After a bum-blistering five hour ride on a government bus, we have arrived at our destination of Udupi (pronounced Oo-de-pee). Most tourists take the more luxurious private buses but so far we have enjoyed our rides on the government buses. They play happy (though very tinny and shrill) Indian music and we get the feeling that we are seeing a real glimpse into Indian life as we weave through tiny towns and in between, watch women work in beautifully bright green rice-paddies amidst clever renditions of scarecrows. Magi is particularly fond of passing by lakes with treed islands and never fails to point out each and every one.
Udupi is famous only for it's Krishna temple celebrating the god's incarnation as a sweets-loving child named Rama Krishna. We are staying in a real swanky place (by accident, it was raining and it was the first place we came across). It's costing us about US $6 so it's definitely a splurge but we're only here for one night. It's made even better that there is an excellent veg restaurant attached to the hotel. We stopped there for some great masala dosas and samosas before heading out for a look around town.
We came Udupi only to see the temple and besides, we needed a stopover between our last stop, Gokarna, and our next stop, Cochin. After being in beach resort towns during the monsoon for nearly a week we have decided that we are no longer interested in seeing beaches. Because the towns are nearly deserted, we were met with many one-item menus in dingy joints that were crawling with bugs. It's really hard to enjoy a meal when you can plainly see cockroaches crawling all over the kitchen. In Gokarna, after one particularly (un)memorable meal watching very scrawny kittens crawl around the restaurant's dirt floor looking for any dropped morsel, we walked home underneath dozens of very large screeching bats flying overhead. It was a very eerie evening.
Slowly, we are getting used to the real India. It makes it easier that we are in the south, where the atmosphere has a sense of calmness and where no one has pestered us for money for several days (though I think the staring is worse here where foreigners must be a real rarity). We have grown to really love the squat toilet though we have switched from the traditional cleaning-with-bucket-of-water method to using trusty toilet paper once again. We have gotten used to very frequent power outages and to weaving between huge cow patties in the street. We're getting used to alternating between just two outfits though we could definitely use a washer someday soon.
Anyway, we only have a few stops left in India. Highly anticipated is our next stop, Cochin, in the state of Kerala (famous for its Ayurvedic massages). We are going to be there for several days. We only have 12 nights left in India (but who's counting right?)
tothesea,
k&m