Operation: Escape from India!

Me and Sue at Cavelossim beach

We are officially enjoying our last full day in the resort!

The weather has been beautiful and we have both been spending our time relaxing, reading, embracing the sunshine and eating fabulous food! Sorry, not much in the way of blogging this week...but unless you want to hear about what they served at the buffet or the current status on my sun tan... I've got nothing!

Dona Sylvia Beach Resort

Pool side!

Soaking up the rays!

India has been an amazing adventure...full of fascinating places and overwhelming places!

We have been enveloped into the crush of humanity in some of the most chaotic train stations which are beyond description. I have seen extreme poverty side by side with extreme wealth...such a large gap with few in the middle. We watched open cremations by the Ganges river and dodged large groups of chanting family members carting their deceased loved one over their heads through the streets of Varanasi. I watched the sunrise over the misty breathtaking Taj Mahal, that seemed to float in the morning clouds, and we nearly met our makers in more than one traffic misadventure!

I was chased by a monkey, found a large lizard residing in my jacket, woke up to a mouse scampering past my head, fought off a hungry pack of crows trying to eat my lunch, was almost gored in in the stomach by a cow and watched a dog kill and eat a baby goat. I road a horse through the hills of Udaiper, complete with unintentional show jumping, and ran on the back of a camel through the Thar desert at sunset! I even saw a wild Bengal tiger!

I will never forget the smells...a combination of garbage, pollution, cow/human waste, incense and spicy curries wafting from the street vendors. My lungs have pretty much just taken up a 30 day smoking habit due to the thick pollution and I am looking forward to ridding myself of my smoker's cough.

We took 6 planes and 7 trains and traveled thousands of kilometers across the country. We met some fantastic people and had a great experience....and the icing on the cake: 30 days of delicious Indian food and neither of us got so much as an upset stomach!

Tomorrow we are flying into Mumbai... I know, crazy, but that's where the plane lives that will be flying us to London and then home!

 A great country, an amazing unforgettable trip but....get me the hell out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Plan B

So here's the plan.

We have cancelled out train tickets from Goa to Mumbai. We decided against showing up in a train station that was riddled with bullets and grenades 4 days earlier. Who knows if it will even be running with any normalicy.

We have cancelled our Colaba area hotel....who knows what the safety or situation will be in 3 days??? CNN says there are still gunmen on the loose so we decided not to show our white faces in downtown Mumbai.

We have decided to stay an extra night in our resort, thankfully they are not fully booked.

On Dec 2 we have booked a ticket from Goa to Mumbai with Kingfisher Airways arriving in Mumbai at 17:20pm...We will camp out in the airport for 8 hours until Dec 3 at 2:45am when our flight leaves for London. The airport is running more or less as per normal today, domestic flights at any rate, and in 4 days we hope everything else will be up and running too...primarily our british airways fight home. Cross your fingers.

A summary of the air travel hell we will encounter flying home:
Arrive in Goa airport 14:00 fly to Mumbai arrive 17:20
8 hour layover
9.25hour flight to London
8 hour layover
9 hour flight home.

TOTAL TIME FROM ARRIVING IN GOA AIRPORT UNTIL ARRIVING IN CALGARY AIRPORT : 50 HOURS
Ughhhhh....

We are really dissapointed that we won't be able to see Mumbai. What can you do though? At this point we just want to get out of here as safely as possible.

Until then: we keep an eye on the news, try to sun ourselves without thinking too much about the trip into Mumbai and enjoy the beautiful weather!

Goa

We are currently on the beautiful beaches of goa that stretch along the west coast of Southern India. It was a long 3 days in transit while we re-traced our steps across Rajasthan to get back to Delhi and fly in to Goa yesterday afternoon.

Our resort is beautiful....white sand beaches and great food so far!
The weather is hot and sunny and we are relaxing and resting after the chaos we have been completely immersed in for 3 weeks.

Our plans for the next 3 days don't extend beyond: suntanning, sleeping, eating, swimming, strolling along the beach, drinking cocktails...Repeat.

This morning I woke up at 8am and turned on the TV to CNN to see the news of the terrorist attacks that happened in Mumbai about 10 hours before. As of now the entire city of Mumbai is shut down. The train station that was bombed is the one we will be arriving in by night train on the morning of Dec 2nd and we fly out of the Mumbai airport about 20 hours later. Both the train system and the Mumbai airport are currently closed and for now so we will just have to keep an eye on things to see what will happen. We have 3 more days here in Goa. On the evening of Dec 1st we have tickets on the night train from Goa to Mumbai CST station. If things are either unsafe or not operational we will have to come up with a backup plan. Fortunately, Goa is a popular European resort destination so there will be flights from here to Eurpoe and the UK which hopefully we can get a ticket on and then make our way to London for our final fight home should we need to. Hopefully things will settle by then. I will keep you updated!

For now: Things here are business as usual and I am off to suntan and read by the pool :)

Jaisalmer Day 2

This afternoon at 2pm we ventured into the Thar desert for sightseeing and a camel trek to the sand dunes to watch the sunset.

We stopped at some interesting monuments on the way to our camels...the first one was the Bado Bagh Cenotaphs at the Maharajah cemetery.

These cenotaphs constructed by the various rulers. One cenotaph has been erected for each ruler...it is a sandstone carved structure on top of the tombstone. The oldest among them is the cenotaphs of Maharawal Jait Singh who reigned from 1470-1506. This tradition was discontinued when in 1947, one of the prince died of a mysterious disease. This was taken as a bad omen and thus this tradition came to it's end. We were nearly alone in this collection of over 40 sandstone structures, each elaborately domed cenotaph housing the tombstone of a King or Royal family member.

The female carving to the right of the king on the horse indicate the number of wives he had.

We followed that up with a visit to a beautiful Jain temple called Amarsagar.

 It is the oldest and the most beautiful temple dedicated to Lord Parshwanath. There is a small dome which is crowned by a water pot containing a lotus flower and its walls are intricately carved with animal and human figures.

Arar sagar temple. Women are forbidden to enter Hindu temples while having their period...notice the misspelled sign...a common and sometime amusing site in India.

We then drove out to the camel farm and took about an hour trek into the desert to some beautiful sand dunes. The camel boys jumped on the camel with us midway along and brought the camels to a run which was super fun and interestingly enough, unlike a horse, where trotting makes the ride bumpier on a camel as soon as they start to run the bumps disappear and it makes for a great easy ride!

Gorgeous sunset over the Thar desert.

Tomorrow we begin our journey back to Delhi for our flight to Goa where we planned a vacation from our vacation! We have the day to spend here in Jaisalmer then catch a 4pm train to Jodhpur.

There we will stay the night and leave for the airport in the morning to fly back to Delhi. From Delhi we stay the night again and fly out the next day to Goa...where a beautiful resort and white sand beaches await us! Ahhhhh....