Mysore

This place smells amazing.  It is quite a large centre for Ayurvedic medicine and yoga.  Almost every five paces an oil seller daubs the tourist in the sweet scent of flowers, fruits and trees.  At the moment I smell of 3 types of jasmine, lotus, sandalwood, jacaranda, water lily and orange.  As does Alex.  We smell of a fresh spring in a flower filled field, my nose is very happy.  I wonder if it is the smells that are making me soften towards Mysore.  At first arrival, I didn’t feel much for the place.  It is a small city, the main centre being about 4 km across, made up of narrow winding streets barely wide enough for two rickshaws to pass, flanked by 3 story buildings, some built over a 100 years ago, and others in the past year, side by side.  The character of the old buildings, hidden behind years of grime and the modern ones lacking anything unique, don’t lend much of an atmosphere to the city.  There are the ubiquitous horns, the streets filled with motorbikes, rickshaws, people and food sellers, all vying for the same space.  It is very easy to get disorientated and although knowing the destination is close, it is usual to spend many frustrated moments trying to figure out how to get to it.  However, since being dowsed in calming floral scents I am warming to the bustle of the place, and I haven’t dropped my smile once.

There are many more beggars in Mysore than we have encountered elsewhere so far.  Cripples strain themselves to hobble over to beg, and urchins tug on clothes desperate for attentions.  I have seen some of the most disturbing consequences of disease that have befallen the people that lay prostrate on the streets, withered hands outstretched, beseeching eyes where the light of life has long been extinguished.  Alex and I have a begging fund which all our coins go into, and I distribute a couple of rupees to each that asks.  I have been ignoring the children who pull at my arm, which is painful to do, as I understand they are usually begging for a gang master, or parents that have little respect for their offspring.  However today I had some banana’s we had bought as a snack, and some children ran up to us, as usual, and asked for money, instead I gave them a banana each, which seemed to make them much happier than any money would have done.  Afterwards a man approached me and told me I would have good karma for my actions.  He said if I had given them money they would have had to take it home to their father who would use it to buy drink, but by giving them food they benefitted and it was a much better thing to do.  So I have now resolved to make sure I have some fruit or biscuits as well as the begging fund each time I go out.  I feel much better knowing that there is something I can offer these poor, dirty, guttersnipes.  

On a lighter note we have been finding some of the most delicious food.  There is a restaurant close to where we are staying, constantly crammed with local people, that serves the most incredible thalis.  On sitting down on one of the narrow chairs, a large banana leaf is laid out on the table, and a cup next to it.  There are a few waiters of sorts that wonder around the small restaurant, one with a large pot of rice, others with smaller pots of curry, or little ramekins of soupy type curries and poppadums .  Each approach the table and dollop a load of it onto the banana leaf, so that once their circuit has been completed there is a colourful assortment of the most fragrant and splendidly spicy curries, beautifully arranged on the leaf.  As soon as one of the curries or rice is run down, a waiter appears and spoons a little more onto the leaf.  It is an all you can eat thali fest, all for about 80p.  Amazing.  And there is no cutlery, so all feeding is done using the right hand.  (It is difficult not to engage the left hand in the process of eating, but it would put the other diners off their food somewhat seeing someone eat with what they use in place of toilet paper.)  I like eating with my hands, pulling the curries into the rice and gently massaging it with the fingers to form neat little parcels to pop into the mouth.  Feeling the texture of the food before eating it gives the meal another dimension of sensory experience.  

I have also had what I thought was my first real experience of racism (it turned out to be an inverted type of racism, I will explain later).  We have been eating in quite a few local places that appear to be very popular.  Often these places are so busy people queue for a seat.  Most of the tables seat four people and strangers sit happily alongside each other.  Except with us.  We are avoided, people would rather wait than share a table with us, they won’t even make eye contact, they just stand by the door waiting for other seats to become free.  The first time it happened I didn’t think too much of it, however after the third or fourth time it started to upset me.  The waiters seem happy to serve us, many of the Indians want to take our photo, and people stop us all the time to talk to us, so it felt strange that they wouldn’t want to eat with us.  Maybe, I tried to reason, they thought we would be unpleasant eaters, or more cynically, there was nothing to be gained financially by sitting with us, so we were seen as people to avoid.  I tried to ask a couple of people why this was, but my question was evaded.  It was awful to think we were not respected as people, but only as money boxes to be shaken when a few coins are required.  The morning that I pondered this experience of being viewed as a pariah had quite a profound effect on my confidence.  I began to feel uncomfortable around people as they asked for my photo or tried to talk to me, unsure as to how people were viewing me.  Was I seen as a whore because I am an unmarried woman, yet have a boyfriend?  Eventually we found a very good English speaking Indian in a shop who could explain to us why we were shunned in restaurants.  According to him there is a view amongst Indians that western tourists think they are superior so will not want Indians sitting next to them, and they are also embarrassed that they do not speak English.  These are the reasons we are left alone in local restaurants.  So now, we try and engage the people around us, and will start asking them to sit with us if we see they are waiting.  Even though the attitudes of the people turned out to be more self-deprecating than irrationally offensive, it was interesting to experience a small inkling of how those that are treated poorly due to their skin colour.  It is certainly unpleasant and I can see how self-confidence is seriously undermined by racism. 

Other than the smells, and the lovely thali, Mysore boasts a huge palace that still belongs to the Maharajan family that once ruled here from ~500 years ago.  The original palace was made of wood, and although it survived hundreds of years without accident, a fire broke out in 1897 that destroyed it totally.  The princess that lived there commissioned another palace to be built, this time out of granite.  A British architect was chosen for the job, and pulled influences from Islamic, Hindi and Victorian architecture to build one seriously opulent palace, which in places literally takes the breath away.  The craftsmanship that has gone into this place is outstanding, the ivory inlaid doors and beaten silver work make even the observers eyes sore when looking at the minutiae of detail that has gone into decorating them.  Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take a camera into the palace, but the pictures from the outside hopefully give some idea of the scale, from the grandness in size, to the intricacy of detail.   

There is also a hill with pretty spectacular views of the city, a large, ugly, gothic style cathedral, lots of incense stick makers, a busy colourful market and silk pashmina shops. 

Alex has been making use of his time here, and has begun exploring potential new professions. 

Palolem Beach

Palolem, I was here 7 years ago, so it is difficult not to compare then with now, and since I was here last there has been a massive development with regard to tourism.  That is not to say it is a horrible place, it is still beautiful, and for a two week holiday the place is idyllic.  There is a real festival atmosphere to the place, the colours of the beach huts and the clothes hanging from the shops are all vibrant and strong, lots of bright oranges, blues, reds and purples, and the sari’s of the local women are bold and glinting from the gold threads weaved through them.  There are people wandering around without much intention in very little clothes, plenty of old wasters, occasional fireworks on the beach and nothing much to do except drink.  In the evenings the bars and restaurants are twinkling with fairy lights, and different music which comes fades in and out as they are passed, the familiar strum of a well-known melody drifts out of the bars, in the little stores the twangs of typical Indian sounds and in the instrument shops men with bongo’s drum away.  There are also sounds of horns, scooters each with a slightly different parp, and people blowing whistles.  The smells are plentiful and rich too.  Wafts of spices prick up the nostril hairs, and in the evening the fresh scent of citronella cuts through the warm air.  And there are the women, the beautiful Indian women who try and henna your hand or sell you jewellery on the beach.  All with bright happpy smiles and a very effective charm offensive ready to gently coax as many rupees as they can from the heavy pocketed tourist. 

I think this is the time to be here, a lot of the beach huts are still being constructed, and the numbers of tourists are at a tolerable level, although over the last three days they have doubled in number.   Once the brightly coloured mechano-like tourist town has been built again for the season, in a couple more weeks, apparently the beach gets insanely crowded.  I have visions of mounds of pink wobbly flesh and gin soaked morons who seem unaware that the British raj has been ousted, demanding cigarettes and water from insolent brown serfs because they are too lazy to wibble wobble a couple of huts down and get their own.   The wi-fi bars are going to be rammed with bored looking whities nursing cool beers and glasses of white wine, sat facing the exquisite beach while looking at their hands and flicking their fingers rhythmically across the screens of their i-phones.   It’s already evident to a lesser degree.

I feel a downside of the development of tourism has created a distance between the Goan’s that work in the bars and restaurants and the visitors.  The interaction between them and the tourists is non-existent and they just serve as an interface between you and your food.  Previously I remember it being much easier to talk with them in bars and feel more engaged with the place.   

And it is quite expensive.  I mean that relatively.  We still have a clean room with a fan and an attached bathroom with hot and cold running water for around £8 a night, and a bottle of beer is around 75p.  We have been informed though, that this will double within the next month….

Although this is a lovely place to bumble around in for a few days, I am looking forward to leaving Palolem and finding places I can feel more engaged with the country.  It is a lovely holiday destination, but it is close to home in the general ethos, I don’t feel I am travelling yet, just holidaying.  However, this is the best place we could have arrived.  I think Alex may have freaked if we had landed anywhere else, this is the gentle adjustment we need to ease those worries out of him and prepare for the journey ahead.  He is writing a diary of neuroses at present, so in a couple of months when he is sat on a dirty pavement eating street food with his un-sanitised hands, he can read back through it and chuckle at his funny ways.  I will not divulge the extent of his irrationality and will leave him to reveal them when he has found a little more humour with them.  However, we are making swift progress with them, and he has now given up fretting over best before dates on bottles of water, we are going to move into a beach hut for a few nights and risk the wildlife, and hopefully after a couple more nights, he will no longer confuse me for a face invading rat, when I try nudge him to stop snoring at night (whoever told him the story about the rat on the face has a lot to answer for).

All the ‘realities’ of home are becoming gradually distant too.  There is no talk of financial damnation, blackberry outages, immigration problems, property prices, the disaffection of youth and student fees. Neither is there the morning commute, the trains stuffed with heavy faces, clothes with no energy, just differing shades of grey, or getting caught in a bustling, impersonal wave of people moving with determined purpose to get the day over with so they can slump in front of the telly and turn their brains off from the daily imagination drain.

We have had our first encounter with a beggar this morning.  A young girl with what looked like a severed tongue approached us at breakfast with a woeful note about her horrendously disabled family and a petition with an ‘official’ stamp to, I assume, attempt in some way to verify her pitiful story.  On it were a few signatures and next to them the amount they had donated to her.  This ranged between 100 and 400 rupees (£1.20 – £5.00).  I thought that was a little excessive, so gave her 20 rupees, which I also thought was a bit too much.  The little wench looked at it with complete contempt and flounced off without so much of a Namaste.  I have resolved though, not to give any more mutilated children any more money.  Not due the girls reaction, but I cannot give money to something I ultimately in no way condone.  It is abhorrent to disfigure a child in any way to make money from it, and by giving money to these children solves nothing, it just propagates the horrible cycle of abuse.  In a country where the average wage of a poor person is a dollar a day, it is awful that a parent can earn substantially more than this by harming their children.  I will still give a couple of rupees to adult cripples, but not to children.

As for our own health.  Our stomachs remain unfazed and our skin still milky white.  And aside from Alex’s nerve quivering hangover today, we are well and heathly. 

Well I suppose we should head back to the beach now, it is going to be dark soon and Alex doesn’t fancy braving the Goan suicide drivers in the dark, on a scooter.  We have escaped from the throng to a beautiful nature reserve for the afternoon and sat by a lush green lake watching an array of birds and butterflies flit around us.  Considering it is only a 20 minute drive from the beach, it is surprising that we have only seen two other people wandering around here.  But that is a good thing.  Places regain their beauty when humans are removed.  It was lovely to sit in the luxury of nature and feel time pass without care.    

xxx