itravelnet.com Travel Blog

The Boxing Day test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground is an institution on the Australian sporting calendar. The first Boxing Day test was in 1950, and it has been played every year since 1980.

Boxing Day Test

Labels: australia, cricket, india, melbourne

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Much has been written in the last few years about the rise of China and India. While China has become the world's factory, India - with its large population of English speakers - is becoming the world's service centre.

If you travel through the outer suburbs of Bangalore and Chennai you will see rows and rows of shiny new office blocks that could be at any business park in the U.S. Outside these buildings though and it is India as usual - half dug up roads and traffic chaos everywhere.

With all the talk of India's emerging economy, I was half expecting more work being done on infrastructure. On this whole trip I have found myself looking at every thing from a civil engineers perspective. Some people come to India to find themselves. I was already "found" before I left, but I think if I had of came here before I got into web development, I would have realised my calling in life is for town planning.

India's great attribute of being the world's largest democracy is also a great obstacle for massive infrastructure overhaul. China doesn't have this problem. If the Chinese government want to build a new freeway that will wipe out a small village in the process, they will build it. In India the villagers will protest, the project stops, then the whole thing becomes an election issue, then nothing gets done.

Former Indian PM V.P. Singh once said that his main priority as prime minister was to manage contradictions. Trying to appeal one billion people is no easy task.

While I was thinking of these things I happened upon a copy of BusinessWeek which had a very interesting article on this topic, The Trouble With India.

Labels: india, infrastructure

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Labels: chennai, india, public toilet, tamil nadu

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Labels: chennai, fish, india, tamil nadu

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Labels: bus, chennai, india, tamil nadu

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu is India's stone carving capital.

Labels: india, mamallapuram, stone carving, tamil nadu

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Labels: india, mamallapuram, monkey, tamil nadu

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Man can't live on Masala Dosa alone, but he can try. I have been having the dosa everyday for breakfast. Such a simple meal but so good. Sometimes I end up having it for dinner as well. In this heat I never have a big appetite so sometimes I only have a juice for lunch. Combine this diet with hours of walking in this heat, no wonder I am losing weight.

Labels: india, masala dosa

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

When you get off a bus in India you will usually be greeted by rickshaw drivers eager to take you to a hotel that they recommend.

When I get to a new town I find the best thing to do is to tell the rickshaw driver you already have something booked. It's not practical to book guest house type rooms in advance in India so I usually pick something out of my guidebook and tell them I am booked there. That will at least get me to the neighbourhoods where there is other accommodation.

You will usually get told that the place you are going to is very bad and they can take you somewhere better. I tell them that every rickshaw driver in India has used the same line on me so I don't believe you.

Of course this does not always work as the place you choose might be fully booked. This happened to me in Bangalore. The same driver was still outside as well so he flashed me some cards of hotels he could take me to. There were no other hotels in the street so he had my patronage

My man took me to a hotel far from anywhere and it cost nearly twice as what the card quoted. I was so tired by this stage that I didn't care. It was a nice hotel at least with air conditioning and TV, so I kicked back and watched some world cup cricket and took it as a lesson learned not to go with rickshaw touts again.

This is not to say that this happens every time. There are a great number of home stay accommodation in Kerala for example. I stayed in a good place in Alappuzha where a man approached me at the bus station. The room was central, clean and economical.


The most important thing is to be able to say no if don't want to go or are not convinced of the accommodation on offer.

Labels: hotels, india, touts

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Labels: india, minibus, pondicherry

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

It can be difficult to tell if a restaurant is any good to eat at if you don't have local knowledge. Often the best way to tell is by the number of people eating there. I passed this fruit juice shop in Bangalore and it was overflowing with people, so I naturally had to investigate.



The place was the Sri Ganesha Fruit Juice Centre, and sure enough they make a great juice, worthy of a thronging crowd.

Labels: bangalore, fruit juice, india

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Labels: bangalore, india, public phone

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Labels: bangalore, india, rubbish bin

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Labels: bangalore, india, iron maiden

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

The low cost airline industry in India has boomed in the last few years, which has made getting around the subcontinent much easier. I have been travelling via the usual Indian way of overnight sleeper trains and buses.

There is a train from Thiruvananthapuram to Bangalore which takes 17 hours, which effectively would have wiped out two days of my trip. Fine if you are here for six months, but I only have four weeks so the option of an internal flight has saved me a couple of days.

I flew with Air Deccan, India's first low cost airline. I went to book online, but the booking facility wouldn't accept international credit cards, which seems ridiculous for an airline website. I had to call the call centre and I faced the same problem. They gave me a reservation number which would enable to pay for and pick up my ticket at the airport.

After all this I was a wondering if my ticket would be at the airport, but fortunately it was.

Labels: air deccan, bangalore, india, thiruvananthapuram, trivandrum

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

In Kerala there is a cafe and restaurant chain called the Indian Coffee House. The Indian coffee house is completely owned and managed by its employees.

In Thiruvananthapuram I found this Indian Coffee House branch (operated by Maveli Cafe) near the main train station.



This cafe is worth visiting for the building alone. It is cylindrical shaped and there is no floors as such, just a corkscrew ramp that wraps itself around a central shaft where the kitchen is and waiters enter to and from.




When you enter you just keep walking up the ramp until you find an empty stall.

Labels: coffee, india, indian coffee house, kerala, maveli cafe, thiruvananthapuram

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Labels: autorickshaw, india, kerala, kollam

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Labels: autorickshaw, india, kerala, kollam

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Labels: cows, india, kerala, kollam

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Labels: alappuzha, india, kerala, surprise squad

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

A tricycle modified with a steering wheel.

Labels: ernakulam, india, kerala, tricycle

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Only in Asia could you see a Synagogue and Swastika's side by side. Fort Cochi in Kerala was once a prosperous trading port. It has been a Portuguese, Dutch and British outpost, and there has been a Jewish presence throughout. The synagogue in Jew Town was built in 1568.

Labels: fort cochi, india, kerala, swastika, synagogue

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Mangalore ambulance, pray you don't need one.

Labels: ambulance, india, mangalore

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Mangalore is my first taste of a non touristic every day working Indian city. I'm stopping here for a day enroute from Goa to Kerala. I got here at 7am and I had planned to stay here the night to recover from the overnight bus trip. The bus to Kerala doesn't leave until 8.30 at night though, so I am out of here tonight as there is no reason to spend two whole days here.

Indian urban infrastructure is jerry-built at best, and in Mangalore you can see it in all its shambolic glory. You will be lucky to find 3 contiguous metres of unbroken footpath.



I passed a building site, while not typical, that's not out of place in the way things are done in India. On a normal construction site, demolishing and clearing the old structure first is de rigueur. As this photo shows, the construction of the new building is going on the same time as the demolition of the old building on the same block.



There is nothing much to see here but I thought I would go walkabout. The combination of dishevelled footpaths and a night without sleep defeated quickly. So I went back to the hotel to have an afternoon snooze to prepare for tonights overnight bus trip.

Labels: india, infrastructure, mangalore

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Cafe Coffee Day and iway internet cafes are two Indian franchises that seem have taken off as I have seen them everywhere so far.

Labels: coffee day, goa, india, iway

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Away from the many beaches is the interesting town of Old Goa. Old Goa was the capital of Goa in the time of Portuguese rule and it was said to be as grand as Lisbon. The city was abandoned in 1843 and the capital moved to Panaji, the present day capital of Goa.

All that remains today is a collection of churches and cathedrals. What is striking about Old Goa is all the open space between these historic buildings, which you do not see in other Indian cities. A highlight of Old Goa is the Basilica of Bom Jesus, which houses the well preserved remains of St Francis Xavier, who died in 1552 on the Island of Sancian, off the coast of China.

Labels: goa, india, old goa, st francis xavier

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Rovers Return is the pub in British soapie Coronation Street. The grey skies of Manchester are a long way from Goa.

Labels: calangute, goa, india, manchester, rovers return

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Labels: calangute, goa, india, rubbish

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Somehow I don't think this one is part of the Seattle based chain.

Labels: baga, goa, india, starbucks

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Walk south from Anjuna (or just get an autorickshaw) a few kilometres along a cliff and through a bush path and you will arrive at Baga and Calangute beach. These two beach resorts are indiscernible as sunbeds are lined up for miles on a huge stretch of sandy beach.

This is where most of the package deal holiday makers stay. Mostly Northern Europeans here thawing out from frozen winters in a location more exotic than the usual Spanish resorts. Plenty of St George beach towels reserving sunbeds to be found here.

Labels: baga, calangute, goa, india

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

A sign to make you think twice about the short cut across the grass.

Labels: anjuna, goa, india, snake

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Anjuna is most famous for its giant wednesday flea market, so if you are travelling around Goa it is good if you can time your itinerary to be here on Wednesday. Bring cash and your bargaining skills. Anjuna itself is a small village with accommodation along the beach and spread out behind along the rural back lanes.

Labels: anjuna, flea market, goa, india

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

I have travelled around Asia enough to be used to seeing Swastica's everywhere. It has been used by Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism long before 1933.

The tilt of this swastica and colour scheme though is more Nazi than Eastern Religious.

Labels: india, swastica

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Labels: goa, india, panaji, safari suit

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

I have been in India for one week now and I'm still taking photos of every cow that walks by. It's not like I've never seen a cow before, but I'm finding seeing cows walking around in urban areas novel. So until the novelty wears off, here are some cows around the Palolem Beach area.

Labels: cows, goa, india, palolem, palolem beach

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Palolem is like stepping into a picture postcard with its arching sandy beach and shoreline heavily forested with coconut trees. Bamboo beach shacks line the shoreline among the coconut trees.



Along the beach are Goan fishing boats as well the requisite (friendly) stray dogs and cows. There are surprisingly few dog turds on the beach given how many dogs there are here. You will find more dog turds on the sidewalks of Nice than on Palolem.



I had an urge to run along this beach. As a gentleman of leisure I'm more prone to get an urge to have a coffee and read the paper at one of the many beach cafes. I found out later that Palolem is the beach that Matt Damon is running on in the start of The Bourne Supremacy, which I had just seen a few weeks ago.

Upon finding this out I had to emulate our man Jason Bourne and run along the beach as well. (If you haven't seen The Bourne Supremacy don't do what Channel 10 in Australia just did, where they aired The Bourne Supremacy first, then The Bourne Identity. Watch the The Bourne Identity first).

Labels: bourne supremacy, goa, india, matt damon, palolem beach

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Goa is a small state on the west coast of India. It is often referred to as if it is a place. This former Portuguese colony was once one of the happening places on the overland hippy trail in the 1970's, and ever since then every hippy worth their salt will tell you that it is not what it used to be.

The previous week in Mumbai every one I had met who has been there was giving me their differing opinions on why this beach is better than that beach. In the end I did not decide which beach to go to until I got to Goa.

I got the overnight train from Mumbai to Margao in central Goa. The booking office at the train station in Mumbai looked like half of Mumbai was in there trying to book a ticket. Fortunately there is a foreigners booking office and there was only one person in the queue.

On the train I was in a compartment with a couple of hippies. They were on their way to a beach so quintessentially Goan that it wasn't even in Goa, but just south of the border in the state of Karnataka. The place they were going to was Gokarna, a popular place for Hindu pilgrims where few tourists go to, so I was told. "Is that the place there?" I point out to them in my Lonely Planet.

There was a young Canadian in the train as well and he said he was going to Palolem.
"Ahh yes, Palolem", the hippies said, "It was pretty good a few years ago, but it has gotten a bit busy since". The Canadian was a fellow Goa virgin and we both agreed that any beach in Goa was still going to be more exotic than the beaches offered in our home towns, so Palolem it was for us.

Labels: goa, hippy, india, margao, overnight train, palolem

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

At every book stall on the streets of Mumbai you will find a copy of the best seller Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts. The book retells the authors escape from an Australian prison and flight to Bombay, where he ends up living in a slum.

I was looking for information about the slums of Mumbai after reading this book and I happened upon a link to Reality Tours, which run tours to the Dharavi slum in Mumbai.

Reality tours was set up by an Indian and Englishman. The tour office is in Colaba, just around the corner from Leopolds Cafe, which features so prominently in Shantaram.

I met the owner Chris Way, from Worcester England, at his office. Chris left the everyday life in Worcestershire to live in Mumbai, where he now runs this tour.

We started the tour at 1.45, meeting our guide for the day, Krishna, at Churchgate station. From there we got a local train to Mahim train station. The short tour they offer starts at 2.30 and goes until 5pm. I was wondering how we were going to fill in two and a half hours in a slum. It turns out that the time passes quite easily.

Dharavi is the biggest slum in Asia. It occupies an area of 430 acres and is home to over one million people. The slum is a working city in its own right, with an annual turnover of over US $660 Million Dollars.

My concept of a slum was of huts made of plastic sheeting, bamboo and roofing iron with people sitting around begging. Upon arrival at the train station exit we come to a high street of brick and concrete buildings with shops and even an elaborate Hindu temple.

From the main street we went down a narrow side street and visited various factories. First up was a plastic recycling plant, where plastic is collected from all over the city, crushed, dyed, then melted into pellets for re-use. Pretty much any thing that can be recycled is recycled here, from paper, fabric, to 44 gallon fuel drums. There are numerous other industries going on as well. Shoes, clothing and suitcase factories, and leather tanneries to name but a few.

The guide is a local and he has a good rapport with the people we meet on the way, stopping regularly to chat.

I thought I would be hassled the whole time like you are in the rest of the city, but no one in there was begging. You will get kids following you everywhere, saying hi cheerily and asking where you are from, as they do in India. The kids are inquisitive, a few asked for our autograph on their hand, and if you say you are from a Commonwealth nation you may get dragged into a game of cricket.

Within Dharavi there are industrial, retail and residential areas. Within the residential areas there are Muslim, Hindu, and a Christian area. In the muslim area we stopped for a drink at one of those shops that sells just about everything. We met three schools teachers covered in head to toe by the veil. My mind imagined three little Mother Theresa-esque looking ladies sent to do good in the slums of Mumbai.

We went to the school where they taught and once inside the classroom they unveiled to reveal three beautiful young women who would not be out of place in a Bollywood dance scene. It was a pre-school, and the kids put on a dance show for us.

Many of the buildings are permanent structures with running water and plumbing. The laneways become quite narrow, at many points only a metre wide, with a drain running down the middle. The doorways are usually curtains, and sometimes you see a shop deep within these alleys. I saw a couple of video arcades with classic 1980's games in here as well.

Some people criticize the tour as voyeuristic. The tour though runs at cost and 80% of the proceeds go to a local NGO (charity). Photography is prohibited on the tour. For me tour dispells the assumption that slum dwellers are just sitting around doing nothing, and adds a human face to the statistics that are so easily quoted.

realitytoursandtravel.com

Labels: bombay, gregory david roberts, india, mumbai, reality tours, shantaram, slum tour, slums

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Labels: chicken, india, mumbai

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Labels: india, mumbai, taxi

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

I have been drinking alot of chai here. The chai here is great, which is just as well as it has taken a long time to find a proper coffee. If you order a coffee at a restaurant it will most likely be instant coffee. Sometimes you get served a cup of hot milk with instant coffee satchels for you to add to your own taste.

I found one place which got my hopes up called "Coffee House". It even has a slogan, "approved by coffee board". Someone needs to sack the coffee board as it was more instant crap. They do make a good lunch though.

I have since found some places that make a proper coffee.

Labels: coffee, coffee house, india, mumbai

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

Labels: holy cow, india, mumbai

Posted by James Clark - editor of itravelnet.com
 Subscribe in a Reader or Subscribe by Email

India is a land of an uncountable amount of Gods. Ricky Ponting (Australian cricket captain) apparently is one of them.

I have had a stream of Indian men approach me to talk cricket. I don't know if it is always like this or if it is because the Cricket World Cup starts this month.



Before I came to India I had planned to read up on who's who in the Indian cricket team, which I forgot to do. I need not have bothered as everyone wants to talk to me about the Australian team. So the