India 2020: Part 4

Tags

Begging, Delhi, India, Indian train journeys, Poverty, Pushkar, solo female travel India, Solo travel, Travel, Travel writing, Traveling, Travelling

Ganesh at the hotel arranged the taxi to the train station. At five am it was still dark and quiet. When I booked my tickets there were no AC chair class and no two or three tier AC sleepers available. So I booked sleeper class, which is cheaper and can be a little more lively and crowded. You aren’t shut off like in AC, the windows are open, more people come through the train selling food or asking for money, and people from other carriages can come and sit down if there is space.

I checked with three separate people that this was the right train and got on. The bunks were three high, I had a lower bunk. Most people were men and were either asleep or had ear phones in. I lay down and covered myself completely with a blanket and tried to sleep but it was cold. I was anxious but after a while I calmed a bit, and also I heard the voices of kids, a woman; a family nearby.

I woke up around eight or nine am and sat up, hair everywhere, dishevelled. An older man with a kind face and a Rajasthani moustache was looking at me. ‘Ram Ram,’ he said, smiling. Two people, a man and a woman, were sitting at the end of my seat, I sat up and greeted them and apologised for taking up so much room. During the day the lower seats are for all three people to sit on.

From here more women and family groups got on. As there was a charging point I thought to top up the phone; the charging point wasn’t working and an older man sitting opposite me tried to get it going for me. A young man who was on the top bunk opposite and had been there the whole time, said, ‘Excuse me Ma’am, you can charge your phone,’ and offered me the use of his power pack. I didn’t need it as the phone still had plenty of battery and I had a power pack too, but I was very touched that he had offered.

I felt sorry that I’d got onto that train with the compartment full of men and felt anxious, when just as before, people were only too ready to help. On the lower seat opposite were four people, on mine were three. Someone got off mine and the woman opposite, who had seen me falling asleep sitting up, gestured to me to lie down. I was grateful, my hips were aching and my legs felt stiff.

Two young Australians I had met in Pushkar had described finding their sleeper class journey from Delhi to Pushkar quite challenging. It was their first time in India, they were both young, blonde and good looking. The man had said men had come to stare at the woman, his girlfriend, and that there had been loads of people coming through asking for money. They had found it all a bit overwhelming and said that Indian people in the carriages had had to help get rid of them. I was grateful for the warning, and started accumulating ten rupee notes to give- also good for drinks etc- whilst being aware that I might say no if I didn’t want look conspicuous e.g. if there were lots of people asking at once.

I may have missed money requests from being asleep and covered up, because the only ones were a very dignified man in white with a metal tray; a man shuffling on the floor who had no use of his legs; and, to my delight, a Hijra. The Australians said the Hijras were rude but reading online afterwards I understand this may be part of their persona. Anyway this person was not rude at all. They came in, asked everyone, at least one man gave money straight away, another when asked again. I gave without being asked. She touched the top of my head (this was a blessing I found out later) and invited me to take her photograph. She was the first Hijra I have met. I read an Indian woman online who said that her mother told her to always give as they have no other way of getting money as no one will employ them. The Indian man who had hesitated then given when asked again looked at me. I was happy, smiling. ‘India experience,’ I said, he smiled.

On the way into Delhi outside the window there was a long pile, like a raised stream, of rubbish, plastic bottles and all kinds of rubbish, not far from and running parallel with the train track. I saw huge pigs with big piglets walking in the rubbish, and an eagle swoop down and up. Just on the other side of the rubbish were a row of tiny dwellings, hovels really. Some were one room and made of concrete, some were makeshift looking shelters built from sheets of plastic. Some were one row only, some a few rows deep, and some on top of each other.

Between the hovels and the rubbish, there were children, and a woman with a baby sitting while a small group of official looking people talked to her. Behind it all were tens of apartments, or hotels maybe, under construction. It would be nice to think they were being built new homes. As well as the trains, the rubbish, the living conditions, there was all that construction dust too. A little further along there were groups of women and teenage boys moving shingle amongst the opposite train tracks. No one was wearing any masks.

Past houses, some falling down, some okay. In the nook of a blue faded building, a teenage girl dressed all in black, knees bent up, side on in profile, a little centre of peace. The scene was just like the opening lines of ‘I capture the castle,’ by Dodie Smith.

The train arrived in Old Delhi, near The Red Fort. I couldn’t get a train to New Delhi, walking distance from Main Bazar, as they all arrived very late at night. I thought there was a prepay for taxis, there wasn’t, it was only for auto rickshaws, but the man in the booth told me which ones were the official taxis, which I was grateful for. I got a good view of The Red Fort, but I didn’t feel like stopping. I could see crowds of tourists in the grounds, and the air outside the taxi was awful.

I was happy to be back at same guesthouse, feeling happy to see them and more confident returning a second time after my trip. They booked me a taxi for the morning, free of charge! I ate at the same place as last time, Gobi Manchurian, an only in India ‘Chinese’ dish of cauliflower either ‘dry’ deep fried or wet ‘with gravy.’ I had the gravy version, with veg fried rice and lemon tea.Above: the sweet little cheeping birds- at my local shop in Pushkar- you can see they’ve put food out for them on the ground 💜
In the taxi to the airport a flock of the little cheeping birds swooped and landed on the road and amongst the cars; more than I had ever seen close up like that, it felt like a farewell gift. Then a man came wandering amongst the traffic selling the lemon and green ‘bean’ evil eye talismans I love, lots of them hung in a neat carousel. I had first seen them in Varanasi in the doorway of a house with pink walls and a red stairway, and then everywhere in Pushkar this time.

I had run out of hand cream, John who was picking me up from the airport in London was bringing me some from home, along with my big coat. I went to look for a Body Shop anyway. The big store was closed, but a sign directed me to a concession near the gates not far from mine. I didn’t see it at first then asked the man, they had little tubes. He made a big thing of trying to sell me the special offer, three tubes for ten percent off. I asked if could pay in sterling, he said no, only rupees. Or by card, he suggested, but I didn’t want to do that because of the charges. I said okay I’ll just take one then. He said, ‘Sorry not now we are in handover, come back in fifteen to twenty minutes.’ I did come back, they were still not serving. ‘What if I gave you cash?’ ‘No, boarding card and passport,’ ‘Okay, when?’ ‘Fifteen to twenty minutes.’

I gave up and gave my rupees to the two women who were cleaning the toilets. Earlier I had debated getting coffee and a pastry but decided not to. I had just over five hundred rupees left, enough for one small hand cream or coffee and pastry and not much else. It probably felt like a good tip for the two women attendants though. All in all it was a lovely India ending.

Thank you very much for reading

Here I go again

Tags

escape the matrix, India, Minimalism, Narrowboat, Narrowboat living, Pushkar, Rajasthan, Travel, Travel writing, Voluntary simplicity

I had originally planned to go back to India by myself; I was keen to have some alone time and time to work on my book and I thought it would be a good experience to be in India alone.  But then we just had a month apart, albeit I was on the boat in rural Northamptonshire not in India, but I had plenty of alone time and no longer felt the need to push myself to go off on a solo adventure.  So we decided John would come too.  But life happens and something has come up which means he needs to stay here.  So it looks like I am having a solo adventure after all!

I’m getting an airport pick up from the Delhi guesthouse, I’m staying in a backpacker place with a travel/info desk, we’ve booked my train out of Delhi already- a day time journey in chair class, and I’m going to spend all my time in Pushkar where we’ve been before and know people.

I’m going to do as much book editing as I can, and the rest of the time enjoy Pushkar.  The delights and wonders of Pushkar are many and include: monkeys everywhere, fantastic food*, markets, a small mountain to climb, many beautiful temples to visit, lovely cows to feed, a holy lake and Babas (holy men and possibly women) to talk with.  And nearby Rajasthan cities to visit possibly too. * masala dosas, sabje bhaji, dal, aloo jeera, rice, homemade brown bread with peanut butter, huge bowls of fresh fruit salad with soya milk, all kinds of smoothies, great coffee, there’s even a French bakery a walk out of town…

Photos by my husband Anthony John Hill: the view from our balcony onto Main Bazar Delhi; the view from the guesthouse rooftop restaurant in Pushkar; one of the dear cows of Pushkar with a little friend.

Thank you very much for reading

About the author 

In March 2018 we sold up and left behind most of our possessions to go off travelling for a year, spending most of our time in India.  I wrote a blog and began writing a memoir of the year which I am currently editing.  My husband and I live on a narrowboat in rural Northamptonshire, UK.  Our days and lives are an interesting mix of the every day and the journey of self realisation.

 

Kanyakumari, India: photographs

Tags

Colours of India, Incredible India, India, Indian houses, Kanyakumari, Love India, Travel, travel blogging, Travel memoir, Travel writing, Traveling, Travelling

Here is a link to my blog post about Kanyakumari from July last year

Thank you for visiting

About the author

Sold house, left job, gave away almost everything else.  With husband went travelling for a year, mostly in India.   Here are my India highlights.  Now back in the UK, living on a narrowboat, and writing a book about the trip, a spiritual/travel memoir, extracts from which appear regularly on this blog.

Lalbagh Botanical Gardens Bangalore India

Tags

Bangalore, Bangalore Botanical Gardens, food, food in India, India, Lalbagh, Lalbagh Bangalore, Travel, travel blogging, travel comforts, Travel memoir, Traveller's tummy, writing

Draft extract from my travel memoir:

Our flight to Bangalore was delayed, delayed, and delayed again, until there was clearly no hope of getting our night bus to Hampi.  Bangalore traffic is famously awful and two women on the same flight that we spoke to confirmed this; in spite of what Google maps said, there was no way we were going to get from the airport to the bus pick up point in time.

As the delay passed a certain point the airline gave us little cardboard boxes of food; samosas with tomato ketchup, tiny little square white bread sandwiches, cake, and cartons of orange juice.

I didn’t find the wait at the airport annoying, although it became very tiring as the afternoon and evening wore on.  I worked on my blog until I got too tired.

When we got to Bangalore my husband looked up hotels, seeing where was near the bus pick up point and also looking for areas of green, thinking it would be nice to be near a park.  The Botanical Gardens was near to the bus pick up point and an affordable hotel.

The taxi from Bangalore airport to the hotel was very expensive.  We knew that Bangalore was developed and expensive, home to a growing section of India’s middle class.  We passed grand venues, function places for weddings, their entrances decorated with huge trails and walls of lights, with names of the newlyweds on large billboards outside.

We reached the area near our hotel.  Down one street was what looked like a rickshaw repair area full of broken or upturned rickshaws, down the main street was a bus depot with travel agents and a few small shops selling drinks and snacks.

The hotel was smart and looked like an actual hotel, usually we stayed in guesthouses. ‘WiFi not working on your floor,’ the man said, but we were too tired to try to change anything at ten pm at night.  Almost next door was a travel agent, we got there with minutes to spare.  We sat on a little wooden bench in his office.  At first he seemed a little gruff, we watched him shoo someone else out, take calls and deal with us all at the same time.  He booked us onto the last two seats of the sleeper bus to Hampi for the next night. He told us how much a rickshaw should cost to our pick up point, then he said to come to him the next evening, he would get us a rickshaw and tell them where to take us.

We were both hungry but also understandably nervous about eating somewhere new before a bus journey.  The hotel kitchen was closed.  We asked the man at the hotel ‘where tourists go’ and he recommended a place.  The kitchen staff wore hair covers, water came from a bottle, and they used filtered water in the kitchen, which were all good signs.  We ordered vegetable fried rice which is usually a safe bet (it’s made hot, it’s vegetarian, rice is gentle on the tummy and helps ‘stop you up,’ as do bananas and bread).

Our room was white and clean, with its own bathroom.  The bed was so comfy with fat squishy pillows and a weighty duvet that felt like a hug; I slept til 11am.

We asked a rickshaw driver for The Botanical Gardens, he said no and drove off, maybe he didn’t understand us, or maybe it was too short a fare.  A friendly man came out and offered to help us; we realised it was the travel agent from the night before.  Another rickshaw driver came, we asked again and he gave us a price.  We looked at the travel agent.  His face was completely impassive.  ‘Is that an okay price?’ we asked.  He didn’t say anything.  It seemed people won’t interfere with other people making money.  It was probably too much but we got in anyway; we intended to remember the way and walk back.

Lalbagh looked a bit like Crystal Palace with its glass houses.  There was a lake and lots trees.  Stalls sold fresh fruit chunks and ice cold drinks.  We bought peanuts in shells wrapped in newspaper from a woman seated on the ground, she had no English, she showed me a note of money to show how me how much.  Signs said beware of snakes and honey bees.  It was very hot.  I bought a Sprite on the way back from the lake, keeping my promise to the man on the stall at the start.  We sat on a bench and very unusually for India were bothered by wasps, or perhaps they were honey bees, and we walked off down to a different bench.   It felt like an English park, with benches lining the wide pathway.

We walked back.  I really wanted a cup of coffee and maybe a snack.  Sometimes I wanted something specific like a coffee and a pastry, but whilst travelling it made things difficult if you got stuck on wanting something that you may well not get.  We went to the restaurant from the night before, they weren’t serving coffee or even chai, something to do with the time of day; like in Pondicherry, that had a menu with very strict times about when you could have certain items including hot drinks.  I bought crisps and a soft drink from one of the small shops instead.

I sat downstairs in the lobby and finished my blog post for the following day.  Maybe the WiFi didn’t actually work on any of the floors, as people were always in lobby.  Other hotel guests were there, two well off looking Indian men, and a Western family with children playing computer games.  The Indian men helped me with the password and the WiFi, and the family left.

After I had finished writing we went out again, stepping outside, it had cooled down a lot, and I felt that familiar feeling of being sorry that I’d missed it.  We had been out in the day, and it had been very hot, but now it was like we’d just missed maybe the nicest part.

Over the road by the little shops there was a little chai stall open, they had paper cups which were more hygienic than glasses but a shame for the environment.  When my husband was in India twenty years ago chai was served in little clay pots that afterwards were thrown on the ground and broke and went back into the earth, it was such a shame that they didn’t do that anymore.

We went back to the travel agent and waited for a rickshaw, lots went past full or without stopping; we watched a group of women struggle to get out of a packed rickshaw.  I saw a cat with one kitten crossing the road, I could barely look.  It was good that the man was there to help us.  He agreed the price and explained to the driver where to go.  The rickshaws were smaller compared to the Kerala ones, in Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu they were even bigger.  Maybe it was state to state, maybe it was that the ones in big cities were smaller.  Once inside, we cosied up to save our knees and legs from poking outside.

We’d wondered if the bus pick up point at ten pm at night would be a bit dodgy, but it was like a city; so many buses, so many people moving about the country.  There were so many agents near our hotel and we passed many more on the way.  The rickshaw driver dropped us at our stand.  There were various stands with offices, and some public loos.  The rickshaws looked tiny like toys especially when driving along in front of the big coaches, many of which were double decker sleepers.  In front of the buses before leaving they did a blessing, lighting a small fire on the road and saying prayers.

If you are interested in India check out Broken Traveller here is a link to a post Incredible India Unity in Diversity with beautiful photographs

About the author

Sold house left job decluttered almost everything else.  With husband went travelling for a year, mostly in India.   Here are my India highlights.  Now back in the UK, living on a narrowboat, and writing a personal travel memoir.

For more photographs of the trip see Instagram travelswithanthony

Pushkar Part 3

Tags

acceptance, everything possible, Hello to the Queen, India, Music, Pushkar, Rajasthan, sab kuch milega, Self image, Travel, Travel memoir, Travelling, writing

I loved Pushkar, home to Babas, gorgeous looking cows, and fun monkeys.  We were in Pushkar Oct-Nov 2018 as part of a year of travel.  I am writing a personal travel memoir.  Extract from draft book chapter:

Sab kuch milega (everything possible):  Pushkar, Rajasthan, India

In the masala dosa restaurant, my husband saw two older ‘hardcore hippies,’ you could describe them as, looking disdainfully at two younger travellers, apparently judging them.  We talked about our dear friend DW, one of the coolest people we know, but who outwardly looks perfectly ordinary.  But if you underestimate him, more fool you.  He doesn’t care.  He is not interested in so-called cool people identifying him.  ‘Style is saying who you are without words,’  is an often quoted phrase.

It’s a tempting idea, but it doesn’t work for me.  ‘Saying who you are without words’ usually means just emphasising the cool aspects.  So I’d emphasise the writing, go about all in black with a sleek laptop and a cool Moleskine notebook?  Or emphasise the yoga, the meditation and the spirituality?  Why not emphasise my anxiety or OCD?  Show it all.  Or none of it.  Be plain, and more fool people if they write you off based on that?

In Pushkar I read a blog post by Adie about therapy, about the ‘places’ we inhabit.  The place where everything is bad and nothing is good.  The place where everything is good and nothing is bad; ‘unicorns farting rainbows.’  People who get into spirituality can get stuck there.  The functional place is the ‘And And place,’ not all good, not all bad.  Our friend at the guesthouse said that on the television news everything awful is reported, all the hideous crimes from all over India.  He said that he watches it all, to know that there is bad. ‘I know there is everything,’ he said.

For a couple of nights our neighbours were a young Indian couple, they played music loud at midnight, one am.  ‘They do that thing that young people do, not playing a whole song,’ as my husband said, making it more annoying.  The guesthouse staff told them to be quieter, he said to us, ‘I told them, the British, they like to go to sleep at 9.30!’  Which wasn’t true but it was quieter after that!

At the same time, Des* on WordPress wrote post about how his daughter aged twenty five had phoned up to tell him that she listened to a whole Beatles album all the way through and that she understood the context, the time, etc, from listening to the whole album rather than single songs.  Des wrote that it was unusual for a young person to listen to a whole album, and that individual songs apparently only have a 48% chance of being listened to all the way through!  I hadn’t really realised it was ‘a thing’ until then, although once I started thinking about it I realised that my stepdaughter did the same.

The next evening my husband and I went to a nice restaurant for what felt like a date night, just beyond where the women sold beaded jewellery on the pavement.  There was a green garden with lights, and unusually they had alcohol and eggs openly on the menu.  I had two mojitos and a whole pizza made in a wood oven (no cheese).  They played REM- Automatic for the people, they played it all the way through.  I used to have that album and listen to it a lot.  It has the track Everybody Hurts, which was a real life call back to Sick and Tired in Delhi.  Then they played The Beatles Help all the way through too.

Everywhere we went in India we had seen a dessert called ‘Hello to the Queen’ on the menu.  Once in Kerala we did look up what it was- biscuit, toffee, banana, cream and ice cream- but we had never succumbed to temptation.  In Kerala I had read that India said it was Israeli, Israel denied it.  I wondered, why deny such a wonderful thing, why not want to say you’d invented it, like the pavlova rivalry of Australia and New Zealand?  But it’s not in Israel, it’s only in India.  Like Gobi Manchurian, sometimes called Gobi 65, an Indian interpretation of Chinese food, not found in China, or indeed anywhere outside India.

I read two versions of the creation story, one, I’d read when we first looked up what it was in Kerala, was that an Israeli chef had been smoking marijuana and got the munchies, and invented this dessert!  The second I read in Pushkar sitting in the mojito restaurant, where it was also on the menu, and I wanted to refresh my memory.  The one I found then was slightly different, it said it was an Israeli customer who asked the chef to bring this, add this, add this and this, and ‘Hello to the Queen’ was born.  Best of all, on this version, it said it was invented in Pushkar!

By this time, we’d decided to abandon our vegan principles for one night and try it, just once.  ‘Wow,’ I said, ‘how amazing, that when we finally decide to give in and try it, we are in Pushkar, where it was invented!’

I still think it was amazing that we decided to give in and try it while we were in Pushkar, but it’s perhaps not such surprise that it was invented there, given that Pushkar is very popular with Israelis and has lots of marijuana!

We ordered one Hello to the Queen and one pancake with banana and Nutella to share.  It didn’t disappoint.  On the way home I bought Dark Fantasy biscuits (our regular near-as-dammit vegan biscuits) AND a family size bar of Dairy Milk (which most certainly is not.)  When I fall off the wagon, I really fall off it.  ‘Everything’s a gateway drug for you,’ my husband said, referring to my descent from mojitos to cigarettes to chocolate…

If you are interested in India check out Broken Traveller here is a link to Incredible India Unity in Diversity with beautiful photographs

*Also check out this post by Des The beginning and end of a survival blog, inspirational and a great read

About the author

Sold house left job decluttered almost everything else.  With husband went travelling for a year, mostly in India.   Here are my India highlights.  Now back in the UK and living on a narrowboat.  Writing a book about everything…

For more photographs of the trip see Instagram travelswithanthony

Pushkar Part Two

Tags

Caste, cultural conditioning, culture, Diwali, Homelessness, India, Indian culture, Pushkar, Rajasthan, Travel, Travelling, UK culture

I loved Pushkar, home to Babas, gorgeous looking cows, and fun monkeys.

Just like in Varanasi, there were a lot of bikes, and they were annoying.  They made dust clouds from the desert roads, drove too fast through the streets, and parked outside where we had breakfast, spewing fumes and blocking the entrance.  But at least there were no cars (cars are banned from the main streets).  Bikes used to be banned too, but gradually everyone stopped obeying the rules.

There was good healthy food available in Pushkar.  Juice bars sold muesli with fruit salad and soya milk, and delicious soya milk smoothies with dates, you could even add cacao shavings and spirulina.  The portions of muesli and fruit salad for breakfast were almost too big to eat (almost.)

We had a regular muesli and juice place.  There was a small seating area, which gave a great view onto the main street full of shops selling Rajasthani goods: brightly coloured cushion covers, clothes and blankets.  We used to sit and watch the shop keepers getting ready for the day; sweeping the road outside the shop with one brush- everywhere was dusty due to the desert plus motorbikes- and beating the clothes hanging up outside the shop with another brush, sprinkling water on the potholes outside the shop, and then doing a ritual with incense and a flower garland.  It was a beautiful way to start the day.   One morning an Indian man sitting opposite us at the juice place was playing recorded music.  He told us that the singer he was listening to had just died, at three am that morning.

There was so much to see: the Rajasthani women’s clothes so beautiful; thin scarves in red, pink, or green, decorated with tiny mirrors.  A monkey nonchalantly climbing across the street along tinsel put up for Diwali.  More shops sold jewellery, drums, and masks.  Away from the main streets things were quieter with fewer shops, and small stalls selling water and basic provisions.  Women sat on the pavement making and selling beaded jewellery.  Some had small children and babies sleeping in cradles.  In the market, stalls sold bags, bangles and- surprisingly to us- huge gold swords.  We saw children in heavy theatrical makeup and ornate dresses, they looked like spooky living dolls.  Beyond the market was an Indian- not touristy- area, with more shops and stalls, cheap clothing and local restaurants, and beyond that the camel area.

We ate Sabje bhaji; a local curry, which was a rich red colour, made with peas and other vegetables and served with delicious fried bread which was puffy and chewy.  They also served real Italian strong black coffee and homemade brown bread toast with peanut butter.  A portion was four slices, we accidentally ordered a set each and couldn’t eat it all.  I wrapped it up and gave it to the cows at the rubbish dump on the way home near the guesthouse.

They had the main kitchen inside but outside they served street food with the ingredients all out in the open.  Like in Varanasi they did mosquito fogging (a scooter with kind of like a leaf blower at the back, blasting out grey clouds of insecticide).  One evening the mosquito fogging scooter came and we all rushed inside covering our mouths and noses with scarves or t-shirts until the worst had passed.  We looked out at the uncovered street food, some other tourists said, I’m not going to eat that.’  We felt really sorry for the cafes and street food stalls.  We saw mosquito fogging again, they came right along the road at the bottom of where the guesthouse was; we saw kids chasing along behind it.  Staff at the guesthouse told us that the kids take selfies in it.

We got to know a man with a textile shop and wholesale business who we bought a lot of stuff from and who sent it home for us.  We often sat and chatted with him.  He said, ‘Westerners going about like Indians, with their dress, meditation and yoga, and Indians dressing in jeans and forgetting about yoga and meditation.’  It was like Osho said, what was needed was a merge of East and West.  The man did meditation each morning, ‘Up at 5.30am, and sit.’  On business he said, ‘Business always good; feel good, business good, money come, money go.’

It was an honour to experience Diwali in India and especially in Pushkar.  We bought sweets for the staff at the guesthouse, and admired the layers upon layers of sweets in the shops, like terraces, so many that men had to climb around to get to them.  We went out for dinner and heard the fireworks going off all around. Kids threw bangers down onto the street that made our ears ring.  But the poojas go on indoors, in homes and businesses, so there aren’t things outdoors to join in with, but the restaurant owner, who was explaining all this, said that the priest was coming soon and we could join their blessing for the business.  There was me and my husband, two Western women, the father, the son who ran the restaurant, and a younger boy who was trying in vain to control a tied up Dalmatian dog who wanted to say hello to everyone.  Prayers were said into the fire and then the priest tied thread around our wrists, making a bracelet, as he did so he said, ‘Happy marriage, happy life.’  (I only cut mine off very recently April 1^st; Diwali was in November)

We went back to the guesthouse, running the gauntlet of the boys with their bangers.  The street where the guesthouse was was covered in the litter of fireworks, and there was smoke everywhere.  We went up to the rooftop and listened to the fireworks.  Later lying in bed, the fireworks nearby actually shook the room a little.

The morning after Diwali, the streets were all cleaned up. That such a big party could happen and then be tidied up so fast, was yet another thing I admired about India.  We sat outside a cafe and watched people all greeting each other and giving money in street.  When we’d finished our breakfast and the man was adding up our bill, he had to break off from his task suddenly to shoo a cow away down the road, another wonderful ‘Only in India’ moment.

The waiters tried to teach us Hindi, ‘Everyday you learn a new word.’  They would test us when they saw us on the stairs or back at the restaurant. Hi, how are you, okay, fine, etc. The owner, a Brahmin (the highest caste), corrected our responses; what we were saying was not correct for us, too casual, we should say xxx instead.  Obviously we’d learned the casual version with waiters, which we were fine with.  It felt rude that he said that in front of them.  ‘We don’t observe the caste system,’ was something I used to say in private to Anthony.  Meaning, I don’t observe the caste system myself.  We just talked to whoever talked to us.  We asked our friend with the textiles, a businessman, if he knew our friend from the guesthouse.  ‘But he is staff,’ he said, looking puzzled and dismissive at the same time.  Our favourite two people didn’t mix at all.

Northamptonshire April 2019  I recently read a blog by an Indian person from Bangalore, describing the pitiful life and death of someone of a lower caste, from her childhood- so not that long ago.  I was upset and initially judgemental.  Why was he treated that way, why didn’t anyone help or seem to care? 

But then I remembered before we left the UK, in March 2018, a very cold and snowy winter, just how many people were sleeping rough in Norwich- one of the most affluent cities in the UK.  And on our return to London, how many people were on the streets just the short distance from the tube station to our hotel.  And how people walk on by, and don’t want to touch them, and how it is accepted that there are people on the street.  We have a fully functioning Government in the UK, both national and local, a small population, and money to spend on other things, and yet we don’t provide enough shelter beds, and everyone just accepts that.  Society accepts that that is the homeless person’s lot- the lack of healthcare and the low life expectancy and ongoing risk of violence.  So in a way we have our own caste system.

We did read horror stories in the paper of Dalits (lower caste people) being attacked and killed.  But India is a huge country of over a billion people, and every state is different.  Our good friend Y from Tamil Nadu who is a college teacher, said that caste makes no difference within his classroom.  Places on courses are reserved for Scheduled Castes and Tribespeople, which guarantees that his classroom is open to all castes (this follows the legislation in place).  Of his students, he said, ‘Oh yes, they fight, usually about girls, but never about caste.’

Thank you very much for reading

About the author

Sold house left job decluttered almost everything else.  With husband went travelling for a year, mostly in India.   Here are my India highlights.  Now back in the UK and now living on a narrowboat.  Writing a book about everything…

For more photographs of the trip see Instagram travelswithanthony

Pushkar Part One

Tags

Bhang Lassi, Incredible India, India, Indian culture, Indian culture and customs, Indian customs, Indian temples, Love India, Pushkar, Rajasthan, spirituality

I loved Pushkar, home to Babas, gorgeous looking cows, and fun monkeys.

Chapter extract about our time in Pushkar, Rajasthan, India, Oct-Nov 2018:

The Varanasi guesthouse had a rooftop area with amazing views, but here the rooftop was a restaurant and they had also done it up.  Indian parasols and quirky light shades hung down from the ceiling, the walls were decorated with Indian print bedspreads and round fabric rings in different colours like chunky padded bracelets, used to put between the head and the basket when carrying things on the head.

At the rooftop restaurant there were wicker tables and chairs and also day beds to sit or lounge comfortably on.  These doubled as beds for the kitchen staff.  During the day heavy blinds were lowered to keep the sun out, it came in through gaps at the edges and was anyway still too hot to hang around for too long up there in the middle of the day.  We’d go up and eat or have a drink, at least once most days:  Sprite, aloo jeera (perfectly done spiced potato), dal and rice; mushroom, olive and tomato toasted sandwiches; home made finger chips, and banana pancakes.

As in Varanassi, Bhang Lassis (a kind of weed milkshake) were legal and available everywhere, it was fun watching stoned people lounging on the beds and eating banana and Nutella pancakes one after the other…

The owner wasn’t there all the time, but most days he’d come up and talk to us for a bit.  We had an open and surprisingly easy conversation about periods, him talking about cooking, and explaining how in his house he cooks, as for five days the women don’t do any cooking.  ‘You know, on period,’ he said, in case I hadn’t understood.  ‘Good idea, I said, we should do that.’  He said to me and my husband, ‘Yes you should do in the UK in your home!’.

One evening he cooked for all the guests who were around, huge pots of food and round balls of bread cooked in tin foil in a cow dung fire, all of us sitting on floor outside, eating with our fingers, ‘My first time,’ a young Western man said, ‘I just did my best.’

One day the owner pointed out across to a small temple.  It was hard for me to see at first, there was a red shiny temple, a Hare Krishna temple nearby, two mountains with temples, and other decorative buildings all around amongst the houses.  This was a small peachy orange and white temple.  He told us that his late father had built that temple; at the time his wife and children were not happy, especially his wife, as it cost a lot of money.  But the father went ahead and did it anyway.  On his deathbed he called his son to him and said, ‘You wanted to know why I built that temple, I shall tell you.  When I die and you have the guesthouse, you are going to make a lot of money.  You may be tempted to spend it on women, gambling…  If you get tempted, you look out there and see the temple that your father built.’

The owner told us how to reach it and we went one evening.  Along the way we passed several camels pulling carts with lots of people.  I felt bad for the camels, I didn’t want to look and turned away.  ‘Don’t turn your back on them,’ my husband said, ‘They need your support.  You can give them some love, show them that you acknowledge their pain.’

Up close the temple was much bigger than we’d expected, and was painted in a similar style to the guesthouse; multi coloured, some of the paint was slightly faded which had turned the colours into delicate pastels, with arches and small shrines with Gods. It was almost completely dark by the time we got there, and the crescent moon was beautifully framed by the outside arches.

The staff were not supposed to smoke marijuana at work, one day the owner appeared, like many bosses, quiet, like cat.  I tried to distract him by asking what he’d got in his bag; he’d arrived with bag of what looked like baby lemons.  I described what I’d seen in Varanasi; a tiny lemon and green beans hung from a doorway of a house.  ‘How to explain,’ he said, ‘Say someone jealous of you and Anthony’s relationship…’  ‘Like evil eye,’ I said, ‘Yes!’ he said, high-fiving me.  In Kerala we had seen black masks with scary faces for sale in shops and hung outside properties.  We had asked the man we bought lungis and bananas from what they were for, he said, ‘Someone break in, they break leg.’

One of the guesthouse staff said that in his village they still grind their own oil from seed using a bull, they grow the seed themselves and they give the residue of the oil to the bull.  People give seed to the pigeons; he described how each day one hundred pigeons go to his house to eat, then the next house, then the next.  ‘If you get God’s gifts, extra grain, seed, you give a big percentage to birds, pigeons, cows.’

In his village, if someone commits a crime or ‘makes a mistake,’ the police are not involved, instead everyone talks, together with both families.  They decide which family is in the wrong and they make restitution, offering x kilos of grass for cows, seed for pigeons.  ‘Pigeons are not very clever,’ he said, ‘If a cat comes, they shut their eyes and think the cat has gone away.’  ‘Pigeons are loved in India.  Not cats.  But I know tourists like cats, especially British, love cats, love animals.’  The pigeon as well as the cow are holy- hence the pigeon feeding station on Chennai beach, I realised.

April 2019, Northamptonshire:  About a week ago we went to our local town to pick up some shopping (and go to Greggs for vegan sausage rolls, of course).  In the town car park was a sign forbidding people to feed the birds.  I felt sad, and momentarily confused.  It’s all conditioning; This is acceptable here, This isn’t.  I get it, but still, I’d rather be somewhere where all the animals are fed.   

Thank you very much for reading

About the author

Sold house left job decluttered almost everything else.  With husband went travelling for a year, mostly in India.   Here are my India highlights.  Recently arrived back in the UK and now living on a narrowboat.  Writing a book about everything…

For more photographs of the trip see Instagram travelswithanthony

Sick and Tired in Delhi PART TWO

Tags

Cloth sanitary pads, Delhi, family, India bus journeys, Main Bazar, Parent child relationships, Periods, Periods and travelling in India, Pushkar, relationships

Sick and Tired in Delhi PART TWO
‘You took the red pill’

Extract from draft book chapter about our time in Delhi in October

I sent my son some money and a message, ‘Well done, we’re both so proud of you.’ At same time, cutting the cord. You can cut the cord and still be loving. In fact doing that, rather than being distant actually sets you free. It sets you both free.

Same with my mum- little messages with pics, and no angst from me. This sets me miles and miles away. I thought being distant does that, but it doesn’t necessarily do that

Being all cosy cosy can keep you emeshed. This isn’t emeshed. It’s kind, it’s nice, it’s fairly non emotional- as in, it’s happy but not riddled with guilt or upset like before or feeling trapped by my mother.

My son’s doing better set free from me. I’m doing better set free from my mum. But with no angst to hold us in conflict. It’s so simple put like that.

Is this the magic secret, all there is to it, the how to transition from child to adult relationships that I never previously understood? How to transition from anger ridden despair teen breakdown, and overly emeshed thirty something into own life?
Yes, yes, it’s just like this.

Delhi is known for being polluted, and while we were there the air quality was particularly bad. Bryan Adams did a show and tweeted a photograph of himself, barely visible beyond the smog. We wondered whether it was better to have the ac on or to leave it off and keep the windows closed. We researched it and discovered that ac only gives a false sense of security and doesn’t get all the dangerous particulates out. We came across adverts for companies selling bottled air in Delhi. My heart went out to the people who live there all the time.

After Delhi we were going to Rajasthan for a month, a week in each city, we had booked the trains ages ago. But at least one of those cities was as polluted as Delhi. We’d just experienced a lot of pollution in Varanasi. After Rajasthan we had flights booked to go to Kathmandu, also known for poor air quality.

And there was an outbreak of Zika virus in Jaipur, our first stop in Rajasthan. Although very dangerous only for pregnant women, neither of us wanted to risk getting ill with something else.

We procrastinated for ages, the two of us struggling to make a decision, too much choice, not feeling well. Balancing what we want to do/feel up to doing in the present with will we regret not going to all those places once the trip is over. In the end we ripped up the plan, cancelled all the trains and decided to just go to Pushkar, the smallest and least polluted place on our plan.

All the trains were sold out- which was why we’d booked them so far in advance- we could only get there by bus. As there are no loos on buses we had to wait until we were well. We felt trapped in Delhi; we felt like the food and the pollution made us ill, or at least didn’t help, yet we couldn’t leave until we were well. We stayed six nights in that room in Delhi.

On our last morning we ate breakfast at the hotel sitting out into the rooftop, porridge made with water, with banana. It was so nice being out together, it felt like an outing. The past few days had been mainly spent indoors, one of us only going out for food or drink or to the pharmacy over the road. Once or twice we went to the cafe downstairs, which was a bit sad; greasy and with doors that opened into the pollution of the street.

We watched a Westerner, he lived right at the top above the dirty kitchen, completing Hindu rituals, or possibly just washing with a water bottle, we weren’t sure. We watched him doing his laundry on the rooftop. What a life. We wondered what his story was? Divorced? Living on a pension? Hindu convert? Disappeared?

That night we got a rickshaw from the hotel to catch the night bus to Pushkar and saw the Delhi smog close up.

I tried to soak up the sights of Main Bazar, the neon lights, the mopeds, the cows, I saw a cow and a calf with big floppy ears; knowing it might be our last time. I lost concentration, and Main Bazar was gone.

We were into a different area, we saw veg restaurants, pure veg places, I thought, Why didn’t we go here? Oh, yes, we were sick and ill and indoors!

And then, utter craziness, ‘worse’ than Kolkata. Cows, thin cows, cows with floppy ears, cows trying to eat non existent grass in the middle of road, like the central reservation, and licking a stone in the middle of the barrier. A group of calves eating from a trough.

Everything grey, dust, dark, dust. Buildings that looked like they had been derelict for decades or were for demolition, by UK standards. Birds nest wiring amongst them and then, a few inflatable toys, bright pink balloons, and big brightly coloured teddies wrapped up in cellophane.

It looked like a market had finished and was packing up. There was every type of transport; lorries, cars, rickshaws, oxen and cart, men with carts, and men with sacks on their heads. Men pulling carts, some with another man pushing, but some alone, with huge loads. A man carrying a huge load on his shoulders, wrapped, two leg ends and castors poked out, a chair or a table, he carried it up to the top of a ladder to a vehicle alone, then men at the top took it.

Dust, dark, dust, and traffic jams. A sign said: Men at work. Oh God yes. If ever that sign was valid, it was there. And everything within a thick smog. It seemed unbelievable how anyone survives, does this every day. How there’s any old people in Delhi.

A cycle rickshaw got caught on our rickshaw. Everyone around just shouted instead of helping. Usually touching of vehicles, even a scrape, does not result in shouting, not like in the UK. Maybe this was because it held up the traffic, and maybe it was a status thing, with bicycle rickshaws considered lower in the pecking order than auto rickshaws.

On previous night bus journey I/we were worried about needing a pee, this time, that was eclipsed by worrying about diaorriah. And then, Oh great, blood, my period started as well.

The bus depot was dusty, with rows of numbered stalls of travel agents, each with a desk and a tiny office with seats. To get to the toilets we had to go down a path to the side of one of the stalls, then along another. There were lots of men hanging about, and big dogs, and next to the toilets there was a big room with men sleeping on the floor, like a paying homeless shelter or very low cost accommodation. There was a hand washing sink outside but nothing inside the loos, just Indian style toilets which was fine, but no sinks like in the trains and not very clean. Even if I had taken a bottle of water in with me like I would on the train, I’d not be confident enough with hand hygiene to use my moon cup so cloth sanitary pads and a lungi would have to suffice.

On the bus a dreadlocked young woman across the aisle spread out a white lungi on the bus seat, it’s good to do for hygiene anyway. I did mine double layer just in case but my cloth sanitary pad didn’t let me down, as they say in the ads. The only thing it meant was not being sure if my pain, was urge to go to the loo, period pain, or hunger; we didn’t eat anything in the hours prior to the journey. But we managed the journey okay, we stopped for the loo and not eating beforehand worked.

We changed buses for the last part of the journey. Outside the window were bushy trees, mountains and desert. I saw a wall painted mauve, and another with delicate scalloped shapes cut out of the bricks, and then we were in Pushkar.

Thank you very much for reading

Sick and tired in Delhi Part One

Tags

Delhi, India, Indian train journeys, Main Bazar, meditation, Sickness, Taking the red pill, Travel, Travel sickness, Travel writing, Traveling, Travelling

Sick and Tired in Delhi
‘You took the red pill’

Extract from draft book chapter about our time in Delhi in October

People were in our seats, lying down; we had to ask them to move for us to sit down. They did so grudgingly, the woman still half laying down so that we were squashed up on half a seat, and the whole group seemingly thoroughly put out that we were there.

It was around eight pm. We’d planned to watch a couple of episodes we’d downloaded from Netflix, and I was going to do a bit of writing. But soon after they announced they all wanted to go to sleep meaning we couldn’t sit up. We were in three tier ac, when the middle bunk gets folded down no one can sit on the lower bunk anymore. We had one lower bunk and the top bunk on on the other side. The top bunks on three tier don’t have enough space to sit up.

Previously we’ve just all worked out when we wanted to go to bed and stayed up until then. But this time there was no negotiation.
And they had used all the pillows and a lot of the blankets.

Anthony had the lower bunk. I lay on the top bunk, meditated, and tried to sleep. Then someone put the big light on. At ten pm I gave up, went and crouched with Anthony for a bit, then went back to bed.

It was hard to climb up, there isn’t a ladder, just foot holds and a bar, and I am short. I woke up at 2.15 am and then at 4.30 am for good.
It’s always a bit noisy; people’s alarms go off and people get off and on at stops along the way. And from early morning there are men selling chai coming through the carriage saying loudly, ‘Chai chai coffee chai.’ Well I didn’t want any, because I was asleep, but now you’ve woken me up I actually do.

But this journey was particularly bad, with loud snoring and farting in the night; and in the morning one of the party sat doing really loud burps.

Of course the fact that we felt annoyed with the people we shared a space with and they didn’t seem that nice made it all the worse.
But as we arrived into Delhi station, the adult son of the family came up to my husband and shook his hand, ending any hard feelings (or at least most of them.)
So we arrived in Delhi very tired. My husband had started feeling ill in Varanasi, with a bad chest. ‘I’m never doing three tier again,’ he said.

We went out for breakfast at a rooftop cafe overlooking Main Bazar, my husband found us a hotel, we treated ourselves to ac as he was unwell and because of the pollution.

My husband got ill with an upset stomach almost immediately, funnily enough, immediately after eating at the same restaurant as he had before when he got sick last time. I went out on my own to eat in Main Bazar. A man said the usual, ‘Hi where are you from, I’m not trying to sell you anything’ (which was almost certainly not true). ‘No talk?’ Acting all offended. He was pushy, but I couldn’t talk very well anyway due to wearing a pollution mask. When he caught me again on the way back I said, ‘I must get home, my husband is ill,’ which worked a treat, and the man backed off. The people out in the street were pushy but not scary, the whole place just seemed touristy.

I wrote to a friend: Now back in Delhi, where we first arrived in March. Having been here before, and having since been to Varanasi and Kolkata both of which are much crazier it seems relatively tame. Polluted and dirty, but not intimidating. I have been out by myself for walks and to eat three times already. It’s interesting to see how my perspective has changed.

I also wrote: I struggled to get up on the top bunk on the train. I was out of breath going up three flights of stairs at the hotel. I probably need to do something, but not yet, and what? The English guy in Varanasi talked about going for a run at 4am but surely the air quality means that would do more harm than good? I have seen a yoga mat for sale. We’ll see. I wrote: Right now I’m just happy that I’m not currently ill, using time to rest and sleep, and catch up on writing.
Ha ha ha, said the forces of the universe, again.

Just as when we arrived in March, our room had a balcony which looked out over Main Bazar, standing out there, for brief periods only due to the pollution, was far better than watching television. I saw four adults and two kids on a scooter. Outside the restaurant opposite, a black and white dog was leaping up, wagging their tail in front of a man, the man acting cool, then the dog jumped up on the man and then he finally gave in and made a fuss of the dog, it was nice to watch.
I ate at the restaurant opposite, I had a masala dosa, it was okay, not as good as South India of course (the home of masala dosas) and chatted to the owner who was from Kashmir.

Later on I saw the kitchen, which was a couple of floors up, from our balcony. The table and walls were black with dirt and grease, and a man was wiping the table with a very dirty looking cloth.

I got sick just after my husband, after eating at the same place as last time, a different one to him. Not the masala dosa one, although it’s impossible to know where we actually got sick from.
‘I feel defeated by India,’ my husband said.

Our frequencies were really low, thinking about the UK, everything, the realisation that we took the red pill, there’s no going back, and what taking the red pill really means. Planning how we will go forward into our new life in the UK, beginning to turn 25% of our attention to the UK and what happens next, practically. ‘We don’t want to have a life changing experience and return to the same life;’ whilst still being present in India.

The room was medium sized, painted white, with a really cosy duvet that we both really appreciated in our sorry states. We watched a lot of old X Factor clips on YouTube, it’s not what I usually do but I enjoyed it. A priest sang REM’s Everybody hurts beautifully. In his introduction he said, ‘In my job I see a lot of pain… a lot of joy and happiness, but a lot of pain.’
I tried meditating, focussing on my out breath, feeling a sense of peace, enjoying the big duvet cosiness. Feeling almost chilly but knowing that my soft sweatpants I bought in Tokyo were nearby was such a sweet comforting sensation.

Meditation had possibly helped me deal better with sickness. I said ‘Oh God,’ a few times but felt calmer during vomiting; I really hate being sick and get a bit scared sometimes. I used to look at the little plastic seat in the bathroom, it was my favourite object in that place; opaque white, decorated with faded mauve and silver sparkly flowers. I had a dream about a silver palace. Waking up, the first thing I saw was the gold and silver leaf design of the curtains which were lit up by the sun.

Thank you very much for reading

Italian Baba

Tags

Anything is possible, Baba Cesare, escape the matrix, Hampi, Incredible India, India, Italian Baba, Love India, Travel, Traveling, Travelling

In Hampi in India (for blogs about Hampi with pictures see here, here and here) we went to a chai stall on the temple side of the river; out of the main village, past the Rama temple.  Twenty years ago my husband had visited this chai stall and met Hanuman and his wife and was surprised and pleased to find that they were still there!

We visited most days for chai and coconuts, we chatted with them, fussed their pregnant cat and watched the monkeys in the tree nearby.
Hanuman told us about an ‘Italian Baba’ who lived opposite, on the other side of the river.  They said he had built an ashram there that had been going for forty years.

Hanuman explained how to get there and a couple of days later we set out to visit.  We had to walk beyond Hanuman’s chai stall, we went wrong once and had to go back and be redirected, but we got to a place where there is a man who takes people across the river in a coracle.

We explained we were going to see Italian Baba.  The coracle man told us that he had died the day before from heart problems; he had been taken to the government hospital but the doctors were unable to save him.  He said it was still okay to go to the ashram and pay our respects.

The coracle was beautifully made, there was just the two of us and the man rowing us across.  The water and the scenery surrounding it looked absolutely magical.

The man showed us where to go, and handed our money to the man on the other side, his boss.  We paused at a little temple first, we hesitated, unsure if we were allowed in.  An Indian family beckoned us, and showed us the way; we followed them down a stone corridor, at the end was a shrine with a very old Baba there.  We followed the family, gave some money and had a blessing.

The man who had rowed us was still outside and pointed the way through scrub and old garden to the ashram.  I had imagined lots of mourning devotees and was unsure if it was even appropriate to go, but there was no one about.  The ashram looked as though it hadn’t been active for a few years.

We met an Italian woman who had come especially to see him, she was very moved to have arrived the day after he died, and we all had a hug.  A caretaker was there, but no other residents.  An Indian man who spoke good English showed us around.  He showed us the Baba’s bed and a picture of him on the wall and we took photographs.  He asked to take a photograph of all of us together in front of the Baba’s picture, ‘To remember this day.’

He explained that he had grown up knowing the Baba, who had come to India as a young man in the 1960s and stayed, at first he had lived in nearby caves.  For the past four years the Baba had been living between Goa and Italy and hadn’t been to the ashram, as he was very old.  He had decided to visit the ashram and look around and do some tidying in the garden.

He had travelled from Goa to Hampi, which is quite a journey along bumpy roads; he was staying in a guesthouse in Hampi not at the ashram as he needed somewhere more comfortable with a fan.  When he arrived in Hampi he began to feel unwell.  His wife and children were with him.  He didn’t get to the ashram but he did get back to Hampi.

I asked the Italian woman if the Baba was famous in Italy.  She said not exactly famous, but known because of a book that had been written about him by a fellow Italian.  She said the title translates as ‘Barefoot on the Earth.’

After Hampi we left India and went to Cambodia.  We spent a few days in Phnom Penh and then went to Otres Village near Sihanoukville.  There we met a Spanish woman who speaks and reads Italian.  She had borrowed a book off another guest to read… guess what it was?!  Yes, the book about Baba Cesare the Italian Baba.  We took a picture of the actual book, above.  Below, the river and coracle and the ashram.

Thank you very much for reading

About the author

Sold house left job decluttered almost everything else.  With husband went travelling for a year, mostly in India.   Here are my India highlights.  Just arrived back in the UK and now living on a narrowboat.  Writing a book about everything…

For more photographs of the trip see Instagram travelswithanthony