Last news.

Hey people!
We actually never ended up going to the North of Goa... we liked Patnem too much so we stayed two more days before we had to catch our flight to Kerala which is the province in the most southern tip of India. During our stop we met a 45 year old poker player from Dubai called Kevin. We just asked him if the internet worked in the airport, we started talking and the next thing we knew we had a free ride from Cochin airport to our hotel! His cousin, Seldon, came to pick him up from Cochin airport and we hopped in as well. Kevin told us that his family originally came from Kerala, but everyone except for his mom moved out of India. He had a sister in California, a brother in England and the rest also lived in Dubai. Every once in a while he comes to visit his mom back in Kerala. We drove to his mom's house and had some coffee. After that, he brought us to our hotel. We had some problems with finding one, but after some recommendations we ended up with a cheap hotel a few blocks away from Kevin's house. It wasn't a very good hotel though; the owner was an alcoholic, the hotel itself was very dirty and our toilet had the most nasty and biggest cockroaches! It was disgusting! When I sat down on my bed, it literally broke into two pieces. The excuse of the owner; the bed was 100 years old and he didn't have enough money to buy some new furniture (I think because he spends all his money on alcohol). Anyways, the first day in Cochin, Kaylee and I went to walk around Cochin. Cochin itself is beautiful! It's tropical, has lot's of buildings and churches still from the time when the Portuguese ruled this part of India and there are old school cars everywhere. I've never been to Cuba, but I think there's a hint of Cuba here! Besides shopping, we ended up doing pretty much nothing. Just taking it easy and enjoy the seaside as well.
The next day, Kevin and Seldon took us for a tour through Cochin and it's surroundings by car. We drove to a beach, drove through a communist worker's neighborhood (Actually, everything here is communist! Everywhere on every street corner you can see some communist propaganda and red flags etc.), drove trough Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Hindu neighborhoods and eventually went to a beautiful rich area on a lake surrounded by palm trees and aqua blue water. It was a fun day! In the evening we went an had Kevin's famous chicken curry. He said that it was the most amazing thing you will ever have in India, and I must say I was kind of skeptical but once I had a taste it was delicious! It was really the best Indian food I've had so far!
Yesterday, we drove two hours to the backwaters of Kerala. The backwaters are canals surrounded by jungle, primitive villages and god knows what more, and you can take a bamboo motor boat to take you around the canals for a few hours. We went for three hours and it was really beautiful! Huge palm trees surrounded the riverside, people were taking dives in the river to wash themselves, housewives here cleaning pots and pans and dirty clothes, everyone took home made canoe's to get arround and it was really like a trip to the medieval ages. It is such a recommendation if you get there in Kerala. Take the tour, bring a bottle of water with you and a little food and go and check it out! It's worth it! Also, stop at one of the waterside restaurants and try some duck curry. It's delicious! In the evening we were called by Kevin and he said that we could stay at his place for the night. He didn't like us staying in that dirty hotel. How nice!
We had a very good night of sleep and I packed my bag firmly this morning. Kaylee and I went to the Jewish part of town and bought our last souvenirs and now I'm writing my last blog in India itself. I fly home this evening at around eight, so I have to leave in about and hour and a half.
India has been great. I was pretty nervous for it before we landed here, but it's got the most wonderful people who don't want anything in return but your company and friendship, the most beautiful landscapes and I won't even start on the culture! It's been a rough, long ride with ups and downs and I feel it's about time I go home. I definitely coming back here though, no doubt about that! But for now, I just wanna go back to my 'koude kleine kikkerlandje'. That's it for now! If you ever consider going to India, give me a call or send me an e-mail and I'll be glad to inform you.
Namaste. :)

In the jungle, the mighty jungle.

Have you guys ever heard of a silent disco? Because that's were me, Kaylee and Simon (A guy from New-Zealand that we met here and hang out with everyday) went to a couple nights ago. We arrived at the sight, and as we expected we heard no music or noise whatsoever, but there was a huge line waiting to get into the property. Upon entry we were given wireless headphones and we saw three DJ's on stages playing. On the headphones was a button with which you could change the channel with to either one of the DJ's and every channel had their own color. There were lights on your headphone which showed to which channel you were listening to. It was so funny! If you put your headphones off, the only things you could hear were foots stamping on a certain beat, people talking and the sea, and the only thing you could see were people dancing to music that you couldn't hear! It was so much fun! I had a great night, and I certainly recommend this to everyone going to Goa.

The day after the silent disco, we took a boat ride with Simon and Anna (Another New-Zealander) into the mangrove forests behind Palolem. The water was aqua blue and super warm if you put your feet in! All around us were huge mangrove plants and everywhere you looked were beautiful birds flying around. We all took some great photos and enjoyed the boat ride. The night after that, Simon and I decided to share this huge King Fish for dinner. It was freshly caught on that same morning and we could see the whole preparing process. It was smoked in Tandoori sauce and tasted delicious! It was perhaps the best fish I've ever had...

Yesterday, I rented a moped again while Kaylee was staying at the beach for a day, and rode out to some waterfalls. The ride took me about one hour and a half to get to the village where the road ended, and I had to ride through dense jungle. After I arrived in the village, everybody looked at me like I was some kind of alien. The village itself was pretty primitive; houses made of bamboo and palm tree leaves, no electricity, etc. It was beautiful though! There was a huge rice field surrounded by palm trees just outside of the village. It was the kind of scene you would only expect to be in Thailand or something. I had to follow a small path along a jungly river and went deeper and deeper into the jungle. I felt a bit nervous since I was by myself, going onto the jungle and the sun was already starting to descend. The path took me into what seemed as the heart of the jungle, and there were huge trees fallen over into the river which I had to climb over. I also had to watch out for snakes, since I nearly stepped on one and discovered that there were quite a few crawling around. After a hike of about half an hour, I arrived at the waterfall and it was magnificent! I took some fast snapshots of it and sat down, but not too long since the sun was going under fast. I quickly hiked back to the moped and drove back to the beach. I had a great, adventerous day. (:

We've been in the south of Goa for lets say five days now, and today we're gonna go to the north. We've liked it so much so far and it's difficult to leave this beautiful place, but we've just got a few things to check out up in the north. So I guess today is goodbye to Patnem and Palolem and hello to North Goa!

P.S. New pictures are on my Facebook!

Tropical Paradise!

Hi people!
Just a quick update from Goa this time. (:
Kaylee and I spent two days in Mumbai, but we can't really say we didn't actually did something cool or anything. Nobody knew where Bollywood was, so we ended up not going to it and instead, we went to a cinema and watched a movie, strolled around in the neighborhood and saw the old buildings from the British era, which was really strange to see since the buildings were kind of Dutch looking and you certainly wouldn't expect those kind of buildings to be in India! Over-all I decided that 'Plastic City' suited Mumbai as a nickname well. The city just doesn't seem to belong in India; big skyscrapers, expensive hotels and resorts, girls and guys who want to look western so they walk around in fancy clothes, fancy cars and everything is just not-logical expensive! I liked the look of it though, it was so pretty! But just not Indian at all! After the two days, we woke up early and took a cab to the train station.
An over day-train was scheduled for us to take us to Goa, the tropical paradise province of India. The train took 15 hours to reach the province, and once we were there, a Rikshaw took us to Patnem beach. We had a place in mind to stay at from the Lonely Planet guidebook that we had with us and told the driver to take us there. He couldn't find it in the first place, but after a long search, we came to a village of tiny huts and in the darkness I could see that there were huge palm trees overshadowing the huts. A very friendly hostess waited for us and showed me a hut while Kaylee waited with our luggage in the Rikshaw. The hostess took a candle and opened the door, the hut was tiny and in it were only a two-person bed and a plastic chair and table. It had no electricity and the floor consisted of two yoga-mats and the rest was sand. But we decided to take it, because it was cheap and we were very tired. There was live music playing that night and we went and listened to it for about half an hour before we went to bed.
The next day I woke up and heard the waves of the beach nearby. Were we so close to the beach then? I opened the door and literally stepped into a paradise! Above me were huuuuge palm trees with big coconuts. The sand was pearl white, the huts surrounding ours were made of bamboo and palm tree leaves and all of them were surrounded by a wall of some kind of mangrove plants. I could see an opening nearby and decided to walk into it. Beyond it lay an aqua-blue ocean, with palm trees everywhere and plants growing everywhere which you only see in Expeditie Robinson or Survivor! Beautiful!
After Kaylee woke up, we had the most delicious and cheapest breakfast ever at our hotel bar and went for a walk to downtown Patnem. It's a cute town and everything (Well, depends on where you buy your stuff) is quite cheap. We love it here! At least, I do.
In the evening we met a guy from New-Zealand named Simon and we talked with him for hours about all kinds of stuff. We also found out about the Tsunami which hit Japan and is on it's way to more countries. I hope it's a weak one, because it might hit the west coast of India.
Before we had dinner, we took a quick dip in the ocean. The water here is unbelievably warm! It's like a swimming pool! Amazing! We're here for about a week before we go and visit Eva in the southern part of India. I have no problem with that, I could stay in this tropical paradise for weeks! But o well, you can't have everything you want I guess.
That's all for now, I wish I had some pictures to show you! For now I've just looked up a photo from Google of Patnem beach where we are now. I hope that will be sufficient for now. I'll try and post some of my pictures in the upcoming days. (:

Updates, updates, updates.

Let's see where I was last time... OH RIGHT! Camel safari. Let me tell you; if you ever have the chance to ride a camel through a desert: DO IT! It's so adventerous, so funny, so cool! Let's start from the beginning; we were picked up by a guy at half past three from our hotel. He took us to a parking lot behind our hotel where two other guys and three camels were waiting for us. The camels were named Jimmy, Romeo and Shiva. I had the honor to ride Shiva and once we were all seated, we took off to the desert outside of Pushkar. The ride was bumpy and I had to hold on if the camel had to take a sprint, but it was so much fun! How often do you ride camel through a desert in India? Never! I enjoyed it and so did Kaylee and Eva. The desert in Rajasthan is a mixture of rocks, dead plants, trees, sand and cactusses, and the sun shines bright (Tip; bring a water bottle with you if you're ever planning on doing this)! After about and hour of riding, the guys took us to a shadowy valley where we let the camels graze. Eva and I climbed the slope of a dune and took some pictures once we were up. It was an amazing view and we could see the whole valley beneath us. We climbed down again and we played a typical game from Rajasthan, named Khaperdi. The best way to describe it, is that it is a mixture of tikkertje and rugby. Very fun to play! We had to watch out not to step in prickly plants or onto the beetles who were crawling arround in the sand though. We had fun and once we were all tired of playing, we took off again to a gipsy village in the desert. We watched the sun set there with typical Rajasthan music playing arround us, a beer and children who were curious to see who we were walking arround us. After the beer was done, the children were gone and the man who played the music for us, we took off again to Pushkar.
The next day we went to Bundi, which is about a three hour ride from Pushkar (Or so they say, it took us five hours). We hired a private vehicle which took us there and we arrived in the night. After finding a descent guesthouse, we all went to sleep and the next day we decided to walk arround town. We met a local kid about our age who was willing to take us to the waterfalls which are about and hour ride outside of town the next day. That meant that we had to rent some motorcycles and that we had to ride them! It was a scary but fun idea, and once the kid assured us that there was no need to worry because there is no traffic on the roads there, we accepted the offer. The next day, we arranged two motorcycles and met with the kid again. Before I took off, I decided it might be handy to take it for a practice run. I rode up and down the street and found that it was quite easy to ride the thing, so off we went to Bhamlet waterfalls! It took us about one hour and a half to get there, and we had to ride through the most amazing desert landscape! I hate the fact that I havent been able to upload pictures of it for you guys, but I guess that has to wait untill I get home again. We could see the whole landscape stretching beneath us while we drove up to a mountain! The waterfalls were beautiful; they were hidden in a gorge and we had to climb down to the pool beneath it in order to swim. Eva and I had a quick dip in the cold water and it felt amazing! After two or three hours of relaxation, it was time again to head back to town. Once back again, we realised that we were in Bundi but havent seen the main attraction of the city yet, which is the palace which is towering over everything else in the city because its built on the side of a mountain. The outside of it looks amazing, but once we were in there (We had to climb up for about an hour and it was awfull; far too steep and no stairs!), we were so dissapointed at what we saw. It turned out nobody took care of the castle anymore and it was covered in weeds, monkey poop and it was falling apart right before our eyes. The view from the top of the mountain on the other hand were amazing! But we decided we didn't like Bundi so much and the next day we took a private vehicle back to Pushkar.
Once back in our home away from home, we met up with our local friends again to hang out the rest of our days in Pushkar. Their names are Manesh and Sonnu. Manesh is a local celebrity (You could say, haha) and runs his own natural medicine shop and Sonnu is a local Brahman (Priest) who, besides being a priest, runs a local hotel. They both ride motorcycles and decided we were interesting enought to hang out with, which is lucky, because they are so much fun to hang out with! They took us to a Shiva (That's a god) temple outside of town one day. We had to ride of rocky roads in order to get there, and the girls and Manish fell one time trying to balance over the rocks. They were ok though, because they were driving very very slow. Once there, we could hear faint chanting. It turned out the temple was built on a natural spring and it was beautiful! Old trees with huge roots were growing on the slopes of the little river running through and you could hear birds sing, it was just so peacefull! Manish and Sonnu took us inside of the temple where we were welcomed by the people already praying there. We each got a hand full of rice and had to clean ourselves with fire (You put your hand in the fire for just a minute, and rub the hand over your face). The chanting of the worshippers grew louder and faster while we were directed to a dark stairway in the room. It lead to total darkness, but once we were in, we could destinguish a little tiny altar. We gave the rice to the gods and sat there for a minute. When we were outside again, we took some Chai and went back to town. The rest of the days we spent in Pushkar we did shopping and preparing for the rest of our journey. Eva took off one night and is now in Tamil Nadu (Which in in the southern tip of India) to volunteer.
Kaylee and I left Pushkar, the desert and our friends behind the day before yesterday. We took a night train to Mumbai where we are now. It's so tropical here! It's amazing! We're staying at the YMCA here. How funny is that?! Anyways, we're doing fine and today we're gonna try and see Bollywood. I wonder how that turns out! (:
Bye!

Hippietown.

We're already on our third day in Pushkar, a little town in the middle of the Indian desert. The reason why is because it's so mellow here! People don't try to scam you, they don't try to pull you into their shops, not so many people make photo's of you (And if they do, they ask you first), it's clean, it's not noisy and it's just so quiet and beautiful! The city is built arround a sacred lake where a few of Ghandi's ashes were scattered. Arround the lake is the main bazar of the city where you can shop untill you drop! It's so much fun to walk arround in that street! The most amazing individuals walk by. Ever since we came here, we noticed that there was a high level of western hippies residing in the city. We have no idea why, but maybe it's just that Pushkar is such a mellow town where you can just take it easy without being looked at all the time. Even so, it's even hard for us to not look at some of the people walking arround here. They have long dreadlocks, piercings, tattoos, pilgrim clothes and they are just personalities who you don't see every day. I love it here though. Yesterday we climbed one of the mountains arround the city to one of the temples. Once up there, I had a chat with a guy who was sitting on a wall. He shared half of his food with me and we talked about our backgrounds. It turned out he was a local priest! And he told me that because Pushkar is such a holy town, fifty percent of his inhabitants are priests. I think that Varanassi is not the holiest city of India; Pushkar is. Varanassi has just got too many scammers and is too commercialised. Puskar is the real deal. But ok, enough for now. We're actually going on a camel safari at the end of the day which should be interesting... Talk to you guys soon! :-)

Touchdown.

Namaste folks!
I'm very sorry that I couldn't update you guys earlier about my journey, but my email didn't work. But hey! We made it safe and sound to India and we have been travelling without any problems whatsoever for more than a week now! The cultural shock was less intense than expected to be honest. I did see some shocking things that you wouldnt see anywhere else, but I guess you just deal with it in some sort of way. The first few days were spent in Dehli where we hired a private cab driver for the whole day to show us arround Dehli. We drove a bicycle cab throught the narrow smokey streets of the oldest market of the city and we visited one of the oldest temples in the city where we were blessed by a priest. Dehli was fine, and after that we went to the holiest city of India; Varanassi. People say that Varanassi is the city where life and death go hand in hand. You could say that this is true since every person in India wants to be cremated here at the banks of the Ganges. So the whole city kind of stinks like fire burning and when you go to a cremation ground, prepare to see shocking stuff like half burned bodies in a pile of fire. Also, beware of people trying to scam you (This is actually a general advice for India as a whole). Agree on a price before hand and stick to it, and make sure you don't get pulled into parts of the city where you didn't wanted to go in the first place because people make you pay big time. But all in all we managed to survive Varanassi pretty well, and we ended up taking an early morning boat ride along the ganges with the most amazing sights and doing yoga for the first time! That was interesting I must say and we were sore for a few days after, but I liked it! After Varanassi we went to Agra, where the Taj Mahal is. You'll immediately notice that this city is far more better organised and cleaner than any other city. The Taj Mahal is not cheesey at all. It is truely a must! It's far more bigger than you would expect and when you go at six in the morning prepare yourself for perhaps one of the most beautiful sights in the morning. When we were there, the sun just came up colouring the sky with blue, pink and orange and there was low-hanging fog to add an air of mysticysm to the whole scene. We took some pretty amazing shots I must say. Yesterday we went to a nature reserve to get out of the city for once. It was very beautiful with birds in all shapes and sizes and the most amazing colours! We also saw two pythons, antilopes and many deer. Yesterdayevening we took a sleeper bus to Pushkar, which is in the desert of India. It is beautiful here, but we're taking it mellow today since we are all very tired, but maybe tomorrow we'll go on a camel safari and sleep in the desert overnight! I'm so excited! I'll try and update you soon!

Oh btw, if you want to see more pictures, I've uploaded many of them to my facebook. Just search me up on facebook and hit the India album. (:

The countdown begins...

I just can't believe I'll be flying to Dehli on monday! It's surreal!
There was a little stressfull moment last week concerning our visas; the people of the visa agency called that we had to send additional information for our application within the hour, or our visas couldn't be arranged in time. With stress levels reaching into outer space, eventually everything worked out. Tomorrow we'll hear if our visas have been arranged in time. I'm a little worried though, but if they aren't on time, we'll just fly in one or two days later. So one advice people; if you are about to go to a country where you need a visa, send you application a few weeks before you leave and also get your shots a few weeks before you leave! It's so stressful if there's trouble with arranging it.
Anyways, Eva and me skyped Kaylee yesterday and I think everything except for our visas is arranged! I'm packing lightely for the journey. I will only take two outfits with me and only the essentials. The rest I'll buy in India. This because I don't want to have to carry a heavy backpack for a month with me. That was the case in Italy last November and I can tell you; it's no fun. So yet another travel advice; Only pack the essentials for your journey and a good, thick book!
Having watched the movie Darjeeling Limited last week with Eva made me so excited for India! It's a very good movie about three brothers travelling through India together on this awesome train! I hope the trains in India do look like that! Anyways, I recommend that if you go to India, you watch this movie together with Slumdog Millionaire. That will get you in a good Indian mood.
I think I will have trouble sleeping this last week before I leave. This week is already going too slow. Please! Make this week go by fast! Please!

Preparations.

Here I am in gloomy, grey, cold Holland. Sitting at my desk at work. I probably should be working right now, but there is no work to be done right now. So I took this oppertunity to tell you about the preparations that I've done so far for India!

First of all, when you go to India you need shots. India is not the most hygenic country, so you should protect yourself against scary diseases and make sure you eat only good food. Good food in this context is cooked food. It kills the bacteria in them and for as drinks, you should only buy bottles that are sealed with a cap. I've also been warned about waiters serving your drinks with their fingers inside of the glass. Since I work at a company which makes vaccinations, I got the shots for free! I needed three of them and I got three different pills to take when I'm in India. Bad side of shots was that I had sore arms for three days afterwards...

Second of all; you need a visa. To be honest, we are still working on that. I had to fill out two forms with my information and what I was going to do in India and hopefully that will be sufficiant to get a visa.

Third of all is to book your first hotel in India. I got the news that Kaylee's mother booked a hotel in Dehli for us for three days! A shuttle will pick us up from the airport, which is really handy because we arrive in Dehli at one in the evening! I hope Eva didn't forget to thank her, I'm really gratefull!

It's really surreal to think that I will be in India in 18 days... many people already warned us about a heavy culture shock, esspecially about the beggars everywhere that won't leave you alone no matter what you do. I'm curious; I can't imagine travelling arround India with beggars EVERYWHERE you go. That would be annoying.

But I guess we'll see. Our plans for so far are to be spending several days in Dehli, than make our way to Rajasthan where we will be riding camels, after that to some kind of temple at a sacred lake and to going to visit Mumbai. We don't have anything confirmed so far! That means that we will be planning our trip along the way. Adventurous huh? Haha, we'll be fine though, I'm sure!

Ok folks, I have to get back to work! I'll keep you updated!