South India was amazing.
The first stop was Aurangabad, which was nothing special but about an hour away in each direction are caves (Elora & Ajanta) with Buddhist & Hindu & Jain temples carved in them. The train there was about 16 hours long, and our tickets were for general class, which means "everyone cram in as tightly as you can", but we got on in the sleeper class anyway to see if we could find beds and ended up paying the janitorial staff 500 rupees for one of their beds. Aside from that though the train ride was really beautiful.
From there we took a sleeper bus to Mumbai. It was all of our first times on an overnight bus and we were really excited because it looked super nice & comfy and like we'd actually get sleep in the beds. And then we started moving. It was super bumpy since Indian infrastructure isn't great. Neither is Indian driving. Anyway we made it to Mumbai after an essentially sleepless night at like 5 AM and went to our hotel, who said we couldn't check in until later. It was right on the harbor and near the Delhi gate so we walked down there and hung out with some stray dogs. The Delhi Gate was built for "their Imperial majesties" King George & Queen Mary, but it wasn't finished when they came so the architects just put up a cardboard facade of what it was supposed to look like for their visit in 1911, and it wasn't actually finished until a little over 10 years later. In Mumbai we also took the bus to the world's largest Dobhi Ghat, which is an outdoor laundry. We paid a sketchy guy that lived there 100 rupees each to give us a brief tour of it, which made me uncomfortable but it was cool to see inside. That afternoon we went on a super legit tour of Asia's largest slum, Dharvai. Our guide was an 18 year old college student and he was so smart. It felt like something I would've done with SIT, since we actually did visit a slum in Jaipur. This was definitely better in terms of information learned though. I think the guide was a little surprised about Andrew's & my knowledge of Indian policies/social issues/etc. from the questions we asked. That night we went to a restaurant called The New Yorker, which was funny. It was trying so hard to be American...they gave all the customers coloring/word search place mats, regardless of their age. And all the upper class Indian adults eating there got so in to it. Everyone around us spoke English (we were the only foreigners), which was interesting and funny to hear their accents.
The next morning we took an all-day train from Mumbai to some random city that was close to where we needed to be to go to Hampi. That was a beautiful train ride too. Like the other, we were in sleeper class, which has beds but the windows are completely open except for some bars across them so there were some beautiful views and also a lot of dust. But we actually had tickets so it was all good. It was the Indian school holidays too, so we were with a ton of Indian families who had been on vacation in Mumbai. We finally got to the random station at like 1 AM, and the train we needed wasn't coming until like 2:30 so we hung out with some giant cockroaches until then. We didn't have tickets for this train so we figured we'd just try our luck and climb on in the AC 3-tier car and see what happened (just like sleeper, but with closed windows & is air conditioned & they give you blankets and pillows). We didn't find any empty bunks there so we kept walking back and ended up in AC 2-tier, which is the nicest class on the train. And found 3 empty bunks. So we climbed in but were all too scared to sleep because we were afraid of being thrown off the train. Someone did come to the cabin but it was to tell us that we'd be getting to the stop we needed at whatever time. How they knew that we needed that stop will remain a mystery. But no one questioned our being there because it was totally where they'd expect the white people to be.
So then we got to Hampi, which is this city with a ton of old ruins. It reminded me of Tikal and Pompei all in one but cooler. We spent the day riding around on motorcycles looking at the ruins, and went swimming in a river that afternoon. We got a hotel room for the day to keep our stuff & shower in, and it was run by the most adorable Indian woman EVER. She ran that place so well. I wish we could've stayed longer for many reasons, one of which being to spend more time with her. That morning after we checked in, we went out for breakfast and I ordered a honey dosa. Sounds delicious right? It was, until I found a ton of ants in it that had gotten in to the honey. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate ants more than ANYTHING, so I was really grossed out. They gave me a new, ant-free one though, and brought the jar of honey (actually in a recycled Officer's Choice whiskey bottle) out to me as proof of its antlessness. Random, but there were a lot of cats in Hampi, including at this restaurant. We heard it meowing, and I was looking behind me to see it and our waiter goes, in the most deadpan Hindi-accented English ever, "cat". On very few hours of sleep, it was the most hilarious thing ever.
That night we had another sleeper bus to Bangalore, where we didn't want to go but had to to get to Kerala. I was so tired that I slept a bit more on this bus but the road was super bumpy again and I swear I bumped about a foot in the air at some points. So we had a random day in Bangalore, and I convinced the boys that it would be a better idea to cancel our 3-day train tickets in sleeper class from Kerala to Delhi and fly back instead so we could have more time in Kerala. We bought plane tickets & Andrew's friend did some souvenir shopping and then we took a semi-sleeper bus to Kerala that night. Semi-sleeper meant that there were no beds but the seats reclined and we got blankets & pillows. We were in the very back which was nice until the people in front of us put their seats back. Then our legs got crushed because we were slightly elevated. However, we almost didn't make it to the bus. Our rickshaw driver told us that it was very far away, and we hadn't left much time. However, after he called the bus company and performed some crazy driving moves we met the bus at what I believe was stop number two and happily climbed on.
Anyway, we wanted to go to Kochi, and were told we'd get there at about 8:30. False, we rolled through at like 6:30 and no one told us. So we got off about an hour later in a little town called Allaphuza, which was small but really nice and I'm glad we ended up there instead. We went to the beach on day 1. Enough said. The second day we took a boat ride in the backwaters, which was beautiful. it's this network of canals that are there naturally and there are villages there. I kept on expecting to run in to a Mr. Kurtz all of a sudden...it was very Heart of Darkness-esque. Our hotel really, really wanted to get in the Lonely Planet, so when we got back from dinner on the first night the owner sat us down and gave us his whole backwater boat tour shpiel...but we stuck with our original plan of just going to the docks & getting a boat, which worked out just fine and saved us money.
The next morning we caught an early bus to Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala, and flew to Chennai. After a 6-hour layover, we flew to Delhi and arrived at about 11 PM. The next day, we visited the temple of the Hindu sect that Andrew studied in Ahmedabad for ISP. It's crazy huge and being marketed as a tourist attraction for Delhi in general, which I think is interesting. After going back to Jaipur very briefly to pick up my luggage, I went back to Delhi for two days jam-packed full of sightseeing before going to Varanasi.
And now I'm in Varanasi. Now that the tourist season's over, it's SO quiet. I didn't realize just how much of the town revolves around tourism until now. It's amazing. However, on the flip side that means that a lot of the good cafes, where you can get real coffee, are closed.
The internet won't let me upload pictures right now, so I'll save that for later.
