Poor Policing

Having finally managed to drift off to sleep despite the unpresidented, unfriendly and borderline murderous stares we received on this leg of the journey, we awoke amiably ready to alight. Our wonderful dispositions were shattered in an instant when we realised Jack's backpack had already disastrously disembarked in the night. Despite being wedged inconspicuously beneath his ground floor bunk, some opportunistic and opprobrious urchin had ushered his belongings from beneath us whilst we slept. I frantically searched the entire length of the train and every bag stored within, taking out my frustration of the events which had unfolded, whilst Jack sought a policeman or conductor to pledge a complaint. We followed a friendly rail worker to the police quarters at Jodphur station, suitably distressed, only to enter in the midst of a rabid and completely unprofessional altercation between the head of the shambolic operation and a tearful female employee. Stunned to silence we sat and waited shyly until we were eventually engaged some minutes later. The immediately impolite inquisition that was instigated snagged on my already paper-thin patience and tolerance, and my retort was governed by shortness. I was a split second before the barborous constable was rising to his feet and going utterly beserk at me. Tension escalated as thick and fast as the oozing ordure that flowed along the streets of Varanasi and perhaps overly pugnacious for the task at hand I was quickly ushered by Jack into a position of silent support as he quickly took the matter in hand.

After being relentlessly marginalised during the unsystematic and sham inquiry, whilst the room of unpleasant officials joked and sniggered amongst themselves in secretive privacy of rushed hushed Hindi, we did our best to remain calm, stick together and ride out the incomprehensible situation. Our report was bizarrely dictated to us in erroneous pigeon English leaving the final spurious account of events inaccurate to the point of laughable. We were forced to sit in abject incarceration for a ridiculous grand total of three hours until an array of equally unhelpful and insolent guards copied the content onto various other flimsy shards of government paper work. It seems that obscure and fallacious reams of reports are favourable over the actual application of any police work and inquiry into the specifics of our situation. With any hope of retribution for our criminal robber disappearing as fast as our faith in the constabulary, we waited to be slapped with one barely legible account of our complaint for insurance purposes. An undesirably irksome introduction to the beautiful tranquility of Jodhpur, but a good opportunity to practice some meditative breathing no doubt!

  The whole fiasco made us feel a bit like this...

Insalubrious Streets

Arriving in Varanasi, we were met almost immediately with some resolute dishonesty from the rather informal airport taxi service operative. Staving off absurd extra charges, which we were previously assured would not be the case, quickly became sport for which my appetite grew immediately and passionately. At this point, I think it's important to recognise that many of my musings on interactions here seem shrouded in a mist of disillusionment and despondency, but I would like to sincerely implore that this is not the simple case. Although causes for contention arise thick and fast, I hope their mention does not do the injustice of colouring this experience with perennial negativity. More their existence is noteworthy in this collection of thoughts for the entertainment they have provided, and it is perhaps arrogant to prescribe to the idea that this treatment is reserved strictly for tourists as it seems almost more vehemently applied to fellow locals. For we have found that interactions between Indians themselves seem to also allude to an assailing ambiance, and are just as quickly alleviated as it nothing happened. It's this water off a duck's back nature that is a struggle to acclimatise to, and although the air of animosity is difficult to comprehend or even excuse, it is the way of the world here and to be taken with a pinch of salt. Thus, when an altercation arises I enjoy the ability to exercise some stress reduction in my staunch opposition and really just try to enjoy the ride, much to Jack's annoyance.

Anyway, driving through the countryside en route to Varanasi on a most misty and chillsome morning provided some beautifully enigmatic sights of run down country dwellings and sleepy towns waking up to light fires (of burning rubbish) and begin trading. This campestral introduction was perhaps what caused or at least increased the shock of touching down nearer the city. Hundreds upon hundreds of beings swarmed the streets, on some sort of Sunday pooja or offering or something, rendering them utterly impassable by car. So we donned our backpacks and awkwardly picked our way through the masses. Stares was plentiful and burning, but the sights were vibrant and colourful. The rose tinted hues of this initial blast of energy began to diffuse as we trundled on for several kilometers beelining for the infamous ghats, an expanse of miles of stone stairs lining the beloved and sacred Ganges river where pilgrimages of thousands of Indians arrive daily to pray, offer pooja and cremate their dead. As it happened our path was etched by a sombre procession carrying an adorned stretcher containing the body of a deceased loved one, which we saw turn from the main road and followed knowing it was heading for the river.

What followed was a thousand twists and turns down a labyrinthal tangle of unbelievably narrow streets bursting with a completely bewildering spectrum of shops and stalls and nooks and crannys, all billowing sweet and sour and downright disgusting stenches amidst puffs of smoke and whisps of mist. The heaving mass of people and bikes and cows and goats provided a constant clash of disorientating obstacles. The scene was perhaps reminiscent of 17th century London, awash with streams of untendered filth. We darted carefully over piles of rotting vegetables, sleeping dogs and pats of steaming excrement and arrived at aptly entitled Shanti homestay where we climbed the precarious and irregular almost vertical staircase into a desolate cell of a stone room and collapsed in a heap on the bed, gasping for air. Ascending to the top floor to check out the view we were struck speechless by the vast array of disorganised rooftops stretching far off into the distance and skirting the edges of a muddy looking river, barren on the far side. The sound of the landscape was symphony of horns and voices, but initially all this was drowned out and superseded by the incredibly delicate and serene sight of a thousand little rudimentary kites bobbing about at the ends of long flaying strings clasped lovingly in the hands of adults and children dotted all across the lively landscape. It was like a sort of twisted child's dream, alive with the sound of laughter and play in a panorama of desolation. 

Excitedly we were immediately back on the ground, snaking once more into the fray. Every single inch of space in this incredibley densely populated city of never ending people was studiously utilised for some practical purpose. Men sat cross legged in dusty enclaves which can only be described as quite significantly smaller than most compact tea cupboards found in our home kitchens, which they had skillfully turned into little stalls selling tobacco leaves or repairing shoes. We wound our way what felt downwards and soon came up against a hazy and fragrant stockpile of chopped wood crawling with bodies frantically measuring and weighing planks on giant archaic bronze scales. Edging past, we found ourselves on the macabre Manikarnaka Ghat, one of the busiest epicentres of the traditional burning of Hindu bodies who have brought from the far flung edges of the country for blessing and cremation. It was a shock to the system feeling the heat from the fire and being submerged in the scent of incineration, and the openness of the act left you with a strange and immediate sense of guilt. We hurried past with our heads hung and made our way down a little further down the river to collect ourselves, briefly draw upon the several limbs we'd seen sticking our from the crackling flames before hurrying onto more redolent realms.

The day was spent ambling along observing the diverse and differing scenes of the ghats. Religious babas with painted faces urged you into dark corners for forced poojas from which you spun out confused with a gloopy bindi dripping between your eyes inevitably several rupees lighter. Touts pushed an array of touristic rubbish and every man and his dog had a route to a better view or a nicer hotel for you to sample. Our voices soon became hoarse from polite rejection, and occasionally we would play the part of exotic foreigners who understood none of the languages in which demands or promises or offers were made. The colours of the alternatively painted bright stairs and vibrant temples were a feast to the eyes shining out through the dank mist, and the billowing incense masked the stench of the busy streets which lay at the tops of the tottering stairs. India is often described as an assault on the senses, or a full blown nuclear arsenal as Jack decrees, and the souls who primarily described it this way must have been to Varanasi.

The river is used for all manner of things all visible in full frontal view at all hours of the day. Hundreds of hardy Indians stripped down to their dhotis to bathe in the waters and wash clothes by smashing their fraying fabric against rocks with ferocious force. The stay in our room was cold and damp, and we ventured a guess that the odoriferous blankets which had been provided had been washed in the waters and partially dried in the cool humidity. Although a breathtaking sight full of sound and sight and smells to intrigue for centuries, the ghats and their barren and muddy farside and teeming laden city side seemed anything but sacred and pure to us. Home to small islands of rubbish, the river also composed a commode for many of the locals. A rule quickly developed upon inspection of some undefined and ominous stain on Jack's knee: if it looks like poop, it's probably poop, and you must do all in your power to avoid touching it with your mouth. 

The next day we wandered left out the lugubrious and deathly ghat at our doorstep and wandered aimlessly along, tailed by a growing rabble of children who initially asked us insolently for cash before becoming infuriated at our return requests and finally becoming intrigued with our approach. Our posse followed suit for several of Varanasi's one hundred ghats, as we clambered closer to what seemed like the quiter more reserved part of town. Smells lessened in their intensity as did the surge of sellers and we enjoyed a solitary stroll for some time. Several hours before we were set to depart afte  three exhausting days of exploration we were sat somewhat deflated in the middle of a particularly busy ghat, the focus of a thousand inquisitive sometimes inauspicious stares. In a flash of brilliance we remembered a beautiful haveli which overlooked a quieter part of the river which we had pointed out a few days previously as a devilish jaunt of the luxurious. Feeling the burn of the days of toil, we hurried into the beautiful building with its pleasing air of antiquity and submitted to sinful colonialism sipping fresh lime sodas and munching on depthy burgers over a game of travel scrabble. The ambiance from this tower of opulence left a sapid taste in our mouths and we left Varanasi rejuvenated and enchanted.

Checking out Chennai

After Varkala, we caught an overnight bus from Trivandrum which is near the Southern most point of India, and ended up on the East coast beside the Bay of Bengal in Chennai. Our flights weren't until the early hours of the following morning, and so we found a hideously cheap thus hideous room just off the barbarously busy streets. Dumping our bags and opting against a concievably redundant wash given the nature of the room's facilities, we instead headed out in search of some culture. After several miserable hours of trudging the grim highways of Chennai following further erroneous installments from the dubious Lonely Planet, we had become so unimpressively apathetic that a drastic change of scene was in order.

Having crossed a wide river strewn with the dripping, oozing waste that seems unequivocably part of the urban scene, we chanced across a large, imposing mall and proceeded to sit joyfully through 6 hours of films with a steady supply of progressively unusual cinema snacks. Jack's concluding thoughts on Chennai outlined one starkly accurate factor: that it smelt consistently off eggs and urine. This decidedly dismal outlook on one of the South's biggest cities is most likely hugely unfair and certainly partly attributable to our long journey and short window of time, however I must admit, I would not recommend Chennai as traveller's haunt but was incidentally very impressed by Leonardo DiCaprio's villainous performance in Wolf on Wall Street.                                                                  

Clifftop Caper

We met some other Brits on the train, and proceeded to all sail past our stop on the same convivial yet confused and uniformley meddlesome misinformation from nonetheless friendly Indians. Finding ourselves 30km off course in Trivandrum we quickly learned that the return train, which definitely stopped in Varkala, was sitting helpfully, ready to depart, on the opposite platform. In pursuit of other temerarious travelling locals we clambered down and across the tracks boarding the train from it's open side, a perfunctory action in India that would conversely cause outrage and probably long delays and closures in England.

Arriving in Varkala we followed Luke and Ben to Bamboo Place on reports it was a haven. We were welcomed warmly into the homestay by an extremely lovely ex pat turned leisurely travelling rikshaw driver Liz from London and her 8 week old rescue puppy Leelo, before being showed to the glorious honeymoon suit. In a bright and blooming garden of little yellow bamboo huts, all decorated with porches and individually hand painted and vibesy interiors, our lodgings for the next three days were certainly beautiful.

If you walked to the end of the little track which joined our homestay to the coast, you were stood atop 100ft cliffs skirting the crystal clear skies and seas of the Indian Ocean. A quaint and tottering stone path ran beside the edge along about a kilometer of seaside settlements, including my favourite german bakery establishment which peculiarly lurks up in all tourist areas, but does really incredible chocolate balls. An perhaps ominous pudding, but delicious. We made our way down a precarious higgledy-piggledy stairway to set foot on the thriving indented beach. The sand was sporadically strewn with yoga classes, hula hoopers, frisbee games, football matches and international clusters enjoying the beautiful views. We dunked ourselves in the darkening sea before playing LED frisbee into the night. Dinner consisted of a decadent array of tandoori barracuda having first walked past every establishment poking and prodding all the enormous, exotic freshly caught fish proudly on display along the promenade.

I practiced yoga with a slightly militant old yogi who jabbed and adjusted people into positions in such a vehement fashion that I heard the occasional muffled exclamation of pain. Slightly disgruntled, but certainly more limber, we then ate sumptuous fruity breakfasts and headed off in to search for the famous local Kerelan fishing methods which consist of groups of men who hoist enormously long nets far out into the ocean to trap whatever swims by. After many confused kilometers, and more mostly incomprehensible guttral conversations with some slightly mental toothless old men, we gave up and headed home.

Rising before dawn the next day we headed North along the coast and used the age old method of sight to try and scope out the region's fishermen. We came across a small beach thronged with 25 or so elderly looking souls reeling in hundreds of metres of salty fishing lines. Falling into rank we got seriously sweaty helping them haul in what can only be described as a surprisingly meagere menage of small fish and some bits of disguarded plastic. After a heavily labour intensive forty minutes, we watched an inferno of altercations erupt over the division and sale of the stock, and quietly retreated up the beach to escape. Further up the coast other batches of fishermen seemed to be having more luck, and were mercilessly badgered by kites and buzzards for their bountiful catches. Interestingly, even these more affluent groups were still afflicted by the same communal scorn of one and other, unfortunately turning one of the most beautiful occupational landscapes in the world into a more stressful place than bustling city offices.

We ventured back to meet Sebastian who had survived the same death defying bus journey from Munnar to celebrate his continuity and spend his final evening suitably supping cocktails on the coast. The formideable and actually quite frightening waves at sunset were a hilarious but exhausting afternoon activity and so before long we retreated battered and fatigued to the safety of the shore and came utterly unexpectedly across fellow yogi Yaela from South Africa. Thus ensued lots of stories swapped speedily of the weeks since our course in Agonda and some icy cocktails on our veranda before we collected ourselves and migrated to a secret full moon rave on the beach. Not quite reminiscent of Thailand's infamous efforts where flourescent adolescents swarm sweatily on the dance floor. Instead, replace the international soup of cool, tanned, psychedelic individuals with a small rabble of drunken Indian men who seemed to have been unleashed onto the party scene like miscreant youths during a first encounter with a stolen mix of the parental liquor cabinet, which provided disastrous aesthetic results consisting of some criminal yet relentless dance moves. We stayed for two inexplicably cheap and consequently unpalatable cocktails and staggered home bidding farewell to the mental dancers, Sebastian, Yaela and Varkala. Onto Trivandrum, to begin our journey North.

A Seriously Shambolic Sojourn

One of the most dangerous and frightening things you could ever do in the world is ride an express government bus in India. Forget the tigers and the bears, the snakes and scorpions, the streets at night, or the silent sea currents; the ancient buses and their deadly drivers will skin you alive far more ferociously in a flash. We boarded the bus at Munnar having accumilated a wealth of snacks for the five hour ride. Sebastian had warned us this endeavour may be in vain given the nature of the journey, but this caution went unheeded in our naive ignorance.

We boarded bouyantly, and stationed ourselves as the back of the bus. Pulling out from the centre of Munnar we got off to a slow and shakey start through the busy and thus heavily pot-holed streets. But a few km down the road, the driver began to unleash his insanity. At first it seemed fun. Sitting over the unforgiving wheel arches provided significant upward trojectory on the speed bumps, and centrifuge thrills on the corners. We laughed gaily, making videos of the escapade with joy as we ventured through the sunlit expanse of glowing green tea mountains.  

But it was not long before the speedometer began to creep to loftier levels than we'd percieved the dilapidated vehicle to be capable of. Gathering momentum and screaming into the sharp bends, I began to feel encroaching nausea. The beautiful scenery turned into thick jungle, and as we descended in twists and turns down the hills, we were flanked by sharp walls of cliff on one side and disquieting sheer declivities on the otherside. The concrete slabs which formed rudimentary barriers between the maniac drivers and the sharp drops showed severe signs of distress with frequent and catastrophic cracks and holes from other careering lunatics.

An hour of persistent death defying momentum ensued. It is not okay to hurtle into a hair-pin bend at speeds exceeding 50km per hour on the wrong side of the road whilst overtaking 3 cars and 1 other bus with such sheer drops but a hair's breadth away. Much of this activity was experienced with eyes closed. We arrived in some small, unfriendly town as the land levelled out for a much needed break. I slithered insalubriously from the bus and staggered to the nearest shaded doorway, which helpfully smelled faintly of piss, and tried to regain strength for the remainder of the journey.

The Indians seem to show the same stoic disregard for bus safety and passenger ettiquette as they do for sanitation. Bodies thrust themselves on or off the steep staircase as the bus trundles on regardless. The government standards of British buses make these journeys seem laughable. Each vehicle carries deep ravines of scarring from poorly judged squeezes and muscle battles on the road. A constant cacophany of horns accosts the ears on any functioning road as drivers would rather be alerted to other motorists's presence audiably, rather than employing the use of the smashed or non existent wing mirrors.The following 4 hours left of our journey were far less eventful and we made it to Allapuhza in one piece, if not a little raw.

Aqueous Allapuzha

We arrived in Alappuzha, a back water haven on the West coast in Kerela, and without much inspiring guidance from the seven tonne India Lonely Planet bible I've been studiously lugging around, we had no stong inclination towards lodgings for the night. The book has been a conflicting source of wisdom, sometimes revealing sneaky hidden gems, or otherwise fabricating unhelpful untruths and confusion. Luckily we were approached immediately by a cool looking Indian who ran a restaurant and homestay named Avocado, and given my great proclivity towards avocados in general we decided to follow. The homestay turned out to be an absolute winner with small rough room of sandy wooden accents complete with a rope hammock, which fronted a shaded garden interspersed with fairy lights amongst beautiful flowery shrubs.

Having arrived at 5:30pm we were quick to disguard our things in the room and hurry for the beach to observe the sunset. The long and featureless beach had an uninspiring periphery of tattered boxy buildings strewn with innumerable rusty carts selling a myriad of unhealthy pickings, of which I selected the deep-fried boiled egg. Allaphuzha beach was literally heaving with a thick throng of holidaying nationals snaking far into the distance

hugging the water's edge. The weather was rough and foreboding, producing enormous waves which crashed from their lofty precipices directly onto the sand steadily creeping up the beach and flooding those who were seated obliviously. We crossed a camel and nearly resisted the urge to climb aboard before diving into the turbulent swell fully clothed. After being thrown around for half an hour to the beaming backdrop of an enormous effulgent sinking sun, we headed back to our hostel.

We arranged a boat for the following morning to ramble us round the renowned backwaters, 900km of labyrinthic little streams trickling off faster flowing main estuaries. Vijay, our slight and aged captain, commendeered his little vessel with indefatigable steadyness all day long, as we reclined comfortably under a quaint canopy only occasionally stirring from our languid retreat to help row. The streams were constantly bustling with practical activity as locals utilised the water as a domestic appliance; cleaning pots, washing clothes, fishing and bathing. We stopped off for a lunch in a relatively grimey little shack, and ate a spectrum of colourful gloops to accompany the fishy morsels we'd selected, from a large banana leaf with our fingers. The meal was sapid and vibrant, if not a little boney, but the propiertor had a large and majestic resident sea eagle, which really sweetened the deal. 

Alappuzha is famous for it's backwater tours and the popular evening house boat voyages cause congestion along the main wider tributaries, so our modest little motorless canoe was ideal for cruising calmly. The waters were filled with large bulbous alien pods of algea that floated like spherical, green glass beakers on the surface. Kingfishers dove around all day slicing through the lustrous green landscape with flashes of beautiful colour. Unfortunately the more populated centre of Alappuzha suffers under the concentration of the population and the streets were rather filthy as were the rivers on the outskirts of town. We visited a morning market at the crack of dawn, and were the targets of teeming stares of locals madly stocking their busy shops. Menacing scenes of blood soaked butchers haking away beside coops of chickens gabbling obliviously left me feeling resoundingly resolute in my vegeterian habits. The emaciated corpses of goats and cows were hooked up ugsomely, and I was even presented with the brain and eye balls in resonse to my palpable recoil. Jack was in heaven capturing images of intriguing individuals with increasingly impressive moustaches going about their curious business. The bustling ambience was fascinating to observe, but I was pleased when we were heading by train to the cliffs of Varkala for some imminenet beach dwelling.

Meditative Munnar

Despite arriving very late and barely conscious after the rapid and relentlessly reckless winding climbing of our gutsy taxi driver, who incidentally had been a highly acrimonious member of the great bus stop dispute not 4 hours previously, and immediately witnessing a sudden and nasty bike accident involving a stunned motorist and an unfortunate ragged dog in the centre of town, Munnar endeavoured to later became a firm favourite. Like all densely populated areas in india, the town centre was a chaotic coalescence of ramshackle dusty crevices selling an endless supply of mismatched, worn and out of fashion garms, padlocks, shoe laces, peanuts, everything in battered abundance, all illuminated by blindingly garish signs, and marred with an utterly opprobious accumilation of filth and unattended rubbish swamps under the thick haze of motorcycle fumes.

We quickly sought immediate refuge in a shell of room

nestled awkwardly in a seeminly half finished block of concrete flats. It's fumbling opulence employed the use of wall to wall white marble, India's favourite decorative accent - which at altitudes of 2000ft and tempratures of 5 degrees were like glaciers to the feet. Our speedy decision was based on the fact that Jack was quickly slipping into delerious illness. Constantly shivering, hot as the sun, and sick as a dog. We slept instantly and rose to lope straight to the hospital, which was like setting foot back into an archaic military refuge with rudimentary high iron beds, stark, poorly painted corridors, and shelves of tattered boxes containing dusty ointments. We were given an array of potions and pills to remedy what seemed to have developed into tonsilitus and fever, but of course after a scour of the ailment section in my Lonely Planet was quickly self-diagnosed as malaria, dengue fever and a myriad of other death inducing conditions... We retreated back to the dark and gloomy room of marble.

After the hospital, I quickly headed out on a mission to find us a room outside of the hideously busy town centre. Not 100 paces down the road I was acosted by a seriously amicable family from Allapuhza who immediately thrust a sneaky beer into my hand and implored I visit them when I made it South. Their taxi driver chimed in and hearing the tale of my 'husband's' woes insisted I see the perfect room with a friend of his out of town. Sometimes Jack becomes my doting betrothed in the eyes of adoring locals, and rather than disillusioning them with enforcement of the relational frivolity of the West which is so utterly incongruent with the arrangement of marriage and family structures of this country, we cheerfully play along. 

In seconds I was on the back of a bike, with an oversized helmet rattling around happily on my head providing just enough space to skillfully decant beer into my mouth, enjoying the journey through the awe inspiring landscape to a room atop the house of Bashkar, 6km outside of town. Perfect. I headed back, we packed up our things from the cold room of death and trundled in a rickshaw to the room of dreams.Resembling a 70's drug lord getaway home, the room was decorated in vibrant blues and pinks, emblazened with an array of unncessary mirrors and adorned with a lattice of mismatching, decadent rugs. Our small balcony complete with two surprisingly comfortable plastic chairs overlooked a deep valley in the waves of hills crested by a formideable mountain on the horizon. After a tranquil yoga session facing the misty mountains, I took a solitary walk through the rocky paths of the upper hills noticing the steep declivity of the land, which suggests that the tea pickers have all the agility an light sure footedness of a mountain goat? The carpet of green waxy bushes were soothing to the soul, all arranged in incredible patterns winding up mounds and round the valleys.

When Jack was marginally better the next day, we ventured out for a whip around theneighbourhood spotting friendly flocks of brightly dressed women balancing surprsingly large loads skillfully on their heads whilst navigating the inclines to skim the fresh tea leaves from the tops of the plants. We randomly bumped into the photographer from the bus, Sebastian, who we'd also come across on our final night in Hampi, and stopped to exhange stories and share lunch. A ballsy bet to eat what looked like an unassuming sweet chilli left me feeling reasonably afflicted, so I made my excuses as they waited for bikes and made my way to the town's tea museum alone. In place of a technical description of the beloved tea harvesting process, which was my expectation and hope, was a perculiar collection of colonial images of the revered 'Planters' in opulent sedan chairs atop the backs of locals and such like. A bizarrely narrated projection film gave a brief and relatively interesting history of Munnar from it's aboriginal origins to its discovery by enterpising westerners


Time in Munnar out of the throngs of its touristic centre was peaceful and inspiring. We rose at the crack of dawn to see the sun creep over the hills, and stayed up well into the night capturing the path of the stars, snoozing under the tripod awaiting a long exposure snap. Bashkar, with his immaculate and well combed side parting and formideable moustache, was endlessly attentive and supplied chai in the early hours and secured us take away dinner in the evenings. It was a struggle to tear ouselves away on the thrid day, but we headed for the station to ride a government bus 5 hours South to sea level.