Happy Birthday

Tags

Blogging, creativity, Getting started, India, Travel, writing

Today is my birthday, I am forty-eight years old.  Here is an ‘old person’s selfie;’ no proper attention paid to angle or pose, no filters, no editing, no makeup and no shame (or at least, not enough to stop me).

I like to have some quiet reflective time on my birthday.  This morning I got up early, did some yoga and then went for a long walk on the beach and thought about writing.  Or I thought about life and picked out the bits I wanted to write about.

What’s on top

I went for a long walk on the beach yesterday morning as well, and I have done some yoga every morning for the past few days.  Yesterday (and so far today) I have had no alcohol and no cigarettes.  I had fallen into bad holidaymaker habits this past week, which I cannot do for the whole year.

I knew my last post was exactly a week ago and I had already decided to do one today.  Then I thought that maybe I should do what I have so far resisted, due either to free spiritedness or pig headedness (as with many of my habits and decisions, it could be either), and sign up to the ‘consistency is key’ advice and post on a regular day every week.

I honestly did not know what day of the week it was today, not in the I don’t know what day it is, think for a second, then you do, type of way.  I mean I really didn’t know what day it was.  I had to remember the last time I knew what day it was, what day we left Hampi, what day my step-son arrived here in Arambol, and work it out from there.  I cannot remember the last time I had so completely lost track of what day it was.  It is Friday today so I shall, for the time being at least, post every Friday.  I may work on it earlier in the week and just finish it off on a Friday or I may write the whole thing on the day, depending on travel, time and internet access.

This will help me manage the demands of writing a book and writing a blog.  Having a once a week schedule is manageable and means I don’t have to fret about when was the last one, should I be doing another one, etc etc.  I remember reading somewhere that the more you can turn over to habit, rather than your own fluctuating motivations, interests and energies, the easier it is to get things done.

I feel like the blog will turn into more of an actual blog, rather than having to carry the full weight of any and all writing I do.  This has meant that not everything has been included as blogs are by nature a bit snappier, like short short stories.  Writing the book means that I can write about things that would otherwise be forgotten, and means that the blog can become slightly more chatty and personal.

If ever I think that maybe young people and their selfies are a bit narcissistic, I can just remember that writing about oneself and putting it on the internet potentially puts me in a glass house.  The blog is where I ask myself how I am and check in with myself.

It will also include a travel update and a writing update.  I will put the writing update at the end so it’s easy to skip.  It will be mainly of interest to other writers who are working on something and to people who are cheerleading me through the process of writing the book (thank you very much for your encouragement, it really does help!).

This will help me have a routine; I’d like to exercise in the morning, write in the afternoons and relax in the evening.  I do find no routine, drinking and smoking anytime, sort of fun but it’s easy to cop-out of getting anything done.  And how lucky am I, or rather, what a gift I have given to myself, to have a whole year where I can create a routine like that?  Or, to be on the more negative side, I chucked away my career and my three bedroom house so all that better have been worth it.  (Don’t worry, it totally is!)

Of course, alcohol, smoking, and general lack of confidence and self discipline can follow you almost everywhere.  I have not come here to run away from myself but I am fully aware that whatever it was about me that got in the way of me taking my writing seriously in England, can still get in the way here.

I can just about say this first month with my step-son out with us, is a holiday but not after that.  That said, I am sure there will be phases of falling off the wagon but I prefer to be clean living and with a routine and then fall off bigger occasionally, rather than a little every day.

Travel update:

We have been in Arambol for a week.  Beautiful beach like Agonda but a bit busier, with stalls and shops and alleyways to explore, and much nicer than Anjuna.  Tomorrow we go to Panaji the capital of Goa, for two nights before my step-son flies back to England and we leave Goa to go to Kerala for the monsoon.

Writing update:

It is going well.  I am working on Chapter Two, which is broadly our first month in India.  As usual I get anxious if I don’t write and yet still don’t write for several days at a time sometimes, but yesterday I spent quite a while on it and felt really good.

As long as I don’t get scared or overwhelmed by the length.  I think it’s helped that I have separated it into chapters, in different documents.  Chapter One, how we got here and some background.  My last book, whilst small, was all in one document and became an amorphous mass that would completely overwhelm me.  I remind myself, I wrote a dissertation, I wrote a few small books, I can do this.  Even if I hadn’t, I could just say it’s like lots of blogs strung together.  I have actually put all the India blogs into the chapter and am working around and into them, adding detail, expanding, linking.

A string of blogs is a good starting point but the writing style is different.  I realise that I can slow down, drill down into things, take my time, allow themes to develop.  I have begun by putting all my blogs and notes into chronological order whilst being flexible about some things being ordered by subject instead.  Things link to each other, for example:

Yesterday I thought there should be a food bit, about the different food we ate at different places (hopefully more interesting than it sounds).  Today on my walk I thought, I could do an animal section and then I came to ‘Dog Temple,’ there a sign with a dog’s face in a star, saying, ‘We welcome you,’ (It was an animal shelter).

Things call back to each other.  The people we met in Anjuna told me afterwards that they said to each other, ‘Shall we ask them if they want something to smoke,’ and the other said, ‘No they are too old,’ which made me laugh a lot.  Today, as I walked on the beach, a man stopped me and chatted to me, then at the end of the conversation asked me if I wanted to buy anything to smoke.  I politely declined saying I am being healthy right now but I was quite pleased anyway!  Especially as it was my birthday!

Thank you so much for reading, see you next week!

 

Hampi Heaven

Tags

Anjuna, Hampi, India, love, Personal growth, spirituality, Travel

photo by Jude Atkinson-Hill

We stayed on the other side of the river to the temples for two nights and on our second evening we walked up the path where people go bouldering.  We walked amongst huge boulders that are somehow balanced securely on the rock slopes, looking as if they might fall but have probably been there forever, balanced on each other like strange rock snowmen.  Walls of sandy coloured boulders and rocks, almost polystyrene looking, like Planet of the Apes or Star Trek, unreal, as if this is where the world started.  Looking around it is easy to imagine that there was a big explosion and everything fell to earth as it was created, (even us, I whispered to myself.)

We sat on huge flat rocks that were so warm that I had to put my feet on my bag to stop them burning, and watched the sun set behind the clouds.  I felt myself absorbing the sun’s energy, as well as the power and energy of those huge rocks.

I had meditated for a second time in the beach hut in Agonda, again dropping into it easily after a little yoga.  I couldn’t help remembering that when I had meditated a few days earlier, the overriding sensation had been of FEAR.  This time though, it wasn’t there and although I may have initially suggested it to myself (it’s hard in meditation to know if an idea has come from my thinking brain or from deep inside me), however it felt right and didn’t change, and this time the word was STRONG.

On the rocks was not exactly meditating, it was more reflection, mindfulness and energy absorption.  But still definitely not fear.

Even though I am in India I am still the same, of course.  I still get anxious and have a bit of OCD, but loads of stuff is okay or much better than I expected.  I coped fine with the heat in Hampi which was my biggest fear.  (The weather reports said it was 39°C but felt like 42°C, whatever that means.  Hot, anyway, hot enough that when I heard it was 32°C in Goa I thought that sounded good).  I have even come to kind of enjoy the feeling of sweat pouring off me, as if I am being detoxified, which I suppose I am.  I also like the sense of languidness that is absolutely essential in the afternoons and often includes a nap.

In the hottest weather my clothes work and I feel really comfortable:  really baggy black linen trousers, white (well, they were when I bought them) shirts, a lilac hat, with a cream scarf draped over the top.  As long as I don’t look in the mirror…  When it cools down a little I do my best to look nice:  shower, brush my hair and put it up into a neat bun, put on a fresh black vest top and black knee-length skirt, ditch the hat, drape my cream scarf over my shoulders.  I have hardly any clothes, but they are all functional and they all go together.

My tummy is fine (although I have a new standard of fine since being here).  I don’t care about products, I don’t seem to need to moisturise as much here anyway, and when I run out of Oil of Olay (which I have used every day for twenty years) I am just going to buy something else, anything.  Likewise even with my beloved Body Shop hemp handcream I only experience mild anxiety re what I am going to do when it runs out.

Maybe it was Hampi, maybe it was PMS, but I found myself feeling so raw, so emotional, so happy I almost cried (well actually I did a little bit, discreetly).  India is obviously so steeped in spirituality, and being here is such sweet sensory overload, that it would be surprising if I walked through it without feeling something.  And Hampi is such a special place.

We got the ferry over the river each day, just a short distance, the man does this back and forth all day.  We were reminded of Siddhartha.  (Later, one of my favourite bloggers SMUT. and Self-Esteem mentioned Siddhartha in a really inspiring post called Atheism and Spirituality).  In a similar vein, we met the man who takes the money at the main temple, he has worked there, caring for the temple for forty years.

At the huge Ganesh statue, carved from a single piece of stone, we arrived at the exact moment that the woman who works there cleaning and minding it arrived and opened the gates so that we could go inside and hug the huge warm belly of Ganesh and walk around him.

It was too hot to walk everywhere so we got a rickshaw to The Lion God Narasimha, stopping for coconuts when we got too hot.

Meeting Indian people was nice.  We met people in Goa but that was largely a pop up population, there only for the season before packing up and going home to places including Kerala and Nepal.  In Hampi almost everyone we met had been born there and lived there all their lives.  Our rickshaw driver had lived amongst the ruins, before the people were moved out from there and his family moved into the town.  There were lots of Indian tourists who were very friendly and even took our photographs and took selfies with us!  A Catholic nun was concerned about us being too hot and advised me to wear a piece of onion in my hair to stop me getting heat stroke.

We fell asleep in the afternoon with the door open because of the heat, and a monkey came in and took my dearly beloved tablet (the one I do everything on, I decided not to buy a Chromebook after all).  People from the rooftop cafe opposite saw it and a little boy retrieved it for me and came to our room with his father to return it.  (The tablet was in a zip up plastic toiletry type bag, apparently they take things like that in case it is food).  Our room was on the first floor, and the monkeys jump from roof to roof, I am so lucky that they didn’t drop it from a height and break it!)  I was half asleep and bewildered at the time but later, after we had visited the main temple again, this time at dusk and seen all the families there, sitting with tea and food and seen all the monkeys again, we returned home and I bumped into the boy’s father and was able to say a heartfelt thank you and give the boy and his sister a small present.

I did this by myself and then went to join my husband and stepson in the Old Chillout restaurant downstairs (which has lovely seating and lounging areas, great food, super friendly staff, and looks out over the boulders and banana palms), and just, sat…  I didn’t know at first what the feeling was, but it was so strong that after a while I took out my tablet and went on WordPress because otherwise I might have properly started crying.  That feeling, of course, was love.

The next morning we left at 5.30am.  It was still dark and we drove past people waking up and starting their days, past carts pulled by oxen, past all kinds of temples and shrines, and watched dawn break, feeling the cool night air through the open sides of the rickshaw.  Magical.

We got the train back to Goa, an 8.5 hour journey in 2nd class ac, booked by the man who arranged our coach from Agonda to Hampi.  So far we have been doing things the easy way, later we’ll also use local buses and book trains ourselves at the station, but it is the man’s business and it was nice to support him.  The train was not quite as smart as the one from Delhi to Goa but perfectly comfortable and with a plentiful supply of people selling meals, snacks, coffee, water and sweets.  Although we had booked sleepers people were in our seats/beds and we didn’t have the heart to evict more than one person so we shared a sleeper seat for most of it, not really a problem as it was daytime (although I did go to sleep).

We arrived at Anjuna Beach, which was a bit too holiday maker-ish for us so we decided to find somewhere to move on to.  The next morning we got up early and went to look at Little Vagator.  We didn’t really like that either and so ended up staying in Anjuna one more night whilst we decided where to go next.  Arriving in Anjuna and Little Vagator after being in Hampi was like being pulled out of heaven.  Also, we had experienced probably the best beach in Goa already and been spoilt:  Agonda, with its tasteful beach side restaurants and bars, and beach huts, all of which are situated behind or level with the treeline so as not to spoil the beach.  Whilst of course touristy, it was so perfectly done, and the beach so clean, peaceful and big I don’t suppose anywhere will compete with that.

But it is about the experience, after all, and it was fun, getting up really early to beat the heat and going off to get to Little Vagator, with nowhere open and no rickshaws around.  We met two local guys who shared their cigarettes and drinks with us and persuaded an off duty rickshaw driver to take us, and invited us out to party with them.  That evening we did what you do in Anjuna, which I found quite scary, down the backstreets in the dark, into a house with one, two, then three men appearing.  Back to the guesthouse in a taxi to get cards and go to the ATM, having declined the offer of my husband getting a lift on the back of one of their mopeds and me staying in the house with one of the men and being made tea.  We wouldn’t have done that in England, in fact I am sure that here it would have been fine, but if anything had happened we’d have looked like idiots for taking that risk.  But they were all lovely, everything was fine, and now we can have another experience…

Happy Hampi

Tags

Building an author platform, Hampi, India, India sleeper coach, Personal growth, Travel, writing

On Saturday night we got a sleeper coach to Hampi.  The sleeper compartments were very cosy and I was excited to be on the coach.  The air con was turned up so high that we were actually cold in the night.  We tried to relish this feeling though, aware that Hampi temperatures were 40°C and higher.  We stopped at around midnight for toilets, and food for people who wanted it (we avoided eating or drinking, no toilets on coach) then it was straight through until around seven am.  We took a Valium and slept for a few hours, waking up desperate for a pee, luckily the bus driver seemed okay with stopping at the side of the road for us.  Twice in the night (friendly) police came on to check for alcohol, as we had crossed from Goa into Karnataka which is a dry state.

Arriving at Hampi sleep deprived and with stomach cramps from having shut down our bodies for the trip, we were met with a big crowd offering us rickshaws to our guesthouse.  We declined and went off to find food; we met a local person who took us to his cafe and told us that we were staying on the other side of the river so would need to move back for the last night as the ferry doesn’t start early enough for us to catch our train out.  He showed us that we could walk to the ferry and walk from the other side to our guesthouse, plus he had rooms for the last night.

At the river the temple elephant was being given a ceremonial bath, this happens every morning.  It’s not just the temples in Hampi that are amazing, it’s also the river, the boulders, the landscape.  Our guesthouse is lovely, with a cool shaded veranda outside the rooms, complete with three cute kittens, and monkeys in the trees that come onto the patio and have to be shooed away.

Today we got up early and crossed over the river to look at the temples, the ruins and the huge boulders, and the many, many monkeys.  By about eleven it was almost too hot to walk on the stone floors barefoot.

Warning:  Shameless self promotion section

During my flurry of activity before I left, I emailed Hay House (publishers) and asked if they might be interested in my story.  A few days ago I got an email back.  A real, personal email.  They are closed to submissions right now whilst they review the ones they have.  The person who wrote me the email suggested I submit a proposal when submissions reopen on 4th June.  They provided a link to their guidelines and some specific things for me to consider.

One of them dear reader, is my ‘author platform’, which is why I need to start making an effort to build this.  This is why I have been messaging my friends and asking them to follow the blog.  Thank you so much those of you who have done this!  If you follow me, it means you can ‘like’ posts, make comments and most of all, I will know you are reading, or at least might be reading, whereas if you don’t follow the blog I will have no idea.  (This also helps for not repeating myself in messages/emails!)

It is very nice to get new followers, to have people ‘like’ my posts and to see that my posts have been read.  It’s also great to engage with people in the comments section.  I hope that friends will get to know me better, and that I will continue to make new connections with people I don’t know already.

Up until now, its really just been about expressing myself and making connections.  That still stands, of course, but Hay House will look at how many followers I have, views and engagement, or so I imagine.  So if you read the blog regularly and enjoy it, please consider following me.  If there’s anyone you know that you think may like it, please tell them or share on social media!

How to follow me:  On WordPress, in the bottom right hand corner will be a little follow button, it tends to fade in and out or appear and disappear, but when it appears, click on it.  You will then be prompted to enter your email address, you’ll get an email that you’ll need to confirm and then all new posts will go straight to your inbox.

Thank you for reading!

Instagram followingthebrownrabbit

How to write

Tags

Am writing, amwriting, Blogging, creativity, Getting started, India, Travel, writing

Anyone who has ever had to write an essay for school, a dissertation for uni, a quarterly report for their boss, reply to an email you are not excited about, or write thank you letters as a child, knows how hard it can be to write.  To get motivated to write, to start writing, to have the confidence to begin.  For writers of blogs, short stories or books, procrastination and crippling self doubt can prevent us starting or completing projects.

But writing isn’t always hard.  If your boss sends you an email asking you a straightforward question- the answer to which will make you look good, or praises you for something, that can be easy to reply to immediately.  Likewise a text that makes you cross can initiate a defensive reply before you’ve even thought it through properly.

And sometimes, sometimes writing is easy:  Like this blog; when I have something to say, the words just fall out.  And I’ve been working on my book, and enjoying it.  Yes it is also hard, when it gets long and I am unsure of the order, realise I have repeated myself, have to move things around.  But when I am just writing, feeling well, feeling happy, and writing because I want to, well then that makes me so very, very happy.

Yesterday morning my husband and I had a walk on the beach then breakfast (a beautiful fruit salad) eaten looking out onto the beach.  Then I wrote for the rest of the morning and into the afternoon.  Later my husband read it, we talked, added notes and new ideas, then went out for dinner.  It was so perfect, I felt like one of those proper writers you read about who have a regular routine and everything or like Ian Fleming (writer of the James Bond books) who used to live in paradise in Hawaii and swim each morning before sitting down to write.

Okay so I am back…  ‘Don’t do your boom and bust,’ my husband said.  ‘I won’t,’ I said, ‘Look, I’m fine, I’m having a break, I’m not doing anything…  I’m sitting still…  (But I am super excited!).’  ‘I can tell,’ he said.

Here are some photos of my current living quarters:

I am making the most of the luxurious, quiet easiness, and the sea breeze, before Saturday night when we will be going on an eight-hour sleeper coach to Hampi, where it is 40°C.  Be brave, Rachel.

Thank you very much for reading.

PS, a word about money.  Our beach hut costs around £10 a night.  Cheaper ones are available at around £7-8, and hostels cost around £4 a night.  My step son’s return flight London to Delhi cost around £525, mine and my husband’s one way flights London to Delhi cost around £735.  This morning my husband and I had a nice breakfast in one of the nicer beach front restaurants for around £7.50.   Last night the three of us ate at a simpler, local place off the beach, we pigged out a bit and had more than we could eat, for about £11.

 

Not just a travel blog

Tags

escape the matrix, India, Minimalism, Travel, Voluntary simplicity

My new ‘About’ page/introduction for new readers:

Not just a travel blog.  Can get quite personal.  You have been warned!

Hello, my name is Rachel, welcome to my blog.

This is where I reveal my true thoughts and feelings.  This is a kind of coming out, to borrow words from a friend.

With my husband we have got rid of most of our possessions, sold the house and are travelling in South East Asia.

I do write about places I visit and put pictures up.  But I also just write about everything.

I’m more art than science; for me it’s about the experience rather than the thing itself.  It’s not about the travelling per se, rather the effect it has on me.

Thank you very much for reading

Books and stories by me

How to Find Heaven on Earth: love, spirituality and everyday life   The story of my ‘spiritual awakening’ available as paperback or ebook on amazon

Call off the Search: how I stopped seeking and found peace My second ‘spiritual journey’ book, published chapter by chapter on this blog beginning on 8th July 2017

So simple, so amazing: a journey into awareness My third book, published chapter by chapter on this blog, beginning on 17th July 2017

Short stories in women’s erotica anthologies available on Amazon

Make it Happy a short book about long term relationships available on Amazon

Self help for the suicidal, a workbook for people struggling with suicidal thoughts available on Amazon

Recognising myself

Tags

Art, creativity, family, India, Travel, writing

Like coming off a motorway and finding yourself suddenly in a 30mph zone, leaving the demands, mental stimulation, pressures and deadlines of my job was bound to be an adjustment.  But it’s also forced me to face up to myself, unshielded from the work role, my thoughts and feelings no longer subsumed beneath the something else that is career.

Also, I like to get things done, or rather, I like things to be done so I write lists and worry about doing things, even if I don’t always get around to getting that much done.  I feel an urge to have things done as soon as possible, even if I don’t usually have the wherewithal or motivation to actually do them.  Plus, in the heat, you are lucky if you get one thing done a day.

So here I am, in paradise, worrying about getting things done.  The most important thing is the writing, so I’ll talk about that.  Obviously I have this blog, and that kind of takes care of itself.  I write when I have something to say, and post when it is finished.  In between I try, and mostly succeed, to not worry about it too much.  On top of that, I am writing a book with my husband about how we got here (decluttering, shedding attachments, mental leaps and matrix obstacles) and about what happens and what we learn about ourselves during our year in South East Asia.  So far so good, right?

We get up early, have a walk on the beach before it gets too hot, then retreat to the veranda/indoors until the evening, with the exception of possibly going out for lunch (which I managed yesterday, my first eaten-in-India masala dosa!) or to get snacks.  So plenty of time for writing, except that the heat slows everything down, plus I have only just got better from being ill.  But the biggest obstacle to it all, as usual, is my own mind.

I’ve been putting myself under pressure, thinking I have to write this book, try and get it published, finish chapter one as soon as I can so we can get onto chapter two about being in India before we’ve been here too long and forgotten things…  Thinking I have to make it a success, to fulfill the destiny of this adventure, to justify it, and to secure us financially.  So no pressure there then.  No wonder writing chapter one began to feel like a chore.  This demonstrates what a brain can do:  cause anxiety about nothing, when one is ensconced in paradise with nothing at all to worry about.

So after a grounding chat with my husband over breakfast this morning, this is where I am at now:  We have a boat to come back to in the UK, overheads are low so we both only need to work maybe three days a week each, I can sign up to agencies and just do whatever, a variety, so as not to get sucked back into the workplace matrix/politics.  That plan is fine.  As for this year, this is budgeted for, so I do not need to earn any money or worry about earning any money this year.  I can just…  wait for it…  relax and enjoy myself.  And write.  Write for fun, write when I want to, write how and what I want.  Write the book, write the blog.  Write without expectation or pressure.  Write nothing at all some days.

But mostly I will write, of course.  As Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat Pray Love, my long time personal bible) says, having a creative mind is like having a border collie for a pet.  If you don’t give it something to do, it will find itself something, and you may not like what it finds.  (This is probably why I have OCD, anxiety, etc etc etc.  There’s no easy answer though, because even when I do keep my mind occupied with writing, I am still capable of getting anxious about that.)

And of course I am still processing what it all means:  Selling the house, packing in my career, abandoning everything and just going off…  It’s not about going travelling, not really.  Or rather, the travelling is a tool.  It gets me away, breaks me away from my old life, from family, and when I return I will be living in a new area quite far away, far enough that no family will ever come and visit probably.

It’s not as if my family was bad.   It’s not as if my life was bad.  In fact it was good by any standard, and way, way better than I would have envisioned as a suicidal teenager or a freakish, teased child.  But, and here’s the but:  It wasn’t really me, or it wasn’t me any more, and the only way I could be me was to get right away from my family; to do something so big and so different that I would become unrecognisable, to them and even to myself.

 

My husband took two Tuk Tuk rides to find a pharmacy for me, and came back with strong antibiotics, gut flora and my thyroid meds, all over the counter, for around £5 altogether.  I started feeling better from the first tablet.  Antibiotics are good and strong here, I think.  My doctor in the UK could only give me three months’ worth of thyroid medication, so I have to buy it while I am out here.  I have a laminated copy of my prescription to keep with my UK issued meds (which are labelled with my name), to show when entering countries, especially Thailand.  I will keep my UK prescription meds for customs and buy and use local meds when I am inside a country for any length of time.

After drinking ginger, lemon and honey tea, and toast and honey whilst I was ill, now I am better, I am on ginger and hot water, mint tea, normal black tea, no honey or sugar in tea, no honey on toast, back to being a proper vegan and to taking care of my teeth.

My capabilities are returning:  I have gone from unable to even think about moving and the journey to Hampi, to talking about Vietnam, Japan, the whole trip.  I am inconsistent, emotional.  Yesterday evening we went out to dinner at a local, simpler place and had a good talk and reconnected.  Talking about capabilities, fears, managing my boom and bust cycle.

So it’s good, we are staying here until Saturday night, almost another week (so two weeks in Goa altogether- twelve nights in Agonda, eleven at this particular high up hut), so I can fully recuperate, get my strength back, and write chapter one (but in a joyful, no pressure kind of way, obviously!).

What I have been reading:

Only one thing, Kim Gordon’s (from Sonic Youth) autobiography.  My favourite bits, paraphrased:  I wanted to be an artist since I was five.  If you track back/observe you can see what it is you are meant to be doing.  (Visual) artists bemoaning that they can’t produce a piece of art that has the impact of a Kinks song.  A lot of artists wish they could produce work that had as much impact as a good song.  I don’t have the answer to that.

What I have been watching:

Only one thing, “Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise” on Netflix

 

Thank you very much for reading

Lots of love

Rachel

Instagram followingthebrownrabbit

 

Agonda beach

Tags

Agonda, Goa, India, Travel

We book one night ahead on booking.com then choose somewhere to move onto in person.  We got a taxi to Agonda from Colva (about an hour), we could have got a bus but I needed the  journey to be as fast and as comfortable as possible.  It was a wonderful journey, through small towns and villages, past tree covered mountains (possibly hills, but coming from super flat Norfolk, England, they look like mountains to me) and lots and lots of cows some with big curly horns (I love cows).  All the windows were down and the car was filled with a lovely breeze.

And then we were in Agonda.  Agonda and Colva are as different as Southwold and Great Yarmouth (for UK readers only sorry).  We arrived too early to check in (we had got up early to travel before it got really hot) so we went and sat in one of the many beach front bar/restaurants and had breakfast (toast and ginger tea).

Whearas in Colva and in Delhi I had been marooned in a hot hotel room during the hottest part of the day (which is most of the day, to be honest), here I realised I could be ‘outside’ (under shade) and with the breeze blowing in off the sea it was entirely bearable.  I breathed a huge sigh of relief.  Earlier that day in the hot hotel room in Colva I had envisioned months of being shut in a room all day.  Good for writing productivity, but there are limits.  I had been very apprehensive of going to India, or anywhere in South East Asia, at this time.  Most people go to India between November and February, when it is not so hot.  But if we’re going to be out for a year, we are going to be in the hottest time at some point.  And we had to go when we could go, i.e. when the house sold, and with all the obstacles that the matrix seemed to put up I wasn’t inclined to wait a moment longer to leave.

Agonda is touristy, but in a palm trees, beautiful sandy beach, luxury holiday look kind of way.  The beach is long and framed at each end by green lush tree covered mountains (?hills).  Our beach hut had a veranda that was shaded and cool enough to sit out on even in the middle of the day.  The owner said, don’t worry that it’s hot inside in the day, at night it will be okay.  And it was.  It was the first time I had slept under a mosquito net.  We would have happily stayed there but it was fully booked, so my husband went off and found us an (even better!) place.  Up high, reached from some steps, more space in the room, and a big cool veranda shaded with palm trees.  And right on the beach.  We are staying here for two weeks.

I was so relieved to unpack (I am such a homebody, but can make myself at home easily too), and do things like cut my nails and wax my face and floss my teeth properly.  (I still haven’t shaved my legs yet though, if I put it off much longer I’ll need a lawnmower.)

The beach huts are amazing.  I had imagined beach huts like we get in English seaside towns, but these are more like wooden chalets, with proper washrooms and everything, and the incredible thing is that they aren’t allowed to stay here permanently so they get dismantled at the end of April.  I wondered how they go about that, do they label all the bits, or do they just know?  I struggle to remember how to put my tent up once a year.

I once wrote an utterly heartfelt review on Amazon for Eat Pray Love, my bible for many years.  I had read that book seven times, written notes in it, folded over almost every page…  I knew I was genuine, so when someone commented, ‘This review is as pretentious as the book itself,’ it only made me laugh rather than hurt my feelings.

The first day here I did a bit of yoga out on the veranda (too hot indoors), using a rug from in the room, and then without even thinking about it just dropped into meditation, sitting half against the door jamb, resting after a set of one of those super strong hip opener poses (sleeping swan, half pigeon?), pulling the ends of the rug so as to buffer my ankle bones from the wooden floor.  I adjusted my position to be straight against the wall, but otherwise I was right there, for quite a while, despite the fact that I haven’t meditated for ages.

This wasn’t meditation aimed at or coming from a religious or spiritual angle, although it would probably be best described by the Buddhist meditation ‘Just sitting’, because I did nothing other than just check in with myself, deep inside.  And what I noticed was fear.  Fearful breathing, anyway, which I took to mean there’s fear there, or that fear is the thing going on for me, deep inside.  I had recently, possibly even only the day before, read a blog post by Alexander Bell about how if you calm your breathing so it isn’t fearful, then you won’t feel fear.  Try as I might though, my breathing remained shallow, tight, almost painful, and seemed to get worse the more I focussed on it.  So I remembered what the post had said about if you have a pounding heartbeat, just observe it, and observing it will naturally calm it.  I didn’t have a pounding heartbeat, but I used this approach for my breathing, and eventually, at last, I broke through to a place where I felt at peace, no fear.  As often used to happen to me in meditation, images came to mind; me opening a door, only to drop down an empty lift shaft and arrive, on a seat, in a room, and then again, somewhere different.

We’ve done a lot of moving about, and I’m a real homebody as I said.  I’ve hardly even been on holiday, and coupled with the pre leaving stress, it’s not surprising there’s fear in me.  And of course I’ve been sick, but then tummies are emotional too aren’t they?

(Just in case I sound pretentious here, writing about doing yoga and meditating on a beach hut veranda in Goa, please know that I did this on the train from Norwich to Nottingham (the meditation) and yoga in any hotel room I’ve been in with work in the UK using a towel or a jumper.)

We’ve had three nights here, and each day I have got up at 6.30 or 7am, had a paddle and a walk on the beach, a walk to the shops before it gets too hot, before retreating to the balcony/indoors for a siesta until the evening.  This is much better than sleeping late as you get to experience more time outside.  Also the beach in the morning is amazing, with incredible (must be teachers) people doing yoga, it is awesome what they can do with their bodies.

For my part, a short walk in the waves and/or a few stretches in the afternoon is all I can manage at present.  Today is day seven of traveller’s diarrhoea and today my husband took a Tuk Tuk to Palolem to go to the chemist and came back with gut flora and strong antibiotics for me.  He has looked after me all the way through and apart from the first night in Delhi when I went out to buy fruit and this morning when I went to the very nearby shops to buy water, juice and crisps (rehydration, sugars and salts) and fresh local bananas (potassium), I haven’t done anything on my own.  I also haven’t always been that nice, and I am realising how much I hurt my husband’s feelings when I get annoyed about stuff he has or hasn’t said or done, when all he is doing is looking after me.  But I don’t often know until later what it is I am unhappy about, and then I struggle to express it.  I tend to come across as annoyed when in fact I am feeling overwhelmed or vulnerable, I just don’t like to admit it.

A couple of times recently, if I’d stopped and thought about it, I could have said, that’s a great idea but I can’t manage that just yet.  Or, actually, can you come with me, I’d rather not be on my own.  In that way I am literally like a chicken, they are prey animals, therefore they don’t show their vulnerabilities.  I don’t like to feel, let alone admit to, feelings of pressure/ inability to deliver, shame, or fear of abandonment.  In other ways I am like a child, if I get sad my tummy hurts more, and I’ll seek comfort and attention by describing my physical ailments.   We are both much worse and much better than we realise, is a Buddhist quote I read about becoming more aware of ourselves.  India has a lot to teach me, which is good, because I have a lot to learn.

My husband has just started doing a vlog, if you want to check it out here is the link.

Thank you very much for reading!

Lots of love

Rachel xxxx

Instagram followingthebrownrabbit

 

 

Delhi to Goa by train

Tags

Agonda, Colva, Delhi, Goa, Hampi, Indian train journeys, marriage, Moon cup, Mooncup

Thursday, our third day in Delhi.  I didn’t feel right all day and in the late afternoon I lay on the bed and just felt my mood dip.  I don’t get ill that often so I didn’t recognise the feeling of overwhelm as a symptom of illness.  I lay on the bed fretting about my to do list (which just consists of a few creative things and a few shopping/admin tasks), and couldn’t understand what was the matter with me.

And then I got sick.  It is easy for Westerners to jump to the conclusion that being sick in India is food poisoning, often jumping to conclusions re hygiene etc, or worse, thinking its some awful disease like Typhoid, when it is often just a consequence of unfamiliar food and not being acclimatised to the heat.

We had gone out for (late) breakfast just a short walk away, then soon after went to do some shopping in Main Bazaar.  We spent too much time in the heat.  Plus we had eaten a big meal the night before, and probably overloaded our bodies.  (Lesson, eat small meals (soup is my new favourite thing) and stay out of the heat.  As I write this I am ensconced in our hotel room, fan on, curtains closed, extra towels and scarves up at the window.  Good job I have an indoor hobby.)

It was a bit of a come-down, since on Wednesday, Day Two, I had been blazing with confidence, congratulating myself on feeling settled in after just over twenty-four hours.  Which was in part pure Western arrogance, after all, I knew India would be challenging for me, but also, isn’t it okay to feel happy when I feel happy, confident when I feel confident?

I spent Thursday night doing what you do when you have D&V, interspersed with trying to sleep.  I lay in bed staring at a short horizontal bar of light reflected on the wall from the bathroom.  I was queasy but wanted to sleep, so I tried reverse psychology, telling myself to stay awake and look at the light, which made me sleepy,

I reminded myself that I have a powerful mind and that I could use it.  I went through five things from each of the five senses.  In the dark, shapes and shadows, smells, funnily enough not much in the way of sound, I had to really listen to count five things.  Our room was at the front of the hotel but Main Bazaar does go almost quiet eventually.  Touch was best: the back of one hand against the cool pillow, the heel and fingertips of the other against the sheet.  The contact cross at my elbows, knees and ankles; such a comfort.

At some point in the night I woke up really hot, even the stone floor near my bed felt warm, so I went and laid on the rug on the stone floor in the hallway, where I had so happily done yoga the day before.  I watched an insect walk along the strip of lit up doorway between hall and bathroom.

I really liked Delhi, but by day three the heat did get to me and I started really noticing the pollution, especially in the evening.  At this time of year, it was probably a hard place for a beginner to start.

My husband got sick a few hours after me, and it was touch and go as to whether we’d make it onto the train to Goa on Friday morning, but we did it.  We were glad to leave our sick room in Delhi and settle into our second class AC sleeper compartment.  This is a soft option, I think hardened backpackers use non AC, fans with windows and less space.  But we were all feeling so ill it was a blessing that we’d booked this.  Our carriage was almost empty, the toilets were plentiful and nearby, and the staff were attentive, bringing us food we could barely touch and checking on us through the night.  Although we couldn’t eat the big meals, they brought us cartons of lemon and lime juice, clear tomato soup, bread sticks, tea and plain biscuits, perfect for people who had been sick.

The train was FANTASTIC.  A twenty-five hour journey in an air conditioned sleeper; we were given a packet with two sheets and a towel plus a pillow and a blanket, with three meals plus drinks and snacks, for £25 per person!  Although we slept for a lot if it, I would really recommend it as a way to see India, we went past cities and rivers and mountains and skyscrapers and very poor dwellings and miles and miles of green and trees.

There were several lone women travellers on the train.  My husband spoke to a young Spanish woman in Delhi who has been travelling all over India for several months and has had no hassle from men at all.  During the train journey there were frequent walk throughs by staff and police and it felt like a safe environment.

I got the hang of my moon cup, (wear lower, hardly leaked at all) by necessity, although a period, here, on a long journey, something I had dreaded, paled into insignificance compared with being ill, which was probably all for the best.

I wrote on the plane:  I’m on a plane above the Black Sea and about halfway to India.  I haven’t said goodbye to my mother, and she hasn’t said goodbye to me. 

Of course I felt bad about that; but I just couldn’t face being all inauthentic after what had happened.  Not right as we were about to leave, with all the stress involved in all of that.  I felt bad, but I resented feeling bad too.  I’m not a monster, so I sent a text when I arrived just to say we’d got there and were safe at our hotel.  I didn’t hear anything back until Day Three but that was a perfectly normal text as if nothing had happened, from which I can just continue, as many families do, as if nothing has happened.

Yesterday we got off the train in Goa, stayed last night near Colva, and are staying tonight somewhere different nearer Colva beach.  It was nice to stand on the sand and paddle in the sea, which was like bath water, I don’t think I have ever felt sea that warm before.  We ate sweetcorn and veg clear soup and felt a sea breeze, although it is still very warm.  This morning we arrived at our new hotel and I had tomato soup and toast for breakfast (notice a theme developing here?).  (I love, love love Indian food by the way, but I am only just managing to drink and eat soup and toast right now.)

My husband has gone off to a nearby town to go to a Khadi shop as he is not happy with his clothes.  I have been shedding clothes at every stop, and am currently completely satisfied with my current wardrobe:  one pair of black linen trousers, two black vests, an old faded red sarong for lounging/coming out of shower/beach, a nice cream scarf for head and shoulders, one white cotton blouse, one white cotton shirt, a cute knee length black jersey skirt (dress code more relaxed in Goa) and a green and blue striped vest top with built in support no bra required yay!

I am forty seven but I can feel so young sometimes.  Today I spoke to my husband about feeling a bit emotional, (ill, period, and kind of lonely since we obviously hadn’t connected or talked much recently due to being ill).  It was nice to talk, and feel understood, and with us reconnected and beginning to feel better again all seems brighter.

Tomorrow we go to Agonda, which should be more our kind of place, (it is very touristy here in Colva), where we plan to stay for a couple of weeks, unpack our bags and rest up for a bit, before going to Hampi.

Thank you very much for reading

Lots of love

Rachel xxx