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Travelogue Morocco 2: Vasubilis – Meknes

VOLUBILIS – MEKNES

22 April 2013

The next part of the journey would take us 234km cross country from Rabat to Fez via Meknes. While a seemingly short distance in home terms, there is lots to see in Moroccan ones.

There are 35 million people in Morocco, with mixed heritage from all the various invasions. The dominant local tribes are the Berbers in the High Atlas mountains (medium-sized, white-skinned, round-faced farmers), Zayan in the Middle Atlas mountains (tall, skinny, white skin, black hair and eyes, nomad shepherds) and Chluh people in the Rif Mountains in the South (tall, strong, blonde with blue/green eyes). We had expected darker, more “African” looking people, so were surprised to hear that the first black people came from Ghana only in 11th century, from Niger and Mali in 15th century and then later from Sudan.

En route from Rabat to Meknes, in the Rif Mountains, we stopped at Volubilis to see the Roman ruins from the 3rd century BC to AD 40. Archaeologists have uncovered what was a wonderous complex spanning hectares and hectares down a hillside and into the valley. As was convention, the town was surrounded by a stone wall and there were 6 gates allowing access and exit to the countryside beyond.

The complex was inhabited by some very rich Romans, counting 50 large houses of as much as 17-20,000 square feet each! Seems a bit excessive for families of 6-8 people, but they had decadent entertainment areas and tens of servants to contain within their compound.

The town shows how thoroughly Romanised then-Mauretania was from the public buildings and sophisticated townhouses. They were a relatively advanced civilisation with a sophisticated aquaduct system, central public watering stations, oil press, washing facilities and latrines (unisex), with all the usual indulgent mosaic floors, larger than large arches, fountains, swimming pools, columns and statues. It’s remarkable that the mosaics have lasted almost 1,000 years – and you can still clearly see all the artwork depicting Greek and Roman mythology, symbols and patterns.

Like all the open air sights we visited in Turkey the previous year, it was refreshing to be able to walk around these pieces of history freely – and to see that there is no graffiti or damage inflicted by disrespectful tourists.

Peckish from our walking and exploring (although not starving thanks to the brunch pitstop at the bakery with all its fresh delights) we were perfectly happy with the next item on the agenda: lunch at Palais Terrab in Maknes. Until we got there. It was yet another big crowded and rushed dining hall, where people were herded to tables to be forgotten, drinks took ages and food was served seemingly at the convenience of the busy harassed-looking waitrons.

A bread basket was already on the table, sans butter as is apparently the norm. Of course, Mother hunted some down and the flat loaf turned out to be very soft and tasty. Meanwhile, a salad platter was served; a big plate of beetroot, chickpeas, sweet carrots, cucumber, rice and olives. I added some chickpeas to my buttered bread and was OK with that.

The waiters had taken our tagine orders when we sat down and we’d opted to share a lemon chicken one but when, 45 minutes later, everyone else at the table had eaten theirs and ours still hadn’t arrived, our Saffa friends shared theirs with us and we turned ours away when it eventually came.

We were then served biscuits and mint tea (which the waiters serve with much showmanship, pouring from a teapot a full arm’s length above a tray of tea glasses). We’d been short-changed the Briwate though, which was the highlight I’d been waiting for (because they look like samoosas, which I adore!) all hour and a half we’d been stuck in the restaurant! They brought them and it was worth the wait – sweet mincemeat in deep-fried pastry (like a samoosa and also triangular), with castor sugar sprinkled on the outside. It was supposed to be a starter, but actually worked better as a dessert. Needless to say, after the shoddy service, they didn’t charge us for our meal either!

Back on the bus, we hit the road to Meknes, a traditional Moroccan medina (town enclosed by ramparts), protected by stretches of walls totaling 40km. We entered by one of the several elegant gates, the Bab el-Khemis or Thursday Gate, so named because this used to be the entrance to the weekly market. The Bab el-Berdaine is said to be the most magnificent, but Bab el-Khemis seems to do alright for itself judging by all the posers and photographers!

We were taken to the old stables, which were quite imposing with very high ceilings above rows and rows of arches. The horses were tied 2 a side to each of the arch pillars and it was designed in such a way that wherever you stood, you’d get a good vantage point down the aisles in front of you as well as the diagonals, making it easier to control such a big stableful.

Of course, all these horses must be fed and Meknes is close to the Middle Atlas mountains, so horses were very important for them. The Berber horse was favoured to Arabians as it is taller and so better suited to the terrain, but eats more as well. We toured the granary appended to the stable that housed all the grains and hay to feed that lot.

On our way out, we made a stop at the Bab Mansour gate, arguably the finest gate in Morocco (so we’re told). It was commissioned by Sultan Moulay Ismail in 1673 when building the kasbah, but he never got to see its completion (although his son made sure this happened). We got a quick photo of that magnificence and opted rather to spend our allotted 15 minutes doing a whip around the market directly opposite the gate.

The Place el-Hedime (Square of Ruins) links the medina and the kasbah and provides a congregation place for business, entertainment and socialising. It’s a noisy buzz of eastern music, shishas, cafes and peddlers selling their wares from stalls or displayed on mats in the square itself. We didn’t make it past the first stall and I ended up with 2 mini tagines for table condiments and Mother with a lovely leather wallet (not bad for R40 all in all!).

As unbelievable as it sounds, we had as yet only spent R250 between us since we left home – including shopping and bakery exploits! We were wondering how we would fare with the markets in Fes though! 😉

Travelogue Morocco 1: Casablanca – Rabat

CASABLANCA TO RABAT

19-21 April 2013

Given the success of our Girls Getaway to Turkey for Mother’s 60th the previous year, it seemed only fitting to test another exotic destination for this year’s birthday. Morocco was on both our lists and a very manageable week-long package serendipitously sealed the deal. Soon we were up, up and away to breakfast in Dubai, lunch over Italy and dinner in Casablanca!

While the flights and transits were smooth, our induction to Morocco started with a bit of a bumpy ride. It had been a long haul with 2 eight hour flights and then a wait at the airport while our group collected their luggage and communed. But a short taxi ride later and we were at our digs, Hotel Casablanca. What a joyously simple pleasure to have a shower, get fresh clothes on and brush teeth! Just enough to get us motivated to up and out to spend the rest of the afternoon exploring the city.

We sought a few opinions and placed the route option and landmarks to our intended destination before deciding to forego the trams and head down to the Mosque and beachfront on foot, down the main Avenue. Perhaps a poor choice as this led us to be at the traffic lights where a local on a moped veered up to us and ripped Mother’s gold chain from around her neck. 🙁

There was a policeman stationed across the intersection so we drew his attention and explained – slowly and repeatedly – what had happened. No mean feat with him only speaking Arabic and French and us speaking neither. He did summon some passing policemen on motorbikes (using his whistle) and they sped off in high speed pursuit of a suspect they couldn’t possibly have expected to find.

We found out the hard way that there are 2 types of police and we couldn’t just report the theft at the local police station but had to report to the tourist police office in order to make a formal statement (that we’d need for insurance). 3 hours later we had statement in hand, but no intention of commencing sight-seeing in the dark, so the police chauffeured us to the hotel. What the hotel staff must’ve thought when we arrived!

On a happier note, Mother informed me that our dinner was included in the package so we headed to the hotel restaurant to see what that entailed. It was a mystical experience seeing as we didn’t have a language in common with the waitress so there was no explanation of courses / options / processes.

First we were set up with a dinner plate with soup plate atop. Next came a big basket of wedges of French loaf. Then there was a wait. Not sure what to do next – since you normally either get served a plate of soup or get sent to fetch soup and plate at buffet – we did nothing. It turned out to be the right call as a steaming tureen of soup was delivered by the dumb waiter (the delivery shoot, not the one who didn’t speak English). We were served lovely creamy butternut soup. With no idea what was to come, we weren’t sure how much to have nor if we should fill up on bread or not!

We finished the soup, our plates were cleared, no further clues given and we just sat and waited. Minutes later we were served baked fish with thermidor sauce, a wedge of potato bake, gratinated veg and half of the smallest baked potato you’ve ever seen, done in foil and everything but served cold. It was a delicious meal, topped off with a lemon meringue style wedge but with a liquidy meringue not the peaks as we’re accustomed.

After a long sleep that outperformed refreshing all the way to invigorating, we were in good spirits and re-enthused to start our Moroccan adventure.

Breakfast was the predictable affair with a range of breads, cold meats, cheeses, eggs, olives and garnishes and we made short work of preparing delicious Vietnam-style baguette sandwiches. Vanilla yoghurt and orange juice to top it off and we were ready to hop on the bus for our tour – the Imperial tour of the palace towns of Morocco (Rabat, Fez and Meknes) starting in Casablanca and ending in Marrakesh.

But first to fetch the rest of our group – totalling 17 people including French, Canadian, Argentinian and Brazilian alongside us and another couple from Constantia Kloof – from their hotels, all of which seemed to be along the same main road, Avenue D’Enfa.

Casablanca isn’t what you’d expect – the cliche keyhole window frames and curly-swirly metalwork. From just the short journey to fetch the other tourists, the French influence in the city is apparent; wide avenues with manicured centre islands dotted with pretty antique-looking twin streetlights that look like they’d be better suited to paraffin lamps and horse-drawn carriages than to electric lights and this flow of traffic. All road names are in French; traffic signage in Arabic and French. But there is also the medina with small shops in narrow, winding streets. Such a stark contrast!

Anfa, the original name for the city, had modest beginnings in the 7th century as a small Berber settlement, with a cluster of white block houses (think Mykonos). The town held some interest as a port by the Portuguese in the 15th century and the Spanish in the 18th century, inheriting along with it the new name Casablanca, ie “white house” – or Dar el-Beida in Arabic. This first quarter still lives and breathes, just in front of Atlantic, with all the houses still white as they have always been.

In the 20th century, Casablanca became a French Protectorate (1912-1956) and it was with this inception that the 40 year town-planning project began, primarily modernising the port, expanding with highrise buildings and of course adding the tree-lined avenues and French gardens that still beautify the city today.

Fez was originally the capital of Morocco, which was then transferred to Rabat in 1920, wanting to make a port but the sea wasn’t deep enough. So, with such burgeoning prospects, Casablanca became the capital and the economic commercial centre, with town revolving around the Place de Nations Unies – which until 1920 was still only a market place with snake-charmers, and now is arcades of brasserie terraces looked on by art-deco apartment blocks with wrought-iron balconies and carved stucco – and Mohammed V Square, the administrative heart of Casablanca. Where Casablanca in 1920 was no more than a few thousand inhabitants living in the old medina, the city now houses 6 million people, accounts for 75% of trade and uses 51% of energy in the country.

Arab’s League Park (Casablanca’s “green lung”) makes up for lack of parks in town planning and new factories are built outside of the city because it suffers from bad pollution because of lack of greenery. They seem to have made up for the lack of parks with trees lining most streets (very uniformly all in neat boxes), with flower boxes wherever possible, even lining the tram lines. This suits my overactive sense of symmetry perfectly and I think it looks wonderful!

We will also be on the look-out for the Argan tree, which we are told is native to Morocco (also known as the “goat tree” because goats climb it to eat the fruit) and used for its oils as constituent in many and varied products.

Our first alight from the bus was to visit the Old Quarter, where we were shown the Roman influence, with no windows facing the road in favour of opening to central courtyards, and the Spanish influence adorning the archways.

Then it was to the first of the 2 palaces restored by King Hassan II, son of King Mohammed V. This is the residence where the King stays when he is in town (he lives in Rabat) and it’s a proper old school regal Palace, complete with imposing high walls, mammoth doors in cedar covered in bronze with alabaster adornments either side. According to Muslim dictate, there are no animals or people in the decorations, just Qu’ran verses. The artworks and artisans come from Fez, known to be best for these.

By stark contrast, the next stop on the agenda was the central market. We were pre-warned that this was market as in fruit and veg, not as in goods and keepsakes (which is our preference and goes by the name “souk”). It was a ripe affair, with altogether too many strong smells competing in a crowded and noisy place, featuring an open fish market and skinned animals strung from their feet – among other noxious delicacies.

Still, Mother (ever the dedicated and talented shopper) found something to buy and she was very chuffed with finding a small rattan weave basket with leather base and zip top section among the otherwise very ordinary wares at the basket seller stall, which would function very nicely as an unusual handbag.

Out of there and back on the bus, we were transferred to the Mosque of Hassan II, which we hadn’t gotten to the previous evening. The 2nd biggest religious building in the world, after the mosque in Mecca, it covers 9 hectares, 2/3 of which is built over the sea, and has the highest minoret in the world at 210m (taking 1,000 workers 7 years to build, 24/7), with 2 laser beams shining (over 30km) toward Mecca. There is capacity in the covered area for 25,000 people and in the open area for 80,000 people! It has a fixed roof over some sections and over another a retractable roof that can be opened in 3 minutes. It is the only mosque that’s open to non-Muslims. The whole complex is really impressive, accentuated by the beautiful ocean backdrop.

Done with ooo’ing and aaah’ing at the architecture, we used the last half hour to hunt for the famous Amood Bakery. Across the road from the mosque is a collection of official-looking buildings, all with the greenest grass and prettiest bright and colourful pavement gardens and islands. But, straight after that the buildings revert to shabby, once-white flat roof blocks with a smattering of cafes. We’d tried to venture into one, but it was a bit awkward with a male-only clientele who gawked at us. The cafes were all about the coffee and nothing about the baked goods, so not what we were after anyway.

No mind, we persevered a few blocks, taking some detours as would-be hosts lured us into their stores despite our clear instructions warning we weren’t looking for lunch. Down a side-road to a kebab shop, through a pizzeria, round past a tagine takeaway and we broke free and found exactly what we were looking for – a tucked away simple patisserie!

We bought a cream-filled, chocolate covered croissant to share along with an OJ and a custard slice to take back to share with our Saffa friends (who’d said they had the best slice ever the evening before). The croissant was so good that we went back into the bakery and topped up with 2 chocolate brownies (1 with nuts and 1 without). The whole bakery shopping trip had cost less than R20!

Leaving the mosque, we took a scenic beach road drive to where we were due to lunch. We passed Anfa – a residential area with wide palm-treed avenues, mansion homes, terraces and pool decks that made it feel like Beverly Hills!

The theme continued to the beachfront promenade where the bus stopped. The Boulevard de la Corniche looks like the Miami beach scenes from shows like Dexter, wide pavements with tall palm trees, lots of pavement cafes and white buildings headered with bold neon names. But that’s where the comparisons end. The frequenters look (and dress) very differently.

We’d taken a wander up the promenade to assess what there was to see and do, wanting to make the most of our lunch break. When we realised that there was little else to the area besides eateries and hotels, we were able to fulfil a desire created earlier in the day when we’d been told of the McDonald’s McFondue burger. We cleverly shared one (a cheese burger housed in a square ciabatta drenched in fondue-style cheese) with ranch style wedge chips and Croquette Fromage (cheesy chilli bites). Very yum!

Done with lunch, we walked up the other side of the promenade, past the private beach clubs on the sea side and more cafes and restaurants on the left. It was funny to see more “La vache qui ri” signage marking vendors than the Coca-Cola signs that brand the rest of the world!

It was soon the end of the lunch break and we headed back to the bus for the short hop to Rabat.

“Facing the Atlantic Ocean, Rabat is an attractive city of domes and minarets, sweeping terraces, wide avenues and green spaces. It is markedly more pleasant than some other Moroccan cities and is also undergoing fundamental change”.

Rabat is the political and administrative capital of Morocco, has the biggest university and is 2nd biggest city in the country after Casablanca. It is across the Wadi Bou Regreg (river) from its ancient rival, Sale, a city so named because the Romans used to make salt from its waters.

We entered the city through the Old City walls, which were built in the 12th century… Although most of the architecture immediately on the inside is from 1920s.

Down Hassan 5th Avenue past the red Parliament buildings to the Royal Palace. Built by same King who built Palace in Casablanca. Quite an impressive regal affair with a long, wide driveway with evenly placed trees, with topiarised trees cut square in line with the edge of the pavement to give the impression of a floating hedge.

The Residential section of the Palace is protected by Royal Guard, Police, Army and Gendarme. They’re a bit more casual than elsewhere, with a few leaning on posts and all unperturbed at our picture taking (which is expressly forbidden by other palace guards). The Palace doesn’t look as you’d expect. Not fort-like and Arabian. More like a casino that’s big and impressive but loosely themed, mostly cream walls with green accents with the odd keyhole door and mosaic stucco for effect. Lots more terraced gardens, rows of trees, pretty flower borders (we’ve decided they’re Geraniums) and waterless fountains.

Done with current royals, we headed to the Mausoleum of Mohammed V, built on the ruins of the unfinished mosque from the 18th century. The mosque was being built when in 1755 the Earthquake of Lisbon hit, toppling the columns that had been erected and only leaving the incomplete minoret standing (at 40m when it was planned to be 80). It was never rebuilt because Rabat was no longer the capital.

As part of the Mausoleum build, the area was cleared and columns rebuilt using the original stones that were part of the still-remaining debris. The square was paved with big stone tiles and serves as an outdoor overflow for the mosque next to the mausoleum. The whole complex features the river and view of Sale on the one side and the remaining ruins of the original wall on the other, which have been gated and serve to secure the area.

Next we were off the rock the Kasbah of Rabat. More aligned with our expectations, the entrance is a grand red sand walled fort, multiple stories with an imposing arch entrance.

Once inside the Kasbah it starts with quaint narrow cobbled roads with tiny closet-like shops behind traditional arches and wooden doors, peddling curios, leather goods and ceramics. Further down the road, we veered off into a labyrinth of windy up-and-down cobbled pathways, little more than a metre wide in most places, walls all white and blue with little wooden doorways dotted here and there, sometimes up a few stairs or recessed into a corner. Apparently people live here. Not sure where they shop, where they park their cars or how they get their groceries back and forth… But it is awesome!

After a brief issue over re-grouping, our guide managed to herd us all back to the bus to drop us at the relevant hotel. Ours is called the Rihab, which inspired it as the punchline in whether or not we wanted to go there. After a long day, though, it was “yes, yes, yes” and it was good to call it a day and have some downtime.

Travelogue: Wilderness Roadtrip 2013

WILDERNESS ROADTRIP

06 – 12 Feb 2013

It’s amazing how – no matter how well (or poorly) you plan – all sorts of things crops up just before you’re due to take some “Out of Office” time.

In this case, it started with the delightful news that my school chum, Lixi (Alex Scott), was coming out to SA to see her folks, who were due to be extended holidaying in Wilderness (on the Garden Route). The idea was that she’d come out for some family time, I’d join her at the folks’ and then we’d do a bit of a roadtrip (in either direction, being so well positioned) and then head back up to Jo’burg in time for my birthday and the traditional hooray of celebrations that generally accompany.

Plans got hatched and sub-plans attached – come down on the Friday since Christian was keen to come with to Wilderness based on the lovely time we’d had last year, but could only make a weekend of it because of work commitments. This left Lix and I keen on roadtripping for the week and possibly hooking up with Leek in Hermanus (her dad lives there and is overdue a visit by her), extra relevant since it was Leek who introduced Lix and I all those decades ago, making for our own little coming of age roadtrip on the 21st anniversary of our friendship! Ending off with a weekend in Cape Town to hook up with more long-losties.

But these notions devolved as all sorts of other opportunities and commitments presented themselves on the home front, including Barry announcing that he was coming to SA for a few weeks (well, Emma announced on Barry’s behalf, but same difference). The trip happened to overlap with previously mentioned plan – but there proved to be no hope in getting any idea of the overlapping itinerary from the flurry on Barry’s side to see what that meant in terms of availabilities and implications on our trip plans.

Opting for ‘rather safe than sorry’ (and Kulula pricing sweetspots) the final itinerary developed, being coming down earlier and leaving earlier so as to fit everything in. So, I jumped in and booked my tickets for the afternoon of Wednesday 6 Feb down to George and back home again on the evening of Tuesday the 12th, confident that I’d only be missing one day of office time (a custom more than a commitment) and pleased that I’d managed to juggle all the balls to make the most of all the faces from far. (Especially seeing as the Kulula January sale hit and Alex got a plum flight up to Jo’burg on Friday the 15th, so would get in more QT with the parentals but, more importantly, have a whole week in Jo’burg with me!)

No sooner was the proverbial ink dry than I was presented with the opportunity to spend time at the office daily working on the sales pipeline while Marco was to be off on his next adventure (www.emptyquarter.co.za). I happily took on the commitment, always enjoying my time at Eurocom and pleased for the additional work… and was now thankful for my now-strategically minimised away time – marvelling at how things have a way of working themselves out!

The month between planning and travelling flew! And so did I! Flew to the office at sparrows, flew through a crazy To Do list, flew through a lovely Alfredo (thanks to Luciano, Eurocom’s amazing chef), flew to the airport, slooowed down on the shuttle between long-term parking and the terminal, flew through a proposal at the Slow Lounge, flew to the boarding gate… And then finally flew to George.

Worried that somehow over the 2,5 years since our last reunion (Venice, August 2010) Alex would have become unrecognisable to me and there’d be an awkward moment at the airport where I’d be feverishly oscillating like a lawn sprinkler looking for her when she was right in front of me, I was relieved when I spotted her from the moment I walked through into Arrivals – and there was much Woo Girling (without the literal “woo”ing) as we giggled noisily and hugged our hello’s.

Alex’s stepmum, Clare, had been kind enough to drive to fetch me and she bustled off – ostensibly an act of efficiency to find the parking pay machines, but likely a good dose of wanting to distance herself from us, already engrossed in monkey-chatter of catch-ups!

Stories flew thick and fast on the drive and we were soon pulling into the driveway of the charming beach-house that they’d rented for the duration of their 6 week holiday. Literally right on the beach, with a wide covered balcony all along the length of the front (overlooking the sand and sea) and I had been allocated a lovely cottage suite, separate from the house.

By 17h30 I was settled in (ie had dumped my bag in the cottage) and we were all comfortably seated around the patio suite on the balcony, sundowners in hand (perhaps premature since the sun only sets around 19h30, but can one ever really be too prepared when it comes to such vital matters?). Clare had pre-prepped a roast dinner and while this was in the oven, we took a wander down the beach to have a looksee at a house of interest that had been dubbed The Hacienda for its Spanishy Mexicany architecture – quite distinctive among the patchwork of largely unremarkable houses around it (most are old boxy houses with bric-a-brac extensions, bar the monster modern Big Box house neighbour overshadowing the Hacienda, apparently owned by the famed Sassoon family).

En return from our mini-inquisition, we had a lovely dinner of roast chicken and sweet potatoes, creamed spinach and green peas (for some). Really delicious – and amazingly we ate in relatively broad daylight even though it must’ve been 20h30 by then. We chatted and laughed and a great time was had by all.

The parentals went to bed early, leaving Lix and I to our own more detailed catch-up, talking about then and now and everything in between… Until it was time to call it a night and I curled up in my cottage, under the fluffy down duvet to read a single digit number of pages by the sidelight until it was officially end of play for the day.

THURSDAY – WILDERNESS

Waking on Thursday morning, all thoughts of the previously discussed morning run were thwarted by (over-)sleep… But replaced by a well-timed breakfast instead (fruit for Lix, toasted cheese for me).

I had some work crises to attend to, so we based ourselves on the patio, me on the phone-then-laptop-then-phone trying to get what needed doing done as quickly as possible. As always, it requires setting a series of balls in motion, then patiently waiting for the balls to return to be juggled into orderly place. We used this wait time to walk into the village and suss out free wi-fi options.

Luckily, Pomodoro’s (our first choice based on Christian and my great experience last year) had free wi-fi and a marvellous terrace table became my new office. Double-bonus was that the work stuff didn’t start again until we’d ordered, and I was able to do the majority of what I had to do while we waited for our pizza, while Lix graciously busied herself with stuff on her phone and let me work.

It was all worthwhile! Clearly the karma from my difficult but responsible day must be the reason for such an awesome pizza! Honey-glazed chicken with mushrooms and onions, smothered in melted cheese on a wafer-thin base (and a layer of garlic and fresh chilli that I smeared on the moment it arrived). Delicious!

In between things at lunch, I’d booked us a car because we’d decided to drive to Hermanus to stay with friends. I’d bumped into the Kennedys last week and Lizzie had told me that she was off with her cousin Josie to Hermanus to clear out Nic’s late father’s home. I’d suggested we might roadtrip and she’d been quite excited about it. I had mentioned it to Alex on the evening I arrived and she was keen so I set those balls in motion over Whatsapp and presto! We had a plan!

Well, sort of…

We’d thought we’d get a car on Friday morning and drive to Hermanus (360km), spend the night and the meander back all day Saturday. Clare was the voice of reason, saying (on Thursday morning when we were bedding down our plans) that if we’re paying for the car for 2 days, we might as well use it the full duration – so why not collect the car on Thursday afternoon instead? Genius!

So, I booked the car (using Pomodoro’s free wi-fi) through Avis using my eBucks and we were set to collect at 15h30 – leaving just enough time to walk home, pack bags and get Clare to drive us to the airport depot to collect our car.

When I was signing for the car, we realised that while the car hire was paid for, there was only a 400km mileage allowance, which wasn’t going to get us very far with a minimum of 360km each way! And at R2,10 a km it was going to prove extortionate!

The Avis people were prepared to cancel the eBucks deal and create a new one with 800km mileage for R1,300. A quick survey of the competitors (all based in the same depot) endeared Thrifty Dollar hire to us since – although they could only (self-admittedly, repeatedly) deliver “a really big car” – they operate on unlimited mileage. Ergo, our “really big car” (which turned out to be a really comfy, not as big as you think Nissan Lumina) was all the mileage we could drive for a bargain R623 for the 2 days! We were quite smug to return to the Avis desk and say “no thanks”… And get all the paperwork needed for me to get refunds on the payments and deposits already taken off my card. Groan.

Paperwork notwithstanding, we were still quite giddy when we were (finally) on our way to Hermanus, in our really big Lumina. Lix had shopped for supplies at the airport Sweets From Heaven, so we could just bullet straight through on the N2, virtually door-to-door, with chewies and boiled sweets keeping us perky in between long stories and witty one-liners.

The road was really easy, the view consistently spectacular (sea, then fields, then mountains. Wash, rinse, repeat). Before long, we were at Lizzie’s complex doorstop – quite surprised that the seemingly vague directions were spot-on and crystal clear in context.

From the gate we could see that Hemel en Aarde (a cluster complex) is gorgeous and new with palatial houses and manicured lawns and common areas – and it seemed fitting when Lizzie came bounding up to the car in a bright purple party dress!

She was quick to explain that the garage sale she’d planned for her father-in-law’s extraneous belongings had been vetoed by the body corporate and so she’d had to amend her plans into an upmarket “Lounge Sale”. All became clearer when we got to the house and saw all the neat nuggets of items laid out around the lounge…

We’d taken some wine with us (a couple of bottles of red), so we cracked the seal on the first and had a good yarb with our very hospitable hosts about the what, when and how had brought each group to this point and what, when and how we planned to spend the next 2 days. Lizzie had already booked us a tuktuk to take us to Gecko (a bar and restaurant at the New Harbour) at 20h30, so that was to be our first excursion. Luckily, we’d made good time and arrived just after 19h30, so there was time for (the tail end of) sundowners before a shower, change and out the door.

We walked to the gate of the complex to meet the tuktuk as planned, only to find that it had been and gone, deciding to arrive at 20h15 and leaving when we weren’t there in 10 minutes (seeing as this was clearly still 5 minutes before our agreed meet time!). Lizzie did some backing and forthing and at last the tuktuk arrived for its return journey to pick us up.

The commute was quite an adventure in itself – a double cab tuktuk, with 2 rows parallel forward-facing in the back, with full canvas enclosure and plastic zip windows to protect from the elements. Quite a laugh, although it meant (good or bad) that we didn’t have a great view of the township we passed through to get from home to destination!

Gecko is a comfortable enough establishment. In the door to a bar / smoking area, then downstairs for the non-smoking round tables and built-in cushioned banquettes around the perimeter, then outside wooden bench tables for a view of the waters. We arrived geared though for the live music they’re supposedly known for, but were greeted with the barman/laptop DJ combo.

With no entertainment to place for, we opted to sit at the outside bench tables. Service wasn’t easy with no waiters and a single barman, so we split up bar runs periodically to order food and drinks. We solved the service problem soon enough by getting an ice bucket of beers, but didn’t hold high hope for the food… until it arrived. Lizzie and Josie had ordered pizza, which looked good enough, but Alex and I’d (adventurously) ordered Thai… and I got the most tasty beef and oyster sauce (with noodles) and her the most amazing red curry (with rice). What a delightful surprise!!

We finished our food and retired to the bar since the downstairs area was quite quiet and anti-social sans the live music we’d expected (apparently only Friday to Sunday off-season and we were there Thursday), while the bar was buzzing. What a pity Gecko hadn’t commissioned our very talented host, Josie, who is a well-known songstrel and would have been quite a coup for this little nightspot in a sleepy town! Nonetheless, we intermingled with the manager and locals, had a great time of the rest of our evening and all too soon it was time to go home.

Deposited on our doorstep, we had a (great-night-fuelled) giggle about some of the Lounge Sale items and I found a few very targeted gifts for key people, as well as a recipe book entitled “Fun with Mince” for myself! Josie and I had a good laugh at a 2002 Fairlady magazine while we sipped on our nightcaps… and then it was off to bed.

FRIDAY – HERMANUS

Having enjoyed a languished sleep-in (while Lizzie and Josie dealt with the various charity benefactors who they’d arranged to come and collect the last of the Sale items), I was further treated to a 5* star breakfast, ready when I surfaced from my upstairs lair. They’d prepared fried eggs, tomato, toast and smoked haddock with mushrooms and herbs – perfect with a smattering of the homemade garlic and chilli relish they served it with.

While Lizzie and Josie had opted to stay at the house for the day (exhausted from their week of clearing out), they were very helpful with a list of places to go and things to see, that set Lixi and I off on a very merry day of sight-seeing.

We started with Old Harbour (which took a trip to the end of town and a U-turn to find) and wandered up and down the shopping district, popping our heads in at shops of interest – and my derriere in at the hammock shop!

We stopped at the looking point, but didn’t see any whales (hardly surprising since we’re either 5 months late or 4 months early for season, depending how you look at it!), but we did buy Lix the lesser-spotted Red Velvet Cake (which she’d never had, but heard so much about) after stopping in at Coco’s for a gander through the ‘open window’ (which wasn’t actually open, but rather an enormous bay window).

We then moved from Old Harbour to New Harbour to hunt down the fish shop that Lizzie had recommended for lunch as the freshest fish in town. We found it! Quayside Cabin. No airs and graces, literally in a shipping container, with just a bench table outside. Our interest was piqued. We ordered a hake, calamari and chips combo to share. Good thing too – it was ENORMOUS! But delicious. Crispy batter, white flaky fish, golden chips, lemon wedges. Perfect!

Fed and happy, we returned to the house to see what the gals had been up to. They’d been napping, swimming at the clubhouse and were in the process of showering and preparing for the evening. A slap-up dinner. Soon. Very soon after our fish ‘n chips!

We booked at Lemon Butta, on the advice of our neighbours (who have a standing weekly reservation there, so we know their recommendation is sincere) and had a sundowner while catching up on our respective days.

We headed out and had pre-drinks at Coco’s (on Lix and my recommendation since we’d found out earlier that they have live music in the evenings… and anything to prolong eating again too soon!). Lizzie and Josie ordered nachos though – and who can resist?! Good company, drinks and snacks later, we were headed to Lemon Butta, which turned out to be just next door, for yet more food!

It was a lovely long and leisurely dinner and Lix and I shared a 24 piece sushi platter of tuna handrolls, salmon sashimi, salmon roses, a salmon and avo maki roll and a prawn California roll cut into slices topped with tempura prawns. Lix had oysters to start, taking her total to 7 different types of seafood in one day! I’ve finally made friends with sushi, outgrowing my aversion to the sludginess of the rice and the seaweed and learning to press the avo out with the back of a chopstick. I’m still not the world’s biggest fan, but I see a future for us at least.

We rolled home and into bed. A long but tasty day indeed!

SATURDAY – MOSSEL BAY

On Saturday, our leaving day, Lix and I cooked breakfast to return the favour (while Lizzie and Josie packed up their stuff). Toast with bacon and scrambled eggs with diced tomatoes, shredded broccoli and cheese. Good solid meal to get us on our way – and we were all ready for our departure, as planned, just before 11 to drop Lizzie and Josie off at their car hire place (the dastardly Avis) in time to collect their rental they intended to drive to Cape Town to catch their flight home.

We waved our goodbyes and soon we were on our way to our trusty N2 for the drive home.

We’d intended a bit of a meander on the way back, stopping in here and there for shopping, seafront adventure and lunch, but the weather was foul so we just headed in the direction of home. We did take a slight detour through Mossel Bay though, to buy biltong and take some snaps from the look-out point.

We managed to get the car back to the airport by more or less the required time, but found our dutifulness to be completely unnecessary seeing as the airport was entirely deserted and there was only a solitary rep at the car depot, who told us to just throw our car key into the car hire office – through the mesh and onto the floor.

The parentals had started partying early so weren’t fit for driving to fetch us as pre-planned, so they instructed us to catch a taxi home. Easier said than done in a deserted airport in the rain, but we managed… and were soon on our way home in the world’s oldest taxi (643,812km on the clock when we got in!) with a very sweet old local chap with awful music taste.

We arrived home to much joviality. The folks had friends (Vivienne and Ulrich) over to visit and they were all in fine fettle! We shared stories of our roadtripping and adventures and were filled in on everything we’d missed (quite a bit bearing in mind we’d only essentially been gone one full day!).

With champagne and wine flowing, we enjoyed a spirited dinner – roasted chicken and sweet potatoes, which had been intended for a braai, but had to be oven-cooked thanks to the threat of inclement weather (the harder rains hadn’t seemed to find their way all the way to Wilderness yet though).

The visitors left early and we settled in for the evening – me on the balcony engaged in a long and winding conversation with John, and Lix in the lounge watching Black Swan with Clare. It was only Saturday, 3 nights into the vacation, but the ‘holiday within holiday’ made it seem like I’d been away for much longer!

SUNDAY – WILDERNESS

Sunday was a moochy day, thanks to the festivities of the night before. We slept in, so that we were vaguely perky on surfacing – a slow process helped infinitely by reheated pizza leftovers and low impact movies. The weather was still grey and bleary so we resigned ourselves to a day on the couch with comfort food and headed off to the village to shop for spag bol ingredients.

Of course, the sun came out while we were walking to the village (a short trot on Sands Road past a dear little café in the building that previously housed the railway station, across the railway tracks, through the tunnel under the highway), so we changed all our plans and opted rather to scout for a dinner spot for that evening and to get hotdog supplies from Spar for lunch.

Despite the numerous options in town, we decided that we’d like to take the folks to Pomodoro’s, which we’d enjoyed so much. We slothed an afternoon of leisure – on the sun loungers, walk along the beach, more patio time – and drove into town (Lix’s dad’s not one for walking) for an early dinner. Pomodoro’s did not disappoint and we had quite varied, but all delectable, meals. Re-energised from our great meal, we confirmed that we three girls would head to Knysna for a window shopping expedition on Monday, so we retired to the 8pm Mnet premiere and got in an early night in anticipation of the next day’s mini-roadtrip.

MONDAY – WILDERNESS

With a plan in mind and good night’s sleep behind us, we rose with a spring in our step on Monday morning and headed out to the beach for a morning jog. Probably a kilometre and a half or so, just to the end of the cove and back again. Just enough to kickstart the appetite, serendipitously combined with Clare’s request that there was bacon that needed eating. Lix had her usual fruit and yoghurt and I made the world best’s sourdough toast with 4 rashers of bacon and white cheese (microwaved for 10 seconds to melt it to gooey). YUM!

Well-fuelled, we headed out for our trip to Kynsna, Such a pretty drive along the coast and through the hilly treed sections!

We started off with a trawl around Thessen Island, but it was very quiet and dreary, so didn’t hold our interest and we thought we’d try our luck at the Kynsna Waterfront. While a little better, it still didn’t captivate for long, being a very small mall of mostly restaurants and cafés, so we were soon off to Kynsna central to have a gawk around the Mall. We wandered around for an hour, achieving little bar some grocery shopping… and an appetite for lunch.

We drove around to the Knysna Heads and had a ridiculously good meal at East Head Café, overlooking the waters’ entrance to the bay in a really pretty terrace setting. Alex and I prequelled with milkshakes, which turned out to be enormous and likely not the best strategic bet seeing as we had a mound of fish, calamari and home-style chips on its way! Still… we found space for most of it, but sadly not for a wedge of any of the mouth-watering options we’d seen the waitress serving around us – multi-layered moist chocolate with sticky rich icing; cloud mountains of meringue atop sunny yellow lemon curd and crumbly biscuit. Way too ambitious on top of our battered bellyful!

Our big lunch was definitely a good preamble to our beach amble though, and we enjoyed yet another long sunset walk on the beach. Have become quite a cliché actually with this whole “loves sunsets and long walks on the beach” thing!

Lix’s folks were expecting visitors coming to stay, so I’d moved in to bunk with Lix on our last night. Since the guests were expected later in the evening, we did back-up with Clare on the wait (John having retired just after dinner). Time very easily passes, sitting on the patio, sipping red wine and having a good chat with excellent conversationalists… and soon Jill and Nigel had arrived – and there was the renewed excitement that comes with new faces and places.

Jill and Nigel were the Scott’s friends from Turkey and it was their first visit to South Africa. Bravely, they’d opted to land in Cape Town and roadtrip the last section. Alex and I were of course well versed in the ease of the N2, but it’s a bold option to take blind.

TUESDAY – GEORGE

Tuesday, being my leaving day, was far from the usual ‘pack up and go’ day. We started off with a hike along the railway track (and up koppies, through tunnels and over bridges) to get to Victoria Bay. John drove around, while we were dipping in the sea and scoping out the single row of holiday homes and darling café. We lunched at the only eatery, which provided yet another winner calamari and chips. The others seemed to enjoy their meals as well, so luckily the only choice of restaurant also made for a good one.

It was a bit sad to drive home, knowing that there was little time left and soon I’d be making tracks back to the big smoke, but we made the best of it with a dip in the sea and a laze on the sands, before having to shower and change and pack the car.

Clare was kind enough to make yet another airport run to get me timeously to George to catch my plane home and that was it, my beWilderness break was done and dusted.

Travelogue ISC 7: Sri Lanka

SRI LANKA

23 – 27 November 2012

We had a bit of an up and down start to the Sri Lankan leg of the holiday. We’d opted to forfeit the last night of the organised Golden Triangle tour in India so that we could make the most of the limited time we had in Sri Lanka. The flight we’d booked was 18h50, due to land at 22h20, which brought us into Colombo late, but meant we’d have a full day on the Saturday rather than wasting it on more transfers and waiting around in airports.

The flight left 10 minutes early, which was good; but hovered on the runway when we arrived so we ended up only disembarking the plane just before 11, which was bad.

It was raining, which wasn’t great; but the currency was half the price of the Indian Rupee and we easily arranged a taxi transfer to our hotel, which was good. It was *very* humid in Colombo, which was bad; but our taxi had aircon, which was good. The taxi fare was arranged in advance and a bargain at the price, which was good; but the driver couldn’t find our hotel, so we ended up driving around and around until 00h30, which wasn’t fun.

It was not the taxi driver’s fault though. Their numbering system is up the pole. Our hotel was number 103/12 Dharmapala Mawatha, which had no road frontage – it just went 101A, 101B… Big bank with no number. We drove up and down, went around the block stopped a few wandering locals to ask them… And then eventually lucked out with a stab in the dark, driving down a narrow alley at the far side of the big banking complex… Which revealed all the 103/extensions! It was so narrow and windy that we’re not sure how the poor driver got out of there but we tipped him well for his troubles and – short of having to apologise profusely to number 103/11 whose bell we mistakenly rang the first time – were done with the challenges for the night.

Or so we thought. The room we were allocated wasn’t the room we booked. We got a very spartan back room with twin singles on either wall, with thin foam mattresses and a single top sheet draped at the foot to be used for cover. Worse than that – no en suite! Far too late for debate though (I started the discussion with the landlord but was soon lost in translation) and seemed pointless to argue seeing as we were straight to be and up and out early anyway.

We placed an order for our breakfast (cheese and ham toasties, with coffee for Christian) and called it a (very long) day.

SATURDAY

Saturday morning we awoke to no rain, bright skies, but a few menacing clouds on the horizon so we decided that, rather than tempt fate and end up doing Colombo sight-seeing in the rain, we’d go straight to Galle.

We were staying in Unawatuna Beach, said to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world preserved by its coral reefs, and the prospect of a lazy lounger day and lingering sundowners trumped hot and sticky Colombo from the moment the possibility was brought to discussion!

We grabbed a taxi down to Maharagara, to the terminus where the busses leave for Galle. We’d initially planned on taking the train from Fort (Colombo) to Fort (Galle), but this was a 3 and some change hour ride, so the express bus on the Southern Expressway being less than an hour and a half held much appeal. The hotelier warned that this express comes at a premium and is twice as expensive as the normal train or intercity bus, but at 940 Sri Lankan Rupees for both of us (R70), we sucked it up!

Our hearts sank when we got to the ‘terminus’, which was little more than a tarmac clearing with a long snaking queue of people waiting, but it worked out swimmingly since the bus arrived as we joined the back of the queue and – unbelievably – we got literally the last 2 seats on that bus! Enormously good signs!

Turns out the earlier-than-planned departure to Unawatuna was the right thing to do. An easy bus ride, greeted at the Galle end by a jovial and enthusiastic taxi driver who gave us a new appreciation for living with his Knieval driving style and, best of all, we beat the weather at its own game. Galle and Unawatuna were both sunny skies and nowhere near as humid.

We checked in at Surfcity Guesthouse and were pleased to see that the ‘hit and miss’ relatively blind online booking process had dealt us a winner. Down a single lane road parallel to the beach, the triple story hotel had us booked in a simple, but clean and ample room on the middle floor, facing directly over their restaurant and bar (across the road) with a lovely view of the ocean.

The ocean was gorgeous, with dark blue on the horizon, mottling blue and green over the coral reef, lightening to turquoise near the shore and then dramatically changing to a light aquamarine in the last few metres before the white foamy section climbs the sand toward us.

Of course there was science to the miraculous effect since there wasn’t much shallow end to this big pool and clearly as soon as it gets deep, so does the colour deepen. It was quite rough (especially after the tranquility of our Goan experience), but the unpredictability of the incoming swells and the strength of the undercurrent were the fun side of challenging and we had some good giggles at having our feet pulled out from under us! … And better fun watching other people floundering about the place!

We lunched at a spot called The Rock, drawn in by the plaque at the entrance that commemorates their reopening after being devastated by the 2004 tsunami from the earthquake measuring 9 on the Richter scale. A good story was enough to draw us in and we enjoyed our fresh seafood metres away from the waterline. The food was really good – fried tuna and deepfried calamari rings (even though we’d ordered grilled, they clearly knew better), and I even ate the salad that was served alongside! It was unusual – shredded cabbage, grated carrot, slivers of cucumber, diced spring onions and wedges of pineapple. I haven’t eaten that much raw food on one plate since I last ordered carpaccio!

We wiled away the afternoon on loungers outside our hotel’s beachfront restaurant. Dipping and dunking in the sea periodically and entertaining ourselves watching the beach dogs and kittens.

At sunset we showered and changed and checked out the high street, which really doesn’t have anything to offer (including no ATM, we found out we have to catch a tuktuk to Galle to draw money!) so we retired back to our stretch of paradise for sundowners.

Unawatuna is a 2 km long bay with bars and restaurants side by side most of the way around, with a skinny walkway of sand between where the loungers end and the sea actively begins. It was not crowded or built-up though. The restaurants are all wooden and charming and there was a single row of loungers so it was not cramped like Patong Beach the previous year. It was great to sit at The Peacock with a lowered table with short-legged patio furniture for sundowners. We were inches above the sand and every so often a goliath wave would make it as far as lapping to our feet.

We’d picked a good spot so we ended up ordering dinner there as well. Noodles and pizza for a change of pace, but both with prawns and shrimp to keep the seaside authenticity. We’d had a bevvy of beach pets around us all day, but it was only our black and ginger patched kitten that begged for food, wailing as each forkful went into our mouths. She got a small cube of chicken, a shrimp, a piece of pizza crust and a faceful of pizza crumbs for her efforts and seemed quite pleased with herself (before strutting off to her next feeders).

SUNDAY

We arranged first thing in the morning for a tuktuk to come and collect us to take us to Galle at 11am. Our mission twofold, see the sights and find an ATM. While there’s no shortage of tuktuk drivers begging our custom, it was just easier to pre-negotiate and firm a fixed time with our concierge.

Plans in place we hoofed it to ‘town’ in search of a light breakfast (bananas and drinking yoghurt the Plan A from experience in Eastern Europe), but found no such things at the nearby supermarket, so we returned to our stretch of beach and had a cheese and egg roti (spelt ‘rotty’ here) instead.

It was delicious! A big thin roti with eggs and cheese smeared on top and folded as it cooked so the final product was a sideplate-sized square parcel with a few layers of roti, egg and cheese. Very light, very yum.

We rewarded our great choice with a lounge on the restaurant’s loungers and a dip in the sea before heading back to shower and ready for our excursion.

The day was a scorcher. By the time we’d walked down the stairs and got into the tuktuk, we were drenched from sweat and very grateful for the breeze the puttering tuktuk created on movement. Our driver spoke good English and so we’d negotiated a full city tour on top of the return trip for an extra 200 Roupees (R14). He told us that Galle is 6km from Unawatuna and we’d be seeing the fort, visiting a spice shop and a jewellery factory and stopping for lunch.

First was the Fort, which you can drive into and comprises an entire walled old city taking up the full bulbous peninsular south of the cricket grounds. The fort was 620 years old and was built by the Dutch. They did a good job and the fort wasn’t damaged in the 2004 tsunami; in fact, the high thick walls meant that the water didn’t even get in the fort at all, chanelled around either side and wiping out the new city inland.

We saw the famous clock tower and lighthouse, took some photos of the cricket ground (apparently funded by Shane Warne), saw the underground dungeon jails and the pits where prisoners were kept, got gawked at by locals (there was a school on tour) and warned against entering the area still operational by local army. It was a really quick tour that we probably could have managed on our own, but it was nice to have the tuktuk at our disposal to be able to drive us up and down the narrow streets so we could see some of the ‘antique houses’ that are now mostly government buildings, hotels or holiday houses owned by rich overseas people (mostly Germans, we were told).

Next was the jewellery shop, with the same schpiel and false warmth. Still, we enjoyed their aircon and the 3 ice cold Cokes they gave us (saying Christian was too big for just one buddy bottle).

We asked our driver to take us to the market, but were underwhelmed with the merchandise. We visited a spice store, which held the most promise but left empty-handed.

Last stop was lunch. We’d asked the driver to take us to a local spot that served a decent Sri Lankan signature curry and rice, and ended up in a backroom cafe, with a generous handful of locals pouring over very interesting looking plates. We ordered 1 fish (tuna) and 1 chicken curry and waited to see what we’d be given. We ended up with an enormous bowl of rice, 2 little bowls with the meats each in its own distinct sauce, a bowl of dahl, and 3 or 4 other bowls of things we’d never seen before. All in all, a worthwhile experience for R30 in total, including a 1,5 litre bottle of water.

Back to our beach, we frittered away the afternoon on loungers, browsing the wares of passing hawkers (I bought a throw for my spare room) and joining the bobbing heads in the sea every now and then.

We rounded off a perfectly productive day planning the next, by booking the much anticipated surf lessons for the following day. Plans in place, we celebrated with yet another leisurely candlelit beachside dinner (grilled tuna for me and nasai goreng for Christian) and retired to our hotel patio.

MONDAY

We had intended to breakfast at the place that professed itself to be the best rotty shop in Unawatuna… But it wasn’t open yet – and we had a surf lesson date to keep, with the tuktuk meeting us at 9am. We settled for Black & White (our hotel’s beachside restaurant – our room’s terrace looks over the restaurant’s roof at the sea) and had a very pleasant cheese and mushroom (me) and Sri Lankan (onion, tomato, chilli, spice) omelette.

The tuktuk took us 40 minutes South to Weligama; it’s a small island so this was far enough to take us from SSE Sri Lanka to Sri Lanka South. We met with the surf instructor who issued us with rash vests and boards and we were off.

We were given a short tutorial on the sand on what to do. Paddle, hold the board, chest up, pop, crouch, adjust weight, arms out. Seemed simple enough. So, it was out to the water.

We did really well the first few times, even standing on the board within the first 15 minutes! But, then you get tired and it gets harder to fight the waves to get out and we misjudged a few waves and followed duds and, to be honest, ended worse than we’d begun. First hour up, we took to the shore for some liquid refreshment to regain breath and composure. Christian decided to man the shore, but after a half hour break I hit the waves again.

It was hard work, but really cool. And ticking off a bucketlister to boot!

On the way back home we stopped to take pics of the stiltfisherman – perched on poles fixed in the ocean bed, with their feet just above the water, spearing fish below.

All the surfing and commuting had been thirsty work, so lunch was a matter of urgency on our return. We decided on the Lucky Tuna, mainly because they take credit card (very rare in these parts), and they promised us toasties post haste. True to their word, Christian’s tuna and cucumber and my Club sandwich were very quick – and yum. Being fed on a comfy lounger led to the inevitable and we were ‘reading’ (really, napping) soon after.

At sunset, we were ushered from the loungers and headed back to the hotel to shower and dress and head out to do our last gift-shopping. We’d accidentally found the night before a road sort of parallel to ours that had a stream of restaurants, hotels, jewellers and curio stores. We had found it after dinner so the stores were shut, but definitely worth a revisit.

We doubled the gift-shopping with a hunt for a restaurant serving fresh butter fish. It had become a sort of quest since the night before a few restaurants we’d tried had advertised it on their specials board and then not had it when we ordered. We found a gorgeous spot, that had the actual fish on display at the open air barbecue selection buffet (“you pick it, we cook it” kinda thing), so the deal was sealed.

Thaproban had a very ‘tranquil’ entrance section, which initially put us off the night before as it seemed more zen than yum. What we hadn’t seen was that once you choose your fish from the road-facing zen side (all floating lotus flowers and whatnot) you’re led around the hotel to the sea-facing side to wooden tables and chairs on a seasand piled terrace with the sea lapping up to the edge. Really pretty.

The food was amazing! The butter fish was served whole, with head and tail, alongside a generous helping of McD’s style chips and the same shredded cabbage salad as the previous days. Christian selected deep fried crumbed seer fish as the second dish and it accompanied perfectly. While the butter fish was moist and flaky, the crumbing of the seer fish provided the crunch with a slightly drier meat, but not chewy like a game fishg. Christian likened it to a kabeljou; it just liked it.

We also had the delight of getting our hands on a few bottles of Three Coins, supposedly Sri Lanka’s local beer… Although this is the first time we’ve seen it and Lion was everywhere. Christian has been trying to get a beer label vest (or even t-shirt) everywhere, without success. The hotel manager happened to wander past our table to ask if the food and service had been satisfactory and we ended up having a lengthy digress with him about it – and he’d offered to get us a shirt sent from the factory for free, but it would take a few days, which of course we don’t have.

Nightcaps at Black & White to end the day as it had begun and it was off to bed, to wake for an early start to return to Colombo. A day of sight-seeing and then we’re off to the Maldives.

TUESDAY

Our plans to get up early and have a good breakfast before our trek to Colombo were thwarted when, typically, the hotel’s restaurant didn’t open at its usual 8am. When it still wasn’t open at 8.15 and our tuktuk was early we decided to change tack and head to Galle, thinking we could grab a snack from a shop near the bus depot and eat properly in Colombo.

We had been warned that there may be no bus service running since our planned departure date happened to coincide with Poya Day, which is the monthly full moon holy day as observed by the Buddhists, being the majority, so is a public holiday (every month!). We’d consulted a few people and gotten quite conflicting reports varying from the busses not running to running every 10 minutes.

It all worked out quite well, with our tuktuk driver stopping at a cafe where we could buy egg rotties and water (under R20 for both of us) and the bus waiting for us when we arrived. We ended up 15 minutes ahead of schedule with the best of everything we’d planned! (Except the bus’s very exuberant entertainment, with local music videos blaring from screens suspended from the aisle roof). We again thanked our lucky stars for the express bus, slicing the travel time in half. Might not sound like a big deal for back home, but quite fortunate that Sri Lanka’s *only* highway was only completed last year and happened to be the exact route we needed.

There was a moment of panic when the bus didn’t return to the depot as anticipated and we were unceremoniously deposited on an arbitrary section of pavement. But a request for directions to the depot (since this was where we were meeting the guide we’d pre-arranged) yielded easy directions to 50m down the road, where Shami was already waiting.

We started our guided tour with the Monument of Fallen Soldiers – a monolith with lions at its base with walls and walls of names of soldiers who died over the 33 years of war between the Sinalhese and the Tamils. Our guide estimates around 400,000 people fell during the fighting, including innocent people in the terrorist park bombings.

We then drove past the biggest Buddha and the national cricket grounds (which Christian recognised from TV) and on to Independence Square, with its large monument to commemorate independence in 1948. The monument is pagoda style – which again reinforces our constant impression that Sri Lanka feels a lot more like Thailand than India – and is again guarded by lions (statues, not beers). The lions apparently play a big part in the nations mythical history, with some strange story of witches and human/lion children.

This route led along Marine Drive, with a far more predictable beachfront layout than that in Mumbai – and a host of new hotels launched and under construction, not least of which the 7* Shangri La, due for opening in 2014 (and clearly not in the slightest related to the modest Shangri La where we stayed in Goa!). By contrast, we stopped at the railway station opposite and it was functional, but far from beautiful – and the train that stopped looked ancient and packed.

We were hungry again, being lunchtime and having such a light breakfast hours ago, so we stopped for a quick and easy McD’s. Christian had the Big Mac combo, which was exactly the same as at home, and I had the Big Mac chicken combo, which turned out to be a Big Mac with 2 junior chicken patties and mayo instead of the secret sauce. All good.

Refuelled, we drove through Colombo 7 (the fancy bit) and Shami pointed out all the important buildings – mostly municipal, governmental and state homes of dignitaries (mostly naval and military). Most fly the Sri Lankan flag as well as the Buddhist one (5 vertical stripes from left to about 3/4 right with blue, yellow, white, red and orange; then the same colours horizontal stripes taking up the right hand 1/4).

We passed on (yet another) Buddhist temple and our guide was a little taken aback at our honest “just the famous ones” response. There really are just too many for all to be interesting – and I’m more fascinated by the little offshoot shrines that can be found in the middle of intersections, at bus ranks, in the markets etc. Just a Buddha, with an altar and a bit of tiled floor space within waist-height palisade fencing, making the religion really accessible to the people to integrate their worship into their daily routines.

I’d wanted to visit Pettah, which is the famous market area, but was a bit disappointed that it was mostly luggage and electronic shops. The clothing shops are all a bit backward and the textile shops, where people seem to have everything made up custom aren’t of interest. Nonetheless, we walked up and down a few streets and drove around the rest and can tick it off as seen and done. It’s a blessing it was a public holiday so, while half the shops were closed, there was a fraction of the traffic so quite a pleasant experience overall.

We asked about the Fort here, having read that it’s a ‘to do’, but it’s a bit different to the other we’ve been to in that it’s not city within walls as is the conventional sense and the areas we’d been wandering around fell into the general ‘Fort’ district, adjacent to Pettah. The Cinnamon Gardens are also a bit misleading. I was expecting an actual cinnamon plantation or botanical experience of some sort, but it turns out that it’s just a fancy suburb named for the cinnamon groves that were there beforehand, when the area was established.

We did a bit more shopping and stopped at a few of the more interesting temples to grab a snap, especially the pretty pagoda on the lake next to the Botanical Gardens (which were literally that, not like the cinnamon story) with the ‘Treasure of Truth’ and wishing pond. But really, Colombo is just a city, so we’d had enough of driving around and got to the airport early for a relaxed check in for our flight to Maldives.

Travelogue ISC 6: Surajgarh

SURAJGARH

22 November 2012

Having done all the major sights (7 World Heritage sites in 6 days!), we didn’t really know what more was in store for the last day and a half back to Delhi. Yusef explained that we were headed a little off the beaten track to stay in a merchant’s mansion and do camel rides to a special spot to enjoy the sunset.

We’d gotten quite ‘bus fit’ so the 5 hour ride wasn’t so bad. It helped that there are only 15 of us on a full massive bus, so we had a few rows each to stretch out, spread out our stuff, recline seats and so on. We were double lucky because dumb luck had placed us the furthest back on the bus, so we had the whole back row to stretch out on full length for quality napping. We had cards, books and conversation (with each other and the Aussies) to fill in the rest of the gaps, so it could have been worse.

We arrived at Surajgarh early afternoon and had to walk through the town and up the hill to the fort because the roads in the old town aren’t suitable for busses. The local children were thrilled at all these Westerners and greeted us exuberantly with loud greetings and waving. We must have seemed like royalty to them… And we could see why when we arrived.

Our accommodation was a converted mansion that had belonged to a rich merchant from the area. Their houses were extravagant in every aspect; size, gardens, finishes. We were told that some of these mansions have up to 200 rooms and 7 courtyards. Sadly, a lot of them are just locked up and abandoned since the families have moved, but they don’t want to sell the properties in case they are perceived to need the money and hence lose face.

We were allocated an enormous first floor suite (lucky #7), opening (through a short and wide wooden door with big brass bolt and an old fashioned 22 tumbler lock and key) on a 3 piece lounge with flatscreen TV, in front of a big square bedroom, with king size bed in the middle of the room surround with windows on 2 sides and Arabian arches on the other two. A large enclosed verandah ran the length of the bedroom and lounge, overlooking the big pool below (through weird little windows that were waist-height to knee-height). Completing the suite was a big dressing room with free-standing wardrobe and illuminated mirror, adjacent to a long bathroom with all the usual trimmings.

Yusef had arranged a simple buffet for lunch so, once we’d finished exploring our suite, we headed up to the rooftop terrace to tuck in. Odd combination of fried rice, veg noodles, french fries, onion and potato pakoras, but all very nice. Our camel ride was booked for 4.30 so we’d had every intention of having a swim, but time slipped by while we were chatting to our group mates and soon we were off again for the next excursion.

We met in the fort entryway, where the camels had been corralled and were waiting for us to climb aboard their carts. We split into the requisite groups of 5 and soon were off to parade through the town, as much a spectacle as we were spectators of the surrounds. We were taken to an old Hindu temple and Yusef explained more about the religion, its gods and its practices. All very fascinating – and a lot less complicated than it seemed at first now that the key names are sounding more familiar.

We rounded off the afternoon with a visit to an abandoned fort in town, where we watched the sunset through the arches and turrets on the open-air rooftop terrace. Back at our hotel, Christian and Craig took to the pool, while everyone else was freshening up for dinner, again to be served on the rooftop. The seats had all been arranged in a big U so that we could watch the show (drummer, piper and 2 kids dancing) and very soon it became a mandatory interactive dance lesson, which was quite a laugh.

Finger food snacks were brought around and we were very pleased with the tandoori aloo (potatoes), tikka chicken and barbecue paneer (big blocks of cottage cheese). A buffet followed with the usual assortment of breads, rice and curry, followed by gulab jaman and ice-cream for dessert. We sat up there for hours having beers, laughs and good chats with our tour mates, having a great time. We were very lucky to have had a fun group.

Yusef joined us at one point for a few drinks and told of some of the nightmare groups he had had that didn’t gel and that just complained about everything. Luckily we’ve had a team of seasoned travellers, all looking to enjoy ourselves and see and do as much as we can.

FRIDAY

After a last breakfast (the usual omelettes, toast, beans, bananas and juice), we were back on the bus for our last long haul – from Surajgarh back to Delhi. Most of the others had a last night in Delhi, with the exception of the Brits who were leaving a bit later than us on the Friday and the Aussie solo traveller who was leaving on Sunday for China. It was a quiet ride all round, with several members of the group licking their wounds from the festivities the night before.

We got to the airport in near perfect time and had no trouble checking in and getting through passport control, with just enough time to grab a McMaharaj (a Big Mac with curried chicken patties) and get to our gate for our flight to Sri Lanka.

Travelogue ISC 5: Jaipur

JAIPUR

20-21 November 2012

Arriving in Jaipur, we wound our way up the mountains through the ‘hotels’ that lined the streets on either side that had welcomed the traders as they arrived with their caravans of wares. The buildings are all in relatively good condition already and are planned for a restoration project that will turn them into proper tourist attractions.

Jaipur, founded by Jai Singh, is known as the Pink City because when the Prince of Wales visited in 1876 the Maharajah Ram Singh painted the entire Old City pink, which is the colour of welcome in India.

Our hotel, Mandawa Haveli, was gorgeous! We had a lovely suite with marble floors and walls, an entire lounge (which it sounds like not everyone has) and a flatscreen TV and satellite decoder on a lazy susan that swivels between the lounge and the bedroom, so you can watch from the couch, 4 poster bed or window seat in the bedroom.

We decided to eat in the hotel since our journey in hinted that there was nothing of interest in the direct neighbourhood. Turned out to be a great decision and we thoroughly enjoyed our starters of tandoori mushrooms (me) and chicken pineapple salad (Christian) and our shared main course of chicken lababdar and lamb, with garlic naans. Double victory for the hotel kitchen since we’d decided well in advance to take a night off curry and have a western dinner!

WEDNESDAY
Jaipur is one of the first planned city of northern India based on the principles of “Shilpa Shastra”, in fact “Jaipur clearly represents a dramatic departure from extant medieval cities with its ordered, grid-like structure – broad streets, criss-crossing at right anglese, earmarked sites for buildings, palaces, havelis, temples and gardens, neighbourhoods designated for caste and occupation” (UNESCO, 2015).

9 square miles within the walls, with 9 rectangular grids, length and breadth of roads are multiples of 9 and 9 gates to enter the city, emulating the 9 openings in the human body. Other reasons for the 9 are found in Hindu mythology, Vishnee the Preserver has had 9 incarnations and Durga appears in 9 different forms and so on.

We made a stop to look at the facade of a Palace where the royal ladies used to sit behind the windows and watch the royal processions. While taking pics, we were lured in by a snake charmer and I got to don turban and play the calabash pipe to get the snakes going. Creepy but cool.

We were disheartened to see the long snaking queue at the elephant rides, but it moved quite quickly and soon we were atop an elephant and climbing the hill to Man Singh’s Palace (built in 1592). Man Singh was the maharaja of the Rajastani people and a general in Mughal King Akbar’s army. The entire structure of the palace, much like the rest of Jaipur, is well preserved since the city has never seen war, having strategically aligned with the Mughals. They were generals in the Mughal army and ceded any territories won to the Mughals but brought the bounties home to fund their prosperity.

The entrance quadrangle is large with frescoes painted above all the arches and entryways into the buildings. Frescoes are painted while the plaster is wet, so lasts longer and requires more skill.

The summer palace was constructed with a primitive aircon that drew cool air from the lake on one side of the palace up 3 walls to cool, then through a khuskhus reed curtain with tiny pipes of water spraying on it to give it a light scent and cool it even further. The winter palace was lined with thick curtains that made the areas 5 degrees warmer than outside. The central area had mirrors embedded on the walls, to help the king ‘get in the mood’ when the belly-dancers performed before he was due to make heirs.

The harem had 12 apartments for the king’s 12 wives. The king had so many wives because of matrimonial alliances with neighbours to prevent fighting. The king would use a secret passage that ran behind the apartments to access them so as to prevent squabbling between the wives. Only women were allowed in this area – not even their sons could visit after a certain age. Children fathered through concubines or servants were either passed off as belonging to deceased soldiers or murdered.

Then the shopping started.

With a jewellery shop.

Not only was inner magpie on high alert, but they also greeted us with samoosas (pyramid shaped veg ones) and *cold* Cokes, so we were done for! They displayed the beautiful ruby Star of India stones that the country is famous for. The salespeople had done a good job of piquing interest by ushering us all into a darkened office and spotlighting the stones, but the chap holding the stone made the faux pas of glimmering the reflection ‘star’ toward himself so the rest of the group was quite underwhelmed. Having a solid education in such things, I picked up another stone and showed our little huddle the star and there was much ooo and aaah’ing from everyone.

Block painting fabric. The patterns are made from a series of stamps. The first lays the outline and then ensuing stamps colour in their part of the picture with a single colour. Once all the stamps are overlaid, the pattern is completely coloured in. Traditionally all the colourants are sourced from nature – green from mango leaves, red from cane, yellow from turmeric, black from gooseberries, grey from onion leaves and, least of which because of cost prohibitiveness, orange from saffron (“golden flower”).

We were also shown the process of carpet-making and the millions of knots per centimetre that make up the better grade carpets. While reassuring that they’re washable and fire retardant (they went at it with a blowtorch and then just brushed it clean), the opening price of R10k for a small mat was enough to make an easy decision. But we did accept their offer of a Kingfisher, so as not to offend and headed into their shop where their hospitality was rewarded with Christian buying half a dozen silk ties.

Pooped from shopping, we all welcomed lunch, which doubled as a trip to the Turban Museum. We had a delicious Mutton Shahi Korma (I was delighted that their korma doesn’t have nuts as normally I wouldn’t have it because of the cashews), paneer stuffed tandoori potatoes and a garlic and an onion naan.

Jai Singh was a great astrologer and mathematician, so established an awesome open-air observatory at Jantar Mantar, with a great big sundial (the Vrihat Samrat Yantra) and smaller dials that measure time with accuracy up to 2 seconds, astrological charts and monsoon forecasting. We had a lovely wander round, finished off with a visit to the Art hall, where we were demonstrated the art of miniature painting. This was a painstaking technique that required the artist to use a very thin brush (sometimes a single squirrel hair!) in order to create the finest of outlines and smoothest smear of colours. The paintings could be quite elaborate, painted on gold leaf with embedded jewels.

The artists included craftsmen of wooden items, inlaying trinket boxes by hand with brass wire to make intricate patterns or crushing semi-precious gems to adhere the dust onto glass that turned over reveals a beautiful pastel artwork, which is inlaid into the top of a wooden box. We bought a few items, but held back as the plan for the remainder of the afternoon and evening was a visit to the markets.

This turned out to be a chaotic affair. We were dumped rather unceremoniously roadside (the bus wasn’t allowed to formally pull over for fear of fines) and had to make our way back to the shops and market. This wasn’t what we expected at all. Rows of shops the size of a single garage lining either side of the road, with owners hovering in the doorway luring people to come buy their merchandise. The problem was that their wares weren’t what we wanted to buy. They were all home goods and rolls of textiles, hardware items and PEP style clothing stores.

After being given poor advice by seeming Samaritans, who really just wanted to take us to their shop no matter how ill-fitting the category, we (us and the Aussies) decided to suck it up and high-tail back to the fist bus stop we’d made in the morning (where I’d charmed snakes). Fortunately, it was quicker to get there on foot than it had been in the bus – but that’s not to say it was a pleasant walk!

Nonetheless, we found it… And with it an entire road of stalls with the tourist stuff (tees, crafts, parasols, sarees and tunics etc) that we’d all been looking for. We spent a few hours looking at everyone’s stuff and walked away with surprisingly little. Really just tees for the kids, a smattering of gifts, one or two odds and sods for us and (my coup de gras) a lovely leather laptop bag for me.

Getting home was another story. We (by now just Christian and me) walked and walked. We hadn’t realised how far we’d wandered, after the high-tailing which had only begun outside the Old City, within which we were staying. It wasn’t the distance that was the problem, but the darkness from the power failure, hawker-obscured pavements, maverick bikers, garbage everywhere, incessant hooting, puddles and filth. Still, we got back to the hotel quicker than if we’d caught any mode of transport – and we were very grateful to be back in the clean sanctum that was our home for the night.

We’d decided to eat in, and to eat ‘international’. Christian ordered a garlic chicken and noodles dish and I ordered a spag bol, then we also ordered ‘exotic veg au gratin’ to share, mostly because we were curious to see how exotic the veg actually was.

As it turns out, the spag bol was the most exotic! It was a stewy gravy with lumps of mutton (or goat?) served moat-like around a mountain of spaghetti. Not in the slightest bit tomatoey, garlicky, thick or saucy. I suppose we should have predicted that. The exotic veg turned out to be cauliflower, carrots, peas and green beans, which wasn’t really exotic (to us), but was delicious in the creamy cheese sauce with crunchy baked breadcrumbs on top.

Fed and watered, we hit the sack so we’d be rested for the next day’s trek to Surajgarh.

Travelogue ISC 4: Agra

AGRA

19-20 November 2012

As we arrived in Agra, after a 4 hour bus ride from Delhi, we crossed the bridge over Yamuna River, the western most tributary of the river Ganges. Cows and buffaloes were wallowing in it and our guide, Yusef, told that they are like homing pigeons – they go off for the day and return to their owners (in the crush of the dusty dirty town centre) in the evening to get fed and milked.

Like in much of India, the land in Agra is barren and their owners are poor, so there is little food for the livestock bar what little they are given. The water buffalo are revered because they produce more fatty milk than cows, preferred by the Indians. The cows are also seen as holy, said to stem from their role as surrogates providing rich milk for babies who lost their mothers in childbirth, which used to be a frequent occurrence.

The river doesn’t flow as deep as it once did, so there are numerous sand banks. Washer-people stand knee-deep in the water around these and thrash the washing, then spread it out on the sand to dry.

Agra was established as a more central (than Delhi) dispatch area for Indian troops around the country. There are still big army bases in the city, which even as a smaller city still claims a population of 2,6 million people.

We stopped at a garden restaurant for lunch. They had some kids in traditional dress entertaining the guests. There were drums, singing and puppet shows with marionettes in elaborate traditional outfits.

Christian wasn’t feeling 100% (churny belly, inevitable Delhi fall-out) so he had a vegetable curry to up the veg content without losing out on the house speciality entirely. I was feeling aces so had Masala Gost (mutton curry with egg) and garlic naan.

Yusef had offered the group the option to alter our itinerary slightly, moving the Red Fort tour to the next morning so as to allow more time at Taj Mahal, but also meaning we could linger over lunch and have a leisurely stop while checking into our hotel, the Raj Mahal (where we were greeted with marigold garlands). It worked beautifully – and meant we could have a few hours at Taj to include sunset so we could see the subtle change in the colour of the marble.

The monument was built by Shah Janah for his favourite wife, who he’d named Mum Taj Mahal (“Chosen Crown Palace”), as her final resting place after she’d died giving birth to their 14th child. The design was inspired by the description of the Gardens of Paradise and House of Allah in the Qu’ran and it took 20,000 people 22 years day and night to build it. It is perfectly symmetrical, in that it looks exactly the same from all 4 sides; the only deviation from this is the placement of the Shah’s body in the mausoleum, to the left of his wife’s, which is the exact epicentre.

This OCD carried through to every element and the gardens are mirrored on either side, the fountains elevate water to exactly the same height (requiring some quite sophisticated engineering for those times) and there was a mosque sitting to the West of the building that he had mirrored with a perfect replica on the East side (that was used to house visiting dignitaries).

There is conjecture about the Shah ordering the chopping off hands of the workmen when the building was completed so they couldn’t make another Taj, but Yusef claims this is just scandalous rumour and that the king had made extra effort to ensure that the reputation of the building was flawless to maintain his wife’s honour. He was apparently quite shrewd in some of his gestures, like clearing the site by offering the building material leftovers to the people – quite some feat with the high ramps it must have taken to complete the highest sections. Everything was gone in 2 days, when it would have taken months for waged employees to clear it!

Stories aside, it was clearly built to last, having been completed in 1653 and still requiring no restoration, just a river sand mask that peels off all the dirt to give it a clean every few years. It’s just a pity that the Shah didn’t get to complete his dream, which was to build an exact replica (but made from black marble) across the river to be his mausoleum, with a bridge connecting the two. His plan was thwarted when his son put him under house-arrest for the last 8 years of his life, meaning he never got to start the project.

Over time the opposite bank had become home to factories and plants, but the government has closed these down since they posed threat to the Taj not only from pollutants, but from their effect on the river flow. The Taj was built intended to be indestructible to an earthquake up to 8 on the Richter scale (even including details like angling the minarets ever so slightly outward so that in event of earthquake they fall away from the mausoleum, minimising damage), but this all rests in the firm foundation of rubble and bamboo. Affecting the river could mean that the bamboo dries up and the Taj could sink and become vulnerable and unstable.

That would be a real shame. It’s such a prolific icon. At least the authorities are protecting it adequately, with very stringent security checks on entry that even disallow cigarettes and chewing gum – to the point that there are x-rays machines, bag checks and confiscation. Good for them though; looking at the rest of India that we’ve seen so far, it’d be just another big dustbin if left to the hygiene compass of the common people. And there are lots and lots of common people at the Taj. As with at the other sites, there are discounted tickets for locals, but they have to queue for entry into the mausoleum where “high value ticket holders” are ushered in (by gun-wielding police guards) straight from the front of the queue.

After an hour’s repose at the hotel, we were bussed to yet another restaurant for dinner. We were put off by the curry all being on the bone, so opted for a radical change and went Chinese. Every menu has had an entire Chinese section, but we hadn’t even considered before. Very glad we did tonight though – we had the most gorgeous lamb with mushroom and garlic in a rich thick brown gravy as well as a chicken and pineapple in creamy lemon sauce. Both were incredible… And now we’ll have to try Chinese somewhere else to see if it was just that restaurant or if Indians are better at Chinese than SA – and possibly better at Chinese than Indian!

TUESDAY

The next morning kicked off with a visit to Red Fort. The great mughals lived there and the country was governed from there, including the treasury and mint. The mughals were descended from Mongolian mothers and Turkish fathers, hence had oriental eyes and lighter skin from their maternal side and were Muslim from their patronage. Over generations their facial features evolved and their skin darkened as they inter-married with Indians.

The Red Fort has stood in one form or another since 11th century (first written reference was 1060). Rebuild to its current red sandstone form only started in 1560, upgrading it to include additional safety features like the double moat – one with tigers and one with water – and 2 gates at right angles to retard possible charging elephant rams. Above the enormous wooden entrance gates are also windows they could throw stones and boiling oil out of; it’s no wonder nobody ever tried to force entry!

Inside the royal section, where the emperor and his most important harem members lived, was where the illicit goings-on and more indulgent lifestyle happened (opiates and wine, which are forbidden by the Qu’ran but excused in the Palace because of royal status). One of the wives attempted growing grapes to make wine, so an elaborate garden was dug, 10 feet deep with brick dividers to keep the different grapes separated. Of course, the climate wasn’t conducive, so a more conventional, although far from ordinary, garden was made from it, with a thick carpet effect delineated by the swirling brickwork dividers.

Shah Jahan’s prison is adjacent to the gardens. Not the usual jail, made from marble with floral designs inlaid with jasper, turquoise, malachite, onyx and cornellian (called fire stone because it glows when light is shone on it). The torturous part really was that he had a perfect view of his best creation, the Taj Mahal, from his prison… But he couldn’t go there. That, and being imprisoned by his own son of course.

Quite a story really since it was Shah Jahan’s 3rd and 4th sons that colluded to murder the 1st and 2nd sons so they’d be first in line for the throne. Then the 3rd son (Aurangzeb) murdered the 4th son to take out the competition. But since there were only daughters remaining, the 3rd son imprisoned his dad and seized the throne. He reigned for 59 years and wasn’t the usual money-grabber, living a simple(r) life and not taking money from the treasury. But it was he who started driving the wedge between the Muslims and the Hindus.

Back to the bus and off to the marble factory. Different merchandise (to the gemstone factory shop in Bangkok, ‘handicrap’ factory in Viet Nam, carpets in Turkey etc etc), but same hard sell. “No obligation to purchase”, but a salesman breathing down your neck showing equally unattractive pieces at escalating prices – clearly showing pieces that make more sense to his target than our tastes.

It’s a pity because the craftsmanship is painstaking (we were demonstrated the process and had a chance to try the various stages of manufacture) and it really is a fine art that would be far more enjoyable to be able to absorb the showroom like a gallery, appreciating the patience and effort it takes to conceptualise the design, shape the stones and mould the marble to fit – irrespective of how flowery the design and how unlikely it is to ever feature in our lounge (even if it weren’t hundreds of Pounds). But we were more focused on out-running our adversary and responding with vague and polite answers and glazed smiles.

Sikri is the village next to Agra that comes from the Arabic word for ‘thank you’, and was built by Akbar, considered to be the greatest of the Moghals. He ruled from the age of 14, so traded education for his royal duties and was virtually illiterate. Generally very tolerant, he was the first Muslim king to marry a Hindu – even allowing her to continue to practice her religion and build a place to worship and store her religious books in the Red Fort. Akbar also allowed a Portuguese christian missionary to build a church in the fort in Sikri.

The Palace seems a bit excessive for just the emperor and his wives until you consider that his harem was about 2000 women. There are the wives (Islam allows 4), the contract wives (marriage for a limited defined period to save widows’ virtue when their husband passes, lest she be turned to prostitution to support herself), concubines (on a good day used as human pieces in a life-size pachisi board in the recreation courtyard) and slaves.

The Palace at Sikri was short-lived; it took 6 years to complete, but was only lived in for 15 years, including construction time. Akbar had no male heirs so nominated one of his sufi’s (priest / mystic) sons and moved to where the sufi was in order to carry on the moghal line. Unfortunately there was no river here, so he built a dam, but it wasn’t sustainable as a water source so they moved back to Agra.

We left Sikri for the long bus ride to Jaipur, stopping at a restaurant for a buffet lunch, with tandoori and mustard chicken as the stars. We’d been passing through farmlands and Yusef had explained that India theoretically should be the self-sufficient from a food production point of view, being among the top producers of wheat, rice, tea, potatoes and tomatoes. They also produce vast quantities of mustard, ergo the local mustard chicken dish on the buffet.

Chicken is generally a winner as a pretty safe choice. Most of the time when you order beef, it’s likely to be water buffalo, reason being that the God of Death rides a water buffalo so they’re not sacred like cows. Similarly, the mutton is often goat meat. Add to this the fact that almost all curries are described as a combination of tomato/onion/capsicum/thick/rich/pungent/aromatic (or better still, where it is from with no clues to the ingredients), the menu is just the vaguest of guidelines as to what to expect! Today’s lunch was included, expressly for the purpose of having us taste the water buffalo.

India is such a dichotomy. So much pride taken in some things and so much blatant disregard for others. For example, most big trucks are gaily painted (permanent) and decorated with garlands of flowers (possibly just for Diwali), while the shop stalls are dusty little hovels lining streets strewn with litter. At least the cow pats are recycled, being dried and made into methane cakes for fires (we were assured that they don’t smell once dried or burnt), but India really could use more dustbins and a good “zap it in the Zeebie” campaign!

With the dirty dusty state of things, the unconventional (compared to Western) way these towns seem to operate and the vast expanses between towns, I’m very glad we got an organised tour for this part of the trip instead of fashioning our own itinerary online as we usually do. Looking at the conditions and locations of some of these self-proclaimed “resorts”, I doubt we could have come right with all our choices based on the very one-dimensional views our usual websites present – and I’d have hated to end up in dodgy accommodation in the middle of nowhere spending time and money getting to the sights these places claim to be close to.

It had been a pleasure being guided and informed on a luxury bus between the great iconic treasures that this part of the country holds, with convenient and clean hotel rooms guaranteed each night. It was a double bonus that this kind of tour is better priced for us South Africans (at ZAR 4000 a person) than our Aussie counterparts (AUS $2000 per person).

Travelogue ISC 3: Delhi

DELHI

17-18 November 2012

We had to laugh when we disembarked from the plane in Delhi and were herded to a bus that would take us to the terminal. That wouldn’t be funny, except we were directly across the roadway from it, so we alighted the bus only to literally make a U-turn and get off at the other side of the road!

The airport was a bit more inspiring than Mumbai’s. Newer, cleaner, more modern. And it was a blessing to be met by our tour driver so we didn’t have to think or negotiate transfers. The traffic in Delhi is just as chaotic, although the roads seems to be wider and better maintained in general. There’s still no adherence to road markings and cars, vans and rickshaws straddling the white line is quite common. More of the bike-riders don helmets (very rare in our experiences so far) and there are lots of “don’t drink and drive” billboards; maybe the two are connected. Also hootinghootinghooting, but with requests for hooting painted on the back of most trucks, one shouldn’t expect any less and clearly it’s seen as serving to warn of approach, not signal aggression.

Our hotel is great; nothing short of amazing as compared with the others we’ve stayed in so far! Weirdly, it had no windows because it wa wedged in the middle of a block with neighbours on all sides except the narrow slit of an entrance. I bright-sided that this should make for a good sleep, based on my experience of the inside cabin on the South East Asia cruise and how the pitchest of pitch black made for coma sleep. The hotel is well positioned and mercifully stocked with tourist street maps, so we were soon sent on our merry way to go and explore.

We caught a Metro from a block down to Karol Bagh (8 Rupees each, just over R1,30), which is a shopping district. We been briefed by the hotel concierge that we were to ask for discount in the formal shops and bargain with the stalls for as much as 70% off. We didn’t end up doing any shopping though because what we weren’t prepared for was the chaos – cars hooting their way through hordes of shoppers, not helped by the double- and triple-parked lurkers on either side; dirty with litter everywhere; spitting seemingly culturally acceptable, but entirely disgusting. We ratified the trip with a chicken Momo plate from a street vendor, who served the 6 little dumplings with a searingly hot red chilli relish. Burning aside, it was a great snack (and a bargain at R5).

Then it was back on the Metro to Connaught Place, which had been recommended to us by a chap at the shack as being civilised concentric circles of shops and entertainment. It was exactly that, big fancy shops and recognisable brand name stores (both Indian and international) – with the usual cloud of cars and spray of street vendors.

Wearied by our ‘shopping’, we accepted an invite into Knight’s, a restaurant and lounge upstairs overlooking the hubbub. Cold Kingfishers welcomed, with the sting of double the price being counter-balanced by the 2-for-1 happy hour (from midday to 8.30p m).

One turned to several and soon we’d (been) befriended (by) a soldier originally from Goa now stationed up North, who spoke little to no English. Made for laboured conversation, but we persevered. We were also in high demand to be in pictures and posed here and there with anyone who asked; all quite bizarre, but easy to comply. Got carried away a bit and ended up missing dinner entirely (fortunately we’d been compulsively eating for 4 days so were hardly likely to starve).

We were well in time for the last train though, but got hopelessly lost returning to the hotel from the Metro station (losing bearings from having mistakenly taken the opposite platform to the one on the way out, meaning we were on the block across the line from where we were supposed to be), so it ended up being quite a late night.

SUNDAY

Breakfast was adequate with a meagre buffet of chaffing dishes offering boiled eggs, baked beans, some traditional creamy corn thing, french toast and a flat bread of sorts, as well as the usual fruits, cereals, toast and juice. Was nice enough… But what we really needed was a good old greasy fry-up to get us going!

8.30 we met our tour guide, Yusuf, and the rest of our group. There are 15 people on our tour (mostly Saffas, with 3 Aussies and 2 Brits). We have a full sized bus (luxury, aircon, with a glass door partitioning us from the driver to maintain the temperature) so there’s lots of room to stretch out. Probably the least populated part of this city with its 20 million people!

The tour started in Old Delhi at the Red Fort – Captain Obvious’ly named because it’s made from red sandstone so the building is red in colour. New Delhi was built by the British, but the ‘new’ is a bit of an oversell since a large portion of the buildings were built a hundred years ago. The fort initiates with a high roofed tunnel in the fort walls housing a Chhatta Chowk (covered bazaar), which is apparently unusual in Delhi. The fort complex contains several buildings, including the Court, Rang Mahal (Palace of Colours, mahal means palace), and Diwan-i-Khas (Hall of VIPs) with its hand-made floral art made from precious stone inlays and the famous inscription “if there is paradise on Earth, it is this, it is this, it is this” (clearly this person had never been to Goa). It’s reassuring to see that most of these buildings are still all original materials in very good nick, even though tourists can walk into most parts of most buildings and through the expansive gardens.

We caught bicycle rickshaws outside the fort which took us past the mosques and temples and through some of the narrow shopping streets (grungy and dirty with electricity lines webbing between buildings), and deposited us at the main Mosque. It technically holds 20,000 people, but could exceed this on Fridays. It’s 360 years old still with all the original parts, the only difference being water piped to the central fountain for hands and feet washing, which used to be manually brought bucket by bucket from the river.

According to our guide, contrary to what I’d imagine global trend to be, religion is expanding in India. People can only be a Hindu or Muslim by birth and the population is expanding; uncertain times have people clinging to religion because they’re scared of world aggression and poverty and need something positive to believe in. Hard work though this Islam story, with its five prayer times every day!

We then moved on to Gandhi’s final resting place, a mausoleum where his ashes are accompanied by an eternal flame and orange floral wreaths atop a plain grey marble housing, with Gandhi’s final words inlaid in bronze (2 words, ‘her ram’ which means ‘my God’ in Hindi). Suitably simple structure for a fella who got by on a bowl of rice and a safety pin, with lovely surrounding gardens that speak to his quest for peace and serenity when he was alive.

On the way to lunch we past the India Gate arch, built in 1929 to pay homage to the soldiers fallen in World War 1 (India lost 80,000 men even though they weren’t officially part of the war; each one of these men’s names are inscribed on the inside arch of the monument). There are gardens and lawns surrounding it and, as the tour guide says, anywhere there’s any open space, a game of cricket will start. True to form, there were several games going on.

Way overdue, we were relieved to arrive at our lunch spot – Have More curry house, renowned for it’s award-winning Best Butter Chicken in Delhi status. Of course we had to try it and can confirm that it’s amazing, especially with the boneless tikka chicken they use. We paired it with a mutton saag wala (spinach), which was a bit off-putting being almost black, but what it lacked in appearance it more than made up for in taste. We had sides of garlic naan and garlic and onion kulcha.

We made a turn past the presidential palace (all 380 rooms of it!), but couldn’t stop because of security so it was just a ‘take snaps from the bus’ thing. Then proceeded to have a nap on the bus on the ride over to South Delhi.

We awoke on arrival at the Qutub Archeological complex, which is home to the tallest stone minaret in the world, which is over 800 years old. The minaret was a display of power by the Muslims to demarcate the Eastern edge of the Muslim religion’s reach (with the West being Spain). The minaret has 5 distinctive sections with different shape stones, balconies between sections that use screws (very advanced technology for this time) and extends 72,5 metres into the sky off it’s 14m base… And even that’s less than 3/4 of the height of Taj Mahal!

The complex also has a mosque that was abandoned before completion because the Muslims had used stones from a Hindu temple to build it and only realised half way in that this wasn’t going to work because the stones have pictures of humans and animals, which is not allowed in a mosque. You’d think someone would have noticed sooner before the poor humpers had to schlep those heavy stones around the place and the poor Hindus had to lose their temple for nothing! Nonetheless, the arches, carvings, Qu’ran inscriptions and 1600 year old iron flagpole all made for interesting enough gandering.

There was merit in group tour sight-seeing. We usually make our own plans as we go along, but the pre-organisation of the tour company has meant that we didn’t really have to think or queue, which has been a blessing. We hadn’t had to manage any ticket buying or handling at any of the sights, as these were all pre-arranged, but I imagined they get discounts for group buying.

All the sights have had different prices for Indians and for tourists (as much as 25 times more for tourists, with 250 Rupee vs 10), but good on them for making it easy for their people to experience their history and learn about their culture. Someone quoted that the average Indian has to survive on 200 Rupees a day and I had spent that before I’d left the hotel room on a bottle of water to brush my teeth with!

The group was also a manageable size so there hadn’t been any lingerers holding the group up. Typically, the (South African) Indians all seem to stick together, the Aussies have packed and we had bonded with the Brits, who were really well-travelled so it was nice to swap stories and where to and how to advice.

We had an hour to freshen up and then back in the bus to cross town to an (allegedly) famous restaurant, called Chor Bizarre. The reception was decorated with framed certificates of their awards, so they must have been doing something right. We had a veritable feast served to us plated for starters and desert and mese-style main courses in multiple dishes spread across the length of the table. We had: Popadoms Paneer (cheese) Keema (mince kebab) Tandoori chicken Dahl (lentils) Butter chicken Lamb in yoghurt sauce Paneer in spinach Aloo jeera (potatoes sauteed in onion, garlic, ginger and cumin) Rice Naan Gulab jamun

Well fed and ready for bed, we headed back to the hotel to pack and ready for our departure to Agra bright and early in the morning.

Travelogue ISC 2: Goa

GOA

15-17 November 2012

Thanks to our comfortable double sleeperbus booth and a sleeping tablet each, we got in a decent night’s rest on the way to Goa from Mumbai – no thanks to our driver who was constantly swerving and hooting throughout the trip.

We had some trepidation pulling into Goa as it seemed to just be endless rolling hills of palm trees, with pockets of ramshackle shop interspersed roadside. Our fears were fed when the bus stopped at a dusty rank, but fortunately we were steered to another bus and realised that our arrival in Goa was to the North and we had booked to stay South, requiring an extra leg.

Indian cities were all proving to be far larger and more sprawling then we’d imagined and we had another half hour on the bus to get to our destination, Margao… And an aircon taxi ride for another 10 minutes after that to get to Majorda Beach where our hotel was situated.

It was well worth it though. We were deposited on a quaint narrow lane, lined with shops (mostly jewellery, yay!), accommodation and restaurants. Exactly what you’d expect from a little seaside holiday village.

The Shangri La Beach Palace was basic, but clean and neat and we had hot water! And a street-facing private patio, which am sure was a selling point in this simple little village.

We dumped our stuff down and decided to head to the beach for brunch, finding it to be an easy few hundred metre walk straight down our main road to glorious wide white sand beach and the Arabian Sea stretching for miles and miles in both directions. A backdrop of palm trees, bar and restaurant shacks on the sand and fixed palm frond umbrellas completed the picture of an idyllic paradise that had us frolicking in the surf and sipping on Kingfishers on our loungers rather than eggs-on-toasting.

Marvelling at our good fortune, we passed quite some time enjoying our locale, wading in the little lagoon in front of us. We were allocated the loungers at the very end of our stretch of civilisation so the lagoon felt like it was just ours. I wandered back into the palms to investigate the clothing and jewellery stores… And eventually we lunched. We had to have a Goan fish curry and felt it matched with the 12 Queen prawn dish and of course a garlic naan, not bad for under R100 in total!

Back to the loungers! What a great way to spend an afternoon – reading, chilling, swimming and people-watching. Bliss!

At 4pm we headed back toward town, needing to find an ATM and wanting to be showered, clean and back at the beach for the 6pm sunset for sundowners and dinner.

The walk to the ATM (seemingly in the next village) was hair-raising with the cars driving all too close and hooting at the sight of absolutely anything and everything. But we made it, got cash and celebrated our success with a litre (the standard serving size at the convenience store) of ice-cold Mirinda before turning around and heading back.

Back at our hotel, we appreciated the small things like hot showers, flushing toilets and toilet paper and were soon clean and fresh and off back to the beach. Having stopped in at almost every shop on our way home, we were greeted by almost every shopkeep on our way back out (they sit outside their shops on the pavement and only turn on lights and aircon inside when punters go in). Majorda Beach is starting to feel a bit like Cheers, except everyone calls us “South Africa” because the inevitable first question is where we are from.

The beach is beautiful at night. All the restaurant shacks spill their tables out onto the sand in front of their shelters, resulting in a generous dotting of candlelit tables down to the water, which laps gently in the background quite hypnotically.

Despite having spent the better part of the walk to the ATM and back discussing dinner, we disregarded our predetermined choices. After having walked the full length of our section of beachfront intending to go to Albert’s for palak and butter chicken, we were put off by their only patrons – a single table of noisy Russians – and the music – blaring from next door – nondescript and tragic ballads. No harm done, we did the return journey along the water’s edge and had red snapper with prawn and egg rice instead at Mashmir’s (where we had had lunch).

There were lots of beach dogs that just curl up under the tables, are very tame and don’t really interact much. They have a clearly innate sense that every dog should have a human. There was a cute little thing that the restaurant recently found abandoned in the bushes that got more than his fair share of attention!

We had a lingering dinner, nightcapped with Kingfishers (quarts, very romantic) and made our way back to the hotel, stopping en route to have a gander at some of the shops since everything was still open. Christian’s slides weren’t made for walking so he bought some slops, I got an Indian cotton tunic top and we did some t-shirt shopping for the nephews. From all I’ve heard of India, seems a bit belated to have only begun shopping on Day Three!

Exhausted from a long day of doing little but eat and recreate, we retired to our hotel room, delighted to find we had not one but two English channels to choose from – amid a choice of 5 cricket channels (seriously), 1 other sport channel, a few news channels, some dubbed series and movies channels and a very disturbing version of MTV that only has Indian pop and Bollywood hits. Interestingly, the English channels are subtitled. In English. Between Star Movies and HBO, we found the third Transformers movie, the perfect sedative to cherry on top a rather sedate day.

FRIDAY

Not wanting to get distracted by the call of the lounger and miss two breakfasts in a row, we had scrambled egg on toast with baked beans at the restaurant downstairs from our hotel, King Crab. It’s always interesting to watch the locals, this time emptying their tea into their saucers to let it cool, slurping it up from the saucer and repeating.

Nourished and energised, we took to the beach to embark on the day’s plan – to walk South to the neighbouring fishing village called Colva. The beach makes for a lovely walk. The sea is calm, the sand silky soft and the water warm as a bath. While the sun seems more forgiving here (a full day in the sun yesterday left colour but no stinging redness), we added Factor 30 sunblock anyway seeing as we were walking on the naked beach toward the sun the whole way (probably about 4km).

We were the odd people out for so many reasons, but most notably (as in Mumbai) all the Indians are fully-dressed (whether sitting on the sand or swimming) and not pair of shades among them. It gave quite a severe reception as they walk toward you, all hiding their eyes under deep frowns and knitted brows to keep the sun out. And that’s just the ladies. The men give the impression that it’s Movember all year round!

Colva was very busy. Starting with a bigger collection of shacks on the beach at the outskirts (although this time on stilts and more square than the rectangular ones on our strip), then dozens of fishing boats moored on the shore (several with fishermen working on their nets) and culminating in a dearth of swimmers bulbing into the sea around the entrance to the town, marked by 2 bridges over a trickling river at the back of the beach.

The town itself starts with a cul-de-sac adjacent to the beach, which acts as a drop-off spot and taxi rank. It is lined with restaurants, mostly selling local and North Indian cuisine. Beyond this is a single road, quite bustling with auto and pedestrian activity, lined with shops on either side. The first few were jewellery shops and I was (very easily) persuaded into a carat and something Golden Topaz, which will make a wonderful ring to match my citrine earrings (last birthday) and pendant (birthday before last) set that Christian has given me.

We managed to navigate the rest of the high street and back without buying anything, although we have formulated a mental giftlist which we intend to fulfil in Delhi.

Resolute that we weren’t going to get any downtime in the throng at Colva Beach (disturbed mostly by the long-sleeved sun-worshippers, the fully-dressed swimmers and the lax attitude to throwing litter in the sea), we directed ourselves toward home, with the intention of taking up the first set of loungers that presented themselves. Just beyond the fishing boats, our dreams were realised at Anthony’s First Base Beach Shack.

Before you could say the “Ahtohno Cape” (the Russian version of the name on the cyrillic signboard), we had 2 loungers, 2 Kingfishers Premiums and a litre of water. Well done, Goa!

The meandering aromas from the shack’s kitchen soon had their menu as our preferred reading option du jour and we decided on Shark Ambotik Rice and Crab Curry to try something exotic. The shark was served in a spicy red tomato while the crab was in an aromatic yellow curry sauce. We were told that the Goan traditional recipes prefer a coconut-based sauce. We were a bit disappointed with the pan-fried butter naans which were more like pancakes than the flat bread that we’re used to.

The whole meals was quite messy, so it was jazz-hands to the sea to wash off. We lingered in the water, which was as calm and warm as ever, with just heads bobbing above the water.

We frittered away the afternoon, reading, chilling and napping and made our way back to our neck of the woods when the sun was setting, intent on a sundowner at our local. The beach was busier than the previous night, which we ascribed to Friday being the start of the weekend. Mothers in full regalia, with fancy saris and lots of dingle-dangle jewellery, fathers in collared shirts and slacks, (lots of kids) playing beach games, splashing in the water, chasing each other or drawing in the sand.

From the comfort of (yet another) lounger, we watched the golden topaz sun set behind the water while we plotted and planned, posited and solved the world’s mysteries. We decided that the beach looked so much bigger in Goa because it’s so flat. There are no lumps and bumps, nor rocks or coves, so there are no bays or inlets giving contour to the coastline; just an endless view of sun, sea and sand. Glorious.

We concluded the Goa chapter with a divine dinner at Pentagon; a more conventional dinner club restaurant featuring a nightly roster of live entertainment that, being a Friday, offered us a diabolical duo playing ‘treasures’ (welcomed by their rendition of “Easy”, done better than Lionel Ritchie’s, but not as good as Faith No More’s).

The food was amazing and we indulged in hot garlic mushrooms and onion bhaji starters and chicken kadai and mutton rogan josh for mains. We were right next to a table of Russians and again marvelled at how differently they do things, based on what they ordered and how they were dressing it with condiments.

SATURDAY

We made the most of our last morning in Goa, getting up early and heading down to the beach to get in some last lounger time, punctuated only with dips in the sea and breakfast at a table at the shack.

We’d already booked a taxi for 11.30 so made our way back to the hotel at 10.30 to freshen up and pack. The drive to the airport reassured us that we’d had the best slice of paradise and alleviated any concerns we’d had about missing out on other sights around Goa.

We’d asked at the shack how big the airport is and what amenities it offers (planning for lunch, of course). We were told it is medium sized… Which it isn’t really, with only 2 boarding gates! No mind, it had a restaurant and lounger, which was all we needed. We had delicious toasties – a Club with egg instead of bacon, and a chicken tikkawich.

The only things I won’t miss about Goa are the relentless demon mosquitoes and the Goan apathy about cooling beverages. With this climate and the lack of ice (due to toxic tap water), ice-cold drinks would be a complete win.

Travelogue ISC 1: Mumbai

MUMBAI

13-14 November 2012

We had the best plane ever on the first leg of our journey on Emirates from home to Mumbai via Dubai. It was spanky new, with all the bells and whistles… And the best of entertainment with 100 new movies to choose from, as well as a host of TV series (full seasons!), whole album CDs and a large selection of radio shows and TV games. The food was de-lish too, scoring with an all-time-fave Beef Stroganoff fettucini for lunch. We got the best pastrami sarmie ever at snack time; although it was served with a twin roast veg sarmie, which is weird beyond weird…

We had a day flight so got in lots of the entertainment, all the meals and a nap before landing in Dubai at midnight. The 3 hour stop-over was laborious (for an airport that size, there’s surprisingly little to do), but they had us up and off with great efficiency, so no real complaints.

Seeing it was the wee hours of the morning SA-time, we were exhausted as we got on the plane.  We fell asleep well before take off and in the blink of 40 winks we woke up and realised we’d missed breakfast. That simply wouldn’t do, so I asked the steward to bring us a tray of the full English(ish) option. He said there were only veg breakfasts left… And proceeded to bring us 2 trays that, on lifting the foil on the warm bowl, revealed a chickpea curry for Christian and a chicken curry and rice for me. That steward is my kind of vegetarian.

By the time we’d finished we were in Mumbai. We’d pre-booked accommodation (online) so it was relatively easy to get quotes from the taxi counters to get us where we needed to go. The prepaid taxi service quoted us 1500 Rupees (which sounded like a good deal because we have so far to travel from Mumbai Airport to city centre where we’re staying), but the fleet stall opposite quoted 600 + 80 booking fee (bargain at 6 Rupees to 1 Rand), so we went with them.

It feels like a longer ride than it is, with uneven roads and maverick motorists. Ladies in sari’s riding side-saddle on scooters. Tuk-tuks, kids, people, cars, endless signage with faces and Indian scribble. People and chaos. Chaos and people. Everywhere. Hooting at each other and swerving and veering. No hostility, just painstaking concentration… And no helmets. It’s no wonder that a motorist takes the highway to heaven every 22 minutes in this town (Top Gear factoid, courtesy of Christian).

And the buildings. From the pavement to as far as the eye can see in every direction. Satellites dishes and aircon units on shanties. Almost all buildings in need of a coat of paint, a large number with cranes on top, undoubtedly some evasion of tax-on-completion story.

We got to our hotel, which was very Mumbai and clearly only loosely based on the true story presented in their online ads. Nonetheless, the shower (facing away from the water, as instructed) and tooth-brushing (with bottled water) were welcome – as was the air con in the temperatures already well on their way to the anticipated 33 degree midday high.

The last bit of admin was to book the overnight train to Goa, which we couldn’t do from home because they don’t take online bookings from outside India. We got a few sets of sketchy directions, and managed to find the string of travel agents around the corner from the hotel. Only to find that all trains were sold out already! It took a series of intense ‘short questions, shorter answers’ grillings to get all the info and we decided on an overnight sleeper bus as the best Plan B.

Travel arrangements (sort of) made, we headed out in search of some authentic Indian food for lunch (they just call it ‘food’ in Mumbai), ideally somewhere picturesque so we could leisure and idle until sundown. We managed a win with flagging down a tuktuk (which we found out much later were referred to as ‘rickshaws’, hence the futile attempts to figure out the system at the travel agents earlier on) and thought we’d struck a win with a negotiation of 250 Rupees (R60) to get us to Chowpatty.

We thought we were going to Chowpatty Beach, the central beachfront, anticipating promenades and esplanades. What we got was very rustic. Drop-off from the main road (still only single carriageway either side) at a stone entranceway marked “Gorai Beach“. We walked down the dusty road – nice enough with palm trees lining, dotted with (rustic) B&Bs and (simple) eateries and locals ambling in either direction – and found ourselves on wide oily low tide beach.

There were several fisherpeople around, feverishly sorting squirming sea life (everything from small squids to eels to crabs to goldfish-looking things) into baskets. Lots of families sitting in huddles on the rocks on the edge of the beach and wading in the water (women full-saried). There were a few spreadbeagled sleeping dogs (which we left lying) and, bizarrely, more than the odd bike/rickshaw/car (not a lowered suspension nor tinted window among them) whizzing past on the sand going from who knows where to who knows where. What there wasn’t was a lounger / brolly / bar / pool deck / live entertainer anywhere insight. Uh-oh.

And we weren’t even vaguely tempted to dip or swim in the sea, which the Lonely Planet had described as ‘toxic’.

We were beyond lunchtime, so settled on the terrace (strong word) of a beachside hotel and ordered a veg jalfrezi (Christian), chicken makhani (me), butter chipatis (both) and Cokes (each, soft-drinks-only establishment, serving 600ml buddy bottles only). Gotta say, the food was great. So pleased our first curry was a win! (And a bargain at the princely sum of R40, including tip).

Played some cards to catch our breath and then hit the road again. We struggled with a troupe of rickshaw drivers to get a straight consensus answer out of them as to what we should do and where we need to go, which landed us a short tuktuk ride to the ferry and deposited us ‘on the other side’. Lost again.

We walked up the main drag leading away from the ferry port, thinking it must lead us somewhere notable. It didn’t. So – taking time to ask several people if they spoke any English and finally getting a young couple to try – we confirmed we were in the heart of a very uninteresting residential and business district in Western Mumbai. Marvellous.

We hailed a rickshaw, negotiated a rate and headed to Juhu Beach, which all the Lonely Planets (we’d whipped through at Dubai Airport) spoke of positively.

It was a hive of activity. Food stalls, kids playing cricket, mini funfair rides at one end, a wall of people ankle-deep in at the waves’ edge. Bizarrely, everyone fully dressed. Not a bare-chested boy nor a girl’s knee, shoulder or belly button in sight!

Everything I’d heard previously about Mumbai had been about the squalour and poverty, but everything I’d seen had made *me* feel like the sweaty, sticky, icky thing to their tidy fresh linens and neat and bright saris. Clearly, we’ve been that far off the beaten tourist track that we’ve gone and subjected ourselves to ordinary people. How disappointing. 😀

Not that our less-than-pristine state stopped us any, mind. With Christian refreshed from the nap in the tuktuk and me in dire need of Western ablutions, we shamelessly sought sanctum at the Citizen Hotel. A very lovely establishment with a beach-facing terrace (that we accessed by lurking at snails’ pace through the air conditioned marble-floored reception) with (too) many starch-collared and neck-tied waiters all too ready to bring us the large bottle of icy still water and chilled Kingfishers that would revive our spirits.

We did lots of people-watching as the sun set. Lots and lots of people-watching. With lots and lots of people to watch since it was Diwali and everyone had come out to play. And we were the only white people there. Not a word of a lie. How weird is that?! We did spot a little Indian boy in a Cheetahs rugby jersey, but just because someone he knew (knew someone who) has been to the Free State, didn’t make him any less Indian. Sure, we had a share of less-than-subtle stares and little kids wanting to shake our hands, but not the demi-god status that urban legends are made of.

Anyway, we left the hotel terrace, thinking we’d meander through the market and pick up some samoosas and then head to another terrace set-up with better positioning for all the action. “All the action” being the number of neon-accented ferris wheels, a pendulum ship and car carousels (all manually cranked!) and the hordes of people.

It was not to be. All the samoosas were vegetable, the eateries teetotal and there, incredibly, wasn’t another hotel with tables beach-side (seemingly for tide-consciousness). But, luckily we  found an excellent triple-storey spot across the road, called Bora Bora, which had a lovely roof garden from where we watched all the fireworks and festivities (over a few Kingfishers).

We caught an aircon blue taxi home (top of taxi foodchain in front of non-aircon black taxis and tuktuk rickshaw 3-wheelers). What a first day in Mumbai! We were grateful for the bed and the aircon room and not even the constant banging of crackers and fireworks could keep us awake even a second longer!

Wednesday

After a nice sleep-in, we hit the pavement at 10am to initiate our day of sight-seeing. Unable to get a rickshaw driver to understand where we wanted to go (or perhaps willing to take us), we resigned ourselves to commandeering a blue taxi to take us to town for 1000 Rupees. It was a 45 minute journey so along the way we adjusted the deal to 2000 Rupees to be our personal driver for the day (a little over R300). For this he would take us to all the sites, share with us what info he could (in broken English) and take us anywhere else we might like to go until we needed to be back at our hotel for our 7pm bus.

We found out that we were fortunate that today, being New Year, is a holiday and therefore a reprieve in the usual gridlock traffic, so we made good time and were soon driving over the Sealink. No busses or rickshaws are allowed on that stretch so it’s fast-moving and a pleasure.

On the way to ‘town’ (Colaba, Fort and Churchgate), we stopped in at Laburnum Road, at the house where Gandhi stayed from 1917 to 1934. Not the to be confused with the Laburnum Road in Durban where Mother and I lived from 1982 to 1985. The house (Gandhi’s, not ours) is converted into a museum with several artefacts (including a copy of Gandhi’s letter to Hitler and Churchill asking them to prevent War) and dozens of captioned photographs documenting his travels and missions. I suppose I should have already known he lived in SA for almost 2 decades, but I didn’t, so the revelation gave the great man a bit more relevance to me somehow.

From there, we drove down Marine Drive and saw how the other half lived. Wide pavements and roads, with the esplanade we’d expected, but the beach – although wide and golden sandy – still lacking something. There aren’t the restaurants, terraces, cafes and shops that you usually associate with beachfronts, nor the dotted strips of people sun-bathing.

We drove around Colaba and Fort to get a lay of the land and the driver did a stop for us at Gateway of India, a large double-arch positioned in the harbour. The famed Taj Mahal Hotel is across the road and we got snaps of that too.

By this point we were still breakfastless and starving. Lunch at McDonald’s – McSpicy burger combo – more like a KFC Zinger than the spicy chicken at McD’s at home in that it’s a chicken fillet with spicy crumbing, mayo, shredded lettuce and no cheese. A large and a medium combo totalled to about R50. Bargain! I can understand why India would be the first country to have a fully vegetarian McD’s since the menu is practically there already. Burger options include veg, aloo (potato), paneer (cheese) and egg patties and the only meat is chicken, which is listed almost as an after-thought. The happy meals and side-order options include boiled egg options as well. Points for customer-centricity, Ronald!

Fed, refuelled and sense of humour restored, we set off on foot to explore what Colaba and Fort had to offer. We plotted a route to take in the major sights and traversed the Prince of Wales Museum, National Modern Art Gallery, the Maidan Oval, Jehangir Art Gallery, David Sassoon Library, Rajabai Tower, University of Mumbai (remarking how inappropriate neo-Gothic architecture is for this climate). This brought us back to McD’s to meet our driver, who was clearly concerned about how long we’d taken and assumed we’d skarpered to avoid paying him.

More annoyed than relieved at our return, he greeted our proposed itinerary (which we’d formulated by popping into a bookstore, consulting a Lonely Planet and jotting notes) on my arm with lucklustre enthusiasm. He perked up a bit when we shared our bottle of moderately cold (seemingly the best they do around here) bottled water with him.

He took us to Mahalaxmi Station, so that we could see Dhobi Ghat – the washing station which does most of the laundry for the city’s hotels and restaurants. Rows of concrete pools that washermen and -women stand in, thrashing the dirty laundry around and slapping it into the water like they’re trying to thrash an evil demon out of it!

Rows and rows of washing lines have the washing dried in no time – and count some impressive hotel name uniforms among them! Notably, there are no Ops Managers or clipboards and these workers are brawn managing somehow to differentiate whose is whose and where it all has to go without the endless stream of paperwork and team of administrators it would take to manage the same operation back home.

We were also fortunate enough to see a Dabbawalla bustling his way around making his lunch deliveries. A stack of pots balanced on his head, he was making his way to serve his clients’ lunch, invariably a selection of pre-ordered curry options, each delivered to the right person at the right time, again sans paperwork. The Dabbawalla network deliver 200,000 lunches a day across Mumbai, with a 0,04 error rate (Top Gear fact).

Anyway, back in the car (double-parked for our convenience, as always) we asked our driver to take us somewhere we could chill and have a beer… And ended up driving through Bandra (the ‘party’ part as we were told by the previous days’ youths) to Juhu Beach at *exactly* the same spot as the night before!

We headed into the thick of it to get some authentic local fare, thinking it a sign that we were supposed to get the onion bhaji, samoosas and bhel puri I’d wanted the night before from the beachfront food market. Dubbed as a ‘must’ in all the travel books, we’d only read about bhel puri. Not sure why as it appears to be an unattractive fishy ricey thing (from the pictures, we didn’t order one).

Equally disappointing was the samoosa experience.  Imagining the cheese samoosas we thought we’d be ordering (lovely crispy triangular pastry with hot drippy yellow cheesy inside), and realising that were actually pyramid-shaped, thick-pastried cold samoosas with fish inside. Insult to injury, the shopkeep crushes the samoosa  onto a plate with his fist and pours corn all over! Yikes!

Being ‘2 out of 3 is bad’, we saved the onion bhaji for another day and headed to the Romada to soak in their pool (for medicinal purposes, to quell the throbbing mozzie bites all around my ankles). The 650ml Kingfishers were also medicinal of course.

On the way home, our driver showed us Ashwarya Rai’s house (the Bollywood star). We’d seen crowds with candles and crackers outside the driveway the night before, doing a Diwali vigil controlled by the stately home’s armed gateguards, but not realised the who or what of the address. Apparently the house is a top location and is worth about 100 million Rupees, according to our driver. The currency has a complicated escalation pyramid, where 100,000 Rupees equal a ‘lacks’ and 100,000 lacks equal a ‘close’ (sp? Only ever had verbal explanation).

The traffic back to the hotel was worse than in the morning, seeing as we were now in the 5pm throng, but we made it back in plenty of time to catch our bus, so popped across Mira Road for a quick Pizza Hut. Chicken and veg only – amazing how much shorter the menu and easier the decision is! Opted for a combo of 4 personal pizzas so we could try more options. Tikka paneer and spicy chicken masala for authenticity, chicken & corn and spicy chicken sausage with mushroom and onion for variety quotient. All good. I do miss Pizza Hut.

Collected our luggage from the hotel and made it to the travel agent with half an hour to spare. It was worth the wait when we discovered to our delight that the sleeper bus was *much* nicer than the ones in South East Asia. Our berths weren’t 2 plastic moulded luge-like mattress singles one in front of the other like last time. This was one double booth with more than enough space for both of us, our carry-on stuff (on a rack at the foot) and even to play cards on the mattress between us! Under R500 for both of us and just as comfortable as a hotel bed! A good note to end Mumbai and a good start to the Goan leg of the journey!

Mumbai Do:
1) take probiotics and Vitamin C supplements up to and through your trip
2) bring insect repellent, antiseptic and anti-inflammatory cream
3) stay in Colaba / Fort / Churchgate area
4) use rickshaws instead of cabs where you can, much cheaperl
5) drink Kingfisher
6) get a city map – the greater city is bigger than you think it is, and very confusing in its layout and perspective. There are no tourist offices and the best maps we found were in hotel lobbies, although these were each for a single area so you still don’t get a sense of where everything is relative to everything else.
7) Get a private driver for the day. The city is sprawling and then you can go where you want, when you want. It is only 200 Rupees per person for the tour busses, but then you’re stuck with the group, their timings and a tour guide who only narrates in Hindi.

Mumbai Don’t:
1) the water is lethal so don’t have ice in your drinks or eat anything fresh that might have been washed just prior to serving
2) don’t expect a conventional beach holiday. The beaches aren’t great, the people conservative (as presumably tourists are expected to be), nobody speaks English and there aren’t the usual waterfront bars for entertainment, nor the beach shops and peddlars for supplies.
3) don’t show any interest in the wares of peddlars or street children or they’ll never leave you alone (and tend to multiply)