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I had a minor altercation with a French lady today. But before I regale you with my amusing anecdote, let me qualify how I feel about French people. You (should) all know that I spent a year in Paris, that I loved every second of it, that I have many French friends, that I love French people, that I frickin’ devour French food and the lifestyle of ‘les 35 heures’ et cetera, et cetera… However, sometimes I think that they have a serious chip on their shoulder, more than a chip… a whole plate of freedom fries with ketchup and a burger! So the result is that I love nothing more than to take the piss out of them, and do so with glee at every occasion. And I feel smug that I can speak French and can take the piss out of them in their own language.

So here goes… and it’s not even important that this lady was French, the sentinel fact is that she was a gobshite, but the fact that she was French makes it all the more enjoyable for me.

You see, I have been reading a book that friend gave me. It’s called Atlas Shrugged and it’s by a lady named Ayn Rand. It’s fiction but it’s got a philosophical undercurrent which promotes her objectivist and capitalist ideas… She’s all for private property, civil liberties, minimal state, dog-eat-dog, market supremacy etc. etc. So having spent all day reading this book, I was in a certain state of mind… let’s just say that I wasn’t gonna look up the nearest hammer-and-sickle outfit and offer them my services.

I was leaving my hotel to get a rickshaw to the bus station for a night bus to Jaipur. Standing outside the hotel, a rickshaw pulls up with the aforementioned French lady. She gets out and pays the driver. I stand there looking at him, letting him know that he has another fare if he wants it. He asks where I’m going and I say the bus station. I ask if he’ll take me there for 20 rupees (the price the hotel receptionist had told me was a fair fare to the bus station). He agrees and indicates for me to hop in at which the following dialogue begins:

Stupid French Women (SFW): (to driver) Excuse mee, butt ow much does eee wont to pay you?

Me: I’ve offered him 20 rupees to bring me to the bus station and he’s agreed.

SFW: But twontee ruupeeeees is verry leetel… you should pay at leest feefty roopees

Me: Ehhh, he’s agreed to take me for 20 and that’s a fair price for a five minute journey.

SFW: Noooo, eet ees not fair… eet ees too leetel

Me: With all due respect madam, this is a transaction between me and him. It is no concern of yours, I’m sorry.

SFW (getting emotional now): Eet ees verry muuuech my con-sern… I know zis man for a long time… forr five yearrrrss.

Me: Madam, if you would like to distort the local market through inflated prices and to degrade the businessmen through forcing charity on them, then please feel free to do so with your own money, but not with mine.

She stared at me with a blank face and walked off tutt-tutting and mumbling under her breath (she was probably saying Sacre Bleu). Anyway, that pissed me off no end… This is the problem with foreigners in India… you get so many frickin’ do-gooders all looking to work in an orphanage or a slum, either that or you get the spiritual types… A bit of either in small portions is alright, but people go way off the scales here!

I knew that that women was gonna be trouble. I had seen her come into the breakfast room that morning on her own. I looked up from my book, smiled and said: Good morning… She gave me a stupid grin of superiority and said Bonjour in a way that meant: Fuck off, you’re not French! The frenchies always do that: they always say Bonjour. You never hear the Krauts saying Guten Tag, or the Spics saying Buenos Dias, or the Ruskis saying Dobre Dien, or even the Japs saying Konichiwa… but the frickin’ froggies will always say BONJOUR, as if it’s some kind of frickin’ stamp of honour branded into their forehead: I – AM – FRRRRRRENCH… I – SPEAK – FRRRRRRRRENCCCCCCCCCHHHHHH… You expect them to crack out a beret and out into a rendition of the Marsaillaise

Anyway, that’s enough French bashing for today… although it was good fun! No hard feelings to any French people, you know I love you (and your chip)…

Oh yeah, camel trek… great fun. Just two of us, me and an American chap, Joey (his website is here). It was a cool three days: sauntering around the desert on camels, stopping for chai, lunch and dinner, eating and drinking around campfires, sleeping under the stars on big dunes, a sandstorm one night, a scorpion attack the next, desert bugs the size of my fist., stopping in local villages and getting invited to chai, washing at wells… It was really cool. See photos below for da viz-oo-al ill-oo-stration!

Also, I was immensely happy to hear about Ireland’s Grand Slam in the Six Nations. Unfortunately, I could only listen to the first twenty minutes of the match on the net before the only Internet café insisted on kicking me out for the night, but I enjoyed reading about it the next day… sounds like it was a nail-biting match!

Right, that’s all for today. I'm in Jaipur now, the pink city and plan to stop off at a little town called Bundy before I continue to the city of Agra, and the Taj Mahal.

Pour votre correspondent en Inde… a la prochaine ;-)

Tales from the beyond the grave

Soy muerte! I’m expired… six feet under… dead as a doorknob! I’ve passed on, I’ve checked out… I am, no more!

OK, so strictly speaking I’m not actually dead, but I am in a coffin. (I can’t be dead, cos I promised my Mum I wouldn’t die on this trip). I’m in a coffin with my laptop. It’s actually worse than a coffin cos I would imagine that my family would splurge on a coffin that I might fit into. This particular coffin is about half a foot short of my height and fits snugly around my midsection with enough headroom for me to fold open my laptop while it rests on my crotch.

OK, OK, stop shouting… Jesus H. Christ… can a man not use some mild hyperbole to illustrate his point. I’m in a sleeper bus and have a single sleeper cell/bed/coffin. When I was in Turkey I remember an Ozzie girl telling me that the best thing about India was sleeper buses… Mental note to unfriend her on facebook and notify the Australian mental retardation authorities that they have a loony on the loose with a round-the-world ticket.

Give me my trains any day… I’m being shaken to shit here (I have to go bcak and erspell veery word afresh). Its just after midnight and I left Udaipur at half nine this evening for a place called Jaisalmer in the Northwest of Rajasthan. So either I’ll arrive there or at the pearly gates at half eight tomorrow morning. I hope it’s Jaisalmer, cos if it’s the pearly gates, St. Pete will probably tell me to take a long walk of a short pier.

Udaipur was luvly altogether… If anyone remembers the Bond film Octopussy, well that was all set in Udaipur… it’s all palaces and lakes and that kind of malarkey. I met some cool Danes on the train from Bomgay (oh dear, a Freudian slip) and we walked around the old town, ate some good chow and drank tea and beer. The weather played ball as well, and despite foreboding warnings of extreme heat, it was quite pleasant. In fact, this evening we were sitting down having a final Udaipur beer when thunder and amazing lightning started up and it started pissing rain. First rain in India, it was great.

On Wednesday, we also went for a days trekking, which turned out to be very, very, very relaxed trekking. Like a frickin’ loser, I decided that I was gonna wear my heart rate monitor and maybe get an aul’ cardio session out of it. So we started off and after about four minutes we stopped for our first break at this cave temple on the side of a mountain. There was a big group of delinquents hanging around outside who invited us for tea and chillums. An hour and a half later we set off again on our grueling quest. We walked around the corner to another temple (a Shiva temple to be precise)… oh fuck, my bus just stopped and the engine turned off… the sheer peace and tranquility… Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmm…

Anyway, where woz I? Yeah, so we stopped at another Shiva temple where we were given an audience with a Sadhu (a holy man). We were ushered into his quarters and sat down cross-legged in front of him on his bed. We had a little Shiva shrine behind us and everything was painted red. He must have been at least ten thousand years old. His hair and beard merged into one rug-like unit that collected on the floor in front of him, broken only by random black teeth-like objects protruding from the area where I would imagine his mouth must have been located. He sat on his bed in the lotus position, his torso bare and shriveled. Behind his beard, every rib and bone in his upper body was clearly defined with dark brown skin stretched over it like cling film.

We sat there for a while. He had a couple of young acolytes who prepared chillum after chillum and passed them our way. The Sadhu appeared to take a liking to me and ranted away about god-knows-what. At least I think he was talking, his beard was moving slightly and muffled noises were coming out. Every now and then one of his bony fingers would extend in the direction of the Shiva shrine in front of him, his eyes would light up and I’d hear a name of one of the Gods … One of the acolytes tried to translate for me. He seemed to be talking of the Hindu trinity: Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu, and how they were all really one God.

After so many chillums, I could only really just sit there and stare at him, nodding occasionally and feigning an understanding of what he was saying. But he was a nice guy… At one point he took a wooden flute out of his bag, stuck it into his beard and started playing away, happy as larry! He was a nice man… when we were leaving, he gave us some sweets and a pat on the head… which was nice!

After that, we sauntered up to a lake which I had informed everyone I was going to swim in, no matter what state it was in. The first thing we saw was a big bloated cow, it’s body submerged, it’s feet sticking up out of the water. It was like a caricature of what a bad place to swim looks like. We went to the other side of the lake and after a few minutes of playing amateur scientists, we decided that swimming wasn’t going to be an option, so we continued on our merry way. (It was more of a delirious way actually).

So then we walked back around the corner and we were back where we started, having spent most of the day sitting around talking shite and having taken about seventeen footsteps. My heart rate monitor indicated that my heart had beaten about twelve times in the five and a half hours we were gone. So it was a lovely relaxing day.

Right, apparently my peace and tranquility is over again… the engine just roared up and we’re away bumping across the countryside again. As soon as I close the screen on this laptop I’ll be landed back in a claustrophobic nightmare… St. Pete has it so easy up there with his little register of who was bad and who was good. Anyway, I don't care about all that... I’ve decided I’m gonna be reincarnated as a cow in India.

Signing off… ur man in a coffin…

PS: I was actually good with photos in Udaipur, so I’ve decided to post them below bringing me completely and utterly butterly up-to-date with my viz-oo-als… Gimme some skin…

Post-ed: I've now actually arrived in Jaisalmer and am posting this entry. It's supposed to be hot as hell here but it ain't actually that bad... This evening it's been quite windy and it even rained a little. I've signed myself up for a three day camel safari starting tomorrow morning at 7.30am... So I'm going to bed early now and I'll prepare my bum for some camel riding... (ehhhhh, as in using the camel as a means of propulsion...). I'll lash up some photos when I get back.

Holi shitballs!

It’s 7.30am and I’ve just come back from the latrine… daily ablutions performed, teeth brushed, face washed… I feel fresh as a daisy! I’m on the Udaipur Express which left Bombay yesterday afternoon at 3.45pm and is due in the Lake City of Udaipur in about an hour’s time. My phone has just beeped with a ‘Welcome to Rajahsthan’ message from the operator. As usual, I’ve got myself an upper berth where I can remove myself from the floor-level madness, and it’s here that I’m now perched, typing this entry precariously onto my teetering laptop.

So I’ve finally been able to drag myself away from Bombay. Having previously booked my train for last Monday, my friends managed to persuade me that I should stay for Holi, so I rebooked for Friday. That, of course, was an amateur mistake. “Conor, what’s the point of leaving a major city before the weekend”, they prodded, “Surely you should stay for brunch on Saturday and some Saturday night antics?” So again, I cancelled and rebooked for Sunday. After two weeks in the city of dreams, I finally managed to escape.

‘Escape’…? Dunno if that fits the bill. The truth is that I could have stayed in Bombay indefinitely. Without a doubt, it’s my favourite city so far on this journey. I feel that I penetrated its chaotic haze and lived like a Mumbaiker for a short time, rather than just passing through. My experience there was sculpted by the people I met: Jerry, Vik, Mal, Dex, Son, Pooty, Vicky, Ivan, Sam, Saatu, Bushen, Anahata, Krishna, Karnika… the list goes on… I’ve never fallen into the life of a city like I did in Bom and it won’t be something that I forget too easily.

Holi was a pretty wild day. It’s the Indian festival of colours celebrating transformation and the changing of the season. We got up early and prepared ourselves with the prerequisites: Supersoaker… check… White clothes which you’re willing to fuck up… check… Gulal (or coloured powder)… check… Water balloons… check… A Ziploc bag to protect anything of value from the multi-coloured sludge… check… We marched down a jam-packed Juhu beach for around eleven o’clock and started throwing colours at each other. As a firangi (or foreigner) I seemed to attract the attention of kids who felt their myriad of colours contrasted nicely against my pale skin. I also lost all inhibitions concerning the sea. Any Bombay beach that I had previously sauntered down was always marred by the feeling that I would, under no circumstances, ever touch that water. But on Holi it was different… It seemed that half of Bombay was in the sea playing games, so I waded in and joined them.

The story of Holi is as follows: There was a king who thought he was all that and then some. He felt he was in touch with the gods and thought he was their deity on earth. All his subjects bowed down and submitted to him, with the notable exception of his son, who rejected his omnipotence… So the King asked his sister, the son’s aunty, who had been blessed by an inability to be burned, to take the son into a fire and kill him. As she brought the son into the fire, the gods transferred her incombustibility to the boy, who was saved while his aunty burned to death… To reinforce their support of the child and their rejection of his megalomaniac father, the gods came to earth in the form of a lion and tore the King apart, placing his son on the throne. Dunno how throwing colours got linked to that but that’s the story that the guy on the train told me… (PS: I looked it up, it's marginally true... see here for actual story).

The Injuns like their stories. The Hindu deities are animated in a plethora of different lores and legends which are recounted to children as they grow up. The legends seek to illustrate the characteristics of different deities and to reinforce the morals by which people should live.

The clothes that I had chosen to meet their maker on Holi included my lucky white cotton shirt. It had seen me through a lot: being soaked bloodred after my NYC car crash and an innumerable amount of mud, coffee, wine, beer and (I’m not afraid to say) puke stains. My mum had always managed to turn it around and rescue it. But recently, it’s been going downhill and didn’t really fit me so well anymore. I decided that ‘Death by Holi’ was a respectful and worthy final resting place for such a fateful garment.

So now I’m arriving into Udaipur. Excluding my brief time in Amritsar at the start of my Indian leg, it’s the first time I’m in the North. I can already see some tell-tale Rajastani trademarks… coloured turbans, twirled moustaches etc.

There’s one thing which I’ve been meaning to mention but keep on forgetting. It’s completely unrelated to anything else but is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life. Sometimes in big cities, you get fancy malls with western shops. These malls have escalators. You should see some Indian people getting on to these escalators… it’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. They approach it slowly, trying to grab the handrail (which is of course moving)… They lift their feet and try to place them on the moving steps very carefully. Obviously, you can’t do this with an escalator and you just have to hop on, but they don’t seem to get this. (For those of you that know Father Ted, think of Mrs. Doyle trying to get off the window ledge). I’ve spent hours sitting at the bottom of escalators giggling to myself while watching their attempts. Eventually, they jump on holding onto the banisters for dear life.

Oh, in other news (and since I haven’t mentioned poo for a while), I broke through a new barrier recently which caused many of my friends wild hilarity: I… ehhhhhhh… ‘cleaned myself’ without toilet paper! Yes… that’s right, I just did it… I summoned up all my courage and did it. Toilet paper is something only used by firangi’s here (and Jerry), so I took the plunge and cleaned myself Indian style using hand (left hand) and water. Apparently though, I didn’t do it quite right. I made the mistake of telling my friend Vikram, that I had done it ‘from the front’. Being the loudmouth that he is, he then told the rest of Bombay, who rolled around the floor laughing at the prospect of cleaning yourself ‘from the front’. Anyway, it’s actually not half as bad as you might think. You definitely get yourself much cleaner ‘down there’; you just have to make sure that you give your hands a good post-defecation scrub.

That’s it for the moment… I was really terrible in Bombay with pictures… I’ve posted what I have below, but it’s only really party pics and stuff like that. (I feel too self conscious taking pics of people… I feel like I’m intruding)…

Signing off… ur man in Rajastan…

Pics from Hampi

Hey Folks,
Very hungover and tired today after a mammoth Holi session yesterday. I'll give you a more detailed post about Holi, but for now, be content with some photos from Hampi, where I hung around with an Argie girl and a Swedish guy for two days before I came back to Mumbai.
Be gud... C.

Goan Pics

OK, so here are some photos from Goa in February... I'm slowly catching up...

Nearly a Mumbaiker...

"Gud moning sir" infiltrated my slumber this morning... Ignore, surely it's the final remnants of some dream expressing itself in a Hinglish accent... "Wake op sir" the voice persevered. I open my eyes and see Kapil in front of my double bed clasping a cup of chai in his hands: "Chai sir?". I grumble a thank you and point at my dresser. He puts the chai down and leaves the room, only to return moments later with an egg sandwich for my breakfast.

Kapil is my house boy. This may sound bizarre but I have somehow found myself living in Mumbai. Not living as in breathing and habitation, but living as in experiencing at first hand. I've been here only ten days now (coming on the back of a two week sojourn in January), and Mumbai has become, without doubt, the favoured city of my travels to date.

So how do I have a houseboy? Last time I was here I made some very good friends. This time around, one of those guys, Vikram, has invited me to stay with him. He uses a rather flash corporate guesthouse in the northwestern suburbs (Andheri) and has a spare room. He also has a houseboy who brings me breakfast, cooks me lunch, does my washing, makes my bed, cleans my room and generally does all those things which I don't like doing myself.

Apart from Vikram and his friends, I also hang around with a great guy named Jerry (see sidebar for his blog) and his friends, as well as Ana Hatha, a filmmaker, and her friends. During the weekend, we went to the theatre, to the cinema, for coffee, for food, for drinks, to a pub, to a club and to a Bollywood premiere of Ana Hatha's film (rubbing shoulders with big bollywood stars). It's quite bizarre but my social diary is packed to the brim and I'm having an absolute ball of a time.

Mumbai is a fascinating city. The energy that flows through it is remarkable. A microcosm of India (particularly aligned to the South), it seems to have all extremes: poverty and opulence, tranquility and mayhem, tradition and modernity... When you walk around the city during the day, the heat beats down on your head and the rickshaw drivers honk like it's going out of fashion.

The city is absolutely huge, it's distances enforcing egalitarianism on its citizens... There's no point trying to drive from south to north unless you have a whole day to spare. The only way to cover large distances is the suburban rail system where everyone packs into the same sweltering carriages, slum-dwelling chai wallah, or high flying bollywood director. Carriages don't have doors and everyone just hangs out the side. The scenes at rush hour are incredible. When a train slows down at station, a little mini-war erupts at each carriage door. The exiting mob pours off, even before the train comes to a halt, and the waiting mob tries to fight their way onto the train. Pacifism doesn't work here... it's a dog-eat-dog world. If you wanna get on the train, you have to be prepared to stand on people, drag them back by their nostrils... just try to grab some kind of metal railing... hold onto it and pull yourself in, crowd surfing in the process... This is still going on while the train pulls off, the weaker remain on the platform, the stronger will survive until the next station at least, where the melee will be repeated.

Your correspondent has adapted to the local methods and is happy of his extra few kilos, which come in very handy when bouncing a Tamil or Keralite out of his way. I try to keep to the door of the carriage where the breeze keeps one cool, but this requires a rather bollocky attitude when you come to a station where you don't want to alight: Being at the door, the mob pushes you out, whether you want it or not... You have to hold on to the door with your hand and one foot... and swing to the side of the carriage so that your torso is out of the action. This guarantees your place at the door as when the train starts pulling off, you swing back and push in whoever is in your way. Everyone moans and shouts, but it's a lot of fun... Women have their own carriages!

So tomorrow is Holi, the Hindu Festival of Colours... I'm gonna make a move from Mumbai and start going north after that...

I realise how bad I've been with photos... I have loads ready, but just can't find an Internet cafe with a USB compliant operating system, meaning that I can't post them... they are coming though!

Will update after Holi!