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.