Burning through Time, Space, and…..Bodies????

 

Written by Aus aboard a series of flights from Varanasi to Delhi and Delhi to Goa, India, Goa to Qatar, and Qatar to Nairobi finishing February 2nd 2011

It’s difficult to start talking about the rest of our Indian experiences really, due to the fact that most of our time over the past few weeks has been almost indescribable.  Kim has done a good job introducing to how foreign the experiences have been to us, and I will try to adequately describe some more great experiences we have had in this strange and wonderful country. 

Kim's entry left off with us boarding an overnight train in Agra bound for Umaria, close to Bandhavgarh national park and tiger reserve in central India.  Train travel in India was something we were very excited about, but also slightly nervous for.  It was the first train ride in our trip, and we were surprised with ourselves that we had not opted to get a train sooner, somewhere along the way.  Train travel in India is said to be a unique experience, and we were excited for the chance to experience it ourselves.  It was a long journey, about 12 hours, and until boarding the train, which was delayed 2 hours, we had no idea what type of facilities or seating we would be in store for.  We knew we had what was called 2nd tier AC seating, which is second class air-conditioned.  Luckily, we were in a sleeper car instead of a chair car, so we were able to lie down and get some sleep at night, but the comfort and space provided did leave something to be desired.  However, we were in India after all and we did not expect luxury, nor would we expect it anywhere on a 12 hour journey costing less than $20.  So, overall we were happy with our choice to try the train travel, but Kim particularly I think had her moments where she questioned that.  This was due to constant visits from cockroaches that kept her up at night, and a peeper in the toilets, but we both arrived safely so all a good experience.  It was neat to see all the little villages passing by and also all sights, sounds, and smells of Indian train travel.  I think the most interesting of our trip was the sounds, most of which were coming from other travellers doing who knows what.  One man I think must have been having a marathon of a nightmare, as he could be heard in apparent agony on and off for most of the night.  We were woken by the train staff at about 5AM and told that our station was approaching, so we gathered our stuff and got set to leave the train for our lodge in Bandhavgarh.  For your amusement and for the permanent record, our first train trip of our round the world…

The scene in the trains station awaiting departure….we were like celebrities, everyone wanted to look at us!

Your favourite RTW travellers..

Where is that freakin’ train????

Cozy…..and trying not to touch anything with her skin…. especially the roaches…

See, it does the job…..

Luckily our driver was there waiting and we had no problems getting to our accommodations where we had a nice shower and rest before getting set for our afternoon attempt at finding some tigers in their natural habitat.  As it turns out, the place we were staying in Bandhavgarh was amazing.  It was called the Bundela Jungle Resort, and was a collection of about 15 different villas and rooms.  It was totally empty and we were the only guests, it was great!  They had just reopened for the season and we were one their first guests.  There was about 15 staff and 2 guests.  They took such great care of us, it was cute.  It wasn’t any 5-star luxury resort, but we felt like royalty there.  It was a great base for finding tigers, even if eerily quiet and somewhat spooky when walking around at night (for fear of roaming tigers).

We had a total of 3 attempts to see the tigers, the first of which was the afternoon of our arrival at Bandhavgarh.  Apparently the tigers are not very active for the few hours near noon (or maybe it’s just a convenient lunch break), so we started our game drive about 2:30.  We did not know what to expect when an approximately 18 year old driver showed up for us in an old rugged jeep, but we were pleasantly surprised when we reached the gates to the protected area and were joined by an experienced guide.  The driving itself was pretty neat, just enjoying the landscape and keeping our eyes alert for any action in the forest.  We saw several deer, a few kinds of monkeys, a monitor lizard, and peacocks, which are the national bird of India.  We really enjoyed the drive, the wildlife, and the scenery, but after 4 hours of searching, we still had not found any tigers.  But we still had 2 drives ahead the next day, so we left back for our resort feeling optimistic that that we would still find some tigers before we left.  Before I go on, and to keep you ADD folks interested, here are a few photos of the setting and of some of those animals…

A pair of very rare and beautiful wild Rice’s very far from their natural habitat, approach with caution, and hopefully an offering of chocolate for the lady….

Doe, a deer, a female deer..

Monitor Lizard…….

Peacock (unfortunately they do not display until mating season, which we missed).

Forest and Savannahs, a beautiful landscape for our adventure….

It was dusty when you found yourself behind another vehicle…..

Eagle..

Owls…(yes, there’s 2---age test is to spot both)

Cheeky Monkey…..

What the buck is going on here?

And finally, evidence that tigers are around, even if unseen….

The downside to taking the middle of the day off from wildlife viewing is of course that in order to maximize your chances of a tiger sighting you need to start really early.  We woke at 5AM and were in the jeep and at the gates by 5:30 AM.  At the gates to the park there is some paperwork etc. involved so we had some waiting before they allowed us to commence our game drive for the morning.  And, as it happened, there was another couple hanging about trying desperately to arrange one last drive before their departure.  They were lingering about and we did not know what they were up to, and eventually they approached us as our jeep was not full and asked if they could come along in return for a share of the costs, which would be worked out later.  Since were on a prepaid tour for which this was only a portion of, we did not know the exact costs, so we left it to them to decide what to pay us.  They were from San Diego, California and were also on an extended vacation, except that he was doing some part time work that apparently paid quite well, because they told us they were actually putting money in the bank during their trip.....lucky!  

That is unfortunately not the same situation for us at all, and this trip will probably end up being one of the most expensive things we ever do.  But we keep telling each other that the experiences are priceless, and that we deserve it for all our hard work in the north over the past four years.  It is just such a departure from our usual mindset while working, when we would agonize over even the smallest of expenditures.  Whereas now, we are sort of like, well, this is the trip of a lifetime, so what's an extra few dollars if it makes our experience that much better.  As some wise people have told us, you can always get more money, but you cannot get more time, so this is our time to be not so cautious with our money, and make all the things happen that we really want to do.  It sounds great, but it is also intimidating.  I know I've gone off on a tangent here but it seems appropriate at this time to point out the negative side of infinite possibilities and having the opportunity to make all your travel dreams come true, and that is that there are infinite possibilities!  It makes it so hard to decide what to do with our time when we have all these great options available to us, and since we are planning as we go, we continue to have infinite possibilities with each new day.  For example, our plan had been to go to Egypt via Dubai after finishing up India.  Well, for obvious reasons, Egypt is currently off the table.  And, for anyone following relations with UAE, it is their desire to make travel difficult for Canadians at the moment, and have ridiculous demands on what they are asking for in terms of getting a visa, so we have decided to also give that a pass (which is even more disappointing because at the moment we have friends there in Erin and Mark, who we’d really like to visit!).  So, we were left with the situation of deciding what the heck to do with that suddenly empty time slot.  All of a sudden all sorts of options were flooding to our minds, Sri Lanka, Jordan, The Maldives, Oman, Qatar, Israel, Ethiopia, eastern Europe, back to our friends in Thailand, spending extra time in China or Tibet or Mongolia. It all quickly becomes overwhelming, and we found ourselves exhausted by all the possibilities and the research involved in making any of them a reality.  We kept flip-flopping and setting our sights on a place and then discovering some new option that would divert our attention.  Before we knew it we had blown through nearly a week in Goa doing almost exclusively planning and researching, so we had to buckle down and just get on with it and settle on a place.  I have already revealed in the header that we chose Africa, starting in Nairobi, and are contemplating some previously unimagined options once we get there.  Anyhow, I am totally rambling, so I will get back to our adventures in tiger tracking, but not before giving you a quick visual of our overwhelmed state during the last week of figuring ourselves out....

Now that I've probably angered any readers who are stuck in the cold going to work every day by walking a very fine line between explaining and complaining about our current enviable situation, I will go back to the story of our tiger tracking (for the record though I was NOT complaining, I simply thought explaining that state was necessary to understanding the mindset of someone in our position of long-term leisure traveller). 

So, we were joined by this couple from San Diego who were building their bankroll while travelling the world.  We figured they must be pretty well to do, and we explained how we would be pretty much broke by the time we got home.  It was obvious we had differences in our financial situation.  We all enjoyed our game drive, zooming along the dirt tracks, stopping to observe and listen in hopes of hearing a warning call from the monkeys alerting the nearby deer to the presence of an approaching tiger.  For our companions, it was their last chance to spot the big cat, as he had to fly to Manila that evening to attend a conference.  We searched high and low, and enjoyed many moments of feeling like at any time it could happen, but alas, there were no tigers to be found that morning.  Our companions would have to leave without having spotted any tigers during their days there, and Kim and I were growing worried that we would suffer the same fate.  We bid farewell to our Companions, who decided it was appropriate to not pay us anything, presumably from having learned that we were on a prepaid tour and had no idea of cost, and we being Canadian, were polite to a fault and did not even ask for any money.  But that’s okay we said to ourselves, we had already paid and were willing to pay that amount for the experience, so the only difference was that we had company for the day, which we enjoyed, so no biggie, we were just a little surprised that all that early talk of cost sharing disappeared when it came time for goodbye. 

So, we were now 2 of 3 attempts in, and still no tigers.  Each time we thought we were close, we were left wanting as the tigers would not materialize.  We went back to our cozy room at Bundela lodge and enjoyed another fine meal feeling like royalty as about 6 staff cooked and served our meals to us, the only guests, all the while hoping for good tiger vibes in the afternoon for our last chance at spotting Tony, which would be GRRRREAT! 

Before we left we decided we were probably unlikely to have different luck in the afternoon and not to be too disappointed if our days of tiger safaris went in vain.  We hopped back on our jeep, and we set off for Zone D, where someone had spotted a tiger in the morning, so we were happy with our luck to have been assigned that zone by the park's lottery system.  Again we searched and searched, observing the bulk of the region’s other inhabitants such as eagles, wild boars, owls, deer, monkeys, peacocks, many types of birds etc., but no tigers.  Late in the day though we sensed a change in our guide's listening patterns, and suddenly the mood and atmosphere was different, and we knew we must be close.  He said, "growling", over there, and sure enough when we tuned it in we could hear a faint growl somewhere in the woods.  We stopped and listened to track its direction.  It was nearby, but not close....we would have to wait it out and see if it would come close to one of the dirt tracks which we were permitted to travel on (for safety and preservation, travel is limited to predefined tracks through the woods and savannahs). 

Many jeeps gathered in the area, and we knew we were as close as we had come yet, but it was by no means a certainty that we would see one just because we had heard it.  We waited patiently, listening for its movements.  We would dart quickly from one area of track to another, communicating with other jeep drivers by hand signals about the movements of the tigers.  Eventually some groups grew tired and moved on.  We were about to do the same when a flurry of activity started happening in a nearby section of track.  We raced over, abruptly stopped, and our guide pointed off in the woods, "there you see two tigers".  Sure enough, we had found the tigers!  It was an exhilarating moment.  Something about finding these great animals in their natural habitat makes them seem even more majestic.  Plus you have the thrill of anticipation and adrenaline in searching for them and then sort of stalking them and eventually finding them, it’s quite a thrill.  We were lucky and saw two tigers crossing our path.  I think we had a fairly good viewing, but still difficult to get any amazing photos.  Here are a few of our best....

On the move..

Have a break, have a big cat….

Time to go again……

After seeing two tigers and getting to watch them for about 10 minutes, we were wholly satisfied with our safari experience.  We took our time getting out of the forest and looking for another sighting, but two were all we were lucky enough to see.  Still, we felt good that we got the prize of seeing the tigers, even though we had already agreed that we had enjoyed the experience thus far without any tiger sightings.  We headed back to our lodge for our last night and readied ourselves for our departure the next morning to Khajuraho.  Before we leave the tiger tale, a few more pics from our experience in Bandhavgarh….

Its cold at 5AM!!!!

Our digs at Bundela Lodge, sweet….

Monkeys were fond of the place too…

Khajuraho is famous for its erotic temples, which were built about 1000 years ago with additional temples being added for a few hundred years before actually being left to get taken over by the jungle until nearly 1900.  Today they draw tourists and pilgrims wishing to see the erotic sculptures carved into the temple walls.  It's like the Kama Sutra on the temple walls....quite interesting.   We were a bit 'templed out' again from having been to numerous temples throughout our travels, but these were interesting.  The one thing I took away was that evolution took a wrong turn apparently in this part of the world after these temples were built, as I have never seen women so well proportioned! Really another example of a picture is worth a 1000 words, so here we go.....

Looks innocent from a distance, right?

Get a little closer and you begin to see the eroticism….

Close-ups now, so if you are under 18 or think you may be offended, you may wish to cover your eyes….

Cant we all just get along?

Not sure what happened here….

It’s like that song……… “We all need somebody to leeeean on”…

Could I get a hand please?

Women had all the right stuff back then apparently, so well proportioned….

Also in Khajuraho, we were treated to another 'Light & Sound Show' at the Khajuraho temples, which involves pretty amateur illumination of the temples accompanied by narration of a story of their history through a loudspeaker, while a bunch of tourists sit and get eaten by mosquitoes.  Well, this one I admit was not impressive, but somewhat interesting nonetheless.  We did a better one in Jaipur at the Amber Fort, and I actually really enjoyed it, but Kim was not a fan.  I think there's a famous one at Taj Mahal and so other places thought it would be smart to piggyback on that success and copy their model for commercial success, even if not pulling it off quite so masterfully.  Whatevs, I enjoyed. 

After Khajuraho we flew to Varanasi, India's most holy city.  It’s a crazy place, known for learning and burning.  Learning being the large number of schools and colleges there, and burning being cremation, so education and cremation.  Varanasi is sacred ground for Hindis, mostly due to the Ganges River, which for some complicated reason we did not understand was most sacred at one particular location, despite running through many cities of India.  Anyhow, it all makes Varanasi a very interesting place to visit.  We had two nights there, and we really enjoyed the place.  It was likely the most ‘in your face’ different from anywhere we've ever been, and I think the most impactful experience was witnessing the cremation ritual on the river Ganges.  We were told that people come from far and wide to spend their final days here so that their souls may ascend to Nirvana and end the reincarnation cycle.  There are many hostels/boarding houses in Varanasi where sick and elderly people from all over India go to essentially wait to die.  Their families will stay near them until the end, and then a quick rush to action to complete the cremation ritual, the bulk of which is over only 3 hours after the person’s death.  As soon as the end comes, the wheels are set in motion and almost instantly the family members will begin carrying the body towards the cremation sites at the holy River Ganges.  The rest of the family is notified and hopefully nearby, as there can be no delay, and its straight to the river where the cremation takes place.  Most people will be burned in the open air near the river, over a specially constructed bed of 3 types of wood and some other accelerants to facilitate the burning process.  The poorest of people however must opt for the government provided electric cremation service in a big industrial looking building and then spread the ashes in the river.

We witnessed the open air ritual, both at sundown and sunrise, and both were fascinating.  We noticed that it is only men present at the cremation, and were told this is due to women being prone to emotional outbursts that will interfere with the transference of the soul.  Also, before British control, married women were apparently dragged down to the cremation site of their husbands and were expected to jump into the fire and burn alongside them.  If they did not go voluntarily, they were chased down and pushed or thrown in by family members.  So women now wisely stay well away from these ceremonies, regardless of their relation to the deceased.  Women concurrently engage in their own ritual at the home of the deceased.  There is quite the ceremony to it, most of which was subtle and particular, but hard for an outsider to recognize.  After the first three hours, most of the body is burned, and the ashes and bones and any leftover flesh is fetched from the fire with a stick, and dropped into the Ganges.  Anything not retrieved is then painstakingly burned until nothing remains and all ashes and physical remains are fully transferred into the river.  Photo taking is not appreciated out of respect, so most shots are taken from a distance.  We found the whole thing so fascinating and did sneak a few shots that hopefully help to illustrate this peculiar practice.

As a good Canadian, we all know the joy of a good old campfire with your family, but here, the campfire is your family…

You can see in this one burning in the background and the large amounts of wood on hand to keep the 24 hr a day fires going.  You can purchase a single person cremation bundle for a few thousand rupees…

In this shot you can see the burning in the background, behind a large number of discarded stretchers used to carry bodies here for burning, and down in the water you can see a young girl just finishing bathing right below all that action….

 

We have seen many interesting practices surrounding death and funerals throughout our travels, but none so wholly foreign to us as this.  To make the whole scene even more interesting, is that the Ganges is not used only as a final dumping ground for human remains, but it is also a sacred place bustling with life and activity totally unrelated to any death rituals.  Pilgrims come from hundred or thousands of miles away to bathe themselves, and people use the river for their daily meditation or yoga rituals, or for washing clothes, fishing, and many other things.  We even saw a man brushing his teeth!  And all this is usually within less than 50 metres from the places where body parts and ashes were being put into the river.  It’s all very overwhelming, and hard to believe.  But Varanasi is a place of near religious fanaticism, and people take the ‘holy’ part of the river very seriously, so it is a privilege to be able to do anything here, even if it may be completely unsanitary or unhealthy from a scientific/atheistic point of view.  We enjoyed our two boat rides out on the river and spent our time in awe contemplating how different these people’s lives were from our own.  We observed many rituals and kept peeling back the many layers of the rich Indian culture.  Here are a few more photos of our time on the river. 

Many temples and ghats (steps to the river) in the background.  In the rainy season the stairs will be completely covered by river water.

A little section for laundry, which involves pounding the clothes against the big stones and submersing the clothes in the water.

Enjoying the morning scene at the Ganges…

In this one you can see how all these daily activities coexist.  Burning upriver and laundry below….

Splish Splash I was takin’ a bath

This is the evening ceremony at the Ghats.  This is apparently the oldest site.  This happens everyday, and involves a sort of performance by these people, pictured, called the Brahmans, who are a sort of privileged caste in Indian society.  There is a definite hierarchy to Indian castes, and Brahmans are pretty the much the top, apart from government ministers etc.  You are born a Brahman, you cannot become one, and intermarriage between different caste levels is extremely uncommon.  These people are paid to perform this ritual every night, and tourists and pilgrims all come to watch and worship, in some fashion.  We were strictly observers, and again, its all so fascinating to learn about this culture.

Happy to have these experiences….

The first night, we were approached by a little old man selling these floating candles, which were apparently supposed to grant you a wish when released into the Ganges, along with providing generally good Karma.  We figured why not, and the price was right, only 10 rupees.   Cross your fingers for our wishes!

In the morning we were also approached, but this time with more elaborate flowers and candles.  We opted not to purchase, but the vendor insisted, and placed them in our hands saying it’s OK, good karma.  We took that as a free offering, as we had fairly assertively refused to purchase.  Anyway, as you can imagine, after placing our candles in the river, he demanded 100 rupees each.  I was not impressed, and I gave him 10 each, so I’m not sure how each party’s karma would be affected by that deal. 

You see some colourful characters around these parts…. This is a devoutly religious man performing his morning rituals…

I will close this little photo section with this, another unbelievable shot of several men standing around watching and breathing in the fumes of the burning flesh of their freshly deceased relative.  And all the while you have a crew of guys doing laundry not 30 feet away, amazingly different to us!

 

We also toured a few more temples in Varanasi (surprise, surprise), of the most interesting was definitely Sarnath Temple, the apparent birthplace of Buddhism.  We spotted many people, assumedly pilgrims from places like Tibet and China, here to observe the place where Buddha supposedly delivered his first sermon.  We had no idea that Buddhism originated this far west, but apparently, its true.  You learn something new everyday.   India is quite diverse in terms of religions and Indians are fairly tolerant of differences among them.  Most popular is Hinduism, of which there are many branches, such as Punjabi or Sikh, and second most common is Muslim, followed by small pockets of Christianity, Buddhism, and some more interesting religions such as Bahai, and the Jains who are so fanatical that they are hard-core vegans (do not wish to kill anything, including parasites and bacteria, so water is never filtered), eat only with their hands, and are known to even walk around naked (but I cant remember why).  As I said, for the most part people are tolerant of each other, and I think that’s true, but there are some signs that differences are not always understood.  One thing that stood out for me was when one of our drivers proclaimed his belief that most violent crime in India, and all terrorism, was carried out by Muslims, and he said it is because “the Muslim heart is very hard, but the Hindu heart is soft".”  All of the people we met anyway, both Hindu and Muslim, were very nice, and we even had the privilege of meeting some very funny young guys, who were our driver and guide in Varanasi.  They were sort of an odd pairing.  29 year-old Manoj, a Hindu, and 21-year old Johnny, a Muslim.  They were the best of friends and together they were hilarious!  Johnny liked to talk about his two girlfriends, and how he would run away and marry them both, while Manoj kept telling us of his bad luck with love.  We had a great time with them! 

 

While I am mentioning drivers, I have to say that I think drivers, of all people involved in the tourist industry, have the hardest and most stressful job in India.  The traffic is utter chaos, it’s every man, woman, child, goat, camel, cow, bike, rickshaw, tractor, motorbike, care etc., for themselves.  If there is available space on the road, you use it!  To heck with lanes, or shoulders, or even safe distances, there are simply a lot of people who need to get where they’re going, and I suppose they just don’t have time for the predictable, safe, defensive driving we are accustomed to in Canada.  We had many near misses throughout the trip, but we were always in good hands, and what seemed like near misses for us, was just business as usual for our drivers.  Anyhow, that’s just one of the many everyday differences between life as we know and life in India.  I’m sure I could point out countless others, but you have a life to get on with, so if you remain curious about India, buy a guide book and get your butt over there! 

One of the many potential obstacles a driver may encounter on India’s rural roads..

Typical transport for Indians…..

 

After finishing up our touring on day 2 in Varanasi, we were happy to have access to a fairly westernized mall complex next door where we found a break from the increasingly greasy Indian food, so we had greasy American food at McDonald’s.  No Big Macs here though, just chicken, as beef is the sacred cow, so Indians do not eat it.  We also found a movie theater where we were hoping to take in a movie, but all of the shows were all in Hindi only, with no subtitles.  We were continually impressed during our time in India with the size and prominence of their home-grown film industry, or Bollywood.  They love it!  Their stars are so adored, like royalty.  Much more famous here than American movie stars, and everyone loved to tell us about their favourite stars, so it made us curious.  We figured however, that there was not much point to watching a movie we could not understand, so we had to be content in the mutual satisfaction of telling people we had seen Slumdog Millionaire.

Since we were pretty much exhausted from the non—stop sightseeing and travelling that we had done in our past 12 days in India, we were hoping to get an early night a recharge for our travel day the next day to Goa, but our plans were spoiled by an Indian wedding at our hotel.  Their music was going all day and night long, and was extremely loud!  What’s craziest is that all the time the music was going, there were no guest.  They did not even begin to show up until about 10:30 PM (we had been told by staff that they would have to shut down at 11- they did not).  So we had a bit of a restless sleep due to the dance music that seemed as if we were sleeping in the middle of a dance club.  The worst part of it all is that we learned in the morning that it is Indian custom to have an open invitation to hotel guests in the case of a wedding like this, so we could have gone down and checked it out and been wedding crashers.  Oh well, next time. 

The next day we were taken to the airport by our colourful escorts Johnny and Manoj, and bid farewell to them and also the end of our assisted travel in India.  We were doing Goa on our own, as we figured didn't really need any help planning how to sit on a beach for a few days!  So we ended our tour service from GeTS Holidays, and can happily recommend them to friends and family, as well as anyone who stumbles on this blog on the interwebs.  Here are couple more photos of our time in Varanasi before heading to Goa …

A few kids who asked to have their pictures taken, then asked for money.  Oh well, it was just a few rupees.  Notice the makeup on the baby, which we were told was for style and also to help keep disease and bad things away.

Ground zero for Buddhism…

We were also in India for Republic Day, celebrating India’s anniversary of becoming a republic in 1950.  Its a big celebration across the country, especially Delhi, but in Varanasi we got to see al the school children waving their flags and sporting hats etc.  We were told that they go to school, but do not attend regular classes, and instead get sweets etc from their teachers. 

 

Goa is way down on the west coast of India, a few hundred kilometres south of Mumbai, so it was a long way to go from Varanasi, which is up in the far northeast.  We got to Goa via Delhi, and were very happy to be able to make our short connection there having to change terminals.  Goa became popular with tourists back in the 1960s when it was known as sort of a mecca for the hippie drug culture.  Many cultural trends started here, notably types Dance and Trance music.  I think back in the day this was the place to be for dropouts who wanted to really push the envelope in terms of how far they could go with the whole drug-fuelled social experiment of being true hippies.  Now however, it is firmly on the mainstream tourist map, and most of the people we saw here were older Russians, a few Brits, and loads of middle class Indians – none of which were hippies.  The days of wild full moon parties are gone here, and the saggy leather-skinned European bathers have arrived, in their Speedos and all (Do you have a visual?  I hope you have a visual!). 

Goa enjoys a fairly tropical year round climate, and we got the best of it.  Daytime highs in the 30s, and night-time lows in the low 20s.  As I said previously, our time there flew by, and we didn't actually get much beach time.  We did manage to get sunburns, and got our share of sun, but it was not the relaxing beach experience we had envisioned.  Here’s a few pictures of our time in Goa..

Kim enjoying the pool at Beleza By The Beach where we stayed…

Goan sunset walk……

The lack of activities and adventures in Goa is of course due to our ‘mid-trip crisis’, as it should be known, in which we really had do some soul searching in terms of what we wanted to do with the rest of our fast depleting time and money.  The possibilities overwhelmed us and we spent several days lost in a haze of exotic destinations, routes, and activities.  It all became too much and eventually we ended up just reverting back to more or less our original plan, minus Dubai and Egypt, and we got ourselves the first flight we could to East Africa, starting in Nairobi, which is the jumping off point for most safaris and adventure tours in the region.  Sad casualties of a lack of time and funds included Sri Lanka, Maldives, the Seychelles, Israel, Oman, and the remainder of Thailand, among others.  We are still travelling almost day by day, and currently have no activities planned or booked in Africa yet, no flight out, and no Visa, so our arrival should be interesting.  Our research suggests we should be able to get the visa on arrival, so, fingers crossed!  Before we were boarding Kim and I checked the Government of Canada’s foreign travel advisories website to find the number of an embassy in Nairobi in case of any problems with visa or otherwise, and for better or worse we also took the time to read their general travel advisories and safety precautions for travel in Kenya and Nairobi.  The positive is I suppose we are slightly more aware of the dangers and things we can do to minimize our exposure to those dangers, but the bad side is that we are now quite nervous, as some of the things described sounded downright scary.  But we know many who have travelled here and come home safe with good stories to tell, so we are hoping all is the same for us, but we find ourselves again as nervous as we ever have been about travel to a new place.  We are set to arrive just before 6PM, and are hoping to get to our accommodations before it gets really dark out, as travelling at night in the city is not recommended.  So again, fingers crossed.  But we do not wish to worry our readers, so lets just assume we’ll be okay, and hey, I suppose if this gets posted, that means we have made it there safely. 

So that’s it, you're up to the minute on our adventures.  It may be a while before we can post again, as we are hoping to get out in the bush and do some safaris, likely camping, so internet resources are likely to be zilch.   There’s no Starbucks yet on the Masai Mara as far as I know.  I did hear however that there is a KFC across from the pyramids in Egypt, but it now looks like that experience will have to wait until our next round the world trip…..oh yes, I said it……we want to do it again.  We’ll see, this involved a fair bit of saving and of course a lot of goodwill and generosity from our wedding guests, as well as our wedding immunity in terms of forgiveness for the time away from pursuing our careers.  So we’ll see, but it’s fair to say that this trip so far has had the opposite effect of what was intended, and has made us less excited about settling down, now feeling like we are only scratching the surface of all the travel experiences we want to have before we get tied down.  We know we’ve been extremely lucky, and we’ll take our luck one day at a time once we return to the rat race.  

 

So best wishes to all.  Love to all our families and friends, and we look forward to sharing again when we can. 

Cheers,

The Knotty Travellers