Another leg completed….are we centipedes?
Howdy folks….

We are now in Mumbai (Bombay). We just landed from our flight from Aurangabad where we went and had our Mid Eastern leg of the trip. We were certainly happy to leave Delhi and fly in for our ancient carving adventure. Where do we start Amber wants to know…how about the beginning?

Our flight left Delhi at 1pm with no hassles. The security here is fantastic! Everyone checks your passports with your luggage tags with your boarding cards, the checked baggage is doubly wrapped with plastic packing tape wo ensure no tampering. We still use our metal mesh bag cages for our backpacks to further minimize any issues, but we have been most impressed so far.

Immediately after landing, it felt different there than the other cities we have been to so far. It was a bit reminiscent of Goa in the green feel, and less Delhi like without the pollution, so it was off to a good start. We were greeted at the airport by a representative from the Taj Residency Suites who took our bags and drove us to our hotel. It had a pool! We were most excited about that too. It seems the Aurangabad area is very Muslim and several times we were given nasty looks from both men and women alike for not being covered completely with burka’s, so again we decided to up the accommodation from low budget to one that was a bit more expensive, but was on par by our standards, to one with a higher level of security.

When we arrived our baggage was taken to our room that overlooked a beautiful green courtyard with palm trees, pink flowering bushes and the POOL! Did I mention we were excited about the pool? The first order of the night was to suit up and cool down. Afterwards, we went to the phone to call home and decided not to blog due to our growling tummies. Dinner followed…at least for me it did, as Amber was trying to maneuver a call home which took some time. We were both pooped by then, so off to bed it was.

The next very early morning had us eating breakfast and then into our private tour guided car with driver to go to Ellora. We thought the Taj was nice…well this was WAY more mindblowing. It was an ancient city carved into the side of a mountain. 35+ caves all with homes, schools, worship areas….some rooms over 30 feet tall and all hand carved. The scenery was breathtaking, and we can’t wait to show the pictures. You should google it to get an idea of what we saw….unbelievable.

While we were there, there were several schools on field trips with young children who when walking by continuously said “Hallo” in a very sing songy voice, waving and smiling. We took several pictures and video with them for it totally made us smile and couldn’t stop it was just so full of joy! Many many times in this leg we have been approached by locals to have our pictures taken with them! They are not used to seeing such white foreigners. It was hilarious!

Not that any of you would have noticed, but this blog was saved into the drafts section, so I am now picking up with it three days later…. we are still in Mumbai, but this time we are on our way out. Our last leg is now in full swing…

So, where were we….Ellora Caves….

You will simply have to wait until you see the pics. I will try and post them when I get back…16th century sculptures….in stone…Kama sutra carved into the walls….elephants…shiva gods…buddha gods….picture that!!!! (But not elephant Kama sutra thank goodness! lol)

We headed back to the hotel when the day was over pooped but thoroughly satisfied. We loaded up our towels, mp3 players and headed down to the pool for another cool down.

Dinner that night had us trying local Indian wine and prawns to die for….coated in corn flour, garlic, sea salt and pepper fried in butter…..our mouths are drooling just remembering it. Off to bed again to prep for another busy day to come.

Morning came far too quickly, but we headed down for breakfast and then off on a two hour drive to Ajanta. When we arrived, we were given the option of a 400Rs “cab ride” up the one mile incline consisting of four men, two poles and a chair to carry you to the top of the mountain and back. We both declined as we wanted to torture our calves again! Out came the Medicine Hat news with another contest entry being taken.

These caves were different in the fact they weren’t so much about the carving of statues and pillars, but more about painted artwork on the walls and ceilings. 16th century wall paper! The bat guano had a similar lovely pungent odor to it, enough to make you gag every once in a while with the heat warming the smell….

There were copious herds of wild monkeys here. Is it herds, pods, mobs flocks, schools, clans, or convoys for monkeys? Who knows….but they were swinging from the trees, babies and all feasting on the new shoots on the tree. There was a little chipmouse there scampering along when we first arrived, that ended up being our best friend shortly after we started exploring the caves.

We stopped in the shade to have a snack bar, and when my peanut butter chip one was opened, it smelled it right away and came running. It was so bold as to be right at my lap and Amber was freaking out a bit that it would attack, so I threw a small piece at it and it quickly took it away to gobble. It came back a few moments later, but the bar was all gone by then.

It was 45oC then, and our stomachs were roiling, we were pooped and not interested in seeing more of the same, so we jointly decided to jam out at this point, and head back home.

Once we got to the base of the mountain, we had a soda and chatted with some of the local guides. One guy said next August he was going to Canada on a VISA and then was “going to San Francisco and was going to disappear”. He wanted to go to the States, but wasn’t able to get a VISA that way, so he was back-dooring it. We asked about how his family felt about it, and he said he was leaving his wife and three kids behind and didn’t care about it. Sad.

We then went to wait for the AC bus to come, and while there we were swarmed by small children looking for chocolates, money, food etc, when they asked me for my hair barrettes. I thought why not, and went to hand them to the two girls when they started to snatch them. It was almost like feeding the bears they were so aggressive!!!

We then were ready to board the bus when Amber decided to unload some of her fruit bars and again was accosted so dangerously, she instead had to throw them from the window of the bus to stay at a safe distance.

On the way home from Ajanta, we stopped at a restaurant for lunch, but decided to go somewhere else when Amber made a quick pit stop to powder her nose, but was unable to even enter the stall due to all the deposits that had been made not only in the squattie, but ALL OVER THE ENTIRE FLOOR OF THE BATHROOM!!! We bid a hasty retreat pleading a time shortage and then bailed. Our driver was then so kind as to prescreen all future bathrooms for us prior to agreeing on which restaurant to eat at. We finally settled on one where the owners had changed hands that exact day and we were told that we were an extremely fortuitous good sign for his business by coming to eat at his establishment. No foreigners had ever been there before, let alone anyone as good looking as us…. lol

We ate and left. Going home we again rested by the pool before heading out. Amber and I were going to go out shopping, and started out on foot, but then had a bit of a spat because Amber didn’t want to walk to the shops and I did. However, she reasoned me to good sense as it was approaching dark, we were in pro-Muslim anti-white-women-out-shopping-alone territory, so we headed right back, and got our favorite car and driver to take us out on a tour. Thank goodness he did, for he took us to the exact stores we needed to accomplish our shopping missions….you men will be happy with your prezzies, let’s just leave it at that… 🙂

Back home it was laundry in the garbage pail time again, squashing things with our feet, wringing it dry with towels and hanging outside to dry off. We have it down to an art, but both still appreciate our Kenmore appliances!!! (even more now I think) but I suppose I can’t bitch too much as Glen does most of my laundry! Yay! Thanks honey….. Amber however has yet to find someone to do it for her….!

Off to dinner, for more red wine and prawns again. We needed to secure the recipe for them. Guess what else we discovered???? The “milk” we had been drinking in our tea and in our ice cream, did not come from cows…..Fred Flinstone would be proud of us…it came from Water Buffalos!!! Yup…water buffalo milk. We never had a straight glass of it, so we aren’t totally sure how it tastes naked, but in tea and ice cream it is good.

Bed now, for we leave for the airport at 7am.

I will post this now and start a new one in case this computer crashes….

Annie

Snakes, elephants and spiders, oh my!
Well folks, we are back….

Where do we start? How about where we left off, but slightly before….we were slightly chronologically challenged before and missed a few things….

En route to our psycho…er….psychic mind body fair, we ran smack dab into an elephant! Well, one of the things I said I wanted to do here was go on an elephant ride….so guess what? I did!

Her name was Raja, and was only a baby young elephant of 20 years. It was at a shrine of some description and I cozied up to her and hopped on. It was charged out at donations only, so for the 5 minute ride I thought I was giving 5 dollars, but ooops…the exchange messed with my mind, and sorry Sonja…I ended up giving them $50….oops! The elephant man sure was happy to see me. We snapped some great pics for our Medicine Hat Newspaper contest.

It was creepy cool to touch the trunk of the elephant because it was so rough, yet warm and had long hairs growing out of it…not unlike my legs before I wax them I guess! The elephant took the money from my hand with his trunk and passed it back to the driver…I guess that is what you would call him, either that or a shriner?!

Next we carried on towards our fair, when Amber suddenly veered to the right and nearly fell off her scooter and she was being lulled by the snake charmers flute as he wooed the snake to come out of his basket. Sonja and I doubled back to make sure Amber’s eyes weren’t swirling in black lolipop fashion like in the cartoons.

Turns out I was the only brave enough to have the snake coiled around my neck. It was weird cause I could feel the cobra pulsating with muscular contractions and the hood was flared. Amber was able to capture on video the snake charmer actually getting bitten by one of the snakes. Luckily I did not see that, nor did I get bitten!

We carried on to the “fair” as described in the previous blog….

When Sonja headed out to find her travel agent, and we had escaped the mob of angry moped renters, we had a leisurely drive through the country where my navigation skills were put to the test, and unfortunately they failed. We ended up with nearly an hour and a half detour. Oops! But it was a beautiful detour where we saw an amazing church, St. Anthony’s ironically. Isn’t he the patron of lost things? lol

We arrived back at the hotel intact and went to meet Sonja down at the beach. Sipping on beer, chatting on the computer and heading back to the hotel rounded out the day.

We did end up having a night time adventure as well that kept people awake for a while though…Here is the spider adventure!

Amber went to go have a shower when we got back to the room, when she was practically spun into the web of the spider on the floor. It was about 3″ in diameter and veritably growled at her when she tried to enter his domain. Screaming like a school girl, she practically ploughed me over in her attempt to get away from it. The inner-knight-in-shining-amour in me came out and flew to her rescue. Sensing a Kodak moment, I snapped his picture and then went to see about the tools required to dispense with him in quick order. My belt and my shoe were assigned the task of rousting him from behind the toilet and to under my shoe. Amber got the video camera rolling for the execution, and followed me in.

I soon realized I was alone in this task as she screamed and went running, camera and all. The arachnoid make his way through the cracks in the rubber grip of my shoe and tried to climb up my pants. Screaming myself, I flung my leg out and the spider went flying. More screaming ensued followed by stomping and toilet brush squishing….like I said, it is all on video, so when we get back, ask to see it!

Finally able to sleep we tucked our bug net in extra tight and nodded off….

Next blog, the trip from Goa to Delhi….

A & A

Canadian girls escape from the clutches of bugs, rats and bikers!
Phew!

What a title!

First off, let me apologize to our loyal readers. Last night I was not in fine form, and I truly apologize for the lack lustre writing performance…I know there is no excuse, but we were both whipped! Let me tell you why.

Sit back, have a cup of chai tea, Kashmir tea or good old hot chocolate (for all of you deep in the grips of winter…sorry…38 degrees here yesterday with humidity of about 102%….) and let’s settle in for a good fireside chat.

Yesterday morning Sonja scooted off to her yoga class. We had arranged to meet her for breakfast at 10am at our local watering hole next to our duplex luxury townhouse. Even though we were awake at 7:30am, none of the stores open until 10am. We think it is because they are open so late due to the heat of the day, they take a siesta and then reopen till late at night. Amber and I went and rented two scooties from Belinda, our innkeeper. They were 200 rupees each, which is about $7.00. Don’t worry, we also made sure that we had helmets with them!

We strolled down the lane to see about internet access, but the only one open was charging more than we wanted to pay, so we went back to the hotel, waited for Sonja and had a bite to eat.

Can anyone guess what Amber had for breakfast???? Another banana pancake! lol

Sufficiently sufonsified by pancakes again, the three of us headed out with full intentions of going to Old Goa. We have since learned the road to hell is paved with good intentions….or at least the road to Baga beach is! On the way we decided to stop and check out the “Mind-Body-Soul-Psychic-Fair”. It was on the way, so why not!

It was at the Banana Republic hotel, and it was not exactly as we thought it would be. Basically there were 5 people at the “fair”, each with their own specialty. Sonja decided to relax by the poolside while Amber and I had our cards/palms read and our faces and heads massaged.

The fortune teller predicted great wealth, riches and continued good looks for both of us…so the men in our lives should be grateful for that. Unfortunately he did not have the winning lottery numbers for us, so back to work when we get home I guess….

Scalp massages nearly rendered us into rubber women it was soooooooooooo relaxing.

Off to lunch now. We stopped at the “Non-Spicy-Food-Restaurant” on the beach front overlooking the ocean in Baga. Can you tell who picked this one? Ha, fooled you, Amber did not! Sonja did, but Amber certainly was happy with her selection.

Nestled amongst the umbrellas lining the beach (topless no less!) were throngs in thongs…. Amber got an eyeful, but decided against taking any pictures for fear of her lens cracking when snapping the cracks of those on the sand….

The restaurant was at the end of a cul de sac that bordered a wharf of sorts. There were piles of fishing nets everywhere and boats chugging/drifting into harbor. The salt was so strong, the wind blowing it into my eyes made them sting and water.

You can imagine my shock and surprise, when Amber didn’t order off the pancake menu! She went out on a semi-limb and ate rice…. I went more mid line spicy and Sonja took the plunge with prawn vindaloo and she started to sweat!

It was super windy there, but certainly very touristy and Mexico-y.

Sonja then needed to make her way to a travel agent to book her ticket to Bombay, and Amber and I went to go find an ATM. Here is where things started to get interesting…

As you will see by our pics and video when we get back, the driving is a gong show. First of all, it is on the left hand side of the road, and then the lines are only a suggestion, and people pass others into oncoming traffic, with traffic hurtling towards you. Anyhoo, it was a far cry from the quiet country roads we had taken to get to Baga beach. The problem is, there are zero street signs, and every corner begins to look like the next with people hawking their wares.

So, the navigator in me just threw my hands in the air, (not while driving of course… 😛 ) and drove a bit, stopped, got directions, and then continued. We finally found what looked to be a promising ATM for Amber to visit. She parked her scootie and went inside. There are two types of license plates here for vehicles. White ones for locals to use, and yellow ones for tourist vehicles. Never the twain shall mix. If you are caught driving a white labelled scooter, you risk getting pulled over, fined and the bike confiscated. We found that out earlier, so when we got our scooters, we secured the correct ones for us. As I sat there waiting for Amber, there were two couples from England negotiating prices for two scooters for themselves. I noticed all the bikes in the row were white plated ones. I tried to catch the eye of the man negotiating with the local man, but was unsuccessful. I sauntered over to one of the ladies and approached them.

They had been in India once before, but hadn’t rented scooters, so they weren’t aware of the licence plate policy. I gave them some friendly advice/information to either use or not use at their own discretion and went back to my bike. The one woman looked a bit upset at this new turn of events and broached her husband to tell him about it prior to the deal being sealed.

At this time, I was reminded of a conversation Amber and I had with a man on the plane going to Bangalore from Texas. He told us that we should do what we can to avoid “trouble” with locals, as it can get sticky, messy and dangerous. I knew I was flirting with potential ugliness by advising them of the difference in plates, but the champion of the underdog I can be, I wanted them to have the information before making their decision. The whole do unto others bit and all.

The husband then approached me for more information, and so I explained it to all four Brits. The local guy caught wind of what was going on, and didn’t like the fact I was messing in his nest so to speak and confronted me.

“Why are you making trouble for my business?” “Why are you messing with my deal…?”

I replied that I wasn’t making trouble for his business but that I thought it would be fair for the tourists to know the real truth and be able to make an informed decision. He again got pissy and cranky and looked over at his shoulder to his “posse” in the alley beside his business.

Amber was still in the bank machine unaware of the brewing storm outside, and I certainly couldn’t leave our bikes, or leave her there, so I tried to placate him while she returned.

The posse was swelling by the minute and my six shooter wouldn’t handle seven, unless there was a successful through and through, so as soon as I spotted Amber, I made my move.

Again, being in “code white” she was practically a lamb to the slaughter as she walked through the angry mob. “La la la la la la la…my those flowers are beautiful…the sun is shining…all is well with the world, except I have been thwarted by yet another non-international ATM…”

She said hello, started to tell me she needed to use the phone to deal with her debit card issues, and I cut her off at the knees, arterial spray everywhere and said, “We can make the call somewhere else….we need to leave NOW…just trust me and GO GO GO GO GO !!!!”

Being the good world traveller she is, she complied, not knowing if there was a bomb scare, terrorist attack or if I really needed to go to a washroom…..

Off we sped on our bikes weaving through traffic like pros, dodging goats, chickens, cows and “local” breed dogs, we left them in the dust with the English tourists in their midst as sacrificial lambs….

We have to go catch our plane now….so the rest of the story later….plus added feature of how to successfully perform spider slaughters….How to cut a spider in less than 8 pieces, in less than 8 seconds….

Annie and Amber!

The eagle has landed……
Hello from India!!!

Where shall I begin!?!?

This blog details the exciting trip my great friend Amber and I took to India in 2006.

Here we go!  Sit back, grab a beverage and travel with us across the world…….

We started off in Calgary, got our tickets from the agent…she was quite disappointed to tell us that if we wanted to sit together, there were only two seats left together on the whole plane, and boo hoo…they were in the emergency exit aisle….awwww….so we suffered with three times the leg room of everyone else….someone had to make the sacrifice, and we were just the girls to do it. More of the plane adventures later….

So we go get a nice hot cup of one of the Fivebucks coffees….and lo and behold, we were labelled as bomb making terrorists for wanting to bring our hot drinks through security. No can do. We had to gulp them or toss them, only to have another Starbucks just on the other side of the security fence. So, through we go, no problems, until they wondered why we were setting off the alarms when walking through the metal detectors. Turns out we had buns of steel afterall…or rather the zippers in our tear away pants were causing a problem…but quickly resolved.

After we boarded the plane, we settled into the trip nicely. We had an amazing view of the toilet and then it became a sport watching people try and open a push door! One poor woman didn’t quite figure it out in time, and was sans a receptacle de barfo! The poor flight attendant had to wrinkle her nose as the dealt with the mess, and spray the room with copious amounts of air freshener.

Then, we became “those girls” who started causing problems for the flight attendants. I was accidentally ringing my buzzer and the purser would come….and then Amber practically started an electrical fire when she spilled her apple juice on the tv remote and all down my pants. We then had to make them aware of the fact that my chair was set to auto recline. No sooner was that dealt with, but the people in the row next to us started to tell the poor purser of their misfortunes with their tv’s etc. He settled it all by getting us drunk on champagne. lol

Our stayover in London was supposed to be 90 minutes, but was shortened to 20 as I needed to have the old body cavity search when they found my fork and explosive sunscreen that was 1oz over the legal limit. Who says cavity searches can’t put a smile on your face? 🙂

Our next leg of the journey was another gruelling 10 flight. My keen eye however detected a flaw in their seat assignments….Amber and I were in a row by ourselves, and beside us there was another row with no one in it. Amber quickly saw the vision I had for us, when I prodded her into sitting in the other row by herself. No sooner where we situated, the wheels went up, our heads went down, and we woke up 7 hours later somewhere over the United Arab Emirates to be fed some curry samosas for breakfast.

Our breakfast came with some sort of green soupy thing that we didn’t know what do with. I asked the guy beside me if it was a dip for our fruit….he said no it was a lime pickle dip for our samosas, like a ketchup. Alrighty then…. It was then, even before we landed that Amber discovered she didn’t like curry….it was going to be the start of a culinary adventure for her to find things without curry in it!

There was no one else on the plane with our good fortune, unless you were in the ultra first class that had actual beds in them!!! Crazy what you get for an additional $4000 per ticket. We however, got free socks, toothbrush and eye goggles!

Upon our arrival to Bangalore, we gathered our chainmail wrapped backpacks, where Amber discovered how much heavier her pack was when the day pack portion was zipped onto the reg portion. I became sad to find out we weren’t in Nepal, and I couldn’t get a Sherpa for her…..Robaxacet will become her next best friend perhaps….

Sonja greeted us with a big smile and open arms for which we were grateful. We were also greeted by 900 taxis, palm trees and weird Mr. Mee-ah-gee type trees (remember them from Karate Kid?). Driving at night wasn’t so bad as we only had to dodge homeless people sleeping on the streets, there were no cows out and the dogs were curled up on the sidewalk. Later that morning was a different story however!

We went back to Sonja’s hotel room for a shower, and a real toilet! YAY! I forgot to mention how sorry I was not to have my camera at the ready for when Amber saw her first squattie! She did however take a picture of it for proof for her girls back home. For those of you who don’t know, in other countries there aren’t always regular toilets. There are toilets on the floor that look like urinals laid down that you need to squat over top of, for both #1 and #2!

We went for breakfast for only a dollar, for all three of us, where Amber confirmed her dislike of curry… We all enjoyed some lovely chai tea though.

I should have placed a bet with myself how long Amber would keep her vow of not doing her souvenir shopping on the first day…..it wasn’t 20 minutes after we left Sonja napping, Amber was haggling over some stuff…can’t say what and spoil the surprise though. Laden with things, we trotted back to the hotel to get ready for our flight to Goa. Soon, she started unloading some of her packed things into my pack to make room for her purchases….I quickly warned her that I wasn’t going to be her sherpa for her purchases and she only laughed……..help!

Her turn to laugh at me came a few hours later when we were on our flight to Goa. I was in the aisle seat, Sonja in the middle and Amber at the window. The curried cucumber and tomato sandwich I had was not sitting well in the midst of being tossed in the air….we had hit some air pockets, and my lunch was getting tossed around pretty good. Subtly I searched for my own receptacle de barfo in case I needed to make a deposit. I was a bit cranky and ordered Amber to sit back so I could see out the window to get some perspective and bearings. We landed soon after and I went from a whiter shade of grey/green to my regular pasty self.

No sooner had we landed, than Amber was snapping pictures of our plane/airport, when we turned a corner, saw a “No photos allowed” sign, adorned with a guard holding AK-47’s….or where they AK-46 1/2’s? Not sure, but they were big, black and looked deadly. Not sure where Amber hid the camera with lightening speed, but she did walk with a bit of limp for a few minutes!

The next few moments are spent moaning about how hot and sticky and did I mention hot we were? Good thing no one had an egg at this point, or we could have fried it on the pavement. Another good thing is we are here in spring, and not the hot summer season, where it is 47 degrees per day…whew! We are suffering through 35 degrees….

The lanes here only show 2 lanes, but it certainly only a suggestion, as sometimes there are 4 or 5 cars, trucks or scooters across each lane, driving on the left hand side, avoiding cows, goats, dogs and others.

We went to Anjula’s open air flea market last evening. It is the largest in India, and we only saw 10% of it, but probably saw all the same things three times over. Bananna and apple pancakes don’t have curry we discovered, so Amber had them again for breakfast today with chai tea.

We felt like old people as we were in bed by 7:15 at night, complete with our mosquito net above us. Lucky to have that, as it kept out the frogs, coackroaches, centipedes and moths too. I was attacked by a frog outside our room last night when I took it’s picture. As it leaped for my throat, fangs bared….( I think it was a vampire frog!) I protected myself with my thumb and let out a blood curdling scream…Amber was too scared to come rescue me as I heard the bars being put across the door and the key in the lock turning…she had already decided I was to be the only sacrifice that night. She would save herself for tomorrow night’s frog ceremony! If only she could find enough garlic to eat today for her own self preservation…. She is sitting here laughing at me as I type this, but they say that laughter sometimes stems from nervous truth!

We are now off to find a travel agent to get us tickets to fly to Dehli, as we have polled taxi drivers, hotel owners and the general unwashed masses (literally) and the consensus is that it will be more long and ardorous than we have to spend in our time budget this trip. I say “this trip” for I can already understand Sonja’s desire to return. There is no way we can even appreciate 10% of what this country offers in only two weeks.

After that, maybe rent a scooter for this area (it is much less populated and dangerous on the road here, don’t fear) and do some toodling around before hitting the beach for maybe a dip and then a massage.

Love to all, we really enjoy reading your comments.

Ciao!

A&A in India!