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JoeLea’s Indian Adventure
  • JoeLeas Adventures

JoeLea’s Indian Adventure

We’re celebrating Joe’s 60th birthday by driving an auto-rickshaw from Jaisalmer to Kerala, India. We’ve got 14 days to make it from start to finish, with every adventure imaginable en route. Les mer
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    27. desember 2022
    JoeLeas AdventuresJoeLea’s Indian AdventureReisende

    The Rickshaw Run - Some Background

    1. desember 2022, Forente stater ⋅ ⛅ 3 °C

    It was 2020. Some time in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic time where everything just seemed pretty dismal. We were on the back deck, sipping cocktails after a harrowing day of working at home. We had dressed up. He was wearing a tux and a top hat, and I was wearing a fabulously colorful sleeveless gown. I think it was a Wednesday.

    “Hey honey”, I asked. “You’ll be turning 60 in January of 2023. Assuming the entire world hasn’t disintegrated by then, how would you like to celebrate your 60th birthday?”

    He looked at me in his sly kind of way. I could tell he was ready to talk to me about something he had been thinking about for weeks or months, which happens often with Joe.

    “I’d like to drive an auto-rickshaw across India,” he said, with an amazingly straight face.

    I stared at him. We had been at home together for weeks in COVID quarantine so I assumed this was some kind of joke to enlighten the despair we had all been living with.

    “That’s pretty funny,” I replied.

    “No, I’m serious,” he responded, eyes twinkling.

    The thing about Joe is that he rarely says things he doesn’t mean. Well, he never says things he doesn’t mean.

    And so it began.    Les mer

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    What about toilet paper?

    13. desember 2022, Forente stater ⋅ ☁️ 9 °C

    Our trip to India, organized by The Adventurists, is just over two weeks away. We’re mowing through our trip preparation checklist – Indian tourist visa (check), International Driver’s Permit (check – complete farse but that’s another blog post), travel insurance (check), waterproof luggage (arriving this week), minimal clothing that all dries quickly (still shopping). Shoes. Medications and ways to combat bug bites (in progress). A stick to poke at cows and buffalo that might be on the road (check – also another blog post).

    Here’s my question. What do we do about toilet paper? Or about going to the bathroom in general? I still have post-COVID stress disorder from the fact that there was a world-wide run on toilet paper for the first six months of 2020. So generally have a phobia about even thinking about toilet paper. Do we pack rolls and rolls of it in plastic zip lock bags to make sure it doesn’t get wet? Do we get stacks of packages of tissues? Something reusable (yuck)?

    What do people in India do when they are driving cross country? Are there gas stations and places to stop for a bio break? What if there aren’t? What do you do? What if we get Delhi belly and need to make frequent stops? So many questions. No answers quite yet.    Les mer

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    All I want for Christmas…

    25. desember 2022, Forente stater ⋅ ☀️ 0 °C

    …is waterproof luggage.

    Ho Ho Ho! It’s Christmas Day, the happiest day of the year. The presents are all wrapped and under the tree, and we’re getting ready for the annual Feast of the Seven Fishes (an Italian American tradition apparently, but that’s a different blog post).

    Shopping for Christmas gifts was a bit strange this year because of all the planning and purchasing we’ve been doing for the Rickshaw Run. There was “not India gifts” and “India gifts”. And some of the stuff had to be purchased well in advance to ensure it was all ready for our post-Christmas week departure time.

    Especially the luggage, which we put a great deal of thought into. Essentially, what is needed is something waterproof, dust proof, thief proof, and small enough to strap onto the top of the rickshaw. And it has to be able to be secured in case we tip over, cross through large bodies of water, collide with a buffalo, or need to leave the rickshaw alone while we are searching for food, water, accommodations, or a toilet.

    This is not a product endorsement for Outdoor Research products and I’m unfortunately not getting paid to praise their luggage, but the duffel bags that we did get are pretty awesome. Waterproof, with cool separate compartments on the ends you can put your stinky shoes, grimy undergarments, curry stained shirts and smelly socks in them until you can wash it all somewhere on the way.

    So, we haven’t unwrapped any “non India” presents quite yet, but the duffel bags are a thumbs up.    Les mer

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    Turning left…

    26. desember 2022, Forente stater ⋅ ☀️ 7 °C

    Last night Joe and I decided to watch one of our favorite movies - The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It’s a lovely film about a bunch of elderly British people in various circumstances who decide to relocate to a hotel for those in their golden years in India (Jaipur). The hotel, marketed as a high end sort of retirement destination, is actually in a “state of development” that doesn’t meet their expectations.

    The characters, including the hotel’s young proprietor, develop through the story as they adjust to the change in their circumstances and other challenges. One of the most miserable of the lot, who in the end leaves her husband and heads back to the UK, at one point en route exclaims how grateful she is that she and her husband “turned left” when they boarded their flight from London. Meaning how happy she was that they were sitting in first class. When she suddenly decides to leave her marriage and go home, she exclaims again that she is “turning left” again. This time it has a very different meaning.

    We all “turn left” sometimes in life. And these are the times of our greatest growth. Whether it is leaving a relationship, changing a job or career, or boarding a plane for a great adventure into the unknown, these are the times where fear and excitement seem almost like the same thing.

    That’s what we’re doing today. Turning left…    Les mer

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    Last glass of ice…maybe…

    27. desember 2022, Forente stater ⋅ ⛅ 0 °C

    So here we are at John F. Kennedy airport getting ready to board our flight to Paris. Thankfully we are “turning left” when we get on the plane.

    I am enjoying a glass of ice. All of the travel guides say that you shouldn’t put ice in your drinks when you are in India. Joe says that as well. Botulism or something.

    Okay. Albeit we will have a few hours in Paris tomorrow prior to the flight to Delhi so I may eat some ice there as well but regardless I am eating and sipping ice water. I am not sure why. That all seems very fatalistic somehow. So I am weirdly eating ice which I never do. I mean, it has no taste. And I have sensitive teeth, which makes it all more unpleasant.

    We’ll connect again from Paris. Have some ice tonight in our honor. :)    Les mer

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    Foie gras

    28. desember 2022, Frankrike ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C

    We flew in business class (Delta points cashed in wooo) on Air France from New York to Paris overnight. I love business class. You can lie down. There are frequent glasses of decent French wines handed to you. And the entree includes foie gras.

    I don’t want to get into how foie gras is made. That’s extremely cruel and you can read about how terrible it is on PETA’s website. But the culinary art of stuffing ducks and geese with food to enlarge their liver and eat that as a delicacy is actually thousands of years old. As early as 2500 BC, the ancient Egyptians learned that many birds could be fattened through forced overfeeding and began this practice.

    Anyways I digress. I happily ate the foie gras and sipped my Champagne and managed to get an hour of real sleep.

    That flight ended many hours ago but I am still experiencing the foie gras. It is sitting in my stomach like a rock. Like a little passenger who is there reminding me of how stupid I was to eat it.

    Now we are preparing to take off to Delhi, and I am worried about what curry and foie gras might be like together in my stomach and how that is going to feel in 12 hours.

    They have it on the menu on this flight but I am going to pass this time. Lesson learned.    Les mer

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    Blue cows and gingerbread

    29. desember 2022, India ⋅ ⛅ 12 °C

    I don’t know how to say hallelujah in Hindi but if I did I would say that right now. We made it and most importantly so did our luggage! Delhi airport was very efficient and everybody was very polite.

    Thanks to some local friends we had arranged for an airport pickup through our hotel, where we are going to be for the next 36 hours. On the way out of the airport area we saw a nilgai on the side of the road. Our driver Ajay, who is very knowledgeable about auto rickshaws as it turns out, said we were very lucky to see the nilgai as they aren’t commonly seen in Delhi.

    What’s a nilgai you say? Well, it’s a sturdy thin-legged antelope common across the Indian sub-continent that has a sloping back, a deep neck with a white patch on the throat, a short crest of hair along the neck terminating in a tuft, and white facial spots. Think of it as an Indian deer, I guess. In Hindi it translates as Blue Cow. It was a treat to see that. I unfortunately didn’t get a photo since it was pretty dark.

    This part of Delhi still has a lot of Christmas decorations and lights all over the place. Our hotel is no exception. There is a massive gingerbread structure in the lobby which was pretty much the last thing I expected to see here.

    So, a blue cow and gingerbread house in our first five hours in the country. That’s good juju.    Les mer

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    The Art Market scheme

    29. desember 2022, India ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    We had some time this morning to explore the area around our hotel, and the India Gate was only a 10 minute walk away.

    The India Gate stands as a memorial to 84,000 soldiers of the British Indian Army who died between 1914 and 1921 in the First World War, in France, Flanders, Mesopotamia, Persia, East Africa, Gallipoli and elsewhere in the Near and the Far East, and the Third Anglo-Afghan War. 13,300 servicemen's names, including some soldiers and officers from the United Kingdom, are inscribed on the gate. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the gate is often compared to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. It is pretty spectacular.

    A few interesting things happened when we were there.

    There were throngs of school kids on organized tours there. That in itself wasn’t notable. What was fascinating to me is the fact that I must have been asked to pose for a selfie with middle school boys about 10 times. Must be the blond hair. This place will be great for my ego.

    We also met one of the workers at our hotel who had served us breakfast earlier that morning. He was on his break and was also walking around the neighborhood. He noticed us and was very friendly and talked about his sister who lives in Buffalo and how cold it was there last week. He kept telling us he didn’t want anything from us, which was nice. And he kept suggesting we should go and visit the Art Market, which he said had nice handicrafts from all across India. No need to buy anything, he said. Just nice to look.

    Joe was skeptical. But Miss Friendly Pants (me) said yes, yes, let’s go because I didn’t want to refuse his hospitality and it sounded interesting and we had some time on our hands. So off we went. We started walking and then climbed into a nice auto rickshaw that he offered to pay for and headed to the famous Art Market.

    Which turned out to be a highly organized scheme where local guys con foreigners to come into a shop and buy stuff. I had noticed that on the way there he was on his phone a few times. I thought maybe he was telling his wife how he met people who knew where Buffalo was.

    Turns out he must have been prepping the horde of salespeople at the shop who were waiting like hyenas to sell us everything from tailored suits to pashminas to jewelry to tea and spices to carved elephants.

    Joe says now he could see it all unfolding and knew we were going to get fleeced. I now have a very nice set of pearl earrings and matching necklace that I really hope were truly made in Rajasthan. For not so bad a price, a portion of which likely went into our friend’s pocket.

    And we got a free auto rickshaw ride out of it. So there’s that.    Les mer

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    The Festivity Desk

    30. desember 2022, India ⋅ ⛅ 12 °C

    Every hotel should have a Festivity Desk.

    There is one in our hotel. We aren’t quite sure what the lovely young man sitting there actually does, because nobody talks to him. There is already a Concierge desk in the lobby and they are extremely helpful with restaurant reservations, car pickups, airline related stuff, touristy recommendation stuff, etc.

    There is also another set of desks where you can sit and talk to other people about stuff you need help with and to pay for your room.

    So we just aren’t sure what the purpose of the Festivity Desk is, but the guy there sure looks happy. Maybe it’s because he gets paid to smile at people and nobody asks him questions. And his desk has a sign on it.

    He was really pleased that I talked to him and asked to take his picture. That in itself was a very festive experience.

    Off to the airport to head to Jaisalmer. This is getting real now.    Les mer

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    Sun Salutations and an Old Plane

    30. desember 2022, India ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

    It didn’t hit me, a yoga lover and practitioner for many years, that I am in the country that invented yoga, until I saw a huge statue in the Delhi domestic flight terminal this morning of a child doing the 12 poses of the Sun salutation. It’s the bodily prayer one can make every morning to thank the God of the Sun, and is core to any yoga practice.

    What a lovely statue to have in an airport. There was a little description on the bottom of it encouraging people to do yoga. Love it.

    We are on a very old airplane now, sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off to Jaisalmer. It is pretty foggy today but we’re hopeful the pilot has some sort of navigation system up front. We met two Aussies and six Americans ( all guys) who are also doing the Rickshaw Run who are on the same flight. One of the American kids is from Woodcrest, New Jersey, which is a development really close to where Joe grew up. The kid couldn’t believe that Joe was from Cherry Hill. He kept saying that and throwing out names to see if Joe knew them.

    What we’ve realized is that we are so far the oldest people here. Like a mother and father figure, maybe? No, maybe a crazy uncle and aunt, is more like it.    Les mer

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    2

    Mona Lisa Smile

    30. desember 2022, India ⋅ 🌙 20 °C

    We’re in Jaisalmer and staying in a hotel within the walls of the Fort for the next two days until we begin the Run. The hotel is an old residence built in 1400 and the descendants of the original owners are still living here and are managing the hotel.

    Jaisalmer Fort is situated in the city of Jaisalmer, in the north western Indian state of Rajasthan. It is believed to be one of the very few "living forts" in the world as nearly one fourth of the old city's population still resides within the fort. For the better part of its 860-year history, the fort was the city of Jaisalmer. The first settlements outside the fort walls, to accommodate the growing population of Jaisalmer, are said to have come up in the 17th century.

    This place is incredible. It is amazing that 28,000 people are living in this ancient structure, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The only vehicles allowed in here are motorcycles and their drivers bomb around through tiny narrow streets honking their horns and literally club into you if you don’t get out of the way.

    The lobby of this hotel is a testament to its history. The photos of the ancestors are on the walls. They have a little temple in the lobby where they leave daily offerings.

    The most interesting thing we experienced when we checked in was that the proprietor, the great great great grandson of one of the original owners, was really proud of the fact that he had two Mona Lisa portraits in his lobby. The original one (a copy, obviously) and her Indian cousin.

    The ancient world still lives on here.    Les mer

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    Jiminy Crickets…

    31. desember 2022, India ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C

    We spent the last day of 2022 doing Rickshaw Run Training and Orientation, recovering from that, attending the launch party and celebrating New Year’s Eve. I have no words.

    Well, I guess I do.

    It was an overwhelming cacophony of chaos, noise and dust mixed with a plunge into a state of extreme anxiety as it became crystal clear to us what we have committed to do. That was all mixed up with meeting a lot of extremely interesting people from all around the world who are just as crazy as we are. We attended the launch party that evolved into basically a disco for all of the under 30 something’s who are here. Then we ended the year sitting on the top of the roof of our hotel together drinking a much needed bottle of wine and watching the fireworks and feeling grateful for all of the blessings we experienced in 2022.

    Let’s start with the auto rickshaw training part. We met our mighty steed (name tbd), decorated as we had requested with the colors of the Italian flag and Forza Volpe ( Go Strong Volpe) on the front and the Sicilian flag on the back in honor of Joe’s heritage, and a number 60 on the side for his birthday. It’s basically a baking tin with a motor and wheels. Four gears, clutch on left handle, throttle on right. Brake under right foot.

    We couldn’t figure out how to start it for about an hour. Then we realized the gas line wasn’t open. By then all of the other way more mechanically inclined drivers were racing around the dirt training track. There was dust everywhere and people shouting and screaming and all of the social media savvy people using their Go Pros and selfie sticks and whatever else.

    There are 65 rickshaws on this tour. The designs - how people requested them to be painted - were so wonderfully creative. That’s another post entirely.

    When we got into the rickshaw to start driving it we realized that we had a stowaway on board - a huge grasshopper that we named Jiminy Cricket was sitting on the inside of the roof. We decided that Jiminy was God giving us a good luck sign. We hope he sticks around.

    Joe managed to do pretty well with the driving. Then it was my turn. “Shift up” he kept saying, sitting in the back seat. “What the hell are you talking about?,” I responded. “There’s no up, there is only however I am supposed to crank my wrist forward or backwards.” It degraded from there. I made it around the circle once slower than everybody else was going and then had to take a time out and has a serious meltdown.

    Joe tried again and got better at it. He even managed to figure out how to go backwards. I took another crack at it and was basically just stressed out the entire time, throttling too hard on the gas when switching gears, not really coordinated with the brake, worried I was going to hit someone.

    There was a local guy there selling “upgrades”. A fancier and better seat cushion. Yes, please. How about a cell phone charger. Yes, please. Maybe a louder horn. Yes, please. How about a better mirror on the right side. Yes, please. All for about 60 bucks US. That led us to spending three hours standing around waiting for I couldn’t count how many Indian people it took to install nicely colored cushions, do a bunch of electrical work, put a bright red horn on the front, and replace the mirror.

    By then it was time to go back to our hotel and get dressed for New Year’s. We managed to secure some pretty awesome locally made coats hand crafted by women in Rajasthan. To wear to the party. The owner of the shop found out we were Rickshaw Runners and asked us to do an Instagram cameo and handed us about 20 business cards to help promote his work to uplift local women out of poverty and preserve an ancient craft.

    We headed to the launch party, hosted at the local palace, and spent the evening chatting with various other Rickshaw Runners. The music started and all the young people, who had been pounding beers all night, started partying. We took that as a sign to head back to our hotel and we ascended onto the rooftop to watch the local fireworks and enjoy a bottle of Indian made wine (yes that is a thing) and just felt so blessed for everything we experienced in 2022.

    Happy New Year to all of our friends and family reading this. We appreciate you following our adventure!    Les mer

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    Goldberg’s in the House!

    1. januar 2023, India ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    So in Jaisalmer Fort there’s an Italian restaurant called “Jaisal Italy”. If you say it fast enough it sounds like “Little Italy”. But not really.

    We saw the sign and their promo slogan about being authentically Italian as soon as we arrived in the fort. We were skeptical. It’s just not possible that you can find good Italian food in Jaisalmer Fort, especially in the most touristy area right near the main gate.

    But we were hungry, and it was late. So we walked up the steep stairs and asked for a table. Our waiter came to the table. “What would you like?” he asked. “What’s good here?” we responded, like anybody should in any Italian restaurant. “The pizza is good,” the waiter said. We were skeptical again. Because Joe makes really good pizza at home, and we’ve probably eaten some of the best pizza in the world in various places in Italy. And we’re in India, which is not famous for pizza.

    “OK, we’ll take the cheese pizza that has the sausage,” we requested. “And your best bottle of wine,” which turned out to be a Cabernet Sauvignon made in India. “Do you have any wines made in Italy?” we asked. “No” was the response. Indian wine it was.

    Well, the wine and the pizza weren’t terrible. Enough said.

    They had an espresso machine in the corner. We decided to return the next day for coffee.

    When we walked up the stairs, we were immediately recognized. In fact, the greeter and several of the waiters walked up to Joe while we were having our drinks and told him he looks like Bill Goldberg. I didn’t know who Bill Goldberg was so asked, afraid once again that I’d be accused of not being in touch with pop culture. Well, yet again I was oblivious to something everyone knew, apparently.

    One of the most popular figures of the professional wrestling boom during the late 1990s and early 2000s, Goldberg is widely regarded as one of the most powerful wrestlers of all time. He is credited with inventing the spear finishing move in wrestling, which he popularized, and for which he gained a reputation for being the best at executing the move.

    My husband is apparently a spitting image of him in the eyes of many Indian men.

    We ate or had some wine at that restaurant five times while we stayed in Jaisalmer, and every time we walked up the stairs Joe would yell “Goldberg’s in the HOUSE!”. And the entire staff would burst out laughing and smile every time they came to our table.

    It’s the little things that matter.    Les mer

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    The Shit Show Wonderful Launch Day

    3. januar 2023, India ⋅ ⛅ 9 °C

    I’m sitting here in our hotel room in Barmer, India. We drove more than 200 kilometers today (Americans, figure it out, I’m too tired to translate into miles) in the baking tin with wheels. Joe is currently passed out on the bed, likely exhausted from all of the post-adrenaline rush and the gin and tonic(s) we needed to drink after that incredible experience.

    OK, where to start?

    The launch send off. Everyone had to be packed and ready to go by the group photo at 7:45 AM, and the subsequent “send off” with drums and exaltation at 8 AM. We were both awake long before the 6 AM alarm went off, and spent an hour or so packing our gear, having some chai and cheese sandwiches in our hotel room, and heading to the Palace to get the rickshaw packed up.

    The energy was palpable. Everyone was so nervous and excited and ready for whatever. One group had installed kids’ instruments in their rickshaw (a xylophone, drum set and guitar) and was driving around the training circle entertaining everyone with Teletubbies music. There were some people showing off their costumes - leopard onesies, pirate outfits, our Norwegian friends with Viking baseball hats, firefighters, etc. We were in our Rajasthani garb and not feeling terribly out of place.

    A drumming band and Rajasthani dancers started playing the exit music and everyone lined up to drive out into the great expanse. Three people’s rickshaw’s broke down before the first main intersection. We headed with our Viking Norwegian friends to the nearest gas station to fill up our gas canisters. That attracted the entire gas station staff to gather around and watch Joe and Glen the Viking fill up our canisters.

    Our Viking friends broke down once due to their gas cap being on too tight and causing a weird suction phenomenon that completely shut down their rickshaw for lack of gas. All Joe and I suffered from was sore butts from the hundreds and hundreds of bumps on the dusty side road we all thought would be a brilliant idea to explore rather than being on the main highway.

    What we learned on Day 1 was that as soon as you stop for whatever reason - broken down, need to go to the bathroom (take toilet paper with you), just want a rest, need some food - you will immediately attract a crowd of curious onlookers. And the best way to engage them and stop the staring party is to ask them if you can take a selfie with them. Which always works. The smiles of these people are so wonderful. All it takes is to smile first.

    The road less travelled is always the best one.    Les mer

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    The Oil Hunt

    3. januar 2023, India ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    One of the things in life I am not that passionate about is oil. Well, engine oil I mean. I love olive oil. I use a lot of organic hair and body oils. But I don’t think or care much about engine oil. Until today.

    Today’s journey of over 300 kilometers from Barmer to Mehsana was quite a long trip. We planned that purposefully with Ingrid and Glen, our Norwegian Viking friends, because as it turns out Glen’s birthday is also on January 4 (same as Joe). We all agreed that we’d like to be in a nice hotel in a decent sized town on January 4th in the evening to celebrate Joe’s 60th and Glen’s 57th birthdays. And that required us to do quite a long trip today.

    Little did Joe and I know that the state of Gujarat, where we will be on January 4, is a dry state. Ingrid and Glen told us that over dinner tonight just as we were getting ready to order a gin and tonic in the hotel restaurant. Sigh.

    So there was no gin and tonic waiting for us at the hotel we arrived at after a day that mostly centered around finding engine oil. Which was unexpectedly difficult to find.

    Here’s the thing. We are driving what is known as a “two stroke” auto rickshaw. There is also a “four stroke” auto rickshaw that is slightly more powerful and used for driving in the Himalayas, which we aren’t doing. The two strokes are a bit older and not as common nowadays.

    With the two stroke model, you need to add 40 ml of engine oil to one liter of petrol and mix that when you fill up the vehicle. So you need to buy oil separately and have a canister to mix the oil and petrol.

    We were needing to refill our canisters today so decided around 12 pm - after a 7 am start and incredible sunrise - to stop in a small town and buy some oil. Without that, we would eventually not be able to add any gas to the rickshaws.

    That’s where the adventure started. We stopped at the gas station, where one would expect to be able to buy engine oil. Nope. But if you go a half a kilometer down the road on the right you can find some, they said. So off we went along a bumpy back road and stopped in front of an engine oil shop. Glen and Joe needed to show the guys what kind of oil we needed. There was a lot of head shaking and slowly the crowd grew larger. They didn’t have it.

    Go down the road and turn left, one guy said. Everybody nodded. Okay okay. So off we went. Turned right and ended up in front of another engine oil shop. Head shaking and a slowly growing crowd. Selfies started. Someone offered to go and buy it for us and come back. Only five minutes. No thank you, we said.

    We drove out of there when the crowd was approaching what felt like 100 people. I am pretty sure I am a social media star in India somewhere with all of the Instagram pages I have been featured on.

    We took off down the road and found a gas station and restaurant. The proprietor came outside to meet us. Joe asked him to help us and off Joe went on the back of the owner’s motorcycle to find oil. I hung back with the Vikings and ate a cheese sandwich.

    Joe pulled up an hour later with about 40 bags of oil in a canvas bag. And off we went. A successful hunt.    Les mer

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    “I Learned to Drive in New Jersey…”

    4. januar 2023, India ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    …Otherwise known as “How Joe Volpe Spent His 60th Birthday”.

    So today was the Big Day. The reason we came to India on the Rickshaw Run. Sixty years ago today the world welcomed Joe Volpe into it, specifically into the state of New Jersey.

    Ah, New Jersey. The land of passionate drivers who are highly adept at flipping off and yelling at people who drive like idiots. Well, that’s my impression. The only person I have ever driven with in New Jersey or who is from New Jersey is Joe. And that describes him quite well when he is driving.

    Today was a dream drive come true for the New Jersey driving trained birthday boy. We headed out with the Norwegian Vikings just after 8 am. We had packed and fueled the rickshaws and agreed to take it easy today en route to Bharuch and a king sized suite at the Hyatt Hotel. That room and the possibility of having a shower in a bathroom where hot water and a shower curtain were readily available was like a beacon of light on the proverbial horizon.

    It was a fun morning. We stopped for chai at a roadside stand, and enjoyed the changing landscape under a sunny sky as we went south through Gujarat. Lots of agriculture here - chick peas, tobacco, mustard, cumin, what looks like rice. Lots of cows but that’s another post.

    And lots of trucks. Big trucks. Lots of them. And cars and buses. Those were all going faster than us. Going slower than us were tractors, motorbikes, other rickshaws, some cars, a camel pulling a cart, bicycles, a guy pushing a knife sharpening machine on wheels, and some people walking. A gong show on the highway that never stopped.

    Our first stop, in honor of Glen the Viking’s birthday, was the Harley Davidson Store in Ahmedabad. Glen is a huge Harley fan and the store was very cool and had a nice bathroom (quickly becoming my standard for building quality). Turns out the guy at the counter also had a birthday today so we snapped a pic.

    Just around the corner from that we came upon a group of people driving very old vintage American cars on their way to what is apparently Asia’s largest vintage car show. There was a guy there with an old Bel Air and for once Joe asked an Indian person for a selfie. I can’t imagine how wealthy those people must’ve been to own cars like those.

    Anyways, the drive continued. Now that we are out of Rajasthan it is becoming much more populated and those intersections have started getting pretty hairy. Joe from New Jersey strangely seems to be in his element here when he is driving. The nice part is that everybody is smiling at us as they are also cutting us off. Some of them cut us off on purpose and then ask if we can stop to take a selfie. Most just drive past us after they cut us off and smile and wave.

    At one point we stopped for chai and were slowly taken over by a large herd of cows. Shortly after that the Vikings had an issue with their spark plug, then their gear cable, and then their engine. We towed them (yes, we towed a rickshaw with our rickshaw) to a local mechanic after some help from some locals, and reluctantly left them there so we could make it to the Hyatt before dark.

    The last 30 minutes of the drive were done in the dark, across several very busy intersections. The hotel loomed large and light ahead of us like the beacon it had been all day in our minds.

    As a guy in a car tried to cut us off, Joe yelled at the top of his lungs “Not a chance, mother f’er, I learned to drive in New Jersey!!”

    I don’t think the guy heard him, but I could see Joe smiling in the front mirror.    Les mer

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  • JoeLeas AdventuresJoeLea’s Indian AdventureReisende

    Holy Cow(s)

    5. januar 2023, India ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C

    Cows. They’re everywhere here. Lying on the road. Standing by the road. Walking next to the road, or across the road. Eating garbage (sad but true). Being fed by random people.

    I literally saw a guy the other morning walk up to a cow and feed it the rest of his breakfast chapati. Shoved the chapati down the throat of the cow, who was pretty eager to eat it. Today we watched an elderly man on a motorcycle slow down on the highway, tap a cow that was lounging by the side of the road on its forehead, and then tap his own forehead and drive away. The other day I stepped in a huge pile of cow shit. Those are also everywhere, both the wet ones, and the piles of dried ones that people collect and burn for fuel.

    Cows, specifically the Desi cow, are sacred animals for the Hindu community in India. They are worshipped and decorated during festivals; holy men also take around cows, with their foreheads smeared in vermillion, to seek alms.

    More seriously, most states forbid cow slaughter, and the ban on beef has been criticised by many because the meat is cheaper than chicken and fish and is a staple for the poorer Muslim, tribal and dalit (formerly untouchable) communities.

    So, there’s a debate in India, which sits at the vortex of religious, political and social-economic sensitivities, about cows. Supporters of secularism and members of non-Hindu religions denounce the laws around forbidding cow slaughter. They are seen as non-inclusive and an attack on fundamental human rights and as a form of discrimination towards the Muslim and Christian communities in India, who are fine with eating beef.

    Fascinating, for sure, and we’ll be doing more digging into all of that while we’re here. Regardless, one of the loveliest parts of our journey so far has been the cows. Especially the huge herd of them who surrounded us on January 4 (Joe’s birthday) on the road while we were drinking chai at a random roadside stand. One large one just checked out the rickshaw, gave us a blessing of some sort in cow language, and walked away.

    Thanks, holy cows. We love you. Even if you are controversial.    Les mer

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    The Dandi Path Spice Dealer

    5. januar 2023, India ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    I have to admit I didn’t fully grasp what an incredible human being Mahatma Gandhi was until I came to India. His legacy is everywhere here.

    Today we drove from Bharuch to Surat, which is one of the oldest cities in India and was the first and original port and office of the British East India Company.

    What we realized as we were on the drive, which was purposely short so we could see some tourist stuff in Surat and get a break from long drives for a day, was that we were driving on the Dandi Path.

    One of the momentous events in the history of India’s struggle for independence was the Dandi Salt March, launched under Gandhi’s leadership.

    Here’s some background. On March 2, 1930, Gandhi wrote a letter to the British Viceroy, Lord Irwin, outlining an 11-point Charter of Demands. This included a considerable reduction in the Pound-Sterling-Rupee exchange rate, curtailing of the military budget, a 50 percent reduction in land revenue, preservation of indigenous textile machinery, abolition of the salt tax, and the release of political prisoners.

    The British government did not react favorably to any of the propositions made. As a result, the Indian Congress Working Committee gave the authority to Gandhi and his followers to initiate civil disobedience. The first step of this was the Dandi March.

    Violating British laws was an integral part of the civil disobedience movement. The British salt tax law in particular captured Gandhi’s attention and soon became the center of his anti-British agenda. According to the British salt tax law, the sale or manufacture of salt by any other source than the British government would be considered a criminal offense.

    Salt was extremely essential for the people of India. The low-lying coastal regions of the country had extensive reserves of the mineral that were easily available to the workers. The new salt tax law, however, forced them to purchase the mineral that could be collected free of cost. In Gandhi's words, "There is no article like salt, outside water, by taxing which the State can reach even the starving millions, the sick, the maimed and the utterly helpless.”

    The issue of salt cut across class, caste, regional and ethnic differences and Gandhi united the entire country under this single cause. He led the Dandi March from the Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi Beach, making speeches along the way to crowds of hundreds and then thousands encouraging peaceful civil disobedience, soulful living, and peace. By the time he symbolically extracted salt from the sand on the beach in Dandi, he had inspired a movement that resulted eventually in India’s independence. Truly the father of a nation.

    So we put-putted along the Dandi Path road, which is essentially a pilgrimage route, and stopped for chai at a roadside stand. And a guy pulled up on a small motorbike and said hi. He proceeded to lift up the seat of his motorbike and it was full of home grown spices - peppercorns, coriander, cumin, cinnamon - from his farm. And he and his wife made a living driving up and down the Dandi Path road every day selling spices to the chai wallas.

    We got a huge pack of peppercorns which will end up in our Italian food at home. And made some new friends on the Dandi Path.    Les mer

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    Gina the Sicilian Rickshaw

    6. januar 2023, India ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    We’re five days into the Rickshaw Run, and we decided this morning at the start of what would be a long but fascinating drive, to come up with a name for our rickshaw. We figured that would give us someone else to talk to, and a way to verbally and respectfully encourage the beast up hills and down valleys and across rivers.

    What to name the thing? We’ve gone with an Italian / Sicilian type of theme, so we started thinking about some sort of Italian name. Joe suggested it be a female name, kind of like how people name boats with female names. Had to be someone important, or regal. Only a name with royal heritage connected to it was worthy of hauling our asses over hill and dale in India on this insane adventure.

    We did some research and landed on a Sicilian queen. Specifically, Constance of Sicily (Reghina Costanza in Italian), who was the reigning Queen of Sicily from 1194 - 1198, jointly with her spouse for three years, and then with her infant son Frederick II, who was also the Holy Roman Emperor in 1198. Constanza was the heiress of the Norman kings of Sicily. She was also the Holy Roman Empress and later Dowager by marriage to Henry VI, who was also the Holy Roman Emperor.

    Constanza’s life was filled with political intrigue, power struggles and ultimately triumph. I’m not sure if anyone has made a movie or written a historical fiction novel about her, but someone should. If you’re interested, read about her on Wikipedia. Fascinating. She was so important to Sicilian history and so famous that in the Divine Comedy, Dante places Constance in Paradise:

    "This other radiance that shows itself
    to you at my right hand, a brightness kindled
    by all the light that fills our heaven - she

    has understood what I have said: she was
    a sister, and from her head, too, by force,
    the shadow of the sacred veil was taken.

    But though she had been turned back to the world
    against her will, against all honest practice,
    the veil upon her heart was never loosed.

    This is the splendor of the great Costanza,
    who from the Swabians' second gust engendered
    the one who was their third and final power."

    — Divine Comedy, Paradiso, Canto III, lines 109-120, Mandelbaum translation

    Reghina Costanza. So fitting. Too long to say over and over again, so we’ve named her “Gina”.

    We drove through hill country today, ascending to who knows how many meters in elevation through spectacular mountainous countrysides. On the way, Joe saw a roadside shop selling the type of colorful pompons that you see on Sicilian donkey carts, which he had been looking for. Turns out they were being crafted by blind and disabled people who were living at a special school for blind and disabled kids in the middle of the mountains that we ultimately had a tour of. Stay tuned for that story in a future post.

    Anyways, Gina is pretty decked out. I’m sure we’ll find more stuff to adorn her with as the journey continues.    Les mer

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  • JoeLeas AdventuresJoeLea’s Indian AdventureReisende

    Traveling with Babasaheb

    7. januar 2023, India ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    Today we traveled from Nashik to Ahmednagar, where we are now relaxing in our hotel room. We were very intentional about today’s journey. Our aim was to get to Ahmednagar before dark, and we’ve arranged a tour driver to take us to the Ellora Caves on Sunday so we don’t have to drive the rickshaw for one glorious day.

    More on the Ellora Caves later. The route today wasn’t necessarily special, but what we experienced on the way definitely was. On the way to pulling over for a morning chai, we happened upon two young guys riding a bicycle cart filled with ceramic statues. Hindu gods and goddesses, elephants, and, one glorious statue of some guy with glasses and a suit on, staring us out of the back of the cart as we drove along.

    “I’ve got to buy that,” yelled Joe over the din of traffic and the Bollywood music we had playing on our rigged up stereo system. He flagged down the two guys, who were staring at us in disbelief (not an uncommon reaction from locals here when they see two white people driving a rickshaw along the highway), and asked them to stop.

    “How much for this?”, asked Joe, pointing at the golden shiny head statue. “300 rupees” responded the kid. That’s about five bucks. “Okay okay” responded Joe gleefully, clutching his golden man head statue.

    I sat in the back of the rickshaw while Joe grabbed some zip ties (the most useful thing we’ve packed, truly) and strapped the ceramic head thing to the front dashboard of the rickshaw. “Who is that,” I asked. “I have no idea, but it’s awesome,” responded Joe. A group of onlookers at the nearby chai stand looked on, and then ventured over for the inevitable selfie session. They didn’t seem to understand why we had pulled over the ceramics peddler, but were happy to get a group shot just the same.

    A few times in the next hour we almost missed or completely missed turns because Joe was staring down at his beloved head statue. I started getting concerned. “At least we should find out who that is,” I suggested.

    The opportunity to do so came at our lunch stop around 2 PM. We encountered a lovely family restaurant which also happened to be filled with mostly men drinking beer and doing their Saturday afternoon motorcycle tours. Our waiter spoke excellent English, and as it turns out was a cargo ship worker who has sailed all over the world working on cargo ships and sending money home to his family. He’s paid for both of his sisters’ weddings and is taking care of his parents that way. At the moment he’s working as a waiter because COVID slowed down the work opportunities in the shipping industry, apparently.

    “Who is this a statue of?”, Joe asked him. “Why Sir and Mehmsab, that is Babasaheb”, he replied, like we should have absolutely known who that was. “He wrote the Indian Constitution,” he explained. But that’s not all Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the Father of the Indian Constitution, was famous for. Dr. Ambedkar was born in 1891 and was an Indian nationalist, jurist and political leader. He was also born into the Mahar Caste, who were considered to be the untouchables.

    When he was a child, Ambedkar and other untouchable children were segregated and given little attention or help by teachers. Even though they had access to education, they were not allowed to sit inside the classroom. When they needed to drink water, someone from a higher caste had to pour the water on them from above as other Indians were not allowed to touch either the water or the vessel that contained it. Dr. Ambedkar experienced this and other significant impacts of discrimination throughout his childhood and into his early adulthood.

    He eventually was awarded a scholarship to Columbia University in New York in 1913 and stayed there until he earned his Ph.D in Economics in 1927. He returned to India and spent many years leading the movement in India to abolish the caste system and tirelessly promoting human rights for untouchables. In 1947, Indian’s first Prime Minister Nehru appointed him to be Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution for the future Republic of India.

    Under Babasaheb’s leadership, the resulting Indian constitution guaranteed protection for a wide range of civil liberties for individual citizens, including freedom of religion, the abolition of untouchability, and the outlawing of all forms of discrimination. Ambedkar argued for extensive economic and social rights for women, and won the Assembly's support for introducing a system of reservations of jobs in the civil services, schools and colleges for members of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and Other Backward Class, a system akin to affirmative action. India's lawmakers hoped to eradicate the socio-economic inequalities and lack of opportunities for India's depressed classes through these measures.

    Our waiter told us about all of this, in his own words, and the pride and love of his country shone through his eyes as he explained all of that to us. Then we took a selfie. And carried on our way, with Babasaheb watching over us.    Les mer

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    The Ellora Caves Paparazzi Fest

    8. januar 2023, India ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    Today we had the rickshaw serviced and tuned up and hired a driver to take us to Ellora Caves. I felt guilty for about 10 seconds that we weren’t slogging away over the mountains to get there in the rickshaw. It was nice to be in a car and not exposed to the dust and roadside chaos for a while.

    The Ellora Caves are a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the Aurangabad district of Maharashtra state. It is one of the largest rock-cut temple cave complexes in the world, with artwork dating from the period 600–1000 AD.

    One of the caves features the largest single monolithic rock excavation in the world, the Kailash temple, a chariot-shaped monument dedicated to the god Shiva. The Kailash temple excavation also features sculptures depicting various Hindu deities as well as relief panels summarizing the two major Hindu epics.

    There are over 100 caves at the site, all excavated from the basalt cliffs. These consist of 17 Hindu, 12 Buddhist, and 5 Jain caves. Each group represents deities and mythologies prevalent in the 1st millennium as well as monasteries of each respective religion.They were built close to one another and illustrate the religious harmony that existed in ancient India.

    In one word, awe-inspiring. Well, maybe that is two words. In any case, the caves are a mind boggling feat of engineering. People picked away at them more than a thousand years ago and needed to be calculating size of rooms, columns, doorways, meditation rooms, sculptures as they were carving them out of the side of a mountain. Some of the stone was hard, some of the stone was soft. And they took hundreds of years to build. Joe the Geologist was in heaven.

    It was Sunday, so what we didn’t think about was the fact that there would be a lot of tourists there. And school buses full of kids. Thousands of kids. Which essentially resulted in Joe and I being treated like celebrities every step of the way there. The kids were literally like paparazzi. Begging for selfies. “Please Auntie, can I have selfie?” Over and over and over again. How could we say no?

    So, I am pretty sure our photos are on the phones of hundreds of Indian children today. I wonder what they think about when they look at those pictures? “And this is a picture of some random white people I saw at the Ellora Caves. And here is a sculpture of Shiva. And here is me with my best friends,” and so on.

    In any case, it was nice to be famous and awed in one day. And not be driving.    Les mer

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  • JoeLeas AdventuresJoeLea’s Indian AdventureReisende

    Climbing the Western Ghats

    9. januar 2023, India ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    “We have to go up there?” I asked. The looming mountains would be fine to drive over in a car, but a rickshaw? “How bad could it be?”responded Joe gleefully from the front seat.

    The Western Ghats is a mountain range that covers an area of 160,000 square kilometers in a stretch of 1,600 kilometers parallel to the western coast of the Indian peninsula, traversing the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

    The entire range is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is one of the 36 biodiversity hotspots in the world. It is sometimes called the Great Escarpment of India. It contains a very large proportion of the country's flora and fauna, many of which are endemic to this region.

    According to UNESCO, the Western Ghats are older than the Himalayas. Geologic evidence indicates that they were formed during the break-up of the supercontinent of Gondwana some 150 million years ago. It’s amazing to think that the west coast of India was once attached to Madagascar.

    They are spectacular, especially when you are crawling up the side of them at 40 kilometers per hour in an open air vehicle. It is the dry season here now so the landscape higher up is dry “veld” that reminds me of some places in South Africa, and the valleys are filled with sugar cane, tobacco, grapes and corn fields.

    We’ve got one more day of climbing before we descend to the beach in Goa. Ghat should be a real treat. Did you see what I did there….    Les mer

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    The Manav Kalyan Trust

    9. januar 2023, India ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    We have wanted to somehow make this trip more purposeful than for our own personal satisfaction since we started planning it all.

    The Adventurists require a donation to be made to an organization called Cool Earth that is funding reforestation projects in the Amazon. That is one of the participation requirements, which is cool.

    However, given that we are guests in India, and there is so much need here, we started our journey believing that along the way we’d find a meaningful cause. Or that it would find us.

    And so it did, in the loveliest way possible. We drove through the hill country from Surat to Nashik a few days ago. On the way we stopped to buy some pompoms for the rickshaw at a roadside craft stand. Two of the people working there were blind and one was unable to walk.

    It turns out the stand provides a small revenue stream for a very impressive school for blind and disabled children from the surrounding hill tribes. The lack of water and nutritional food in the area results in women bearing children who have a higher than normal rate of birth defects.

    The Manav Kalyan Trust was started in June 1970 by Shri Maheshbhai Kothari in the memory of his elder brother Pravinchandra Savjibhai Kothari at Dandi Road in Navsari. That town was one of the stops Gandhi made on the Dandi March. The foundation stone of the school was laid by the President of India, Shri V. V. Giri of the time, in June of 1971. So, what a noble start to a school that has helped thousands of needy children since it started.

    The organization runs several schools in and around Navsari focused on providing free education and vocational training for children who are blind or disabled. After they finish high school they have several years of on site vocational training to ensure they can somehow earn a living and be as independent as possible.

    As someone who evaluates and makes funding decisions for charities on behalf of my company, my mind was ticking the “quality organization” boxes as the Principal and two teachers gave us a tour of the school. Solid track record. Check. Board of Trustees. Check. Measuring results. Other foreign donors. Check. Check. Girls and boys. Check. Really nice clean building. Check. Happy kids. Source of income. Sustainability pledge. Check. Check. Check.

    So our cause found us. If you would like to join us in supporting our quest to leave India a bit better than we found it, please donate to the Mavan Kalyan Trust using the GoFundMe link below. Our goal is $1000, which will help ensure that the 160 kids in the school can have healthy nutritious breakfasts every day for the next several years. Something that most of us never have to worry about.

    https://gofund.me/4ea82f0c

    We are grateful that we have found a way to help others in our short time in this beautiful country.    Les mer

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    The Snake Catcher and Andy Kaufman

    10. januar 2023, India ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    I woke up on Tuesday morning with a sore throat and chills and pulled the covers over my head. “Time to get up, honey, we’re in India,” said my travel companion. The prospect of driving 300 km over the rest of the Western Ghat mountain range didn’t feel appealing to me. Ah well. You only live once. I took a bunch of pills and decided to be open to what the day would bring.

    We packed up the rickshaw and headed out. Today was purposely a long haul so we could make it to Goa and chill by the beach for a day or two. We ended up about an hour later in a town called Belagavi, whose name sounded strangely Italian.

    Joe pulled the rickshaw over to double check our route options. About a minute later a guy pulled up beside us and started asking us where we were going. We must have looked lost, because within 3 minutes there were a bunch of school kids and a man conspicuously dressed in black who looked rather sage like and was carrying a long stick on his motorcycle.

    There was a lot of debate about which of the three possible route options we should go for. As the debate continued, the first motorcycle guy let me know that the sage guy was the local Snake Catcher. “Really?” I asked. To prove it, the Snake Catcher opened up his motorcycle seat and pulled a bag out of it. He had a rat snake in his bag that he has caught that morning and proceeded to pull it out and then asked me to come and handle it.

    Joe was protesting but the Snake Catcher was really quite charming so up onto the impromptu stage of a sidewalk I leapt. By then there were about 30 people watching the show. I have never handled a snake before and I wouldn’t necessarily seek out that experience on a regular basis, but it never hurts to try new things, I guess. The Snake Catcher started lecturing the crowd about how people shouldn’t kill snakes. So he definitely had an agenda, and was very appreciative of me helping amplify his message. The whole stop ended up taking 30 minutes or so, but that’s India. You never know what can happen.

    We started driving again, completing the ascent of the Western Ghats and then started our descent. We stopped for lunch at a nice looking restaurant on the side of the road and proceeded to be served by the most interesting waiter we’ve met yet.

    He was a Brahmin pastor who spoke 13 languages, and really impressed us with his knowledge of India. When he walked away after taking our lunch order, Joe said “Don’t you think that guy looks like Andy Kaufman?”. “Yes he sure does,” I responded. “He’s like the Indian version of him.”

    Andy kept regaling us with his knowledge of India, suggesting temple after temple we should visit on our route. His eyes were full of life and joy. He was thrilled when we asked him to be in a photo with us, and stood and waved for quite a while as we drove away.

    The rest of the drive to Goa was like being on a two hour long roller coaster ride down the side of a mountain, but was spectacular.

    You never know what might happen on any given day, even if you sometimes feel like just pulling the covers over your head.    Les mer

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  • JoeLeas AdventuresJoeLea’s Indian AdventureReisende
    1

    The Hut on Palolem Beach

    11. januar 2023, India ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    We finally made it to our destination in the evening of January 10 after one very long drive. I had started that morning with a sore throat and achy body, which despite me ingesting multiple pills during the day, handling a snake and meeting the Indian twin of Andy Kaufman, proceeded to increase in severity. Thank goodness Joe was driving.

    Our destination was Goa. Well, we thought Goa was a town. It was - about 500 years ago. Now it’s a state in India. With a fascinating history, beautiful beaches and unique culture.

    The Portuguese first voyaged to India in the early 16th century as merchants, and conquered the region now known as Goa, which prior to that had changed hands between multiple Mughal and Hindu empires. Goa became an overseas territory of the Portuguese Empire, part of what was then known as Portuguese India, and remained as such for about 456 years until it was finally annexed by India in 1961.

    That period of Portuguese rule has resulted in a culture that is unique in India. A high percentage of the population are Catholic. We saw many Catholic churches, convents, seminaries and roadside prayer stations that we hadn’t seen elsewhere. The town of “Old Goa” is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that contains many European style buildings from the Portuguese era including the cathedral where the remains of St. Francis Xavier are located and venerated.

    Anyways, our ultimate destination was Palolem Beach, which was south of Old Goa and is a popular tourist destination. We pulled up to the Royal Touch Beach Huts, which sounds fancy, but was pretty basic. We had the “deluxe” room facing the beach, which turned out to be situated above the local tattoo parlor.

    It was lovely. There were tables on the beach and we enjoyed a nice meal with a bit of wine. The waiters were all Nepalese and very friendly. The beach was busy. Guys walking along hawking neon hats and other stuff. Lots of people enjoying the sound of the waves. Some really interesting scruffy looking boho types of people mostly from the UK who seem to have been there for indeterminate amounts of time.

    And, a rave bar. Two buildings down. Hmm. The music had just started. There was also a bar next to our hut called “Coco’s” that a bunch of the rickshaw 30 something year old gang was partying at. Hmm. I wasn’t feeling well so we had a bit of food and retired to our room, which had a palm tree growing through the middle of it.

    Here’s the general timing of how the night went.
    9 pm: We attempted to go to sleep.

    9pm - 12 am: Pounding music of all sorts from the rave bar that my ear plugs couldn’t block. Unfortunately no ABBA music.

    12 am - 1:30 am: Rave bar shut down but Coco’s party continued.

    1:30 am: Fireworks on the beach set off by some of our Australian colleagues (I learned the next day).

    Around 4 am: Big dog fight on the beach.

    Around 5 am: One dog barking pretending he was the local rooster.

    6 am: I finally fell asleep. Joe woke up.

    Needless to say January 11 was a bit of a write off. We swam in the ocean in the morning, did a bit of shopping, slept some more, had a bit of food, and slept some more. A nice break away from the rickshaw and some much needed rest.

    Over top of the tattoo parlor.

    PS We didn’t get a tattoo….    Les mer

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