Morning Walk

-
Darryl has settled into his 5am temple walk. Christine didn't make it this was not a surprise. Bed is her friend at 5am.


Walk in darkness and temple chores complete (including the automatic drum machine alarm clock).

R and R for a while and also bug spotting.


We drove to  a park with a temple and an underground tunnel. We entered down a spiral staircase deep into the ground. 


We explored part of the cave and apparently the tunnel goes quite far towards two villages in opposite directions. A group of people were meditating and it was super quiet and cool under the ground. Once they had finished their meditation they came to talk to us and we had photos together. They were very proud to show us photos of their guru who is apparently in the US.

Once back up in the fresh air we were invited by the temple priest to have some food and a sweet mint tea.


Next stop was the wilderness after a quick snack of course! We stopped at a small cart and ate fried gram flour, green papaya and a sweet sauce. Afterwards, we looked for tribes that lived in that area. We didn't particularly find any and our friend told us they have moved on as things had changed here.


No problem, time to eat, again! We stopped in an air conditioned restaurant nearby. The owner had worked in Birmingham and spoke English with a Brummie accent. The Gujarati thali was delicious and we sat drinking Thumps Up with the owner discussing Spaghetti Junction.

On the way home we stopped for lots of bags of crisps (not sure exactly why) and a wooden box with a few slots carved in it. We also have no idea what this was for!


We relaxed at home and watched a full facial taking place with the local hairdresser. She smiled a lot and was very friendly. After our friend had the hair and make up treatment it was time to get dressed for the Navratri festival. This is the biggest festival in Gujarat and lasts for 10 days. It is basically dancing, dancing and more dancing.  Christine was loaned a fancy red dress and jewellery so she looked the part.


We arrived at the morning walk temple, where a huge field had been prepared for Navratri. Slowly, the whole village appeared dressed in their fancy dresses and smart clothes. They performed a standard dance - Garba and gradually increased the tempo of the music. The men and ladies took turns dancing in a circle. For one dance the men had sticks which they twirled above their heads.  Christine was shown the dance and joined in with the ladies.  Refreshments were served and then one last dance where the men and ladies danced at the same time but in separate circles.


A late finish, so it was straight to bed when we got home!

Popular posts from this blog

Portsmouth

-
Image
Up at 6.55 to meet our 7am breakfast slot. Breakfast was amazing and we ate the lot from dried fruit to double bacon and eggs. All washed down with posh coffee - awesome. Packing the bikes was easy but it takes a little bit of time ... We started our journey about 8.30. We passed our friend's house, his kids school and his allotment. We got a little lost in Southampton due to road closures but after a little back tracking from the scary dual carriageway, all was good. A lot of our route followed the National Cycle Trail 246, however it kept disappearing into nowhere. We eventually found it again but miles away from where we last saw the signs. We passed over lots of water today, saw lots of boats and had puncture number 2! Fixed, we headed off again. A few diversions, some nice tracks and now we could see the Spinnaker tower in the distance. This added a little motivation to the pedalling. A quick stop in Waitrose to stock up on goodies and we arrived at our destination - Portsmout...
Read more

Travelling south

-
Image
Our alarm woke us early as we have to catch the 8am train, which is about an hour's travel away.  Two friends were due to give us a lift to the bus stop on the back of their motorbikes.  However one overslept so the other asked his brother in law to give us a lift in his car!  Rather than dropping us at the end of the road at the bus stop, he kindly took us to the bus station. A bus was about to leave so we jumped on.  This bus took us back into Kozhikode where it was a short walk to the train station.  On arrival we discovered the train we were going to catch was delayed by 1.5 hours.  However another train, which took longer, was running on time so would get us there half an hour before our original train now would.  We bought our tickets and waited.  The station was filling up fast, which is always worrying when you only have a general ticket, so no allocated seat ...  and the journey is 5.5 hours. The train arrived on time and we jumped in a carriage which was less crowded, alt...
Read more

First Day Explorers

-
Image
After a good night's sleep, we woke early...ish for breakfast. We were hoping for a traditional Indian spicy fair but got a traditional boiled egg, bread and jam. We washed it down with a hot cup of Chai, so all was good. We ventured out in search of a few sites, however were easily distracted by fresh fruit platters, mango lassis and mobile phone cover shops. Next, an ATM stop to test various SBI machines. One small branch failed but the head office one worked. This was near the Mumbai stock exchange, complete with bull outside. We ended up at Horniman circular garden. An interesting name but the garden was being 'refurbished' - dug up. Marine drive is famous amongst the people of Mumbai. A huge boulevard next to the sea for romantic strolls. The stroll today wasn't filled with romance, more noise pollution as the whole sea defence boulevard was being fixed. Almost all of it for mile after mile. We had to walk on the dual carriageway but soon got fed up and headed inla...
Read more