Ivo and Kiyo are safe and sound with us, they showed up about 5 min after I came back to the guesthouse the last time I wrote on the blog. So what happened was that we were at 2 different train stations so no wonder we couldn't find each other but its all good now! I love Varanasi, this town is very special and different from the other places we have been, its very dirty and polluted, but yet unique and beautiful! The little streets have lots of little shops, cafe's and markets and not to mention shops were they sell bang lassies, weed, special cookies and chocolate balls all legal supported by the government, very strange! But everything is possible in India!

I really like our guest house to, the people that work there are grumpy but they have a very cute puppy and the layout of the house is very cool. It has about 4 floors, we live on the top floor and have a balcony with a view over the river and the town were I sit in the evenings with lighted candles and incense and read in my Osho book. Osho is a guru which I have become very fond of and has inspired me to think in new ways. His ground belief is to live in the moment, not dwelling on the past and not to think to much about the future, but live in the present. And what I have said before you don't find happiness, you create everything on your own!

Back to explaining the guesthouse we also have a huge roof top with a great view where we chill out in the evenings or in the mornings, yesterday we bought lots of fresh fruit, some musli and curd and made our own breakfast as we looked over the river :)Tonight we are going to explore the night life of Varanasi and have a look at their evening ceremony where they pray to their gods and have a wonder around the markets!

Varanasi after some very emotional 24 hours

wow the last 24 hours have been very emotional! we left woodstock yesterday (this time for good I think at least for this trip) which was as always very sad filled with tears. I already miss the butterfly Teryn, mummy and daddy at woodstock: Liav and Ofra and the rest of the few that are still there. But it was some great weeks and lots of good memories and I'm sure we'll meet again sometime! Anyways we got on the plane to Mumbai and from Mumbai to Delhi where we were suppose to meet Ivo and Kiyo at the train station to go to Varanasi. Not as easy as we thought it would be, Ivo's phone is broken, the train station consists of 19 platforms and is massive and he had the tickets, but we couldn't find him anywhere, we even tried to announce hes name on the speakers, but no Ivo and Kiyo. We asked so many people (including information desk) what train, when and from where it leaves but we only got about 10 different stories in return: there is no train to varanasi, its platform 9, it leaves at 11, it leaves at 10, you can only go close to varansi, you have to change the train etc etc. So being very frustrated and almost in tears we found the train and decided to jump on it hoping for Ivo to be on it (as he had the tickets). We searched the entire train and it took us 2,5 hours from when we got on the train to get seats, we had to pay more for not having tickets and still no Ivo. 12 hours later we arrived Varanasi and got surrounded within seconds by lots of Indians shouting rickshaw taxi cheap price! After some arguing we made a good deal and finally arrived at our lovely guest house where Indie was waiting for us. As soon as we saw him both Johanna and I burst into tears out of joy and sadness at the same time. It was so nice to see him again and we've been walking around in beautiful Varansi together all day. So far I love it, lots of little streets that looks like a maze, little cafes and chilling by the river. Its so shanti here, but at the same time you can go up to the main streets if you want to feel the noisy indian vibe. An Spanish guy we met on the train said that India is filled of love and hate, you love it you hate it, you love it, you hate it all the time over and over again and this fits exactly of how I feel about India too :)

Back to Ivo thou, we have emailed him and hoping for him to show up so hopefully very soon we'll see him again!

There is only good :)

Its been very emotional and sad the last few days as there has been a lot of people leaving woodstock and the vibe is changing, end of the season. First it was the dutch boys, then alex,then dan and then Naor which was the worst emotional goodbye ever. Naor is a very special soul that everybody loves deeply, he sends out a lot og laughters and good energy. And he has some wise words to, he told me this before he left: remember there is only good! Even thou it was extremly sad to say bye we will always look back at the good memories from woodstock. Woodstock and the people I've met there has really opened me up in new ways and I have never felt some much love at ones and so peaceful. It has been a great adventure but now its time to leave up north and enjoy our last 3 weeks. We're meeting Indie again in Varanasi which both Johanna and I are very excited about! I really hope I'll come back to Arambol again maybe even next season, this has definatly given me the want to experience more of.

The last week has been very good and we have just been chilling out and making the most out of the time we had left here. Spent time at the beach, done some shopping, nice siestas and hanging out at woodstock, couldn't be better to say bye than this way :)

Munnar versus Bangalore

The local bus ride was so much fun and it didn't even take that long considering India time and the roads up here, 6 hours is very ok on a bus! What I didn't realise was how many rich areas there are in kerala as we were driving away from the city we were passing a nicer villa after the other, massive houses with big drive inns. India is defiantly full of contrasts! As we got higher up in the mountains it was amazing to feel the fresh air and the surroundings: WOW full of high mountains and lots of tea and spice plantations, very very nice (yes I say this a lot know). The main street in Munnar is very small but lots of people, it has no restaurants, but lots of good local food and amazing home made chocolate! We found a cute little pink guest house where we stayed for a few nights before moving up even higher to Koodaikanal. This bus drive started off very nice, but we got stuck for 2 hours on the way as there was a truck that had problems and was blocking the way in the middle of a turn. I also will admit that it can be very scary as the bus driver drives like a crazy banana and when u look down its pretty far down! It also took us a lot longer time then expected and we arrived late in the evening so we ended up in a very shitty room in a basement of a house so we got out of there very quickly the nexy day thinking to stay another night somewhere else but ending up taking the nightbus to Bangalore (we have to go by there to get back to goa). Koodai kanal wasn't as nice as we thought it would be and very cold too, so Arambol wasn't a hard choice to make!

We arrived Bangalore 7 in the morning facing the usual choice of rickshaw drivers that took us to hotel that had the best policy ever consisting of a 24 hour check out meaning we had to check out 7 in the morning next day and wait around until 7 in the evening for our bus to Goa. Hehe what a system, that's India for you! Bangalore was very modern, too modern even, very dirty, extremely polluted was very hard to breath, but we had a very funny westernized day! Started our day with breakfast at Coffee Day, lunch at Pizza Hut, walking around a shopping centre, eating dounuts from the bakery and had dinner at KFC hehe We survived the day and got back to Arambol safely where we were greeted by lots of smiles and hugs, always good to be back home, the best hug was obviously from Stav that came screaming towards me with open arms shouting maja, that's pure love and the best kind :)

Kerala

taking the train is always a new experience, luckily we got the top bunkers which are the best as indians wake up early and starts talking so its best to be higher up. Anyways it wasn't to bad to take the night train I slept ok considering that its a very hard bunk "bed", a lot of noise and loud local people. Woke up pretty early thou to the lovely shouts of chai, coffee, breakfast, water, lassi etc etc every 10 min there is a new guy shouting and selling from early morning to late in the evening and its only "quiet" a few hours. What was suppose to be around 12 hour train journey turned into 17 hours (but hey its India you always have to add on a few hours). We got to Kernakulam in Koochin in Kerala (that for your info means coconut)around 3 PM, straight to a rickshaw to the ferry and over to forth Koochin. On the other side there was a new line of rickshaws with loud drivers shouting come with i show you very cheap hotel, very cheap (obviously said in the lovely indi english accent), so we picked one with the best deal and found a hotel. Very strange to sleep in a bed in a room after being used to sleeping in huts, but at least we hot water for showers too :)

We spent 3 nights in forth coochin spending one day as proper tourists going around town seeing museums, shops, churches etc etc, one day with backwaters going around in a tree boat on the lakes where we got served a delicious home made veg thali on plam tree leaves of course and the next day on local buses up to Munnar. Its funny to see how commission based India is that we really got to experience up close on out rickshaw tour as every time he shows up a shop or museum the driver earns money, everybody has some connection to each other hehe


anyways after being fed up with the heat and mosquitoes we found our way to beautiful Munnar :)

Roadtrip

5 days ago we got on the bikes and left Arambol on a roadtrip to Palolem, 4 bikes 9 people including Stav. After 3-4 hours of driving with stopping, a bit of waiting and some scary moments on way we arrived to Shai's house. Shai is a good friend of some of the woodstock people we came here with, great guy with lots of curly hair, smiles and good heart and letting us use hes house whenever we want to :) We found a beautiful place to stay called Top Hill that consists of a small restaurant and little beach huts on a hill with a sea view. Our hut has a cozy balcony where you can see the sea only a few meters away, very nice (like all the Israeli people say in their funny accent). Anyways to be honest we haven't done that much since we got here, we did go for a dolphin trip one day (we only saw a few and it wasn't really all that exciting but we went for a swim a this tiny little beach with crystal clear water which was nice), the place is very nice and shanti and has a nice atmosphere, the food however hasn't been that great so we've been going into town everyday to eat, we didn't even plan to stay here for this long but the first train available was the night train tonight off to Kerala which is exciting. We're ony 4 people left now as the other 5 have gone on their bikes to Gokarana and back to Arambol, so the train it is, its says it will take about 12hours but knowing India you need to add on a few more hours! It's the first time we're taking a night train so that will be fun to see if I'll be able to sleep amongst all the noise and loud Indians hehe

Anyways I'll probably write more interesting stuff next time from Kerala :)

You dont find happiness you create it :)

No matter how many pills or whatever you take of medicine etc you will get ill at one point and this is what happened to me, I haven't been dying or anything but been sick and have had a bad tummy for days! Very annoying and I lost a lot of energy and none of the pills were working to make me better so I went to this Ayuverdic Center where they gave me full body massage and this horrible medicine that tastes a mixture of cough medicine, jeger meister and some other horrible flavours that I had to take for 3 days. Yesterday I have was nearly ok and finally today I feel good :)

Anyway enough of the boring stuff I've had some fun since the last time I wrote on the blog like yesterday for instance we went on a day trip on the bikes to Paradise Beach. Its about 30min drive, then you take a little ferry (where they amazingly fit on 3 cars, lots of bikes and people and it looks likes its going to fall apart and its the most slow ferry I have ever been on but it works) and then you drive for another 20 min and then you arrive to Paradise Beach. AMAZING! One long beach that never ends with no restaurants or any people, it was us and beach so we decided to go skinny dipping, might as well you know when you have an entire massive beach to yourself hehe We also found lots of gorgeous coloful shells and Stav even found a baby octopus which I have never seen before!

I also had an aha moment yesterday that I found at of all places in a small traveling agency whilst sat there waiting reading a poster that said "You don't find happiness, you create it". I haven't thought about it like that before but its so true so I'm going to stop searching for it and create it on my own, I chose myself to be happy, I chose myself to let go of deep negative thoughts I chose to live by the moment cause I'm India, exciting beautiful India, how can you not create a happiness when you have so many gorgeous and amazing people around you, now the challenge is to take this happiness with me back home again, it's all inside me now its just a matter of fact to hold on to it :)