From The Estuary of the Wolf to The Village of the Cow - Travels To Goa & Beyond

Ten hours and some 411 kilometres later the Malabar Express pulled into Mangalore Central station. Although we'd booked the most basic of sleeper classes the journey was comfortable and, being the only Westerners in a carriage of 76 berths, our fellow travellers made every effort to help us, using the torches on their phones to find our bunks in the dark and making sure we were settled before attending to their own needs.

We'd decided to stay at the Adarsh Lodge, described as A bit of a dive, but cheap and clean in the Rough Guide. Trying to find a tuk tuk willing to take us took an age as drivers get baksheesh from the swankier hotels when they drop off guests and there was little chance of a pay-off from a £4 a night room. Eventually someone took pity on us and dropped us off for 50p. 

Despite only being built in 1984, with the institutional maroon and custard yellow colour scheme, granite floor, squat toilet and threadbare bed covers, the Adarsh wouldn't have looked out of place in a 1960s Cold War film. We could have hired a TV from reception but chose not to, so the focal point was the empty glass case where it should have been. 

After a quick shower we set off to explore all that Mangalore had to offer. Within minutes we'd seen a man barefoot, dressed in a loincloth and covered in orange paint walking up the central reservation.

We took a seat in a pure veg canteen, ordered a "meal" and minutes later were served two huge veg thalis for 40p each.

After lunch we found the Cosmopolitan Club and the splendid Art Deco Prabhat cinema, both of which are mentioned in S Reuben's 1939 Travellers In India which Lynn had sent us before we left. 

In a bid to escape the punishing heat and humidity we thought we'd head to the park we'd seen marked on the street map in the Rough Guide. Assisted by what seemed like the entire population of Mangalore keen to help the two fools wandering around aimlessly in the heat of the midday sun, we finally found it, only to discover that it didn't open until 5pm and that most of it had been carved up by a development company.

So what of the historical Mangalore written of Pliny and Ptolemy and so beloved of Ibn Battuta? Sadly buried beneath one of the monstrous concrete shopping malls dominating the city and filled with the likes of McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Subway and KFC. 

Of more interest were the advertisements for astrologers adorning every corner of the city.  If the future is tower blocks and junk food I think I'll stay in the past.

Sweatier than sweaty things we headed back to our room. After another shower and a futile attempt at a siesta, interrupted every twenty minutes by the over-enthusiastic room boy ringing our doorbell and shouting Sir! Madam! Pani, pani*, chai, chai, coffee, coffee! Dinner was a bag of Malabar chips (fried banana crisps seasoned with chilli) and the remains of an over-ripe bunch of bananas we hadn't eaten on the train, washed down with rum and coke from an enamel camping mug. The ceiling fan had two settings, off or blow your eyelashes off so Jon used his trusty Indian Army knife to prise open the paint-sealed windows for some fresh air.  At 3am, we shook the man sleeping on the floor behind the reception desk awake to let us out, found a sleepy tuk tuk driver on the street outside and headed back to Mangalore Central to board a passenger train to Goa.

*Water.

 The Konkan Railway route is said to cut through some of the most beautiful scenery in all India

What should have been an six hour train journey ended up taking nine but, when you look at the view from our carriage window, it was no real hardship. Could there be a lovelier Monday morning commute?

Finally,  the train pulled into Canacona station in South Goa and we flagged down a tuk tuk to take us to Agonda, the village we've stayed in years before it became the hip, chill-out destination it is today.

Main street, Agonda

Accommodation in Agonda comes at a premium but, as luck would have it, there was a room free at our favourite haunt, Our Friend's Place. Set in lush gardens behind their popular restaurant, home for the next week was a thatched coco hut with a sit-out area, bedroom and a huge bathroom. As we opted for room only (you can have breakfast) it cost £10 a night.

It didn't take us long to fall back into our Goa rhythm.

An early morning walk along the beach.

Breakfast in the tiny roadside cafe, Reshma, where for 30p each, we dip fluffy white bread rolls (pav) into saucers of fiery vegetable curry (bhaji). 

Here's Reshma's boss shopping for fresh veg for the lunchtime thali.

When wandering the shady, sandy lanes behind the beach something interesting always takes our eye - ancestral homes painted in deliciously gaudy colours, garden shrines planted with sacred Tulsi (from the basil family), colonies of fruit bats and quirky, hand painted signs.

I had to laugh at the barefaced cheek of the most expensive hang-out joint in town, they'd only gone and nicked a photo from my blog to advertise their bar. I always knew I belonged in Goa.

Armed with bottled water and a bag of fruit, afternoons were spent basking on the beach...

Being townies, we know nothing about cows, they're simply creatures in fields glimpsed from the van window when we're travelling up and down the motorway on the way to vintage fairs. Until we went to Agonda we had no idea that they loved sunbathing and paddling in the sea or galloping along the shore or even that they had a passion for bananas - several times they've mugged us when they've caught a whiff of banana from my beach bag and we've had to forfeit lunch as they won't take no for an answer. In the evenings they'd wander into restaurants and stand beside the tables, staring dolefully at diners with their huge brown eyes until the proprietor sees them off with a squirt from a spray bottle of water . If I wasn't already a lifelong vegetarian after a week here I don't think I'd ever eat beef again. 

After sunset it's time for a quick shower, a rum and coke on the balcony and ponder upon trickiest decision of the day...where shall we eat tonight?  

Me in action! Jon was trying to take my photo when we were in the bar next door to Our Friend's Place but inadvertently pressed the record button on the camera. Middle-aged people and technology, eh?

 After seven nights in Agonda it was time to move on and, as we'd already travelled by plane, train, tuk tuk and ferry it was time we took the bus. I wish British buses played an Indian filmi soundtrack!

See you soon!

Linking to Patti & The Gang for Visible Monday.

More photos of Agonda & Mangalore HERE

On A Shoestring To Coorg - Adventures In Goa & Beyond

As the bus began its ascent through the Western Ghats, the humidity which had lain heavily on our skin like a blanket since we boarded in Mangalore hours earlier vanished and the air felt cool and refreshing. If it wasn't for the monkeys squatting by the roadside & the heady aromas of coffee blossom and cardamom permeating the breeze, our surroundings were so green and lush that we could have been in rural Wales.

In the cardamom forest

This is Coorg, India's smallest state, a remote mountain paradise home to a warrior race widely believed to have descended from Alexander The Great and immortalised in Dervla Murphy's classic, On a Shoestring to Coorg. After reading the book over a decade ago, Murphy's tales of travelling through Southern India with her five year old daughter, staying at no-star hotels and in fisherman's huts, taking peasant buses and boats along the way captivated me, in particular her adventures amongst the coffee plantations of Coorg, where they stayed for months.

It was a bit of a risk, I suppose. A seven-hour journey on a packed passenger train followed by a bumpy four-hour bus ride five thousand feet above sea level just to visit somewhere I'd read about in a forty year-old book. Even the usually helpful Rough Guide only considered Coorg worthy of a single page. 

Wild orchids, coffee beans, pineapples....a tropical paradise

Still, the worst case scenario was a night in a grotty hotel and the next bus out of there.

Raja's Seat - the place to be at sunset.

We needn't have worried. Whilst Coorg isn't on the radar of many Westerners, its a favourite destination for Indian honeymooners who stay in swanky home stays on coffee plantations and in boutique hotels, attracted by the slogan, The Scotland of India. After picking up a map from the tourist information kiosk at the bus station we jumped in an auto rickshaw and, after visiting numerous establishments, finally secured a room in a 1930s hotel in the centre of Madikeri.

Our £5 a night hotel 

For a state capital, Madikeri is tiny and transport is super cheap. We hopped in and out of auto rickshaws all day long and visited most of the highlights on the city map.

The Rough Guide are clearly mad, there's so much to see in Coorg we could easily have spent a fortnight doing something different every day.

We loved exploring the splendidly imposing tombs of the Rajas, built in 1815.

This is Vira Rajendra Wodeyar and his wife who escaped imprisonment in 1788, joining forces with the British and successfully managing to drive out the tyrannical conqueror, Tipu Sultan, from Coorg.

Their daughter, Victoria, was sent to England for an education. She became Queen Victoria's god-daughter, married a British officer and was buried in London after her death at the tender age of 23.

Other than an Indian pop group taking promo shots in gangsta-style poses, we had the grounds to ourselves, there wasn't an admission fee or even a lock on the main entrance.

Just look at the gold-domed roof and the intricate carvings.

After a chance meeting in a bar with a couple of British eco-volunteers, we wangled ourselves lunch and a guided tour around an organic coffee plantation.

Pomelos, cinnamon bark, vanilla pods and a goose employed as a security guard to stop any prospective vanilla thieves!

We trekked through a cardamom forest.

I knew it was a good idea to travel with a pair of boots.

We visited the Omkareshwara Temple, built by in the Indo-Saracenic style by Lingararejendra II in 1820. Legend has it that the king put to death a Brahmin in order to fulfil his political ambitions. After being haunted by guilt he built the temple to appease the gods.

We drank plenty of the local brew, Coorg coffee.

Saw some beautiful people.

And found interesting things on every corner.

This posh planters' club is still going strong but sadly was strictly members only.

We were rendered speechless by the sunset.

We caught the late night showing of the latest Tamil blockbuster "i" (no subtitles!) at the tiny cinema next door to our hotel. We took rum and coke in with us and there was even an interval halfway through the three and a quarter hour show.

And possibly my most favourite thing. Every night, just after sunset, for a mere 5 rupees (5p) the public are treated to a fantastically kitsch water and light show set to Bollywood music.

Coorg was everything we wanted and more, fascinating, diverse and incredibly beautiful but, on a shoestring? Most definitely. We averaged a total spend of £20 a day which included all transport, accommodation in a city centre hotel, admission & entry fees, cinema tickets, breakfast, lunches, coffee stops, beers and dinner in some seriously fancy restaurants.

All too soon it was again time to pack and make the epic 13.5 hour journey to Goa for the final instalment of our month away.

See you soon!

PS For the full set of photos click right HERE.