Ladyboys

The ubiquitous Thai ladyboy.  Seen working everywhere from tit bars to 7-11’s.  Some much more obvious than others.  There are those that put exquisite care into their appearances, perfect hair, minutely detailed nails, curve accentuating clothes, a well-practised hip swing even in killer heels, bouncing bosoms, painted up in an idea of unmitigated femininity.  However, as beautiful as they look, everyone knows they are a man, there isn’t a single woman on the planet, bar the Beckham’s of this world, who put that much effort into looking good (and one could argue she looks more a pretend woman rather than a real one).  And then there are the less bothered ones.  They got the silicon slipped under their skin, creating weird little mounds, like wonky teacakes, and ta-da, that’s it, effort done with.  They might shave a couple of times a week, and for those lazy days, slap on a bit of extra foundation to try and conceal the prickly bits of hair poking out over their top lips.  A pair of sling backs might be evident, but there is no tottering; the ape like lunging steps, lolling from side to side, show the lack of commitment to the attire they have adorned.  And the trousers, designed for a little hip and arse, flap their loose bits as flags to an unsuited body shape.

Then there are unfortunate consequences when the ladyboys get old.  As they are still men, and either due to a half-hearted commitment to becoming a woman, or lack of funds, still have male hormones.  Sadly there comes a point in a ladyboys life, as it does in most men’s life that is feared, dreaded and as unmentionable as the real size of a girlfriends arse.  The hair starts to recede and thin around the crown – I think it is called a monkeys arsehole, as I was once charmingly informed.  For the ladyboy, there is no option of shaving it all off and being done with it.  That would look even weirder –right?  So they are stuck with it, well without it really.  The long luscious locks that have previously been swished in younger years of faux-feminine glory, are faded and thin, so regardless of the efforts made to wax that man right out of ones moustache, the monkey’s arse has the last, cruel, laugh.

They don’t like me either.   I am being shunned on a daily basis by the ladyboy.  I am not sure what it is about me they dislike so much, but if I have to deal with one in some way, they generally give me some sort of diva-ish attitude, with a wrist bent, offering me a dismissive hand, and head turned slightly away, eyes looking blankly elsewhere, indicating that they would really rather not have to bother with me, faking indifference.  Seeing as this attitude is evident before I even speak, I can only assume it has something to do with how I look or hold myself.  A Thai lady told me it was just because I was a woman.  I will have to ask some other female farangs to see if they are also subjected to this bizarre discrimination.

But one question I would really like answered is this.  Why are there so many ladyboys in Thailand?  I understand that the Thai’s are generally very tolerant, but that doesn’t explain why so many of the men want to be women.  If the same tolerance where allowed in other countries of the world, would there be more Western men squealing over Take That and discussing diets, would Indian men be sashaying around in sequinned saris and complimenting each other on their biryani’s, and would Arab men be embracing the burkha, adorning it with pretty sparkles so their personalities shimmered though? 

Koh Phayam www.wanderingwendyswonderings.blogspot.com

‘Every day is like Sunday, every day is silent and grey.  It’s a seaside town they forgot to shut down.’

Aow Yai beach, a 3 km gently curving bay, bends its way around the dense green forest of the inner island, offering a short sandy doorstep to the Andaman sea.  The sea, an immense expanse of mottled green, white capped turbulence, beats a monsoon rhythm upon the tireless sand.  The heavy clouds spill oppressively across the sky, shedding rivers of rain onto the sea and land, and bringing a squall of wind that breathes fiercely onto the shore, the trees and shrubs bowing frantically to its might.  Without the winds bringing the rains in from the sea, the air is thick and heavy with warmed water.  Oppressive heat and humidity cling to the skin and block the pores.     

Behind the curtain of green that hides the lines of beach huts, there are vibrant forest, home to noises of the jungle.  The tinnitus ring of cicadas, tut-tutting of birds unseen in the trees above, and the click and buzz of exotic insects, create an ear aching din of nature; and at night the deep rumble of hundreds of belching frogs, burps loudly into the darkness.  And the darkness is just that, when the moon sits behind the clouds, there is no adjusting of the eyes to the light, there is no light.  Footsteps made into the darkness, along a path seemingly innocuous during the day, turns into tentative wobble into thick bushes and complete disorientation.

This is one of Thailand’s quieter islands during the peak season, and during monsoon it is all but deserted.  We are sharing the beach with maybe 20 other people.  And it is nice, with the turbulence of the weather, there is no feeling that we ‘should be doing something’, there is nothing to do, except watch the waves relentlessly fall upon the shore and comment on the changes to the ever varying grey of the brooding clouds.

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Khao San Road - Bangkok

‘What do you want?’  The city asks.

‘Strong alcohol, cheap Oriental pussy, men with tits, women capable of shooting hypodermic needles from their vaginas, tattoos, date rape drugs, oblivion, memory loss, diet pills, valium, mistrust, debauchery 24 hours a day, and a wrist band souvenir to take home to my family saying ‘I love rape’.’  The Western tourist replies.    

This thronging street is lined with boutique hotels, bars with buckets, tattoo artists, beauty salons (where the price of waxing depends on the size of the hair), 7-11’s, Boots, STD clinics, street stalls selling clothes, hair braids, pad thai, spring rolls, walking along it are the women selling wrist bands, balloons, wooden frogs, plastic tat and hats, there are tailors trailing the tourist talking about their suits made to order, and men flashing cards of female flesh whispering indiscreetly about ping pong shows.  Music from all around, competing pop from bars, merging into one incomprehensible cacophony, banging and beating its way down the street.  Above all this is the neon, bigger and bigger signs, with brighter lights sprouting from the walls of the buildings clamouring to find space and attention, to take centre stage above the tourists head. 

But it is clean, the locals are tolerant, accepting and uncurious about the depressing manifestation that this place has become.  They seem fine with all as long as it is paid for.  In our hotel was a list of every item within it, the sink, wall hangings, windows, bed sheets, table, fridge, etc. and the cost of replacing it.  And despite all the relentless booze, drugs and sex, there is no violence, no anger and people seem happy to mill around in this scene of depressing depravity.  Khao San Road, the place where hedonism ate itself.

Pokhara

This is the second of Nepal’s two cities.  Outside the main locals town, and accessed along a bumpy, potholed road, flanked by soft green roadside where fat, glossy cows munch contentedly, is a tourist town.  A modest, calm, town sat aside a large clean lake, sunk in the hills, and overlooked by a protective arc of the Annapurna range of the Himalayas.  The central lakeside is unashamedly touristy, bars, restaurants, hiking gear shops, adventure sports agents and souvenir shops vie for the visitors attention and outside the main drag of a few of hundred metres, the requests to spend dwindles, and the road becomes quieter, greener, lusher, calmer; and quite possibly close to what heaven is meant to look like.  At the north end of the lake, the road departs from the lakeside, and is replaced with a vibrant green carpet of gentle grass that is soft enough to lie upon.  Wooden hut cafes sit unobtrusively back from the gentle slope to the lake offering views across and beyond the tranquil mirror still waters.  Plump cows and goats, with lush, intact, coats share the space with chubby dogs and smiling people.  Men in wooden canoes paddle with unrushed ease across the lake, spreading their simple fishing nets behind them as they cruise the calm waters.  Across the other side of the lake are undulating hills, bursting with trees, each one clamouring for a bit more space as the terrain creeps serenely upwards.   

Each afternoon since I have arrived, the calm surface of the lake is broken by the thump of marble sized raindrops that pound down from the skies, accompanied by bright electric streaks that disappear behind the hills illuminating them in bright splendour, and the comforting growl of thunder as it rumbles around the valleys.  In the morning the clouds, having been dissolved by the previous afternoon’s downpour, are gone, and the white peaks of the Himalayas can be seen sitting ethereally, regally, god like in the sky.   When the sun shines, it is a warm sun that glows, and a gentle breeze skips lightly across the skin.  There is a calm in the air here that sits peacefully in the ears and mutes the stress within the soul.

And like Darjeeling, there is none of the hassle I have become accustomed to in India.  In every sense.  In addition to the wonderful temperament of the inhabitants here, the sense of apathy has gone.  All the rooms in the guest houses are spotlessly clean, not a single spore, nor a creeping grime line can be seen anywhere.  There is solar heating in most places.  Efforts are made to reduce electricity use (aside from the regular, but irregularly timed, power cuts).  Places boast of their commitment to women’s empowerment, donations of profit to orphanages, and considered treatment of the environment.  The place I have secured a room for the next month has used mud brick in the walls to keep rooms cool in summer and warm in winter, along with using through flows of air to cool rooms instead of fans and has solar heated water.  I have exquisite views of the lake, and the other side of the hills, a balcony, a beautiful room , immaculate bathroom, lovely gardens and when the electricity is out it is quiet, so, so quiet, all for £5 a night.  The Nepalese don’t seem to have a hand glued to the horn like the Indians do, neither do they feel the need to taint all things beautiful with a heavy scattering of plastic.  

However with this serenity comes a price.  Hippies.  Dreadlocked, morose looking fools, smoking way too much dope and taking themselves far too seriously.  When the electricity is on the thump of Goan trance music beats an obtrusive rhythm through the tranquillity.  Fortunately there is an 11 o’clock curfew that means it doesn’t go on for any longer than that, along with regular power outages which offer solace from the shit music that no one even seems to be enjoying.  For the younger hippies there are plenty of warnings of what their deluded, dope induced ramblings will come to if they don’t start thinking about what they are saying, in the form of seriously mentally unstable, toothless, shaggy looking twats.   It seems to me, after some study, that the young hippy starts with an uneducated search for meaning in their life, and instead of reading, learning and thinking about their perspectives, they make it up as they go along and feed ignorance off each other.  A few examples I have heard are, ‘the planet has DNA, and it is mutating at the moment to make seriously bad changes’, ‘drawing shapes and colouring them in can unblock past traumas’, ‘there are sadus that are able to sustain life for 12 years without eating’, along with the ever inane ‘the universe will give you what you want, just ask’, and ‘I’m an old soul’.   This is all obviously quite irritating to listen to, especially when challenges to their world view are received with accusations that I am closed and not open to the universe.  But the really worrying things is what happens when these bizarre mumblings about ‘life, the universe and everything’ are left to manifest and connect all the crazy neurons in the head.  They turn into people who believe they are ‘Shiva, the Buddha and Christ’ reincarnate, that they have the ability to control the forces of nature, that they have understood the mathematics of the universe and know its end, that they are ‘like the Buddha, but less arrogant’ insofar as they won’t tell people how to live their lives, but will just smile at them.  Some of these delusions are so well constructed and insanely far-fetched it is genuinely worrying.  Deeply twisted fantasies about their lives and journeys within it.  What is even sadder, is that in the 3 weeks I was there, I never heard much laughter.  People were so engrossed in their own sense of importance, they forgot to have fun.  Maybe this is the key to staying ‘sane’, laughing at your insanity.

But, aside from the hippies, this place feels like Shangri-La.  There is nothing else I can think I want from a place………..except maybe a loud speaker and a troupe of rational thinking, fun loving, mischief makers to poke fun at the delusional until they start to laugh at themselves and remember what fun is.

A Walk Through An Indian City

As I walk along your frantic streets, I watch as homeowners diligently sweep rubbish from their porches, meticulously cleaning their domain, and then, to my dismay, abandon the detritus over a wall at the side of their property.  Illiterate urchins, capable of speaking 5 languages, cheerfully tug at my clothes demanding rupees; to give, or not, a seemingly unresolvable attack upon my conscience.  The stench of human excrement wafts nauseatingly from open drains, but suddenly, the sweet aroma of jasmine perfumes the air from a flower weaved ponytail swished.  Sacred cows, swinging their dung encrusted tails, eat from open rubbish dumps, becoming slowly poisoned by the plastic they consume.  And smiling faces that greet my progress are turned into sneers of disgust as I light a cigarette; women are too pure to smoke.

I break from the exhaustion of the street to sit inside a restaurant.  While picking from the fragrant, spiced vegetarian food on offer, I watch through the window, my heart tightening, as children throw bricks at dogs.  The flicker of a TV distracts me, a Bollywood music video; bright, enthusiastic, scantily clad women thrust themselves happily at plump moustachioed men.  But beneath the TV sits a woman, covered neck to toe in a modest salwar, fearful of the perceived shame of displayed female flesh.  To pay, I slip a rupee note under a plate of aniseed, the benign face of Gandhi looks past me, a man who rejected wealth, chosen by India to grace all her currency.

Back on the street, a family approaches asking for ‘one photo’; their son drapes an arm around my shoulder.  If I was to develop a loving relationship with him, and ask to be accepted into their family, they would treat me with contempt, yet, he is soon to be told to marry a girl-child he has never met.   After negotiating, with tested patience, a rickshaw takes me to a temple of the most popular Goddess in Hinduism, Laskshmi, Goddess of wealth.  He drives, hooting relentlessly, never irked by other drivers.  He points out the state governor’s residence, a grand edifice built by the British raj and a plush house, owned by a beggar who feigns being crippled, scouring the tourist ghettos, guilt tripping rupees from them.  

Cautiously trying to cross the road, a beautifully decorated truck, spewing fumes, undertaking a bicycle beeps at me; it rumbles past, the sign on its bumper telling others to ‘obey the rules’.  Suddenly a hand reaches out and grabs my breast, I seize it and look into the petrified eyes of a struggling, regretful man.  People around pretend not to see, however, by shouting ‘pervert!’ I will see this man beaten bloody by those currently apathetic.  Quietly I let him go. 

Oh India.  Your frenetic intensity wears me down to exasperated tears.  But, with your noise, bustle, and chaos, you are teaching me patience from within.

Darjeeling

Oh Darjeeling, I think I love you.  With your ambience of easy going nonchalance, unassuming, unaggressive inhabitants and quiet winding roads that snake steeply up your lush green hills.  With your delicious tea, tasty momo’s and warm, cosy, and ever lively Joey’s pub.  With your enforced gentle pace, as to walk up these steep hills must be done slowly, and cool climate that means visitors have to wrap up snugly to maintain warmth.  All of this is what makes me love you after 5 months in India.  I have been here for 3 days now and not a single child has run up to me demanding 10 rupees, sweets, or photos.  Nor a single tout with patience testing relentlessness tried to get me on a trek or other sight-seeing tour.  Nor a single shop keeper tried to get me into their shop.  Nor have a single pair of eyes, telling of the growing erection in their pants, looked me up and down with disrespectful lust.  Nor a single taxi pulled up and asked where I am going.  Nor any beggars insistently and persistently tugged on my clothes demanding money.  Nor been asked for exorbitant prices on anything I have wanted to buy, even from the street vendors.  Nor a single photo been asked of me.  Nor a single mosquito nibbled upon me.  Nor is there plastic bags and bottles strewn with ignorant abandon.  People seem to care about their environment here.  Ahhhhhh, thank you Darjeeling.

Here the women wear make up, tight clothes, and I have even seen a pair of legs, clad in fish net stockings, displayed proudly under a short denim skirt.  Here the women smoke and drink, in public, with no shame, and no-one spits at them or leers with intimidating disapproval.  Things seem a bit more ‘liberated’ here with regard to the treatment of women.  I wonder if it is the Buddhist influence, from the influx of Nepalese and Tibetans.  They always seem a bit more chilled out and accepting of people.  To me Buddisht countries always appear less judgemental, maybe it is the absence of a God, telling people how to behave that results in this easy going attitude.   

Since arriving in Darjeeling we have sat in a thick, cold cloud, and are very grateful for it.  I can’t tell you about the vistas or the countryside, as I can’t see it.   After much moving around, we are very pleased to have an excuse not to ‘do’ anything in particular.  We are sleeping late, mooching up and down the slow winding hills once awake, stopping frequently in tea shops to drink the delicious golden local tea on offer, seeking out the perfect momo in the little Tibetan run snack bars, and winding the day up in the snuggly warmth of Joey’s pub for a rum and coke, sharing stories and advice with other travellers.  In fact, this is the easiest place I have found to meet other travellers.  Of a similar ilk.  Even easier than the touristy destinations of Goa and Varkala, which were a mine field of pretentious, hair flicking druggy/yoga/ashram darlings ready to bore me to death with their ignorant ramblings about getting battered/spirituality.  There is a wonderful little travelling community here, which seems to have occurred completely by accident.  And is really nice to encounter given that this hasn’t really happened in the 5 months we have been away.  Maybe it is unusual for here too, and there has just been a freak influx of like-minded people to drink the cold away with.

We are staying on the top of one of the hills, which was fun to walk up with our backpacks, being completely put to shame by the unexpected steeliness of the locals that, with no exaggeration, are able to carry four large suitcases up these intense inclines, using a sling wrapped around their foreheads.  But once the clouds clear it will be worth it.  The room we have has a shabby charm to it and ceiling to floor windows along one side, that once the cloud lifts, I am confident will reveal a masterful example of one of nature’s greatest works of art – the Himalaya’s.  We are here for another week, before I fly to Nepal and Alex to Singapore, so hopefully the sky will part at some point.  If not ho-hum, it’s been bloody lovely to sit in what is the most charming hill station I have made my way to so far.  And given the time I am to spend in the shadow of these mighty mountains, it would be amazing if the next few months went by without a glimpse of their majesty.  But we were lucky, and Darjeeling offered us some spectacualr scenary on our last day.  Finally, here is the awesome veiw from our balcony of the 3rd highest peak in the world.

Peeping Tom's in Kolkata

I have a feeling I might not have been getting the best out of Kolkata.  Having arrived here, for 2 days only, after a month of travelling the entire length of India, spending over 80 hours on trains, 30 hours on buses, staying in 11 different places, I am, quite frankly, bushed.  It’s really hot here, and on our first day ended up getting in a taxi with a really aggressive driver who shouted at us because he went the wrong way and was somewhat irked that we refused to pay him the fare for both the wrong and the right destinations.  On the second day, I caught someone looking through the gaps in our bathroom window, spying on me, mostly naked, after a rather uncomfortable bowel movement.  I was not best pleased.  Neither was Alex.  I quickly got dressed and went to find the peeping Tom.  Unfortunately all I had seen was a little brown head ducking out of sight, so there was no way I was able to identify the little pervert, and was compelled to complain loudly and firmly at all the members of hotel staff that were in the area in which the incident had occurred.  I got upset with the manager, the staff, the receptionist, the bus boys, everyone.  Yet no one wanted to help me.

I explained that I had a right to privacy and it was unacceptable for someone to spy on me.  I explained that had I been an Indian woman, this would have been an abhorrent act, I tried to provoke empathy by asking if they would like their sisters or daughters to be treated in such a way.  I got told by various different levels of lackey and management that I must have ‘been mistaken – Indian men are too small to see in the window’, that I could move room, and pay extra money for guaranteed privacy, that they were ‘sorry’.  Again I was amazed at the total apathy and unwillingness to help, all they wanted was to make sure we stayed another night to keep the money rolling from our pockets, never mind my decency or level of personal comfort at staying in the place, or identifying the degenerate who wanted to get a sneaky peek at my breasts.

Now, had I been in the UK, or many other places, I probably wouldn’t have bothered making a fuss at all.  I don’t mind that much about someone getting their jollies out of being a bit of a perv.  But this is India.  And I am getting sick of the misogyny and assumption that because I am white, I am a whore, and my body is not mine.  Men here have felt it their right to grab my breasts and my butt, I have been propositioned by endless arseholes who demand to know my room number, been told that I will ‘enjoy’ or ‘go full power, 24 hour, no shower’ for a bit of ‘Indian magic’, been checked out with uncomfortably lusty eyes every time I walk down the street.  I read in the paper that Indian women are gang raped in taxis and are told that they were out too late, so deserve what has happened.  Men refuse to talk to me when Alex is around, who gets engaged in conversation that isn’t about fucking, because I am a stupid woman.   I find the daily disrespect I encounter, merely because I am a woman, and a filthy white woman at that, really frustrating.  I don’t want to give unbalanced impressions of a country of more than 500 million men.  Many I have met are not like this, many have spoken to me as an equal and with respect, and friendliness.  But I can’t deny there are a lot who do not, and I have explained in previous blogs that I understand why a little.

So bearing all this in mind, I found my principles (they were looking a little wrinkled in the bottom of my backpack) and told the hotel staff that I wanted to call the police to report the incident.  And in saying those words – please will you call the police for me, I understood the fear and power that threat instils in Indian people.  It was incredible.  I could see in faces that there was more than fear, there was sadness.  Sadness because they knew what would happen if the police turned up.  All of the men that were in the area of the bathroom window, which were around 6, would have been beaten until someone confessed, and then beaten some more.  Of course I wasn’t really going to call the police, but I was so pissed at the disinterest at the incident, and I didn’t quite realise the power of the threat, that I offered it.  Within 15 minutes the managing director of the hotel group was with us, explaining that we could stay for no extra cost, that the perpetrator would be found and sacked and that he was very, very sorry.  I told him it was wasn’t about the money, that I was fed up of being treated like a whore in this country.  He explained the brutality of the police, what tourists don’t see.  I just wanted an apology from the person who peeped, for them to realise that I was a human being, and was worthy of respect.  If I got that I wouldn’t call the police, and that would be all I required, no sacking, no free rooms, nothing, but an apology.

Sure enough, within 2 minutes two boys were dragged into the office.  One of them absolutely bricking it.  They had been grassed up by those wanting to avoid the police. I was quite sad to see it was such a young man, maybe 17 years old.  His friend was told to leave.  The boy, who spoke very little English, tried to say it was an accident, and that he hadn’t meant to stand up on a crate to look in the window.  Then the poor sod confessed.  The MD, obviously peeved that he had been lied to, jumped up, yelled at the cowering young man, and then belted him with the full force of his palm across the face.  That is not what I wanted.  I jumped up to defend the boy I had got dragged in there, hugged him and pulled him out of the fury of the MD.  I repeated that all I wanted was an apology, no violence, no sacking, just an apology.  The MD sat back down, and told the boy to touch my feet and call me mother (a sign of respect Indians give to elders.)  He said sorry and then was told to go.  And he did, he ran from that room.  I asked the MD not to sack him, and to tell the

 boy that I forgave him, that there was no further problem.  I hope it was listened to.  Although the MD told me that I was in India now, and they had their ways of dealing with things.  I also got the distinct feeling that the violence wasn’t to protect my honour, but because the MD has been disrespected by the lie.  Society is very hierarchical here, and everyone must know their place within it.

Now I don’t know if I did the right thing.  I just wanted an apology, for him to sit face to face with me and recognise that I was as human as he was.  But instead he was shown violence and fear. 

Some people have said that I did the right thing, that he may well have grown into one of those men that think its ok leap on white girls in Goa, without invitation, to try and have sex with them.  Or any one of the hundreds of other examples I could give from stories I have heard about the interactions between Western women and Indian men.  Now he might think differently.

I don’t think so.  He was just given more fear.  Not an understanding in real respect.  But then is it right to let people treat others in this way without repercussion or consequence?  I guess this is a country of extremes, where discipline and policing are not done with any degree of moderation or recriminations are in proportion to the act.  Which means that unless I want people beaten for their misdemeanours, I let them get away with it.  That seems a little fucked to me.

 

Anyway, Kolkata.  Not really what I expected – quelle suprise.  Wide, clean streets, filled with yellow ambassador cabs.  The showy offerings of Greco-Roman architecture offered by the East India Company, and then the British to impress the supplicating natives.  Busy, noisy, as ever.  Really good Begali cuisine.  Lovely parks, green, well-tended, and offering space for young lovers to ‘heavy pet’ in the bushes, which is pretty weird.  There is the Victoria memorial, which, to be fair, is impressive.  We attended a light and sound show there, which we thought would be a lively show splashing colourful lights over the cool white marble of the huge building.  But instead it was a film in Bengali, showed on a cinema screen set up in the park in front of the memorial.  I think it was very informative about the history of Kolkata, but I can’t be too sure.   There were a couple if illuminations in the building, but I couldn’t infer their relevance to the story I couldn’t understand.  We should have waited for the English version. 

Off on another train journey today.  To Darjeeling.  Hopefully I will feel a little more enamoured with India.  We have had a bit of a falling out.  I know I love her, but at the moment, she is really pressing my freaking buttons. 

Bodhagaya

A dusty yellow town, with dusty roads, busy with dusty yellow rickshaws packed with more people than you would imagine possible, dusty cart horses and the occasional elephant.  Most of the restaurants were tarpaulin tents.  It is home to many Tibetan refugees, also living in tarpaulin tents.  Bodhgaya is in Bihar, the poorest state in India, and it shows.  There are dusty, dirty children everywhere, most asking for money or sweets.  So many beggars, charitable organisations, and orphanages.  We went to one.  An intelligent, gentle, boy approached us and after talking for a while, asked us if we wanted to visit his school and meet the children there.  He was so genuinely good natured we agreed.  It was an orphanage, run by a Christian couple, who couldn’t have children, so looked after the destitute ones.  They rescued babies left at hospitals and in rubbish dumps.  The building they taught and lived in was basic, rudimentary, bare.  But the children were wonderful.  It was quite a moving experience to enter such a happy environment, which is born from such horrendous starts.  

We went there as it is the place where the Buddha was enlightened, under the Bodhi tree, which is still alive, after various cuttings had been replanted.  The place of the Bodhi tree has a temple, which is tall, and simple; and is surrounded by gardens, stupas erected in important places in which the Buddha is said to have undergone different stages of meditation.  It is a calm place, with lots of green, and many monks in beautiful maroon robes.  There are also Wat’s from all the different Buddhist countries in the surrounding robes.  A 80 foot statue of the Buddha, which is benignly imposing.  And the Dali Lama turns up every year to visit.   

 

I don’t have so much to say about it here, we were only there for a day.  The town was poor and unattractive, in the temple area it was calm and lush, it was all a little depressing.  Maybe it is significant that human suffering is so blatant around the site where the Buddha was enlightened, to remind all the visitors that all life is suffering…..

Varanasi

Oh.  My.  Life.  I just fell down the rabbit hole.  If David Lynch was to make a film about spirituality and death, and given funding by Muthoot Finance and the State Bank of India, I think it would turn out something like Varanasi.   Where do I even start to give you an impression of the most surreal place I have ever visited.  Of all my travels across the world, I have never, ever been anywhere like this.  It is beyond time.  I could honestly believe this place hasn’t changed for hundreds of years.  The narrow winding passages, frequently blocked by cows, swishing their dung encrusted tails that you have to skilfully time in passing to avoid being thwacked, twist and turn with angular frequency, intertwining the visitor into the old city, sewing everlasting impressions into the soul.  You don’t walk around this city, it moves through you, somehow.  

Varanasi is a holy city for Hindus, where they take their dead to be piled with wood, burnt and then scattered along the Ganga for their final journey.  The city sits on the a curve of the Ganga where two other rivers meet with it, and coils up and away from the Ghats that line it into a strange and beautiful world.  There are many Ghats along the side of the river, each having a different purpose.  There are Ghats where people wash their clothes, Ghats for bathing pilgrims, Ghats for washing buffalo, Gahts for morning and evening worship, and Ghats for burning the dead.  By far the most exotic and captivating are the burning Ghats.  Irregular buildings poke the sky with their dome like spires, clustered around the stone steps that lead down to the river.  On the steps and the path along the river, huge piles of wood are stacked to load on the bodies, funeral pyres burn all around, cows laze under flimsy sheds and along the path, and hundreds of people line the steps absorbed in the captivating peculiarity, watching as enshrouded bodies, wrapped in richly embroidered cloths, are carried on bamboo stretchers by loved ones down to the river.

There are no cars here, the streets are too narrow.  The streets are owned by the cows, goats, dogs, monkeys and people, all of which shit freely and without shame.  Never would I have imagined that I would be so entranced by a place where the streets are essentially an open sewer.   Dark alleys, where you need to look both up and down to check for what is on the floor and what is coming from the windows above, burst into long meandering streets brightly lit and shimmering from sequins, gold threaded clothes and twinkling bangles, teeming with people.   In the evening people fly kites from the roof tops and the sky is swimming with differing coloured paper diamonds. 

We were a little apprehensive before arriving.  The guide book says that the hassle here is, along with Agra, the worst in India.  Touts and scam artists relentlessly pestering exhausted tourists.  But apart from two unsavoury stalkers who were trying to secure commission from guest houses we visited, we have found nothing but amazing people.  People who want to tell you breathlessly about the world, freedom and love, orange robed babas with deep rumbling voices invite you to pose for photos, for a small fee of course, strangers take you by the hand, smile and welcome you to their city, children swarm around you laughing and mimicking you, there are happy calls of Namaste’s every third step, and hopeful boat owners eternal quest to get another tourist into their beaten, barely floating dingy’s.  And there is humour, so much humour.  Yesterday a man approached us while we were talking to another about sitars, a babe in arms, and asked if we wanted to buy a baby.  He said he had a baby making factory and needed to shift a few cheap.  There are the rhymes too.  Always a rhyme:  burning is learning, cremation education, no worry chicken curry, no cry banana fry.

My exhausted, happy soul, there is so much going on here.  It is a completely crazy assault on every single sense.  There is so much to say about the utter mentalness of this place.  We have seen river dolphins, I have no idea how they manage to survive in that sewer of a river, but we have seen them, quite indisputably; I have been into the Golden Temple to crowd in an even more frenetic and bizarre queue with the monkeys and the even closer people, to offer sweet smelling flowers and milk in a peculiar frenzy to Lord Shiva, in which I was meant to splash the offered milk across my face; watched the daily evening puja where crowds of hundreds of people watch from the steps and from boats upon the river, and listen with absolute reverence, as music is played to them while five orange men perform rituals, stood upon small stages covered in orange flowers, involving smoke, fire and clanging bells; there was the calm, ethereal boat ride at dawn across the still waters of the Ganga, watching as the mists cleared

and the sun rose up to face the city; tales of cannibals that steal the flesh of the burning bodies, their souls already committed to the devil; observed the delicate process of women kneading cow shit to make fuel logs on the Ghats; taken in to oil sellers houses, small two story houses which are home to 30 people and 7 cows, all living as I imagine people living 200 years ago; and this is all in just two days.  Two days that feels like a week.  We have one more day left here.  I think that will be enough for Alex.  He likes it, but the chaos is relentless and the filth is extensive, and he needs calm and clean.  I tell him he can have it in another 6 months, when we leave north India.  I am not sure how long I could last here, I think it would be easy to surrender to this place and fall into one of it crevices, emerging years later, never able to join Western society again…..

I have, for the first time in a while, seen something genuinely different, nothing compares to Varanasi.

Hyderabad

A 500 year old city that, in places, still boasts its heritage as proudly as European cities do.  Impressive structures built by the Qutb Shahis (from Persia), the founders of the city 500 years ago, rise elegantly from the hectic streets, still intact and used today. 

The Charminar takes centre stage in the Islamic area of the city, traffic nudging its way noisily around it, and the bazaars, shining, glittering and crammed in, spread brightly from its epicentre, clustering around a back drop of stunning old buildings, including a mosque, also built by the Qutb Shahis, that can hold 10,000 worshippers.  It is energetic, noisy, polluted, sparkling, friendly, curious and wonderful.   To walk around the area near the Charminar is to take a trip through history.  If one can ignore the traffic, it is not hard to imagine that life has not changed much here in 500 years.  The food sellers, street hawkers with strings of twinkling necklaces lined up their arms, carts with toothbrushes, combs, soap dishes, mirrors and other sundry items arranged neatly, stalls selling Qur’ans in beautifully gilt boxes and dazzling clothes shops showing off their finely embroidered cloth.  Even the setting for these shops, stalls, carts, and hawkers is beautiful, old buildings with carved pillars supporting ornate galleries that run along the length of the buildings.  It is nice to see Indian history, as opposed to Colonial history, so prominent in a city.

Walking down the winding alleys, sprouting off the side of the main road that leads up to and beyond the Charminar, is a wonderfully colourful journey into the lives of the people that live here.  Curious looking pickle sellers call cheerily from their huts, shop keepers invite you to sit and enjoy a cup of tea, endless stores of burkas, all fashioned with bejewelled bling, and old men chattering behind carts of garlic and chillies.  It is an incredibly friendly place, everywhere we turned were beaming smiles and an enthusiastic willingness to engage us.  I felt a genuine love of life from the people in this area.  I could have walked around for days and fed off the good spirit of the people there.

The accommodation was the only thing that left something to be desired.  And we managed to negate that by spoiling ourselves with a room that was double our budget.  But, oh, it was worth it.  A bed so comfortable it was reminiscent of the one we left behind, almost silent AC, constant hot running water, unbeatable cleanliness, and Alex’s favourite – a flat screen TV.  It was executive luxury.

During our time in Hyderabad, we also took a trip to Golconda Fort, the original home of the Kor-i-noor diamond, and the predecessor city to Hyderabad, when the water ran out there, the Qtub’s moved to Hyderabad.  It appears to have been a very sophisticated place.  Situated on top of a hill, there were complicated systems in which to move water around, so the royal family at the top had constant access to it, and swimming pools were kept replenished.  The fort itself had an impressive history in defending its inhabitants, it managed to withstand an 8 month siege without falling.  And the acoustics are incredible, it is possible to hear the clapping of hands at the front gate, a kilometre away in the senate rooms at the very top of the hill.   There are lots of winding passages, large shaded halls, and at the top, fantastic panoramas of the cityscapes.  It is also possible to see the tombs of the Qutb’s, their massive domes bulging out of the surrounds, bursting into the skyline.  

After mooching around the fort for a few hours, which could have probably been done much quicker, had we not been asked to be photographed every few steps by very excitable, and ever friendly, Indians, we went to the tombs.  Close up they are immense, and stunning.  Grand examples of Persian architecture, with their ornate columns, intricate reliefs and bulbous domes.  In places the original paint work can be seen, which is bright and colourful.  These would have been truly glorious structures in their day, they are now.  Set in a peaceful, undeveloped area, with colourful trees and flowers, chipmonks rustling around the leaves, a complete absence of motorised vehicles, the entire Qutb dynasty lay in rest in 7 of these enormous, elaborate mausoleums , and their family in smaller tombs around them.

There was also the NTR gardens, were we took a trip in a time machine, watched rats spill from projector screens, hid amidst huge fruit, ate chaats in vintage cars and got sky rash.  The surreal offerings of a national company to create bizarre, green spaces within the city.   

As you might be able to tell, I liked Hyderabad.  A lot.  Although it is located away from many other tourist destinations, I think it is worth the effort to go there.  I would have like to have stayed longer, but we have a visa that is soon to expire, and many other places we want to visit before we temporarily leave this country. 

N.B.  We have had a break through.  Alex, eating street food, while sat on a dirty pavement.  It might have taken 4½ months, but we got there!  The diary of neuroses is getting added to less and less frequently.  I am proud of you darling!  

The Indian Train Journey

We eventually managed to figure out the complicated system of booking train tickets and the numerous classes on Indian trains (there are 8 in all, 2SC being not as good as 3A, but 2A being the best, except in the few trains that have 1A and executive classes).  And as such have embarked on our first 30 hour train journey up from the tip of India to…….about a third of the way up the country, to Hyderabad, which is still considered South India.  We have another 2 of these to go through before we get to Kolkota, and it is still then another 15 hour bus journey to get to Darjeeling.  My life, this country is big.  

We also decided to travel in bling class, the best available on the train that would take us to Hyderabad, 2A.  After getting on at the exact and complete opposite end of the train, we then had to wiggle and barge our way through peasant classes to get to carriage 1A, which was positioned at the end rather than the beginning of the train.  There are around 25 carriages to a train, when you look out the door, sometimes you can’t see the end of it, they are huge metal snakes that slide across the country.  We set off together to push through the peasants, our backpacks mainly a massive hindrance in the narrow walkways that offer passage through the train.  Of course they have their uses in being good barging tools every now and again, but trying to negotiate the one man walkways, already squished with two people thick, was somewhat difficult, and painful to many of the people I encountered.  Especially those who insisted on sucking in, instead of moving out the way.  I warned them each time that maybe they would want to move a little more out the way, but no, I should pass, and as I squelched through the bodies I could hear groans of pain echoing behind me.  I lost Alex.  I think he managed to get wedged between a Muslim cleric and a toilet door.  By the time I had realised I had gone too far, there was no room to back up.  Reversing with a back pack is no easy task when it has to pass through the river of people that quickly flowed back into the path I have just carved for myself.  As I continued on my arduous journey through the train, and found myself in a couple of stand offs.  Both times with old beggar women.  One of which had Parkinson’s.  She trembled, her wrinkled leathery skin shaking free from her old bones as she faced me.  I was unable to turn, or to reverse, we were locked in morally dubious combat.  There was no way she was going back the way she had come, neither was she going to let this opportunity pass, a tiny wibbling hand extended towards me and the others sat around.  I dug around in the many pockets of my front back pack, struggling to finger out a few stray coins that hid elusively in the recess.  This is no easy feat when stuck in a narrow carriage way with two back packs on.  My elbow knocked about hard objects, and soft people, a queue of others were impatiently nudging me from behind to get a move on, oblivious to the stand off happening.  Finally my fingers found purchase on a 5 rupee coin, I fished it out and handed it to her.  Still she didn’t make any effort to let me through.  So I pretty much picked her up and plopped her down in an off shoot aisle, before continuing.  A few carriages down I spied another beggar woman, she was a little more robust, but only in comparison to the previous one.  And this one found the situation a lot funnier.  I found another few rupees, and started the delicate process of manoeuvring the old lady out of my way.  She giggled the whole way through.  After that progress was relatively easy, and I eventually found the cool breath of the AC compartments.  2A, where the well to do Indians travel.

You’d imagine something pretty nice for the best class available, that costs 1900 rupees, where proper peasant class is around 200 rupees for the distance we travelled, and in comparison it was positively luxurious.  Although I wouldn’t expect many well to do English persons being particularly impressed with sharing their carriage with mice and cockroaches for 30 hours.  They were pretty respectful though, and left my underwear alone, and knew that Alex’s face was out of bounds.   And without trying too sound to colonial, it was rather civilised.  Someone came along and took our food order, and they would return a couple of hours later, at the breakfast/lunch/dinner time with the requested meal.  There were constant calls alerting us to chai, coffee, water and fried snacks and even the toilets were tolerable, they flushed and had soap.  We barely even noticed that we were on the train for so long.  Time just seemed to disappear, a day of our lives just vanished, as the changing scenery of India rolled by outside the window.  The backwaters and palms were gradually replaced by farm land, rocky plains, piles of red chillies and reed huts.  

When we think of the bus journeys we would have had to endure to get to this point, we are very relieved, and quite looking forward to travelling up the rest of India by train.     

Kanyakumari

Where the Indian Ocean meets the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea.  Where yellow sand meets black and red sand.  Where the Indian pilgrims flock, Kanyakamari, the Southern-most tip of India, to watch the sun rise and set over the sea and bathe in the sacred waters.  And no, I have no idea why they are sacred.  And no, I have not bathed in them.  

Kanykamari is much more of what I expected from India.  Touts, beggars, excited children, pilgrims and persistent necklace sellers.  Selling real pearls, of course, a whole string of them, perfectly formed and beautifully iridescent all for a 100 rupees.  They’ll even try and burn them with a lighter to prove to you that they are not plastic, as someone cynical may suspect them to be.  The main bazaar that leads up to the temple, which is positioned right on the tip of India, is lined with ‘fancy’ shops and trashy souvenirs.  Lampshades, mirrors, necklaces, hanging decorations all made from shells are abundant, and are as kitsch as the 1970’s.  Plastic rickshaws, machine guns, boats and dolls can all be bought for 30 rupees.  People throng up and down the busy little street at night and mooch lazily along it during the day, in the beginning of this very hot Indian summer.  There is a good breeze that skips in from the many seas, which makes walking around this disparate little town just tolerable.  There are fishing boats that line the edges of the seas, and brittle reed houses set a little further back that sit in the cool shadow of large expensive hotels.  On the dusty streets, amongst the tat shops, imposing hotels, and grimy lodges, are snippets of the past. 

  Dilapidated temple entrances sneak in between shops, their perverse statues of horse/lion/drangon/elephant hybrids, with huge penises that are fucking small elephants, which in turn are fucking even smaller, surprisingly happy little men at the bottom, sit ignored, whispering tales of times gone by to the covered, conservative, now censored Hindus that wander past wishing to prostrate themselves to the sun.  

Sunrise and sunset are the things to do here.  Although, there is also the candy pink Gandhi memorial which held his ashes before they were immersed, and where I was asked to make extra donations to the pocket of the woman who looked after my shoes.  I pointed out that this was the Gandhi memorial, and opportunistic scrounging was maybe a little incongruous, but I think the subtlety of the point was lost on her, she just scowled and spat when she realised I wasn’t going to ‘donate’ to her.      

I got up at 5.20 am to secure myself a good spot for the sunrise, as did a few thousand other people.  It was far more bustling than I have ever experienced 5.20 am to be before.  Calls of ‘chai, chai, chai’, ‘coffee, coffee, coffee’ punctuated the din of the crowds, the bell of a boy selling bags of pink candy floss tinkled in endless circuits around people, and the relentless whispering on the necklace sellers trying to prove the authenticity of their pearls could be heard with every step.  I made my way down to the Ghats, and managed to find a good spot on a wall, which was clearly the envy of many others, whose closeness and gentle nudging made me suspect they were wishing to make space for themselves, by ousting me.  People swarmed down to the Ghats, into the sea and onto the rocks, and stared excitedly at the large Vivekananda statue that sits benignly on a rock just off shore.  As the skies lightened and the sun struggled its way into the day behind the hazy of cloud, there was a cheer and applause from the gathered crowd.  And eventually, the sun wrestled free from the haze, and presented himself as a large, proud red disc to his followers beyond Vivekananda.   (Vivekananda is the wandering monk who dedicated his life to bringing a sense of social justice to Hinduism.)

Sunset was a little more manageable time wise.  I wandered back down to the same spot I watched sunrise from, but looking in the other direction.  The place was a mass of people who seemed more akin to holiday makers as opposed to pilgrims.  There were fried food sellers lining the edges of the Ghats, offering samosas, battered chilli’s, fried bananas, tough orange coloured sweetcorn (even the beggar children turned that down when I offered it to them) and fruit.  Along the front of those, white horses trotted gleeful children up and down, and on the beach families, giggling girls and boisterous boys teased each other with the sea.   The men swimming with happy exhuberence and the women gently testing the water, laughing at the waves that splashed them while they egged each other on to step in a little deeper.   Laughter and sounds of people enjoying themselves mingled with the horn-like voices of the chai sellers.  There was the occasional genuine pilgrim, spotted as if in a game of where’s wally, identifiable by their orange robes, who entered the sea with their plastic Pepsico bottle to fill it with sacred sea water.

 

I like Kanyakumari.  This is what I had in my expectations of India.  People, noise, bustle.  And the strange thing is, that even though I have come here as a lone female traveller, I have not been hassled or felt under so much scrutiny as I have done in the Western tourist destinations.  Here I am seen as more exotic and a little more unapproachable than a trophy fuck……………And before I even had time to finish that sentence, and Indian man strikes up conversation with me.  After a couple of minutes inane conversation, about his future wife and family, he asks what room number I am and tells me we should go there, to enjoy, presumably.  

I honestly don’t know how women deal with travelling around this country alone.  I don’t want to assume that every man who talks to me is wanting to ‘enjoy’ me, and who then assumes I will thanks to the portrayal of Western women in movies.  I imagine most porn actresses are white.  In a culture where the men and women are separate and have little interaction within groups after childhood, and the women are taught when young to be hostile to men, that a smiling face with a willingness to talk must seem easy, accommodating; available.  It makes the idea of travelling on my own seem a little daunting.  I would have to adopt a hardness I wouldn’t want to just to deal with people.  To have to be incredibly wary of those around me, to not talk to any local, to be hard towards people.  I don’t  want to do that.  I am not sure there is any country where I want to be like that.  

Someone said to me yesterday, ‘As soon as you think you have things figured out here, something will come along to completely contradict what you thought you knew.’