09 Nov 2007
Mumbai to goa
So India?
Relaxed spacious and slow and easy like Brittas on Sunday morning.
Any way so one the first full day I was there I ended up as an extra on a bollywood ad.
An extra ! the cheek Do you know who the fuck I am. No. oh , right so.
That was pretty weird and hilarious experience . the ad was even weirder .
New Orleans/ Bollywood setting, with a small midget jumping onto one of the top Bully wood actors legs, apparently he’s married to miss world.
So Mumbai is pretty Crazy as was trying to get out of the dam thing. Its a jungle out there filled with noise and people staring and shouting a nd waveing.So I stared to work my way south down the coast towards goa .
Everyday my face is sore from smiling and shouting hello my friend and waving at people. The bike despite my efforts to make it look shittier by adding black tape to it , is like going around in a Ferrari and parking out side the local chipper in Donegal town.
Instant crowd puller.
Indian bike.
No.
From what country.
Ireland.
Ireland bike.
yes.
how much rupees.
I’m not sure.
who much gears.
21 I think.
oooohh.
 |
| From India Prints |
Repeat one million times
To be fair to the injuns there pretty dam friendly and nice.
Goa how ever is a different country .But more on that later.
I was eating dinner yesterday near the beach and a cow walked thru the restaurant.
Wow
.More rants to come.
I’m off to burn the ears of some westerners who listen
haven’t meet any since I left Mumbai
6 litres of water a day make a jack a sweaty boy
This is a Thaili
I,ve eaten around two hundred and fourty thousand of them since i,ve been here and there all different and all deadly. sorted
23 Nov 2007
Goa to Hampi
So then I got to Goa
It’s was grand but with all those tourist beaches you could be any where in the world .It was exactly like the beaches in Thailand. Poy, dreadlocks, Israelis, spiritual types , same same no different. So I stayed for a day or two and then headed south towards Panjim which is the Capital of Goa which was much more interesting .Its actually quiet relaxed for an Indian city , still some of the Old Portuguese buzz about it . Nice Fish and food in general.
I also tried a "Pan Mithal" here , which tastes like the shop lush would if you could eat the stuff in it. About a mixtures of one hundred flavours and a little touch of soap. It contains the betel nut and gives you red teeth and a addiction to it if over used. Tastes good though.
Then I set of for a place called hampi which is where I am still. Although they forgot to mention that the was a huge Iron mine beside it and the trucks stretch back to back in lots of three or four kilometre chunks. Most of the time they drive two abreast on both sides of the road which makes for laxed cycling against them and crisp clean air to breath. Tasty.
Hampi is a crazy looking place, being both a Hindu Pilgrimage site and a Tourist hangout.
Random.
"we Indians cut iron with iron"
Right then sir.
13 Dec 2007
Mangalore Mash up
This is going to be a long ranty rant ,maybe.
I think its weird that all these bloody social networking websites keep changing I’m aware now that’s its probably passé to use my space but I cant be arsed transferring all my stuff onto face book which seem to have inventive ways of wasting my bloody time. I say we get all meet up in Stephens Green and groom each other like monkeys. Proper social networking . Then we can all take pictures of our selves with our digital cameras and look at them straight away up load them thru our fones and see who’s picking nits of who.
Yes I am loosing the plot.
So I left hampi and fell very dramatically of my bike in the middle of a busy town .To bring my self to a stop I used my hands and elbows as brake pads on the road , which worked a treat. So I instantly have a huge circle of Indian men and children around me and its decided that I should be brought to the doctor who has cotton wool a scissors some antiseptic and not much else.
so we spend about half an hour bandaging me up and taking the road out of my elbow and then he charges me about 50 cent for the whole thing. Like home really. then I cycle for a few days to the Jog waterfalls (highest in India) and get psycadellically sick after eating something or getting some of the river water in my mouth. Where upon I do a good impression of a delirious waterfall of poo and vomit.
Then I went to gokarna, to hang with the hippies on ohm Beach .That’s more like it sir much nicer than Goa. And I meet some friends from hampi who said " have you lost weight" oh dear.v
Its time for pie fest 07.Determined to put it back on I went from one restaurant to another stuffing my face. I’d feel embarrassed ordering too much in one so I’d just go next door after and order another one. I’d just sit there like a white snake after eating a beach ball and digest .Just one more wafer thin mint sir. Bang. etc.
Then from gokarna I headed south to Mangalore where I’m currently in rez.
That’s pretty much the end of my cycling holiday now.
I fly home on the 22 of Jan and I’m just got my confirmation for the Mumbai half marathon on the 20th and I said I was going to shack up some where and do some volunteer work for a month.
So I decide to go and see these mad auroville hippies to see if they’ve got any interesting Building/social programs in Tamil nadu. and if not try and sort something out in Chennai. Then back to Mumbai for the race then home for Guinness and weight gaining.
Think I’m some where in-between 10,000 and 11,000 km (my bike computer died in Japan and I had to get a new one)on the bike at this stage and I only got three punctures and had to replace my pedals once and also my saddle and handle bars are a bit wrecked. still not two bad for about ten and a half months on the bike . Those puncture proof tyres are the dogs bollocks. I also got about 5 ferries and 4 trains and 2 busses and a small circular boat made out of tarp and tar on a wooden frame across a river .
Sometimes I get a bit lonely here in India .Its weird with so many people buzzing around, but its often about a week for me to get from one tourist destination to another here. Ye know yer selves its cool chatting to new and local people about there culture etc but the conversation only go so far and are generally the same .So its great when I meet some westerners and can have a bit of crack with them. Any how moan moan . Fuck it ,I’m still loving it and every day someone or some thing you see make me laugh my head off
Keep it real.
I would murder everyone in the cyber cafe with the mouse for a pint of Guinness
saw one in a film the other day and nearly started crying.
yours "girly pants"
Dara
Chennai
Was in Chennai for about a month editing a promotional video for Aikya.org .
It was kind of cool to settle in one place for a whileliving in a cheap hotel.
I had a few local lads that worked on the street that would give me the nod every day.
Even though Chennai seems a polluted shit hole at the start its nice to get to know a few locals and woman who ran the school Parvathy was really nice and relaxed and we’d just waffle away while working.
The kids were cool as well and one day we all went to the Chennai version of Disneyland. There was a musical fountain show that looked like a techno version of the Fountains in the Ilac centre. RAD. It was a mad day and there were about 10, 000 kids from different schools and charities and there and some Tamil pop stars and a helicopter .And I got a free lunch and ice cream. .
I was really weird how this whole volunteer thing came about.I had typed it into google and all that came up were these really expensive programs that involved me paying lots of money to a middle man or some such jazz so i descided to try contacting the places my self and eventually i got in touch with Aikya and it was perfect they needed and nerd and i,m a nerd. sorted
What are the chances.
Mumbai Again
Yo Yo peace in da middle east yo .
I’m a little bit stunned now, as any one who has ever seen me post race will tell
you even less goes up stairs than usual . The race was a bit of mad affair .
Loads of rich Mumbai middle class and it types in fancy new trainers .
The Nike town rebook and addidas shops were packed last night.
Who buys new runners the day before a race, mentalists.
Lots of serious shaping up at the starting line ,I though most of them were gona come in sub 1:30 the way thinks were looking. then everyone took of like a flash.
two k in the was a quiet a few people walking . Good work.
I was doing ok till nature called and I had to stop twice during the race to visit the water closet. oh well
I had done about 7/8 training sessions for it and was aiming for 2 hours which I managed so I was happy with that. Nothing amazing but it was still a cool experience .Bolly wood techno blasting out over the speakers and the Kenyan lads doing their full marathon only 12 mins slower then i did my half.
 |
| From India Prints |
So that’s it, trips over now back to the joyous euphoria of love island during February. People from all over the world know that Ireland in January February is an exciting place with everyone displaying radiant smiles on there faces.
Rafter
Dara
No comments:
Post a Comment