so, in gokarn killing time till four o’clock when we can catch a train out of this pesthole.

not that we have had a perticulaly bad time here, but there is a strange atmosphere of depresion gripping the town and we cant wait to move on. the people are in turn really friendly and really bleak. the other travelers are a strange lot, they try and avoid meeting your eye, prefering to pretend that they are the sole westerner who thought of coming to gokarn. they look as though they are trying desperatly to fit in. decking themselves in various foux indian raiment as if this in itself will distill them with some sort of spiritual significance. this wierd behaviour looks like it cant be much fun as we have noticed a distinct lack of smiling or any kind of lightheartedness. after walking around the town for a bit we returned to the hotel depressed only to find in our own company our spirits rising. it felt really good to laugh after seeing so many grim faces. bit odd. i think most of them are just annoyed becouse after buying what apeared to be trousers, it turned out on closer inspection to be some sort of sack with two feet holes in them. must be agravating.

 

 forgot to mention the train journeys. i shall scribe them into my palm later and blog em. this place doesn’t have a usb. all in all travel by train is pretty good fun.

 

i also forgot to mention my epic travel pants. they have proven themselves invaluable, practicaly drying as soon as they are exposed to air and aiding the drying process of other clothing within a mile radius. also i wear my rohan trousers at all times, seemingly they require no cleaning. 🙂

 heading to mangalore, then verkala i think. we don’t have much time to go to far south. any places you would recomend in the north of india tom? when in newzealand i would avoid the big cities like aukland and wellington as they were soul draining. nelson was pretty cool, and be sure to do the abel tazman trail.

 might buy a indian sim card at some point. is it worth my trying to ring home from a payphone or something?

 see you!

julio

Rio out on his first walk

Stickle tarn, raining

checking out the view

On the way down from a freezing Helvellyn

Jul, congratualtions on being in India. The Best Place to Be – provided that you aren’t actually Indian that is. If you have any questions about the place I should be able to assist since I know the place quite well mostly. You may or may not like Gokarna but afterwards in Kerala, Verkala is infinitely superior to Kovalam.

We are in the Coromandel Coast in NZ. Which places in this country would you recommend or avoid like the plague?

good stuff, apple is the way to go!

have fixed the link (which I broke, in fact, when making it a link)

if anyone has tried to see Dod’s chicken joke they will find that the link does not work, bringing you back to the blog every time!

i hope no one has spotted your palm and tried to make of with it yet Jul – keep it strapped to the waist at all time i say, or hide on one fo your pairs of undies (how are they working out by the way?)

g has decided to purchase an apple laptop so we shall be blogging from the comfort of our own home soon!

Rio calls

T x

Hail all,

Bombay good then? Good stuff as you will be visiting it about 50 times!

I had a jolly time in Durham with Granny, meeting the entirety of the tennis team and brandishinhg Rio wherever we went – he was fairly well behaved and only bellowed once (with poor Graham who is the gentlest soulm around). what could have been a hellish 8 hour journey back on the train was in fact fine as Rio sleped most of the way – I was looking foradr to catching up with some reading (44 somethin street whicvh Jul gave me for my birthday and is very good) but no, I was not to have thet pleasure as some randome bloke started chatting – seemed to want to tell me all about his life – I tried to look facinated – possible too much so as everytime i tried to slither out of the conversation he would pop up with a new topic! rio has decided it would be fun to wake about  imes a night, taking his food in snack form rather than a harty meal!! Mum a bit haggered, Dad for the most part obliviouse!
Hope Gokarn no too festering, which it will be.

T x