26 February

On our last day in Goa, we hired a scooter to visit the beaches further north at Calangute and Baga.  It was quite a culture shock from the relative quiet of our beach stay in Candolim to the full-on mass tourism, packed beaches and crazy Calangute traffic, we were happy to survive this road trip with our limbs intact.

Larging it at Calangute

Today we say goodbye to Goa and continued our journey via taxi, the Konkan railway and a 35km auto-rickshaw road trip to Tarkali in Maharashtra state.

 Boarding the train to Kudal

Suddenly we find ourselves in another world where we appear to be the only western tourists, road signs are all in Hindi and very few people speak English.

It is not unusual to see bullock carts in the street and fishermen still paddling out in their canoes to circle net the beach with equipment that dates back thousands of years.  That said, fibre glass boats with outboard motors are favoured by fishermen in the commercial port of Malvan.

Canoe planks are stitched together

Paddling out the net

Beach crew hauling in one end of the net

A typical catch of the day

Washing the catch prior to shipping to market

The rest of our journey towards Mumbai will be on the Konkan railway, considered to be one of the world’s great railway journeys, the construction of it was completed in 1998, a major feat of civil engineering that finally linked the west coast from Mangalore to Mumbai with the rest of the Indian railway network.  This project was never attempted by the British railway engineers and went straight into the too hard basket, which is no surprise when considering a difficult terrain and extreme monsoon weather on this part of the coast. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konkan_Railway

22 February

A 90 minute journey north along the Konkan coast took us to our next destination, Candolim in North Goa. First impressions are that this place is the Magaluf of Goa dominated by people speaking Russian with a hint of Essex, not a back packer in sight. Beach umbrellas out front combined with a backdrop of shabby beach shack restaurants make this a very lively place, combined in the mix is a comparatively new phenomenon of Indian lager louts. They flock here from other states where there are much tighter controls on alcohol.

We have beach umbrellas

Beach shack restaurants

Office work at the beach shack wi-fi

20 February

Today’s excursion was by local bus to the covered markets in Margao city.

The local bus Victoria gets some fine tuning en route we don’t want the wheels to fall off do we

No they are not worry beads these sad ladies are selling but necklaces of Salami

18 February

We had an enjoyable car journey of just under an hour along the winding road over the coastal foothills of the Western Ghats.  As we climbed the hills the vegetation changed from palm trees into forests of eucalyptus before descending back down again to palms and rice paddies arriving at our next Goan destination of Benaulim on the Konkan Coast, this is where we will be based for the next few days.

19 February

The beach at Benaulim is part of a 25 km strip of featureless sand that is lacking in both atmosphere and character, the plus side is that the hard sand below the high water mark is ideal for cycling for miles and miles.

We are however  fortunate to be staying at Palm Grove Cottages where the owner employs 2 gardeners to tend an organically grown tropical garden on a par with Kew without the glass.  It is a local attraction for tourists and film makers.  For us it is a top place to hang out in the heat of the day listening to the chorus of mad bird calls that are also attracted to hanging around this little oasis, an unusual feature of the garden are the pencil pine shaped 30 meter high Ashoka trees.

Palm Grove tropical garden

Ashoka trees

Catch of the day

Road to the beach

Para-sailing

17 January

Well we’ve talked the talk it’s time to take a ride on the wild side, we hired an Electra Silver Bullet complete with its thumpa exhaust and legendary rugged reliability, yes this is the most fun way to travel in tropical India making your own cool breeze.  We took the back roads through the hills to Cabo de Rama with a lunch stop at the relatively undeveloped Agonda Beach.

Silver Bullet with matching  hair

Pillion cam

The only unexpected hazard of the day was a giant monkey that leapt out in front of us trying to cross the road, he missed us but he wasn’t wearing a crash helmet and bounded headlong into an oncoming vehicle, unfortunately the monkey gets it.  Hanuman the monkey god must have been taking the day off.

The cost of the day’s excursion worked out to be half that of the entrance fee to the Taj Mahal.  As for simple pleasures, this has to be Paul’s number one India experience to date.

17 February

An after thought for anyone saddling up for the India Easy Rider experience looking for adventure and what ever comes your way, it will probably be a TATA bus lurching round the next bend on the wrong side of the road driven by a lunatic aiming to make you leave your body for a more spiritual trip. To avoid this hazzard we have noticed that most rickshaws, taxis and buses we have travelled in carry an icon of the Hindu smiley elephant god Ganesh, his job is to keep you safe from bad things happening.

Ganesh

14 February

A most unexpected event occurred this evening that made us aware that the concrete slab building was part of a temple complex, we were woken in the middle of the night by a strange ceremonial noise. We think it was designed to frighten the evil demons out of the newly formed slab, it’s difficult to describe the cacophony of sound but imagine an infant school band banging saucepan lids and drums mixed with a choir of reject singers from a talent show that were tone deaf and you might begin to get a flavour of it. The noise finally stopped around midnight and we would be most surprised if there were any demons left in town.

Heading further north we boarded the Matsyaganda Express for a short trip across the border from Karnataka into southern Goa to Cancona the train station for Palolem, our next destination for a few days.

We have finally hit tourism on a grand scale. Palolem is a beautiful crescent shaped palm fringed beach strung together with restaurants and thatched roof beach hut homestays,

Palolem sunset

Beach hut accommodation

Large numbers of tourists in this area have also taken to living the dream of riding the very much admired ubiquitous Royal Enfield in all its guises.

The Bullet

...and the 500

Storm clouds on the horizon

Forget seeing India by train or bus, the hard core riders of the Bullet say this is the only way to go, being a little bit crazy also helps.

13 January

Another day another beach, this one is called Kudle beach, it was a bad day at the office regarding health and hygiene, while in the beach restaurant we noticed that the curtain used to separate the kitchen from the restaurant had multiple uses by the kitchen staff, it doubled up as a hand towel, face towel and wait for it, wiping the plates prior to the meal being plonked on it. scary stuff.

We have come to realise that the religious towns come with a higher percentage of cows in the street per meter, which means  a sharp eye is required when walking the streets not to mention the sea water blueless flag quality, it has to be off the EU directive richter scale.

That said, the highlight of the day was a fun sunset ride back to town from Kudle in a local fishing boat .

Fishing boat crew  and the bamboo poles used for backing the boat to the beach

Fishing boat crow sunset

Sea urchin children

Meanwhile back at our homestay, the adjacent building under construction was having a first floor concrete slab poured, forget your redimix truck, this India style system involved a human chain of around thirty men and women hauling pans of concrete hand over hand up a scaffold tower to complete task, job done.

Pouring the concrete slab India style

9 January

Our trek in a northerly direction, continues.  First stop was an overnight stay back in Cochin in the bustling stinky city centre of Ernakulam, We holed up for the night in the wonderful Art Deco Grand Hotel, a respite from the wobbly taps, sinks, fixtures and fittings that fall  off the wall or leak wherever we stay, we figure it must be an attribute of the Indian wobbly head syndrome.

10 January

We boarded the overnight Maru Sagar Express from Ernakulam Junction and arrived the following morning in Gokarna, a small town 720kms  to the north and close to the border of Goa.  Gokarna has yet to be on the map of package tourism due to it’s location in the middle of nowhere so the town manages to keep its charm as a pilgrimage centre and perhaps some of the most unspoilt beaches we have seen so far.

Salt pans on Gokarna Road

Why drive trucks on a train

Downtown Gokarna temple

Festival chariot on standby

Om Beach sunset

Om Beach from the Namaste Cafe

Its a tough job being a beach inspector but someone’s got to do it!

7 January

The high-light of the day turned out to be our three and a half hour ferry trip to our next destination,  Alleppey.  It is situated on the western side of lake Vembanad, India’s longest lake. Large area’s of the lake, canals and river systems have been taken over by an invasive species of water hyacinth.  It weaves itself into a green carpet that is impossible for some craft to navigate.

A stranded boat trapped in the weeds

Our trusty ferry

Although our Government ferry boat looks like the African Queen it does have the where-with-all (grunt) to shred its way out of this sea of water hyacinth.

Engine room showing the bell on a string

Hi-tech communication between the engine room (throttle & gear change man) and the wheelhouse perched above the tin roof, is achieved by  the bell on a string,  four rings means full ahead.

Wheelhouse

Loading the engine block

This boat serves the people who live in the outlying areas of lake, it also does the school run and transports all sorts of goods, today’s unexpected  cargo is a car engine block.

Once under way and out on the lake the landscape turns into spectacular panorama and a haven for so many species of wet land birds, with vista’s of rice paddies that stretch to the horizon.

Rice paddy on a grand scale

Sailing canoe

Coconut selling shack

Alleppey our final destination

Alleppey is often referred to as the “Venice of the East" with the bustling hub of the house boat business, but for us the best boat trip on the backwaters has to be the government ferry, for a cost  of 10 rupees per person that’s around 12 pence for a three and a half hour journey must make it the best value trip on the planet.