The next part of the trip from the beautiful island of Boipeba, inland, to Lencois.
Fantastic quote by John Thomas ( seriously that was his name) our 84 year old taxi driver, driving at breakneck speed towards Marari:
” my wife, very good cook, not beautiful… but good heart”
As he dropped us off at our home stay he grabbed my hand and felt for my pulse, halfway up my forearm, and said in his very very Indian accent “in two years you rich man, you are healthy, no cancer, your liver good” he then made sure I had his card and told me to call him if we needed a cab tomorrow! He then drove off, hand permanently on his horn, into the madness that is Sunday in Marari.
Indian head shake can mean a myriad of things from: “I don’t know”, “no you can’t take pictures in here” to “yes that would be nice” to “as if I would overcharge you, do I look like a thief?”, add to that “no I don’t know why the internet isn’t working, but it happens all the time so I am used to it anyway”
Unlike the Japanese, who if they don’t know will ask someone, Indians will just make it up
If you ever find yourself in a barbers chair being violently beaten about the head by a short fat man with 70’s hair and moustache, do not fear, this is an Indian head massage. If said short fat man then asks if you want Ayurvedic, a swift kick to the balls should stop the ensuing mint oil fest that will add considerably to your tuk tuk journey home as you won’t be able to hang onto anything as you’ll be completely covered in Ayurvedic oil. At least you’ll smell fresh when they bury you. If he offers you a facial, run.
If you ever go on a backwater boat ride be aware of the following:
When the man in the official department of tourism office says it will be a luxury boat you’ll be thinking aircon, maybe a massage, comfortable seating, maybe a bit of sitar on the sound system and food and drinks, what he actually means it has an engine and should make it all the way around without sinking or breaking down.
When Mr official my arse then says you’ll be stopping at a little restaurant with nice food along the way, what he actually means is you’ll stop at a shack where you’ll ask in a terribly nice way what the gentleman has for lunch, to which the somewhat curt reply will be “fish”, to which you will say “anything else apart form fish?”, “fish” will be the answer, you’re getting the picture here? You will then be given a paper mat, then the food will appear, and all the while you’re looking at the paper mat and waiting for a plate and cutlery. Well wait no more as this is it, the rather large somewhat surly waiter will then pop over, take one look at you and drop your food straight onto the paper mat, he will then depart. It will be at this point that you will look around you and see everyone else is eating with their fingers. Give it a go, what’s the worst that can happen? I’ll tell you what can bloody happen, you end up with food half way up your arms, unlike everyone else around you who, I’m sure, are secretly eating with forks and hiding them every time you look as their fingers and arms are virtually bloody spotless. It is at this point you will invariably remember the golden rule of always washing your hands prior to eating without fail, or you will die!
Tuk tuk drivers in India have lots of things to contend with while driving: dogs, pedestrians and me hanging around their necks.
Indian Tuk tuk drivers do not slow down for rain, pedestrians, cyclists or buses. The only time Claude didn’t even scream when heading straight for a bus was in the back of a tuk tuk as she was too terrified.
The North South divide:
In the the south people just want to know where you come from and your name
In the middle you’ll start to meet beggars and people will try to sell you stuff
In the north sellers expect you to buy stuff
When travelling to India, try spending a couple of weeks in Japan first if you want maximum effect when you arrive. From the sublime to the ridiculous.
There’s a saying that says you can tell a lot about by person by the way they treat people they do not have to be nice to. This is never more evident than in India.
On the Kerala Tamil Nadoo border you can have hours of fun watching cow tennis, this is a great game played by one man and three cows. Firstly the cows will wander over the border from Kerala, only to be chased back across by a man running a stall on the Tamil Nadoo side. Then due to inordinate amount of traffic the cows will gradually wander back across the border, again to be chased back across by the ever angrier man. This can carry on for quite a while until the cows get bored and wander off or the man manages to lead the cows far enough away that they just can’t be bothered to trek all the way back.
Indian safari: take 200 Indians in various forms of attire, all of which are wholly unsuited to a safari. Cram them into ten jeeps, turn the music up so they will be dancing in the back of the jeeps, and send them off up the dirt road to spot animals. An hour later you won’t find any of them on the dirt road any more as they will already be bored as they won’t have spotted any animals so they will have decamped to the restaurant to eat.
Normal safar: wait for all the Indians to leave, have a chai then after about half an hour set off to spot wild elephants, monkeys and giant squirrels. After a while head to the restaurant where you will find more wild animals eating!
Doing a tuk tuk tour: agree on the price beforehand, you will usually have to pay more for the “non” shop tour which is well worth the money as it means you won’t be stopping at every “government” shop on the way round. The tuk tuk drivers stop at these shops with tourists as they get a lunch or petrol voucher every time they bring people. Unfortunately for the unsuspecting tourist, one of these shops is akin to having a randy dog on your leg as the shop assistants will not leave you alone until you buy something. I saw an English couple looking like they had had the life blood sucked out of them by the ground floor, they still had another four floors to go! The more English you are about it the more they will grind you down until you buy their extortionately priced goods.
The only orderly queues we ever saw were outside bottle shops, no wonder Kerala wants to become a dry state!
The further north you go the more aggressive the beggars, guides and crap sellers become
The guides will ask where you are from then will regale you with the few words they know:
French: “bonjour” followed by “ooh la la”
Italian: “ciao”
Once you have become life long friends through this wonderful connection you now have, they will then expect you to want their guided services and will take it quite personally when you say you do not require their vastly overpriced services.
The crap sellers:
“Hello sir” whilst shoving a variety of things under your nose “nice necklace, only one thousand rupees”, when you politely decline they get more insistent ” why you no want? Nice necklaces” and so it will go until you finally get into your taxi, but they will still be tapping at the window as you drive away.
Beggars:
Will just say “naaaaa” “naaaaa” at you a lot
Once hotel porters find out you’re a bit of a tipper, when you arrive, you will find yourself with three porters putting your two bags in the boot of the taxi the following morning. When you give then 100 rupees they will have no problem pointing out that there are three of them, then they will stand there looking indignantly at you holding their hands out.
Airport security is bad enough, but when it is run by the army you’re asking for trouble.
India is becoming a first world economy but with a third world mentality
When boarding a tuk tuk always negotiate the price beforehand, although this does not mean the rate is not up for renegotiation once the destination is reached due to: “it is 700 rupees not 500 as I have to go back empty” “it was 14 kms”
On average airport announcements, in India, will make twelve “absolute final” announcements for late passengers before finally giving up
The Hindu times is only beaten to second place by the daily mail in its ability to distort reality to suit its articles.
In India a tourist and his money are soon parted
On August 12th, we arrived in La Paz bus station at 2pm. The express bus that did the trip from Puno only stopped for the Bolivian border. The Bolivian border crossing has a very bad reputation and we had dreaded that stop . We had heard and read lots of comments on blogs and website on how the bolivian custom agents can find ways to extort your money, hold you back a number of hours or find something wrong with your paperwork; we were on our guards. We had to get down the bus and go into the Peruvian side to get our exit stamp, walk across the bridge/border together with hundreds of locals carrying stacks of mobile phone boxes, toilet paper packs, soft drinks, and all sort of black market products loaded on hand karts. On the other sides we queued for 1h to enter a very sad building, with an overwhelming stench of pee, and where old ladies, were squatting down begging. Thus were the corridors of the Bolivian border offices: a reflection of what was about to come? Getting the stamp was straight forward, no questions asked, no luggage search, we were through, safe and sound for now…
We got to La Paz around 2pm that day, we had 3 hours before our next bus: a nightbus to Uyuni and the salt lake. We had decided to go at the last minute. We had given up on the idea and thought it would be too much of a rush, but after meeting Marina in Brazil and then Benjamin in Aguas Calientes who had been raving about the place, we decided to go for it. We only had 24h but we would visit the salt lakes of Uyuni. With the help of Lipiko Tours, a travel agency based in La Paz, we booked an overnight bus trip to the little town, we will be there at 6am, have time for breakfast, take a day tour to the lake, the train cemetery, the Cacti Island, be back for 5pm and take the return night bus to La Paz the same evening. I was wondering if the boys would cope.
So here we were in La Paz at 2pm, met with the travel agent, got the vouchers, and just had time for a lovely lunch at La Casona’s Cafe, a gorgeous little café on the ground of a gorgeous hotel. Perfect refreshment stop.
At 5pm we were back at the bus station. We expected a luxury bus to spend the night in. Instead we settled in a not so clean, tall bus deprive of all luxury but offering reclining seats. To our avail, a thick blanket. We were about to spend the next 10 hours in the bus.
We hit the road Bolivian style, the bus forcing his way through the thick traffic, turning 3 lanes into 4 leaving merely a couple of inches between vehicles.
We reach rough roads soon after leaving the city, which hardly slows down the bus. Soon the rough road turns into mud roads and for so it will be for the rest of the trip. As night fell, we fell asleep with the rocking and roaring of the bus. As at night went by, the temperature dropped and the path used as road was full of holes and bumps, sharp turns, with no lighting or signage! It felt like a roller coaster ride in the dark!
As dawn rose, we woke up from our shaky sleeps to find frost all over the windows, the temperature over night reaches -10 at this altitude. The sky filled with beautiful colours and as the first rays appeared the air slowly warmed up. The land is arid, a moon like surface, a yellow desert with mud houses. Rock, sand, earth surrounds us as we reach the little town.
We got to Uyuni at 7am and walked through the deserted town in search of a cafe. Once refreshed, and our stomach lined with food, we walked in the fresh air and the warm sunrays towards the travel agency. The place was already buzzing with tourists -Europeans mostly- getting ready to go. With the chaos, we seemed to have been forgotten and our departure was delayed nearly 30 mn. An old man was allocated as our driver/guide, which wasn’t an issue until we realise that he couldn’t see well and instead of following the path of the other cars, he would take a wider, safer route. Our first stop was at the train cemetery, an area where old relics of trains were left to rust. Not of must historical interest but certainly an interesting landscape to photograph. Our driver, who was also due to be our guide, left us half a mile away from the spot, pointed at the site and told us we had 10mn, we expected a little more from our driver / guide and decided to return to the agency to get a proper guide. We had called the agent in la paz to tell him so by the time we got to the local agent, the lady in charge was clearly unhappy. As we asked for a younger driver/guide we were straight away accused of discrimination. Our queries turned very quickly in accusations and before we knew it, she was threatening to call the police, the one thing I would avoid in Bolivia. As we challenged her with this, we called the agent in La Paz who could hear the screams and hysteria in the background, the woman now accusing her to hit her (an entire desk was separating us), and as we smiled at her hysteria and exaggerations, she carrying on saying we were abusing her! After a light night sleep, this is not exactly what we had in mind. She called on to her 2 colleagues as witnesses and as I could see the situation was getting dangerously twisted, we decided to leave straight away.
We had to wait a couple of hours before another guide was sent to us, but it was worth it. Our new Guide was very gentle and kind and was a proper guide. She managed to squeeze the program of the day in half one, although still a little shaky about the whole experience.
We reached the lake, dry at this time of year, very quickly. It is dry season here so the ground is dry and has a honeycombed pattern to it, which is due to the expansion of the salt as it dries. Absolutely amazing. hundreds of square kilometres of the beautiful landscape, and this 6m deep! We visited La Isla Pescado, or Cactus Island, an island covered in cacti, an impressive sight in the middle of the lake; The Salt Hotel, a beautiful piece of architecture exclusively made with salt bricks and wood; a salt family factory, and it was time to head back!
The return trip felt even more epic that the way in as we were sat right at the front of the bus, thus witnessing the madness of the driving. Rj felt sick to his stomach at the site of the road and hardly managed to sleep as if every bent and down hill was an eminent danger, but we got ‘home’ save and sound once more and pleased to have got out of this incredible experience. A beautiful day that will not be forgotten!
We spent the following 3 days in La Paz. A mass of concrete, sat in a pollution cloud, jammed inside a valley and crawling up the hillsides all around it. The traffic is mad, the city is busy and from above must look like an ants nest. The side streets are narrow, often steep, and twirly. But La Paz has a lot of charms and Rj falls in love instantly.
We stayed in a hostel in a central popular area in town. Nearby is the beautiful San Francisco church, lots of tourists shops where you can buy extremely cheap Bolivian textiles, alpaca items and antiques and relics. A couple of streets from us is the famous witch market: narrow cobbled streets lined with little shops where straw baskets and wooden tables display the oddest items: dried alpaca foetus, dried alpaca legs, herbs, shells, claws, bottles with strange mixtures, sweet looking foods in fluorescent colour…The little shops wall are covered with shelves full of mixes and potions, boxes with unknown contents and on the tables outside are displayed some ‘packages’ on offer: a gift wrap containing a selection of fake food, fake money, a bottle (of alcohol?), an alpaca leg…These gifts seem to be made to measure to make the perfect charm, depending on what you want to wish the receiver, good or bad! There are queues in some of the shops, people coming to have their potions made: for health, for love, money, success…
A couple of streets down the road, to satisfy our taste for non touristy spots, we venture in the popular food market, recommended by a local guide for the best local food available. It is a big building with 4 floors, completely open, like a car park. Inside 2 little alleys follow the sloppy road up the building, alongside which hundreds of little stalls serving local dishes (soups, fried meats, eggs, rice) and all sort of simple but delicious food. Others offer cut fruits, some fresh juices, we are spoilt for choice. We finally settle (we have 4 opinions to take into account which make decision making tricky sometimes!) for a little place offering a noodle soup. As we sit down on the benches amongst the locals already eating, the lady brings us a massive soup bowl, as well as a plate full of rice, fried egg and panned beef. We are so full! All that for £1.2 each.
As we stroll through the streets, we come across an old lady squatting and relieving herself on the edge of the pavement, her long traditional black skirt hiding her privacy. What a sight! The boys found that hilarious!
We didn’t venture much further in La Paz or Bolivia, by lack of time, sadly. As we left La Paz we flew above the Atacama desert, the sights were amazing and we would love to go back and take time to visit the country, maybe one day….
A little tour around the World 