kaleidoscope: photos galore

These pictures are in reverse order with the last of the Goa pictures at the bottom and the Dharamsala pictures at the top. Molly mentioned in her blog that if you want to see enlarge the pictures you can zoom into the page (ctrl +). You can also go to this link and view the album http://picasaweb.google.com/ninotchkasequeira/Kaleidoscope#

I took this picture from a roof top cafe facing these two guest homes.
Between the cafe I am at and the homes across from me is a pathway that descends from one of the main roads on the mountain to the bottom of the valley.
Our home is at the bottom of over 200 stairs, a short veer to the left which avoids a mini crevice in the mountain, then downwards some more along a path with tons of mini loose rocks and tiny patches of grass which play host to meandering cows and goats. By the time you reach our room, you probably have walked the equivalent of an additional 100 steps or so. Should be interesting in the winter with the snow and frost.
Today, after moving into our new home (it has a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom), I walked up the stairs, alll the way up, got to my favourite road side bakery where I was about to order the first of my daily muffins until I realized that I left my wallet at home, all the way, down, the stairs. I felt even sillier when I realized that this was the day after I read Jon's blog which specifically mentioned that the stairs should help cure him of leaving his wallet at home...

Here's a glimpse of the town rising up along the mountain. There are a few towns near-by, most get smaller and smaller the further you go. Finding a home took us a while because we wanted a room with a kitchen attached. Most of the guest homes here cater to short term stays so while there are rooms with kitchens available they are a little harder to find, especially for the cheap prices we wanted. Also, some of the bathrooms were down the hall from your room, which is fine, except that the hall is often the balcony that runs around the building (as you see in the picture above) which means that you have to go outside between your shower and your room. Not to appealing. Part of what made our search so time consuming was the fact that we had to navigate the maze of stairs and pathways that go up and down, up and down along the mountain. Also, being India, clarity is a luxury that is often lacking thus making much of the process hit or miss depending on who you asked for information.

This is the view from a roof top cafe/restaurant
you can just barely see the two snow peaked mountains in the back

Waiting for the train from Goa back to Mumbai with my Uncle. We all awoke at 4:00 in the morning to make sure we didn't miss this train scheduled to depart at 7am. It was a couple hours late in the end.

We got a little bored waiting. Natasha made a crown of leaves and Jon posed for the camera.

This is a water snake we found on the beach. He was about 3 feet long. In its mouth is its dinner, a fish. There was a crowd of people surrounding it trying to save it but not understanding what it needed and thus mis-handling it. From what I understand, it needed to be out of the water to digest its catch but was unsafe out of water as it had landed on a tourist stretch of beach. So people wanted to put it back in the water but in order to do so had to pull the fish out so that it wouldn't drown. What it really needed was to be left alone, but because people are ridiculous, it was unsafe for it to be exposed to humans on the beach. A couple people pulled the fish out of its mouth quite vigorously which tore the snake's mouth quite badly as the fish had some crazy spikes that pulled at the snakes mouth. Jon had gone to get a knife to do the same but hopefully more safely. The people didn't understand or wait. Both Jon and I got a little worked up about the mob mentality which was working from ignorance and pure force. In an attempt to get the snake back into the sea a guy used a stick to lift and fling it. His aim was far from good and the he ended up flinging the snake barely into the water, and then further up onto the beach. I managed to get him to stop after yelling at him and then stripped down and walked the snake into the sea until I was about waist deep. When I let him go into the water he started to sink lifelessly which freaked me out and made my heart sink, but then he peaked up and swam away.