Daman to Alibag

We left Daman on 22nd November to continue our journey to Goa. It would take a few days and, as there was no-where between Daman and Goa that we planned on stopping for a few days, we would just ride each day until we had enough and then find a room for the night. Our main priority was to get off the main highways and onto the much nicer coastal route. First though we had to navigate the dreaded by-pass around Mumbai. The road turned out to be as bad as we thought - very busy, dirty, polluted, noisy and certainly full of unpleasant odours. Finally we got to the end of it and headed onto the coastal road.

It was getting late when we finally pulled into a town called Alibag. It was also getting dark and we don't like to ride at night, especially as none of the electrics on the bike had been working since we left Vashisht - no lights, brake light or indicators but the horn worked and that is really the only thing that is essential in India. Here people don'y pay attention to brake lights or indicators and using them often causes confusion. But it's not a good idea to drive at night without lights even though many people here do it. We were really filthy and knackered after the bypass drive, Colin especially, as you literally need eyes at the side and back of your head and 100%+ concentration on many Indian roads,

It was 7pm before we managed to find somewhere. While the guy was off getting a key for the room his elderly mother came out and stared spouting off the guest house rules, two of which made me apoplectic. One was that the cost had suddenly increased over the last minute and the other was that we couldn't have any water for a shower until morning. I couldn't stop the temper tantrum that erupted from me. We marched out of the place and were back to square one - nowhere to stay. Finally we found somewhere and all we could do was have a wash and fall into bed. The following morning we carried on our way.

Daman

We arrived in Daman to a sunny afternoon. Daman is a seaside town (although I wouldn't rush there if I was looking for a nice beach and clear blue sea) which caters to Indian tourists. After two weeks in alcohol free Pushkar - with the exception of our bad karma bottle of whiskey - and a few days travelling through the State of Gujarat, where the whole state is alcohol free, we were looking forward to a wee dram in Daman. Daman was ruled by the Portuguese for four and a half centuries until India took it back under rule in the 60's. Hence, not only is alcohol available, but like Goa it's tax free and the cheapest in India. Party time.



 We had to find a room first so we headed to The Marina Hotel . We had read about it and it sounded wonderful. It is a restored and converted 150 year old Portuguese-style house and looked beautiful inside. Unfortunately we wouldn't be staying there as it way exceeded our budget, but it looked like a good central place to park the bike and go in search of some budget accommodation. Luckily we found somewhere right across the street. It might not have been as nice but we had a balcony that looked over onto it, and we could dream.

Although Daman feels and looks more like an India town than a Portuguese town you can still find old houses reminiscent of the Portuguese.

 

 

 

 

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We stayed in Daman for two nights because it really was an interesting and bizarre wee place. The photos of these Portuguese aren't representative of Daman as a whole. These houses were situated down the quiet side streets whereas the main streets looked and felt like an India town. Turned out we weren't the only ones there to party. We hadn't considered the fact that that Daman is an alcohol oasis bordering on an alcohol desert. So as well as happy fun-loving Indian tourists, they're were the ones that crossed the state border just to go on the binge. The main street was like the OK Corral. Men were being thrown out of bars onto the street and the street had plenty of 'dead people'  lying there that would hope that they really were dead when they woke up. Luckily we had followed the Hotel Marina's philosophy of being on a quiet street off the main road but near to the beach. We knew then that it had been a good hunch to park up at Hotel Marina and then find a room off the main drag

Pushkar to Daman via Uddipur, Ahmedabad and Valsad

After a week of thinking I was dying in Pushkar I felt ready to remove my ear plugs and sunglasses (I had worn these 24 hours a day while I was lying in the room, as I couldn't bear any noise or light) and get back on the bike to continue on our journey. An extra week and few days in Pushkar meant that we had to get some miles under our belt to reach Goa on time. Although we still did have plenty of time we had to factor in the possibility of another unplanned delay on route. 

We had a vague plan of heading towards Mumbai and then, rather than driving through it, we would take the by-pass around it - if we could find it. It was going to take a few days to get there so we planned on riding the bike each day, until we felt we had had enough, and then find somewhere to stay in the nearest town. The first night we spent in Uddipur. We had originally thought we would spend a few days there but our delay in Pushkar meant we only spent one night there. It was the first time that I had been to Uddipur (Colin has been many times before) and I wished we could have spent a few days there as it is a truely beautiful place and would loved to have hads time to explore it. At least there's always next time. The next night we stayed in Ahmedabad and shortly before we arrived there we crossed The Tropic of Cancer. The next night we stopped in a place called Valsad

The next day our plan was to go round the Mumbai but Bal Thackery a prominent right wing politician died and amazingly the whole of Mumbai shut down - shops and businesses closed, public transport stopped and unbelievably the streets of Mumbai were deserted. The hotel manager told us that there were a lot of road blocks so probably not safe to take that route. We couldn't stay another night in Valsad as it was a hell hole so we had a sketch at the map and found a small seaside town not far from where we were. We decided to head there and hole up for a few days until the Mumbai situation returned to normal.

We left Valsad on 19th Nov and headed to Daman. We were on a six lane highway with great road surface condition and were flying along. The road wasn't busy but we still had to keep our eyes peeled as very often, even on these main roads, traffic comes straight towards you on the wrong side of the road. Imagine that on a motorway back home. 

As we were driving along I spotted a big sign for MacDonalds. Not a place we would normally go to but after two weeks of vegeterian pushkar, even a MacDonald's burger sounded like meat. As I pointed it out to Colin I realised we had already passed the exit ramp to get to it. Oh, no problem for Colin though. He just spun a u-turn on the six lane highway, drove down the entry ramp to the highway and pulled into MacDonalds car park. Not one vehicle on the highway or on the entry ramp paid any attention to us. Colin rewarded himself by eating two MacMDonalds meals. He said he deserved it after his ingenious, skilled motorbike riding! I couldn't resist a photo with the main man himself. Full stomachs, we continued our ride to Daman.

Royal Enfield garage in Pushkar

Having driven the bike from Vashisht to Pushkar via Nepal we decided to get the bike serviced in Pushkar before we headed off again. Guy, our friend we life with in Vashisht told us about a friend of his who repairs royal enfields.

While I was confined to the room 'dying' with dengue fever Colin took the bike to him. The sign on the left hand side of the photo is a riot. I think it's meant to read as selling, buying, repairing and servicing.

For any enfield enthusiasts, this mechanic's bike was in mint condition.

Love the separate seats.

Diwali festival in Pushkar

Diwali is the Hindu festival of light. It is a 5-day festival celebrated some time between mid-October to mid November according to the Hindu calendar. The illumination of homes and the lighting of the skies with fireworks is an expression of deferential respect to the heavens for the attainment of health, wealth, knowledge, peace and prosperity. Hindus clean their homes and light candles day and night, both inside and outside their homes, in a welcoming gesture to the Gods. It is really pretty seeing everything lit up.



Holi is a different Indian festival and is the festival of colour, where people celebrate wildly by throwing coloured powder over one another. Although Diwali is the festival of lights and not colour, it doesn't stop the powder sellers getting out their wares. It's really just any old excuse to have a party and behave like children!

Diwali festival is the peak time for selling and buying sugar cane. It is used for making sweets and as an offering to the gods.

Taking home the sugar cane.

The fireworks are just crazy day and night. It's really scarey seeing young children lighting fireworks and then, when they don't go off, going straight back to the firework, leaning right over it and trying to re-light it. Bad enough with any firework, but with an Indian made one?

We headed back to the Sai Baba guest house to celebrate with Fatu and others. That day we had gone to the local town of Ajmer about 15kms from Pushkar to eat some meat and buy some alcohol for the celebrations. When we got to Sai Baba the whole courtyard was shin deep in water and the staff were all trying in vain to mop it up. There was also a waterfall falling from the top floor right outside our room door. Fatu came up to us laughing and told us the torrent of water was coming out of our room and had been for several hours. I remembered that in the morning I had turned on the shower and there was no water. I also turned on the bathroom taps to see if they had water and obviously I hadn't turned any of them back off before we went out. Hence when the water did come back on it overflowed and started pouring out of our room. As we always use our own heavy duty padlock to lock our room door there was no way the staff could get into our room. I apologised profusely but Fatu just shrugged and said 'it needed cleaned anyway'.

We had a great night of Diwali festivities on the roof of the guest house. There were too many boxes of fireworks to count. Fatu was mental, putting fireworks into beer bottles, which he was holding in his hand, and shooting them into the sky or firing them across the floor of the roof amongst hoots of screaming and laughter. It was amazing no one was injured.

The following morning I woke up feeling very ill - headache, photophobia, vomiting and fever and chills. Colin was convinced I had a hangover but I knew it wasn't that simple. By evening I was getting a lot worse, so we had to go to the local medical centre as we don't take anti-malarial tablets so the worsening symptoms were a bit concerning. Turns out I had dengue fever. I didn't want to go to the main hospital in Ajmer as I had Dr Colin to look after me. The doctor wanted to give me IV fluids in the medical centre and an anti-sickness injection. I refused and said I would be fine when I got back to the room. One step out of the medical centre and I was vomiting over the street, so it was back in for that anti-sickness injection.

In hindsight we shouldn't have gone to Ajmer to stuff our faces with meat, brought whiskey back to a Holy Town and flooded the haveli - and especially on Dawali. It was bad karma!

Pushkar camel fair

The Pushkar Camel Fair is an annual 5-day event. Tens of thousands of people descend on Pushkar to attend it. It's one of the world's largest camel fairs and apart from buying and selling livestock it has become an important tourist attraction. There are competitions e.g. matka pod which means longest moustache, camel racing, stalls selling all sorts of colourful bracelets, clothes, textiles and fabrics. Day and night there are people singing and dancing. It takes place in October or November depending on the Hindu calendar. We had planned to leave Pushkar before the fair began as it's just too busy and room rates can treble in price. However, when we were there, the weeks of preparations were all taking place

Camels were arriving in their droves.

Contemplating being sold to a new owner.

This young boy was trying to persuade us to have a ride on the camel. It is a really popular tourist attraction but having lived in the Middle East for ten years I wouldn't go near one of these biting, spitting creatures - even though they look cute. Many years ago Colin had a couple of mates come out to India to visit him. They were really keen to do a camel safari, and stupidly despite knowing better, Colin eventually agreed to go with them. After 2 hours on the misbehaving camel in the blistering desert sun with no feeling left from the waist down, he was well hacked off and the only thing to look forward was three full days of this.

They really are some size and you really don't want to get near those gangly legs. I dealt with car accident in the Middle East where the driver had hit a camel and it's legs went through the windscreen and beheaded the driver.

Us on the bike getting overtaken by a camel rushing to the fair.

Ragasthani dancers in Sai Baba guest house in Pushkar

Every Saturday night Fatu has a party night at the Sai Baba guest house. He puts on an international buffet (no meat or eggs, of course) and has Ragasthani dancers and musicians.

Looking down from our balcony to the courtyard in the haveli before the party begins there.

There is a lot of foliage inside the haveli and it makes you feel like you are living in the middle of a a garden. 

The musicians are rearing to go.

Don't know what this instrument is but it looks like you need a lot of puff to blow it.

 I think I would rather do a round of kick boxing than spend a night doing what these dancers do - they wriggle, twirl, shake and writhe around for hours, as well as dancing

The Ragasthani costumes are really pretty.

This video is a bit dark and not good quality but I had to post it. Not to show the dancers but the clowns that join in. There are two local guys and a foreigner. He's hysterical, you need to keep an eye on him. He starts off in the far right and he's wearing a black top and white trousers. He disappears, then re-appears and heads over to the left side. His 'dancing' gets more bizarre as the video progresses, especially when you consider that there is no alcohol sold at the party. The local guy is also  pretty mad, but at least he's allowed.