i'm here!!!

mumbai kicks ass. it's really hot, and absolute mayhem.
very tired as i didn't sleep at all on the plane, i'll write more tomorrow.

nearly there

i left manchester today, which was sad. i've moved around a lot in my life and this little corner of manchester has been the closest i've had to a permanent home yet.

i'm so excited, my flight leaves tomorrow at 21:45.

tonight will be the longest night of my life.

a rough plan

so i thought it was about time i told you where i was going... click here for a map

i'll be starting in mumbai, and spending 4 nights there. from what i can gather if i can survive mumbai i can survive india.

from there i'm going to nashik, and then aurangabad will be a base to see the caves at ajanta and ellora. then i'll head back to mumbai and get the train to pune, returning to mumbai to catch the konkan railway to goa. i'll hop on and off that as and when i fancy it as there are lots of hill stations and forts dotted along the way.

from goa i'll be heading inland to hampi, which looks amazing. then on to bengaluru, but only briefly as it looks hot and doesn't really have much going for it other than the IT boom. mysore is next, it looks cool - lots of palaces and temples - and then i'll be heading back to the coast to kochi. i'll follow the coast to alappuzha, varkala and the periyar wildlife sanctuary before delving into tamil nadu. more on which will follow (still reading up on the place). I reckon that'll take me up to the first week in february, maybe a bit more.

so go now, click all the links... and envy me...

3 weeks to go

not much to say really... almost ready to go now. just need to get the all clear from the dentist and have 1 more set of jabs and i'm done.

oo and need to sort travel insurance as well

aldwych in the rain

my bus arrived at london victoria at 06:15, the high commission of india opened for visa applications at 08:30. i thought i'd toddle over there to make sure that i knew where the place was, and the plan was to sit in a coffee house for an hour or so nursing a brew and read me some hindu philosophy.

when i got there i found at least 60 people queueing up already - 2 hours before the place was due to open! so i joined the queue, popped the ipod on and thought nothing more of it. about an hour later i turned around and saw that the queue had grown to about 300 people (i kid you not) stretching back along aldwych! in the rain. cold rain at that.

as we slowly advanced i noticed that there were a lot of sikhs in the queue, and as i looked closer i could see that there were actually quite a lot of indian people there, clutching their british passports. it seemed odd to me that these people had to obtain a visa to return to the country they and their families originated from.

as we got closer to the door and the tickets started being handed out (very much like the deli counter, take a number and wait for it to be called out) the atmosphere changed, people started jostling each other and a scuffle broke out at the front between two older chaps, both yelling at each other in hindi. then as the doors opened there was a massive surge of people, all pushing and shoving to get in.

i was quite chuffed to learn that i was number 77 (26 was already displayed on the sign and it had only been open 10 minutes) so i took a seat near the front and waited. the three girls on the counter (only 3 of the 8 desks were open - despite the million people stood outside in the rain) were rattling through the numbers at quite a pace - if you weren't at the desk within 5 seconds of the number being called out you were too late. the girl who processed my application was heavenly, lovely deep dark eyes and a really nice smile. needless to say i instantly turned into a hormonal adolescent....

and that was it - i had to take the slip to booth 9 in half an hour and i was done. maybe booking a return bus ticket at 17:00 wasn't the best idea after all.... oh well, a quick trip to euston and i'd be back in manchester by noon.

i'm not too happy about the visa being on page 13 of my passport, but what the hell I'M GOING TO INDIA!!!!

backup specs

i got my backup specs and some sunglasses today. there's a big knot of bone where the bridge of my perfectly formed nose used to be (another lingering annoyance from the eye thing) which makes choosing a set of specs an ordeal. i don't quite get why they put stickers on them - i can see sod all from my left eye and it didn't help that there were stickers over the right lens of each pair i tried on. i'll get them tomorrow and look like christopher biggins or something.

i managed to convince myself that a cheaper alternative to the 50 quid pack-chain thing to secure my pack on trains etc. was to get a rucksack liner and padlock. so i bought them, saving me £15. nice one, subway on the way home to celebrate.

i got home, put some stuff in it and locked it up. "hmm... how would someone get into that if they wanted to then? that reminds me, i really should get a pocketknife sorted..." *cough* i'll get the 50 quid pack-chain thingy when i pick up my specs tomorrow.

i should really get my visa sorted soon. i'm thinking next week, thursday sounds good. the high commission of india in london processes visa applications between 08:30 - 13:00 so i either need to get there on wednesday night by megabus and stay in a hotel (getting there at about 1am - damn having to work next week) or getting the early train. which costs a million pounds.

it begins - how will i get from a to b? how much will it cost? shall i go overnight so i don't need accommodation? why are virgin trains so expensive?

malaria and hinduism

there's malaria in goa, and also in the north-east of india. the north west and centre are relatively malaria-free. nice one.

i still have to take the tablets from the day or two before i head to goa, to 28 days after i leave the north-east. i've been a bit worried about taking these tablets as some can have worrying side effects. these ones make me more susceptible to sunlight which might mess up the plans for tannage. if there is any tannage to be had that is - hopefully goa won't let me down.

had some more jabs today, and now i'm eating too much hummous before curling up and reading about hinduism. it looks nuts, i think i'll like it

flickr

here's where i'll be uploading my photos

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidouch/

nearly free

only 2 more days of this week, hopefully none of next week, and monday to wednesday the week after and i'm free. from work at least, i will have to wait until january for the real freedom.

gandhi's autobiography came today to keep me occupied when i'm not planning a route and finding places to stay - i'm a bit bored of wikitravel and lonely planet. i realised a week or so ago that i know nothing of gandhi, and i feel i really should if i want to understand anything about the way the india of today is the way it is. the mahabharata was interesting, but it is so far removed from reality to me at the moment it was quite difficult to find any meaning in it. luckily it's pretty thin (it's a heavily abridged version, the original runs to 9000 odd verses) so i'll take it with me and see how it takes after i've been in india awhile.

jabs again on monday

jabs

hepatitis A, rabies and japanese encephalitis so far (2/3 rounds)

just in case anyone was cultivating any to throw at me :)

£75 per bloody round though