Feb 28 – Mar 4 ~~Pushkar~~

After Mount Abu, we took a 7-hour train up to Pushkar, a (sacred, of course) town that Sh and I had spent time in ten years ago. During that visit, the town had been in the middle of hosting the gongshow that is the Pushkar ka Mela, the camel fair.

Every year during the fair, this little town of 15,000 people plays host to some 300,000 visitors and tens of thousands of camels, horses and livestock! Thinking of my hometown of Spruce Grove, Alberta, and trying to imagine it somehow accommodating 300,000 visitors and their livestock puts this in perspective for me. HOW do they manage it? The purpose of all this commotion is to buy and sell livestock, and hundreds of the visitors have walked here with their camel trains all the way from places like Jaisalmer, 500 kms to the west. In addition to livestock trading and the zillions of other merchants that the fair also attracts, there are of course all kinds of other activities taking place, like strong man contests, camel racing, and the hilarious ‘Longest Moustache’ contests. This was also where I had taken the most rickety and high-speed Ferris wheel ride of my life. All in all, Pushkar had been a major highlight of my last visit to Rajasthan, and I remember sitting on a hill overlooking the fairground and saying to myself, ‘I would really love to see what this little town is like outside of the camel fair,’ because I really just could not imagine it.

Here are some photographs I took during the 2003 fair:

Shawn wanted to trade me for this camel, but the guy wouldn’t hear of it

j

And here is a link to an Atlantic blurb about the fair with a collection of some absolutely splendid shots from last year’s fair:

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/11/the-2012-pushkar-camel-fair/100412/

Even without the fair, Pushkar is an intriguing destination. The town is one of the five sacred pilgrimage sites for devout Hindus and is picturesquely situated around a small and really holy lake with 52 sets of ghats hugging its tiny circumference. As such, there is (theoretically) no alcohol sold and only vegan food is available. (As I left one restaurant, the owner warmly invited me to return for breakfast, lowering his voice and raising his eyebrows to confide that ‘We have… eggs! Yes! Other places not having, but we have! Shhh!’) Pushkar also has over 500 different temples – WHAT? – another astounding figure for a town of 15,000.

We spent five days visiting the town and hiking in the surrounding hills.  Most of this time was spent just looking at the place today, comparing it to our mental images from the 2003 Mela and having long conversations with each other and with local Pushkaris about how India has, and has not, changed in ten years.

Here are some photos I took this time round:

One of the stranger things that happens to us in India is that people frequently ask to have their photo taken with us. I tend to decline, but Sh is more obliging, and I am now starting to get a rather hilarious collections of Indian people taking Sh’s photo with Indian other people.

I fell head over heels for this Languour monkey who seemed so ashamed at having eaten a bag of the vermillion powder that Hindus use to mark their foreheads!

The view from one of the hilltop temples

~~Birds of Goa~~

One of the things I have been wanting to learn more about is ornithology. We have spent a lot of time bird watching here in India, and the rewards have been great.

I have been keeping lists of the birds we learned to identify in each state. A little late, I know, but, here is a list of birds that we saw in Goa which we had never seen before. We have since seen many of these in other states as well, but these ones have become really familiar friends.

But they were all new and amazing to us in those first few weeks. We didn’t end up hiring any birding guides while we were there, and for that reason there are a lot of birds that we saw but never identified (no bird book either). The ones are just ones that I was able to identify by trying to memorize them until I had internet access, and then typing in their field marks and some other keywords into Google. Please tel me about any corrections in the comments!

**These are not photos that I took, but rather photos from Google images, where I chose photos that showed the bird in the position that I had seen it. If you see your photo on here and want it removed, please contact me and I will take it down immediately.**

1.1.    Brahminy Kite / haliastur Indus / sanka-cheel – hindi . These guys are everywhere around Goa, esp in the trees around the beaches and rivers. Huge flocks of them at times.

1.2.    Crow-pheasant / entropus sthensis / Mahoka –hindi . Some of my favourites here, really big with huge tails. Very clumsy moving around in the trees.

1.3.    Red-whiskered Bulbul  We first noticed this guy because of his song. At first we couldn’t make out what his head looked like; in fact, I thought it had its beak open wide like a wren before realizing that it actually has this really tall, forward-pointing crest!

1.4.    White-Bellied Woodpecker – First saw one of these punks while walking in forest near Agonda, then saw another one on a palm outside the German/Nepali restaurant where Rabi works.

1.5.    Asian Paradise Flycatchers –These are not only beautiful, but have the strange trait of the males having two different appearances, or morphs – brown and white.

1.5.1.  Rufous-morph Asian Paradise Flycatcher / terpsiphone paradisi / We got a glimpse of this guy’s tail (but not body) from behind one day when we first got to Goa.

1.5.2.  White-morph male Asian Paradise Flycatcher/ terpsiphone paradisi /

I saw one of these white males in a tree, it moved downward and out of sight in a strange way that made me think maybe it had been some kind of albino squirrel. Then I saw those amazing white feathers… Heart-stopping.

1.6.    Malibar Whistling Thrush (Whistling Schoolboy) – heard twice, not seen. sound clip at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malabar_Whistling_Thrush. I’ve read so many references to the eerie sound of a person whistling next to you in the woods that I was so excited to hear it myself!

1.7.    Magpie Robin – These birds have such a nice voice and they love to use it.

1.8.    Hoopoe / upupa epops When we were staying at Rory and Estella’s place in Cotigao Wildlife Sanctuary, we went for a walk in the fallow farmers’ fields at their suggestion. Saw a Hoopoe in a tree and mistook it for some kind of a woodpecker. Then we went to the same place again the next morning at dawn and saw it again, this time hopping around on the ground and pecking for bugs. These guys rock my world.

1.9.    Redwattled Lapwing / vandios indicus  These guys have such sharp colours, and yet they are almost invisible when they stand in the fields with the cows and the egrets. You only notice them when they move.

1.10.Black Drongo – Everywhere. Very aerobatic flyers too.

1.11.Greater Racket-Tailed  Drongo – Saw one fly from a perch in Cotigao Wildlife Sanctuary, trailing that long feather behind him.

1.12.Kingfishers –  We’ve seen hundreds of them in Goa.

1.12.1.    Small Blue Kingfisher

1.12.2.    White-throated Kingfsher–  Halcyon smyrnensis

1.13.Little Green Bee-eater – These were the first birds that really grabbed our attention in India – I’m sure you can see why! – and they are really numerous throughout Goa. They love sitting on powerlines, and they have beautiful flight with apricot underwings when they fly to catch dragon flies. Then they bash the dragon flies against the wire to kill them before gulping them down.

1.14.Plum-Headed Parakeet – Psittacula cyanocephala – First spotted 3 on a cliff face when walking on foot trails just inland of Agonda Beach. Later saw them flying in various places.

1.15.Little Egrets –

1.16.Brown-capped Pygmy Woodpecker (Dendrocopos nanus) –

1.17. Black-hooded Oriole (Oriolus xanthornus)  –  Saw a few in Cotigao Wildlife Sanctuary, and then again when exploring the abandoned hotel near Agonda, and fairly frequently after that.

1.18.Malabar Grey Hormbill (ocyceros griseus) – I saw one fly by when walking alone near abandoned hotel site near Agonda Beach.

1.19.Black-headed Cuckooshrike – Coracina melanoptera  Always on the ground in the field beside the Nepali bakery where Rabi works. Look rather plain (grey and black) until they take flight and you see the lovely white bars on the wings and tailfeathers.

1.20.Ashy Woodswallows –  Very shy; we see them retreating into the bush sometimes as we arrive. So fluffy.

1.21.White-bellied Sea-eagle – Coasting over the beach area at Agonda. Huge.

1.22.Black-Headed Ibis  Threskiornis melanocephalus Saw a group like this in a field just south of Palolem.

1.23.Indian Roller Coracias benghalensis . We observed this bird seated several times, wondering what it was. It is beautiful when seated, with its blueish body and apricot head, but I didn’t make a positive ID until finally, one day, we saw it take off in flight, leaving us absolutely breathless. Scroll down to see the surprise this bird carries in its wings!

^Seated….

And then…

KAZZAM !

1.23.1.    Sunbirds

1.23.2.    Crimson Sunbird – Aethopyga siparaja.  First seen from raised verandah at Savoi Plantation.

1.23.3.    Purple Sunbird. Seen at Savoi Plantation and then again from balcony of Champaneer Hotel room in Gujarat. Also frequently observed in Rajasthan. These guys look completely black until the sun hits them and reveals their shiny blue and purple hues.

1.24.Coppersmith Barbet. Watched one sitting on a pole along the road between Arpora and Baga. So named because of their metronomic call that sounds like a coppersmith hammering metal.

1.25.Red-collared Dove, Streptopelia tranquebarica tranquebarica – Also very common in cities and in the countryside.

February 25 ~~Dilawara Jain Temples~~

The other most amazing thing about Mount Abu is the Jain temples at Delawara, just down the road. These temples, built respectively in 1021 and 1230, are without question the most amazing pieces of artistic architecture I have ever seen.  They don’t look like much from the outside, as seems common for Jain temples, but once inside… WOW.

I was literally getting achy eyes from looking at it. And this eyestrain had nothing to do with an overdose of colour or clutter, of which there was neither. The entire temples are completely made out of intricately carved white marble, and the craftsmanship is just beyond belief. Every square inch of these buildings, including every corridor, pillar, arch, and portico is covered in carving. The ceilings feature hundreds of engraved designs, falling down in 3-D like chandeliers, of lotus-buds, petals, flowers and scenes from Jain and Hindu mythology, with a breathtaking central dome. So sad that stone carving is no longer practiced in architecture! I wished I could just lie down on the cool marble floor and stare at the walls and ceiling forever.

Photography is forbidden inside the temples, which is a really good thing, because otherwise people would be stopping every 2 seconds to take one, there are just so many beautiful pieces in there.  Really wish you all could have seen these with me.

Here are some small-format pics from the internet and a little video from the Youtube. I recommend taking a look through the Google images page for Dilawara Temples to see some larger photos:

February 20 – 27 ~~Mount Abu, Rajasthan, and Day Trek from Guru Shikhar to Sher Gaon~~

After leaving Ahmadabad, we went up to the hill station of Mount Abu. We had wanted to visit here on our last trip to India then years ago, but, when it came down to the crunch, Mount Abu didn’t make the cut, as it is located off the main train line that we were following on that trip.

The town of Mount Abu is located in and surrounded by the Mount Abu Wildlife Sanctuary, just inside Rajasthan on the Gujarat border. The sanctuary is spread over India’s oldest mountain range, the Aravalis, in the Sirohi district of Rajasthan. It was a hill station during the British era and is now a really popular spot for honeymooning Indian couples. It is also a popular spot for residents of neighbouring alcohol-free, vegetarian Gujarat to come and ‘become drunken carnivores’ for a weekend, which is pretty funny.  The place is beautiful, and because the majority of the people roaming around are Indian families on holiday, traffic is relatively low, as vacationers do not generally have their vehicles with them.  There are a gorgeous dozen spots where you can clamber up the hills to watch the sun go down, including the amusingly-named Honeymoon Point. If hoards of rowdy holiday-makers, corn-on-the-cob vendors, racing horses, and knick-knack vendors get you in the mood for romance, then I guess this is a romantic spot. In general we preferred to simply climb any random hill to watch the sun set.

A really surprising aspect of Mount Abu was the ‘danger’. Upon arrival, the owner of the Shri Ganesh, our favourite hostel yet, issued us a map of the town and the hiking trails surrounding it, and then proceeded to cross out every single footpath, saying it was too dangerous to go there alone. According to these marks, the sole safe place to walk was in the town itself. Needless to say, we were rather taken aback, as we obviously hadn’t travelled to this mountain area to hang out in a marketplace…  -Dangerous? How so? –Oohhhh, yes, Murders! Robberies! Leopards! Bear attacks! Not safe!!! –Murders?? Yes! Tribal peoples killing tourists!

Okay, so this is weird. Due to this danger, you are supposed to hire a trekking guide every time you want to leave the city streets. We spent the first day feeling rather creeped out, but also asking around. We spoke with hotel owners, freelance nature guides, government guides and members of the forestry department. To our surprise, everyone was telling us the same thing. Mount Abu is not safe outside of the town streets; visitors must only visit the park trails in the company of a guide.

To what extent was this true and to what extent was it a conspiracy to get foreigners to hire guides? One of the government guides was very forthcoming. He allowed me to ask very specific questions: Who was murdered here? –An Isreali tourist. –When? –Three years ago. –Why? –Nobody knows, but he was not robbed. Perhaps he was behaving inappropriately with the ‘tribals’ (the word they use for the indigenous villagers living in and around the park limits). The last photo on his camera was of a tribal woman. You are not even supposed to look at these women, let alone take photos. But nobody knows. –Have there been other incidents in the past three years? –There were a couple of robberies two years ago. The monsoon hadn’t come that year and so people were very desperate.  –So there have been no incidents in two years? –No. Since then, we have been training guides and taking tourists to visit the villages. We have been doing much work to improve the relationship between the villagers and outsiders. –So, there have been no incidents in two years? It seems like things are pretty safe these days, then? –You must understand, we have to protect the reputation of Mount Abu. It is an important place for tourists. You may think you are just one person, but no, you represent the whole of Canada. If something happens to you, it is Canada and the rest of the world that will be reporting in the media that Mount Abu, or Rajasthan, or India  is not safe for tourism. Your country will issue travel advisories. This will cause big problems for us. This is why the government has told every hotel owner that they must warn all their guests against taking the trails unaccompanied. We cannot stop you, but it is our DUTY to tell you this message.

Talking with these guys made us feel a lot better about the general safety of the area, and we decided to do a combination of solo and guided hiking. We felt totally safe and unthreatened, found the hiking really great, and the town really peaceful.

Here are some pics from around town:

Our night train to Mount Abu from Ahmadabad got us to the roof top of the Shri Ganesh Guesthouse just in time for sunrise…

Prize for the cow with the biggest horns

Langour monkey watching a cricket game

Veg Desire billboard

‘Dilawara – Straight ahead’ — Being able to sound out place names is SO helpful

Ummm, so this was weird..

Lots of spiritual seekers here

So, the town is wrapped around this cute little lake where you can rent a paddle boat, or, uh… go in an inflatable ball on the water?

Walter looking like a rapstar and the gentleman who tends the local graveyard.

Chai truck

Only in India…

Hiking along Tiger Trail:

White-Bellied Drongo! (look at the tail 🙂 )

Partners

Hiking to the top of “Plummy” with Eddy and Walter:

On the way up. Did I mention it is the dry season here?

Looking back over Mount Abu from the summit of Plummy

Snack time

Summit!

By far the greatest hike was when we contacted Mahendra Dan ‘Charlie’, a local guy who is developing a much deserved reputation as a knowledgeable and enthusiastic nature guide. He told us that he was going the following day with two Indian friends of his on a 26-km hike from the top of Guru Shikhar (1722 m), Rajasthan’s highest peak, down into a valley and up again to the village of SherGaon, at a similar altitude, and then down to another town at 300 metres. Twenty-six kilometers and  1400 metres in elevation change sounded a bit ambitious, but we were eager to do a big walk, and going with some Indian people sounded fun, so we agreed to join them.

We started before dawn, taking a taxi up to the summit of Guru Shikhar just in time to watch a gorgeous sunrise before heading out along the trail. Charlie knew where he was going, and led us along tiny footpaths, pointing out bird and medicinal plant species, fresh-water sources, and caves. Some of the volcanic rock formations were really astounding, and the views… oh, the views. So great. Along the way we often met serene-eyed villagers making their way from one village to the next, often with incredibly heavy burdens, like 50-pound bags of rice balanced on their head. Some of these, a family of four, walked together with us for quite some time, resting in the same shady spots, and inviting us for tea in their home. We also met a rural teacher, who was walking between four far-flung and remote villages delivering polio vaccines. This got Charlie and Eddy and Walter (the other 2 Indian fellows, total clowns) talking about how teachers in India are very low-paid, yet have many very important duties in addition to teaching, such as walking for days to deliver polio vaccines, or conducting the census.  Conversing with these three well-informed and fluently English-speaking Indian guys was really one of the best parts of the hike. We quickly developed a comfortable rapport which allowed me to ask many of the questions I had been harbouring about religion, caste and social issues in modern India. Their answers were well considered and, because they didn’t always agree with one another, we got to hear several positions on some if these ideas.

We also stopped in a tiny, sky-high village where we were invited into a tiny straw-and-mud home and given delicious warm rice pudding. The sadhu from a nearby temple was visiting the home, and so we visited with him and the other men as we shared the rice. We also met some of the women, but they were all outside, and we didn’t get to talk to them very much. This is a common situation here and one I find a little crappy. On the one hand, we don’t often see or meet Indian women; as travellers, we are always in public, and the women generally are not. I miss their company. Especially as the men, of whom we meet plenty, tend to only address Sh when we talk. –Hello Sir! Welcome Sir! Your good name? –Mera naam Sh. hai. –Oh! Such good Hindi, Sir! And her? Your wife? –Yes, this is my wife. Uska naam Caissey hai… But they have already turned away and are preparing their next question for Sh before they hear my name. –And your job, Sir? And how do you find India, Sir?, etc.  Blah, BORing.. Apparently this is out of respect. Frankly, I am not really in favour of exclusion as a form of respect.

Anyway, one of the guys in our hiking group, Eddy from Bangalore, is really into photography, and, unlike myself, is not at all hesitant to photograph people. We often got held up in the villages etc because he was photographing all the people. When I asked him how people felt about that, he replied, ‘Are you kidding? They love it! Who else is ever going to take their photo? Cash is very hard to come by for these people.’ After the hike, he gave Charlie all the portraits to have printed and delivered to the villagers the next time Charlie passes through there, which I think they will be just thrilled about.

Here is a selection of photos from Mount Abu town, some of the solo hikes, and some from this Guru Shikhar hike, including some of Eddy’s.

EDDY’s PICS – Guru Shikhar hike:

Village Council meeting (Panchayaat)

Passing through some remote and self-sustaining villages

Making our way down into a village after an invitation was shouted up to us. An amazing swathe of green at the top of these very arid mountains. Amazing irrigation.

Our first steps into the village, these are the gentlemen who had called up the invitation to enter.

Preparing lunch a couple of hours later

We walked together quite a ways with this lady and her husband and 2 children (below)

On the right in the foreground is our fantastic guide Charlie. Our new friend Walter is in the front centre. A 62-year-old asthmatic, he was a real trooper!

Our little group, minus Eddy, who took the photo.

Village kids followed us to the edge of town like a parade.

The teacher who was delivering polio vaccines by foot to these far-flung villages, what a hero.

GuruShikhar hike, our pics:

Starting out. Our driver dropped us off at the summit of Rajasthan’s highest peak just in time for sunrise.

Charlie demonstrating this cool block-printing leaf

A really over-exposed but majorly cute little bare bum…

Shawn and Charlie making lunch

The view from the village where most the people in Eddy’s pics live… wow.

A heated discussion about caste with Charlie and Eddy

Ditto

Beginning the final descent

Charlie tells me about his new life plans – study English literature so that he can write a blog about Mount Abu. Wake up every morning at 4:30 so that he can study for 3 hours a day. Use the internet to study English and read criticism etc of the literature he reads. Step one: Get an electricity connection to his home….

You can do it Charlie

February 19 ~~Ahmadabad (Amdavad)~~

Amdavad is not a place I would want to stay long.

Our first evening there, we decided to walk to the night market for a look around and a bite to eat. Little did we know that ‘walking’ is not something anyone is supposed to ever do in Amdavad. Both the air pollution and the traffic are deadly and completely out of control. Normally, I am rarely upset if I misjudge the scale of my map and have to walk a bit further than I thought. But the extra kilometre that such a misjudgement cost us that night seemed to add an eternity to an already unbearable walk through the city.

I have seen traffic before. I have held three little kids by the hand twice a week as we crossed 6 lane thoroughfares in Morocco one lane at a time, squeezing in our bellies on the white line as we waited for the next break in the flow of traffic. But this was insane. Partly because of the rather unlovable Indian habit of blaring, I mean like really leaning on one’s horn, pretty much constantly as one drives. Partly because, for some unfathomable reason, the city, like so many others here, has opted to leave all intersections completely unmarked. This doesn’t appear to be for lack of funds, though I am sure that plays into it, but a lot of intersections do have traffic signals; these are simply set to a flashing yellow in all directions. When all these honking, swerving, overtaking lanes of traffic reach an intersection, flashing yellow or no, they simply keep ploughing on through. Traffic from one direction only stops when the sideways push from the swelling perpendicular traffic finally reduces their path to less than one lane, whereupon the traffic from that direction surges through until their own path is, in turn, blocked by the pressure of the vehicles entering from the other side. Roads with four lanes end up with  seven or eight swervy rows of traffic on them, all blaring their horns and fighting to overtake, each driver battling for lead position, if only for a few seconds.  If you have ever stood in a lineup in Inda, you are probably familiar with the pushing and jostling that takes place as people all try and jump the line in order to be first. Now apply that to traffic and you have modern Indian roads. Now times that by 20 and you have Ahmdavad…  Sidewalks are also completely absent in Amdavad. This is pretty normal for India, but Amdavad does not even have the usual dusty, garbage-strewn footpath/shoulder that most other cities have for pedestrians to walk on. You literally just have to walk right on the roads with all this traffic. And there are a LOT of vehicles on the roads in Amdavad. Ten years ago when I was in India, there were really just taxis and buses on the roads. As the economy has grown, private vehicle ownership has sky-rocketed, and the infrastructure is not at all keeping pace with this new scale. I recently read that in Baroda alone, a smaller nearby Gujarati city of 1.6 million people, 200 new 2-wheel vehicles are registered every single day, and 50 new four-wheelers.

In short, we had a terrible, life-threatening, good-mood-destroying walk to the night market. Our lungs and eyes burning from the toxic air, and our skin covered in grease from the fumes, we grabbed some dinner, took a quick look around, and made our way back to the hotel (also the dirtiest one yet), shaking our heads in bewilderment at ‘how can anyone live here?’ I felt that the residents I saw were overwhelmed and deadened by their city. Everyone seemed grouchy, no one smiled, everyone pushed and shoved. In order to sleep, I had to put in earplugs, which didn’t even come close to blocking out the absolutely blaring music coming from somewhere down below. I dropped off feeling so grateful that I had a train out of there booked for the following evening.

The next morning I got up early and shook Sh out of bed to join me for the volunteer-run Heritage Walking Tour. Although hugely sceptical about how much fun any more walking could possibly be, the tour had been enthusiastically recommended by some pretty normal-seeming French people we had met in Pavagadh, so I thought I’d give it a try.

Lo and behold, it turned out to be one of the most wonderful things we’ve done in India so far! The city was filled with cheerful people who were quick to smile at us and who, amazingly, charged us the regular ‘Indian’ price for the little purchases we made along the route. In a country where it is actually the official government policy to charge foreigners between 5 and 75 times the entry fee that Indians pay for monuments, etc. this was a real treat for us. The people we passed and met along the walk were so gentle and friendly and smiley that I realised, for probably the thousandth time in my life, that whenever I think that the people around me seem grumpy and rude and tired, it is probably time to do a little check inside and see if it is actually me who is grumpy and rude tired and projecting that on everyone around me…

The tour began at the Swaminarayan Temple at a quarter to eight, just in time for the morning worship to start. Right off the bat, I was so glad to have come, as entering a busy temple, especially during worship, or when I am at all unsure of protocol or whether I am welcome, is something I never really do on my own. But the people around me (all women, because we were streamlined in according to gender) we all smiling and welcoming; they seemed really happy to see me in their temple. At first I just milled around with the devotees, admiring the colourful interior and trying to keep a low profile. Then, suddenly a resounding bell was struck and everyone turned to face the front. Multiple bells began clanging and priests (male) began making their way along the enshrined idols at the front of the room.  The people were all clapping and singing and pushing their way forward to see and try to touch these priest fellows. The sound, the colour, the enthusiasm of the believers … the general spiritual fervor was enough to sweep me up and I found myself clapping and pushing forward with all the other people, even though I had no idea who we were exulting, or why, or even if that is what was happening. I took a couple of photos and no one seemed to mind, one lady even lifting her little boy up into the field of view at the last second so that he would be in the picture, so I also took a couple short videos. Maybe they can give you an idea of the contagious feelings in the room.   [DRAT – I STILL HAVEN’T LEARNED HOW TO POST MY OWN VIDS HERE –sorry]

Then we left the temple and began our tour through Amdavad’s old residential quarter. Again, I was so glad to have come, and for the same reason as earlier- I am always so curious to go wandering down all those twisting residential laneways in the old and/or residential part of a city, but I only ever tread so far and then peer down trying to discern if I will be heading onto private property or into a labyrinth of alleys that only locals can find their way out of.  Our guide, who to our surprise was a lady, took us deep into winding residential alleyways just like the kind I always stop at and decide not to enter. She let us go at a nice pace, and did a great job of explaining the area’s fascinating history to us.

‘Temple of Learning’

Residential street scenes

In former times, Amdavad was made up of over 600 pols which means ‘gate’ and refers to enclosed,  community-based neighbourhoods. These were based on religion, or caste, or profession, and each neighbourhood had a gate with a security cabin over it, and a chalkboard for public notices or ‘inspirational sentences’. It was really cool to see all these old pol doors intact today, albeit with the security cabin standing empty and most of the actual doors removed to allow for vehicles to pass. Each pol has a name that reflects who lives there, or that mentions some notable feature of that particular neighbourhood. Our guide was really helpful in translating these quirky names for us that we would not have otherwise notices, and so we came to know that one of them, for example, is called Salty Pol, because they had a salt-water drinking well there.

Another cool thing they have in the pol areas are these communal bird feeders. Apparently, when the city was being built, the forest was being removed in concert with the construction, and so the people installed hundreds of elevated bird feeders, safe from the reach of cats and dogs, where they would put out seed so that birds would still come around and have something to eat. A lot of the buildings also had little holes built right into them for birds to nest in. There were puppies and grown dogs everywhere, and we saw lots of places where people had put out food or milk for them, and lots of examples of people treating the animals very well.

Milk for he doggies

A bird-nesting hole built into the building

It’s like these guys planned to pose for a portrait

One of the chalk boards for public messages that adorn each pol

A public bird-feeding tower

We were allowed into a private temple below the home of a Brahmin family, in which there was one of only 2 (the guide believed) black Rama idols in India. Usually only the Krishna idols are black. In this temple, the people changed the clothes of the god every day.

Black Rama idol

We also went into a Jain temple, located in the basement well below the ground and scarcely noticeable from above. The guide told us that they built them like this to avoid detection during times when they were less free to practice their religion. In front of the seated female deity, a mirror was suspended, reflecting the idol’s image up to a small hole in a trap door on the ground level floor. This, our guide explained, is to let people see the god even if they are unable to go down the stairs, and was intended for ‘three types of people: the elderly, the infirm, and the lazy’.

One part I liked a lot was these tiny passageways, about as wide as a person and completely enclosed, that connected the different pols. These had a door at either end and were used as shortcuts between pols, but also as secret passages in times of trouble. When the doors are shut, they look just like any other home or toilet or storage area, and outsiders would not be able to tell the difference.

We finished the tour at the lovely Jama Masjid (Friday Mosque) and then spend the rest of the morning and afternoon wandering throughout the quiet and peaceful market and residential areas that the tour had led us to discover.

What could this shop sell?

Jama Masjid, Friday Mosque

Combs for sale!

Street-side barber shops like this one are all over India

Market

Bangles for sale!!

Mr. Cute watching the marketplace

Legal offices

God is One.

I am so glad to have had this day in Amdavad, and that I didn’t just immediately leave when things seemed terrible. Instead of only horrible memories of this city, I have really positive ones. Things are so rarely what they seem, and nothing is single-faceted…

February 14-18 ~~Pavagadh and Champaner, Gujarat~~

We arrived in Champaner and Pavagadh and checked in to the Champaner Hotel, a dingy state-run joint with lots of elbow grease, borderline psychotic staff, and the best balcony ever.

I would sit here for hours, under the pretense of working on my Hindi, simply staring out at the grand grand view in the distance, or else focusing in on the treetops immediately in front of me. The balcony was at the perfect height to observe the many different types of birds that lived in the forest (See Birds of Gujarat entry, coming), and was actually one of the best bird watching locations of the trip so far! Peering over the rail, we would frequently see pairs of brilliant wild peacocks walking along the forest edge. I started compulsively going to the balcony and looking down to see if any peacocks were there. Further out, the view went down the hill and encompassed miles and miles of agricultural land to the hills in the far distance. Whereas in Goa, we had always faced west, here we faced east, and so instead of sunsets, we began having regular sunrise sessions. It is nice here in India right now, because the sun doesn’t rise until 7:15 or 7:30. This makes sunrises much easier to catch, and also makes for less tiring dawn birding walks.

View from the balcony

Watching the day break

Male peacock down below

When we weren’t sitting spellbound on the balcony, we were wandering around the stunning ruined site that is here. The Unesco World Heritage Site of Champaner and Pavagadh. Pavagadh is a sacred 762m volcanic hill, a total anomaly in flat, flat Gujarat. Next door, at the foot of the hill, Champaner is a ruined Gujarati capital. Pavagadh is thought to have been fortified as early as the 8^th Century, and became the capital around 1300. In 1484, it was taken siege for 20 months, which ended with the population’s committing jauhar, ritual mass suicide, in the face of defeat. The conquering Muslim ruler began a new capital, Champaner, at the foot of the hill, and filled it with a pile of spectacular mosques and other types of architecture. But the city only lasted 40 years or so before being in turn by Mughals in 1535, whereupon it was deserted and fell into ruin. The rest of this city has basically disappeared, which means that we would walk through the jungle for 30 minutes and then suddenly come upon a huge mosque, just sitting there rotting in the middle of the forest. Another half hour of bushwacking and -boom- another extraordinary piece of architecture. Pretty darn cool.

Rose-ringed Parakeets  – Psittacula krameri –  ‘One of the most prolific parrots on earth and able to establish feral populations very quickly.’ As you can see, they tend to do a lot of lovey-dovey snuzzling together.

The above are all pictures of Champaner, the ruined Muslim city at the bottom of the hill.

Up above, Pavagadh mountain has only a small temple at the top, but Hindu and Jain pilgrims come in flocks to climb to the top, which takes a couple hours, and it was really nice to go with them. We went a good part of the way up by cable car on ‘India’s Most Modern Ropeway’. The views from the top were just outstanding. Because this hill is surrounded by completely flat land, you really can see for miles and miles in every direction. Some people find god in temples, some of us find it in expansive views…

On the way down, rather than using the return ticket for the ropeway, we walked the stairs, which gave us total jelly legs, but also a chance to explore more views and the many more ruins scattered over the face of the hill which don’t seem to get a lot of attention, but which were really beautiful too.

Riding up Pavagadh on India’s Most Modern Ropeway. I would admittdly feel a slight bit more comfortable if they would call it ‘cable’ instead of ‘rope’.

The Karma-wallas got us !

I wish we hadn’t lost the art of stone carving in our architecture!

Ruins on the way back down, with the summit of Pavagadh in the background.

Oh those views..

Panoramic Pavagadh

I think this picture gives a good idea of the scale.

The pilgrim path. We walked down, but many female pilgrims come here for a day and RUN up and down as many times as they can, without taking any food or water.

This is the little ‘town’ at Pavagadh. The guys crouching on the left are giving tattoos to the pilgrims for .40 cents. People line up and take turns getting the OM symbol or a loved one’s name tattooed on their bodies with the same tattoo gun that everyone else is using. Even really traditional-looking women were having it done. I found it completely fascinating and spent quite a bit of my time hanging around and watching.

It was really hard to pull ourselves out of here, but e a week later, we got a ride back to Baroda and caught a train up to the capital Ahmadabad. We had planned to spend the night here, and then get a train further south to Shatrunjaya, another sacred mountain, which apparently has a sea of over 800 temples on the top. We were then planning to go to Girnar Hill for another hill-top pilgrimage, and to attend the Bhavnath Mela, a religious fair that draws throngs of nagas (those most fascinating of all sadhus (spiritual men), the naked, ash covered ones.

Once in Ahmedabad, however, a combination of various travel and accommodation complications led us to decide on the spot to skip these other Gujarati sites and to book a train directly to Mount Abu in Rajasthan for two days later.

Feb 10 – 14 ~~North Goa to Baroda, Gujarat~~

Next, we moved to Candolim Beach, where we had decided to base ourselves for a week of birding along the North Goan Coast and in the interior. The beaches in this area are packed and hilariously busy and loud, an interesting experience in themselves, but we scarcely visited them at all. Instead, we rented a scooter for a week and got up early every day to go walk around some birding sites that I had researched, and to visit some old forts. We went a couple of times to Baga Hill, and spent time around Arpora and in the village of Baga itself. Despite the intense traffic and crazy amount of bars and tourists in this area, there is a shocking amount of birdlife, and we were even lucky enough to spot an Indian Pitta roosting on a telephone pole.Crowded Baga Beach

And then a peaceful fishing scene just metres away

From up here on Baga Hill, you can see the crowded beach and the quiet fisherpeople

A birding walk on Baga Hill

The giant sign that graces the north end of Baga Beach

Here is what the beach looks like by night. Why would anyone want to come here when lovely Agonda is so near by?

Big Peckers Bar and Grill…

An oasis of calm tucked into the lush area between the beach and the town, our lovely guesthouse was run by the affable Rosy, and we went each morning for fresh papaya/banana salad prepared by Rosy’s neighbour Rachel.

A man pruning Rosy’s neighbours’ palm trees. He climbs just with a rope around his feet..

Chillin’ with the calico at Rosy’s place (Beach Nest Guesthouse).

When we were ready to move on, we tried to go get train tickets up into Gujarat, but everything was completely booked and we would have had to wait at least 10 more days. Eager to move on, we inquired about other options, and ended up making the surprise decision to fly directly to Ahmedabad, Gujarat from Goa. It was kind of weird, because during the last days here was when I suddenly came down with a high fever and massive internal cramps that restricted my ability to breathe and kept me in bed for a couple of days. It was in the early hours of this fever that I forced myself to go to the travel agent to see about the train tickets, knowing that I was probably going to be bedridden for a bit. So we made the decision to fly, and then I went directly home to bed, where I stayed for the next 36 hours. Then suddenly I got better, packed up, Rachel’s husband Caetano gave us a ride to the airport, we got on a plane and within hours I found myself in congested, industrial, dry and dusty Ahmedabad (Amdavad), decidedly out of the tropics and light years away from Goa’s easy going coastal atmosphere. It felt like I had been teleported.

~~

Once in Amdavad, we took a rickshaw directly from the airport to the train station and immediately bought tickets down to Vadodara (Baroda). These two cities are seriously the loudest and worst traffic places I have ever been, but the enormous murmuration of rosy starlings blackening the sky over the railway station was breathtaking.

School bus – yikes!

Rosy Starlings

Rosy Starlings

We spent one night in Baroda and the next day got a ride out to the incredible world heritage site of Champaner and Pavogadh, where we thought we’d spend a couple days and ended up spending an entire week, mainly because we loved our balcony so much.

Here’s a little taste of that place, which I will write about soon.

xo everybody!

NOTE – I have a few videos (VLC) that I took with my camera. They are in MP4 format and I would really like to post them here. When I try to upload them, I get the message that this file type is not permitted. Anyone know how I can get around this and post them? Grrr..)

February 6-9 ~~Panjim, Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary, Savoi Spice Plantation~~

After leaving Agonda, we moved north to the Goan capital, Panjim, which has to be India’s cutest and most manageable, walkable (gasp!) capital city. Imagine- sidewalks!!!  In India!!! We stayed here for a couple of days, taking long strolls through Portuguese era neighbourhoods with yellow houses and sleeping cats, wandering along the Mandovi River, and taking advantage of being in an urban setting for the first time in 40 days in order to get ourselves an Indian cell phone, make some small purchases and stock up on English magazines – one of the best deals in India. In Canada I never treat myself to magazines, but here you can get high quality English-language publications similar to Time, or the Indian version of Géo magazine for less than a dollar. Needless to say, we became fast and familiar friends with the local newspaper wallah, and added a kilo of paper to our backpacks.

Well, now this rubber tree is a little bit bigger than the one in my living room…

Indian signage is one of my favourite things in the world

Goa is full of these encouraging little messages from the Forestry Dept

For some reason, this poster was all over the palce in Panjim. I was sorely tempted to call and ask how their Ayurvedic cure could help me with the ‘Loss of Penis’ I had suffered…

Shoe wallah polishing the beach dust offf Sh’s shoes

Goa license plate with the lemon and chilis that people string on their vehicles here

Panjim kitty

From Panjim, took a bus and a short ferry ride for a day trip to Chorao Island, where we visited the Dr. Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary and took a lovely long walk along a long narrow spit of land bordering the island and the Mandovi River.

The next day, we rented a scooter and took a hectic, scary, but ultimately successful drive 35 kms south east to the gorgeous Savoi Spice Plantation. This 200-year-old family run farm has as its motto ‘Organic Since Origin’ and was refreshingly mellow, non-profit driven, and untouristy.

Great birding from the raised verandah at the plantaion

A still for making cashew fenny

We were greeted with fresh kokum juice and perfectly ripened papaya pieces before being given a really interesting tour by a keen and knowledgeable guide. We recognised many of the plants from our time in Sri Lanka 10 years ago, where we had done quite a bit of botany-based tourism, but there were still a lot of great discoveries, like the fact that cardamom actually comes from these little above-ground shoots at the base of the tree and that curry leaves were so names because they were used to reduce the strong flavour of coconut oil used to prepare curry. The guide gave us samples of each plant we came to, and so we tasted fresh ginger, turmeric, cardamom, cinnamon, black pepper, paan leaves, betel nut, coriander, lemongrass, and more. In addition, we saw nutmeg, cocoa, cloves, pineapple, bananas, papayas, starfruit, etc.

Cloves

Pineapple. Each plant only produces one fruit. The leaves are razor sharp and people plant them as fences.

Starfruit

Nutmeg / Mace

Ginger root

 Cocoa pod sprouting from a tree trunk

Turmeric

Vanilla Orchids

Cardamom

Pepper

Bananas – SO heavy!!

After the tour, we were treated to a delicious spread of Goan red rice, two types of fish, curried potatoes, dal, cabbage, and much more on the beautiful elevated veranda overlooking a flat area where we observed many birds, including our first Purple Sunbirds.

Later, we asked if we could spend some time wandering around the plantation on our own and they graciously agreed. Along the way we picked up a young tagalong, presumably the son of one of the plantation employees, and also met the brother of the person who had shown us around. We had a fascinating conversation with him about how both he and his brother had once gone away to study engineering in the big city, but had both returned to the family farm. While the first brother took care of the business, promotion and administrative end of things, the second fellow was more involved in the actual farming. He explained to us the principles behind the Plantation’s decision to use intercropping rather than monocropping, despite the higher labour intensity that this method involves.

He taught us about how you wait for the third generation of baby bananas in order to transplant it for a fruitful tree, about the various diseases like ‘bunchy top’ that have affected the crops over the years, and how papayas have no season, but produce continuously throughout the year. He taught us about the economics of mango production and distribution, and showed us how they have never used a single chemical on their farm, but make their own fertilizer from compost, cow dung, cow urine and other stuff. He showed us how the various plants were grouped according to how much water they required, for ease of watering, and explained how their ancestors had terraced the two sides of the valley that comprise the plantation. We felt a real kinship with this guy, and would have loved to stay on the farm for a season, helping out and learning about their methods and philosophy.

Swinging on the banyan’s strong trailer roots

Sh and our silent but hyper young companion

Hibiscus

Palm love

On the way home, just in time for sunset, we pulled into Old Goa, the former capital founded by the Portuguese in 1510, whose population, from the 16-18^th Centuries, exceeded that of Lisbon or London, but which was abandoned in the 1600s due to malaria and cholera decimating the population. We scootered up to the Church of Our Lady of the Mount for fantastic views of the surrounding area and a lovely sunset before returning to Panjim and treating ourselves to a movie and some delicious pav baji.  Later that night as we roamed the city, we spotted a flying fox climbing through a tree – what a funny creature!

View from church, Old Goa

All in all a really, really great little visit.