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We arrived at Puri a few days before new years. The beach here was more busy with Indian holidaymakers, and again it was hard finding accomodation near thebeach. We managed to find a lovely guesthouse/home stay type place though, run by a lovely Indian family with 3 kids, which was definately the highlight of Puri. ON the second day there I almost cracked. INdia almost broke me right there and then. All the habits - unecessary horn blowing, traffic, pollution, rubbish littering the beach, people pissing and s***ting in front of you on the beach, a raw sewerage river coming out right in the middle of the beach, the smell!, constant spitting, tobacco chewing, touts, pervy guys video'ing western women or just staring at your chest, beggars harrassing you, the sputum growls and hoiks, ah the list goes on...anyway, it all got on top of me. Lucky we had the lovely family to stay with otherwise I think I would have gone crazy. NEW Years was pretty low key, we spent it with the family and a few other backpackers, made a small bonfire and went to the beach to watch the fireworks. hAD SOME amazing seafood in Puri though, as there is a fishing village right on the beach. The people in the village still live like they did 100's of years ago, fishing for a living, the women selling the fish. the kids running around naked and poo on the beach. the only thing that seems to have chnages is the fact that they use plastics (bags, bottles etc), and they have no idea how to get rid of the stuff (no it doesnt disintergrate like fruit or veges or paper), so they pile it on the beach in massive piles and put 2 or 3 pigs in there to try and eat it? anyway, the village is gorgeous, but the rubbish is an eyesore. it was pretty fascinating walking past and seeing how they live though, as we walked along the beach, dodging poo, all we saw were specks, squatting as far as the eye could see in the distance. the beach. the public toilet. as we walked past the men got up and pretended they were'nt going to the toilet and swirled their toes in the sand, hands in pockets as we walked past. when we looked back they were squatting again. its just so different. as you probably guessed there was no way in hell we went swimming. we did a day trip up to Konark, a small seaside village with an amazing sun temple. along the way were some nicer beaches, slightly cleaner, but still not worth swimming in for the pollution factor. massive groups of picnic'ing indians on the way to Konark - how nice - apart from the fact that they leave hordes of rubbish behind. its a kiwi thing. our country is so clean, its just so hard to get used to the indian ways. it really is. after new years we decided to visit the tribal areas, which didnt happen, mainly because the transport was booked solid (we couldnt get a train for a week!), and also because there was some trouble in the area, so we got stuck at a couple of small places on the way to Hyderabad called Viskapatnam and Vijayawada. I swear Visk wanted us to stay there and never let us leave. we spent 5 hours one day at the train station only to be told we couldnt get our tickets. now thats how you learn patience. we finally got out of there by bus and decided to go to Hyderabad (cyberadad as some call it, the IT capital of india), which I will write about soon.
Hop everyone is well and have had a great xmas and new years.
Julia
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