Spring

Oron Galushka

'don't call us, we are calling you'

nothing is final, but things are moving in the right direction. was it a good decision? is it smart, reading all these books? Rich Dad, Poor Dad, 4 hours work week, Blink... who knows... time will tell... all in all - not too bad.

horny planet

שיא הפלצנות

מלחיית מלח ים אטלנטי (גס) עם אורז בר (אורגני) לספיחת הלחות

Surrendering India

It’s been more than two weeks since the last update. Two very amazing weeks.
A horrifying ~17 hours bus ride took us from Udaipur to Mumbai on last month’s 20th. We were trying to book a flight but it turned out that this ‘sleeping bus’ is our best option to make the Mumbai-Thrivendrum flight the following day. These long 17 hours were definitely remembered able; the driver, like so many others in India, drives using his horn. The brakes and the gas are there just to support … Anyways, much sleep we didn’t get but we did make it to Mumbai in time to experience another delay with our flight south. We finally reached Thrivendrum, in the south state of Kerela.

The contrast to Rajahsthan is equivalent to the contrast between black and white, between Yang and Yin, between … it is just beautiful. The food is amazing. The People are nice. The scenery is so unique. After a night at the capital, we headed to the beach @ Verkala, and started our climb up north. We found Verkala very touristy but a walk along the beach revealed a beautiful unspoiled part where we spent the entire following day. On the 24th, we took a train from Verkala, again heading north, to Allepy. A beautiful ride through ‘backwater’ scenery on the train. Once in Allepy, we took a rickshaw to the boat-stand and enjoyed a thali lunch while waiting for the boat-bus. Cruising through the lakes and tunnels, we reached after 3 most beautiful hours to Kottayam and from there, another rickshaw to the small village of Kumarakom where we spent the night in what very much resembled a European Zimmer overlooking the lake!! The local food cooked by mama-lily reminded us that we are in India J We would have stayed another day in the village but there were no rooms available in that hotel so after an amazingly beautiful walk in the village the following morning, we headed inland to Kumly.

We found a great ‘home-stay’ in Kumly called Jungle-View. And indeed, the view of the jungle was just there. Almost inside our room and surly inside our porch. We met a great couple of Israeli’s from London: the guy who’s an amateur magician had arranged a performance to the local kids. The performance was great but the look on the children’s faces (and their parents…) was even better. After a brilliant hour of the performance, including a short interview with the local news (not us – the magician..) we headed together for dinner. While in Kumly, we spent one day in the jungle and we saw 3 elephants out there in the wild. An afternoon with a whole monkey tribe at the foot steps of our porch was very amusing. After four days, we headed back north-west to Kochi, still in Kerela. We spent two nights in the beautiful ‘Beena Home Stay’; Beena and her family could not make our stay there more enjoyable. The local food dinner she made for us on the second day was so delicious … we can’t wait to try and imitate the magic that was performed there on the table.

Following Kochi, we headed to Kananore. We were expecting a very spoiling kind of boutique hotel but the slight disappointment was later replaced with an amazing experience of a Theyam ritual we have witnessed the following day.
So, we have celebrated my 33rd birthday, by waking @4am to head early enough to the ritual venue. After a long saga with the taxi driver, we arrived at the scene to witness the most amazing and authentic ceremony. Here pictures really worth a thousand words and the ritual deserve a post for itself. There was dancing, and amazing body make-up, and beautiful palm-tree costumes, and a large bone-fire, and walking on fire, and drums… absolutely shockingly amazing. Later on that day, we spent some more time on the beach, followed by another great dinner with our new British friends. We moved forward the following day on our journey up north crossing the border to Karnataka. Our visit to Karnataka didn’t leave much to write home about, apart, again, from the food J
We reached Goa Feb 3rd, to Patnem beach. It is likely that we will not move much until our flight back to this upcoming Sunday.

It takes time to ‘surrender to India’. Once you do – it becomes an experience of a lifetime. We are a little home sick – in a good way that is. After being away for ~16 months. The days here on the beach, with the sunsets and the palm trees and the Tandoori fish and all makes for a great closure.