Wandering Wendy's Wonderings

Sensory Deprivation

2012-09-19T02:48:00.002-07:00

There is a low empty ‘chhhhhhhsssssss’ in my ears. The few sounds that there are sound faint and a long way away. Everything is muted. The lowing of the cows, the yapping packs of dogs, and the hoots of cars is missing. And is my nose blocked? I can’t smell anything. Not the thick choke of a heavy exhaust, nor the wafts of cow/human/dog shit, neither the jasmine, or incense, or spices and onions. Has someone pulled a veil over my eyes? Where has all the colour gone? The vibrant blues, reds, yellows, pinks, greens, worn by women, and spilling from the markets as flowers, vegetables and paints. I also have this strange sense of agoraphobia. No one is next to me, there is no pressure of a small form trying to urge me, and thus them, closer to where ever they want to be. And I can’t feel people pushing past me, the brief brush of flesh is gone. There is space, between people, enough to swing a cow.

The streets are grey and subdued. There is no one squatting at the side of the road, asking whether I want shoe shine, henna or bananas. No taxi driver has crawled up to me and asked if I want a taxi. No one has wanted my photo, or looked at my feet to check I am not floating, and am actually that tall. There are no children wanting ‘one sweet’ or just a quick game of silliness. The lively bangra beats are gone, as is the ubiquitous Tibetan chanting, the streets are silent. There are no disturbing human deformities, or spit up the walls, or plastic across the floor, or smiles from people as they walk past, or cows wending through the traffic, or dogs, and monkeys looking for an opportunity to pilfer. In the shops, those that work there ask me with a forced pleasantry if they can help me. In the bars a restaurants, signs on the door tell me that children are not welcome.

I am home. Everything is very ‘civilised’, which at the moment feels very bland. There are no animals, smells, colours, tastes, or people curious, smiling and interested. Where have all the smiles gone. Those lovely wide broad smiles. The only strangers who have smiled at me have been paid to, as part of the company ethos to make the customer feel ‘appreciated’. No one meets on the streets to talk and pass the time. Everyone has somewhere they need to be. All the shops along the high streets are filled with expensive stuff no one really needs, jewellery, the latest fashion fad. There is nothing of necessity here.

It’s all same same, but shifted a little left field. I feel like I am part of a Red Dwarf episode, where they go to some alternative reality, where everything is the same, but there is something weird, like everyone walks backward. In this case, people forgot to smile.

But there is wine…….back into the numbness.

Leh

2012-09-02T06:24:00.001-07:00

I open the large bedroom window, and lean out into another perfect day. A vista of elegant poplar trees, behind which the rugged low mountains of the Himalayas rise, greets me. Barren peaks, reddish brown and rocky, dotted with crisp white gompas. The air is thin, clean and quiet. A silent flurry of white seeds drifts through the air. Soft summer snow. The gentle moan of a cow sounds from a field nearby. And the occasional distant beep of a horn reminds us that we are, despite appearances, still in India.

We arrived in Leh, the small capital town of Ladahk, which sits 3500 m up in the Himalayas, two days ago. Having flown in our, well, my, body didn’t have time to acclimatise properly, so for two days I had been experiencing headaches, shortness of breath and mild confusion. I had been convinced I was in Thailand.

On our way out, the tiny smiling Ladakhi lady who runs her home as a guest house stops us with a beaming grin. She is a reminder of old Ladahk, before the tourists arrived and local life was abandoned for quick gain. Dressed in a thick red smock, tied around the waist with a cord. Traditional Ladakhi dress, that only the old wear now.

‘Jullay, jullay. Tomorrow Dalai Lama come. You want to see?’ She asks.

‘Sure, what time, and where?’ I reply.

‘7.30, on road. I wake you.’

Our guest house is a couple of kilometres away from the town centre. We have to walk down a small hill to get to the Changspa road which takes us there. In front of us, as we walk, snow-capped, 6000 metre giants rise from the green valley and prod the clear blue skyline. The sun casts ripples of relief and shadow across the mountains, making them seem almost fluid. More poplar trees line the road and the Shanti stupor sits high above us to our left. The place is a kingdom of mountains. We are in their court, sat in the natural throne of a Himalayan valley, the skyline a crown of white peaks, circling the lush green vales.

Along the Changspa road, a military police jeep stops next to us. From the driver’s side a uniformed man leans out with a plastic bag. Shaking it at us he urges us to take what is inside. Apricots. Small, soft, sweet apricots. Taking one each, he shakes it again demanding that we take a few more each. After a smiling thanks, he drives off. A little further on we stop to fill up our water bottles in one of the local shops. A sun creased old man smiles a toothless grin.

‘Jullay!’ He says.

‘Jullay.’ I reply, taking the cap off my bottle and filling it from the water dispenser.

Once it is full, I hand over 10 rupees to the old man.

‘Jullay.’ He says.

‘Jullay.’ I reply.

‘Jullay.’ He says again as we leave.

‘Jullay.’ I say.

The word ‘jullay’ is Ladakhi for ‘hello’, ‘goodbye’, ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, and it is possible to hold an entire conversation with this single word.

The street continues, lined with yet more poplars and buildings, small white crumbling squares. As we head further into town, the guest houses, restaurants, pashmina shops and tour operators build to a crescendo. Dreadlocked Isreali’s saunter along the streets, looking too cool for convention. The repetitive rumble of Royal Enfield vibrate with a deep growl along the streets. All mounted by aviator wearing tourists, Indian and Western alike, living a fleeting dream of dude-ishness, before they return to the starched suits of an un-cool corporate coolie.

Sitting in one of many of the roof top cafes, views of the mountains ever present, and sipping on a sweet jasmine tea, we get talking to a few others who we probe for trekking advice. Before we leave the girl tells us that the Dalai Lama is in town tomorrow. At one of the stupas. The Shanti stupa? Something like that.

At the end of the Changspa road, the town opens up. Hefty looking bulls sidle alongside the ever beeping cars. Men with trolleys of oil barrels filled with water are dragged down the hills at break-neck speed by their cargo. There are yet more pashmina shops and souvenir shops with honest slogans, proclaiming that there is ‘more junk inside’. Every other rooftop is a restaurant with wifi that never works and the blandest pizzas known to man. Shoe fixers sit on curbs with sharp thick needles sewing together local bought trekking shoes that have broken, and women point tubes of henna at me as I pass them.

The fortress of a palace, a smaller version of the Potala in Tibet, looms large over the town. A tall edifice, looking more military than regal, staggered up the side of a Himalaya. It is possible that the Buddhists were feeling a little defensive around the time it was built in the C15th, with the constant threat of Islam, which razed many of the 2000 gompas and stupas that were nestled into the mountains in the region. Things are a little more tolerant now, and there is a small Islamic community that live in the predominantly Buddhist city, with a pretty mosque, from which one of the most beautiful calls to prayer I have ever heard is played five times a day.

Next to the mosque a small side road takes us into the mud bricked old city. Narrow streets wiggle through the renovations being made to the long neglected buildings. The pashmina sellers are gone. Replaced by women with knitted socks sat on steps. One of the roads leads us up a breathy hill to the palace, which is also being renovated. Whether it is decaying at a quicker rate than the renovations are occurring is debatable. Another Archaeological Society of India project. If they do actually finish, I am sure it will resemble a plaster-of-paris rendition. It may be better to let it crumble. There are only two rooms where any of the ambience is left. Faded paintings of Buddhist demons scrawl colourfully along the walls, and simple geometric representations of flowers repeated along the borders. Pictures of the Dalai Lama, with his characteristic cheeky smile, hang above the doors. Other than that the palace is a maze of interconnecting featureless rooms. But the views from the roof are, of course, spectacular. The town stretches out, and beyond the polo ground the mountains rise again. The real royalty of the area, sitting higher and more sublime than any human family could ever do.

Over the other side of town, the Shanti stupor, shines its whiteness at us. A while later, at the bottom of the stupa, stomachs primed with typical Ladahki fare, we look up at the steep, steep steps flanked by cairns that rise up to the white domed Buddhist monument built to promote world peace. The Dalai Lama blessed it sometime in the 1980’s.

We take the first step. And then a second. Third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh….My breathing becomes laboured. Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve….And stop. My lungs are burning. We are forced to stop around twenty times, with heaving, searing, lungs, before we make it to the top, finally.

The sound of a mellow drum beats with a soft rhythm, and the low hum of a chant reaches us. The monks are holding their evening puja in a small room opposite the stupa. We follow the intonation, and enter the room, sitting on the floor, letting the calm of the surroundings settle upon our souls. Feeling a little lighter we leave the room, and go and look at the view that pervades to the horizon. From the elevation of a demi-god, we look across the valley. Breathless. Speechless. Awe-stunned. A silver river runs through the centre, green grows and spreads from its origin. Further from river, the green valley gives way to the rocky hills, the harsh, but exquisite, barren landscape that Ladahk is famous for. Depending on the light they can take on shades of red, brown, yellow and grey. Beyond them rise their bigger siblings, the 6153 m, glacier topped, Stok Kangri and her marginally smaller brothers and sisters. A tear pricks at my eye. I am not sure I have been anywhere quite so, so, pah, words fail me. There is no single word that can stir the emotions with the same intensity of this panorama. The only thing to do is sit and stare. The cares slip away.

A while later a monk and a couple of foreigners sit near us. We over hear the monk telling them that the Dalai Lama is in town tomorrow. To visit a stupor. Sounds like Shanti stupor, but I am not sure. The imminent arrival is big news in Ladahk.

A soft knock rouses us from a happy slumber. The room is bright, even with my eyes closed, the open curtains and east facing room, ensuring sun streams vibrantly into our room. The picture from our window lit up in morning wonder. Another gentle knock.

‘Hello.’ Alex calls out.

‘Dalai Lama coming.’ The guest house owner answers.

It is cold in the morning, the sun is bright, but cool. Wrapped up in woollen ponchos and thick socks, we leave the guesthouse. On the road outside the young granddaughter of the guest house owners gives us white scarves to greet the Dalai Lama in prayer. Old women and men, wrapped in identical Ladahki dress, hobble and shuffle their way to vantage points in which to greet the Dalai Lama. Others swing scented coals in metal baskets up and down the road. Tourists with obtrusive camera lenses, poke them at the locals. A thick furred dog wanders disrespectfully into the cleared road, followed by a nonchalant cow. Both are shooed with good humour from the scene. We wait at the bottom of the Shanti stupa. For a long time. Almost two hours. Police come along and check the road a few times. Someone chalks lines along the sides, to contain the patient people. The people mill around, unperturbed by the lateness of the Lama, catching up on gossip. And then….there he is. And there he went. The familiar smile, whizzed past in a black 4x4. We walk back to the guest house, accompanying the owners.

‘I thought he was going to the Shanti stupor.’ I say to the woman.

‘Hee hee! No. The Sankar stupor.’ She replies.

I laugh.

Alex and I get back to the room, and sit on the window sill, staring into the peace.

‘What do you want to do with the rest of the day?’ I ask.

‘Mountain bike down the Khardung La.’

The Khardung La, 5602 m above sea level. The highest motor-able pass in the world.

‘Splendid idea.’

We head off to find a tour agency that will drive us to the pass so we can tear down it at insane speeds on mountain bikes, back into Leh, surrounded by the panorama of the mountain gods.

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The Trouble with Tourism

2012-08-22T00:22:00.001-07:00

I am trying to imagine that I live in a picturesque English village. You know the type, chunky sandstone brick cottages, hanging baskets, quiet village green and local shops where everyone knows your name. Around it is centuries of history, castles, monasteries, and forts. All of this set in exquisite natural surroundings, rolling hills, green pastures, weeping willows, and slow meandering rivers full of trout. Now I am trying to imagine that every year, in the 4 best months, when the sun shines, the flowers bloom and the temperatures are pleasant, that my idyll is overrun by blue skinned giants.

Along with their blue skinned, looming presence, they seem to have money, and lots of it. They seem to think that it is pretend money rather than real money with the way they bandy it around. Without a quibble they are happy to pay £100 a night to stay in a rudimentary room with no modcons and shout about how wonderfully cheap it is. Shouting of course in a language that we villagers have had to learn to be able to communicate with them. The only words of English they know are ‘Hillo’ and ‘Har rar yow?’. During these months we watch them come and go, paying £50 for shoddy meals three times a day, and then they have the cheek to get all stuffy over an extra pound added to their bill, or try and barter a miserably low price on a piece of locally crafted ornament that took a person many hours of their life to complete.

They walk down the streets naked, with no shame or care for the fact that we wear clothes, meeting in loud groups in front of our peaceful places. At night they want seedy places to hang out, play their music loudly so that it disturbs the locals who have to go to school and work the following day. And then they want vast quantities of cocaine, flagrantly snorting it up and down the streets, with the attitude that they can pay their way out of any trouble if need be.

It is thought perfectly alright by these strangers to take photos of us, patronisingly considered curiosities, without asking. To scrunch their faces in disgust because our gutters are not as clean as theirs, our infrastructure isn’t as cohesive or developed. And to pick each others arses in public, which is not considered a faux-pas where they come from.

I have to try and think like this. To try and understand why we are often treated as cash cows rather than people in the places we visit. So that I don’t put a taxi drivers head through the windscreen when he shouts at me that because I am rich, I should pay 25% more than the agreed price, and begins a war of attrition, to see whether my principles are greater than his desperation. I wonder if I would do the same, seeing the big wealthy blue people, laden with gadgets I can only dream of owning, while I struggle to pay my children’s education fees, have never taken a holiday abroad, and only have 4 months to earn any decent money, before my lovely village is free from the blue beasts…….

But then, as a blue giant, parading around with an expensive camera, a laptop, and the ability to pay 4 times more than the going rate for a shit meal, without a single hair of my eyebrows quivering, I wonder why it should be me that has to pay these extra costs. Ok, so I am rich, relatively speaking. And I am happy to pay tourist rates, which are grossly inflated when compared to local costs. But why should I be held responsible for people being unable to afford school fees or to pay back the loans they have taken out on taxis/shops/bikes etc. And why should I be given a guilt trip on my relative wealth, and be manipulated or blatantly lied to, when someone feels it is their right to extract more money from me. If the prices are not enough to cover their costs, they should put them up, not shout and con the money from my pocket. Is it not down to the government to make sure infrastructure and the economy is balanced so that people don’t feel so lacking.

For example: We had been told of a beautiful place in the neighbouring valley where the Buddhist monastery held pujas in which the tourist could watch. It seemed like an experience worth having. As the puja was held at 6.30 am, it was necessary to catch a taxi. There is a taxi organisation (cartel) operating within Leh, where prices are ‘fixed’, all offered in a little yellow booklet. Fixed in this case, means still vaguely negotiable. But they have to be arranged through a travel agent. We agreed a price with a local agent, who called the taxi driver to (apparently) agree terms. There was a lot of mirth, in Ladakhi, for the employees of the travel agency during that phone call, but we didn’t bother ourselves with it. It wasn’t until we were dropped back at our guest house, after our visit to the monastery that the trouble started.

We had agreed the full taxi fare, with no waiting charges for 2 hours. The taxi driver however insisted that we were to pay for waiting. In my urgency for the toilet, I left Alex to deal with it. He returned an hour later, clearly irked. The taxi driver, not at that time realising Alex’s stubborn peculiarities had shouted at him expecting him to cough up, and throw the money at him in a resentful ‘you’re wasting my time’ gesture. But Alex has time. Plenty of time. The taxi driver argued that he knew nothing of the agreement, pulling out the little yellow booklet, and telling Alex to claim the money back off the travel agents. Alex refused. So they went to the travel agency together, which was conveniently not open. So he waited. As did the taxi driver. For an hour. The taxi driver kept informing Alex that he, Alex, was rich, and as such should pay the waiting cost regardless of any agreement, because he, the taxi driver was poor. Alex disagreed. Finally the taxi driver called the agency, who at last told Alex not to worry about the extra costs. They would cover it. It was apparent, if not obviously to the novice traveller, that both the taxi driver and agency were in cahoots to extort an extra couple of hundred rupees out of us, thinking that we would rather pay than waste our time trying to pay the agreed amount. This has happened with mind-bending frustration regularly through all of our travels. (Except for me in this instance, who had returned to bed for a little nap while Alex protected our vulnerable pockets.)

In Leh there has been a tourism gold rush. Four years ago there were a few restaurants, guest houses and tour operators scattered about the town. Now the streets are lined with them. The locals, seeing the money the tourists bring in, saw opportunity. Opportunity to escape the hardships of farm life, to make a quick buck. The problem is almost every local saw this, and almost every local invested in this, taking out huge loans to buy whatever it is they needed to take advantage of the brief tourist season. But there aren’t enough tourists to cover their costs. Now many are struggling, having given up local ways of life. Importing goods that they used to produce themselves. And the responsibility is being put upon the tourist. They should pay, they are rich. No we shouldn’t pay. So there isn’t enough gold to go round, but who really is to blame for that? Those looking for a quick fix to their lives. Perhaps if the energies placed in trying to extract a few extra rupees from the resentful visitor, they would be better placed trying to overcome the gross corruption of government who syphon off any of the monies that should be going towards education and infrastructure.

Unfortunately, the local communities have been so keen to impress tourists that they have shifted their whole way of being. Ladakh used to be a place of hard graft during the summer months where work in the fields took place, so that there was enough food for the cold winter months. And then during the cold months there were festivals after festival, and it was party season for the locals. Now the festivals are slowly being shifted to the summer, to amuse the tourists, and bring in extra revenue. Traditional live of self-sufficiency is being abandoned in favour of cheaper, lower quality imported goods so people can chase the easy money around town, flogging pashminas and overly priced jeep tours around the attractive places. On the plus side, apparently the Indian government is paying more attention to Ladakh, now the tourists are, and improving the roads. Aside from that I am not sure tourism is bringing much more than avarice and frustration to the area.

(This attitude, if not the particulars, in my opinion, is common place within India, and this blog post is not meant as a comment exclusive to Ladahk, but India as a whole.)

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Kathmandu - A Monkey's Tail www.wanderingwendyswonderings.blogspot.com

2012-08-01T05:48:00.000-07:00

The electric whizz of a circular saw cuts metallically into my dreams. Beneath that a hammer bangs a dull rhythm. Cries of people on the street echo up to our room, shouting above the continuous bursts of beeping from vehicle horns. I roll over onto my good ear, trying to muffle the sounds out, but I find no solace of sleep in the soft down of the pillow. Alex ruffles behind me, tugging the sheet, my tolerance for disturbance terminated. Peeking through my reluctant eyelids, I seek out the clock. 7.20 am. Back in the land of perpetual noises. Where the peace of spirituality that is sought by the disillusioned Westerner, is ironically absent in any audible sense. After a resentful hour, trying to ignore the noise and escape back into the quiet of slumber, we relent.

‘Might as well get up.’ I say.

‘Yeah, I guess so.’ Alex replies.

‘Who’s turn for the cold shower?’

‘Yours.’

‘Of course.’

It takes until the end of my excruciatingly cold shower for the hot water to trickle through.

The narrow streets outside are wet from the heavy monsoon rain that fell overnight. The large calf-deep potholes are filled with muddy water. Attempts have been made to fill some of the deeper ones in with bricks, gravel and sand bags. The trishaws, scooters, white Suzuki-Maruti taxis, and pick-ups beep endlessly to alert all to their presence, inching their way past each other, cyclists, dogs and indifferent pedestrians. Despite the rain the air is hot and thick, the water vapour carrying the grime of the streets, depositing a layer of the city onto our skin.

‘Look!’ I say pointing up at the low skyline.

Above us are large knots of power lines, and above them the jumbled roofs of the buildings. Four storey concrete cuboids that overbear the rickety tiled slopes of the traditional houses, with small, ornately carved windows, surrounded by crumbly brickwork, survivors of the 1934 earthquake. A monkey sits on the apex of one of the roofs of the old houses, his head cocked, black tipped tail curled around him, staring at us. The tring of a trishaw bell sounds close by.

‘Watch out.’ Alex says, gently guiding me towards the side of the road as the trishaw pulls up next to him.

Behind that is the impatient beep of a taxi.

‘No thanks.’

I hear Alex say. He repeats it with a gruff tone when the trishaw cyclist pesters him further into a tour of the city.

‘Maybe it’s Hanuman.’ I say.

‘I don’t know why they just can’t take no for an answer.’ He says.

The monkey shows the redness of his sore looking posterior and bounds across the unimpeded roofs of the city.

We continue walking down the road, Alex trailing behind; there is not enough room for us to walk side by side. Entering into Thamel, the tourist ghetto of Kathmandu, the offerings of the small shops set into the buildings along the sides of the streets begin to target the tourist. The butcher shops with sheep heads buzzing with flies sat on counters, the dingy, mould blackened rooms with low, worn, plywood tables, surrounded by stools, that serve as restaurants for the locals, and the shops that serve more as cupboards of clutter, containing great pots, heavy ladles and dented metal plates come to an abrupt end. The fare being peddled, sometimes with aggression, other times with indifference, repeated randomly along the streets. Fake Northface trekking gear, ‘antiques’, cheeky wooden carvings of mischievous looking sexual frolickers, beautifully coloured and intricate mandalas, book shops, alternative clothing, ethnic jewellery, khurkuri knives, restaurants, generic paintings depicting scenes of mountain ranges and peasants and felt slippers. Each product has its own store. All of it the same in like stores.

Behind me I hear the increasing exasperation in Alex’s tone as he fends off trekking guides, bead sellers, weed sellers, taxis, rickshaws, shoe shiners, henna artists and city guides.

‘No thank you.’ ‘No thanks.’ ‘No.’ ‘Look, I said no.’ ‘Just no.’

Escaping the perpetual and physical bustle of the streets we duck into the Momostar for breakfast. Similar to the many restaurants around. Modest and dark, with rudimentary furniture that offers no comfort, and smiling, ‘Namaste’ greeting waiters.

‘I mean does it look like I smoke weed? I have been asked about 15 times just walking from the hotel.’ Alex asks.

‘Well, you are quite hairy.’ I reply

At the door of the restaurant a grubby looking child sits leant up against the door frame. His hair is matted, and his clothes torn and dirt damaged. With fingers pinched to his thumbs he raises his hand to his mouth and mimes eating. The expression on his face says please a thousand times over. Our food arrives, a delicious steaming plate of momo’s, Tibetan style dumplings, and glasses of hot honey, ginger and lemon. The pleading arch in the space between the boys eyebrows heightens, seeing our food. Looking at the guttersnipe I shake my head at him, staring into the hunger in his eyes, that gnaws at my heart.

‘It’s so hard to say no.’

Alex looks rounds at the boy who ups his imploring.

‘Not much of a life is it.’ He says.

A monkey drops down from the roof, swipes a squashed piece of fruit from the gutter and scampers off with a swish of a black tipped tail, back up the building out of sight. The boy watches it. He gets up, head low and slopes away in the hope of finding softer tourists.

A short walk through the old city, from Thamel, is Durbar Square, Durbar meaning royal. Leaving the testing touts of touristy Thamel, we wend our way through the old streets, the personality of the city revealing itself as we venture further into it. Unstable, but beautiful old buildings, totter at the sides of the streets, made from wonky red brick and carefully detailed dark wood. From the small shutters the occasional lone face can be seen watching the milieu below. In between the elaborately carved pillars of the buildings, hawkers have set up shop. Brightly coloured salwars and saris flutter in the breeze. Second hand shoes, swing from string. Lentils, beans and rice flow from folded down sacks. Colourful assortments of vegetables, red chillies, green cucumbers, and yellow squash are piled into pyramids.

Often the streets open into a crossroads, at the centre of which are shrines to Buddha, Shiva, or any other of the pantheon of Hindu deities. Glances down alleys reveal hidden secrets, treasures of temples, plied with pigeons, tempted by the grains scattered by children. Gold plated, wrought iron, guiled gompas in squares that exclude the constant chatter and hum of the streets they hide behind.

We sit briefly in one of these squares, listening to the relative silence, smiling at the fraction of peace we have found. But before too long we see the buckled figures of beggars, creeping from the shadows, dragging their frail forms towards us; healthy beasts of privilege.

‘Let’s go before we get mobbed.’ Alex says.

I nod, arming myself with a couple of 10 rupee notes to pass with a smile and a Namaste to the ones who manage to make it over before we stride back into the throng.

At Durbar Square we sit upon one of the staggered stages of one of the many temples that fill it. Many others have the same idea. Across from us is the impressive nine stage Shiva temple, with depictions of carnal appetites carved into the struts that hold up the roof. Many of the buildings in this large square that was home to the Nepalese royalty date back to the C16th.

‘It’s nice to see architecture that isn’t influenced by the ancient Greeks.’ I say.

‘Yeah. It’s beautiful.’ Alex says. Then he laughs. ‘Naughty little monkey.’

I look to see a monkey scamper using his two legs and one arm, glancing behind him as he runs. In his other hand is a big fresh piece of cucumber. Behind him is a man aiming a catapult at him. The man shakes his head as the monkey moves out of shot, and goes back to tending his stall, hoping to better defend his wares from the quick thievery of the monkeys.

‘It’s the same one as before. Look, it has the same black tip on the end of his tail.’ I say.

‘He’s staring at us again.’

And he was. Sat with limbs wrapped around a salacious wooden support, the monkey watched us as he nibbled on his procurement.

Up the high steps of the temple stages, three grimy looking children clambered towards us. Their spindly limbs levering their tiny bodies up and over the tall steps. As they approached us the two smaller ones hid behind the older one, unsure as how to proceed. The older child was only around 6 himself. They smiled nervously at us revealing rotting stumps of teeth. Dirt ground into the shallow creases of their supple skin. Mud embedded under and around the nails of their hands and feet.

‘Two rupee Mr.’ The older one says.

The other two giggle and skip around behind him.

I shake my head and smile.

‘Sweet. Sweet. Give sweet.’

Again I shake my head, and poke my tongue out at them. They giggle more. The silliness of an adult is an unusual surprise. For a while we exchange funny faces with each other, and then they bounce down the steps of the temple to find another to test their confidence on.

‘I think it might rain soon.’ Alex said looking at the dark cloud seeping across the sky.

For a couple of hours we wander back through the centuries, admiring the beautifully carved, but modest, palace of the old Nepalese royalty. Climbing vast numbers of steep, uneven steps, we find vistas of the city spanning 360^o, lofty viewing rooms for the kings to survey their kingdom. There are silent courtyards, where only the sound of the pigeons fluttering to the rafters to roost can be heard. It is a palace of ascetic pleasure rather than the gaudy grandeur found in those found in Europe and Nepal’s more ostentatious Indian neighbours.

We take a different route back towards the hotel. The roads of the old city, a maze of similarly looking streets, where we are never quite sure if we have walked along it already or not. In the distance I spot the monkey, watching, waiting.

‘It’s him again.’ I say.

‘Are you sure? That seems unlikely.’ Alex replies.

‘Maybe he likes us.’

‘Maybe he wants to rob us. Is your bag zipped up? They’re quick. They’ll have your camera before you even notice.’

‘Let’s follow him.’

‘Do we have to?’

I walk towards the monkey, who shows me his raw bottom again and leaps forward, turning around occasionally to see if we are following. He leads us down quiet streets, lined with tiny eateries, the proprietors either nattering to each other or asleep at one of their own tables. The first patter of rain splats down onto the precarious cobbles.

‘Come on Wendy, this is stupid. Let’s get back to the hotel. It is going to piss down soon.’

‘No wait. Look, there he is. At that doorway.’

The monkey slipped through a rusted metal door marking the outside territory of a small tenement. The sign above it read ‘Langtang Children’s Home’. I follow the monkey in. Alex goes to sit in one of the little cafés.

‘I’ll wait for you.’ He says. ‘I’ll trust your judgement and match it.’

‘I won’t be long.’

Inside the monkey is gone, and from the end of a long path I see two happy people waving at me. A man with one of the most genuine smiles of love I have ever seen comes to the gate and welcomes me in.

‘Namaste. Please.’ He says pointing towards the tenement block. ‘How did you hear of us?’

‘I was just passing.’

The man leads me to the entrance where a woman with beauty radiating from her soul greets me. At the door a child with obvious learning disabilities was wiggling out on his belly. A girl came to the doorway, and the child giggled as the girl hoisted him back inside again with cheerful tut. In the clean, carpeted room, were six wriggling children, all mentally disabled.

‘We opened 7 years ago.’ The man, Jamak said. ‘My wife and I took in 22 normal children from the rural villages that had either lost their families, or whose families were too poor to look after them. We live here with them. Come see the place, please.’

Jamak took me around the building and showed me the comfortable dorms where the children, along with his own daughter slept, the small dining room with low tables lined along the walls to maximise space, the kitchen, the computer room, which was home to a machine some fifteen years old, a small reading and TV room, and a basic room for the physiotherapy of the disabled children. He explained that he has the help of a Dutch NGO to help him fund the running of the place. There were pictures on the walls of the children when they first arrived, looking rigid, solemn, scared, and their evolution over the seven years to bright beaming children with a future. Even after the children are required by law to leave, at 15, they are supported by Jamak and his family, to ensure their future remains certain.

Jamak never stops smiling, it increases when he tells of something that warms him. Like the progress of the disabled children he had started looking after.

‘I have no training in looking after disabled children. But we have started to take in 6 during the days. We hope that in a year we can take them full time, when we have learnt more. Their families lock them in rooms during the day. The parents have to work, and a disabled child is a burden. When they first came here, they couldn’t eat on their own. They couldn’t use their hands. Now they can.’ Jamak beamed.

I almost cry I am so moved by the love and selflessness of the amazing man in front of me. Before leaving I make a donation, doubling it to include Alex’s contribution.

‘I figure you can do more good with this than would come of it if I gave it to the street kids.’ I say.

Jamak smiles, its warmth penetrates and exposes the weak selfishness within me.

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Shame www.wanderingwendyswonderings.blogspot.com

2012-07-23T22:43:00.000-07:00

I just assumed he was a taxi driver. The way he hurried into the place, shoulders rounded, a small plastic bag swinging off his wrist. A girl with a backpack had followed him into the front patio of the guest house and was waiting, studying a map. It was only when he left, minus the plastic bag, and then returned again, a few minutes later that our suspicions arose.

We were enjoying a port and stilton night. A silly evening, serving as a little reminder of home after 9 months absence. It had been planned while we were in Tioman, to give us something to look forward to in Kuala Lumpur. Back at the Number 8 guest house. Where, a month previously, Alex’s passport, credit cards and cash had been stolen from our room. An audacious little thief had walked into our room one morning, while I lay asleep, and snatched it from the bedside table. We were now in possession of a clear passport, and were just waiting for the new credit card to arrive. Then we could finally move on, head towards the mountains, hide amongst the Himalayas. But there was just a little more waiting to be done.

In our absence the guest house owner had installed security cameras, and caught three people trying the door knobs of rooms, looking for an opportunity. Two were guests of the hotel, one had been staying while we were last here, the likely culprit, the other a taxi driver.

There was an uncomfortable look about the man walking back in. A shadow cast across his demeanour. Quick moving eyes and a tight unwilling smile. Alex and I exchanged a look, suspicious and concerned. He walked in after the man. A few moments later he was back.

‘He’s just wandering around upstairs.’ Alex said.

‘That’s weird. There’s something weird about him.’ I said.

‘I checked our room. It’s definitely locked.’

‘Did you say anything?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘What would I say?’

I shook my head at Alex, and went in to look for the man myself. I couldn’t find him. As I sat back down again outside, with a view into the reception area, he reappeared. He wandered out of a side door, made a cursory look at a notice about the wifi password on the reception desk, glanced around, and exited out the back. I got up again. The fortification of port ensuring this thief would not be getting away with it. The girl from reception was watching him, eyes narrowed.

‘Is he staying here?’ I asked her.

She nodded. ‘I don’t like him. He come with only plastic bag. No luggage.’

We followed him out the back. He was sneaking around the back rooms. When he saw us he straightened himself.

‘What are you doing?’ I challenged.

He walked towards us, his eyes unable to make a connection with mine.

‘I was looking for a chair. There isn’t one in my room.’

‘A chair?’

He nodded.

‘What room are you staying in? And under what name?’

‘805.’ He gave a name I couldn’t understand, but I asked the receptionist to check. She confirmed it.

‘Sorry.’ I said. ‘There have just been a few robberies. You seemed to be wandering around, I made an assumption. My name is Wendy.’ I held out my hand.

‘Xali.’ He said shaking my hand.

We walked outside together. I sat with Alex and he walked to where the rooms at the front were.

‘Something’s not right with him. I just accused him of being a thief, and he still shook my hand. He didn’t seem upset. It’s weird.’ I said.

‘You can’t just accuse people of being thieves Wendy.’

‘You thought he was odd too. Otherwise why did you follow him in. I bet he tries those doors in a minute, when he thinks no one is looking.’

Xali called me over to him. I ignored him. I didn’t want to listen to him try and justify himself, to attempt to make a friend of me. He walked inside and sat on the sofas in reception. The owner approached him. Shortly Xali left with his plastic bag, head low, ostracised, no longer welcome. I followed him.

‘So where you going now? Try the doors of some other hotel rooms?’ I asked.

Xali stopped and leant up against a wall. He shook his head. Middle aged, Asian, defeated. Intense sadness sat heavily in his eyes. I saw shame gnawing at his soul. The hostility I felt towards him waned, leaving just a pretence of it.

‘Will you help me Wendy? I need help. Please help.’

‘What?’

‘I have 3000 ringits (£600). I need you to tie me to a chair.’

‘What the fuck. Are you being serious?’

Xali nodded

‘I need to you to tie me to a chair, only for an hour.’

There was a long pause. He turned his face away from mine. His shoulders rounded more, enfeebling him further.

‘I’m a heroin addict. I want to stop. I get violent. I’ll pay you. Please don’t tell the man you are with.’

‘I can’t see any track marks on your arms.’

‘I smoke. I am a respectable man. My wife and family don’t know. In Singapore I have my own business. Please, I need you to tie me to a chair.’

His sorrow was tangible, oppressive.

‘I have come here for 2 nights, to get clean.’ He continued.

‘What’s in your bag?’ I asked.

Xali opened his plastic bag. Inside was a thick coil of tough plastic rope.

‘You really were looking for a chair.’

Xali nodded.

‘Why are you telling me?’ I asked.

‘You seem open. I like the way you talk.’ He replied.

I went and bought a couple of beers from the Chinese shop across the road, and sat on the curb with Xali as he told me his story.

He was 50, and owned a plastic mouldings company. Sixteen months ago, he met some clients who he wanted to win business from. He did what they did, to fit in with them, to win the contract. They smoked heroin. He couldn’t stop after the deal was completed. So far he had managed to hide it from his wife and family, but the addiction was demanding more from him. It was his plan to come to Kuala Lumpur for the weekend and find someone, female, not Chinese, to tie him to a chair, for the couple of hours the come-down ravaged him worst.

On his forearms were inch long, wide cuts, healing badly. Wounds from his last attempt to restrain himself, as he had struggled to work himself free. He pressed me to tie him to the chair. I wanted to help. But Alex’s voice in my head chastised me, ‘What if he dies Wendy, that’s a manslaughter charge. Don’t be an idiot. You can’t tie strange men to chairs in cheap hotel rooms.’

His shame, that I had mistaken for the shady behaviour of a thief, was painful to watch. But there was nothing I could do to help. I told him I was sorry, and left him on the curb, staring into the gutter.

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Dunkin' Drunk'un www.wanderingwendyswonderings.blogspot.com

2012-07-20T00:18:00.002-07:00

‘She looks like trouble.’ Alex said.

I knew exactly who he was talking about. The girl with the thin red belt. She was undulating provocatively against a young dopey eyed man in a union jack t-shirt. The undivided, evening’s attention.

We had ring side seats. Two buckling plastic chairs at the dive shop’s outside bar. Around 40 Singaporean university students had gathered, at the invitation of Mike, Owen’s younger brother. Owen being the owner of the dive shop, who had gone to a dive exhibition on the mainland. It was meant to have a Hawaiian theme. However, only Lisa and Sven, the bar managers, had bothered. Flower lays, palm frond grass skirts, and coconut bras. The guests weren’t there for the theme. They were there to get completely hammered and release the silly humping monkeys hiding inside them. Things had gotten exuberant with a surprising rapidity. Andy and Susanne had said it would.

We had been sat with Andy and Susanne earlier in the evening. The tension between them restrained, but palpable. They are two of the dive instructors. For two years they had been ‘living the dream’ together. Picking up dive jobs around South East Asia.

‘Just you wait. Give it 15 minutes and they are going to be a mess.’ Susanne said in a soft German accent.

‘Yup, it doesn’t look it now, but 15 minutes, 20 at most.’ Andy agreed.

The mood amongst the party seemed subdued. People were talking politely to each other. The BBQ food was being shared out in an orderly manner. No one was dancing. Drinks were being sipped.

Four tall blondish girls arrived, and positioned themselves in the middle of the party. Incongruous amongst the Asians.

‘Who are they? They’re dressed like they have just finished a hard days data entry, rather than relaxed holiday-ers on a tropical island.’ I said.

Black pumps, thin tight knit cardigans, low sensible ponytails.

‘They’re some on my students.’ Susanne replied. ‘Doctors from Germany.’

Around 15 minutes later, there were squeals from the bar as the tequila hit it, and the first casualty of the evening slumped in one of the plastic chairs.

‘Right I’m off.’ Susanne said. ‘You coming?’

Andy nodded reluctantly.

Screeches, squeals, laughter and bullying encouragement hit high above the music. Red Belt and her friends were at the bar, on the tequila shots. One, two, three. Union Jack had followed her. She used his nerdy safety to dance with raunchy abandon at him, as others cheered on. One of the locals, in a white t-shirt stretched over a middle aged bulge, was taking advantage of the revelry. He bumped his way into the group of friends, and flapped himself aggressively towards the girl.

‘You know he is just trying to brush his dick against her arse.’ Alex said.

‘Yeah, there’s always a few around. See a girl dancing and think they’re game for a salacious groping. The pestilence of the dance floor.’ I replied.

The party was undoubtedly underway. The boys were peeling off their t-shirts flinging them, like strippers, into the dance floor. Another early casualty, two slumped victims of the free bar. They were being used as props in which to pile beer cans, as unknowing participants in simulated sexual orgies, or the unfortunate at the bottom of a multiple person bundle. Someone was being sick off the edge onto the beach below. Girls were dancing, to rapturous applause, on the bar. The grotesque abandon of alcohol.

‘Look, Andy’s back.’ I said spying him looking a little lost in the fray.

‘That’s unusual. Things must be bad.’ Alex replied.

We looked at each other, wise and knowing, eyebrows raised.

Red Belt lurched off the dance floor, eyes swimming, belly held. Union Jack followed her, steading her as she stumbled. They made their way over to a group sat by one of the beach huts opposite the bar. Sam and Daniel’s hut, another dive instructor couple. Alex laughed.

‘Oh no, she isn’t. Is that her?’ I said.

‘Yup, she’s vomiting all over Sam and Daniel’s front step.’

Sam, stern, marched over to the vomiting girl. She marched back into her hut. A moment later she returned with a bucket of water to slosh the sick away. Red Belt vomited again. Sam went and got another bucket of water.

The dance floor was expanding, we were in danger of being danced on. We went to sit with Andy, Daniel and a few others watching the quickening pace of alcohol intolerant youths, descend into drunken difficulty.

‘I reckon they’ll all be in bed by one.’ Alex said.

‘What’s the time now?’ I asked.

’11.15’ Daniel replied.

‘Midnight. They’ll all be in bed by midnight.’ Andy counter-offered.

Andy looked resigned. Empty. The ending of his relationship with Susanne creating an emotional vacuum. He tried to fill it by talking of a fleeting love for a girl moving with seductive confidence on the dance floor.

There was a splash. A scream. A panic. Coming from the teaching pool. Daniel darted, Andy and a few others that worked there followed. A ruckus, a call for a doctor, loud tears, bustle, commotion. Daniel came back and threw his wet phone across the table.

‘What happen?’ Someone asked.

‘Fucking idiot pushed me into the pool while I was trying to help.’

He walked into the dive shop. An angry crash and smash. The music from the bar stopped, the revellers thinned out. One of the cardigan wearing German’s ran towards the ruction. As fraught people hurried in and out of where we were sitting, snippets of panicked, quick, serious sentences stitched the situation together for us.

‘CPR.’

‘Can’t swim.’

‘Thought she needed refreshing.’

‘Went down twice.’

‘Mike dragged her up by the hair.’

‘Drowned.’

It was Red Belt. Someone had thrown her into the pool. She had sunk rather than swum. No one did anything until Mike ran over and threw himself in. He dropped her the first time he tried to bring her to the surface. Daniel was first there to help. Someone pushed him into the pool, for a joke. Phil, a rescue dive student happily recounted his new knowledge on secondary drowning to us, as the fracas moved in and out of our sphere.

Red Belt was carried through a few moments later, dripping, limp, hyperventilating. Lucky for her, and her foolish assailant, 3 first aid trained dive instructors and 4 German doctors were drinking in the bar that night. She was bundled into the dive shop, followed by a mattress, sheets and calls for water.

‘Rusty, make sure no one goes in there. No one.’ Andy said reappearing.

Rusty, the pestilence of the dance floor, stood guard at the door, menacing anyone who went close. From pervy pest to proud protector. No one got past Rusty.

We went to the bar, to distance ourselves from the distress. Andy joined us. No longer empty. Filled with solemn perspective.

‘She was almost gone. Almost.’ He said.

Phil put in a music request for ‘Do not resuscitate’.

We asked Andy who had thrown her into the pool. He pointed at a nervous looking boy in blue shorts. Blue Shorts walked towards us. I spoke audibly about the stupidity of throwing vomiting girls into deep swimming pools. What idiot would do something like that? Blue Shorts asked if the cigarettes on the bar were ours. No. Andy asked him if he knew who had thrown Red Belt into the pool. Blue Shorts shook his head and shuffled away without a cigarette.

Someone else was sick on Sam and Daniel’s front step. We watched as the remaining unconscious boy in the plastic chair was carried away by six of his friends. Union Jack had long gone.

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‘Put a pillow under his back to wedge him on his side in bed.’ Andy called after them. And then to us. ‘I don’t want him to drown in his own vomit.’

Tioman - ABC beach

2012-07-20T00:06:00.003-07:00

Tioman. Tee. O. Maan. The soft sound of those soothing syllables massage out the last of any stresses and strains hiding in the fibres of my muscles. Minutes, hours, dates and days swim together in an endless cycle of a sleepy passing. The rise and fall of the sun is the only concession to the movement of time, that and the intermittent grumble of my belly. Silence and stillness hang in the air like ripen fruit, broken only by the thud of a coconut dropping to the sand, or the occasional impatient twitter of a brightly coloured bird. Even the sea is subservient to the ambience, its serene swash kissing the sultry sands.

The beach is a sandy swathe of rocks and trees offering a textured morphology, and, thankfully, saving it from commercial development. Small wooden huts sit back from the water’s edge, on the wide green leafed grass that slopes inland towards the rainforest covered hills of the islands centre. Monitor lizards perform their duties, patrolling their patches with an arrogant waddle-wiggle, keeping the kitten population in check. There are few cats with a full tail on this island, battle scars, narrow escapes from the flick and snap of the lizards tongue.

Across the thin path, just wide enough for a motorbike and sidecar, a myriad butterflies skip with jerky elegance from one exotic flower to another. And the remaining kittens bounce after them, their stumpy tails bobbing behind them. Along the path are a few simple restaurants, usually shut, offering various noodle and rice concoctions, and some shops, usually un-manned, selling essential sundries. There are no t-shirt sellers, no beach hawkers, no tour pushers. Neither are there touts, scammers, drunken louts, gap year cretins, litter, hotels, KFC’s , shopping malls, or obnoxious fat ostentatious Russians. In fact there is very little to mar the natural integrity of this beautiful beach setting.

The sea is warm, clean and clear. Standing in its refreshing coolness, out of the sear of the sun, looking through the soft wrinkle of its movement, pipe fish can be seen darting between my ankles. There are reefs that can be easily snorkelled to off the beach, big bulbous yellow corals, like giant popcorn, swell from the sea floor. Psychedelic parrot fish flash brightly in little schools, and playful clown fish peek nervously from the softer corals that submissively move with the currents.

They say that one notches down a gear or two staying here; mine have pretty much ground to a halt. I can feel the sea air quickly rusting them, eroding the unnecessary machinery of worry. Here’s hoping I won’t find a need to notch them back up anytime soon….I don’t think it will happen. I like the pace here. I say pace, more a slow fall into utter relaxation. Tee. O. Maan.

N.B. I have since discovered that the cats tails are a result of inbreeding. But I prefer the image of a life and death stumble along the sands between a big lizard and a little cat.

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Melaka (Malacca) www.wanderingwendyswonderings.blogspot.com

2012-06-08T05:17:00.003-07:00

One of the main trading ports for Eastern spices and fragrances between the C16^th-18^th. The location, as important as Fort Cochin in South India, was vied for by the Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese, Indians and British. The Europeans knew that securing the area for themselves, would bring further wealth to their burgeoning empires. Read the guide books and you will find them extolling the cultural heritage of Malacca, the colonial, eastern and Indian influences that made the place a thriving hub of commerce and trade. We were looking forward to getting here, having enjoyed Fort Cochin, a sleepy atmosphere, with old colonial buildings fading with times, grandeur long gone. A place with charm, ambience, an easy-going vibe, and lazy winding roads, all shaded from the sun by the large Portuguese rain trees.

The trees are here. As are the colonial buildings. There is a nice river. Lots of old Chinese architecture. It has been designated UNESCO world heritage site. So why the fuck did they invite Walt Dinsey’s cousin to enhance the area for tourism? Any, well preserved, colonial building has been painted garish terracotta red. All of them. If one looks in one direction, it is the only colour one can see aside from the umbrellas of the hawkers that peddle their plastic crap along the sides of the buildings. The old Chinese architecture, still largely evident, has been introduced to modern Chinese, in an awful clash of centuries. There is an old Portuguese tall ship, painted entirely in shit brown, so that it looks like something bought from an Ikea store. Then there are the shopping malls. Of course, what every heritage site needs, is a few malls dedicated to selling cheap clothes, electrical equipment, and a number of MacDonalds, KFC’s and Pizza Huts to refresh the weary time traveller, to remind them what stupid century they are living in. And there is the ‘sky tower’, a rotating bulbous disc of people being wound up a pole to look over the intense tackiness history can be made into with a ill-chosen lick of paint and a few malls.

The greatest offense by far are the trishaws. Bicycles with side carts, covered in plastic flowers and other tat – in one case Barbie dolls. Hundreds of them swarming around the ‘heritage’ areas each sponsored by Digi (a mobile communications company) blaring, and I mean blaring, violently loud, shit music; from the immature, sentimental pop music of Thailand, to Guns n’ f’n’ Roses. All of which is completely incongruent with the image of a history of bloodshed, war, trade, religious friction, wealth, and multiculturalism.

We thought we were going to stay here for a month or two. Relax, bathe in the history of turbulent and interesting past. But fuck that. And here is something I didn’t think I would be saying. Get me back to India.

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Kuala Lumpur www.wanderingwendyswonderings.blogspot.com

2012-06-02T05:32:00.001-07:00

A vibrant and new city, packed full of bright lights, wide streets, Indian, Arabic and Chinese restaurants, trendy bars, huge shopping malls, some of which contain whole theme parks, all encircled by a monorail, and watched over by the sparkly majesty of the Petronas Towers. It feels like I have gone ‘Back to the Future’. All else that is needed is Doc to fly in on an air-borne Delorian and pow! here is the future. Of course there are no flying cars but there is a shiny new sparkling feel to the place. Even the heritage sites (of which there are depressingly few) look like they were constructed a few years ago, I assume they have been revamped, in the most unauthentic manner imaginable. It is possible to walk across the whole ~3km of the central district, and not even leave a shopping centre or an air conditioned walk way (almost). There are malls dedicated to different themes, much like old bazaars are where one finds all the fruit sellers in one area, the pot sellers in another and the cloth sellers in another. There are malls for electronics, malls for designer clothes, malls for cheap clothes, malls for theme parks and malls for food.

Kuala Lumpur is a truly multi-cultural city that I haven’t yet found in my travels around Asia. There are, to fill the restaurants, Indians, Chinese, Arabs, and Malays, all mingling around seemingly happy in this bright, bold, but somehow, not-too-tacky city. And for an Islamic country it appears very tolerant. Women wear short skirts, Indian people walk around with symbols of their Hinduism on their foreheads, and shameless drunken cavorting can be found in the late night bars. In fact, a few days ago I would have recommended any anti Islamist to visit Kuala Lumpur to see how a tolerant and moderate, modern Islamic country can be.

And then….I got speaking to a Sikh, born, as were his parents, in Malaysia after his grandparents had emigrated, and an Austrian born man of Malay parents. The man of Indian descent, despite his family having lived in Malaysia for that past three generations, did not have Malay status – he was not known as a ‘son of the land’ – yet the man born in Austria to Malay parents, did have, along with Austrian status. The Indian Malay is not recognised as a citizen of either India or Malaysia. He is not entitled the privileges that a Malay person is, such as 30% off housing. However, if he converted to Islam, he would be considered a citizen of Malaysia. I also met an Egyptian, tortured by Mubarak in the 1980’s. In 1986 he came to the UK and was treated for his injuries and given money to live off. He expressed the opinion that modern Islam states are interested only in the pursuit of power, and with all their money, none invest in social or health care for its residents, and those seeking asylum. It seems even the example of a tolerant Islamic state is distinctly divided and full of inequalities. I find myself feeling more appreciative of England and the privileges it affords its citizens.

And then….we went to the National Museum, which should be more appropriately labelled, the Islam is Brilliant and Made Loads of Money for Malaysia Propaganda Museum. Which as you might guess from my newly assigned title, devoted most of its space to proclaiming Islam to have made Melaka (how Malaysia was once known) a great centre of Eastern trade and that was pretty much it. Oh, and how shit the Europeans were (especially at respecting the religious sensitivities of dress sense).

On a lighter note I did enjoy my 33^rd birthday here. I awoke to smiling balloons, chocolate cake, candles and party hats. We went to the roller coaster mall, and I managed to persuade Alex to accompany me on most of the rides, despite his apprehension. After that it was free gins, a lot of dancing, new, fleeting friends and laughter.

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Ao Nang www.wanderingwendyswonderings.blogspot.com

2012-05-27T08:19:00.000-07:00

Both beautiful and bland all in one yawny breath. As long as you face west, this place is as stunning as any other of the exquisite beaches of Thailand that line its coasts. On bright days the sea is calm and a colour chart of warm green to deep blue, lime stone islands are dotted across the horizon and long tail boats bounce along the surface of the ocean, spraying a white tail behind them. Turn around though and you have a watered down version of Khao San Road, catering for families, men looking for Thai love longer than one night, and package holiday makers.

A road runs along the side of the beach, elevated from the shore. On the other side of the road from the beach are restaurants, at present desperate for custom, each one along a baht less for a pizza, or an extra percent off the menu, what with it being the beginning of low season. There are countless souvenir shops, 7-11’s, massage parlours, hair braiding, travel agents and T-shirt shops, blah, blah, blah. The depravity of Khao San Road is not here, but its essence is. The wrist bands with obnoxious messages have gone, but the t-shirts aren’t much better. Most extolling the virtues of women with their legs spread.

(Ahhh, yawn, I am almost too bored to write any more about the place. Did I mention it was bland?)

The road curves up away from the beach, to be over looked by an imposing limestone monolith, making the banality of the activity below all the more apparent. Further up the road are more of the same, Irish bars, Reggae bars, Girly bars and more massage.

However, to be fair to the place, although it is bland, in the blandest sense of the word, it is very clean – not that that should be the selling point of a place. Oh, it’s clean. A hospital is clean, but who wants to holiday in a hospital. And there is a lot of green. Again, not exactly a selling point given that crocodiles are green, and, again, no one wants to holiday in a crocodile. Trees have been planted every couple of metres along the road. Tiles have been inlaid into the pavements to make them look more interesting, in a bland kind of way. There are curved benches, and snaking low walls that all show a bit of thought in the design of the place.

Oh my life, I can’t be bothered to talk about the place any more….it’s too…..bland? Oh, but there are the sunsets......

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Ladyboys

2012-05-21T00:50:00.000-07:00

The ubiquitous Thai ladyboy. Seen working everywhere from tit bars to 7-11’s. Some much more obvious than others. There are those that put exquisite care into their appearances, perfect hair, minutely detailed nails, curve accentuating clothes, a well-practised hip swing even in killer heels, bouncing bosoms, painted up in an idea of unmitigated femininity. However, as beautiful as they look, everyone knows they are a man, there isn’t a single woman on the planet, bar the Beckham’s of this world, who put that much effort into looking good (and one could argue she looks more a pretend woman rather than a real one). And then there are the less bothered ones. They got the silicon slipped under their skin, creating weird little mounds, like wonky teacakes, and ta-da, that’s it, effort done with. They might shave a couple of times a week, and for those lazy days, slap on a bit of extra foundation to try and conceal the prickly bits of hair poking out over their top lips. A pair of sling backs might be evident, but there is no tottering; the ape like lunging steps, lolling from side to side, show the lack of commitment to the attire they have adorned. And the trousers, designed for a little hip and arse, flap their loose bits as flags to an unsuited body shape.

Then there are unfortunate consequences when the ladyboys get old. As they are still men, and either due to a half-hearted commitment to becoming a woman, or lack of funds, still have male hormones. Sadly there comes a point in a ladyboys life, as it does in most men’s life that is feared, dreaded and as unmentionable as the real size of a girlfriends arse. The hair starts to recede and thin around the crown – I think it is called a monkeys arsehole, as I was once charmingly informed. For the ladyboy, there is no option of shaving it all off and being done with it. That would look even weirder –right? So they are stuck with it, well without it really. The long luscious locks that have previously been swished in younger years of faux-feminine glory, are faded and thin, so regardless of the efforts made to wax that man right out of ones moustache, the monkey’s arse has the last, cruel, laugh.

They don’t like me either. I am being shunned on a daily basis by the ladyboy. I am not sure what it is about me they dislike so much, but if I have to deal with one in some way, they generally give me some sort of diva-ish attitude, with a wrist bent, offering me a dismissive hand, and head turned slightly away, eyes looking blankly elsewhere, indicating that they would really rather not have to bother with me, faking indifference. Seeing as this attitude is evident before I even speak, I can only assume it has something to do with how I look or hold myself. A Thai lady told me it was just because I was a woman. I will have to ask some other female farangs to see if they are also subjected to this bizarre discrimination.

But one question I would really like answered is this. Why are there so many ladyboys in Thailand? I understand that the Thai’s are generally very tolerant, but that doesn’t explain why so many of the men want to be women. If the same tolerance where allowed in other countries of the world, would there be more Western men squealing over Take That and discussing diets, would Indian men be sashaying around in sequinned saris and complimenting each other on their biryani’s, and would Arab men be embracing the burkha, adorning it with pretty sparkles so their personalities shimmered though?

Koh Phayam www.wanderingwendyswonderings.blogspot.com

2012-05-18T07:33:00.000-07:00

‘Every day is like Sunday, every day is silent and grey. It’s a seaside town they forgot to shut down.’

Aow Yai beach, a 3 km gently curving bay, bends its way around the dense green forest of the inner island, offering a short sandy doorstep to the Andaman sea. The sea, an immense expanse of mottled green, white capped turbulence, beats a monsoon rhythm upon the tireless sand. The heavy clouds spill oppressively across the sky, shedding rivers of rain onto the sea and land, and bringing a squall of wind that breathes fiercely onto the shore, the trees and shrubs bowing frantically to its might. Without the winds bringing the rains in from the sea, the air is thick and heavy with warmed water. Oppressive heat and humidity cling to the skin and block the pores.

Behind the curtain of green that hides the lines of beach huts, there are vibrant forest, home to noises of the jungle. The tinnitus ring of cicadas, tut-tutting of birds unseen in the trees above, and the click and buzz of exotic insects, create an ear aching din of nature; and at night the deep rumble of hundreds of belching frogs, burps loudly into the darkness. And the darkness is just that, when the moon sits behind the clouds, there is no adjusting of the eyes to the light, there is no light. Footsteps made into the darkness, along a path seemingly innocuous during the day, turns into tentative wobble into thick bushes and complete disorientation.

This is one of Thailand’s quieter islands during the peak season, and during monsoon it is all but deserted. We are sharing the beach with maybe 20 other people. And it is nice, with the turbulence of the weather, there is no feeling that we ‘should be doing something’, there is nothing to do, except watch the waves relentlessly fall upon the shore and comment on the changes to the ever varying grey of the brooding clouds.

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Khao San Road - Bangkok

2012-05-14T03:13:00.001-07:00

‘What do you want?’ The city asks.

‘Strong alcohol, cheap Oriental pussy, men with tits, women capable of shooting hypodermic needles from their vaginas, tattoos, date rape drugs, oblivion, memory loss, diet pills, valium, mistrust, debauchery 24 hours a day, and a wrist band souvenir to take home to my family saying ‘I love rape’.’ The Western tourist replies.

This thronging street is lined with boutique hotels, bars with buckets, tattoo artists, beauty salons (where the price of waxing depends on the size of the hair), 7-11’s, Boots, STD clinics, street stalls selling clothes, hair braids, pad thai, spring rolls, walking along it are the women selling wrist bands, balloons, wooden frogs, plastic tat and hats, there are tailors trailing the tourist talking about their suits made to order, and men flashing cards of female flesh whispering indiscreetly about ping pong shows. Music from all around, competing pop from bars, merging into one incomprehensible cacophony, banging and beating its way down the street. Above all this is the neon, bigger and bigger signs, with brighter lights sprouting from the walls of the buildings clamouring to find space and attention, to take centre stage above the tourists head.

But it is clean, the locals are tolerant, accepting and uncurious about the depressing manifestation that this place has become. They seem fine with all as long as it is paid for. In our hotel was a list of every item within it, the sink, wall hangings, windows, bed sheets, table, fridge, etc. and the cost of replacing it. And despite all the relentless booze, drugs and sex, there is no violence, no anger and people seem happy to mill around in this scene of depressing depravity. Khao San Road, the place where hedonism ate itself.

Pokhara

2012-05-04T04:59:00.001-07:00

This is the second of Nepal’s two cities. Outside the main locals town, and accessed along a bumpy, potholed road, flanked by soft green roadside where fat, glossy cows munch contentedly, is a tourist town. A modest, calm, town sat aside a large clean lake, sunk in the hills, and overlooked by a protective arc of the Annapurna range of the Himalayas. The central lakeside is unashamedly touristy, bars, restaurants, hiking gear shops, adventure sports agents and souvenir shops vie for the visitors attention and outside the main drag of a few of hundred metres, the requests to spend dwindles, and the road becomes quieter, greener, lusher, calmer; and quite possibly close to what heaven is meant to look like. At the north end of the lake, the road departs from the lakeside, and is replaced with a vibrant green carpet of gentle grass that is soft enough to lie upon. Wooden hut cafes sit unobtrusively back from the gentle slope to the lake offering views across and beyond the tranquil mirror still waters. Plump cows and goats, with lush, intact, coats share the space with chubby dogs and smiling people. Men in wooden canoes paddle with unrushed ease across the lake, spreading their simple fishing nets behind them as they cruise the calm waters. Across the other side of the lake are undulating hills, bursting with trees, each one clamouring for a bit more space as the terrain creeps serenely upwards.

Each afternoon since I have arrived, the calm surface of the lake is broken by the thump of marble sized raindrops that pound down from the skies, accompanied by bright electric streaks that disappear behind the hills illuminating them in bright splendour, and the comforting growl of thunder as it rumbles around the valleys. In the morning the clouds, having been dissolved by the previous afternoon’s downpour, are gone, and the white peaks of the Himalayas can be seen sitting ethereally, regally, god like in the sky. When the sun shines, it is a warm sun that glows, and a gentle breeze skips lightly across the skin. There is a calm in the air here that sits peacefully in the ears and mutes the stress within the soul.

And like Darjeeling, there is none of the hassle I have become accustomed to in India. In every sense. In addition to the wonderful temperament of the inhabitants here, the sense of apathy has gone. All the rooms in the guest houses are spotlessly clean, not a single spore, nor a creeping grime line can be seen anywhere. There is solar heating in most places. Efforts are made to reduce electricity use (aside from the regular, but irregularly timed, power cuts). Places boast of their commitment to women’s empowerment, donations of profit to orphanages, and considered treatment of the environment. The place I have secured a room for the next month has used mud brick in the walls to keep rooms cool in summer and warm in winter, along with using through flows of air to cool rooms instead of fans and has solar heated water. I have exquisite views of the lake, and the other side of the hills, a balcony, a beautiful room , immaculate bathroom, lovely gardens and when the electricity is out it is quiet, so, so quiet, all for £5 a night. The Nepalese don’t seem to have a hand glued to the horn like the Indians do, neither do they feel the need to taint all things beautiful with a heavy scattering of plastic.

However with this serenity comes a price. Hippies. Dreadlocked, morose looking fools, smoking way too much dope and taking themselves far too seriously. When the electricity is on the thump of Goan trance music beats an obtrusive rhythm through the tranquillity. Fortunately there is an 11 o’clock curfew that means it doesn’t go on for any longer than that, along with regular power outages which offer solace from the shit music that no one even seems to be enjoying. For the younger hippies there are plenty of warnings of what their deluded, dope induced ramblings will come to if they don’t start thinking about what they are saying, in the form of seriously mentally unstable, toothless, shaggy looking twats. It seems to me, after some study, that the young hippy starts with an uneducated search for meaning in their life, and instead of reading, learning and thinking about their perspectives, they make it up as they go along and feed ignorance off each other. A few examples I have heard are, ‘the planet has DNA, and it is mutating at the moment to make seriously bad changes’, ‘drawing shapes and colouring them in can unblock past traumas’, ‘there are sadus that are able to sustain life for 12 years without eating’, along with the ever inane ‘the universe will give you what you want, just ask’, and ‘I’m an old soul’. This is all obviously quite irritating to listen to, especially when challenges to their world view are received with accusations that I am closed and not open to the universe. But the really worrying things is what happens when these bizarre mumblings about ‘life, the universe and everything’ are left to manifest and connect all the crazy neurons in the head. They turn into people who believe they are ‘Shiva, the Buddha and Christ’ reincarnate, that they have the ability to control the forces of nature, that they have understood the mathematics of the universe and know its end, that they are ‘like the Buddha, but less arrogant’ insofar as they won’t tell people how to live their lives, but will just smile at them. Some of these delusions are so well constructed and insanely far-fetched it is genuinely worrying. Deeply twisted fantasies about their lives and journeys within it. What is even sadder, is that in the 3 weeks I was there, I never heard much laughter. People were so engrossed in their own sense of importance, they forgot to have fun. Maybe this is the key to staying ‘sane’, laughing at your insanity.

But, aside from the hippies, this place feels like Shangri-La. There is nothing else I can think I want from a place………..except maybe a loud speaker and a troupe of rational thinking, fun loving, mischief makers to poke fun at the delusional until they start to laugh at themselves and remember what fun is.

A Walk Through An Indian City

2012-04-20T07:21:00.001-07:00

As I walk along your frantic streets, I watch as homeowners diligently sweep rubbish from their porches, meticulously cleaning their domain, and then, to my dismay, abandon the detritus over a wall at the side of their property. Illiterate urchins, capable of speaking 5 languages, cheerfully tug at my clothes demanding rupees; to give, or not, a seemingly unresolvable attack upon my conscience. The stench of human excrement wafts nauseatingly from open drains, but suddenly, the sweet aroma of jasmine perfumes the air from a flower weaved ponytail swished. Sacred cows, swinging their dung encrusted tails, eat from open rubbish dumps, becoming slowly poisoned by the plastic they consume. And smiling faces that greet my progress are turned into sneers of disgust as I light a cigarette; women are too pure to smoke.

I break from the exhaustion of the street to sit inside a restaurant. While picking from the fragrant, spiced vegetarian food on offer, I watch through the window, my heart tightening, as children throw bricks at dogs. The flicker of a TV distracts me, a Bollywood music video; bright, enthusiastic, scantily clad women thrust themselves happily at plump moustachioed men. But beneath the TV sits a woman, covered neck to toe in a modest salwar, fearful of the perceived shame of displayed female flesh. To pay, I slip a rupee note under a plate of aniseed, the benign face of Gandhi looks past me, a man who rejected wealth, chosen by India to grace all her currency.

Back on the street, a family approaches asking for ‘one photo’; their son drapes an arm around my shoulder. If I was to develop a loving relationship with him, and ask to be accepted into their family, they would treat me with contempt, yet, he is soon to be told to marry a girl-child he has never met. After negotiating, with tested patience, a rickshaw takes me to a temple of the most popular Goddess in Hinduism, Laskshmi, Goddess of wealth. He drives, hooting relentlessly, never irked by other drivers. He points out the state governor’s residence, a grand edifice built by the British raj and a plush house, owned by a beggar who feigns being crippled, scouring the tourist ghettos, guilt tripping rupees from them.

Cautiously trying to cross the road, a beautifully decorated truck, spewing fumes, undertaking a bicycle beeps at me; it rumbles past, the sign on its bumper telling others to ‘obey the rules’. Suddenly a hand reaches out and grabs my breast, I seize it and look into the petrified eyes of a struggling, regretful man. People around pretend not to see, however, by shouting ‘pervert!’ I will see this man beaten bloody by those currently apathetic. Quietly I let him go.

Oh India. Your frenetic intensity wears me down to exasperated tears. But, with your noise, bustle, and chaos, you are teaching me patience from within.

Darjeeling

2012-04-03T06:45:00.000-07:00

Oh Darjeeling, I think I love you. With your ambience of easy going nonchalance, unassuming, unaggressive inhabitants and quiet winding roads that snake steeply up your lush green hills. With your delicious tea, tasty momo’s and warm, cosy, and ever lively Joey’s pub. With your enforced gentle pace, as to walk up these steep hills must be done slowly, and cool climate that means visitors have to wrap up snugly to maintain warmth. All of this is what makes me love you after 5 months in India. I have been here for 3 days now and not a single child has run up to me demanding 10 rupees, sweets, or photos. Nor a single tout with patience testing relentlessness tried to get me on a trek or other sight-seeing tour. Nor a single shop keeper tried to get me into their shop. Nor have a single pair of eyes, telling of the growing erection in their pants, looked me up and down with disrespectful lust. Nor a single taxi pulled up and asked where I am going. Nor any beggars insistently and persistently tugged on my clothes demanding money. Nor been asked for exorbitant prices on anything I have wanted to buy, even from the street vendors. Nor a single photo been asked of me. Nor a single mosquito nibbled upon me. Nor is there plastic bags and bottles strewn with ignorant abandon. People seem to care about their environment here. Ahhhhhh, thank you Darjeeling.

Here the women wear make up, tight clothes, and I have even seen a pair of legs, clad in fish net stockings, displayed proudly under a short denim skirt. Here the women smoke and drink, in public, with no shame, and no-one spits at them or leers with intimidating disapproval. Things seem a bit more ‘liberated’ here with regard to the treatment of women. I wonder if it is the Buddhist influence, from the influx of Nepalese and Tibetans. They always seem a bit more chilled out and accepting of people. To me Buddisht countries always appear less judgemental, maybe it is the absence of a God, telling people how to behave that results in this easy going attitude.

Since arriving in Darjeeling we have sat in a thick, cold cloud, and are very grateful for it. I can’t tell you about the vistas or the countryside, as I can’t see it. After much moving around, we are very pleased to have an excuse not to ‘do’ anything in particular. We are sleeping late, mooching up and down the slow winding hills once awake, stopping frequently in tea shops to drink the delicious golden local tea on offer, seeking out the perfect momo in the little Tibetan run snack bars, and winding the day up in the snuggly warmth of Joey’s pub for a rum and coke, sharing stories and advice with other travellers. In fact, this is the easiest place I have found to meet other travellers. Of a similar ilk. Even easier than the touristy destinations of Goa and Varkala, which were a mine field of pretentious, hair flicking druggy/yoga/ashram darlings ready to bore me to death with their ignorant ramblings about getting battered/spirituality. There is a wonderful little travelling community here, which seems to have occurred completely by accident. And is really nice to encounter given that this hasn’t really happened in the 5 months we have been away. Maybe it is unusual for here too, and there has just been a freak influx of like-minded people to drink the cold away with.

We are staying on the top of one of the hills, which was fun to walk up with our backpacks, being completely put to shame by the unexpected steeliness of the locals that, with no exaggeration, are able to carry four large suitcases up these intense inclines, using a sling wrapped around their foreheads. But once the clouds clear it will be worth it. The room we have has a shabby charm to it and ceiling to floor windows along one side, that once the cloud lifts, I am confident will reveal a masterful example of one of nature’s greatest works of art – the Himalaya’s. We are here for another week, before I fly to Nepal and Alex to Singapore, so hopefully the sky will part at some point. If not ho-hum, it’s been bloody lovely to sit in what is the most charming hill station I have made my way to so far. And given the time I am to spend in the shadow of these mighty mountains, it would be amazing if the next few months went by without a glimpse of their majesty. But we were lucky, and Darjeeling offered us some spectacualr scenary on our last day. Finally, here is the awesome veiw from our balcony of the 3rd highest peak in the world.

Peeping Tom's in Kolkata

2012-03-28T04:37:00.000-07:00

I have a feeling I might not have been getting the best out of Kolkata. Having arrived here, for 2 days only, after a month of travelling the entire length of India, spending over 80 hours on trains, 30 hours on buses, staying in 11 different places, I am, quite frankly, bushed. It’s really hot here, and on our first day ended up getting in a taxi with a really aggressive driver who shouted at us because he went the wrong way and was somewhat irked that we refused to pay him the fare for both the wrong and the right destinations. On the second day, I caught someone looking through the gaps in our bathroom window, spying on me, mostly naked, after a rather uncomfortable bowel movement. I was not best pleased. Neither was Alex. I quickly got dressed and went to find the peeping Tom. Unfortunately all I had seen was a little brown head ducking out of sight, so there was no way I was able to identify the little pervert, and was compelled to complain loudly and firmly at all the members of hotel staff that were in the area in which the incident had occurred. I got upset with the manager, the staff, the receptionist, the bus boys, everyone. Yet no one wanted to help me.

I explained that I had a right to privacy and it was unacceptable for someone to spy on me. I explained that had I been an Indian woman, this would have been an abhorrent act, I tried to provoke empathy by asking if they would like their sisters or daughters to be treated in such a way. I got told by various different levels of lackey and management that I must have ‘been mistaken – Indian men are too small to see in the window’, that I could move room, and pay extra money for guaranteed privacy, that they were ‘sorry’. Again I was amazed at the total apathy and unwillingness to help, all they wanted was to make sure we stayed another night to keep the money rolling from our pockets, never mind my decency or level of personal comfort at staying in the place, or identifying the degenerate who wanted to get a sneaky peek at my breasts.

Now, had I been in the UK, or many other places, I probably wouldn’t have bothered making a fuss at all. I don’t mind that much about someone getting their jollies out of being a bit of a perv. But this is India. And I am getting sick of the misogyny and assumption that because I am white, I am a whore, and my body is not mine. Men here have felt it their right to grab my breasts and my butt, I have been propositioned by endless arseholes who demand to know my room number, been told that I will ‘enjoy’ or ‘go full power, 24 hour, no shower’ for a bit of ‘Indian magic’, been checked out with uncomfortably lusty eyes every time I walk down the street. I read in the paper that Indian women are gang raped in taxis and are told that they were out too late, so deserve what has happened. Men refuse to talk to me when Alex is around, who gets engaged in conversation that isn’t about fucking, because I am a stupid woman. I find the daily disrespect I encounter, merely because I am a woman, and a filthy white woman at that, really frustrating. I don’t want to give unbalanced impressions of a country of more than 500 million men. Many I have met are not like this, many have spoken to me as an equal and with respect, and friendliness. But I can’t deny there are a lot who do not, and I have explained in previous blogs that I understand why a little.

So bearing all this in mind, I found my principles (they were looking a little wrinkled in the bottom of my backpack) and told the hotel staff that I wanted to call the police to report the incident. And in saying those words – please will you call the police for me, I understood the fear and power that threat instils in Indian people. It was incredible. I could see in faces that there was more than fear, there was sadness. Sadness because they knew what would happen if the police turned up. All of the men that were in the area of the bathroom window, which were around 6, would have been beaten until someone confessed, and then beaten some more. Of course I wasn’t really going to call the police, but I was so pissed at the disinterest at the incident, and I didn’t quite realise the power of the threat, that I offered it. Within 15 minutes the managing director of the hotel group was with us, explaining that we could stay for no extra cost, that the perpetrator would be found and sacked and that he was very, very sorry. I told him it was wasn’t about the money, that I was fed up of being treated like a whore in this country. He explained the brutality of the police, what tourists don’t see. I just wanted an apology from the person who peeped, for them to realise that I was a human being, and was worthy of respect. If I got that I wouldn’t call the police, and that would be all I required, no sacking, no free rooms, nothing, but an apology.

Sure enough, within 2 minutes two boys were dragged into the office. One of them absolutely bricking it. They had been grassed up by those wanting to avoid the police. I was quite sad to see it was such a young man, maybe 17 years old. His friend was told to leave. The boy, who spoke very little English, tried to say it was an accident, and that he hadn’t meant to stand up on a crate to look in the window. Then the poor sod confessed. The MD, obviously peeved that he had been lied to, jumped up, yelled at the cowering young man, and then belted him with the full force of his palm across the face. That is not what I wanted. I jumped up to defend the boy I had got dragged in there, hugged him and pulled him out of the fury of the MD. I repeated that all I wanted was an apology, no violence, no sacking, just an apology. The MD sat back down, and told the boy to touch my feet and call me mother (a sign of respect Indians give to elders.) He said sorry and then was told to go. And he did, he ran from that room. I asked the MD not to sack him, and to tell the

boy that I forgave him, that there was no further problem. I hope it was listened to. Although the MD told me that I was in India now, and they had their ways of dealing with things. I also got the distinct feeling that the violence wasn’t to protect my honour, but because the MD has been disrespected by the lie. Society is very hierarchical here, and everyone must know their place within it.

Now I don’t know if I did the right thing. I just wanted an apology, for him to sit face to face with me and recognise that I was as human as he was. But instead he was shown violence and fear.

Some people have said that I did the right thing, that he may well have grown into one of those men that think its ok leap on white girls in Goa, without invitation, to try and have sex with them. Or any one of the hundreds of other examples I could give from stories I have heard about the interactions between Western women and Indian men. Now he might think differently.

I don’t think so. He was just given more fear. Not an understanding in real respect. But then is it right to let people treat others in this way without repercussion or consequence? I guess this is a country of extremes, where discipline and policing are not done with any degree of moderation or recriminations are in proportion to the act. Which means that unless I want people beaten for their misdemeanours, I let them get away with it. That seems a little fucked to me.

Anyway, Kolkata. Not really what I expected – quelle suprise. Wide, clean streets, filled with yellow ambassador cabs. The showy offerings of Greco-Roman architecture offered by the East India Company, and then the British to impress the supplicating natives. Busy, noisy, as ever. Really good Begali cuisine. Lovely parks, green, well-tended, and offering space for young lovers to ‘heavy pet’ in the bushes, which is pretty weird. There is the Victoria memorial, which, to be fair, is impressive. We attended a light and sound show there, which we thought would be a lively show splashing colourful lights over the cool white marble of the huge building. But instead it was a film in Bengali, showed on a cinema screen set up in the park in front of the memorial. I think it was very informative about the history of Kolkata, but I can’t be too sure. There were a couple if illuminations in the building, but I couldn’t infer their relevance to the story I couldn’t understand. We should have waited for the English version.

Off on another train journey today. To Darjeeling. Hopefully I will feel a little more enamoured with India. We have had a bit of a falling out. I know I love her, but at the moment, she is really pressing my freaking buttons.

Bodhagaya

2012-03-26T03:09:00.000-07:00

A dusty yellow town, with dusty roads, busy with dusty yellow rickshaws packed with more people than you would imagine possible, dusty cart horses and the occasional elephant. Most of the restaurants were tarpaulin tents. It is home to many Tibetan refugees, also living in tarpaulin tents. Bodhgaya is in Bihar, the poorest state in India, and it shows. There are dusty, dirty children everywhere, most asking for money or sweets. So many beggars, charitable organisations, and orphanages. We went to one. An intelligent, gentle, boy approached us and after talking for a while, asked us if we wanted to visit his school and meet the children there. He was so genuinely good natured we agreed. It was an orphanage, run by a Christian couple, who couldn’t have children, so looked after the destitute ones. They rescued babies left at hospitals and in rubbish dumps. The building they taught and lived in was basic, rudimentary, bare. But the children were wonderful. It was quite a moving experience to enter such a happy environment, which is born from such horrendous starts.

We went there as it is the place where the Buddha was enlightened, under the Bodhi tree, which is still alive, after various cuttings had been replanted. The place of the Bodhi tree has a temple, which is tall, and simple; and is surrounded by gardens, stupas erected in important places in which the Buddha is said to have undergone different stages of meditation. It is a calm place, with lots of green, and many monks in beautiful maroon robes. There are also Wat’s from all the different Buddhist countries in the surrounding robes. A 80 foot statue of the Buddha, which is benignly imposing. And the Dali Lama turns up every year to visit.

I don’t have so much to say about it here, we were only there for a day. The town was poor and unattractive, in the temple area it was calm and lush, it was all a little depressing. Maybe it is significant that human suffering is so blatant around the site where the Buddha was enlightened, to remind all the visitors that all life is suffering…..

Varanasi

2012-03-21T05:04:00.000-07:00

Oh. My. Life. I just fell down the rabbit hole. If David Lynch was to make a film about spirituality and death, and given funding by Muthoot Finance and the State Bank of India, I think it would turn out something like Varanasi. Where do I even start to give you an impression of the most surreal place I have ever visited. Of all my travels across the world, I have never, ever been anywhere like this. It is beyond time. I could honestly believe this place hasn’t changed for hundreds of years. The narrow winding passages, frequently blocked by cows, swishing their dung encrusted tails that you have to skilfully time in passing to avoid being thwacked, twist and turn with angular frequency, intertwining the visitor into the old city, sewing everlasting impressions into the soul. You don’t walk around this city, it moves through you, somehow.

Varanasi is a holy city for Hindus, where they take their dead to be piled with wood, burnt and then scattered along the Ganga for their final journey. The city sits on the a curve of the Ganga where two other rivers meet with it, and coils up and away from the Ghats that line it into a strange and beautiful world. There are many Ghats along the side of the river, each having a different purpose. There are Ghats where people wash their clothes, Ghats for bathing pilgrims, Ghats for washing buffalo, Gahts for morning and evening worship, and Ghats for burning the dead. By far the most exotic and captivating are the burning Ghats. Irregular buildings poke the sky with their dome like spires, clustered around the stone steps that lead down to the river. On the steps and the path along the river, huge piles of wood are stacked to load on the bodies, funeral pyres burn all around, cows laze under flimsy sheds and along the path, and hundreds of people line the steps absorbed in the captivating peculiarity, watching as enshrouded bodies, wrapped in richly embroidered cloths, are carried on bamboo stretchers by loved ones down to the river.

There are no cars here, the streets are too narrow. The streets are owned by the cows, goats, dogs, monkeys and people, all of which shit freely and without shame. Never would I have imagined that I would be so entranced by a place where the streets are essentially an open sewer. Dark alleys, where you need to look both up and down to check for what is on the floor and what is coming from the windows above, burst into long meandering streets brightly lit and shimmering from sequins, gold threaded clothes and twinkling bangles, teeming with people. In the evening people fly kites from the roof tops and the sky is swimming with differing coloured paper diamonds.

We were a little apprehensive before arriving. The guide book says that the hassle here is, along with Agra, the worst in India. Touts and scam artists relentlessly pestering exhausted tourists. But apart from two unsavoury stalkers who were trying to secure commission from guest houses we visited, we have found nothing but amazing people. People who want to tell you breathlessly about the world, freedom and love, orange robed babas with deep rumbling voices invite you to pose for photos, for a small fee of course, strangers take you by the hand, smile and welcome you to their city, children swarm around you laughing and mimicking you, there are happy calls of Namaste’s every third step, and hopeful boat owners eternal quest to get another tourist into their beaten, barely floating dingy’s. And there is humour, so much humour. Yesterday a man approached us while we were talking to another about sitars, a babe in arms, and asked if we wanted to buy a baby. He said he had a baby making factory and needed to shift a few cheap. There are the rhymes too. Always a rhyme: burning is learning, cremation education, no worry chicken curry, no cry banana fry.

My exhausted, happy soul, there is so much going on here. It is a completely crazy assault on every single sense. There is so much to say about the utter mentalness of this place. We have seen river dolphins, I have no idea how they manage to survive in that sewer of a river, but we have seen them, quite indisputably; I have been into the Golden Temple to crowd in an even more frenetic and bizarre queue with the monkeys and the even closer people, to offer sweet smelling flowers and milk in a peculiar frenzy to Lord Shiva, in which I was meant to splash the offered milk across my face; watched the daily evening puja where crowds of hundreds of people watch from the steps and from boats upon the river, and listen with absolute reverence, as music is played to them while five orange men perform rituals, stood upon small stages covered in orange flowers, involving smoke, fire and clanging bells; there was the calm, ethereal boat ride at dawn across the still waters of the Ganga, watching as the mists cleared

and the sun rose up to face the city; tales of cannibals that steal the flesh of the burning bodies, their souls already committed to the devil; observed the delicate process of women kneading cow shit to make fuel logs on the Ghats; taken in to oil sellers houses, small two story houses which are home to 30 people and 7 cows, all living as I imagine people living 200 years ago; and this is all in just two days. Two days that feels like a week. We have one more day left here. I think that will be enough for Alex. He likes it, but the chaos is relentless and the filth is extensive, and he needs calm and clean. I tell him he can have it in another 6 months, when we leave north India. I am not sure how long I could last here, I think it would be easy to surrender to this place and fall into one of it crevices, emerging years later, never able to join Western society again…..

I have, for the first time in a while, seen something genuinely different, nothing compares to Varanasi.

Hyderabad

2012-03-17T00:02:00.001-07:00

A 500 year old city that, in places, still boasts its heritage as proudly as European cities do. Impressive structures built by the Qutb Shahis (from Persia), the founders of the city 500 years ago, rise elegantly from the hectic streets, still intact and used today.

The Charminar takes centre stage in the Islamic area of the city, traffic nudging its way noisily around it, and the bazaars, shining, glittering and crammed in, spread brightly from its epicentre, clustering around a back drop of stunning old buildings, including a mosque, also built by the Qutb Shahis, that can hold 10,000 worshippers. It is energetic, noisy, polluted, sparkling, friendly, curious and wonderful. To walk around the area near the Charminar is to take a trip through history. If one can ignore the traffic, it is not hard to imagine that life has not changed much here in 500 years. The food sellers, street hawkers with strings of twinkling necklaces lined up their arms, carts with toothbrushes, combs, soap dishes, mirrors and other sundry items arranged neatly, stalls selling Qur’ans in beautifully gilt boxes and dazzling clothes shops showing off their finely embroidered cloth. Even the setting for these shops, stalls, carts, and hawkers is beautiful, old buildings with carved pillars supporting ornate galleries that run along the length of the buildings. It is nice to see Indian history, as opposed to Colonial history, so prominent in a city.

Walking down the winding alleys, sprouting off the side of the main road that leads up to and beyond the Charminar, is a wonderfully colourful journey into the lives of the people that live here. Curious looking pickle sellers call cheerily from their huts, shop keepers invite you to sit and enjoy a cup of tea, endless stores of burkas, all fashioned with bejewelled bling, and old men chattering behind carts of garlic and chillies. It is an incredibly friendly place, everywhere we turned were beaming smiles and an enthusiastic willingness to engage us. I felt a genuine love of life from the people in this area. I could have walked around for days and fed off the good spirit of the people there.

The accommodation was the only thing that left something to be desired. And we managed to negate that by spoiling ourselves with a room that was double our budget. But, oh, it was worth it. A bed so comfortable it was reminiscent of the one we left behind, almost silent AC, constant hot running water, unbeatable cleanliness, and Alex’s favourite – a flat screen TV. It was executive luxury.

During our time in Hyderabad, we also took a trip to Golconda Fort, the original home of the Kor-i-noor diamond, and the predecessor city to Hyderabad, when the water ran out there, the Qtub’s moved to Hyderabad. It appears to have been a very sophisticated place. Situated on top of a hill, there were complicated systems in which to move water around, so the royal family at the top had constant access to it, and swimming pools were kept replenished. The fort itself had an impressive history in defending its inhabitants, it managed to withstand an 8 month siege without falling. And the acoustics are incredible, it is possible to hear the clapping of hands at the front gate, a kilometre away in the senate rooms at the very top of the hill. There are lots of winding passages, large shaded halls, and at the top, fantastic panoramas of the cityscapes. It is also possible to see the tombs of the Qutb’s, their massive domes bulging out of the surrounds, bursting into the skyline.

After mooching around the fort for a few hours, which could have probably been done much quicker, had we not been asked to be photographed every few steps by very excitable, and ever friendly, Indians, we went to the tombs. Close up they are immense, and stunning. Grand examples of Persian architecture, with their ornate columns, intricate reliefs and bulbous domes. In places the original paint work can be seen, which is bright and colourful. These would have been truly glorious structures in their day, they are now. Set in a peaceful, undeveloped area, with colourful trees and flowers, chipmonks rustling around the leaves, a complete absence of motorised vehicles, the entire Qutb dynasty lay in rest in 7 of these enormous, elaborate mausoleums , and their family in smaller tombs around them.

There was also the NTR gardens, were we took a trip in a time machine, watched rats spill from projector screens, hid amidst huge fruit, ate chaats in vintage cars and got sky rash. The surreal offerings of a national company to create bizarre, green spaces within the city.

As you might be able to tell, I liked Hyderabad. A lot. Although it is located away from many other tourist destinations, I think it is worth the effort to go there. I would have like to have stayed longer, but we have a visa that is soon to expire, and many other places we want to visit before we temporarily leave this country.

N.B. We have had a break through. Alex, eating street food, while sat on a dirty pavement. It might have taken 4½ months, but we got there! The diary of neuroses is getting added to less and less frequently. I am proud of you darling!

The Indian Train Journey

2012-03-08T05:30:00.000-08:00

We eventually managed to figure out the complicated system of booking train tickets and the numerous classes on Indian trains (there are 8 in all, 2SC being not as good as 3A, but 2A being the best, except in the few trains that have 1A and executive classes). And as such have embarked on our first 30 hour train journey up from the tip of India to…….about a third of the way up the country, to Hyderabad, which is still considered South India. We have another 2 of these to go through before we get to Kolkota, and it is still then another 15 hour bus journey to get to Darjeeling. My life, this country is big.

We also decided to travel in bling class, the best available on the train that would take us to Hyderabad, 2A. After getting on at the exact and complete opposite end of the train, we then had to wiggle and barge our way through peasant classes to get to carriage 1A, which was positioned at the end rather than the beginning of the train. There are around 25 carriages to a train, when you look out the door, sometimes you can’t see the end of it, they are huge metal snakes that slide across the country. We set off together to push through the peasants, our backpacks mainly a massive hindrance in the narrow walkways that offer passage through the train. Of course they have their uses in being good barging tools every now and again, but trying to negotiate the one man walkways, already squished with two people thick, was somewhat difficult, and painful to many of the people I encountered. Especially those who insisted on sucking in, instead of moving out the way. I warned them each time that maybe they would want to move a little more out the way, but no, I should pass, and as I squelched through the bodies I could hear groans of pain echoing behind me. I lost Alex. I think he managed to get wedged between a Muslim cleric and a toilet door. By the time I had realised I had gone too far, there was no room to back up. Reversing with a back pack is no easy task when it has to pass through the river of people that quickly flowed back into the path I have just carved for myself. As I continued on my arduous journey through the train, and found myself in a couple of stand offs. Both times with old beggar women. One of which had Parkinson’s. She trembled, her wrinkled leathery skin shaking free from her old bones as she faced me. I was unable to turn, or to reverse, we were locked in morally dubious combat. There was no way she was going back the way she had come, neither was she going to let this opportunity pass, a tiny wibbling hand extended towards me and the others sat around. I dug around in the many pockets of my front back pack, struggling to finger out a few stray coins that hid elusively in the recess. This is no easy feat when stuck in a narrow carriage way with two back packs on. My elbow knocked about hard objects, and soft people, a queue of others were impatiently nudging me from behind to get a move on, oblivious to the stand off happening. Finally my fingers found purchase on a 5 rupee coin, I fished it out and handed it to her. Still she didn’t make any effort to let me through. So I pretty much picked her up and plopped her down in an off shoot aisle, before continuing. A few carriages down I spied another beggar woman, she was a little more robust, but only in comparison to the previous one. And this one found the situation a lot funnier. I found another few rupees, and started the delicate process of manoeuvring the old lady out of my way. She giggled the whole way through. After that progress was relatively easy, and I eventually found the cool breath of the AC compartments. 2A, where the well to do Indians travel.

You’d imagine something pretty nice for the best class available, that costs 1900 rupees, where proper peasant class is around 200 rupees for the distance we travelled, and in comparison it was positively luxurious. Although I wouldn’t expect many well to do English persons being particularly impressed with sharing their carriage with mice and cockroaches for 30 hours. They were pretty respectful though, and left my underwear alone, and knew that Alex’s face was out of bounds. And without trying too sound to colonial, it was rather civilised. Someone came along and took our food order, and they would return a couple of hours later, at the breakfast/lunch/dinner time with the requested meal. There were constant calls alerting us to chai, coffee, water and fried snacks and even the toilets were tolerable, they flushed and had soap. We barely even noticed that we were on the train for so long. Time just seemed to disappear, a day of our lives just vanished, as the changing scenery of India rolled by outside the window. The backwaters and palms were gradually replaced by farm land, rocky plains, piles of red chillies and reed huts.

When we think of the bus journeys we would have had to endure to get to this point, we are very relieved, and quite looking forward to travelling up the rest of India by train.

Kanyakumari

2012-03-08T05:27:00.001-08:00

Where the Indian Ocean meets the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. Where yellow sand meets black and red sand. Where the Indian pilgrims flock, Kanyakamari, the Southern-most tip of India, to watch the sun rise and set over the sea and bathe in the sacred waters. And no, I have no idea why they are sacred. And no, I have not bathed in them.

Kanykamari is much more of what I expected from India. Touts, beggars, excited children, pilgrims and persistent necklace sellers. Selling real pearls, of course, a whole string of them, perfectly formed and beautifully iridescent all for a 100 rupees. They’ll even try and burn them with a lighter to prove to you that they are not plastic, as someone cynical may suspect them to be. The main bazaar that leads up to the temple, which is positioned right on the tip of India, is lined with ‘fancy’ shops and trashy souvenirs. Lampshades, mirrors, necklaces, hanging decorations all made from shells are abundant, and are as kitsch as the 1970’s. Plastic rickshaws, machine guns, boats and dolls can all be bought for 30 rupees. People throng up and down the busy little street at night and mooch lazily along it during the day, in the beginning of this very hot Indian summer. There is a good breeze that skips in from the many seas, which makes walking around this disparate little town just tolerable. There are fishing boats that line the edges of the seas, and brittle reed houses set a little further back that sit in the cool shadow of large expensive hotels. On the dusty streets, amongst the tat shops, imposing hotels, and grimy lodges, are snippets of the past.

Dilapidated temple entrances sneak in between shops, their perverse statues of horse/lion/drangon/elephant hybrids, with huge penises that are fucking small elephants, which in turn are fucking even smaller, surprisingly happy little men at the bottom, sit ignored, whispering tales of times gone by to the covered, conservative, now censored Hindus that wander past wishing to prostrate themselves to the sun.

Sunrise and sunset are the things to do here. Although, there is also the candy pink Gandhi memorial which held his ashes before they were immersed, and where I was asked to make extra donations to the pocket of the woman who looked after my shoes. I pointed out that this was the Gandhi memorial, and opportunistic scrounging was maybe a little incongruous, but I think the subtlety of the point was lost on her, she just scowled and spat when she realised I wasn’t going to ‘donate’ to her.

I got up at 5.20 am to secure myself a good spot for the sunrise, as did a few thousand other people. It was far more bustling than I have ever experienced 5.20 am to be before. Calls of ‘chai, chai, chai’, ‘coffee, coffee, coffee’ punctuated the din of the crowds, the bell of a boy selling bags of pink candy floss tinkled in endless circuits around people, and the relentless whispering on the necklace sellers trying to prove the authenticity of their pearls could be heard with every step. I made my way down to the Ghats, and managed to find a good spot on a wall, which was clearly the envy of many others, whose closeness and gentle nudging made me suspect they were wishing to make space for themselves, by ousting me. People swarmed down to the Ghats, into the sea and onto the rocks, and stared excitedly at the large Vivekananda statue that sits benignly on a rock just off shore. As the skies lightened and the sun struggled its way into the day behind the hazy of cloud, there was a cheer and applause from the gathered crowd. And eventually, the sun wrestled free from the haze, and presented himself as a large, proud red disc to his followers beyond Vivekananda. (Vivekananda is the wandering monk who dedicated his life to bringing a sense of social justice to Hinduism.)

Sunset was a little more manageable time wise. I wandered back down to the same spot I watched sunrise from, but looking in the other direction. The place was a mass of people who seemed more akin to holiday makers as opposed to pilgrims. There were fried food sellers lining the edges of the Ghats, offering samosas, battered chilli’s, fried bananas, tough orange coloured sweetcorn (even the beggar children turned that down when I offered it to them) and fruit. Along the front of those, white horses trotted gleeful children up and down, and on the beach families, giggling girls and boisterous boys teased each other with the sea. The men swimming with happy exhuberence and the women gently testing the water, laughing at the waves that splashed them while they egged each other on to step in a little deeper. Laughter and sounds of people enjoying themselves mingled with the horn-like voices of the chai sellers. There was the occasional genuine pilgrim, spotted as if in a game of where’s wally, identifiable by their orange robes, who entered the sea with their plastic Pepsico bottle to fill it with sacred sea water.

I like Kanyakumari. This is what I had in my expectations of India. People, noise, bustle. And the strange thing is, that even though I have come here as a lone female traveller, I have not been hassled or felt under so much scrutiny as I have done in the Western tourist destinations. Here I am seen as more exotic and a little more unapproachable than a trophy fuck……………And before I even had time to finish that sentence, and Indian man strikes up conversation with me. After a couple of minutes inane conversation, about his future wife and family, he asks what room number I am and tells me we should go there, to enjoy, presumably.

I honestly don’t know how women deal with travelling around this country alone. I don’t want to assume that every man who talks to me is wanting to ‘enjoy’ me, and who then assumes I will thanks to the portrayal of Western women in movies. I imagine most porn actresses are white. In a culture where the men and women are separate and have little interaction within groups after childhood, and the women are taught when young to be hostile to men, that a smiling face with a willingness to talk must seem easy, accommodating; available. It makes the idea of travelling on my own seem a little daunting. I would have to adopt a hardness I wouldn’t want to just to deal with people. To have to be incredibly wary of those around me, to not talk to any local, to be hard towards people. I don’t want to do that. I am not sure there is any country where I want to be like that.

Someone said to me yesterday, ‘As soon as you think you have things figured out here, something will come along to completely contradict what you thought you knew.’

Varkala

2012-02-16T21:50:00.000-08:00

So I did it. I finally mustered the gumption to move on from Kochi – only temporarily of course, I will be going back to meet up with Alex again, who hasn’t quite found it in his heart to wrench himself away. I have moved onto Varkala, another beach resort, and braved a train to do it. Which, contrary to the myths, was exceptionally easy, and insanely cheap. I got to the ticket booth at the train station, bought a ticket, and got on a train that was only 15 minutes late. That was it. No drama. And I got a seat, no one did a shit in the carriage, there was no one transporting buckets full of rotting fish, or cages of enthusiastic chickens, there was space for everyone to sit, and even put their feet up in many cases. I even managed to get a seat by the window, so could benefit from the breeze and see the beautiful Keralan scenery trundle by at a gentle speed. Of course it may well be a bit different in a bigger city….I am sure I will let you know if it is.

It got a little surreal for the rickshaw ride to the beach. There was a temple festival on, and tailing processions of people, trucks and elephants were slowing traffic down, which is nothing unusual in itself. Having been in India for almost 4 months now it is a common sight to see people taking to the street to protest, proclaim and celebrate. However, the people in the procession, were a sight I have never seen before. After passing a long line of young men and boys with 3 metre poles hanging through their cheeks, which had spoon on the end of them containing fire, the rickshaw drove past a truck, off the cab of the truck was a crude frame constructed of metal poles, from which 5 boys hung horizontally suspended by a number of thick hooks pierced through the skin. Just dangling off the front of the truck, swaying with the lumbering movements of the vehicle. One of the strangest introductions to a town I have ever experienced. It made me wonder exactly what was in store from me when I arrived at my destination, which was at the mercy of the rickshaw driver, as I had left the lonely planet with Alex in Kochi.

But it was no way near as exciting as the journey in was. This is Goa on a cliff. Lots of skinny young girls sauntering around in spaghetti string clothes, men with holiday facial hair and quirky hats, dirt laden dreadlocks swishing, executives ‘letting go’ and getting a bit bohemian with white linen shirts and leather sandals, young families with their hot, bothered little oiks, and randy eyed waiters with cheery charm offensives to lure any potential romance into their restaurants so they can flirt as they take orders.

But it is beautiful. Really beautiful. Rich red cliffs wend their way along the coast line, gregarious green plants creep up them as far as they can gain purchase on the crumbling faces. Natural springs seep through the rocks and trickle down onto the yellow beach, which is melded with traces of volcanic black sand. And they stretch for miles in either direction of where I am staying. I have walked in both directions for an hour or so, and found no end to the exquisite beaches. And they are clean! Please bear in mind, that after 4 months in India, I may well be getting a little desensitised to muck. And during one of my walks I saw a group of fat moustached Indian men standing in the sea, the waves softly foaming around their ankles, the sun casting crystals across the surface of the perfect blue, their womenfolk giggling nearby, daring each other to inch further in, as the sea soaked up their saris; the men had in their hands plastic bags. Staring out into this earthly paradise, each of them shook empty the bags, spewing plastic bottles, paper, and other unwanted detritus into the sea in front of them. What was quite spectacular was their response to the wavelet that promptly returned their trash to their ankles. They looked at it, affronted that the sea could be so presumptuous as to render their rubbish back to them, scooped as much from around their ankles as possible, and threw it again at the next wave heading towards them; which rather predictably, brought their crap back to them. They repeated this process 3 times before giving up. It was really something special. There is also a rubbish tree further down the beach, upon which people have tied debris that has appeared on the shores onto the tree. There is a mobile phone cover, a few empty alcohol bottles, a flip-flop, a bra and a couple of plastic bags, amongst other stuff. It’s quite pretty, surprisingly.

The resort itself perches precariously on the edge of a cliff, looking down on a pretty bay, and across the sea to the point it drops off the end of the horizon. A string of colourful shops and restaurants, all boasting Western food and wifi, line the edge of the cliff. Set back from these, guest houses, bamboo bungalows and heritage homes spread away from the ‘strip’ or ‘uneven cobbled path’ as it is better described.

It is a lovely spot, and very quiet, even the crows seem to find less to chat about here. But I am tired of the same conversations with other travellers, ‘where you from?’, ‘how long are you in India for?’, ‘Have you been to so and so place, it is simply amazing?’, ‘done much yoga yet?’ blah blah blah. And most people are quite frankly, pretty boring, talking tritely of spirituality and ashrams, somehow oblivious to the cultish nature of them. I was introduced to a few Germans that were devotees to Amma, the hugging mother, who apparently hugs for 12 hours a day while addressing her followers. To get a hug, tokens are issued, and the huggee then stands in line for a few hours to get a potentially healing hug from Amma. Is this the Disney land of spirituality? It is certainly big business. The ashram is situated in the Keralan backwaters, vast concrete apartment blocks springing up, within which, small rooms are rented out to middle men, and then to the devotees themselves, for 600 rupees a day (£8), and are shared with two others. Meals are included though. There are four meter diameter huts being built, that are being sold for £30K to Western devotees. The rather maniac Germans tell me that Amma has special powers, that she can heal, if the Gods so chose. And that she is generous too, that she builds hospitals and schools for the poor. I asked why she didn’t just hug the ills of the poor away if she was so gifted, but apparently it is better that she builds hospitals that use Western medicines than abuse the power given to her by God. I didn’t really get much further, despite trying, with that argument. In fact I didn’t get very far with any argument based at a rational level with them. Amma had found them and they were now surrendered to her will. For a fee.

I have been quite misanthropic since arriving, and in four days have made only one new friend. And I am also remembering the difficulties of travelling as a lone female. The lusty urgings of men on holiday that just want to rut, and the pesky Indians who assume that you want to fuck them because you smile and are white. Last night some charming meat heads from Kent basically informed me that I could join them on the beach to make a fire, and I would be safe, they wouldn’t rape me. An Indian who thought that confidence was all he needed to make a bed fellow of me, told me I was arrogant because I spurned his pathetic advances. And even a man who I have known for two months now, and who also knows Alex as well as two months will allow, asked me if I was ‘making fun’ while I was apart from him. There is a lot of libido to wade through with polite hostility before you can actually talk to the man rather than his lusty cock.

Alex has now decided to join me, Kochi is apparently losing its peculiar appeal so is going to come here. Then we are going on a two week holiday with Graham and Sue……..around Kerala, starting in Kochi! I might actually get round to seeing the tourist sights in Kochi, like the Dutch Palace and the Synagogue. Maybe…..

The Indian Model of the Complaints System

2012-02-14T01:12:00.000-08:00

I am fairly convinced that the infuriating system with in the UK on how to manage and deal with complaints has been directly lifted from the Indians. The system of absolved responsibility, of another party with whom you should take up issue with, who then use their lack of English/understanding to skilfully evade your wrath.

So what has prompted this. My laundry. The only clothes I have for the next 10 months or so of my life. My second skin to protect me from the perceived shame of nudity. Clothes that cost money, a lot of money, when I have a budget of £100 a week to shelter, feed, water myself and travel around. Which is doable, but doesn’t leave much spare. Of course the Indians don’t see this, they see white, the colour of money out here. Pale skinned pounds walking around that are ready and waiting to be milked. I understand why, I am sat in a bar drinking a beer which costs about a quarter of the daily wage of a waiter here tapping out my frustration on a netbook that costs almost a month of working 16 hour days. That I can take a year off to swan around their country taking advantage of the insanely cheap cost of living. But still, it is very fucking annoying that because of that it is assumed that I am going to be apathetic when things fuck up, it costs me, and they don’t feel they have to make any concessions to said fuck ups when they occur.

So anyway my laundry. Having run out of clean clothes, I pass pretty much my entire backpack of clothes to be washed to the guys running the guest house I am staying in. Finally, on the fourth day, I receive them back, pleased that I can now change out of the rather smelly clothes that I have been sweating to for the length of time my other clothes have been absent. I get passed them, neatly folded, not exactly smelling fresh, wrapped in newspaper. Unfolding them to put on a new top, I discover that instead of being washed they look like they have been worn to Holi festival. Holi festival, also known as the festival of colours, is a celebration where participants throw coloured paint at each other. There is red everywhere. On all my tops. Only my black trousers appear unscathed, presumably because they are black, not because they are immune to splattered red dye. In a wonderful twist, the only red item I have appears not to be sprayed in red dye, but instead has a nice long black smear spreading down my cleavage. My red top is part of a salwar which I bought to hide my modesty and play down my rather obvious breasts, which now, is perversely cleavage proud with the black smear that runs through the space between. How freaking annoying.

After making my colourful discovery, I am seeing red. I take my clothes and try and find the elusive staff, who always seem to be absent when needed. When finding them, I display my clothes to them, at which, and this is an infuriatingly common reaction to things going wrong, a couple of them laugh. Oh ha-bloody-ha, all my clothes are ruined. Even when you suggest that laughing isn’t the best approach when dealing with irked people, it doesn’t seem to abate. In fact they usually laugh a little more. I have included a plot to show the laughing to irritation trend.

My scowl intensity rapidly increased with the laughing man, also aided by the man who tells me to talk to the laundry people. Who are in Varkala town. Who don’t speak English. They might be along this evening, I can discuss this with them then. I explain that I don’t know the laundry people, that I gave my washing to them, that as far as I am concerned they are my contact, and they have some element of responsibility in passing my laundry onto them to be washed. But no, I need to talk to the washing people. So call them for me and tell them I am upset, and stop laughing. No mam, the laundry people will be here this evening, talk to them then. I could of course hand back my laundry and they could try again. No, that is plain stupid, call the laundry people, and if you don’t stop laughing I am going to get even angrier. I have to travel for a year in these clothes, I want you to do something. Please mam, be quiet we are doing Ayevedic treatments and I don’t want to disturb them. But I am disturbed, what about my disruption, my clothes are ruined! (There is no more laughing) I want you to recognise that my clothes are fucked and you are partially responsible. Really mam, there are people in treatments. I don’t care, I care about my clothes, and I want you to care too. I look at him in the eye, and ask, are you actually going to do anything? Are you going to find anyway to compensate me? Are you going to call the laundry? Mam, they will be here this evening you can talk to them then. Do they speak English? No. So I can’t speak to them then. You will have to talk to them this evening. Oh. My. Life.

And that is it, they turn around sit back down again, and ignore you, now they have stopped smiling. I am impotent. Completely fucking impotent. There is nothing I can do, stuck between excuses and language barriers. Anger offers only paltry rewards, if I kick up another stink, they might not charge me for the red dye they have smothered my clothes in, but they certainly aren’t going to give me the forty quid it will cost to replace them. It is exhausting having to fight for insulting victories, like not paying for washing that isn’t really washed.

Looks like I am going to be wearing mostly red this year…..

Ponnani Wedding

2012-02-02T05:51:00.001-08:00

I am thinking of amending this blog and entering it into a competition, so it cannot have been availble elsewhere. Let me know you want to read the unamended version, and I will send it through to you. I warn you though, it is quite long.......

I can put up the photos though as a teaser!