Kerela, backwaters, Ama's Ashram

I arrived in Kerela to find a different pace of life to that in Mysore & Bangalore. Instantly you could feel that people were more relaxed & it was a slower pace of life. At the Kottayam train station I didnt get hassled by rickshaw drivers & there were not as many horns & beeps etc etc. I had decided to stop at a homestay on the backwaters in an area called... apparently where the book the 'God of small things' was written about! As I hear that there is snow yet again in England i feel very privileged to be hopping around India feeling hot! I had a very relaxing punted canoe trip at 7am which was such a lovely experience, i got to see people bathing, washing clothes in the waters & kids going to school & we passed the morning canoe with lots of fish on it! There were no other tourists in boats around this area which made it feel that you were seeing a part of the real backwater life. Hearing all the sounds of the birds & the wildlife in & around the waters was great. I saw mango, coconut & banana trees! There is a traditional dress in the backwaters for men which is a shirt with a lungi, basically a sarong which they tie in between their legs! All the men wear them!

As I left the peace & tranquility of the Kerelan backwaters after the relaxing canoe trip I headed on a local boat to Allepey along the main strip of the backwaters. Here i saw lots of houseboats which looked nice but i didnt feel i had missed out by not going on one, these boats were so big they couldnt go down the narrow little lanes that the canoe went down! From Allepey i caught the train to the nearest town to Amritapuri as I headed to my next destination, Ama's ashram. Ama named the 'hugging monther'. She spends her life hugging people, thousands & thousands of people. http://www.amritapuri.org/

When I got out of the rickshaw across the river from the ashram I saw these huge pink tower blocks! I thought this cant be it, as it reminded me of s.london tower bocks but pink! Even though i do love a bit of pink these looked well shabby! I arrived just in time for an orientation tour which was led by a person who was v.friendly. He turned out to be the only friendly long termer or white brigade as we named them, as all the westerners were following Ama's dress & only wearing white. Ama was not there when i was there which was a shame as it meant i didnt get to experience her v.special hug, oh well another time i will have to return.

HOwever I did get to observe the place & how it ran. The best thing about the place I thought was the chanting at 5am & 6pm & the swimming pool. When Ama is away the men & women do not chant or do devotional singing (Bhakti yoga) together so on the first eve i went to check out the mens Satsang which i have to say was a poor effort. I felt sorry for the guys singing as they were in a huge hall but with only about 20 people watching them. When I went to the womens Satsang the hall was full, the women rocked, hahaha. When you sit & listen or join in with the chanting you feel like you get carried away into a trance like state. With chanting the idea is not to get caught up in the words but to feel the vibrations that run through you & then notice how you feel afterwards, its amazing. The Indian women singing had beautiful voices as well which helped! There were puja's at the end of the chanting, although i didnt fully understand what was going on I joined in to see if i could feel the love of the place that is supposed to be there even without Ama! I dont think I really got that feeling but still enjoyed the vibrations & sound of the chants!

When i saw a sign for swimming pool i expected some dingy pool however hidden away was a beautiful 25m pool with plants all around, a real treat as it was already so hot & humid at 10am! Of course the men & women had seperate times to swim & women had to wear these funnny trousers suit things, makes swimming a little tricky! Very refreshing all the same! Later on i did my Seva (Selfless service) & cleaned two rooms, generally i hate cleaning, or at least i did back at my home! However when you are in no hurry & I could put my ipod on & have a mini disco whilst cleaning I didnt mind it at all. Until i got told off! In ashrams there are alot of rules, I seem to break one or two of them, accidently of course!

I was taking the rubbish out to the bins, which ended up been a little further than i thought, i had to walk across the ashram. Earlier it was so hot that i took my long sleeved shirt off & was in a vest. As i walked back from the bins I got caught by a White brigade english women who told me it was just not acceptable! Whoops, i apologised & tried to explain but she was having none of it! There is no room for discussion or friendliness by these people it seemed! Anyway it didnt matter as I was heading off the next day!

Mysore.....& mishaps with trains......

After a very hot & busy bus journey i arrived in Mysore, a sprawling city. It was busy but not like the other major cities & I decided to see if i could follow my nose & find a place to stay by walking rather than catching a rickshaw. I wandered around the same streets for a while looking for a place mentioned in the guide, only to find that it was been renovated! Having had enough of lugging my backpack around in the heat i gave into a rickshaw driver who offered to take me to a hotel. The third place i saw i settled for, it was clean & had just been painted & the bed was comfy, always important! The same richshaw driver said he would show me around the city for a small fee so i agreed. He showed me the palace & took me, at my request to a yoga centre but then also showed me to a place where they make essential oils & incense & the veg markets. I quickly realised that all the tourists hitting mysore get taken to the these little places & suddenly without a thought in the world about buying essential oils there you are buying some!

The next day i visited the sites of mysore & the surrounding area, something hill (forgotten the name) where there is a temple at the top. Then i went to the outskirts of city to Srirangapatnam to visit an old palace, here the building itself was in a typcial indian state, in need of a good clean up but the gardens around it were lovely. AFter been in the city it was nice to have some space & I used my time to sit & meditate under a tree. In the morning i had got annoyed by the rickshaw drivers as one had broken down , then he passed me onto his friends, then kept taking me to shops i didnt want to go to & I felt they were trying to rip me off, generally i was getting annoyed by them. AFter my period of meditation however i felt alot better & managed to spend the rest of the afternoon much calmer.

That evening I was leaving Mysore to catch a train back to Bangalore where i was catching a nighttrain to Cochin in Kerela. I was taught a valuable lesson, always check your train ticket before travelling! I had a series of mishaps that evening as I went to Mysore station & found that the train i wanted to catch didnt run on a Tues. Whoops, this meant i would catch the next one but it would be tight to make my night train. Still ever the optomistic, i hoped I would make it. So far in India i had been really lucky with the trains.

The train to Bangalore was a busy busy busy commuter train & it got delayed! As the time ticked away I started to get a little nervous but still hoped we would make it into Bangalore on time! My train left at 9pm i thought from Bangalore city station & we finally started to pull into the station around this time. It was only at this point that I looked at my onward ticket & so did various Indians who all wanted to get involved & help me find my train. Then they told me that the train wasnt leaving from Bangalore city but it was leaving from another station outside of Bangalore. OH NO>>>> what a muppet! I was sure the travel agent had told me it was B.central staion! URRRRR. I was v.hot, tired & really didnt want to spend another night in a city. Also i knew that this train route was v.busy & i wouldnt get another decent sleeper seat & for the first time I had got 3rd AC class! There was no way i was going to make the train though & i kind of panicked slightly!

Of course there are always lots of indian men who like to take control of the situation & help you out. I was v.greatful as a guy marched me off to the guards office. The guard of course didnt listen to me but listend to the guy who was with me instead, its funny & annoying how your voice as a women is rarely heard as you speak with indian men! Basically i could get half my money back on my ticket & see if there was any space left on the last train to Cochin from B.city station. However the guard couldnt tell me that & we had to march off to the busy ticket office. Here there were no queues, of course that doesnt happen in India, everyone just piles round the desk, pushing each other out of the way! Complete chaos!

It looked like i would have to spend the night in B, but then the ticket guy said would i go to somewhere else in Kerela, i said yes & so he booked me on the only sleeper train that had availability that night! Yes I was going, woohoo, I had no idea where it was going too but i didnt care, i just wanted to be on my way! I had a tight schedule now that I was leaving the country in a few weeks!

I thanked the guy who patiently helped me & then made sure I went to the correct platform in plenty of time, of course the train ended up been late but i was happy i was just going to be on my way!

I vowed that I would check my train tickets from now on, haha! I slept very well, I am now well used to Indian trains & find them v.good, you just have to make sure your organised & book in advance as they are always busy! In the morning I arrived at an unknown destination & then had to hop on another train for 6-7 hours to get to a place on the backwaters. Everything went smoothly in the morning & i got on the first train & even managed to get some chappattis & banana's on the platform for breaky! I'm always happy when i manage to get some food!!!

Bangalore .... Entertained by my Indian friends..Food, food, food...

I arrived at 6am to Bangalore city station & Amal, a guy that i had worked with when visiting Bangalore with Cisco came & picked me up from the station. After a traditional Kerelan breakfast of Apom (rice & coconut pancake thing!)& curry sauce we headed to Bangalores botanical gardens to meet up with Uma & Santhosh (2 lovely girls with big hearts). I had a lovely day sitting in the shade in the park, then going for lunch at a restaurant in the city, then looking around the shops with the girls. Santhosh & Uma are just as bad as me when it comes to shopping! I was proud of myself as I managed to stop myself from buying a pair of sandles, due to lack of space in my backpack & i had vowed to get rid of stuff not buy more!

In the afternoon they took me to the Krishna temple. We queued up to get in & then as you placed you feet on a stone step, you chant a Hare Krishna mantra so by the time you reached the temple you had chanted 108 times (said to be an auspicious number). I then followed the girls with their offerings & they showed me around the temple. It was really impressive, the only thing i felt slightly uncomfortable about was all the merchandise available to buy! There was a huge room dedicated to selling statues of deities, pictures,pencils,incense, anything & everything you could buy to help worship you God i guess!

Afterwards we went back to Santhosh home, she lives with her new husband & his family, an example of a beautiful arranged marriage. We had chai & snacks & chatted to the family & then headed over to Uma's parents home for dinner. By this point i was already slightly full from all the food but I had yet to eat Uma's mums food! When we arrived Uma's mum had prepared loads of food & get bringing out more & more dishs for us to try! It was all amazing & her mum was such a lovely warm hearted fun person, very entertaining even though we couldnt communicate in english. After dinner she ended up showing me her yoga practice, sun salutes which she did at speed! Apparently she always does everything quickly, it was v.funny & cute. Although i had a hotel room booked Uma said it would be lovely for me to stay with them so I did! They were such a welcoming family & it was so nice to experience a real indian home & hospitality. I went to bed feeling like i had eaten too much but hey how could i refuse such amazing food!

Hampi.... Hot hot hot....16th -19th Feb 2010

After a very hot 7 hour train ride I arrived at a very very hot Hampi! Or Hospit the nearest train station, then rickshawed it to Hampi! AT first i didnt really pay attention or maybe have didn't have my eyes open to the expanse of Hampi & its thousands of boulders, rock formations dotted everywhere! However my first impressions were that it reminded me of a place in Aus called Devils marbles except bigger. It had a nice feel about the place although I was a bit concerned by the big warning signs in the guest house about not going out alone, dont take money with you or valuables, don't take any food from anyone as it could be drugged etc etc! All precautionary but i haven't seen such leaflets given out or up in guest houses anywhere else in India.

I realised that this was the first time i had actually been on my own since i first arrived in India. It must be the Indian way of life, in that families never do anything individually, that it rubs off on western travelers & you very rarely find yourself alone.

I went straight out & went to a lovely restaurant called Mango tree, where you sat on rocks which were lovely & cooling with a few of the river & Hampi's boulders. After within a short time back at the hostel i was talking a Canadian guy & we agreed to go off cycling together the following morning. I was so happy that Hampi had bicycles you could rent, as i miss cycling so much!

We set off early to cycle around Hampi a little but by 9.30am it was so hot. So we came back & had some breaky, then I found that the heat was too much & i had to have a little kip! In the afternoon I took the boat across the small river to see the other side of Hampi, which is where all the climbers hang out! I had heard mixed reports about the other side but when i went across it was like discovering a totally different place within a place! I loved it, beautiful green green rice fields over looking the rocks that go on for miles! I decided to move across the following day even though i only had one day left before heading to Bangalore.

The next day i got up early & moved across to the other side, the place i stayed in was a lovely friendly place with mud huts that were cheap as chips. Also there was a big garden in the middle of the huts which meant i could spend the rest of the morning doing yogs! Then i had a little walk about & tried eat some lunch but once again i found the heat too much & had to go for a snooze! When it cooled down a little i ended up practicing handstands & walking a tight rope, called a slackliner with a few of the guys staying there! The slackliner is all the rage with climbers, boarders etc to help them improve their balance. I thought i had good balance but this is not easy & i only made it forward a step or two, i want one though! I know its something Ar Gen would love as well! It was fun to be playing around like kids!

Although i wanted to go bouldering i was told it was the end of the season as it was too hot now & i didnt have any shoes or a crash pad. So now been sensible say! & seeing a fare few people walking around with twisted ankles etc i decided it wasnt worth risking been injured for my up coming yoga course in Bali that i had decided to go on! So i opted to go waking across, up & over the rocks to monkey temple with a lovely couple from Brussels. I managed to make it without having a nap in the afternoon, this was probably because i knew i couldn't as i had to catch an overnight train to Bangalore!

On our little hike we stopped at a local little cafe near the rocks. There we met an interesting character who was originally from Wales who for the last 15 years has lived in the rocks of Hampi or in the Himalayas. His bed is actually in caves in the rocks & mountains, madness. Now thats what i call free! He spends a month each yr in Singapore earning a bit of money & the rest of the time, solving problems as climbers say! He was not happy when we told him about the new indian visa rule that you have to be out of the country for 2 months after your 6 month visa runs out!