Don’t go to Goa

Though I’m entirely basing my opinion on 3 night spent in trashy touristy Candolim…

… I hated I every second that I spent in Goa.

The following is a lesson that being impulsive is not always a good option.

Having done not much research into Goa, aside from that we thought we’d head North, we split a cab from the train station with an Aussie guy heading in the same direction.

He had an apartment booked with a spare bedroom which he offered to us at a reasonable price.

It turned out we’d moved in with the Southern Hemisphere’s biggest bullshitter.

According to him, he was Alan Sugar, Howard Marks, Carl Cox, Bruce Lee and the Dalai Lama, all rolled into one.

According to me, he was a conceited prick.

He took class A drugs in a family restaurant, propositioned married woman and generally offended my senses every time he opened his probably-botoxed mouth.

Candolim is an awful place. Its Blackpool meets Benidorm. If Croydon is the arsehole of England, then Candolim is the sunburnt beer belly of India. 500km south of Mumbai and hoards of retired, mostly-fat, mostly-British tourists rent sun-loungers and eat roast dinners and hot pots and Heinz baked beans.

I am sure more people there would recognize Noel Edmonds than Gandhi.

Even the ATMs spoke with a Yorkshire accent. ‘Insert t’card and enter t’pin number.’

When in Rome, perhaps Matt?

No. I just couldn’t get into the swing of things and I never felt comfortable there. I had to guiltily avoid eye contact with a freely-roaming road cow after eating steak and chips.

Other miserable things of note are that I fell off a scooter. And, after taking an ill-advised lift home with an inebriated woman, had a minor car crash. No wounds that didn’t heal within a couple of days, but signs telling me that I should get the hell out of Goa.

Learning to love India – an ode to Indians

The longer I spend in India, the more I have grown accustomed and endeared towards the unique charms of Indian life.

It certainly wasn’t love at first sight. Perhaps this as due to our route from peaceful Nepal, through busy and stressful cities like Varanasi, Agra and Delhi, a whistle-stop tour of Rajasthan, then a week in rat race Mumbai before reaching the tranquility and welcoming generosity of the beautiful South.

Whilst I don’t think I’ll ever get past the shitty (arf arf) sanitation here, I feel more able to separate the good from the bad and the ugly. More able to enjoy my many good experiences and just to accept certain inconveniences.

Learning to love India is as simple as opening a thesaurus. (Though my process of gradual appreciation has taken far longer).

Instead of over-crowded, try bustling.

For money-grabbing hustlers, read opportunists.

I’ve even grown to admire the entrepreneurial spirit of the desperate Delhi shoe cleaner who planted a turd on my shoe (OK, no I haven’t, I’m still fuming about that one!)

The absolute determination to make money in any way possible has to be respected. People here literally need to ‘make a living.’ Without cash, they’ll die.

True, there are some over greedy bastards and I don’t like them, but I can spot them a mile off now and wising up to these wiseguys’ antics has its own self-satisfactory rewards.

Believe me, I haven’t missed the irony that while I freely whine about being ripped off r scammed by Indians. My uninvited British ancestors occupied the entire nation or centuries. Relentlessly reaping resources at the expense of the indigenous people.

Another conclusion I’ve reached is that it I OK to be poor in India.

Because nearly everyone else is.

As a stoned Swede explained to me. The homeless, drop-outs and drug users are marginalised in his society. Ignored and friendless. People cross the road to avoid them.

Here it’s different. The poor are the majority. In such a community of peers, it’s impossible to be isolated.

A case in point is the Dharvi slum in Mumbai where a million people live in a square mile of shacks, tents and  crumbling buildings sandwiched between two railway lines.

It’s not a comfortable existence, but they get by. And from my experience there, despite the hardships, most people were happy. I certainly found more smiles and laughter there than on my previous daily Norwood-Junction-to-London-Bridge commute.

Indians have a dogged determination. An admirable attitude and work ethic.

From the beach seller who tried (unsuccessfully) to sell me a drum at least 30 times in a week in Gokarna, to the city workers who have completed further education and earned good jobs.

I have met many Indians who take great pride in their jobs. Rightly so. Chances are they’ve worked very hard to be there.

It’s no coincidence that my local GPs in Croydon are Doctors Singh, Shah and Gengatharen.

Personally, it gives me renewed gratitude for how fortunate I have been to have stumbled into and forged a career in an industry I enjoy. Friends and family will attest that my attitude towards education was never anything like first class.

Another thing I am in awe of and very envious of, is the Indians’ ability to sleep anywhere.

While I’ve moaned about paper-thin straw mattresses, bed bugs and my feet always hanging off the bed, I’ve seen locals sleeping absolutely everywhere.

On the pavement, on a parked bicycle, in tuk-tuks, eight to a bed in sleeper train carriages. Even in the middle of a very busy dual carriageway. Neither safe nor quite, two of the foremost qualities I look for in a place to sleep.

As I write this, beside me a smartly-dressed 40-year-old is curled up in the fetal position catching some ZZZs in a stone floor corner of Hospet Junction’s concourse. A newspaper for his pillow.

People of India, I doff my turban to you.

Our flight to Thailand is booked for January 3. I don’t want to leave.

There must be something in the curry.

A racist elephant and the Hampi GP

Two valiums and a sleeper bus later and I woke up in Hampi.

The landscape is just staggering. It does not look natural. It’s as if giant boulders have been piled by a giant pair of hands.

The rocky terrain is interspersed with 500-year-old ruined remains of the Vijayanagara Kingdom. The entire region is a world heritage site and I’d whole-heartedly recommend a visit to anyone.

The best way to explore the place is by moped, particularly since our visit coincided with fresh tarmac roads being steamrolled. It was as if it was purpose built for us to enjoy a 4-day jaunt.

Every corner you snake around holds new natural beauty. Lakes and rivers and reservoirs, boulder mountains, coconut palm forests and paddy fields.

With the majority of the ruins on the opposite side of the river to us, we loaded our bikes, along with a shitload of others, on to a ‘ferry’ and took a tour of the many spectacular sights.

Having got separated from Dave (I took a wrong turning) I scooted further towards the enormous Virupashka temple. 



It was there I met a racist elephant. After watching her bless Indians in exchange for a single rupee coin, I returned the entrance gate, paid up the 20-rupee camera charge and found an Indian boy to record a video of me receiving an elephant blessing.

Instead, the video is of me arguing with a 2-ton critter that it’s not fair to ask white people for 10 times the amount Indians pay for the privilege of having a holy trunk placed on your head. Then the camera battery gave up, and so did I.

I found a place to eat byriani and got locked into conversation with 3 Londoners. Watchless, I asked the time and suddenly it was 5 past 5.

Without lights on my bike, I was locked in a race home against sundown at 6. I was like Cinderella, only sweatier and powered by petrol rather than pumpkin.

In terms of pure unadulterated enjoyment, it was incredible. There was a point where, racing along at 50mph, I had no choice but to stand and shout at the top of my voice to relieve my glee and prevent my head from exploding. 

The last time I can remember this happening to me was at leasta year ago after witnessing Darren Ambrose score a 40-yard wonder-goal against Man Utd at Old Trafford.

I made it home before dark. And even had time to pick up a stunning Israeli girl and give her a lift home, since her bike had no tax and there were coppers round the corner. After I dropped her off at her guest house next door to ours, she agreed to bring herself plus 2 more girls round for a beer with me and Dave that evening.

The following few hours would make a fairly good sitcom pilot and are a good deal funnier to me now than as they unfolded. I’ll try to tell the story as accurately as possible.

As we drank in our guest-house bar and waited for the girls to arrive, our half-cut chef got an enormous green emu egg from the fridge, and offered us the chance to cook up an omelette. Shortly after, he revealed himself to be racist and launched into a passionate verbal assault of the entire Israeli race. So we didn’t take up his offer of the egg and warned him to be nice to our expected Hebrew visitors.

A couple of Kingfishers bolder and at Dave’s assertion that the girls wouldn’t show, I shuffled round to find them. In Basil-Fawlty-style I did not mention the war chef.

Then followed a lovely evening where beer and conversation flowed. That was until our now-very-pissed chef reared his racist head and launched into a spectacularly offensive anti-Israeli rant. It was humiliating and one of them justifiably stormed off. Still, we arranged to hang out the next day.

Luck can be a bitch and unfortunately with Dave ill, I was forced to spend the day sunbathing with 3 bikini-clad beauties.

For the Indian pervert-paparazzi, this represented the equivalent to Debbie Does Dallas. Several times I had to shoo away groups of men and their camera phones, explaining that it really is quite rude to take photos of girls in their swimwear.

Then I took some pictures myself.

Next day, with Dave back to health we took the girls over the river and biked the sights again. A fun day and this time, I paid up for a blessing from the hustling holy elephant. Video evidence here.

Pressed for time, we shot off to catch a sleeper bus to Goa.

Gokarna

After a nightmare journey across Mumbai, we caught our southward-bound train to Gokarna with 10 minutes to spare.

If a level crossing hadn’t opened just as our tuk-tuk raced towards it, we wouldn’t have made it in time.

We made ourselves comfortable for a 15-hour journey in a  cockroach-infested sleeper class carriage.

But if it was good enough for our fellow passenger 79-year-old Helen of Aberdeen. Then who am I to complain?

It’s hard not to be inspired by her story. A grandmother-of-many, she has spent her winters in India for at least the last 30 years (she’s lost count) as it costs less to travel here, than the bill to heat her home. She gives her remaining money to Indian charities, but only after she’s given them the once-over herself.

I later found out she needed 3 days of bed rest following the exertion of the journey.

India has at times tried my patience and not-insignificant determination. Helen has these qualities by the sporran-full.

Gokarna itself is a pretty village where a scoop of homemade ice cream costs 10p, a masala dosa is 20p an for under 50p you can eat a bottomless fish thali (I mean it was refillable, not a no-arsed sea-dweller.

Further along the coast lies a series of increasingly secluded and untouched beaches.

We stayed on Kudle Beach, a heady hippy hangover from the seventies It’s a super-chilled-out place where pot is as readily available as sand. And where people (men and women) who are far too old to have dreadlocks and wear thongs can have dreadlocks and wear thongs and not be judged for it. In fact, it was so non-conformist that I felt positively non-conformist for being a conformist, if that makes any sense at all.

Once you get used to sharing the shore with stray dogs and cows, the pace of life becomes very easy. The 2 nights we planned to stay quickly turned into 8. It’s certainly somewhere that I’d like to return to.

We hired mopeds for a day and explored inland a while. We also visited Om Beach and the appropriately-named Paradise Beach.

Excluding go-karts, Legoland and a ride-on lawnmower, this was the first time in my life I’d taken control of a motorized vehicle.

Needless to say, Dave, new-buddy Jay and I wasted no time in being very silly boys and maxing out the bikes until they hit 100kmph on the speedo. It was quite brilliant fun and I now understand what I missed out on aged 16. I think I’ll get a scooter when I return to the UK.

Close your eyes when you read this Mum, but in my vest and football shorts, there was a lot of exposed flesh at the mercy of the ill-kept gravel roads. Fortunately the only damage done to me was sunburn.

This compounded my ‘wanker’ t-shirt tan with an additional layer of vest tan. I was curiously mixed race or ‘tanning by numbers’.

 How can you improve beach paradise?

In an act of fantastic generousity, Jay gave me a Game Boy along with Pokemon Red. Truly, at the time, there was probably no better present I could have asked for.

It more than made up for the loss of my CASIDO watch, which I had picked up a month prior in Pushkar. I inadvertently wore it into the sea at Paradise Beach and it turned out its waterproof credentials were as counterfeit as its brand name.

With a heavy heart and sunburnt shoulders, we said goodbye to Gokarna and headed for Hampi.

Rajasthan Road Trip

First up, apologies my dear reader(s)…

As was inevitable, I've been too busy travelling and having fun to keep the blog up to date.

This entry covers a fabulous fortnight spent in Rajasthan. One blog post can’t really do this section of the journey justice.

Along with our two travelling buddies Paul and Kate, plus Sharma, our tobacco-chewing-and-door-opening-to-spit-very-regularly driver for hire, we spent 15 nights exploring the relics of the region’s ancient kingdoms.

We squeezed in so many sights, experiences and adventures in that it’d be impossible to mention the lot.

Visits to countless forts, palaces, temples, museums and more in Jaipur, Rathanbhore, Pushkar, Bikanher, Jaisalmer, Jodpur, Ranakhpur and Udaipur.

I’ll just list a few of my highlights…

The first thing that springs to mind is the we saw a wild tiger in
Rathanbhore National Park. This was cool, because there are reportedly less than 4,000 of the critters left outside captivity.

The odds were certainly stacked against us. Unable to get a smaller vehicle, we crammed into a 20-seater petrol jeep, the only white faces amongst excited and far-from-quiet holidaying Indians. Towards the end of the sortie, we were passed by several smaller jeeps ferrying beaming Westerners who had evidently just seen a tiger. 

Fortunately, after waiting around for an hour, a dirty great Tiger appeared under a tree a couple of yards from our jeep. It looked at us, I took a photo of it and it shirked off again.

Another animal related experience of note was visiting Bikanher’s Karni Mata ‘Rat Temple.’ 20,000 rats swarm there and are catered for and worshipped. Don’t worry, it’s lucky if one (or more) run over your feet. I do not envy the dedicated Hindus who permanently live there to take care of the rats. The place stunk.

Of the many forts we visited, Jodpur was my favourite. It has an extensive museum plus cannon collection. We took an audio tour and the coolest moment was when the narrator explained that the main gates are placed at a right angle to the path to prevent charging, barging war-elephants from building up momentum.

Also in Jodpur, we met Mr Egg. King of the omelettes. For the last 30 years, the man has cracked, whisked and fried 1,500 eggs per day. Up yours Heston, he really has the world's greatest omelette recipe. I ate there three times.

At the impressive Jaipur Fort, which still has 18km of intact perimeter walls, I tried my hand at snake charming. 



With grade 4 Oboe in the locker (rock and roll, dude) I was hoping to impress the gathered crowd (plus the snakes) with quick blast of The Simpsons theme tune. As it happened, the instrument was nothing like an Oboe and I sounded shit. Still, for a short time, I had a cobra placed round my neck and will never have to do it again to find out that it is pretty bloody scary.

Jaisalmer was a nice sandy change of scene. We entered the desert on camels and spent the night there in canvas tents watching the clear starry sky.

In Udaipur, we took an excellent cooking lesson at the home of Vijay Singh. Formerly 1989 butterfly stroke swimming champion of India and now a handsomely-moustached cooking teacher, I couldn’t help thinking as Dave and I learnt the recipes of paneer butter masala, veg kofta and chapattis under the watchful gaze of a portrait of Vijay in his speedos, that his life story could be a Will Ferrell movie.

With Hindus celebrating the festival of Diwali, we entered into the spirit of things by buying special outfits. I chose a T-shirt sporting an effigy of the monkey God Hanuhman until I was laughed at by a local since it’s a symbol of celibacy…

Slumming it in Mumbai

It’s fair to say I started my week in Mumbai in a bad mood.

Happily, this is a good news post and I exited the City with a different mindset.

For our 15-hour sleeper bus journey into the city, Dave and I shared a ‘double bed’.

To picture it, imagine a one-person tent, made of metal that shakes you violently against the walls and each other with every bump in the very bumpy road.

I was just a little bit grumpy by the time we got off the bus and the unfortunate taxi driver who tried to up our agreed price after we’d loaded our bags into his cab felt my fury. I’m pretty sure my 4-letter word tirade crossed the language barrier. I ***ing hope it did, the greedy ****ing ****.

Mumbai is a very busy city.  A bit of a rat race. Dreamers from all over India come here to chase their fortunes. Inevitably not all of them can be successful.

Like a lot of the country, it’s full of contrast. I saw a family living under a billboard advertisement for luxury apartments boasting infinity pool balconies.

Mumbai is home to more millionaires than New York and also home to a slum of one million people. The distribution of wealth would have Lenin turning in his glass case.

Our visit was planned to coincide with a 5-day cricket match between India and England at the Wankhede (haw haw) Stadium. The four of us (me, Dave, Paul and Kate had booked full-match tickets at a cost of seven pounds fifty. As a devout sports fan, I couldn’t wait.

It turned out, I was so mind-numbingly bored after 2 hours of cricket (they didn’t sell beer) that I left, changed out of my clingy polyester fake England shirt and spent the rest of the afternoon taking the excellent audio tour of Mumbai’s Prince of Wales museum.

I watched another couple of hours of cricket in the next few days when Kevin Pietersen was batting, but strangely I feel I would have more enjoyed watching the game in an armchair at home, wearing pants and nursing a Magners.

With a city like Mumbai in my grasp and a very efficient and cheap metro system serving almost the entire city, I wanted to go exploring.

After a bit of convincing, Kate came with me to into Dharvi, Mumbai’s largest slum. A million people live there in a squalid square mile sandwiched between two railway lines.

I determined not to go in there to gawp at the poor people and the shitty conditions that they live in.

I wanted to play football.

I bought a brand new leather ball from a market and after starting off on my own, gradually convinced a dustbowl of children to abandon their games of cricket and join me to play footy. After one or two came over and helped to build a goal out of a pile of broken bricks, it didn’t take long before there were 40 of us skidding around chasing after the ball in 35 degree heat.

Heartbreakingly, one of my teammates, a 10-year-old boy, told me he had to work after the match. He caught up with me as I crossed a railway bridge and tried to sell me a shirt. One of the other boys took my empty water bottle for its recycling value.

Nonetheless, it was truly one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.

I enjoyed it so much that I went back and did it again two days later with Kate and another British couple, Jay and Caron.

The big match, Team Matt v Team Jay must have reached 25-a-side at one point. I don’t feel a need to mention the score because we were all winners. And my team lost.

 Afterwards, we took a walk around with some of our new chums and the slum’s fire station chief invited us to take chai with him. It was a very nice gesture, considering the filthy state of me and my clothes. The cynic in me thinks perhaps he was keener on having two pretty Western girls in his office than he was on chatting to us sweaty blokes, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Also, whilst I was wasting my cricket ticket, I visited a Jain Temple where some sort of funky fascinating Hindu ceremony was going on. Amongst the clouds of incense smoke, tambourine and religious chanting, I was the only visiting tourist and though I was ignored, I was quite welcome and free to observe and take photos.

I’ve taken to carrying a pocketful of sweets to give to children. For clarity, I have not gone all Jimmy Saville but I’ve found this to be a decent solution to the problem of being approached by tens of child beggars each day.

I know handing over one sweet isn’t going to save their life. And I’m aware that many people would implore me not to do it as it incites further begging, but from a selfish point of view, it helps me to feel slightly more human to be able to engage with them, rather than dismiss them or just walk past. To bend down, look in their pitiful eyes, say hello, smile and hand over a solitary sweet. Strangely, I’ve actually rather enjoyed the ritual.

In Mumbai, we said an emotional and boozy farewell to our two buddies Paul and Kate, a terrific couple and our travelling companions for our first month in India. It was particularly emotional for me as I accepted a ‘Kamizake’ shot with a young Indian guy whose father owned the bar we were drinking in. It was a large glass of neat tequila, sambuca and vodka. It hit me so hard that I was convinced my drink had been spiked and needed taking home.

I must also give a special mention to a very friendly Indian guy I met at a sandwich stall whilst he was on his lunch break. He spoke good English, but only in the present tense. I found it hilarious and endearing in equal measure.

Me: Do you know the cricket score?

Him: Currently I am not presently knowing what the scoring is being. Maybe I will be checking when I am getting back to my office.

I kept talking to him for as long as possible. Until he was absolutely needing to be going back to working.

On a more somber note, our visit coincided with the 4^th anniversary of the Mumbai terrorism attacks in which the city was under siege for 3 days. That really must have been a horrible time for India, the residents of Mumbai and visiting foreigners.