road trip...

On my 2nd day in Arambol I met Jamie, author of a fine travel blog (currently not working), thru which I'd found the details of the guesthouse following Dan's reccommendation (thanks for that!). He & I concocted a plan to drive the length of Goa to Palolem, the iconic picture-postcard beach of Goa.

So, Sunday morning, 7am, possibly still pissed, having learned to ride a scooter the day before, set out on a 60 mile journey down the national highway... (sorry mum). As it turns out, Sunday is a very good day to do this as there's (relatively) little traffic & (relatively) few police (who have a habit of stopping you & extorting money from you basically for being white). This was a lot of fun - wind in hair, insects in face, lush & varied countryside



from everglade-like marshlands, to coconut groves, past waterfalls, into the western ghats (range of hills), speeding straight into a group of policemen out to earn some extra cash on their day off...

Whistle blows. We pull over.
"Show me your driving license"
(produce license)
"Show me your international driving license"
"...err... don't think I've got it with me..."
"Where is it?"
"At the hotel... Sorry?"
(Silence. Glare)
"Is there a fine I can pay" (thanks for that line Nye!)
(Smiles, marches us over to van)
"No driving license: 3000 rupees each"
(Pause. Pushing money belt, containing 10,000, further down trousers)
"I'm very sorry but I don't have anything like that amount on me"
(Show them wallet in which I'd put 200 rupees earlier for this scenario)
(Disappointment. Dejection. Talks to mate in Hindi, mate laughs)
"You can't pay fine, what shall I do?"
(Silence. Head wobble. Exasperated sigh)
"OK, you pay 100 rupees each, you need to buy food"
(Try to contain look of elation at lack of search or police station. Gratitude, shake hands(!), avoid temptation to take photo, drive off)

Arriving in Palolem was like entering paradise. A cove, about 1 mile across, white sand, rimmed by palm trees, island at one tip, waves but no rip, almost too perfect... Well, a few too many beach huts & tourists but otherwise...



Spent a couple of days there, possibly the most relaxing experience I've ever had. A scramble south round a couple of headlands leads to Patnem, which is very nearly as beautiful but with very few people because the authorities recently bulldozed all the buildings owing to a technicality! Further still is Raglam, where I spent an afternoon alone, with about 2 miles of amazing beach, 3 dogs, a couple of eagles and my mp3 player for company. Bliss.



Having resolved to avoid national highways and major towns for fear of the po-lis, I set off north on an epic tour of goa. Not the wisest move when you have a very out-of-date map which is probably some hippy's impression from memory, and there are no roadsigns at all. Approximately 1 in 4 of the people I asked for directions actually knew the way to the village next to theirs. So i went round in circles, found a 300-year-old portugese landowner's mansion where i was shown round by a man who was practically comatose and wanted me to change his prescriptions! Here's an old piano:



I had intended to make my way back to the coast, find a nice beach and get a room. However, I hadn't quite appreciated why Goa has the reputation it does amongst more discerning travellers. Until then, I'd met more holiday makers and ex-pats than backpackers, but it had been pleasant enough. But it turns out that most of central goa's beaches are quite like the costa del sol. The sun was going down, I couldn't find a nice beach anywhere, so kept on heading north, having to use the national highway - tailgating big trucks through police checks seems to work quite nicely! After about 8 hours on the scooter I had to stop, and unfortunately I was in Calangute, one of the aforementioned horrible beaches. It is terrible, overpriced, and I woke up to a room full of cockroaches. There's a massive flea-market nearby in Anjuna though:



Anyway, I'm currently staying in my train-friend Vinay's 2-bed, 2-bath, 3-balcony flat, by myself, for free! So things could be worse. Off to Hampi on Sunday. I've really enjoyed Goa. It'd be a great place to come on holiday, and if you do, rent a scooter: mine cost me 12 pounds for the week and 200 miles has cost about 6 pounds in fuel! I'm looking forward to leaving Goa and getting back to India now. I'll leave you with a Palolem sunset...

going going goan

Mumbai was a blur. Because of touts booking all train tickets to Goa in season (starting over the next few weeks), the only train I could take left early in the morning on the day after we arrived. So our tour of India's poshest hotels was cut short prematurely and i was whisked away from Will and Jonny, in their newly tailored suits, with barely a chance to say tata... Despite the overwhelming sarcasm of my last post, this was actually quite sad!



So the train was fun. Having woken up at 530, it was "rescheduled" by 3 hours, then lost a further 2 hours en route. So I arrived in Goa at half past midnight. But I did meet a very interesting septogenarian Goan called Vinay and a mid-twenties Keralan naval officer named Razzaq. They bought me Chai, we swapped stories, I learned a lot. It was nice.

It struck me that all my time in India up until then had been spent in cities, and even in England 2 weeks away from the countryside is about my limit.



So it was great to see lush lush lush foliage (eg Banyan tree above), wildlife (all sorts of amphibian/reptile life asleep in the roads at night etc), and also Goan people are incredibly friendly, on the whole. I've been staying in "God's Gift Guesthouse" (I don't think they're trying to be ostentatious), and speaking of friendly Indians, the hosts Costam and Ruby are 2 of the nicest people ever. Costam, despite being woken up by my taxi driver in the middle of the night, and not noticing the cockroach sauntering across his pants, didn't stop grinning as he showed me round 3 (identical) rooms. He drove me into Arambol (just along the beach), ran about half a mile to give me his flip-flops when he saw me sprinting between shadows to minimise the smoke smouldering from my feet, i could go on. here's the aforementioned Arambol, north Goa:



Life in Goa is pretty tough. At least twice a day I'm faced with impossible dilemmas such as: Shall I go for a swim in the Arabian sea, which is warmer than many baths I've had, or shall I go for a ride on Barley, my scooter, around some of the most beautiful countryside I've ever seen?



This is all well and good for now, but I'm not very good at being a beach bum. It feels like holiday (a very very good holiday), but not travelling. I think I'll zip down Goa over the next week or so and then head off... Still, I really would recommend it



oh yes, Happy Diwali! I didn't time it so well - Goa is probably the least interesting place in India to celebrate a Hindu festival. Lots of colourful decorations though, Indians throwing fireworks... don't think they've got those adverts here... and lots of westerners sipping cocktails over chilled-out trance. hmmm. Nice sunset though...

all things go, all things go

Just arrived in Mumbai - that's Bombay - following an 18-hour train journey from Jaipur, which is a bit cooler than here. The time flew on the train... after Will had described his ultimate sandwich and I my ultimate risotto we only had about 2 hours left.
So, Delhi was hot. Jonny and Will arrived there a week ago and dampened my jubilant mood with their incessant cynicism and misery-mongering. We left the next day in the hope that i might lose at least one of them on the way to Agra, which is hotter than Delhi. Now, Agra is famous (in my experience) for 2 things: firstly a 1-month-old german shepherd called Tom:


Of course Will, ever the adventurous glutton, despite my reasoning that he'd be a bit stringy, tried to buy him from the hotel owner (who'd bought him for Rs5000 that day). When that failed, Will sat on Tom. Not nice. It was becoming a bit like a roadrunner cartoon until Will finally had his 4th lunch and fell asleep...

The second memory of note in Agra is this rather elaborate grave stone:


No photograph could ever do justice to this place. It is unbelievable. Probably about 3 times bigger than i thought - click on the above photo and see how big the people standing next to it are... I cannot describe how evocative it is to see something quite so perfect. Undoubtedly the most amazing man-made structure I've ever seen. In fact, what the heck, here it is again:


Next time I'm in Agra (which was the capital until Shah Jahan moved it to Delhi) I'll have a look at the fort and a few other things but alas there wasn't time on this occasion.

So, we made our way to Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan, that afternoon. Its pink, dusty, hotter than Agra, camels aplenty, and was the scene of much bathroom disaster. I think we were complacent in Agra - its probably best not to eat in a restaurant with rats running round, or to eat cold "samosas" on the train after they've been walked up and down in the heat by a grubby man for 4 hours. In addition to the gut gymnastics we all partook in, I also sustained a screaming fever - my upgrade was most likely due to the sour iced coffee I drank in Agra. So, didn't see a lot of Jaipur, and it was fairly fortunate timing that we didn't need to go anywhere for a few days.


Now, the reason I am currently cursed with such terrible company is that, a couple of weeks ago, Will and I got drunk and (apparently) I persuaded him to come to India for 10 days on the promise that we'd go to see India play England in the ICC Championships. So, risking very real catastrophic potential, we went. The cheap seats had sold out so we paid Rs1500 for ours. We imagined this would take us to some kind of air-conditioned box with a private bar, butler service and (most importantly) nice toilets very close indeed. However... the extra money we paid was for the privilege of having a seat rather than a step. Except these were unfixed patio seats, on flat ground, behind several fences, sets of scaffolding and about 1000 other seats... all sharing 2 squat-toliets. So, we got involved. We moved our seats quite near to the front, as did everyone else, and an enormous game of musical chairs ensued. Except that instead of running around chairs the aim, apparently, was to steal as many as you could, to make as large a stack as possible, then to stand on the arms of the top chairs, and occasionally fall off. And instead of music, there were policemen with big sticks who occasionally stopped watching the match and made everyone sit down on just one chair. Fun was had. I couldn't take my camera into the ground, but lets break this up with a picture anyway:


So, the cricket crowd was a bit like a massive school trip with lots of sugar and no teachers. The most important thing was that everyone get wildly over-excited together, & not necessarily about the cricket. Sometimes the trigger for the us all to jump to our chairs and cheer at the top of our voices was completely understandable - a Tendulkar mis-field, or a fielder turning to vaguely look in our direction, for example - and sometimes (for example during the first ball of the Indian innings) the stimulus would be that a TV camera on a building behind us had vaguely pointed at us, and EVERYBODY would turn round, go crazy and put on our best Bollywood grins. It was fascinating, and I mean that (despite the 40 degree heat, cold sweats, pounding headache and ominous rumbles). It seemed that the joy of the crowd was not due to the cricket but to the excitement of the crowd itself.

One of the most rewarding aspects of this week has been seeing Indian people interacting with each other, without taking any notice of me. During the mid-session interval at the cricket, and on the train journeys, I've felt really privileged to see such beaming warmth and empathy displayed between friends. Its not something I've seen in the west, and is really very special.


So, Will & Jonny leave in a couple of days and I'll then head south, probably to a beach in Goa, which is hotter than Mumbai, for a week or so (I'd much rather be at work in sunny london, but needs must...). I'm really excited about this trip now, and having had less than 2 weeks so far, 6 months seems like a very long time.

(ps, sorry, i seem to have lost the ability to use commas. but, at, least i,m responding to popular demand and using a few capital letters now,)

First impressions... SSHAAZZAAMM!!

scene. delhi is pretty goddam hectic. not actually as difficult to adjust to as i had expected - i've had a lot of ghanaian de ja vu. obviously incredibly different cultures etc but at this very early stage its the environmental differences from home that are more thrust upon me than cultural ones: its hot, there's that sweet smell of sewage/petrol everywhere, litter & animals in the street,


flies buzzing round their heads, vultures circling the dead


(or at least huge numbers of hawks chasing soon-to-be-dead pigeons), horns a plenty, seemingly no traffic laws, and people people people everywhere doing something i'm sure. so i'm not really that displaced. it's definitely more full-on than west africa but i'm older (7 years!), wiser (well...), street-wise (landan innit), more cynical (possibly), and whatever, than i was.

i'm having a quiet day today, partly as it needs to be cheap, and partly because i don't want to stray too far from my hotel... last night the contortionists in my digestive tract finally put on the show they'd been promising all day. looks like it was a one-night-only performance, thank god, but i'm not taking any risks! the experience was made all the more magical for the gremlins who'd somehow removed my bathroom light and replaced my main light with a very slow strobe, having blown the bulb in my trusty torch the night before. so, by the light of a mobile 'phone screen...

here are some things i've done: arrived on friday morning, very tired - didn't sleep on plane, not good - went to new delhi which is fairly uninspiring, planned, impressive buildings etc. but old delhi is unplanned, chaotic, nuts. really enjoyed it. here's the red fort:


its from the Mughal reign (17th century), built by Shah Jahan (of Taj Mahal fame), with a nice mix of crumbling red sandstone buildings and intricate marble-inlayed courts. history on a plate, very relaxing after coming through old delhi.

here's the largest mosque in india


where i burned my naked feet on the searing stone.


old delhi was incredible but possibly a bit much for my 2nd day in india. The bazzars are so easy to get lost and overwhelmed in - they look a bit like this:


but i stuck it out for an hour or so before retreating onto a cycle rickshaw. this was not quite the relaxation aid I was looking for though & after 45 minutes of hair-raising manouvers through bursting streets that were bumpy as hell, across major 6-lane intersections with buses bareing down, I was exhausted... imagine how he felt:


meet Faroz. i like to think i paid him well for an amazing ride but, actually, he ripped me off. nye's advice to treat 100 rupees as if it were 10 pounds seems about right (its actually about 1 pound 25p) but is easier said than done, at least to start with. it's amazing how quickly you adjust - i was probably hassled 3 times as much on my first day as i was today. and i'm getting used to having cobras shoved in my face when i've just avoided being run over too.

here's Paharganj, where i'm staying:


its pretty seedy, but is the only place i've met fellow backpackers.

to be honest, i'd probably have left delhi after a couple of days if it weren't for the imminent arrival of the bartlett-domino roadshow. i'm pleased i didn't though... yesterday, having had 2 very full-on days, i was really glad to meet Henning - a thoughtful , easy-going dutch carpenter with considerable indian experience. having established the importance of not being constantly on the go, we decided to take it easy and went for a stroll off the lonely planet map (!) north of paharganj to an area henning had found the day before. we quickly got lost and found oursleves far away from the main roads in a maze of pastel-coloured houses (no 2 the same), doors open to small rooms where entire families live, streets of laundry, men playing cards & being shaved, exquisite tiny crumbling temples, you get the picture. it was nice to see indians doing their thing, fairly oblivious to us (or at least looking with curiosity rather than dollar-signs in their eyes). became involved in a street cricket match which was great fun, and the whole experience was quite a privilege. not without its sobering sides though - whilst most people seemed quite content, there were several people clearly in need of medical treatment and the sight of horses tethered in the sun without water and cows eating rubbish, slowly dying, is not so easy. i didn't take my camera, which was probably a good thing. after a while it became a bit intense as we entered an area where all the kids seemed to be, at first only a few plucked said hello, but then all their friends joined in, then all theirs, it all escalated and we had to get out! felt quite shell-shocked for a while, but it seemed like my first real experience of india. which is nice.

so, its all good. it feels like parts of me that have been in hibernation for a long cold winter are waking up to some serious sensory overload...