My camel farts in your general direction (a lot...)

If you're a beardy traveller in Rajastan, then you have to take a camel safari. It's a rule. No-one knows quite why, but it is. And as a rule, the most popular place to start from is Jaisalmer, in the extreme West of the state (just about 100 Km from the Pakistan border.) However, we had been hearing some complaints recently that the camel treks from Jaisalmer could be a bit of a rip-off, with many hotels "organising" treks, in which the hapless tourist would end up sharing a camel (which is not very comfortable) and without a decent guide, not to mention a disgruntled camel driver, who is being paid sod all by the hotel / agent, who had simply gone out on the street and flagged down the first passing camel and told its owner "ere, take this lot out in the desert for a few days, will you? Here's sod all money, make sure they're alive when they get back 'case they haven't paid their hotel bill yet" (in a Yorkshire accent, probably.) So, when we were recommended Bikaner as a quieter starting point, which is about 200 Km Northeast from Jaisalmer and a day's train ride from Jaipur, our previous stopping point, and Mr Vijay Singh as a guy who knew how to organise camel safaris, we decided that that would be the best bet. Our journey from Jaipur to Bikaner was somewhat disarming as an Indian family insisted on sharing all their food with us and wouldn't even accept an offer of peanuts in return. We arrived in Bikaner late at night and had pre-booked a room at a hotel called Bhairon Villas, which the Beardy Traveller's Guide said was the funkiest place in town to stay. They were not wrong. Bhairon Villas is one of what Rajastan calls its "heritage hotels." These are mostly renovated houses, forts and palaces and most of them that we had seen so far had been in the James Bond category, when it came to room tariffs; not so Bhairon Villas. At a measly 700 Rupees a night (10 new English pounds) the rooms, although small, really are perfectly formed and decorated with pictures and drapes from times past, with beautiful carved wooden window frames and doors. For only 30 pounds a night, the largest room in the hotel is available, which is actually an enormous suite, replete with hunting trophies and period (or possibly mock-period) furniture. The best part of all (predictably) was the roof terrace, with wonderful views over the palace and fort complex and an ample store of cold beer (although the waiter was a little hard to locate at times.) The management at Bhairon villas had a card for Vijay 'The Camel Man' Singh and use him as their 'agent of choice' for arranging treks out of Bikaner. Having arranged a meeting with Vijay, we set about seeing just how well stocked the bar was...

During our first meeting with The Camel Man, he certainly seemed to know his stuff, as well as offering us a free tour of the city sights in his jeep. His rates are a little higher than we had heard from Jaisalmer, but he seemed pretty knowledgeable, so we booked up with him. Vijay seems to have a finger in just about every tourist pie in the region. Aside from knowing EVERYONE (who all seem to be some obscure part of his family) he has a tour agency, which looks after, amongst other things, overland trucks. For those of you unfamiliar with this particular travelling phenomenon, overland trucks (or 'wankers', as we came to know them in Tanzania) are lorries converted to carry 20 - 40 people in open air style through developing countries, so that they don't have to catch the bus, poor things. We had only ever heard of these operating in Africa, but it would appear that they are now making their presence felt in India. Perhaps due to his business links with these 'Overlanders', Vijay appears to have spent considerable time around Australians and says 'no worries' altogether too much, but that's OK, so long as he doesn't start calling me 'cobber' and Andrea 'Sheila' we'll get on just fine.

Having sorted out our camel safari itinerary, Andrea immediately came down with a case of the runs, which delayed our start by a day, but did give us the opportunity to meditate on the sensibility (or otherwise) of committing to sitting on a pile of spitting fur with legs for 4 straight days, when we could be sitting at the bar in Bhairon Villas and just pretending that we had gone on safari. "Let's not and say we did" was a suggestion made more than once ... A chat with a returning couple (of Scots) gave us the confidence required to leave the next day, with only mild trepidation.

The first day was, in a word, excruciating. I have never before been so convinced that my arse was going to fall off and spent the last hour of the afternoon on the camel cart, nursing a sore spot, where I had previously been unaware of having a spot. Bloody agony and not a little embarrassing, as both the girls appeared to have next to no problems, although Andrea did later admit to some butt related tenderness by the end of the day. The set up was a little more than I was expecting. We had been joined on our trek by a Swiss lady called Vanessa and so the total tourist party numbered 3. Why then, you may ask, did we have a further 7 people along with us? Simple. 1 camel driver per tourist camel, 2 other camels pulling carts, upon which all our stuff (tents, clothes, food and that) were to be carried, each with a driver and finally 2 guides, who looked after our every whim and desire and said 'thank you' almost as often as they said 'you're welcome.'

We have noticed in India, that names are almost always impossible to remember. Rules regarding what constitutes a syllable seem to be infinitely flexible (and stretchable) and so we found ourselves completely unable to remember the names of our camels ... for they had them. Instead, we set about the task of deriving our own names. First up was Vanessa's, which was named Pachino for the scar on his face. Then Andrea's camel Priscilla who, although technically a male, showed none of the rampant horniness displayed by all the other camels when around other (lady) camels and had a habit of kissing both its owner and the other camels (about which some of the other camels were less than amused) and was undoubtedly the prettiest camel on the trek, all of which led us to the shaky conclusion that Priscilla might be a bit of a queen ... of the desert. My camel, due to its characteristically belligerent nature, and protruding bottom lip, was named Smudge. Actually, due to the fact that my camel's testicles were noticeably larger than its brain pan, the name Elv was suggested more than once, but rejected on the basis that bringing to mind an image of the milkman's kahunas every time I talked to my camel was not something I was prepared to put up with for half an hour, let alone 4 days. Our 2 cart camels were named later, one Hoover (for his eating habits) and one Horndog (due to his attempts to make up for Priscilla's lack of interest in the female camels by bellowing all the louder and blowing its tongue out at anything vaguely female looking.)

Camels are the most amazingly flatulent animals and like nothing more than to let rip with a minute long concerto at every opportunity, they go to the toilet a surprising amount too, but one thing that they don't seem to do is spit. This I don't understand and can't explain, except to suggest that either Indian camels are particularly well behaved or the spitting stereotype comes from their action of blowing up their tongues (which must have some sort of sack in them, although I was careful not to get close enough to check first hand) when they're horny, which was (Priscilla excepted) all the time. Apparently winter is the breeding season; imagine a 7 foot tall flatulent dog when all the local bitches are on heat at the same time, and you will just about get the picture. Now imagine having to saddle up and ride that same 7 foot tall flatulent dog and you will have the rest of the picture. We were unable to ascertain from our guides and drivers if our assumptions about camel spitting were correct or not. Their knowledge, whilst encyclopaedic, seemed to encompass only the three local varieties of camel. They gave us some VERY strange looks when we asked them about camels with 2 humps...

So, the first day over, we all relaxed by the fire and our able guides and drivers whipped us up a sumptuous vegetarian meal. I was a little sceptical at having to spend 4 days without meat and had only been placated by the promise that the Hampi debacle would not be repeated and that beer would be available. I figured that, if all the guys were veggies, then I should probably just put up and shut up. It was some time before I realised why we had no meat with us. Imagine how a chicken would smell after 1/2 a day in the desert sun, let alone 2 or 3. Actually, I had been a little concerned about our camera equipment in the sun but needn't have worried too much. At this time of year the ambient temperature in the desert is surprisingly low, you really notice it when you sit in the shade for a rest. The temperature appears to plummet 20 or 25 degrees in just a few seconds and as for when the sun goes down ... bring a blanket. So long as you keep things covered, then, they won't go much above about 20 degrees. Leave them out in the direct sunlight, however, and you will have a lump of molten plastic on your hands before too long. I would not suggest this trip in the summer, when the only escape from the heat comes at dusk.

The average day's ride went something like this;

9am

Wake up (slowly) and emerge bleary eyed to find breakfast ready with lashings of ginger tea, toast and omelettes (with chilli in)

10am

Saddle up camels and head out in the general direction of the horizon

10am till 12pm

Ride camels over sand dunes etc and through villages, where children group around you in abject confusion at 3 white folks turning up in their town riding camels and scream "dada" (welcome) or "aiba" (give me a pen) at us. This was a little weird, as Vijay sends most of his treks on the same route, so these kids see foreigners every week, not that you'd know it from their reaction. Actually confusion did turn to mirth and then to fear on one occasion when some kids realised that Priscilla didn't like having rocks thrown at her and was liable to rear up under fire. Andrea was not amused, but our guide got everything under control, apparently by saying something quite threatening in Rajasthani and reminding them that he knew their parents (everyone seems to know everyone here) and would be back the following week with some more tourists and a stick for any naughty children who throw stones at defenceless camels and foreigners. More often, though, they just wanted to know what country we were from ... and if we had any pens or possibly 5 rupees.

12pm

Stop for lunch (for 2 1/2 hours) At this point the guides and drivers would break out the food and prepare a mountain of vegetarian dishes (mostly at the ear poppingly hot end of the spice scale) whilst we sat in luxury, under a tree, supping on a cold(ish) Pepsi or a cup of ginger tea.

2.30pm till 5.30pm

Riding camels again, this was the real arse breaker after the tenderising affect of the morning. If we were lucky, it would be broken by a visit to a village and an opportunity to 'de-camel' and stagger around like a Texan for a few glorious minutes saying "Oh, yes, that's interesting", whilst thinking "God my arse hurts, I think my back's going to break if I get back on that camel again" after which you would get back on the camel and it would be (slightly) less painful than you had feared it would be.

5.30pm

Arrive at campsite (ie patch of uninhabited desert, normally just outside a town) and de-camel for the night. Break out the beer and complain about soreness of behind whilst guides and drivers worked tirelessly to prepare yet more (and hotter) Veggie curries whilst having a good giggle amongst themselves about all the stupid things we had said and done during the day. Watch the sun go down, smoke some cigarettes, crawl into bed to avoid the arctic night time temperatures and be serenaded to sleep by the dulcet tones of 5 flatulent camels, each with an incurable case of the horn (Priscilla excepted, of course, [s]he was just flatulent.)

This routine was broken on the second night, as we were camping near a group of gypsies, who came over to regale us with their (quite astonishing) musical prowess. On that particular evening, we had all been offered the opportunity to visit the local village, just outside which we were camping, after the day's ride. Both Andrea and I declined because we were tired and in need of a little solitude (you'd be surprised how little of it there is in the desert) we just fancied sitting watching the sunset with a beer. Vanessa trotted off into town and, five minutes later, what appeared to be the entire male population of the village came and sat on the next dune over to stare at us. So much for solitude.

On the third morning, we were invited to visit the school in the same village, only to find (after we arrived) that we were to be 'guests of honour' at their Republic day celebration. Further embarrassment, when I was introduced (as Mr George!?) to give a speech! Marvellous, I had a 4 day stubble, some fairly inappropriate facial hair (I'm currently sporting an 'untidy blond Lincoln' look) and no idea what to say. Fortunately they then asked Vanessa and Andrea up to speak, so I didn't feel quite alone in my mortification. The knowledge that none of the kids could understand a word I was saying, given the fact that only the teachers spoke any English, also helped immensely.

On the final day we were taken to the place where they dump all the dead cows (so THAT'S what they do with all the dead cows...I figured that they ate them on the sly...) which wasn't very pleasant, although we were, at least, up wind and a way(s) away. Our trip ended at the Camel Research Centre, just outside Bikaner, where we were able to see many more horny male camels (lots of lady camels about) and see a baby camel, which had been born only an hour before. Funny thing that; new born animals, with the exception of the kangaroo which looks like a red hairless rat when it's born, tend to be quite cute. Camels aren't, they look really weird. Their heads are WAY too small for their bodies, bringing to mind some form of deformation, and their joints are all WAY too big for the limbs that they join together and are stiff, giving the newborn camel the appearance of a furry walking table with an undersized head (even for a table.)

Our trip over, we were ferried back to our guest house to find that, whilst we were 'guests of honour' at the school for Republic day, an enormous earthquake had hit Bhuj, in Gujarat, about 800 Km from Bikaner, which had already raised a death toll of 16,000 and was expected to top 20,000 before all was over and done. The earthquake was felt in Bikaner and damaged the fort in Jaisalmer. We were left wondering if we had really been on another planet those days in the desert and that solitude is always relative.

So long for now,

James (and the Smudgerino)

Hello all,

I know we've been a bit slack on the email front recently so let us bring you up to date on our activities;

After Cochin, where we last left you, we took a boat South to Trivandrum, in South Kerala. The boat trip, through the backwaters of Kerala, which are a series of canals and rivers that run literally just behind the West coast beaches, was promised to be the highlight of our trip to the state. As such, it was a little disappointing. It would be better billed as a pleasant day's boat ride through some rivers... I'm sure, however, that the houseboat cruises, in a traditional Keralan houseboat, would be a lovely idea and might rise to deserve the title of 'trip highlight' but we couldn't afford the 100 US$ per night that they wanted for it so we took the ferry.

Arriving in Trivandrum, the state capital of Kerala, our first thought was to head for the beach (naturally) but the news warned of a cyclone heading in across the East coast, which promised a few problems (such as 150+ km winds) for our beach hut, when we got one. Following the advice of our paranoid natures, therefore, we holed up in the largest, most solid looking concrete hotel that we could find and watched BBC World until we were convinced that it was safe to go outside once more. This took about 2 days. The cyclone (I forget its name now) was roughly the size of South India and made landfall at Madras (now Chennai) and made its way South West from there. There are a couple less villages around Madras now; they got deposited in the next state. The cyclone did, however, manage a wonderful disappearing trick after a couple of days and so we got our swimming togs on and shot off to the beach.

The beach local to Trivandrum is Kovalam, a series of bays only about 10 miles outside of town. Kovalam beach is OK, it's certainly better than Bournemouth, unfortunately the restaurants are fully aware of their captive market and so the general quality of the food was not what we expected after having sampled the dishes just up the road, in Trivandrum. The local authorities also have an interesting attitude towards beer. We noticed that not one of the beach cafes and restaurants had beer on their menu, although one of the really expensive places up on the cliffs is rumoured to have a license, but almost all sold it. We couldn't quite work out what was going on, especially as the beach was crawling with cops most of the day. Things became a little clearer (if you can call it that) when we read a newspaper article, which mentioned that the beach bar owners had been campaigning to be left alone by the authorities, who are always on their backs about serving alcohol. It seems that there is a special dispensation for beach bar owners, who are allowed to carry 2 1/2 litres of beer "for the convenience of foreign tourists." Here's to convenience...

The beach itself was fine, although most afternoons would find a few thousand puffer fish washed up on the shore (don't ask, I don't know) and aside from the mediocre food we had a nice few days. Body surfing was a particular laugh, although I did lose my watch whilst a wave was doing its best to drown me.

From Kovalam, we moved down the coast to Kanyakumari, which is the southernmost tip of the peninsular sub-continent. Yawn. Not a horrible place, but not quite as interesting as we had been led to believe. The most interesting thing about Kanyakumari, is not its location on the Southern tip, but that (probably due to this) the 'Wandering Monk' [Swami Vivekananda] has his memorial and museum here. Now, I will have to do some more research into this (if I can be bothered) but I've got an idea that this is the bloke who started off the Hare Krishna cult in the west. He was a disciple of a guy called Rama Krishna (not Krishna the deity, some but beardy sadu type bloke) and was picked to take over from him. The wandering monk's life was characterised by (wait for it...) a trip that he took around India, from Varanasi to the Himalayas and right down to the Southern tip at Kanyakumari, where he sat on a rock until somebody finally came along and built a statue of him. He seems to have been quite a progressive thinker, supporting the abolishment of untouchability (before Gandhi was a glint in the rickshaw driver's eye) and equal rights for women etc. He felt that he could help India to progress in the world, if he went to the US and traded India's spiritual knowledge for techno secrets. He started at a conference in Chicago in 1893 at some religious conference, where he wowed the crowd and then proceeded to tour the US and Europe giving lectures on Hindu spiritualism, after which he returned home and set up the Ramakrishna mission, which is where I think all those lads with top knots, orange shirts and macramé bags who hang around Oxford Circus tube trying to sell books on tantric sex etc come from. So, unfortunately, he traded Hindu spiritualism not for the secrets of western industrialisation but for a handful of aimless students after an excuse not to wash for 6 months.

From Kanyakumari to Madurai, which is well worth a visit. Madurai is a town (which in Indian terms means a population of between 1 and 5 million) in the foothills of Tamil Nadu, India's major Southern state. Geographically, Madurai is a nice size and climate to tour by bicycle, which is good, because bikes are easy to find and cheap to hire (about 5p an hour.) There's loads to see in Madurai, along with the Gandhi museum, where you can spend an hour or so feeling guilty about being British, the Sri Meenakshi temple, which is a 'kin enormous temple in the centre of the city and the Madurai tank, which is an artificial lake on the outskirts of town, where they have lots of ceremonies and stuff (although sadly not whilst we were there.) We spent 4 very enjoyable days in Madurai and, although it may not have been the most monumentous town we have visited so far, it has a nice atmosphere about it and plenty to keep the weary traveller busy for a few days (not to mention a proliferation of street side lager vendors.)

Thence to Trichy (or Tiruchirappalli, as they insist on calling it now - I'll stick to Trichy, if you don't mind...) Trichy really didn't have much to offer, except the worst maps so far encountered (both in the LP and from the local tourist office) which led us a merry dance in search of the Sri Lankan airlines office, in order to try and get our tickets moved to an earlier date. Actually, just looking back at the pictures, there are a couple of temples and that (quite large, although currently being renovated) in town, but nothing as nice as Madurai. Having found the Sri Lanka airlines office, we were set up to leave for Colombo on the 13th December (told you I'm behind with the correspondence.) Sri Lanka will be the next excerpt, which should hit your virtual doormat in less than 6 weeks (hopefully...)

Anyone who has noticed that I have managed to cover 3 weeks travelling in the space that I often use to cover 1, this is due to the following;

1) too lazy to keep up to date

2) too busy having a good time in Sri Lanka at xmas

3) for all I have said about it, the section of our travels from (but NOT including) Cochin to Sri Lanka have been somewhat disappointing and is probably best considered merely a hiatus in our thorough enjoyment of the rest of our trip so far.

So there

Cheers for now

James

Ah ha, it's little old me again, back to wow you with tales of our swashbuckling (what ever that means...) journey through India. We last left you in Mysore, where I was recovering from a mild case of 'breakfast loss.' We ended up staying for nearly a week in Mysore, which is quite a pleasant town, not least because it's got a Pizza joint. Most of you will know that I am quite keen on Indian food, particularly after a few lagers, but after 4 weeks of dosa and thalis ... Oh my God, it was good. We had lunch there 3 days out of 5 ...

The city is an historical centre and very picturesque, has a wonderful market and palaces and such, which were all as nought next to 'Pizza Corner.' Our hotel was a lovely place called 'The Ritz' which, whilst it certainly wasn't up to the images that one brings to mind when one considers 'The Ritz' and all it stands for (pretentiousness, incredulous wealth and those little dresses in which rich girls used to dance the Charleston - not all bad then...) but was well worth the 5 pound a night. Anyone coming through this town would enjoy a stay here, although the fact that they only have 4 rooms means that they're often full (we had to stay a night in an inferior hotel whilst waiting for a room to become available... oh God, it's just intolerable, darling)

We were lucky enough to have turned up on Sunday, which is the one day each week when the Mysore palace is a) free to get in and b) lit up like a Christmas tree. The lit palace is the image that you will see on all advertising literature for the state and with good reason; it's quite stunning.

We took the organised tour of the city, which takes all day and covers all the major sites of Mysore, including a return trip to the palace. Fortunately the zoo was shut on the day we took the tour, so we went to the natural history museum instead. Visiting zoos in developing countries can often require a very strong stomach that, as you will have gathered, I was not in full possession of during this week.

We had intended to take an overnight bus to Cochin, in Kerala but had found that the bus was either full (indefinitely) or not running (for the foreseeable future) or something in-between (for an unspecified time), we were unable to get anything resembling a straight response. In the end, we booked ourselves to the nearest convenient spot, Kozhikode (don't ask me how to pronounce it; I don't know) from where we could catch the train the final leg to Cochin (now called Kochi, it would appear to be the only city in India which has had its name changed to a SHORTER one.)

We weren't really too happy about the prospect of an overnight bus ride, bus rides during the day are quite hairy enough thank you, so you can imagine our delight when it began raining an hour before our bus was due to arrive, which made the bus late, and then continued to rain the whole night while our driver, undaunted by the appalling weather, tried desperately to catch up the hour that he had lost coming from Bangalore to Mysore ... and almost managed to. On arrival in Kozhikode we found that we were, in fact, still alive and so got the coast train South to Ernakulam, which is the mainland section of Kochi.

Kochi is a port town, with considerable historical significance but, like Hampi before it, this is all very uninteresting if you can't get a beer to help you soak up the atmosphere. Now, alcohol is not COMPLETELY unavailable in Kochin, you can stay on the mainland (Ernakulam), which has pubs and restaurants with beer licences etc but this area is not too pretty and smells so you wouldn't want to stay for too long. The place to be, I think, is Fort Cochin, which is the outermost island in the estuary and has all the cool old buildings and stuff. Beer was a bit of a problem, though but the XL hotel serves it (are you listening, Phil?), which just means that you have to put up with their uninspiring food and plain decor for the sake of alcohol ... sounds like a deal to me. The BTG (Beardy Traveller's Guide, couldn't be bothered with the longer version any more) actually recommends staying on the mainland to preserve the 'environmental heritage' of the fort area so, of course, everyone stays in the fort. Well, you would, wouldn't you, if someone had told you not to. I also happen to believe that their sentiment is a complete load of hogwash as, especially in poorer nations, areas will only attract the investment required for maintenance and renovation if they are able to make the money to finance it. That is to say that they almost certainly won't get any outside money at all and must make it locally, in order to justify their existence. This may not be preferable, but is a reality. No-one charges anyone for walking around the Fort area (I say Fort AREA because we couldn't actually find the FORT, it seems to be a complete ruin...) so the only way that this area is going to attract renovation investment is as a business, be-it cafés, hotels, shops etc. Just have a look at Prague if you want to see what I'm talking about ... Anyhoo, the area of Fort Cochin is being renovated and up kept (in degrees) and there are now some very nice hotels there (although some are stratospheric in their pricing) and one café that actually makes proper espresso! The fort area is also PERFECT for this sort of thing. It's a small town almost entirely period homes, mostly in fixable condition. It has charm, it's cheap and it lacks the madness of the mainland (considerably less traffic.) I liked it (even if the beer was thin on the ground.) I would point out also, that the vast majority of these businesses seem to be small and locally owned, adding to the local benefit.

We ended up staying in the fort area for 4 days relaxing, renting bikes to ride over to the mainland and around the for area (a scandalous 60 pence a day...) and took a backwater village tour to see how the locals make rope from coconut shells. This actually answered a longstanding question of mine, which was; 'why the hell does everyone throw their old coconut husks away on the roof of their houses? Surely a bin would be more appropriate?' There you go, mystery solved; They dry the husks out (the soft fibrous bit outside the shell) for a couple of months, then beat the shit out of it with stones to break it up a bit, before bundling it up and soaking it in the river for another 3 months (I imagine that all the sewage in the river probably bleaches it, or something) before giving it a final dry and then spinning it into rope (called coir) using an ingenious contraption made out of a couple of bike wheels and a whole bunch of rubber bands. Fascinating, but why they didn't just go down the local climbing shop and BUY some rope is beyond me...

Next time, a trip down the river and rumours of a typhoon...

Till then

Cheers

James

Week 4 - Hiking in Madikeri, Mysore and a dose of the abbdabbs

Hello again,

First off, apologies to those who received the first two instalments of this little series twice, I think I have the problem sorted out now (a short circuit somewhere in the cerebellum) so this should be a one shot deal (fingers crossed!)

So, when we last left you, we were waiting to go "trekking" in the hills around Madikeri, in the Kodagu (or Coorg) region of Karnataka. I say "trekking" because we aren't exactly talking about the Himalayas here, more like a stroll in the country side but with leeches and no pubs, which I think allows me to invoke the T word, but only in inverted commas, so you don't get the impression that we were planning on expending excessive energy. Our guide was a chap by the name of Vijay Kumar who, true to the stereotype of the trekking guide (either in or out of inverted commas) was dressed like he was off to work, in a shirt, trousers and runners, rather than in anything vaguely resembling hiking gear (except possibly the runners, but sandals or barefoot might have been a little much to expect.) This, except for a rather smart brand name (Lowe, I think) daypack, which I found myself coveting during the trek, as my courier bag was doing its level best to rip my shoulder off. Also true to the guide stereotype, he didn't appear to break a sweat once, whilst we were sweating our sacks off.

On our first day, we bussed out to a trailhead and then struck off up through the coffee and pepper plantations and into the forest. I don't know why it's always called a trailhead, when it's invariably at the bottom, but there you go. It was about 1 month after the End of the Rainy Season (always a grey area in the tropics) so parts of the trial were still a little damp, which brought to mind a certain wander that Shaun and I took through a rubber plantation in Northern Malaysia some 8 years ago and returned to the coffee shop to find that our legs (particularly Shaun's) had considerably less blood in them than when we had started off, due to the profusion of little black sacks on our ankles, which seemed intent on drinking till they burst. Now, I have never considered myself particularly squeamish, but I remember, with some clarity, my reaction to finding about a dozen short black shoelace type things clinging to my beardy traveller sandals, trying desperately to gain a purchase on the soles of my feet. Even though none of them actually managed to attach themselves (I imagine the smell kept them off) my reaction was "WHAT THE &^%$"& ARE THOSE, THAT'S DISCUSTING ... OH CHRIST, GET THEM OFF ME, AHHHH!!!!!" or something like that. Shaun had fared considerably worse, I can only think because he was wearing trainers, which the little bastards had managed to climb inside and attach themselves to the soft flesh of his lower leg (not that I ever felt them, just conjecture, you understand.) With this in mind, I viewed walking through these temporary streambeds with a sense of growing trepidation, not much aided by Andrea, who would intermittently call from behind me that she was pretty sure that she had just seen one clinging to the bottom of a leaf and casting around for lunch. On clearing the forest, we had a shoes off leech check, to find that Andrea and Vijay had completely escaped the blood loss, whilst I had gained biomass to the tune of four of the little sods, one of which was only evidenced by the blood stain it had left on my sock when it had over gorged and been burst against the inside of my shoe. It's overreaction, I know, but, even though Vijay assured me that leeches don't carry disease, etc, I still must consign these creatures to the same pigeon hole as mosquitoes in the Great Scheme of Things, that is, good only as food for other animals, who could find another diet anyway, and so extermination of the entire genus would have to be the solution, should I ever take my rightful place as Ruler of Everything. In fact, the only reason that I started to appreciate Geckos was the discovery that they eat mossies, although I will admit to having grown to admire the little fellas for their own sake.

So, into the clear and we were striking for the summit through shortish grass, which Vijay absolutely assured me contained no leeches, whatsoever. There were, however, loads of medium sized holes in the slope, which Vijay said were from wild pigs burrowing for whatever wild pigs burrow for, which tested our ankle strength. From the top the view was quite nice, but I wasn't really getting the "just climbed Everest" feeling. Vijay confirmed that that was because we had only climbed to about 1200m,which reminded us both of how lardy we had become over the summer's beer drinking and lazing around session. We had hoped to climb down the other side, along a ridgeline and through another forest, but Vijay said that we couldn't, as he had been unable to confirm the proximity of the larger species of wildlife present in the region. "What sort of wildlife, Vijay?" we asked innocently, not wanting to disturb the little (and probably endangered) cherubs of the local forests. "Oh, Elephants and tigers and such" was the reply. Oh... guess we go down the way we came, then. Down the hill and back to the bus stop, we all managed a leech free descent and then we were off to a local village to stay the night in a temple.

You know, it's amazing how prices change when you get away from the tourist path. I know that demand will inevitably send prices up, but I was quite shocked. Our room in the temple (although "cell" would be more accurate) was a princely 20 Rupees (about 30 New Pence, which is about 1/20th of what we usually pay) although it must be said that, beyond "shared toilet" this was a "no toilet" establishment, which left us to prevail on the local public loo (which wasn't exactly going to win any prizes in the Great Toilets of the World Awards) for which we were charged 2 Rupees a go and I go to the loo a LOT. Dinner for three, not including the beers that they very kindly shot out to buy for us, was about 30 Rupees (50 pence) which is about the least you could expect to pay each in any bearded destination or city and was excellent (if a little suffused with pulses and lentils and the like.) On returning to the room, Andrea found that her sleeping bag had got damp because her water bottle had leaked. I offered her mine (cause I'm nice like that) and she replied, "I don't want a sleeping bag, I want a whirlpool bath and roll in breakfast ... I admit it, I'm a luxury girl!" Oops, life just got more expensive ...

The following day we headed to the source of the Cauvery river, which runs around 700 Km from, well, wherever we were, to Madras in the East and provides a good portion of the drinking water to cities in between. Good thing, then, that the local sadus all come to the source to wash their bits (nice...) in hope of purification. From here, Vijay took us down a trail (down, YES...) past a derelict wind power project, about which Vijay seemed particularly bitter. It seems that, around 10 years ago, the central government budgeted about 1 million US$ to import and set up 5 wind power mills in a saddle near the Cauvery source, to provide cheap (and sustainable) power to the surrounding villages. The units were purchased and constructed, transformers and controls were installed and some Belgian bloke came over to commission them. Here things get a bit vague, it seems that some form of local corporation was set up to administer the power generated, which put the local power authority's nose RIGHT out of joint. Nefariousness ensued, the Belgian chap was threatened, locals were (allegedly) paid to sabotage the works and the power lines were never connected to the transformer. 10 years on, these generators stand idle (and rotting) as testament to the incorruptibility of a democracy with a free press. Vijay said to me that he thought that, should they pull their fingers out in the next couple of years, the project could be saved. I didn't need to be an expert to tell him that that point has already passed and the rusted sections of wind vane hanging off all over the place won't be fixed by a change in policy (not to mention the state of the innards of the generators, which seem to have become a wildlife sanctuary in their own right.) Vijay was pissed and I was left wondering at such an apparently progressive project falling prey to the same old problems.

We finished our trek and headed back to Madikeri, wishing we had booked for 4 or 5 days, instead of just 2. It's true to say that this is NOT the Himalayas; God, Wales can be more dramatic. But it is beautiful nevertheless and hiking in the area doesn't need to take on the macho verticality that you tend to find in "trekking centres." We'll save that for Nepal. The following morning, leaning over the toilet in the hotel room hoying my breakfast up, I was quite glad that we had only booked 2 days instead of 4 or (God forbid) 5. Andrea moved into full on Looking After Sick Husband Mode and organised a private car to take us to Mysore, where there are doctors and that, should my sickness have proved to be more than just a Morning Tum, which it didn't. I have to admit that, when you're ill, throwing money at the problem often eases the pain (shopping on a hangover, for example) and there's no way I could have dealt with having my arse bounced off in the back of a local bus that day and the car was (although a little expensive) LOVELY.

Mysore, I will save for another day, as we've got some shopping to do and Andrea's looking tired of reading the train timetable and planning our next move, whilst I futz around talking to you lot

Till then, cheers

James

OK OK, time for more of me again ...

(well, us actually ... but who's counting?)

When we left you last time, I believe we were on our way to Hampi (or Himpi, as most of the beardy travellers pronounce it, being antipodean, or some such.) Hampi is, actually a fascinating place, but all this is for nought 'cause it's DRY. That's right, no bloody beer. We were there for 4 bloody days without as much as a sniff of lager and, aside from a couple of brief spells on anti-biotics, I'm fairly sure that neither Andrea nor I have ever spent 4 days off the beer since we met. I wasn't even going to tell you, as Dave may actually disown me for spending nearly 100 hours sober, but there you have it. Suffice to say that we are currently very "cheap drunks" as Andrea very classily put it and are working on improving our tolerance again.

Hampi, itself is an ancient city, capital of the region some interminable time ago, which has since fallen to ruin and now serves only as a tourist destination (some tourist destination - no beer AND all the restaurants are vegetarian) All the buildings in town are built from the local granite (except for the guesthouses, of course, which are rotten concrete) and there are TONS of old temples and market streets (now a bit thin on the old goods front) and such stuff. Granite is SO available here that the locals quarry it BY HAND and cut it down into 6" square stakes to use as fence posts. Really. The ruins are slowly being rebuilt, in much the same way as they were built originally, by the look of it. i.e. by hand. Our guide told us that work only goes on for about 6 months of the year as there's not enough money to pay the salaries of the stone masons (who are all from the local area and so cost about 2 pound 50 per month, probably.) We reminded him, however, that now they're charging all the foreigners 10 US$ to get into the main temples, they should have loads of money to do a bang up job on the renovations. Our guide seemed less than convinced and said "Delhi" in a somewhat subdued tone ... Watching the renovation works going ahead was actually quite interesting (for me, anyway) and reminded me of digging holes in the US embassy in Beijing using 60 men (instead of 1 digger) which took me back, I can tell you.

It is fairly obvious to the untrained (and sober) eye that some of the temples have been helped along somewhat in their "ruining" whereas others have been left suspiciously unscathed. Our guide explained that this is because (at some interminable time in the past) when the Muslims came bounding over the hill and were marauding their way through South India, they struck a deal with the Shiva followers (one sect of the Hindu faith) that the Shivanites (or whatever they call themselves) would help the Muslims to invade and destroy all of the Vishnu temples (another Hindu sect) so long as the Muslims left the Shiva temples alone. Isn't religion marvellous? So there you have it, all the Vishnu temples smashed to shit and the Shiva temples still in operation today. Bit of a downer if you're a Vishnu acolyte in Hampi, then. We did learn one other interesting snippet as well, that is why is the cow sacred in India. It turns out that Shiva's preferred steed was a bull (obviously no mercs available in them days) and so, anticlimax that it is, that's why The Sacred Cow. Plus I'm pretty sure that it pisses off the Muslims, who have been known to enjoy a steak or two ... It turns out, in fact, that all the Hindu deities have a preferred animal that they used to get around on. Vishnu, for example used an eagle (that'll be why we don't eat eagles, then) known as Garuda (although I'm pretty sure that Vishnu's steed had a better air safety record than Indonesia's national carrier, of the same name...) Far more interesting than Vishnu, however, is Ganesh, the elephant deity of wisdom. And what did Ganesh ride around on might you ask? A Rat. Eating jokes aside (and anyone who's read any Terry Prachett will know that some people will happily pay 7p for rat on a stick, with ketchup) it's proof of humour in religion that the fattest god should be riding the rat.

After Hampi, we headed to Jog falls, the tallest waterfall in India (at about 250 metres.) The LP-BTGWOBTA doesn't give a glowing report of the place, which is probably why no-one goes there. They say the falls are somewhat less impressive now that the top has been dammed and a hydro plant by-passes the falls. Well, it would be a bit shit, really wouldn't it, if there was no WATER. We checked around, though and were assured that, yes, there is water at Jog falls, especially at weekends, when they "turn the falls on" (one assumes by turning the hydro-generator off.) We figured that seeing a 250m high water fall "switched" on and off would be too good to miss so we hot footed it up there ... to find that the one hotel that is still open, doesn't have a bastard alcohol license. We bribed someone (a lot) to get on their motorbike and go to the next town and return to us bearing brown booze. We paid through the nose (almost 1 pound 20 a bottle!) but that was OK cause we were drinking through the mouth and so the beer only had to contend with the smoking for time at the gob. The falls are quite impressive, although we didn't see them being switched on and off (my engineering memory did at one point kick in to remind me - politely through my glorious hangover - that valves as big as the ones probably in use on the Jog falls hydro project don't just shut off like a tap and also provided me with a disturbing recollection of calculating surge tower heights at Poly - a horror that will mean nothing to anyone who hasn't actually had to do it ...) however the "resort" is obviously somewhat neglected at the moment, probably in part because the or LP-BTGWOBTA doesn't really give you any reason to go there (oh yes, they do say that the bus ride to the falls is hair raising in the extreme - 100% accurate there.)

From Jog (or Dodge - as in "we've got to get out of Jog" as we began calling it) we headed down the hill to Hassan, which has a couple of temples in the vicinity (and where we drank beer non-stop for 2 days in front of the cartoon channel - thank god for satellite telly) and then to Madikeri, which is a "hill station" where we are now, preparing to head off on a daring hike tomorrow daring in that I don't think we're going to get a beer or any meat for a couple of days, I begin to see why so many beardy types spend all their time in Goa...

So long for now and write back you lazy b'stards... 'cause I'm interested in what you're all up to (no ... I am ... really...)

Cheers

James

Hi everyone,

As promised (or threatened, depending on which way you look at it) here is the first update of our travels in India.



Our departure from Tanzania was a difficult one, not least because we'd enjoyed ourselves so much and also because the plane broke down ... Most of you will know that Andrea is a little bit of a nervous flyer and I have been getting edgier over the years as well (too many trips in short haul Chinese domestic carriers, I suspect) so we had lots of fun. The first time we had an inkling of what was going on was at Killimanjaro airport. We had flown out of Dar-es-salaam with Ethiopian airlines at 6am and were scheduled stops at Killimanjaro and Nairobi before arriving in Addiss ababa for our connection to Bombay. I might add now that I won't lower myself to suggest the obvious jokes about Ethiopian air (nicknamed Emaciated Airlines - "was the inflight meal filling har har" "do they have any wide body jets?" etc etc) I'll leave that to Dave and Elv, I'm sure that they'll enjoy sharpening their pencils on that one. We weren't unduly concerned, then, when we touched down in Killi, The nervous twitching started when we were all asked to disembark from the plane and wait in the lounge for a "while.



Like Lott's wife, I knew I shouldn't have looked back whilst crossing the tarmac, but, equally so, I was bound to. They had stripped the port side engine and were busy pumping something into it with what looked suspiciously like a bicycle pump ... What made me more nervous than anything else was the prevailing impression, from looking around me, that a bike pump was probably about the most sophisticated tool that they had in their arsenal of tools. Images of the engineer warning the captain not to push the engine too hard because it was held together with chewing gum and bogeys ... and meaning it ... came unbidden to mind and refused to leave, even with the application of lager. The other thing that struck me was the likelihood (or severe lack thereof) of Ethiopian Air sending a replacement plane, given that they probably only have two of them and the other one was probably busy being broken down in some other provincial airport somewhere. It seemed, therefore, that we would have to suck it and see. After and hour or so, the flight staff called us back on board and I noted, with some relief that the engine was back together and that the flight crew were not showing any visible signs of stress (nervous ticks, eyeing the parachutes and the like) I put this down to their confidence in their technical crews and ignored the demon in my head telling me that they were just used to there planes breaking down and all probably had large life insurance policies.



The rest of our journey with Ethiopian was uneventful, save that by the time we got off in Addiss, the tech crews were swarming all over the aforementioned engine, although this time with bigger tool boxes. I would say that, given that Business class only costs about 20% more than cattle with Ethiopian, it was well worth the investment (especially the champagne that they offered us every time we took off, which was 4 times all told - helped dull the panic.)



On arrival in Bombay (or Mumbai, as it's now known - just to confuse us I'm sure, I'll keep to Bombay here as I feel like an oversensitive beardy traveller type saying Mumbai ...) we made our way down town and discovered - on the way - that it was the first day of the Diwali festival. For those of you who have lived in the far east, this may be more familiar as Deepavali and is sort of new year for Hindus. I thought the Chinese knew how to let off fireworks. Well ... they do, but they should send a delegation to India and check out the festivals here, cause these boys know how to blow stuff up. The next morning, there hadn't been a quiet second all night, our ears were constantly ringing and the streets seemed knee deep in charcoaled cardboard tubes. We spent a day just hacking around the Fort area of the city and didn't actually see much more than that in our stay. Bombay is a mad, noisy, smelly city with far too many cars in it, great food, expensive hotels (by normal India standards) which is to say that we felt right at home after Beijing. Bombay is only really distinguishable from other major Asian cities (Beijing, Bangkok, KL, etc) in as much as it's coastal, and has lots of Indian people in it, as opposed to Chinese Malay or Thai.



Bombay train station was unmistakably Indian, though. Absolutely packed, apparently chaotic, but actually relatively organised, once you worked out where everything was and at which of what you were supposed to be (no great feat as it turned out - just look for the palest que...) Like China, India treats tourists and locals differently and tourists have to que at a special que. This is in no way discriminatory (except, perhaps towards local people) it seems to be a practical solution to a sticky problem. The seats on trains (and some busses, we have since found) are split up into quotas. There are quotas for Government officials, quotas for the army, quotas for freedom fighters(!), cancer victims and various other special groups and there are quotas for tourists. Locals appear to be forced to buy their train tickets at least 2 months in advance to be guaranteed a seat from what I guess you would call the public quota (or what's left over) and the system for getting one less than 2 months in advance appears to be complex (ie, us foreigners wouldn't be able to work it out - which is probably fair comment.) In order to get your ticket from the Tourist quota, you have to que in the Tourist quota que, of which there is ... one. It was a bit of a wait then, but no real drama, we are sure to suffer more frustration than an hour and a half in a ticket at some point during our travels (obtaining a Tibetan visa is one joy I particularly look forward to...) We were informed on arriving at the front of the aforementioned que, however, that you can only buy tickets one day in advance and so we had to return on Friday to get our tickets out on Saturday night. Another day, another que and we were ticketed and ready to go. A quick trip through the market (bought a shiny new Swiss army knife, as I'd mislaid my old one somewhere in Tanzania) and some superb kebabs at a street stall near our hotel and we were at the train station raring to go.



For those unfamiliar with the Indian train system, they actually plaster a list next to the door on each carriage, with the names of all those who have reserved seats or berths. The Lonely Planet (nicknamed the Beardy Traveller's Guide to Where all the other Beardy Travellers are or LP-BTGWOBTA for short) suggests that this is the Indian train service at its most efficient and I would tend to agree, although the fact that, like the Chinese trains, nothing much short of derailment stops these trains running on time is also quite an achievement. The journey itself was fairly uneventful, mostly due to the fact that we left at night, I suspect, as this avoided the reserved carriages being swamped with passengers (as happened when Shaun and I went to Varanasi all that time ago - when reserving a berth didn't necessarily guarantee the use of more than a small part of it...) We slept like babies and were very gently woken by the guard (as our stop was at 4 am) and arrived spot on time. Being as the train was on time and therefore 4am when we arrived in Jalgaon, there isn’t much going on in the town, except the picking up of other passengers from the train that we had been on. Fortunately there was a "chai" stand so we stopped for a couple of glasses of masala tea (which, among other things, had nutmeg and a bucket of sugar in it) and awaited sun-up and the awakening of the town (not to mention the opening of the restaurants for breakfast - we were both starving... After a couple of hours and as much caffeine and sugar as we could reasonably stand in one morning, we got bored of waiting for the restaurants to open and got an auto-rickshaw (commonly known as tuk tuks to beardy travellers of the South East Asian persuasion) and found the local bus to the Ajanta caves, our first stopping off point.



The Ajanta caves are a series of around 30 or so temples and sanctuaries cut from the cliff face in the side of a ravine. Some are a couple of stories high and all have been cut from the bedrock, rather than built. Needless to say they are quite impressive. Apparently carved between the 1st century BC and the 7th century AD, they are quite mind bogglingly old and the fact that many of the painted frescos in them are still visible makes them that much more interesting. The caves were abandoned eons ago, in favour of the newer and larger caves at Ellora and apparently lay unused and forgotten for some 500 years until, in the early nineteenth century, a group of Brits, probably on a Victorian style 18-30's precursor holiday (Lots of tigers to kill - only 2 pound 50 for bed, board and all the gin you can drink - naughty servant girls included sort of thing) quite literally stumbled across them and were immediately mobbed by postcard sellers and "guides. That must have been quite a discovery. I wonder how much they had to pay to get in...



On the subject of paying to get in (good link eh?) this is a bit of a bugbear with us at the moment, as the Indian Government decided that Foreigners don't pay enough to see their monuments (a sentiment that I actually have some sympathy with - as 5 rupees or about 7 pence isn't going to cover maintenance etc) and has decided to increase the entrance fee for almost ALL historical sites in India by ... wait for it ... about 9,000%. Barstewards. Worse still they decided to institute this change immediately after the Diwali festival (remember when we arrived in India?) That's right, we were amongst the first lucky tourists to pay 10 US$ (nice that they convert it into easy to understand foreign money for us, don't you think) instead of 10 Rs (they have upped the price for locals as well, although by slightly less than 2 orders of magnitude...) Of course, we had come all this way and so coughed up for the entrance, but couldn't quite fight off the feeling that we'd been soundly rogered. I'll leave off moaning about the price of the sites for now, as I'm sure that there's a good rant to be had out of it at a later date (when I have thought up enough expletives to describe how we felt.) Apparently, The BIG sites (Taj Mahal, Ellora caves, everything in Rajastan, etc) are now 10 US$ and everything else is a snip at only 5 - oh joy...



From Ajunta we got the bus to Aurangabad and the Ellora caves, an even more impressive (although younger by 500 or so years) collection of Jaian, Buddist and Hindu caves, again all cut from a rock face. Ellora includes allegedly the largest monolithic rock carving in the world - The 3 storey, 100 ft high Kailash temple, which was frankly fucking enormous (excuse french mum and dad and any others of sensitive constitution.) We took HUNDREDS of pictures, which will probably take about a month to upload on the 1kbps connections that we are getting here, but I'll email an address for them once they're available. We were again asked to cough up 10 US$ for entrance into the Kailash temple (although all the others were free (oh happy days) and actually chose not to go in as you could walk all the way round the edge, above the level of the top of the temple for nout and we were running out of film by the time we did that anyway. There was one particular set of caves, jaian I think, which were particularly stunning as they were set at the top of a 150-or-so foot waterfall. Sadly, the wet season having ended, the waterfall was not performing when we were there.



Ellora lays about 20 km from Aurangabad, a medium sized town, which seems to have little to offer anyone accept a bus station, train station and taxi stand from where you can get ripped off going out to the caves. Actually that isn't quite fair, we had a very nice walk around the old town and a semi-frustrating trip to the post office and an excellent couple of meals in a restaurant called food lovers, who have the most complex discount card system I have ever seen. On receiving our bill, we were presented with a chit to the value of 150 rupees, which could be redeemed against 40% of a subsequent bill of the same value (I assume that means you get 60 Rs off a 150 Rs bill) anytime in the next 6 years. Not only that but you could, if you wish, elect to present the chit, at anytime AFTER 6 years at the restaurant and receive cash OR you could even have the cash paid to you in 100 monthly instalments. I wonder how many people take them up on that offer...



From Aurangabad we took another train to a town called Bidar, which gets about 5 lines in the LP-BTGWOBTA and no map - which was handy. We figure that this would mean that there wouldn't be many beardy types about and we were right, unfortunately all the hotels were full so we ended up staying in a lovely little place, where they liked the desk staff out of the room that we were to stay in and then neglected to change the sheets (although, given the state of them, I somewhat doubt if they have ever been changed. Bidar was an odd town and Andrea, particularly didn't get a very good feeling from it. It took her a while to work out exactly what it was about the town that bothered her and it finally dawned on us that, once dusk had come, there were NO women ANYWHERE. Some might say no shit sherlock, it's a massively religious country, where women are considered at best an adjunct to men and more commonly as some sort of inferior race (I'll withhold my own opinion as there are ladies present, and Andrea has a knife...) but in most towns we had been through up until now there were still women about at all times of day or night, but not a one in Bidar. There's quite a nice set of ruins outside of Bidar, which the Indian govt obviously forgot about, as it's still free to get in, so we "did" that and then blew town for Hyderabad, or "Cyberabad" as it is allegedly being nicknamed. One thing worth noting was some amusing foodstuffs available in Bidar, as all the restaurants seem to have had their menus proof read and printed by the same people - the snack menus were invariably titled "TIT GITS" and the "CHINESE BOWEL" I will let you decipher on your own...



Hyderabad was uneventful, except for a trip out to the fort (5 more of your American dollar, please thank you...) an afternoon spent frustrating the hell out of myself in an internet cafe (4 computers all sharing one snail like connection - I hope this improves, or text is all you're gonna get...) and a trip to the cashpoint. HSBC, contrary to what the LP-BTGWOBTA states, have cashpoints all over India and wonderfully helpful staff who will give you the addresses of all their branches, etc. From here we're off to Hampi, which is some old collection of ruins out in the middle of nowhere (sounds marvellous...) and where we're likely to bump into our first real Beardy traveller hangout (home of the monkey temple, etc.)



On a final note We met up with a Scot in Hyderabad, who pronounced Hampi as "humpi" which I found amusing for no apparent reason so we're off to Humpi, for some titgits and a chinese bowel and from there directly to Aihole via Manki (more amusing place names in Karnataka)

And here it starts. I expect I'll have enough will power to keep this up for 10 days or so.

I, having stolen the idea from a good friend of mine, used to send Impersonal Mass Emails to my friends, logging the less dull moments in my life of which, once I started writing them down, I found that there were suprisingly many. The rot set in when I discovered what a long winded sod I really am and this meant that each email required 1 or 2 hours to write. All well and good, but who's got the energy? Not me, no siree. I don't expect to be considerably shorter winded in this forum, but we'll see.

nuff for now, I need to see if I can post the old stuff...