Svalbard 78 Deg N

When I first arrived in Tromso, Norway in 2010, that was the northern most point on this planet I had ever travelled to till then.  And yet the 68.5 Deg N latitude felt like any other place I had been to in Norway and so the other tags that it had earned over the years, like the worlds northernmost university town, or the world northernmost brewery etc. did not impress me much. Coz it simply didn’t feel northerly enough, even in the middle of winter with no sun at all.

I guess that was the beginning of wanting to go to a place where it felt like the extreme north.

A combination of Northern latitude and emptiness, was what I thought would really feel like ‘The North’. I knew that there is an island up there somewhere and it is called Svalbard. I knew it is the world’s northernmost place with a fully functional human settlement of more than two thousand. I knew that there on this island we have 3 months of complete darkness, where there are more snow mobiles than cars.  The thing I didn’t know was that it is not very expensive to fly there and if you plan it well you could well be on the way for less than 200 Euros return from Oslo.

All through 2012, Svalbard remained pocking at my travel mind especially through my travels in both summer and winter in Norway. It was on the last day of my Northern lights tour in the winter of 2012 on a flight from Tromso to Oslo, did I first read the words ‘LONGYEARBERN’ on the route map of Norwegian Airlines.

Longyearbearn was the airport that they flew to from Tromso. This was the northern most civil airport in the world.  I think that was the first time on that flight that I thought that it might be possible to fly to the ‘Town of the long year’ somewhere in the near future.

‘The worlds most beautiful country’, ‘the land of the mid night sun’, ‘the northern lights capital of the world’ etc are things that you may hear in relation to Norway. I have been lucky enough to go there, time and again and every time it feels a little different than earlier. The same place presents itself newly. I am talking more in terms of the North of Norway.

I believe a place should first present itself accidentally. Then it should grow in your mind. Grow like a plant from a seed .. and that’s the time when you are ready to go.

I knew in March 2013 that I was ready to go to Svalbard this July. 

Portugal is Portuuugaaaal

Slovenia is the smallest European nation I have travelled to. Portugal is maybe thrice its size but it feels small.  By small I mean it doesn’t feel European enough. In its appearance maybe yes, the streets, the traffic etc.

However once you go inside a cafe and the meet the people running the place, it feel’s different. More intimate to be precise.  Eating is a different thing! Nowhere else in the world I have seen the guys who run the place so interested in recommending you, what to eat. At certain places the recommendations stretch to much more than just that.

When I first came to Portugal in December 2012, I realized that I had come closer to finding the place I want to live in if not in India. It maybe just a childish fantasy, like the way we want to be pilots or doctors when we are in our primary school. Who knows? but I have come back twice after that and the liking has only grown. Yes there are other countries in this continent, which are appealing, but Portugal is just so different.

Today I met a woman in a café who said to me, ‘all the Portuguese run shop’s are closing down being replaced by Chinese or Indian owners. She didn’t seem to be upset by it. Maybe the Portuguese don’t know how to do business? Is this the thing that pulls me towards towards this country? The non commercial attitude in the majority of people I have met. On a personal level even I get told, “you don’t know how to make money”.

There is an underlying current, which only grows stronger with every visit. I remember in East Europe when my Polish driver enters his home country from Czech republic, the smile on his face is different. Someone said the same thing about me when I entered Portugal through its southern border with Spain. Even my Spanish driver after saying, “Well, Portugal is 10 years behind Spain” was quiet happy about it.

Maybe the extreme west, geographical location helps. Maybe bordering with no other country but Spain keeps the Portuguese traditions intact. Whatever the reasons are.. I hope through its entire economical crisis, this country stays the way it is.

I hope Portugal stays as Portugal!

Where am I ?

I don’t know how many months/tours have passed since I last wrote here. In March, I had the privilege of travelling to South America; it is a privilege when it happens after 18 months! I thought I would write an entire series from there. But .. not even a word was written. Then came Spain and Portugal in April. There I wrote a few words, but I was so much in love with Portugal that words couldn’t really make up for what I felt. Then, like every year in May came Poland and surroundings, I was hopeful that some evening as I looked out into the mountains, words would automatically flow. Nothing.. or as they say in Spanish .. nada.. not even one word.

Over the past 3 months I have travelled and really travelled. So much so that I would wake up in the middle of the night and take a few minutes to realize where I was. It was a strange feeling, one that I had not experienced before. Travel is changing for me; the desire to show people that there exists a world beyond the city limits has governed the last 3 – 4 months.

                                                        St Bernard in the Andes 

I used to fondly say that East Europe is the only tour that helps me to gain weight. In other words, the food there is my all time favorite. Be it Poland, Czech or Croatia. This time however I couldn’t find the time to eat, or maybe just lost the desire to go the extra length to find a good restaurant. I remember every time I wanted to say “I hate this job“ I ended up saying “you have to do it for Slovenia”, or whichever country I was in.

                                                         Tua Railway Station - Portugal

   

Call me crazy, but the only saving grace when my spirit is down on tour is the love for the country I am in. I may eat or sleep hungry, make friends or be lonely, have fun with my tourists or absolutely hate them. But the love for the country never goes away.

Sometimes people ask me. “How come you don’t get bored coming to the same place again and again?”. I simply smile. It maybe the unbearable headache at 15000 ft in Peru or the frustration of not finding a single vegetarian option on the Menu for the tourist’s dinner in Portugal, the face may project something else, but inside I am always happy.

                                                           Plitvice Lakes - Croatia

I am one of the few lucky ones who do what they love, for a living. Travel is what I do right?!. But wait, it doesn’t end there! Travelling to the places that I love is the key. Because, only in these places can I really be myself and try and show my people what the real country feels like.  So on one hand I would love to visit every small village in Turkey, but not even look at the map of U.S.A. I don’t like it, I don’t want to know it, is what I believe in.  So travel in the micro sense for me is linked with the countries that I love. The best part about this love is that it has no reason. I don’t know why a meal in Portugal makes me cry in pleasure? Or Egypt makes me so happy that I don’t wish to come back to India. Similarly I don’t know why I absolutely have no feelings for Australia and don’t even wish to talk about U.S.A.

I believe if you have reasons to love or hate, with time that relationship might change with the reasons.  

The writing had to happen now! In air is where I often start writing after a long break. Especially if the flight is going to Scandinavia it means a little more.

Myanmar Diaries - The Royal Myanmar Railway

After a crazy day at the lake where the only good part was my boat driver did every turn I asked him to, I had to move away from the tourists. So I decided to take the 15 km/hr train to a town called Kalaw. It’s the sort of a typical ‘British Hill Station’ the book said. During the early 30’s when the British were building railways in Burma, the Indians, the Nepali’s and the Bangladeshi’s all came in search of work. If you see anyone looking different than the average Burmese then they mostly are the 3^rd generation of the then railway workers.

                                             The start of my journey - Nyuangshwe Station

The train journey is some kind of another experience. The speed is not only excruciatingly slow but the way the carriages shake remind you of some ride in an entertainment park. Well to talk about entertainment, there is enough provided by the locals. The train makes 4 stops on the way to Kalaw during the 70 kms trip. The stations look more like those seen in the 1930’s pictures of Mumbai with a tin shade on the top, a few bullock carts outside to carry the people as well as the goods. The only thing that reminds you of this decade is a vehicle manufactured by Honda or Toyota parked on the road.  At many times, I thought I am looking at a scene from an old Hindi movie only in color.

Like in India, the train is never in time. But here comes the best bit from the station where I boarded the train, Shwenyuang junction.

The train pulls in at the station exactly 45 minutes late, and the stationmaster says “good in time”. We are a group of only 6 – 7 foreigners who have taken the upper class, which as I enter appears to me more ransacked than the ordinary class. The only difference is the higher fare and cushioned seats. I find a seat in the direction of the movement and settle down. There are atleast 4 -5 layers of dust on the table in front of me, but that’s nothing to complain about. The ticket collector gives a hand to an elderly french couple with their lugguage and then is eager to tell everyone to sit on the seats assigned to them, in an almost empty compartment.

                                            No Rush ! The train waits till you have shopped

Later, as the train is about to move, a family of eight children with their respective mothers, get inside the compartment and it feels a little alive around me. Alive not noisy! The train starts with the expected thud and after less than 100 metres it stops suddenly. It starts to move backward and I realize it is changing tracks. Well, it stops again and moves in the same direction as before only this time it stops at the station again. Some people get in the train. It moves and stops again .. this is the time when the big family gets out. It seems the ladies just wanted to give their children a ride. They all jump out on an open field and a single lady who was watching them all this while gets into the compartment. She is the real traveler I realize. Welcome to Myanmar Railways, I tell myself.

The train finally starts to move at more than 10 kms/hr and the family from down below shout their bye’s out loud to the solo woman. This was it!! I tried not to make anything out of it and just enjoy their passing company. Two people with uniforms and chewing on the beetlenut pan settle next to me and say ‘mingla ba’ in local language means ‘hello’.  By this time I forget that the scenery outside was one of the draws for me to take this journey and in the roller coaster of a train, I go off to sleep. I may have been on the verge of almost knocking myself out when a hand shook me. It was one of the guys in the uniform, “look out, goo view’. I smiled and saw that the train had already started to ascend and a bridge constructed in the 40’s was approaching. I had already seen it a day earlier from the road, but for him I said .’ya good’. He was the ticket collector, part time porter and now also the tour guide.

The first stations it pulled in was Heho and by then the man had already shown me three other sites. One of them was the crash site of an ‘air bagan’ flight, which by the way I was going to take the next morning. “air bagan .. doosh” he spoke more with his action than with his doosh !

The next item on the entertainment list was oranges. Oh yes .. on the train they eat oranges for time to pass. Its more like the pan chewing habit can only be given up for oranges. As I got down at the Heho station, I too bought oranges coz by then I had too much of accepting oranges from everyone on the train and not giving them any. It was like exchanging greetings with an orange and I did not want to fall behind. So even when the price for oranges for a foreigner was double of that of the locals, I got the necessary number of oranges I thought would last me for the journey, little did I know that I would beat my own personal record with oranges which was 1/10^th of what normal man eats on a 5 hour train journey in Myanmar.

                                                   From Station to home.. Anyone ?

The second station came and this time there was not the commotion of Heho. So I got out to stretch a little and walked past my compartment to peep in the huge wooden windows, a group of officials and regular commuters playing Burmese poker with all sorts of local currency denominations on a make shift table and orange peels on the floor. “Come play, it fun’ I just nodded and as the train started I went and joined the group. This was the craziest form of poker I had seen. The bills were folded in one, two and upto four folds.  I did not even attempt at asking why. The winner at each hand gulped in one more orange and laughed.

We take pictures, or write on a travel. I had never seen a paint diary before. A French woman, whom I earlier saw sit outside the station painting a water sketch of the surrounding had now engaged my attention as I moved around the compartment to cut time.  I saw the colorful pages open and had to ask for permission to see it. She promptly said in her french accent, “I have one on India, wait I show you”! It was beautiful and took me the next 30 minutes of the journey.  The last 45 minutes of the journey I sat alone and looked out as the air turned cooler and the scenery greener.

The train was the unexpected surprise of my visit to the state of Shan. As I got down at Kalaw. I did not care about the town. The journey was enough to make it a day.

Myanmar Diaries - Inle lake

The village of Nyuangshwe on the mouth of the Inle Lake is a backpacker’s heaven. At least it was some 11 months back. With tourism comes money and with it comes the want of more money. Its saddening to see that the simple people in the villages around the lake are so under the influence of the  $$ that,  you almost want to run away from there. But having said this, nothing can take away the beauty of the place.

                                                  The traditional way of fishing on Inle

Lake Inle might be the biggest tourist draw for the people coming to Myanmar. The lake is big and there is one more resort every year than there used to be. The sales staff in the cottage industries around the lake, have been employed with a minimal knowledge of English with words like, ‘Best price’ and ‘discount’ looming large, and once you buy their stuff, they all say ‘lucky money.’ Ya you only realize how lucky they got considering that they sell their goods at double the prices than that of the town.

Well, now about the good part. The people and the pure pristine scenery!

The Burmese have a way of offering things, they do it with the right hand, bending their head in respect and touching the right elbow with the left hand. When they smile its mostly genuine. The little waterways that my boat driver took, provided me with some of the genuinely curious faces peeping out of the wooden windows in the houses that stood on stilts. The other kind of peeping in was when the sales people winked at my boat guy for him to get the bait in. After falling prey to the silver stop and handing the girl who used the word ‘halo’ as a full stop after every sentence, I decided I am going to bargain. But before I could speak anything at the wood carving place, the girl said, the pli iii 5000 , but I give you fo 4000 ok .. vely chep’ . At places like these I thought I bought what I could in the limited local currency I was carrying, only to support the villagers there.

                                                   No bargaining please .. only lucky money!

The Palaun women are the postcard tribal woman of Myanmar. You must’ve seen an image of a woman with brass rings on her neck , as a result of which the head seems further away from the collarbone. These women live in the mountains but they earn 10 times of what they do in the mountains selling milk by just posing for camera’s on the lake Inle. Such is the tragedy! But everyone wants a picture of them, thankfully I didnt see anyone posing with them. Originally made to wear the brass bands to look less attractive to the invading armies of tribes, no one would’ve thought back then that these very rings would make them the number one tribal picture of Burma.

The best picture opportunity of Lake Inle however is the traditional fishermen in their tiny vessel fishing with the unique conical shaped net. On my way back from the lake as the sun was about to set I saw a couple of fishermen posing for a big group of tourists with high end cameras, the good part is that they were having fun with this and I guess it involved no money and even if it did, that meant a good feast on the full moon day.

The sunset over the lake is beautiful; more so because the group tours have retired to their high end hotels on the lake and the water feels less crowded.

Lake Inle for many is the high point of Myanmar. For me however it was a bit disappointing with due respect to its beauty. It was like an Israeli I met on one of the Islands said, ‘Hmmm this lake .. not as good as Daal Lake in Srinagar, this country not as cheap as India’

Myanmar Diaries - Flight to the north.. Thank god for the fog!

Its been quiet some years since I had travelled to the east of India, which in time is ahead in Hours.

Last night when I crashed in bed after two consecutive nights of sleeping on flights, I set my alarm to which I thought was 5.15 am Myanmar time for a flight at 7.30 am from Yangon to the eastern state of Shan. The only thing I remember is waking up at 4 am out of fear of missing the flight and cursing myself ‘the alarm is set it will ring’. Well it did ring while I was in the taxi to the airport. I had woken at 7 am and the flight was just 30 mins away.

I don’t know how I managed to do my morning chores but in 10 minutes I was on a taxi to the airport(after showing my hand as take off as a signal for the airport). Ten minutes away from my actual take off I was still at a traffic signal, but couldn’t see the red light as the morning fog in Yangon had set in. I reached the airport just 5 mins away from the take off. I had imagined myself run and eventually asking the ‘Air Bagan’ counter for some refund, inturn i found myself walking to the counter which still had some people checking in with the destination of my flight displayed.
‘I thought I missed my flight’ I said to the attendant. ‘oh no we wait for you’ she smiled! It was the fog .. The check in was smooth is all I can say, with the porter taking my bag on a trolley to the scanner and putting a sticker on my chest, the ones they put as a ticket when you enter a sightseeing place.

The Fog had grounded all the flights and the departure area was a complete mess. I obviously had to skip my breakfast but I guess as I wrote from the solo airport restaurant, I had enough time for yet another coffee. The only thing I feared I had forgotten back in the room was my iphone charger, which anyways was alright as Myanmar has a signal block for all international phones.

The boarding announcements went on and the waiter told me to wait and finish my coffee. Now that’s the benefit of having your flight stuck to your chest! As I typed on my laptop I saw my waiter eagerly listening to the announcements in English, a language I doubt he knew, the accent he did understand or I guess just the flight number. He was like the alarm that would come and wake me up from the chair and this time it did it right!

                                                             The Check- In bags 

Myanmar is expensive in terms of Hotels, and tourist transport. So tourists from the west especially who have combined this with the trip to Thailand, often complain about the prices. I too think the same especially for what I got for $75 in a shabby guesthouse in Yangon. Tourism is in boom and suddenly everyone wants to cash in. Some have improved their quality and therefore charge more, the others and that include most of them, simply charge more because they know people will pay. The guidebook, which was published in the Jan of 2012, has rates, which have grown by more than 100% in this season. So the people who blindly follow the guidebook (that includes me as well) are in for a shock as they approach the Hotel desk or the taxi guy.

I am not very good at bargaining and so after a little yes and no, I did give in to the close to $75 demanded for the 7 hr trip from the Heho airport where I landed to Pindaya, which has the only natural cave Golden Buddha temple of the world and then to Nyuangshwe, near the mouth of the biggest tourist attraction in Myanmar, The Inle Lake.

The Burmese are bloody honest!! I had read, but when the airport attendant got my travel pouch to me just as I realized it had been left at the counter of passport check, I just smiled and said thank you. “Hey yoaa baeeg” he said to me! If you think the Thai don’t pronounce half the English letters, come to Myanmaaa !

The temple was good and the drive took me through the Shan State countryside. The Shan are local tribes and a proud lot they are. Much of the state is out of the tourist radar as it borders China and Thailand and there are frequent conflicts as we near the border. But I was well away from it and in the tourist heartland of the state where the only conflict is in this season to find a room. My search on the internet resulted in nothing but mails saying “we are sorry, no rooms we have” or “no rooms, try some other one” it was like getting a no for a job interview. Finally I had decided to come here and see for myself. Well the first recommendation on the Lonely Planet places to stay had a room (the guys who booked it didn’t turn up, the prices had gone 3 times higher than those printed in the book) so without going further I just took it.

There are as many travel agencies in the town of Nyuangshwe as they are places which sell the Myanmar beer. They all arrange the most in demand ‘boat trip on the lake’. The lady owner at my guesthouse, tried to sell me the trip for twice the market price, which I later realized, and I am glad I didn’t take the offer.

After scouting some agencies in the town, which seemed to me like moving in a village in India in the mid 80’s or maybe even before, I was finally able to feel right about one. “Money is ok, no ploble payin is tomolo” it was not just the money which was the lowest in the market. The boat guy was sitting just there staring at me smiling. Within minutes we had the whole itinerary for the next day chopped out. The owner which was still in his 20’s was a particularly easy guy and seemed non touristy which was refreshing after the desperate sales pitch made by my guesthouse owner.  Infact the guy was so cool that as I was walking back from the restaurant to my hotel, he called me in his shop, which had a aspiring band practicing.

Dagon beer(Myanma biya is no stlon), and local cigar was to accompany the guitar on which Burmese versions of popular English songs played. As it is I don’t understand any English in the songs I hear, so there I was singing with them in Burmese. The night had just begun for the guys. For me, well I didn’t want to miss the boat the next day!!

That night my phone which doubles up as my wake up call was set again this time one hour ahead of IST. Oh and yes it was plugged in to the charger as well! Nothing lost after all!

Myanmar Diaries - Yangon, the capital!

The flight looked full and going by the number of people waiting at the departure gate, it didn’t  seem like I was going to a relatively unknown country. Mostly American’s in tour groups, and a few Asians here and there. Writing from the Bangkok international airport waiting to board the flight to Yangon, Myanmar, I can say that I was quiet surprised. ‘Myanmar is on the tourist map’ I thought to myself. Now let me call it by another name, Burma, still not helping? Well, look it up on the map. A country of good size, between India and Thailand, Myanmar borders Laos, Bangladesh as well as China.

The arrival formalities were smooth and the floor looked sparkling at the Yangon international airport. At the immigration I noticed, the counters for foreign tourists, were attended to, by women and that for Burmese nationals had beetle nut chewing men. Within 10 mins from arrival I was in the cab whose driver kept on checking the address to my hotel with his glasses on and then asking bystanders with them off.

I was in Yangon to meet with travel agents to arrange a group of fellow Indians for the future, but first I had to set my itinerary right.
The lonely planet is a guide book I have extensively used to find hotels, restaurants etc but this was the first time I was using it to find a travel agent. This is how ‘new’ it was to me to travel to the neighboring Myanmar.

                                                              The Street Satay joint 

I had read about the following before coming to Myanmar.

Only $$ are accepted and the bills have to be, clean! No creases, no marks, no folds and certainly not torn(blame the sanctions which are imposed by the U.S on the government of Myanmar, or just blame the military rule) 

No credit cards! No international phones! Very limited internet and English!

So I was not surprised, when the guest house and the travel agent together rejected close to $1000 out of the $1400 I had with me. After paying collectively, I just had $53 good to go, left with me and the hotels for the next 4 days had yet to be paid for. So this is what you do ..

You go and change your not so good $$100 bills at a regular bank into the local currency (Kyats, pronounced as chats). Then go to a spanky bank and get your clean $$. Well you do loose out on the buying selling rate, but its still worth it with virtually no acceptance of creased bills by hotels.

With the cash back in my pocket I felt better again and set out on my job. The temperature even in February is close to 34 deg here and I was glad that the next day I had booked a flight to go to the hills of Myanmar.

The book speaks about a walking tour, which I unintentionally did, not to see the sights, but to find the travel agents listed. After the punishing sun, it had to be beer and not anywhere else but at the strand hotel. “We only take $$” the waiter said. The beer was cold and the music was soft in the lobby bar of the most expensive hotel in Myanmar. When I said no to snacks(too expensive!!) the waiter just got me a bowl of fish crackers. At places like the Strand when you see Locals, that means they are the super rich of the country, and since the American version of poison, Coca Cola, just got introduced to the country, I saw a group of them just having a coke each!

Myanmar is a country where almost all of the population is Buddhist. The land of the Pagodas is what its called. The biggest of them all and that too topped with 2000 kgs of gold and 3000 carats of Diamonds is the Shwedang Paya. After trying hopelessly to negotiate for a good rate, I settled in for what the driver had to offer and came face to face with the traffic of Yangon.  The driver who had avoided commenting on his country’s political situation blasted the government and the city roads later. So much so that he went on talking and I fell asleep.

The car finally came to a stop and it was only after the engine went silent that I realized I had to get down. The shwedang Paya was here.

The pagoda turned crimson red with the setting sun and then a magic gold when the lights came out. I walked aimlessly around it greeted a few of the guides, who said ‘namaste’ to me. One of the guides I think spotted my aimlessness and asked me to walk the 5 steps with him. “look up as you walk, do you see anything?” . I do not, I told him. He said again “look up at the top of the Pagoda” and there I saw the biggest diamond changing its colour  A 70 carat diamond at the top he said, “it change color “!!  A guide does make a difference.

The pagoda is set on a high hill so that it is visible from anywhere in the city. Also the highest position in the city has its own significance. The authorities have built capsule lifts to take the visitors, up and down the hill. There are four entrances to the complex in four directions. Only the north and the south have elevators, the other two, have stairs leading to them.

It was only on my way out that I realized how huge the complex was. It took me 30 minutes, a kilometer of more aimless but this time frustrating walking and a lot of failed attempts at English to find me the right exit down where my shoes were.  My mind was tired from searching and not sleeping for over two nights. I realized all my time up there I had not sat at a place for more than 10 minutes and observed silence.

So as I left the pagoda, I just thought of doing what the locals were there for, meditation and not just photo taking. But with a tired mind and a crying stomach ,it was hopeless to even try.

Sushi is the new Mc’Donalds for junk food haters. I soon realized this, as people who don’t want to risk ordering local food were all coming to a sushi joint recommended in the book. Mostly these Europeans were on their way out of Myanmar and therefore had got tired of rice and Burmese curry. Here they could at least let go of the curry.  

On my way to the hotel in the taxi, I fell off to sleep. All I remember is the driver stopping the car and shaking me .. “We alive”  (read as we arrive), yes I was glad to be alive but soon I was about to drop dead on my bed.

Portugal: From Spain back to Evora, Day 6 & 7.

Today the drive could’ve been as simple as just crossing over to Portugal and heading to Evora. Like I did, when entering Spain. However I had my travel tool with me, and even Tim today chose to listen to the book. Tim being my GPS voice for those who haven’t followed the earlier posts.

Lets say it started with breakfast and ended with it. Ok a little more detail …

I usually had my phone to wake me up, but not today the 25^th December, Christmas morning. I woke up to the sounds in my stomach, the sounds which were with me the entire night. Screaming. ‘give me food’.  I went down where a breakfast was laid, it was the best I had so far. From a thigh of pig kept to be picked to the fresh honey and cheese everything smelt nice. It was raining out and it felt moist in my mouth. I am talking about the first bite of the croissant. Is'nt it lovely? how beautiful the simplest of things taste when they are done perfect! Looking at the spread that morning, I thought I should eat it all. But the first bite of that croissant is really what I remember. So, with the breakfast done and the voices calmed down, I started my decent from the old town to the Portuguese border. 

The first town on the other side of the border was so white that the sun light reflecting  from the walls nearly blinded me. It looked beautiful however. My aim however was to visit the town of Monsaraz, where the population was 20, in words, twenty!! 

The road was much narrower and the drive much nicer, much like the road to Pinhao. It did’nt have the river for company, but the fields and the sheep grazing on them. It felt like spring in the middle of winter.  Unlike in Spain where all small towns have a by pass on the state highway, Portugal needs you to drive through them. That is the best part, coz on the way you see so many characteristic towns and if you are lucky then, even some people on the street. I don’t know if it was for Christmas or these towns always feel empty. Only in people I mean not ever in the way they make you feel.

If the towns on the way to Monsaraz felt empty, then Monsaraz felt like a ghost town. The book had suggested that the vehicles, be parked outside the town walls and the entrance was by foot through one of the five gates.  In old times there would be the guards to accompany the entrances, now too they were there but only in figures. As I entered and walked through the narrow pebbled streets, I saw the whole town was filled with figures. The book has said that once the town had a population of over 200, and now it had only 20, with the young going out to find jobs. I wondered later was this decoration really for Christmas or to make the old folks in the town feel that they have more faces to see than what they usually do.

It is true that tourism supports such towns but then not all want to be a part of tourism, so the young leave and the old are left behind, I would rather say they choose to be left alone, with their town. Very often when one takes pictures of a monument or a town square, you wait for the appropriate moment when it feels less crowded around or you have a clear view. In Monsaraz there was no obstruction, there was just me and the figures, the streets and the old church which stood there decorated and feeling rich for Christmas.

However as I roamed through the narrow streets there were some inquisitive dogs who spoke to me, till their sound was cut by sounds of plates being washed. It was a restaurant and I was hungry, only that the sheer beauty of the emptiness didn’t make me realize that. Ah, I said to myself, so this is where the town is. They were all having lunch. It seemed like this was the only restaurant in town and they were all having lunch there. But there were young people too! And then I realized they had come to see their parents for Christmas and then the parents took them out for a Christmas lunch, the town belonged to them after all.

                                                             The figures of Monsaraz

'Monsaraz' was a find, but it was for me. Coz I knew my senior citizens wont be able to do what the towns old folks did.

It was a similar fear, Guadalupe before Caceres and liking Guadalupe so much that Caceres just turned out to be a night stay. So,  I thought to myself on the way to Evora the Capital of Alentejo region in Portugal, ‘what if it disappoints me’ the big town feel turns out to be a spoiler at times. Evora was never on my group itinerary and I was only doing it as it was heavily recommended by the book, and this is the only hope I went in with. The Lonely Planet recommends it so it wont be that bad if not to my taste. But I forgot, I was in Portugal and here, as I later realized even Lisbon seems to be a small town.

Evora was good, well more than that. I was glad that with all the restaurants closed for Christmas I was not left with a 50 euro supplement on dinner in some fancy restaurant but was nicely catered to by the staff of my guest house. We spoke till they had to leave and I had to go to bed.

The breakfast next morning was the freshest I’ve ever had in my entire travel life. I wont say more ..

                                                                The breakfast in Evora 

I will not go to Monsaraz again or maybe even Evora. Because it won’t happen in my group tour. Why? Because I cant tell my people to walk so much, it’s a pity I know but then there are always some adjustments that can be made without compromising the integrity of the tour and being true to the country.

As I soon realized, the Atlantic coast would be the next thing to blow their mind in Portugal!

Each road, that pass through the vineyards in Portugal is called as the 'rota de vinho' (route of the wine). If you ask me to pick any road in the country I would name it 'rota de paraiso' (route of paradise). 

Atlantic was next. 

Portugal: In Spain for day 4 & 5

Spain?! What comes in your mind when you hear this word? Flamenco dancers, Tapas, Spanish guitar, bull fights .. Well I think it is much more than that though I have yet to see Spain, the way I want to, let alone feel it. I really believe that a country hits you instantly, and Spain hadn’t hit me in my first trip there in 2010. So this time I was a little biased when I crossed the border and entered Spain. The only comforting thing was Spanish, and that I could do more with it than to just get around with my limited knowledge of the language. On the first 2 days of driving I had taken the odd route and it paid at times. That day on the way to Salamanca, the capital of Castella & Mancha, I decided to simply listen to Tim, the voice on the GPS. I reached early and it immediately hurt that I did not have the ‘lonely planet’ to Spain. I knew the language but I did not know what to do in Salamanca. So I did what I had gone for. To search for hotels for my group to stay, following a map, which I had marked the hotels on. It was a small town and finding the hotels was easy, though not always going up to them. The medieval towns in Spain are more or less set on hills and Salamanca is no exception to that. We will just say that till the evening I had managed to select one hotel which was good with the feel, its distance from the main square and most importantly for my 60 yr + people, it had an easy access.

A job done with the hotels and the places to see could be dealt later when there would be a guide to show us around.  It was almost 6.30 pm and unlike the earlier evening in Coimbra, my appetite had only grown in Salamanca. When I travel alone, and it does get a little lonely at times, food is the only thing that I look forward to. So I set to search for a place that felt right. Its very important on your travels that you don’t enter the first place you see and eat a sandwich coz you are too hungry to wait and too scared to order anything else. Roam around a bit, take in the town and you will know when to enter a restaurant.

I took my chance and entered a place, which served only Tapas. Well I suddenly remembered that the only thing that I had really liked on my first visit to spain were the tapas. So tapas they were for lunch and for dinner. Spain being expensive than Portugal I overspent by around 10 euros on each meal. The day was good but it felt like a regular office day. You do your work and you eat your meal. You enjoy both but there still feels something missing. Or maybe it was just the standard’s were raised too much by Coimbra.

The second day however came as a surprise. Salamanca had to stay in my itinerary, unlike Coimbra, which had to be sacrificed for the sake of Pinhao. The question then was which Paradores to select out of the three medieval towns of Caceres, Trujillo and Guadalupe for my next stay. ‘Paradores’ are hotels owned by the state in Spain and are beautifully structured in an old palace or a villa. I wanted my people to stay in one of them to get the authentic feel of old world Spain.  On my drive to Caceres where I was booked in a Paradores myself, the town of Guadalupe came in first. The road was a little off track but then I thought what if it pays off like Pinhao? and what a view it was from a distance of 500 metres! A Church which looked like a castle rising high above the other structures as it rightly should, and the being surrounded by perfectly sculpted city walls.

. As I entered the tiny square I could hear people singing and it seemed that the walls sang with them. Straight out of a story book. No tourists, only locals drinking, eating and praising the patron saint of the village through music. I told myself I shall come to sit amongst them later, first the hotel to be chosen. There was no option here. Either the Paradores had to be too bad or it had to have a 500 step climb in order to be declined for the group. The town had really won me over and to my relief, the hotel was as charming as the town. Set in a convent around an orange orchard. The manager even said that I could get a bus to the steps and he would ask the town municipalty to arrange for a parking.

I wanted to ask the manager even before staying at the Paradores in Caceres which had a population of 60,000,  whether it would be possible that I shift my stay from there to Guadalupe. There is a thing about small towns everywhere, the people are generally nice and if you speak their language they are nicer. Its true that on that afternoon as I had my first sip of Spanish beer, it felt much better than I had felt after having beer ever.

The town of Caceres, later as I learnt was just a formality. A night was booked and I had to simply use it. My group would stay in Guadalupe and proceed to Seville in the south of Spain without even stopping at Caceres, forget staying there. However being a Paradores, my stay in Caceres was good, but it happened to be Christmas eve and that meant I have their 50 Euro meal or stay hungry, with all the restuarants closed. With my over spending the day earlier, I chose the later.

Next morning I woke up with excitement, I was heading back to Portugal!