I
haven’t updated this blog since leaving India. The thing is, there it served a
purpose. It was a form of therapy, a digital chaise longue, since the place
blows your mind every single day.
South
East Asia is a lot easier to travel. Life is more predictable here but less
eventful. It’s probably more fun but less interesting.
My last blog was in
Goa. It’s been three months since then and in that time I’ve got through (lost,
broken or given away) five footballs, four pairs of sunglasses, three pairs of
flip flops, two watches and a man bag.
I also started
travelling alone as Dave decided to fly home for a month in Mid-December.
This rattled me a
bit, but after a couple of lonely days of insecurity and indecision, I decided
to crack on with the trip into Kerala, South West India, as planned.
Then stuff just
started happening…
Being on your own,
you meet more people. You have to, if you want someone to chat to or do stuff
with. For the most part, the people I’ve met have been awesome and interesting
with just a mere spattering of tossers.
It is a wonderful and
unique experience in life to be away from home with no responsibilities (until
the coffers are dry). To have absolute freedom just for a short while and be in
charge of your own destiny.
So, on with the trip…
Kuttipurum is not a
tourist town. They don’t get many white visitors. So touching down there with a
brash New Yorker, we were heralded (prodded, stroked and poked) as Caucasian
celebrities. We played football with some lads from the local school and not
for the first time on this trip, my team came second.
My highlights of Fort
Cochi were exploring a city-wide art exhibition, being in an audience smaller
than the cast for an electrifying kung fu show, trying my hand with Chinese
fishing nets and meeting some hilarious and very proud gay Indians.
My first Christmas
away from home was spent in Varkala. It was a good one. With mes nouveaux amis
français, we bought a massive kingfish from the stinky fish market and cooked
and ate it with rice and ratatouille on the beach. The kingfish was washed down
with Kingfisher beer until we reached a level I like to call festively pissed. Boxing Day was spent
sweating out the hangover on the beach, watching eagles circle above. The waves
in Varkala are the most powerful I’ve ever experienced. It is brilliant fun, like
swimming in a salty washing machine.
I also wandered (if
it is at all possible to wander on a moped) into a very strange
elephant-oriented Hindu ceremony. A lad got in trouble during the service for
asking me to take a photo of him, and much to the delight of his mates, I got
in trouble for showing it to him.
After a 20-hour train
to the West coast of India, I reached Mammallapurum. 2012’s New Year’s Eve
celebrations were considerably tamer than previous years. I’m a bit embarrassed
to admit I was woken up by the midnight fireworks. I had spent a couple of
exhausting days at an orphanage for boys aged 16 and under. The first day we
played football and the second day, we had an art class. They don’t get many
Western visitors (the last was a French girl 6 months before) so the kids were
VERY excited. Heart-breakingly, a few of the younger ones just wanted attention
and resorted to climbing a perilously balanced book case just so I’d have to
pick them off it. That said, the comradery between the lads was heart-warming.
They were like a family of 30 brothers. The older lads made sure everyone queued
up to get their Xmas present of a pen and a Milkybar Eclair. Milkybar Eclairs,
by the way, just wow.
I also treated myself
to a couple of Aryuvedic massages. I kid you not, they that were so
invigorating it verged on narcotic. Kumar the masseuse is a man mountain with
big strong hands, a big strong moustache and magic in his fingertips. Despite
an ominous start after I declined to remove my boxers only to be rewarded with
an excruciating, cheek-splitting wedgie. Kumar worked my pressure points until
an hour later I felt like I flew the 200 yards home. Keen for more, the next
day I went back and had hot herby coconut oil dripped in patterns across my
forehead for an hour. I was well and truly away with the fairies by the time he
told me to go home and sit in the dark for a while.
Mammallapurum is a UN
heritage site and home to several spectacular ancient Hindu remnants. After
climbing 200 steps in the blistering midday sun to reach a temple, a bastard
monkey nicked my water bottle from out of my pocket, proceeded to unscrew the
bottle cap and drink from it. To rub it in my face a bit more, it then tipped
the rest on the floor. I descended
parched and bought another bottle from the same shop at the foot of the hill.
After showing my photo to the shopkeeper, it was clear this wasn’t the first
time this had happened and she joked that the critter was on her payroll!
My last Indian
destination was Chennai. Apologies to its nine million residents, but it is a
fairly charmless city and home to the World’s most annoying tuk tuk drivers. But
again thanks to good company, and good food, I enjoyed the place.
On my last day, after
a good few hours exploring Chennai’s not-too-bad museum, I visited a Western
shopping mall and guiltily pottered around a 2-floor Marks and Spencer’s. I watched
The Hobbit in 3D and a Dinosaur Adventure in 5D(!) It’s 3D plus you’re in a
rollercoaster and sprayed with foam and water. It was better than The Hobbit.
After wolfing down an
epic final Indian meal, I boarded a Bangkok-bound plane. On the runway, with my
seatbelt fastened and lap tray upright, I began to reflect.
Here is the cliché-packed
conclusion I have come up with.
Travelling India is a
journey for the mind as much as anything else. For the most part, it was not a
relaxing holiday. The place is constantly exciting. Your brain is alert and
always stimulated. I enjoy that, but combined with the ever present
inevitability of having the shits, it is exhausting.
The place is an
emotional rollercoaster. You’ve gotta take the rough with the smooth. I’ve seen
images that won’t ever leave me. I’ve shed tears over things that were so damn
unimaginably awful (not just my haircut in Varanasi) but at times I was floored
by human nature at its most beautiful.
I suppose I leave
India a bit more informed about the world. Having witnessed some of the
hardships of poverty, I know I need to do more than I currently do about this.
I leave as a certified
curry connoisseur and with the knowledge that a motorbike is an entirely
appropriate vehicle for a family of five.
Despite a knobhead in
Nepal warning me that INDIA stands for: “I’d Never Do It Again.”
I’ll be back.
Cheers India, I can’t
wait to please come again.
