Saturday, October 12, 2013

'SPATIAL' TEA, THE 'LORD OF THE RINGS FORT' AND PALMING

Planning a trip often takes up a lot of one's energy. But this time, I thought I prepared well, we had the number of a driver who moved us around earlier - we knew he had a huge car - and had a local guy talk to him so we avoid misunderstandings due to language barriers. After double, nay, triple-checking everything, what could go wrong, right? Let me make a list.
Let's start with 6 white students sitting on the sidewalk somewhere in Pune on a Sunday morning (and by morning I mean dawn). Yep, that's us, waiting for the driver who was "20 minutes late", meaning he arrived 50 minutes later than planned. That already screwed our plans to visit a cave before going to the coast, to Murud. Then it turned out he only has 4 seats for us instead of the previously triple-checked 6. Smooth.
After a friendly elimination round, worthy to be broadcasted on reality TV (kidding), Floor and Ben sacrificed themselves and stepped down, letting 4 of us go on the road. PEOPLE OF THE NETHERLANDS, BE PROUD, your fellow Dutch mates did good. 


* NOTE TO SELF: Google maps does not count the extremely varying quality of the roads, the #musttakeaphoto moments or the often occurring cow or goat roadblocks on the way when calculating the length of the route. And there goes a few more hours.

#musttakeaphoto moments on the way:

Photo credit: Viktoria

Photo credit: Viktoria

But it was totally worth it to see a default super-cheesy Windows screensaver live when we finally got to the coast in Murud:


Photo credit: Viktoria
 ...and to take some poscard-like photos


Photo credit: Viktoria

BREAKING NEWS: everyone, 'planking' is so 2012, Emma invented the way better: 'palming'. To quote the internet: 'haters gonna hate'.

Photo credit: Viktoria
 To be fair, I must add: it is almost impossible to take non-cheesy, less romantic photos when surrounded by this amazing scenery (and when we could borrow Ben's camera... so once again: Dutchies vs rest of the world: 2-0). Check some of them out:

Photo credit: Emma

Photo credit: Emma

Photo credit: Viktoria

Photo credit: Viktoria

Photo credit: Viktoria

After some intense (yet at this point almost scheduled) bargaining session with the office that handles the boats and then again with the captain of the boat (who turned out to be a self-appointed tourguide as well) we reached Murud-Janjira fort, floating majestically on the water.

Photo credit: Viktoria

Photo credit: Viktoria
I must have driven the guys crazy, because while we were climbing the old stairs of the fort I kept reciting scenes of the LOTR and try to convince them (or mostly myself, because they weren't as enthusiastic as me in this question) that some scenes of the movie were definitely shot in the Murud fort. (No, they weren't but they could have been, okay?!)

Photo credit: Emma


Photo credit: Viktoria

So... what is a 'spatial tea' you might ask? Spelling mistakes on the menus are old news, it happens quite often, but this one launched a serious debate, let us know what you think:

  • the tea comes in a huge mug in order to have more space, be more comfortable
  • the tea comes in a spacesuit or in a scafander
  • the tea will look like the space itself
  • the tea will be made with milk from the milky way
  • the tea was being stirred with a spatula
...sorry for that.

PS: it was just a regular chai. :D





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