Week Six (I think)

There's been much travelling since last time, I'm starting to rearrange my plans and routes purely to avoid having to take long bus journeys. The Trains are great because there's usually loadsa room and the doors are kept open so it's airy and there's always people to chat to, but the bus has a magical way of draining your energy just from sitting there, my journey last night (meant to be 7 hours, took 12.5 hours)went a bit downhill when, while stopped at services in the middle of nowhere, one of the front tyres burst. Anyway, obviously needed to get that off my chest, since the last posting I got straight outta Mangalore and headed to Gokarna, North Karnataka. I stayed on Om Beach, a place that a few years ago was apparently a deserted paradise, but word got around and now it's slowly but surely becoming like Goa, with more guesthouses and restaurants opening every month. It seems that many travellers are already starting to search for somewhere else currently undiscovered where you can sleep on the beach and there are no shops or business about, just a few people and a bonfire, but trouble is word will always get around. It was good to chill for a few days though, there was just a tiny amount of hippies body surfing all day in the eerily still sea. That's pretty much all the detail I can provide, it was the ultimate location for doing nothing, but that was my vocation back in the UK so felt the urge to keep moving. I got a call from my cousin Adeline asking me if I wanted to meet up in Bangalore again before heading off, so at the last minute got on the bus for Bangalore Trip 3 : This time it's personal.
Was good seeing Adeline again, will definitely be staying in touch, and sadly may have to come back to India again and again to visit, nevermind. While I was in Bangalore I acquired my strangest and rarest artifact yet : an album of Queen songs covered by dance artists including Culture Beat and the immortal Scatman John. I listened to it once but will now leave it in it's case forever to preserve the purity, or something.
After Bangalore went up North to Hampi, contender with Kochi for best place I've visited so far. The town is surrounded by miles and miles of colossal boulders, balanced on top of each other or just strewn accross the blazing landscape. The actual town has been custom made for travellers, like Arambol but without the beach, while the surrounding area is littered with ancient ruins arounds every corner. Some of the ruins involving climbing over huge boulders or crossing shallow rivers and other stuff I think is great. On the evening of my first day there I met Nagar, a local restaurant guy, and the rest of the weekend turned into a drunken mission with no direction. He introduced me to his mates and his ways of drinking prohibited vodka in vast quantities untill you can't move for a week. In the end it was a challenge to keep a tiny spark of sobriety flickering as we biked accross the plains or swam in secluded little pools amongst the rocks, but I always managed to find my way to bed at some point in the night. The saturday I spent there was Holi Festival, celebrating the end of winter (though it's so hot in the south all the time that I guess it's more for celebration's sake). Got up at the crack of dawn and commenced with the merriment (too much dodgy vodka), the main theme of the festival is that everyone throws colour about, coloured water or powder, untill everyone and everything is looking like a rainbow. For me and many other inebriated travellers this descended into a battle with the local kids, like paintball but not so painful, while drummers went crazy in the background, was a fantastic time, and the mass exodus to the river to wash made it feel like the summer has arrived. By the time I left Hampi about three days later I had managed to remove all of the paint except for one of my eyebrows, which is still bright orange. I forget this till I look in the mirror, but for some reason can't shift it no matter what I do. I know I get a ginger beard, but a ginger eyebrow is pushing it. Nevermind, I'll just have to learn to adapt. After saying seeya later to Negar, headed to Bijapur where I was too hungover to do much but wander around, then last night got on the bus to Pune (Poona) , Maharashtra where I am currently planning my next step. The main city here is much like Bangalore, which is useful for stocking up on things and as a major student town the nightlife is supposed to be okay, but think I'll stick to the mineral water tonight (I won't, but I think I will).