India – Stepping Out For A Bit

Hampi > The awe-inspiring ancient kingdom

March 4, 2019Posted in UncategorizedTagged adventure, Hampi, India, travelLeave a comment

Train journeys in India are growing on us and with only a 15 minute delay and a friendly couple who welcomed us into our shared berth with chocolate cake at 7am, the Howrah Express has to be up there as one of the best. As we disembarked, Parashu from our guesthouse was at the station to greet us and we tuk tuk-ed through villages and ruins to our accommodation in the heart of the small town of Hampi.

Keen to make the most of our short visit, we dumped our bags and set out to watch the sunset from Mantaga Hill.

Hampi is spread out amongst 41.5sqkm of boulder formations and hills, the surreal landscape felt like something out of an Indiana Jones film. To get around the vast area we opted to take a tuk tuk around on our first full day, visiting the Stone Chariot (the poster child for Hampi), Elephant Stables, Queens Residence and the Royal Enclosure to name a few.

Sunsets should never be missed in such an incredible setting, so we finished the day up on Hemakuta Hill, surrounded by monkeys and other visitors keen to catch a glimpse of the last light of the day.

Hopping across to Hippie Island the next day, we watched Laxshmi the temple elephant being bathed in the river and endeavoured to rent bikes to see some of the attractions on the other side of the river. We managed to get fobbed off with a couple of rickety old bikes which may or may not have had fake brand stickers on them.

Despite the rusty rides, we managed to make it to the foot of Hanuman Hill, ready to ascend the 575 steps to the temple at the peak. The views from the top didn’t disappoint and the monkey hill lived up to its name with plenty of mischievous guys running around, getting up to no good.

Taking a well earned break after summiting Hanuman Hill

We cycled on to Anegundi, supposedly the hippie town where everyone stayed but it had nothing going on. Turning around, we set off for a reservoir with sunbathing spots and conacle boat rides on offer, and finally stopped at the most peaceful Hampi Waterfalls, where the main river ran over rocks to create rushing water streams.

Trousers attached to the bag to dry off after an earlier broken water bottle related incident in the bag!

Returning to Hampi-side, we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring on foot, walking along the river path and reaching the Kings Balance. The walk allowed us to take in more of the scenery than on wheels so happily we weaved between temples and soaked it all in.

Our fellow train travellers gave us some warning about questionable food on offer in Hampi but we didn’t put a foot wrong when it came to what we ate. Gopi’s breakfast parathas, Mango Tree’s curries and Bamboo Chillout’s pakodas were definitely some of the highlights.

Watching the sunset on the final night from the roof of our guesthouse, we were still in awe of the place. We only scratched the surface of Hampi but it was time to move on, via our first sleeper train, to our next stop.

Dudsaghar Falls and Atreya Spice Farm > A Goan day trip

February 21, 2019February 21, 2019Posted in UncategorizedTagged dudsaghar, goa, India, spice farm, waterfallsLeave a comment

There were two tours we were both really keen on doing during our time in Goa, and on a beautiful January morning, we set off from Patnem in search of both, Dudsaghar Falls and Atreya Spice Farm. Our driver and guide for the day was a local chap named Rupesh.

Now, we’re not saying that Rupesh was a reckless driver, but he almost certainly just moonlights as a taxi driver to fund his budding Rally Car Racing career. 100KPH in a 30 zone? No problem. Overtaking a truck, up a hill, on a blind bend at 60KPH? Easy business. Want to do a two hour journey in about 1 hour 15 minutes? Rupesh is your man. We thought we might grab some sleep after the early morning start, but we couldn’t take our eyes off the road.

We needn’t have worried, Rupesh clearly knows his craft and he got us to Dudsaghar Falls in one, shaken, piece.

Dudsaghar Falls

It was all worth it to see these amazing waterfalls, which rose high, up the cliffs above us, plunging down into a fresh pool at our feet.

One of Ruairidh’s recently decided upon Bucket List items was to swim under a waterfall so despite forgetting to bring his swimmers, he wasn’t about to miss his chance and dove straight in, boxers, shorts and all, which did make for a slightly wet rest of the day, but completely worth it.

Ruairidh ticking off bucket list item: Swim in waterfall ✅

Atreya Spice Farm

Next on our sight seeing ride was Atreya Spice Farm. The farm is a working spice farm with about 50 hectares of land growing every single spice you could ever dream of needing. They also have a smaller section which they use for tours.

First up we had a butterfly tour given by a friendly chap who was clearly passionate about his work. The dude bloody loved butterflies. He told us all about the various species in India and fired off so many facts and figures which we tried to remember but failed to recall seconds later. We saw eggs, caterpillars and pupa (cocoons) for various species including a bright shiny gold one, and one that had camouflaged itself to look like a dead twig. It was awesome!

One of many colourful caterpillars we saw during our butterfly tour

After the butterflies, a lady took us on a tour of the same area to talk about all the spices they grow. Basically, if you have any sort of ailment, medical condition, or minor annoyance, there’s a spice to solve it. Bad knees? Rub some cinnamon oil on it. Diabetes? Chew 5 curry leaves a day to reduce your blood sugar. Balding, bad breath, wonky eyes and a low sense of self-worth? Eat 200 grams of cumin followed my 19 cloves mixed in the milk of 9.5 coconuts then drink twice on a full moon and you’ll be right as rain.

Tasty spice farm lunch served on plates made from their home grown Betel Nut tree leaves!

Ok, we made the last one up. But overall it did seem more like a sales pitch for all the spices they sold at the end of the tour and would have been nice to have seen the actual working farm rather than just a few sample crops.

We forgot to find out if they had any spice that could make you forget the last hour and thirteen minutes of your life, so the return journey home in the back seat of Rupesh’s death cab will forever remain scarred into our brains. He insisted we take his number for future journeys which we politely accepted and promptly deleted seconds later.

South Goa > Beach huts, sunsets, and a daily dose of Kingfisher

February 14, 2019February 14, 2019Posted in IndiaTagged beach, goa, holiday, India, travelLeave a comment

Benaulim

Our first port of call in South Goa was Benaulim. Upon touching down, we met with our guesthouse host Anthony and after chatting for a while, found out he used to live in Oxford and work in the M&S in town, small world! The accommodation was on the expensive side but worth it, set in a beautiful old Portuguese era house with a sweeping balcony to soak up the afternoon sun with a cup of tea in hand.

Benaulim beach was beautiful, wide expanses of sand for as far as the eye could see. For dinner on the first night we ended up in a restaurant that quickly filled up entirely with British retirees who were in for the weekly pub quiz, very unexpected.

On our second evening things took a turn for the worse when Ruairidh woke up in the night with our first dose of sickness for the trip. We ended up having to extend our stay so he could stay in bed. The less said about that the better!

So after two days not moving beyond the balcony, we were more than ready to head on to our next destination. Ruairidh’s condition, or as he put it, “fear of crapping myself”, forced us to get an expensive cab rather than the bus down to the next beach but we definitely appreciated the comfy, air conditioned ride down the windy roads to Patnem.

Patnem

Patnem is a very small seaside village just south of the better known, Palolem. Patnem is about half the size of it’s neighbour, with about a tenth of the people, making for a quieter, more relaxing stay, but with the more lively Palolem only a short walk away for evening entertainment.

In line with it’s other Goan counterparts, Patnem beach is curved into a cove, rocks jutting out at either end, and lined by beach huts and palm trees. A quick clamber over some rocks at the southern end of the beach reveals Rajbagh Beach, which was pretty much deserted. We sunbathed there for a whole afternoon and saw about five people the whole day. A massive relief after the comparatively rammed coastline of North Goa.

We originally booked a three night stay but we were loving it so much, we ended up staying for eight nights in our beach hut, hosted by Ravi from Regina Residency. While here, we took a fishing boat trip down a backwater river, punted along by our guide Bradley who tossed meat in the air for Eagles, Kites and other colourful birds to swoop in and catch. While sailing blissfully through the mangrove we also spotted our first monkey of the trip.

Enjoying our backwaters fishing boat trip

From Patnem we managed to fit in our excursions to Dudsaghar Falls and Atreya Spice Farm, which you can read more about in our upcoming post.

Food highlights of our time in Patnem include breakfast smoothies and paneer paratha from roadside restaurant, Little Ganesh. Israeli inspired tapas and breakfast muesli fruit bowls at Jaali Cafe. Masala scrambled eggs and spicy chai at Little World Cafe in Palolem. And massive portion sizes at Temple Restaurant, which were initially unwelcome with Ruairidh still feeling the effects of illness, but great when you want a giant curry a few days later with an appetite fully in tact!

Ruairidh keen to tuck into our feast at Jaali Cafe, calamari first!

One other noteworthy moment from our time in Patnem saw us trying to rent a moped to explore the local area. Neither of us had ridden one before, but it looked straightforward enough, we’d literally seen children riding them so couldn’t be too hard. Right?!

When we told the guy we lacked a bit of experience riding a scooter, he failed to offer any advice as to how one would go about it, so when Ruairidh jumped on and enthusiastically gave it some gas, he almost carved a hole into the wall in front of him. Rightly so after that failed performance, the guy refused to let us rent the bike, and we left, pretty embarrassed. We did save ourselves the hire cost for the day, so, silver linings and all that!

Katie saying her goodbyes to Patnem beach on our last morning 👋🏻

Agonda

We had become very comfortable in Patnem but Katie made the executive decision that we should explore a new area with our final few days in Goa, so we jumped in a tuk tuk and headed twenty minutes up the coastline to Agonda Beach.

Having enjoyed our beach hut in Patnem, we booked a similar looking place in Agonda. We clearly have a certain taste as upon arrival, the chap who met us told us they were sister businesses!

Agonda beach was beautiful and it’s probably a toss-up between here and Patnem for best beach. Agonda is a slightly bigger town with a greater variety of restaurants, but still with a sparsely populated beach. The sunsets here were dreamy and we enjoyed them every night, on the beach, with beers in hand.

As our last beach destination for a while, it was sad to leave this incredibly picturesque area of the world. We planned for the first three or four weeks of our trip to be super chilled, more holiday-like, than travelling, and South Goa definitely ticked those boxes.