A 7th Century Jain Temple in Tribal Orissa

On the way back from Nandapur Market, we stopped at Subai Temple, a 7th century Jain temple in the midst of the Orissa tribal belt. Here is a pic of T-Bird on the road to the temple...

And here is the temple, with the junior priest standing decoratively in front of it...

On the way to Kotpad market...

The next day we landed at Koraput, our center of operations for the next several days. The first day, we headed out to the weekly Kotpad market, the markets of the Bhatra and Dhura tribes. These weekly tribal markets are the best places to interact with the various tribes of Koraput and Bastar.
On the way, we came across this magic totem in a tribal field. Installed to keep off evil spirits from the grain. It works! We did not see any evil spirits within a 10 yard radius.

Road to Araku

From Rajahmundry, we left the coast headed into the hills, to the tribal belt of Orissa. Blandine wanted to check out the nomadic tribes of Koraput and Bastar. Me, I prefer to leave the tribals alone. The way I see it, they have enough troubles of their own without having tourists coming and ogling at them. But Blandine sees it differently, and on these trips, Blandine is the Boss. I am merely the chap who drives T-Bird. Or rather, I'm the chap who does not drive T-Bird, for T-Birds go wherever they please. I'm merely the chap who holds the handlebars and looks cool in a cherry red helmet.

Our target was the town of Koraput, which we were planning to use as our command center for various explorations into the tribal belt. But instead of going all the way to Koraput in one go, we decided to stay the night just 100 km short, in the scenic Araku Valley, which is right on the border of Andhra and Orissa, and is actually the start of the tribal belt.

Here is T-Bird on the road to Araku:

Going Bannanas in Rajahmundry

While leaving Rajahmundry for the next stage of the trip, we ran into this rather charming morning banana market on the banks of the Godavari. Banana planters and buyers get together every morning on the banks of the river for this impromptu market.

Bridges of Rajahmundry

T-Bird needed minor repairs at Rajahmundry. Luckily, there is an Enfield showroom there. Later, we checked out Rajahmundry's main claim to fame: its amazing bridges. It has the second largest bridge in Asia (4.7 km), and not one, but three of them. Here is the road-cum-rail bridge...

The arched bridge:-

Andhra and Orissa trip: setting off!

A couple of weeks ago, Blandine and I set off on a trip to Andhra and Orissa. Blandine and T-Bird on the highway...

Cocoon: the market

Not weeks after my trip to France, Blandine and I flipped positions. This time she popped over to see me in Bangalore. We did a couple of small trips on T-Bird, and one big trip to Andhra and Orissa. Here is the first of the small trips: We went to the nearby town of Ramnagaram, which is also known as Silk City. It has the biggest silk cocoon market in the country. Here is what the market looks like from the outside:

And here are pics of the interior: heaps of silk cocoon on sale. One friendly dealer cut open a cocoon for us to show the silk worm still live inside:

T-Bird checks out the Blue Hills

Here are some pics of the trip that T-Bird, Blandine and I took to the Nilgiris - No, not the supermarket of that name for the weekly shopping - the *real* Nilgiris - the 'Blue Hills'... This was the approximate route we took:   Mysore, Bandipur, Ooty, Conoor, Sultan Battery and Wayanad. Also a couple of pics of a trip to Coorg around the same time.

A Nilgiri Tea Plantation

T-Bird checking out a tea plantation. No, T-Bird doesn't drink the stuff, preferring for some reason  refined hydrocarbons and motor oil - but T-Bird doesn't mind looking at plantations of the stuff. Very soothing, says  T-Bird.

The hotel where we stayed in Coorg - the Green Hills Estate. A lovely old heritage building in the midst of a tea plantation. It used to belong to the Dewan of the Coorg Royal Family. Verry Old World  - read fungus on the ceiling and rickety grand four-poster beds that threaten to fall apart if you try monkey business. Just slightly done up to cater to the modern tourist - it's been left largely in the state it might have been back in the days when men were mustachioed. Transports you to another time.

T-Bird checking out the room where we stayed at the above mentioned hotel. T-Bird approved. Of course, T-bird wasn't allowed in. The hotel staff would have none of it, even though there was lots of room for T-Bird on the four-poster bed. But T-Bird didn't mind, preferring the open air. A nice change from the stuffy garage you usually shove me into, said T-Bird

A side-benefit of biking to Ooty is that you get to bike right across Bandipur  National Park, and see  our dumb chums right up close - it isn't quite the same if you're in a car or a bus. Here are some friendly spotted deer.

And here is a merry elephant, partaking of the midday meal. He went on eating, flapping us a courteous ear. We politely declined to join him, but I did feed on a bar of Snickers while Blandine took a long video of the lunch. No, I didn't drop the wrapper there - I took it along. We are eco-friendly travelers, we are.

Transportation, Bandipur style. 

An attractive spur of rock that looks rather like the rampart of a castle - on the way down the hill from Ooty. 

Same thing, another shot

An indescribably cute farmers cottage in Coorg. Somehow the cuteness doesn't fully come out in the picture,  but believe me, it was CUTE.

Another heritage hotel - this time in Ooty. King's Cliff, it is called, a former British planter's mansion. Blandine has a thing for heritage hotel. This one is more done-up than the one we stayed at in Coorg. More posh, more modernized. But it still has a distinct old-world charm, and the restaurant is amazing.

A Nilgiri Langur - snapped by Blandine on the way up the hill to Ooty.  A cousin of the Gray Langur found in many parts of India. Blandine has a thing for monkeys. Is that why she likes me?

A multi-hued plantation workers village - on the route from Ooty to  Conoor. Creates a lovely splash of color on the green hills. 

Another plantation - but not in the Nilgiris. This was on the way down  from Ooty,  on the way  to Sultan Battery. What was memorable about this particular plantation was that there was a tea factory attached to the plantation, and right outside it was a little tea shop where the workers have their tea - and the glass of tea we got there was simply the best I've ever tasted in my life. Delicately perfumed and full of flavor. Obviously, this was one chaiwallah who knew to make tea, and didn't murder it the way his brethren usually do. And possibly it was because this was tea fresh from the factory - just off the dryer. I checked out the name of the estate - it's a part of Parry's Estates and that tea gets into the Parry's brand of tea. Couldn't find it in Bangalore, unfortunately.
By the way Sultan Battery: yes, that really is the name of a town in Kerala. It used to be Tipu Sultan's armory and battery . It's supposed to be an historical town, but we didn't have time to check it out - T-Bird wanted to keep moving. It was on the route back to Bangalore from Ooty, via the Wayanad forests. I didn't want to go back via Bandipur - T-Bird hates taking the same route back.

T-Bird and Blandine taking a break along the way - the blue hills in the background.

T-Bird doesn’t go to Kathmandu

T-bird is in a mighty sulk. Refuses all nourishment, makes gnashing noises with the teeth – the sort that entails expensive visits to the repair shop, and will not be consoled. You see, Blandine and I went off to Nepal without her – and what is worse, we hired another bike there. T-Bird is a jealous bird.

Sure I can take you, T-Bird had said. Bangalore-Kathmandu? Poosh! Boosh! Nothing to it! While the offer was tempting, spending a week getting there, and another week getting back – when we had just a month for the whole Nepal trip – it just wasn’t on. We sneaked off on an airplane when we thought T-Bird wasn’t looking.

Landing in Kathmandu

Kathmandu was cold and blustery when we landed – and it had an easygoing, freewheeling way about it that was like a shot of bubbly wine. The fellow at the emigration desk waved me through with a grin, glancing at the blue of my Indian passport. He didn’t even open it.

First Impressions… Meandering streets leading nowhere, tumbledown houses, broken pavements. It looked a bit like good old Bangalore on a bad day, but with a certain kind of charm that Bangalore doesn’t have – not any more, it doesn’t. Wandering around the crowded bylanes is a lot like exploring the old quarters of any old Indian city – except that every few steps or so you come across unexpected moments of sheer beauty. Like this sea of pigeons at a corner Buddhist shrine….

Buddhist Pigeons

We had a nice cup of Nepali tea just beside this particular stupa. Teen Pati – that was the tea brand. Very perfumed. It seemed to be the hangout joint for the local teenagers. A Buddhist temple as a hangout joint… A sad looking long haired Gorkha youth sat beside me. He looked like a lost rock guitarist. How you like Kathmandu, he says. Beautiful, I reply. Yes, but very dirty, he sighs. I take a diplomatic sip of tea. Boy, wait till you see my hometown, kid, I say to myself.

Temples seem to sprout all over Kathmandu like a bout of eczema or a bad rash. There must be a million there, all sorts. But they’re quite unlike the Indian temples – they look sort of exotic to the plainsman eye. Red pagodas and cast iron dragons and screaming eagles of brass and stuff. And the Buddhist temples look very definitely exotic – being unusually clean.

An absolute jing-bang Buddhist temple bang in the middle of a busy neighborhood

The temple dragon

Getting a roof over the head… We installed ourselves in a cozy little apartment-hotel – Melungtse. More apartment than hotel, actually. After a couple of days, it seemed we’d been living there forever. Highly recommended for long stays in Kathmandu. It’s a bit on the outskirts, not in touristy Thamel, where most of the other hotels are. You can see the Himalayas from the rooftop. No, you can’t see it from any odd hotel in Kathmandu. You wouldn’t believe you were surrounded by the Himalayas, in most parts of the city. And it has a nice little garden. Tea on the terrace looking at the Himalayas waking up to the sun and pretty flowerbeds down below, and the owner Mr. Giri bellowing a cheerful Good Morning fixing the fiendishly complicated water recycling gizmo on the roof – what a way to start the day. Just some peanut crumbles needed to make it perfect, and yup, you get those too – at the Pumpernickel bakery in Thamel. I brought back a small cartload to Bangalore. Actually, just the sight of Mr. Giri fixing the water recycling system is the money’s worth. He’s a nice guy, he really is. Even when negotiating the rent. Make you feel right at home. Even when negotiating the rent.

Hotel Melungtse, Maharajgunj, Ring Road Kathmandu – 5 Stars

 

Keeping the fingers in… Here I am at the apartment, doing guitar practice. It’s a baby guitar. Discovery: the baby guitar is an absolutely marvelous travel guitar. Not performances, of course, but it’s perfectly adequate for scale practice and keeping the fingers from going rusty. Besides, if you buy a decent one, not the cheepo ones at Reynolds, you can get amazing sounds from it that you just can’t from other guitars. Since you have to get the same note from a much shorter neck length, the strings are strung much looser – so you can bend, pull and hammer them almost like an electric guitar, but the sound is that of an acoustic with a soar throat. Very bluesy.

Congress baby guitar as the itinerant guitarists travel guitar – 3 Stars

Getting a bike…  After a couple of days braving the local busses and taxis – if you complain about public transport in Bangalore, boy, wait till you get to Kat – we decided for the sake of our sanity to hire a bike. We checked out a lot of bike hirers in Thamel – including the ones listed in Lonely Planet. But the thought of leaving my passport with one of those pluguglies – you have to do that, you see, as surety; that’s the hitch – it made me downright queasy. They looked to a man something right out of a B-movie of the more violent type.

I finally settled on Balaram – largely because of his wide, honest smile and booming laugh. And the fact that his bikes looked a shade better than the others. And the fact that he was offering us a brand new Yamaha YBR 125 – just 128 KM on the odometer. A new addition to his stable, he said – just that week. Balaram is also highly recommended; we had a great experience with him. His is the first bike hire joint you see when you enter Thamel from the King’s Palace side via Tredevi Marg and take a sharp turn right on Thamel Marg.

Here is the man himself, complete with his bike and his wide, honest smile:

Balram’s Bike Hire – Narsing Chowk, Thamel Kathmandu, Nepal – 5 Stars

After T-Bird, a 125CC Yamaha seemed like coming down in life. It whined and screamed on climbs that T-Bird would have sneered at. And by golly, there are climbs when you set out to explore Kathmandu Valley. But hey, the little bird did the job, getting us from point A to point B without problems.

Finally having something growling between the legs – a bike, I mean – opened up the vistas. We bought us a map of Kathmandu Valley and set out to explore it like it had never been explored before.

And what a place it is… much as we love Bangalore, we have to admit that after you’ve done Nandi Hills and Tipu’s Palace, you’ve more or less shot the bolt as far as tourism is concerned. But the Kathmandu Valley – Oh Me God – just go off in any direction from the city in a 360 degrees arc. It’s bursting with places to see every 100 meters or so. We’d barely scratched the surface by the end of the month.

Where we went: The absolute top favorites…

Boudhanath: Despite the simplicity of the giant stupa, there is something mesmerizing about the place. We went back thrice, once in the late evening for night worship by butter lamps.

Boudhanath by day

Boudhanath by night

Bhakthapur Durbar Square: About 20 km out of Kathmandu. It’s a lot better than the two more popular Durbar Squares within Kathmandu. At first glance it’s enormous, spreading and grand.  Then you see the smaller details, like an intricate stone carving here, a brass serpent rising from a water tank there… and it’s painfully exquisite. We spent two whole days exploring the place and could have spent another two. It’s not just the main squares where the tourists breed, the little side alleys where real people live real lives in centuries old traditional Newari houses, temples and stupas and religious water tanks loitering all over the place. There’s the shock of discover at every other step.

Bhakthapur Durbar Square

Bhakthapur - Serpant robinet in the king's bathtub

Bhakthapur - pillar detail

Bhakthapur - another square

Down the bylanes of Bhakthapur

Bhakthapur - old men at play

Tistung village perched over the Palung Valley: A little side road leading off the busy Tribhuhan highway at Naubise soars into another world. The road climbs on and on, over hills and ridges and valleys. Firs and pines all around. It looks like Switzerland, in parts. And always, in the backdrop, the Himalayas glistening in the cold bracing air. No one around except the goats. Finally you come to the picture-perfect hamlet of Tistung on the very summit at the height of 2030 m.

The Himalyas from Tistung

The Tibet boarder – the road to Lhasa: We didn’t want to go through the hassles of a getting a Chinese visa, so we didn’t bike all the way to Lhasa. In any case, it can’t be done with 125CC under you. With T-Bird, yes. But the way up to the border post is doable and is a lot of fun too.

Here’s a gorgeous gorge along the way, and our little bird taking a picnic break beside it.

Little-Bird on Lhasa Road

Gorgeous gorge on Lahsa Road

Buddhist Monasteries: There are about half a million, each more beautiful than the other. Here’s one I particularly liked, on the way to Dakshin Kali (which by the way is heavenly too, esp. the lonely Mata temple perched on the hilltop with strong winds blowing through the simple stone structure).

Monastery on the way to Dakshin Kali

And dozens of other places, which I simply can’t do justice to in a single post… I ought to have made a post a day while I was there, like some other bloggers do. But then this isn’t a travel blog, kids – it’s a humor blog. You ought to know that. Serious posts like this are an aberration.

Nepali Cuisine… In a word: Momo. That place is bursting with momo joints. Small, greasy ones; big, posh ones; middle of the road ones (which are only half greasy and half posh). We had momos morning, noon and night. We ate momos until it spilled out of our ears. Yes, there was that thing called Nepali Thali Set, but it looked suspiciously like a watered-down North Indian Thali, so we left it alone. All this was a bit sad, in retrospect, because Thamel – the touristy quarter of Kathmandu – is crammed with tempting cafes, restaurants and patisseries. French haute cuisine, Korean noodle houses, Irish pubs, German bakeries… you name it – most run by expats settled in Kathmandu, so the food is pretty authentic. Reasonably priced too. In that small 5 km square area, there were more interesting-looking restaurants than in the whole of Bangalore, and Bangalore doesn’t have a shortage, on that front at least. But in the name of being true to the local cuisine, we avoided them. So: momos. Regret it, now we’re back.

Actually, one day we tried going beyond momos. There was this little Tibetian restaurant we found in a hidden side street behind Boudhanath that actually went beyond momos and thukpa. They had all kinds of unpronounceable stuff. They even had freshly made Chang rice beer, which I couldn’t find anywhere else. After getting over the mental block of boiled rice bits floating in my beer and the gamey smell, the Chang proved surprisingly tasty. But not a repeatable experience. And we had this greenish thing with a long unpronounceable multi-part name which turned out to be nettle soup. Yes, the stuff that looks like a thorn bush. It tasted like nothing on earth. And I had dysentery for the rest of my visit. Nettle, it seems, can cause food poisoning unless carefully prepared. Next day: back to momos.

The courtyard at Nepali Chulo

Nepali Chulo: We finally buckled down to eating a Nepali Thali at this restaurant caught in a time warp, a traditional Newari mansion cluttered with ethnic geegaws. Yes, it wasn’t all that different from a standard North Indian Thali. But the experience of eating in this sunlit old-world courtyard was something else.

Nepal Police…Absolutely impressive, totally unlike the rude, pot-bellied perishers here. They look lithe, sharp and poster-boyish to a man, in smart blue uniforms – like something out of a Jacky Chan movie – and they are unfailingly friendly. One of them stopped me once – he was diverting the traffic for a political rally. Sounds familiar? Ah, but instead of whistling rudely in my face and yelling Munde Hogi! Munde Hogi! He smiled an apologetic smile, asked where I was going, and then gave detailed instructions for alternative routes to get there. And this, mind you, in the middle of the rush hour with cars honking like mad behind me. If that had happened in Bangalore, I would have fainted from shock. And Bangalore policemen are reputedly the best mannered in the country…

Drivers License… Legally, you need an International Drivers License to drive there. But Lonely Planet says the Nepal Police never check. Taking courage from that, I landed in Kathmandu not only without an IDL, but without even my Indian Drivers License. I’d just submitted it for renewal – I had just a Xerox copy of the old one. The first day, I puttered out on to the roads with my heart in my mouth… was Lonely Planet correct? Oh Me Gosh, No! – The police were stopping and checking fellows left and right. Luckily, we never got stopped. The Nepal Police seem to have a policy of not hassling tourists and Blandine with her pretty brown hair fluttering in the wind looks a bonafide tourist. Actually, I did almost get stopped once. Blandine’s brown hair was for once tucked away in a helmet, and I didn’t look sufficiently exotic to the Nepali eye. But the moment I said ‘India’, he waved me on with a grin. Blandine didn’t even have to undo her helmet strap.

Fini…

When I handed Balram the bike back, at the end of the month, the gear was sticking a bit and there was a bit of chipped paint on the rear. His smile slipped a bit, but he didn’t make a fuss. But as a fellow bike lover, I could read his eyes. It was after all a brand new bike. But hey, however careful you are – if you are going to go roaring up mountainsides on a bike, it’s going to show. I promised him this writeup on my blog to cheer him up.

Back to T-Bird and her sulk.

T-Bird's Vacation

As reported last week, T-Bird finally nagged me into taking a long biking tour. I swear, sometimes a T-Bird can be worse than a wife, the way it goes on and on... So WHAT did you buy me for? To rot in a garage? I could have been a STAR! I left it all for you... and so on...

Blandine made many of the same points. So WHAT do you have a bike for? To rot in a garage... and so on. Only being French, she said it in French, which made it somehow worse.

You can argue with a T-Bird in English or a Frenchwoman in French. Not both. No. That becomes too rich.

Anyway, finally back from two weeks vacation with T-Bird and Blandine.... Bangalore - Hampi - Goa - Gokhrana - Jog Falls -Bangalore. T-Bird traveled 1600 km in all with five full refills of the tank and two service stops for minor niggles (a brake pad that was making expensive sounds and clutch cable oiling). Luckily I took along a list of all the Enfield Service centers along the way.

T-Bird is tired but happy. I'm just tired.

Blandine WAS happy. She landed up with a fever, soar throat, backache and cold the moment we hit Bangalore. Now not so happy.

Check out below for some pics...

Major Highlight of Trip: Just past Castle Rock in Mollem National Park on NH4A. Descending down the Western Ghats to the beaches of Goa through a dense forest. Its getting late, dusk falling. Going down a series of tight hairpin bends on a thin road more potholes than tar. It starts to rain. Dense fog decides to settle down. Road slippery. Visibility down to 2 feet. Switch on headlights. Fat use. Just yellow pools on white haze. Tiny waterfalls gushing all around on rock face. Blandine insists on getting down to photograph pretty flowers of some species or other amongst the waterfalls. Misery cannot be more. Just ahead, a truck brushes bumpers with a bus. Natural error, one feels? Can be overlooked in the circumstances and shrugged off with a smile? No. In the good old Indian tradition, several parties of the second part (muscular pilgrims from pilgrim bus) decide to thrash it out with the party of the first part - a weedy, sheepish looking truck driver - in the traditional Indian manner by thrashing the bejesus out of the party of the first part. Traffic blocked for miles on mountain side.  I perk up. Things are looking better. Advise for truck drivers: before brushing bumpers with bus, check it's not full of big beefy parties of the second part. Blandine consternated. This is not how things are done in France. 'Stop It! Stop It! Don't beat him!' she cries. Or rather, since she's French 'Arrêtez! Arrêtez! Ne le battez pas!' Self shocked. Explain that interrupting such things is not done here. A faux pas, as they say in French. All good things must pass. Find a way around the parties involved in legal dispute, get down to sea level. Fog lifts. Good old Goa.

Hint for long distance bikers: If you want it not to rain on your trip, wear raincoats. It never rains when you're wearing raincoats. On the other hand, if you're not wearing them, it invariably rains, even when its perfectly sunny and clear. By the time you stop and drag the stuff out of the rucksack, either A: it stops. Or B: you're already so wet it doesn't matter a damn.

Major traffic hazard on Indian roads: those signs telling you to drive carefully. You know the sort I mean: "Driving with care makes accidents rare". They seem to all be thought up exclusively by fellows with infantile dementia and water on the brain. I believe it is actually an official job requirement to have either one or both  those conditions to get a job as a writer of Drive Carefully signboards. Those things can cause flesh wounds on the forehead. They make you want to beat your head on the handlebar. And if, as with many people, you can't ride a bike and beat your head on the handlebar at the same time, it can be a hazard for other fellows on the road. And after that all that tedious parties of the first and second part business. Having said that, on the Goa section of  NH7 I saw one that I actually liked: "Drive with care, your body has no spare." Not bad. Not bad at all. Even makes you think a bit.

The greatest meal I ever had: Hampi, Mango Tree Restaurant. Sitting cross-legged on the banks of the Tungabhadra under the shade of a mango tree. Eating rolled Crepes filled with chocolate sauce and banana slices, watching the swollen river flow by at my feet. A no-pain way to achieve Nirvana. Made friends with the restaurant cat.

Making friends with the Mango Tree cat

Jog Falls. All that water gushing down - inevitable psychological side-effects. Luckily, there are some nice public toilets nearby.

Hampi - 13th Century Mall. No Mac in those days

Nice ol' temple in Hampi - Turn 180 degrees, some not so nice ol' erotic sculptures. Can't show them. Pen-Slinger is  a family oriented site, kids.

Hampi - No, this is not a Hollywood set

Sunset over Hampi

Little old church on a little old island in Goa

Goa - Nice view from cliff on little cove. Romantic point for suicide. What a way to go!

Goa - more on suicide point. I mean - what a scene to have on your way out.

Goa - more details still of suicide point. It's helpfully slippery on the rocks, if you prefer to break your neck.

Goa - Blandine on cliff. Vertigo - Who me?

T-Bird enjoying the sun n' sea breeze  in Goa - a safe distance from cliff (poor T-Bird on the other hand gets Vertigo easily)

The Route