Seaside surrounded by women

OK, that’s more dramatic and egotistical than it sounds. The girl I met at KFC the other night invited me for an afternoon out with one of her friends and her daughter. We were also joined by another girl from my dorm to make up a nice fivesome for a trundle over to Hillary’s Boat Harbour – Kathryn, Madelaine, Anne, Toni and myself.

The weather was great and the Harbour lovely to visit. It’s very much a family day out kind of place with lots for kids to do. A couple of pegged-off bays are available for shallow and safe swimming, trampolines, crazy golf, restaurants and shops. To be honest, we didn’t do a whole heck of a lot but that’s what lazy Sundays are all about!

I got my first dose of HP Sauce in longer than I can remember with a basket of chips and overdosed on fat with a strawberry thick shake then spent $65 on a snorkel to go with my dive mask. Not bad – it was cheaper than the same product in Cairns.

The hours really flew by as we dawdled around trying to make sure Madelaine didn’t get lost before Anne dropped Toni and I back off at the Hat. Tonight’s plan is to catch Smokin’ Aces at the cheap cinema in town before an early night as I have to get up at 6:30 if I want breakfast before my dive tomorrow.

Later that evening

Smokin’ Aces: strong cast, good acting, not a great story, painful twist at the end and incredibly jumpy filming. Not hugely enjoyable. Shame.

Oh my belly

Bad start to the morning when I slept in and didn’t make it to the ferry to meet Ngaire and her sister. As it turns out, they were as rough as I was and admitted they’d have been bad company anyway! Plus, I discovered today that I can’t get a ferry to the island and then go diving – I have to book the entire trip in Perth first.

I was turfed unceremoniously out of bed at 10:30 as I had to change rooms. In fairness, checkout is 10:00 here so I was given a lie-in, and they were very polite about it! My new room is only 3 beds (one bunk, one single – mine) and therefore a few bucks dearer. It’s nice enough, as are all the rooms here. After doing the guest house/hotel thing with Hans for the last two months, it makes a nice change to be hostelling again with all the associated chatting to strangers.

I wandered up to the local Coles to get some food – beans, bread and milk. Oh, how I’ve missed cold milk! Back at the Hat, I got talking to a chap from Hawaii for a while as I attempted to eat my meal and failed dismally. My tummy just wasn’t playing ball! I drank plently, though. I assume I was more dehydrated than I thought.

My to-do list was quite impressive when I wandered into town and I forgot to take the package with me that I wanted to mail. D’oh. Not to worry. Postcards bought and stamped – they’ll be in the mail tomorrow. I had a good wander. Perth centre is pretty easy to navigate round. It’s not big and it’s a grid, making it hard to get lost. Appearance-wise I’d plop it somewhere between Melbourne and Cairns. If you’ve been to both, you’d understand!

Down by the river, the most noticeable landmark is the building housing the Swan Bells. A strange structure looking like a glass spire surrounded by curved wings. It contains several bells and is “probably the largest musical instrument in the world”. How it’s different to a church tower – and there are larger church towers – I don’t know. I need to do some reading!

To kill some time, I went to see Hannibal Rising which wasn’t as mind-rendingly awful as the earlier Hannibal. Mind, it was nowhere near as good as Silence of the Lambs. Thomas Harris should have stopped while he was ahead. Well-made and well-acted, but it could have been any old thriller but they somehow managed to shoe-horn Lecter in.

Oh, I also managed to get my Oz phone charged up again. If you want the number, just ask for it. I used it to ring my cousin in Brisbane but she wasn’t in – instead I got talking to her mum (my aunt) who’s visiting now! With any luck I’ll see her next month before she flies home.

Back to the hostel and I sat chatting to a German couple and a Swiss girl, then an Irish and a Scots lad joined us. Dinner was KFC – there’s one near and I couldn’t resist. By the time I got there, the restaurant was closed and I had to pretend to be a car at the drive-through. This happened to Matt and I in Stoke one night many years ago. Difference was that this time I got talking to a lass in the queue who was there with her daughter to get some popcorn chicken. I now have a guide around Perth tomorrow! Aussies are just so damn friendly!

So it looks like my plan tomorrow is to wander the town with Kathryn. As long as she knows all the cheap shops and tourist attractions, I’m laughing.

Bollywood! No! Bust!

We pulled into Mumbai at around 6am, only to find we were at the wrong station – or at least not the one we’d hoped for. Our train was bound for CST, but ended up in Dadar (the next one out) due to engineering works.

As we needed to store our luggage somewhere more convenient, we hopped in a cab to complete our journey. This was annoying in two ways: the train journey is charged per kilometre, so we’d already paid for the final leg and we won’t get that back (though it’s only pennies); the taxi ripped us off. The journey was barely 20 minutes, the metre read “273” and the driver pulled out a posh laminated card which “converted” this to 546Rp. Far, far higher than can possibly be right.

Even given antisocial hours and so on, we argued. But with another taxi driver in the cab and exhaustion most definitely not on our side, we caved, paid up and hauled our luggage out. Inside the station, we asked someone and they reckon the journey should have been nearer 30Rp. Mind, it was a posh laminated card.

Luggage storage was an incredibly reasonable 10Rp per item per 24 hours. Much cheaper than Sydney Airport where it worked out barely cheaper than getting a hostel for the night. We dropped our stuff and went for a walk into Coloba where the travel agent was situated. Today’s visit was mainly to pick up flight tickets.

Indian cities are utterly different during the early hours. Mumbai is like a ghost town at 7am. Hardly anywhere opens their doors before 10am, though shop traders start setting things up from around 9:00. From the station to Regal Circle took us about 15 minutes, though whenever we asked for directions people just told us to get a taxi as it was “very far”. This was the same response we got every time we asked people how to get anywhere during the day. Every destination was “20 minutes’ walk” even when we’d already followed one set of directions, walked half way and were just confirming our trajectory.

Thankfully, one place opened early. Leopold’s, where we’d eaten last time, does breakfast from 7:30 so we chatted with a German and an Austrian (and the friendliest cat in India) outside until the shutters lifted. I had a chicken pancake and Koochi (if I remember correctly) juice for breakfast while we kicked out heels for the travel agent to open. A couple of the aforementioned shop owners could we watched outside slowly setting up their stalls. Agonizingly slowly in the case of the sunglasses salesman who took a whole minute to pick out, polish and mount each set of glasses.

Shortly before 10:00, we ambled along to the shop and found it open and our tickets put to one side. Both sets were in envelopes with our names, the details and information regarding checkin times helpfully printed on the front. Top notch service. The staff also knew where the nearby Inox cinema was, so we got directions before popping online for 90 minutes to kill some more time.

Then the annoying happened. Not one but two people asked us if we wanted to be extras in a Bollywood film. But we had to be available tomorrow and our flight to Calcutta was at 8:30pm tonight! Argh! Where were the talent scouts last time we were in the city! Global megastardom so close… yet so far. Damn and blast!

The walk to the cinema didn’t take too long (though, according to the people we kept asking should have taken 40 minutes) and we got tickets for Blood Diamond before settling in for lunch at the next door Ruby Tuesday restaurant. This was the only choice for food in the immediate vicinity, and they’re milking this fact with the most ludicrous prices I think we’ve paid for a meal in India. The menu prices are insane, then there’s 12.5% tax and then they put a service charge on top. Ouch. For two soft drinks, a plate of cheesey chips and a margharita pizza the bill came to over 690Rp. The same meal on the beach in Palolem would have been less than half that amount.

This was counteracted slightly by the cheap fare in the cinema. A decent sized Coke and salty popcorn is only 75Rp, making them a virtually mandatory purchase. And the film was good. Damn good. Go see it.

I don’t like Leonardo deCaprio. OK, he was good in Catch Me If You Can but he was also in Titanic which was awful. All is forgiven with this film, though. The action scenes are jaw-dropping and scary as all hell. Imagine a cross between Hotel Rwanda and Saving Private Ryan with a huge dash of City of God thrown in. The other performances are OSCAR-deserving, frankly.

Hans erupted from the cinema like a tornado as soon as the credits came up as he’d been dirnking too much Coke, and we walked back to the train station (you guessed it – 20 minutes) and on the way collected a Bangladesh Lonely Planet and – finally – a decent Indian flag sew-on patch. If anyone finds a good quality Sri Lankan one, could you let me know? I couldn’t find one anywhere when I was over!

We collected our bags and – after checking how much we should be paying – jumped into a taxi to the airport. Ninety minutes later and 400 Rupees lighter (after refusing the “extra luggage fee” pleas) we strode into the Domestic terminal and checked in nice and quickly.

A short email check, a chicken ball sandwich (don’t ask – it was about as appetising as it sounds), Snickers and Snapple later and we were ready to board the flight. Deccan Air uses the “free seating” policy, so we nabbed two on the emergency exit row. In exchange for ripping a door out of the wall in the event of us plummeting into a mountain, I get the added bonuses of being the first one out and also of extra legroom. I’m more likely to be able to run away from the burning wreckage as the seat in front won’t have crushed my ankles to powder. Handy, that.

I slept for most of the flight, and prevented anyone else doing so by snoring. Well, that’s Hans’ story anyway. I still think he’s wrong and I don’t snore. As we have agreed, this is my trip. It’s my blog. And I’m always right. Hans snores, I don’t. End of.

At Calcutta / Kolkata (take your pick) we queued for a pre-paid taxi and settled in for another mystery ride into another of India’s largest cities. The worst part is, it was a mystery ride for the driver as well, who had to stop and ask directions umpteen times. In between stops for information he kept asking for “one dollar tip?”, assuming that Hans was American.

After doubling back on ourselves twice, we finally got to the hotel Hans selected (yes, I’m blaming him – only because I can. It’s my blog…) and checked in, leaving an annoyed taxi driver outside with his palm outstretched, likely cursing all tourists. Frankly, I wish he’d got lost and we’d ended up somewhere else instead. The Gulistan Guest House is a dive. Our room’s pokey, the bed’s dirty, there’s no shower and the TV doesn’t have a picture. It’s 450Rp a night and overpriced by about 250 in my reckoning. Still, we have until midday tomorrow to find somewhere else.

Right now, all I want to do is zonk out.

Movies!

Our second and final day in Bangalore was another rusharound. We went via Prashant’s office to try and cancel our train ticket for tomorrow night, but the web site was down. It stayed down all day, so when we finally did cancel it we were into another “penalty” timeframe so it cost us more. Grr.

After this, we walked to a nearby mall and checked out the cinema times. The only convenient film was Stormbreaker which I fancied anyway, so we picked up tickets for the afternoon performance.

A quick tuk-tuk ride took us to the city park where we wandered for a short while before walking back into the city centre, grabbing some lunch and then heading splitting up. Hans went to take photos of some old buildings, I went online for two hours to clear some backlog!

After this, we met back up at the cinema and picked up some nice cheap salty popcorn and artificially flavoured beverage (which the label tells us “contains no fruit”) and settled in to watch the film.

Things to note based on my experience of one movie in India: Cinemas are glitzy, comfy and cheap. Food is good and cheap. People talk on their phones right through the performance and as you’re in a foreign country, you can’t really kill them unless you’re planning on leaving soon anyway. There is an intermission around halfway through, and the film starts again with no real warning.

Specifically, Stormbreaker was a pretty good film. Very much Bond Jr., with a superb cast. Bill Nighy was his usual excellent self, Stephen Fry was outstanding in his small part as the “Q” equivalent and Robbie Coltrane was earily prophetic as the bumbling, overweight Scots Prime Minister. Be scared – vote Labour in again and we could have one of these in real life in two years.

Plotwise, it was nothing amazing. But neither is Bond. Stuntwise, it was over the top. But so is Bond. The women were hot. Bond. It was silly. Bond. And so on. Only the dialogue was a little simpler and it’s centred around a fourteen year old boy. I’m hoping they adapt some more of the novels.

We didn’t have too much time after the film, so we headed back to Prashant’s for a quick bite to eat before he sorted us out an autorickshaw to the travel office where we would catch our next bus. This one another overnighter to Margao in Goa, and a lot more comfy than the previous bus. Our tickets were “sleeper” ones, so we were alloted a “bed unit” between us which was just big enough for two pygmies who knew each other intimately. Hans couldn’t sleep in it anyway, as he fell out into the walkway every time we made a sharp right turn, so I got that area to myself while he zonked out in a reclining seat further forward.

There were a couple of stops for toilet and food, though nowhere we could get a meal. I nibbled on my ginger biscuits which kept me going through the night. On the whole not a bad journey, though our next long-haul ones are all by train.