So given that this is the final entry in this relentlessly well documented pilgrimage, lucky entry number thirteen, I have decided to crown its ultimacy with a quick note on death. A little morbid perhaps, but here’s why.
After managing to guilt my boundlessly kind mother into collecting me from the airport, we had a very interesting chat on the way home.
(Apart from her missing the arrivals lounge, reversing and smashing a brake light on the car behind, before doing a runner on a very angry fellow road user, the pick up went very smoothly. I hope I’m still such a fervent renegade at 63!)
Turns out she avidly followed my travels with a mixture of enthusiastic parental interest and disapproval at my various bouts of vulgarity, as one may expect, but one thing she picked up in particular was something I wrote in Hampi, “If I die, please know I died happy.” I think she understood more than I had anticipated she would.
“I think you are going to die young you know Timothy,” she said to me with a sigh, but not really a sigh of despair, instead one that disclosed more of a grudging acceptance!
I have considered the fact, at various times from quite a young age, that death isn’t actually that bad a deal for the deceased party, sans any associated pain involved, or possible (and I suspect implausible) afterlife. Indeed my various near death experiences at the hands of the sub continent put me in mind of this actuality quite sharply. What is so bad about death exactly? It seems obvious to me that non-existence on it’s own merits would be an entirely neutral affair.
Famously the suffering lies for those left behind. As I have moved through India I’ve met some really great people, (as well as some others,) many of whom have got an honorable mention or more over the weeks. I am also lucky enough to have a wide base of friends and family spread over the surface of the earth, whom I love dearly.
Some I feel privileged to have met and spent time with. Some I have found great comfort and support in. Some I don’t know why I like at all, and am mystified and often irritated as to where my affection towards them stems from. Most of the above I have had a a lot of fun with over the years in various guises, which is of course at the centre of all I hold valuable, rightly or wrongly.
I’d like to think that if I died they’d be pretty bummed, and of course vice versa. Such is the nature of forging connections with others- we are compelled (I hasten to say designed) to do so by our very nature, however painful it is when those connections are inevitably severed, death being the ultimate form of severance.
I’ve attended more funerals in my life than weddings. I used to out this down to bad luck, but recently I realised that it is in fact a statistical inevitability. Not everyone gets married but everyone dies. In addition to this everyone has their own funeral, but shares a wedding with someone else (just the one other generally speaking.) So we should expect over the course of our lives to attend at least twice as many funerals than weddings- a fairly morbid prospect.
Of course some people get married more than once, but any successive occasion past the first is generally a muted affair, unless your Katie Price or something equally dreadful, so the difference this makes is marginal- I wasn’t even invited to my own sister’s second wedding!
So probability aside, at many of the funerals I have attended there has been the general vibe of a “celebration of life,” rather than a gathering of communal mourning. An attempt to put a positive spin on a something that is in essence an irredeemably sad affair.
Bollocks to that- at my funeral I want people to be fucking sad. I want weeping in the streets, the screaming and tearing of clothes, the donning of ashes and sack cloth. I want hour long silences, annual services of remembrance and a series of statues commissioned over significant locations over the course of my life. You all better be fucking devastated, doomed to wander the earth as scarred husks of human beings for the rest of your empty, Timless lives!!
I jest. The universe would undoubtedly find something else to revolve around. In fact what I want to pick up on is that underlying positivity. It seems to me that it’s not always justified. Not every life is well and fully lived- that much is platitudinous. This observation implies however that some are, or so it seems to those of us left behind, from whatever perspective we feel we have managed to gain on such matters.
The most recent funeral I attended was that of my best friends father, an important figure in my life, especially since the loss of my own father, and a loss to the world I felt quite forcefully. I was pretty upset, not least for the pain caused to people I care a lot about. However it was the first funeral I have attended that I found a genuinely uplifting experience.
Andy Perry, the vicar of St Mary’s, and general Patriarch of Poole, anchored the occasion commendably with his usual brand of measured contemplation tempered with genuine compassion, but I found the most moving contribution was Richard’s two sons speaking with such affection about their father.
I wouldn’t dream of trying to expound just what a life well lived involves, I wouldn’t even presume to know where to begin, but during those ten minutes it was abundantly clear to everyone present that this was an archetype of one such life. That I found great comfort in.
It seems insane that you can say that about someone that died so young, contemporarily speaking, and so tragically. I found myself wondering in the months that followed what insights one can draw from such a surprising consensus.
How the hell does this relate to India Tim? Tenuously, but my thought processes often run along such lines, and this one was fairly dominant towards the end of my trip, in the hours I spent alone.
In the earliest entries I wrote a bit about how nice it was to stay with Paddy and Islay, the warmth and hospitality of their Indian home away from home, becoming a really pleasant place to spend a few days, (before the real madness began!)
Later on in Goa, I ran into a few interesting characters. Namely the drug addled plethora of lunatics that frequent the beach bars, descending as ungracefully as is conceivably possible into middle age. Their total detachment from reality was a sobering chapter in the trip- a pathetic tribute to the ravages of such poor life choices.
What I found really surprising was my reactions to these fairly polarized episodes. I’ve always seen myself as a bit of a nomad. I’m fairly incapable of staying in one place for any considerable period of time, or forging any relationships, romantic or otherwise, that counteract either convenience or immediate enjoyment.
This innate restlessness I took as signifying a deep seated desire for detachment from any permanency in my life, but I am starting to think that I overestimated the efficacy of this part of my psyche.
Will and I were in Hampi one day, contemplating whether it was time to take our thrashed and trashed bikes back to the shop and deal with the angry, and inevitably expensive aftermath. He looked at me with his usual malevolent grin and replied, “fuck it, lets let our future selves deal with it.” So we had a beer instead.
It was I thought, a hilariously lateral and refreshing take on the self and the passage of time, but really that line of thought sums up what really is so bad about dying. It’s not just the person who is lost to the world, but their future selves, their ambitions, and potential.
Leaving India, as I posed myself tiresomely familiar questions about the future with all this fresh in my mind I realised that in fact, there was something within me that wanted a future akin to Paddy’s, and not that of the nomad, who generally has a future akin to Eric the terrible’s in store, informing travelers 20 years or so younger, of how they can talk to dolphins with a squeezy horn on a stick.
I’m not just talking about losing my mind, although that terrifies me more than anything. I often think of myself as an old man in the future, (as old as I can plausibly make it too anyway, perhaps 31 if I’m lucky,) looking back on my life and the decisions I made. Not so much a path I chose thus far, as a mineshaft I stumbled into, and am still plunging uncontrollably down, replacing gravity as the active force with my personality.
Meeting a lot of local people in India you still see the remnants of the Caste system, a kind of social hierarchy developed from idea’s of reincarnation. For those still living in adherence to this near demagoguery, a life well lived is a much simpler concept. Basically it involves fulfilling your role in society with an appropriate level of aptitude, be it a shopkeeper or a Rickshaw driver etc, and hoping for a better rebirth as reward.
A mentality far removed from what we are accustomed to. Breaking out of the shackles of such impoverished roots, in a sort of Alan Suger-esque fashion, is an archetype we actively strive for, the converse being true of those from more privileged backgrounds that somehow manage to throw their anthropological head start away, winding up in wasted anonymity.
We in “The West” are blessed with a freedom that is both great and terrifying. The world is our proverbial oyster. Even little girls from council estates in Newcastle can grow up to be fame obsessed, dubiously talented, borderline anorexic, piss-sirens. Surrounded by regrets, apathy and dissatisfaction, our margin for error is terrifyingly enormous!
(Incidentally I have really come to hate calling Europe and America, “The West.” Hence the citation marks. Direction is surely a relative concept, especially on a planet that is most definitely round, such as our own!)
What kind of things would I regret? What decisions would I be happy with? These kind of considerations have driven me to all manner of ill advised tom-foolery in the past, but ultimately who is to know.
What I do know is this. There was a warmth about Paddy and Islay’s home lost in the relentless heat of Goa. Maybe the solution to that innate restlessness is not out there to be found in the wilderness of the unfamiliar at all.
God, I’m starting to sound a bit old. Don’t worry, I’m not going to be settling down anytime soon, I’m in the alps again for God’s sake! I do however want a chance to live properly- for the ineffable evidence of a life well lived to be of great comfort to people at my own funeral. I’m not there yet, no matter how happy I die. It’s a work in progress.
Perhaps not such a shadowy wanderer at heart after all. A poignant thought to end on, for me at least.
Quite regardless of whoever has happened to read any of this blog I have hugely enjoyed writing it. Thank you if you have taken an interest, I hope I have made you at least smile wryly at a few of my ill advised misadventures and fatuous social commentary. Please just go visit India- it’s big, beautiful, chaotic, at times fucking mental and above all utterly unmissable in the widest possible sense. Also the food is awesome.
Friday 26 November 2010
Monday 15 November 2010
An unexpected turn of events... again.
I had planned for this to be the last entry in this blog. A kind of epitaph to a trip that has given as much to take away with me as it has to remember. Figuratively speaking that is as I have lost nearly every material possession I brought out with me, being the vacant bafoon that I am.
I was going to go something along the lines of amalgamating my various slightly trite attempts at insightful reflection, with the general fatuous silliness that I am far more at home to, concluding with a few notes of genuine tribute to the people that made the journey what it was.
However, after one of the most utopian weeks of my life, two slightly more challenging days took place, at the conclusion of which I am unexpectedly sitting in a hotel room in Dubai courtesy of Emirates, who I have come to love so much I may get their logo tattooed on my face. That’s worth another entry I reckon, I’ve got some time to kill.
Why am I here? I’ll start with leaving Hampi.
The monsoon floods still not having quite abated, a new record apparently, lucky me, Hampi Island was still quite literally an Island on the day that I had to tearfully leave. Having fended off Will’s less than subtle attempts to fill my bag with rocks, (I think it was him anyway, though I suspect a conspiracy!) Miquel, who I have come to regard as a Catalonian action hero as well as a human part of a centaur/ fawn, gave me a lift on his beloved Melinda (the name he has Christened his Enfield) to the shallow part of the river. There we parted ways and I was left with no choice but to wade through the river with my backpack held aloft.
The rickshaw drivers on the other side informed me that there were no buses to Hospet at all and I would have to take, would you believe it, a rickshaw. Needless to say I was skeptical. No, actually not skeptical. Skeptical implies some degree of ambivalence, whereas when a Rickshaw driver gives you any information regarding pretty much anything, you can assume the opposite is true with 99% reliability. I took their urgency in persuading me as pretty much a guarantee that a bus was imminent and sure enough within ten minutes one arrived.
Local buses are real bone-shakers, but amazing scenery and fleeting insights into life around these parts, more than make up for the bumps and crashes. What I found especially engaging were the women lugging vast, endless sacks of some kind of miscellaneous plant along with them. Lending them a helping hand was met with an strange mixture of shock and gratitude and smiles that will live long in my memory.
A few changes along the way in dusty transit towns on route, but it was simple enough, along with the standard mixture of fascination, friendliness and occasional random disapproval from the locals.
Hospet was another matter entirely. Given my ticket said “Hospet,” with no further specifications, I assumed that the location of the departure would be obvious. Oh how foolish I was- yet again. I was shunned from the public bus station by an especially abrupt officer upon production of my “private bus” ticket, who perhaps fortunately did not understand the term wanker.
I walked for literally miles around Hospet, which by the way seemed a surprisingly pleasant place despite the standard urban mania, before finally, as the sun was threatening to set and maroon me in darkness, I spotted the name of my agency on a bus, and joy of joys it actually was my bus!
What a bus journey it was too. I swapped my sunglasses for headphones with a fellow passenger, (I had lost my own headphones- inevitably.) With an Ipod almost anything is bearable, with the possible exception of very close proximity to power tools or actual torture.
The same chaps wife later told me off for smoking out of the window, but I managed to drug her unconscious an hour later so that particular problem was dealt with. I’ll go on to explain that remark as it sounds kind of date-rapey....
On the map our route looks like highways all the way, a dubious representation of reality given the cavernesque potholes we had to endure. I was ceaselessly woken, or at least jolted to attention by bumps in the road, often by crashing into the ceiling of my bunk!
I made a lot of new friends by handing out the last of my valium to my fellow road-assaulted passengers, including the sanctimonious bint mentioned above. Ah well- I suspect our driver was as much a bus driver as I am a pharmacist!
I ended up taking 5 myself and drinking a small bottle of whiskey, which certainly did the trick. I slept so comatosely that I may as well have been beaten mercilessly with a cricket bat the rest of the way, but by 7am in Malgaon I was still so out of it could barely get off the bus.
Now my plan was simple. I had 300 rupees (about 4 pounds) on me, which even for India is on the penurious side. Thus I endeavored to consume vast amounts of coffee, have a nice breakfast, then having hopefully recovered a little go to a Western Union to withdraw money and do some last minute shopping in Malgaoun for presents, wardrobe revamps, prescription drugs, etc.
Step 1 and 2 went very well, but then it all went horribly wrong. As it turns out Malagoun still operates under the Catholic Portuguese vibe that underlies much of its culture. I arrived on a Sunday- everything of any use to me was shut. No banks, no western unions, no internet. I wandered once again for hours, this time in the growing heat of the Goan morning, but to no avail. A plane to catch 40 kilometers away, and a woefully inadequate 200 rupees in my pocket (my cigarette packet actually since my original wallet got nicked and I then subsequently lost the replacement as well.)
Valium still swimming through my system I found some lovely gardens and fell asleep for an hour under a tree, only to be awoken by a man requesting that I buy him a new pair of jeans. My response was not as good humored as usual, and he scurried away pretty quickly. Persuading the gardener to spray me with his hose to cool off, much to his amusement, I was a little refreshed but still in dyer straights.
In fact I was well and truly up shit creak, when suddenly the universe (or God, whichever way you look at it,) threw me a paddle. Illegal motorbike taxi’s are everywhere in Goa, you can tell them by the number plate, and they are usually pretty flexible on prices. I figured that if I could somehow barter my way there for 100 I could buy some water and a Samosa to sustain me for the day, until I got to Paddy and Islay who could feed me properly- Thank God for family!
All of them said no, despite my false, but I think fair enough, protestations that I only had 100 rupees. Ten millionth time lucky, someone agreed to take me. Get In.
Onto the next crisis then- I didn’t have a print out of my itinerary, which for some insane reason you need just to get into the airport. A passport just doesn’t cut it apparently, despite the fact it would take about 2 minutes to type up a fake itinerary on any computer made in the last 20 years!
Not only that, I couldn’t even remember the name of my airline because (a) Paddy booked my flight for me with his Indian account and (b) I’m a moron. So, I proceeded to walk down the line of travel agents, asking the friendly but confused staff whether they’d ever heard of me before, like some forgotten big brother contestant desperate for recognition. Turns out GoAir had heard of me- twice in fact. After I had persuaded the nice lady that there was in fact only one of me, she printed me off my ticket and the standardly uncongenial soldier at the gate let me in.
After which, he wouldn’t let me out. Once you’re in, you’re in forever apparently. The bureaucracy in India at times is enough to make you want to rip the surly little bastard in question’s gun from him and empty every last round into their scowling, mustached face.
In fact, I slightly lost it at that point as he waved me dismissively away, barking orders at me like I had just been ushered into rapists rehabilitation. “Alright, there’s no need to be rude is there?” I snapped back at him. Quite possibly the stupidest thing i’ve ever said to a man carrying an automatic weapon, while all I’m holding is a passport and an book on physics. Ah what was he going to do? Shoot me? Take away my 100 rupees? In fact to my surprise he made an apologetic gesture, we exchanged nods gracefully and went on our way.
It’s funny, the police are generally pretty rude to you, but the second you seem offended and stand up for yourself they back off pretty quickly and become far more amicable. Maybe it’s a matter of self assertion being associated with respect. He probably called me an arsehole in Hindi, but I swore at him in Russian so I think we’re even!
I bought an adequate but overpriced Samosa and a large bottle of water to keep me going. I only had 20 rupees now, a uselessly miniscule fortune in an airport, 5 hours to kill with pretty substandard headphones (but almost freely acquired so I can’t complain,) and a few books.
Trouble is none of them were much good for killing time. A Brief History of Time is an amazing book, I’m genuinely really enjoying it. However me being a monkey in shoes compared to Steven Hawking I can only read a few pages at a time, or I fear my head may explode! It’s reminding me of my philosophy degree quite a lot, the more enjoyable papers I read anyway. I’m starting to think I should have done physics instead. Still, it’s far from the light reading that such periods in life call for.
Tragically I lost the Paul Theroux book that Jonny donated to me, which is a shame because I really loved the first chapter. I shall get hold of a copy on amazon when I’m back, and can only hope the copy I lost ends up in appreciative hands.
I’ve been trying to plough my way through American Pastoral by Philip Roth for months now, a book which is allegedly a must read (Time magazines top 100,) but notoriously arduous to finish. I kind of got his point a few chapters ago and only my determination to finish it (eventually!) is keeping me going (very slowly and periodically.)
That leaves me with Lonely Planet India, a book who’s utter uselessness I am so disgusted with I don’t know why I haven't burned it yet. The history and culture sections were great summaries, but that’s not why travelers lug the bloody great thing around with them. They do that for useful and accurate information, something this overpriced doorstop is as lacking in as any one of the rocks that Will and co failed woefully to conceal in my pack.
It’s possibly out of respect for how great Lonely Planet usually is that I have kept it. They need to get their act together though, it’s just appalling. When I can be bothered I’ll relate some particularly dreadful and ill informed sections.
Eventually I arrived in Delhi, having managed to sleep through most of the the flight (thank you latent Valium overdose!) I have never been so happy to see KB waiting for me as I have any single human being in my life, bar perhaps a couple of other occasions I won’t go into, though all at airports funnily enough.
So I was able to give Paddy and Islay a brief summery of the trip that evening, although I was pretty much a zombie by that point. I made two calls on skype, one to the boys in Poole who deduced falsely that I was high, and my dear mum, who thought I was drunk! I assure you all, it was just exhaustion!
At least I’ll be in my own bed tomorrow night, or so I thought....
I said goodbye to Paddy and Callum, (I like to think the latter smiling at me means he remembers me, although I’m not sure how plausible that is at 18 months?!) Sent my love to Islay, who was a little under the weather and headed off.
It was all going so smoothly. I was well fed and watered thanks to my boundlessly hospitable family, in good time, no big queues, flew through security. Hang on, I thought, this is India, and everything’s going way too well. My natural optimism was being overshadowed by weight of experience and sure enough my instincts were right- the flight was delayed 3 hours and I missed my connection to Heathrow.
Hence here I am- in a beautiful hotel in Dubai that probably passes for budget around here. My room is probably as big as every room I had in India combined, and probably costs more too. Except it doesn’t, because it’s free- Ha! As is buffet breakfast and dinner, which I have just returned from, as stuffed as a prostitute with a runny nose, (Stupy’s expression not mine!)
I did have one little outing here worth mentioning. To buy some cigarettes I had to trek all the way to a shopping mall and visit my new best friend, Western Union. The contrast between Dubai and Delhi is absolutely insane. I think this was something I talked about in my first entry, and that time I only visited the airports.
The sheer opulence of the place is astounding! All I could bring myself to buy was rollys and paracetamol. H and M is more expensive than England for God’s sake! It took me a good 15 minutes to work that out by the way, my in built currency converter is still set to rupees!
Everyone looked so beautiful, or at least well dressed. Walking round in my filthy trainers and grubby T shirt I felt like I should be sitting outside playing a broken recorder for change. To be fair I could probably make about a hundred quid in an hour the way things are here. (Nothing to do with my recorder skills, which haven't improved much since I was eight.
Also it’s clean, really, really clean. No poo anywhere, or wandering lifestock. I don’t like it, Dubai needs more cows. I like cows now.
Right, that will do, I’ll get the final rounding off everything entry off next week. I am very sad to be missing Sam’s big TV debut, but don’t worry, my mums recording it so I’ll have a good laugh at it tomorrow. Please dear God may I not be in it....
Much Love Tx
I was going to go something along the lines of amalgamating my various slightly trite attempts at insightful reflection, with the general fatuous silliness that I am far more at home to, concluding with a few notes of genuine tribute to the people that made the journey what it was.
However, after one of the most utopian weeks of my life, two slightly more challenging days took place, at the conclusion of which I am unexpectedly sitting in a hotel room in Dubai courtesy of Emirates, who I have come to love so much I may get their logo tattooed on my face. That’s worth another entry I reckon, I’ve got some time to kill.
Why am I here? I’ll start with leaving Hampi.
The monsoon floods still not having quite abated, a new record apparently, lucky me, Hampi Island was still quite literally an Island on the day that I had to tearfully leave. Having fended off Will’s less than subtle attempts to fill my bag with rocks, (I think it was him anyway, though I suspect a conspiracy!) Miquel, who I have come to regard as a Catalonian action hero as well as a human part of a centaur/ fawn, gave me a lift on his beloved Melinda (the name he has Christened his Enfield) to the shallow part of the river. There we parted ways and I was left with no choice but to wade through the river with my backpack held aloft.
The rickshaw drivers on the other side informed me that there were no buses to Hospet at all and I would have to take, would you believe it, a rickshaw. Needless to say I was skeptical. No, actually not skeptical. Skeptical implies some degree of ambivalence, whereas when a Rickshaw driver gives you any information regarding pretty much anything, you can assume the opposite is true with 99% reliability. I took their urgency in persuading me as pretty much a guarantee that a bus was imminent and sure enough within ten minutes one arrived.
Local buses are real bone-shakers, but amazing scenery and fleeting insights into life around these parts, more than make up for the bumps and crashes. What I found especially engaging were the women lugging vast, endless sacks of some kind of miscellaneous plant along with them. Lending them a helping hand was met with an strange mixture of shock and gratitude and smiles that will live long in my memory.
A few changes along the way in dusty transit towns on route, but it was simple enough, along with the standard mixture of fascination, friendliness and occasional random disapproval from the locals.
Hospet was another matter entirely. Given my ticket said “Hospet,” with no further specifications, I assumed that the location of the departure would be obvious. Oh how foolish I was- yet again. I was shunned from the public bus station by an especially abrupt officer upon production of my “private bus” ticket, who perhaps fortunately did not understand the term wanker.
I walked for literally miles around Hospet, which by the way seemed a surprisingly pleasant place despite the standard urban mania, before finally, as the sun was threatening to set and maroon me in darkness, I spotted the name of my agency on a bus, and joy of joys it actually was my bus!
What a bus journey it was too. I swapped my sunglasses for headphones with a fellow passenger, (I had lost my own headphones- inevitably.) With an Ipod almost anything is bearable, with the possible exception of very close proximity to power tools or actual torture.
The same chaps wife later told me off for smoking out of the window, but I managed to drug her unconscious an hour later so that particular problem was dealt with. I’ll go on to explain that remark as it sounds kind of date-rapey....
On the map our route looks like highways all the way, a dubious representation of reality given the cavernesque potholes we had to endure. I was ceaselessly woken, or at least jolted to attention by bumps in the road, often by crashing into the ceiling of my bunk!
I made a lot of new friends by handing out the last of my valium to my fellow road-assaulted passengers, including the sanctimonious bint mentioned above. Ah well- I suspect our driver was as much a bus driver as I am a pharmacist!
I ended up taking 5 myself and drinking a small bottle of whiskey, which certainly did the trick. I slept so comatosely that I may as well have been beaten mercilessly with a cricket bat the rest of the way, but by 7am in Malgaon I was still so out of it could barely get off the bus.
Now my plan was simple. I had 300 rupees (about 4 pounds) on me, which even for India is on the penurious side. Thus I endeavored to consume vast amounts of coffee, have a nice breakfast, then having hopefully recovered a little go to a Western Union to withdraw money and do some last minute shopping in Malgaoun for presents, wardrobe revamps, prescription drugs, etc.
Step 1 and 2 went very well, but then it all went horribly wrong. As it turns out Malagoun still operates under the Catholic Portuguese vibe that underlies much of its culture. I arrived on a Sunday- everything of any use to me was shut. No banks, no western unions, no internet. I wandered once again for hours, this time in the growing heat of the Goan morning, but to no avail. A plane to catch 40 kilometers away, and a woefully inadequate 200 rupees in my pocket (my cigarette packet actually since my original wallet got nicked and I then subsequently lost the replacement as well.)
Valium still swimming through my system I found some lovely gardens and fell asleep for an hour under a tree, only to be awoken by a man requesting that I buy him a new pair of jeans. My response was not as good humored as usual, and he scurried away pretty quickly. Persuading the gardener to spray me with his hose to cool off, much to his amusement, I was a little refreshed but still in dyer straights.
In fact I was well and truly up shit creak, when suddenly the universe (or God, whichever way you look at it,) threw me a paddle. Illegal motorbike taxi’s are everywhere in Goa, you can tell them by the number plate, and they are usually pretty flexible on prices. I figured that if I could somehow barter my way there for 100 I could buy some water and a Samosa to sustain me for the day, until I got to Paddy and Islay who could feed me properly- Thank God for family!
All of them said no, despite my false, but I think fair enough, protestations that I only had 100 rupees. Ten millionth time lucky, someone agreed to take me. Get In.
Onto the next crisis then- I didn’t have a print out of my itinerary, which for some insane reason you need just to get into the airport. A passport just doesn’t cut it apparently, despite the fact it would take about 2 minutes to type up a fake itinerary on any computer made in the last 20 years!
Not only that, I couldn’t even remember the name of my airline because (a) Paddy booked my flight for me with his Indian account and (b) I’m a moron. So, I proceeded to walk down the line of travel agents, asking the friendly but confused staff whether they’d ever heard of me before, like some forgotten big brother contestant desperate for recognition. Turns out GoAir had heard of me- twice in fact. After I had persuaded the nice lady that there was in fact only one of me, she printed me off my ticket and the standardly uncongenial soldier at the gate let me in.
After which, he wouldn’t let me out. Once you’re in, you’re in forever apparently. The bureaucracy in India at times is enough to make you want to rip the surly little bastard in question’s gun from him and empty every last round into their scowling, mustached face.
In fact, I slightly lost it at that point as he waved me dismissively away, barking orders at me like I had just been ushered into rapists rehabilitation. “Alright, there’s no need to be rude is there?” I snapped back at him. Quite possibly the stupidest thing i’ve ever said to a man carrying an automatic weapon, while all I’m holding is a passport and an book on physics. Ah what was he going to do? Shoot me? Take away my 100 rupees? In fact to my surprise he made an apologetic gesture, we exchanged nods gracefully and went on our way.
It’s funny, the police are generally pretty rude to you, but the second you seem offended and stand up for yourself they back off pretty quickly and become far more amicable. Maybe it’s a matter of self assertion being associated with respect. He probably called me an arsehole in Hindi, but I swore at him in Russian so I think we’re even!
I bought an adequate but overpriced Samosa and a large bottle of water to keep me going. I only had 20 rupees now, a uselessly miniscule fortune in an airport, 5 hours to kill with pretty substandard headphones (but almost freely acquired so I can’t complain,) and a few books.
Trouble is none of them were much good for killing time. A Brief History of Time is an amazing book, I’m genuinely really enjoying it. However me being a monkey in shoes compared to Steven Hawking I can only read a few pages at a time, or I fear my head may explode! It’s reminding me of my philosophy degree quite a lot, the more enjoyable papers I read anyway. I’m starting to think I should have done physics instead. Still, it’s far from the light reading that such periods in life call for.
Tragically I lost the Paul Theroux book that Jonny donated to me, which is a shame because I really loved the first chapter. I shall get hold of a copy on amazon when I’m back, and can only hope the copy I lost ends up in appreciative hands.
I’ve been trying to plough my way through American Pastoral by Philip Roth for months now, a book which is allegedly a must read (Time magazines top 100,) but notoriously arduous to finish. I kind of got his point a few chapters ago and only my determination to finish it (eventually!) is keeping me going (very slowly and periodically.)
That leaves me with Lonely Planet India, a book who’s utter uselessness I am so disgusted with I don’t know why I haven't burned it yet. The history and culture sections were great summaries, but that’s not why travelers lug the bloody great thing around with them. They do that for useful and accurate information, something this overpriced doorstop is as lacking in as any one of the rocks that Will and co failed woefully to conceal in my pack.
It’s possibly out of respect for how great Lonely Planet usually is that I have kept it. They need to get their act together though, it’s just appalling. When I can be bothered I’ll relate some particularly dreadful and ill informed sections.
Eventually I arrived in Delhi, having managed to sleep through most of the the flight (thank you latent Valium overdose!) I have never been so happy to see KB waiting for me as I have any single human being in my life, bar perhaps a couple of other occasions I won’t go into, though all at airports funnily enough.
So I was able to give Paddy and Islay a brief summery of the trip that evening, although I was pretty much a zombie by that point. I made two calls on skype, one to the boys in Poole who deduced falsely that I was high, and my dear mum, who thought I was drunk! I assure you all, it was just exhaustion!
At least I’ll be in my own bed tomorrow night, or so I thought....
I said goodbye to Paddy and Callum, (I like to think the latter smiling at me means he remembers me, although I’m not sure how plausible that is at 18 months?!) Sent my love to Islay, who was a little under the weather and headed off.
It was all going so smoothly. I was well fed and watered thanks to my boundlessly hospitable family, in good time, no big queues, flew through security. Hang on, I thought, this is India, and everything’s going way too well. My natural optimism was being overshadowed by weight of experience and sure enough my instincts were right- the flight was delayed 3 hours and I missed my connection to Heathrow.
Hence here I am- in a beautiful hotel in Dubai that probably passes for budget around here. My room is probably as big as every room I had in India combined, and probably costs more too. Except it doesn’t, because it’s free- Ha! As is buffet breakfast and dinner, which I have just returned from, as stuffed as a prostitute with a runny nose, (Stupy’s expression not mine!)
I did have one little outing here worth mentioning. To buy some cigarettes I had to trek all the way to a shopping mall and visit my new best friend, Western Union. The contrast between Dubai and Delhi is absolutely insane. I think this was something I talked about in my first entry, and that time I only visited the airports.
The sheer opulence of the place is astounding! All I could bring myself to buy was rollys and paracetamol. H and M is more expensive than England for God’s sake! It took me a good 15 minutes to work that out by the way, my in built currency converter is still set to rupees!
Everyone looked so beautiful, or at least well dressed. Walking round in my filthy trainers and grubby T shirt I felt like I should be sitting outside playing a broken recorder for change. To be fair I could probably make about a hundred quid in an hour the way things are here. (Nothing to do with my recorder skills, which haven't improved much since I was eight.
Also it’s clean, really, really clean. No poo anywhere, or wandering lifestock. I don’t like it, Dubai needs more cows. I like cows now.
Right, that will do, I’ll get the final rounding off everything entry off next week. I am very sad to be missing Sam’s big TV debut, but don’t worry, my mums recording it so I’ll have a good laugh at it tomorrow. Please dear God may I not be in it....
Much Love Tx
Monday 8 November 2010
The formation of the ACG- Climbing the peaks and playing the blues
I love the beach. Having grown up at the coast I feel a certain affinity with any kind of place where land meets ocean. Immediately I am at home no matter where in the world I am, it is my domain. I could fall back into the routine of swimming, sand and sun worship almost indefinitely. However that would would be to neglect other passions that can only be satisfied inland.
Miquel, the crazy Catalonian bastard, as he is commonly aka'd, shares the same thirst for challenge as me, but in a far more intense vein. He seems to function on a level that most people only reach under heavy doses of anfetamines. Hence as we sat in Gokarna, having breakfast around noon, he returned to the guesthouse dreanched from head to toe, not from swimming in the sea as it first appeared, but from running for two hours through the Indian jungle-esque countryside in high humidity and 30 degree heat. I swear I have never seen anyone exude so much liquid. I am shocked he didn't turn into a prune. He is currently braving Indian highways on his Enfield Bullet to join me, Jono clinging on for dear life behind him.
They eventually arrived, thank the Lord.
This is a fairly extreme instance of a desire akin to my own- I need some challenge. Some new landscape to winde my way across. So, following the advice of many people, I have come to Hampi.
Here I have truly rediscovered the meaning of awestruck. It's absolutely unbelievable. To think that I could cover all I wanted to here in a week was sheer lunacy, comparable to setting aside a bank holiday weekend to read the complete works of T.S. Elliot.
The landscape is like nothing I have ever seen, it's like being on another planet. Mountains of boulders impossibly stacked on top of each other, as if they've been swept into giganticly neat piles by some stellar, cosmic broom. These incredable natural wonders, reaching up into clear blue sky, stretch out endlessly towards the horizon, each one a potent monument to the astonishing history that led to it's creation. A story spanning back millions of yeas before humanity was stumbling haplessly about the planets constantly changng surface.
It all used to be underwater- of course! It's so obvious now. However they got here, every one of them is a whole days worth of unparalleled fun.
Reaching the top of the highest peaks requires a adrenaline pumping combo of death defying leaps and vertical accents. At several points I have found myself propped up horizontally between two walls of rock with a 100 foot chasm beneath me thinking, "Okay Tim, stay calm, but if you slip, you will die here." It's a sobering thought, especilly as we are a little high for most of the endevour.
As adrenaline starts to race through your limbs and your confidence starts to grow with every conquered boulder or rockface, I am overcome by a sense of adventure that I have experienced only rarely before. Possibly on the most perfect of powder days in the mountains- that's the only thing I can put on a par with bouldering in Hampi. Any of my snow loving buddies reading this will understand the gavitas of this accolade.
It's a constant battle between your fear and unyielding desire to reach to top. God I sound like Edmond Hillary or something, sorry.
Now that said, I am an amateur. On my first day I was humbled- shown in no uncertain terms just how out of shape I am. It turns out Jimmy and Will can climb, and I mean really climb. Suspending themselves upsidedown on foot and hand holes that a particularly petite house fly would have trouble squeezing into, they and a few other spiderman-esque maniacs seek out the most impossible rock faces, and then gleefully go about making them look easy to clamber across.
Their strength to body weight index must be off the chart- give me six months here and maybe I could build up a fraction of that kind of strength. Hanging upsidedown, their finger tips gripping literally about 2 millimeters of rock face, I am so impressed- borderline seduced in fact.
There are fortunately a good number of residents at Goan Corner where I am staying, who are around my level of inability. We just want to climb something high and moronically dangerous. And thus the ACG was born. The Amateur Climbers Guild.
Formed of myself, Pete the Kiwi, and Dave the Aussie, a man so constantly and endearingly relaxed he can barely contract the muscles of his mouth to form words (we made him the spokesman), we endevoured to climb with no equipment, no shoes, no plan, and basically no clue whatsoever, and crucially at no point should we be entirely sober. Our Moto- 0% technique, 25%balls, 75% idiocy. We are the ACG, hear us roar.
So while the cwappers, the name by which we have distainfully christened the proper climbers, went to find some impossible rubbish to do cling to, armed with chalk, proper shoes and pussy crashmats, we took our bikes and drove into the great blue yonder, armed only with broken flip flops and smokables. We chose a particulallry high looking mound, and we set off.
Thus resulted one of the greatest climbs/ days of my life. We fought through vegitation, leapt vast crevases, scaled rock faces, dodged goats- it was biblical. After 2 hours or so we reached the top. Rather than try and describe the view, I'm going to direct you to the pictures Pete took- suffice to say it was worth every cut and bruise and far more. I would happily snap my leg in half with a sledge hammer, rather than to have not seen that veiw.
It sounds a tad cli-chez I know, but I am absolutely compelled to attempt this kind of lunacy. I honestly don't know who I'd be if I didn't. All my life I've had some subconscious compulsion to push boundaries, whether that's baiting teachers in school, getting weird kicks out of convincing strangers that I'm some kind of wife beating pedophile, ill advised cliff jumping, or hopelessly attempting tricks and drops on mountains that far exceed my technical ability. I am not alone in this malady, on ski seasons you meet a good portion of those who share my sickness. My hands are shredded, my muscles ache, my life nearly ended very abruptly several times today, and I couldn't be happier. If I die, please know that I died happy.
Funnily enough the closest I came to demise was after the climb on the ride back, where I learned the hard way that motorbikes are really fun, until you crash them. Dodgy roads, hidden potholes, basically no brakes, one lapse in concentration and before I know it I'm hurtling painfully across the dirt road into a bush. TFP. I'm largely fine, relieved to be in one piece, only my leg which got caught under the bike is a bit sore, too sore to climb on in fact.
Thus, I'm afraid, ends my Hampi climbing career for 2010 (pretty much), and my brief stint serving in the ACG. Probably the best thing I've done in India, including the Aussie. I am not looking forward to returning the bike! Apparently the owner has a history of violence and I'm in no fit state to be dealing with that. Hopefully I can agree some reasonable fee for the minor repairs that need to be done....
It was in fact Will's bike so I could just bail on him... after all by the time he read this I'll be long gone....
Ah well, I'm just going to have to hang out at the lake for a couple of days. Do the jump, swim a bit- could be worse. Pete and Dave both play the guitar, Pete to an especially excellent standard, so we've been getting in some A grade jamming time during the evenings. The Bob Dylan songbook is getting a thourough exegesis.
Playing throw the Jew down the well to a group of travelling Israilis was possibly the greatest moment of my life thus far. (Turns out they knew Borat so it was okay!)
Unfortunately I'm also unable to get out of Hampi island and into the main town, because the monsoon is taking rather a long time to finish up, thus the river pass is flooded. This means I'm goign to have huge difficulty leaving, and in getting to a Western Union!
And just when I thought the week couldn't get any better, joy of joys, everyone from Goa has coem to see us! Now we'll see what those beach junkies are made of. I am very happy to see them again before we go our seperate ways. As well as the Arambol crew I will be sorry to say goodbye to Leron and Orr, who added a lot of character to an already charismatic group. Jesus always was my favourite super hero.
Sam also deserves an honourable mention, a man who carries a seemingly endless supply of fireworks, some of which more resemble tactical nuclear weapons, and is not shy in unleashing them on unsuspecting residents of Goan Corner. He is a master of the slack rope, which is a rare and impressive skill. In fact most of his luggage is comprised of slack rope equipment and fireworks. Only in Hampi.
So within 12 hours of being here I was jumping of 80 foot cliffs into the lake, after which I watched liverpool beat chelsea 2-0, followed by a five days of unsurpassed glory, afterwhich even more of my friends turn up to round off the week. A chapter in my life that's pretty darn close to perfection.
Then again last week I went to Paradise beach and it rained. As the saying goes, you can take the Englishman out of England, but the weathers still going to piss all over him laughing and twisting his nipples.
Oh never mind, life continues to rain down milk and honey as well as shite. The trick is knowing when to open your mouth.
I'll conclude with a question for Max- Vas iss das veena shnietzel?! Ooooooyah.
P.s. I've also had an idea for a snowboarding jacket with hand puppets sewn onto the sleeves, so you can do little puppet shows for fellow riders as you go past. I'm patenting it, it's mine.
Miquel, the crazy Catalonian bastard, as he is commonly aka'd, shares the same thirst for challenge as me, but in a far more intense vein. He seems to function on a level that most people only reach under heavy doses of anfetamines. Hence as we sat in Gokarna, having breakfast around noon, he returned to the guesthouse dreanched from head to toe, not from swimming in the sea as it first appeared, but from running for two hours through the Indian jungle-esque countryside in high humidity and 30 degree heat. I swear I have never seen anyone exude so much liquid. I am shocked he didn't turn into a prune. He is currently braving Indian highways on his Enfield Bullet to join me, Jono clinging on for dear life behind him.
They eventually arrived, thank the Lord.
This is a fairly extreme instance of a desire akin to my own- I need some challenge. Some new landscape to winde my way across. So, following the advice of many people, I have come to Hampi.
Here I have truly rediscovered the meaning of awestruck. It's absolutely unbelievable. To think that I could cover all I wanted to here in a week was sheer lunacy, comparable to setting aside a bank holiday weekend to read the complete works of T.S. Elliot.
The landscape is like nothing I have ever seen, it's like being on another planet. Mountains of boulders impossibly stacked on top of each other, as if they've been swept into giganticly neat piles by some stellar, cosmic broom. These incredable natural wonders, reaching up into clear blue sky, stretch out endlessly towards the horizon, each one a potent monument to the astonishing history that led to it's creation. A story spanning back millions of yeas before humanity was stumbling haplessly about the planets constantly changng surface.
It all used to be underwater- of course! It's so obvious now. However they got here, every one of them is a whole days worth of unparalleled fun.
Reaching the top of the highest peaks requires a adrenaline pumping combo of death defying leaps and vertical accents. At several points I have found myself propped up horizontally between two walls of rock with a 100 foot chasm beneath me thinking, "Okay Tim, stay calm, but if you slip, you will die here." It's a sobering thought, especilly as we are a little high for most of the endevour.
As adrenaline starts to race through your limbs and your confidence starts to grow with every conquered boulder or rockface, I am overcome by a sense of adventure that I have experienced only rarely before. Possibly on the most perfect of powder days in the mountains- that's the only thing I can put on a par with bouldering in Hampi. Any of my snow loving buddies reading this will understand the gavitas of this accolade.
It's a constant battle between your fear and unyielding desire to reach to top. God I sound like Edmond Hillary or something, sorry.
Now that said, I am an amateur. On my first day I was humbled- shown in no uncertain terms just how out of shape I am. It turns out Jimmy and Will can climb, and I mean really climb. Suspending themselves upsidedown on foot and hand holes that a particularly petite house fly would have trouble squeezing into, they and a few other spiderman-esque maniacs seek out the most impossible rock faces, and then gleefully go about making them look easy to clamber across.
Their strength to body weight index must be off the chart- give me six months here and maybe I could build up a fraction of that kind of strength. Hanging upsidedown, their finger tips gripping literally about 2 millimeters of rock face, I am so impressed- borderline seduced in fact.
There are fortunately a good number of residents at Goan Corner where I am staying, who are around my level of inability. We just want to climb something high and moronically dangerous. And thus the ACG was born. The Amateur Climbers Guild.
Formed of myself, Pete the Kiwi, and Dave the Aussie, a man so constantly and endearingly relaxed he can barely contract the muscles of his mouth to form words (we made him the spokesman), we endevoured to climb with no equipment, no shoes, no plan, and basically no clue whatsoever, and crucially at no point should we be entirely sober. Our Moto- 0% technique, 25%balls, 75% idiocy. We are the ACG, hear us roar.
So while the cwappers, the name by which we have distainfully christened the proper climbers, went to find some impossible rubbish to do cling to, armed with chalk, proper shoes and pussy crashmats, we took our bikes and drove into the great blue yonder, armed only with broken flip flops and smokables. We chose a particulallry high looking mound, and we set off.
Thus resulted one of the greatest climbs/ days of my life. We fought through vegitation, leapt vast crevases, scaled rock faces, dodged goats- it was biblical. After 2 hours or so we reached the top. Rather than try and describe the view, I'm going to direct you to the pictures Pete took- suffice to say it was worth every cut and bruise and far more. I would happily snap my leg in half with a sledge hammer, rather than to have not seen that veiw.
It sounds a tad cli-chez I know, but I am absolutely compelled to attempt this kind of lunacy. I honestly don't know who I'd be if I didn't. All my life I've had some subconscious compulsion to push boundaries, whether that's baiting teachers in school, getting weird kicks out of convincing strangers that I'm some kind of wife beating pedophile, ill advised cliff jumping, or hopelessly attempting tricks and drops on mountains that far exceed my technical ability. I am not alone in this malady, on ski seasons you meet a good portion of those who share my sickness. My hands are shredded, my muscles ache, my life nearly ended very abruptly several times today, and I couldn't be happier. If I die, please know that I died happy.
Funnily enough the closest I came to demise was after the climb on the ride back, where I learned the hard way that motorbikes are really fun, until you crash them. Dodgy roads, hidden potholes, basically no brakes, one lapse in concentration and before I know it I'm hurtling painfully across the dirt road into a bush. TFP. I'm largely fine, relieved to be in one piece, only my leg which got caught under the bike is a bit sore, too sore to climb on in fact.
Thus, I'm afraid, ends my Hampi climbing career for 2010 (pretty much), and my brief stint serving in the ACG. Probably the best thing I've done in India, including the Aussie. I am not looking forward to returning the bike! Apparently the owner has a history of violence and I'm in no fit state to be dealing with that. Hopefully I can agree some reasonable fee for the minor repairs that need to be done....
It was in fact Will's bike so I could just bail on him... after all by the time he read this I'll be long gone....
Ah well, I'm just going to have to hang out at the lake for a couple of days. Do the jump, swim a bit- could be worse. Pete and Dave both play the guitar, Pete to an especially excellent standard, so we've been getting in some A grade jamming time during the evenings. The Bob Dylan songbook is getting a thourough exegesis.
Playing throw the Jew down the well to a group of travelling Israilis was possibly the greatest moment of my life thus far. (Turns out they knew Borat so it was okay!)
Unfortunately I'm also unable to get out of Hampi island and into the main town, because the monsoon is taking rather a long time to finish up, thus the river pass is flooded. This means I'm goign to have huge difficulty leaving, and in getting to a Western Union!
And just when I thought the week couldn't get any better, joy of joys, everyone from Goa has coem to see us! Now we'll see what those beach junkies are made of. I am very happy to see them again before we go our seperate ways. As well as the Arambol crew I will be sorry to say goodbye to Leron and Orr, who added a lot of character to an already charismatic group. Jesus always was my favourite super hero.
Sam also deserves an honourable mention, a man who carries a seemingly endless supply of fireworks, some of which more resemble tactical nuclear weapons, and is not shy in unleashing them on unsuspecting residents of Goan Corner. He is a master of the slack rope, which is a rare and impressive skill. In fact most of his luggage is comprised of slack rope equipment and fireworks. Only in Hampi.
So within 12 hours of being here I was jumping of 80 foot cliffs into the lake, after which I watched liverpool beat chelsea 2-0, followed by a five days of unsurpassed glory, afterwhich even more of my friends turn up to round off the week. A chapter in my life that's pretty darn close to perfection.
Then again last week I went to Paradise beach and it rained. As the saying goes, you can take the Englishman out of England, but the weathers still going to piss all over him laughing and twisting his nipples.
Oh never mind, life continues to rain down milk and honey as well as shite. The trick is knowing when to open your mouth.
I'll conclude with a question for Max- Vas iss das veena shnietzel?! Ooooooyah.
P.s. I've also had an idea for a snowboarding jacket with hand puppets sewn onto the sleeves, so you can do little puppet shows for fellow riders as you go past. I'm patenting it, it's mine.
Wednesday 3 November 2010
Points of confusion, contention and some stupid hippys
So I've gone to Gokana by accident. A couple of nights ago I found myself trekking over a huge expanse of sand with two Israilis, headed towards the promised land of the Blue Seahorse, feeling a little Moses-esque, and the idea of Gokana was being thrown around. Next thing I know, it's 7.30 in the morning, I haven't slept a wink, and we're piling our bags on top of a taxi to the train station. Wonderful.
It's far quieter here than Goa, and more importantly I actually feel like I'm back in India again. Goa has it's own little micro-culture- the Portuguese vibes, resident hippy populous and endless bars. It was fun, really, really fun, but a few things left a slightly funny taste in my mouth. I shall elaborate.
First of all I'm getting very confused about India's culture regarding sex. On the one hand it seems like quite conservative. At least on the surface level, values of modesty and chastity are far more prevalently observed than in Europe, where they have to all intents and purposes ceased to exist. Girls and boys alike are encouraged to cover up the most arbitrary parts of their anatomy in the interests of modesty- obviously in the Islamic community, but also in the Hindu majority and Christians dotted about the place. This is the first place I've seen Indian looking girls wearing bikinis, and not speaking in English accents
Men and women don't really kiss in the street, or even hold hands. That's a practice more reserved for best buddies, although all the guys I travel with seem unwilling to embrace this particular practice. 99% of Bollywood films and pop music videos seem to be about love. Simple, monogamous, heterosexual love. None of the 'player culture' that has an equal standing in the west seems to exist here- it's all very idealistic and romantic. But that said the loving couple never even kiss- ever! It's implied instead, as they lean in and rest their foreheads on each others, pausing to stare amorously it each other with shit eating grins to fade. Ultra conservative.
So this is the same culture that inspired the Karma Sutra? The most elaborate and famous celebration of communal sex in the world? Inspired whole Ashrams in mountain retreats where the residents do little else than attempt to fornicate their way to enlightenment? (I have not been fortunate enough to visit one- next time.) What?!
So here's my personal experience with this conflict in Indian attitudes towards sex. I should stress, most of the local guys I've met out here are not in any way confused or weird about sexual practices, (no more than me anyway...) but there is some of that going around. So I'm having a night swim with Jazz- honestly just swimming about... no really I was, and we see a shadowy figure approach us from the shore. Assuming its Retters, we shout to greet him, but as he approaches we realise it is instead some Indian dude we don't know.
"You alright mate?" I inquire, but am answered only with a smile. He then rises to his feet to reveal a little tent in his swim shorts. Jazz laughs, "blimey," I cry, thinking "Jesus what a weirdo," but our little friend is not done. Swimming around us he starts cracking one off quite blatantly under the water. I mean what the HELL. We run out in horror and relate this to our friends on the beach, who are amused and appalled in equal measure, and I spend the next half an hour ruing how my shock prevented me from teaching the little voyeur a lesson. I am not am object!
Half an hour later I get my chance. The weird, little, fucking sex pest comes and sits next to Jazz in the circle and starts trying to chat to us. Returning from the bar to find him there, I was not impressed, and he was given sound reason to address his behavior.
Still though, you have to marvel at the stunning misapprehensions that made the poor little bastard think that was an appropriate way of acting. I have heard other disconcerting stories, one from a Swedish girl about being awoken on a train by a light being shone in her face and several Indian guys crowded around touching her legs. Another one again from the trains involves a dude having a quite blatant hand party, whilst staring steadfastly at a girls sleeping friend.
Once again, in case I get more messages telling me that I'm a massive racist, I'm not writing this down to form a generalization of your average Indian's behavior, but it is nevertheless going on in a pretty widespread way, especially around beaches. The culture clash seems to have led to some fairly massive misapprehensions amongst more backward communities, and it's a bit fucked up. I am not an object!
One thing I'm finding very hard with India in general is that it's very hard to pin down a place. To neatly and concisely say "I'm in this place, the vibe is like this blah blah..." This is a task I could undertake with much more ease in places like Nottingham or Poole, or even abroad in say Courchevel or Durban. Yet everywhere in India you are confronted with such stunning and vibrant contrast, it's basically impossible to write about it neatly at all. There's nothing neat about it!
This is possibly why Lonely Planet India is so irredeemably shit. Seriously that's ten quid I could have spent on... well anything else... glass anal beads (not for sharing)... just don't bother. That's a massive in joke btw, I've tried to avoid them but like this one. I'm fairly sure my mum won't.
Anyway- The hippy culture that's made so much noise about in Goa also began to grate on me towards the end. Now I love a good rave, don't get me wrong, but for me it's a kind of escapism, like most things I enjoy doing. You jump around, have a nice time, behave like a moron, then in the morning you return to reality. If you stay in the escapist paradise for too long, you will eventually lose your grip on reality all together.
Now I've never got the whole fire dancing thing- you know when you're at a rave/ party and these people just emerge from the ground with flaming balls on ropes, and start throwing them rhythmically around, like they're possessed by a demon of fiery lameness. I don't get it. Anyone who can be amused for that long by what is essentially burning ball on a string is clearly an idiot, possessing of a mentality somewhere between a shit pyromaniac and a kitten playing with a ball of string.
There are people that can spend entire seasons doing this- no brainpower involved, no challenge of any kind, or anything remotely interesting, just endlessly banging drums in a circle, taking obscene amounts of psychedelic drugs, listening to questionable trance and swaying about like a restless twat with some fire on stick/ rope. These people are clearly idiots.
Yes it's fun for a bit, but for God's sake head back to reality at some point! Because this isn't reality, it's Goa. Reality is fairly tiresome and undeniably nice to escape from, but you can't live in this ridiculous delusion forever. Well actually you can, but you shouldn't, because it makes you an idiot.
Plus if you stay away from reality like this for too long, you will eventually lose your grip on in it altogether. Goa is littered with the ghastly evidence of the future that awaits such idiotic life choices. 50 plus year old guys, wandering aimlessly about on their own, tripping most of the time, dressed up like their at some perpetual Glastonbury and spouting endless bollocks at whoever is unfortunate enough to be listening.
It's really sad, and kind of scary. My greatest fear is losing my mind, and these drug addled losers in life, who somehow, inexplicably manage to support themselves, are a constant reminder that not all anti drugs talk is fear mongering.
In Arambol I met a Dutch guy called Eric, known as Eric the Terrible. He walked about in a lime green sarong, that at night he turned into a hoody-type-thing, black leather, studded gloves, massive sunglasses and a stick, with various appendages strapped to it. Amongst these treasures was a little horn, the kind you may find on a really old bike, using which he claimed to be a able to speak to dolphins. Amoungst his other claims were such feats as diving deep into the ocean within the lungs of a whale. He and the plot, hadn't seen each other in a very long time.
Eric is by no means an isolated case. Goa is littered with these remnants of the hippy scene. Guys who just didn't know when to call it a day and head back to reality, eventually losing all semblance of sanity whatsoever. Then again I strongly suspect they started out as fire juggling fuckwits in the first place, so I don't know.
Maybe that's the source of my natural aversion to fire dancing. I see it as symbolic of getting far too into raving, such that you are no longer having a brief foray into lunacy, but dedicating a significant portion of your time to it. Bad things happen to people that do this- put the fire down and get a job. Or at least just leave Goa.
So what conclusions am I to draw from this? I come to believe more and more with every passing day that life resembles one big process of elimination. A series of trial and error experiments that begins with birth and end in death. Something is very wrong with the culture that has produced men like Eric, so my advice is this. Visit Goa, it's amazing. Have fun, then leave, with a sobering wisdom lingering regarding what could happen to you if you never left. And if you're really unlucky, ghastly images of some little fuck cracking one off in your direction underwater. I am not an object!
I'll leave you with only one statement relating to my last night in Goa- a story for another time. God bless Australia.
It's far quieter here than Goa, and more importantly I actually feel like I'm back in India again. Goa has it's own little micro-culture- the Portuguese vibes, resident hippy populous and endless bars. It was fun, really, really fun, but a few things left a slightly funny taste in my mouth. I shall elaborate.
First of all I'm getting very confused about India's culture regarding sex. On the one hand it seems like quite conservative. At least on the surface level, values of modesty and chastity are far more prevalently observed than in Europe, where they have to all intents and purposes ceased to exist. Girls and boys alike are encouraged to cover up the most arbitrary parts of their anatomy in the interests of modesty- obviously in the Islamic community, but also in the Hindu majority and Christians dotted about the place. This is the first place I've seen Indian looking girls wearing bikinis, and not speaking in English accents
Men and women don't really kiss in the street, or even hold hands. That's a practice more reserved for best buddies, although all the guys I travel with seem unwilling to embrace this particular practice. 99% of Bollywood films and pop music videos seem to be about love. Simple, monogamous, heterosexual love. None of the 'player culture' that has an equal standing in the west seems to exist here- it's all very idealistic and romantic. But that said the loving couple never even kiss- ever! It's implied instead, as they lean in and rest their foreheads on each others, pausing to stare amorously it each other with shit eating grins to fade. Ultra conservative.
So this is the same culture that inspired the Karma Sutra? The most elaborate and famous celebration of communal sex in the world? Inspired whole Ashrams in mountain retreats where the residents do little else than attempt to fornicate their way to enlightenment? (I have not been fortunate enough to visit one- next time.) What?!
So here's my personal experience with this conflict in Indian attitudes towards sex. I should stress, most of the local guys I've met out here are not in any way confused or weird about sexual practices, (no more than me anyway...) but there is some of that going around. So I'm having a night swim with Jazz- honestly just swimming about... no really I was, and we see a shadowy figure approach us from the shore. Assuming its Retters, we shout to greet him, but as he approaches we realise it is instead some Indian dude we don't know.
"You alright mate?" I inquire, but am answered only with a smile. He then rises to his feet to reveal a little tent in his swim shorts. Jazz laughs, "blimey," I cry, thinking "Jesus what a weirdo," but our little friend is not done. Swimming around us he starts cracking one off quite blatantly under the water. I mean what the HELL. We run out in horror and relate this to our friends on the beach, who are amused and appalled in equal measure, and I spend the next half an hour ruing how my shock prevented me from teaching the little voyeur a lesson. I am not am object!
Half an hour later I get my chance. The weird, little, fucking sex pest comes and sits next to Jazz in the circle and starts trying to chat to us. Returning from the bar to find him there, I was not impressed, and he was given sound reason to address his behavior.
Still though, you have to marvel at the stunning misapprehensions that made the poor little bastard think that was an appropriate way of acting. I have heard other disconcerting stories, one from a Swedish girl about being awoken on a train by a light being shone in her face and several Indian guys crowded around touching her legs. Another one again from the trains involves a dude having a quite blatant hand party, whilst staring steadfastly at a girls sleeping friend.
Once again, in case I get more messages telling me that I'm a massive racist, I'm not writing this down to form a generalization of your average Indian's behavior, but it is nevertheless going on in a pretty widespread way, especially around beaches. The culture clash seems to have led to some fairly massive misapprehensions amongst more backward communities, and it's a bit fucked up. I am not an object!
One thing I'm finding very hard with India in general is that it's very hard to pin down a place. To neatly and concisely say "I'm in this place, the vibe is like this blah blah..." This is a task I could undertake with much more ease in places like Nottingham or Poole, or even abroad in say Courchevel or Durban. Yet everywhere in India you are confronted with such stunning and vibrant contrast, it's basically impossible to write about it neatly at all. There's nothing neat about it!
This is possibly why Lonely Planet India is so irredeemably shit. Seriously that's ten quid I could have spent on... well anything else... glass anal beads (not for sharing)... just don't bother. That's a massive in joke btw, I've tried to avoid them but like this one. I'm fairly sure my mum won't.
Anyway- The hippy culture that's made so much noise about in Goa also began to grate on me towards the end. Now I love a good rave, don't get me wrong, but for me it's a kind of escapism, like most things I enjoy doing. You jump around, have a nice time, behave like a moron, then in the morning you return to reality. If you stay in the escapist paradise for too long, you will eventually lose your grip on reality all together.
Now I've never got the whole fire dancing thing- you know when you're at a rave/ party and these people just emerge from the ground with flaming balls on ropes, and start throwing them rhythmically around, like they're possessed by a demon of fiery lameness. I don't get it. Anyone who can be amused for that long by what is essentially burning ball on a string is clearly an idiot, possessing of a mentality somewhere between a shit pyromaniac and a kitten playing with a ball of string.
There are people that can spend entire seasons doing this- no brainpower involved, no challenge of any kind, or anything remotely interesting, just endlessly banging drums in a circle, taking obscene amounts of psychedelic drugs, listening to questionable trance and swaying about like a restless twat with some fire on stick/ rope. These people are clearly idiots.
Yes it's fun for a bit, but for God's sake head back to reality at some point! Because this isn't reality, it's Goa. Reality is fairly tiresome and undeniably nice to escape from, but you can't live in this ridiculous delusion forever. Well actually you can, but you shouldn't, because it makes you an idiot.
Plus if you stay away from reality like this for too long, you will eventually lose your grip on in it altogether. Goa is littered with the ghastly evidence of the future that awaits such idiotic life choices. 50 plus year old guys, wandering aimlessly about on their own, tripping most of the time, dressed up like their at some perpetual Glastonbury and spouting endless bollocks at whoever is unfortunate enough to be listening.
It's really sad, and kind of scary. My greatest fear is losing my mind, and these drug addled losers in life, who somehow, inexplicably manage to support themselves, are a constant reminder that not all anti drugs talk is fear mongering.
In Arambol I met a Dutch guy called Eric, known as Eric the Terrible. He walked about in a lime green sarong, that at night he turned into a hoody-type-thing, black leather, studded gloves, massive sunglasses and a stick, with various appendages strapped to it. Amongst these treasures was a little horn, the kind you may find on a really old bike, using which he claimed to be a able to speak to dolphins. Amoungst his other claims were such feats as diving deep into the ocean within the lungs of a whale. He and the plot, hadn't seen each other in a very long time.
Eric is by no means an isolated case. Goa is littered with these remnants of the hippy scene. Guys who just didn't know when to call it a day and head back to reality, eventually losing all semblance of sanity whatsoever. Then again I strongly suspect they started out as fire juggling fuckwits in the first place, so I don't know.
Maybe that's the source of my natural aversion to fire dancing. I see it as symbolic of getting far too into raving, such that you are no longer having a brief foray into lunacy, but dedicating a significant portion of your time to it. Bad things happen to people that do this- put the fire down and get a job. Or at least just leave Goa.
So what conclusions am I to draw from this? I come to believe more and more with every passing day that life resembles one big process of elimination. A series of trial and error experiments that begins with birth and end in death. Something is very wrong with the culture that has produced men like Eric, so my advice is this. Visit Goa, it's amazing. Have fun, then leave, with a sobering wisdom lingering regarding what could happen to you if you never left. And if you're really unlucky, ghastly images of some little fuck cracking one off in your direction underwater. I am not an object!
I'll leave you with only one statement relating to my last night in Goa- a story for another time. God bless Australia.
Sunday 31 October 2010
Friday 29 October 2010
Arambol- I may never leave.
Greetings- so a few problems have arisen. Firstly being in Goa is having a hugely detrimental effect on this blog. The lifestyle here is not exactly conducive to writing in internet cafes. Lying on beaches, eating delicious fresh seafood, indulging my every whim and vice- yes, but not writing.
In addition to this I've received a few bits of feedback that are not entirely positive. By which I mean negative. Starting from the least offended party- Les very openly suggests that I should focus on local people more to give my blog a bit of substance and depth, rather than just embodying the facile musings of a idiot. I shall try my best to oblige you Mr Tetteh.
My mother was not a huge fan of my vivid descriptions of the Karma Sutra, especially the guy up the ladder with his (undeniably courageous) bestial endeavors, and the occasional smatterings of general potty mouth throughout my work.
This I can deal with, I've sheltered you long enough mum! What I find far more disturbing is that I'm actually causing offense to a few people.
Don't get me wrong, during the course of normal, day to day life, offending people is about as regular an occurrence as blinking for me. I've basically formed a personality out of it- but blogwise this lies so far from my intentions I'm left fairly shell shocked, like a guy who went out to walk his dog and ended up accidentally murdering a family of French hikers with the lead, over a misunderstanding about directions to the local youth hostel.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, my response is not going to be one of grovelling apology. Other people's sensitivities rank pretty fucking low on an already sparse list of things I give two runny shits about, even when I do regard the people in question with some affection.
So throwing caution to the wind I'm going to echo Jay Z, and say if you don't like the lyric you can press fast forward. Except it's a computer so click the little red cross instead.
Lets start with something that my friend Neel will definitely be citing at me the next time he accuses me of latent racism. I always thought that the wobbly head gesture was a myth, a kind of urban legend that people who actually have a slight tinge of xenophobia about them adopted for impoverished impersonations. You know what I mean? The head bobbing from side to side whilst talking like it's a heavy ball balanced on a spring or something.
It's real. Not only is it real, it's the most widespead, all-encompassing gesture I've ever come across. It means literally everything- no, yes, maybe, I don't know.... Who needs four gestures when you can just wobble your head? It's mega confusing but I love it.
It's sort of reminding me of that South Park episode where they go the Planet Marklar and every Place, Person and Thing is called Marklar. Locals seem to have this innate understanding of what a certain head wobble denotes, despite their being no difference between them at all. And it's infectious- I've started bloody doing it.
It seems confined to the South though, I don't remember anyone doing this in Delhi. Oh yeah, there was something else I wanted to say about the South of India- it's the greatest place on earth.
From the second I arrived here I have been having quite literally the time of my life. I'm living in bamboo hut next to the beach, complete with shower and western toilet (hooray!).
Arriving at 9 at night by motorbike taxi, I endeavored to take the first accommodation option I stumbled across, which is when I met Jandar. Quite how I got so lucky I will never know. The man is a hero. Everything I have needed, a hut, a motorbike, a bar on the beach to hang out in, he's sorted it out for me.
You know that feeling when you wake up in the morning after a heavy night, and as you slowly and fuzzily recollect your actions from the previous evening the feeling that comes over you is not amusement or joy, but an unreserved sense of shame. I get that a bit. Two days ago I woke up and realised that having lost the key to my padlock somewhere, I had decided at 3 in the morning that the wisest course of action would be to kick the door down and pass out. The hut being Jandar's, I went and found him at the bar when I awoke, to shamefully show him my twat-like drunken act of vandalism, this time genuinely grovelling in apology. His response was a smile, a shrug and a head wobble. An hour later we had fixed the door together and I bought him a beer over a few games of pool. A true man among men. Men and silly drunken boys.
In fact it is the people around here that are making the week so special, more so than the beach or the sunshine (although that helps too.)
The next few paragraphs may be fairly boring if you don't want to read about fellow backpackers. They deserve a mention so I'm going for it, but you may better off skipping down if you're not one of them!
The Aussies came down to meet me, bringing with them a man known as "ratters." An utter fuckhead that ranks amongst the most accomplished of fuckheads that I have known, and I've built up quite a collection over the years. Unsurprisingly we're getting along pretty well, (mostly just shouting Colslaw and Aloo Gobee at people!)
There's the standard collective of traveling Israilis, though they all arrived separately. Jonathon, who is the very embodiment of the positive, laid back coolness that Israilis seem to possess when they travel, is excellent company. Along with this there are two stunning girls- Ravid who has one of the most exquisite tattoos I've ever seen (I'll get photo's for you tattoo junkies out there,) and Michal who is simply referred to as "the smoking hot one." -Sample conversation-
Do you know Michal?
No.
The smoking hot one.
Oh yeah her.
The Iraili girls are rivaled only by a Swedish dream named Sophie, who occasionally floats down to us from on high, looking like she's just walked out of a magazine. The drooling is audible. When I pointed her out to Stoopy his response was, "Ah mate, I'd swim through shit with my mouth open. I'd suck off the last guy that rooted her (sexed her)". "You reckon that'd impress her?" I asked. Unfortunately she doesn't drink so I'm out of ideas.
The porn stars may have a slightly better base of approaches. They're not actually porn stars, but I've been convincing people all week that they are, which isn't hard because it's so so so plausible! Micheal, the tall, blue eyed Dane with flowing long, blonde hair, and Miguel, who's going more for the 'Ron Jeremy with a goatee' vibe- although it has recently been pointed out to me by a nymphomanical aussie that he also looks like the human part of a centaur. Like he should be emerging from a woods holding a bow and arrow...
Jimmy and Will are Aussie's but sound so American they could have just walked out of the OC. Jimmy sort of looks like a young, shit-eatingly-happy Jim Morrison, who never changes his shirt, and Will is the proud owner of the peace pipe- a gloriously long smoking artifact that is regularly passed around the bar. Both share my slightly warped sense of humour, which has been a lot of fun for me, and terrifying for everyone within earshot.
Finally honorable mentions go to Chesty- a man so terrifyingly enormous he is known by that particularly massive part of his towering anatomy, but as so often with scary looking bastards, is actually a sweetheart, and Max my fellow Brit, who has been in India most of his life and I'm insanely jealous of him for it. Also, Rob has just informed me that he shagged my German friend Johanna after a 10 minute chat at the German Bakery. L.A.D.
The first day here was magic. I met an English girl called Michelle over breakfast who then introduced me to most of the aforementioned crew. They basically gathered here in Arambol over the last month and have haunted the local, a glorious beach bar called The Blue Seahorse, ever since.
I hired a scooter and we all drove off to some beached up cargo ship down the coast. We tend to travel in a scooter convoy like this- a kind of Muppet baby version of the Hells Angels. Climbing a rope ladder you could walk around on board, all over the crumbling, rusty deck- about as safe as shagging an elephant.
We lived to tell the tale and made it to a casino the next night. 500 rupees, all you can eat all you can drink. as long as your gambling! Now when you're a backpacker, or student that doesn't mean all that you want to eat and drink, that means however much buffet and alcoholic goodness you can fit into every available space in your body is more value for money! It got messy.
Arambol is one of those places that just sucks you in. It's near impossible to leave. You arrive intending to stay a few days and a month later you've pretty much settled down for life. The days seem to be swallowed up- you go to the bar, get a bike, sit on the beach, have a swim, climb the rocks etc, and suddenly the sun is setting and you're staying another day. It's like that film The Island, but not shit.
I'm now in Gokanna, having eventually managed to escape. It's quieter. I will write a more detailed blog when I'm less busy! Right now money is a problem. Rest assured a lot has happened that I'll try to get up in the next couple of days!
In addition to this I've received a few bits of feedback that are not entirely positive. By which I mean negative. Starting from the least offended party- Les very openly suggests that I should focus on local people more to give my blog a bit of substance and depth, rather than just embodying the facile musings of a idiot. I shall try my best to oblige you Mr Tetteh.
My mother was not a huge fan of my vivid descriptions of the Karma Sutra, especially the guy up the ladder with his (undeniably courageous) bestial endeavors, and the occasional smatterings of general potty mouth throughout my work.
This I can deal with, I've sheltered you long enough mum! What I find far more disturbing is that I'm actually causing offense to a few people.
Don't get me wrong, during the course of normal, day to day life, offending people is about as regular an occurrence as blinking for me. I've basically formed a personality out of it- but blogwise this lies so far from my intentions I'm left fairly shell shocked, like a guy who went out to walk his dog and ended up accidentally murdering a family of French hikers with the lead, over a misunderstanding about directions to the local youth hostel.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, my response is not going to be one of grovelling apology. Other people's sensitivities rank pretty fucking low on an already sparse list of things I give two runny shits about, even when I do regard the people in question with some affection.
So throwing caution to the wind I'm going to echo Jay Z, and say if you don't like the lyric you can press fast forward. Except it's a computer so click the little red cross instead.
Lets start with something that my friend Neel will definitely be citing at me the next time he accuses me of latent racism. I always thought that the wobbly head gesture was a myth, a kind of urban legend that people who actually have a slight tinge of xenophobia about them adopted for impoverished impersonations. You know what I mean? The head bobbing from side to side whilst talking like it's a heavy ball balanced on a spring or something.
It's real. Not only is it real, it's the most widespead, all-encompassing gesture I've ever come across. It means literally everything- no, yes, maybe, I don't know.... Who needs four gestures when you can just wobble your head? It's mega confusing but I love it.
It's sort of reminding me of that South Park episode where they go the Planet Marklar and every Place, Person and Thing is called Marklar. Locals seem to have this innate understanding of what a certain head wobble denotes, despite their being no difference between them at all. And it's infectious- I've started bloody doing it.
It seems confined to the South though, I don't remember anyone doing this in Delhi. Oh yeah, there was something else I wanted to say about the South of India- it's the greatest place on earth.
From the second I arrived here I have been having quite literally the time of my life. I'm living in bamboo hut next to the beach, complete with shower and western toilet (hooray!).
Arriving at 9 at night by motorbike taxi, I endeavored to take the first accommodation option I stumbled across, which is when I met Jandar. Quite how I got so lucky I will never know. The man is a hero. Everything I have needed, a hut, a motorbike, a bar on the beach to hang out in, he's sorted it out for me.
You know that feeling when you wake up in the morning after a heavy night, and as you slowly and fuzzily recollect your actions from the previous evening the feeling that comes over you is not amusement or joy, but an unreserved sense of shame. I get that a bit. Two days ago I woke up and realised that having lost the key to my padlock somewhere, I had decided at 3 in the morning that the wisest course of action would be to kick the door down and pass out. The hut being Jandar's, I went and found him at the bar when I awoke, to shamefully show him my twat-like drunken act of vandalism, this time genuinely grovelling in apology. His response was a smile, a shrug and a head wobble. An hour later we had fixed the door together and I bought him a beer over a few games of pool. A true man among men. Men and silly drunken boys.
In fact it is the people around here that are making the week so special, more so than the beach or the sunshine (although that helps too.)
The next few paragraphs may be fairly boring if you don't want to read about fellow backpackers. They deserve a mention so I'm going for it, but you may better off skipping down if you're not one of them!
The Aussies came down to meet me, bringing with them a man known as "ratters." An utter fuckhead that ranks amongst the most accomplished of fuckheads that I have known, and I've built up quite a collection over the years. Unsurprisingly we're getting along pretty well, (mostly just shouting Colslaw and Aloo Gobee at people!)
There's the standard collective of traveling Israilis, though they all arrived separately. Jonathon, who is the very embodiment of the positive, laid back coolness that Israilis seem to possess when they travel, is excellent company. Along with this there are two stunning girls- Ravid who has one of the most exquisite tattoos I've ever seen (I'll get photo's for you tattoo junkies out there,) and Michal who is simply referred to as "the smoking hot one." -Sample conversation-
Do you know Michal?
No.
The smoking hot one.
Oh yeah her.
The Iraili girls are rivaled only by a Swedish dream named Sophie, who occasionally floats down to us from on high, looking like she's just walked out of a magazine. The drooling is audible. When I pointed her out to Stoopy his response was, "Ah mate, I'd swim through shit with my mouth open. I'd suck off the last guy that rooted her (sexed her)". "You reckon that'd impress her?" I asked. Unfortunately she doesn't drink so I'm out of ideas.
The porn stars may have a slightly better base of approaches. They're not actually porn stars, but I've been convincing people all week that they are, which isn't hard because it's so so so plausible! Micheal, the tall, blue eyed Dane with flowing long, blonde hair, and Miguel, who's going more for the 'Ron Jeremy with a goatee' vibe- although it has recently been pointed out to me by a nymphomanical aussie that he also looks like the human part of a centaur. Like he should be emerging from a woods holding a bow and arrow...
Jimmy and Will are Aussie's but sound so American they could have just walked out of the OC. Jimmy sort of looks like a young, shit-eatingly-happy Jim Morrison, who never changes his shirt, and Will is the proud owner of the peace pipe- a gloriously long smoking artifact that is regularly passed around the bar. Both share my slightly warped sense of humour, which has been a lot of fun for me, and terrifying for everyone within earshot.
Finally honorable mentions go to Chesty- a man so terrifyingly enormous he is known by that particularly massive part of his towering anatomy, but as so often with scary looking bastards, is actually a sweetheart, and Max my fellow Brit, who has been in India most of his life and I'm insanely jealous of him for it. Also, Rob has just informed me that he shagged my German friend Johanna after a 10 minute chat at the German Bakery. L.A.D.
The first day here was magic. I met an English girl called Michelle over breakfast who then introduced me to most of the aforementioned crew. They basically gathered here in Arambol over the last month and have haunted the local, a glorious beach bar called The Blue Seahorse, ever since.
I hired a scooter and we all drove off to some beached up cargo ship down the coast. We tend to travel in a scooter convoy like this- a kind of Muppet baby version of the Hells Angels. Climbing a rope ladder you could walk around on board, all over the crumbling, rusty deck- about as safe as shagging an elephant.
We lived to tell the tale and made it to a casino the next night. 500 rupees, all you can eat all you can drink. as long as your gambling! Now when you're a backpacker, or student that doesn't mean all that you want to eat and drink, that means however much buffet and alcoholic goodness you can fit into every available space in your body is more value for money! It got messy.
Arambol is one of those places that just sucks you in. It's near impossible to leave. You arrive intending to stay a few days and a month later you've pretty much settled down for life. The days seem to be swallowed up- you go to the bar, get a bike, sit on the beach, have a swim, climb the rocks etc, and suddenly the sun is setting and you're staying another day. It's like that film The Island, but not shit.
I'm now in Gokanna, having eventually managed to escape. It's quieter. I will write a more detailed blog when I'm less busy! Right now money is a problem. Rest assured a lot has happened that I'll try to get up in the next couple of days!
Friday 22 October 2010
Trains, trains and trains....
It's happened- I'm ill. No vomiting or chronic diarrhea thank the Lord, just a cold, a hideous cough, and generally feeling like AID's. I miss my mum....
If anyone mentions the phrase "man-flu," I'm going to fly back to England and carnally force myself upon you suddenly and painfully, breathing heavily into your stupid face and shouting, "it's only man-rape!"
The most annoying thing actually is a nervous hesitation to break wind, (an affliction I am usually happily free from, albeit with slightly anti-social consequences,) because it's impossible to tell whether what is thus expelled will be gaseous or liquid in form, the latter being a matter of some greater concern in public areas. So far it's been okay, but with a couple of very close, buttock-clenching calls!
Anyway, enough of this puerility. I'd like to properly start this entry with an apology to British Rail. For every time I have ever slurred the efficiency and standards of your services, I unreservedly apologise. You're still greedy, capitalist pigs, but at least with the obscene amount of money you charge us, the service you provide is pretty good.
If you don't believe me try India. Their train system is literally insane. Given that pretty much all I've been doing for the last few days is sitting/ lying/ standing/ suspending myself from the fucking ceiling, on trains trying to get South, I'm going to write about them pretty much exclusively in this entry, like some demented, disillusioned train spotter screaming curses at the departures board in Paddington abd burning his anorak.
Lets start with getting a ticket, as one tends to. Now being English I have a natural sense of how to form an orderly queue, blah blah boring, as the popular cli chez goes.... but it is true. At least in Europe though there is a sense of a "queue" i.e. the essence of order and fairness still underlie all the bad manners and pushing. In India however there is nothing that even resembles a queue at any point. Everyone simply tries to access one tiny window, all at once, from every conceivable angle. Chaos ensues.
It reminds me of when I used to play 2nd row in school, trying to lodge my poor head through an impossibly small gap between two buldging front row posteriors, only to be greeted by a face as welcoming as gang rape staring angrily back at me. Over two weeks in and all remnants of my politeness and reserve are well and truly gone. I now gleefully barge smaller human beings across the room, laughing as I elbow old ladies in the face, in pursuit of the tiny window.
When I get to the window things don't improve much. As well as being jostled and pushed from every direction, putting me on the verge of turning around and twating the nearest face to mine (probably about two inches away,) my Hindi currently extends to saying hello, thank you etc, and none of the ticket staff seem to speak English, which is fair enough, but not even at the tourist ticket office.
In Satna, which is by the way the worst place I have ever had the misfortune to spend two hours in, I resolved to overcome this barrier by writing down the details of my journey in bold capital letters along with the date and time of my proposed arrival and departure. The woman behind the counter still looked at me with utter gormless confusion, as if I had just handed her a picture of spiderman fucking a watermelon. Another epic fail.
The tourist tickets they have on offer are almost always sold out, and the next hundred years are booked solid. You can go on something called a waiting list, though quite how this works escapes me to? Is it in case someone with a ticket dies perhaps? Or they discover more seats on the train hiding somewhere?
(It turns out that Goa is the hardest place in the world to get a ticket for so I'm having an especially bad time at the moment.)
Here's what frustrates me the most though. What makes me want to reach through the tiny little window and rip their gormless little faces off. When they eventually manage to find you a train, rather than just booking it there and then, you have to take a piece of paper, go away, and fill out the appropriate information, despite said information sitting right there on the screen.
They will then type what you write back onto their little 1980's computor, despite having it right there on the frigging screen all but two minute ago? Why must I write down on a piece of paper an exhaustive list of information about the train you just found for me, just so you can put it back onto your computor?
"This is madness!" I cry. "THIS IS INDIA!" the ticket lady roars back and kicks me down into a bottomless chasm of confusion and despair.
Conclusion- pay the extra 50 rupees and use a travel agent- everything's still sold out but at least you avoid all this shit.
So I get on the train, after evicting several people from your seat, which is usually a gracious process, you settle down. After writing this sentence for the first time, I got on a train and found an entire family had occupied my seat, including two sleeping infants, who the adults proceeded to gesture to and make begging gestures towards me. It was obvious that this was a battle I could not win in good conscience, so I wearily climbed onto a free upper bunk and slept there for a few hours. Incidently the babies woke up crying later, as the little bastards tend to, making me wish I'd dropkicked them through the window and taken my seat instead. You live and learn.
Now sleeper class is a bit of a lottery. If your fan works, there are no dodgy smells you're okay. If not, you may sweat to death before you reach your destination, or get very ill, (I'm blaming my current illness on the extremely unpleasant smelling carriage I took to Jalgaun.
The beds are way to short for me, which is a bit of a problem. I sometimes feel like the guy in the Dr Zeus book, one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish, complaining about his inadequately small bed. (If you don't know what I'm on about, go look it up now, it's a classic.) The problem is exacerbated as since Jonny got his bag stolen from the carriage as he slept, I've been padlocking mine to the bed and spooning it like a cherished lover all night, leaving me with even less space!
Twice now I've been told off for my feet sticking into the carriage as I slumber away. "Oh I'm sorry, I'll just cut my fucking feet off," I sharply told the last guy, very annoyed at being awoken. He didn't understand but I think he got the message and left me alone!
You can always upgrade to AC, but the price hike is astonishing so on my budget I'd rather sweatily grin and bear it. Plus given I'm not an item of fresh fruit or veg I see no reason to travel in a massive fridge on rails. I wore a hoody and was still cold. It's as if freezing to death is somehow a mark of luxury, and I've only done one journey on AC3 (3rd class). I can only imagine AC1 is some kind of winter wonderland, patrons digging their beds out of snow and keeping warm round a fire of burning rupees.
In fact I quite like sleeper. It's generally comfortable, you meet some nice people, no one bats and eyelid if you smoke out of the doors, and the whole thing can be quite fun with a good group. Unfortunately the last 24 hours have been on my own, but bearable nonetheless. There was a shocking amount of space in second class, and some spectacular scenery. India is left green and lush after the monsoon, add to that the hillsides, endless rural villages, and jungle like stretches of trees across the horizon, and it all makes for a beautiful ride. I ended up being glad I couldn't get a night train!
The key to a successful trainride though is above all else- valium. Oh yes, that stalwart friend of depressed hollywood types is freely and cheaply available from virtually every chemist here. You walk about on a cloud, sleep amazingly well, wake up feeling lovely- the whole thing is just great. I may feign depression back in England just to get my hands on some. Sulk morbidly through meals, start bulk buying paracetamol, leave nooses hanging around the house, that kind of thing.
I don't know what was in that cookie I bought in Khajuraho (though I have a pretty good idea!) but that knocked my socks off as well. It was like the train grew wings and flew to Goa. I love this place. I loved everything on that train ride!
Indian families, trains provide a kind of microcosmic showcase for what I have found to be the most endearing part of Indian culture.
So I've skipped Mumbai, having had enough of cities. I need a beach! The Aussies are meeting me down here in Arambol from Mumbai, where apparently they were scouted for a Bollywood movie! Missed a trick there I reckon. Still this might be the greatest place I've ever been, so I can hardly complain. Seriously- I may never leave. More on that in the next entry. I fear that being here may have a seriously detrimental effect on this blog.
I'll leave you with something that made me laugh. One of my faverite things about carrying my notebook around is finding the stuff I can't remember writing the next day. In the murky depths of my illness on the train, with Valium, dodgy cough medicine and what was almost certainly opium flowing through my veins, I had scrawled across one page in barely ladgable writing "Mum I love you, but I'd sell you for a hot shower right now."
I'm about to go gambling with some Israili's btw. I had to include that! Gambling with Israilis. Next week I will be sunbathing with Eskimo's and visiting a abstenant ashram with the Aussie boys.
If anyone mentions the phrase "man-flu," I'm going to fly back to England and carnally force myself upon you suddenly and painfully, breathing heavily into your stupid face and shouting, "it's only man-rape!"
The most annoying thing actually is a nervous hesitation to break wind, (an affliction I am usually happily free from, albeit with slightly anti-social consequences,) because it's impossible to tell whether what is thus expelled will be gaseous or liquid in form, the latter being a matter of some greater concern in public areas. So far it's been okay, but with a couple of very close, buttock-clenching calls!
Anyway, enough of this puerility. I'd like to properly start this entry with an apology to British Rail. For every time I have ever slurred the efficiency and standards of your services, I unreservedly apologise. You're still greedy, capitalist pigs, but at least with the obscene amount of money you charge us, the service you provide is pretty good.
If you don't believe me try India. Their train system is literally insane. Given that pretty much all I've been doing for the last few days is sitting/ lying/ standing/ suspending myself from the fucking ceiling, on trains trying to get South, I'm going to write about them pretty much exclusively in this entry, like some demented, disillusioned train spotter screaming curses at the departures board in Paddington abd burning his anorak.
Lets start with getting a ticket, as one tends to. Now being English I have a natural sense of how to form an orderly queue, blah blah boring, as the popular cli chez goes.... but it is true. At least in Europe though there is a sense of a "queue" i.e. the essence of order and fairness still underlie all the bad manners and pushing. In India however there is nothing that even resembles a queue at any point. Everyone simply tries to access one tiny window, all at once, from every conceivable angle. Chaos ensues.
It reminds me of when I used to play 2nd row in school, trying to lodge my poor head through an impossibly small gap between two buldging front row posteriors, only to be greeted by a face as welcoming as gang rape staring angrily back at me. Over two weeks in and all remnants of my politeness and reserve are well and truly gone. I now gleefully barge smaller human beings across the room, laughing as I elbow old ladies in the face, in pursuit of the tiny window.
When I get to the window things don't improve much. As well as being jostled and pushed from every direction, putting me on the verge of turning around and twating the nearest face to mine (probably about two inches away,) my Hindi currently extends to saying hello, thank you etc, and none of the ticket staff seem to speak English, which is fair enough, but not even at the tourist ticket office.
In Satna, which is by the way the worst place I have ever had the misfortune to spend two hours in, I resolved to overcome this barrier by writing down the details of my journey in bold capital letters along with the date and time of my proposed arrival and departure. The woman behind the counter still looked at me with utter gormless confusion, as if I had just handed her a picture of spiderman fucking a watermelon. Another epic fail.
The tourist tickets they have on offer are almost always sold out, and the next hundred years are booked solid. You can go on something called a waiting list, though quite how this works escapes me to? Is it in case someone with a ticket dies perhaps? Or they discover more seats on the train hiding somewhere?
(It turns out that Goa is the hardest place in the world to get a ticket for so I'm having an especially bad time at the moment.)
Here's what frustrates me the most though. What makes me want to reach through the tiny little window and rip their gormless little faces off. When they eventually manage to find you a train, rather than just booking it there and then, you have to take a piece of paper, go away, and fill out the appropriate information, despite said information sitting right there on the screen.
They will then type what you write back onto their little 1980's computor, despite having it right there on the frigging screen all but two minute ago? Why must I write down on a piece of paper an exhaustive list of information about the train you just found for me, just so you can put it back onto your computor?
"This is madness!" I cry. "THIS IS INDIA!" the ticket lady roars back and kicks me down into a bottomless chasm of confusion and despair.
Conclusion- pay the extra 50 rupees and use a travel agent- everything's still sold out but at least you avoid all this shit.
So I get on the train, after evicting several people from your seat, which is usually a gracious process, you settle down. After writing this sentence for the first time, I got on a train and found an entire family had occupied my seat, including two sleeping infants, who the adults proceeded to gesture to and make begging gestures towards me. It was obvious that this was a battle I could not win in good conscience, so I wearily climbed onto a free upper bunk and slept there for a few hours. Incidently the babies woke up crying later, as the little bastards tend to, making me wish I'd dropkicked them through the window and taken my seat instead. You live and learn.
Now sleeper class is a bit of a lottery. If your fan works, there are no dodgy smells you're okay. If not, you may sweat to death before you reach your destination, or get very ill, (I'm blaming my current illness on the extremely unpleasant smelling carriage I took to Jalgaun.
The beds are way to short for me, which is a bit of a problem. I sometimes feel like the guy in the Dr Zeus book, one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish, complaining about his inadequately small bed. (If you don't know what I'm on about, go look it up now, it's a classic.) The problem is exacerbated as since Jonny got his bag stolen from the carriage as he slept, I've been padlocking mine to the bed and spooning it like a cherished lover all night, leaving me with even less space!
Twice now I've been told off for my feet sticking into the carriage as I slumber away. "Oh I'm sorry, I'll just cut my fucking feet off," I sharply told the last guy, very annoyed at being awoken. He didn't understand but I think he got the message and left me alone!
You can always upgrade to AC, but the price hike is astonishing so on my budget I'd rather sweatily grin and bear it. Plus given I'm not an item of fresh fruit or veg I see no reason to travel in a massive fridge on rails. I wore a hoody and was still cold. It's as if freezing to death is somehow a mark of luxury, and I've only done one journey on AC3 (3rd class). I can only imagine AC1 is some kind of winter wonderland, patrons digging their beds out of snow and keeping warm round a fire of burning rupees.
In fact I quite like sleeper. It's generally comfortable, you meet some nice people, no one bats and eyelid if you smoke out of the doors, and the whole thing can be quite fun with a good group. Unfortunately the last 24 hours have been on my own, but bearable nonetheless. There was a shocking amount of space in second class, and some spectacular scenery. India is left green and lush after the monsoon, add to that the hillsides, endless rural villages, and jungle like stretches of trees across the horizon, and it all makes for a beautiful ride. I ended up being glad I couldn't get a night train!
The key to a successful trainride though is above all else- valium. Oh yes, that stalwart friend of depressed hollywood types is freely and cheaply available from virtually every chemist here. You walk about on a cloud, sleep amazingly well, wake up feeling lovely- the whole thing is just great. I may feign depression back in England just to get my hands on some. Sulk morbidly through meals, start bulk buying paracetamol, leave nooses hanging around the house, that kind of thing.
I don't know what was in that cookie I bought in Khajuraho (though I have a pretty good idea!) but that knocked my socks off as well. It was like the train grew wings and flew to Goa. I love this place. I loved everything on that train ride!
Indian families, trains provide a kind of microcosmic showcase for what I have found to be the most endearing part of Indian culture.
So I've skipped Mumbai, having had enough of cities. I need a beach! The Aussies are meeting me down here in Arambol from Mumbai, where apparently they were scouted for a Bollywood movie! Missed a trick there I reckon. Still this might be the greatest place I've ever been, so I can hardly complain. Seriously- I may never leave. More on that in the next entry. I fear that being here may have a seriously detrimental effect on this blog.
I'll leave you with something that made me laugh. One of my faverite things about carrying my notebook around is finding the stuff I can't remember writing the next day. In the murky depths of my illness on the train, with Valium, dodgy cough medicine and what was almost certainly opium flowing through my veins, I had scrawled across one page in barely ladgable writing "Mum I love you, but I'd sell you for a hot shower right now."
I'm about to go gambling with some Israili's btw. I had to include that! Gambling with Israilis. Next week I will be sunbathing with Eskimo's and visiting a abstenant ashram with the Aussie boys.
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