Bikespod’s Blog

Well predictably I’ve failed to do any blogs. This is in part due to the terrible Internet connection in Africa so far, also due to letting Gaia write and upload hers, and because I’m a bit rubbish.
I have tons of pictures of really cool things to upload, but the limitations of the web here have made it impossible. Still to come are pics of Gelada baboons in the simian mountains of Ethiopia, the Turkana and Samburu people of lake Turkana in northern Kenya, lions, leopard, cheetah etc in the Serengeti, and mountain gorillas in Rwanda.
As soon as I can upload I will.

Hi, i am going to try to do some blogs from now on. We head to Ethiopia tonight at an ungodly hour, and i am in the middle of a mammoth photo upload, as the internet in Leh was very intermittant. We will see how easily i can keep this promise.
Nick

If i tell the truth, we can’t really comment on Bangalore very accurately. It was incredibly congested and polluted when we arrived and it took us 3 hours to travel 30kms. We were appalled, and i felt terrible for Jo, who was retching with the pollution.

Luckily we had a lovely Eco place to go to that was run by a family who had all given up really good jobs for a better quality of life, and it showed. They were really chilled and seemed happy with their choice, even if their friends and  some family were horrified.

The place was a haven of tranquility and had its own vegetable gardens, which were tended by Ambika. She had given up a career as a teacher, and was the sort of person that exudes calm. It was amazing what she had acheived in six months, and with no previous knowledge.

They also had a green pool, which basically was a living ecosystem that cleaned itself, with no chemicals, and only basic filtration. It was great swimming with frogs croaking all around and dragonflys dipping in for insect prey.

We also got to milk a cow, which was pretty cool.

Later we met a really interesting chap, who was an architect of sustainable eco houses and a water warrior. Campaigning continuosly for better rain water harvesting and more efficient water use. He did however have miles of red tape to get thru to bring about any change in his state, let alone the rest of India. Good luck to him, he talked a lot of sense.

Mysore is actually one of the coolest cities we have visited in India so far, literally, well after Kerala anyway. It was blissfully a bit higher in elevation than Kerala, so a few degrees cooler. Good for me, but not so popular with Gaia.

Firstly the Guest house we stayed at was, wait for it, CLEAN. The sheets were white and the bed wasn’t rock hard, and to top it all it had hot water. We were off to a good start. We then went out and ate well and also, as if it wasn’t already my favourite place, it was also easy to get a nice cold beer.

The next day we set out to do some sight seeing, with the hotel managers words ringing loud and clear in our ears “trust nobody, it will be a scam to get you to buy something”

 With the confidence of a few months of India under our belts we headed off to the internet cafe first. This has become one of Gaia’s mantras by the way. The nearby place was closed and a young man offered to show us to one that is open, Gaia said he seemed nice and hadn’t asked for money, so off we went. He did indeed show us to a good place with fast internet, and then was mysteriously still there 2 hours later.

At this point i began to get suspicious of his motives and tried to pay him for his trouble and to get rid of him. Gaia and Jo said that i had probably really insulted him, as he hadn’t asked for money.

Anyway to cut it short he showed us around a few interesting factories, where we got some nice photos and we eventually ended up in an incense and perfume outlet.

 After a short while waiting for the ladies who made the incense sticks to finish lunch so we could see them at work, i told the chap that we were definitely not in the market for anything. Pretty soon after we were taken back to the main road and left to our own devices again.I  have to say he was very good and it was the most subtle softening up for a sale that i’ve seen to date.

Nedless to say the hotel manager knew the places we were taken too and just shook his head in disbelief.

The market was amazing, see the pictures in the Mysore folder. It was sensory overload of many kinds with smells, colours and noise and a constant stream of people buying and others restocking stalls. The pictures tell it best, so that’s how i’ll leave it.

We also took in a temple and a giant bull statue, but generally just enjoyed good food and a clean room, and friendly folk. Thanks Mysore, you were a welcome break from the madness of India.

Amazingly there is so much jewelery made and worn in India, that the sewers are full of gold dust and lost earrings etc, so as you can see in one of my pics, people actually pan the sewer water for gold. Only in India!

How were we to know that bamboo rubbing together in the wind can start a fire?? I guess i should have watche more closely when Ray Mears was doing his thing.

 So we were on the train to go to a hick town to stay in a dive of a hotel, just to visit the best nature reserve in south India. Jo was really looking forwar to it and the possibility of a tiger sighting. We phone to book the hotel and enquire about park entrance fees etc, when they hit us with the news, it was CLOSED. A huge fire had hit both sections of the park, even tho they were along way apart, and even the bird sanctuary was closed. ARSE!

We had to make do with a trip to a waterfall and a some caves to salvage the trip. Both of these were distinctly average in the impressive department, so it was time to move again.

On to a night train, (Jo’s first) and onwards to Mysore.

Fort Kochi was a surreal place indeed. There were places here that seeme distinctly un-indian. It was clean, with wide streets, little traffic and some great places to eat. We did have terrible trouble getting a beer tho, and only managed this feat when we went on the second backwater cruise.

We had to go again, because Jo ( who joined us in Varkala trip2 ) and Alok and Jason decide to meet up with us. These two were great comedy value, Alok being Indian born and Jason descended from Sri Lankan blood. They were the worst fake Indians ever. Both of them were much more fussy than the rest of us and you could just tell they were dying to get back to London. I’m sure they won’t mind these words, Alok had a Brahmin modeling careere to get back to and Jason just wanted to put the whole backwater trip out of his mind forever.

We all enjoyed a night at the Kathakali dance show, and it was sad to see them go as they were great company and a good laugh.

It was a crazy place and even we were tempted to stay for a bit as everything was so easy. The chinese fishing nets were pretty amazing too, an we were staying in the house where Vasco Da gamma is supposed to have died.

We moved on to Cherai beach for a few days to relax a bit further, so Jo could get a bit more sun, and then we hit the trains to Kalpetta to go to the wildlife sanctuary called Waynard, where Tigers should have been a relatively easy spot, and if not plenty more.

This place is unremarkable and is a far cry from the days it was a hippy hangout. Its useful as a hopping off point and its nice and close to Varkala, and thats about all i got from the place. The people are nice and typical of Kerralans, but it was aparticularly loud place with heavy traffic and lots of political rallies and announcements at increible voloumes.

 I have decied that the reason most indian men shout is because they have all been deafebne by the afore mentioned and the constant blowing of horns in the traffic jams and eveyday driving.

The  ‘nature reserve’ we went to nearby was a farce and i hope never to see such a badly run place with poorly kept animals again. As we will be leaving India soon for Banglaesh, this may be a wish that isn’t grante too soon, but i can hope.

So, we went to the Maldives from Trivandrum, and what can i say, other than, what a dump! Well that is true for Rubbish Island, which is basically a whole island near Male that has been turned over to landfill and the burning of huge amounts of rubbish. You can see the cloud of toxic fumes spreading out over the pristine islands and sea. Apart from that, its really very beautiful, and the people seem genuinely friendly and helpful.

We did get an initially skewed impression as we visited a few resorts to look at their marine biology work and their eco credentials, which were impressive in their scope and the passion with which they were persued.

Sonneva Gili was especially beautiful as it was set almost entirely over the water, Sonneva Fushi was also stunning and the eco work they were doing was very interesting, including using deep water pipes to provide cooling instead of aircon. The marine biologist Anka was lovely and very enthusiastic about her work, and was very much involved in getting the shark fishing ban made law. Banyan Tree was also very welcoming and the staff we met at the marine biology lab were dedicated and extremely interesting and knowledgeable. Here they were working on transplanting corals and growing artificial reefs, partly for tourism and partly to see if they could protect the island from innundation and sea level rise. They were also working to help the visiting turtles, by taking some of the eggs and hatching them and then releasing in the deep water.

After this we went to the Red cross island that was built afresh for the survivors of the tsunami. This was a particularly interesting and moving trip, and we were very lucky to have been there to witness its opening by the new president Anni. So much hard work and dedication went into the project and the same for the celebrations. The people were welcoming and joyful at the gift they received. It must have been really rewarding for all involved, very inspiring indeed.

We also met some lovely people, notably Kevin the kiwi from the red cross, Paul Roberts ( the presidents euro press secretary ) and the new president himself, a very grounded and friendly man who seemed to have his peoples best interests at heart. I hope it all works out for him, as he was a political prisoner of the former president who ran his country into the ground with corruption and extortion.

thanks to everyone we met, it will always be a special memory for me, I’d love to be able to return one day, and Anni may be about to make it possible by opening his country to budget travellers and not just the filthy rich.

I haven’t got huge amounts to say about Varkala. We went there so Gaia could write her first chapter, and that she did. We spent most of the time eating and relaxing after a lot of hectic travelling on night buses etc.

Varkala could be really beautiful, but for the ever present rubbish. Its a beach with a cliff above it and the tourist shops and restaurants at the top of the cliff.

Some of the shops/restaurants have an out of sight out of mind mentality to their waste, they simply tip it over the cliff and down onto the beach. Looks ok from the top as long as you don’t lean too far over, but looks terrible from the sea or the beach. Another place living on borrowed time, before its so disgusting, noone wants to go there.

This aside, its a nice place to spend some time, if a little over populated by tourists with roll along luggage. We generally prefer to get a bit further off the beaten track, but needed good internet for Gaia and for me to upload a load of pictures.

Anyway, i’ve put all that weight i lost back on again, i thought i was supposed to lose weight here. Presumably lady luck is saving up a really nasty bug for me, i hope not tho’.

We went to a festival a few miles from Varkala, which was amazing and over the top as you’d expect. Drumming of all types, but mostly rythmic and LOUD! The floats were amazing, with roaring lions, giant monkey gods who stood up and laughed manically, and all sorts of colourful performances and costumes. Photos to follow soon.

Then we got the train to Allepey to do the backwater thing, but this turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, with the boat staff not really getting what it was that we were after by way of an experience. We’d booked 2 days, and a far as they were concerned, this meant the same as a one day trip, just much slower. All the other boats were overtaking us, so all we could see and smell was the other boats.

We eventually left the rest behind on the second day, but they were angry when i told them i didn’t want to listen to their bollywood DVD while we went along ( yes there was a TV onboard ) It kind of went downhill from there, with the staff being more interested in their experience than ours. They finished by trying to moor next to the public boat jetty for the night, but we insisted on moving. I wouldn’t recommend this trip to anyone really, there are better things to do with your time. If you do have to do it, don’t book the boat remotely, go there and choose a nice small one that can squeeze down the smaller canals.

Now we are in Trivandrum and tomorrow we go to the Maldives to see the coral reef restoration projects and see whats being done to combat sea level rise and interview the new president. Can’t wait.