This was our second trip to India, launched in early October last year (2007) and lasting for two months. My wife Carina and I traveled from Bombay down to a (by comparison) largely uninhabited tourist resort in southern Maharashtra, then by local bus across to Goa and eventually taking the train to the Karnatakan city of Mysore where we attended the annual Dassera festival. After that we made it on up to Ooty in the Nilgiri hills,  then sliding hastily down again to a Tamil town  called Coimbatore and soon enough continuing to Kochin in Kerala where we stayed for a long time knocked out by a pretty nasty flue. Eventually, after visiting a local hospital, we took an inter city taxi to Kollam from where we made an eight hour cruise by boat on the Back- waters up to Allepey and then back down again by bus the following day. After this we spent one week in the lovely sea resort of Varkala before continuing by train, first to Madurai and then to Trichy, both cities in Tamil nadu. Finally we spent a few days in the bustling metropolitan of Chennai and then made a leap by long distance train all the way up to our last stop at Bombay to catch our return flight back to Sweden.

One of several stone carved statues of lord Shiva in the main temple of Elephanta Island, here with a rather terrifying look upon his face and with four fractured arms spread out in the air.

We had a brief scooter adventure lasting only one day, after which we decided to call it quits. Both having the machine breaking down up on the slopes of Chapora fort (which was due to a local gas station tanking up on a mixture of petrol and kerosene) and also getting caught without a license (a document not needed in our part of the world when driving this kind of vehicle) and having to bribe two corrupt police men on the outskirts of Calangute to get us out of a rather messy situation, made us decide we had had enough for one day.

Gate way of India in the southern part of the Bombay peninsula.

 
Click on the NOTES for some hindu inspired music by
In the labyrinth!

Vegetable market in Collaba, Bombay. On our Lonely planet map it said "fish market" though we weren't really so sure about that!

Not only are there dogs acting as beach comers on the Indian sore line but also cattle occasionally grazing the dunes.

To us Kartharli was the perfect escape from the mega city of Bombay, from all the noise and the traffic and indigenous hawkers hassling you on the streets of Collaba. Maybe in years to come, tourists of Goa will finally discover this gem just outside of the beaten track and then the simple but adequate resort run by the Maharashtran government may very well be replaced with con- crete bunkers and commerce sprawling every inch of this sore line. But until then it stands out as one of the hidden pearls of the Indian subcontinent, that is if you're not one of those looking out for the more hefty scene in places like Calangute and Anjuna.

Little crabs lurking  in every part of the Kartharli beach but always quick to dodge down into their sand pits whenever there are feet stepping about their premises. The one to the left I imagine to be a female while the one to the right looks more like a male, or wouldn't you think so? Give him a punch bag and he´ll end up butchering the likes of Mohammed Ali!

Indians love to be photographed, so here is another example where some happy big city tourists  line up around Carina and me. It´s always smiling faces and friendly chatter, questions about where we come from and what are our names and how are we enjoying our stay...

In southern India thalie is part of the standard menu of every local canteen and luncheon and always comes vegetarian. On this occasion in the fishing town of Malvin it wasn´t all that spicy while everywhere we went in Tamil nadu thalies were consistently fiery with chili and laden with fresh coriander for that distinct south Indian flavoring which some tourists find hard to cope with but which Carina and I have over the years learned to love.

In Arambol as in most parts of Goa there are many great places to eat with highly skilled local chefs preparing your dinner. To a price totally unimaginable for anyone living here in Sweden, we could splurge in treats like these tiger prawns and other delicacies. Service is usually very generous and friendly, even at less pricey jaunts.

Arambol´s headland looks quite volcanic, littered as it is with metamorphic rocks and jagged, lava like formations. As in most parts of Goa, nowadays there are masses of tourists coming from Israel, mostly young people dressed in hippy attire or something similar to that.