The India Trio Travel Team Extraordinaire

Carey Fayne- Doctors Without Borders, Nurse and PhD candidate at UW-Seattle
JoRo- NPR audio Engineer
Ruby- Mooptroop.com, CEO of an idea

We traveled South to North and then back to Mumbai. (Central/West Coast) We went by plane, car, autorick, ferry, boat and train.

Our itinerary was as follows:

Mumbai-Goa (on GoAir) Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday

We stayed for 3 days near Condolim right on the beach of the Arabian Sea in a nice airy room. We ate all our meals with our feet in the sand. A colleague from Animation Dimensions has a mate there from architecture school. The man, Kunal, generously and graciously took us out to a fine meal of King fish tandori , garlic prawns and the local dessert called bebinka, a dense layered cake. Feni is the local firewater made from either cashews or coconut. Josh and Carey loved the stuff, but it was a too strong for me and put me right to sleep!

Goa-Cochin (on Jet Airways) Monday, Tuesday

This got us to the South Western state of Kerala- claimed to be Gods Own Country.
The fleet of taxis down there are distinctive old white Ambassadors. We stayed in another Guest house of a lovely Catholic family whose 10 year old volunteered to be our first Mooptroop participant. We filmed her doing her Social Studies homework. We rose at 6 to be taken to a small brick building in an athletic field to take in the morning practice of a sport only found in Kerala called Kalaraipayto, an ancient martial art. We got footage of kids practicing for our first Moop webisode which will be focused on sports.

Allepi (bus) Tuesday, Wed, Thursday
Then we traveled down to Allepi by ferry and local bus. We passed thru Temple Festival where elephants are dressed in gold armor and ridden by gold clad folks carrying tall umbrellas. Allepi is also called the backwaters, or the Venice of India. We went straight to the Lake to hire a house boat, including a staff of three who drive and provide gorgeous meals. We spent two nights on two seperate boats, the second significantly nicer than the first. The food was spectacular. Fresh fish, spicey dishes, freshwater king prawns. The boats are somewhat futuristic in their curvature, but the scenes on the shore are from the old world- dugout canoes and women smacking laundry on rocks, wadding into the water.

Ama’s Ashram (bus) Thursday
From Allepi we took another series of buses (very cheap- maybe $2.20 for a two hour ride) to a remote village where the Ashram of Ama-gi, the Divine Mother is. We arrived just intime for her procession out to her long white Mercedes limo, decorated in marigolds. Ama was off to travel. Over 2000 devotees live there. There is a beautiful temple and an aura of love around the place. Everyone wears all white punjabs which Josh promptly purchased and hasn't taken off since, I don't think.




Vilcara (rickshaw) Thursday / Friday
Then a night in Vilcara, aka the Cliffs of Dover (our nickname, not theres)
A happy find, and an unplanned stop. We decided we didn’t want to stay at the Ashram so an hour south in an autorick to a beach town on the cliffs. A boardwalk lines the cliff overlooking the water and a night in a beach shack with a hammock outside. A nice dinner overlooking the sea and a restful night under the mosquito net.

Trivendrum (Ambassador taxi) Friday
The drive to the airport midday was along the sandy coast. Fishing nets and sculptures line the drive into the very mellow, small airport of Trivendrum.

Delhi (Kingfisher air) Friday, Sat, Sunday

We flew to Delhi and were surprised how beautiful it was. We went direct from the airport to an Ayurvedic clinic called Ashtang to receive the arcane hot oil to the third eye treatment. Deeply relaxing. We had a very nice hotel in New Deli by the trainstation. Out to dinner for dosas. The next day we rounded up train tickets, did some shopping and took the slow, old blue train 3 and ½ hours to Agra. To the Taj Mahal and back again. Sunday, we stopped into the Ganhi Smitri to see his moving last steps and wonderful museum.

Back to Mumbai for all to return to work in our three various locations. Josh and Carey both flew off that night. Josh direct on Continental to NYC. Carey on Ethiopian Airlines back to Kegali for a boat and Jeep ride back into the heart of Africa, her post in the Congo.

See pictures below.