travel – Laurens Traveling

How to move to places and stuff

My brain is fried.

It’s early evening and I’m writing from a hotel room in Mysore at the end of day 3 in this Indian adventure.

How come my brain is so fried, you might ask?
This story answers exactly this question, as it takes us back in time.. Back to the days of like, 24 hours ago.

The bus trip

Yesterday we were awake until 2am,
only to wake up at 4am
to catch a bus at 5:30am from Bangalore to Mysore.

Yes, the whole city of Bangalore keeps moving and dancing 24/7!
Buses and trains depart from every hour of the clock, every day of the week. India does not sleep.

After 4 uber drivers had canceled our ride to the bus stop, and we started to get worried to make it in time, the 5th uber driver confirmed he was on his way.

In the car ride towards the bus station, I called the bus driver a few times, to find out where the bus would actually be stopping.
Because apparently it doesn’t really stop “at the bus stop” but it more like stops at “it totally depends”.

After about 10 seconds of conversation, that familiar moment happened where I realized I would not make any sense of whatever this person was saying.

So I wisely passed the phone to the taxi driver, who tried to convince us in his best English (of a very similar low adequacy level) that he was dropping us off at the right place.

And there we were, at 5am, in the middle of Bangalore, hoping to stand at the right spot and hoping that the right bus will arrive at the right time.

…

And it did!

So you’d think after a miserable 2 hours of sleeping and 1 hour of semi-napping in a wobbly bus, arriving at the beautiful city of Mysore, we’d take some time to rest right?

Wrong! Because we’re on a MISSION.

And that mission is: Buying a tain ticket.

The mission

Yes, you read that right.
Some of the most difficult things in life, such as finding healthy, cheap, fast AND tasty food, are ridiculously simple and common in India.

And some of the simplest things in life, such as buying a train ticket, match these amounts of ridiculousness. Only this time in difficulty.

The night before, I had been forging plan after plan with my dear Indian friend Danish, to enable us to buy train tickets for ourselves.

From dodgy government websites that don’t work, to outdated information about websites that no longer exist, to installing the 5 different apps that suppose to allow us to book a train ticket, none of the plans worked.

Either I could not create an account, or I could not prove I’m of Indian nationality (to be fair, I’m not), or the dreaded “Something went wrong” message appeared – the most functional part of any Indian government website.
If you want a crash course in technical difficulties, just try and buy a train ticket in India as a foreigner.

There was one immediate solution remaining: To buy the tickets at the train station itself…

The train station

I immediately had some flashbacks from my previous visit in India.
Flashbacks of hour long queues, chaotic overcrowded train stations, bureaucratic nightmares and scammer faces.

Coming out of the nightly Bangalore to Mysore bus, we started walking a bit towards the train station and took a break in an absolutely adorable tea shop where we had about 3 cups of chai each.

The shop wasn’t bigger than 3 by 2 meters, and the host made up for it with deliciousness of chai and hospitality.
We naturally had some conversation with the host and 4 local people who were there. We lightly talked about culture and religion, and when one guy started to give his opinions on Muslims, we decided to move on to the train station.

To our surprise, the first queue was quite empty.
We got to speak to a person really fast, and got disillusioned about the smoothness of the situation when she sent us to the correct queue straight away. This queue was longer but it still wasn’t anything like the queue from my flashbacks. First relief.

My hawk eyes had spotted that every person in the room was holding a piece of paper, and I asked what’s up.
Aha! There was a pile of empty forms, waiting for innocent suckers to walk into the room to fill them in.
This means we didn’t wait in a queue for 30 minutes to figure out we needed to fill in a form and then had to re-queue. Second relief!

We filled in the form.
And we re-queued.
And to my amazement, we got our train tickets without any issue and with barely any waiting! Third relief!
Parvati was with us today.

So here we are, in Mysore. With train tickets to our next destination.

Ahh, the 11.5 hour train journey in sleeper class tomorrow promises to be quite the experience.

Goa

There is alot of hype about Goa.
Many tales go around and live in the whispers of travelers.

Unfortunately, I got to experience a different reality.

This old ‘Goa’, this paradise of naked hippies raving on the beaches, peace for everyone, eternal festival, this place where one can escape from the madness of India and relax, feel home, bond with people, it seemed to me that only the story of this remains.
The story of a Goa that died.

Many things must have changed, from hordes of russian tourists coming with chartered flights that are all canceled since one year ago, to the sudden strictness of the motorbikes having a plate and the drivers having a license.

It might be just that I arrived at the wrong time, but what I found there, was the opposite of what I expected.

The hotels seemed to abuse the reputation and asked for prices too high; motorbike rental stalls were very much available, in fact they were all over the place, however the prices were so as well.

And a single foreigner I did not see. I ended up spending ~5 days in Goa, and only saw Indian tourists.
Yes, this did imply that the streets were extremely dirty. Touristy Indians throw more trash on the ground than Indians at home.
Or maybe it were the cows on the beach opening up the few trash cans that were there…

For the Indian tourists, Goa is now a place where you can walk around on the street with a beer in your hand. In many places in India this is not allowed, only drinking in private would be allowed, and in some places a total ban would be in place.
So here they can ‘go wild’ and drink a beer while walking on the street.

While I was having a coffee on the beach, a random Indian guy came and asked me for money, because the day before he was going wild and fell asleep on the beach, where a thief in the night took all his rupees and his Samsung Galaxy phone.

I was a little bit in doubt, for a multitude of reasons.
1. I’m very frustrated with all Indian people thinking I am rich. I worked for this and lived in great sobriety to save every euro I could, I’m using all my money, and might very well have given up a good old day, just to make this travel happen.
2. I don’t like giving random people money. If I give to one, it’s injustice to all the rest.
3. I don’t have money to spare, and every rupee I give I certainly will not get back. As friendly and nice as many Indian people are, they would not give me money or treat me.
4. If I give money to people asking for it, I’m supporting a begging system. It is a capitalistic society after all, which means that every bit of money one spends, goes into the support of what you are spending it on.
5. He spoke Inglish. It was extremely hard to figure out if he was actually in trouble or just spouting out some nonsense to get free money.
6. There was a friend next to him who didn’t say anything the whole time. And they both still had their backpacks.

So, dear reader, what would you have done?
I ended up giving him money for the bus, and letting him make a call to his father.
He could then take the bus to the next city where a friend of his father could borrow him some money to get home.

However, the same night, I saw him again, that friend of his father wasn’t home.
Now it was getting even more fishy. Am I just treating this guy free beers or is he even more in trouble than he was?
Anyway I took him to a restaurant for some food and gave him a bit more money. But this was enough.

His name was Raj. And he lived in Mumbai.

After a day or two I did settle down and just relaxed. Took some walks on the beach and did enjoy the sea very much.
It was a bit of a special sea, the waves were very bright and white, and they randomly flooded very close or far from the sea.

So I could enjoy the place, but in general I must admit it was a bit of a disappointment.
Though lesson iterated: Expectations can diminish or even crush our experiences.

@Varkala – A mini paradise

Varkala.

A writing event under a full moon that shines perhaps as bright as the sun.
Even though the mere reflection appears to be a very source of light, the potence and power of it hangs there, in all its glory.

Shades of coconut tree leaves wave and dance in front of my eyes,
a strange light aura surrounds the mighty hanger.

Looking into many eyes that submit into acceptance of the already near goodbye,
an inescapable reformation of the inner while going through doors of unknown, with keys thrown from the sky the previous day.

Mild footsteps don’t care about the destination.
A wavering mind takes its occasional distance, bends into new possibilities.
The persistance of the scenery that forces its way to be seen, forces a flexibility, a freshness, a youth in a mind and body slowly turning rigid.
When any resistance is given up, when the now is entered and fully responsibly accepted and entered, something invisible happens…

–

Varkala is a touristy place.
And even though last year I’ve hung touristy places up there, ready to eat the fire of my wall of criticism, this time it’s coming more than welcome, if not only as a temporary escape from a madness most Westerners would immediately succumb to.

Due to off-season, the prices for rooms are extremely backpacker and low-budget friendly.
This comes in quite useful, as when throwing the monthly look at my account, I’m chanting mantras for all the Indian deities that I’ve remembered the name of, 3-4 out of maybe infinity.

Shiva Garden Home Stay - Proudly waiting until my laundry is dry — Shiva Garden Home Stay – Proudly waiting until my laundry is dry

But even if the rooms are quite cheap at the moment, the meals are high-season price (even though half the menu is ‘no possible’), a sundering 2 to 5 times the local price, which is a price I’m extremely willing to pay, giving it includes amazing sights, rest, and only a few minutes of being hassled per day (hell, I was prepared for a ton more).

Rented a scooter for 3 days to just enjoy touring around. The landscape at any random place around here is just something you would pay for. A scenery of green, clear blue skies, the wild waves a free orchestra with theater in the background. Just driving the scooter to nowhere was an absolute joy, and on top of that finding some strange places and deserted beaches, awesome.

Still, my daily adventures are slowly decreasing in count, as I’m staying longer in this paradise like place.
Today I did laundry and left a pants at the tailor.
Schedule for tomorrow: Check on that pants at the tailor.
Daily schedule: Do that yoga they learned at the ashram. Eat something tasty.

Maybe it’s getting time to move.

I met a bunch of Frenchies which were very interesting, but perhaps it’s for the best that they already left yesterday, since today I busted myself thinking in French – the danger zone.
Now all silliness aside, I’ve had quite the great time with them.
Meeting all sorts of people is quite the experience. Being vastly open for any way a human can be, seeing all these faces, hearing all the stories, it’s life teaching directly, without nonsense. It leaves impressions, it pushes intelligence in you.
No book can do the same, noone can tell you this.

–

Yoga.

Still don't know if I want to buy this one — Still don’t know if I want to buy this one

It’s something weird.
It feels pointless to talk about it, since it has given me such unique experiences, barely anyone has a clue what I’m trying to say and it can make me feel silly.
But nonetheless the experiences happened to me and I cannot deny them, whether I would want to or not.

So I’m going to be a good and crazy boy and do my practice 2 times per day just as I have been doing.
It’s been a pleasure to do anyway, and it even begins to feel necessary.

Life lessons in the yoga roof at Shiva Garden Home Stay

–

After a ton of rupees on data plan and abusing all Varkala’s wifi routers in every restaurant and guest house, I’ve regained the key pieces of my music collection.
As this writing is occuring, I’m listening and drifting away in some amazing pieces I’ve had to miss for a few weeks.

Not out of attachment, but when unconsciously sliding out of the habits of what used to give enormous joy, certain things just regain their value.
Certain things truly become new once you just let them slip to the back of the head. Yes, there they still are, maybe they still develop there, but when it comes back into experience it’s like something new yet familiar, a home coming in some house one always imagined.

–

Next stop: Cochin.
Perhaps I can take the train with a magnificent poet I’ve met, whose poems just were the words I never expected to read, but always hoped for. Something truly inspiring and comforting in it.

An expression as grand as possible, not only through words, but bending style and grammar, not attached to anything particular, just to nuance and precisely point to that meaning otherwise inexpressible. Yeah, that’s how it should be.
Not pretending to understand them, I sometimes might, and my fiery reading gives a comfort also for my own writing.

Let’s go.