Well, I Suppose It's Time I Got This Started.... (India)

January 2006

Ahhh, prose. Hmmm. I don't think I have been required to turn out words, entertainingly arranged in proper sentences utilising good grammar (innit) since I used to write my flimsy film reviews for a now-defunct free magazine called Footloose. It got me into preview screenings of upcoming releases in exchange for a hastily boshed-out 250 words, and you couldn't say fairer than that, I thought. I'd like to think that it wasn't my writing that finally sank the magazine, but.....

So here I am in India, at a seat in an internet "cafe", (Mars bars and diet coke only though, it seems), with my newly-acquired blogger account and a blank edit screen. Since I’ve now been here for over a month I think it’s long overdue that I start committing some of this trip to a server somewhere, rather than relying in my increasingly collinder-like memory. Plus I’m getting tired of writing the same travelogue email to different people over and over again when I can just point them at a website!

Fleeing The Smoke...
So I left London after an exhausting whirlwind of rushed arrangements throughout the festive period. Work issues to tie up and leave to my trusty replacement, Bodger, (who I understand is still in position and coping admirably with the mess); friends to see, (many of whom I didn’t – apologies); and a flat to move out of so a tenant could move in. This involved not only the moving of all my crap to the storage space so kindly provided by my parents, but some pretty extensive electrical work to make the place “safe” for the tenant. The electricians, as is their nature, refused to do anything before the New Year. Consuequently the day before the tenant was due to move in and I was due to fly out, they were pulling things apart, replacing wiring, consumer units and wall sockets, sucking in air between their teeth and shaking their heads. So I was amused when the very first shower I took in India was under this frightening-looking contraption, mains cable shoved inside the shower head. Needless to say, my one shower under this was a speedy and somewhat nervous affair. I wonder what my electricians would have thought of it.....


Finding The Beach...
So after an uneventful flight from London to Mumbai, (which used to be called Bombay, like Beijing used to be Peking), I met up with my first travel buddy, Celine, and set of for Goa.

Celine, a delightfully polite and well-brought-up young lady from north London, is a researcher for a genetics charity, a house DJ and what you might call a "seasoned traveller", (it's hard to find places in the world she hasn't been!). We immediately headed for the south of Goa, to a beautiful beach called Palolem, and installed ourselves in beach hut accommodation so that when you walked out, your feet were immediately on sand! Mmmm...... after the last couple of months in London, relaxation was all I was interested in. Culture shmulture; there was plenty of time for that!



Another companion on my travels, for the whole year I hope, is a small badger kindly given to me by the Phil(l)s at 6 Music when I left. He is now know as Mr. Dasje, (pronounced "das-yeh"..... explanation later), and has, naturally, been making regular appearances in photos of my trip so far. Here Mr. Dasje is relaxing on Palolem Beach…..

Holy Cow!

So at this point I ought to mention culture shock. As a first time visitor to India there were a few things for me to get used to, although the “Delhi Belly” gastric situations which usually greet newcomers thankfully seemed to side-step me. Rather it was things like the omnipresence of animals in what seemed like inappropriate places. I took quite a few photos of cows on the beach at first, just because it seemed so weird!

They just wander around, uncontrolled and apparently unowned, eating what they can find which can ocassionally include food from the unattended bag of an unwary beach-user! It was only later that I realised that this is the way it is all over India; cows just exist, on beaches, city streets, country roads, everywhere. Since they’re sacred to Hindus then they get fed a bit and treated OK, (although that doesn’t mean they don’t get chased away from food stalls by protective stallholders!). Similarly, pigs, dogs and monkeys are everywhere – tolerated and sometimes fed by kind people, but mostly fending for themselves.

Other things that require some adjustment...... general chaos in the streets, with no discernable traffic rules and buses, pedestrians, cars, cows, tuk-tuks, pigs, motorbikes, bicycles and pushcarts all having to weave around each other, constantly flirting with collision....... having to negotiate the price of most things you buy...... constantly being approached for a whole multitude of reasons, but mostly for some kind of sales pitch..... rubbish and animal shit all over the streets, alongside the open sewers, and the resultant smell....... and perhaps most of all, the poverty.

When I visited Morocco and Mexico they were obviously poor countries, but I think that in India the poverty is more marked than in either of those places. The endless tiresome approaches to beg or sell you something have to be viewed in that light, and one has to remember that extreme circumstance is a strong motivator. I understand that there are a lot of very wealthy people here as well, but of course I'd be less likely to see them.

However, Goa is really “India-Lite”. It is one of the most laid-back areas of the country, and has quite a lot of European influence, (it was a Portugese colony until the 1960s). You get a much easier introduction than if you started in, say, Delhi and so is a really good place to start a couple of months’ Indian travel.

"Take Her To See a Fort, You're Wasting Your Life!"
So after a week or so just unwinding, (including a dolphin spotting boat trip at dawn - yay!), Celine and I tore ourselves away from the beach to take a trip inland to Hampi in Karnataka. Hampi is a holy city, with oodles of old ruined temples and palaces to attract tourists, and a huge functioning Hindu temple which draws pilgrims and tourists alike. What’s more, it was built in an incredible volcanic landscape which is strewn with huge boulders just piled randomly on top of each other. It being my first taste of India away from Goa, there were a few differences to get used to, not least of which is the way some areas of India make it pretty hard to get a drink You’d think that Muslim Morocco would be more tricky to get a beer with your dinner in, but no - I never had a problem there. However, in Holy Hampi a request for a Cobra with dinner was met by a long wait, (while they sent a boy off to the local “dealer", returning with your bottle under plain wraps!), followed by another long wait while they chilled it, followed by much furtiveness and an insistence that you keep the incriminating bottle hidden on the floor in case of local strolling cops or a pandit! Meat and alcohol are strictly forbidden near a holy site.

Hampi was incredible. We hired a guide called Kumar in the bazaar and he turned out to be very knowledgeable and quite entertaining in a dry kind of way. He took us around the functioning temple, (where I got blessed by the temple's resident Holy Elephant - as you do), and then so many ruined temples and palaces that I lost count. It seems that at almost every ruin he said, ".... and in 1665 the Muslim came and broke everything......" which might go some way towards explaining the antagonism that exists between the groups. I have talked to a couple of Hindus who don't have much time for Muslims, one of whom even suggested that the current "War On Terror" is divine retribution on Muslims for centuries of aggression and plunder in India!

Back To The Beach!
We then took the eleven-hour train ride back to the coast to a couple of pretty deserted beaches in Karnataka called Om Beach and Paradise Beach. Like many places in India, and particularly Goa, which we were still very close to, there were huge numbers of young Israelies there. Apparently it's traditional for them to finish their national service, leave the army and go to India for a few months to wander around, grow their hair and smoke weed. At least that's what I understood from the REALLY LOUD one that was blabbing all night to some English guy in the next beach hut...........

So then we went back up to Goa to Sernabatim Beach, and Celine left to go back to work in London, (that idea is starting to seem so alien to me now!). I then left and went up to Arambol, to a beach in the very north of Goa.

Arambol is just beautiful. For me I had found the right mixture of factors: it was developed enough to have good places to stay, shop, eat and drink, but without being over-done or catering to packages: a long and beautiful beach that didn't have shore-to-dune sun loungers: a nice mixture of independent travellers, holidaymakers, long-stay wasters/hippies from a variety of places, (and not just Israel!). I intended to stay for just a couple of nights, but I liked the place so much, and met some good people, that I ended up there for nine!

Hippy Sara from Bath was typical of breed of young-ish western visitors to Goa.... vaguely searching for something spiritual, or perhaps just wanting to duck out of Western life for a bit. Some of them have obviously been here for years and have formed little communities, and I spent an interesting evening with Sarah going to an open mic night, (chacterised by acoustic guitars & djembes, Bob Dylan & Cat Stevens songs, and facial hair), and a gig, (an odd but not unentertaining free-form mish-mash of Led Zep, Doors-y kind of stuff). I also met a slightly mad Canadian bartender called Karine, who mis-overheard someone I was talking to and thought that had brought a real stuffed badger with me. After asking me what kind of sick twisted individual I was, she slowly came to understand that I wasn't traveling the world with a three-foot piece of real taxidermy in my backpack.......

I also met Sharda, Ellie and Dianna from Holland. It was through them that Mr. Dasje got his name, and in fact it was he that introduced me to them! I was standing in a beach-front cafe one morning from where I could get a good length-wise shot of the beach, with the badger just in the corner as shown above. Ellie and Sharda were having breakfast, and watching what must have been a very strange sight as I held the badger at arms length and tried to get the composition and focus right, taking several shots before I was happy. We started chatting. I explained my strange behaviour(!), and the name Mr. Dasje, (dasje meaning "little badger" in Dutch), came to be applied to the badger! It has since stuck.

I then spent a fair bit of the next few days with Ellie, Sharda and Dianne. We went to a concert one night, (Indian/electronic fusion kind of thing), and another day took a trip to Baga down the coast where we went for (another!) dolphin spotting trip, sat on the beach and then in the evening went to a night bazaar in the town.

Sharda is a medical student in The Hague, but her parents are from Bihar in northeast India and she speaks Hindi, (albeit with a funny accent, apparently). She was quite a shopper, and it was interesting to see her haggle in the bazaar - the girl was a tiger! I reckon I can negotiate, but she was getting prices for things I think I could only dream of. In keeping with the rest of my trip so far, I didn't buy anything; I've got enough crap to carry around as it is!

So eventually it became time to tear myself away from the beach, (which really was tricky - I could have spent the whole year there!), and northwards to see what else India was about. So I booked my sleeper train ticket for the 28 hour journey to Delhi, and shook the beach sand out of my sandals until Thailand!