India Part 6 – Epilogue: Mixing it with Bollywood’s hot young things

LL, Sys, Box

How’s it going?

I’m at the free email thing in Singapore, so I thought I’d fill you in on
our last night in Mumbai.

We met up with Tim’s Norweigan mate who got bitten by the rabid dog. He told
us he had gone to the hospital blind drunk at 6 in the morning and got shots
for rabies and tetanus, and was stoked that it only cost him 650 rupees
($20) – we informed him that this was the stupid westerner price, and he
should have bargained the doctor down to 300 at the most. We cut him loose
after a while and cruised around with two African guys who lived and worked
in Mumbai.

These fellas knew all the hot-spots, and we went to some establishments that
were classier than I have ever been in, and Tim’s Dunlop Volley’s were no
problem, once we informed security that they were the height of fashion in
Australia. We were refused entry to the nightclub in the ultra-glamorous Taj
Hotel because it’s “couples only” and they refused to believe that Tim and I
were gay – I had a right mind to give those naughty doormen a frightful
spanking!

We eventually got into “Polly Esther’s” for 1000 rupees, including enough
drink vouchers for 4 whiskey and cokes each – there was only 45 minutes
until closing time so it was a race against the clock. 10 minutes later we
had drunk them all and were shredding up the dancefloor in a breathtaking
shock-and-awe display that left the Bollywood stars and starlets reaching
for the brown paper bags to return their breathing to normal. The shark, the
sardine, breastroke, freestyle….. a fine “Aquatic-themed” display. I got
refused access to the main dancefloor because I had a drink in my hand, then
because I didn’t have a partner, then because the poor girl I convinced to
help me up there was smoking a cigarette…… I think they just didn’t want
me up there – my dancing is ahead of it’s time in India.

We spent the next three hours trying to rustle up some beers, wandering
through classy hotels and trying to bribe the doormen to get us beer.
Eventually a street hustler came through with the goods and we were able to
watch the sunrise over the “Gateway to India” – a large British-era archway
that looks out to the sea from Mumbai. The British symbolically marched out
of India under the gateway in 1947, so we thought this was a fine way to end
the trip. We would rather have been on top of the archway, but several lines
of security measures defeated us.

Anway, my 15 minutes of free internet are up, so now I’m going to catch the
plane to Perth, then one to Kalgoorlie, then straight to a steakhouse for a
big slab of steak.

Ciao for now, sacred cow.

Michael.

India Part 5 – The jigsaw puzzle of the Indian psyche – peices added, peices lost (part 2)

LL, Sys, Box

Whoops, I accidentally sent that other part before I had finished it….. so
here’s the rest.

To hire Tim’s Royal Enfield (a famous British bike, now ruling the streets
in India) Ronnie got us to meet up with this strange Indian mobster who
owned the bike. We met him in his backyard, where he gave us chai and
“beedis” (cigarettes, but wrapped in a leaf instead of paper) and told Tim
(through Ronnie) how the bike worked, how much he wanted etc. This guy had
more hangers on and right-hand men than Anthony Mundine and Dannny Green put
together – he sat in the middle of his garden on a chair and they flanked
him on either side, nervously laughing at all his jokes, and not speaking
unless spoken to. We felt a bit uncomfortable, especially given that there
was a bloke writhing around and groaning in his garden shed just behind us.

Anyway, Tim got the bike and he and Ronnie rode to the Bay of Bengal for the
day, while I hung around town getting hot and dirty and eating icecreams on
the Maidan (the big park). I paid a visit to the India Museum, which was so
“old-school” a museum as to be an actual museum OF a museum. I can just
imagine a teacher taking some kids around:

“Children, this is what a museum used to look like when the British ruled
India. Come, lets look at the stuffed animals, fossils, and rocks in their
dimly-lit and dusty wood and glass display cases, each clearly and
methodically labeled with only their latin names. Oh look, there’s a painted
fibreglass model of a bottlenose dolphin, and a pickled cobra in a jar! A
truly fascinating glimpse into the past.”

The following afternoon we left Ronnie for a while and went to Aquatica, the
Kolkata version of Wet ‘n’ Wild. Of course, instead of being nice and clean
and cool, the water was a thick green amoebic meningitis soup – a dish best
served lukewarm. But having come so far, and paid so many rupees to get in,
we gave it a crack anyway – anyone who has seen the pool at my house in
President Street will understand when I say that I think I have built up a
strong tolerance to water-borne diseases. There were some fun slides there,
but every time we went down without fail there would be an Indian boy or
girl or man or woman stopped halfway down screaming or crying and, being
large white men unable to stop our momentum, we inevitably plowed into their
backs or heads or necks, causing them to scream or cry some more. This even
happened on the pitch-black tunnel slide and Tim had to kick this guy in the
back or the head about 10 times to get him moving…. incomprehensible
foolishness.

The highlight of Aquatica was this kind of watery disco, where there was
loud Indian music being played out over a wooden dancefloor impregnated with
little jets that shot mist up onto the groovers. A rope across the middle
divided the girls and couples (about 5 people) from the hormonal boys (100
plus, some doing pushups in their muscle shirts). Naturally, being a disco
fiend from way back, I had to give it a go. I thought being a white man
would allow me to access all areas, but I had to settle for the boys side,
where I put on a fine display of traditional Australian dancing – the
sprinkler, the lawnmower, the shopping trolley (I forgot to do the
shark)…. I had about 100 people yelling and imitating my actions, but I’m
not sure they fully understood what a sprinkler or a lawnmower or a shopping
trolley is – at the Taj Mahal they mow the lawn with a team of bullocks
strapped to a harvester, and in Mumbai I saw ten men mowing the maidan by
hand with small sickles.

The next day we caught a local train south to Ronnie’s village – I finally
fulfilled my vision of being in a fully packed Indian train and hanging out
the door…. excellent fun. When we jumped off there was a sudden commotion
as a big mob of men and boys dragged a terrified looking bloke off the train
and started slapping and punching him and yelling at him. Ronnie told us he
was a pickpocket they had caught – they dragged him off into a shed where
Ronnie said they would beat the life out of him. Swift Indian justice. I
can’t describe the fear in this pickpocket’s eyes – I’ll never forget it
though. We stayed the night with Ronnie and his wife, which was great.
Ronnie, his neighbour, Tim and I got drunk and staggered around and caught
the train to another town and back, and generally had a great time.

Next day we got the local train south again into the Ganges delta, caught a
boat across the river, caught a rickshaw for 30 minutes, and then hired out
a big boat for the day to take us to the Sunderbans Tiger Reserve. The 3
hour boat ride was really relaxing and fun for me, but Tim and Ronnie were
really sick from the previous night’s festivities and may not have enjoyed
it quite as much. Anyway we got to the Reserve, only to be informed that we
couldn’t come in unless we had the correct authorisation letter from some
office in Kolkata – I blame the British for this. I was sure the Phantom was
in there too damn it!

“It’s better to stare into the tiger’s eyes than into the cold eyes of the
angry Phantom”*

But, boys and girls, there is one thing that I consider more dangerous still
than staring into the cold eyes of the angry Phantom – jumping into the
Ganges River (see email from Varanasi for description of river conditions),
and this is what we did. There is crocodiles in the Ganges too, but the boat
driver said there was none in this area – I made it a quick swim regardless,
because he also said we could get into the Sunderbans. We got back to the
town, and back on the rickshaw to the train station.

(start Fred Savage “The Wonder Years” narration with nasal American accent)

And so, as Tim and I rode facing backwards on the platform rickshaw, Ronnie
and his neighbour on the front, we no longer saw what was coming towards us,
but only what was being left behind. The sun was setting on the mangrove
forest and also on our 5 week journey of discovery in this strange but
wonderful country. Our quest to understand India and Indians was looking
like a lost cause. Everything we saw and every answer we got led only to
more questions, and we were no closer to discovering the holy grail, or the
single stitch that would tie together everything that we had seen.

But as I looked back at the village Indians smiling and pointing and
laughing as we flew by, I started to wonder if THEY knew why they threw
their rubbish on the ground, or why they could make Tim a cheese sandwich or
a tomato sandwich but not a cheese AND tomato sandwich, or how they could
have a constant water shortage in Darjeeling where it rains every day and
there is large rivers running by. I said to Tim that I had recently come
extremely close to throwing my rubbish on the gound or in the water – in
fact another week here and I almost certainly would have done it. Tim
admitted that he had been throwing his rubbish on the ground when he was
sure I wasn’t looking.

At this instant I finally understood India. No Indian could EVER explain any
of these things to us in logical terms, because there was no logic behind it
and they would freely admit this. When we asked people in Darjeeling why
they didn’t collect rainwater they would say “Yeah it’s ridiculous, we
really should” and leave it at that. India doesn’t make sense at all, and
there is no use fighting against it or trying to make sense of it. Indians
know this, and now I know it too.

And so as I looked back on this crazy decade, the 1960’s, I knew that Winnie
and I had been through the good and bad times, and we were going to be OK.

(end of “The Wonder Years” narration)

Yeah we are back in Mumbai now, and hitting an Indian nightclub tonight. I
bought some new shoes for the occasion, but Tim’s feet are too big for
Indian shoes so he’s gonna try with the old Dunlop Volleys – banking on his
white skin as his passport through the door. I’m a bit crook, but he went
out last night and saw a Norweigan get bitten by a rabid dog – good old
India, I’ll miss her.

Ciao.

Michael.

India Part 4 – The jigsaw puzzle of the Indian psyche – peices added, peices lost

LL, Sys, Box

Salutations friends,

Please consider this short play, based on a true story.

START OF PLAY

(It’s a hot humid and hazy park, nestled between the haphazard metropolis of
Kolkata and the poo-brown Hooghly River, which slides past in the background
- similar to the park between Perth and the Swan River, but on a much
grander scale. There’s a smattering of people over the vast area, and the
obligatory shreds of assorted rubbish on the ground.)

Tim Knight [Australian tourist]: So Ronnie, we’ve been wondering this whole
trip how Indians can just throw their rubbish on the ground without a care
in the world – what’s the go with that?

Ronnie Benjamin [56 y.o, 5 foot, 40 kg burmese x indian, fluent in English,
Hindi, and Bengali]: Yeah those filthy f#@cken b@#stards, it’s unbelievable
isn’t it?

TK: Yeah it sure is…… so do you throw your rubbish on the ground Ronnie?

RB (without hesitation): Yeah mate I sure do, and after a couple of days
here, you will too.

TK (thoughtful): Hmmmm…..

END OF PLAY

We will return to this seemingly innoccuous event later because it’s
dramatic importance is not yet clear to you, the reader.

From Gangtok we got a 5 hour jeep ride back down south to Siliguri/New

Jailpaguri (like Kalgoorlie-Boulder – two towns that are basically one) in
the northern part of West Bengal. We had a stunning victory, Socceroo-style,
over the Indian train system in Siliguri/NJP – a formidable opponent in
anyone’s language. Arriving just past midday, we tried to book a ticket for
that night’s “Darjeeling Mail” train to Kolkata from the Siliguri Junction
train station ticket office, only to be told that there were no tickets for
that night’s train, or indeed the next night’s. Faced with the possibility
of spending an unproductive day or two in this “nothing” town (that’s where
in differs from the happening place of Kalgoorlie-Boulder), we took the bold
step of making the 30 minute rickshaw journey to New Jailpaguri station in
the hope of rustling up a ticket. After a short wait in line I made a failed
attempt, but just as I was turning to leave the queue my mind wandered back
to our first few days in Mumbai, when a helpful New South Welshman x Indian
got us a ticket to Jodphur by yelling the word “quota” a couple of times,
really loud. I quickly turned around, mumbled something about a “quota”, and
suddenly two tickets became available for that night’s train – you can’t
imagine the relief and sense of achievement. I was high on endorphins for
several hours. A quick roadside samosa and 11 hours of fitful sleep later,
we pulled into Kolkata.

So many things happened during our week in Kolkata that it would be foolish
to try and describe them, so I will have to summarise. The first couple of
days we wandered around looking at stuff, eating stuff, drinking stuff,
breathing, sleeping and all that jazz. I bribed a security guard 20 rupees
to let me into the Eden Gardens cricket ground, which was unbelievable. It
was so small that I had to ask about 10 people “Is this Eden Gardens? Are
you sure?” before I could believe it – the ground is 2/3 the size of the
WACA yet it has a greater capacity than the MCG. It’s all just bare
concrete, mesh and barbed wire, and it costs 2 rupees to get in for an
international match – that would buy you two bananas over here if you
bargained hard, and equates to about 6 cents. Needless to say, it would be a
mad and frenzied crowd.

Anyway, after a few days in Kolkata Tim met this fella Ronnie, as described
above. He normally tutors rich children in conversational English but it is
school holidays and everyone is away, so he was just wandering the streets
and parks. We ended up paying him 300 rupees a day to show us around the
city and beyond, and he took us anywhere we wanted to go: slums, markets,
the red-light district…. all stories on their own. He also got us anything
we wanted: I got two great shirts tailored, Tim hired a Royal Enfield
motorbike for the day….. in fact the only thing he couldn’t organise was a
t-shirt that I wanted. It had to have a large Indian flag on the front, and
big black letters saying “Bring back British Raj!” – for some reason these
are unavailable.

For those that don’t know, Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) was the capital for
the Poms during the “British Raj (Rule)” of India, which ended in 1947. I
think the main British influence that has been maintained in Kolkata, and
throughout India, is the love of ridiculous paper shuffling – forms about
forms, endless rubber stamps and signatures, ruthless pouncing on
administrative errors. One fortunate remnant is Brylcream, a fine hair
product, a tin of which I found on a little shop’s shelf for a very
reasonable price – my dream of going through India without washing my hair
ended way back in Rajasthan, after a night sleeping on the sand dune. I got
the feeling that the tin had been sitting there since 1947 waiting for the
return of the British, and hence an increased demand for people wanting to
wax their moustaches.

India Part 3 – The "rain shadow effect" is a conspiracy!

LL, Sys, Box

Namaste,

Conveniently, “namaste” (literally: I bow down before you) is good for both hello AND goodbye, effectively doubling my knowledge of Hindi. Inconveniently, West Bengalis speak Bengali and Sikkimese speak Nepali, so I am back stumbling around in the linguistic wilderness. I am writing from Gangtok, the capital city (pop. 30,000 = Kalgoorlie) of the state of Sikkim, which is in the Indian Himalayas north of West Bengal. Tim has got the flu or a cold, and is resting under the influence of some “flu tablets” a roadside stall lady pulled out of a large bucket of random pill boxes…. I’m sure the foaming and that mouth and uncontrollable spasming is a harmless side-effect.

We found our way into Darjeeling, West Bengal, via a 13 hour train ride from Varanasi to Siliguri, and a 4 hour jeep ride up into the hills. The jeep ride was sensational, if only for the hand-painted roadside safety signs, many of which would have had all 10 of us (yes 10 in a jeep) plummetting to our bloody deaths in hysterics if I had been at the wheel. “Hurry burry spoils the curry”, “If married, divorce speed”, “Safety first, speed next” (Australian road-train drivers would say “Speed first, whiskey next, cheese sausage at Eucla”), “Better late than never dead” (I challenge anyone to explain what that means – it occupied my mind for two hours), and my favourite “Don’t gossip, let him drive”, which assumes that (1) the man is always driving, and (2) the woman is constantly interrupting his Johnny Cash tape with idle gossip…. so true, so true.

Darjeeling is tea country, and a select few of you will be recieving your very own packet of India’s finest tea upon my return – (start sarcastic tone) oooh what excitement that will bring to your lives! (end sarcastic tone) I was tempted to mutter “Sri Lanka”, and specifically Dilmah, whenever an Indian told me that Darjeeling produces the world’s best tea, but I held back in fear of fisticuffs breaking out. Surely Merrill J. Fernando (the founder of Dilmah for the uneducated amongst you) lies not when he says “Dilmah, the finest tea”?

The hills of the tea region are MUCH bigger and steeper than the gently rolling hills I had imagined – think mountain goat country. The weather up here is quite cloudy and drizzly most of the time – a point not-so-subtley reinforced by the owner of our hotel in Darjeeling. He was a small Asian-looking fella (as many are up towards China) with crooked teeth and coke bottle glasses, and he said to Tim and I, while staring off into the clouds, hands behind his back, “You should have come in October (long pause) when the skies are clear and sunny (longer pause) you feel cheated, not only by the people of Darjeeling, but also by nature”. I said (after a long silence) “Well we do now”.

After a few restful days in Darjeeling and another 5 hours in an overcrowded jeep, as always blaring with tinny Indian music and falsetto female vocals (yes Indian music is just as you imagine it – no unfair Western stereotypes there), we got to Gangtok. On the way, Tim and I reviewed our high-school geography knowledge of the “rain shadow effect” – a universal phenomenon whereby the vast majority of rain falls on the leading edge of a mountain range. We therefore declared with considerable surety that Sikkimise skies would be a clear, azure blue. It’s a lie! We still haven’t seen the mystical Khangchendzonga mountain (kang-chen-joonga), which (so the postcards and books tell us) dominates the skyline from almost anywhere in Darjeeling or Sikkim.

There isn’t a heap to do in Gangtok, so we went on a 3 day tour into the Yumthang Valley in far northern Sikkim, close to the Chinese border, staying both nights in a town called Lachung – all the place names, people, and food are more “chinesey” up here. The highest we got was a spectacular river valley at 3,400 m – this elevaton is not immune to the curse of Indian littering (un-bloody-believable), but IS apparently immune to the rain shadow effect. How were we to know that at 3,400 m, we were still on the “leading edge” of the Himalayas?

Lachung was in a valley bounded on both sides by tremendously steep mountains – a whole other level of jaggedness than Darjeeling, which I thought was pretty wild at the time, but is now a mere molehill. We couldn’t see the tops due to cloud, but I got up early the first morning and saw the jagged, snowy peaks of the highest one – woohoo! It was cloudy when Tim got up, but I described it to him and we decided to call the mountain “Old Saw Tooth”. We both saw it on the second morning and as we were leaving I asked our guide what the mountain was called. “It doesn’t have a name because it is below 6,000 m” he said. At first we were deflated because we thought the mountain was so spectacular, but then happy because we had named our first mountain!

The roads through this area are absolute madness – single lane, and rockfalls everywhere! We saw a little truck crushed by a massive boulder – it happened only 2 days ago! I asked the guide how often jeeps roll off the edge and he said “At least 15-20 per year”. You are only inches or seconds from certain death at all times.

Anyway I had better go and check on Tim. At this stage we will PROBABLY still go through Kolkata and the Ganges river mouth, before heading back to Mumbai. I have been wearing my money belt everywhere so it is quite smelly, but I might take it off in the Ganges delta – there won’t be any theives there because “the Phantom is rough with roughnecks*”.

Namaste!

Michael.

PS. Every Indian keyboard has a dodgy letter – this one is “i”, so excuse any that are missing.

* Old Jungle Saying

India Part 2 – Hello from Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh

LL, Sys, Box

Hello everyone,

I am writing this message from Varanasi, a holy city where old Hindus come to die, be burnt, and be thrown into the Ganges. Hopefully my words will flow from the keyboard in the same way that the filthy Ganges spews it’s cargo of rotting animals, rubbish, excretement, and charred Hindu bodies into the Bay of Bengal – though let’s all hope that this message is more savoury than the aforementioned.

Our desert camel ride in Jaisalmer was more comical than inspirational, as we were led a few hundred metres away and parallel to a bituminised road, then crossed the road and doubled back down the other side, before going a few hundred metres away from the road to a sand dune for the night. At one stage Tim and I had to seize the controls of our lazy beasts, and point them over a dune – the camel owners were reluctant to have the camels walk up any dunes, but we demanded our 1000 rupees worth. These lazy and maingey lumps of furry flesh brought shame to “Ship’s of the Desert” the world over with their incompetence and petulance – if Australian camel’s were a Toyota Landcruiser, then these were surely Suzuki Mighty Boys. The night in the desert was hilarious too looking back – we got absolutely sandblasted and completely caked in dirt, thanks to sticky skin (sweat plus suncream plus facial hair) and a roaring wind. Needless to say, there was a lot of writhing around and very little sleeping, especially when a wild dog fight broke out about 10 m away in complete darkness.

We then hightailed out of Rajasthan all the way into Delhi, which was so furious, noisy, and polluted that we only spent one night there before continuing on to Agra. We looked at the Taj Mahal on the first morning and intended to continue our mission to West Bengal pretty quickly, but ended up spending 3 days there because we couldn’t organise a train ticket out – I mistakenly thought that we had the train system sorted, but Agra was something else. I went to the station alone, expecting it to take 5 minutes and returned to the hotel 5 hours, two trips to the station, and several corrupt middle-men later a broken man, and honestly on the verge of tears…. and no ticket. Next day I sent Knighty to get the ticket and he returned 5 hours later with one – an extra 300 rupees, and a vacant seat magically appears. Anyway, the days in Agra were a blessing in disguise because it made us chill out, and we had a great time with our trusty rickshaw driver Rambev, and push-biking the backstreets.

I need to devote a whole paragraph to the Taj Mahal, which was the most amazing man-made thing I have ever seen and will ever see. We went there a little bit sceptical, having been unimpressed with a few dilapidated Indian monuments, but this thing was incredible. The three gates that lead to the main building are spectacular enough on their own, but the main building is absolutely inspiring in scale and detail, and is actually indescribable, hence this paragraph will now end.

Now we are in Varanasi for a couple of days (again, a bit longer than expected due to train dramas). The Ganges and the “ghats” (where people swim, get cremated) are an absolute juxtaposition of the best and worst of India – friendly happy lively Hindus mixing with a slow-flowing cesspool of sewerage, charred remains, rotting cow carcasses (we saw one getting eaten by a couple of dogs about 5 m from happy swimmers), and general filth. Like many things we’ve seen in India it’s bizarre and amazing, but there are stark contradictions and incomprehensible things happening all around you.

I had a sitar lesson here too and it was AWESOME – don’t be surprised if I bring one home!

We’ve got one more day here, then we are escaping to what has become some sort of highly-anticipated promised land for Tim and I – the tea-country and mountains of Darjeeling and Sikkim, where we hope to chill out and cruise for a while. We have been picturing ourselves there for a couple of days now! These hot, humid plains are extremely draining even for the Indians, and especially because it is in the “build-up” to the monsoon.

After the hills, we will be heading for the southern part of West Bengal (the Ganges delta), where we hope to ride an elephant and see a tiger. I’m really excited because it’s also the home of The Phantom! I hope to either see him in the jungle hanging out with Old Man Moz, or else in Kolkata (Calcutta) where, of course, he will be “walking the streets as an ordinary man*”. Apologies to non-Phantom fans, but shame on you for not revering the purple-jumpsuited hero.

Oh well, we’re gonna get a few beers and go for a row down the Ganges now – ciao!

Michael.

* Old Jungle Saying

India Part 1 – Hello from Jaisalmer, Rajasthan!

LL, Sys, Box

Hello everyone,

Tim and I are having a jolly old time over here, and there haven’t been too many ugly mishaps thus far.

We started off in Mumbai, where we stayed for two nights. It took us a while to figure out what was going on, though it didn’t help that we were a bit drunk when we arrived – we managed to hold off drinking between Perth and Singapore, but then we succumbed to temptation of Australian Merlot on the SIngapore – Mumbai leg. We mistakenly figured that this was the only way we would be able to face the situation of landing in a mad new country in the middle of the night with no accomadation. We got a little bit fleeced on the first night, but not too badly, and we have since learned that the locals are generally pretty trustworthy, despite our initial doubts.

Mumbai is very busy, but great fun. There are millions of these black and yellow 1950-something Fiat taxis flying around (honestly every second car), making life hazardous on the streets, especially coming from Kalgoorlie. The secret is just to walk out in front of the traffic with no regard for your life or those around you – I think they must just respect your bravery and slow down or something, unlike in Australia where we would speed up to try and hit the bastards. We had a very interesting and hilarious time cashing in Tim’s travellers cheques – we got sent to about seven or eight different banks, none of which would change them. In about the eigth one, a guy on the ground floor sent us to the second floor of the branch, where another guy sent us to the furthest corner of the room. The guy in the corner told us that this bank doesn’t change them and that we should go to Thomas Cook, which was “near the fountain” – what fountain??? They were all smirking or giggling as we walked out in hysterics – there was nothing to do but laugh at the craziness of it all. We eventually found it about 3 hours and 5 kg of lost sweat later.

Tim also lost his little backpack in a taxi, which was a drama because it had our Lonely Planet India book in it – without this I swear we would never have got out of Mumbai. I vaguely remembered seeing a modern-looking bookshop somewhere on our Great Thomas Cook Hunt, and as remarkable good luck would have it, we managed to find it (and a new Lonely Planet, plus Hindi phrasebook) almost straight away!

Next we went to book a train from Mumbai to Jodphur (Rajasthan), and had some more good luck when we ran into a guy from New South Wales who had been in India for 26 years – he showed us how to fill in the train booking form and negotiated with the Indian lady for some decent seats. Like the Lonely PLanet, without this guy, we would almost certainly still be in Mumbai, or at least trying to walk to Rajasthan – the train booking process is wierd and difficult at first glance, but I think we have a handle on it now.

The train ride itself was hilarious. It was 17 hours long and Tim had a 1 litre duty free bottle of rum in his bag, so we did the only reasonable thing a pair of sane people could do – we drank it all within about 3 hours. It certainly had the effect of improving our fragile grasp of Hindi, and led to us learning off our fellow passengers what we think will become a very valuable phrase “Kanjus makhi cus”, literally meaning “You are a miser and a fly-sucker” – the fly-sucker part means that if a fly flew into said person’s chai (tea), they would suck the tea off the fly before they threw it away. Apparently it is a very valuable phrase when bargaining, but we are yet to have had cause to use it. Anyway, we had half the carriage in raptures with our Hindi until we reached a time when even our grasp of English was becoming loose at best, upon which we retired to bed.

The next day we arrived in Jodphur, an amazing where many buildings are an azure blue colour, and the entire place is backed by a gigantic and intricately crafted Rajput fort – I urge anyone with the internet to look this city up to get a feeling for it. We did the great audio tour of the fort, and then sat in a rooftop restaurant and had some more lovely Indian food talking to some Germans before retiring for the much needed boon of sleep.

Today we had a crazy 7 hour bus ride east to Jaisalmer, another Rajasthani Fort city. Our initial bus got confiscated by police halfway here for being overcrowded, despite the fact that there wasn’t even anyone on the roof yet! So we just got booted off the bus in this random desert town, with no idea of when or if a new bus would come. We made friends with some local kids, then one went and got an onion for me off this cow-pulled cart that was full of onions and driven by this crazy moustached turabned fella. Anyway they wouldn’t leave me alone until I had eaten it so I just ate it as some sort of show of gratitude. Luckily another bus came before they made me eat the rest of it – this was another bus full of people going to Jaisalmer, which we piled up with our whole busload of people. There ended up being about 4 people pre one-man sleeping cabin, but it was great fun and comfortable enough.

Jaisalmer looks good so far, and we are going on an overnight camel ride tomorrow night, which should be grand. Rajasthan as a whole seems quite touristy and we are looking forward to getting off the beaten track a little bit if possible – with 1 billion-plus people, you can imagine that many a track is “beaten”.

Anyway, that’s enough for now I believe. Send any news or reviews, and I will send another email when I get a chance, or when some more wierd stuff happens – whichever comes first.

Until then I remain,

Stumbling dehydrated and delerious around the Great Thar Desert,

MIchael.

Introduction to the India series

LL, Sys, Box

My brother Michael travelled to India this year. I was wildly excited when I learned of his plans, as he has always shown an interest in Eastern sources of wisdom despite limited experience with them. Also, I think he is an excellent, and very funny, writer. See what you think as we join him on his Indian adventure…

Mum’s drive across Aus

Read below for mum's humorous account of her drive across Australia, amongst other things

Hello Andrew, Darryl and Kylie,

I hope you are all having a great time OS.

We are going well. Mike came down with Sam(Henry) and Ajax last Wednesday night so they could have Australia Day here. I dropped Mike off in South Perth at 9.30am as he was going to his friend's house overlooking the park. (Red Dog's dad). A few nights previously the housemates had gone out with roundup, surveying equipment and`templates and made a huge Australian flag on the park. Mike reckons`it would have been visible for miles and it was mathematically perfect.I went rowing next morning and drove past on the way home to see if he needed a lift home. It was blindingly obvious which househe was at!! Among all the meticulous mansions and apartment blocks as a front lawn covered in country number plate utes and bombs, a half collapsed tent, a deflated giant pump up pool, bottles, cans, flags, streamers and ten young dishevelled  men drinking bottles of beer on the front lawn and verandah for breakfast. In the middle was Mike. I parked on the verge and climbed out in my dirty rowing clothes avoiding the morning traffic going past my feet and wandered up the path. The guys looked a bit wary until Mike said "Oh, Hi Mum", then I was ok. He didn't want a lift home yet but they were having a great time. One of them is a really good drummer and another a good guitarist. Mike said they were playing great music the previous nightentertaining the passers by. Dadda and I stayed home the night before because we had three dogs to calm down. The RSPCA were inundated the next day with strays that ranaway when the fireworks went off. It was a fantastic display apparently. The police gave out 150,000 minties to people who were well behaved!! 

Mike and Sam went home Sunday afternoon after having a very good weekend. They went to a housewarming in Osborne Park and the beach heaps. Mike had a letter published in the Kalgoorlie Miner on Australia Day, has he sent it to you? If not I will send it on, it is really good. Dadda has been in Melbourne since Friday and comes home tonight. Heand Neville scored free tickets to the women's final at the Australian Open!! They had breakfast with Sare and Bill on Southbank before going to the tennis. Sare and Bill are going well, I left my camera there when we drove over and it has photos of our trip so when Dadda brings it home tonight I will put some phots up for you.Our drive over was really good. We left Canning Bridge after rowing at about 9.30 and got to Kalgoorlie at about 4.45pm as Mike would be home then. We fell into his pool as it was 44 at one stage on the drive up. As we went through Coolgardie we noticed a flood running down the roads, huge branches ripped off trees and workmeneverywhere. We had missed a mini tornado by about 10 minutes! We stayed in Mike's house and left at 3am next morning. We got to Ceduna that night after seeing a dead panther on the road between Madura and Mundrabilla (we would swear it was a panther - black, glossy fur about 2 inches long, just the right size etc, we just couldn't see it's head) I rang the Madura road house last week and the guy there said it would have been a wombat. As we leap frogged all the way with the road trains, they were on their cbs. After we stopped at Mundrabilla we swapped drivers so I was driving and got ahead of two of our friendly road trains. Next thing a police car came the opposite way and flashed it's lights etc and did a u turn. I stopped and said to Sare that I didn't think I was speeding. The young policeman came and said how fast do you think you were going? I said 115 or 120? He said this is just a caution and checked my licence while I could see his mate checking our rego. Thenthe road trains went by and he sort of waved and gave them a funny smile. I thought, What's going on here? so I said Oh, this is my daughter Sarah. He was very happy to be introduced and said we could go 120 on these roads but not in SA as they are stricter!! I said how fast was I going? He said 108!!!! They must get bored and listen to the truckies cbs and check out pretty young ladies!! 

We went on our way again and passed the road trains again going up the Eucla pass. One of them put his hand out the window and waggled his finger as if to say Naughty, naughty!! I said to Sare, this is why I love driving over East, everyone waves and watches out for each other. It is real Australia and you feel so cleansed and in touch with what Australia is really like. All the scenery, the heat, the people is justwonderful. 

It got to 44 again but the car did well, we only put the air con on for one hour. Nearly everyone else was like us driving with their windows down, singlets on drinking heaps. We left Ceduna about 3.30 and I showed Sarah where the Baxter detention centre is. I think it is in the most hell on earth part of Australia I have ever seen. Every time I go past I can't imagine how bad it must be for those people to be looking out at that desolate, barren, depressing scenery. Sarah was just as unimpressed as I am. We drove around Adelaide saving 1.5 hours by going through Gawler and through the ranges to Murray Bridge. That gave us enough time to keep going straight through to Melbourne. It got to 44 again near the border and we could see the possibilty of fires. Luckily for us the fires started the day after we went through. The fires have been bad and people have died where we drove. 

Sare drove into Melbourne while I navigated through the freeways and tunnel to Hawthorn. We pulled into Bill's driveway at 10.30. He came out and came to my door and said hello. I said 'hello, go and say hi to sare!!' as she had gone all shy. I busied myself collecting my things while she stepped out of the car. I just heard them both do this BIG sigh of relief, it was so romantic and happy. Then they took me to my motel (run by full on pakistanis)and I slept like a log! (Bill's house is small)

So it took us 2.5 days which was good, the car didn't miss a beat, it's name is Leila. Sare and I had Friday together as Bill was working at the rowing sheds on the Yarra doing a school camp and that night we went to a Burmese restaurant in Richmond, it was yummy and authentic.

I flew home Saturday then Dadda was back there the next Friday!! Now, Perth is much the same but Geoff Gallop resigned as Premier because he has depression and now Alan Carpenter is Premier. The Perth to Mandurah rail line is still headline material because nothing much else happens!! A shark bit a man 5kms off City Beach acouple of weeks ago, his mate used his shark pod to make it go away. They reckon it saved his life for sure. The weather is absolutely freaky, everyone is worried about it now and becoming more aware of climate change just because it is so cold all the time.

Sarah and I had hot weather from Southern Cross east but Perth has stayed cool and mild all summer. Lake Grace is still flooded from a month ago and got even more rain three days ago. It is worrying.

Love Mumma