NEORA VALLEY: MARCH 31
That last, Not really, is untrue. Forget the road as dry boulder-strewn river bed. The straight stretches give magical glimpses of the valley between giant conifers. Ferns cascade from the uphill side of the track; rocks cocooned in moss, crystal clear rivulets; palest of pale-yellow butterflies chase each other, scent of leaf mold and pine tar – twelve kilometers of walker's bliss! Even the bad bits can't be that bad if a septuagenarian can handle them on a small bike. The turn to the camp is on the right under one of those square archways. The final ascent to the parking lot is near vertical mud. I don't do mud. Nor does the Honda. We get three quarters of the way up before beginning to slip backwards. Add two-villager power and we make it. A wizened elf shod in gold rubber boots grabs my bags out of the pick-up. What is a camp? What will I find? Presumably one or other end of cold-water basic...
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
FUN? NOT REALLY...
NEORA VALLEY: MARCH 31
And upward...
The small mountain town of Lava is dominated by a modern monastery. The track to Help Tourism's camp is to the right on the final bend before the village. The manager assures me that the track is very bad, better take the bike in the pick-up. As if I can't cope...I'll show him.
The track runs along the side of the mountain through a magnificent pine forest. The first few hundred meters are compressed dirt, easy. Turn a bend and I face a climb over large smooth river stones, first gear, bumpity bump bump bump. The stones kick the front wheel. Stay loose is the secret. Let the bike pick its own way as you would with a horse. A smooth stretch follows then more stones and a steep decent with a sharp bend. Imagine a mountain stream without water. Down hill is always worst. Put both feet down, you lose the rear break and begin to slide. Grab the front break and you're on your butt. So, however scared, you have to keep going - which isn't easy when faced with a 160 degree bend. The camp is twelve kilometers down the track. Twelve kilometers of and ninety minutes - enough time to get accustomed to the conditions and gain faith in your ability and the bike's ability. Fun? Not really...
And upward...
The small mountain town of Lava is dominated by a modern monastery. The track to Help Tourism's camp is to the right on the final bend before the village. The manager assures me that the track is very bad, better take the bike in the pick-up. As if I can't cope...I'll show him.
The track runs along the side of the mountain through a magnificent pine forest. The first few hundred meters are compressed dirt, easy. Turn a bend and I face a climb over large smooth river stones, first gear, bumpity bump bump bump. The stones kick the front wheel. Stay loose is the secret. Let the bike pick its own way as you would with a horse. A smooth stretch follows then more stones and a steep decent with a sharp bend. Imagine a mountain stream without water. Down hill is always worst. Put both feet down, you lose the rear break and begin to slide. Grab the front break and you're on your butt. So, however scared, you have to keep going - which isn't easy when faced with a 160 degree bend. The camp is twelve kilometers down the track. Twelve kilometers of and ninety minutes - enough time to get accustomed to the conditions and gain faith in your ability and the bike's ability. Fun? Not really...
Friday, April 16, 2010
JEEP GEYSERS
NEORA VALLEY: MARCH 31
The underfed driver parks the pick-up at a road side shrine - not to pray but to lift the hood on a mini geyser. Brave, I peek down the mountainside. Four women pick tea on the near precipice. Do they never suffer from vertigo? At least they are sheltered from the wind that whips over the crest. Wind in mountains is always scary. The driver removes the radiator cap and rests the engine five minutes before adding water. I drag a thick jumper from my backpack. Onward and upward...
The underfed driver parks the pick-up at a road side shrine - not to pray but to lift the hood on a mini geyser. Brave, I peek down the mountainside. Four women pick tea on the near precipice. Do they never suffer from vertigo? At least they are sheltered from the wind that whips over the crest. Wind in mountains is always scary. The driver removes the radiator cap and rests the engine five minutes before adding water. I drag a thick jumper from my backpack. Onward and upward...
HEART ATTACKS, ALTITUDE AND FEAR
NOREYA VALLEY: MARCH 31
The road turns uphill – or up-mountain – once more into tea gardens. The ascent is steeper than any I encountered in the Americas. At one point the road tunnels under itself to begin a 360o turn. I was sweating in my wind-proofs by the river. The sweat is chill now and I must fight a stiff breeze on my shoulder or be thrust toward the road's outer edge. How steep is the drop? How far is the drop? Don't know. Don't dare look. And what of the pain on my left side high under the ribs? Heart, muscular or too vivid an imagination? Scared? Yes. Having suffered a couple of heart attacks does that to you. Calmness is essential. I breathe slowly and draw comfort from memories of the first pass I crossed in Mexico, a climb from 60 meters above sea level to 3200. The pain was the same as were the fears – though with one added. Would the Brazilian-built Honda 125 fail? I rode 65000 kilometers through the Americas. I have ridden 12500 kilometers through India. Believe me, Honda 125s never fail...Not so the four-wheel-drive pick-up.
The road turns uphill – or up-mountain – once more into tea gardens. The ascent is steeper than any I encountered in the Americas. At one point the road tunnels under itself to begin a 360o turn. I was sweating in my wind-proofs by the river. The sweat is chill now and I must fight a stiff breeze on my shoulder or be thrust toward the road's outer edge. How steep is the drop? How far is the drop? Don't know. Don't dare look. And what of the pain on my left side high under the ribs? Heart, muscular or too vivid an imagination? Scared? Yes. Having suffered a couple of heart attacks does that to you. Calmness is essential. I breathe slowly and draw comfort from memories of the first pass I crossed in Mexico, a climb from 60 meters above sea level to 3200. The pain was the same as were the fears – though with one added. Would the Brazilian-built Honda 125 fail? I rode 65000 kilometers through the Americas. I have ridden 12500 kilometers through India. Believe me, Honda 125s never fail...Not so the four-wheel-drive pick-up.
FAT QUACK AND WIFE
NEORA VALLEY: MARCH 31
A grossly fat couple enter the chai shop. He is a doctor and boastful that his weekly visits to these uplands are an act of charity. His wife waddles behind the counter and helps herself to a packet of biscuits. The chai-shop daughter serves them bowls of vegetables and dhal, plates heaped high with rice. The fat couple stuff their faces and leave without paying. As for us, down and down and down to a river gorge and a narrow village where tour agencies advertise white water rafting. We cross a bridge and back track along the river. White water foams through the gorge. Two inflatable boats rest on a gravel spit. Tourists exchange tales of valour. How do I know? Been there, done that – though in Ecuador.
A grossly fat couple enter the chai shop. He is a doctor and boastful that his weekly visits to these uplands are an act of charity. His wife waddles behind the counter and helps herself to a packet of biscuits. The chai-shop daughter serves them bowls of vegetables and dhal, plates heaped high with rice. The fat couple stuff their faces and leave without paying. As for us, down and down and down to a river gorge and a narrow village where tour agencies advertise white water rafting. We cross a bridge and back track along the river. White water foams through the gorge. Two inflatable boats rest on a gravel spit. Tourists exchange tales of valour. How do I know? Been there, done that – though in Ecuador.
FREE WOMEN AND MOMOS
NEORA VALLEY: MARCH 31
I have escaped the harsh heat of India's plains. Wisps of thin cloud or mist drift across the narrow road. Time to pull on waterproof over-trousers and a light wind-cheater. We stop at a tin and brick shack. A woman serves us sweet milk tea and momos (stuffed crescent-shaped dumplings) steamed by her mother on a wood fire. The women are of a different culture to those of the south. No humility here. These women own themselves, freedom apparent in every movement and in the openness of their smiles and chatter.
I urge the driver of our pick-up to eat more. He is thin, young, married a year, first child born. His wife teaches in a private primary school – monthly salary 1500 Rupees. The driver earns 3000 Rupees plus 100 daily for food when away from home. A monthly family income of 40 pounds Stirling, little wonder that he is under-weight.
I have escaped the harsh heat of India's plains. Wisps of thin cloud or mist drift across the narrow road. Time to pull on waterproof over-trousers and a light wind-cheater. We stop at a tin and brick shack. A woman serves us sweet milk tea and momos (stuffed crescent-shaped dumplings) steamed by her mother on a wood fire. The women are of a different culture to those of the south. No humility here. These women own themselves, freedom apparent in every movement and in the openness of their smiles and chatter.
I urge the driver of our pick-up to eat more. He is thin, young, married a year, first child born. His wife teaches in a private primary school – monthly salary 1500 Rupees. The driver earns 3000 Rupees plus 100 daily for food when away from home. A monthly family income of 40 pounds Stirling, little wonder that he is under-weight.
TWO ROADS TO DARJEELING
NEORA VALLEY: MARCH 31
Two roads lead from Siliguri to Darjeeling. The direct route passes through Kurseong. We take the westerly road that climbs close to the Nepalese border. The beginnings are a gentle climb through almost flat tea gardens. Women pickers wade waist-deep amongst the deep emerald bushes. Shade trees guard the lanes to tea factories and manager's bungalows. We cross and recross the narrow gauge railway that takes Darjeeling's toy train north from Siliguri. Then up and up and up...
Two roads lead from Siliguri to Darjeeling. The direct route passes through Kurseong. We take the westerly road that climbs close to the Nepalese border. The beginnings are a gentle climb through almost flat tea gardens. Women pickers wade waist-deep amongst the deep emerald bushes. Shade trees guard the lanes to tea factories and manager's bungalows. We cross and recross the narrow gauge railway that takes Darjeeling's toy train north from Siliguri. Then up and up and up...
INTO THE HILLS
SILIGURI: MARCH 31
Help Tourism develops tourism within the community. They have built a camp in the Noreya Valley. The Siliguri office manager comes to the Cindrella Hotel in a four-wheel drive pick-up truck at 9 a.m. He has been instructed to transport me and the bike in the truck. I prefer to ride.
“The road to the camp is not possible.”
“So I will ride while the road is possible”
Help Tourism develops tourism within the community. They have built a camp in the Noreya Valley. The Siliguri office manager comes to the Cindrella Hotel in a four-wheel drive pick-up truck at 9 a.m. He has been instructed to transport me and the bike in the truck. I prefer to ride.
“The road to the camp is not possible.”
“So I will ride while the road is possible”
YE OF LITTLE FAITH
SILIGURI: MARCH 30
I lay the laptop and charger on the workbench. The non-newspaper reader regards it with deep suspicion. “It won't charge,” I say.
He pokes the charger with one finger. Nothing happens. I say, “It's not a bomb.”
Relieved, he opens the laptop.
I tell him that it has a Linux operating system.
Possibly he understands.
He plugs the charger into a wall socket. The charger falls out. He strips the ends from two lengths of copper wire, wraps the prongs of the charger with wires, no insulation tape, and prods the other ends into the socket with a couple of skinny ballpoints. Inserting a diagnostic probe into the cable end that connects to the computer produces zero. “It isn't charging.”
“Right,” I say.
“Do you wish me to mend it?”
“You can?”
“It is possible,” he says.
If only he sounded more confident.
Prying at the charger with a jeweler's screwdriver achieves nothing. A short discussion with my guide and the newspaper reader ensues before he takes a rusty kitchen carving knife from a drawer.
To me, “You wish me to open it?”
“You're the surgeon.”
Fifteen minutes with a soldering iron and the charger works. 300 Rupees. Old Man of little Faith...
I lay the laptop and charger on the workbench. The non-newspaper reader regards it with deep suspicion. “It won't charge,” I say.
He pokes the charger with one finger. Nothing happens. I say, “It's not a bomb.”
Relieved, he opens the laptop.
I tell him that it has a Linux operating system.
Possibly he understands.
He plugs the charger into a wall socket. The charger falls out. He strips the ends from two lengths of copper wire, wraps the prongs of the charger with wires, no insulation tape, and prods the other ends into the socket with a couple of skinny ballpoints. Inserting a diagnostic probe into the cable end that connects to the computer produces zero. “It isn't charging.”
“Right,” I say.
“Do you wish me to mend it?”
“You can?”
“It is possible,” he says.
If only he sounded more confident.
Prying at the charger with a jeweler's screwdriver achieves nothing. A short discussion with my guide and the newspaper reader ensues before he takes a rusty kitchen carving knife from a drawer.
To me, “You wish me to open it?”
“You're the surgeon.”
Fifteen minutes with a soldering iron and the charger works. 300 Rupees. Old Man of little Faith...
WE SET OUT TO HAVE AN ADVENTURE
SILIGURI: MARCH 30
Oh God, why hast thou forsaken me? Last night the camera disaster. This morning the laptop won't charge. An underweight young man sits on a plastic chair in side-street shop that advertises lap-top accessories. The shop is the size of a small shoe-box. No accessories. Does he know of a computer mechanic? Yes, indeed. He pulls down the steel shutter on his empty shop and mounts the pillion - a right, a left, another right, a further left, each street marginally narrower than the last. I park in the courtyard of a three-story concrete building the builders of which had never met an architect. A side door opens to a squash court sized workshop, low ceilinged, no windows. Two apparently indolent male thirty-somethings are drinking tea. One of them has tilted a spotlight to illuminate a newspaper. I suspect that the bits of computer and computer shells have found a permanent home on two work benches at right angles to each other. At such moments I remember the mantra with which my companion of Hispanic American travels, Ming, met all dangers and difficulties: “Simon, we set out to have an adventure...”
Oh God, why hast thou forsaken me? Last night the camera disaster. This morning the laptop won't charge. An underweight young man sits on a plastic chair in side-street shop that advertises lap-top accessories. The shop is the size of a small shoe-box. No accessories. Does he know of a computer mechanic? Yes, indeed. He pulls down the steel shutter on his empty shop and mounts the pillion - a right, a left, another right, a further left, each street marginally narrower than the last. I park in the courtyard of a three-story concrete building the builders of which had never met an architect. A side door opens to a squash court sized workshop, low ceilinged, no windows. Two apparently indolent male thirty-somethings are drinking tea. One of them has tilted a spotlight to illuminate a newspaper. I suspect that the bits of computer and computer shells have found a permanent home on two work benches at right angles to each other. At such moments I remember the mantra with which my companion of Hispanic American travels, Ming, met all dangers and difficulties: “Simon, we set out to have an adventure...”
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
SUE FOR MENTAL ANGUISH
SILIGURI: MARCH 29
My camera lens is dirty. I buy a cleaning kit at a camera shop, unpack the kit in my hotel bedroom and squeeze a drop of cleaning liquid onto the lens. The top shoots off the bottle. The entire contents flood the camera. Not only the lens but also the interior. Liquid bubbles float on the inside of the screen. Turn the camera on and the sole response from the computer is a request for the date. Were this the US I would hire a smart lawyer and sue the product manufacturer for a new camera plus an extra million for mental anguish - settle for one hundred grand. This is India. I weep.
My camera lens is dirty. I buy a cleaning kit at a camera shop, unpack the kit in my hotel bedroom and squeeze a drop of cleaning liquid onto the lens. The top shoots off the bottle. The entire contents flood the camera. Not only the lens but also the interior. Liquid bubbles float on the inside of the screen. Turn the camera on and the sole response from the computer is a request for the date. Were this the US I would hire a smart lawyer and sue the product manufacturer for a new camera plus an extra million for mental anguish - settle for one hundred grand. This is India. I weep.
BACK-ALLEY TAILOR
SILIGURI: MARCH 29
Three hours at a back-alley tailor designing a head band that will hold my camera.
The purpose? To shoot video as I ride. The shop is ten feet by eight, two sewing machines, two tailors. The younger, in his twenties, works on the camera headband. The older gives advice. The one-man chai shop opposite provides tea and further counsel. An elderly English speaker with a puncture repair shop (only for bicycles) translates. Add two or three onlookers and you have a street party. Why is Siliguri different? The people speak quietly, they don't jostle, they respect personal space. The only argument is financial. The tailor charges 50 Rupees. I tell him, Nonsense, and pay double.
Three hours at a back-alley tailor designing a head band that will hold my camera.
The purpose? To shoot video as I ride. The shop is ten feet by eight, two sewing machines, two tailors. The younger, in his twenties, works on the camera headband. The older gives advice. The one-man chai shop opposite provides tea and further counsel. An elderly English speaker with a puncture repair shop (only for bicycles) translates. Add two or three onlookers and you have a street party. Why is Siliguri different? The people speak quietly, they don't jostle, they respect personal space. The only argument is financial. The tailor charges 50 Rupees. I tell him, Nonsense, and pay double.
TRAIN IS OK
SILIGURI: MARCH 29
Unloading the bike at Siliguri is a doddle. An employee of the Cindrella Hotel has brought a bottle of petrol. I lunch with the hotel's owner, Rajendra Baid. He founded, when only twenty, Siliguri's newspaper. The paper continues in profit despite electronic competition.
Lonely Planet describes the Cindrella Hotel as Siliguri's best, bedrooms with polished floor boards. Best, yes, but the floors are marble. Siliguri is cleaner than cities further south. The people seem different. In what way? I'm unsure. Give me a few days...
Unloading the bike at Siliguri is a doddle. An employee of the Cindrella Hotel has brought a bottle of petrol. I lunch with the hotel's owner, Rajendra Baid. He founded, when only twenty, Siliguri's newspaper. The paper continues in profit despite electronic competition.
Lonely Planet describes the Cindrella Hotel as Siliguri's best, bedrooms with polished floor boards. Best, yes, but the floors are marble. Siliguri is cleaner than cities further south. The people seem different. In what way? I'm unsure. Give me a few days...
RAJEN BALI
What did I do in Kolkata other than watch cricket on TV, drink beer and over-eat? Talk with Rajen Bali - two septuagenarian chums sharing experiences and opinions and teasing each other. The teasing grows from affection and trust in a relationship. Rajen is a fine man, honourable, generous, determined in his principles. highly literate, widely read, widely traveled...and skillful in the kitchen.
DISGUST WITH LABOUR
KOLKATA: MARCH 28
Cooked by the Colonel, delicious prawns for dinner and one more sad good-bye.
The Kolkata edition of The Telegraph ran a flattering piece on me this morning. I am stopped twice by bikers on the road to the station.
Loading the bike is easy, the sleeper comfortable. I chat with an English woman, a child psychologist, member of a tour group off to trek in the foothills of the Himalayas. Where did trek originate? Is walk inadequate? Less sexy? Less commercial?
She has been a Labour supporter since childhood and a Labour Councilor. The present Labour hierarchy disgusts her. She will either vote Liberal Democrat or abstain.
Cooked by the Colonel, delicious prawns for dinner and one more sad good-bye.
The Kolkata edition of The Telegraph ran a flattering piece on me this morning. I am stopped twice by bikers on the road to the station.
Loading the bike is easy, the sleeper comfortable. I chat with an English woman, a child psychologist, member of a tour group off to trek in the foothills of the Himalayas. Where did trek originate? Is walk inadequate? Less sexy? Less commercial?
She has been a Labour supporter since childhood and a Labour Councilor. The present Labour hierarchy disgusts her. She will either vote Liberal Democrat or abstain.
FAREWELL TO KOLKATA
KOLKATA: MARCH 28
My last day in Kolkata and Rajen Bali promises me a treat. Off we march for breakfast, the Colonel leading, three swings of his arms, three claps. Come on, chaps. First the South India Restaurant, then to buy prawns for my farewell supper.
Crows and a few dogs pick at a heap of stinking refuse outside the market. Why isn't it cleared away? Ask the Municipal Government.
Rajen has shopped at this market for the thirty years. He barks witticisms at the stall holders, pokes at strange (to me) vegetables and fruit, explains their culinary usage – such is shopping with a two-legged encyclopedia of the subcontinent's food.
A small skinny fish merchant scoops prawns from a basket for the Colonel's inspection. The Colonel approves. Fish gleam on a slab, no ice. Trussed chickens lie silent. Two black goats wait the knife. A fresh carcass hanging from an iron hook drips blood into an open drain; a teenage butcher drags the skin from a second.
The Colonel selects limes, a red onion.
We are pulled home by a bare-foot rickshaw wallah.
Easy to salve your conscience and take a tuk-tuk.
Rajen Bali, ever practical, has pushed up the rickshaw wallahs' wages.
How?
By hiring them and paying 15% above the standard fare. Do this frequently and the raise becomes the norm.
My last day in Kolkata and Rajen Bali promises me a treat. Off we march for breakfast, the Colonel leading, three swings of his arms, three claps. Come on, chaps. First the South India Restaurant, then to buy prawns for my farewell supper.
Crows and a few dogs pick at a heap of stinking refuse outside the market. Why isn't it cleared away? Ask the Municipal Government.
Rajen has shopped at this market for the thirty years. He barks witticisms at the stall holders, pokes at strange (to me) vegetables and fruit, explains their culinary usage – such is shopping with a two-legged encyclopedia of the subcontinent's food.
A small skinny fish merchant scoops prawns from a basket for the Colonel's inspection. The Colonel approves. Fish gleam on a slab, no ice. Trussed chickens lie silent. Two black goats wait the knife. A fresh carcass hanging from an iron hook drips blood into an open drain; a teenage butcher drags the skin from a second.
The Colonel selects limes, a red onion.
We are pulled home by a bare-foot rickshaw wallah.
Easy to salve your conscience and take a tuk-tuk.
Rajen Bali, ever practical, has pushed up the rickshaw wallahs' wages.
How?
By hiring them and paying 15% above the standard fare. Do this frequently and the raise becomes the norm.
MOI AMORE
KOLKATA: MARCH 27
The Colonel and I are invited to lunch at a new restaurant opened by Kolkata's prophet of fusion cooking, Pradip Rozario. Padrip trained with the Oberoi Group both in India and in Europe. The Kurry Klub at 176, Sarat Bose Road was his initial gamble. The first two years were tough. Next came K K's Fusion. Now Moi Amore on the top floor of a plush new shopping mall and cinema complex. The décor is light, smart and friendly. The food is delicious – giant tiger prawns lightly grilled.
The Colonel and I are invited to lunch at a new restaurant opened by Kolkata's prophet of fusion cooking, Pradip Rozario. Padrip trained with the Oberoi Group both in India and in Europe. The Kurry Klub at 176, Sarat Bose Road was his initial gamble. The first two years were tough. Next came K K's Fusion. Now Moi Amore on the top floor of a plush new shopping mall and cinema complex. The décor is light, smart and friendly. The food is delicious – giant tiger prawns lightly grilled.
BRIT BRITS ARE CRAP AT 20/20
Indian Premier League 20/20 competition is in full swing. Sadly no matches at Kolkata's Eden Gardens before April 1. Rajen and I make do with television. Sachin Tendulkar is God. Collingwood is the only Brit with Brit grandparents. The two other Brits have parents or grandparents from the subcontinent. Thank God for Asian immigration.
IS HOGARTHIAN TRITE?
KOLKATA: MARCH 26
I love Kolkata. Communist State Governments, unfriendly to business, have curtailed investment. One result: the city suffers from less industrial pollution than Delhi or Mumbai. A second plus: no arguments with cab drivers. Cabs have meters, drivers switch them on. Shopping in the markets is a pleasure. Stall keepers are friendly. The language is musical. More English is spoken. I can communicate.
I explore the city while Rajen organises the final stages of my journey into Sikkim and the North East States. Few relics of the Mughals survive. Those of the British Raj have done better. The Writers Building (1780), headquarters of the East India Company, now houses the Government Secretariat. Built to impress the natives, the palatial Government House in immense pleasure gardens is home to the Governor of West Bengal. The Governor is a political appointee. I haven't written of the slums, that vile Hogarthian world glimpsed down alleys. Nor did I photograph them. The denizens deserve more of us than serve as illustrations for a Blog.
I love Kolkata. Communist State Governments, unfriendly to business, have curtailed investment. One result: the city suffers from less industrial pollution than Delhi or Mumbai. A second plus: no arguments with cab drivers. Cabs have meters, drivers switch them on. Shopping in the markets is a pleasure. Stall keepers are friendly. The language is musical. More English is spoken. I can communicate.
I explore the city while Rajen organises the final stages of my journey into Sikkim and the North East States. Few relics of the Mughals survive. Those of the British Raj have done better. The Writers Building (1780), headquarters of the East India Company, now houses the Government Secretariat. Built to impress the natives, the palatial Government House in immense pleasure gardens is home to the Governor of West Bengal. The Governor is a political appointee. I haven't written of the slums, that vile Hogarthian world glimpsed down alleys. Nor did I photograph them. The denizens deserve more of us than serve as illustrations for a Blog.
CHINESE STREET MARKET
KOLKATA: MARCH 26
Street breakfast at the Chinese street market: a ten liter aluminum pot of chicken soup simmers over coals on the sidewalk. The squatting stall holder rinses bowls in a bucket – sufficiently clean for the Colonel and I. One of our party, a woman, has brought her own cup. Her husband talks on his mobile while Rajen discusses chicken stock with the cook. Rajen remembers her mother. Beyond the stalls, women chop piles of salvaged timber into kindling. One feeds a baby at the breast. A family have roofed a crack between two shacks. The mother washes two toddlers in the gutter. Our next stop, stuffed dumplings...
Street breakfast at the Chinese street market: a ten liter aluminum pot of chicken soup simmers over coals on the sidewalk. The squatting stall holder rinses bowls in a bucket – sufficiently clean for the Colonel and I. One of our party, a woman, has brought her own cup. Her husband talks on his mobile while Rajen discusses chicken stock with the cook. Rajen remembers her mother. Beyond the stalls, women chop piles of salvaged timber into kindling. One feeds a baby at the breast. A family have roofed a crack between two shacks. The mother washes two toddlers in the gutter. Our next stop, stuffed dumplings...
WOW!
First day with internet in over a week. Where am I? Just returned from North Sikkim to the capitol, Gantok. Neither phones nor Internet in the North. Here in Gantok heavy storms every day wiped out Internet connection. Now, finally, brilliant sunshine and clear skies. Sat on my balcony at the hotel at 4.45 this morning to admire the snow peaks - fabulous. And the Internet working. Wow!
Sunday, April 04, 2010
KRAZY KEBABS
KOLKATA: MARCH 25
Krazy Kebab is newly opened and designer modern - somewhere to take a business client. The food is superb and Westerners will find ordering easier than at Kasturi. The kebabs are good. Try the lamb chops, Adrak ke panje. They melt in your mouth. Or the chef's own invention: Ghost Aftab. And there is an excellent value lunch-time buffet. The chef in his whites and tall hat sits with us. He was an executive chef with the Taj Hotel Group. He left to build his own small Empire. Good fortune to him.
Krazy Kebab is newly opened and designer modern - somewhere to take a business client. The food is superb and Westerners will find ordering easier than at Kasturi. The kebabs are good. Try the lamb chops, Adrak ke panje. They melt in your mouth. Or the chef's own invention: Ghost Aftab. And there is an excellent value lunch-time buffet. The chef in his whites and tall hat sits with us. He was an executive chef with the Taj Hotel Group. He left to build his own small Empire. Good fortune to him.
KASTURI
KOLKATA: MARCH 24
Kasturi at 7/A Mustaque Ahmed Street is the oldest Bengali restaurant in Kolkata. Climb stairs to a narrow room. Sit at a plastic topped table, no table linen, no menu, and eat fresh sea food. A waiter offers a dozen different dishes. I would be bewildered, nervous. Rajen selects. All are delicious. Salt water prawn in a sauce is extraordinary.
We sit in the proprietor's office after lunch. Rajen and the proprietor talk of cooking. Why no menu? Because dishes and prices change each day. The proprietor does the buying at the fish market. Quality and knowledge of what his customers can afford govern his choice.
Kasturi at 7/A Mustaque Ahmed Street is the oldest Bengali restaurant in Kolkata. Climb stairs to a narrow room. Sit at a plastic topped table, no table linen, no menu, and eat fresh sea food. A waiter offers a dozen different dishes. I would be bewildered, nervous. Rajen selects. All are delicious. Salt water prawn in a sauce is extraordinary.
We sit in the proprietor's office after lunch. Rajen and the proprietor talk of cooking. Why no menu? Because dishes and prices change each day. The proprietor does the buying at the fish market. Quality and knowledge of what his customers can afford govern his choice.
OLD MEN ENTRAPPED IN MEMORIES
KOLKATA: MARCH 24
Travelers eat mediocre food much of the time. Ignorant of where to eat we consult guide books or trust to chance. Writers of guide books are equally ignorant and chance is seldom the path to glory.
Encyclopedic knowledge of Kolkata makes Rajen Bali a brilliant pilot through the city's culinary highways and byways. First a cold beer at a bar. One bottle is sufficient. We sit quietly, content in each other's company, and tell tales of what made us who we are.
"Boring," my younger sons would say. Or, "Heard that..."
True, perhaps, but what would they prefer? Silence?
As for food, Rajen's tastes are eclectic. Plush or plastic table is immaterial. Only the food counts.
Travelers eat mediocre food much of the time. Ignorant of where to eat we consult guide books or trust to chance. Writers of guide books are equally ignorant and chance is seldom the path to glory.
Encyclopedic knowledge of Kolkata makes Rajen Bali a brilliant pilot through the city's culinary highways and byways. First a cold beer at a bar. One bottle is sufficient. We sit quietly, content in each other's company, and tell tales of what made us who we are.
"Boring," my younger sons would say. Or, "Heard that..."
True, perhaps, but what would they prefer? Silence?
As for food, Rajen's tastes are eclectic. Plush or plastic table is immaterial. Only the food counts.
Saturday, April 03, 2010
THROWN OUT OF THE CLUB
KOLKTA: MARCH 23
Rajen Bali and I are invited to dinner at Kolkata's Tollygunge Country Club. Rajen believes that the dress code is casual. I don't do casual. I have scruff or smart. Smart is bespoke trousers tailored in dark blue cotton at an attic sweat shop in Cochin's Jew Town. My navy shirt is hand-woven cotton (support the artisan) from the Rajastahn State Kadi Emporium in Jaisalmer. Add polished black brogues and a touch of hair gel and I look the works. Our host's wife and teen daughter are equally smart. So is Rajen. Only our host is scruff in a curly-collared short-sleeve sports shirt with a logo and boat shoes. So who gets us banned from the club restaurant and bars? Me. My shirt is Indian. It doesn't have a collar. Collars are obligatory. We eat in a no-doors shed with the mosquitoes.
DRINKING WITH COLONEL
KOLKATA: MARCH 21
We visit a bar that has been in the same family for four generations. The bar is a large, low-ceilinged rectangular room with some fifty marble-top tables and upright chairs. It is a utilitarian room. No decoration. The entrance off a side street is unobtrusive, no name on the door. Look for it and you wouldn't find it. The owner wishes it to remain so. Publicity is anathema. Bring out a camera and you'd be ejected. The clientele range from judges to market traders, pensioners to youthful whippersnappers. They have in common a comfortable thirst and a liking for calm conversation. Drunks and loud-mouths are banned. Only beer is served, cold beer by the bottle paid for in advance. Snack salesman circle the tables - delicious fish fingers – and the A/C works.
We visit a bar that has been in the same family for four generations. The bar is a large, low-ceilinged rectangular room with some fifty marble-top tables and upright chairs. It is a utilitarian room. No decoration. The entrance off a side street is unobtrusive, no name on the door. Look for it and you wouldn't find it. The owner wishes it to remain so. Publicity is anathema. Bring out a camera and you'd be ejected. The clientele range from judges to market traders, pensioners to youthful whippersnappers. They have in common a comfortable thirst and a liking for calm conversation. Drunks and loud-mouths are banned. Only beer is served, cold beer by the bottle paid for in advance. Snack salesman circle the tables - delicious fish fingers – and the A/C works.
READY TO PARTY
KOLKATA: MARCH 21
Two Old Blimps are ready to party. Down the stairs we hobble and out onto the sidewalk. Rajen Bali swings both arms forward in time with his first few steps, swing and clap, swing and clap. It is a gesture common to school games masters and army instructors. “Come on chaps, let's go.”
I am the only chap and I'm ready - though not speedy.
Neither is Rajen Bali. An ankle smashed by three trucks slows me down. A freak wave did for the Colonel's knee.
We don't give a damn.
We make a great pair.
Two Old Blimps are ready to party. Down the stairs we hobble and out onto the sidewalk. Rajen Bali swings both arms forward in time with his first few steps, swing and clap, swing and clap. It is a gesture common to school games masters and army instructors. “Come on chaps, let's go.”
I am the only chap and I'm ready - though not speedy.
Neither is Rajen Bali. An ankle smashed by three trucks slows me down. A freak wave did for the Colonel's knee.
We don't give a damn.
We make a great pair.
A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS
KOLKATA: MARCH 21
The Balis are a Hindu warrior Clan from the North West Frontier region of what is now Pakistan. Partition exiled them to India. Rajen was raised in Lucknow and served in the Army through much of the border States and with the United Nations in the Congo. On retirement, he moved to Kolkata primarily because he was unknown and wished to begin a new life. In doing so, he deliberately abandoned both his possessions and the privileges of rank – a clean sweep. Natives of Kolkata are restricted by habit. Rajen is an explorer. I benefit from his exploration.
The Balis are a Hindu warrior Clan from the North West Frontier region of what is now Pakistan. Partition exiled them to India. Rajen was raised in Lucknow and served in the Army through much of the border States and with the United Nations in the Congo. On retirement, he moved to Kolkata primarily because he was unknown and wished to begin a new life. In doing so, he deliberately abandoned both his possessions and the privileges of rank – a clean sweep. Natives of Kolkata are restricted by habit. Rajen is an explorer. I benefit from his exploration.
Friday, April 02, 2010
STAYING WITH THE COLONEL
KOLKATA: MARCH 20
Rajen Bali is married. His wife is away in Delhi visiting their only son. I am to occupy their spare room for the remains of my stay in Kolkata. How do we pass our time? Talk endlessly of the past and of places visited and, disapprovingly, of the state of the world. Where has honour gone?
Elderly gentlemen, we quickly establish habits. Writing first, then breakfast, followed by more writing for which cold beer is the reward. Then lunch. But what a lunch...
Rajen Bali is married. His wife is away in Delhi visiting their only son. I am to occupy their spare room for the remains of my stay in Kolkata. How do we pass our time? Talk endlessly of the past and of places visited and, disapprovingly, of the state of the world. Where has honour gone?
Elderly gentlemen, we quickly establish habits. Writing first, then breakfast, followed by more writing for which cold beer is the reward. Then lunch. But what a lunch...
MEETING THE COLONEL
KOLKATA: MARCH 19
Rajen Bali is introduced to me by Modhurima Sinha of the Taj. We sit together in the lobby of the Taj Bengal. Rajen Bali is the shorter by three inches and the younger by four years. He boasts a hawk's nose. Mine is snubbed. We are both overweight and bearded and we both served in the army, I as a lowly lieutenant, Rajen as a Lieutenant-Colonel. Rajen has put his retirement to good use both as a successful painter and one of India's foremost travel writers and writers on food. Modhurima Sinha probably sees us as grumpy old men and made for each other. So it proves...
Rajen Bali is introduced to me by Modhurima Sinha of the Taj. We sit together in the lobby of the Taj Bengal. Rajen Bali is the shorter by three inches and the younger by four years. He boasts a hawk's nose. Mine is snubbed. We are both overweight and bearded and we both served in the army, I as a lowly lieutenant, Rajen as a Lieutenant-Colonel. Rajen has put his retirement to good use both as a successful painter and one of India's foremost travel writers and writers on food. Modhurima Sinha probably sees us as grumpy old men and made for each other. So it proves...
LAW IS NEGOTIABLE
KOLKATA: MARCH 18
An immensely rich Kolkata businessman tells me of reneging on the purchase of a London Hotel. His London lawyer, a man with Indian antecedents, warned him of disadvantages in doing business in England. Miss-declare trading figures for United Kingdom Value Added Tax and you pay a fine. Do so a second time and you go to jail. India is different. Law is negotiable.
An immensely rich Kolkata businessman tells me of reneging on the purchase of a London Hotel. His London lawyer, a man with Indian antecedents, warned him of disadvantages in doing business in England. Miss-declare trading figures for United Kingdom Value Added Tax and you pay a fine. Do so a second time and you go to jail. India is different. Law is negotiable.
TORTOISE PROGRESS
KOLKATA: MARCH 18
A guest swims lengths of the pool as I breakfast at a window table at the Taj Bengal. I must face the laptop keyboard. The latest BA High Life piece needs final editing. The Guardian requires 600 words. I am late with 1500 words for MCN and this Blog is way behind. I occupy the same window table for a lunch-time meeting with the hotel's Director of PR, Mrs Modhurima Sinha. Six tourists lounge on sunbeds the far side of the pool. I head for my room. Dinner is Room Service Biriani and 30 minutes of IPL cricket live on TV. I call Bernadette at midnight and collapse into bed.
Have I finished? Of course not.
Why do I write so slowly?
A guest swims lengths of the pool as I breakfast at a window table at the Taj Bengal. I must face the laptop keyboard. The latest BA High Life piece needs final editing. The Guardian requires 600 words. I am late with 1500 words for MCN and this Blog is way behind. I occupy the same window table for a lunch-time meeting with the hotel's Director of PR, Mrs Modhurima Sinha. Six tourists lounge on sunbeds the far side of the pool. I head for my room. Dinner is Room Service Biriani and 30 minutes of IPL cricket live on TV. I call Bernadette at midnight and collapse into bed.
Have I finished? Of course not.
Why do I write so slowly?
Thursday, April 01, 2010
A LADY WITH VERY SPECIAL TASTES
KOLKATA: MARCH 17
I sit on a sofa in an outer office on the top floor of a commercial building in central Kolkata.
The invitation was for 7 pm to 7:30. It is now 8:30. I have read the Times of India, The Telegraph and The Statesman. Sensible would have been to leave an hour ago. On the other hand the woman I expected to meet is my only contact here in Kolkata. I am told that she is rich, that she is interesting, that she does interesting things with her money. I am a writer. Interesting people are the grist for my writer's mill. The lady arrives at 8:45. She is short, plump, middle-aged and has steel chains woven into her hair. The chains reach midway down her thighs. Her desk is piled with pink purses encased in glass-bead spaniels. The curved doggy tail is the handle. Wow!
I sit on a sofa in an outer office on the top floor of a commercial building in central Kolkata.
The invitation was for 7 pm to 7:30. It is now 8:30. I have read the Times of India, The Telegraph and The Statesman. Sensible would have been to leave an hour ago. On the other hand the woman I expected to meet is my only contact here in Kolkata. I am told that she is rich, that she is interesting, that she does interesting things with her money. I am a writer. Interesting people are the grist for my writer's mill. The lady arrives at 8:45. She is short, plump, middle-aged and has steel chains woven into her hair. The chains reach midway down her thighs. Her desk is piled with pink purses encased in glass-bead spaniels. The curved doggy tail is the handle. Wow!
A SOAK FOR THE SOAK
KOLKATA: MARCH 17
How ever great the number of rooms, the best hotels make each guest feel unique and treasured. Is it years of training or brilliant selection of staff? Probably an amalgam of both.
Taj staff are brilliant.
First goal? Soak in a hot bath...And soak and soak. Then sprawl on a perfect mattress and check my address book. Then connect the laptop to the WiFi for mail.
Is Bernadette OK?
Has my suicidal Last Born survived a further week of snow boarding?
What news of my other children and my grandchildren?
What work am I late delivering?
And what funds remain in the bank? This last is always a major anxiety on a long journey.
How ever great the number of rooms, the best hotels make each guest feel unique and treasured. Is it years of training or brilliant selection of staff? Probably an amalgam of both.
Taj staff are brilliant.
First goal? Soak in a hot bath...And soak and soak. Then sprawl on a perfect mattress and check my address book. Then connect the laptop to the WiFi for mail.
Is Bernadette OK?
Has my suicidal Last Born survived a further week of snow boarding?
What news of my other children and my grandchildren?
What work am I late delivering?
And what funds remain in the bank? This last is always a major anxiety on a long journey.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
TAJ WELCOME FOR AN ANCIENT SCRUFF
KOLKATA: MARCH 17
Six guards protect the gates into the Taj hotel, Kolkata. No entry for an Old Blimp on a Honda 125. Bikes are for servants. I park with the social pariahs and walk. Security at the lobby entrance is airport style. Place keys, small change, mobile phones etc. in a wicker tray for Xray scan. Pass through the detector gates. My braces/suspenders set off the alarm. Take them off and I have to hold up my pants. Hardly a glorious entrance to five star luxury...
I giggle. So do the security guards.
A suave gentleman in a frock coat betrays neither surprise nor dismay at spotting an aged tramp on wealth-hallowed ground. “Mister Gandolfi?”
“Yes,” say I. Are they expecting another ancient scruff??
Six guards protect the gates into the Taj hotel, Kolkata. No entry for an Old Blimp on a Honda 125. Bikes are for servants. I park with the social pariahs and walk. Security at the lobby entrance is airport style. Place keys, small change, mobile phones etc. in a wicker tray for Xray scan. Pass through the detector gates. My braces/suspenders set off the alarm. Take them off and I have to hold up my pants. Hardly a glorious entrance to five star luxury...
I giggle. So do the security guards.
A suave gentleman in a frock coat betrays neither surprise nor dismay at spotting an aged tramp on wealth-hallowed ground. “Mister Gandolfi?”
“Yes,” say I. Are they expecting another ancient scruff??
SECURITY BLANKET
KOLKATA: MARCH 17
Pointless to ask direction to a one star hotel unless you are close. Not so with the Taj Bengal (not so with any Taj hotel). I stay at the Taj for two reasons. Firstly, the Taj group invite me. Secondly, the Taj in Bombay was my security blanket forty years ago. Entering the great dining room overlooking the sea was an instant antidote to depression or fatigue. I took personally the storming of the Taj by terrorists. They attacked treasured memories. Fear them and they are victorious. This ride is both my response and my inadequate memorial to the killed and to a dear and respected friend, sadly departed, Darab Tata.
Pointless to ask direction to a one star hotel unless you are close. Not so with the Taj Bengal (not so with any Taj hotel). I stay at the Taj for two reasons. Firstly, the Taj group invite me. Secondly, the Taj in Bombay was my security blanket forty years ago. Entering the great dining room overlooking the sea was an instant antidote to depression or fatigue. I took personally the storming of the Taj by terrorists. They attacked treasured memories. Fear them and they are victorious. This ride is both my response and my inadequate memorial to the killed and to a dear and respected friend, sadly departed, Darab Tata.
Monday, March 29, 2010
PUNCTURED PRIDE FOR A DOUBTING THOMAS
KOLKATA: MARCH 17
I suffer from the sin of pride. Not always, but on occasion. You know? Hey, I'm nearly eighty and look at me, Brrrm Brrrm on a cafe racer round India. Wow! Some guy. Fearless...
Kneeling on the gas station forecourt is an act of humility.
The pump attendants and a few drivers and bike riders watch as I waggle the eight inch nail out of the tire. The tire is unpunctured. Not so my pride...
Such is the punishment for my momentary lack of faith.
Remember, Old Man, Honda 125s never never never break down.
I suffer from the sin of pride. Not always, but on occasion. You know? Hey, I'm nearly eighty and look at me, Brrrm Brrrm on a cafe racer round India. Wow! Some guy. Fearless...
Kneeling on the gas station forecourt is an act of humility.
The pump attendants and a few drivers and bike riders watch as I waggle the eight inch nail out of the tire. The tire is unpunctured. Not so my pride...
Such is the punishment for my momentary lack of faith.
Remember, Old Man, Honda 125s never never never break down.
HELL AND DAMNATION
KOLKATA: MARCH 17
Tacka tacka tacka fires the machine gun as I creep into a gas station. Hell and Damnation...
I come to a halt and rev the engine. No machine gun, so the engine is OK. It must be the gear box. I dismount and heave the bike onto its stand. I look at the gear box. My knowledge of gear boxes could be written on the point of a very very thin needle and looking doesn't help. I touch the gear box tentatively with a finger tip. Touching tells me nothing. I look at the two gas pump attendants. Surely one of them can wave a wand?
The smaller of the two grins and points at my rear wheel. An eight inch nail sticks out of the tread. I put the bike into gear. The rear wheel spins. The nail strikes the rear mudguard: tacka tacka tacka...
Tacka tacka tacka fires the machine gun as I creep into a gas station. Hell and Damnation...
I come to a halt and rev the engine. No machine gun, so the engine is OK. It must be the gear box. I dismount and heave the bike onto its stand. I look at the gear box. My knowledge of gear boxes could be written on the point of a very very thin needle and looking doesn't help. I touch the gear box tentatively with a finger tip. Touching tells me nothing. I look at the two gas pump attendants. Surely one of them can wave a wand?
The smaller of the two grins and points at my rear wheel. An eight inch nail sticks out of the tread. I put the bike into gear. The rear wheel spins. The nail strikes the rear mudguard: tacka tacka tacka...
TACKA TACKA TACKA
KOLKATA: MARCH 17
A rattle of heavy machine gun fire erupts directly under my butt.
HELP!
I slow and the rate of fire slows.
I speed up, the rate of fire increases.
I pull in to the curb and the firing stops.
I am riding a Honda 125.
Honda 125s never break down.
This article of faith supported me on my exploration of the Americas - sixty-six thousand kilometers.
It has supported me on this journey through India - eleven thousand kilometers.
Fear hits.
Real fear.
Or belly emptying anxiety (which is fear, surely?).
A rattle of heavy machine gun fire erupts directly under my butt.
HELP!
I slow and the rate of fire slows.
I speed up, the rate of fire increases.
I pull in to the curb and the firing stops.
I am riding a Honda 125.
Honda 125s never break down.
This article of faith supported me on my exploration of the Americas - sixty-six thousand kilometers.
It has supported me on this journey through India - eleven thousand kilometers.
Fear hits.
Real fear.
Or belly emptying anxiety (which is fear, surely?).
UNDER MACHINE GUN FIRE
KOLKATA: MARCH 17
I complained once to a dive companion that he didn't understand how frightened I am when a dive becomes difficult, or even threatens to begin to become difficult. I'm a coward, I insisted.
He argued that I merely had an unusually strong survival drive.
He was wrong.
I am a coward, particularly if threatened with an emotional confrontation.
Or when an unsilenced machine gun fires a burst directly under my butt: Tacka tacka tacka.
HELP!
I complained once to a dive companion that he didn't understand how frightened I am when a dive becomes difficult, or even threatens to begin to become difficult. I'm a coward, I insisted.
He argued that I merely had an unusually strong survival drive.
He was wrong.
I am a coward, particularly if threatened with an emotional confrontation.
Or when an unsilenced machine gun fires a burst directly under my butt: Tacka tacka tacka.
HELP!
ENRAGED DRIVERS
Chandipur to Kolkata on the map looks an easy ride. Difficulties arise on entering any big city. Sign posts either abandon you midway through the suburbs or, worse, point in a direction which doesn't correspond with the six exits from an intersection.
OK, so it's a left- but which left? The first? Or the second?
Hesitate a millisecond and three hundred enraged drivers hit their klaxons.
OK, so it's a left- but which left? The first? Or the second?
Hesitate a millisecond and three hundred enraged drivers hit their klaxons.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
TOO MANY BREAKFASTS
Mrs S M Crawford, Hampshire, England
I am criticised often for being too political in my writing and having an anti American agenda. These critics mean the USA rather than America in general. Now I have a new critic, the husband of Mrs S M Crawford of Hampshire, England. Mrs. S M Crawford has posted on Amazon the following criticism of Old Man On A Bike.
I bought this for my husband at his request. He was fired with enthusiasm from an article he read in The Telegraph. He is totally disappointed in this book and literally had to struggle through it. He sums it up as a description of breakfast in many places. It is therefore not recommended.
So for those readers who don't care for breakfast, be warned...
I am criticised often for being too political in my writing and having an anti American agenda. These critics mean the USA rather than America in general. Now I have a new critic, the husband of Mrs S M Crawford of Hampshire, England. Mrs. S M Crawford has posted on Amazon the following criticism of Old Man On A Bike.
I bought this for my husband at his request. He was fired with enthusiasm from an article he read in The Telegraph. He is totally disappointed in this book and literally had to struggle through it. He sums it up as a description of breakfast in many places. It is therefore not recommended.
So for those readers who don't care for breakfast, be warned...
GREAT CRAB AND A FIVE K TIDE
CHANDIPUR: MARCH 16
The ride north was tough, not simply the distance and the traffic, but the heat. Perhaps I aimed for too long a daily distance. Or age is overtaking my ambitions. What ever, I remain tired despite the day's break at Puri. Puri to Kolkata is a further 500 Ks. I break the distance midway with a night at a small fishing village, Chandipur. A clean a/c room with a reasonable mattress is 650 Rupees at the Hotel Shubhan. I planned a swim before dinner. The tide is out. Out at Chandipur is 5 Ks! I return to the hotel, apply a coating of Deet, sit out on the terrace and enjoy the evening breeze. Deet is miraculous. In four months of travel I've been bitten at most half a dozen times. I should write. I prefer meditating on the fresh crab the hotel manager has promised for dinner. Chandipur is famous for crab – and , of course, that five kilometer tide. The power cuts when I am on the stairs to the restaurant. No problem. Obligatory evening wear for India includes a Leatherman flashlight.
The ride north was tough, not simply the distance and the traffic, but the heat. Perhaps I aimed for too long a daily distance. Or age is overtaking my ambitions. What ever, I remain tired despite the day's break at Puri. Puri to Kolkata is a further 500 Ks. I break the distance midway with a night at a small fishing village, Chandipur. A clean a/c room with a reasonable mattress is 650 Rupees at the Hotel Shubhan. I planned a swim before dinner. The tide is out. Out at Chandipur is 5 Ks! I return to the hotel, apply a coating of Deet, sit out on the terrace and enjoy the evening breeze. Deet is miraculous. In four months of travel I've been bitten at most half a dozen times. I should write. I prefer meditating on the fresh crab the hotel manager has promised for dinner. Chandipur is famous for crab – and , of course, that five kilometer tide. The power cuts when I am on the stairs to the restaurant. No problem. Obligatory evening wear for India includes a Leatherman flashlight.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
ADIEU TO PURI
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.
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.
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.
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.
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