Okay so quite a lot has happened since our last post. Ang even got so far as to have written out a lovely big post and adding images to it. Unfortunately our wifi/internet reception has been a bit lousy and the post somehow autosaved a blank page – bye bye latest post. Until we get better internet we’ll have to just bore you with words and won’t be able to show you our amazing holiday shots, we’ll get a projector and show you all on our return 😉
So I’ll fill you in a bit. India in a nut shell is total pandemonium – traffic, noise, smells (both good and bad), endless people, and what seems like endless spanning horizons of countrysides and city landscapes. It’s almost impossible to really write down or capture everything that you see and feel. Photo’s don’t really capture the full impact of what you see. Well my photo’s don’t – a decent photographer would find infinite inspiration – worn out buildings, temples, people, motorbikes, brightly coloured homes, huge landscapes, mountains, oceans, beaches, animals, butterflies, food, spices, shops, the list goes on.
It’s been just over a week now in India and everyone we’ve met has been very friendly. Jasper and Alex are proving hot subjects for the locals to photograph so no doubt photos of us are appearing all over India 😉 Jasper’s not too keen on getting his photograph however Alex has been a little more receptive to it all even when it becomes a little overwhelming for all of us.
We’ve moved around a bit lately to try and find a place with more room to move. We found Nashik/Nasik just a little bit too busy and not really kid friendly. The hotel we were staying in was more geared up for business travellers. They did have a fairly basic playground and a little bit of grass and the boys sure did put that to good use.
They did amazing food with free breakfast which often meant eating a lot of things we had no idea what they were. We seemed to be the only westerners in town as Nashik isn’t really a tourist town which was quite nice as there wasn’t too much of the hard sell with stall holders and beggars that are found in the more tourist based cities, however this also meant there wasn’t a lot to do. There were some pretty amazing temples however a lot of sights were out of town and the boys were struggling a bit with the heat and noise.
We decided to upsticks a few days earlier than planned and catch a bus from Nashik down to Pune as we were hoping it would have a few more activities and kid friendly sights to see. It was a bit of a step up from Nashik, with much cleaner streets and the rubbish mostly moved out of sight, and the traffic initially seemed a bit calmer.
Unfortunately we found out that India tends to operate on a slightly different time frame to what we’re used to. With the boys waking early we tended to be getting out to do things around 10am however most of the shops and food stalls didn’t start operating until after 11am, and all the tourist destinations Ang had planned out to visit didn’t open until 4pm. By that time of the day the boys were pretty over doing much at all.
We did find some pretty amazing Buddhist Temples chiseled out of some caves up in the mountains in Pune. Dating back to 1BC it’s hard to comprehend how much time was taken to chisel out the vast rooms and statues out of the solid rock.
Just below the caves was a huge playground for kids. We’re fast realising that many things in India have once been very grand however often get neglected and left for nature to take its course. The playground had about a dozen swings and only one was usable, and maybe 4 or 5 slides however they had suffered under the combination of endless kids and the scorching heat and large holes had been worn through the fibreglass. Alex summed it up within the first few days of being in India saying “wow this place must have been really fancy when it was first built, but somehow it’s not quite anymore”.
If you’re wondering about the subject heading “thank goodness for rummy”, that’s not because we’ve taken up drinking. Due to the heat and local schedule, we’ve taken to holing up in our room between 11am and 3pm, and to keep the boys occupied have been playing a fair few card games, with the boys favourite being rummy. A pack of cards would have to be one of the best “entertainment investments” when travelling with children.
Once again we found Pune a little bit short on kid friendly activities so booked ourselves an overnight sleeper bus down the coast to Goa. We’d originally planned on avoiding the tourist hotspots like Goa however now realise that keeping the boys occupied and with room to move is best for keeping all of us sane. Living in a 20sqm room together 24/7 takes a fair bit of getting used to and we’re quickly discovering that we all need a little bit of alone time occasionally – Alex likes his lego time, Jasper needs a bit of running and jumping, I get a bit of time alone by working on websites, and Ang has her books. I’m not sure how long that will keep us occupied but for now it seems to suffice.
