Even though we were here just a year ago, it is hard for me to describe Varanasi in words, and yet there is so much to write about. It is so exotic – everything as a child you might have imagined an Indian city to be – brightly colorful, pulsing with activity and excitement,with ornate buildings majestically rising up from the river’s edge. I am reminded of other vibrant cities we love – New York, Marrakech and Fez. The labyrinthine alleys of the old town especially reminiscent of the medinas in Morocco.

The old city is built on the riverbanks of the Ganges. Three hundred year old pavilions and palaces are lined by stone steps, the Ghats, which stretch along the water’s edge. Some buildings are crumbling, some are now hotels like ours, and others are private homes. Two “”Burning Ghats” are devoted to cremations where the ashes merge into the river.

The city is revered by pilgrims who come from all over India to pay homage to the many shrines and bathe in Mother Ganges; the old and infirm to die. It baffles me that people who know full well how polluted the river is, can still submerge themselves in it. Some time ago I asked one of our young Indian friends in Boston about it. He said, “I wouldn’t do it, but ….if you truly believed your sins would be absolved wouldn’t you do it?”

Arriving in Varanasi is not easy. The touts are eagerly waiting to take you to your hotel, which turns out to be “their” hotel where they get commission. “Oh, sorry madam! Your hotel burned down last night, this is much better hotel..” But having been here once before, we can avoid that pitfall. The taxis and rickshaws can only go through the busy streets to the edge of the old town and then you must proceed on foot because the lanes are too narrow for anything bigger than a motorbike – or a cow (which are often times much bigger than a motorbike). A young tout attaches himself to us insisting he knows a better hotel. Gerard says he’s welcome to accompany us but we are going to our hotel first. Meanwhile I’m getting impatient. There are too many obstacles to negotiate and, trailing behind Gerard, I’m beginning to trip over the man. But my attitude changes when he insists on taking my case and carrying it on his head. The lanes are remarkably clean considering the cows that inhabit them, but trying to wheel a case is still too hazardous.

Our hotel is on one of the main ghats but in a different section from where we stayed last year. As usual I need a period of adjustment to a new environment –during which time I have been known to pick on the guide….Hotels are not the strong point of Varanasi, and this one is no exception. But it’s tolerable. Its redeeming factor is a barred window (to keep out the monkeys) overlooking a temple with clanging bells and chanting at odd hours day and night. In the early morning we have a bird’s eye view of activities in the temple courtyard and the young monkeys playing right outside the window. They jump from roof to roof and leap into the tree covered with yellow flowers that they then maliciously pluck and eat.

Beyond the temple we can see the river and the ghats stretching upstream. The sun rising over the river creates an unusual soft light through the mist. I go out early to watch the early morning bathers, washermen stretching wet saris out on the stones, boats full of pilgrims drifting downstream. Holy men elaborately dressed in orange and gold can be hard to differentiate from the charlatans who want their photographs taken for a price. Others, wearing only rags, their faces streaked with ash (from cremated bodies), are better identified as more authentic.

In the evening, as the sun goes down, the temple monks perform puja – a ceremony of homage to Mother Ganges. Standing on platforms, they wave incense burners creating clouds of smoke, then perform a solemn dance with candelabras and bells, accompanied by singer, harmonium and tabla player. Throngs of people come to watch both on the steps and in little wooden boats surrounding the ghat. The ceremony is more for the pilgrims than the tourists. The whole scene seems as old as the city itself.

Having a good sense of direction is needed for traveling in the third world. And in negotiating the maze of lanes in Varanasi it’s imperative, and without my guide, I would get hopelessly lost. They say, “If you get lost, just head to the river”. But where is the river? Coming back quite late one night from a concert we see two Asian girls crying with relief as an Indian boy leads them back to their hotel. Stumbling along in the dark, I exclaim that our hotel has locked us out…. Gerard points out, “It’s a neighboring shrine that is locked, not our guest house!”

The lanes are welcomingly cool and shady during the heat of the day; the sounds hushed. We must weave our way around gigantic cows and bulls who believe they own the lanes, and increasingly now also motorcyclists – who wish they did. Gerard shops for music, I look for clothes. Creatures of habit, we return to the stalls we visited last year. “Yes, I remember you,” the owners proclaim. But how can they? Thousands of tourists must come by their store each year. The boy at the music store insists, “Yes, of course I remember you! How many other tourists have your knowledge of classical Indian music?” Good point! Gerard is armed with his list of musicians – the titles he has, and the titles he wants…

Shopping is pleasurable. The shopkeepers are patient and know better than to put on too much pressure. Quite different from our experience of the aggressive Moroccan approach. Tea drinking is likely to accompany the process. Chai wallhas come by the stalls intermittently through the day and serve the best chai in tiny disposable clay cups – a green alternative to the ever mounting piles of plastic.

Unlike most Indian cities there’s a healthy tradition of classical music in Varanasi. Most of the CD stores are playing classical instead of Bollywood movie music. Gerard questions the young proprietors who say, even if they don’t like classical music they must be knowledgeable about it. There are music schools everywhere and concerts at night several times a week. We attend a couple and I am happily surprised at how much more I enjoy the music here in its true environment – even though the young performers do not have the skill of the Masters that we hear in Boston.. Perhaps it’s also because I am more receptive – my mind less cluttered and free from its usual stresses.

I love Varanasi, but to appreciate its uniqueness and beauty I need to pull my attention above the trash and manure. The city is like the lotus; from the muck and mire grows the most beautiful flower.

We’ve been in Orchha for almost a week. The tour guide came through… Orchha is the kind of gem you can still occasionally find in the third world. It’s very difficult to do it justice in writing.

It seemed promising from the moment we arrived in neighboring Jhansi. We had called ahead for a hotel and a car to pick us up because it would be late. From the open doorway of the train, we saw a young man waving excitedly and bearing a sign saying something close to WIGGINS. Our driver had found us with no problem.

It’s already dark as we drive 18 km through country lanes to Orchha, but we begin to get a sense of the town’s tranquility and simplicity. It’s remarkably quiet for an Indian town – little traffic and fewer honking horns. Sleeping with open windows gives the feeling of being outdoors. During the night, there are surprisingly few barking dogs, and before dawn, the marked absence of squawking crows. In fact in the early morning, we hear many beautiful bird songs, mingled with muffled sounds of people starting their day. It is all very reminiscent for us of the early days in Morocco.

We’re grateful not be on a tight schedule and with no time limits able to stay a while and relax. But it’s so hard for me to stay in the present; I’m commenting, “This is definitely a place I would return to…” Barely arrived and case upacked, I’m already off in the future.

A relatively simple street leads past an abandoned 16th C Rajput palace. But it’s not just the palace; dotted around the countryside everywhere we look are the remnants of smaller temples and cenotaphs. The palace sits on a small island, reached by an old granite bridge. We are reminded of Prague – but in this case the citadel is a Maharaja’s palace.
The palace is three large buildings each with its own courtyard, built over a 300 year period, but remaining architecturally coherent (Indo/Mogul).

Sitting on a hill one km out of town is the imposing Lakshmi temple. An arcade runs around all four walls, and on the ceiling are friezes in very good repair depicting scenes from Krishna’s life. It’s some of the freshest looking paintings we’ve seen yet.

Closer to the bazaar is the Chaturbhuga temple. Its tall tower provides spectacular views over the town. Late in the day, we walk south to a group of chhatris – memorials to the rulers of the time. They create a solemn row of golden domes and spires beside the river’s edge, melancholy in the evening light.

Because we have just come from Ellora and Ajunta, we cannot help but think of the different motivation behind the creation of these impressive structures. The palace and temples of Orchha were built for the gratification of one individual and ego at who knows what human cost; while the cave temples of Ellora and Ajunta were a collective project built to express a spiritual way of life. Even though this palace is awe inspiring, it definitely speaks to a different part of our psyche.

The town has not yet fully geared up for western tourists. We can walk around a large part of the ruins without having to pay; there are not a lot of guides and no red tape forbidding us to enter certain areas; the simple bazaar is more for the Indians than the western tourists. It may be hard to distinguish but the locals seem to be genuinely friendly, perhaps tempered with the beckoning prospect of increasing tourism.

The restaurants are simple and the food more like home cooking – the Nepalese have not yet arrived and set up their look-alike restaurants catering for tourists. Service is slow – yet another opportunity to practice patience. At our favorite restaurant, Ramraja, we have to walk through the kitchen to get to the “garden” in back. It is chaotic and far from hygienic, but the food is excellent (and the fresh pomegranate juice is out of this world). The saying goes that if you looked into the kitchen of almost any restaurant in India you wouldn’t eat there! We watch them make chapattis over an open firepit, dusting off the ashes before serving them to us.

Again we meet interesting people – an American woman, almost 70 and traveling alone, who manages to turn everything into a positive experience, including taking the wrong train here and finding herself miles away in a town with a similar name. She then spends days of additional bus and train rides before finally arriving in Orchha. A Punjabi Sikh, born and raised in England, who gave up his job as a journalist and fled a life of partying to try and find himself in his motherland. A postgraduate from Guernsey who knows he can never go back to the confinement of the island and is trying to figure out where in the world he can call home. We eat breakfast at Didi’s – a popular hang out run by a jolly Irish woman and her Indian husband. In a ridiculously small space, they work together to serve non Indian food and Didi provides a wealth of travel support – from where to buy clothes to where are the best hotels – and acts as a clearing house for information sharing.

Orchha feels a little bit like a scene, but it’s not. Like us, people come here often planning to stay a few days and end up staying much longer because it’s so enticing. Even Gerard is inspired to take daily walks and – holding our breath – the bites have abated!

After so many monuments, temples and ruins, today we’re leaving for the last in this series: Orchha. It’s another remote supposedly spectacular site that Gerard found cruising blogs on the Internet. I am satiated with ruins, but this time it’s a Rajput palace which has a certain exotic appeal. Plus there is a chance that “undiscovered” Orchha is a more peaceful and picturesque spot than Badami. But getting there is not easy. It involves a five hour bus ride, finding a hotel overnight, fourteen hours on the train to Jhansi, and if we arrive on time, a rickshaw to Orchha. If it’s too late – a more likely scenario – we’ll have to find another hotel to spend the night in Jhansi, and on the third day finally arrive in Orchha. Hopefully, it’s worth the trouble.

First off, getting train tickets is not simple. There’s no other option than to go the train station at the crack of dawn. The Indian style queues are less than orderly. We work our way up to the ticket counter only to be told to go to a building across the street. It doesn’t open until 8 am but a crowd has gathered around the entrance. When the cleaning people arrive, it’s a trigger – a wild stampede for the open door occurs. It’s like boarding the commuter rail in Mumbai all over again. We’re swept in with the crowd, and land in a line specially designated for ‘VIPs, senior citizens, foreign tourists’ (categories we easily fall into) ‘freedom fighters, disabled and government officials’. We continue to wait…then right on the strike of 8, the man opens for business and within a relatively short while we’re at the counter. Bad news – there appears to be no availability for several days. But we can’t understand the man and it’s all very confusing. We end up getting the train we want but for a ridiculously high price through an emergency quota system.

Meanwhile, Gerard has broken out in an epidemic of flea bites that spread in lines across his arms, legs and back. They blow up into unsightly red pustules that itch like mad. Oddly, I’m not bitten at all. True to his New England heritage Gerard annoyingly keeps his equilibrium. If he had a good outburst he would feel much better. I know I would!

We try everything – wash all our clothes, repeatedly spray everything in sight with insect repellent. He continues to get bitten. So we find a doctor – conveniently just around the corner from the hotel. The sign says he’s a gynecologist, but so what….even a gynecologist should have an answer for fleas…or whatever it is that’s biting. An assistant shows us into the doctor’s office immediately. It’s Sunday and the doctor is not working, but we’re assured he will see us in half an hour after he’s had his breakfast. Despite the fact it’s the doctor’s day off, there’s a number of people hanging around.

It’s well worth the wait. A sweet, gentle mannered man arrives. With no hesitation, he diagnoses the condition. “Yes, you have been bitten, but you have an allergic condition; the bites set up a chain reaction – your body keeps creating more ‘bites’ on your skin”. He prescribes pills and ointment and advises: “Don’t eat anything sour or ice cold and reduce proteins in the diet”…not difficult, we’re already protein deficient. “And it would be good not to eat meat.” “No problem, we are strict veg,” we tell him. “Oh, that’s very good!” and he extends his hands to congratulate us. We thank him for seeing us on Sunday, his day off. The visit and medicine costs less than $10 and we feel reassured that we’re taken care of. But then Gerard continues to get more bites. His allergic condition is resilient….or we still haven’t got rid of the critters.

Taking public buses is a rough ride, but the experience is one of every day India. Fellow passengers help us check that we are on the right bus; they graciously squeeze up to give us a seat – or part of a seat. A man takes his small son on his lap to allow Gerard to balance one buttock on the edge of the seat. The boy stares at us with big black eyes. When they leave, the man holds out his son’s hand for me to shake.

After a night in Jalgoan, we board the early morning train. The usual sleeping bodies litter the floor, but it’s an unusually clean station. Railway stations now have helpful illuminated signs that direct you to the right platform. Then once on the platform another side supposedly directs to you where your specific coach will stop (remembering that these trains are 22 cars long it is critical to know where to go). The board lists our train but not the location of our A1 coach. Gerard goes to consult the station manager. In spite of the sign inside his office ‘NO ENQUIRIES’, the station master asks, “Yes?” Gerard asks about our coach. “Ah,” he turns around and yells at a boy sleeping on the floor, who immediately jumps to attention and punches more information on the key board. Meanwhile the station master asks the usual questions, “Where are you from? Where have you been? What do you like about India?” (No mention of coins this time). Our coach information has now appeared on the board.

1 love train stations at dawn. A huge full moon still hangs over the platform, while the sun rises beyond the tracks in the east. I start taking pictures, trying to catch the activity as the train arrives- the chai wallahs racing up to windows, people disembarking, all while the train is still moving. In my enthusiasm, I forget the fact that I am supposed to be boarding….and furthermore helping Gerard find our coach. His equilibrium is broken for a minute. But we manage to board and find our way anyway.

It goes without saying that as we travel through the country, we are constantly faced with the poverty of India. But we don’t say much about it. It’s too overwhelming to take in.
I watch families on the train stations – women exhausted with the basic struggle of survival and child bearing. They seem to have given up caring about themselves or their children who hang out on the platforms their hair matted thick with dust and dirt. We go by shanty towns where the conditions are deplorable. We pass through Bhopal where we remember the terrible 1984 gas disaster when 50% of the population was reputed to live in slums. From the train window it looks as though that is still the case. Without a certain degree of denial and abstraction, we couldn’t travel around India.

Rock Temples of Ellora and Ajanta

Our train ride to Ahmednagar is a long disturbed night – with little sleep. Young boys want to chat; babies cry; a group of men play cards till 4 am….Meanwhile an interesting aspect of Indian railways is that they rarely, if ever, announce an upcoming station. So it’s left up to you to peer out of a heavily tinted glass window to read the name of the station you’re pulling into. When your projected arrival time is 5 am, this is certainly not conducive for a good night’s sleep. But we managed to wake up and disembark at the right station.

It’s still too early to go to our next destination – the bus stand. So we hang around the train station, drinking little paper cups of chai. At 6 am we go out to get a rickshaw and in the dark step gingerly over a seeming sea of sleeping bodies wrapped under shawls, and waiting for who knows what?

We end up buying seats in a taxi instead of taking a bus for the 130 km to Aurangabad. The jeep packs three men in beside the driver; we sit behind beside a young Moslem couple. The woman is heavily veiled in black and her eyes stare out at me with a look of apprehension. The driver stops at every opportunity alongside the road packing more passengers into the back of the jeep – schoolgirls for a couple of miles, women with a bevy of children…Our betel nut chewing driver plays loud thumping Bollywood music all the way. Those who know Gerard’s refined taste in music can imagine his pain! After a three hour ride packed tightly together, the Moslem women’s eyes smile at me from her veil, as we disembark.

Aurangabad would not have been our first choice as a place to stay because of its namesake. Aurangazeb was the son of the famous Mogul emperor, Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal. Arungazeb overthrew his father and imprisoned him in the Red Fort next to the Taj Majal where he could look out on his masterpiece only threw a small window, until he died in prison. Aurangazeb is also known for his brutal treatment of the Hindus and Sikhs. Despite of the fact he built beautiful gardens in Srinigar and elsewhere, he’s mostly remembered as being a butcher of mankind. This city is where he is buried and they changed the name to Aurangabad to commemorate him. (It’s still predominantly a Moslem town) It is now a huge metropolis with 900,000 people, but has little to offer except as a jumping off point to see the renowned caves of Ellora and Ajanta.

Ellora is huge with a total of 34 caves over a 2 km area. Built between the 6th and 8thCs the sanctuaries carved out of basalt cliffs are devoted to a combination of Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism – which illustrates the spirit of tolerance characteristic of ancient India. The main attraction is the colossal Kailash temple- its colonnaded halls, galleries and shrines rear from a huge cavity cut from the hillside.

But although much larger than Badami, we were disappointed in the state of the Ellora carvings. The deterioration is greater, from both natural causes (basalt is much softer than sandstone) and the hands of the Moguls. But Ellora is still impressive. A fascinating side bar was the huge convoy of bats hanging from the ceilings in the back of the temples. Tourists love to disturb them by shining flashlights – they fly around squawking in a huge commotion, their eyes creating a thousand sparks of light.

We both preferred Ajanta for several reasons. First, the caves are situated around a exquisite horseshoe shaped ravine with a winding stream and flowering trees. Second, added to the sculptural and architectural work of these rock temples, the third art form of painting is a further enhancement. The huge Buddhist sculptures and paintings are very beautiful and, dating back as far as 2ndC BC, are in amazingly good condition. This is mainly due to the fact that its remote location kept Ajanta hidden from the destructive hand of the Moguls. Abandoned in 7thC AD when its creators moved to Ellora, the site was not rediscovered until 1819 when some East India Company tiger hunters saw one of the largest caves protruding through the foliage. Most of the faces on the sculptures are still intact and we could get a much better sense of their beauty and power than at Ellora where so much is lost. Also, in the Hindu temples and halls the focal point is generally a Lingum (a phallic symbol worshipped for fertility). Whereas in the Buddhist temples, having a similar lay out, the niches contain a Buddha in the lotus position. We were more attracted to the Buddhas than the Lingums!

Whatever, the two sites represent the crowing achievement of three religions at their high watermark. They weren’t the easiest places to get to but it’s an understatement to say it was well worth the effort. Seeing is believing….and we have serious doubts that any photographs can really capture Ajanta and Ellora. We both agree that like many other great pieces of art you have to stand in front of it to even begin to appreciate it. To state the obvious, to see this art work in its entirety and intended environment has such a greater impact than looking at artefacts in a museum.

We left Badami by bus as the sun was setting and drove through quiet countryside in the dusk – wide flat fields and clean villages – wooden carts resting beside Honda motor bikes, painted tractors adorned with garlands, Vodafone signs on the side of white washed adobe buildings. Refreshingly restful after noisy, dirty Badami.

Arriving at the train station in Bagalkot, we inspect the illuminated departure board and don’t see our overnight train listed.
While I stand by the bags, Gerard goes to the ticket counter – “Train to Aurungabad?
What train?” the man asks. Gerard shows him our ticket.
He hands it to the station master who asks, “Where did you get this?”
“ Goa.”
“Goa? There is no train.”
Gerard’s heart sinks. Eyes glaze over, beads of sweat form on his forehead as his mind carries him off contemplating a major screw up along the line. Stranded in Bagalkot! Images of sleeping on the floor in the station until who knows when…. His illusion is interrupted by the station master’s voice: “Wait, What day is it? Tuesday.”
“Yes, it is Tuesday”, all agree.
He smiles, “Yes, there is a train today. It comes just once a week.”
Gerard asks, “And why isn’t it on the board?”

The station master has moved on to a new topic: “Never mind that. Where are you from?”
“USA”…
He extends his hand out through the window to shake Gerard’s.
“What time is the train coming?” Gerard persists.
“Don’t worry, it’s coming…Do you have coins from your country?
“Yes, I do have coins in my luggage.”
“Then take your bags and bring them around into the office.”
“But what time is the train coming?”
“Yes, yes, we’ll talk about that later…”

Gerard comes over to tell me that the station master had forgotten about this weekly train. I reply with thinly veiled irritation,” Hello, isn’t he station master? Isn’t he supposed to know these things?”
“No problem, the train’s coming…and we’ve been asked to join the station master in his office.”
We plough through the crowd with our baggage to join our new friend. Now the attention is diverted to us. The window clerk, the station master, the ticket collector…they all grab chairs, insist that we sit down. Gerard rummages through his suitcase and comes up with a handful of nickels, dimes and quarters, which he distributes as if it was parshad (blessed food).

There’s much discussion among the Indians about the coins.
“How many rupees is that one worth?” asks a young woman, introduced to us as the ticket collector.
“How many of these make a dollar?” another asks.
At this point, we notice that the other waiting passengers are pressing their faces against the glass to see what’s going on inside.
The station master asks, “How much are they all worth?”
“About 50 rupees.”
He digs in his pocket for 50 rupees and we refuse them.
“So, you must have tea!”
He calls for tea and a man arrives with pretty little decorated porcelain cups of hot chai. We sit, drinking and chatting. Then just before our train is due… the train he had forgotten about…he escorts us to our platform, shakes our hands and wishes us good fortune. “Whenever I look at these coins, I will think of you,”… and he bids us farewell

Within minutes the train arrives on schedule….and with no notification on the board How the other passengers knew it was coming, we couldn’t figure.

The only way to Badami is by bus. The main problem in riding buses in the south of India is finding the one going to our destination. There are no signs in English, and we’re so far into poor rural areas that people are not that educated and speak very little English – and the names of some of the towns are impossible to pronounce, adding to the confusion when we ask for information. We stand beside the bus lines looking for someone who might be able to help us. A driver appears, guesses we’re going to Badami and leads us to his bus. Immediately another driver intercepts: no, this is the bus, and tries to lead us to his. Suddenly we’re involved in a tug-of-war between two buses and their drivers. This is unusual – normally buses are so full, no one is trying to drum up business.

A supposed five hour bus journey extends closer to seven. But it’s an interesting ride, through several remote hillside villages that somehow seem little affected by the 21st century – with the exception of plastic. From the vantage point of the bus, you can be a spectator without being observed.

As we pull into Badami, it’s not what we expected at all – but things rarely are. It is much busier, dirtier and noisier. The street is a chaotic scene of rickshaws, trucks, people, menacing monkeys and wild hairy pigs (not the beguilingly attractive variety of Goa). We have litte choice of hotel. Our room sits beside a generator which comes on for long periods, day and night, when the power’s out. Power cuts in India are a fact of life. Our hotel has a generator which is a mixed blessing. The ceiling fan operates throughout the night; the downside is that we have to hear the diesel engine generator roaring outside the window. The garden restaurant, described in the guidebook as Badami’s saving grace – is closed. The scrubby garden doesn’t look inviting anyway. This must be the poorest Indian town we’ve ever visited!

But we have to remind ourselves, we didn’t come to Badami for the facilities. We came to see 6th Century caves carved out of sandstone cliffs – rather I came because Gerard wanted to, drawn by a compelling picture he found on the Internet of the multicolor layered cliff caves bordering a huge water tank. But when we visit the three major caves, even I am awestruck by the immensity of the carvings – the huge statues of the Hindu Gods – Vishnu, the monkey Hanuman, sixteen armed dancing Shiva – the Buddhist bodhisattvas in the neighboring Jain temple. The detailed design and the workmanship involved are truly amazing. Considering their age, and the record of the Muslim invaders for destroying and defacing anything that predated Islam, they are in incredibly good shape. The archeological society of India is now maintaining and doing some repair work.

We go back the next day for a second look, trying to imprint them in our memory because even though we take a lot of pictures, they still can’t capture the awesome presence of the carvings. From the caves we look out across the huge tank where women are washing clothes, to the hillsides around dotted with structural temples built later in the 7th Century. Gerard comments, that in modern times, it’s hard to think of anything comparable. So little attempt is made to do great works, never mind communal projects that involve thousands of people working for the same ideal. No doubt there are great artists today, but there’s something here that seems to transcend the individual ego. It’s true these days we construct large buildings but they’re a testament to commerce and not to spiritual devotion.

Hampi is the kind of place we’d love to visit again, but probably never will. I wasn’t too excited about Badami. We talked a few travelers who’d been there and commented – few hotels, not much to see, not worth the hassle of getting there… But I was happy to leave “tourist haven” which was beginning to feel too much like spring break – with all the young people who seem to come to India more for the sun and cheap living than for experiencing the culture. They stay close to the guest houses, dress themselves minimally in cheap Indian clothes made for tourists, make forays out on motorbikes, and watch movies with titles like “Obnoxious Bastards” shown in restaurants at night in between power outages. Many are Israelis, traveling after their military service. We’ve met several older Israelis who have defected to Europe or Australia, not happy with Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, with no plans to return

Enroute to Badami we spend one night in Hospet – a town you would only pass through on your way somewhere else. We stay in a “luxury” hotel with air conditioning (of sorts) white sheets and a swimming pool. We enjoy the comfort and I swim in the kingfisher blue painted pool, beside a wall thick with morning glory flowers. In the restaurant our dinner is served by three waiters. The service is good; the food is not. The whole experience is horribly old school British, down to the way the boy ceremoniously lays out the cutlery at each place –most of which we have no use for.

One vignette that will remain with me of our stay in Hospet is buying Limca lemon soda from the soft drink stand on the street, and being persuaded by the owner to sit down to drink it on two plastic chairs immediately behind the stand. His wife joins us and sits beside me, smiling in a motherly manner. I am moved by her affection expressed without saying a word. Neither husband nor wife can speak English but they make us feel so welcome.

Conversation has become a daily occupation – almost surpassing the swimming! One of the people we’ve befriended is another Brit who was a Buddhist priest until he left the order seven years ago. After much struggle he feels that the Buddhist path is still right for him. In a short space of time, we feel close. Gerard loves to hear other peoples’ story – and does his best to encourage them to open up. I’m always more concerned about invading their space. Maybe they don’t want to talk…and the moment is lost.

The character of our guesthouse has changed. The Brits have been diluted by a noisy multinational mix of Israeli backpackers, an extended Polish family, and a large contingent of Russians. A Welsh expatriate living north of Yellowstone Park has brought her preadolescent daughter to India for four months as part of her home schooling. They’re accompanied by a Serbian woman they met at Meher Baba’s ashram in Poone. And yet another story…. A German healer arrives to teach self realization on the roof, and an Auyrevedic masseuse sets up his table in an adjoining shed. Neither seems to attract much business; the lure of the beach prevails.

I manage to get Gerard swimming twice a day, provided he has ear plugs to protect his sensitive ears from salt water. He’d be even happier if he had an eye mask and nose clip blocking all orifices! He’d be happier still on dry land… He comes swimming only to please his wife, he says. But I have a suspicion he’s actually enjoying riding the waves, floating on his back. His home maintenance skills are pressed into service once again when I leap into bed with too much enthusiasm and dislodge the plywood board supporting the mattress.

For some unknown reason, the cook has taken up residence on a concrete sceptic tank, where he sleeps under a mosquito net. One morning we find him sleeping with a motorcycle helmet! We later learned he’s afraid of coconuts falling on him. As always the Indian capability to sleep anywhere and among anything is amazing!

Despite our busy schedule, we’ve found time to search for new restaurants. We stagger off the beach into a bamboo Tibetan café from where we can be amused by the goings on in front of us: brown pigs tiptoeing on ridiculously dainty little feet supporting their large bodies…trailed by the cutest timid piglets, some looking only a few days old. Healthy looking dogs – by Indian standards – make a game out of chasing the pigs. On Sunday morning, the young Goan women pass by on their way to church dressed in body clinging iridescent satin dresses. If we weren’t in India, I’d mistake them for call girls on their way to work. A traditionally dressed Indian woman, in a beautiful sari, gold necklace and earrings, picks up bottles from the road…. It’s hard to comprehend how such a seemingly dressed woman is a street sweeper. Probably the only all purpose outfit she owns.

If we can get ready in time, we go up the hill to Sunset restaurant for dinner and watch the sun sink down over the ocean. The area behind the restaurant leads to “little Italy”; a collection of older Portuguese style houses with tiled roofs and brightly colored verandahs. As the name implies, most of the tenants are baked Italians wearing Speedos, with cigarettes and cappuccino always in hand.

Only two days left in this indolent Paradise. We’re getting ready to start off on a more adventurous chapter than life on the beach.