One Life ...

Madgaon is one of the main stations in Goa. We walked from the station to the bus stop as there was no onward trains until 2pm. We stopped at a small cafe and had breakfast. One idly Samba and poha. Very good. There were lots of old churches and Portuguese style houses enroute. We found the bus station which was just the road side and waited for a bus to arrive. 10 minutes later we were off to Canacona. A short journey and we were dropped at the bus station. From here we had a 3km walk to our accommodation. It was hot but mainly a flat walk. We arrived at a cute apartment, left our bags and headed towards the beach. Patnem  beach was also about 3km away but we like to walk and so we did. The journey took us past some nice houses and through areas of tall coconut trees. There were a lot more western tourists than we were used too. Many seemed to live here and looked a bit like old school hippies! We found a big rock to hide behind which offered shade. Christine went for a paddle and...

We spent the morning chatting to the girl from Poland who lived in Scotland. She left with a lift to Bangalore. When the time for the bus arrived, we got on. However it wouldn't start so we changed buses and headed in to Hosapete. We tried to withdraw cash from SBI but network issues prevented us doing so. We tried Bank of India and that worked a lot better! We drank jaggery tea at a small street stall and when we felt hungry Dominos answered with air conditioned comfort. We had lots of time to kill so we sat and used the Internet. We walked to the train station and decided to eat again before boarding the train. We found our single sleeper berth on the train. Using Tatkal tickets means they allocate berths that are spread out. We paid for one and purchased a general ticket to board the train. No one seemed to care and we did get some sleep. It was particularly cold for some reason so wearing lots of clothes helped! The train was due to arrive at about 4 am however a 2 hour delay m...

Today we needed to do some admin for the next leg of our trip.  The WiFi at our accommodation is very up and down and the data signal is non existent.  However, whilst having our chai yesterday we spotted the mobile phone mast right next to us and discovered the signal was pretty good.  So, up, washed and dressed we headed for chai and mobile signal.  However, today it did not seem to be working. We tried doing numerous things, waiting in case it was intermittent but nothing. A quick scramble back to our accommodation to meet the 11am deadline to book our sleeper train for tomorrow night .... and hope the WiFi did not go off mid booking!  Success, we booked one sleeper ticket and would buy one general class ticket at the platform as buying Tatkal last minute often means sleepers in different carriages. A few more admin tasks completed and it was time to get ready to go out for dinner. This evening we are meeting up with some other travellers, arranged by the friend we are staying with....

Today we explored Hampi UNESCO world heritage site.  We walked a long way and saw lots of temples including Lakshmi Narashimah and a monolith Ganesh carved from a single rock, standing 15 feet high. We walked along the river and saw the coracle boats and stopped for chai and watched the baby black faced monkeys playing in the trees. Onwards and we saw the old Hampi bazaar, a monolith bull, Achyutaraya temple, Lotus Mahal .... to name but a few! We found a viewpoint with great views over an archeological site and the surrounding area. Having covered many miles we started to head back to base.  We found a lady selling Pani Puri at the side of the street so stopped for a plate .... It was rather good, so we had another plate! Just around the corner we found a little roadside cafe and stopped for chai. Back at base we freshened up and went in search of dinner.  We tried some different side streets today and only found a couple of overpriced places selling western food...so, we headed back ...

Our train arrived in Hospete and we were hit by the heat as we left the station.  We walked the couple of kilometres to the bus station to find the bus to Hampi. What a shock we received.  It seemed everyone was going to Hampi! The bus on the stand was jam packed, with people hanging out the doors.  We were obviously not getting on this one.   We watched in awe as a family of about 6 managed to squeeze themselves inside, followed by a few more people.  It was like a Mary Poppins bag, or Tardis.  We could not work out how they got on or where they went! Another couple of buses arrived but there were just too many people scrambling to get on.  We decided to leave the bus station and negotiate an auto.  We found one quickly and agreed a price and were on our way. We arrived in Hampi, along with everyone else!!  It seems there is a religious festival today and everyone has come to the famous Virupaksha Temple. We walked to our accommodation and checked in.  We rested a for a bit and then w...

Darryl had a headache and a fever. A bug had come to visit. He slept, watched movies and ate occassionally! Whilst Darryl slept Christine went for walks with our friends.  It is harvest festival time and everyone puts beautiful rangoli outside their front doors. Those from the Sikh community also have little bonfires outside thier houses and gather to share food.  After 2 days of Paracetamol poppimg Darryl felt a bit better and we were ready to face the overnight train. Our friend kindly dropped us at the station. We waved goodbye and waited for the late train to appear to whisk us off to our new destination.

We ate a delicious breakfast and chatted before our friends had to start work. When they did we disappeared! We couldn't decide whether to visit the fort or make a slightly longer journey to the centre of Hyderabad. We still hadn't decided before we had reached the fancy shopping mall junction. We opted for the centre and we would take the metro. We plotted a route through the huge tech area with many techie types looking very smart. There was Dell, Oracle and many others lining our route. A huge wall along the side of the road was painted with an amazing mural of the ancient past to the future. The metro was new and fast. We worked out where we were going to stop and purchased our tickets. The officer explained where we would need to change lines. All went smoothly though it was quite crowded. Everyone is making their way home for the Pongal festival. Off the metro we walked, got lost, walked some more and discovered a huge conference devoted to clothes...