PURI: MARCH 15
I have walked the beach, struggled through a few thousand pilgrims to admire the temple, eaten curd and fruit salad with my Chinese lady friend (she leaves for Darjeeling tomorrow)and avoided further discussions of belts and diamonds. Tomorrow I head north towards Kolkata.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
BELTS OR DIAMONDS?
PURI: MARCH 15
The elderly overweight Canadian remains undecided as to beach diamonds. He has a further concern. Leather belts are a tenth the price of belts back home in Canada. Should he buy belts with the standard buckle or in the modern flip-over style? I gave up wearing belts on my fiftieth birthday. I wear what we Brits call braces and the Americans call suspenders. I wear them outside my shirt. The Canadian is clearly asking advice of the wrong person. This doesn't stop him.
The elderly overweight Canadian remains undecided as to beach diamonds. He has a further concern. Leather belts are a tenth the price of belts back home in Canada. Should he buy belts with the standard buckle or in the modern flip-over style? I gave up wearing belts on my fiftieth birthday. I wear what we Brits call braces and the Americans call suspenders. I wear them outside my shirt. The Canadian is clearly asking advice of the wrong person. This doesn't stop him.
BREAKFAST AT THE Z HOTEL
PURI: MARCH 15
A portly Canadian in his sixties and looking older wonders whether he shoud buy a diamond from a peddler on the beach. The unanimous opinion offered by his fellow guests at the Z Hotel is an instant negative. He, however, is determined that he has found a bargain. He bought a stone in Rajastahn some years back for US$1000. The gem dealer assured him that it had a value of US$2000. Back home a jeweler confirmed the value at $2000. This, of course, was the price a jeweler would set for a punter rather than the price at which a jeweler would buy the stone. The Canadian eventually sold the stone for US$600 yet believes that he made a profit.
Perhaps he should try baskets...
A portly Canadian in his sixties and looking older wonders whether he shoud buy a diamond from a peddler on the beach. The unanimous opinion offered by his fellow guests at the Z Hotel is an instant negative. He, however, is determined that he has found a bargain. He bought a stone in Rajastahn some years back for US$1000. The gem dealer assured him that it had a value of US$2000. Back home a jeweler confirmed the value at $2000. This, of course, was the price a jeweler would set for a punter rather than the price at which a jeweler would buy the stone. The Canadian eventually sold the stone for US$600 yet believes that he made a profit.
Perhaps he should try baskets...
VSO CYNICISM
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.
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.
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.
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