Mangalore 6th - 9th January 05.

Mangalore is and agreeable town, hassle free, and quite modern. It has these strange things called pavements. A rare phenomena in India and I’m not sure I can remember what they are for. I’m not sure whether I like them either. It does take the edge away from the whole India experience if you aren’t taking your life into your hands every time you venture out. Luckily the local authority have compensated for not walking amongst the traffic by leaving huge holes at random place along the pavements, and by allowing traffic signs and advertising signs to be erected at the height of 5ft. This way if you are looking up to make sure you don’t hit your head you are likely to fall down a hole and if you are looking out for holes you are likely to whack your head. Still at least you wont get run down by a bus, truck, car, rickshaw, motorbike, horse drawn cart, cow, or any of the other hundreds of forms of transport battling for space on the overcrowded roads.

Another strange and rare thing that seems to be the norm in Mangalore is one way streets that people actually (half heartedly take notice of). This place really needs shacking up a bit, it almost seems to function!

We spend a day looking around the sites, which include a great Hindu temple with a huge statue of the green monkey god Hanuman. I like him, he's almost as cool as Ganesh.. At the temple we watch as some pilgrims dressed in black sarongs and with white body paint on perform a strange Pooja and then throw coconuts at a wall. Odd...

This city is reaching forward to the future and bears little resemblance to the traditional town of Gokarna we have just left 100 or so km up the road. Ugly modern concrete buildings are replacing traditional local architecture. Men in suits and tie, others in the latest counterfeit western fashion share the street’s with men in traditional Lungi skirts. Women in Burka's, Sari's and traditional karnatakan dress, walk side by side with girls in western clothing, all chatting on their mobile phones as they step over the poor beggars who try to scrape a living off the streets. Al this goes on beneath the shadow of bill boards advertising the latest electrical goods and cosmetics etc.

The following day we get up early and head to the bus stand. All very excited about what the day has in store for us. We are heading off to see a local regional sporting event "Kambala" (Buffalo Racing / Surfing) After an hour and a half (sh*t your pants style) bus journey through some amazing tropical scenery we arrive at the event. We alight the bus and walk through a field where teams of men in team colored head gear and lungi skirts are pampering and waxing their buffalo.

We walk onto the next field where the actual event takes place. There are two tracks side by side, 120m long. These are filled with muddy water. I am trying to think how to best describe what we saw but I cant. I will give it a go though. Each team sends a pair of buffalo and a man down the tracks. The Man hits the buffalo with a cane (no animal rights here!) to get them to go faster and the man has to run along behind them being dragged by a rope. The buffalo can run at lightening speed covering the track in less than 14 seconds, thus making the man look very funny as he is traveling down the track faster than he can actually run. All this in about half meter deep muddy water. A second version of the sport also takes place. This time the man had to surf down the water on a plough being pulled by the Buffalo. I will upload some photos, as it really is hard to put into words.

When we arrived at the even we were stood amongst the spectators when a man spotted us. He came over and introduced himself and he turned out to be the Son of the organizer. He insisted that we come through to the VIP seats on a raised podium. It turns out that they don’t get many tourists turn up, and when they do they like to make them feel welcome. We received great hospitality, being brought drinks, and offered food all day. We leave having thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, having seen something that not many tourists get to see.

The following day we catch a Bus to Madekeri a hill station about 100km or so in land of Mangalore.