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Diary This is Jan's diary. If you want to receive this diary by mail, write your mail on the contact form.
‹ Previous (03/12/2008) MONTH Next (2009-02-01)› ‹ Previous (2009-08-29 - Nepal) COUNTRY Next (2009-09-19 - Pakistan)› India Mysore (see on map) 03/01/2009:
In Mysore we have left to pass the last 5 days in company of our friends, reinforcing a friendship that to good insurance will continue after the journey, so much with David and Maria, as with its fathers, to which we have committed ourselves to visiting of here a year, in the supposition of our not going to America by car (the most feasible thing at present) and that we return to Europe before the next Christmas. Tomorrow early, the six of them will take a train towards Bangalore, and, the four fathers will take the aeroplane and our friends David at night and Maria will follow its journey for other routes, without there being forecast of finding us at first again. Yesterday we celebrate the last dinner, being invited by the fathers of David and of Maria to a delicious office, where I put on the boots, going out with a good indigestion. It was not an exception, because this last month, I and Alexandra (and also David and Maria), have usually eaten up more of the account, frequenting restaurants of category much better of those that we used to choose. They have coincided these five days in order to year, which we celebrate in another hotel of luxury that they offered buffet and music. It was very well in the middle of another 150 companions of table, although we had to provide the holiday. First, some entertainers that they did not cheer up too much suggested doing a competition of dance, with prize in hotel of Goa. As Goa it was one of our following destinaciones, I and Alexandra go out to the scenario disguised with a hat and glasses of cotillón and we start to dance in the middle of other couples doing mockery and the dances exaggerating Indians seen in the telly. We did a good show, and even other tables (apart from ours) started to cheer us up, but the prize to us did not go, addressing the worst couple of the dance that afterwards we discover that people were friends of the hotel. Evidently, the prize was tampered with or maybe, not even so alone there was. Also at the time of the twelve campanadas we were the only ones to create atmosphere. Observing that we would pass the end of year without the restaurant doing any special mention (not even so alone campanadas), we put ourselves all hats, glasses and garlands of cotillón, fill the table of inflated balloons and were about to one to one, like campanadas, to break them while we ate up the grains of grape that also we had prepared (typical Spanish tradition). We advance ourselves some minutes per standard time, but being added to our holiday, those of the hotel turned off the lights and without vision, we had to break all the balloons almost at once and to eat up the grapes in the same way. Afterwards we embrace each other wishing us good year, while the rest of Indians looked at us interested and other European groups were congratulated more discretely. Definitely, the Spanish have a happy character that they have not exported to the countries of the north of Europe or of Asia yet. Mysore was also a good point, for that the family of David and of Maria they did the last purchases before the journey, to which Alexandra accompanied, while I remained me relaxed or working in the hotel or the selfcaravan. On the other hand, we also made a little cultural tourism visiting the palace of Mysore. To enter the palace it was paid, and I and Alexandra wait outside for each other, for they are already too many monuments paid in India to price of tourist. But when our friends went out after a couple of hours, they recommended us the visit a lot and I have today directed. And even if it was really in its interior making photos forbidden the visit was worth to discover the opulence with which the maharajaes, who built this palace a hundred years ago, lived that the old one had burned during the preparations of a wedding. Agonda (see on map) 09/01/2009:
On Sunday in the morning, we said goodbye with pain to our friends, even losing some tears, for we have passed a fantastic month, as if it were a parenthesis in our journey. Now we will return to our routine of journey, planning a part that slowly becomes definite. According to the received news, the journey through Burma or Myanmar is impossible, on the other hand, the budget to send the car with boat up to Southeast Asia or America is too costly, so, it only remains us the option of leaving the car in Nepal (in India the car can be imported a maximum of 6 months per year) and travelling with a backpack through Southeast Asia and China. Afterwards we will return to Nepal to take the autocaravan and will make again the road we did up to India, visiting again the good friends in Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Europe, arriving to Catalonia mid November, where we will try to sell the autocaravan to follow the journey in America after three or four months. In any case, the next two weeks we want to pass them with calmness in Goa, relaxing in the coast, before following the journey towards new adventures and knowledge. Anyway, on the way towards the beach of Gokarna, we visited two places of interest. First we visited the big statue of Sravanabelagola on a hill of stone, one of the most important and former centres of pilgrimage of Jainists. The statue is a big monolith excavated in the 3rd century before Christ, of 17 meters of height (the highest monolith of the world according to the sites) that represents a bare Jainist deity. The other point of interest was the temple of Channekeshava in Belur, where we arrived early to be able to attend a simple ritual in which they showed a statue of a Hindu God to a group of pilgrims, while music of a saxophone, accompanied by drum and a strong bell was being played. Apart from the simple ceremony, the temple and the complex was interesting for the great quantity of statues of stone decorating the walls of different small temples, many of them with sensual forms, similar to those of Kajuraho. At noon, while we took the road towards Gokarna, the light of the battery of the car went on. I went out with the tester and saw that the alternator did not work. Worried, we went to an electrical workshop in a small village and they told us that they could not fix it for us there, for lack of spare parts. Fearing that it could be a severe problem and that we could remain without battery to keep driving, we decided to drive in opposite direction, towards Bangalore, since towards the coast there was no important city. Mid-afternoon, we stopped in a city close to Bangalore, in an electrical workshop, and they told me that there that they could look for the problem if I myself took out the alternator. Having experience of Africa, I did not make more questions and I did put my hands to work. Once I delivered them the alternator they found the breakdown immediately: one of the coals that made contact was worn out. After an hour they had fixed the alternator, and I put in back in the dark. The day after we drove towards Gokarna, through a new road, first a motorway of two lanes and the following day, a small road full of lorries that took down up to the coast. At noon we reached Gokarna, a town with some very pretty beaches that receive quite a lot of tourists with backpacks (our friends David and María had been here). Anyway, it did not attract us too much, for even if it had a very pretty beach (the beach of Om), there was not a good place to park. Besides, Gokarna is a pilgrimage site, with hundreds of pilgrims dressed in black arriving every day with buses and jeeps, which prevented us from being able to relax. So, the day after, today, we have decided to go towards the closest beaches of Goa, where they had told us that there was an excellent beach to park the autocaravan. ‹ Previous (03/12/2008) MONTH Next (2009-02-01)› ‹ Previous (2009-08-29 - Nepal) COUNTRY Next (2009-09-19 - Pakistan)› |
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