Evacuate! Evacuate!

Wow, Turkey's hot! It's so hot that the sun set the hills on fire! We'd just returned from a day trip to Kaş and were cooling down in the pool when a big cloud of smoke descended and, what started as a little fire in the distance quickly turned into an enormous fire that surrounded our hotel and threated to burn the whole village of Patara down. Yikes!

The fire was incredibly fast moving, and closing in on all sides, so we had to evacuate to the safety of the beach. There were lots of guests wıth kids, who were understandably worried, but we weren't really scared, just excited! It was exactly what we needed after a week of doing nothing. The beach resembled a scene from Armageddon - lines of people wandering up the sand, smoke billowıng towards us; helicopters and planes flyıng over, picking up water from a nearby pond to drop on the fire - but after about a 2 hours the fire was under control and we were free to go back to the hotel. Phew!





But the drama wasn't over yet. No sir-ree! We only managed half a glass of beer to celebrate our survival, when the flames flared up again, and we had to be evacuated, again. The owners of our hotel were great though, and this time we were taken to Kalkan to spend the night in a luxury villa - complete with its own private pool. Result! We didn't actually get a chance to swim in ıt- but it was nice knowing we had one :)


Anyway, all the fires are out now, and everything's fine.


Debs

Hoş Geldenız!

You know that feeling of pure relief? Like a glass of wine at home after a rubbish day at work, or finally going to the loo after holding it in too long? Well, that's how Turkey feels after being in İndia.

As advertised in a previous post, we're in Patara on the Aegean coast, a good distance away from the chav-havens of Bodrum and Marmaris. We rubbed shoulders with a few chavs on the Thomas Cook flight over - amusing, but definitely best limited to short exposure.

Speaking of exposure, it's incredibly hot out here - like up to about 45 celsius or so. We're spending most days huddled in the shade on sun loungers by the pool, or down on the lovely beach. Despite barely entering the full sun ever, we're nut brown and glowing after just a couple of days. İt will be much better to return home looking and feeling rested and healthy, rather than all stressed and unhappy as we would have been if we had stayed in İndia.

We were really pretty pleased to get outta there, as regular readers might imagine. We spent a thoroughly enjoyable night (really!) at Gatwick's Premier İnn, marvelling at being back in England again, although we did wonder where all the English people had gone - everyone who served us was a Czech, Slovak, or Pole...

And now here we are. Really not doing much beyond snoozing, eating delicious breakfasts and mezze lunches, and taking the odd day trip to nearby towns. Absolutely no sight seeing though - we're sick of it.

İ reckon we might just about be able to fit in a visit to a Hamam before we come home...

Ben

Things of India

The standard questions
Where are you coming from?
What's your good name?
I take one photo?
You have one (school) pen? (Debs once misheard this as "disculpe?" and was whisked back to Mexico. Not really, just in her mind.)
What's your state? (To which I was always tempted to reply "I'm a solid", but I'm not really sure that's right - I'm actually mostly liquid. Troublesome stuff innit?)
Anything else? Coffee? Bill? (As you take the first mouthful of your meal - Debs hated this)

The place
Car horns, psycho drivers etc
Pervs and gropers
"Helpful" people who intervene when you're in a shop waiting to be served, taking it upon themselves to be your middleman for the impossible task of buying a bottle of water.
Staring. Always, always staring. At us.
Charmingly antiquated use of English: "She left me high and dry", "He caused a right rumpus" etc.
When anything is rubbish or goes wrong, "politics" is to blame.

Overused words
Dickhead
Colourful
Retards / retarded
Enthusiastic
Shit / shithole
Delicious
Incompetent
Liars
Nosy
Incredible (in an exasperated way, not admiringly)

Our sayings
"India has made us old"
"I don't recognize myself any more - I've turned into a horrible person"

See ya! Wouldn't wanna be ya!

Ben and Debs

Burgers, chocs and thalis. And BEER!

Bombay is LUXURY compared to the last 2 months. Our hotel - Landmark Annexe, aka Prince Hotel, depending on who you speak to/what day it is - is incredibly plush. Free bottles of water, cups of tea, a proper, super comfy double bed, flat screen TV with loads of good movies, a real hot shower, and friendly staff. All this for Rs 3850 a night (EUR 55ish). It's the most we've spent on any hotel anywhere on this trip, but it's one of the nicest rooms we've ever stayed in. Ever! And we really weren't expecting much for our money in Mumbai, which is notorious for expensive crap rooms... or nice rooms for about double what we're paying. We are lucky people!

So we've had a good time here. Samrat served us a delicious thali, and beer, and then we bought some really good chocolates at their little deli downstairs. They didn't last very long. Last night we had a mini bar crawl down in Colaba, hitting Leopolds (of Shantaram fame) and Mondegar for beers and overpriced/substandard snacks.

But the best food fun was the Bombay burgers we picked up for Rs 6 each (EUR 0.1) by Churchgate station. Delicious little fried potato and fresh coriander bhaji things. All crisp on the outside and soft in the middle, squashed into a soft white bap with added chilli powder for extra excitement. Great breakfast. So good we had 2 each. Yum!

This morning wasn't so good - it took us 2 hours to post a parcel back home. Kinda unsurprising, really - it's totally emblematic of our disappointment with India, where even the simplest activity gets ludicrously overcomplicated, allowing literally dozens of bumbling incompetents to interfere, and hinder the successful conclusion of your business. "Dickheads!" says Debs. Quite so. First time I've seen sealing wax used in real life, too.

We'll be singing with happiness on the way out to the airport tomorrow. Fingers crossed the rain doesn't go mental and delay the flight too much.

Ben and Debs

Barbershops of the world, part 24

I never made it to a barber in Agra. There was a cool looking one in the Taj Ganj area, but it was too early in the morning and there were too many damn flies buzzing around. And you couldn't see the Taj Mahal from it, so - no point.

So I ended up with a quick and slightly pricey beard snip in Colaba, Mumbai. Asif, my barber, seemed like a friendly enough guy, but he quickly lost interest in being nice when I turned down his offer of a "good massage" for the third time. Meanwhile, his colleague was pestering Debs with facial massage offers - also refused, cos we can do all that business ourselves now.

So Asif continued to whisper creepily to me about massages, while squeezing my bicep and running the clippers over my face in a desultory manner. Hence the fear factor. I dunno why they're so secretive about it. Debs reckons it's cos they're secret gaylords who can't resist a hairy man in a vest :-)

[Pic to follow, the internet cafes here are really grotty and I don't want to stick my USB in their virus-ridden sockets]

Cost Rs 65 (EUR 1)
Cut quality 6/10
Fear factor 2/10

So, not a brilliant cut, but at least my face is tidy enough to avoid being catcalled "Ali Baba" on the flight back to London... which is tomorrow, w00t w00t! See ya later India, I'm off to get shaved in Turkey.

Ben

The last bits

This last part is like doing the best bits of India in a concentrated burst, and it's fun! We zipped through Agra to see the Taj Mahal: nice palace, shame about the town. Seriously, the palace/mausoleum is genuinely beautiful, especially at 6 in the morning when it's not thronged with noisy Indians. I'd throng it too, if I were them: while it costs foreigners Rs750 (EUR 12) each for entrance, they get to waltz in for Rs20 (EUR 0.30). So we wandered around, feeling quite peaceful and a bit dazed cos it was super early, played with some chipmunks, made some hooting noises inside the dome which had a major delay/echo/drone effect going on, giggled at some other tourists who had been unable to shake off the persistent guides and then headed off to see Agra Fort.

...which is another stunning building. Big, bold and full of good bits. Another them/us price gouge on entry but we really don't mind when the place is so good. The only thing we wonder is what's happening to all the money? It certainly isn't going anywhere near improving Agra town itself, which is stunningly ramshackle when you consider the cultural gems it houses. I've never seen so many flies! And the electricity was constantly off and on again, supposedly because of the monsoon, but it didn't seem to make any difference whether it was raining or not.

Pictures of both of the above to follow, BTW. Can't be bothered to upload them right now on this antediluvian computer.

After the Taj and the Fort, our favourite thing was Dasaprakash, a South Indian restaurant just down the way from our hotel. They had mind-blowingly good dosas and channa bathura. We tipped extravagantly and left fat and happy every time. Yum!

We're in Mumbai now, staying in a very plush hotel and enjoying the delights of civilisation once more, like, hot showers that are actually hot, TV with decent reception etc etc. Looking forward to doing some shopping, eating a Bombay Burger or two, and updating our flight ticket so we can get the hell outta here on Saturday.

Ben

India vs Turkey

Just arrived in Mumbai, 5 hours late cos the train had to swim the last 150KM or so.

Logged in to iGoogle and saw the weather forecasts for here, and also (roughly) where we'll be in a week's time. SunLOLz!

Looking forward to Tai Chi on the beach, a glass or two of wine, olives, mezze and all the rest.

Gonna need some new shades and a new hat. The old one went all mouldy.

Ben

Only 9 days to go!

Today we're leaving McLeod Ganj after more than 2 weeks of something approaching a routine - my favourite part being the coffee and cake, every afternoon :)

Thanks to the cooking class at The Taste of India, we now know how to make samosas. The secret is to put thyme seeds in the dough.

Just a night in Delhi, a trip to the Taj Mahal, and a few days in Bombay left until we can leave India! We're counting down the days - only 9 days to go!

Debs

We're going on holiday!

We've squeezed as much fun as we know how to have out of India's, so we're moving on. In about 2 weeks we'll be in Turkey, on holiday! We're so excited! We originally planned to end our trip on the beach in Goa, but it's monsoon season, so we're bailing for sunnier shores.

Ben did a fantastic job of searching for a hotel, as always, and found the Viewpoint Hotel in Patara, so we're going there. It gets great reviews on Tripadvisor, and there's even a comment on how nice their Turkish breakfasts are (as recommended by Ben's dad). Cheese, olives, tomatoes and cucumbers for breakfast sounds like a winner to me too, Tony :)

We're staying here another week so Ben can finish Tai Chi, then taking the train - 1st class! - to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. After that we head to Bombay for a few days, then we're flying to London, dossing in Gatwick overnight then zooming straight off to Turkey. It's a plan!

Debs and Ben

Healing hands

We're learning Tibetan Massage, and it's a lot of fun. The class is a 5 day, hands-on course, so we take it in turns to try out each of the massage moves on each other, and each lesson focuses on a different area of the body.

As you can imagine, we've done a lot of giggling, especially when it came to the butt massage. Hoo! But it's been really useful, and hopefully we'll remember how to do it when we get home. Our fave by far (and the easiest) has been the face massage, which is heaven. Amusingly, Ben loves the nose massage.

It's really interesting how one pressure point on the body can say about another part. I really like it when he tell us where to press to cure illness or pain in another part of the body. he's told us how to increase flexibility, ease the affects of asthma, help to encourage pregnancy (one hour after sex, rub the hands over the stomach in a circular motion).

Last night I mentioned to Dondhup, our teacher that I've been constipated for about 2 months (yes, throughout India. Ridiculous), hoping he'd give me a cure, and he suggested drinking some of the local water. Right, thanks ;)

Today, Ben also rediscovered some funny little lumps on his left shoulder. They look like alien worm egg bumps or something, and they flare up for about 1 minute then subside. This happened the other day after a hot shower too. Hmmm...

Debs