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We've been back in Mumbai for the past two days. The leeches' marks on our skins are fainting little by little.

Mumbai is a land of contrasts. Luxurious hotels are just a few yards away from slumps. That's what shocked us the most when we arrived. A month later we still are not used to it of course but there is so much more about India.

Languages: Indians from different states do not understand each other. Even Hindi is only spoken by a mere 40% and mostly in northern India. There is no unifying language, try that in any European country! English is just for business or tourism, 10% speak it.

Religion: Hindus, Muslims,Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, you name it. All living together. Sure it's not problem free but it's working. We woke up several times with Muslim prayers on speakers but the majority are Hindus... Try that in France...

Society: it's growing by the minute and the vitality of the young is visible. It's very exciting to live in a place changing so quickly. That's why our friends Sudanshu and Meenal feel so good here, they feel they are part of an exciting moment of India's history.

Food: India has the best food in the world. Period.

What a trip. And we are finishing in such a wonderful way: Sudanshu and Meenal are taking us to great places to eat, get massages (by blind people, an amazing experience), and Muriel even got a pedicure and hair color here in Mumbai!

We'll take the flight in a few hours and we already miss India!!!

Blood suckers!!!

I already knew mosquitoes loved me, now I have another bug on the list that loves me too! More below.
Today was our only hike day for the whole trip. They call it the Border trail because we hike along the border between the area where people are allowed and the area where people aren't. It all feels like old style hiking tourism: we are just 4 hikers for 2 cooks/guides and 1 gunman/guide.
The chances to find a tiger are very very close to zero, the gunman is just here to shoot in the air if need be. It's funny how he carries a gun and... an umbrella!
After a short hour of hiking we stopped and were offered a breakfast. The cooks started a wood fire to warm up a pot for the tea. It looked like tourism in the 40's...
Thankfully a big Indian bison shows up. This has put under alert our gunman. He presses us away to a safe area. One of the guide tells us this bull has been a problem around. Charging?
But the real action is actually happening at our feet. Tens of leeches have been trying to crawl up from our shoes since we started. We were given socks/chaps and tobacco powder has been spread over our shoes and chaps. Still these blood suckers keep trying to climb up our pants. I grab some to see how it feels. They are very sticky and I could really feel them when they moved on my hands. I decided not to pay too much attention and kept watching the green lush forest around us. I didn't know then all the trouble I was getting into...
We continued our hike with a few stops every now and then. Our guides made those stops so they could stalk wildlife. Not that many animals actually, but we knew this was a hit or miss kind of hike, so we just kept moving. The drizzle rain became a bit heavier by noon. At 1pm we arrived at a little house under construction; a good shelter from the rain with a big trench all around to prevent elephants from approaching.
That's where I found the first blood stains on my pants. What the heck? Where did it come from? I unzipped the leg from the short to find a bloody spot. What????!!!! A leech has been sucking me while I was hiking and I didn't even notice?? I then free my shirt from my waist to inspect further. A big fat leech falls in front of me. I immediately smash it with my foot and there it is! My blood is staining the floor now! I don't have the backpack anymore and Muriel tells me I have two bloody spots on the back of my shirt too. Oh no! Two more leeches fall from my shirt... Then I find another one on my right arm, except this one is still sucking!! I hadn't felt anything and now after a meticulous count it comes to 6 bites in total. The little fun I had earlier watching them crawl on my hand is gone. These blood sucking beast are actually stealth champs! I will have to be more careful from now on.
Needless to say Muriel and the 2 French woman hiking with us are quite terrified looking at all the blood stains and now everybody is carefully checking all body parts. Everybody gets a leech here or there but I'm the only one with actual bloody marks. They all agree I am the best person to hike in this leech infested jungle. I attract the pest and the rest of the party enjoys ! Yeah yeah...oh! With that leech focus I almost forgot to tell you that yes we got to see a pack of wild elephants and monkeys too!

Periyar

It's just 100km from the backwaters center of Alappuzah to Periyar wildlife preserve. But it's a painful 5h bus drive! First 1 1/2 h to a connecting town and then 3 1/2 more hours; and the whole thing on a window less and shock absorbing free bus! Needless to say we pampered ourselves with a good old Tata taxi after the first 1 1/2 h bus drive! So we got there in 2 1/2 hours instead.
Nature tourism is at its infancy stage here. There is very little to do even though you are in such an amazing wilderness. We are just a mere 3 km from 40 tigers, 1000 or so elephants and a whole bunch of other wildlife and there are only a few anemic tours like a one hour boat tour on the lake, a couple or so of nature walks and a pseudo bamboo rafting (we just met 2 British gals very disappointed by it). At any time there are only no more than 10 guided tourists in the whole preserve, 6 on the Tiger trail overnight trek and 4 on the day trek.
The preserve is 1000 sq kms; there could be a few more guided hikes inside the preserve and a whole lot more around it, from village to village for example.
The elephant rides are very limited trail wise, on a fenced yard but still cool. I walked right next to the elephant while Muriel was riding it; amazing, feels like walking next to a dinosaur. For the rest, Jeep tours (thanks but your "bus tours" are enough for me!!!), massages, ayurdevic and yoga classes or dance shows, have little to do with this place.
We had called to make a reservation for the 2 day trek and of course they messed up so it was full... And there are not that many other things to do if you want to hike... Thank god they have a "hard" day trek, 13km they Ray. We are set for it for tomorrow, let's not expect too much out of it!
This is also spices and tea country. We had stopped the taxi on our way here to watch the women harvesting tea and admired the green hills covered by tea plantations.
We also visited a garden where we got so many scents! The guide kept crushing leaves one after the other, my sense of smell was quickly overwhelmed! Peppers, cardamom, curcuma, ginger, multi spice leaf, you name it!

Kerala

Yesterday was a beach day. We took the ferry than a bus and finished with a 2km hike. Cherai beach. Not a great beach, the palm trees are too far away from the ocean behind a stone levee. But it's the cleaner one around Kochi. Goa is supposed to be the best place in India for beaches, not Kochi...
The waves were not very big but the shore break was tough enough nobody was swimming.
We still got to the water to cool off. First time in India ocean! We took a tuc-tuc directly to the ferry. Again we saw big boats in the harbor dumping huge amounts of dirty water from their sides. We learned they pump the mud from below retain the mud and then release the grey waters.

Today we took a house boat to visit the famous backwaters canals of Kerala. 1 night out of the cities, I'm excited about it. We were expecting something simple, well it's low season so we got a floating palace!
... a few hours later...
We sure are on a floating palace but we were expecting a bit more of exploration... after just one hour of ultra slow boating the captain just stopped by a lake and prepared our lunch with the cook. Sure, this Maharajah service! But then, after a couple of hours we still hadn't moved an inch. With so many backwater canals awaiting for us we were a bit disappointed. Muriel went to check and found out the captain was sleeping!!! Not cool. Well after a few explanations we got back on track.

There are villages all along the canals and there are trails along them. It is a very special place where people live next to the water and grow rice on the fields between the canals. Water, palm trees, and beautiful straw boats make for a gorgeous sight. As we stopped for the night Muriel and I went for a little walk. It was so outlandish to see all the people living in the small houses and shacks spread under the palm trees... Lots of kids saying "Hi , what's your name?". Others bathing in the canal; well as you can imagine after Ganga river and Indian Ocean I had to swim in Kerala backwaters too!

Kochi and Elephants

From the desert landscapes of Rajasthan to the green tropical state of Kerala.
It's quite a change. Forests of palm trees, banana orchards everywhere and a beach resort atmosphere here in Kochi.
I was ready for an elephant fun time this morning. Went to the water as soon as I got there and was up to some scrubbing time helping the elephant care takers. Well, I found out elephants are really big and the care takers not very enthusiastic about people getting close to their animals. So we just watched them scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing. Dad, mom and the 4 kids, they all get a scrubbing bath twice a day. Then we walked back to the elephant center taking the road with all the traffic - I learned an elephant walks quite fast, you have to go on a good pace to follow them.
At the center we found out Muriel could not ride the beast. We were hoping to make a catalog of all animals she has been riding and now our plans are stuck...
Even more disappointing was the ride back to the hotel: almost 2 and 1/2 hours for barely 35 miles / 50km!!! Traffic is an issue over here. Herr...

The afternoon we just walked and visited Kochi.
There is an avenue in Kochi where wholesale retailers sell rice, beans and all kind of spices by the 80lb / 40kg bags. Wow! For the first time we really got the scents for which India is famous. So many!
Other scenes less glamorous also. Like the trucks being loaded and unloaded by simple human power. One bag at the time, right on the top of the head or on the shoulders. No forklifts... Even worse, the kids carrying big plates with dirt on the top of their heads from one construction site to another, a few yards (meters) away (this unit conversion thing is getting annoying)

Back to the beach resort atmosphere. We bought fish to fishermen on the beach for the second evening in a row. And then took it to the restaurant so they cook it for us. We love it and are planning to do it again tomorrow!

Temples and caves

We flew this morning to Aurangabad.

That's where the Hindu monk I met at Agra's train station told me we should go. "If you don't see the cave temples you haven't seen India" he told me then. Lonely Planet thinks so too.
He was an educated person. A degree on psychology. He sat next to me announcing he saw I wanted to meet him... That his job was to help people's problems... He also told me he had been a special forces supervisor, he had killed young fighters at the border with Pakistan. Those words rushed a big emotion to my eyes I remember. I tried to hide my tears. He resigned and became first a lawyer and then a monk.

Later, at Jodhpur, I would meet Michel, the French guy. He had such an insight to India after 8 years here. Here are some of his outbursts:
"monks are a bunch of outlaws that conveniently turn into religious people"
"yesterday a couple of kids were calling me names on the street. They didn't know I understand Hindi. So when one of them approached me to beg for 5 rupees I simply gave him a huge slap and asked him if he wanted 5 more."
"when I started to get my employees to clean the bathrooms at the plant I got a bunch of excuses for not doing it. One couldn't because he was Hindi this, another because he was Muslim that, and so forth... I got mad. I even gave them the finger and said " fuck the religion! Here it's like this! And if you don't like it go away!"
They didn't and one of his managers even quit the temple!!!
Sacré Michel!

So, we are in Aurangabad. Amazing temples carved on the rocks, carved starting at the top of their roofs to the ground floor. Many Indian tourists visiting and some asking to take pictures with Muriel.
Others showing their grand kids and asking us to take a picture of them.
We are as much seen as we watch them!

Mumbai under the monsoon

I am writing inside the taxi. Traffic!
The rain is pounding Mumbai no wonder the British came here!
We are a bit wet but it is quite an experience. We spent the day mostly walking downtown.
I like the mix of colonial style buildings with tropical vegetation.
No monkeys here though, nor cows nor sewer smells. This is Mumbai downtown, not India.

We visited a beautiful museum and Gandhi's place. Lots of emotions going on when viewing the pictures and the reconstitution of his life. He was a man!

Had to stop for fruits before arriving home. Papayas, pineapple, bananas, mangoes and watermelon. All of them ripe and have not traveled 2 million miles! Just had a ball cutting them all and sucking the mangoes' pit!