Then I moved to Kutle beach, closer to the town and cheaper too. The town is quite religious, in the Hindu way. I saw many brahmins with white marks on their foreheads and their unique dressing. There was a festival the day I've arrived, dedicated to Ganesh, the elephant god. A procession of kids carrying flags, some men with drums and flutes were playing and others dancing, and 4 guys were carrying a statue of the god. They moved slowly along the street and stopped from time to time, so that more people would join the party. Finally they went to the beach and threw Ganesh to the ocean. Why like this?
Anyway the south is great, although it's low season, and maybe because of it. The water in the ocean is muddy, but it's very pleasant to swim. And they got all these tropical stuff: papayas, pineapples, coconut so I don't have to go far away to get some exotic shake.























Bom