Last days on the Indian mainland for now
My final bit of cycling for a few weeks consisted of tootling down the Konkan coast and into Goa. The scenery continued to be sublimely beautiful, as the picture of the temple on the river below might show, and I've been sad to think I won't make it all the way down the peninsula although I don't want to miss the chance to get to the Andamans. Life is full of tough choices and this was genuinely tough.
Before I got to Goa I stopped off for a couple of days at a local resort, Malvan. This was to stop me turning up in Goa in high season, and to give my legs a rest after eight straight days of cycling. Nice place anyway, still a jobbing fishing port of the non-super trawler variety so great to watch the catch being unloaded and sold on the beach in the evenings.
After Malvan it was a short hop down to Goa. Well, the map said it would be a short hop, but the map was wrong. Again. So it proved to be a full day on the bike to get to Arumbal in the very north. Nice enough place but odd to see some many non-Indians about! At least the ones on motorbikes (about 50% of them) have managed to pick up local customs. Use your horn all the time, weave about erratically and drive like a ****. The main road down to the beach is apparently jocularly referred to as "Glastonbury Street" and it does feel and look very much like the Glasto markets! My advice here would be not to get drunk then decide you need some new threads after seven months on the road. Seriously.
And with nothing more than an overnight halt there it was on the overnight train to Kerala, which seems to be a lovely place, clean and full of friendly people. Apparently it's got a 91% literacy rate and average life expectancy of 73, some ten years higher than the rest of India. Oh, and a communist government. Yes, these facts are connected. Alas, just one day there for now (back again in a couple of weeks), not even pausing for an ice cream. I don't know why, they just didn't sell it to me... maybe the downside of communism.
I took one more sleeper train last night up to Chennai, as I catch a flight here at 4:45 AM to the Andamans for a spot of diving. Now Chennai was the first ever place I visited in India, on a work trip a couple of years ago and I formed the opinion at the time that it was a bit of dump. Was this just because it was my first visit here? Would I see things differently after having been in India two months? No. It really is a dump.
Before I got to Goa I stopped off for a couple of days at a local resort, Malvan. This was to stop me turning up in Goa in high season, and to give my legs a rest after eight straight days of cycling. Nice place anyway, still a jobbing fishing port of the non-super trawler variety so great to watch the catch being unloaded and sold on the beach in the evenings.
After Malvan it was a short hop down to Goa. Well, the map said it would be a short hop, but the map was wrong. Again. So it proved to be a full day on the bike to get to Arumbal in the very north. Nice enough place but odd to see some many non-Indians about! At least the ones on motorbikes (about 50% of them) have managed to pick up local customs. Use your horn all the time, weave about erratically and drive like a ****. The main road down to the beach is apparently jocularly referred to as "Glastonbury Street" and it does feel and look very much like the Glasto markets! My advice here would be not to get drunk then decide you need some new threads after seven months on the road. Seriously.
And with nothing more than an overnight halt there it was on the overnight train to Kerala, which seems to be a lovely place, clean and full of friendly people. Apparently it's got a 91% literacy rate and average life expectancy of 73, some ten years higher than the rest of India. Oh, and a communist government. Yes, these facts are connected. Alas, just one day there for now (back again in a couple of weeks), not even pausing for an ice cream. I don't know why, they just didn't sell it to me... maybe the downside of communism.
I took one more sleeper train last night up to Chennai, as I catch a flight here at 4:45 AM to the Andamans for a spot of diving. Now Chennai was the first ever place I visited in India, on a work trip a couple of years ago and I formed the opinion at the time that it was a bit of dump. Was this just because it was my first visit here? Would I see things differently after having been in India two months? No. It really is a dump.
posted by Bill at 8:46 am
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