Even though not many people read this blog, I made a new design for it.

Enjoy! :)

We would like to send this picture to all the people who helped us with advice, lifts, accommodation, donations, food, blog translations etc. to get here.

A little montage about the award ceremony:

And I would like to send this other picture to the old man on the Budapest suburban railway from our first day of the trip who found our big backpacks very strange, and after we told him our plans asked: "Okay-okay kids, but where are you really going?".

To India, my old friend, to India :)

From Trivandrum I went to Cochin, which was a nice 4 hour ride on the luggage space of the second class train. You know, up there above the heads of the people, where you put your bags. (Not on the roof of the train! Actually, I have only seen that on pictures.) In India it's quite normal to climb up to the luggage space after all seats and floor space are full. This is the view from up there:

After I arrived to Cochin I jumped in an autorickshaw which took me to the place of the Swedish-Dutch guy Jesper, whom I met on CouchSurfing and who was nice enough to let me sleep at their place 2 nights if in turn I make some Hungarian Nutella pancakes for him and his flatmates. :) Well, I was happy to make some, so I stayed with them and we spent the Diwali together. Diwali is the Festival of Lights in India, one bursts firecrackers and fireworks to celebrate.

This history of Diwali (Warning: I won't be precise. I'm a software developer, not a historian) So the history of Diwali is that a king used to reign in the old times in India, a very good king whom everybody loved and everyone lived in great prosperity and happyness during his ruling... but one day the king died. And time has passed but people celebrate his birthday (or day of death, whatever) and light up everything, because there's a legend that the spirit of the king comes back every year on that day and wanders around the country... and people want to show their good old king that they still live in big happyness and prosperity, so he goes back to his grave satisfied in the morning. So, that's quite the story.

Click the picture!!!

Being a professional diver is cool because you're being paid for living in a beautiful tropical environment, going out to the open sea on a boat as work, swimming around, chitchatting with people and showing them a bunch of wonderful things they usually see the first time in their lives. Not the kind of work that makes you rich, but I think many people work a lifetime to get the things that with this job come by default. If you know what I mean.

Well, that's why I'd like to be a diver. Funky, sunny, happy life :)

It's strange that I didn't mention this among my goals when I started this blog, but now I'll summarize how this diving thing works and also my progress with it.

First of all, my motivation. I've been programming computers for 20 years now. 11 years professionally. I'm 27 now. Spending that much time at computers is a bit too much I say, so it's about time to do something else, at least for this one year of my travels. Travelling around by itself would bore me anyway so I collected a bunch of things I want to achieve using my sudden free time. And among these, diving is a very important one, also it has high costs in terms of both money and time.

Let's see what the procedure of becoming a diver consist of:

• First you need infinite time, but at least a couple of months -> Check. I have a lot of time now.
• You must choose what kind of diving you want to do -> I want to teach recreational scuba diving in the PADI system, because that's the most commonly acknowledged certification worldwide. (And recreational scuba diving is that thing when you wear a strange jacket with a big tank attached to your back and you go down in the big blue sea for about 1 hour to a depth of max. 40 meters.)
• After having this decision, you must start off on the path: first step is getting a PADI Open Water Diver certification -> Check. It took about 4 days, it was my very first scuba diving experience and I loved it a lot!

• The second level is the PADI Advanced Open Water certification -> Check. it took 3 days. I can go down now as deep as 30 meters. Of course, being an instructor is still far away.
• E.F.R. (Emergency First Response) course and exam. For safety. -> Check. It took only one day and it was very useful.
• Rescue Diver certification: It allows you to rescue your pals from the water if something goes wrong -> I've organized to do this and the next level from February in Thailan. This level is 4 days.
• 40 logged dives to start the next level -> I've got 13, the others I've organized to fo in Thailand. Let's say 2 weeks.
• Buying my own equipment -> This is gonna be steep (about $800) but I have no other choice :/
• Divemaster. Once I got this I'll be allowed to take out any healthy person to the open water, grab them by the tank and give them a first experience of diving. -> I already organized this one too, I'll do it in Phuket, Thailand from January to March, at Merlin Divers in Kamala. Drop by if you're around :) 3 months.
• 100 logged dives to be able to attend the Istructor's course. -> I'll achieve this easily. (it's in the 3 months too)
• Open Water Scuba Instructor -> I don't know when and where will I do this course but it takes about a month.
• Master Scuba Diver Trainer -> This is just a small step from the previous one, a half a month and some (a lot of) money. This is the final level I want to reach.

Originally, I planned to do all this stuff in Thailand but then I met Gábor, who is a Hungarian diving instructor in Goa. He had no students at the time so I thought: 1. It's nice to help my countryman instead of someone else, 2. Unlike at most Thai diving courses, here I would be the only one student instead of 1 of 4-6 (or 8, if I'm unlucky). So I studied one on one with an experienced instructor, which was really the best possible scenario. The only thing which could be better was the water visiblity. Not just that we couldn't see any nice fish, but the viz was sometimes 0.5 meters or so: I could hardly see my pressure gauge. But I think this experience will come handy when I find myself in rough conditions (which is not likely, looking at the Thai diving pictures), at least that's not gonna be my first time.

After the courses I stayed for a weekend to help out at the dive center. In turn I got some extra dives - in Karnataka, south from Goa, in much cleaner waters! - plus Gábor connected me to an instructor in Thailand who connected me further to a Swiss guy in Phuket, Thailand, who accepted me for a 3 months internship to work a lot (carry heavy tanks and all), BUT to acquire the Rescue Diver and Divemaster certificates in turn, along with lots of experience. This all would cost me at least $1000, but with all the experience, much more. So I happily accepted his offer and going there in the end of the year! :)

Well, this is where I stand now, the results are tempting, the way there is clear, the goals are achievable. So it's only a matter of time and I'll be an instructor :)

Here is another gallery, also from the crapfishing area, Palolem, Goa, India. I lived here for almost a month:

Hey there! I'm back, after this long one week break :) And hell I'm back with a bunch of coooooool stuff!

So let's begin with some pictures, put into a gallery. Excuse me for the spelling, the comments were written by my countryside friend Joe.

On our last day in Mumbai we ate some sandwich-like food which is "typical Bombay street food, must try", in the evening we had a gin and a beer, then in the night we ate a big portion of tandoori chicken.

One of these killed our stomachs. Completely. Especially mine. I woke up with a baaad hangover, I felt I cannot get up. We had to leave our hotel by midday but I was still dead at 11:30. Quite unexpected after ONE beer and ONE shot. But then it got worse. I got a bad diarrhea, went to the loo every 6.5 minutes from 12 to 2PM. Then we had to take a cab to our bus to Goa at 2. While waiting for the bus I went to the toilet three times. And then began the 16 hour bus ride. You can imagine.

Luckily I still had some energy to think so when I felt this bus ride was not gonna be easy I took my medicine pack to the bus, along with my sweater and my winter hat. I quickly checked my temperature: 39.4 Celsius. Well, this kind of explained why I was half-dead. I took an antifebrile, waited 1 hour, still 39.4. Another pill, waiting, then it went down to 37 point something. Meanwhile I was constantly shaking with a 10 cm amplitude, despite having on my sweater, Judit's BIG sweater and my winter hat. I felt very cold, although it was about 30 degrees outside. After, when my fever went back to 39.4, I thought "Okay, this is not funny anymore", I called a doctor friend of mine in Hungary, asking for advice. He told me to take off the sweaters immediately to stop sweating and drink endless amount of water not to dry out. Well, this part was tough, you know, we were sitting on a bus, it's not advisable to drink a lot because then you have to pee all the time.

Just after I called my friend the bus stopped the first (and only!) time for a little break, so I went over to the driver to tell him I feel like shit and I have to drink a lot of water so I'm going to stop the bus occasionally to go pee. Well... Wait for it... the driver didn't speak any English. I started shouting around in the restaurant and near the bus to find someone who speaks English. I found no one. No single passenger or staff personnel spoke more than a little English. So I just bought 7 liters of water in the shop and played some Activity with the driver hoping that the understood at least half of it. (Ha probably didn't.)

So we started off again to Goa. It was already dark by then. I began to pour the water to myself - while certainly I'd have had to go take a shit VERY badly all the time - and occasionally I went to the front to stop the bus. This wasn't as straightforward as it sounds. In India, bus and truck production is quite basic: the factory only builds the chassis, motor and dashboard, and then the buyer can decide whether he wants to make a truck or a bus out of it, and what kind of. So each bus and truck will be a little different. So this particular bus was built in a way that the 4-5 square meters around the driver was separated from the passenger space by a wall. The wall had a door and some plastic windows looking to the driver, but there was no knob or anything to open the door from the passenger side. Quite unfriendly. So I couldn't open it, tried to knock but the driver didn't hear it because of the sound of the motor and horns and all. I tried to blink with my phone, no effect. In the end I gave up and walked back to my seat, having no other choice I decided to piss in a bottle. Well, the bus was quite crowded and I'm not that experienced with these piss-in-the-bottle-on-the-bus things so... I failed. I went back to the wall in front of the bus and I started banging the plastic window part with my phone very hard. At last for this noise he turned around and noticed me. I waved like a freak, so he stopped the bus, I jumped off and you don't want to know what I did to the first bush I came across.

So this is how I passed these 16 hours, but it's not all! - YES, it can always be worse - the driver put on a movie. But no ordinary movie! He put on that great new Indian movie called BODYGUARD, a wonderful product of Bollywood studios. The main characteristic of the movie is that some voice shouts every 2 minutes "MADAME! BODYGUARD!". For some reason. And he did it with max volume from the only speaker on the bus which was directly facing us two with Judit. (No exaggeration, there was literally 1 speaker on the bus and it was precisely facing our centers of mass.) And the sound was completely distorted because of the volume. My only solution in my half-conscious misery was to chew some small pieces of papers I found in my pocket and stick them into my ears to at least ease the feeling. MADAME! BODYGUARD! Still getting the goose skin when I think of it.

I found a trailer for you. Without a fever it's approx 4 and a half points better than with it, but you can turn it up to full volume, that helps a bit :)

By the way if you're really suicidal, here is the full movie too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZpZ0c7Hv7A

After drinking an awful lot of water and stopping the bus several times, dawn came and we arrived to Goa. I went to the station toilet twice in a row immediately (as well as Judit, she didn't feel perfect either), and once again on the street. Meanwhile I was wondering that I kind of defeated an insecurity I had had: whenever I had been in a permanent situation of not having a clean WC around I had always kept it back for days rather than using a dirty toilet. Well, this time I agreed with practically any horizontal surface with some leaves around (not having any toilet paper around)

Then we quickly found a guesthouse and called a doctor, who gave me 7 kinds of medicine for 5 days and a prescribed a diet, and I just lay there for 5 days. After it I was OK and since then my stomach seems to take anything. But surely I'm also much more cautious with unknown food.

Sorry about the nasty details.

I. Bullshit

I'm sitting on the train now, second class, in the open door of the train. As I bought my train ticket last minute, it was too late to reserve a seat, so I bought a "general ticket", and I should bargain with the TC (ticket collector) guy to give me some place. I didn't even try it after all, because the seats are quite crowded and not more comfortable than the floor, so I didn't care. This is a 10 hour journey, costs about $25 on first class, but second class is just $3. Three dollars. Seriously. I just took this pic 1 minute ago. Palm trees around:

Anyway, I want to tell you about Goa now.

Goa is special, because while India was an English colony with English as the official language and all, Goa was conquered by the Portuguese and they managed to keep it all the time until India became a self-standing country (in the time of Mahatma Gandhi), so until not long ago. Because of this the culture here is different than other parts of India, which you can observe on the mentality of the people, on the architecture and on old people, of whom some (as they say) still speak Portuguese among each other.

We arrived to this small state (the smallest of India) a month ago from Bombay, by the worst bus journey I had in my life. I'll tell about this later... it has its own story, which can even be funny when told.

My friend Ryan (from the vipassana course) advised me to go to either North Goa or South Goa, but not inbetween, because the nature is not as nice there, also too many people and most of them Indians. Not that I have problems with Indian people, I love them, but I prefer Western tourists to Indian tourists. So we took Ryan's advice and visited North Goa first and then the South.

In the end Judit spent 2 weeks in Goa and me 4. A lifetime wouldn't be enough to thoroughly describe my experiences of this time so I just quickly write the essence and try to build up a fair picture of Goa for those visiting.

II. North of Goa

In North Goa we stayed in Vagator, which is a calm little village by the sea with abundant green vegetation which makes all spaces small and cozy. Vagator is famous for its trance parties in the forest with lots of people and all sorts of drugs imaginable. Well, we were there before the season (and in fact all the things I write about Goa are about off-season, even though in the middle of October more and more people came and more and more hotels-bars-etc opened up), so that lots of people weren't there yet so we didn't go to any trance parties :(

Near Vagator there is Chapora, also a small village with a beach and the famous Scarlet Juice Shop where you can get the most delicious fresh juices and fruit salad. Also there is Anjuna, which is the biggest village around, with a fancy big A/C supermarket with all the Western goodies, and also with the famous flea market, which was founded by the old hippies to sell their clothes and buy weed. Anjuna was a big hippie paradise, and maybe it still is, but I think it must be too crowded in the season.

We stayed in Vagator in a guesthouse called Shalom, oddly without any Jewish people. Except our friend Roti, who was also a guest, but he arrived after us, I'll write about him in a minute.

The first 5 days passed by me dying from some bad food I ate in Mumbai (which steeled my stomach and my cautiousness so much that I had no problems ever since), so I just lied in the bed for that 5 days. Judit made friends with a Hungarian mother and daughter who we randomly met. They stayed at the same guesthouse as we did, which was highly improbable as we met 4 Hungarians in total during our trip of 4 months and also there were hardly any people at Vagator. Anyway, it came at the perfect moment for Judit as she had people to hang around with while I was alternating between the bed and the toilet. She learnt much of her English in this one week as finally she was on her own.

III. South of Goa

Once I recovered, we took our scooter and drove around the area with Judit, then we decided to move down to South Goa, which was Judit's last stop before flying back home. Roti, the Israeli guy I mentioned above also joined us. Roti, as many Israelis, just finished his 3 years' service in the army and now he's travelling. He's a real playboy, during our short time together I didn't see him much in a natural state of mind: he tried all the ways of fun ;) As one way of fun, for example, he went to this Russian casino ship one day, which - as they say - is not the wisest thing to do. Soon he lost his 25.000 Rupees (about $500). But he went on playing, so at one point he was at winning 125.000 Rupees ($2500). So he stopped, pocketed the 250 pieces of 500 Rupee bills :) and quickly left the place. He was quite happy, especially after spending most of his money on various drugs. :) Anyway, so we took the bus to South Goa together, where he wanted a cool place to stay and we wanted a cheap one, so we separated for a while. He helped us a lot for sure just by advising us to go to Palolem instead of Agonda, another beach 7kms from Palolem, which was quite dead at that moment. It's surely a beautiful place (we went there to look around) but before season there is no life there, while Palolem is not too crowded but not too empty, so it's quite okay.

We rented a cool little room at the middle of the village, and a scooter, thanks to the support of our good friend freegyes, who donated us some of his hard-earned money :)

We drove around the area in a week, found beautiful places, including a small but nice national park. We went crab fishing, watched dolphins, did some drugs with the Israelis, made friends with various people we found, then Judit fell in love with a Swiss guy :) and she left. The original plan was so that I accompany her to Mumbai, but then she got so confident while she was alone in Vagator practicing English, that she just hopped on the train alone and this is the last picture I have of her:

IV. South of Goa without Judit

After Judit had left the following things happened, in a nutshell: I moved to a small room on the beach; I attended yoga classes and went sea kayaking a couple times; I met an Iranian-German girl at the yoga classes; the girl introduced me to an Australian-English guy and an Indian guy; the four of us hung out together for some days and went on a scooter trip; they all left; I bought a mosquito net; I did lots of sports: ran every day on the beach, the kayaking thing and all that; I practiced drawing; I had a great time alone taking time for myself in peace; I took back the scooter and rented a bicycle instead; I met my Australian friend Ryan and his girlfriend Lana who stayed in Agonda, not far from Palolem; they introduced me to an old yogi who lives on the top of a mountain, moved there recently, before living in the Himalayas for 18 years all alone. We smoked some ganja for meditational purposes and I fixed his Internet connection. (He wanted to chat with philosophers, and find a padavan for himself); by accident I met a Hungarian diving instructor who lives in Goa; I learnt diving: I took a PADI Open Water Diver and a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course, I can dive with my buddy up to 30m; finally we left Goa together and I helped out in the dive center (in Karnataka state) for a weekend, but that's not Goa any more so I'll continue in the next post.

Now you see why I just listed these things so shortly... It would take days to describe all this :) But feel free to ask about anything, I'm happy to help out with any information, especially about South Goa.

There were so many things going on in the past days, I didn't have time to write posts. Now I'll just quickly summarize what's coming:

• We spent a week in Goa with Judit.
• I said goodbye to her, she flew back home from Bombay. Since then she has arrived safely.
• I spent 3 more weeks in Goa because Goa rules :)
• I learnt diving! I got my PADI Open Water Diver card (I can go diving with my buddy to as deep as 18 meters), my Advanced Open Water Diver (same thing, but until 30 meters) and my E.F.R. (Emergency First Responder) exam. My instructor was a fellow Hungarian guy called Gábor, we met in South Goa quite random. (One of the main aims on my trip is to become a diving instructor.)
• Also regarding diving, I found an opportunity in Thailand, where I will get a Rescue Diver and a Divemaster course for the fraction of their normal price, and in turn I'm going to work in their dive center for 3 months. I'm going to start this on the 1st of February in Phuket, which is a Thai island.
• I came down here to Kerala (South India) to Viki and her family. They are a Hungarian family, left Hungary just one day before me but they got here 5 months earlier by plane :) They found me through my blog and invited me to their house. They have a blog too, but only in Hungarian: http://indiapass.blog.hu. They have tons of good information on moving to India, but as it's all in Hungarian, well, maybe not so useful for most of you readers.
• I chilled here with Viki's family for a week and now I'm getting on a train to Cochin where I'm meeting a Swedish-Dutch guy and visiting a fish factory :)
• So the plan is: today to Kochi, tomorrow to Bangalore, at the end of the month to Chennai for two days, and then go to Sri Lanka for some surfing :)
• Then I'm meeting Amanda in Thailand on the 22nd of November. Amanda is my gf, and I'd be very happy to see her after all this time :)

I'm going to write about all this later, this was just a summary about the latest news :)

On our journey of 14.000 kms we used train-like vehicles only twice: first the suburban railway out from Budapest, second also a suburban railway out from Istanbul. But now! We took trains from Delhi to Agra (~3 hours), from Agra to Delhi (~3 hours) and from Delhi to Mumbai (~20 hours), so even though we didn't get really experienced Indian train travellers, but at least we had our try.

In India there are basically 7 classes on trains, ranging from the cheapest-dirtiest to the very expensive-very comfortable. These are approximately:

• 1AC: The most expensive stuff. You get a small room with a sink, bed and sheets, air conditioning and 1 or 3 roommates.
• 2AC: This isn't cheap either. Here you are four people in your "compartment" which is not a real "compartment" as it doesn't have a door. The arrangement of the seats is like on the 1AC, but no door here, and as the train is wider than in Europe, so there is space for another seat/bed on the other side of the aisle. And the seats are convertible to beds so you can sleep too. The arrangement is a bit hard to explain and it's even harder to make good photos of it because of the lack of space.
• 3AC: Still air conditioned car, same as 2AC, but here there are 3 bunks of beds.
• AC Chair: A normal air-conditioned seater car, just like the Intercity trains in Europe. No beds here, but still fairly clean.

• Sleeper: So this is the clear sleeper class. 3 atop each other like 3AC (but no A/C here). Gets wet frequently when it's raining outside, but the beds are plastic-covered so at least you can wipe them off easily. The picture here was taken from the aisle. There are 1+1 beds on the left. The lower one can be converted to 2 seats: those are the ones where the guys are sitting. On the right hand side is like "compartments" (without doors) with 3-tier beds. The lower beds can be used as 3+3 seats.
• 2nd class reserved: you are guaranteed to get a seat, even if it's not very comfy. And this is really cheap.
• 2nd class unreserved: If you are unlucky not to get a seat, you must stand or sit in the aisle/luggage space. Or hanging on the side of the train, so as you manage. This class is technically for free.

Well, these are the varieties. And the differences in price are so huge that a trip costing $10 in 1AC costs about 50 cents in 2nd unreserved.

We took a Sleeper to Agra as all the other tickets had been sold out. You must buy your tickets in advance here: sometimes tickets get sold out even a month before. (Why don't they start more trains?) Also a Sleeper back to Delhi, then from Delhi to Mumbai we took an AC Chair car. In the office they told us to forget the char car for a 16 hours trip as there we don't get a bed. We told them about our 3 day bus journey through Pakistan, after that they believed we didn't mind sitting 16 hours on a trains.

We had mixed experiences. The train was spacious, comfortable, but on the other hand, there was hardly any space for the bags. I found some good company and had a nice chat with the Indian people around, while Judit sat at the open door of the train and watched the people shitting by the tracks and bringing their garbage there. She said literally everyone from the slums came by the tracks to do their business. She even saw a child pooping down from the top of a concrete wall :) And the whole place stank very bad. Of course, the whole thing is understandable: millions of people live in the nylon-roofed "houses" which usually don't have walls and are basically made of garbage. They certainly don't have toilets, so what can they do, right?

In Agra we checked out the Taj Mahal and we took some nice pics of it, we had a nice place 200m away from the Taj Mahal, with a terrace having a straight look on the building! We made a rickshaw race (we didn't want to get into any rickshaws because we wanted to walk, so two rickshaw drivers just started coming after us and competing for us, the price went down to 60 then to 20 rupees. In the end, after ten minutes we got into one of them, but the whole situation was awkward, we even crossed the road to get rid of them, but they didn't mind it, they came after us, bargaining with us while driving the wrong way :), we went to a Buddhist temple to see strangely shouting people and the such. Basically, Agra wasn't a bad place.

Then we had to go back to Delhi to change trains, and we headed to Mumbai! (Or "Bombay", as they say it here, even though the official name of the city was changed a long time ago)

Before arriving there, our new friends on the train gave us various pieces of good advice: where to go, where not to go, where to find a cheap place to stay etc. Bombay is a big city: about 150 kms long, has a population of 16 million, lays by the sea, the inner part is basically an island. 60% of this 16 million live in slums, in the nylon-covered little dwellings I mentioned earlier. The other 40% lives with better circumstances but the really rich can be as little as 2-3%, maximum. Bollywood, the city-in-the-city, which is responsible for more than half of the world's annual movie production, also resides in Bombay, so most of the movie stars of India live here. The south of Mumbai is the cool place, here is the Taj Hotel (sleep here for one night and pay $500, but homeless people sleep for free 20m from the building, and you can find a slum 500m away which looked so bad we didn't dare to go inside), and a big financial district, with the central offices of all Indian banks.

We found some amazing architecture in the financial district, beautiful old houses serving as the central buildings of banks. If I was an architect I shat myself right there, like this I was just very-very impressed.

We slept one night there as we couldn't find any really cheap accommodation (but at least we had a window in our room looking at the sea). In the evening we went out partying, we met a helicopter mechanic and a submarine-driver, we had some beers and gin, then in the night they took us to a place to have some tandoori chicken :) And the next day we got up with a quite unexpected hangover and hopped on the first afternoon bus heading to Goa. I'll write about our adventures in Goa soon. Goa is one of the best places on Earth :)

Oh, and at the time we were leaving Bombay, there was a festival (Ganesh Chaturthi), which caused our bus to wait hours in the traffic, but in turn we saw some pink party people: