PURI: MARCH 14
Eight guests for dinner are thinly spread at the Z Hotel 's single dinning table. The table seats forty. Perhaps it is a remnant of the Maharajah's long-gone splendour. A young couple from Pen State are in management with a VSO program further south. The previous volunteer left six months prior to their arrival. No trace remains of the previous volunteer's work – work that these two are now duplicating. Little wonder that they are increasingly cynical. They will be in India for two years. They came with hopes of achieving something for the poor. Their cynicism worries them. They admire Obama and fear that he will be a one term President. They talk of his race speech during the Primaries as a turning point in the Election. He talks of feeling proud as he listened to the speech, proud to bare witness to the good side of America.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
THE LSE IS ANOTHER BRAND NAME
PURI: MARCH 14
I share a bowl of fruit salad and curd with a placidly beautiful Chinese woman whose age I underestimate by ten years. She is trying to find herself. More fruit salad and she corrects herself. She has a low boredom threshold and is searching either for an occupation that will hold her interest or for the discipline to resist moving on at the first yawn.
In part, her problem is a fast well-trained mind (my opinion). She is a graduate of the London School of Economics.
I suggest Day Trading as an Adrenalin rush. She did that for ten years. She says that it became obsessive, one more computer game.
Writing appeals to her – though she doubts her staying power.
I suggest a fake autobiography: Chinese high flier drops a million in the morning and makes her dinner date suffer. Have you done that?
Yes, maybe...
Which is a definite Yes in any language.
And she doubts whether she could satisfy the US/UK Chic Lit market. Chinese women have a perception of romance more subtle that the Western sob and groan version, so she claims. The perfect husband is perfectly manipulable...
We will meet again tomorrow for more fruit salad. Aged forty, she is a year or two younger than my friend, Ming, with whom I traveled through Ecuador and Peru. They share a splendid Chinese elitism.
Four thousand years of bad ceramics was Ming's critique of pre-Colombian art.
My present companion dismisses the LSE as one more brand name along with Gucci, Prada and Louis Vuiton.
I share a bowl of fruit salad and curd with a placidly beautiful Chinese woman whose age I underestimate by ten years. She is trying to find herself. More fruit salad and she corrects herself. She has a low boredom threshold and is searching either for an occupation that will hold her interest or for the discipline to resist moving on at the first yawn.
In part, her problem is a fast well-trained mind (my opinion). She is a graduate of the London School of Economics.
I suggest Day Trading as an Adrenalin rush. She did that for ten years. She says that it became obsessive, one more computer game.
Writing appeals to her – though she doubts her staying power.
I suggest a fake autobiography: Chinese high flier drops a million in the morning and makes her dinner date suffer. Have you done that?
Yes, maybe...
Which is a definite Yes in any language.
And she doubts whether she could satisfy the US/UK Chic Lit market. Chinese women have a perception of romance more subtle that the Western sob and groan version, so she claims. The perfect husband is perfectly manipulable...
We will meet again tomorrow for more fruit salad. Aged forty, she is a year or two younger than my friend, Ming, with whom I traveled through Ecuador and Peru. They share a splendid Chinese elitism.
Four thousand years of bad ceramics was Ming's critique of pre-Colombian art.
My present companion dismisses the LSE as one more brand name along with Gucci, Prada and Louis Vuiton.
Z HOTEL, PURI
PURI: MARCH 14
In a previous life the Z Hotel at Puri was a Maharajah's beach house. The manager is vague as to which Maharajah. My room is marginally smaller than a squash court. The cloud island in the middle is a four poster bed with mosquito net. A fan turns slowly above the net. Open all the windows and the net billows in the breeze. For furniture there is a desk, one easy chair, two upright chairs, a wardrobe and a wooden clothes rack. Crossing the bathroom is a major expedition – pack sandwiches. All this for 750 Rupees. Not such a tough life...
In a previous life the Z Hotel at Puri was a Maharajah's beach house. The manager is vague as to which Maharajah. My room is marginally smaller than a squash court. The cloud island in the middle is a four poster bed with mosquito net. A fan turns slowly above the net. Open all the windows and the net billows in the breeze. For furniture there is a desk, one easy chair, two upright chairs, a wardrobe and a wooden clothes rack. Crossing the bathroom is a major expedition – pack sandwiches. All this for 750 Rupees. Not such a tough life...
CONSTABLE
PURI: MARCH 14
The painter, Constable, marketed a fine line of rural romantic poverty. I've been taking photographs...
The painter, Constable, marketed a fine line of rural romantic poverty. I've been taking photographs...
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
BAD ROAD, GREAT COUNTRYSIDE
PURI: MARCH 14
Most visitors travel to Puiri via the State Capital. I take a short cut down a single-tack country road from the south west. The first five kilometers are good tar. For the next fifteen I creep between elephant traps and dirt moguls. But what a glorious countryside of straw-cottage villages, temple ponds shaded by giant pepul trees and baobabs, emerald paddy studded with coconut palms. I bump and bounce past a truck. A bridge crosses a creek sheeted with water Hyacinth and water lily. Buffalo bask with only their noses above the surface. I stop to photograph a basket market, pull in at a tin-shack canteen for a cold soda. The owner has been playing cricket.
Most visitors travel to Puiri via the State Capital. I take a short cut down a single-tack country road from the south west. The first five kilometers are good tar. For the next fifteen I creep between elephant traps and dirt moguls. But what a glorious countryside of straw-cottage villages, temple ponds shaded by giant pepul trees and baobabs, emerald paddy studded with coconut palms. I bump and bounce past a truck. A bridge crosses a creek sheeted with water Hyacinth and water lily. Buffalo bask with only their noses above the surface. I stop to photograph a basket market, pull in at a tin-shack canteen for a cold soda. The owner has been playing cricket.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
TRUCK DRIVER STOP
TO PURI: MARCH 14
Pimples on the arse are the inevitable result of hours sweating on a bike seat. Germolene stops infection. 520 kilometers yesterday was too much. How do I feel this morning? Wrecked. I'll make do with 260 to Puri today where the revered Jagganath Temple attracts many thousands of Hindu pilgrims. A great beach and relaxed attitude to Bhang was the original attraction for backpackers. A rash of hotels and restaurants resulted. I am on the road by 8 a.m. and stop for breakfast at a truck driver's stop. The owner was a customs officer at Delhi airport for twelve years and speaks English. Where am I from? Where am I gong? How long have I been on the road? When will I go home? Am I married? Children? Grandchildren? Truck drivers listen as he translates my answers. What do the drivers earn? 8000 to 10000 rupees a month.
NORTHWARD FAST
NORTHWARD FAST: MARCH 14
Another day on Highway 5 northward across the same flat countryside from Andra Pradesh into Orissa. Orissa is poor. Frighteningly poor. Depressing. The Highway is being widened. Ungraded dirt deviations bypass bridges and culverts under construction with one logjam after another as truck and bus drivers jostle senselessly for non-existence space. The setup on the Stunner is more pain-giving on bad roads than the Cargo I rode through the Americas. The seat angle throws the rider's weight forward onto his hands and I end a ten hour day at Srikakulam with bruised palms and a pain in the butt. The hotel is overpriced at 650 rupees. A dhossa for dinner at a workman's cafe costs 20. I set the kilometer trip to zero this morning. It registers 522, good going for an Oldie in his dotage.
HARD SLOG NORTH
NORTHWARD FAST: MARCH 13
I long to experience fresh territory and mountains. The North East States beckon, Darjeeling, Assam, Sikkim, perhaps Nagaland, then west again to Lucknow and north into Kashmir and Ladakh (if the road is open and snow-free).
Kolkata first. Bypassing Chenai takes three hours,then up National Highway 5, dual carriageway and a good surface with the usual crop of crashed trucks, countryside flat, mostly reaped rice paddy.The Honda cruises happily at 80 KPH and I manage 420 kilometers to a reasonable hotel in Vijayawada.
AIRCRAFT SEATS FOR MEDITATION
MAMALLAPURAM
A German couple arrive at the Sunrise Guest House from an Ashram on the Holy Mountain. Merely breathing the same air as the Maharishi was an uplifting and joyous experience. No need for talk. Nor for teaching. The Maharishi's presence was sufficient. Mostly they meditated, surely a suitable holiday for a designer of state-of-the-art aircraft seats. He presumes that I must know which Holy Mountain and which Maharishi. Disabusing him would be impolite. He is a vegetarian. They run a vegetarian household. She eats steak when they eat out and teaches handicapped children. I suspect that she hopes for more than meditation in the future.
A German couple arrive at the Sunrise Guest House from an Ashram on the Holy Mountain. Merely breathing the same air as the Maharishi was an uplifting and joyous experience. No need for talk. Nor for teaching. The Maharishi's presence was sufficient. Mostly they meditated, surely a suitable holiday for a designer of state-of-the-art aircraft seats. He presumes that I must know which Holy Mountain and which Maharishi. Disabusing him would be impolite. He is a vegetarian. They run a vegetarian household. She eats steak when they eat out and teaches handicapped children. I suspect that she hopes for more than meditation in the future.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
INACTIVE OPTIMIST
MAMALLAPURAM CONVERSATION:
I chat with a young Indian couple, university sudents, in the Internet cafe during one of many power cuts. They share a hotel room – they must be liberals. Or is this common amongst the young educated in India? Asking would be impolite.
She doesn't talk much. Embarrassed?
He is vocal. His father is a senior military officer. The student believes India has a great future. Central Government is building new power stations in every State. Power cuts will be history.
And Indian salaries are the fastest rising world-wide. The brain drain to the US will stop.
Corruption is the greatest problem. Corruption amongst politicians is endemic. We must change everything. He doesn't know how. Neither he nor any of his friends vote. They aren't interested in politics. However change will come from the people. The people vote.
I chat with a young Indian couple, university sudents, in the Internet cafe during one of many power cuts. They share a hotel room – they must be liberals. Or is this common amongst the young educated in India? Asking would be impolite.
She doesn't talk much. Embarrassed?
He is vocal. His father is a senior military officer. The student believes India has a great future. Central Government is building new power stations in every State. Power cuts will be history.
And Indian salaries are the fastest rising world-wide. The brain drain to the US will stop.
Corruption is the greatest problem. Corruption amongst politicians is endemic. We must change everything. He doesn't know how. Neither he nor any of his friends vote. They aren't interested in politics. However change will come from the people. The people vote.
ROYAL ENFIELDS, ROMANTIC OR WORK HORSE?
ROYAL ENFIELD FACTORY, CHENAI:
A day with Royal Enfield and priority for any long-distance traveler is comfort and I've bounce-tested each model: 350 and 500, military, Classic, the new low rider, single seat and dual. My favourite? The big broad single saddle mounted on coil springs. .
My final conclusion: Enfields look and sound as a bike should. This, of course, is the opinion of a biker born before the war. I hear my four sons chant in unison, “Which war, Dad? The Boer War?” Not kind, but I'm accustomed to it.
I rode a BSA Bantam in the early fifties. Cops were called Bobbies and patrolled on silent water-cooled Velocettes. Vincents were power with speed. Sunbeams were deluxe touring. AJS, Norton, Triumph - all deceased and gone to Heaven. Royal Enfield in Reditch was a casualty. What miracle saved Royal Enfield here in Chenai?
“Why buy an Enfield?” is a reasonable question to ask Royal Enfield's marketing manager, Sachin.
Sachin's reply is as off-beat as hand spraying gas tanks. “There's no logical reason,” he says. “Enfields are heavy. They're slow. They are not fuel efficient.”
“India's Hog,” I suggest.
“Not so,” counters Sachin. “It doesn't matter where, Harleys always dominate. The Bullet becomes part of where ever it is.” Originally British as fish and chips, the Bullett is now quintessentially Indian. T India's most lethal beer is named after it, BULLETT SUPER STRONG, and in Rajastahn you'll find a temple dedicated to a Bullett. Remove it from the temple and it will be back by sunrise – so they say
“So it is romantic,” I insist. “The Morgan of the bike world.”
Again Sachin disagrees. Morgans are in a high price bracket, status symbols. Bullets are workhorses. A horse rider feels the muscles bunch and flow and listens to the rythm of the horse's breathing. The rider of the Bullet feels the beat of the engine and the slow glorious thump of the exhaust.
And that is the Bullet's magic.
Sachin, of course, will disagree. Magic has no place in his vocabulary – strange, as he is so obviously a romantic.
JAPANESE FILM CREW
Determination to bring the writing up to date keeps me yoyoing for five days between a table on the roof-top restaurant at the Sunrise Guest House and an Internet cafe. The grass park below stretches some three hundred meters to the sea. I believe we camped in the palm trees to the left. We sat one morning on a stone ledge at the back of a temple cave and contemplated the God. Which God? I don't recall. Nor do I search. Memories are sufficient. A truck braked outside the cave. Four Japanese entered and set up lights and lighting screens and three canvas chairs one of which had DIRECTOR written in large square letters on the back. The Director arrived in a white Morris Ambassador (India's luxury car of the day). The Japanese filmed the God and left without once acknowledging our existence. Now stone walls protect caves and temples against future tsunamis. Buy a ticket to enter.
BED ROLES OBLIGATORY
Foreign tourists were a rarity in India forty years ago. Hotels existed only in major cities and state capitals. Government officials on tour stayed in Government Rest Houses. Stay in a Rest House and you brought your own bedding (including the mattress). Government officers on tour were recognisable instantly by the bulky canvas bed roles on the roof rack. Our bedding was a fat, King-size, cotton-stuffed paliasse rolled in Afghan kilims. Vanessa and I would check with different Government Departments, Indian Civil, PWD, Railway, Forestry. No Rest House available, we rigged a mosquito net to a tree and unrolled the mattress.
My memories of Mamallapuram are of a small village on a dirt track, shore temples, a few fishing boats dragged up on the sand and not much else. The cook and the owner of The Sunrise Guest House confirm that there wasn't even a bus service. Vanessa and I camped in the first lines of palm trees above the beach. I remember a cool sea breeze after swimming and that we built a fire and grilled fresh fish over the embers.
My memories of Mamallapuram are of a small village on a dirt track, shore temples, a few fishing boats dragged up on the sand and not much else. The cook and the owner of The Sunrise Guest House confirm that there wasn't even a bus service. Vanessa and I camped in the first lines of palm trees above the beach. I remember a cool sea breeze after swimming and that we built a fire and grilled fresh fish over the embers.
LONELY PLANET PRISON CELL
Mamallapuram is crammed with foreign tourists, tourist touts and Sunday day trippers. Lonely Planet recommends Tina's Lodge. The proprietor shows me a single room down a dank dark corridor. Were it a jail cell prisoners would complain justifiably to the European Court of Human Rights. The so-called bathroom? Ugh! A young Israeli woman in a marginally better room laughs at the speed of my retreat. An even better room will be available tomorrow. The better room has a terrace that the breeze can't reach. I peer through the open door at a heat-haggard tourist sweating on the bed, remount and go exploring. The Sunrise Guest House isn't listed in the guide book. Maybe it is too distant from the main tourist strip for the Lonely Planet researcher to walk on a hot day. I am offered a room three times the size of the Tina prison cell. Both room and bathroom are spotless. Wall to wall windows face the park and the sea. Open the windows and a splendid sea breeze lifts the curtains. Same daily rate as the hell hole cell and with satellite TV. Climb stairs to the thatch-roof restaurant and I can plug the lap-top into a power point. Fried rice with calamari is good. What more could I want?
FORGETFUL OLD FOOL
crash of the day
Finished with Goa so back to the present and Kodaikanal. Next stop. Mamallapuram, a backpacker and tourist haven for twenty years. Idiot that I am, I left my wonderful Eicher road atlas in the lobby of the J Heritage Hotel in Kodai. Why do I imagine that Mamallapuram is north of Chenai? I have bypassed Chenai and am heading for Kolkata before realising my error and head back south through the city. Chenai bus traffic is fearful even on a Sunday. All locals consulted on the route have difficulty in differentiating left from right. Ironic that a bus labeled as heading for Mamallapuram is my saviour. I follow out to the coast road.
GOA ENDING
Of Goa there are other memories. The young French heroin addict asking if she could shoot up in our bedroom at the house on Calangute beach. Vanessa and I were in bed. The French girl sat at the end of our mattress. I picture her now as she licked the needle as if it were her lover - I with a terror of needles. I was five years old when a course of injections killed my father. I overheard our nanny speak of it.
There was Slugs Jerry's tame guru who cured two Canadian girls of gonorrhea with prayer, meditation, herbal potions and the antibiotics secreted at the bottom of his Aruvedic medicine chest.
And trying to meet Blind George one perfect morning, he walking through the palm trees back from Baga beach, I walking in the other direction. George, with only 10% peripheral vision, faced 45 degrees from the direction of his walk and someone had fed me a powerful cookie for breakfast. Calculating a point of intersection was beyond me.
And of course the arrest of Caroline for nakedness on the beach and the gold smuggler paying her fine – but that story I wrote for The Lady magazine last month. It all happened forty years ago. Enough...
Except to thank Fiona and Paul for their company and for their kindness and generosity. Stray dogs are their normal house guests. A fat old snoring Brit on a bike was an extra.
There was Slugs Jerry's tame guru who cured two Canadian girls of gonorrhea with prayer, meditation, herbal potions and the antibiotics secreted at the bottom of his Aruvedic medicine chest.
And trying to meet Blind George one perfect morning, he walking through the palm trees back from Baga beach, I walking in the other direction. George, with only 10% peripheral vision, faced 45 degrees from the direction of his walk and someone had fed me a powerful cookie for breakfast. Calculating a point of intersection was beyond me.
And of course the arrest of Caroline for nakedness on the beach and the gold smuggler paying her fine – but that story I wrote for The Lady magazine last month. It all happened forty years ago. Enough...
Except to thank Fiona and Paul for their company and for their kindness and generosity. Stray dogs are their normal house guests. A fat old snoring Brit on a bike was an extra.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
REMARKABLE AND PRECIOUS MOMENTS
GOA: FEBRUARY 14
I took a wrong road, reached an unhappy destination, then began again in a fresh direction. All that remains of that period is remorse, a few stories and a few memories of remarkable and precious moments. Attempting to revisit those moments is futile. I tried yesterday. The memory is of four of us in my open VW. I had driven to Mapsa market. As I turned right at the end of the market to head back to Calangute, someone yelled my name. None of the others heard. I was certain. I reversed back round the corner. An old friend, Hamish Crawford, swayed on the sidewalk. He was seriously sick with jaundice and his then wife had abandoned him for a particularly unattractive red-headed Brit. God knows where Hamish found the strength to reach Mapsa. He saw my VW take the corner and he thought, That is the type of car Simon would drive if he came to India. So, yes, a remarkable moment, but impossible to revisit. Mapsa market is unrecognisable. Memory is memory. Let it be.
John seems to me stuck in the past – that book, all those photographs.
I took a wrong road, reached an unhappy destination, then began again in a fresh direction. All that remains of that period is remorse, a few stories and a few memories of remarkable and precious moments. Attempting to revisit those moments is futile. I tried yesterday. The memory is of four of us in my open VW. I had driven to Mapsa market. As I turned right at the end of the market to head back to Calangute, someone yelled my name. None of the others heard. I was certain. I reversed back round the corner. An old friend, Hamish Crawford, swayed on the sidewalk. He was seriously sick with jaundice and his then wife had abandoned him for a particularly unattractive red-headed Brit. God knows where Hamish found the strength to reach Mapsa. He saw my VW take the corner and he thought, That is the type of car Simon would drive if he came to India. So, yes, a remarkable moment, but impossible to revisit. Mapsa market is unrecognisable. Memory is memory. Let it be.
John seems to me stuck in the past – that book, all those photographs.
WALKING JOHN
GOA: FEBRUARY 15
The erstwhile manufacturer of silver snake belts has telephoned with a number for Walking John. I call and we meet at John's house. It seems to me a sad house, old and long and narrow and dark and neglected. Presumably it was bought as a resurrection project. If so, the resurrection stalled early.
And John, though ten years the younger, seems to me old. We sit opposite sides of a wood table in the dimly lit entrada and he tells me of his health. He has cataracts and had a cancer cut out from close to his nose and too close to his eyes for radio therapy. Whether the surgeon removed all the cancer is uncertain. John has wondered often what happened to me, so he says, and talks of me often to those he sees from the old days. He commiserates with me for having arrived too late to take part in last month's reunion of the old Goa stagers – though most who came were from the 80s or later. He shows me a book commemorating the reunion with photographs of then and now. Long hair is the uniting feature. The faces are foreign to me. Even when here, I wasn't part of that. The inside cover lists the dead.
John mentions two. Vanessa Jack is the shock, dead young in her sleep. I have been trying to trace her on the world wide web for the past six months. We traveled together forty years ago. Our journey was hers as much as mine. We were good together. Certainly there was love - yet I abandoned her in Nepal. I was taking that wrong road and didn't want her involved.
SUNDAY LUNCH AT THE BEACH
GOA: FEBRUARY 14
Fiona and Paul (Dutch) are giving a Sunday luncheon party at a French restaurant on the beach in Goa (ex-Portuguese. Of their guests, I am the only non-Indian. A major industrialist with homes here in Goa and in Delhi and Bombay and in France and in New York (two) talks of the British in the years after Indian Independence. He lists companies then famous in British industry, all swept away by superior Indian management. Britain had lost interest in India. British industry sent their weakest managers.
I doubt whether British managers existed who could have saved British interests in India. If so, why didn't they save British industry at home? Car manufacturers deceased. Truck manufacturers deceased. Locomotive manufacturers deceased. Motorcycle manufacturers deceased. And so on and so on and so on...
Fiona and Paul (Dutch) are giving a Sunday luncheon party at a French restaurant on the beach in Goa (ex-Portuguese. Of their guests, I am the only non-Indian. A major industrialist with homes here in Goa and in Delhi and Bombay and in France and in New York (two) talks of the British in the years after Indian Independence. He lists companies then famous in British industry, all swept away by superior Indian management. Britain had lost interest in India. British industry sent their weakest managers.
I doubt whether British managers existed who could have saved British interests in India. If so, why didn't they save British industry at home? Car manufacturers deceased. Truck manufacturers deceased. Locomotive manufacturers deceased. Motorcycle manufacturers deceased. And so on and so on and so on...
AMIN
GOA: FEBRUARY 13
Amin de Souza has invited me to lunch. We will meet at the steps below Panjim's biggest church. I arrive early, park the bike and sit in the cool of the nave. I am digging into happenings that have lain heavily on me for forty years - surely an inappropriate time to practice dying...so protected by the massive walls of the church, I surrender to the quite and cool and peace and finally simply accept for the first time the futility of my search. I did what I did. I knew that it was wrong, that I hurt people dear to me. But it is done. Remorse changes nothing. Time to move on.
So with Amin I sit and say little but, at peace, listen to the history of his life, of a father increasingly erratic and increasingly frail to whom, in nursing, Amin gave chunks of his life and on whose death, Amin managed to clean, if not the emotional distress his father bequeathed, at least the financial chaos.
It seems to me as I listen that suffering from his father's actions and the collapse of his parent's marriage, then suffering for his father in his illness has made Amin very self-contained. He has tested himself and learned the futility of anger. He is become a man to trust, a man of remarkable integrity, a man good to be with.
Amin de Souza has invited me to lunch. We will meet at the steps below Panjim's biggest church. I arrive early, park the bike and sit in the cool of the nave. I am digging into happenings that have lain heavily on me for forty years - surely an inappropriate time to practice dying...so protected by the massive walls of the church, I surrender to the quite and cool and peace and finally simply accept for the first time the futility of my search. I did what I did. I knew that it was wrong, that I hurt people dear to me. But it is done. Remorse changes nothing. Time to move on.
So with Amin I sit and say little but, at peace, listen to the history of his life, of a father increasingly erratic and increasingly frail to whom, in nursing, Amin gave chunks of his life and on whose death, Amin managed to clean, if not the emotional distress his father bequeathed, at least the financial chaos.
It seems to me as I listen that suffering from his father's actions and the collapse of his parent's marriage, then suffering for his father in his illness has made Amin very self-contained. He has tested himself and learned the futility of anger. He is become a man to trust, a man of remarkable integrity, a man good to be with.
PETER HENRY AND THE BUDHIST PRINT SCAM
GOA: FEBRUARY 12
My turn for a question. What happened to Walking John.
Walking John was a Brit in his mid twenties. His base was a bed-sit with bathroom on Bombay's Marine Drive - nowadays as costly as a walk on the moon. John wintered in Goa and summered trekking in the Himalayas. John liked to tell of his walking and Peter Henry was a listener. One of John's tales concerned the Buddhist monastery closest to Base Camp on Mount Everest. The monks had become rich and lazy on the leavings of Everest expeditions. In earlier days they survived on the sale of religious prints on handmade paper. Climate made printing difficult. Either the inks froze or humidity made the inks bleed. According to Walking john printing was possible only six weeks a year.
Eastern Spirituality was big business. Peter Henry loaded John and two young Californian women with natural colour inks and hand-made paper bought at an art supply store in Bombay and instructed John to reach the monastery at the beginning of the window, rent the blocks from the monks and print print, print.
Peter Henry took the prints to New York for Christmas and set up a display (at Bergdorf Goodman, if I remember correctly) with photographs of Everest and the monastery and monks coached to look spiritual plus a few monastic geegaws - one was a silver-edged bowl fashioned from a aged human cranium. Genuine Buddhist print from the Monastery at Everest Base Camp and blessed by the Abbot made a great Christmas present at $100. The outlay was five cents.Walking John complained that he never saw the profit. Such is the risk in joining forces with a scam artist.
So where is Walking john now?
“Almost certainly in Goa,” says my host, though he may need a day or two to come up with a telephone number.
WHAT HAPPENED TO PETER HENRY?
GOA: FEBRUARY 12
My past is surfacing at a party in Goa. First Amin de Souza. Now, “What happened to Peter Henry,” asks my host.
Last I knew of him, Peter was in Liverpool preparing designs for a flash Chinese restaurant and overseeing the work. The Chinese had paid Peter up front - always an error with Peter. So is scamming the Chinese. Peter disappeared. That was thirty years ago and Liverpool is a sea port. The tide goes out twice a day. Those of us who knew him well fear that he went out on the tide.
My past is surfacing at a party in Goa. First Amin de Souza. Now, “What happened to Peter Henry,” asks my host.
Last I knew of him, Peter was in Liverpool preparing designs for a flash Chinese restaurant and overseeing the work. The Chinese had paid Peter up front - always an error with Peter. So is scamming the Chinese. Peter disappeared. That was thirty years ago and Liverpool is a sea port. The tide goes out twice a day. Those of us who knew him well fear that he went out on the tide.
PETER HENRY AND THE SIVER SNAKE BELT SCAM
GOA: FEBRUARY 12
Peter Henry was an accomplished scam artist. Antique silver snake belts were a fashion item in Europe and North America and young Westerners on their travels were scouring the bazaars for belts. Peter Henry spotted a short cut. Surely snake belts were as easy to manufacture as metal watch straps. My present host had a watch strap factory. Peter Henry ordered a few hundred belts. He packed the belts in a net and buried them in the sand at the low water mark. Two weeks and the belts had gained the wear of a century. Peter Henry headed for New york in time for Christmas, reaped a splendid profit and swamped the market. Snake belts were no longer a fashion item.
Peter Henry was an accomplished scam artist. Antique silver snake belts were a fashion item in Europe and North America and young Westerners on their travels were scouring the bazaars for belts. Peter Henry spotted a short cut. Surely snake belts were as easy to manufacture as metal watch straps. My present host had a watch strap factory. Peter Henry ordered a few hundred belts. He packed the belts in a net and buried them in the sand at the low water mark. Two weeks and the belts had gained the wear of a century. Peter Henry headed for New york in time for Christmas, reaped a splendid profit and swamped the market. Snake belts were no longer a fashion item.
PETER HENRY
GOA: FEBRUARY 12
Why did Amin de Souza remember me? With this thought, my own memory clicked. I knew our host. Used to know him. I'd been to his home in Bombay more than once. He was married to a difficult German then. We were seated beside each other now on the stone parapet. The garden lights were dim – not that good light would have helped. Forty years changes a man. “Simon Gandolfi,” I said. “You manufactured the belts for Peter Henry and the silver snake belt scam.”
Why did Amin de Souza remember me? With this thought, my own memory clicked. I knew our host. Used to know him. I'd been to his home in Bombay more than once. He was married to a difficult German then. We were seated beside each other now on the stone parapet. The garden lights were dim – not that good light would have helped. Forty years changes a man. “Simon Gandolfi,” I said. “You manufactured the belts for Peter Henry and the silver snake belt scam.”
Monday, March 08, 2010
POCKET FULL OF TOOTHPICKS AND OLIVE STONES
GOA: FEBRUARY 13
I don't do parties in the UK. Eight people in a room is a maximum. More and I become claustrophobic. Cocktail parties are my particular hate. Stand with a drink in one hand, nibbles in the other and nod intelligently to someone whom you can't hear above the general babble. And what do you do with the trash? Leave with a pocket full of toothpicks and olive stones? Outdoors is different, room to breathe and usually somewhere to sit. This party is hosted by a Bombayite and his English companion. I sit on a stone parapet of comfortable height and talk with a Goan civil engineer.
Does he know of a Goan architect with a Danish wife?
De Souza - yes , of course. He is dead, she back in Denmark with their daughter. However the son, Amin, lives here in Panjim.
I recall Amin as a small boy.
“We'll telephone him.”
“At ten o'clock?”
Absolutely – and he does. “Amin, I have someone here who wants to talk to you,” and hands me his mobile.
“Amin, you won't remember me. Simon Gandolfi.”
“Simon Gandolfi! Of course I remember. You used to drive us to the beach in one of your open Volkswagen...”
I don't do parties in the UK. Eight people in a room is a maximum. More and I become claustrophobic. Cocktail parties are my particular hate. Stand with a drink in one hand, nibbles in the other and nod intelligently to someone whom you can't hear above the general babble. And what do you do with the trash? Leave with a pocket full of toothpicks and olive stones? Outdoors is different, room to breathe and usually somewhere to sit. This party is hosted by a Bombayite and his English companion. I sit on a stone parapet of comfortable height and talk with a Goan civil engineer.
Does he know of a Goan architect with a Danish wife?
De Souza - yes , of course. He is dead, she back in Denmark with their daughter. However the son, Amin, lives here in Panjim.
I recall Amin as a small boy.
“We'll telephone him.”
“At ten o'clock?”
Absolutely – and he does. “Amin, I have someone here who wants to talk to you,” and hands me his mobile.
“Amin, you won't remember me. Simon Gandolfi.”
“Simon Gandolfi! Of course I remember. You used to drive us to the beach in one of your open Volkswagen...”
FLASH LEATHER AND A TOY BOY
GOA: FEBRUARY 13
Simon and Lisa have difficulties in getting published. Simon does the writing and organises their photo-library (one hundred thousand or more pics) while Lisa does the more mundane: route planning, visas, finance, etc. Simon is one more forty-year old biker – OK, so he's tall with long hair and moderately glamorous. Who cares? Lisa is the story. She is the elder by ten years, tough good-looking without being butch and astride a great big throbing BMW. Open the throttle and she leaves Simon trailing. That's the story, Flash leather and a Toy Boy. Most every woman's dream.
Simon and Lisa have difficulties in getting published. Simon does the writing and organises their photo-library (one hundred thousand or more pics) while Lisa does the more mundane: route planning, visas, finance, etc. Simon is one more forty-year old biker – OK, so he's tall with long hair and moderately glamorous. Who cares? Lisa is the story. She is the elder by ten years, tough good-looking without being butch and astride a great big throbing BMW. Open the throttle and she leaves Simon trailing. That's the story, Flash leather and a Toy Boy. Most every woman's dream.
DON'T LAUGH AT THE MINOW
GOA: FEBRUARY 13
www.horizonsunlimited. com is a web site community of biker travelers initiated by a Canadian couple, Susan and Grant Johnson. Check the Hubb for road conditions in Albania, visas for Turkmenistan, possibility of entering China, BMW mechanic in Buenos Aires. What ever, you'll find it here. And you make friends. I have been communicating via the web with an English couple, Lisa and Simon, since 2004. Now, finally, we meet on Arambol beach. They have been on the road for seven years and ride monsters. I ride a minow and we are very different travelers. Simon and Lisa are adventurous. Travel ecstasy for me is good tar, a dish of prawns, soft mattress and Emails from my kids. For Lisa and Simon, the tougher the road the happier. Truly dangerous and they are ecstatic. Check their site on how to survive a broken neck in the Amazon forest (www.2ridetheworld.com). However a few weeks of Indian drivers has put them in a hate-India mood.
IN SEARCH OF HIPPY HAVEN
GOA: FEBRUARY 13Paul and Fiona work a twelve-hour day. I hunt my past. Goa's Hippy community has been squeezed steadily northward. Calangute was the beginning, then Baga, Anjuna...Now ninety minutes up the coast to Arambol. Goa is ruined – so they say. Then why do I pass almost deserted white-sand beaches?
As to the hunt, imagine a fat ederly Blimp accosting any Oldie with long hair. “Excuse me, have you been here long?”
In a guttural German accent, “Ten years...”
The Blimp needs forty...And the courage to keep accosting elderly long-haired strangers. A full day (unsuccessful) and I divide them into gracious, puzzled, bewildered, dismissive and impolite.
As to the hunt, imagine a fat ederly Blimp accosting any Oldie with long hair. “Excuse me, have you been here long?”
In a guttural German accent, “Ten years...”
The Blimp needs forty...And the courage to keep accosting elderly long-haired strangers. A full day (unsuccessful) and I divide them into gracious, puzzled, bewildered, dismissive and impolite.
DEDICATED CASTRATERS
GOA: FEBRUARY 13
Paul and Fiona don't eat in. They haven't eaten in for fifteen years. They could write the definitive guide to the best restaurants in Delhi, Bangalore and Goa without further research - a fresh project should they lose interest in automobiles. They are also the experts on India's stray dog population. Paedophiles groom children. Fiona and Paul groom strays. Spot a male stray and the grooming begins with leftovers from dinner. A week and the stray becomes expectant. Progress to physical contact. Finally in to the back of the car and home to the knife and recuperation. Two such dedicated castraters per district would decimate India's huge stray-dog population. Next step, homo sapiens...
Paul and Fiona don't eat in. They haven't eaten in for fifteen years. They could write the definitive guide to the best restaurants in Delhi, Bangalore and Goa without further research - a fresh project should they lose interest in automobiles. They are also the experts on India's stray dog population. Paedophiles groom children. Fiona and Paul groom strays. Spot a male stray and the grooming begins with leftovers from dinner. A week and the stray becomes expectant. Progress to physical contact. Finally in to the back of the car and home to the knife and recuperation. Two such dedicated castraters per district would decimate India's huge stray-dog population. Next step, homo sapiens...
EX-STRAY DOGS
GOA: FEBRUARY 12
To begin again: Fiona/Paul may not be the true voice of Goa. They are the true voice of modern India. They research the Asian automobile market and provide detailed reports for major motor manufacturers. They founded their company fifteen years ago with offices in Delhi, moved to Bangalore and have now been in Goa for two years. A large Portuguese country house is both their home and their office where a staff of ten or more sit at computer terminals in what was the dinning room. The guest bedroom is as big as a UK council flat. The bathroom is marginally smaller. I sleep in a vast bed beneath a mosquito net. I keep the door to the corridor shut. Leave it open and the room is invaded by a pack of ex-stray dogs and puppies.
To begin again: Fiona/Paul may not be the true voice of Goa. They are the true voice of modern India. They research the Asian automobile market and provide detailed reports for major motor manufacturers. They founded their company fifteen years ago with offices in Delhi, moved to Bangalore and have now been in Goa for two years. A large Portuguese country house is both their home and their office where a staff of ten or more sit at computer terminals in what was the dinning room. The guest bedroom is as big as a UK council flat. The bathroom is marginally smaller. I sleep in a vast bed beneath a mosquito net. I keep the door to the corridor shut. Leave it open and the room is invaded by a pack of ex-stray dogs and puppies.
INSUFFICIENT COFFEE
GOA: FEBRUARY 12.
Fiona and Paul - is it sexist to put the woman's name ahead of the man's? Or the man's ahead of the woman's? Please excuse the digression. I have had only one cup of coffee this morning and my thoughts remain somewhat disorganised. The plains of Tamil Nadu in March are hot. Fortunately I am cooled by a strong sea breeze. I am writing on the roof terrace of the Sunrise Guest House in Mamallapuram. A grass park and a few trees separate the guest house from the sea. The sea is a pale greeny blue beneath a sky that is paler than pale. Surf breaks on the rock shore. Two small, narrow, high-bowed fishing boats rock at anchor. Four sister boats have chugged south down the coast. A junior teenage help is preparing fresh coffee. Ten minutes and my brain will be unscrambled.
Fiona and Paul - is it sexist to put the woman's name ahead of the man's? Or the man's ahead of the woman's? Please excuse the digression. I have had only one cup of coffee this morning and my thoughts remain somewhat disorganised. The plains of Tamil Nadu in March are hot. Fortunately I am cooled by a strong sea breeze. I am writing on the roof terrace of the Sunrise Guest House in Mamallapuram. A grass park and a few trees separate the guest house from the sea. The sea is a pale greeny blue beneath a sky that is paler than pale. Surf breaks on the rock shore. Two small, narrow, high-bowed fishing boats rock at anchor. Four sister boats have chugged south down the coast. A junior teenage help is preparing fresh coffee. Ten minutes and my brain will be unscrambled.
Friday, March 05, 2010
FREN JOSHUA
GOA: FEBRUARY 9
Everybody at the Fren Joshua concert is a small crowd of maybe one hundred. The true sound of Goa is German. He sits in splendour on a raised dais on the stage and plays the sitar and a flute. To his right, a grey-haired Japanese with a frozen face plays base guitar next to a tabla player who might be Indian. A second German plays keyboard and fiddles with a lap-top. Fren Joshua is both serious and spiritual. He dedicates his songs to a series of Sufi saints and mystics. My untrained ear finds one song much like the next. Perhaps the Sufi mystics were equally similar. The concert is enlivened on occasion by all four musicians emitting a series of very loud harsh barks.
The Japanese base player runs out of battery.
I clap once at the wrong moment.
The prawn risotto is dry and without taste.
So where is the luck?
In meeting a young Dutch couple, Paul and Fiona, at the restaurant.
Everybody at the Fren Joshua concert is a small crowd of maybe one hundred. The true sound of Goa is German. He sits in splendour on a raised dais on the stage and plays the sitar and a flute. To his right, a grey-haired Japanese with a frozen face plays base guitar next to a tabla player who might be Indian. A second German plays keyboard and fiddles with a lap-top. Fren Joshua is both serious and spiritual. He dedicates his songs to a series of Sufi saints and mystics. My untrained ear finds one song much like the next. Perhaps the Sufi mystics were equally similar. The concert is enlivened on occasion by all four musicians emitting a series of very loud harsh barks.
The Japanese base player runs out of battery.
I clap once at the wrong moment.
The prawn risotto is dry and without taste.
So where is the luck?
In meeting a young Dutch couple, Paul and Fiona, at the restaurant.
SEARCHING FOR THE PAST
GOA: FEBRUARY 9
Calangute is the northern end of a thirty kilometer hodgepodge of high-rise apartment blocks, bed-bug dosshouses, luxury resorts, bars and restaurants that range in quality from brilliant to instant dysentery. My memories are of a small village. We were fifty foreigners at most. Fishermen mending nets were the only Indians. I trust to luck in searching for my past. The luck is an Italian with a shack restaurant amongst the trees a kilometer back from Vagator beach. He has long hair, an old bike and spent years up in Poona or Pune at the Shri Rajneesh ashram - wow! a real life sennayasin. How old? Mid-sixties and an old stager. He belongs...While I fall at the first hurdle. I've never heard of Fren Joshuah, never listened to his music, the true sound of Goa (so the Italian asures me).
Fren Joshua is in concert tonight on the beach north towards Arambol. Everybody's going. Return to the restaurant afterwards for prawn risotto.
Calangute is the northern end of a thirty kilometer hodgepodge of high-rise apartment blocks, bed-bug dosshouses, luxury resorts, bars and restaurants that range in quality from brilliant to instant dysentery. My memories are of a small village. We were fifty foreigners at most. Fishermen mending nets were the only Indians. I trust to luck in searching for my past. The luck is an Italian with a shack restaurant amongst the trees a kilometer back from Vagator beach. He has long hair, an old bike and spent years up in Poona or Pune at the Shri Rajneesh ashram - wow! a real life sennayasin. How old? Mid-sixties and an old stager. He belongs...While I fall at the first hurdle. I've never heard of Fren Joshuah, never listened to his music, the true sound of Goa (so the Italian asures me).
Fren Joshua is in concert tonight on the beach north towards Arambol. Everybody's going. Return to the restaurant afterwards for prawn risotto.
IMAGINATION ADDICTS
KODAIKANAL: MARCH 5
I sit in on a class of final year students discussing manipulation of thought through maps, photography and metaphor. Am I prejudiced in finding the girls intellectually more mature?
The class finishes and I stay on at a table with three students. Teenagers tend to be wary of revealing themselves. They find safety in number. A full class and I might be able to provoke a general discourse – even an argument. Three is too few – though I try with the question I posed throughout Hispanic America. Why do so few students intend entering Public Service?
These three answer me rather than speak to each other.
S1 (f): The pay is too low.
S2 (f): It's modern Indian society - everyone for themselves.
S3 (m) has no opinion. He wants to be a sports journalist.
Or Politics?
S1: It's impossible to stay clean.
End of subject.
Do they spend much time in their imagination?
S3 (m) imagines doing things – driving a fast car, scoring a goal.
S1 (f) fears that she day dreams too much, that it effects her grades.
I want to ask, not what she dreams, but why she dreams. Is she seeking shelter and from what?
From whom she thinks she is?
Or from what is expected of her?
Or from what she expects?
I don't have the right and S2 is talking now of a lonely childhood in which her only companions were imaginary - as they became my addiction both as a child and as a writer of fiction. So to Goa...
I sit in on a class of final year students discussing manipulation of thought through maps, photography and metaphor. Am I prejudiced in finding the girls intellectually more mature?
The class finishes and I stay on at a table with three students. Teenagers tend to be wary of revealing themselves. They find safety in number. A full class and I might be able to provoke a general discourse – even an argument. Three is too few – though I try with the question I posed throughout Hispanic America. Why do so few students intend entering Public Service?
These three answer me rather than speak to each other.
S1 (f): The pay is too low.
S2 (f): It's modern Indian society - everyone for themselves.
S3 (m) has no opinion. He wants to be a sports journalist.
Or Politics?
S1: It's impossible to stay clean.
End of subject.
Do they spend much time in their imagination?
S3 (m) imagines doing things – driving a fast car, scoring a goal.
S1 (f) fears that she day dreams too much, that it effects her grades.
I want to ask, not what she dreams, but why she dreams. Is she seeking shelter and from what?
From whom she thinks she is?
Or from what is expected of her?
Or from what she expects?
I don't have the right and S2 is talking now of a lonely childhood in which her only companions were imaginary - as they became my addiction both as a child and as a writer of fiction. So to Goa...
SCHOOL
KODAIKANAL: MARCH 5
The International School is coeducational. 60 % of the 571 students are Indian nationals, 121 are from other Asian countries, 58 North American, 41 from Europe, 7 African, a lone New Zealander and a lone Omani. The curriculum melds the US Public school syllabus with the International Baccalaureate. 100% progress to University, not a bad record...And the school has 14 music teachers. In earlier days Kodai produced diplomats, administrators and academics. The modern trend is towards entrepreneurs and CEOs. For further information check the Web.
My own opinion? A joyful and stimulating path to adulthood...
The International School is coeducational. 60 % of the 571 students are Indian nationals, 121 are from other Asian countries, 58 North American, 41 from Europe, 7 African, a lone New Zealander and a lone Omani. The curriculum melds the US Public school syllabus with the International Baccalaureate. 100% progress to University, not a bad record...And the school has 14 music teachers. In earlier days Kodai produced diplomats, administrators and academics. The modern trend is towards entrepreneurs and CEOs. For further information check the Web.
My own opinion? A joyful and stimulating path to adulthood...
KODAIKANAL INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL
school hiding in the trees
KODAIKANAL: MARCH 4
Kodai has three centers: the bazaar, the star-shaped 24 hectare lake and the International School. So far on this journey I have talked either with other foreigners or with the middle aged and older. I long for young voices. I am in Kodai for the school.
Put most of Asia in a cocktail shaker, add a smidgen of Irish and unlimited enthusiasm and you have the school's Vice Principal. I've omitted intellectual curiosity and intellectual discipline of which he has ample and my joy at discovering that he is an historian.
He is similar to President Obama in thinking before replying to a question - a habit that is politically disastrous according to the Professor of Sanskrit (ex of the University of Pennsylvania) whom I met on the road south. The US voter demands immediate replies. Pause for thought shows indecisiveness. It also leads to confusion as shown when a woman staff member telephones the Vice Principal with a query and preempts his answer - wrongly as it happens. Unraveling the confusion takes a while.
KODAIKANAL
TO KODAIKANAL: MARCH 3
Kodaikanal is 2300 meters above sea level. The settlement was founded in 1834 by US missionaries as a shelter from the fierce heat and diseases of the plain. Kodai remains healthy – almost no mosquitoes! A good road winds up the mountains through thick forest. Waters of Vaigai lake sparkle in the Kambam valley below amidst emerald paddy and darker palm and banana plantations with the Varushanad hills in the distant background. Signs warn drivers and riders to sound their horns. I obey. Two young men on a bike wave me down and point uphill into the forest. I sit on the stone parapet and watch bison graze amongst the trees. The undergrowth allows only brief glimpses of a calf. The calf is paler than the adults. What pleasure in breathing cool air forest-scented. And so upward, the late afternoon chill on my chest and I wonder whether to stop and drag out the sweater from my backpack.
SMALL SLICE OF CAKE
TO KODAIKANAL: MARCH 3
I wrote earlier that India does weird things to a traveler. It fills you with loathing only to lift you with its magic. Earlier today I was in loathing mode. The road to Kodaikanal transports me to heaven. The road approaches forested mountains across the Kambal valley, a flat fertile land of small paddy, coconut plantations and clean villages. I stop at a tiny cafe for tea and a small slice of cake. Four young men are my fellow customers. One of the men quizzes his companions for sufficient words with which to attempt communication beyond a smile. Hi, is all they manage. I can do Hi. To the reader, a single syllable must seem inadequate. Not to the traveler. The intention counts, the desire to learn something of each other.
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
TEPPAM FESTIVAL
MADURAI: MARCH 3
India does weird things to a traveler. It fills you with loathing only to lift you with its magic. Madurai was magical on that last journey forty years ago. I was traveling with a young woman, Vanessa Jack. We drove into town the eve of Madurai's Teppam Festival when Shiva and his triple breasted consort are taken in procession from the temple to the Mariamman Teppakkulam tank. We met a young Brahman outside the temple. His father organised the festival. Thus we found ourselves on the float amongst the notables, two small white figures seated at the feet of the Gods, utterly unimportant, yet permitted to share in the sacred. I remember the glow of the full moon and the ropes connecting the float to thousands of faces glistening in candle-light on the bank, and I remember the music, the drumming of the old master and the young master playing in turn, not in competition but lifting each other to an ever higher plane and we were lifted, transported. All of us. Oh yes, magic...
And I learned my lesson in Goa. Treasure your memories, learn from them, but move on...
India does weird things to a traveler. It fills you with loathing only to lift you with its magic. Madurai was magical on that last journey forty years ago. I was traveling with a young woman, Vanessa Jack. We drove into town the eve of Madurai's Teppam Festival when Shiva and his triple breasted consort are taken in procession from the temple to the Mariamman Teppakkulam tank. We met a young Brahman outside the temple. His father organised the festival. Thus we found ourselves on the float amongst the notables, two small white figures seated at the feet of the Gods, utterly unimportant, yet permitted to share in the sacred. I remember the glow of the full moon and the ropes connecting the float to thousands of faces glistening in candle-light on the bank, and I remember the music, the drumming of the old master and the young master playing in turn, not in competition but lifting each other to an ever higher plane and we were lifted, transported. All of us. Oh yes, magic...
And I learned my lesson in Goa. Treasure your memories, learn from them, but move on...
CRASH OF THE DAY
TO KODAIKANAL: MARCH 3
I got hit by a bus yesterday. Not me personally, but the right-side wing mirror. I was riding through a small town on a typical Indian main street, buses, trucks, tractors dragging trailers, rickshaws, bikes and pedal bicyclists, loaded hand-carts, cows, a few goats, hundreds of pedestrians. The bus overtook me where there was no room. It shoved me off the road on to soft dirt. I was fortunate to miss a couple of pedestrians and a hand cart. I saw a bad smash a few Ks later out in the country. A rickshaw had pulled out in front of a speeding biker, a young guy, no helmet. The bike was on its side in the road. The biker lay on the grass verge. His head was all blood and he wasn't moving. A crowd had gathered, gawpers. Presumably they were waiting or hoping for an ambulance.
Today's worst smash was an overturned truck with another truck embedded in it. The driver was heading the wrong way down a dual carriageway. Exactly how the crash happened, I don't know. I'm an observer rather than a specialist. Photographing the mashed cabs would have been unfeeling.
And I have been forced off the road In the space of an hour this morning by two buses heading right at me as they overtook other vehicles. I've had enough. To Hell with this. I'm heading straight for the Himalayas. Maybe mountain people are more considerate. In the middle of this thought, I spot a sign to Kodaikanal. Kodaikanal is Tamil Nadu's most picturesque hill station. The sign strikes me as a message (not necessarily divine). I had already decided to bypass Madurai. Madurai was divine. But that's history.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
THE SUN ALSO RISES
KANYAKUMARI: MARCH 2
Tens of thousands of Hindu pilgrims visit Kanyakumari each year to celebrate the rising of the sun. 5 A.M. and I climb the stairs to the roof of the Hotel. No Hindu chant greets me but a sung mass broadcast from the Catholic church on the sea front. A woman sits on one of two plastic chairs and cradles a young girl on her lap. Her husband and another man clamber up a ladder to the hotel's water tower. I consider the ladder. The rungs are steel pipe. A large blister burst yesterday on the ball of my left foot. It hurts. I am wearing shoes, no socks. I haven't tied the laces (nor have I combed my hair and my teeth are in a mug in my bedroom). Which will be more painful: stooping to tie my laces or climbing the ladder on bare feet? Or not climb the ladder? Such are the quandaries of old men. The mother with the child points to the spare plastic chair. Does she judge me too old for the ladder? Me the Hells Angel of septuagenarians? I'll show her. Off come the shoes and up. The eastern sky is faintly tinged with orange. Behind us the moon hangs over a hotel. The hotel's roof is crowded with sunrise celebrants. So are all the roofs. Either my fellow guests at this Hotel are lazy or have taken the true believers route to the sea shore. The sun rises. It is low key rather than spectacular. I take photographs and return to my room. The night porter offers me coffee or tea. Black coffee, no sugar. What will he bring? Brown water. That's OK. Dawn is done. Pilgrim buses are pulling out of town. It's going to be a great day...
Monday, March 01, 2010
THE TIP
KANYAKUMARI: MARCH 1.
I sat this evening on the beach at India's most southern point and photographed the sun set in the ocean. I am way behind with the BLOG - or way ahead on the ride. Tomorrow I will head for Madurai, then up to Khodikanal to escape the heat and finally catch up with the writing. Then north fast for the Himalayas...
AH, WELL...
My Eicher road atlas is much admired by fellow travelers. Page 98 shows a small road south from Arboli to Ramghat, Bhedshi and Maneri where it joins a main road to Panjim, Goa's capital. The road starts well, single track but good tar, and runs across a rocky plateau through dense forest. The trees are small but the canopy is solid and a fresh deep green. The air is fresh and scented. After the disappointment of Arboli, heaven. I check with a passing bicyclist: “Ramghat?”
Negative. But what does he know.
Next, an elderly gentleman on a motorcycle: “Ramghat? Panjim? Goa?”
Negative.
Perhaps he is stupid.
Two pedestrian countrymen wave me down. No need for words. Their gestures suffice. The road ends. Oh...
Negative. But what does he know.
Next, an elderly gentleman on a motorcycle: “Ramghat? Panjim? Goa?”
Negative.
Perhaps he is stupid.
Two pedestrian countrymen wave me down. No need for words. Their gestures suffice. The road ends. Oh...
VISUAL DISASTER
Arboli isn't a town. It isn't even a village - certainly not an Indian village. Indian villages have a main street lined with kiosks. Arboli is a scattering of unplanned low-rise concrete construction, a few holiday homes but mostly featureless hotels in the twenty room bracket - not many of them but sufficient to make Arboli a visual disaster. Lonely Planet advises that tourists can visit bauxite mines. Maybe I'm picky but bauxite mines don't register as major attractions. Come on, old man, be courageous, take the memory lane to Goa. Confront your past.
ARBOLI
Arboli is 690 meters above sea level. The road zigzags up a thickly forested mountain side. It is a good road with stone parapets. Monkeys sit on the parapet. Children throw them half-eaten bananas. Drivers park below a waterfall and wash their trucks. Indian tourists photograph the view with mobile phones. The view would be clear in Hispanic America. In India a haze is standard – or standard in the bits of India through which I've travelled on this journey. This isn't a complaint, more a point of interest. I will head north to the Himalayas later. Will the views be clear?
IN COMPETITION WITH SPRATS
Victory! Or victory of a sort...
A waiter has taken my order for lime and soda and a fried pomfret (flat fish somewhat akin to a sole). He assures me that the fish is fresh. True – and delicious. Sadly the rice is preboiled and the bill for the fish is 50% higher than the price on the menu.
“It was a big fish,” says the waiter.
In competition with sprats.
Memories surface of State-run restaurants in Cuba. Four years of Cuba was sufficient. Arboli, here I come...
A waiter has taken my order for lime and soda and a fried pomfret (flat fish somewhat akin to a sole). He assures me that the fish is fresh. True – and delicious. Sadly the rice is preboiled and the bill for the fish is 50% higher than the price on the menu.
“It was a big fish,” says the waiter.
In competition with sprats.
Memories surface of State-run restaurants in Cuba. Four years of Cuba was sufficient. Arboli, here I come...
TARKALI PENINSULAR
The MTDC resort on the Tarkali Peninsular suffers from the dread hand of Government employees. A brick path leads up through casuarina pines to a scattering of simple cottages and an open-sided restaurant. Some of the bricks are missing and rubbish needs removing. An aircon unit protrudes from the rear of each cottage. Glance up and the cottages appear hunchbacked.
I sit at a table outside the restaurant. Three members of staff ignore me. No matter, the deserted beach is white sand licked by blue sea and stretches way into the distance - bliss for beach lovers. I drag off my boots, stick my socks in my pocket, roll up my pants and paddle. The sea is cool. The sand is too hot for bare feet and roasts my backside when I sit to pull my boots back on. The restaurant staff are in the same conversation. I wait patiently and wonder whether I really want to stay the night. Would Amboli be more welcoming?
I sit at a table outside the restaurant. Three members of staff ignore me. No matter, the deserted beach is white sand licked by blue sea and stretches way into the distance - bliss for beach lovers. I drag off my boots, stick my socks in my pocket, roll up my pants and paddle. The sea is cool. The sand is too hot for bare feet and roasts my backside when I sit to pull my boots back on. The restaurant staff are in the same conversation. I wait patiently and wonder whether I really want to stay the night. Would Amboli be more welcoming?
NO BARE BREASTS
Turn west off the NH 17 at Kasal and Malvan is twenty-six kilometers down a twisty lane across paddy and passed houses sheltered by mango, jack fruit and coconut. Bananas, guyavas, papaya grow in the yard. Spit out a seed and it sprouts. Malvan is one narrow crowded higgledipiggedy street blocked by a couple of busses and a builder's truck. Carry on a few Ks and you reach the Tarkali Peninsular promoted by the Maharashta Tourism Board as India's Tahiti. Gaugin would have been disapointed – no bare breasts. Houses grow larger closer to the beach and more numerous – holiday homes. A few boards advertise family home stay for respectable Indian families. The Maharashtra Tourist Development Corporation owns and runs the only hotel. It is easy to find. Governments excel at signboards. They are less good at service industries.
A BIKER'S DREAM
National Highway 17 is a biker's dream. I am repeating myself for the benefit of readers who have dropped in on this Site by chance. It is a climb-and-dip road with curves to lean into. Forest cloaks the hills. Neem trees shade the straight stretches. Coconut palms shade river banks. I stop awhile to watch a limited overs cricket match. Our village club has two county-standard grass fields, all-weather practice nets, bowling machine, pavilion with a bar. Twenty spectators on a Saturday afternoon and we are doing well. Here the field is dry rice paddy. No pads or gloves for batsmen, no helmets, and I am one of fifty spectators seated on the roadside. A further fifty or more are dotted round the boundaries. Fast bowlers at either end, drive the ball along the ground and a close-in paddy bank does the fielding. Batsman go for the airial route. My fellow spectators try communicating with me. The few words we share are cricket terminology: leg before, boundary, catch. Too glorious a morning to be depressed by the language barrier. We make do with smiles...
Saturday, February 27, 2010
FEARFUL OLD FOOL
Back home I cross the hills to Malvern most days and swim at the Malvern Spa. Today I head for Malvan where I intend spending the night. Malvan is on the coast. It is reputed to have a fine beach. It is a few kilometers north of the Goa state boundary. Tomorrow I will ride up into the mountains to sleep in the cool of a little visited hill resort, Albi, from where a side road circles down to Goa's capital. Forty years have passed since I rented a small house in Goa, on Calangute Beach. Goa is full of ancient memories. I delay my arrival for fear of what I will discover, not so much in Goa as in myself. I was callous then. Callous and a coward. I had broken out of jail, on the run from a life sentence. My jailers were a wife I loved and two small children whom I adored. Did I think of them? Yes, often, and with tears. So why run?
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
NO FOOL AS FOOLISH AS AN OLD FOOL
I am an idiot. I have broken one of the cardinal rules. No excuses. And it might have killed me. It nearly did. The country road from the Janjira ferry connects with the N17 highway to Goa. The N17 is a great road for a biker, hill sections with luscious curves to lean in to, straight stretches shaded by overhanging trees, bridges over dream-land rivers and a good surface, great places to stop for coffee and a bowl of soup. Ratnagari is the only large town. To quote Lonely Planet, That's all that can be said for it. The town is fifteen Ks off the highway. Late afternoon and I ride midway through the outskirts for an ATM and a top-up for my mobile. Hotels are modern and probably expensive. I noticed a hotel at the highway intersection so I turn back. The hotel is a real dump. Check out a room and hear an anticipatory rustle from the bed bugs. I know that I should ride back into town but What the hell, there's bound to be something better and I ride on into the twilight. The next place, 10Ks on, is worse and night's fallen. I've been riding all day; my vizor's dirty and I'm blinded by oncoming traffic. Hill country and two buses race at me neck and neck uphill on a tight curve. No white line as a a guide and I can't see a damn thing. The front wheel kicks over a stone as I go off the road. Brake and I'm done for. The buses thunder by and I fight the bike back onto the black top. Luck saved me from hitting a tree or a rock. I'm scared shitless (as they say in impolite circles) and I'm cursing myself. 20 Ks to a small town with two small hotels. The hotels are either full or Reception hates my looks. My hands tremble as I drink a coffee and wash the visor and my spectacles. Better...
A further 15 Ks and there is a brand new hotel off to the left. So new that they haven't finished surfacing the approach road. This is a flash joint that has to be 2000 rupees a night. I'd pay 10000 to get off the road. The owner wears six chunky gold rings and a welcoming smile. The room has a/c, hot water, brilliant mattress and flat screen satellite TV with CNN and BBC. Dinner is chicken masala with both bismati rice and chapatis. Breakfast is included in the 600 rupee room rate! I lie in bed and call Bernadette. I don't mention riding by night or coming off the road. One near death experience is sufficient...
A further 15 Ks and there is a brand new hotel off to the left. So new that they haven't finished surfacing the approach road. This is a flash joint that has to be 2000 rupees a night. I'd pay 10000 to get off the road. The owner wears six chunky gold rings and a welcoming smile. The room has a/c, hot water, brilliant mattress and flat screen satellite TV with CNN and BBC. Dinner is chicken masala with both bismati rice and chapatis. Breakfast is included in the 600 rupee room rate! I lie in bed and call Bernadette. I don't mention riding by night or coming off the road. One near death experience is sufficient...
Monday, February 22, 2010
IS IT OK TO HAVE FUN?
The country road from the Janjira ferry south twists through steep wooded hills and through river valleys – a glorious ride. I don't think of myself as a biker. I don't have the leathers or the decals. I've only changed a tyre once and I prefer to have a mechanic adjust the chain. It's not laziness nor incompetence, more that I enjoy watching a professional at his work and enjoy the usual crowd that frequent a bike mechanic's shop. I spent hours in Jaisalmer watching two Sikh brothers rebuild the motor on a 1960 Enfield. A few kicks and the motor started - splendid - and I ate dinner at their home a couple of times. The elder brother's wife speaks English and is studying business management at the University there.
This is beginning to read as an apology for enjoying myself. Not so. It's simply that I am surprised at the fun I get from biking (given that I don't think of myself as a biker), and given that most people on the road (foreign or Indian) think that my riding a bike round India is remarkable. Most are surprised that I've survived. True, I was in shock the first couple of weeks. India's traffic obeys neither laws nor logic, however it does have a rhythm – or that's what I feel. Get with the rhythm and you enjoy the ride. Or has the third fresh lime and soda gone to my head? Maybe I should stick with beer...
This is beginning to read as an apology for enjoying myself. Not so. It's simply that I am surprised at the fun I get from biking (given that I don't think of myself as a biker), and given that most people on the road (foreign or Indian) think that my riding a bike round India is remarkable. Most are surprised that I've survived. True, I was in shock the first couple of weeks. India's traffic obeys neither laws nor logic, however it does have a rhythm – or that's what I feel. Get with the rhythm and you enjoy the ride. Or has the third fresh lime and soda gone to my head? Maybe I should stick with beer...
FERRIES ARE ROMANTIC
I have a great affection for ferries. The smaller the ferry, the more romantic. The Janjira ferry is a decked launch. Passengers sit on benches or on the roof. Eight motorbikes is the maximum wheeled cargo. Steep steps lead down to the quay. a narrow pathway bisects the steps. The angle of descent exceeds 45 degrees. The specialist from the ferry takes the bike keys and rides the bike down. Scary? Yes!
Four men lift the bike into the launch. The engineer starts the diesel engine and we thrum out to sea past fishing boats tugging at anchors. Heat haze softens the great grey fortification and makes of Janjira Fort a mirage floating on the water. Definitely romantic...and, as always on a boat or ship, we passengers, thrown together, fall into conversation. From where do I come? To where am I travelling? What of my family? So ask dark smiling friendly men, while I ask how the road is...
Mundane? Yes. But warming for a lone traveler, a charging of batteries that will last a day in the saddle.
Four men lift the bike into the launch. The engineer starts the diesel engine and we thrum out to sea past fishing boats tugging at anchors. Heat haze softens the great grey fortification and makes of Janjira Fort a mirage floating on the water. Definitely romantic...and, as always on a boat or ship, we passengers, thrown together, fall into conversation. From where do I come? To where am I travelling? What of my family? So ask dark smiling friendly men, while I ask how the road is...
Mundane? Yes. But warming for a lone traveler, a charging of batteries that will last a day in the saddle.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
WHY ARE POLICE THE ENEMY?
MURUD: FEBRUARY 7
Riding a bike is a solitary occupation. I have time to think. Subjects of thought return again and again, become familiar companions and refuse to be abandoned until written down. So here is a thought on police of whom I ask directions in what ever country I travel. I come of a generation (and perhaps a class) that considers the police as one of the four solid foundation blocks of the community. The vicar or priest cared for our souls; the doctor cared for our health; the family lawyer shared with the bank manage a care for our finances; the policeman was our protector and the protector of our property and laws were passed for our benefit. Why then do my children's generations view the police as the enemy? And if the police are the enemy of youth, what youth joins the police? This last is a serious and disturbing question. And that is enough on the subject – though I will return to it. But now is the hour to daub my face and ankles with mosquito repellent and stroll down Murud's shore street, bid its citizens (other than the veiled) Good evening, sip a fresh lime and soda and decide in which restaurant to dine. Prawns? Probably...
Riding a bike is a solitary occupation. I have time to think. Subjects of thought return again and again, become familiar companions and refuse to be abandoned until written down. So here is a thought on police of whom I ask directions in what ever country I travel. I come of a generation (and perhaps a class) that considers the police as one of the four solid foundation blocks of the community. The vicar or priest cared for our souls; the doctor cared for our health; the family lawyer shared with the bank manage a care for our finances; the policeman was our protector and the protector of our property and laws were passed for our benefit. Why then do my children's generations view the police as the enemy? And if the police are the enemy of youth, what youth joins the police? This last is a serious and disturbing question. And that is enough on the subject – though I will return to it. But now is the hour to daub my face and ankles with mosquito repellent and stroll down Murud's shore street, bid its citizens (other than the veiled) Good evening, sip a fresh lime and soda and decide in which restaurant to dine. Prawns? Probably...
Friday, February 19, 2010
SOMALI PIRATES
MURUD: FEBRUARY 7
Heading south tomorrow, I must take a ferry from Janjira across an inlet. Janjira is separated from Murud by a creek and a steep treeless hill that rises directly from the shore. Janjira nestles in a cleft in the hill. Cross the bridge and ride up the hill and you look down on a nest of coconut palms sheltering tiled cottages and a mosque. Fishing boats lie off shore and the great walls of Janjira fort rise dark from the waters. Pirates from the Horn of Africa built the fort in the 11th century and it was never subdued. Were the builders Somali? Certainly Muslem, and Janjira remains a Muslem village. Veiled women in black peak at me from doorways...
DUST TO ANKLES
MURUD: FEBRUARY 7
Murud is a pleasant town for a stroll, small, compact, tranquil. Inhabitants are polite, streets narrow, buildings mostly low and old. Mango trees and coconut palms offer shade. The small covered market overflows with fruit and vegetables. Women carry baskets of sand to a building site. Fisherman mend nets. I sit at a waterfront cafe, order a fresh lime and soda (no sugar, no salt). For the past hour some forty men have been talking together on stone benches in the park next door. Most are elderly. I watch now as they walk down the beach. They hitch their pants a few inches and paddle a few feet out from the shore. Four young Bombayites at the next table tell me that the men are scattering a friend's ashes. For a friend they should have paddled further and made sure the tide was on the ebb. Or perhaps they planned having their friend's ashes stick to their ankles...
Murud is a pleasant town for a stroll, small, compact, tranquil. Inhabitants are polite, streets narrow, buildings mostly low and old. Mango trees and coconut palms offer shade. The small covered market overflows with fruit and vegetables. Women carry baskets of sand to a building site. Fisherman mend nets. I sit at a waterfront cafe, order a fresh lime and soda (no sugar, no salt). For the past hour some forty men have been talking together on stone benches in the park next door. Most are elderly. I watch now as they walk down the beach. They hitch their pants a few inches and paddle a few feet out from the shore. Four young Bombayites at the next table tell me that the men are scattering a friend's ashes. For a friend they should have paddled further and made sure the tide was on the ebb. Or perhaps they planned having their friend's ashes stick to their ankles...
DAUGHTERS
MURUD: FEBRUARY 7
The German family have departed. They were good people, well read and thoughtful, against the Iraq war, doubtful of involvement in Afghanistan, critical of Britain's subserviance to the United States. The mother photographed the bullock race. The father downloaded the pictures to my computer. Why did he download a picture of his daughter? Surely not a subconcious hope that she might find a husband through my Blog...
Thursday, February 18, 2010
A BIG HURRAH FOR BEN HUR AT THE REAR
MURUD: FEBRUARY 9
Dawn in the garden at the Seashore Resort. A cool breeze off the sea stirs the palm fronds overhead. Crows pick through the night's rubbish discarded on the beach. Bath water heats on an open fire. The Resort's henah haired jack of all trades brings coffee and chai. The tide is out and the German family and I watch bulloock carts race each other along the glistening sand. Drivers whip the beasts and yell – all but a young lad bringing up the rear. Of his two bullocks, one is big and grey and staid. The second is small and young and tries to trot whilst the elder plods. The driver leans right forward and whacks the young bullock. For trotting or for not trotting fast enough? The driver ignores the old bullock. The older bullock igores the driver.
NOSE-PICKING CHEF
MURUD: FEBRUARY 8
I carry three guide books for comparison. Two recommend the same restaurant, Patil Khanaval. The restaurant is listed as on the sea front. Murud must have expanded since the researchers visited. Now it is down an alley. The cook is dug out of bed. He runs through the menu whilst picking his nose: fish biriyani, mutton biriyani, prawns biriyani. He may be a great chef but the nose is a negative. Better a Muslim restaurant with tables in a large garden the shore side of the shore road. Fish soup and grilled prawns, delicious. And so to my bed of layered rocks...
I carry three guide books for comparison. Two recommend the same restaurant, Patil Khanaval. The restaurant is listed as on the sea front. Murud must have expanded since the researchers visited. Now it is down an alley. The cook is dug out of bed. He runs through the menu whilst picking his nose: fish biriyani, mutton biriyani, prawns biriyani. He may be a great chef but the nose is a negative. Better a Muslim restaurant with tables in a large garden the shore side of the shore road. Fish soup and grilled prawns, delicious. And so to my bed of layered rocks...
GOOD NEIGHBOURS
dusk from the garden
MURUD: FEBRUARY 8
Murud is more of a large village than a town. Fishing and tourism are the main pursuits. The off-shore fortress of Janjira is the main attraction - apart from fresh seafood. I am staying at the Seashore Resort, listed in Footprint as having three rooms, a pretty garden, and run by a friendly family – accurate, though one room is closed while they extend the main house. I didn't find the place through the guide book. The doorman at a posh hotel across the street recommended it. A German family occupy the second room. Mother is a retired teacher. Father, a mathematician, is about to be retired with a golden handshake by a software company; younger people are available at half the salary. In her mid twenties, the daughter is cogitating on a career in what might loosely be described as the Social Services (or good deeds). They are traveling by hire car with a driver. They laugh a lot, love each other and read books. Good neighbours...
HEROIN AND OTHER DRUGS
MURUD: FEBRUARY 6
My knowledge of heroin is academic, though extensive. Thus I know that taking a hit develops a hunger for more. Prawns are similar which explains why I am on the road early and racing south from Daman for the small seaside town of Murud. The highway is good. I cruise at 90 kph and cut inland to avoid Mumbai – why risk bronchitis?
I pull in beside a sextet of cops for directions on which road to take.
An officer asks my age.
“Seventy-six, seventy-seven next week,” and I show him my passport.
The cops yak and laugh amongst themselves. Are they going to hit me with a fine for something? No, they are giving me a birthday present: permission to ride up the Pune (or Poona) Expressway (illegal for bikes). A secondary road to the right leads to Pale and so to the coast and a room with three beds in Murud at 450 rupees. Pile all three mattresses on one bed and you have three layers of rock. Walk down the garden and you are on the beach. Beach is rocks ground small.
My knowledge of heroin is academic, though extensive. Thus I know that taking a hit develops a hunger for more. Prawns are similar which explains why I am on the road early and racing south from Daman for the small seaside town of Murud. The highway is good. I cruise at 90 kph and cut inland to avoid Mumbai – why risk bronchitis?
I pull in beside a sextet of cops for directions on which road to take.
An officer asks my age.
“Seventy-six, seventy-seven next week,” and I show him my passport.
The cops yak and laugh amongst themselves. Are they going to hit me with a fine for something? No, they are giving me a birthday present: permission to ride up the Pune (or Poona) Expressway (illegal for bikes). A secondary road to the right leads to Pale and so to the coast and a room with three beds in Murud at 450 rupees. Pile all three mattresses on one bed and you have three layers of rock. Walk down the garden and you are on the beach. Beach is rocks ground small.
RIDING'S A BITCH - SO WHY AM I ENJOYING IT?
Riding a bike in India is tiring. This is not a complaint. I am having a great time. However a day in the saddle leaves me with insufficient energy to mount an Internet connection hunt. Back in the UK we have an image of India as the burning tip of high tek Internet development. Not on any connection that I've used. Slow as a slug and often fails when uploading pictures. However I have reached Cochin safely and am waiting for Professor Doctor Betty de Swann to sashay off the plane on the 21st. So I have two days to get up to date with the BLOG - Oh, and there is the next piece for BA and a film Presentation for Veronica. I think that's all. Or do I owe MCN? Though to have any sort of work at my age and in the present economic climate is a miracle for which I am immensely grateful...
That's enough.
Get back to your room, Old Fool, and start writing.
That's enough.
Get back to your room, Old Fool, and start writing.
Monday, February 15, 2010
BACK TO THE ROAD
DAMAN: FEBRUARY 5
Daman is on the coast 250 Ks south of Baroda/Vadodaras. The territory was annexed by the Portuguese in 1531 and ceded to the Portuguese by the Sultan of Gujarat in 1539. Prime Minister Nehru ordered the invasion of all Portuguese territories in India on 19th of December, 1961. Thus ended 430 years of Portuguese rule. So much for history...
Modern Daman is in two halves divided by the Daman Ganga river. Nani Daman is a moderately chaotic mix of high rise and bazaar, hotels, restaurants and wine shops, all geared to sell cheap booze to Indian males on holiday from dry States.
Cross the bridge to Moti Daman and the Portuguese fort and enter a quieter more tranquil world. Indian forts are built to guard Maharajas and their palaces. Daman fort sheltered bureaucrats, traders and their families. No palaces here. Trees shade peaceful streets of modest buildings. Even the cathedral is little bigger than a parish church. I sit a while on a bench in the plane white nave. The Eucharist light flickers on the alter. A small elderly woman and her pre-teens granddaughter kneel and light votive candles. A plump grey-haired priest smiles welcome as he passes. I am at peace. This is my culture. I practice dying. Then back to Nani Daman and Nana's restaurant for a splendid fish soup followed by spicy prawns.
Where am I sleeping? First I tried the Hotel Marina where polished wood floors and high ceilings of an old-style Portuguese home promised romance. An arrogant young manager showed me three rooms that smelt stale and damp. The TVs were secured in wooden cages. (when did you last steal a hotel TV?) and he demanded a 1500 Rupee deposit for a 600 Rupee room. No, thanks. Better a clean room with a clean smell in a modern building at 350.
Daman is on the coast 250 Ks south of Baroda/Vadodaras. The territory was annexed by the Portuguese in 1531 and ceded to the Portuguese by the Sultan of Gujarat in 1539. Prime Minister Nehru ordered the invasion of all Portuguese territories in India on 19th of December, 1961. Thus ended 430 years of Portuguese rule. So much for history...
Modern Daman is in two halves divided by the Daman Ganga river. Nani Daman is a moderately chaotic mix of high rise and bazaar, hotels, restaurants and wine shops, all geared to sell cheap booze to Indian males on holiday from dry States.
Cross the bridge to Moti Daman and the Portuguese fort and enter a quieter more tranquil world. Indian forts are built to guard Maharajas and their palaces. Daman fort sheltered bureaucrats, traders and their families. No palaces here. Trees shade peaceful streets of modest buildings. Even the cathedral is little bigger than a parish church. I sit a while on a bench in the plane white nave. The Eucharist light flickers on the alter. A small elderly woman and her pre-teens granddaughter kneel and light votive candles. A plump grey-haired priest smiles welcome as he passes. I am at peace. This is my culture. I practice dying. Then back to Nani Daman and Nana's restaurant for a splendid fish soup followed by spicy prawns.
Where am I sleeping? First I tried the Hotel Marina where polished wood floors and high ceilings of an old-style Portuguese home promised romance. An arrogant young manager showed me three rooms that smelt stale and damp. The TVs were secured in wooden cages. (when did you last steal a hotel TV?) and he demanded a 1500 Rupee deposit for a 600 Rupee room. No, thanks. Better a clean room with a clean smell in a modern building at 350.
Friday, February 12, 2010
WICKED WOMEN WITH MEDIA CAREERS
GOA: FEBRUARY 11
First I am pampered by the Taj. Then I am pampered by two Dutch friends who take me to a Burmese restaurant, Bombas, for dinner followed by a party at the home of a wealthy Delhiite. The dinner is as fine as any I have eaten. Prawns? Naturally - raw tuna, tender beef, chicken salad, etc etc etc etc etc, plus a gently lethal but delicious drink, the Bombas special. The Delhiite's home is modern and built on a lagoon. Water reflects overhanging trees. An Italian male struts his stuff in golden shoes and platinum self-regard. Two young women, Brits from west London via Solihull, grandparents from the sub-continent, coo their admiration of Italian men. Italian men have such wonderful taste. The Italian preens while the wicked ones extend their admiration to cover every aspect of male peacock self-adulation. Perhaps an hour passes before doubt creeps beneath the Italian's carapace. Doubt turns to certainty. He flees. His persecutors prance in victory. The Dutch drop me back at the Taj. Wash, teeth in a glass, heart medication, read birthday Emails from my children then lie in bed and call Bernadette. I wish she were here.
But a good birthday?
Yes, one of the best.
First I am pampered by the Taj. Then I am pampered by two Dutch friends who take me to a Burmese restaurant, Bombas, for dinner followed by a party at the home of a wealthy Delhiite. The dinner is as fine as any I have eaten. Prawns? Naturally - raw tuna, tender beef, chicken salad, etc etc etc etc etc, plus a gently lethal but delicious drink, the Bombas special. The Delhiite's home is modern and built on a lagoon. Water reflects overhanging trees. An Italian male struts his stuff in golden shoes and platinum self-regard. Two young women, Brits from west London via Solihull, grandparents from the sub-continent, coo their admiration of Italian men. Italian men have such wonderful taste. The Italian preens while the wicked ones extend their admiration to cover every aspect of male peacock self-adulation. Perhaps an hour passes before doubt creeps beneath the Italian's carapace. Doubt turns to certainty. He flees. His persecutors prance in victory. The Dutch drop me back at the Taj. Wash, teeth in a glass, heart medication, read birthday Emails from my children then lie in bed and call Bernadette. I wish she were here.
But a good birthday?
Yes, one of the best.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
FAMILY FEELING
GOA: FEBRUARY 11
1) happy helmet
2) good place to work
Before leaving England, I wrote in a article for the London Times that I would beg, borrow or steal for a night at the Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodphur. The Umaid Bhawan is Paradise for any lover of art deco. I spent two nights in blissful comfort. Yet more important were the days of exploration with one of the front desk managers and the discovery of so many extraordinary treasures of the period.
For Christmas I stayed in the Taj hotel at Gwalior, a palace built by the Maharaja as a guest cottage for King George V. I was suffering from bronchitis which antibiotics had failed to shift. The chef blended a herbal tea that worked a miracle.
I write of these visits today because I am being so totally spoiled and need to say thank you. Thank you not only for the comfort and the cosseting, but even more for the welcome. One of the managers, Derek, yesterday took me for a drive up to the old Portuguese fort. Rather than a courtesy car, we used the hotel work jeep. Because they didn't think of me as a guest, Derek explained, but as a member of the Taj family. Derek is Goan with University degrees in everything from ecology to law. I had lunch today at the restaurant above the sea - pan fried sea bream. Delicious! Derek arrived with a two-man Happy Birthday orchestra and presented me with a ribbon-tied coffee table book on Goa. So do I feel special? Yes. Is this part of the Taj experience? Perhaps. And yet there is something more and it for this that I wish to offer gratitude - not only of being made to feel part of a family but of a family of which I am immensely proud.
1) happy helmet
2) good place to work
Before leaving England, I wrote in a article for the London Times that I would beg, borrow or steal for a night at the Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodphur. The Umaid Bhawan is Paradise for any lover of art deco. I spent two nights in blissful comfort. Yet more important were the days of exploration with one of the front desk managers and the discovery of so many extraordinary treasures of the period.
For Christmas I stayed in the Taj hotel at Gwalior, a palace built by the Maharaja as a guest cottage for King George V. I was suffering from bronchitis which antibiotics had failed to shift. The chef blended a herbal tea that worked a miracle.
I write of these visits today because I am being so totally spoiled and need to say thank you. Thank you not only for the comfort and the cosseting, but even more for the welcome. One of the managers, Derek, yesterday took me for a drive up to the old Portuguese fort. Rather than a courtesy car, we used the hotel work jeep. Because they didn't think of me as a guest, Derek explained, but as a member of the Taj family. Derek is Goan with University degrees in everything from ecology to law. I had lunch today at the restaurant above the sea - pan fried sea bream. Delicious! Derek arrived with a two-man Happy Birthday orchestra and presented me with a ribbon-tied coffee table book on Goa. So do I feel special? Yes. Is this part of the Taj experience? Perhaps. And yet there is something more and it for this that I wish to offer gratitude - not only of being made to feel part of a family but of a family of which I am immensely proud.
BIRTHDAY BOY
GOA: FEBRUARY 11
1)view's good,too
2) birthday cake unveiled
Today is my 77th birthday so please forgive me if I skip ahead to the present. I ride faster than I write - a disadvantage for a travel writer - and, though trying to catch up, have been unsuccessful. Daman is behind me. So is the charming small coastal town of Murud south of Mumbai/Bombay and Malvan a little north of the Goa border. And, yes, I have eaten many a prawn!
For my birthday I am staying as a guest of the Taj Hotel Group at their beach resort in Goa. I am housed in a small cottage, really a luxurious minny suite, though with a private garden rather than a terrace. I have been writing this morning at a table in the garden. A waiter has delivered a chocolate birthday cake with candles and a card from management. I feel treasured - a sentiment echoed this morning by a couple from the Cambridgeshire Fens.
1)view's good,too
2) birthday cake unveiled
Today is my 77th birthday so please forgive me if I skip ahead to the present. I ride faster than I write - a disadvantage for a travel writer - and, though trying to catch up, have been unsuccessful. Daman is behind me. So is the charming small coastal town of Murud south of Mumbai/Bombay and Malvan a little north of the Goa border. And, yes, I have eaten many a prawn!
For my birthday I am staying as a guest of the Taj Hotel Group at their beach resort in Goa. I am housed in a small cottage, really a luxurious minny suite, though with a private garden rather than a terrace. I have been writing this morning at a table in the garden. A waiter has delivered a chocolate birthday cake with candles and a card from management. I feel treasured - a sentiment echoed this morning by a couple from the Cambridgeshire Fens.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
CAMERONES, PRAWNS, WHATEVER
I have written often that Om never did it for me. Camerones is my key to a state of blissful oneness with the universe, the Spanish word for prawns - though Prawns doesn't carry the same mystical power. No need for the Lotus position. An upright chair at a table is fine and a waiter for Guru. “Camerones,” I pray, “Grilled with chillies and garlic...” or in a spicy Veracruz tomato sauce. Oh, the incense...
Rajasthan, being a desert, doesn't do prawns.
Now I am into Gujarat. Veradora is a one night way station. Ask for directions and I draw a blank while Baroda (the old name) achieves an immediate response (nor did any Indian I met at the Jaipur Literary Festival speak of Mumbai or Mollywood). I digress. My original intention was to explain why I am speeding down the main highway for the coastal town of Daman, once a Portuguese territory. Daman has good restaurants serving great sea food.
Rajasthan, being a desert, doesn't do prawns.
Now I am into Gujarat. Veradora is a one night way station. Ask for directions and I draw a blank while Baroda (the old name) achieves an immediate response (nor did any Indian I met at the Jaipur Literary Festival speak of Mumbai or Mollywood). I digress. My original intention was to explain why I am speeding down the main highway for the coastal town of Daman, once a Portuguese territory. Daman has good restaurants serving great sea food.
Monday, February 08, 2010
WOMEN ARE BEASTS OF BURDEN
Good-bye to the not-Maharaja and the good people of Dhariyawad. Off again on a narrow road through small villages and lush fields of wheat, borders shaded by trees, leaves stirring in a light morning breeze, scents of fresh cow dung and freshly irrigated soil. This is the India of my imagination, the India I came to visit. I am a country boy. Send me up to London for four days from my beloved Herefordshire and I am often back on the evening train. So remember, Old Man, don't get trapped again. Stop sight seeing. Start experiencing. Yet sight seeing is easy. A past of temples and fortresses and palaces protects you from reality. Read history rather than the newspaper. Don't notice, as I must, the trail of village women balancing on their heads loads of wood. The weight forces them to take small rapid steps. Beasts of burden, whether with child or cargo, such is their lot. And the men? Still gathered to discuss the implications of Sunday's election. Will this or that permit be more easily acquired? Or Is five years of obsequious attention to a minor elected official wasted? This is India's rural politics.
THE GIANT FLYING SQUIRREL HUNT
The hunt is on for giant brown flying squirrels. In fact they don't fly. They glide. And they are nocturnal. The not-Maharaja's majordomo is the expert. We depart at 1730 in the hotel's World War One jeep. So they didn't have jeeps in WW One. Nor have you ridden in the Dhariyawad jeep. It predates suspension. It probably predates God.
The squirrel sanctuary is 18 kilometers up the bad road on which I arrived yesterday. A painter of zero talent has painted squirrels on the tall stone walls surrounding the sanctuary. The majordomo parks on the roadside beside the well outside the gates. The squirrel warden brings a bucket. Well water transforms the jeep's radiator into a steam geyser.
Now for the squirrels. The majordomo connects a powerful flash lamp to the jeep's battery and points to the center tree of three, possibly mangoes, growing between the sanctuary wall and the road. The warden, also with a lamp, assures me that squirrels will materialise at 1845 hours. I sit on a stone bench beneath the trees and wait in company with a small cloud of mosquitoes. Fortunately the mosquitoes dislike Deet. Night descends. Warden and majordomo shine their lamps on the tree. I see a small black face with pointed nose and bright eyes, plump body, bushy tail - at a guess three times the size of the grey squirrels living in the cedar tree shading our garden.
The lamps discover two more.
The warden rushes me directly under the tree. The squirrels disappear. I saw them fly?
“Absolutely, wonderful...” or so I reassure the warden and tip him 100 rupees.
Back we bump to the Fort where I am served an excellent dinner on the terrace. So ends a blissful day. Thank you, Dhariyawad.
The squirrel sanctuary is 18 kilometers up the bad road on which I arrived yesterday. A painter of zero talent has painted squirrels on the tall stone walls surrounding the sanctuary. The majordomo parks on the roadside beside the well outside the gates. The squirrel warden brings a bucket. Well water transforms the jeep's radiator into a steam geyser.
Now for the squirrels. The majordomo connects a powerful flash lamp to the jeep's battery and points to the center tree of three, possibly mangoes, growing between the sanctuary wall and the road. The warden, also with a lamp, assures me that squirrels will materialise at 1845 hours. I sit on a stone bench beneath the trees and wait in company with a small cloud of mosquitoes. Fortunately the mosquitoes dislike Deet. Night descends. Warden and majordomo shine their lamps on the tree. I see a small black face with pointed nose and bright eyes, plump body, bushy tail - at a guess three times the size of the grey squirrels living in the cedar tree shading our garden.
The lamps discover two more.
The warden rushes me directly under the tree. The squirrels disappear. I saw them fly?
“Absolutely, wonderful...” or so I reassure the warden and tip him 100 rupees.
Back we bump to the Fort where I am served an excellent dinner on the terrace. So ends a blissful day. Thank you, Dhariyawad.
SNEER-FREE BANKERS!
Plastic is the magic wand enabling modern travel. Magic is unreliable. I expect the worst each time I insert my card in an ATM. Or to mix metaphors, the Sword of Damocles accompanies me. The thread snaps in Dhariyawad. I refuse to panic. Or I refuse to accept that I am panicking. I stroll back to the Fort, sit on the terrace and call Smile, the E-Bank. The Fraud Department has blocked my card. Someone has been trying to use it with the wrong Pin. Not me. My Pin is etched in my memory with emotional gore. The card is unblocked. I must now institute an unblocking procedure at the ATM. The procedure doesn't exist in India. I consult the staff at the Dhariyawad bank. They advise that the card will probably work in 24 hours, meanwhile why I don't I join them for tea and a leisurely chat...?
Friday, February 05, 2010
CLEAN SWEEP
fort terrace and gardenSunrise in Dhariyawad. The Congress Party has swept the board. The spoils must be divided - small groups of male activists gather on the lawn below the hotel terrace. I watch the not-Maharaja mingle, affable, contented. Seeking greater privacy, a couple drift away. The elder gives instructions. The younger nods. Victory music blares from loud speakers in the bazaar. Later starts the victory procession. The not-Maharaja leads in his jeep. Small hatchbacks follow, motorcyclists two abreast. A tight group of women in sari glad-rags smile respectful support from beyond the arches - so much for equality of the sexes. The procession moves away through the bazaar and market square. The music stops. I am in search of an ATM. The majordomo leads, murmuring greetings left and right - a semi-semi royal progress. I follow in his footsteps – traditionally the woman's place. The ATM won't pay. Bloody Hell... Back to the Fort and back to work.
Firecrackers and drum beat herald Congress foot-soldiers. The brave spill through the archway into the Fort's parking lot. A fresh fire-cracker volley and drum roll encourages the timid. They have come to pay homage only to find the not-Maharaja absent. More fire crackers, more rattle of drums, then off they troop, supporters of no importance now the vote is in.
WHY VISIT DHARIYAWAD?
There is no logical reason for visiting Dhariyawad. To get there you take National Highway 79 east from Udaipur and turn south after Bhatewar down a crumbling single track road for fifty Ks – not a comforting experience for the nervous. The road passes through a forest, mostly teak. Teak, when shedding its leaves, looks more dead than alive. The forest is a wild-life sanctuary. Langur monkeys are common – as they are elsewhere. The fortunate may spot four-horned antelope, niglai, possibly a jackal or hyena. The miraculously fortunate (or imaginative) may even spot a panther stalk the shadows – though I doubt that even the evening flight of giant flying squirrels warrants the drive. So let me offer a very different experience: a rest from sight-seeing, escape from the tourist route.
Dhariyawad is an Indian country market town at the confluence of the Jakham and Karmoi rivers. No havelis here tarted up as guest houses, no restaurants promising veg and non-veg, Chinese, Italian, Continental (all of which taste the same), no tiresome tourist touts. Drive through the market and through the bazaar. At the T-junction turn right through the pointed key-hole arches emblazoned with a radiant sun smiling over a Rajput moustache - the massive wooden doors should be open - and you enter a 16th century mini Paradise. This is the domain of the eldest living son of the eldest son of the last Maharaja of Dhariyawad. The sixteen spacious rooms and suites offer total peace, comfortable beds, comfortable easy chairs and always a desk. Bathrooms are huge, water hot, proper towels. Dine outdoors on the terrace or upstairs in the dinning room. I am here for full moon. What could be more romantic?
Only at breakfast do I realise why I feel so at home. The Fort has the feel of a small manor house in an English village or off a Cathedral Close, though too small to be a Bishop's palace. Arches are a different shape, servants more numerous, home-made marmalade marginally less chunky. But the feel is there, peaceful, unpretentious, timeless, embedded in the community. What joy to be able to stay a month, ride horse-back, bird watch, explore tribal villages, wander the bazaar without being nagged with buy buy buy. Yes, and tell tall tales later of the panther seen while following a forest guide...
THE NOT-MAHARAJA
bazaar on election dayThe owner of the Fort Dhariyawad hotel would be the Maharaja if such titles had not been abolished by India's post Independence dictator, Indira Ghandi. He is also President of the local branch of Congress, India's ruling and dominant political Party. This is election day for mayors and District assemblies - the village gatherings are explained. The not-Maharaja has been out marshaling his men (no women) to get the vote in. A moment to greet me, then back to oversee the count!
Thursday, February 04, 2010
ROAD TO PARADISE
Following eleven days of imprisonment in Jaipur, the ride to Bundi was a confidence builder. Today I follow a minor road south west through dark emerald wheat fields and small villages. The oncoming traffic is mostly bikers delivering milk to town – presumably to a dairy to be transformed into cheese and curd. Four churns is the standard load. A few men manage six. The churns are copper and bell bottomed.
Here, way off the highway, riding through villages demands extra caution. The tarmac is already sun-warmed and the street is extra living space. A cow dozes in the sun; a woman combs out her hair; men gather round a spectacled reader of a newspaper. Men and women are dressed in Sunday best. The only people working are the milk delivery men and bus drivers. Is today one more of India's innumerable holidays?
An egret pretends to be a heron on the borders of a shallow reed-rimmed lake. The road zigzags up and crosses a barren plateau cratered with stone quarries, then down to more wheat fields and finally meets the four-lane Highway 76.
The highway is almost deserted. The concrete surface is excellent and the Honda cruises happily at 90 KPH (yes, I'm a real speed freak). Then follows 100 Ks of dilatory meandering down mostly single track tar. Men have gathered in every village. Serious faced, they squat and talk quietly in the shade of flat topped thorn or mango trees, few women visible, and most shops closed as I ride through the narrow main street of the bazar in the small market town of Dhariyawad. I turn in through the key-hole entrance arches to the Fort and my day is done. I have ridden 368 kilometers ending with 40 Ks of tinder-dry forest. My butt is numb but what a totally joyous ride.
ARE MUSLIM GRANDFATHERS MORE RELIABLE
I go in search of breakfast at a cafe across the street. A male toddler in a yellow bed cap tied under the chin, no pants, points at me. I point back. He giggles coyly. His dad sweeps him up and tells him to shake my hand. He whimpers. His mum grabs him and ducks back through a low doorway.
The teenage help at the cafe says there's no fresh orange juice because there's no electricity.
However, not all men are useless. Proof is a bearded Muslim grandfather in a white skull cap, knee-length white shirt and loose white cotton trousers riding four children to infants school on a older model Honda 125 – three on the pillion, one straddling the gas tank. I follow in his wake. Farewell to Bundi.
The teenage help at the cafe says there's no fresh orange juice because there's no electricity.
However, not all men are useless. Proof is a bearded Muslim grandfather in a white skull cap, knee-length white shirt and loose white cotton trousers riding four children to infants school on a older model Honda 125 – three on the pillion, one straddling the gas tank. I follow in his wake. Farewell to Bundi.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)