Two for the Road, page 22
We are starting to get paranoid about a loathing Indian truck drivers seem to have for foreigners on motorbikes. They have no regard for our safety, moving out onto our side of the road whenever they feel like it. We are forced into the gravel several times and at others have to come to a complete stop to avoid a head-on collision. It is little wonder we see two head-ons today as well as at least three overturned trucks. One vehicle is crushed and torn apart. Whoever was in that vehicle had little or no chance of survival. To add to our woes, the bike is starting to give in to the bad roads and a heavy load. The welded top-box rack is tilted backwards, but seems to be holding, and oil is leaking out of the oil filler’s key lock.
Shirley: We have booked into the Hotel River Sal in Mobor, Goa. We’ve been told it is opposite the Leela Palace, Goa’s best-known hotel. What they fail to mention is that there is a river between Hotel River Sal and Leela Palace. It is dark when we arrive at the hotel, after ending up on the wrong side of the river. Oil is leaking out of the bike, the fuel is getting lower and Brian’s stress levels are sky high. Just to top off the day, the hotel is not what we’d hoped for. It’s run-down and shabby, and we have paid for 10 days’ accommodation!
The next morning, after a good night’s sleep, we don’t feel so bad. The room is clean, the bed is comfortable and the water’s hot. The hotel has a boat to take us across the river, where we can walk to the shops and beach.
The beach ‘shacks’, which are small, open-air restaurants, offer sunbeds and umbrellas on the water’s edge for free. The waiters meander down every hour or so to see if you need a drink or something to eat. There are lots of touts selling fruit, jewellery and massages, but they take it well when we tell them we aren’t shopping.
On Christmas Day, Brian and I feel more than a little homesick. We go to the public phone in town, which is set up in a small shop, and the owner pushes us to the top of the queue to make our calls home. The phone is metered and the locals watch, fascinated by the amount of money we are spending on a phone call!
Brian: I’m close to tears talking to my boys. I feel a deep disappointment that I am not with them on Christmas Day. When Mum gets on the phone, she bursts into tears, but composes herself. She is missing us terribly and it’s great to hear her voice. Dad gets on the line and sounds really good.
He had triple by-pass heart surgery last year but his health seems to have picked up and he is enjoying life to the max. He’s back on the bowling green and picking fruit every day. We have got a lot closer since his illness and hearing his voice brings a lump to my throat.
A few hundred rupees later and we are alone again. Poor Shirl can’t even contact her brother and his wife because they have gone away and we can’t call a mobile phone from here.
Shirley: Something good comes out of everything and the Hotel River Sal is no different. We meet Phil and Sheila, an English couple who have been coming to Goa for years. They know all the good places to eat and the best bars in town, suggesting Betty’s Bar for our Christmas dinner. Chilli crab and local fish make a delectable meal.
One thing we don’t miss out on is the Boxing Day cricket test – India versus Australia – which is live on cable TV in the hotel bar. While we’re watching the cricket, some visitors arrive and ask if we’ve heard about the earthquake in Iran. We turn over to BBC World and are shocked to hear that Bam, the beautiful mud city, has been severely damaged and tens of thousands of its people are dead or injured. The citadel in the ancient city is no more. We can’t believe the news. It has only been a couple of months since we were there, wandering the streets with Peter and Dagmar and enjoying the beauty of this ancient wonder. We wonder if Akhbar, the guesthouse owner, has survived and if any travellers are in the town.
Brian: The bike needs some TLC and I’ve found a local mechanic, Rudi, who is happy to work on it with me. We change the oil, clean the oil filter and refit it. He pulls apart the key lock on the oil filler and completely rebuilds it with new seals. He is patient and thorough. Mid-afternoon, Rudi produces cold beers, spicy Goan sausages and noodles. We sit in his lovely indoor–outdoor sitting room and discuss everything from religion and relationships between India and Pakistan, to Rudi’s business interests. We get back to work and change the oil in the engine, gearbox and differential. We fit the plug repaired by Rudi and find it won’t lock. He patiently pulls it apart and reworks it again until it fits. I sit down with Rudi to pay him, but he refuses to accept anything more than the cost of the engine and gearbox oils. That’s 500 rupees (AUD$15) for a day’s work!
When I return to the hotel, Peter and Dagmar are there. It is fantastic to catch up with them and share our respective adventures.
Shirley: Bam is still the top story on the international news. Akhbar is alive! He is interviewed, saying that his guesthouse has been destroyed. Everyone in the street is dead. An English tourist was killed in Akhbar’s – the only foreigner to die. It is distressing to see this wonderful man so upset, yet it’s good to know that he has survived.
‘All my friends are dead. Everyone on this street is dead,’ says Akhbar. When the reporter asks if he has hope, Akhbar replies. ‘I am alive. Where there is life, there is hope.’
It’s New Year’s Eve. We’ve travelled 40,000 km across half the world, endured difficult times and enjoyed marvellous experiences. Phil and Sheila have been into Margao and bought the most incredible collection of fireworks. As the clock strikes midnight we let them off, lighting up the night sky.
Bernd, Heidi and Ingo, our companions across the badlands of Pakistan, are at Agonda, about 30 km further south, so we leave the Hotel River Sal and head to the Dunhill Beach Resort right on the beach. There are coco huts on the sand, but they are too rustic for us. Made from woven fronds and built on stilts, they seem a bit rickety and I prefer something more substantial. At least our room at the guesthouse has solid walls, a cold shower and toilet. You don’t need hot water here, but you can get a bucket of the stuff if you want it.
Agonda is the Christmas meeting place for many overlanders. German travellers are parked in their vans under the trees on the water’s edge. We get together for dinner at one of the local restaurants. The fish is to die for and the whisky is cheap. We have a few drinks and lots of laughs. Age and nationality are no barriers socially – we are all travellers, a long way from home.
The waters of the Arabian Sea are warm and therapeu-tic, and the beach at Agonda is almost deserted. There is nothing to do here but swim, eat and read; this is the life. Goa, and Agonda in particular, are not like India. And if you ask the locals, they say they are not Indians. They are Goans.
There are more farewells. Bernd, Heidi and Ingo are moving on. We will meet up with them again in Nepal. Bernd and Heidi will eventually make their way to Australia.
Bettina and Ube arrive after making the long 11-day journey from Nepal. They have good advice about where to stay and what to see in Nepal, and how to avoid the mozzies. Bettina got a dose of malaria and was feverish for nearly two weeks.
Tonight we have some uninvited guests in our room: frogs. They have taken up residence in the toilet and sink.
Brian uses half a water bottle to scoop a frog out of the toilet. I use the toilet and when I flush I turn around and see another frog on the wall. Brian takes this one outside and washes his hands, then finds yet another frog on the bathroom wall. An entire frog family has moved into our loo!
We delay leaving Agonda as long as possible before heading to Saligao to meet Peter Baird, the Kiwi we met at the Horizons Unlimited meeting in England. It is hard to leave this paradise and our three days turn into five. Peter is staying in a 450-year-old Portuguese mansion with his bosses, the Poms running motorcycle tours around India. They have 16 Royal Enfields parked in their lounge room and bats living in the roof. There is no running hot water or flushing toilets, but there’s lots of atmosphere.
Saligao is in northern Goa, and it is very different from Agonda and Mobor in the south. The restaurants are modern and expensive by Indian standards but the bars are trapped in a time warp. It is full moon and Peter takes us in search of the full-moon party. We don’t find it, but then maybe it is too early as it is only 11 p.m.! Instead, we head to a bar where we appear to have walked back into the 1960s. The whole place is enveloped in a haze of blue smoke. The patrons wear tie-dyed pants and tops with dreadlocks cascading half way down their backs – and that’s the men! It’s as if they have been here for the last 40 years. Brian and I don’t feel old very often, but tonight we do. We seem so conservative in comparison with these ageing hippies.
It is so long since we’ve been on good roads in India, we have forgotten what they are like. The highway to Mumbai is terrific and we can even travel at 100 km/h.
When we are pulled up by the police, we’re sure there will be another attempt to extort money from us. In actual fact, the policeman is just keen to get a closer look at the bike. He touches everything, including the engine, which is red-hot! He flinches briefly, but doesn’t show any other sign of pain. He waves us on and probably heads off to find some cold water.
The Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai is one of the best in India. It is way beyond our budget, but we deserve a Christmas treat after the dump in Mobor and rooms with frogs and bats. While we talk about the pros and cons of our expensive room, the Sikh security guards become agitated. They want to know if we are staying or going and for us to move the bike. We can’t work out why, until a chauffeur-driven car pulls up outside the main doors. Salman Rushdie gets out with an extremely attractive Indian woman. We can’t believe it. I grab the camera and push through the media throng to get a photo. The hotel manager tells us Salman is on a private visit to Mumbai with his girlfriend, a local Bollywood star. Now the guards’ irritation is understandable. Imagine what we must have looked like, hanging around outside the hotel when Salman Rushdie is about to arrive.
The receptionist offers us an upgrade with no reason given. I wonder why, as after a day on the road we look pretty terrible. If I were her, I’d tell us they were booked out! Our Executive Room just oozes luxury. There are silk robes, a deep bath, the biggest, softest towels we’ve ever seen, a complimentary bottle of local red wine and chocolates. It is a dream and I am afraid I will wake up in the hotel in Dalbandin.
The dichotomy that is India is visible outside our hotel. While we have been enjoying the luxury of the Taj Mahal Hotel and Salman Rushdie has been enjoying the company of his ‘muse’, as the local papers describe his companion, people are begging on the streets. The beggars make a beeline for us, seeing foreigners as cash cows. The Indians staying at the Taj are bound to have much more than us, but they are invisible to the beggars.
As we ride out of the city, I watch a young woman in a sari walk out onto the roadway. She hitches up the edge of her sari and squats over a drain in the road. I can’t imagine living on the street and I am struck by the deprivation of some Indians. We both find it amazing that the Indians pride themselves on being the world’s largest democracy and potentially the most populated nation in a couple of decades, overtaking China. This is despite the fact that the government can’t feed and educate the masses now. You often see children who should be at school just hanging around tiny rural communities. Tens of thousands of people, and possibly more than this, live in shantytowns consisting of dwellings made from plastic sheeting over wooden frames and situated on the outskirts of cities. We see women working on the roads, carrying baskets of stones from the trenches. Initially, I thought women working was a good thing, but then I realised that they are the lowest caste and will never be able to do anything but work on the roads.
Some friends in Australia told us that no matter what we thought of most places in India we would love Rajasthan. They were right. The local maharana and his family have turned their guesthouses and palaces into hotels. Some are not very expensive, but each offers a different accommodation experience.
The first accommodation we stay in is the Rang Niwas Palace Hotel in Udaipur. The hotel is set behind a high wall in peaceful gardens with a pool and our room has a balcony with a sofa. Brian settles into the sofa before I even get through the door. He has found his resting spot.
The maharana has left many legacies in Udaipur, such as a palace that is now an incredible museum and the family crystal collection on display at a hotel that was also once a palace. Maharana Sajjan Singh bought the crystal in 1877 and never got to enjoy it. By the time the crystal arrived from England the maharana was dying and the boxes were left unopened until after his death. At the museum, we view crystal chairs, tables, beds, chandeliers, hanging fans operated by the hands of servants, a throne, lamps, table settings and more. There is enough dinnerware and glassware to have everyone we know to dinner every night for a year and never have to do the washing up!
There is a commotion outside our hotel window and the hotel dog is barking madly. As I walk out to see what is going on, a huge monkey, about a metre tall, runs past the window and jumps into a tree. For the next 15 minutes or so, a family of about five monkeys climbs past our window into the trees in the hotel garden or onto the roof. The dog is still barking and one of the guests (a Swiss woman who enjoys a tipple) chases the monkeys with a big stick, trying to get them out of the garden. One monkey sits just outside our window, watching the entire proceedings. He looks across at me and then back at the goings on as if to say, ‘Can you believe this hullabaloo?’
Another of the maharana’s homes, his principal palace, is now the Lake Palace Hotel and it’s set on an island in the middle of a lake. We can’t afford a night here, but we can splurge on dinner in the restaurant. The band strikes up when we arrive at the boat ramp. We make our way down the carpeted walkway to the boat and everyone greets us with great deference. When we get to the hotel girls shower flower petals onto the ground in front of us and men wave small hand fans. It is so over the top!
Over dinner, we get chatting to Merrill and Joe, a couple from Sydney. I have the most amazing feeling I have met them before but can’t put my finger on it until well into the night. While Brian and I were staying at our time-share in Port Macquarie a year before, they arrived, wanting to look around. The managers were away, so Brian gave them a tour. Fancy meeting them again, in Udaipur.
Brian: The maharana has the most incredible collection of cars, which are on display at the royal garages. There are the first diesel-powered mass-produced Mercedes Benz and other Mercedes models from the early 1960s, as well as Cadillacs, Chevrolet trucks and even two Morris Minors. Then there are two Rolls-Royces, one converted into a ute for hunting trips and the other converted into a bus with three rows of seats for the local cricket team. Now, there is a sign of someone who has far too much money!
We must be losing our adventurous spirit. We eat at the same restaurant overlooking the lake, but the food is good and the view is to die for. Our rickshaw ride home is reminiscent of Octopussy, the James Bond movie shot here in Udaipur. Our maniac driver has equipped the rickshaw with the biggest, loudest ghettoblaster I’ve ever heard. Cat Stevens blasts out as we career, almost out of control, all the way down the hill.
Shirley: The maharana’s cousin, who runs the Rang Niwas Palace Hotel, suggests we stay at a luxury tent camp, Chhatra Sagar, run by another of his cousins. The camp is on the shore of a large dam that was once the maharana’s hunting ground but is now a bird sanctuary. Normally it is 7500 rupees a night, all inclusive, which is way beyond our budget, but as the season is slow and they have space we can have full board for 2500 rupees. How can we say no?
The tent accommodation is very luxurious and every room has a private sitting area with a view and en suite with running hot and cold water. It is only a few kilometres out of the way. The spoiling just keeps going on. We make our decision to stay. What a guy my husband is!
It is about 1.30 p.m. and we are just in time for lunch. The food is all locally grown and delicious. There is rice, peas with coriander, a corn-pasta dish, salad, dhal and a yoghurt sauce with berries, fruit and nuts. We try a mouth-watering dessert, about the consistency of rice pudding but made from lotus seeds.
The dining area looks out over the dam. It is peaceful. Waterbirds fly overhead and an owlet that should be sleeping watches us from the hollow of a tree. There is no traffic noise, only the sounds of birds, and the air is clean. Can this really be India?
After lunch we are shown to our tent, which looks out over the dam and has its own sitting area under a canvas awning, with two deck-type chairs and table. Inside is a massive bed and two bedside tables complete with lamps with bases shaped like camels. There is a dressing room area behind curtains and a pristine bathroom with shower, toilet and vanity. We have our own hot-water system and a powerpoint.
We relax outside and read in peace. The only harsh sounds are the yells of farmers trying to keep birds away from their crops. As the day comes to an end, we hear the calls as the birds settle for the night.
In the outdoor communal area, we relax in comfortable cane chairs that surround a roaring fire with some other guests, Robert and Carmen Ashforth, a Canadian doctor and his wife; Peter and Heidi, a couple from Switzerland; and a French couple who don’t speak much English. Our host tells us about the conservation work done by the family in what was once their hunting area. They didn’t hunt for pleasure in the old days (it is against their religion), but took it up as a sport to impress and entertain the British. Now they have begun replanting trees for the birds and animals, and grow a ‘weed’ tree to use as firewood. They are making quite a difference here.
