first week anniversary in HK

sitting in my service apptment on a sleepy sunday morning and i am thinking of how easily and quickly i have made the transition from being in mumbai to hong kong within a week. it would be too much and too condescending to both the great cities, one where i have spent my whole life and the other which is going to be my home for the next few years to start writing and comparing them. but yes, this much is true, infrastructure plays a big difference. in a 7 odd million population squeezed in a land mass which is roughly equivalent to mumbai (around 1000 sq miles) and its suburbs and less than half of the population in mumbai, the underground trains, the trams, the buses and the ferries are what keeps this city bustling, ticking and more importantly safe. i have been looking for appartments to rent in the past two days and teh choices and the variety, though the sizes are smaller than back home, are really varied. what i was struck by is ppl dont ask questions to property brokers like: is it a safe neighborhood? what about hidden charges? everything is above board and in your face. what you see is what you get. in one day i have gotten a telephone connection, rail passes, bank accts, a temporary identity card. i guess the only way to sum up is what a former bureau chief once told me on HK: "things work"

first week in HK

Goa to Bangalore

19th September 2009
Day 1 - Goa to Gokarna

On the road to Gokarna

After a short flight to Goa from Mumbai during which I tried to watch for the umpteenth time an  interesting Hindi movie called 99 (Soha Ali Khan, Cyrus Broacha, Kunal Khemu)  unsuccessfully, thanks to the irritating interruptions by a masculine voice belonging to air hostess, we land at Dabolim airport where being a long weekend, it was crawling with out of towners.

In the land of sun and shine, everybody is here to have a good time and the scenes outside the airport are reminiscent of peak rush hour traffic in Bombay. After 20-25 mins of jostling and being jostled we are on our way to the famous Om beach at Gokarna in northern karnataka and a distance of 160 kms from Goa.

Om Beach

Much of the road passes through the beautiful countryside including Karwar, though a lot of the areas near Karwar has been cordoned off by the navy. TIP: If you are planning to hire a car from Goa to Gokarna, please hire a taxi at Gokarna and ask him to pick you up at the airport rather than hiring a cab at Goa as taxis can be quiet outrageously priced.

After a quick pitstop for lunch somewhere on the highway between Goa and Gokarna where we devoured on Goan surmai fish curry, rice and buckets of King beer where we almost changed our mind to stay back in Goa, we were on our way.

Gokarna Town

Om beach is so called because of the Om shape of the beach and is a wonderful beach town and much less crowded and as a result much less commercialised than its Goan counterparts . Apart from 4-5 shacks which will rustle up everything from dal rice to pizzas and pastas, and a couple of places catering to the "gora" crowd, the beach is quite clean and rocky in places. The main town is a few kms away from the beach and is dotted with temples and quite small with restaurants and ancillary tourist services such as guesthouses, car services being the main business.

Despite it being a weekend, we found a place a bit away from the teeming masses quite easily. Slightly rustic but in an almost jungle-like setting we were too kicked about the first day of our trip which will take us across some of the most beautiful temples in the southern state of Karnataka over the next few days.

A picturesque sunset, a long languid dinner with our close friends and listening to the sound of the waves calling out to us was enough to knock us out after what had been a long day on the road. Tomorrow we will begin our temple crusades. 

Goa to Bangalore

Day 6: The Tour de Hampi

25th September 2009

The fun part of any trip to some old temple town is to see the place after you have been taken the rounds by the customary guide is to do it again on bicycles and to our great joy (not so much for our rusty bones) it is great fun.

 The bazaar offers bicycles for 40 rupees for the whole day and after a day of strenuous cycling you can chill out at Mango Tree (a beautiful rock cut restaurant situated in the middle of a banana plantation facing the Tungabhadra river) or at any of the rooftop cafes. 

For our money, Durga café was the best with its quite good food and very friendly host. Kishkinda, the ancient name for Hampi in olden times is treated as the birth place of Hanumana and the hill top where he is supposed to be born is situated across the river at a place called Anegudi.  This was our last day at Hampi before taking the night train to Bangalore.

Goa to Bangalore

Day 6: The Hampi Chronicles

September 24th 2009

With more than 500 world heritage sites dotting the ruins, it is very difficult to see all of them in a span of 3 days of even a week, so for half a day we hired a rickshaw guy to show us the main sites across the place (600 rupees). Don’t do that. Much of the fun in seeing these ancient monuments is to know a bit about their history. 

 Ask some of the ASI guides to show you around the place and they usually divide the tour into two parts, the temples in the first half of the day and the Royal enclaves in the second half. (HS Krishna Kumar 08394 – 241411, 9449981479). The Virupaksha temple complex inside the Hampi bazaar is the only live temple and daily pujas are offered here and one of the shrines here can be rented our for marriages. Lakshmi, the resident elephant, blesses each one and an underground temple, the only one of its kind in the country, has both the statues of Vishnu and the linga. 

The main temples here have impressive wall carvings and beautiful ceiling paintings depicting various avatars of the Hindu gods and ancient tales. The Vitthala temple complex to the north of the hampi has beautiful carvings, musical pillars, remnants of huge ancient gold bazaars and the Kings’ balance – a stone weighing scale for the king to sit on and weighed against gold and precious gems. The Vijaynagar empire which flourished under the reign of Krishnadevraya was also famous for its sewage and water connection works and a visit to the stepped tanks, monolithic platform offer the visitor a peep into its wonderful past.

Goa to Bangalore

Day 5 - Marching into Hampi

23rd September 2009

Hampi is about 200 kilometres from Badami and covered in about 4-4.5 hours (1600 rupees for a drop) and is about 12 kms from the nearest town of Hospet which has the railway station. Hampi, from Pampa, the old name for the Tungabhadra river which flows through the town is the world’s second biggest heritage site after Rome and has about 200 temple structures strewn across the place with some of them inside homes and in fertile fields.

Representing the height of the Vijaynagara empires in the 16^th century, the temples and the sculptures here have a lot in common with the ones found in Aihole and Pattadakalu. November to March is the peak season with the Hampi festival taking place in January. Inside Hampi town or the bazaar as it is popularly known is a tiny lane with some shops selling curios, cold drinks and trinkets and has some rooftop cafes and guest houses. No vehicles are allowed inside the bazaar, except for dropping and picking up tourists and Hampi is quite well connected with Hospet by bus services which leave every half hour or by local rickshaw (150-500 rupees depending upon your wits). Much of the visiting population in Hampi are foreigners as it is also the bouldering capital of the country with huge boulders strewn around the place and a cursory glance on the menu cards of the main cafes can give you an eerie feeling of reading the same stuff across establishments.

Please book well in advance if you are traveling in the main season or you will have to shack up with some kind soul inside the bazaar for 100-300 rupees a night depending upon the demand (just bedding) or hoof it up from Hospet which has some decent establishments as well as the high end. The Shanthi Guest house (Paul: 9448678729) has some very clean rooms with 200 rupees for the ones without a loo and 350 for the ones with clean bathrooms. Mosquitoes are very liberal from Om Beach to Hampi and please carry generous doses of Odomos along with medicine supplies as Hampi does not have chemist shops. 

Goa to Bangalore

Day 4:  Ahoy Aihole. Hi Pattadakallu


22nd September 2009

Locals say” Aihole was a primary school, Badami the high school and Pattadakallu was a college” when it came to temple architecture. The name Aihole has an interesting history and is associated with the fiery sage Parshuraman who having destroyed the entire Kshatriya race comes to the Malaprabha river which flows through Aihole and washes his bloodstained axe which sends the women screaming in fright “Ai hole” or ( O river). This was an earlier capital of the Chalukya kings and is situated 36 kilometers from Badami. About 125 temples can be found in Aihole most of them strewn around the neighboring villages with only a handful concentrated in some places. An entire day can be spent here and the temples here represent a vast canvas of temple structures that can be found across the country.

 The Parliament Building in New Delhi was a rejected temple model and its poor country cousin can be found here in the Durga complex. Taking a guide here and not relying on your local rickshaw wallah for explaining some of the temples is highly recommended. Most of the guides here, unlike in North India, are not pushy, quite well educated and trained by the ASI. For some sumptuous local fare, please visit Anand Bhuvan opposite the main temple complex rather than the joint recommended by your tourist bus guides.  

Pattadakalu is a World Heritage site and belong to the era of Vikramaditya who ruled in the 8^th century is situated about 22 kilometres from Badami. This was the second capital of the Chalukya kings and the main coronation ceremonies were held here. Each of the temples here are beautifully built and even with the local population living inside the temple complex as recently as 50 years ago, the sculptures are breathtaking.

 Of particular note are the Virupaksha temple, which is a living temple and faced by a huge black Nandi and the Mallikarjuna temple which sports carvings narrating tales from the Ramayana, Mahabharata and the Panchatantra tales. Badami, Aihole and Pattadakalu can be easily covered over 2 days and apart from these places, there are a few temple tanks, some old temples around Badami of some interest. Alcohol is freely available with numerous wine shops dotting the main street though the food is largely vegetarian with few joints offering non-vegetarian fare.

Goa to Bangalore

21st September 2009

Day 3: On the road to Badami

From Om Beach to Badami is roughly 260 kilometres and passes through some very lush countryside with all kinds of vegetables and grains being cultivated on some very fertile land and animals looking very healthy. You can fix up a cab at any of the small lunch homes or cafes in Gokarn and the journey in an air-conditioned car should cost you 11 rupees.

 On the way: stop at Hotel Sapna (08388-231979) for some delicious Southern breakfast washed down by cups of steaming hot filter coffee. Badami town itself is a one-street town with its main bus station, all hotels, main shops and establishments lining the road. Of all the hotels featured in websites and guidebooks, we found Hotel New Satkar (08357-220417, 09901542194, 09448776317), the cleanest and among the most economical. (rooms available for 300 a night with basic amenities and can go up to a 1000 for AC and TV) Badami gets its name from the ancient name of Vatapi, an old legend and has some of the most beautiful rock carvings in the country. The highlight are the four caves, each of it dedicated to Shiva, two to Vishnu and one to Jainism, the carvings which date back to the 6^th century and built by the Chalukya Kings and highlight the sheer talent of the sculptors in that period. 

 Of particular note are the 18 armed Nataraja, the beautiful carvings of the 5 incarnations of Vishnu dotting the caves, Harihara, Ardh Narishwar, elephants and bulls and the Maha Vishnu carvings in the 3^rd cave. Take guides when visiting the caves (200 rupees) and the caves overlook the beautiful tank with the bhootnath temple on one side (made famous in Mani Ratnam’s Guru). On the opposite side of the caves complex is the remnants of Badami fort with a few watchtowers surviving to this day and a museum at the base of the fort. The entire complex can be covered within 4 hours and all the hotels are situated within 1.5 kilometres of the cave complex. 

Goa to Bangalore

20th September 2009

Day 2 - Om Beach

Om beach (in shape of the Hindu symbol) is situated 6 kilometers from Gokarna (literally: cow’s ears), a temple town, which in turn is 60 kilometers from Karwar in Northern Karnataka on NH- 17. The most  famous of the four beaches which straddles Gokarn and has some creative names such as Half Moon (because it is so shaped), Paradise and Kudle Beach and can be reached easily by trekking across some rocky hills. 

The length of the beach itself is not very big with about 1 – 1.2 kilometers end to end and sloping towards the sea. Most visitors here are locals from the state and on weekdays the largely empty beach reminds one of Goa in its more idyllic days. Foreigners too flock the beach in droves and their popularity can be gauged from the pastas, sizzlers dished up at the 10-15 odd cafes (in peak season) along the beach front. If you like your tipple though, please carry it from Gokarn which has a couple of bars or you will have to make do with some not so chilled beer the cafes or a auto ride (150 rupees one way, half hour) to the town before sundown. Namaste Café (Raju – 9880459559), by its dint of being featured in the Lonely Planet, is the most buzzing with activity and you literally fall into it as you step into the rocky beach.

 A bit too teeming with boisterous drunken parties to our taste, quieter ones can be found further down the beach. A better one which we liked was Ganesh café near the far end of the beach and astride Nirvana where visitors can get rooms for 400 rupees a night (ask for the ones with the porch and not with rooms as they are relatively spider free). William at the Ganesh café is extremely friendly and, the service a bit slow normally, is well worth the wait.  Carry a couple of torches, some old bedsheets and you have all the necessary ingredients for an awesome picnic on the beach in pitch darkness.