Friday 26 October 2007

5 minutes after checking into a new hotel...

"Can I get you anything to smoke, bit of charas? Lovely Jubbly."
"How about some cocaine, got some charlie, cheap as chips..."

'Not now, thanks...'

"Well let me know, I'm just on my way to church, I'll get you some on the way..."

Only in Goa. Surely.

in search of the giant squirrel


giant squirrels!
apparently they have them here, although after offering this tantalizing piece of information, Lonely Planet fails to say how big the squirrel is. Could it be as big as a person? Is it just a bit bigger than a normal squirrel and therefore not worth hiring a jeep and hunting down whilst wearing a beige safari suit?
Yes folks, that's right, it's still all about the animals here in sunny India.

This morning there was a moth on the wall outside our room that was at least as big as my hand.
The other day I went to go to the loo and there was a frog in the toilet, which then swam away down the U-bend (I left it a decent amount of get-away time after that before returning to do what I originally intended). Actually that room was infested with frogs, and we had to get the hotel owner to come in and reassure us that they aren't in fact poisonous (I mean they were red, it was a legitimate concern).
I saw a dead sea snake on the beach. Nasty looking thing, apparently they're very poisonous but have feeble teeth and are very timid around swimmers. Which reassures me.
The cows and the dogs are endlessly entertaining. Picture it, you're lying on the beach and a gang of cows wanders past. Then a dog starts chasing them. Five minutes later they're all coming back the other way, although this time it's the cows chasing the dogs. It amuses me intensely. We also saw a full on bullfight on the beach the other day, with some crazy person getting upclose with their camcorder and filming it. the dogs were right in there then as well, was imagining they were shouting 'scrap, scrap, scrap', Amanda reckons the dogs here are like chavs. She has a point, they are always right in there if there's a fight going on.
The final thing? Oh yes, crabs. Loads of 'em. Keyhole crabs are really cute (I think that's what they're called) they make tiny little holes in the sand which they scuttle in and out of. But there are all kinds and the way they move is so amusing.

Sunday 14 October 2007

The challenge - random, really good conversational questions...

Having a conversation on the bus yesterday, I was asked a question which I have to say is pure genius -
"Who, in your opinion, is the father of dance?"
Bearing in mind that this was totally out of the blue, after a momentary lapse in conversation I think it was just the perfect thing to say.
The new challenge then, people, is to match the randomness and entertainment value of this question.

We said Michael Jackson. Who disagrees?

I spent a good while last night trying to think of questions to match it. I think I failed, the best I got was (the possibly mildly offensive) "Hanuman versus Ganesh - who'd win in a fight?"
I'll have to think about whether it would be wise to bust that one out on the next long journey. People here don't seem to be too sensitive about religion though, and freely question me about mine...
hmmm, dunno.

Amanda came up with - "walk on broken glass or chew nails?"
a nice attempt, I think.

Thursday 11 October 2007

Questions you hear a lot in India

"Are you married?"
"How old are you?"
"What is your country?"
"How much do you earn?"
"How much money are you going to spend in India?"
"Do you believe in God?"
"Are you looking for a playboy?"
"How much do you weigh?"
(ok that was only once, but I thought it was illustrative)
"Would you like to take my photo?"

I would include "you want rickshaw?"
but usually it's more of a command- "you want rickshaw!" followed by heavy disapproval when you don't.

Fun conversations we've had in India...

"Yes Madam, you want rickshaw?"
"No thankyou"
"ok"
(astounding)

"What do you think of these toilets?"
"They're very nice, great..."
"Would you like to sign our guestbook?"
(at the Taj Mahal)

"How much did this book cost (Lonely Planet India)?"
"about 2000 rupees"
-uproarious laughter
(on the train)

"Nice goggles"
(comment on my glasses whilst walking down the street in Udaipur)

feeling a bit colonial

ok, big gap, lots to say.
After sweltering the the dusty heat of Rajasthan we fancied heading to a hill station and are currently in a place called Mussourie. Remnants of British occupation are strangely evident here. Also it gets genuinely cold at night. So cold we even have blankets on our bed instead of the usual, erm, nothing (usually just sleep under a sarong). So when we arrived at our hotel, I really felt like we were in Scotland an impression reinforced by the tartan everywhere.
In the rest of India I haven't been aware of anyone being Christian (although a small section of the population are), but in Mussourie, it's all going on, they have methodist churches and looking from the window of our hotel we see school children doing army marches in their playground and singing hymns. And it all just feels like it must be a slightly strange leftover thing from the British. There is some evidence of it in the architecture too, and the emphasis on keeping the place unbelievably clean (again something I haven't seen elsewhere, the usual rubbish disposal method seems to be 'just throw it out the window'). Nowadays this is a tourist resort for Indian tourists more than for backpackers, and it has a really retro feel about it which I like a lot.
This also seems to be the land that fashion forgot. We were hoping to buy some warmer clothing up here, but it's proving tricky due to the fact that the shops have clearly experienced some kind of hostile 80s jumper invasion. I've spent a good deal of time looking at these and pondering whether they are indeed 'so bad they're good' but am reaching the conclusion that they're 'just bad'. It's bizarre, because the more traditional blankets and jackets, and the stuff they import from Nepal and Tibet is really gorgeous.
So we're going to spend a couple more days up here, tomorrow we're going on a 'day trip' which I am intrigued by! Next week we're heading to Goa for a bit of sun, sea and sand. It's looking like we could be there for a while, and I am really looking forward to it!

Friday 5 October 2007

I went to see the Taj Mahal and I saw a stoat

I'm big fat stinky tourist and so I went to see the Taj Mahal.
Verdict - beeaauuutiful.
It is the most romantic place (for those who don't know, this guy had it built when his wife died out of love for her). It's on a raised platform so that when you look at it the only backdrop is sky. The day we went the sky was the most amazing blue, not like blue skies in England it was kind of a hazy soft blue...sky sky sky, blah blah blah.
Yeah, so we wanted to have a 'Diana' moment so we took pictures of us sitting in front of it looking miserable. That was fun then we wondered around and saw some really cool birds in the trees and oddly enough, a stoat. At least we think it was a stoat. We seem to get more excited about the animals we see in India than anything else. We saw loads of pigs that day, rolling around in the stinky drains. We were very excited about that as well.
Anyway, so foreigners have to wear shoe covers to go in, Indians go barefoot as it seems the assumption is that foreigners can't be walking on the floor cos the marble gets really hot in the sun. So we plod into the Taj with our ridiculous big shoe covers, and it's really dark in there. It's so bright outside that it takes a few minutes for your eyes to adjust. It's a really simple design, all white, and there are birds flying around. There's loads of stuff from the Qu'ran written on the walls, and really simple patterns. Some women were tutting at us because our hair wasn't covered, which is odd because although their's was, loads of other Indian women were there without their heads covered too. It seems that anything we do that might be a little incorrect is much worse here than if an Indian was doing the same thing.
I got chatting to a lovely girl called Rupa (what a great name) who was up for the day from the south of India. I've had some amazing conversations with people since I got here, but more on that later.
Anyway, I'm finding it hard to follow my own thread here due to accidental whiskey induced madness last night which must have killed a good few brain cells and has totally wiped out my memory.

Thursday 4 October 2007

24 HOUR, NO TOILET, NO SHOWER, FULL POWER!!

This is a tribute to an amazing rickshaw driver we met yesterday (by we I don't mean the royal we, I mean myself and Amanda, my lovely travel companion)
Waseen picked us up at the train station and was totally hilarious. Singing Bob Marley songs, telling bizarre jokes, doing magic tricks, he even let us drive his rickshaw.
We were in Agra just for the day to see the Taj Mahal and then chillout before our evening train, but having met Waseen we decided to go on a tour of the city. He keeps a little notebook with him where his satisfied customers write their comments. Everyone seems to love this guy and many people referred to him having touched their life in a special way. He certainly is that kind of genuinely joyful positive person, in the front of the notebook is something he wrote himself about life and love. I wish I could remember it. It was a kind of manifesto of his whole attitude to life, and I feel lucky to have met him especially at this stage of my travels in India (slight culture shock setting in, feeling a bit hassled and besieged).
He even gave me a little yoga lesson.

We went to see some really cool bits of Agra, like the back of the Taj Mahal where you don't have to pay to see it and this building with amazing Islamic design (I think it was a mausoleum, to be honest i was too busy looking at it rather than reading the plaque outside which explained the place).
The title of this post is a saying of Waseen's, which he reckons he made up himself. I'm impressed. It certainly sums up our mammoth journey of yesterday and all of last night from Jaipur through to Rishikesh. A train then a train then a train then a bus then a rickshaw mamma mia.