Hello everybody
This is a short trip report of our Monsoon holiday in India 7'th of July - 21'th of July 2009. Last three days we spent in Goa Calangute.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mustlane/sets/72157622049961229/
With visual information I hope to give you a better idea, what I'm talking about. As with previous trip reports, please accept my apologies because of my broken language and mistakes in spelling and grammar.
We were using Finnair to fly from Tallinn (Estonia) to Helsinki (Finland) to Delhi
The trip was organized by India's local holidaymaker Culture Holidays India Pvt. Ltd. (INVALID URL We had a rough idea what we wanted and they suggested the rest. And satisfied we were for sure. There were couple of places we ourselves had never recognized as worth visiting. As an example Orchha and Gwalior. You can check from pictures and you possibly agree with me. We were met at the Delhi airport by local representatives, people we knew from our previous trip and from that point we were taken care of. I can characterize the services as punctual, very friendly and on the highest professional level. To see all these amazing places is one thing but to understand what you are looking at, is another. The guides were (as I possibly marked last time) the storytellers not the ones who kill you with names and numbers. Quality and service level of the hotels did exceed our expectations in most cases.
We were more than satisfied with the holiday and will use their services again. And I'm not afraid to recommend them to all, who might be interested in using India local Holidaymakers services.
As long as during the monsoon there are fewer tourists than during the season, we had in many cases opportunity to enjoy the emptiness of the Palaces, Temples and Caves.
Our trip included: Delhi - Gwalior - Orchha - Jihansi - Varanasi - Sarnath - Mumbai - Aurangabad - Ellora - Ajanta - Goa (Calangute)
In Delhi we asked for accommodation in market area we stayed last time - to be in the middle of the local activity. The North India gets less rainfall than regions closer to the sea or Southern regions. Usually there is some rain at this time of Year but as long as the monsoon was late there was nothing to interfere with business as usual- all the markets were open and active.
Gwalior and Orchha - the pictures say more than I can tell. There and back with Superfast (whatever it means) A/C train. They served tea with biscuits and later lunch during the trip. Not bad.
The Railway Stations are worth seeing. The trains are relatively cheap and quick way to travel. Railways are life-veins of India. Despite of the Guards people literally live in Railway Stations. Places burst alive when the train arrives and it is unimaginable what stuff can be sold and bought through the windows of the train.
One of the highlights of our journey was Varanasi. We stayed there for three days. I instructed Culture Holidays to reserve one full day for us to have all by ourselves. And what a city it was! I was almost sorry that we did not plan to be there for longer time. Varanasi was full of life from early morning till the late at night. We did have a late night (9:00PM) and early morning (5:00AM) boat ride along the Ganges. We visited the Religious Ceremony by the Ghats. We had a tour to oldest part of the town and to so called Burning Ghats ie. were Hindus burn their dead 24/7.
We lived the life of Ganges trying to adsorb all the Town and a River had to offer.
Ganges is a most polluted and in the same time, as hundreds of millions of people believe, Holiest River in the world. The common belief in India is that bathing in Ganges will clear away your sins. I did not find any evidence that bathing in that river, despite extreme pollution, would be hazardous to the health. Even very educated men could not explain, how can it be. So, we were crazy enough to go and to bath in the Ganges. Some Japanese tourists could not hold back but photographing us from hundred different angles. Crazy Europeans bathing in Ganges, hah! I think they ran out of memory card recourses later on that day. Click-click-click "¦
I did not tell at the time, but only later, to my wife that I saw a dead man, body half in the water and half on the shore, laying about 100m upstream from the steps we were about to use for going into the water. The water in the river smelled fresh, it looked like and smelled not like polluted river but more like Holiest river.
I forgot to tell in the first part of my report, that I promised to introduce a Monsoon Rain to my wife. Till this moment I had failed. The Monsoon was couple of months late and people were crying for rain. Everything was burning hot and dry. There was 43 deg.C in Delhi during our stay there and only couple of degrees cooler in Varanasi.
The Mumbai - it was raining! And what a sight it was. For a quarter of hour there was like white wall around us, then the sun started to shine in a moment and then it rained again. In the evening our beautiful hotel room looked like drying room. And if somebody suggests you to use a simple plastic raincoat - do not believe him. It keeps away the rain but because of the heat the condensed moisture gives you the same wet effect. You will be wet at every place the plastic touches you and additionally at the places the rain did find its way. The umbrella would be good, if you could figure out from what direction the wind blows. We did not figure it out, accepted the reality and did surrender. Result was like having warm bath with your clothes on.
We were taken by car to the suburbs of one of the slums The Slumdog Millionaire was filmed (it was filmed in tree different slums, three different locations -not in one as we are usually told).
At other pictures of Mumbai you can see the Laundry Company where people earn 5 USD per month for a hard job they do at least 10-12 hours a day.
In Mumbai I had the opportunity to visit my childhood home - some things just do not change. The house had the same torn look as it had 35 years ago.
Our next stop was in Aurangabad (from there to Ellora one day and to Ajanta the next day trip by car). The Cave temples are a "must" if you happen to be at this region. There are fewer tourists during the Monsoon time and in one of the Caves our Guide used the opportunity and sang us an old Buddhist song. He told us that he could not resist, because usually the Cave is crowded with people and this time we were alone. He had a voice of an angel and I will carry this unworldly feeling, of being taken centuries back in time, with me for a long time.
Aurangabad via Mumbai to Goa.
We were met by our stationery taxidriver and a good friend Sergio (+91 9822689657) at the airport and were taken to Silla Goa Beach Resort. Hotel reservation was done using Internet. No program in Goa, all by our own..
If someone plans to visit Goa during the Monsoon, I strongly recommend to check the situation first. Many hotels are closed during rainy period and so are majority of the restaurants. We drove through the Candolim and the place was practically closed down. We were told that the same goes with Baga area. Shops of main street of Calangute were open and alive and there were couple of restaurants open as well. Tibetian market was closed. Many smaller hotels were closed. No beach shacks at the beach. Our friends place Sea King Restaurant (Shack) is located on the private land and that's why they can be open all year. During the season they build a shack to the direction of the beach and Voila! they are in a shack business. The Tandoori owens are cold and not in use because of the lack of customers. Nevertheless, the food they prepare using other means, is fantastic still.
About the rain. 10 minutes heavy (I mean HEAVY) rain and in a moment there is a sun again. In some cases it rains for hours. Before we arrived to Goa the rain lasted 7 days, we were told. Result of one especially heavy downpour you can see at the picture where local people are enjoying the cascade of the water on the steps of Calangute. In the same occasion we were caught by rain on our walk back from Candolim. First there were powerful gusts of wind and when we started to look for a shelter, it was too late. We were caught in the middle of the empty beach, nowhere to hide. I did not recall from my childhood that the rain can be painful but the raindrops did hit our bare backs with such a force that it felt like needles. To continue walking was impossible because you could not see anything. Rain blinded us totally. Just when I started to wonder, how many hours we have to stay there, it was over.
The Beach guard was patrolling along the beach frequently and swimming was forbidden. The sea was extremely rough and once we saw a fisherman, in the water to his knees, having trouble to reach the land. But he did not mind and a lecture from the Guard was holding him back for just a few moments.
The Goa is green during the Monsoon. The dust is gone and the leaves of the trees are glistering with water. It seems that off-season is time for a cleanup. We saw groups of people busy gathering garbage from the beach and the same we saw in the streets of Calangute. We saw Garbage trucks busy all the day taking collected trash away from the city.
Despite of the quiet season the beach sellers are there and if you haggle you will get unbelievable prices. They mean business, they are desperate to sell - my wife bought an ankle chain in about 5 minutes after arriving the beach.
As you can understand the days went by quicker than we wanted and journey back home started. Because of the early flight home, we had to spend a night in Delhi and this time we were glad that it was not the direct flight. In this way we did have one additional night in India and next morning at 8:00 we were headed home with Finnair flight to Helsinki.
Our routine is, wherever you travel in India, you round it off in Goa. I'm missing India, I'm missing Goa. I hope the Report was not very boring and some of you will find something useful for your next Monsoon Holiday in India.
Please look at the holiday photos at :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mustlane/sets/72157622049961229/
Best to be viewed as "slideshow" ( upper right corner of the page there is "slideshow" button)
With all the best, Argo