The end.

The rest of my time in McLeod Ganj was as relaxed (lazy?!) as I’d hoped. I did a little work, I did a little yoga and I did a little walking. I also did a lot of nothing much in between. It was lovely.

Three weeks later, however, I got the itch and decided to ignore everyone’s advice and brave the heat in Rajasthan. So, a seven hour bus ride and a ten hour train journey later, I arrived in Pushkar.

On exiting the bus, I bonded with a Finish girl over our shared dream of a swimming pool. Anu and I tracked down the Navratan Palace Hotel and were possibly a little too excited to find the pool was everything all the strangers on the road had promised. So much so that we’d checked in and jumped in without about 10 minutes.

People’s worries about the heat were worth ignoring. It is hot, but it’s also almost empty of foreign tourists, making for a very leisurely pace of life and lots of opportunities for drinking chai with the shop keepers - and bartering. Which Anu and I made the most of! We spent a week together chatting, shopping, swimming and sunbathing – all while worrying about our respective trips home and dreaming of ways in which we could stay. That was a week ago – Anu is now in London, and I am still in Pushkar.

I honestly did mean to leave. It’s just that all the trains were full. Well, it’s PARTLY because all the trains were full. It’s also partly because (wait for it...) I think I am tired of travelling. There, I’ve said it. I think I might actually be ready to come home. The lure of sightseeing has worn thin. For the moment anyway.

In this new frame of mind, I’ve treated the last few weeks as a holiday. A holiday to end my holiday.

I’ve spent days by the pool; feeding the tortoises and watching the new born kittens playing in the hotel garden.

I’ve shopped, I’ve drunk chai with all my new best friends in the market and I’ve watched the sunset over the lake.

I’ve been given chocolate by the waiter at the hotel in secret celebration of his exam success (82%!). And I’ve spent a couple of days talking philosophy with a guy called Ed, before he left me to head north to see Mr Dalai Lama.

I’ve eaten a lot; I think the (all veg) food in Pushkar is amongst the best I’ve eaten in India. I’ve stumbled across the best lassi of the trip too – the cashew nut lassi at Shiva’s juice stall in AMAZING. Fortunately I’ve talked myself into yoga every (OK, most) mornings and a few lengths everyday in the pool to burn it off. I’ve written a bit, I’ve read a lot and I’ve relaxed.

Right now, life is very good.

Mountains, Muscles and Monks.

From Amritsar, I took a local bus for the 7 hour trip to Mcleod Ganj (home of the Dalai Lama), along with a Polish guy from the Golden Temple dorm. His lack of English and my complete lack of Polish making for very entertaining communication along the way.

So far, I am loving Mcleod Ganj. I’m doing yoga, I’m walking up (and getting lost on) some HUGE hills (they might actually be mountains...). I’ve been moved by the Monk’s hunger strikes and candle light demonstrations and I’ve found a room to share that has both hot water AND a kitchen!

I have sore muscles but a peaceful mind. I think I might stay a while...

Some of the spectacular scenery

One of the candle light demonstrations:

The best things in Amritsar are free

Dragging myself away from Rishikesh, I found myself on yet another train – with yet another screaming child. Apparently I am very scary – or at least my glasses are. Once I took them off it was all smiles, and I chatted to his parents who shared their homemade chapattis and aloo gobi with me. I then slept surprisingly well, completely missing their exit and waking up in an empty carriage wondering whether I had imagined them!

So, on to Amritsar. It’s another hectic Indian town, but it has a very different character from others I’ve visited. The mostly Sikh population are a little less pushy and ever so giving! This is the home of their most holy temple; the Golden Temple.

The temple itself is a strange combination of peaceful and nuts. There are people sitting quietly meditating in the mornings, families chatting loudly (and taking photos of westerners) in the day, and men stripping to their undies to dip in the holy water at all times. In the evening I watched their 11th guru (their holy book) ‘put to bed’ (it has pillows and everything!) surrounded by pushing and shoving, laughing and chatting, silently praying and quietly chanting Indian’s of all religions.

As well as free entry to the temple, they provide free dorm beds and free food here too. Apparently they feed up to 100,000 people every day...literally every day. Their kitchen works 24 hours, 365 days per year. It’s an immense feat!

I took a tour of the kitchen, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen one so clean or so organised. It’s staffed by volunteers who do everything from food prep to washing up. There are three types of chapattis on the go – machine made, gas made and old fashioned wood burner made. There’s fresh dahl and spicy potato, rice pudding (with coconut milk, it’s really good!) and chai.

And it’s all free to everyone, from every walk of life and every faith. It really was an incredible thing to experience. And I was made to feel very welcome by everyone I spoke to – many of whom had travelled from far away to come and volunteer their services. It’s a place I would love to go back to.

Relaxing in Rishikesh.

The plan was to do yoga every day, to detox in an ashram, to eat healthily and walk lots. The reality was a bad back on day 3 and two weeks of sitting about chatting, drinking masala chai and eating cookies instead. Such is life.


My view for two weeks.

Before I crippled myself, I did manage to visit the deserted ashram where the Beatles reportedly wrote the White Album.

And take a spectacular day out on the back of a scooter (driven by a very careful guy called Kevin). We survived terrifying mountain roads, taking in incredible views across the Himalayas. Oh and we blagged our way inside a 5 star luxury spa hotel for a look around too.

Day three in Delhi – the one when I tried to find wifi

My last day in Delhi, so what did I do? Final sightseeing? Soak up the culture? Nope, I spent it looking for wifi. I promise this wasn’t just for a Facebook fix – I needed to download some work. Firstly I took a little tour of the coffee shops in Connaught Place. Nothing. Then I tried the tea shop in the famous Oxford bookstore. Shut (damn Sundays!). Then I walked all the way back to where I’d started and found it in the foyer of a guesthouse opposite mine.

I was going to go to the Lotus Temple. I was going to go to Humaun’s Tomb. But by the time my wifi hunt was over I had a blister on the bottom of my foot and no mind for meditation or sights.

Food on the roof while watching a big procession pass by on the road below, a little work, then bed with crappy TV (a TV in my room. Woohoo!) instead.

The Sunday Parade, Delhi.

Oh I know how to have fun.

Day two in Dehli – the one where they won the world cup.

I spent the day walking around in Old Dehli (in flip-flops...you should have seen the colour of my feet afterwards!) – past markets, the Red Fort, Jama Masjid, cows and street stalls.

The Red Fort, Old Delhi

Sometimes I walked alone, sometimes I walked alongside (over)friendly wannabe tour guides/boyfriends/husbands.

Jama Masjid, Old Delhi









No doubt you’ll be delighted to see that I eventually caved in and bought myself a new camera (at £40, it seemed rude not to!). So I don’t have to bore you with just words anymore, I now have photos to do that job.


Sightseeing over for the day, it was time for the cricket. World Cup mania was everywhere! Every shop, bar, restaurant and home had a TV on. Every rickshaw and street stall had a radio. And intermittent cheers went up all around. It was a great atmosphere!

I watched India’s final innings (is that the right word?!) from a roof top restaurant and then watched the celebrations cascade out of buildings and into the streets below afterwards. The world went from empty to full in the space of about 20 minutes!

Day one in Dehli – the one where I walked.

After 30 hours on a train with a screaming child next to me, I arrived in Delhi and made my way to the Lord Krishna Hotel in Pahar Ganj (it’s the Delhi version of Koh San Road in Bangkok. But with less Pad Thai, more chapattis – and no McDs). I met Buda and Maja (again!) in time for their last night in India before they headed home to Serbia. Having waved them off at 1am, I crashed out for the night – and woke up at 7am to the soothing sound of scooters, cars, cows, people, dogs... It’s a very peaceful neighbourhood.

I decided to break myself in ‘gently’ so, after breakfast (including a fix of my latest addiction; masala tea), I went for a walk down the Main Bizarre to Connaught Place. It’s a bit like London in rush hour - all the time.

After the sixth man ‘accidently’ fell into step with me and asked for my name, my age, my marital status, my plans for the day, my feelings about India and my feelings about Indian men, I decided to get into a rickshaw and hide myself inside the National Museum for a couple of hours.

Lots of stone figurines, swords and miniature paintings later (actually, the paintings were really interesting!), I braved the outside world again (dodging rickshaw drivers and a few more friendly young men) and headed to the Ghandi Smriti. This was a very different walk - compared to my morning stroll it felt eerily deserted. Long, wide tree lined roads with empty well kept pavements.

The Ghandi Smriti was really good – and free! As well as the home where Ghandi spent the last days of his life, there’s a memorial pathway that follows his last walk to the place of his assassination. With quotes from Ghandi posted along the path, it’s a moving experience. There’s also an incredible interactive section to the museum – a cross between my childhood memories of the hands on bit of the science museum and the Tate Modern.

Feeling calmed, I tracked down the nearest Metro station (which was not 5k away as the rickshaw drivers tried to tell me!), and rode the ladies only carriage back to New Delhi Station (which, confusingly, is not in New Delhi but between Old Delhi and Pahar Ganj).

Dinner, book, bed.

Home sweet home

I am now a week into my second stay in Patnem and it’s beginning to feel like I live here!

This time I’ve upgraded myself from the little hut up the road to a little room at Home on the beach (it's the place to go for chocolate brownies and apricot cream crumble tarts).

It's a fair bit nicer than where I stayed before (there’s fairy lights and everything!) and I figured a little ‘luxury’ was deserved after all my hard work travelling. The novelty of bugs and dirt has worn a bit thin now.




I’ve spent the last week working on my secret project with Clare. Hopefully it will be a secret no longer from the 1s April. Watch this space.

I plan to spend the next week working on my tan, reading, drinking mint tea in Tantra (my favourite bar on the beach) and stealing wifi in Mamoos (the only place that sells Chana Masala in Patnam). That’s pretty much it really. I am seriously getting very good at doing nothing. How am I ever going to fit in a job when I get home?

Me and the Tantra Boys.










The plan is to travel to Delhi by train on Wednesday. But as the trains are booked up for weeks and weeks (every man and his dog is attempting to escape the Goan heat), I am currently on the waiting list for a ticket. I just need 15 people to cancel... Could be a long walk otherwise.

Friends, f*ck ups, and floating lights

Having waved a fond farewell to Peter (aka James Bond/Indiana Jones/My Austrian), I spent my last day on Ashvem beach working. Yep, really. Copy completed for the Queen of Digital’s website (coming soon!), I took a walk to the nearest bar with wifi to send it – where I met Ji, the Bar Manager.

An hour later, we had successfully crippled my laptop between us by attempting to fix the T button. Another hour on, I had given up re-fixing it and glued a bit of screwed up paper in the gap so that I can still type Ts. No button anymore though.


Poor Ji felt sufficiently guilty to feed me free drinks for the rest of the evening, so by bed time I really didn’t mind anymore. We swapped emails and I staggered back to my hut to sleep before my early morning start and trip south the next day.

Waking up a little groggy, I packed, paid and ran. Only to have to wait two hours at the station for the train to turn up. But delays aside, I made is safely to Agonda (via taxi, train, motorbike, another taxi...nothing is ever simple here). All good, I thought. I found somewhere to stay, reached into my bag to hand over my passport...and bought out nothing. Gulp. Deep breathing, panic hunting (i.e. emptying content of entire bag onto the floor), internet searching for phone number of Sea Creek (where I’d been staying) all quickly followed. Nothing. No passport. No phone number. Just a hazy memory of handing it over when I checked in, and no memory at all of being given it back.

Thank god for my broken T button. I emailed Ji and he came to my rescue. Passport was confirmed safe...now all I had to do was get it back. Enter Clare. My friend from Varkala was sunning herself in north Goa and went on a passport rescue trip for me. So me, my passport and Clare arranged a reunion in Patnem.

Back to Agonda beach first though. Books, sunset walks and late night swims filled a lovely few days. The night swimming there is incredible. Something in the water lights up on movement. As the waves break they glow and shimmer. And as you swim, bright sparks of light dance on your skin. I’ve never experienced anything like it. Truly magical.

A surprisingly lovely interlude. (now with pics)

The best thing about the ashram was the people. And I was a bit sad to say goodbye to them. Buda and Maja (my company in Hampi) had escaped the day before me, as had Regina my fellow satsang skiver. And there were lots of others who stayed the course.

I need not have worried. By the end of my time in Varkala, pretty much everyone had turned up. Ok, I exaggerate. Not everyone. But there were a lot of familiar faces!

On the first day in Varkala I bumped into my first ashram face. Clare. She’s...well she’s all sorts of things. She’s a chef, a menu designer, a corporate caterer, a food journalist, a tailor addict and truly hilarious company. All summed up by the job title ‘Food Consultant’, I believe. Although I’m not sure if the last two are part of her official remit.

Anyway, we proceeded to spend the next week together. We set the world to rights and concocted a brilliant (even if I do say so myself) plan that combines both our talents. But it’s a secret, so I can’t tell you yet.

To cut a long story short, despite only going to Varkala on a whim, and despite the rather grotty beach, I had an amazing time there. 6 days mostly spent in cafes! It was with a good handful of reservations (and I don’t mean the train variety) that I left and subjected myself to 18 hours in sleeper class. Oh, and 5 hours at the train station beforehand.
Good thing I like trains.

A last minute decision (yep, I still specialise in those) saw me sailing past my booked destination of Cancona and staying on until Thivum instead. So I am now in Ashvem (south of Arambol) catching up with Peter (the Austrian) before he flies home.

I’ll let you know the next destination once I pick it.

Noisy peace (now with pics)

Two weeks in an ashram. How hard can that be? I asked myself. After all, I survived ten days’ worth of silent meditation. This should be easy in comparison.

Hmmm.

The first day started pretty well. I arrived at about 2pm, checked in, chatted to people, did some yoga and got fed. So far so good. Admittedly the food was a little dull, but not inedible. The dorm was clean, the people nice and the yoga good. I began to think that I might stay longer than just two little weeks. Foolish girl.

Things can change very quickly. One word: satsang. Twenty minutes of meditation followed by at least forty minutes of Hindu chanting. It started to go wrong for me about one minute into the meditation. Find peace, they said. Find inner stillness and calm. Peace? Perhaps if they provided industrial strength ear defenders I might be in with a chance. I’m not kidding. The music being pumped out of the nearby temple was at nightclub level. Someone suggested that they have to keep it that loud...after all, with 1.1 billion people competing for their Gods’ attention, they need to try hard to stand out.

So, inner peace having failed to be achieved, me and my increasingly bad mood moved into chanting. Now, anyone who knows me well can probably imagine how much I enjoyed this. Religion, ritual and group singing. I may have succumbed to the odd noribang in Korea and a night or three of drunken karaoke in Malaysia but rest assured, public singing is never going to be high up my to do list. Especially when sober.

I can honestly say I hated it. Ritual of any kind sets my teeth on edge. It’s a bit like nails down a blackboard to me. So by the time it ended I was seriously re-considering my earlier enthusiasm and trying to find out when the next train out would be.

To be fair, not everyone hated it. This was my issue. For some people it was a very spiritual experience, for some a minor irritation and only for the vast minority was it a form of slow torture.

Day 2 began at 5.30am with the early morning wake-up bell. We all gathered for Satsang at 6am and repeated the previous evening’s meditation to ear-ringing music and chanting to my gritted teeth.

Things picked up after that with tea, yoga and (still a little dull) food. Karma yoga duties were assigned (mine was cleaning the dining hall after dinner) and there was the day’s second yoga class. All followed up by dinner (now approaching the realms of very dull) and more satsang.

Repeat for 8 days.

Day 9. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t stand, I couldn't sit and I couldn’t bend - at least not without a little whimper. Now I know that I’m a wuss, but I’m also pretty sure that yoga isn’t mean to cripple you. So that afternoon I gave in and went to the gently yoga class (rather than the scary intermediate one). At the end I spoke to the lovely yoga therapy lady...it turns out that Sivananda yoga is especially bad for my kind of back issue. Oh good. (Don’t worry; I won’t bore you with the details. But I promise this complaint is not in my head, I have x-rays to prove it!). Trust me to pick the one style of yoga that will do me more harm than good.

Day 10. I escaped. I would have been crazy to stay. The satsang was turning me into a crazy person and the yoga was turning me into an OAP. Plus there’s only so much hatha yoga and breathing exercises I can take, even without the spine crunching backbends. Give me ashtanga any day.

The only question now was where to escape to. All the trains seemed to be booked for weeks in advance. But with a little persuasion (and I do mean a very little), a talked someone else into sharing the cost of a rickshaw to Varkala. It turns out the even yoga teachers can get backbended out.

Sore behinds and stare-filled beaches.

After an incredibly relaxing afternoon messing about on the river, the following day proved to be a bit of a culture shock. Up at the crack of dawn. Chasing rickshaws down the road. Arriving late for the train. Buying an extra expensive last-minute ticket. Spending four hours sitting on the hard train floor dodging stamping feet and swinging bags.

Eventually Peter and I arrived in Trivandrum. And then decided to leave. We headed out to Kovalam to the beach. I’m not sure it was our best decision – it’s a little like being in Margate (no offense to anyone from Margate...). Still, after spending an afternoon feeling terribly self-conscious on the beach (the locals can be a bit, erm, stare-y), we found a quiet place to eat and spent a lovely evening talking politics, religion and environmental activism with two Italian ladies and a Spanish one. It was made extra entertaining by the fact that this was all conducted in three languages. The Austrian and Italians being able to speak Italian, English and Spanish. The Spanish lady, only Spanish. And me, only English. It all made for a very entertaining Valentine’s evening.

The best things in life are (nearly) free

Alleppey was amazing. My Austrian friend and I took the early train down the coast (through some spectacular scenery – tranquil backwaters, tiny hamlets, bustling villages) and arrived just in time for the afternoon ferry ride through the backwaters to Kottayam. It’s the best 20 rupees I’ve ever spent. Alongside the locals, we sailed past the hundreds of private (and expensive) houseboats, coasting across Vembanad Lake and arriving in time for chai by the river in Kottayam – all before catching the last return trip back into the setting sun. It was breathtaking.

Prisoners and Prime Ministers (now with pics)

After two days on Kudle beach near Gokana, to top up the vitamin D levels, I boarded the overnight train to Ernakulam. I love the trains here (especially compared to the buses). Even in basic sleeper class I like them.

This trip was full of the usual un-usualness. The smiling old man in the berth across from me started his journey by carefully inflating his blow-up pillow, laying out his blanket and tucking in the corners, then giving me an enormous grin before settling down for the night.

There was a proud young couple with a new baby who were incredibly cute. Millions of vendors selling everything from super sweet coffee to, erm, super sweet tea.

And even two young men in matching blue outfits – who, on first glance, appeared to be holding hands. On second glance appeared to be holding hands and hand-cuffed together. And, on third glance, proved to be holding hands, hand-cuffed together and chaperoned by three men also wearing matching outfits. Police outfits. But they were all smiling. Even the hand-holding-hand-cuffed ones.

Towards the end of the journey I met an Austrian man and a French lady also heading to Fort Kochi. So on arrival in Ernakulam we shared the haggling and rickshaw ride. It turned out that the prime minister was in town, so there were no ferries from the mainland to Fort Kochi (I still haven’t quite worked out why the presence of the prime minister should equal the absence of the ferry...Indian logic I suppose) and we had to take the long way round – right through the city.

To be honest it was a bit of a shock after beaches and countryside scenery. The views from the train were beautiful. The views from the rickshaw were not.

But Fort Kochi itself is pretty. It’s certainly the most European looking place I’ve been for a while. Scarily colonial. A little tour of the churches, spice market (I’ve never seen so much ginger!) and old style laundry (with amazingly heavy irons heated internally by coconut shells) finished off with a ‘no I don’t want to go into that shop’ argument with the rickshaw driver was a good end to the day.

The old style fishing ‘things’ (no doubt there is a technical word for these...where’s the Lonely Planet when I need it?) along the river are brilliant too. They are these wooden contraptions that work on a seesaw/balance system. Basically, you have a huge net on one end and weights on the other. Less weights let the net drop down into the water – more weights pull it back out again (hopefully with fish in).

You can then buy the fresh fish and take it along to a restaurant of your choice where they will cook it for you. Which is exactly what my new Austrian friend, Peter, and I did last night. It’s a cool novelty if nothing else.

Next stop: Alleppey.

Monkeys and magical landscapes

So, I managed to tear myself away from the beach and head inland to Hampi. Five days later, I’m still here. It’s an odd place. Hampi Bizarre is very hickeldy-pickeldy (now there’s a phrase that I should use more often). Amazing architectural ruins and, to put it bluntly, shit. There’s the dog variety, the cow variety and, of course, the human variety. Fortunately, I have a cold. So I am saved from the worst of the smell.

I’m here with a lovely Serbian couple (Buda and Mayche) who I met in Patnem. And on our second day here, we upped sticks and moved to the ‘other’ side of the river. The ‘other’ side is where the hippies stay. I’ve never seen so many dreadlocks (or hairy armpits, for that matter) in one place before. But we met some nice Israeli’s without extra hair to spend time with.

Our new home is surrounded by paddy fields and frogs. And hippies...did I mention the hippies? It’s the perfect place for staying still, and I have spent a lot of the last few days lying on the swing bed outside our hut. Partly because I’ve been a bit poorly, and partly because it’s nice.

When I’ve not been gently rocking in the shade, I’ve been out to the reservoir for a swim or gasping for air on a midday bike ride around the ruins.
The ruins themselves are interesting. But, to be honest, I think Angkor Watt and friends have pretty much ruined (sorry) this kind of thing for me. They’re in a league of their own.

What has taken my breath away is the landscape itself. Crazy huge boulders piled high in massive heaps scattered in all directions. Watching the sunset over them from the monkey temple was quite something.

As were the monkeys. First they laugh at you as you pant your way up the 600 steps (ok, maybe that bit was my imagination), then they take pot-shots at you - trying to steal your bags or food. And, once you’ve arrived gasping at the top, they wait until you’re relaxed and then creep up behind you and start pulling at your t-shirt. At least, that was my experience. I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or frightened.
Hopefully some pictures will appear on Facebook in due time from the people I’ve met along the way.

Today is my last day here – I have the delights of an overnight sleeper bus to look forward to tonight. The call of the sea is too strong for me to resist, so it’s back to the coast – next stop Gokarna. Due to circumstances that I probably shouldn’t share in the public domain, I’m not sure how long I’ll stay there yet. We shall see.

I know, I know... (now with pics)

I'm shit! And I've run out of excuses.
So let's just pretend that I have been a great blogger and that I've updated my progress every single step of the way. All good?
It's now 2011 (just in case anyone missed it). And I am now in India. Well, I am in Goa...which is sort of India.
After throwing myself on the mercy of my lovely friend Sarah-Jane's Mum over christmas and new year, I've journeyed a whole hour south to Patnem. And I'm not sure I will ever leave.

The days here pass wonderfully slowly. Yoga and a swim, breakfast, a little sun-worship, email checking (please, please someone send me work so I don't have to come home yet...yep, not too proud to beg.), cold showers, trips to empty Turtle beach, beer at sunset, dinner with new friends, bed with mosquitos. I am loving every minute.

At some point I will tear myself away and brave the 'real' India. Honest.