Thursday, March 02, 2006
Sandra and Bill write
This was mostly written shortly after we came to Goa. Things tend to slow down here and, what with swimming, sunbathing, eating and sleeping, it has taken us this long to get it into some kind of shape. Sandra did most of that work. We are working on an update that should be up in a day or two.
Today, we love India. That wasn’t the case a week or so ago. I may have mentioned that we fell into conversation with a guy from Ottawa awhile ago. In our discussion of the challenges of traveling in India, he mentioned that his e-mails home always start, “Today I hate India,” or, “Today I love India.”
We would never say we hate India, but we were very close to it. By now, Monday evening, India has begun to redeem herself, but several nights ago it was different, as we tumbled into bed about 2 am. That was the end of one of the longest and hardest days of travel in a long time.
Travel Options to Goa
The options for traveling from Mysore to Goa are:
1) a 7 – 8 hour bus trip to Mangalore followed by a 5 hour train ride,
2) a 3 hour train to Hassan followed by a 4 hour bus to Mangalore and the train again,
3) a 2 hour train to Bangalore and an overnight train to Goa, or,
4) fly from Bangalore.
We thought it would be easiest to break the trip at Mangalore by spending the night there. That would also enable us to travel during the day and see part of the country, specifically the Western Ghats, which we had never seen before. That left options 1 or 2.
A number of years ago, we had traveled by “luxury” bus from New Delhi to Naini Tal (a hill station). It was a 9 hour bus ride from Delhi and left at 10 pm. We thought night would be a good time to travel, as it would be cooler, and we were assured the bus was very comfortable, with reclining seats. We soon learned that “luxury” is a very relative term, because the bus did not have a toilet, and, in that entire 9 hour trip, it stopped exactly ONCE! In 9 hours! There must have been very large capacity fuel tanks and bladders on that thing! I know that ours almost did not make it. We swore we would NEVER, EVER take another bus in India.
That narrowed it down to option 2. We figured we could handle a 4-hour bus ride, especially as it was also supposed to stop at least once. Once again, India laughed at our naivety.