Two Wheels Whirled: January 2007

Short and sweet :)

The net connection is PANTS!!!! Sorry, we have photos, but we can't upload them yet.

We are in Hampi - nothing less than fantastic!!!!! - but we have had a bit of tummy trouble, so what was to be 2 days is now 6 as we have had no energy to get around and see everything in the heat (it's about 30 sq kms of really good ruins and it's about 35C here!!!!) We were both feeling MUCH better today and tomorrow we will chase the last temple and give you another update (from another iCafe :)

We never made it to Madras, we left Mamallapuram in a cloud of dust and headed for Bangalore. We stopped in the silk capital for breakfast at a posh hotel and had the best coffee of the trip :) Then we hit the road and picked up an escort at the toll booth outside of town - a HIGHLY energetic 19 year old guy that had just done his own trip around India (9000kms in a month) and he was on his last leg home. He led the way on his new Enfield Thunderbird and we did our best to keep up (he waited when we got delayed behind traffic). The Pulsars don't have the high speed touring capability of an Enfield, but we don't need to go that far between where we want to stop so the Pulsars are great.

We don't recommend Bangalore...we think it's what made us ill :( It was great to see A's friend Adrian though and that was the reason we went :) Photo of their smiling faces is on the way! Bangalore is a very modern and expensive city...and very polluted. I did get my hair cut...but it cost me nearly the same as what I pay in London (well, I do go to Mr Toppers for 6 quid :). I am no longer shaggy and that makes me happy :) On the ride out of town we had the worst traffic yet and our respiratory systems suffered massively (which probably also contributed to our unwellness). The ride to Hampi from Bangalore was a joy (once we got away from Bangalore), it was hot, but the maniacal drivers were driving on other roads that day (woohoo!!!!) though we did see a lot of carnage - dead snake, smashed truck, smashed bus and a truck that had gone off the road and into a ditch).

Hampi is the old capital of the Vijaynagar - 12th-16th century.

Catch you all later!!!!

Sunday morning ride :)

Well, another delay (it always happens when we really want to get moving!), A is still in recovery and was not up to 350km ride to Bangalore this morning - definitely tomorrow! So instead I decided to meet our escort out of Mamallapuram - a keen motorcyclist we met the evening before who was up for riding with us for a few miles - at our arranged time of 7am to see if he wanted to just go for a ride instead (I said he was a keen motorcyclist...he wasn't going to say no :)

I came down at 7 and got the bike started and Koshy appeared right on time - yes, he was up for a ride! We loaded up and headed south for an early Sunday morning blast to Pondicherry - better to ride before everyone wakes up! It was a beautiful morning, the sun was just up and there was a nice mist softening everything.

I have to say that Koshy was extremely well turned out for your average Indian motorcyclist - he has the best protective kit available, an eye-catching and powerful (for the Indian market) bike and two wheel fever on his brain :) Check this guy out:

The speedo hung just under the ton, the curves were plentiful and the maniacal buses were few and far between - ah, what more can you ask for??? :) We had a great ride down before turning around and heading to a cafe for coffee and a chat. At the cafe was another motorcyclist - a lawyer from Chennai and his Hayabusa (you don't see those everyday over here!!!!! that is a 200mph, 1300cc missle bike built by Suzuki :) Then it was a rip back to Mamallapurma to let A know I was in one piece :) A was up and about so we all headed out for a bit of brunch and a long chat - Koshy is a great guy and a font of information - he answered all our questions and we allowed him a few minutes to eat in between :)

Hey Koshy: Thanks for a great day!!!

Can you believe it?

I totally spaced telling you about a couple of items that we eat regularly - stuffed parathas and uttapams. A likes the mixed veg stuffed paratha - a paratha with a thin layer of veg in the middle - I like the gobi ones best and I had an amazing muli one (or three :) in Kodai. Muli looks like a parsnip and tastes like a radish. Uttapams are rice flour pancakes, usually with stuff mixed in, like tomatoes or onions. Both of these are very filling.

We never made it to Madras today, we had a very relaxing day (A was not 100% so we thought it wise), napped, did some laundry, sat on our favorite rock at the beach and watched the sunset light up the water and the temple....lovely :) We are out of here early tomorrow and it looks like we might have a local motorcyclist as escort - we met an enthusiast this afternoon and he wants to ride with us :)

They have lovely little mini ice cream sandwiches here...made by Qwality Walls (yup, that is not a typo :) did I mention that it was hot and sunny here??? I am reading in the papers that you all are freezing your butts off - wind, rain, snow, storms. Take care!!!!

Hope you like the photos...more news in a few days!

More general info :)

Bike decoration...one thing I have noticed here is that everything is decorated differently! The bikes, the trucks, the women... :) The trucks are especially decorated with all sorts of colors and swirlying paint designs, murals and always a name or some words on the front. The women wear the most colorful saris and lots of gold jewelry and the men are decked out in plaids. Even motorbikes are individualized - as that's what I think it is - with some many people around and so much similarity in desigh (the Pulsars are everywhere, the trucks are only 3 makes, a sari is a sari, maybe they wear a salwar kameez, the guys wear lungis and western shirts...somehow you have to be different :). We have some individuality on our bikes, too - A's bike came with some Sikh stickers and I ride with Tibetan prayer flags on the front of mine - when the flags blow in the wind it carries the prayers :)

Food selection :)

We have had lots of different kinds of food! Recently we had croissants :) There is quite a lot of western food available (by name, some of it doesn't resemble the stuff one is used to :). Most menus, in your typical restaurant, have a good selection of Indian dishes - both local and regional - and Chinese dishes. In north India you get a selection of south Indian dishes and in south India you get a selection of north Indian dishes - we try to eat the local food :) Some places have a tandoor and others don't. It is usually an evening thing and it very much affects the availability of bread and the dish selection. If the tandoor is not available you get paratas and chipatis (and puris for breakfast) and lots of curries. If the tandoor is on you can also get roti, naan and kulcha plus anything they choose to cook in the tandoor (veg, paneer, fish, etc.)

For breakfast there is always a dosa, it's south Indian, but we got had them in Delhi. A dosa is like a crepe but made with fermented lentil and rice flour. It's rolled or folded on a plate (or a banana leaf :) and you get some small dishes of sauce to go with it - typically sambar (a lentil veg soup) and some chutney (coconut and sometimes a veg one, it's green - both are spicy). The dosa can have stuff in it, too - a masala dosa has spicy potato in it (yum, my fave :). You are expected to tear hunks off and dip in the sauce. You can also have puri (puffed bread) and sambar, idlys (steamed ground rice patties, really nice, too) with sambar or vada (savory donut) and sambar.

We maybe have a small snack for lunch (we are saving ourselves for dinner :). When it comes to dinner we like to try all sorts of different things - a protien curry and a veg curry, or one of those in the tandoor :) For the protien curries we have a dal (and tehre are lots of dals :) or a paneer. For the veg we have lots of choice!!!! Mixed veg, spinach, mushrooms, green peas (which I love!!!), bindi (okra), eggplant/aubergine, gobi (cauliflower)...it's wonderful. We like spice, so we don't go for kormas. Our current favorite is makanwalla, and the one we had the other night had lots of clove and cinnamon. We also usually have rice (A is a rice-fiend!) and I usually make the bread choices :) There is a lot of rice selection - jeera rice is just with cumin seeds, or plain rice or veg rice, the other night we tried curd rice - rice and yogurt mixed.

For the king of condiments (you know who you are :) there is also a lot of pickle around. In Belguam we stumbled on a pickle shop - they only sold pickle and they had about 15 jars in front (all homemade) and shelves of the packaged stuff behind! For awhile we had a lot of mango pickle, then we had some FAB lime pickle in Kodai - it's all homemade and it's easy to make (so they tell us :). First soak whatever it is you want to pickle in salt water for 15 days and then pull it out and mix with chili - viola! pickle fit for a king :)

Later!!!!

Namaste!

As promised here are some more photos from the exciting portfolio from Two Wheels Whirled....

The following photos are from our visit to the creche for Dalit children in Kodai:

The small building which housed creche number 2.

As part of their daily routine, the children brush their teeth with much enthusiasm and concentration.

We played Duck Duck Goose, I entertained everybody with my great rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star along with accompanying hand movements.

The children played games and sang songs, where they pretended to be wild animals.

Soon it was time to eat. Some children were given the responsibility of waiting on other children and delivering the food.

After finishing their main meal of the day the little darlings have a nap for three hours. It is probably warmer and quieter here than they are at home, thus they get the best quality sleep in the creche.

There is a chart of stats on the wall recording the children's growth showing measurements for the children's weight, height and arm length.

The star of the show. This is Hilda, she is invaluable to all of the creches. She not only teaches but she manages, surveys Dalit villages for children who may need to come to the creche, recruits teachers, keeps the accounts in check besides many other roles. Everybody is proud of her and her hard work.

A Dalit village.

The street with the house that we visited.

The life saving smokeless stove inside the house.

The kitchen.

The only other room in the house where all the family sleeps.

Another street.

A single roomed hut, it looked like the cooking was done out the back of the house.

A standpipe. Normally it is the job of the woman to get the water and carry the heavy urns back home, although I have seen children carrying water too.

There is laundry to be done everyday.

In the Dalit villages as well as everywhere else in India, politics plays an important role. On many walls you can see painted the signs for various political parties. This one is for a Tamil party.

Next images from the BIG TEMPLE in Tanjore (that is the official name). The temple is from the period of the Chola empire. Much of the sculpture is less elaborate than the intricate Vijaynagar styling that we saw in Madurai.

The Brahman stood in front of the six metre long Nandi at the temple, he gave blessings to worshippers.

We were lucky to go inside the inner sanctum at this temple although I could not take any photos.

There were many lingas at this temple, well over one hundred in number, normally you would see just one or two. This Nandi faces a row of them, in the back ground are some detailed paintings depicting events from the Ramayana and other great stories.

There was also a lot of script carved into the walls.

Finally we sat and soaked up the atmosphere as the sun went down. We could hear chanting and bells as well as smell incense burning. It was incredibly beautiful.

This brings our photo selection up to date. I hope that you have enjoyed them.

Until next time.......

What Christina has been waiting for...

and I hope she won't be disappointed :) THE CROCS!!!!

Remember, crocs are to be ENJOYED :)

Over 500 in there!!!!

Crocs are everywhere!!!!

Loads of crocs!

I am sure that Christina would be the first to agree...crocs are cuddly beasts!

No time like the present for a nap in the sun :)

Or awake, if you prefer :)

My, what big teeth you have!!!!!

Someone has just had a snack....

We saw this bad boy in the tank - from the side and then head on! Check out that lump on the end of his nose!

Mamallapuram Photos....

The sunrise from our favorite beach rock :)

A and the beach from our favorite beach rock :)

just a comment...it's interesting what people wear to go in the water...women wear their saris and the guys are either fully clothed or they are stripped down to their underpants (no modesty here :)

A trip to the Tiger Cave....

The "cave" and I climbed it :)