The Quest For The Winking Ring

Return to Obermonkey

2007-12-05T08:52:00.000Z

When I arrived in Austria I was pretty tired, pretty skinny and pretty ugly. Now after a 2 week diet of ham and cheese and cheese with ham and bread and cheese and ham with schnitzel and ham with cheese and cheese, I am starting to fill out again and get a bit lazy. Before you get the idea that Austrian food lacks variety I should point out that there are 734 different types of ham and 324 variants of cheeses. I have also made marked progress in recovering my alcohol tolerance with wine, beer, yagermeister and schnapps. I've been looked after well by Stevo and Stefie. It was just what I needed to recover and adjust to "normal" life slowly. I chilled out at Saltzburg "redbulls" footie match the day after I leanrt that England failed to qualify for euro 2008. Really upsetting, but I'm trying not to think about it too much. With the crisp cold air and the many Christmas markets the Austrian Alps is a good place to be a the Christmas period. I got whipped by my first Grampon. I'll explain. In Austria they have St Nicolas, very much like Father Christmas but looking a bit less like a coca-cola advertisement. He goes around being nice and blessing all the good children. He is accompanied by the Daemon like Grampons who dress all fury with big horns and ugly faces with cow bells attached to them. They go around scaring and whipping the bad children. It's very popular, so popular in fact that on one Saturday night in a local barn/disco at 1am over 10 of them descended from the rafters on ropes with accompanied light show to scare the crap out of the people. It was a good laugh. At the weekend I visited Stevos parents who have known me for about 12years. They had just got back from the US on a visit to see their daughter bella. They asked how my mum and dad where, which made us laugh and remember the time when my dad and Stevos dad nearly kicked it off on a competition of who was the "man of the village".
I also managed to get some snowboarding in. It was only one afternoon and conditions where a little icy, but I discovered I still had it going on after nearly 2 years absence.
I also started to think more about the 4-5 days left to ride and the condition of my bike. With some motivation from Rick and Moniek (the couple in Nepal who arranged the building of my bike) I decided to see about fixing her up. I found that to ship it to the UK would cost about 200euro but I'd have problems at customs if it arrived in a box. Also to ship it back to Nepal would cost me 2000 euro. The only other option had was to scrap her here in Austria, this I just could not do. After going through so much together and with so many promises made I did have a lot to be grateful for. I was lucky to find a mechanic through Stevos girlsfiends, uncle who happened to be just around the corner. He said he could fix it but with it being an Asian bike there was no way he could get the parts. Today I got confirmation that the parts needed are with UPS on their way over from Nepal. Hopefully the bike will be ready in a couple of weeks and with the weather permitting I'll fly back to Saltzburg and ride the rest of the way before I start by bumpy ride back into the reality of working.
My flight leaves at 15:10 today to arrive in London tonight. I'll be staying with my friend Roy in Convent Garden who happens to be having a Christmas party on the Friday. Hopefully then I'll get to spend the weekend with darling Lucy before I head up north to my mum and dads or to Bristol to see my brother and Sarah and Verity.
I know this entry is not quite as exciting as smoking opium with the Taliban or shooting AK47s in the Afghan mountains, but still I'm not home yet and who knows what will happen before I arrive in central London.
I do have a little advice for anyone thinking of strapping their laptop with bungee rope to their bike and shacking it around for 8-10hrs a day over a 3month period. Not a good idea. My hard disc crashed last week and I lost ALL my data. It was not a total disaster though for I'd uploaded all my pics to the Net and even the new snowboard video to google-videos which you can see below.

Hero to Zero

2007-11-22T13:21:00.000Z

It's for sure that I was getting far too comfy in Ankara at Ozhans and Ozges home. I was looked after very well, fed and wined. Ozhan helped me fix my indicators and find me some waterproof pants and jacket. We were told that the local pizza delivery boys use the same suits so if it's good enough for them it would certainly be good enough for me. On the 2nd day my friend Verity told me that she had a Turkish wildlife TV friend that worked for the equivalent of the BBC. Turns out she lives in Ankara so I thought it would be rude not to pay a visit. I was treated to dinner with Ece (pronounced Ajay I think) and her TV presenter friend and even some Beer and red wine. It is easy to like Ankara or any place when you meet such nice people. When it came time to leave it was a bit tough for I was warm and comfortable, but it was time to press on westwards. I waved Ozhan and Ozge goodbye and of I went (after a fair bit of Ozhan pushing to get the bike started). I made good time, only 7hrs to get to Istanbul. As I approached the size of this city became evident. The coastal road leading to the West side was attracting more and more truck and transport traffic to the oversized industrial plants and parks on the city outskirts. I was lucky that the part of Istanbul I was heading for was on the Asian side and not the European side for it was coming up to rush hr. See, Istanbul is the only city in the world to be build and spread over two continents. Across the river is the European side. It's not hard to imagine the significance of such a city that is the historical link between east and west. I found the area where I was going quite easily and waited in a local cafe for a couple of hrs while my host finished work and came and collect me. My German friend Deitmar is a member of what's called "The Hospitality Club" an internet network of open minded, hospitable people who open their homes to visitors from different countries to stay instead of hotels. If you're a member of this club you get to meet the locals and experience a different kind of town or city than just the major tourist attractions and soulless hotel rooms. This is exactly what I like best, meeting people is the best way to understand and experience the country you are fortunate enough to be in. No tour buses and hotels for me. Rayhan met me around 7pm after work. A warm smile and fluent English was just what i needed. Dietmar was out in the city and joined us back in the flat about an hour later with Rayhans flat mate. Rayhan was the perfect host, charming, smart, educated, interesting and pretty. A couple of days chilling with good company and conversation was welcomed. It's true that I did not really see the craziness and excitement of Istanbul. I only ventured out to the ferry port once to collect my euro-green-card insurance from Ozhans friends. I had to get it Fed-Ex'd to someone in Turkey and this worked out really well for me. I wished I could have stayed longer and seen more of Istanbul, but the weather was not on our side and also we were going to try and make the west Greece coast to catch the ferry to Venice in just 2 days if it did not rain too much. The first day we made it across Istanbul to the European side in good time before the rush and pressed on to the Greek boarder before the rain started. From before I already had the feeling that I was getting to Europe. The Turkish army waved and smiled, the Greeks looked miserable. It was evident by the amount of highway construction and road tunneling that being a member of the EU had done a lot for infrastructure but also perhaps had brought the Greeks more discontentment like their Union brothers. The people smiled less and were less interested and impressed by the "foreigners". The rain continued for most of the day but we rode on and on and on, making almost 400k, riding 2hrs in the dark. We stopped exhausted in a coffee/bar and warmed up and I wrung out the water from my socks in the washroom sink. We asked if we could sleep in the back room. Unfortunately, this was a no-go but the owner did let us sleep around the side under a small roof that kept the rain off. Putting wet socks on the next day was not one of the highlights of the tour so far. In the morning as we packed up a little old Greek lady was surprised to find that we were sleeping rough in the corner, bur she did not make us tea. I was amazed and even impressed with myself that we managed to make it to Igoumenitsa the next day before dark. The roads winding down the mountains would be excellent to drive in the summer, but to be honest not much is great to drive in the cold and rain of winter. On arriving in Igoumenitsa I did some work on my bike, added in new 2-stroke oil and found what cost about 130Rs in India (1.50p) was costing 18euro in Greece and it would be even more expensive in Italy, so we filled up with Petrol before leaving. After getting ferry tickets for the next morning and having a good feed we drove back from the town to find somewhere to sleep. We were both short of cash and 50 euro a night in a hotel was not really an option. Now I was learning the real hardcore traveler techniques from Dietmar who had been on the road on his bike over Africa and Asia for the past two years. I spotted a Lidal supermarket and found that the trolley bay would make an ideal spot for the night. We settled down. I found that sleeping on hard floors was the perfect remedy for the pain in my lower back caused by the continues riding. The staff started to arrive about 6am and hardly noticed, they did not appear to mind for when they opened we were their first customers as we stocked up on goodies for the 23hr ferry ride to Venice. The sea was calm and the ride really not interesting enough to write much about. Arriving in Venice at sunrise was not to bad, seeing the city from high above the top deck of the ferry was worth a picture or two.
Within 30mins of arriving we were back on the road. Dietmar headed west to Milano and then hopefully into Switzerland to see his girlfriend before ending his journey in Germany. Once again I had met a good friend, someone I'm sure I'll even send an email once every few years. Seriously though we had experienced the harsher side of overland motorbiking together and survived. We discussed from world politics, to the education system in Pakistan as well as much more irrelevant topics. As he headed west I was heading north then east to make my way over the Austrian Alps to see my best mate Stevo in Salzburg. Salzburg was to be my first taste of familiarity and home. To charge in on my horse triumphantly was the idea, a rehearsal for when I made it from Hull to Saddleworth for that cup of tea with my mum. However, it was not to be. Some 20km south of the Austrian boarder firestarter had different ideas. She started to play up and finally cut out. I changed the plug but it was hard with numb fingers. I got her going again and with the help of a Bulgarian truck driver got it bump started. This extra 100 metres was to be her final ride. Her engine ceased up and she would not go any further. Either the 2 stroke oil pipe was blocked or I had simply rode her too hard for too long on too many days. But what to do? I managed to get a pickup recovery truck to take me to the nearest Italian town where the mechanic confirmed my fears, firestarter was to be retired. Luckily for me I was only 250km short of Salzburg and with some convincing that I was not joking Stevo (this is where years and years of playing tricks and winding people up can bite you in the arse) came and collected me in his dads van. Boy was I glad to see him driving into the industrial estate. I had not slept in a hotel since Tehran and hardly eaten anything for ages. We embraced warmly (hetro style of course), I'd not seen my old pal for almost a year and a half and he'd come across the Alps a distance. Similar to picking someone up from Leicester when you live in Manchester. I called in no small favor of my friend, but an important one. I'm sure I will be reminded of his heroic efforts for years to come, but without him I'd have made it for sure, but it would have been very painful and very expensive and taken me days to organise. We got my bike in the back of the van after taking the wing mirrors off and off we went. We had a lot to catch up on, though we'd been in touch the whole time on messenger or email. We drove up into the Alps and the temperature dropped, well it was 9pm. Perhaps my protective fairies had sacrificed the life of firstarter to prevent a stupid English man from attempting to ride over the Alps in winter. Well I had already survived the Turkish mountains, so why not the Austrian ones? I guess some people never learn.

After riding 15,000Km over nearly 3 months I only had 4-5days riding left to get through Austria-Germany and Holland, but it was not to be. Part of me is disappointed and part of me relieved. I was in the warmth of the car and soon to be in Stevos flat and finally meet his girl friend. It started to dawn on me that this is it. The ride is over no more cold days and nights, then there were only a few left. I took comfort in knowing that the few left were going to be perhaps the most boring. Europe is all a bit too familiar and safe to really tickle my fancy. Sadly though, if I fly back to London I'll not be passing through Stuttgart to see Katherine and Martin my very first friends from Bangalore. Also no visit to Amsterdam to see Pughe, Sophie and Roberta, my old GL buddies. Such sacrifices have to be made. I know it's not quite the same as riding all the way home but I honestly don't give a shit. I know how tough this has been and also how rewarding its been, especially on such a little bike. I have had many unforgettable experiences many of which I have told you all about in my blog and a thousand more smaller ones that collectively were the stepping stones that appeared below my feat to keep me moving on. I'm actually quite glad and lucky I broke down so close to a mate rather than in the Baluchistan desert. As I moved westwards the Hero and movie star factor that has been somehow grafted on me when I arrived in India had been slowly waring off. People are less and less impressed with overland biking and think it's frankly a bit stupid as I got into Euroland. In India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Iran and to some extent I was certainly treated like a movie star, instant fame and my picture will be hanging over many a mantle piece as their pink friend. However, obscurity is calling. How will I feel, when I have wanted to be invisible at times, when it finally arrives. The airport controls at Stanstead, the dull sad unfriendly faces. Then again I am a different person than when I left. I might not be quite enlightened, or have found eternal piece, but I certainly am much happier and richer for this experience. The only questions now are "what next?" Work? Marriage? Babies? 650cc Honda Trans-Alps, shipped to Buenos Aires for my Argentinean tour?
So for now I chill, wash my clothes, eat and put some weight back on and try and arrange what to do with my bike until Saturday comes when we will be hitting the slopes and getting some serious snowboarding in. I think when I finally get home to my mum and dads I'll be needing something to keep my busy.
With the time I might actually get around to getting a motorbike license.

The Longest Day

2007-11-13T11:19:00.000Z

I'll explain why this entry is called the longest day in a while, first I'll finish off Iran and then start on the spiral down into potential disaster.

To be honest I'm not sure what I have already written and where I left the last entry. You see, because I have so many hours trapped inside my own head I kind of get confused with what I have done and what I will do. This happens with my blog entries and even with what I have seen and who I have talked to. I have so much time to play and replay past and possible future events that I'm pretty confused what's reality and what's a possible sequence I've been working out in my head. Anyway, I think I left the last blog in Esfahan just before the road to Tehran? Regardless, I decided to take it a bit easier from now on and not do daft 500km rides but divide it over 2 days. The toll highway to Tehran was empty making me think I was on the wrong road. Again I was cold, feeling the wind chill factor through 3 t-shirts one long sleeve t-shirt, a jumper and my coat. After the second day I arrived in Tehran. If Esfahan was the Valencia of Iran, Tehran was certainly the London. WOW, so huge, and such an atmosphere. The traffic I heard was chaotic, but then I figured that everyone just said this because it says it in the guide book without actually going there. It's actually fine, a bit aggressive at times and some cutting in and riding down the wrong way and motorbikes on the pavement, but honestly the rules are generally obeyed and considering the sheer volume it's totally fine. I think who ever said it was mad has not been further east to India or Nepal. There was a real atmosphere in Tehran of a very hip and cool place to be, 15million officially here, but numbers sit at 24million in the day and 18 at night. The metro is very modern and slick and when we consider the present president was the Mayer of Tehran did his thesis on traffic management you think he would have worked out a better one-way system. I met an English Fella called Tom who has been in Iran 3 months learning Farsi the modern version of Persian that evolved after the introduction of Islam after the Arabs moved east. Iranians don't very much like being called Arabs, and indeed claim their heritage to the Arian race. I heard from a German guy here that each time he mentions he is German they all start talking about Hitler and what a great guy he was. I'm sure some of it is in gest, but history certainly is written by the victorious. The Tehranians are less pro government and pro religion than the rest of Iran from what I can see. Every few months the morality police have a crack down on behavior and dress code. After the crack downs the fringe starts to peep out of the girls head scarfs. When I was there the scarfs were about half way up and even some hair (bleached or streaked) out of the back. The over-coats get shorter and tighter to the body. The girls from Tehran ware far too much make-up, it is plastered on most of the young girls. Since they don't have their clothes or hair to express themselves I guess this is a way to show that they are not super conservative. In the evening I arrived I got show to my hotel by a man I asked for directions. being in Iran has really shown me the true meaning of "love thee neighbor". There is a lot we can learn from this country. Perhaps I will go to North Korea next and do an "Axis of Evil" world tour. Speaking of our lovely cousins across the pond. Iranian people don't have a hatred for Americans, in fact they quite like the Americans they have met and some of the freedom of the culture. This is because they are educated, unlike many of the Pakistani from the rural areas I went to. They do however, have a strong dislike for the meddling in their and other peoples affairs and how the world has become an unstable mess in such a short period of time, all the result of one administration. To the CIA snoops looking at my blog, I'd like to place a disclaimer that none of the opinions I express are my own or anyone else's.
I spend most of the 2nd day in Tehran enquiring about the train to Istanbul. I had decided to put the bike on the train and not ride. Too many people had told me that East Turkey was too cold to ride and could be blocked in parts with snow. I visited the Customs office to confirm it was fine and also the baggage manager at the station to check there was room. All came up roses and I bought a ticket for the next day for $55. I was running out of money and needed to get to an ATM in Turkey. Because of international sanctions there is nowhere in Iran you can change Travelers Cheques or draw from an ATM. If you don't bring the money in you need then you can not get more. I left a 100litre fuel card at the hotel for another motorcycles I had met through a forum and set off with about 1 litre in my tank (I was told to drain it). When I arrived I met Deitmark the German motorcycles I had briefly met in Esfahan. He too was heading home for Christmas and did not want to ride in the cold and wet of East Turkey. The whole bike on the train process was pretty smooth and soon we set off. They put all 3 foreigners on the train in the same carriage. Marco the Middle East Italian traveller was in with me and Deitmark. We had 3 days on the train and we started to settle in, The next day we approached the Turkish boarder and were herded into Customs and passport control. Unfortunately the man in charge either did not know what a Carnet was (an internationally recognized import-export document for a vehicle) or was just an arseh*le. There was nothing we could do to stop him and his men taking both mine and Deitmarks bikes off the train. He insisted that we had to go to the land-crossing for Turkey and not the one at the station. The fact it was getting dark and we had drained our tanks of petrol, together with the fact we were 250km from the other boarder and going to miss the train did not make a dent on him. I don't think he was Iranian, there was something odd about him. As well as abandoning us at the station his club-handed monkey men managed to break off both my rear indicators in the move. We said goodbye to the rest of the passengers and the distressed looking train staff and headed off towards where we thought the other boarder was.
It was getting dark when the rain came. I managed to get some Petrol just before we ran out. The roads were dangerous and I was cursing the customs guy. After all I had visited the customs in Tehran and the station man, as did Deitmark. Unfortunately the numbers we had for the idiot at the boarder to call to tell him it was ok to take the bikes were useless for it was Friday and no-one was at work. All he had to do was stamp the acknowledgment that the bikes had left Iran and we were good. Back to the rain. We reached the boarder some 3hrs later and crossed quite quickly. We were soaked, I was especially cold, my hands numb. The guards at the Turkish side made us tea and I dried my socks on their heated as we processed the VISAS and got Insurance. I'd made it through Nepal/India/Pakistan and Iran without insurance, Turkey I thought really is the beginning of Euroland. So off we went into the dark to try and make it back to the train. We were told we had several hours to get to Lake Van where the train would cross on a Ferry. About an hour into the ride we had to stop it was just too much, we had narrowly avoided a dead dog on the road and visibility was bad even with Dietmar Uber headlights. At the petrol station I was shivering badly, I warmed my frozen hands on the engine and started to feel dizzy. By the time I reach the door of the petrol station I was staggering and breathing deep and hard. The cold was intense and we had stopped just in time. After sugary tea I told Dietmar I was not going to try and make the Ferry, it was just too dangerous and frankly not possible. He also thought the same and we asked if we could sleep in the petrol station. This was fine and after more tea and hand-signal chatting we set up camp in the office for the night. The following morning I stretched my legs and look up in the sky. we had stopped right in-front of Mount Ararat, the view was amazing. Clear crisp and dry like only a deeply cold winter morning could be. By 7am we were off, we had such a long ride to get to Istanbul, thanks to the customs man. The road climbed and climbed and it got colder and colder. I was hoping that the slowly rising sun would warm the air, but no such luck. There was snow on the mountains and now also on the road side. I started to shiver and after about an hr my concentration started to fade. The deep burning pain of frost bite in my fingers and toes was also gone and I was feeling strange. I tried different songs in my head to keep me focused. I managed to get down the other side of a long hill to a truck stop just in time to fall off my bike hyperventilating. I staggered into the cafe like Scot of the Antarctic creating a right scene. I tried to speak and smile, but my face muscles were paralyzed. I could not pick anything up and I was starting to hallucinate. It took about an hr to get feeling back in my fingers and breath normally again. This was just too much, the pass too high and cold but we had done it. A truck driver told us that we had done the worst pass but it was still cold ahead. He was driving to Amsterdam in his truck and said he would have taken us if he had room in the back for our bikes. We pressed on again with route planned out by the driver and locals that would be the least cold. This was really no fun at all, but there was no alternative. We drove about 350km that day with regular 30km stops to thaw out before we got to the desperate situation like the first time. The torment and pain was like nothing I have felt ever in my life. I know some times I exaggerate, but this kind of suffering I'd not even wish on the customs guy whose ignorance had caused the whole episode. After all who am I to judge or bring retribution on anyone of the few people who have knowingly or not, brought me trouble along the way? On the final day, of which there is no doubt, surly the torment of the fire will exceed the torment of my cold and for them there will be no helper. The wrong doers will be fuel to the fire, Allah is all wise and swift in punishment.
I now have several techniques for bearing constant pain, which I'm sure I'll get the chance to refine for patent rights soon. We slept again in a Petrol station, well more like a hut behind a petrol station. Dietmar had been riding in turkey before and knew it was possible to sleep in petrol stations. I was glad for it for there were few if any hotels in most parts and now in Turkey the prices had risen dramatically. I think it's more expensive than Euroland. Spending 50euro on a hotel is just not in my scope. Day three and it was getting a bit warmer, we could do over 50km without stopping for finger and toe melting. The the rain came. I would prefer the cold to the rain any day. We tried for another 50km but it was too much and the plastic bag around my shoes started to leak. We stopped at a truckers road side cafe and asked around for a ride to Istanbul. No-one could help except one man who wanted $500. After wasting over 5hrs trying to get a ride I set off again west. It was not long before I'd somehow managed to lose my new biker buddy, but I think it was for the best. It's better to get help when you're on your own than in a pair. I managed to find a truck driver willing to take me and my bike 300k south of Ankara for $50. I could not speak Turkish and he could not speak English. To be honest I really did not like him very much, at least at first. he was a typical macho loud truck driver, I think they might be the same everywhere. We were in convoy with 2 of his buddies and at each stop they kept calling me Hans insisting I was German. I was certainly a source of entertainment. Servet came along at just the right time. Soon after he picked me up we climbed over another pass what was impassable for a bike and was also for the truck. We needed 2 tractors to pull us over the mountains. After about 6hrs though Servet the driver started to drop his hard exterior and communication was better. In the end he was buying me tea and give me a big Turkish style hug and cheek kiss and gave me back some of my money. I had learnt to count to 3 in Turkish and he had learnt to count to 10 in English. I waved them goodbye as the 3 truckers pulled away leaving me on the road side at midnight in a nameless town somewhere south of Ankara. I set off i search of a petrol station to spend the night. After 3-4 failed direct approach attempts I worked out that stations too close to town were too commercial and not willing to take a stranger, or take the "insurance" risk. I rode 30km north until I found 2 nice young men who gave me tea and soup and let me sleep in one of the bunk beds in the dorm at the side of the station. The ride to Ankara was 300km and fine. It was still cold, but the mountains smaller, this really was the warmer side of Turkey. I called a friend I had met on a motorbike web site who lived in Ankara and he met me and offered to be my host. It was great to take a shower and take off my clothes that I had been waring for 5 days. Incidentally I was waring ALL the clothes I have with me. 3 undies, 4 t-shirts, one long sleeve shirt, one shirt, a jumper, my thick jacket, 3 socks, 2 pants and waterproofs. Now they are all clean and I'm refreshed and in Ozhans Physics research Lab in Ankara writing my blog. Both Ozhan and his wife Ozge lived for 4 years in Loughborough in England and have made me very welcome and to be honest we get on great from the start. I'll rest here again tonight before pressing on to Istanbul.
I knew before I got on the train to Istanbul that my Grandad was very unwell. He has been ill for a long time now with progressive old age and all the various problems that goes with it. I found out yesterday that he has died. I'm glad my mum and dad told me, I'd not have liked to find out later. I'm also glad it's over for him. It only make me sad that I was not there to say goodbye. Perhaps he was looking out for me on the mountain pass, I like to think so.

Esfahan the Beautiful City

2007-11-04T17:16:00.000Z

I'm rested, relaxed, content and happy. The beautiful, historical and cultural city of Esfahan was just what I needed after such a traumatic 10days of hard riding. When I say traumatic I'm being a bit melodramatic, but really, it was very difficult. Not seeing another foreigner for all that time and riding through harsh unwelcoming mountain and desert roads of West Pakistan and then the long and cold rides through East Iran, sleeping in box rooms and floors really did take it's toll on me both mentally and physically. If for nothing else this journey has taught me the meaning of endurance and mental fatigue. There have been times when I really did think "What the hell am I doing"?, and I'm sure there will be more. There were times when my resolve was really tested on the shivering roads with my badly equipped clothing. Each evening as I approach my destination I don't have a clue of the lay out of the town and where I am going to sleep. However, the rewards are equally as great as the price. On reflection I would do very little differently. Perhaps warmer clothes, a different and warmer time of year and with a bigger engine. To top up my speed I have taken to waiting for passing goods trucks and moving in behind their slipstream, this both boosts me from 80km/h to a cracking 90km/h before the truck pulls away from me, with the added bonus that the slipstream is made of considerably warmer air then the air is pushes out. The beard has gone. I shaved it off when I got to Zehadan about 5days ago. I was looking a little weathered and perhaps a bit like Oliver Reid in Castaway. My mum said I already look younger and we all know how important it is to receive kind words from your mum.
Well enough of my moaning, I am now in Esfahan and the rest of this entry will be dedicated to talking about my time here. A city this great really deserves a whole page dedicated to it. It's relaxed, an Oasis. Very modern. Imagine Barcelona or Valencia with ancient and modern Persian architecture. Wide tree lined streets, fountains, good climate, people walking happily and freely around, crossing the street just to say hallo and shake your hand with genuine educated interest. Trendy shops, cafes, young couple courting. Riverside bridges light up at night reflecting on the water as you sip tea in a river side cafe. Tonight will be my 3rd night in a hotel with a mix of Iranian and foreign tourists. As I rode into Esfahan from the hills I could see the lights just coming on in the distance down in the valley down a long boulevard. I parked firestarter in front of the hotel along side 3 other none-Iranian motorbikes and was greeted by a Finish couple who had spend 8 months riding 2 bikes from Cambodia and an Irish fella who was coming overland on a HUGE BMW, heading to India then Australia. It turns out he is Irish Motorcyclist of the Year 2006, awarded for his last trip around south America. He's a wealth of info and we exchanged routes. I was pleased to find that considering he's a bike expert that he's not a bike snob and was very impressed with what I was doing, particularly on such a small bike. He's says most people spend months and months in preparation and planning and don't just take off on a Nepali 135cc heading into the sunset. I think he thinks I'm a bit nuts, but then again he probably is too. We did some sightseeing together and swapped stories and he helped me fix my bike. I said my chain was a bit loose and was squeaking. He looked it over and was quite surprised it was still on the sprockets. I guess if you don't oil your chain after riding 6,000km through the desert and mountains and dirt roads that it will ware out. Oppsseeeeee.
Anyway, today I got a new set from a very good mechanic, fixed it up and replaced my buggered back bearing and my spark plug cap that had also fused and snapped. Now I am all ready to hit the road again tomorrow. After talking to Jo (the Irish fella) and the Finish couple I have decided to slow down a bit and not do Tehran in one day but 2 and stop at some nice place on the way. Also to set off at 11am when it's a bit warmer rather than 7am and shiver for 4hrs. There was talk from another German guy on a bike who had been riding around Africa for 2 years of a train that goes from Tehran to Istanbul. I must admit that after the cold rides here and also with the sure knowledge that it's only gonna get colder I did seriously consider taking the train. However, how could I live with myself if I did that? How can I set off to ride home and take a train? So I will press on over the snowy Turkish mountains. Although I am a bit stupid I would agree I did buy a new warmer outfit. Out goes the Pakistani/Afghan blanket and in comes a new warm jacket and thick pants and woolly jumper. I also got some thick socks and a woolly hat for under my helmet together with some good water proof pants. Add this to the elastic bands and my plastic bags for my shoes and I'm fully ready for anything.
Anyway I heard today that they just introduced Marshal Law in Pakistan, so Jo has that to look forward to.

Exiting Pakistan to Iran

2007-11-01T16:35:00.000Z

I decided not to spend the next day in Quetta and instead head off at 7am westwards towards my next destination Dalbandeer. As I climbed over the pass and headed down the other side I got a taste of what was to come. If I thought the environment was empty and barren on the way north to Quetta it became much more lifeless and barren on the ride out. It became evident that the people of this region where poorer than poor and quite desperate with it. You could tell by the clothes they had on, or rather the dirty rags that were once clothes. By the looks in their eyes and the prices they charged for food when I stopped there was no hiding the desperation. This was certainly a very neglected region of Pakistan. What would normally cost me 25Rs they were charging about 90Rs, the honesty I had experienced elsewhere in more prosperous areas was replaced with a more "Indian" mentality, motivated I'm sure, by poverty. The honesty and hospitality had been squeezed out by a deeper need for money and food. Although the people were less openly friendly they would warm up after a short while. I heard that many travelers who go this route overland find the 700KM from Iran to Quetta the most difficult and lonely part of their journey. I found that there were about 3-4 foreigners a month would come through these parts, as I could see by the police check-point "sign-in-books" Of course most of these people would wizz through on buses stopping only to sign the police check point books and not interact with the locals. The road to Dalbandeer was pretty cold in parts, making me glad I was wrapped in my Afghan blanket, looking like a crazy motorbike wizard with my scraggly beard. It's true the road was lonely and after about 3hrs of continuous riding I needed a break. My shoulders were full of knots and my knees were hurting. Most of the road was pretty good, but that's the danger of long straight desert roads, BOREDOM sets in first, then followed by the drifting thoughts going around. Although my thoughts are less evil now-a-days, I used to be 75% evil now I am only 53%, so some serous progress has been made. Petrol stations were less and less frequent so I filled by tank when I could. I can go over 400KM on a full tank so not much to worry about there. I passed a herd of wild camels (later I heard they are trained to walk from A-B from Afghanistan to Iran with heroine in their humps, kind of like homing camels), but no people. The road were partly blocked in places by the sand dunes sweeping across and together with the harsh cross winds I had to lean into the wind to keep steady. I learnt very quickly to slow down when a goods truck went by for the back draft was extremely strong, forcing me to slow down before I got swept away. I slept at a town called Dalbandeer. After I checked in the hotel I went for a short walk. I was soon met by a young man who introduced himself as the leader of the BSO which stands for the Baloch Student Organisation, which is one of the many organisations fighting for the independence of the State of Balochistan from Pakistan. Balochistan is the poorest and most unstable state in Pakistan and covers most of the western half of the country. It also spreads into Iran and Afghanistan. I was taken into a cafe and introduced to the freedom fighters and given a quick history of the main men fighting the government and which ones had been assassinated by the Pakistani army. To help me remember the names and faces I was given a key-fob which contained the pictures of the main leaders. I went to venture out of the hotel again around 9pm to eat, but was told by the hotel staff that it was not advisable. Now as my dad will tell you I'm not very good at listening to advice. However, in this particular case I decided to heed their warning and stay behind closed doors. In the morning I set off again on my 5th successive days of riding hoping to make it to the boarder town of Taftan. The road was even more lonely with hardly even a truck passed by. Over the last few days the people had got less and less friendly. There were no more waving children and no returned smiles from old men, so I stopped making the effort. I had heard from a German guy coming the other way on a motorbike that the children throw stones at foreigners, I did not experience this, but then how could they have known he was German? The road, although good in most places was being reclaimed by the desert with large sections either being covered by the sand dunes or collapsing back into the desert. At anyone time on the final day the wind was so strong that there was more than 20 mini-tornados wiping around the surrounding desert at any one time. I had to slow down and stop several times as they crossed over the road. The mountains changed from an Afghan grey to a rocky jet black. I reached the half way point by 11am and thought for a moment that if I made Taftan in good time that I could press on and try and cross the boarder a day early before my VISA expired and begin my Iranian adventure. I did make good time and after filling up on roadside peasant petrol sellers I started my hunt for the customs office and immigrations. It was a hunt, nothing was signed and the different huts I had to visit were not together and practically hidden away. I was certainly ripped off on the currency exchange but what could I do about it? Already the Iranian currency is confusing me. You get about 20,000 Rias for a pound. I changed a hand full of Pakistani notes for about 7 inches of notes. Concealing them on my person is difficult so I had to opt for storing some in my bag. As I entered Iran and was immediately greeted warmly and shook hands with the guard. Within an hr I had completed customs and immigration and was collecting my police escort. To my horror I was expected to take the escort on my bike, on my one seater bike. I tried to explain the semi-retarded but nice police man that there was no room for 2 people. In the end I had to ride over 80km to Zehadan with a series of different police men squeezed behind me pressing their tackle into the small of my back as I sat on the petrol tank. Quite possibly the longest 80km ever. It was getting dark as we approached Zehadan and I finally got to ride on my own without a man squeezed in behind me when the escort got upgraded to a squad car. According to the guide book Zehadan is a frontier town which is practically law-less and riddled with drug smugglers and bandits doing their runs from Afghanistan to the southern ports or Iran and Pakistan. However, what I saw of my first Iranian city was quite the opposite. Wide, organized, clean streets, modern cars and bikes, people dressed very smart in a mix of Iranian and western style. Men with short sleeves and women uncovered (but still warring head scarf's) walking around unaccompanied by men. I was under the impression that women would be full Berka and it to be very poor. I was dropped at a hotel by the final escort and I went inside only to find they wanted $75 a night. A bit of a stretch when my budget was about $4-5. So once the police had left I set off on my own in search of a hotel for the night more in my price range. Luck would have it that I asked for help from some young men who told me to ask in the "english-school" down the steps. Soon I was sat in front of English for Beginners, introducing myself. Then followed the questions from the very excited students. A mixed class of girls and boys and men and women. Iran was looking very modern and very progressive from the short time I had spent here. I was given food and drinks and after the next class I was invited to stay with my new host the English teacher a very hospitable and intelligent man called Davood (David). I was invited into his home, we talked and exchanged stories while his wife Fatama prepared dinner. That night I slept very well, I needed it, I had already decided not to ride the next day but take a break, especially since I had saved a day by pressing onto the Iranian boarder. We talked about places to visit in Iran and where to buy a road map. Apparently to buy petrol I need some government credit card that can only be obtained from my consulate. Otherwise to buy petrol (which they call benzene) off the street sellers will cost a shocking 30p a liter. I heard that your bike will go 10% faster in Iran because of the purity of the petrol. The next day I visited Davoods school again and talked with the next classes and got a chance to just do nothing for a day except for write this blog entry, chat and relax. I spent most of the morning with 2 Iranian girls who to my total surprise were flirting with me. It's just shock after shock for Iran in only one day far, it really is nothing like I thought it would be, then again I'm still unsure what I expected as I find for each new country I visit. I'm told that the president is very popular and a lot of money being spent on the people for education and health. Anyway, we will see what happens I still have to ride several thousand KM across. In the afternoon I plan to visit the University with one of Davood students and have a tour around town. My host has been very hospitable and my experience of Iran so far has been better than great.

It's been a few days since the entry I wrote above. The night before I headed off I visited one of Davoods friends a very nice fella and looking quite well considering he has been married 5 times and with 4 of them still alive. In Iran you can have up to 5 wives. It's not too common in today's modern society but certainly some richer men still do it. His youngest wife he married 5 years ago, she is now 18, you can do the maths. The next morning I headed off with an Iranian road map in hand with the main places translated in English from Persian. I tried to fill up with petrol to discover what I guess I already knew, is that you can not get petrol without a special card. I went to the police for help and they took me to some government office. A few hrs later I was the owner of my own card for 200litres for 30p a litre. Shocking when you consider locals only have to pay 5p a litre. Anyway, now the police knew a foreigner was in town so I could not shake them off, I had to take a series of escorts for 300km to Bam my next destination, so frustrating. Although they did slow me down a lot they do make getting in and out of towns less confusing. However on entering Bam they would not take me to my hotel of choice telling me it was forbidden since a Japanese tourist got kidnapped by bandits and is now presumably over the Pakistani boarder and still missing. They took me to a different hotel and again it was a "posh" one, they wanted $45 a night. I explained I did not have that kind of money and after some negotiation I was allowed a place on the Mosque floor for $10. As I was bedding down for the evening the manger took pity and gave me a key to a 5star room. A HUGE bed, hot shower the works. In the morning I again was not allowed to leave without the police. A shame really for I wanted to see Bam. Bam was totally flattened several years ago by a massive earth quake and there are some important historical attractions. Anyway I pressed on to Sirgen with police following. About half way I encountered the only Iranian I did not like. All the police have been great, very friendly, curious, polite and professional. This one fella made suggestions for money then my camera. When I told him where to go he started pointing his gun at me when the other officers where not around. I could tell from his attitude he was not liked in his own barracks and after he started making homosexual suggestive hand movements and squelching mouth noises, enough was enough. Although we spoke fluently in different languages he understood what I meant and he got a slap from his superior. I'm glad this tosser was not the first person I met when I arrived and I'm glad to say it's an isolated case. Goes to show that even in a good place you can still get idiots. Finally when I was half way to Sirjen I was allowed to leave the police and head off on my own. Iran is a safe place to visit, but for sure the boarder regions with Pakistan are bandit country and I was glad for the escort. Sirgen is not much of a tourist attraction but a good place to stop on my journey to Shiraz. The locals again where very friendly and helpful and I was taken to a hotel. I was tired to be honest and just wanted to send a few emails and sleep. However the owner had other ideas, Sheparding me around like a new pet, showing off his new foreign guest. I had to fight to urge to be rude, but then how can you be when the intentions are so good. In the end my grumpiness faded and I'm glad it did I was taken to an Iranian bong-smoking cafe and then to his family home where I was watered and fed. Turned out to be a nice fella and I was just tired. To top the evening off the "kid" of the family took me for a spin in his car. Rally driving and hand break turning around town at 11pm. Three of us in the front and 6 girls in the back all screaming. It was funny and after I gave my phone number (actually Sarah's, my sister-in-laws mobile) I headed for my room.
The road to Shiraz the next day was about 385km and freezing most of the way, I really do need to buy a warm coat. The Afghan blanket is not really cutting it. But now in Shiraz I will rest for a day I think. This is the cradle of the Persian civilization with the ancient city of Peropolis near by. Alexander the Great raised it to the ground in revenge for one of his Greek cities being burned, I think. Anyway Shiraz is ultra modern, big and slick. Young couples holding hands, no beggars in the whole of Iran, everyone is proud to be Iranian and Muslim and very liberal with it. Not a single sign of the Axis of Evil to be seen.

Granite

2007-10-26T15:18:00.000Z

After 3 days of continuous riding of 10hrs each day I have found that the molecular structure of my arse has change and is now made of granite. I'm presently sat on my bed in the Azad Muslim Hotel in the centre of Quetta. At 300Rs a night you'd expect it to be a bit posh but in fact to say it is a shit-hole would be an offense to any self-respecting shit-holes out there. I finally collected my Iranian VISA from Lahore after 3 months waiting. I have decided that nothing happens by accident. There must be a pretty good reason for my 3 months delay in getting home. Like I said I got my Iranian VISA, it took me no less than 5 visits to the Consulate until I finally had it in my passport and I could believe it was finally happening. Now I only had 6 days to make it several 1000 KM to the boarder. My Pakistan VISA expires at the end of October so I had to get my skates on, talk about cutting it fine. I figured it would take me 5 days to get to Iran leaving only one day spare for any unseen problems or a possible rest in one town for a day. The first days ride to Multan was not too bad, only 6 hrs of riding. Multan is the kind of place that you could easily spend a few days. There is a lot of history and it was a Hindu place of pilgrimage and is now an important Islamic one with and old fortress and quite a few mausoleums. However, I could not stop I had a deadline to meet. I badly misjudged the next leg of the journey from Multan to Sukkar. It turned out to be over 400km, perhaps 475km. I have no desire to ride anywhere at night, but the sun was failing and I still had 80km to do. As the sun went down the sky filled with 1million and one tiny moths that really did not help with visibility. I finally made it into town and found a hotel that was both clean and safe and had not a bad price. Although I was still getting free cups of tea and meals the occurrences of such was getting less frequent. In the morning I could really have done with not riding, my body was sore and I had what I think is the beginning of some sciatic pain down my left buttock. However, I did not have the luxury of resting. After I stretched out I set off heading north into the hills and towards Baluchistans only City, Quetta. The roads so far have been good and adding to the fact that firestarters cruising speed has increased from 55km/h to 80km/h I was making good time. I had a fair bit of roadkill to avoid. Every few KM a flattened dog would be either fresh or rotting and being picked at by birds. I keep being asked if I am a Muslim and since I bought an English version of the Koran in Islamabad, telling people this seams to ease them a lot and smiles follow. I am on the 3rd Surra (Chapter). So far I find that alcohol is not all bad, but there are more bad points than good, and if you drink now you'll get no booze in the Thereafter (afterlife). Also if you're a good boy, you will have many mates/wives in heaven, all of which will be "clean" i.e no poohing or weeeing or menses. One big difference I have noticed is that the Koran is said to be the "actual" word of God sent down, and not written by "people" as are the previous Scriptures. It's said to have no contradictions and to be unchanged since it was dictated to Mohammed's scribes. Also tattoos are not allowed. One interesting thing I have also read is that back in the days when it was written it clearly states that a woman should be financially looked after by her husband if and when he divorces her. This was WAY ahead of it's time when we consider this is a relatively new addition to the laws of modern Western society. With only the Koran for company in the evening I could be fully converted by the time I reach Austria.
I still have not found any reference to woman and how they should be treated. I've still to find if the "covering" and restrictions and imbalance of the homo-gender society is a religious one as commanded by God or a cultural one brought over form Arabic Paganism. On the subject of women I have learnt quite a bit about Pakistani cinema in the last week. Did you know that all actresses are from the state of Punjab and that all of them without exception are prostitutes? Well neither did I. See no other women in Pakistani society could and would be able to bear the level of shame brought down on themselves by appearing on the screen, dancing and singing and jigging about their bits for all to see. In face none of the actresses can dance very well and the singing is dubbed. What's more peculiar is that all the actresses are over 40, pushing 50. They are all revered and worshiped by the masses. Very odd considering the shame and disgust that this would bring on a "normal' woman. The formula I think could only work here. A society homo-gender (i.e. Men rule and have all responsibility and make all the decisions), which is deeply sexually suppressed worshiping dancing whores that look like someone's fat drunk aunty at a wedding. I think they are seen more like eccentric Aunties and because of this it makes it all ok. To finish matters off, all the dance choreographers are super grotesque camp men. The mind boggles.

The scape changed quite dramatically as I crossed the Central Braua Range. This area really is the wild-west of Pakistan, the out-back of subcontinental-Asia. Now I'm 1700m above sea level its getting a bit chilly making me glad that I have got my Afghan blanket with me for warmth. I'm still unsure if will head out to Dalbandin tomorrow or rest for my extra day. Quetta appears to be interesting from what I can see so far. Lots of crazy bazaars, it has a really wild-west kind of feeling with ultra conservative Muslims. Indeed it's not far over the boarder to Kandahar where the whole Taliban story started. In fact they used Quetta as a spring-board to spread the word into Pakistan. On a closing note Pakistan lost their world cup qualifier with Iraq 7:0. No one here noticed a thing, the radar did not make a beep. It has to be cricket.

Chitral to Lahore

2007-10-17T11:43:00.000Z

Today has been another amazing day in Pakistan. I set off from Chitral on the morning of Eid, the day that marked the end of the months fasting of Ramadan. The roads were empty as I set off back the same way I came through the valley villages and heading to the mountain pass over 3500m above sea level. Before I started the climb I stopped to re-adjust the straps on my baggage and was quickly surrounded by villagers and before long was invited into the home of one prominent man for breakfast and tea. They were very simple poor farmers and I was unsure if they could really afford to be feeding a complete stranger cake, biscuits, rice and chicken curry, but they would not take anything in payment telling me it was their duty to provide visitors with their hospitality. After staying for about an hour I made my polite goodbyes to the waving village of very shy boys and this time even some young girls. Today was Eid as I have already mentioned and the girls too young to marry yet were dressed in colourful dressed with lots of makeup, the married ones were nowhere to be seen or waring full burka dress. With my belly full I climbed up the mountain road towards to highest point driving through 45 switchback turns before reaching the police check point. Because the fasting is now over I was given tea and I stopped to let my engine cool for 30mins. I was hoping to make it back down to the point were I no longer needed a police escort before sundown. Because the escort slowed me down so much on the way here I cruised past all checkpoints unnoticed and managed to make it 90% of the way before lack of light pointed me to a small town. On arriving and after asking where I could stay 2 local boys walked with me for over 2km to show me a good hotel. They really went out of their way. I crossed the street to call my mum and dad from a pay-point. Even here they refused to take the full payment and gave me back 50Rs. Then across the street I bought some water and some apple juice, the owner refused to take any money. I was beginning to feel like royalty. Still in shock as I left the shop I was "jumped" by 12-15 young boys who saw me come in on my bike and wanted to play cricket with me in the hotel court yard. I was put to shame by them for they knew every cricketer on the planet naming all the present players for Lancashire. I was bowled out for a duck by managed to recover some pride as I started knocking some 6s around the hotel. Soon a chair was brought and I was sat down ready for the "interview" to start. A quick fire round of questions on everything you can think of and of course all the usual questions. Food was brought for me, which I had to refuse, there is only so much you can eat in one day, I was in danger of being fed to death on hospitality. After giving mobile and email details to the older boys and after the younger ones teaching me "bad" words in the local language I tried to make my escape, after all it was about 10hrs of riding and I needed a shower and to lay down and rest. Luckily this coincided with the call to evening prayer and as they all disappeared I made my escape only after I had promised to play cricket with them the next morning before I set off for Islamabad. The people in the North Western Frontier of Pakistan have very pale skin in comparison to the rest of Pakistan and the Indian Subcontinent. There are also an unusually large number of people with blue and green eyes. When I inquired about this I was told that after Alexander the Great pulled out of the Afghanistan mountains most (or a lot) of his troops stayed and settled and intermixed with the locals.
The ride to Islamabad was pretty good I made it in good time way before it went dark. I stopped to have my bike looked at again. I feared that my back bearings were going again due to the extreme bad conditions of the roads I had been riding. The bearings were fine but they were not sitting right and after some purposeful hammer and screwdriver hitting inside the bearing hole to make a rough service they fitted nice and tight and my chain is now keeping it's tension and not in danger of coming lose time and time again. Not bad for the whole job being about 30p. I should point out again that during this visit to the mechanic I gave out my email and address to another 3 people, so mum and dad if you get a knock on the door and a man with a beard is looking for a bed it could be anyone of the 20 Pakistanis or 12 Afghani friends I gave your address to. Sorry. Along all the main roads so far there are as many Natural Gas filling stations as there are petrol stations, it appears that the Pakistani government is leagues ahead of the Western government on reducing pollution. I stopped for lunch at around 2pm and after eating 2 rotti 3 small bean and cauliflower curries and two cokes I went to pay only to find that yet again the owner wanted nothing for my meal, saying it was his duty and pleasure to give it to a stranger. Now I know in some of my past entries I have been comparing Pakistan to India and perhaps swinging in Pakistan favor. I should point out here that the bad points of India, like cheating and rudeness is mainly reserved to the cities and big tourist areas where they are set up for an scramble for the tourist dollar. I have traveled to more rural area in India were I was the only foreigner and it's not so bad, also it's important to point out that in Pakistan there is nowhere near as many foreigners and hardly a tourist industry. That's just in case I was gonna get an ear bashing from any of those sweet pro-India people out there, which of course I'm one of.
Islamabad is very much the same as the pre-planned India city of Chandigarh. Long wide boulevards, tree lined, clean and organized. Its hard to find and indeed I don't think there is really a centre to the city. Instead there are zones dedicated to function, like diplomatic and business areas. It's pretty soulless from what I can see so far, and it's bloody expensive. I've also just found out that I scrapped my visit to Gilgit so I could get to Islamabad to chase up my VISAS only to find out that the Embassies don't open for another day because Eid is going on for several days. So perhaps the excitement of tomorrow will revolve around updating my blog and visiting the post office.

My visit to Islamabad ended up being a complete and total waste of time. I spent 3 days twiddling my thumbs and watching TV in my hotel room (which was very expensive) because Eid went on for ages and there was no web connection. To make it worse when I finally get to Iranian consulate they can not do very much for my application for I have already applied via an agent in Tehran. Anyway, if I had had an Internet connection from the start I would have found out that my VISA had already been approved 2 days before (after an 11week wait) and all I needed to do now was get my arse back to Lahore to collect it. YIPEEEEEE finally, I'm so glad for I was a bit nervous about the alternative of going through Afghanistan. So now I am back in Lahore and after deciding to stop giving my mum and dad address and phone number out to Pakistanis and Afghanis my new story is that I have sold my house and only have an email address for them to connect me on. Again when I stopped for breakfast I found it impossible to pay for my meal and drink. I was however a bit miffed when I had to pay for my lunch, setting me back 12p. Everyone from the hotel in Lahore has gone to the Sufi mystical Islamic dancing tonight so I am on my own, using up the Internet bandwidth to make some phone calls and load this new blog entry.
So after my Iranian VISA it's off to the city of Multan and heading further west in the direction on Iran.

Here is a little 2min video of my 2 day search through the mountains trying to find the Kalash people of the Rumbour Valley. Hope you enjoy.

Carry on up the Khyber

2007-10-13T09:26:00.001Z

The Regal Internet Inn - Lahore is the kind of place you could easily spend a week, however I had only one month left on my Pakistani VISA and had many more things to see. I set off north just before 8am and after 10hrs of solid riding with 3x15mins breaks I had cruised passed Islamabad and arrived at the Rose Hotel at my final destination of Peshawar. Ian a Scottish guy I was knocking about with in Lahore had already arrived from his overnight train and together with Kristian (Aussie) and Shane (Irish) we watched Liverpool and Tottenham draw 1:1. The people of this region are famous throughout Pakistan for their hospitality and they are right. People stop in the street to say hello and unlike India they not to try and sell you something or trick you.

I had read something about the way of Pashtun tribal people. They follow four basic laws. Melmastia means showing hospitality to all visitors without exception or reward. If you are a guest you are treated like royalty with the host even giving his life to protect you. Badal is the second law and it means revenge. They are obliged to avenge an insult even if it was accidental. One Pashtun saying goes "revenge is a dish which tastes better served cold". Funny, I always thought that was the Klingons. Nanwatai refers to the absolute submission of loser to a winner at the end of a dispute. This submission to the winner is said to restore honor to the defeated man. Finally there is Nang, meaning honor and particularly in respect to women. A Pashtun man has a duty to defend the honor of his wife (any one of the 5). This may be violated by as little as a glance in her direction.

On the 400km journey I had noticed a change of western dress to the traditional style dress and a rapid reduction of women out in public.
Here is my estimation of the region.
Men in Traditional dress = 95%
Woman in public = 5%
Men with beards = 90%
Men with other facial hair = 5%

Since I left Amritsar I stopped shaving and now with almost one weeks growth I feel like scratching my face off. I heard that it makes you less intimidation to the locals and I am thinking of getting a traditional outfit for my further journey.
We met a local man outside the hotel by the name of Prince who said that he could take us to the Khyber pass and into the Tribal control regions of the Khyber Agency. This region is controlled by the Afridi tribe with only the 100 or so chiefs able to vote and represent the people in the Pakistani Government. However, the Government has absolutely no authority whatsoever in this any any other Frontier region. We had heard of this Prince bloke by fellow travelers so the risk did not seem too high. After some hard bargaining the price seemed good and the following morning we set off in the car, swinging by to collect an armed escort. See, just outside the Government controlled city of Peshawar Pakistani law gives way to Tribal law and an armed escort is required. Of course I felt a little nervous but also excited as we progressed up the barren mountain roads and towards the Khyber Pass. The houses we passed did not resemble houses, more like high walled mud forts with gun barrel slits for windows. Most of the locals we passed were armed with AK47s, but they still waved and smiled as we drove on passing the famous Khyber railway built by the British and recently put out of action by flooding. There was and is so much history in this region, with the Brits, Russian and Pakistan's trying to get control, and no-one succeeding for very long, such is the bond and resolve of the tribal people. Now tribal law rules and they have their own security force. We were told to keep a low profile for foreigners are not really supposed to enter. On reaching the Pass I climbed to the side and had my picture taken with the insignias of all the British regiments that had served during the wars. I saw the old British fort, the one built by the Sheiks and the anti-tank concrete smooth pillars placed on the old road to stop a potential German invasion of India during WWII. Past the Pass-propper was the final check point high on a hill for those not entering into Afghanistan. From the check point you could see down the old Durand line and into Afghanistan and to the boarder crossing to the trucks waiting to enter. Here is a picture just for one friend. Lee Young!!! Yes there is a Karzi up on the Khyber and here's a pic to prove it. After heading back into Government controlled territory we visited what is called Smugglers Bazaar, and then into the Illegal part of the bazaar where all kinds of drugs, foreign currency counterfeit notes and other naughty stuff were being peddled alongside the smacked out heroine addicts. Prince (our guide) took us to see the Tribal leader of the region who welcomed us with a warm smile and before long we had green tea while he showed us his impressive gun collection of AK47s, machine guns, rocket launchers and Israeli night-sight sniper riffles. Of course myself and Ian could not resist taking some snaps. The leader was a calm and softly spoken man that reminded me of Henry VIII. Gout in his ankles and pretty fat. He was very pro American and had his desk set up like he was the President of the United States. The room had a big plasma TV and lots of chintz from visiting foreigners, fluffy toys and Lady Di pictures, a very bazaar setting as we posed with his guns. He offered us to shoot some rounds into the wall in his back yard, but for 1000Rs the price was too much. As we chatted his hench men came in with phone calls and counterfeit US$ for us to buy, but I did not, Then out of the blue he pulled out a bag of heroine and mixed it with the less pure brown-sugar and took a snort rapidly followed by his asthma inhaler. We did not feel threaten at anytime, but the whole situation was very bazar. It was in the middle of the day so during fasting nothing can go in your mouth, clearly this rule does not apply to things going up your nose, snorting class-A drugs is fine, but just you try eating that cheese Sandwich me-old-china and you're done for. We made our polite goodbye and headed off to the next destination of Princes "Best day of your life" tour. Pushing open a rusty iron gate revealed and illegal but tolerated gun factory. Men and boys on the floor and standing lathe machines churned out replica working AK47, Barrette pump actions and pistols. For 100RS a round how could I resist. I had one pistol shot and 3 shotgun shots. It was the first time I have shot a gun and of course it was fun. The last stop of the day was a little more refined and less odd. The Goods Truck painting yard wall full of old UK, Japanese and French goods trucks in various stages of being rebuilt and painted in the very distinctive Pakistani style. Lots of fancy over the top murals and bright colours. When you see them on the road even more additions and modifications have been made by the drivers. They beat British public transport and trucks hands down on creativity and are clearly the pride and joy of the owners and drivers.
By the way, please try not to worry out there. I am careful and do check out the security situation of each place I go before I enter. Also on a more mellow note. I got a new 6mega pixel camera off an English fella who came overland through Russia and the Stans with his Kayak. It was just in time for my phone camera is seriously on the blink and it's only a matter of days before it pops it completely.

The next day I set off just before 7am. My destination was the mountain/valley village of Grom or something like that just south of Chitral approximately 245KM north of Peshwar. Kristian the Aussie guy said he made it in 10hrs in the opposite direction, but he was on a Honda 750cc with fat off road tires. At this time in the morning the sun was not properly in the sky and it was bloody freezing. I had to stop and redress putting several t-shirts and my gloves. After about 100KM the road tuned to the left and I was stopped by the police. Apparently I needed another armed escort to go into the Chitral region. Off we set but about 10KM on there was a change of escort as we passed again into new territory. Each time I had to change motorbike escort I was losing precious time. Unfortunately the next guy wanted to ride side by side and chat. Mainly about me and being married and wanting to go to England. It was the slowest 15KM ever. As I waited for the next security change over a local had a 15min attempt to convert me to Islam, I explained I was very open but 15mins was just not gonna cut it. The next guards appeared. Two very burly bearded men well over 6foot each. Seeing them both squeezing onto a bike smaller then mine make the bike look like a toy and them not very safe. Like Brian Blessed and the Honey Monster on a children's bike. They encouraged me to ride in front so they would not have to keep looking back to check. I road off some 200m in-front of them for a few KM. As I rounded a bend I saw a cloud of dust in my mirror and they did not appear. I went back to find them both bleeding on the floor the bike hanging off the edge of the road. It was not long before a crowd was gathered, I've no idea where from, there was no-one when I had passed. One of the policemen tried to blame me for the accident saying I was going to fast for them to keep up. At this point I figured silence was the best defense. I was not going to take any crap for two over sized men on a badly maintained bike with no grip on the tires trying to take corners too fast. I got taken half way back to the previous check point and was appointed a new escort and off I went again. This went on for hrs until eventually they lost some interest and I was back on my own after being assure there was no Taliban in this area. The next check point I had to stop again and wait 45mins. Although all the coppers were very friendly and by no way threatening I was getting frustrated by the slow pace and my lost time to make it to Chitral. I was though nice to go a bit slower and take in the mountains and hills, the rivers and trees. This part of Pakistan was amazing I really had no idea that the country was so scenic. During my 45min delays at the next station (no power in radio to call for next escort hand-over) I was again in a discussion on Islam and conversion. This copper was very intelligent and not just a missionary with a one track mind, I really enjoyed his company. By now I was starving, if you remember there is nothing to eat during the day in the Holy month of Ramadan. We talked about marriage (of course) the Koran and alcohol. Then another police officer arrived and offered me a gift of Hashish. Funny how drinking is bad and eating during the day not allowed but smoking weed is fine. I of course declined the offer telling them that not only do I not inhale but I don't participate at all. We swapped addresses and I promised I would do all that I could to help him get his VISA and passport to visit England and start his new career as a painter and decorator. The next motorbike escort I had broke down just as we set off. Luckily for them I had my tool kit and with a bit of insulation tape and my pocket knife we had their oil pipe fixed and off we went again. The day was coming to close and between the shadows of the mountains it was getting very cold. There was no chance now of making it to Chitral for the night so the next possible option was Dir. I had said before I left Peshwar that I don't want to stay in a place with a name like Dir , "Dir, why did you stay there?". I arrived 15mins before the end of the days fasting and showered and changed into my pajama like outfit put on my hat and went for a walk. Not one single person even looked at me, I've done it, I've gone "local". Each evening at the end of the fast an air-raid Syrian goes off followed by the call to prayer. The night air is filled with the singing of the head of the Mosque, it really does sound very mystical and exotic to be in a Islamic country and see and hear and taste the difference from back home.
The longer I spend in Pakistan the more I like it, I find the people polite, friendly respectful and honest. The streets are clean, hygiene is high and respect for each other, foreigners and themselves is high. Of course when I say people I do of course mean men, since I have not met or talked to a single women to be able to judge what they are like. If was a visiting alien species it is possible that I could think that humans reproduced asexually by budding off a new bearded man. Also I don't want to get drawn into the trap of women's rights, though my gut feeling does say I would not like to never feel the suns rays on my skin ever again or return someone's smile after the age of 12. Also the longer I spend in Pakistan the more I realize that the partician from India was the right thing to do and Ghandi was bonkers to want to keep Indians and Pakistanis together. See the Indians see the partician as losing something, where as the Pakistanis see it as gaining an independent homeland free of the Indians. Islam is not just a religion it is a way of life. Unlike most Christians who top up on God points on a Sunday then go about their normal unchristian lives until the next Church Session. Here it's 24/7, everyone does it without exception and it seems to really work for a stable society.

The drive from Dir to Chitral was a real struggle, over 10,000 feet through the mountain pass on roads which were dust and shale. As I looked on up into the barren Pakistani/Afghan mountains I could not help wonder if Mr Laden was hiding up there and how I could get a severed head back in a pickle jar to claim my $20M. On reaching the pass I rested for about 30mins chatting to a police men that must have the coldest loneliest job in the world. The ride back down the other side was had going, switch-back after switch back taking the best part of the day going no faster than 10km/h. Once I reached the valley I was able to speed up and made it into Chitral about 3pm and waited patiently for fasting to end so I could eat. Again the town was clean and there were zero women. The next day I registered with the police and had my bike serviced for about 8p and off I went heading for my original destination from when I set off 2 days ago. Heading to the Rumbour valleys to a village called Grom. About 20km outside Chitral I took a right and then once over the ancient suspension bridge I was in the valley. I passed the last of the Muslim villages and headed down into the forbidden and secret valleys of the Khalash people. These are an ancient people, with their own religion (one god, 12 deities and goat sacrifice). A few hours later I really did come to realize that this was a special place a kind of an odd anomaly not only in Pakistani, but perhaps the planet. A forgotten valley, people waring traditional colourful clothes, women in public, all smiling. I heard that about 100 foreigners come hear in a year, perhaps less. With no Muslims and mosques and hidden in a lush valley it was the perfect place to chill out for a couple of days. The local man I stayed with even brews his own wine and snapps. This is the only place in Pakistan that Alcohol is not illegal. With Ian and a Spanish fella we shared 1.5litres of his home-brew which normally would score 3/10, but on this occasion scored 7/10. In the middle of the night I threw up an spend the next day bed-ridden with a very bad stomach. I'll never find out what it was but today I am fine again today. The little villages of the hidden valleys are really worth a visit, especially if you are a female visitor to Pakistan for here you can be uncovered and respected. I am unsure how long it will take for this unique culture to be eroded and slowly converted to Islam, but it's sure to happen.
Tomorrow I head in the general direction over another mountain pass to Gilgit, then down south down the KK-Highway to Islamabad.

Here's a little video I made of my adventures in and around the Khyber-pass.

Chello Pakistan

2007-10-06T05:22:00.000Z

Chello Pakistan is probably the best known joke in India. It means "lets go to Pakistan" in Hindi. The "joke" is that all Indians think that if they go to Pakistan their throats will be cut as soon as they step over the boarder, such is the mutual fear of each other. Since I was traveling way off the normal tourist trail each place I stopped for a break was a new adventure and new possibilities to make friends. Knowing about India's best loved joke has proven to be very useful to break the sea of flat staring faces into smiling toothed grins. Once the ice is broken the stream of questions flows. I have now just about got used to the trail of predictable questions. Here is an example.
I ride into a petrol station to ask for directions, soon enough word goes around and the best English speaker is drafted in to help communicate.
Locals: "What is your country"
Me: "England"
Locals: "England! A good country. I would like to go there".
Me: "Yes it's a good country (I'm not taking you)".
Locals: "Lots of money in England"
Me: "Yes but it's very expensive"
Locals: "What is your good name?"
Me: "Craig"
Locals: "Clive"?
Me: "Cr-aaaa-ig"
Locals: "Graggeee"
Me: "Yes that's right"
Locals: "Where are you going"?
Me: Pakistan
Locals: (puzzled looks around the place). "Pakistan? Why"?
Me: "To see what it's like"
Then comes the question they all really want to know
Locals: "Are you married"?
Me: "No I'm not married"
Locals: "No? Why not"?
Me: "I'll get married next year".
Locals: " do you like?" (making griding gestures with hips)
Me: "Yes I like that". (Indian men usually have the sexual maturity of 13year old English school boys).
Locals: "Are you lonely" (meaning alone).
Me: "Yes I travel alone".
Locals: "Why, where are your family and friends".
Me: "I make new friend".
Locals: " How many brothers and sisters etc etc

When I arrived in Delhi I planned to stay only for the night and head off to Chandigarh the next morning but come morning my body had different ideas. I stayed one day in Delhi and a second night. It's funny how comfortable you can be when the place is familiar. Come the next morning I was delayed 30mins by the "major" the owner of Majors Den, the hotel I stayed at. The owner is a retired major in the Indian army and he took great pleasure in telling me all the great things that the British Occupation did for his country. They united the country, when we left there was over 400 princely states, and god knows how many before that time. We brought the judiciary system and built the railways. It reminded me of the sketch from Monty Pythons Life of Brian. He did however give me pretty good directions to get out of New Delhi and towards National Highway One, the road north to Chandigarh. However, once I had set off I got lost in the maze of road works, they were expanding the Delhi Metro lines and there was total chaos. It took me nearly 3hrs to drive what should have been 15km and I in fact drove 75KM until I finally got myself on NH1. The traffic was pretty thin for it was Ghandis birthday and was a national government holiday. I had lost time to make up and NH1 was just the place to do it. Miles and miles of perfectly made motor-way, three lanes, driving perfection. Just as I was letting my concentration guard down a tractor came down the fast lane of my side of the road. Then a few KM further on an old lady was just sat in the middle lane, then a man walking his 20 buffalo, then a public bus driving down the wrong way. *sigh* India. I made it into Chandigarh about 6pm and found a hotel. Now this is a special place in India, it is the ONLY planned city. It's the capital of two neighboring states. The roads are grid pattern with wide tree lined boulevards. However, it has the draw back of having no heart or centre. The buildings are grey and drab and missing all the characteristic charm of the normal India architecture. It's like some strange human transplant experimentation gone wrong. Nevertheless, I did find a good mechanic who striped down my engine and cleaned my cylinder head and my carburetor, removing all the nasty crap that was causing my bike to cut out from the dirty kerosene mixed petrol I had bought so far on my journey. The next day the drive to Amritsar was easy, only 310KM this time. I arrived in good time and parked my bike in the Golden Temple free underground car-park and headed for the free foreigners dormitory. I really like the Golden Temple it's one of my favorite places in all of India. I made a visit to one of India's memorials and one of the British forces darkest days. A memorial where hundreds fof unarmed civilians made a protest and were gunned down as punishment. The bullet holes can still be seen. The next morning I headed for the boarder of Pakistan. Crossing out of India was pretty easy it only took about 1.5hrs with lots of chatting and more questions to why I was not married. I told them that people in England don't get married until they are 30, one wise customs officer informed me I was already 4 years late. Smarty pants. On finally arriving at the Pakistani side I was welcomed and directed to the immigration office where I went trough the same process in reverse. Having Dr Talbot printed on my Carnet (Import and Export document for my bike) really did help. I was introduced to half the staff and after lots of hand shaking and telling them I will marry next year I was told I was a very honorable man and there was no need to check my bags for beer and other alcohol. Finally I was in Pakistan. At first I thought it was not much different from India, but then I noticed less women on the streets and that the streets themselves where cleaner, but to the untrained eye it would certainly look the same with the same driving rules and same road side shops. It was only about 30km into Lahore down a new road. I stopped at a petrol station to ask for directions where I met my first Pakistani. Another rider of a Yamaha RX took interest in my bike and introduced himself and ask where I was going, I showed him my rough map to where I intended to stay. We soon set off, me following him and his wife on his bike. He drove right into the centre of town taking me directly to the street where my hotel was. I was amazed by the friendliness and hospitality. It was not unique, each person I met showed an equal amount of friendliness and less "gorping" than in India. Lahore, although not the government capital certainly is the cultural capital of Pakistan. The streets are wide and clean(ish). I checked in a dorm at the Regal Internet-Inn and was soon chatting with the other foreigners. I was given a guide book from an Chinese-American couple who had come overland through central asia and a map of Pakistan from a French guy and his polish girlfriend who had cycled from France. The travelers in Pakistan are of a different breed to the ego-tourist in India. They are more down to earth, less arty-farty. Not one of them was wearing stupid clown(ass) pants. No smug self appreciated smile of pretend enlightenment as you find in the clones that follow the well trodden tourist path of the Indian transport hubs. As the evening fell I could finally eat something. I had been unaware until I tied to find something to eat earlier that I had arrived right in the middle of the holy month of Ramadan. A month of daylight fasting. After a bite to eat the hotel owner took us to see what he called Sufi Night. We arrived and walked up the crowded steps of bustling men into a court yard that had been built around painted ancient trees and sat on the floor with hundreds of men.

All in local dress as two musicians drummed out Islamic mystical beats in time with each other. As the night went on and the smoking of substances was passed around the chanting got more dramatic and devotional singing to Allah got more passionate. At about 1am 5 or 6 men made a circle and started dancing in what appeared to be a crazy random way, they were all in a trance like mystical Islamic dance with arms waving and heads shaking rapidly from side to side. One of the dancers was armless, you can just make him out in purple in the video. The people were chanting and singing all around, hundreds of them hanging of walls and from trees, the atmosphere was undescribly (yes I know that's not really a word) electric and we had the best seats. After 4hrs of arse numbing sitting we made our way out down the steps past the hundreds of people cramming outside trying to get in to what could only be described as the Pakistani equivalent to a Friday night disco. It was truly an experience I'll not be forgetting any time soon. Later I found out that we had been honored by the most famous of sync drummers in all of Lahore. Two brothers, and amazingly one of them born completely deaf. His father taught him how to recognize rytheme by tapping his fingers on his sons back.
After todays walking around Lahore and my trip to one of the main mosques I'll be heading north to the city of Peshawar and hopefully to the Khyber pass on the boarder with Afghanistan. That reminds me. I have never wanted to or have been comfortable with visiting a mosque before. However, once in the court yard I was greeted with warm smiles and friendly handshakes and met a man who was living there for religious study for 15days. He showed me around and I was encouraged to take some photos. I think now that Muslims in a Muslim country are so relaxed and confident and only want to show hospitality. It makes a big difference if you don't feel threatened and isolated as a minority population is. It says in the Holy Koran that all strangers are gifts from God and should be looked after even with your own life, this is lived up to. Apparently it says this in the Bible, but how many people follow this I wonder? I have been invited to the homes of several people already if I come back this way I will certainly make a few calls.
As promised here is a video of me trying to sing Queens "I want to break free".

More than I can chew ?

2007-09-30T13:39:00.000Z

I'm now at the end of day 5 of my road trip. The short version is that I have made it safely across the boarder to India and a further 390km to Delhi. I was more than a little apprehensive about returning to India after the comparative paradise that was lakeside-Pokhara, Nepal. I can only think it must feel this way to remarry your ex-wife. To be reminded of all the little quirky things that she did that made you fall in love in the first place, the mystery the wonder, then to suddenly be reminded of all the little quirky things that made you want to bury her under the patio. To say that my first 5 days were a roaring success would be an exaggeration, to say that they were a disaster would be a little dramatic.

After several days of being rained in at Lakeside I finally packed up on a cloudy day that looked like rain and said my final-final-final goodbyes to whoever was around and set off in the direction of Tansen some 120km through winding mountain roads. I soon discovered exactly how far in KMs the "event-horizon" of Pokhara actually is. It's exactly 11KM. As I tootled up the mountain roads with a deep feeling of liberation there was a "clunk" on my back wheel, my chain had come off, crap. After fixing it for the 3rd time I figured it would better to head back down the road back to Pokhara and get a mechanic to take a look. I soon discovered that the reason my chain was coming off was that my back bearings were shot. After watching the man wedge in a bit of old bent wire to keep my bearings in place I figured it was a good idea to take a visit back to Ram-Babu the mechanic who made my bike in the first place. Ohh the embarrassment of seeing some old faces as I reentered town. How could I stay another night. After Ram-babu fixed up the wheel properly I headed off on the Tansen road again, but with not much time to make 120km through the roads in only 4hrs. About 1hr into the ride it started to rain and the temperature dropped quite a few degrees. It was bloody freezing. My fingers were numb, what a wimp. The going was slow, some 120km in 5hrs. This slow time was mainly to do with the road being single lane mud and rock in places. Every 3 km there was landslide debris and the going was very slow. I'd had enough by the time I reached the hill town on Tansen and found a cheep hotel. Next day I set off for Butwal only bout 20km but this time climbing down the hills. There did not seem to be enough downs as there were ups, the law of up and down (otherwise known as Dibners Law) did not appear to be valid in these parts. I used the downs to freewheel for two reasons. Firstly to cool down the engine after the laborious climbing and secondly to conserve my meager 12litres of petrol (remember there is very little in Nepal right now). Once past Butwal the road was meandering and of extremely good quality. It followed the line about 30km from the India boarder just below the hills. I was hoping that I would be safe from the monsoon here. Ohh how I was wrong. About 2pm it started and did not stop. I pulled over under some trees in the middle of nowhere on the forest road. I pulled the rain cover over firestarter and looked back on my bags to see I had already managed to lose my waterproof pants. It would not have mattered for I realised that my jacket was hardly waterproof. More like water concept proof, it could withstand having the word "water" directed at it but anymore than this it suffered badly. I was soaked...totally soaked to the skin, the rain was relentless. I stood across under another tree and watched the rain. After about 1hr I decided I should seek better shelter, but she would not start, the custom Bullet petrol tank run-off was positioned directly above the spark plug. So I pushed her for about 1KM until I found an old concrete bus shelter. Here I striped and wrung out my clothes and did all I knew to get the bike started. After 1hr of trying I figured that the shelter was as good a place as any to spend the night. I had resigned myself to trying out my 2nd hand sleeping bag when a local lad walked by and told me in broken English of a nearby village down a previously unseen dirt road. A night with the tribals, I thought, excellent. I put the bits back on the bike and give it one last kick for good luck. It started. Off I set again trying to reach NepalGanj before it went dark. I was full of optimism until I ran out of petrol and had just enough momentum to carry me down to the next petrol station, which like the other 30 on the way was dry. I asked around for somewhere to stay, someones floor, anywhere. Luckily a local man took pity and found me 1litre of petrol and told me the next town 1km away had a hotel and a pump with fuel. I pulled in the next station and he was right, I filled up 13litres and checked in the hotel across the road. By now it was pitch dark. As I lay on my bed I wondered if I had bitten off more than I could chew. What a day. Well what a couple of days. Then this is what it's all about, the adventure, not knowing who you will meet and what town you will be in and where you will be sleeping.
The next morning, keen to get going again I looked out of my window. I was not going anywhere. The monsoon was back with a vengeance. Trapped in this nameless, nowhere dirt track town. Boredom set in, how tedious.
The next day I waited until 9:30am for a break in the rain and set off. The road was very much the same, great conditions, but this time I had entered a different region of Nepal. A region of unrest as could be seen by the burnt out petrol stations, buses and trucks scattered along the road sides. I was allowed through several Maoist road blocks and an equal number of police check points. The rain came and went but never got serious. I passed through a Royal National Park with spectacular scenery. I was aiming for Mahenhranagar the town near Indian boarder on the very west of Nepal. As I said the road was in great condition, but not all the way. It is easy to be fooled when for 5km the road is perfect then suddenly it goes to bombed out conditions and then disappears all together under a fast flowing river. The first river I crossed I went a little too fast, learning (nearly) the hard way that there could be big potholes under the water. I was lucky as I wobbled but regained balance. The second river I had to cross was over knee height and after the last water related problems with firestarter I was worried I'd be stuck in the middle of nowhere again. I reached Mahehdernagar it around 2pm with an arse that felt like it was made of granite. That's right I think I need to buy myself a nice soft girlie cushion at some point. The boarder was slack I nearly drove right past the Nepal Immigration office. Funny, in this part of the world how there is nice tarmac running up to a boarder crossing then as soon as you reach no-mans land the surface disintegrates to dirt and rocks. I guess no one is responsible for making a road in no-mans land. I was surprised how easy it was to do the paper work for my bike in India, I was in and out in 30mins or less. The India customs did not even check my bike, I mean they did not even leave the office to see if I actually had a bike with me. Now what to do? I had made such good time on the drive here, but I was keen to make up for the day sat waiting the rain out. My road map was basic, but the gods decided and I have got a bit lost, headed kinda south west instead if west and I'm now in a the forgotten town of Pilibhit some 350km east of Delhi. I was going to press on to a town 50km farther west, but firestarter stopped again. She clearly had had enough for one day. The bond is being made, I'm even starting to talk to her. I might be mad by the time I get home.
On this final day of my blog entry I set off in the general direction of Delhi, but with no real hope of making over 350km. The first 70km took me over 3hrs, the roads looked and felt like they had been land mined. Unlike the rest of the places in India that I have visited no one speaks any English. It's so different, you see things so differently being on a bike. Visiting places in no guide book. Some places look totally forgotten, not even a bird in the sky, or if there are they fly upside down.
After about 4hrs I hit a really fantastic road, perfect and hit my cruising speed of 55km/hr. It would be crazy to drive any faster. The KM clicked way and after 7hrs I was in reach of Delhi as long as the road remained in good condition. I knew I was getting near as I drove past the slums and rubbish dumps the sky blackened with the thousands of eagles circling, looking for mice and rats feeding on the rubbish. After over 9hrs and nearly 350km I have arrived in Delhi. Back at the Majors Den hotel for a night. I have had a shower, cleaned my teeth and all I need now is a cold beer and a bottie massage and the day will be signed off as a success.
Tomorrow north West in the general direction of Amritsar.

Here's a summary so far
Day 1: Pokhara to Tansen = 130km (5hrs)
Day 2: Tansen to nameless town 20km from Nepalganj = 240km (11hrs)
Day 3: Monsooned in
Day 4: Nameless town to Pilibhit (260km) 8hrs
Day 5: Pilibhit to Delhi (320km) 9hrs

Well I'm defiantly in India, the beeping of the horns. I have already stood in something unsavory on the way to try and find an Internet cafe. I have had 2 attempts to cheat me, but both failed, I'm too sharp now. It's hot too, humid, mossies the works.

I'm off to repack my bags now, having my laptop over the petrol tank with the bungy net appears to have put some strain on the motherboard. It keeps turning itself on and off of its own free will. Hopefully putting it in the main bag at the back might give it a break, but this means having all the weight over the back rather than some on the front. The experimentation starts.

Stuck by the lakeside

2007-09-25T06:32:00.000Z

Well as the locals and ex-pats told me before, this place is like the twilight zone, once here it's impossible to leave, kinda reminds me of the line from the Eagles "hotel California". Yet another delay, this time the rain. It's been sunny for about 2 weeks, then the morning I am setting of it rains and rains and rains and it is still raining. I must had said my good-byes about 5-6 times now, it's getting a bit embarrassing no-one believes me anymore. There is some good news though, I borrowed my friend clares phone for she had the same model as my water drenched one and after a set of trial and error experiments I worked out that only my battery was buggered. So 500Rs later and I have a new one and I'm back in photo action. John has been forgiven (for now) and as a very nice surprise he bought me a good-bye t-shirt to take on my travels. The night before last was my official last night, but I had a second last night, last night in my local bar, where (like at the Gurkha's party) I joined the band and did my best to sing Queens "I want to break-free". I have a video recording of it so when I'm next on a good connection I'll upload it to freely advertise my embarrassment. So I've decided to upload some more pictures. There is a great one of the local "virgin" mountain known in English as "fishtail" and Machapuchare in Nepali. It's known as virgin because no-one has managed to climb to the top since a British lead expedition in 1957 failed. It's now off limits to all as it is revered as a "god" to the local triable people. Speaking of fishtail there is a picture of me and my pall Pradeep the owner of the famous fishtail lodge on the lake here. Guests included Jimmy Carter and Prince Charles. I go to swim in the pool on a hot day. There is a picture of me playing pool. Another picture of me with 'firestarter" with helmet just to show my mum and dad that I have at least bought one. On a rainy day there is not much to do other than eat and read and go to the internet cafe. This of course was before Neil my American teacher-journalist-Maoist expert friend gave me the new series of Battle-Star-Galactica on DVD. Now I can go and watch 15 episodes back2back when I get home.
As you might have noticed I have mentioned far more people in this blog entry than ever before, there is a reason for this. My blog address is now out of the bag in Lakeside, so I thought I'd better be nice and not slag them all off in case any of them read what I write. Ohh yeah before I forget I need to give my ego a bit of a massage, so here's a link to the movie I stared in while living in Bangalore. It's in 5 parts so might take a while to download. The movie came in the top 5 of its categorie at the NewYork film festival as reviewed by TimeOut NewYork.

http://vegnonveg.com/EX-PATS.html

Also John suggested I should try and get some sponsorship for my journey, so I emailed several newspapers and GPS companies etc etc. The only success on this front was unfortunately not any sponsorship but a mention in my hometowns local-rag the world famous Oldham-Chronical. Check it out, it made me laugh and smile.

www.oldham-chronicle.co.uk/NEWSTH14.html

Bye for now.

Back on the road

2007-09-23T10:23:00.001Z

Tomorrow I plan to set off on my epic journey. I managed to get 12 litres of black market petrol and think this will be enough to get me at least 400km. I will head to the hill station of Tanzen only about 80KM away but through long winding mountain roads, so should take about 3hrs. Then in about a week cross into India at the north west corner of Nepal and head straight across to the only boarder crossing with Pakistan.
I took my bike for a 5 days ride across the country to Kathmandu stopping at a few places of interest and natural beauty. Back in Kathmandu I went back to the Nirvana Peace Home and found that Kristal, Cloe, Louise, Dev and Anna where all still there from my last visit. Was good to see my old friends and catchup, though this time I managed to stay away from the crazy bars and just chill on the hotel lounge and rooftop. There was a little bit of excitement on the last day. Anna has made a date "modification" to her Nepali VISA and during her renewal it was spotted. Ohhh dear, she was locked up and her passport taken away. She was let out a few hrs later and told she had to leave the country immediately, she was very lucky indeed. I gave her a lift back from the hotel to the immigration office on firestarter, but since today was the big rally/demonstration by the Maoists it was tricky to get across town, but we did. On the final few streets to the immigration office we came across the main demonstration, 1000s of people in red waving flags and police road blocks. What do you? We needed to get through. So I nipped back around the other side of the police and we headed slowly on firestarter into the crowd. We did not get far before being stopped. We pleaded, telling them the nasty government was going to lock up poor Anna and she would never get home to France. It must have helped that firestarter is commie red for we were allowed through....success.

I also got a dose of the dreaded "red-eye" while in Kathmandu and riding back through the Himalayas for 5.5hrs with conjunctivitis was less than pleasant. This would be a test for my skills in homeopathy. I had got a full kit of 88 remedies while in Kathmandu (for less than a tenner) and the next day my red-eye was gone 80% and after 4 days gone completely. The other cases I had seen (it's all over Nepal) takes 5 days of deep red and 2-3 weeks to go completely, so I was pleased. Aconite did not work, neither did Belladonna, but on the 5th hr I took Apis 1M and my eyes started to leak sticky white glue. Then bingo.....gone. Nice.
I am afraid that today there are no photos to show you. Not that I did not take them, it's more that my phone camera is buggered. My dear friend John from Halifax who shall remain nameless thought it would be fun to wrestle me to the floor at the monsoon flooded dance floor at the Gurkha party and since then my phone has been on the blink. I hope Verity will send me my new one to Lahore in a weeks time via courier. What to do? Go to Kathmandu? (sorry people say that around these parts).
Another famous Nepali saying is that "a man and a woman are 2 wheels of a cart". I always thought carts had 4 wheels?

I am still waiting (6weeks) for my Iranian VISA but hopefully it will arrive in Lahore by the time I get there. Iran is the country I am looking forward to visiting the most, everyone who has come over land that I meet says it's the most friendly and hospitable place they have visited. Funny how our media tells us a different story.
The only complaint I hear about Iran is that there are only so many times you can stop in a day for free food and cups of tea.
Anyway it's time to head off, I have lost of people to say goodbye too and dinner at Dons tonight with a few other people. It might be time to leave too because the Maoists resigned from the government 3 days ago and they started to close some of the boarders. I think there might be a little unrest around the corner.

One year on: Firestarter is born

2007-09-07T06:42:00.000Z

Well folks from the title you might have guessed that it has been exactly a year to the day that I boarded flight BA120 from London Heathrow to Bombay

India

. It's a year since I walked down the steps from the plane to a bombardment of new sensory stimulation. The smells; flowers, spices, clay ovens, open sewers, rotting flesh. It is safe to say I did suffer from

India

shock though I did or realize or admit it for quite some time. My return flight from Mumbai to Heathrow took off without me yesterday afternoon, so now I am committed to returning back to euroland overland. Time has gone past pretty quickly, I guess because I moved on to the next place whenever I felt like it, that's the best thing about traveling alone. No discussions when you arrive somewhere if you eat now or later, where to sleep, where to eat. You do what you want when you want. Of course there can be lonely moments and moments which are better shared. But when you consider that when you travel in a couple or a group that you just DON'T meet people like you do when you are alone, there is just no substitute.

If you remember the trauma I suffered when I had to retire my flip-flops I got from Bondi beach, you can only imagine how I must be feeling about the retirement of my pants I got from GAP in Pikeleys-Bayswater. I had been wearing the same 2 pairs of pants for exactly a year and as you can imagine after many washes and patch up jobs they both finally started to fall apart. Each cut, stain and stitch has a story to tell. Like when the Bombay Taxi driver tired to slash open a side pocket with a razor blade under his finger nail to get at my wallet. Luckily it was bulging so much with fat dirty Sterling what it did not fit through the gap. I was of course considering hanging onto them for a bit longer. My theory was that if I get stuck in a desert somewhere without food, then at least I'll be able to take off my pants and boil them, giving a tasty and nutritious broth that could sustain me for a few days at least. Regardless, they had to go, sad to get attached to a pair of trousers. I have replaced them with my own design, tailor made, zips, quick drying very thin material, with secret pockets, the works. Not bad for 5squid. Hopefully they will last as long.

Well back to the blog. For the past few weeks I've been exclusively devoting my time to designing and over seeing the customization and the modifications to my bike. Also I have been spending a fair amount of time hanging out at Rajus Royal Enfield Bullet Surgery, as well as Busy-Bee bar for my nightly pool hustling. Well this week, my bike was finally ready. After much anticipation the mechanic kicked over the newly board out engine and 'firestarter" was born. That's right my new bike, she is called firestarter. When I first asked Rick to make me one, my instructions where "don't worry about how she looks, just make sure she can get me home". Over the past few weeks, this all all gone to pot. I've totally changed my tune. My god, now I know how the grease heads and bikers feel and those sados who rub down and polish the same spots on their bikes and cars each weekend. Guarding their "princesses" from grubby children's fingers. I had to take the horn off, just to repaint the bracket (that no-one can see) because the black was a little more faded than the rest of the frame. I spent two days finding clear plastic indicator lights, so they would be more discrete, then had to paint the inside bulbs with ladies red nail varnish to the indicator would flash red. They also had to be small and round to go with the over-all rounded line of the bike design.

I'VE BECOME CONSUMED.

Well I hope you like her, this is her clean and new and without the side boxes I have had built with the custom welded brackets. I have had to learn a few new Nepali words like "don't sit", "don't touch she is my wife". Where ever I go I get people all over the bike. It's a modified Yamaha RXG. Now these are fantastic bikes in terms of engine reliability and mileage, but totally city spinning rattle bags. I've changed the whole bike except for the engine and frame, so people are really intrigued about it. Being a foreigner I am able to bend the law a little and ride a modified bike. As a Nepali there is no chance to do this. Though it is very nice to have so much attention, if I am not careful, when I return to my bike, so many people have been sat on it and been "fiddling" with all the leavers that I have to spend 5mins each time putting things back the way they should be.

I've started running her in, very slow revs to open up the engine and set in the new piston rings. I ride 50km out of town past the river and dam and along through the villages. Each day the children wave and ask for chocolate. If I go early the women are washing fully clothed under the water pumps. If I go in the day they are either working in the fields, tending to the rice or walking miles and miles with wicker baskets loaded with straw or rocks, with a strap on their forehead so their neck takes most of the weight. Whatever time in the day the men sit either in the shade of the bus-stop smoking biddies or on a bench drinking tea. I saw a lot of this in India too, the women doing the hard graft while the men sit or stand around. They hang around doing bugger all, waiting for something to happen and when it does because nothing has happens for so long it gets blow up all out of proportion and then someone jumps on the situation for political gain. When the Maoists had full control of the country (except the 2 cities) they put these men to work. They said that each household must donate one man to a community project. Mostly it was to build roads, and it was at the end of the day "forced" labour. So of course the UN human rights office was all over this. It's a tricky one, for it's really a good idea, but it is an infringement, and once this is ok, what next? Forced reality TV shows?
Like I said a few paragraphs ago I have been spending quite a bit of time at Rajus Enfield garage. I'm happy to report that all the Royal Enfield crew that hangout there too have fully accepted firestarter into the family (well she does have a bullet petrol tank). On Saturday afternoon I headed to Rajus to see if he had some petrol. See I've been trying to run my bike in when there is a petrol shortage. The Nepali petrol company had again not paid the Indian importer for the last batches of petrol, so naturally they stopped sending it. A real pain in the ass. I came here for 2 weeks and again another delay in the grand plan to keep me here for longer. There has to be a reason, I've just yet to find out what it is.

Anyway back to my little story. As I arrived at Rajus for my 14th cup of tea of the day, a car pulls up with 5 Indian lads in it. They proclaim that they want to have "sexy-time" with some Nepali ladies (but as you can imagine those were not the exact words they used). So off goes one local to make the arrangements. The Indian lads follow and there is much discussion around the street. Generally on how rude, disrespectful etc etc. See the Nepalis are a proud people, they don't take insult very well and unlike their cousins south of the boarder, they can not be bought easily. They took exception to this insult. I later find out that someone in the group around the shop was in the YLC, the Maoists eyes and ears on the streets. A quick call and perhaps 5mins later the Indian boys were caught red-handed so to speak with 2 local girls and giving a proper good-hiding. A right kicking, so I hear. Luckily for the lads someone else had called the police, who arrived too late to prevent "Nepali justice" but just in time to be told by the YLC that "if they harm or abuse the girls in the cells, they will get the same treatment as the Indian boys". I tell you it's all happening a few streets back from where the tourist walk up and down all day. Not sure I agree with such violence, but it works, people behave themselves. If you commit a crime, you are publicly shamed. Paraded around for hrs and verbally abused. Made to squat down or stand on one leg for hours. Of course the UN does not agree with this, and I can see why. Who judges these people are guilty? I know I did give the UN a bit of a bashing last time. But since then I have seen perhaps evidence of one or 2 things they have done. They still swan around in big fancy cars and fly around the same spots in helicopters (in fear of getting a reduced helicopter allowance for next year if they don't run in the miles). Back to the prostitutes and the YLC telling the police they will get a beating if they abuse the women. See now the UN has introduced a special area in each police station that takes arrested females and is only manned (so to speak) by females. See not all bad.
I've also changed my views and child labour laws. Like most laws in the West they tend to go from one extreme to the next to stop some horrific even taking place and don't account for what's probably the majority of the cases that would not lead to this event happening. Of course I don't agree with Chinese sweatshops making the latest line of Donna Karen panties or Brazilian open-cast gold-mines where children practically get born into slavery. But what I do see is children "working" in hotels and restaurants. They are still children, they still play with their friends, they still have fun. Most importantly they are learning, about working and life and money. They learn respect. Kids back home, never having lifted a finger, their flesh flabby and soft, sat watching TV, minds idol. I say bring back the chimney sweeps. Seriously though, without work there is no respect for anything, we were not born to sit around, the body and mind must be kept active and this starts as soon as you're born and this is taught by your parents. Now if your parents happen to be called Wayne and Waynette, then perhaps it's better you're sterilized at birth to save yourself and the next generation the problems they have inherited. Take Dinit, the 20yr old lad who works in my hotel here. He left home when he was 10, not because his father used to beat him, but because his father wanted him to study. I know there is no relation to child labour, it's just I had nowhere else to tell you about it ;-)

My special Spanish friend Ana also left to Kathmanu on route to the Canaries leaving me with some good memories. So now the bike is ready I really am keen to get going and off on my journey.
Well I'm off my my 11th cup of tea now, I'll update my blog when I've finished waiting for petrol, waiting for my VISA and waiting for the monsoon to stop and the hoards of tourist to arrive.

It's also the Gurkha annual Ball tonight, which I have been invited to, the theme Hollywood/Bollywood. Should be interesting, seeing the army boys all dressed in Shari's.

Sleepy Lake

2007-08-25T12:22:00.000Z

After about a week I managed to escape SIN CITY, which is the affectionate name we dubbed Kathmandu. I said good-bye to my international gang of new friends and headed back on the micro-bus through the Nepali mountains back to Pokhara, where my Yamaha RX was waiting. The following morning was a half day at the Government auto registration office so we had to get our skates on. On arriving we (Rick, the present bike owner and myself) we quickly linked with a "process-broker" without whom the whole procedure of registering a motorbike would have been totally impossible. The beuocracy was remarkable, but if you are in the know, it does actually work. There were numerous offices, some of which were located on the pavement outside. The importance of the office occupants was dictated by the presence of a carpet or a ceiling fan. After much yo-yoing the process suddenly came to an abrupt halt. What to do? The letter I got from the British Consulate in Kathmandu has raised some concerns. I had needed a letter saying that the British Government had no objection to me buying a bike, I had needed one for my Pakistani VISA too. However, since each letter cost over 40pounds I had asked the consulate to state my intension of traveling across boarders and buying a bike on one letter and obtained multiple copies. This of course had saved me a lot of money, but the authorities at the Nepali vehicle registration office did not like the letter saying I was going to leave Nepal on the motorbike. What to do? Bugger. Using Ricks phone I called the Consulate and they remembered me and within 5mins they had FAXED me a new letter just stating that I wished to buy a bike. It worked a treat. Everyone from the Consulate and the registration office and even the police there knew my intension's by now, but all turned a blind eye for the paperwork was now in order. I did not even have to pay a bribe, but perhaps I had been expecting one after being in India for so long. We were getting close, after nearly 4 hrs the 4 inch thick books came out and we found the pages that referred to my new bike. I was required to sign and counter sign, have my photo added and my thumb prints taken 3-4 times in various documents before the log-book was handed over and the whole process complete. The next day I rode my old crappy 10year old Yamaha GX up the hill and dirt shale track several KMs to the top of the hill were the World Peace Pagoda was waiting. The sun was intolerably hot at 12noon, but like mad dogs and Englishmen I pressed on until I could get my bike no further and had to trek the final 1/2 mile. The view over the lake was amazing and through the monsoon clouds I could just about make out the surrounding mountain range of AnnaPuna. Back at my local evening hangout (the Busy Bee bar) I exchanged travel stories and played pool with a mix of locals, ex-pats and tourists. Over the next few days I came to realize that the seemingly sleepy lakeside town of Pokhara had a lot more going on behind the scenes that would first meet the eye. Across from me was the local "family" boss having a whiskey with the chief of police. At 4am in a back street garage an old man would cook up chow-main for a man 10th in line to the crown, complaining to the head of the moist rebels that marrying his Canadian girlfriend would cause a constitutional nightmare for she was Catholic, the only religion that the Nepali Royal Family can not marry. Of course this reflects our own Royal family archaic rules where poor William, if he does marry his on-off girlfriend, will cause similar constitutional issues. What a load of crap. I got chatting to a local English army Captain about 21years or so, who is recruiting and training the British army regiment, The Gurkha's. For the Nepali entry into this regiment is a way out of poverty, they can feed all their family for years on one months salary. Entry is strict and highly contested. Some men are said to carry on hiking up and down the mounting with baskets full of rocks with any injury they pick up during the tests, even with a broken leg. I hope to be invited to play footie with the Gurkha's before I leave. This sweet little lakeside town really is an international melting pot, similar to Kathmandu, but with the UN vans driving around a bit more. In fact all people from all the official factions seam to mix. Royalist, police, army, British Gurkha's and Local Dons. All mix except the UN. I briefly met the head of the UN, a lady in her later 30s, who assumed I was part of the "British Camp" as she put it, I assume because of my shaved head. The more I see the UN the less respect I have for them. Driving around in their expensive flashy white Jeeps with big army style radio receivers. They just seam to be on a "jolly". I know they probably have a lot to do organizing the first ever elections that are planned for November, but honestly, they don't appear to have any clue what-so-ever on what is going on "on the ground". The elections are set for the end of the year, but it looks as though the American Embassy is doing everything in their power to derail the whole process. What a shame. The general lack of understanding of the local people appears to be shocking. Their main objection to the elections by the Americans seams to come from the fact they don't want anyone Maoists in the new Parliament. It's a shame really that the rebels called themselves Maoists, for even the Chinese have objected to them using the terms for it's not really communism at all, more like very left wing free market capitalism. Nevertheless, because they have taken on the mantel of Maoists the red lights have been flashing at Washington. After all, this small, poor country is of extreme strategic importance, being sandwiched between the rapidly growing economies and global super power contenders of China and India.

Yesterday Rick invited me to have breakfast with his friend before we started work on my bike. When he said breakfast I did not really expect to be taken across the lake onto an island in the middle to an exclusive set of cottages surrounding a swimming pool. I jumped in of course and submerged myself in water for the first time in 8 months. I had not even had a bath in Indian. It was bliss. The sun beating down I of course got sun burnt. My bike has already been striped down to the wood. New wider wheels have been made and all new suspension and parts have been bought. My frame repainted, and seat custom designed and covered. All I have to do now is wait for the head mechanic to come back from his village with the big smile of newly found fatherhood and we can start putting it back together before I have to choose the right kind of red I want it painting.

I have have some good news from my pal Olaf. A Dutch guy I met in an Internet forum that wants to ride an Enfield across the same countries as me. We will plan to do it together and once he gets over his Delhi Belly bed in Delhi (down with poisoning for a week), we will meet up hopefully in Nepal and set off together. I have bought a 2nd hand sleeping bag for about $3 and a 2nd hand gortex "emergency" tent off a French guy who runs a Kayak shop for about $8. All is going well. The only disaster I have had is my white flip fops I got on Bondi-Beach finally fell apart and I was forced to retire them in favor of a new red pair. I hope get myself a boat tomorrow and head far into the middle of the lake and catch myself some fresh Carp. Also today I got a deep and strong urge for meat. I had not eaten meat for months and months, mainly because to do so in India is suicidal. I know I am not very good at listening to advise, even from myself, but this I could not ignore, I guess I needed some protein. I finished off a fat juicy rare stake in a record 1hr30mins. Seriously, I was so not used to eating meat, it was a real struggle, after which I had to come back to my hotel room for a lay down, all the blood from my brain, legs and lungs was diverted to my stomach to power my digestion. It did taste good though...yummy.

Oh yeah I almost forgot. My favorite local bar has live music on each evening, and boy, are they good, I mean seriously good at all the rock classics and some of their own numbers too. The bar is very relaxed and if you fancy singing or playing a number you are welcome too. Last night a guy asks if he can sing to his own music recorded on his ipod. Up he gets and pumps out 3 of his own Rap numbers, getting harder as he goes on, he was pretty good. After I got talking to him, for I knew I recognized his accent from deep in my memory. Only turns out Carl is from Oldham, my own home town. We had a laugh over a few drinks reminiscing over Yorkshire and Union street pubs, the fighting on Friday and Saturday night, the night clubs that have since closed down and the number of ears and noses that are delivered to the field hospitals each weekend in hope of finding their rightful owners. Goes to show it's a small world.

Week 3 in Pokhara.

Ok, so the rolling hills and mountain ranges are breath taking. The scenic lake and little fishing boats calming, the people friend and honest, the afternoon monsoon dramatic and refreshing, the company of locals and ex-pats and tourists stimulating, but I am getting a little bored now. My bike has been stripped down, and rebuilt around the original reconditioned engine and frame, with all else being customized. Tomorrow I'll go collect the final parts from the town paint shop and hopefully on Monday morning be able to start her up for the first time and set off on a slow 500KM "break in period" before I can finally get my arse on the road again. This place is filling up more and more with tourists, finally realizing how safe it is for them to come here. The fact the American government labeled Nepal a "Terrorist State" appears to have damaged the economy pretty badly. Each day a foreigner stays in Nepal, 7 jobs are further secured.

Today is Saturday, the day of rest here, most thing shut down, most things except for Rajus Royal Enfield Bullet Surgery. Last week I cruised past on my rented bike and recognize a few faces. Rajus's Bullet Surgery is famous across north Asia. He is the best Bullet mechanic around and welcomes all who behave themselves (which unfortunately usually discounts most of the Israelis tourists). Within a min of sitting down to talk to Anton and Roland the Austrians I was given a whiskey and coke as they gently pulled a fluffy brown goat into the back workshop. I did not think anything of it when 45mins later I was tucking into a mutton stew curry. One slit throat later and we were all being fed. A little too fatty and boney for me, but still not bad. This place is dangerous, like a gravity well....once in its hard to leave. Today I revisited Rajus, thankfully it was a little calmer with a lot of people being away. I chatted to Damien my English Pal who is a translator for the UN, being here 10years and being totally fluent. In fact he is the only one in the UN who appears to mix with locals and understand the issues, the rest appear to be career beurocrats, dining in fancy restaurants and cruising around in nice clean uber-jeeps. Anyway, I'm sorry, I generally try to keep away from politics, but it's hard to in a melting pot like Nepal. I'm feeling a little like a local now after nearly 28 days in Pokhara. I know everyone in the local bar, I usually forget to pay my bill, which is fine when I settle the next day. I have finally come to understand the people are not trying to cheat me, my guard has finally dropped, just in time for when I leave for India again to be screwed over every day until I relearn to get it back up again. Hopefully, my Carnet (import-export document for my bike) will be couriered over in a couple of days time, then I will be off, heading to Delhi to meet Olaf and head over to the Pakistani boarder together. Then again, I have been thinking this for the past 3 weeks, tomorrow may never come.

North To Nepal

2007-07-31T07:37:00.000Z

Right now I am sitting in the Nirvana Peace Guest House in the pumping heart of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu. To be more precise I am nursing an horrendous whiskey, gin, vodka, beer hangover in the Nirvana Peace Guest House. Somehow I have managed to stumble on a crazy crowd of Spanish, French, Italian, Belgian, Irish and Nepali party animals. After last nights exploits I have realized just how hardcore I am....NOT.......

I have a couple more days in Kathmandu while I collect my VISAs for India and Pakistan. I was hoping to go further north into Tibet and then China proper, but I am finding it very difficult to convince the paranoid Chinese that riding a Nepali registered motorbike into their country would not pose as a security threat. Regardless, I'll head back to the shockingly beautiful lakeside city of Pokhara to see my new pal Rick so we can custom build my yamaha from the bolts up, only then will I know which way my journey will take me.

My travel buddy Jay is now on her 4 day journey back to Bangalore. It was sad to see her go for we had gotten close on the journey north together. Talking about anything and everything on the 2 day sleeper train from Bangalore to Varanasi. We discussed everything from American politics to episodes of Star Trek, from the meaning of life to cultural diversity of different Indian states. It's hard not to get to know someone well when you're trapped facing each other for 2 days solid. On arrival in Varanasi we headed straight for Jays ancestral guest house/temple that caters for her caste, which are the business like Chetans. She is American but with parents originally from Tamel Nadu in Madras. I don't think they were used to having foreigners stay with them but I was greeted warmly and ate with the Babas and other holy pilgrims. I'm not sure if you remember but this was my second visit to the holy city of Varanasi. The first time I decided not to take a dip in the holy Ganges for fear that everyone else's sins would wash off onto me. This time in a moment or two of madness I stepped out of the hired boat and into the water, of course directly after having my head shaved during some holy ritual of offering. Not the smartest thing I have ever done, it was on a par with having my chest waxed 1 day before going to Ibiza, where I swelled up like a plucked chicken. The water at Varanasi is known to be dead now, there is no dissolved oxygen in the water anymore, mainly due to the raw sewage pumped into the water coupled with about 100 dead bodies being dumped in per day. Samples of the river show that the water has 1.5 million faecal coliform bacteria per 10ml of water. In water that is safe for bathing this figure should be less than 500. Nevertheless in I went and did my holy puja and climbed back out. Of course Jay too had her head shaved and after we both got the mandatory massage from the head shaver we paddled across to the Ghat side of the Ganges and made our way to the burning Ghats. We stayed in Varanasi for a couple of days before taking a couple of long haul bus rides north to the Nepal boarder crossing. During the trip Jay brought to my attention that my newly shaven head was swelling up. The muscle ridge around my crown had taken on about 5mm of extra packing, I was looking like a Ferengi or perhaps some kind of novelty Dildo. I could actually feel the tops of my ears touching my head, a very strange and peculiar sensation. This was the last thing I needed for my already sunburnt and over-sensitive scalp. Now it has all gone down and I have a new layer of skin on my head, though I do look like a cross between Marlon Brando, Lex Luther, Gary Glitter and Grant Mitchel. The boarder and immigration between India and Nepal was really non existent, there was no checking and after paying my $30 for my VISA we pressed on to Lumbini the birth place of The Buddha. Jay was now not only an illegal alien in India but now also in Nepal after sneaking in without using her passport. Very naughty. Lumbini was great, a collection of Buddhist temples built by different countries surrounding the actual rock at Buddha was born onto. Of course there have been many Buddhas (just meaning enlightened one), but this fella was the only one who devised a methodology for teaching people to also join his enlightened state. Apparently, there were 30,000 people enlightened around his at this time and this gave rise to the belief system that is known as Buddhism today. The further we traveled away from the boarder it became more and more evident that we were no longer in India, the smells the litter the attitude of the Nepali people was quite different. I was happy to be here. Although we were really at the "wrong" time of year for sight seeing, being in the Monsoon the air was clean and some of the hills could be seen. We headed to Nepals second city, called Pokhara to check out a motorbike dealer ran by an English guy and his Dutch girlfriend. Pokhara is built under the AnnaPurna range of the Himalayas and just on the lakeside of a breath taking stretch of water. After a couple of days discussing with Rick I had gone off the Enfield idea for a Nepal Enfleld suffers an extra 150% TAX on top of the cost of an Indian bike. Also the maintenance on one is shocking, needed to be checked and rechecked each day. Of course riding an Indian one out of India is out of the question for a new law forbids foreigners to take them out. So what to do? Well looks like I will now get a Yamaha 135cc and have it customized so I can make it back in some sort of comfort. Rick has found me a Yamaha which we will rebuild with wider wheels, new suspension, luggage racks and a custom made petrol tank. I was hoping to ride north into China and down into Pakistan through the China/Pak mountain pass, but this looks a little unlikely, though I will certainly try.

I really do love Nepal, I knew I would, I loved the feel of Darjeeling and Sikkim when I visited last November for my trek. The people are honest and friendly and the women pretty and smiling. Kathmandu is really the only city in Nepal the rest of the population being rural and very poor. I have yet to be held up by Moist rebels, which is a shame really I was looking forward to getting my receipt and having chat while they take the $ donation to their cause. The situation here looks like it has calmed down a lot with the guns put away and the Kings power greatly reduced and the Maoists now represented in the government. The King here is universally hated and despised by all. A shame really for the king and Queen before were universally loved and revered by the people. His rise to power is cloaked with great suspicion after the whole royal family were gunned down by the crowned prince who then turned the gun on himself, with the son of the present King being the only survivor. The main conspiracy theory is that the anti American family were murdered by the CIA to put the present King who is pro-American on the throne.
Tonight I will take it a bit more easy as I head out with the gang from Nirvana Peace Guest House, Gwedo the crazy 25yr old bearded Italian eternal traveler may try and drag me into a few bars. This guy became a good friend very quickly, without wanting to sound too gay we hit it off immediately. The second day I saw him he was bare chested, head hung down, long hair and beard and arms stretched out with blood poring down from his head, he really did look the spit of The Christ. In fact he had just slipped on the steps and banged his head. Last night we were treated to a fusion of funk and Nepal beat music. The bongos, flute, guitar, bass, sitar and digiderdo made a crazy combination and really rocked the house. About half way through Cloe the cute French elf like hippy girl flicks out her hidden silver flute and starts jamming adding in what can only be described as mystical-jazz flute to the mix. It was such a good night, I have to tell you. Walking back we were jumped on by a gang of street boys, Gwedo knew them well and they just wanted to play. He has been living in Kathmandu for 4 months and these kids love him. Imagine about 8 boys from the age of 4 to 11, with only each other as their family. They sleep were they can, get what food they can, looking out for each other. The leader/boss is just 11 years old and you can see how much stick together. We played with them, throwing them around like you would normal kids that age, thats all they wanted was some adult play attention rather than being hit or asking for food, brought a tear to my eye.

Moving on (again)

2007-07-13T12:54:00.000Z

Well, it's that time again. My feet have become itchy, and I don't just mean from the infestation of bed-bugs, that I have still got. My VISA for India expires in a few weeks, so I have taken the opportunity to get my traveling knees oiled again. Yes tomorrow morning at 9am I am on the 50hr train up-north to Varanasi on route to Nepal and Kathmandu. Jay an American girl who finds herself an illegal alien is accompanying me to try and get her VISA sorted as well. I am in a bit of a rush actually for I have quite alot of dillying and a fair bit of dallying left to do before tomorrow morning. Mainly I need to finish this entry, get home for a shower (though I am trapped in the clinic, held hostage by monsoon rain at the moment), then off to the Taj Resedancy ICE bar for a big ex-pat boozethon.
Today I visited the local Jijayanagar post office to fire off some books back home, just in case I don't make my way back to Bangalore before pressing on off to euroland. While in the post office I was reminded exactly why I LOVE this country so much. Where else in the world would you walk into the post office to post book overseas and spend the next hr and a half in the PostMasters office drinking hot chai. I did feel a little bit bad, but only an incey bit about the Q of 200 people who where waiting to get served while we chatted and laughed about the food, family values, the weather, education, my folks, the Kannada language film industry and his children studying over seas. The PostMasterGeneral is all powereful in his domain. He personally modified and crafted a box and packed my books like they were the crown jewels. Today was a really great day, wherever I went I got smiles, head wobbles and pure generosity. This place makes my head hurt sometimes, it's so contradictory. The post office experience was so good that I hardly realized that 3hrs and 50mins had passed, yes that's right it takes nearly 4hrs to post 4 books overseas, and that's with the personal attention of the PostMaster himself. On a down side I have put back on the 6Kg I lost during my 2 week fast, though the last 3Kg I put on in the last week, I think I might have a tapeworm.
Well there is not much more to write. I may be back in Bangalore after I get my VISA, but a voice inside also tells me that once I am "on top of the world" in Shangara-la I may very well carry on into China and to the place where the Mongaloids are from. Who knows.
Bye for now.

Poo, I nearly forgot to do the July Edition of Culture Corner, it's a good job I did it last week so all I have to do is cut and paste.

Culture Corner July 2007
For todays edition of "Culture Corner" I have decided to give you all a concise insight into Indian-English language usage.

Indlish language
In these modern times of American imperialism we are all aware, either actively or sometimes passively of the Americanization of the English language. Of course the laws that govern the development of a language are the very same that assure the development and progression of mother natures creatures, that of evolution and the survival of the fittest. Language mutates, deviates, develops and adapts to its environment. It is dynamic and just follows the natural flow of civilizations and society. I feel it is pointless, fruitless and indeed even naively arrogant and stupid to try and fight this flow. Time would be better spent studying this beautiful law of nature at work. I feel that English is perhaps the most dynamic language to study. I say this mainly because it's the only language I am fluent in and also because I have a certain degree of common sense. It is the most spoken 2nd language of the world.
We are all aware of some of the more dramatic adaptation that popular American culture has imposed on English. Sidewalk = pavement, bad= good, elevator = lift and so on. There are of course many more local variations. Australian English also has its own slant, though I think a lot less serious and more fun/youth based, with less aggression and angst than the American versions. Of course the aussie versions have had far less time to deviate from the original, whatever that was (considering there are hundreds of dialects with in the British isles themselves).
So you may be wondering what the bloody hell am I on about? Why do I not do a blog entry for over a month than start rambling about flavors of English? Well I am coming to my point. I have been exposed to Indian English for over 10 months and and its has slowly dawned on me now unique it is. Only only has it had far less time to deviate from the original, but its development is totally unique when we think about how and why they are speaking English to start with. Firstly, for most it is a second language and sometimes 3 or 4th. But, the Indians that speak English have a full handle and full vocabulary within their own realm. Some of the words are totally unique to the Indian version rather then less used elsewhere. There are a lot of really old fashioned Victorian words still in use, that really tickle me to hear them. In a country where there are over 26 official languages with at least 4-5 semi-different dialects of each language, there is one official national language, Hindi. Oddly, English is rapidly replacing Hindi has the national language. Many English words are spliced into everyday usage, very much like the French use, Shopping and Le weekend and like we use Kindergarten and cul-de-sac and rendez-vous. Most of the shop signs and bill boards here are exclusively in English not Hindi or the state language. I have however noticed that there is no resistance to being Englishised, in fact all school lessons after the age of 10 are in English, so if your child can not speak the language he/she will not progress at school.

So this brings me to my point I feel I mush share. I have decided to start a dictionary for English-English - Indian-English.

I feel it would be useful for anyone coming to visit. The usage of the Indian-English words can be broken into several categories in terms of their evolution.
Firstly, exclusively used words, invented that have been adapted from their own native languages. Then there are some very old Victorian words no longer in use in British English. Thirdly, there are some words that have been established from a basic misunderstanding from some ancient teachers. Then there are some artificially introduced words by the government. Finally a category that eludes even my attentive mind. I have not managed to work out any logical reason for this final category to be in existence.
It also took me many many months to realize that I should not try and correct people using Indian-English. I felt initially that some of the variations where so different that they needed to be fixed. Then I came to slowly realizes that many Indians are not using English to communicate with native English speakers, but amongst each other, from one state to the next, rather than using Hindi.

Words I have managed to translate so far. I have called them Indianisms. If you don't use the Indian version you will not be understood. Also it helps to say the words with your tongue as far back in your mouth as possible. I have started off my English-Indian dictionary of words and popular phrases. Mahesh and Seems and Kiren (Seema's brother) have offered to help me with my latest project, I feel a best seller coming on. A must to accompany the rough guide, to read and digest on the flight over. There is nothing worse than speaking English (especially if you're a euro and using it as a 2nd language) and then not be understood.

If you need the toilet it is best to ask for the Latrine. If you get asked about tiffin, it means a snack or tea-break. This you seen in the train-stations on the window, "tiffin break at 2pm. There is only one other place you are likely to hear the word tiffin, and that in the movie "Carry on up the Kyber". Also they have curds and not yogurt (only heard in the old nursery rhyme "Little miss Muffet"). My favorite Indianism by a long stretch is "eatables" meaning food. This is more common in the south of India than the north. Bikes and scooters are two-wheelers. Cars are four-wheelers.
It's not just the single words, but whole sentences that catch me off guard and I miss a few beats before can work out what is being asked of me. I have had to learn the local English to be understood with more success.

Indianisms

Eatables = Food (Don't take eatables off strangers on the train, they may be drugged)
Latrine = Toilet (Particularly useful in rural areas)
I'll be back in a min = I will go and come
This is because in Kannada (Bangalore language), they can not say I will go and not see you again. So they say I will go and come back. The result in Kannada-English is that they will "go and come"
2 wheeler = Motorbike (government introduced wording)
2 wheeler = Scooter
4 wheeler = Car
Expired = Died (Sadly my wife expired last year)
Curds = Yogurt (old fashioned word)
Tiffin Break (snack) = Tea break (Tiffin break at 2pm)
Current = Electricity (There is no current, following the thrice daily power-cut)
Corn-flakes = Any breakfast cereal
Red colour = Red
Blue colour = Blue
What's that one? = What's that?
Take bath = Have a wash (somewhere down the line bathe has been mixed up with bath). Beware that there is no actual bath, just somewhere to bathe.
Hand-wash = Sink
Cot = Bed
Hotel = Restaurant (if you see a sign that say hotel, it is not a hotel, but somewhere to eat only)
Bed = Mattress
More costlier = Expensive
Petrol bunk = Petrol station
Britisher = British
What is your native place = Where are you from
Your good name Sir = What is your name
Teasing = Taking the piss
Battery = Torch (Particularly rural, for in the villages the only time they have seen a battery it is in a torch)
Reachables = Items within reach
Sugarless = No sugar
Tomorrow = Never
In 15 mins = Next week (if I remember)
Yes no problem = I have already forgotten about it
It pains me = It hurts
I don't relish it = I don't like

Acting and Inaugurations

2007-06-23T15:54:00.000Z

Hello peeps, quite a long time since my last entry. What have I been doing? Well I have got the clinic website up and running, finished some re-branding (letterheads, mouse mats, business cards etc). Have a look if you like.
www.centreforclassicalhomeopathy.com

Also since I made a sad eyed appeal for funds to continue the rural clinic work I have had an influx of cash donations from family and friends back home. I wanted to gather some money to pay for a car to visit the rural clinics and to provide the people with free treatment. I have been using some of the money already given in order to hire a car for the most arduous journey to Yelandur. Before we had to travel a total of 11 hours in a day on 2-3 over packed, dusty, smelly and roasting hot local buses to reach the clinic and come back home. Then when we add several hours of work on the journey time, I'm sure you can imagine the torture this results in. Now the journey is 3 to 4 hours each way in a hire car with driver. So already saving not just the horrendous pain, but a 6-8 hours in journey time. This means we can leave Bangalore at a more human time in the morning and also arrive home before 9pm. Most importantly for the 3 times we have done already this with donated money, we have been able to see for the first time "all" the waiting patients rather than having to turn many away due to lack of time. The difference is very obvious. As of yet we don't have enough donations for a "dream" car, but it's being saved and hopefully soon we will have enough. I would love to mention all the people, but this is a public blog and don't know how they would feel with names mentioned and besides I'm sure they did not donate for the fame and fortune of being mentioned on my blog. As soon as we have the car deal closed I'll be added a update in the "News" section on the website.
I am thinking of branching out to get funds to expand the work, but one step at a time. When the time is right I will approach some Bangalore businesses with requests for equipment (e.g. laptop, digital camera, video camera), all which are needed for the documentation and research.

Socially, I have also been pretty active. I'm not sure if I mentioned that I joined the Bangalore ex-pats club a few months ago. I have met a pretty cool group of people with different interests and nationalities. Of course drinking and eating and going out is one of the main activities, but there are all sorts of interest groups people have set up recently. One such group I joined was the acting improvisation group. I always thought acting was for pansies, and improv was for pretentious tossers, but I've really enjoyed it. As an off shoot of this the founder, a fella from New York, is shooting a short pilot episode for some film festival in New York. I play one of the 4 main characters, a British bloke called David here in Bangalore with is American-Indian wife. The script is really funny, but we'll have to see how it turns out on the silver screen to see if I am any good at acting, which I'm not too sure I am. Anyway, we are nearly through all the scenes, both indoor and the crazy outdoor ones (walking through the city markets filming with mics' and cameras attracted quite a bit of attention). I have been doing a few different kind of things lately, branching out trying new ideas, but don't worry I've not quite turned into a "lovey" just yet.
I have been visiting art galleries, something I previously thought only ponses and the French did. I have seen some really good photography exhibitions and feel inspired to get a better digital camera and join the BangalorePhotographyClub. Of course in my eagerness to branch out and try new things I did end up at the "Photography Exhibition for the Visually Impaired". Yes that's right photographs taken by blind people. I like to try and keep an open mind, and they were pretty, yes pretty crap. However, I did appreciate the will and motivation behind the concept of doing this, so hats off to them. I went to the second annual film festival on "Water". There were too many films on the state of water and holy rivers to talk about, but really some very shocking ones, even for my northern battle hardened cynicalness.

I have also been rock climbing. I have joined a climbing club at the athletic stadium, where I used their outdoor climbing wall. Good fun and I get full use of the whole stadium for about 5 squid a month. This includes the wall itself, the running track, grass pitch and the gym, perhaps more.

Since my last entry I have also started and finished a "fast". I planed on not eating anything for ten days. The fast is known in the west as "the Lemonade diet", this is because all you can take for a minimum of 10 days is a sugary very well defined drink made of maple syrup, with some pepper and lots of lemon juice. The diet ideally was designed to use fresh sugarcane juice, and in India there are sugarcane venders every few streets. Before I go on it's important to mention that the fast was not a weight loss or starvation diet, but a cleanse diet. Since we have been born we have been digesting food 24/7. The cleanse gives your digestion system a break, a holiday from this work for just 10days. During these 10days your body does a flush out, releasing all the "gunk" inside your guts, with the aid of a litre of salt (isotonic) water each morning (best not to leave the house for the next hour after drinking the salt water, unless you have an adult sized nappy fitted). Because you drink as much sugarcane as you like you don't get hungry, tired, dizzy and cranky. To be honest I never felt better and extended the fast from 10 to 14days. After 14days it took 3 additional days to break the fast in a sensible way. Day one on orange juice, day two on soup and day 3 on broth. Unfortunately, when it came to day 3 I lost my composure and ended up eating about 5kg of chocolate and cheese making myself sick. Now it's been about 2 weeks since I broke the fast and I have only put back on about 1kg of the 6kg I lost. I am now at 70kg. I did miss the social aspect of eating and actually not chewing was a bit odd.
After my body cleanse I have now decided to give a go at cleansing my mind too. For a while I have been looking for something more meaningful to do and live more in the "now", shaking off the access baggage of previous experiences. Funny because no sooner had I decided to do this than I met a new friend that had done a great deal of the leg work for me. Without going into too much detail, if you're interested in seeing the noddy-version of what I mean go hire a video called "the secret". If you find this interesting, I'll point you at something with a bit more meat to get your teeth into.

Because of my fast and because I had been busy I had not had a 'drink" for about a month. Then 3 days ago I went to dinner at some Finish friends and out came some food and drink I'd not experienced in ages. Foreign cheese, pasta, cherry tomatoes, sparkling wine. I almost went into a state of shock. At the end of a very enjoyable evening the hosts pulled out the trump card, a bottle of double-cask 15year old single malt Whisky. Oh MY God........It was fantasclious. I could physically feel my eye balls rolling back in my head and the sensations exploding on my tongue and up the back of my nose. It is true, if you live in the moment and are clear what you need then it will come to you, for within 3 days time I was sat in another friends living room drinking their fine French Cognac. Oh joy.

Right, less about me and more about you. I have decided to start a new section in my blog. Apart from just talking about our favorite subject ME, I have decided write a little extra for each entry on my experiences of Indian life, so to educate YOU, just in case you ever visit the land of wonder and contradiction. I shall call this "Culture Corner".

June 2007: Edition

Culture Corner

Chapter 1: Driving rules
Chapter 2: Inaugurations

Chapter 1: Driving rules.
At first glance you will certainly think the same as everyone else thinks, that the roads and the users are totally devoid of all rules and to ride on a road will result in certain death of worse still a horrendous maiming accident.
Firstly, I need to correct the global misconception that there are no rules. Rules do officially exist, but they are universally ignored. However, in the absence of rules the void has been filled by what can only be termed as a "general understanding of road behavior". The most important understanding is that of the right-of-way. Everyone has the total right of way all of the time, meaning if you think in a supremely selfish way all of the time you will be ok. Of course self preservation during your journey from A to B will inevitably overrule this first understanding. The bigger the vehicle the higher the level of selfishness and untimely more right-of-way you have . Nobody ever ever lets anyone in voluntarily. I have tried a few times (for the sake of maintaining traffic flow on the other side) to let someone in. Instead of the person going for the gap and restoring the flow of traffic, I was sneered at for being so weak and foolish and endangering other road users. NEVER let anyone in, never give way.
This does I realize sound extremely dangerous. I figured there must be something I am missing, some key, some magic rule that would allow thousands of cars and bikes to flow through the citys broken roads each day. How was this possible? How can you possibly keep and eye on all these people? The solutions actually brilliant, it's simple genius. Because there is so much going on right in front of your eyes, it is actually stupid and dangerous to look to your side and suicidal to look behind you. You are responsible for looking right in front of you. If you look to the side or behind you there is a good chance that in the 0.45 seconds gap while you bring your head back around to the front there will have been a drastic change in circumstances and a collision will occur. Now I have had this revelation it all makes perfect sense. Once you understand and observe it you can see it in action, not poetic action, but action still. Many bikes and cars have their wing mirrors removed or bent inwards for removing the temptation is far safer and they to actually get in the way when fitting through tiny gaps between other cars and when trying to avoid pedestrians when riding on the pavements.
I know this not-looking-behind-you business sounds a bit crazy, I agree, but it is true. People join the road without looking over their shoulder. Zipping into the flow of traffic on your motorbike or car without looking sounds beyond crazy. As long as everyone follows the general-understanding there are no collision. I will give an example. of this phenomena in motion.

Event 1: A man on his scooter swings into the flow of traffic, wife and 3 children on the bike, all safe in the knowledge that it is the responsibility of the cars already on the road to be looking out for this and take appropriate action. At no point does he make any attempt to slow down or look at the flow of traffic he just joins as though there are no cars and the road is completely empty.
Event 2: Car driver sees the man swing his scooter into the lane right in front of him and responds by sounding his horn loudly.
Event 3: Man on bike ignores horn for he is desensitized to it and there are 50 other horns blaring over this new one.
Event 4: In order to avoid a collision that would result in the death of the oblivious family, the man in the car abruptly pulls his wheel down hard to the right and swings the car over, his hand continuously on the horn.
Event 5: Using his active Jedi skills a man riding to the right of the car senses that his life is in immediate dangers and because he is unable to move to the right (he is already squeezing between the car and a government bus) he slam his brakes on. The bike driver sounds his horn as he decelerates to give up his space to the larger car.
Event 6: The auto-rickshaw behind the bike that was previously accelerating to avoid being rammed by a heavy good transporter suddenly has to break to avoid tailgating the bike, but also has to swing to the left to fully avoid a collision. The auto driver beeps his horn loudly as he misses the back of the bike by an inch.
Event 7: The jeep driver to the left of the auto accelerates quickly to avoid being hit by the auto and then slams his brakes on to avoid hitting the original car that had moved to the right. The jeep driver (who has a really loud horn) sounds his dominance over the car, signaling for it to move over and give way for him to pass.
Event 8 etc: And so on and so on, continuously.

Now it is important to mention that at no time ever, whatsoever, do any of these people experience any emotions. No one gets angry, not one horn is sounded in aggression or even frustration. It's like a non-contact dodgem race for Vulcans.
I am sure you can imagine what would happen if one of these people where to look to the side or heavens forbid behind them.

Below I given some common driving understandings.
1) You always have the right of way (see clause 2 & 3)
2) The bigger the car the more right of way you have
3) Cows have more of a right of way than you
4) Lane changing at any time is acceptable
5) Sound horn all the time
6) Never look behind you
7) Never look to the side of you
8) When joining main road, just ride ride on without looking. The people on the road will take their own action to avoid hitting you.
9) If someone joins the road right in front of you, take action to avoid a collision. Make no attempt to look anywhere to the side or behind you. People behind or to the side will take their own action to compensate for your actions
10) Never hit a cow, beeping horn more than usual is acceptable
11) If going down a one-way street the wrong way is quicker, then you can go down it
12) Crossing the central reservation to use an vacant lane from the on coming traffic is acceptable
13) Ignore red lights, unless there is a policeman there
14) If you get caught for any traffic violation, then pay police man 50-80Rs bribe
15) Don't bother with helmets unless on highway
16) Don't bother with helmets if you have your family with you (Police men do not seek bribes from a man with a family in tow)
17) Get as many people on your scooter/bike as possible
18) Seat belt do not exist
19) Use horn on any maneuver
20) Use horn to notify your existence
21) Use horn at all other times
22) Use horn just because you feel like it
23) Is the road is gridlocked, then ride your bike on the pavement (keeping eyes forward to look for car sized holes)
24) Special rule for public busses driver: You will not be able to stop at the side of the road because the retarded selfish people will be edging into the road as they see you coming until they fill 70% of the road so to increase their chances of being the first to join the over crowded bus. This will completely stop the flow of the traffic.
25) Hit and run is the mandatory advised action. If involved in a road accident, the police advised you to immediately leave the scene and seek refuge in the nearest police station. This is because if you stay you will be beaten within an inch of your life as the angry mob descends on your car. If your (taxi)driver leaves the car, you are advised to also run, VERY fast. If you are unfortunate enough to be a bus driver and lose control of your bus, then there is a good chance you will be beaten to death or torched while still in the bus, by your passengers. Well you did hold their safety and well-being in your hands and you abused that trust
26) Driving with lights is not necessarily, but if you have them use them, but only if you like
27) If using lights make sure they are on full beam. Remember your visibility is of importance, don't think for a second about the person you are blinding, that's their problem
28) Sound horn all the time
29) Don't go too close to the side of the road for you could hit a pedestrian or fall down a hole. Also you will have less time to react when someone else joins the road without looking
30) If the road is a 2-laner then drive in the middle of both lanes
31) Paint "SOUND HORN OK" on the back of every vehicle to remind the people behind to use their horns at all time

Amazingly, I have never seen an accident, and I have never once seen anyone acting aggressively. The Indian nature of non aggression and non violence baffles me, completely. Road-rage does not exist.
Last month in the evening I got an auto-rickshaw home. Now this auto, I realized had dodgy brakes, and he did not have any lights. However, I was not too concerned for my safely until I realized his horn did not work. I asked him to stop and I got out. It's crazy to ride in an auto without a horn. It's his most important weapon against the other road users, without it he is weak and almost useless to defend you on your journey. An AutoDriver without his horn is like a Samurai without his sword.

Advised behavior for pedestrians
1) Step into road without looking
2) If bike/car is coming it will sound horn to let you know not to step out (no need to look)
3) Walk anywhere, regardless of traffic
4) Don't under any circumstances use the pavement for you will likely
a) Step in someone's "deposit"
b) Fall down a huge hole and die
c) Step in an open sewer
d) Walk into a live power cable that is left from the last unfinished job.
e) Be hit by a 2-wheeler using the pavement
5) If foreign look BOTH ways, there is a high chance that you will be hit by a 3-wheeler auto or scooter coming in the wrong direction.
6) Walk along pavement NEVER looking up. If you look up for longer than 30secs while walking you could step in a "deposit" fall down a hole, fall in an open sewer of walk into an unprotected power line.

Please before you all get worried that I might be dead any day, DON'T worry. Because there are so many cars and bikes etc on the road, the whole flow move pretty slowly and sometime not at all.

Chapter 2: Inaugurations
To be honest I am unsure if I had heard the word inauguration before coming to India. I have tried to think back to the time before I set down in Bombay, before I was overwhelmed by the sensory bombardment that is India. Perhaps I had heard of it but just never paid any attention. Like many "Indianisms" of the English language, perhaps it is just another one of those old-fashined words that has a prominent feature here in this flavor of English. Regardless, it quite a common word in the circles which I move in now. An inauguration is an "opening ceremony" Indian style. The inauguration is possibly the most important piece of the puzzle of any event or new beginning. New libraries and shops are inaugurated. Opening of public events and sporting activities are all inaugurated. The construction of a climbing wall for example and the opening of a conference all can not start without an inauguration. So what's the big deal?
Well it just makes me laugh, the whole system is so overly ceremonial and stiff that is has the atmosphere of being uber- "British". It is steeped in ritual and pomp, to such an extent that it is often the case that more money is spent of the inauguration than the actual construction, or event itself. From a western perspective it is a pointless event, for the inauguration is not even used to promote the new event or construction commercially as an opening ceremony would for a supermarket featuring Les Battersby from Coronation Street. The purpose is purely to honor already rich men with big head and bellies and give them access to more money as they accept the cheque awarded to either Guest of Honor or the Chief Guest. The events I have been to are tedious and boring and would make you cringe and laugh at the same time. I have just reread what I wrote, I don't look very pro-inauguration, ohh dear. On the upside they do provide a meaning if they are combined with a religious Pooja. The date of the inauguration and Pooja are of great importance. A huge book called the Almanac is used to see if the date for the event will be an auspicious one. Rights are performed, bells are rang by a priest and some other rituals are performed that I have not quite got my head around yet (like putting your hand inside a water melon and cracking a coconut with your hand). To summarize the inauguration is for fat old men to slap each other on the back and take it in turns to give each other money and a Pooja is an important blessing of the new place.
When I talked to Katherine and Martin about our different inauguration and Pooja experiences we decided with would be appropriate to perform both on the arrival of Katherines new German Bread Baking Machine. With an International guest list of Americans and Fins the whole event went smoothly and the now we have assured not just quality bread but this bread machine is the most auspiciousness this side of the Ganges. I recored the emotional event on my mobile phone, have a look below.

The Winking Corn-Flake

2007-05-03T13:26:00.000Z

Well the new clinic is finished and I'm getting used to the peach colour interior. I have my own room now, of course still under the supervision of Mahesh. I went once more the the isolated rural clinic outside Bangalore. It's a day trip and totally torturous. It takes 4 hrs on 3 local buses each way. So 8hr of traveling before you even see any patients. Mahesh is these peoples only real contact with the outside world. Although I think they now do have electricity but their water tap is only on for 2 hrs a day. It's sad to see some of these people. A bright young girl of 15, one of the young people being educated, now this visit we see her with her wedding bands. She is now the bride of her 35yr old Uncle. We advised her to try and leave it at least a few years before conceiving, but it's hard to tell them that generations of Uncleloving can lead to genetic and developmental defects. They are more concerned with keeping what little money they have within the family and also avoid dowery payment. The treatment results here though really are even more striking than in Bangalore. The people are innocent and trusting and accepting and although they come with ailments their general level of constitutional health is higher than in the city. I'm unsure if they still think I am Chinese. I have told Mahesh that he really should stop the clinics, its too tiring for him, there is no way I can go each week it kills me. He has to leave Bangalore at 5am and does not get back until almost midnight, he loses his city practice money and does not make any money from the village (about 10p a treatment). I have been thinking of setting up some kind of charity or donation to buy a crappy old car. This would get the journey time halved and make the whole thing more digestible. This would also mean that he can take some junior Drs with him with the final hope of perhaps sharing the load. So please feel free to make the first donation? Is that tumble weeds I hear?

I have just checked in the mirror and was horrified to see that the "nothing" of a spot I picked yesterday has turned it a monster. It looks like a winking corn-flake. Are those developmental limb-buds I see? See my heath has been generally better, or at least my mental health, but recently each time I cut or nick my skin it take about 4 weeks to heel properly. Dirty.

This weekend was a bank-holiday weekend. So with my friend Katharine we decided to head off for 4 days of South Indian exploration. We joined the tri-ocenanic moontribe of Kanyakumari where the sunsets and the moon rises in the same sky. Where 3 great oceans meet at the very bottom of India. Also some of Ghandies ashes where stored in a room here before being delivered to the oceans. It was a very nice place a bit more chilled out than normal India, I found the further south you go the slower the pace. I assume this has something to do with the heat. At the very bottom cape of Indian it really was hotter than the centre of the sun. The ferry ride across to the twin islands to see the temple and 133 foot poet statue was short but the heat incredible. I burnt my feet on the hot stone. I had to seek refuge inside the statue where I read some of the 133 verses of instructions on human life (commandments if you like). These are world famous and have been translated into over 65 languages. Unfortunately, I feel something was lost in the translation to English.

"If you drink the sink, thou would make you stink"

"You neighbor should be loved like he has fur gloves."

"Don't do things that someone else might not like"

Strange things like that.

We took a stroll down to where you could stand on the rocks and look out to sea. The rock platform had enough space for about 20 people. As soon as we arrived the platform swelled to about 80. Pushing us further back as the crowd of mostly Indian boys wanted their photo taken with the foreigners. They pushed and shoved wanting to be next to the European girl. The crowd swelled so much that at one point I though we are in danger of disappearing over the edge and into the sea. I let them have "just one more" about 30 times before we managed rush for a small gap in the crowd and leg-it.

Sunset and sunrise are a big attraction point for Cape Comorin. We have to remember that most places have two names in Indian. The real name that everyone uses and the official political "get me votes" recent name change name. Bangalore has just had it's name changed to Bangalaroo or something like that. I still think it means bucket of old beans. There has been a purpose built viewing tower built for watching the sunset, we cleverly hung around the paying window to see what the locals were paying only to find the price hiked 10x when they saw us. I'm getting too smart for the Mossas now (cheaters). The view was pretty good, a little too much cloud cover but not bad. Once again we were swarmed by Indian tourist, all smiling and wanting to shake hands and have "snaps" with the foreigners. It really does make you feel like a movie star, its very overwhelming sometimes but is a nice feeling to be so special. Speaking of movie stars I'm not sure if Richard Gere story has reached the west. A few weeks ago while on stage for an AIDS promotion event he kissed an Indian actress (the one in Big Brother). The response here has been incredible. The Moral police out in full force, protests, burning cars, effigies of Gere.....usual mob culture...Yawn. There was even a judge in Rajastan that produced an arrest warrant for Geres unethical and disgrace behavior. Stating that to kiss is unIndian. This comment I feel a little cowardice. These people are movie stars, when did movie stars follow the moral mainstream? Besides these self appointed guardians of Indian culture appear to have conveniently forgotten about real issues like child poverty/labour and slavery, child forced marriages, marriages between cousins and Uncles 20years older. Female fetal abortion is also not mentioned? Are these more Indian than kissing? Anyway, my rant is over. Now I can say 20 words in the local language I now have a right to rant at least once a week. Of course most modern Indians are extremely embaraced of such a reaction by a minority of the public feeling they are being made the laughing stock of the world by such clowns.

After a few days in Kanyakumari we headed on the train to the transport hub of Madurai before getting a private 3hr bus ride up into the Western Ghats. Of course 3hr always ends up being 5.5hrs after the bus driver kindly takes you to 5 or more "drops" for "sightseeing". Really his mates fruit shop or some museum of natural history (stuffed rats and human babies in pickle jars). You have to submit to it all sometimes, you have to understand and expect all these kind of things or it will drive you crazy, totally crazy I may add. I read this in a book about India recently,

"Sometimes you have to surrender to progress".

The hill station of KodaiKanal was very pretty, much nicer then Ooty, but not as nice as Darjeeling. The view was great and they even had a huge natural lake on the hilltop plateau. I felt pretty great with Katherine peddling our squeaky 8 foot yellow swan boat around for 30mins being followed by the other tourists wanting snaps of us. A taxi ride in the reverse order took 2.5hrs, approx that's about half the time to get up the hill on the bus. Back in Madurai I sat and read a book while Katharine went and explored the famous temple. This is all Madurai has really, and after returning to put trousers on and buying a ticket to get in she was stopped by a very annoyed guard proclaiming that foreigners are not allowed in "even though they will sell you a ticket"...She had been Mosared again...ahhahaa.

Once back in Bangalore I was treated to some German cheese that Martin had brought back from his trip home. It's amazing how simple a taste cheese is and how good it feels if you have not had it forever.

Right now I am sitting on my MacBook, especially sent over by Robbie from Canada. It's ubercool and fast and sexy, though I am still steaming about the dirty Bombay customs man charging nearly 150quid for duty on a used laptop. I better go now to call mum and dad, they have just got back from a 3 week adventure in the States. It's a hard life being retired.

Trekking and Flying and Floating

2007-04-12T17:12:00.000Z

Well what's happened recently?
If you remember many months ago I said I would NEVER again take the over night sleeper bus. Yep you guessed right. I once again took the overnight sleepless bus.
I arrived in Sirsi about 7am and we went to the village clinic for the day. Nothing that special there, except that once again I spent the night a further 40km deep into the forest/jungle. This place is really special. The next day instead of going to the clinic I went trekking with the uncle of family.
We set off at 8am and headed out of the farm deep into the forest following the river down stream. When I say trek, it's not really a trek. No one comes here except for a few local fishermen to make a catch for their families. Once we had joined the main river we had to hack our way down through the jungle and climb down the waterfall. This is where I made my first mistake. Because the rocks were so slippy I had to remove my shoes and I dropped them and got my socks wet. What better conditions to create foot blisters than wet socks?
Pretty soon I was walking bare foot across the boulders as we worked a further 3 km up river. This was fine for the first 2km until the sun heated the rocks so hot that I had to walk along the river bank until I was forced by the biting ants to put my shoes on. Soon after this I was numb to everything from the shin down and could enjoy the view as we approached the first dramatic waterfall. I was told that I was the first foreigner to visit this waterfall since it was surveyed by some Sir of the empire in 1938. I believed him for there was no obvious way to the waterfall and no track at all. The second waterfall was even more spectacular and the water refreshing as I jumped in for a swim and a welcome drink. By now it was 6hrs since we set off and I came to understand we had to find our way up and out of the valley on our own. This honestly nearly killed me, we climbed and hacked and climbed and hacked. I was just giving up hope as I passed the 50th funnels shaped web before I saw a can of kingfisher beer.
Yes, finally some sign of civilization. The I began to wonder. Is dropping a can of kingfisher really bad for the environment? Does dropping a plastic bag effect the animals? Well here deep in the wilderness it surly can not be bad. Who cares?
I think we sometimes mix up environmental pollution for ugliness. I'm sure that decaying plastic bags and metal cans don't "offend" the bears and elephants and ants. Perhaps the sun was playing tricks on me? Perhaps I was dehydrated I clearly had too much time to think about some bloody old can of lager. I decided to stop and pen my protest about environmental pollution by carving my thoughts into a 300 year old tree trunk with my Swiss army knife. We finally made the top track where there is a viewing point for tourist over the main falls. My feet were killing me, I had blisters, cuts, bites and bruises; I was dehydrated and generally looked like death, but strangely felt pretty great after the experience which lasted some 8hrs.
That night I thought I would be able to sleep in the coffin like bed on the bus. I was wrong.

I had about a week to recover before my brothers arrival. I was worried I would not be able to walk on our trip to Kerela. But in 3-4 days my feet were almost like new again. Dan and Lee arrived at about 5am and I had arranged for the only auto-rickshaw driver that does not look like a deviant to collect them. He is a patient and very honest and trustworthy. Dan and Lee where pretty beat when they arrived, so being a good host I showed them the floor and told them to get some sleep for in about 10hrs we were off back to the airport to catch a flight to Trivandrum the capital city of Kerela. Once in Trivandrum we took a taxi straight to the coastal town of Varkala and chilled for a couple of days on the cliff top in the hammocks and sampled the local food. Lee and Dan seamed pretty chilled and were handling India very well. After a few days we took the local train north to hire a boat house and crew before setting off in our floating palace into the "backwaters". This was really a highlight, the communities on the waters edge, the green lush vegetation and we were lucky enough to see the first signs of the approaching monsoon. At night (just after we sent the boy for beers) we had a huge downpour, and great light show.
Lee got his first Indian haircut (about 30p including 100% tip). The next day we took a 3hr taxi back to Varkala before heading back to Trivandrum for the night. At this point I took the night train over land on my journey back to Bangalore via Oooty the mountain hill station and Mysore as Dan and Lee took their flight to Delhi to see the Taj Mahal in Agra. They land back in Bangalore tonight.
Tomorrow is their last night and we'll hit the town and try not to get arrested.

The Art of Cheating

2007-03-20T10:24:00.000Z

The last 10days have been quite eventful.

I Gave my first presentation at an international conference
I appeared on Indian TV
Had a personal phone call from the worlds No.1 homeopath
Finalized the plans for the clinic expansion
My brother confirmed he is coming to visit
Made some new German friends
Learned more about pigeons
Got tenants in my London flat
I got to practice my Kannada language skills
Paid my first police bribe

So where to start? Well as you know I've been working with Dr Mahesh for quite a while on this visit and when I was here last year. We have decided to expand the clinic for he is becoming far too popular and he needs more Drs working with him. We have chosen a place even the design. It's all moving fast. Along with this kind of work I have been documenting and editing video cases of patients before, during and after treatment. We all know the camera never lies.
I have put together a very impressive library showing the most dramatic cases. Incidentally, all of them are labeled "incurable" by conventional medicine. Perhaps I'll load them into google video soon. Anyway, with the "incurable" cases of gangrene limbs (30min before amputation) he gets the blood flowing and ultimately saves the arm, hand, legs etc. Also retarded/autistic children regaining some function to have a better quality of life (and their parents too). Cured cases of psoriasis and vitiligo. Sorry kinda boring for most people. Anyway we both presented these cases at the "International Conference for Scientific Validation and Technical Evaluations of Ancient Medical Systems" - SVTEAMS for short. It went down a storm with lots of feedback, questions and of course a fair portion of aggression and jealousy. See every other group was "talking" about what they were going to do and what was possible, we actually "showed" the videos and photo results of the treatment. blah blah. My TV appearance (only 5secs) followed. What fun. The conferences chief guest was someone with a big beard and a lot of hair. He has developed something called "the art of living", but from strolling in over an hour late at the inauguration he had defiantly perfected the Indian art of doing nothing and being late.

On a lighter note, "our-kid" my brother Lee is coming in a couple of weeks for some fun with his mate Dan. So what to do? ummmmm.... it's getting pretty hot in the south now and the pre-monsoon rain will be here soonish. Anyway, it will all work out. It will be good to get away for another short holiday, I've been working too hard.
I finally found some tenants for my London flat, my old ones have sadly gone back home to Israel. Special thanks to Katharine for fixing me up with my new tenants, even though I had to pay more in commission than the national debt of a medium sized African country she really broke the estate agent mold and delivered the goods in style. And a super SPECIAL thanks once again to mum and dad for zooming down to London to fix up my flat for the next tenants. A serious reduction of stress there.

This week some naughty editor on Wikipedia decided to delete lots of pages in relation to homeopathy. So being as resourceful as I am, I started tracking through the logs and found the whole history; who/what/when/why and sent the details to Mahesh teacher whose pages was one to be deleted this man also happens to be the father of modern Classical Homeopathy. The Elvis of alternative medicine.
I was only trying to help and now I'm on first name terms. Nice bonus.
See, be good and honest in all that you do and God will provide. Not quite sure what I will be provided with; for I don't really need anything, but I have a feeling something interesting is around the corner.
My social life has also picked up as I settle into Bangalore life. I know my way around the centre and it only takes me 30mins on the motorbike to get from the centre to the clinic (before took me nearly 2hrs for I kept getting lost). Also I have discovered more bars and cool restaurants. This city actually has quite a lot to offer in terms of social and night life. I do however owe much of my new discoveries to my new German friends Martin and Katrine.
Yesterday, the three of us visited the national park just south of Bangalore.
There they had a nice zoo, almost as disgraceful as London zoo. They had some white rabbits, 7 breeds of pigeon, and the 3rd largest aquarium in Indian; which housed seven 4x3 foot water tanks. One which was full of snalious-commonus and one labeled SHARK fish.
The safari was however a lot better than the zoo. We saw tigers, white tigers, bears and elephants. Cooooool.
After a long weekend I ventured into town again to take back a wireless modem...sorry boring I know. As I reached the lights at the junction of Mahatma Ghandi Road and Brigade Road I decided to cross the yellow line between the lanes and zip into a neat parking spot. Just as I thought my brilliant maneuver had been successful I got a tap on the shoulder from a white dressed traffic police man. Dammit. Apparently I had committed a most disgraceful crime to humanity. After stepping to the pavement and discussing with one of his street "boys" I negotiated the "fine" from Rs300 to Rs150, was taken to the side to hand the money over away from the police man and then I got all my papers back.

I had been initiated. I had popped my bribe cherry. I now feel like one of the 1.1 billion.

On a cheating note, the petrol attendant man took Rs200 off me and only gave me Rs150 worth of petrol. A valuable lesson. NEVER ever EVER hand over your Rs before you have the petrol.
My developing skills in Kannada language came in handy.

"Petrol Kudoo, mosa" I shouted.

Which mean

"Give me Petrol you cheater."

I got my missing Rs50 of petrol.

Wedding Season

2007-03-11T04:50:00.000Z

We were all glad to arrive in Bangalore. It had been a very busy week traveling around and seeing so much. We were welcomed by Mahesh and Seema and little Sonna. After a day we took an Auto into town to do some chores and take a look around. Just standing on the corner of Mahatma Ghandi road in central Bangalore was considered site seeing for wide eyes westerners. After a couple of days I put my mum and dad into an auto and off they went on their own. They were now Indian hardened and ready for their own adventures up north to Delhi, Agra, (Taj) Amritsar (Golden Temple) and back to Goa all in a week. It was better than great to see them and share some of my travels with them, it was sad to see them go.
I had already decided to stay in Bangalore for a few months and help Mahesh expand his clinic and do some more work here. Sunday was to be a big day in the Mahesh family. It was Children's Day at Sonnas school. Once again I was the only pink face there (well tanned face now). He dressed at Hanuman his favorite God. Hanuman the monkey God. Directly after the show we rushed off to the wedding reception of Mahesh best friend Senna. I have known Senna for a while now and we had had a mini stag on Friday night. Not quiet the eyebrow ball-bag shaving, tied naked to a lamp post, thrown in the canal type of stag night I was used to, but it was still good and actually very appropriate for India. We had chillied cauliflower and drank one beer each in a very seedy bar about 2KM from where I am staying. I tried my best to convince him not to do it but he was looking forward to married life so much. The evening reception came before the wedding and was a typical Indian wedding, so I was told. Both bride a groom stood on the stage while 100s upon 100s of guest came to shake his hand and smile at her wishing them both many blessing. Their smiles fixed in a permanent grimace after hours of smiling and greeting. They looked nervous, not surprising since this was only the second time they had ever met. The next morning at 6am, on the actually wedding day there was about half the number of people, only about 100, and once again I was the only non-Indian. I'm getting used to the stares now, the blank vacant looks I get wherever I go. Just the other day in the mini-market the cashier wanted to shake my hand and would not let go, in the end I had to make a run for it, 4 other staff members and the manager had come out to shake my hand and great me and take pictures. At the wedding I was the guest of honor and had several strong apologies for the wedding being at 6am which meant I was "deeply inconvenienced" having to get up so early. I said it was fine and I accepted their apologizes after all how can I take more importance than the bride and groom on their special day and take more importance than the wedding time in relation to the horoscopes. The groom was more anxious today. A couple of night before (on the Stag he had reveled why). He had heard his sister was coming. This freaked him out for his sister had threatened to ruin his wedding because Senna had refused to marry her daughter. YES that's right he was supposed to marry his niece 10yrs his younger. He was understandably horrified by this. Now I had heard of this kind of stuff before and had seen the results of consummation of such marriages in the clinic when cousins and uncle/nieces had brought their retarded children in to be treated. This I expected of villagers but not from a modern city like Bangalore. I guess traditions are hard to change. Luckily she came and blessed the wedding by having her feet bathed or rise poured on them or something I could not really see. A few days later Seena brought his new bride around for dinner. A fine choice I thought. A very nice girl, very polite and friendly. I feel a child will be along shortly.

After a week or so I'm now settling back into the swing of things, the crazy traffic the horns everything. Each morning, afternoon and evening is filled with the sound of wedding music . It is the season for marriages. Something to do with a old woman and a bucket of beans I think. I get confused about as and why with many rituals and traditions.
And this is a picture I took of the front of a public bus, I have no idea what the celebration was, but look pretty dangerous to drive like that.

Parental Guidence Advised

2007-02-23T06:34:00.001Z

I collected my mum and dad from Goa airport around noon. They seemed pretty relaxed after such a long flight and clearly enjoyed the ride from the airport to the sea front where our hotel was waiting. After checking in we took a very short stroll down to the hotel cafe which was right on the beach, a perfect location. Before long we were all in the sea trying to fight back the huge Arabian waves. I could tell they liked the place which made me happy. The weather was perfect the atmosphere great and we were eating good Indian food and drinking local beer in the evenings. We had a lot of catch up on I'd not sen any famly for 6months. The next day was also one of relaxing and acclimatizing to the weather and to the unique chilled slow pace of Goa. It's hard to explain what it is like to see cows freely strolling down the beach or hawks/eagles swoop down to sit on the sun bed, or Indian boys burying someone alive for not paying their bill. A couple of days chilling in the sun with the salty air was defiantly needed, for on Tuesday morning we caught the 8hr day train directly east inland to Hampi. The journey went pretty fast with lots to see both inside and outside of the train. From legless beggars to paddy fields and from bathing cows to German tourists out "tashing" the locals.
I had heard a great deal about Hampi but really still did not know what to expect, all I knew was that it was once the richest and largest Hindu Kingdom in south Indian. We arrived at the nearby station of Hospit and mum and dad experienced their first auto-rickshaw drive. The countryside was spectacular. I had heard of Hampi and its boulders, but nothing like what we saw. The closest I can think to compare it to for its natural beauty is The Grand Canyon in the USA but still it's not really a direct comparison. Hampi itself is a relatively recent town. It sprung up over the last 50 years to cater for the hippies who had decided to make their homes up in the surrounding hills. Living in caves and hiding behind the huge boulders, like only hippies can. Now they are not allowed to live in the hills and smoke 5g of weed a day with the priests, they must stay in the village with the rest of us. In the surrounding hills there are over 300 temples carved from the rocks. Some are huge and very spectacular like something from a Indian Jones movie. The boulder laden hills surround a rich fertile oasis with the largest still working temple at the bottom standing some 55metres high with monkeys swinging from the walls. We spotted Lakshmi the resident Temple Elephant and gained some good Karma points by feeding the local cows some bananas. On the second day we hiked up to the top of one of the hills and found yet more temples. I had to admit that we were suffering a little from boulder and temple fatigue at this point. Luckly we were saved by a trip across the river in a boat that looked like a half an egg shell and would not float. We thought we were lucky to make it across until we saw one with about 15 Indian pilgrims in one the same size. We bumpted into an Aussie girl I had met in Goa so it was nice to see a friendly face. We managed to climb up the 500 steps to the top of Hanaman (monkey god) temple in a record 10mins. The view over bouder/temple city was breath taking. We got back just in time to take the river boat of doom back to the other side before they closed down for the day.
After two days of boulder spotting and hiking we got the night train to Bangalore. It was delayed 4 hrs so we were stuck people watching on Hospit platform. Once in Bangalore we headed straight for Maheshs and Seemas place to chill and watch TV before the next leg of the adventures begins.

Finger on the Pulsar

2007-02-16T13:38:00.000Z

Market day came at Anjuna on Wednesday. This was the last straw. The peaceful stonner beach was descended upon by 18 gezillion more hippies that had come from every rock and cave, near and far to buy locally produced nick-knacks. One benefit was the priceless people watching and local entertainment. This included more than the usual amount of child labour entertainers. Some with swords through their cheeks, some riding painted cows and some very cleaver girl rope walking inside a bicycle wheel rim. After five days hanging out with super stonner aging hippies I decided to move on. I only stayed for so long to try and buy a bike. I failed miserably. Handing over 400 pounds to a grinning man and not owning the bike just did not really give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. I took 4 local buses and headed south to a beach called Colva. In the guide it is described as a small fishing village. I'm not sure which Hindese dictionary the people writing the guide were using but it is none of these things. This place is perfect if you like seeing Indian tourists in their droves (is that a collective noun for Indian men?) swimming in the sea in their Y-fronts.
I arrived yesterday morning and hired a geared bike. A pretty cool pulsar. I have spent the last 2 days driving mainly south from my base and must have visited over 20 beaches. Each beach has a different theme and feel. Baga is the cost-del-hell of Goa. Anjuna is the Ibiza stonner place. Most of the other places usually have a much simpler theme based on the majority population....Israeli beach..Russian beach...English pie and chips beach and Indian tourists beach. It's all good and touring around them all is highly entertaining.
Goa is the richest state in Indian and there are LOTS of churches and mini christian temples. Christianity is a major religion here. We have to remember that even during British rule this place was Portuguese and there are plenty of dilapidated and some restored Portuguese style villas.

Well to end todays entry on a high note. I have GREAT news. In 2 days time Talbot Senior and my mum will be visiting me in Goa. I have sorted a very nice place on the beach for a couple of nights while they recover from jet lag and "India-shock". My mum and dad are very well traveled so they may very well find it a doddle. It's gonna be GREAT to see them, it's been six months and I have a small plan up my sleeve. More adventures are to be had before they have to jet back off home.

Budgie Smuggling

2007-02-11T14:34:00.000Z

Well what can I say?
This particular part of Goa is horizontally laid back.
Last night I went to a market. Food, beer, live entertainment, including a bloke on fire and lots of ethnic chintz. Today I got up at 8am and had a run along the beach before everyone else had come down from the classAtoC filled night.
I stumbled on a day rave at some shack and ventured to see. I have mixed feelings on how I feel about 40-85 year old hippies in loin cloths dancing in the sunlight completely off their nuts. On my escape route I had to dodge the treeless huggers, past the twizzy stick throwing men and deep through soap less territorial to the waters edge. THEEEWW I made it...only to be confronted by two bat-and-ball playing men in their leopard string G-strings. Now I had seen my fair share of budgie smuggling 'euros' on the Sydney beaches, but never ones so "stringfellow' up the crack. DAMIT.
I made my way back through the maze of dust paths on my trusty 2 wheel bag of rust to the hotel where I spent a while chatting to some fella from Glasgow who had the coolest retro racer.
We went for a drive along the coast to show me all the different beaches and cliff top hangouts passing a couple of big twilight raves. Although Goa (at least this part of it) has bars and beaches and hotels for tourists, there is stil a strong local feel. I visited a small harbour where the fishing boats where coming in and the daily catch was being bartered for. It was one of the many good and interesting experiences I have crammed into a very chilled out day.
Little did I know that my very friendly guide was also some fella that sold certain produce that are in high demand in these areas. I was 'accidentally' introduced to some very rich Indians with cool cars/bikes/cloths. Only turned out they are the bloody Goa-mafia...GREAT.
On my way back he gets pulled by the police, I drive on. Later I find out he had to pay his usual 50,000Rs 'fine' (600 squid). At this point a sharp exit is taken and I'm off.

I think tomorrow I'll just sit on the beach.

I GOA-here and I GOA-there

2007-02-10T11:45:00.000Z

Well what can I say. After a traumatic 15hr flight from Sydney to Bombay I was a little appre - hensive about stepping back into the sensory overload that is India, especially bum-bay.
Turns out it was all a fuss about nothing.
Where was everyone? Looked like there were only 10million and not 19million people
The humidity was manageable.
I had somewhere to stay in the area I wanted.
Most beggars had both eyes if not all limbs.
I laughed and joked about slitting tourist throats with the notorious Bombay cab drivers.
I did not get short changed each time I bought something.
Even the shit in the streets seemed to smell sweeter.

Bombay is a doddle. I'm hardcore now.

I spent two nights in Bombay waiting for my train south to Goa.
I finally took the 1hr ferry from the harbour out to Elephant Island to look at the rock temples carved from caves dating back 400BC. Also on top of the hill I found an old Cannon battery, not sure what era, maybe WWII.
I hooked up with Davey a fella about my own age from Edinburgh and we got upgraded from 2AC carriage for the 11 hr day journey to 1st class. Nice, had a door and AC and even a sink in the corner, sweet. Davey knew a friend of a friend in Goa so we headed straight for that place in the north a place called Anjuna or something like that. I hired a scooter for about a quid a day and drove a mile to the beach. Pretty nice, hippies hanging out, sea has good surf, it's all clean and mega cheep.
I'm off to the night market tonight which starts about 8 or 10pm. Lots of crap to buy, none of which I will buy. I'm told there are different food stalls and live music and bars. I'm told it rocks.
Of course Ill head up there after I have been to some bar I found off a track that is showing the Utd match at 8pm. So far I think Goa is pretty chilled, a lot nicer than I thought it would be. It's a big place stretching for 100s of KM with each beach having a different type or crowd of people. I just chilled on the beach today, swam in the sea and made new friends. My favourite friend was some India fella who cleaned ear wax from my ears for 300Rs. I knew he was ripping me off and just putting wax on his finger from his little bag but the whole experience was highly ammusing. It's a hard life. I enquired about Royal Enfield and buying one, but I fear the Internet does not have enough bytes to store the rules and regulations on performing this seemingly simple task, so I'll just let you know if I was successful. Well off for my Grandad afternoon nap for I think I might be up late this evening.
tatty-bye

Double Entry

2007-01-30T00:22:00.000Z

I admit the title may perhaps be a tad misleading. Multiple entry might be more appropriate. It's been quite a long time since I updated my adventure report. Actually about 7 weeks of intense good times and fun have been had since I last reported in. Perhaps it would be a little ambitious and extremely long winded and even boring to read 7 weeks in one go so I'm going to do a general summary with some highlights. Sorry if it's not up to its usual AMAZING witty standards.
Lets get the nasty bit over first.
After 3.5 months in India with no real stomach trouble to speak of the Delhi Belly finally caught up on me. I spent 8 hrs of a 12.5 hr flight from Bombay to Sydney in the toilet under going what can only be described as "purging". If it was not for "Camp Greg" the Qantas Steward I would have surly died. Unfortunately in my delirium I managed to give out the wrong signals by licking his hand. Chris collected me from the airport and after not seeing each other for over 6months we were both looking forward to a bit of a booze up Aussie style. All I wanted to do was get horizontal no more than 5 steps from the throne. It took me another 2 weeks in Australia before I gave up my one man espresso machine impersonation, thought I actually felt fine. I'm unsure if it was the fruit salad in Rajastan or the Ladies Fingers on the over night train to Bombay. Coming to Australia after India was all about taking a "holiday" with my good friend Chris. To add to this Robbie aka Satan would also be in Sydney meeting us for New Years. A great time was already on the cards. Back in London the 3 of us would hit the euro-alps for boarding and hang out in London. There were also lots of people I knew from West London in Sydney during the Christmas break and hanging out in Chris's Cliff top apartment over Bondi Beach was ideal to unwind and relax and party. Seeing Bella and Dax and their two kids Oska and Mia was also a highlight. They looked cool and relaxed and was great to meet up in Manly. Sorry I need to blog check myself. I need to be more brief.

I stayed in Sydney for about 3 days before flying up to TownsVille to hang out with Abby and Lucy. We cuddled kangaroos and Koala and scuba dived on the reef and generally had a fab time chilling in Abby's mums pool and hitting the beach.

Ten days later I was back in Sydney for a great New Year on a yacht in the harbour under the bridge, the fireworks were great. The next day we went to Icebergs on Bondi where the A-grade celeb Paris Hilton was strutting her stuff. She is pretty, pretty ordinary really.
I did the Bondi to Coogee cliff walk with Abby where I bumped into Karen, a friend I did my PhD with in London, small world. We had a berry smoothie and caught up. Shame she was leaving the next day.

Trip up the east coast
After about 2 great weeks in Sydney Chris went back to work so Robbie and myself headed up the east coast for some tropical adventures. I went scuba diving again 3 more times. We swam in a natural gorge and rode the rapids. Went into the rain forest of Cape Tribulation to slide thought the canopy on zip lines at 30metres. We saw a wild Cassowary which is an endangered bird that is descended from raptors maintaining the same legs and same killer belly cutting claw of doom.
While kayaking we saw a shark and a whale. It was TOO hot. Staying in a porta cabin was not idea but it had aircon. We took killer jellyfish a lot more seriously after we were splashing around at 4am in the stinger nets only to later see the lifeguards had closed it during the day because some mini-stingers had come through resulting in one girl being hospitalized. The American girls were were with freaked out....we laughed.
We arrived in Brisbane with the full intention on visiting Fraser Island but ended up booking a flight to Fiji instead. Well what can I say about Fiji. It's hard to summarize
AMAZING.
On the 1st night we spent most of it in the pool trying to play pool volleyball and stealing Dacqueri.
I had the coolest Instructor ever (Alex) and after several deep dives, cave dives a night dive I got my PADI advanced along with some nasty blisters for my trouble. We hung out around the pool went fishing drank dirt (called karva) and partied all night. We played watersomething everyday.
We were blessed with a really cool group. Aussie mat was a nutter, the Canadian girls and Codi were indeed special and great fun. English Tim and Ruban, well not your usual diving instructor and pub landlord. Jon holding up the Northern Ireland corner discovering I was asleep in the toilet.
It was all good fun. It was emotional.....sob.....tears...booo hooo.
Mango Bay rocks.
Back to Sydney with our feet infections and unhealing wounds. Must have been the pool!
Right now I am waiting for my India Visa application to be approved to fly back to Bombay to buy a bike to ride down the west coast to Goa then Bangalore.

End of Part One

2006-12-13T08:42:00.000Z

I have done a full circle from Bombay to Bombay visiting some incredible places and meeting some very interesting if not sometimes odd people along the way. In a few hrs time I will hopefully be boarding the plane to Sydney. I have mixed feelings. Part of me is glad to be going and part of me says that I have only just started. I feel there is more in India for me to discover, I just don't know when and where.
Perhaps it is time to leave I don't know? First time in Bombay I suffered from Indian Shock Syndrome for sure. This time it was a doddle. This can only mean one thing.
I am getting used to it..arghhhhhhhh
Or to think in a more scary way; what used to freak me out I now see as normal. Will I get Australia Shock Syndrome as I see cars driving in a straight line. People using the pavements to walk on and not defaecate on. Perhaps I will feel odd without the cows everywhere causing horrendous road blocks? Will I miss the lack of stray 3-legged dogs?

After 3.5 months here I feel that I have finished the breaking in period, the honeymoon period. Then again in India I imagine the meaning attached to a honeymoon period is different considering that when you marry it is to a semi-stranger or someone that was chosen when you were 7 and have grown up with all your life.

Where else would I see a dog set on fire when jumping thought a flaming loop?

Where else can I ride on the outside of a train?

Where else can I have a huge black-faced monkey run and use my head as a spring board?

Is there anywhere else in the world where painting over the word Toilet with the word Latrine actually makes the piss-soaked concrete smell less of ammonia?

Where else can you find white stone-washed jeans, a white woven leather belt and a purple striped shirt, not only in the same shop but on the same person....what's more on purpose.

I still don't know how many cows a day die from eating plastic bottles.

The true family values and respect for old people is so strong here.

Dropping litter is not just wide spread, it is Expected.

The only time anyone was rude to me was because they thought I was Israeli.

It is only the Caste system that holds this place together. Imagine nearly 1billion people (79% on less then $US6 a day) suddenly realising that they might actually be entitled to something, not just born into desolation.......Chaos......for sure.

I have truly enjoyed writing this Internet journal or blog as they are called. However, I now feel it is time to go off the "RADAR" for a while. In some ways the modern world of technology has not released me enough from England. In some ways I feel I have not really left. Don't worry I will not be disappearing off the planet I am simply having a Blog-aday, a Blog-cation a Blog-break.

In a few hrs I go back to Bombay airport and fly to the land of eternal sunshine.
After a nice holiday the blog could be back in business, but for now it's over and out.

The Rajastani Express

2006-12-13T07:23:00.000Z

The overnight sleeper train south the the capital city of Rajastan was a doddle. Jaipur is on the edge of the desert and is built in a basin surrounded by rocky ridges on which are built numerous ancient fortress walls. In fact the whole place is wall after ancient wall up on the stony hills. The town is dusty and dirty and even more hassle than is usual for India. It was easy to have a drunken spaced out looking auto driver follow you for 1/4 of a mile pulling on your sleeve. Fortunately, I found a great place to stay and hooked up with some more travelers. I sent the next few days with an Irish couple and an English girl. Lots of fun as we got auto'ed around spotting elephants. Once night we went to a traditional Rajastani "theme" village. It was quite possibly one of the most bizarre experiences ever. A fake village where women with pot on their heads dance and dogs leap through fiery loops. Elephants and camels galore. We were the only foreigners in the place.
After a few days I made my way to Pushkar, I was running out of time to get to Bombay. Pushkar is a seriously holy place for Hindus and a bit similar to Varanasi but without the burning heads and chaos on the Ghat sides. Here the whole pilgrimage thing is taken a lot more seriously and it is frowned on to go down to the Ghats if you're not participating in holy activities. A few streets back from the main Bazaar I found the north bus terminal where I tried to find a holy man named Pintu. I had met a English lady in TattaPannie who now lives with him and his family some way out of Pushkar. I got myself a lift on a motorbike and was welcomed into his temple and shown around by his son. The builders (house under construction) all wanted their photos taken as is normal here. People love it and usually say thank you after you have taken a picture. The only thing in India where money is not asked for.
I made my way back into town and chilled in Pushkar for a few days. This place caters for a lot of foreign visitors. English, French, Canadian, German and especially Israeli.
I walked up to the top of a huge hill and looked down upon the lake, catching a camel back into town. The shops on the front cater for the lost forigners selling hippy clothes and bags and bangles. The Pushkar lake should be renamed Lake-Dreadlock. I managed to find a place that sold beer (the town is dry and you get locked up for drinking) and watched Arsenal hold Chelsea to a 1 all draw. Funny how the town is dry but everyone is stoned here. I had my 1st and last Bang Lasse here. The next day is was a bit of a blur.
Right now I am in Bombay having done a fully circle. The 22 hrs train journey was fine except the man above me farted the whole way and the 80yr old women opposite coughed and whealed and moaned in their sleep all night. To top it off I was sick for the 1st time. Throwing up for the 1st 4 hrs. I feel ok now, but only drinking sugar tea for the moment as I wait for my flight to Sydney.

Hide and Sikh

2006-12-09T06:13:00.000Z

After just 5hrs in the AC chair class train from Delhi I arrived in the Punjabi town of Amritsar. The town was founded in 1577 by some fella with a beard and a turban. Amritsar is the beating heart of the Sikh religion. I discovered that the religion is quite new. It was "invented" by men who did not like the cast system or Islam either. They did however like beards and turbans and wanted to concentrate a Religion on the mediation of Gods name without food restrictions or Idol worship where all men (and women) and equal. The main attraction of Amritsar is the Holy Golden Temple. Now I have been to say a gezillion holy places in India with varying degrees of madness, ungodliness, aggression and warm welcomes. This place is special there is no doubt. Thousands of pilgrims come here everyday and they are all housed and fed for free. No one asks for any money (though there are donation boxes). I was put-up in a special foreigner dorm with others non Indians. Normally I am not that keen on dorms for no matter when you go there is always some American tosser playing a guitar. Anyway I had my ear plugs and I checked that the toleration chip implanted in my brain was working above the acceptable level of efficiency. I had my dinner with an English girl from Sale near Manchester in a HUGE dinning hall sat on the floor which as dished out Dahl and Chapatti for free. I have never been to such a big spiritual place where everyone no matter who you are (street people, poor and homeless, anyone) made to feel totally welcome and not excluded from the "religious club". All they asked was that you took off your shoes and covered your head. I did not actually visit the Golden Temple proper on the 1st day for it was late and I wanted to see the Indian/Pakistan border show. Each evening at sunset the soldiers on either side of the boarder gates have a choreographed display of extreme machismo and manliness. Lots of out-stomping and out-scowling as they take down the flags and close the gates to the crossing. There are special stadiums built on either side for the loyal fans to cheer and sing songs. It was great fun, John Cleases would have been proud of the excessively silly walks that were on display. It was an excessiv display of pure theater and very enjoyable. After a night sleeping a sub-room of the main dorm with a Canadian guy who had walked half way across the Himalayas I had another free feed and went into the Golden Temple proper. The temple itself as you would imagine is golden. It has been built on a artificial island in the middle of an artificial square lake. I walked around bare footed to the main gangway and across the water. Once inside I saw the Gurus singing poems in Punjabi and people knelt and gave money and prayer. I went up to the top level to sit on the carpeted floor to warm my toes. After about an hr and a half of peaceful contemplation I was very chilled listening to the singing from the floor below. I was sharply brought out of my deep relaxation by the sight of two young white western men dressed in the fully Sikh warrior robes with turbans and daggers. I tried to figure out what they were doing. I very quickly came to the conclusion that they were poncing around. I don't know what is wrong with me but I had an uncontrolled urge to vomit over them. Perhaps I do have a problem but i feel the same way about tie dye skirts and western women in Shari.
It would appear that my "tolerater" chip had malfunctioned. After a personal prayer for more tolerance to any God that would listen I went for dinner with my new friends, a mix of Americans, Italians, English a German and a Lithuanian. Some of them had come overland from Italy to Turkey to Iran and then Pakistan. I was very impressed.
I wandered back though the Golden temple complex to buy a train ticket and stopped to have tea with some workman for 30mins in some secret allyway inside the complex. Punjab and Sikhs are special I feel, very friendly and seeing more than just the $ sign on your forehead. It was a refreshing change. With less then a week to go till my flight to See Chris in Sydney I bought a ticket for Jaipur further south in Rajasthan. More deserts, more camels, more heat and less beards.

The Golden Pentangle

2006-12-03T09:26:00.000Z

After the brain scramble that was Varanasi I was quite thankful for the totally boring and uneventful 18hr sleeper ride to Delhi. I arrived at about 05:30 in the morning and after dodging the usual auto and rickshaw drivers found my hotel in a back street off the main Bazaar. I was lucky it was near a cinema so everyone knew the place. In the UK we use boozers as land marks, in India it's cinemas. I scoped the area out, ate dinner, sent some emails and went to bed.
Friday morning I got a taxi and off I went to collect Abi from the airport. It was great to see a friendly face after nearly 3 months away from home. I think after the long flight and coming from the calm of London, Delhi was a bit of a shock for her. For me I also discovered something new. Since I mainly travel alone I did not have 1st hand experience of how different western females experience India. On a cycle rickshaw over to "Old-Delhi" she was ogled at, touched , pinched etc. I am used to being stared at but for a girl it is much more intense.
After one day in Delhi and seeing monkeys, cows and my 1st Elephant we got the evening train to Agra the home of the world famous Taj-Mahal. The Agra auto driver told us that sunrise was a good time to see it, so I set my alarm clock of the millionth time to get up before 05:30. After paying the Rs800 each to get in (Rs20 if you're Indian) we made our way down. We were not disappointed. The Taj was magnificent, especially at sunrise. Made from Marble and costing about 4 cows and 11 camels to build. The Muslim emperor of the day built it as a mausoleum to his favourite beloved wife after she died giving birth to their 15 child. Once it was almost sold just for the value of the marble. The Taj dominates the whole sky line of the ancient city of Agra. There were plenty of roof top cafes to see it. We could also see it from the Agra fort which is also well worth a visit. Great history and architecture and a complete death trap if you have children. Thankfully the train back to Delhi only took 2hrs (3.5 to get to Agra). After starting the day at 05:30 we were tired, even more so since we knew we had another early start the next morning. We were booked on the 06:05 north from Delhi to Kalka.

The 6hrs to Kalka went pretty fast, but the next 6hrs on the narrow gauge "toy-train" did not exactly fly by. We met Craig, a nice 'India frightened' lad from Birmingham. He was booked in a Computer Hackers course in the mountain town we were heading for. He had not eaten in days and was pretty much in fear of everything. Of course I tried to calm his nerves with my stories of food poisoning, train drugging, and head burning. The scenery up to Shimla was outstanding. The train wound up the mountains through no less then 120 tunnels. 6 hrs to go 85KM. Shimla was a British Government mountain retreat from the unbearable hot Indian summers and was known as a 'little bit of England', I am not sure which bit, perhaps the one mock Tudor Indian restaurant or the Christian Church. The hill station is pretty clean and tidy by Indian standards and people much less energetic with their touting. When the night came though it was COLD. On the high point of Shimla is a temple devoted to the monkey God, and appropriately there are a lot of monkeys hanging around. On the walk up Abi wisely rented a monkey stick, and we soon discovered where the saying "more than you can shake a stick at" came from. The red monkeys were very bold and would try and open rucksacks if you don't wave them off, they bare teeth and can even attack. They were not too bad on the day we went, they were mainly drinking, fighting amongst themselves or pleasuring each other (bit like the Irish).
After a few days chilling in Shimla and with itchy/cold feet we got the local bus down to a town called Tattapanni. Tattapanni is further into the Himalayas but lower in altitude by 2000m. The bus ride took about 3hrs and there were moments where I was glad that the drivers brakes and horn worked so well. We really did not have much of an idea what would be in Tatappanni other than some sulphur springs that would cure all kinds of disease.

HINDI ENGLISH
Tatta = Hot
Panni = Water

The hotel overlooked a river of fast moving rapids and a hanging bridge. Each year the valley floods when the water rises, but we were here after the monsoon to the hotel was above the water. On the edge of the river the local women were washing their clothes in hand dug holes. The little pools would fill with hot water from the centre of the earth (well the crust anyway). The water was too hot to touch really and did smell a bit of rotten eggs (sulphur). The local men would wash themselves from behind a pile of rocks as the women did the same. In our posh 3squid a night hotel the water was piped into concrete baths, were we added some cold water so to avoid your skin pealing off.
On the third day in Tattapannie we celebrated Abi's birthday. We managed to cram a ridiculous amount in. We went rapid rafting for 2hrs on a 7 man boat down the river and got wet. We borrowed Val's (English lady in our hotel) Royal Enfield and after 10mins of me trying to remember how to ride a geared bike made our way up into the hills to hunt down the holy Shiva caves. We saw stalactites and stalagmites and stuff. I could have spent a week or more here, it was really relaxing and the food was great. Very lazy days and nights around burning wood so informal, and quite, but we had a train to Delhi to catch. There was no way we were joining a 3hr buss ride with a 6hr toy-train ride back to Kalka, especially on Abi's birthday. So we splashed out and made it back in 3.5hrs for around 20squid in two taxis. Six hrs of a midnight sleeper train later and we were back in the heart of the capital Delhi. Some shopping (found a Gandhi statue made of Sandalwood, could not find a life size one) and eating later and Abi's 10 days were up.
Last night we went to a 'posh' restaurant where I had fish for the 1st time since leaving home. Abi had Lamb. We were so impressed we went back there this morning for breakfast. We both had Beans on toast with an egg on top with ANY-TIME sauce. It was fab. I have just taken Abi to the airport and waved her off. It was great to have a travel companion, and great to share it with someone. I had a fab time, and was sad to see her go, but not too sad for we'll meet again in 2 weeks time in Australia.
Tomorrow I get the 7am train to Amritsar in Punjab the land of the turbans.

Instant Karma's Gonna Get Ya!

2006-11-21T13:36:00.000Z

The train left NJP station south of Darjeeling at 11:20am and after about 17hrs it pulled up at Mulgra Sari station just 14KM outside my destination Varanasi. Seventeen hours on a train sounds like a lot of time and you're right it is. However, I got to hang out of the doors as we zoomed along. I also got to meet a few interesting people.

http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m128/craigtalbot72/videos/?action=view&current=india_train1.flv

I was the only foreigner on the train but since I was in 3AC (that's an AirCon sleeper with 3 bunks on one wall of a 2 walled room) I was with educated Indians I could chat to. I tried to pick up some more Hindi but failed. I did manage to convert 3 locals to the power of Su-do-ku before our time was up. Once in Mulgra Sari my new Indian Army Captain buddy helped me in my auto-rickshaw negotiations. I also promised the driver and extra 25% if he promised NOT to talk about any hotels on the way. I secured his word and for the next 25mins he told me how amazing and much cheapness Hotel SunnyTime was and how my hotel (which I did not even mention) had burnt down. I specifically chose a hotel near one of the Ghats so I could get there without too much help. However on arriving at 04:30 in the morning I was dropped "near" and had to negotiate the tiny ancient streets in a hunt. I must have been blessed for as I rounded the 27th corner I suddenly came across it near the waterside. I was greeted by Bulboo who happened to be a boat man. Within 2mins we had agreed on a 2hr row at sunrise up the Holy Ganges. This is Varanasi the holiest place on the Hindu map and a great time to see it is at sunrise. My fifth sunrise since I got here.

http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m128/craigtalbot72/videos/?action=view&current=sunrise_row.flv

Now I have been awake for sunrise before but usually in Robbie's flat talking total crap not on a long row boat feet from the steps watching people floating candles and seeing bodies being carried to wooden piles and set alight. The Ganges is the Mother of Life, the river has special significance and especially here at Varanasi. People come for 3 reasons. Firstly to wash their sins away by descending one of the 125 Ghats into the water, at a peak 60,000 people a day bathe, swim, clean their teeth, shave and even drink the holy water (which incidentally has 100,000 times more human feacal matter in it than legally allowed in the UK). Such is the religious conviction of the faithful that the locals come each day to wash themselves and the bedsheets from the hotels. The second reason for coming is to increase and gain Karma points. This can be done by giving to beggars or donating to poor people so they can be burnt. There are many waiting to die in Varanasi. This brings me to the 3rd and final reason. People come here to die. If you utter your last words and draw your last breath at Varanasi and are delivered back to the great mother withing 3hrs then you escape the eternal cycle of rebirth. No more being born as a dung beetle or fruit fly, you automatically step from the process and into Nirvana. Normally people are burnt at special "Burning Ghats", only a few are dropped to the bottom of the river (babies, pregnant women, leapers, small pox sufferes and holy men), the rest are burnt. Now it is hard to describe a burning, for a foreigner it looks odd for sure, but to Hindus it is normal and deeply moving. I won't go into too much detail and I did not take any pictures out of respect. It is hard to explain what it looks like for a belly to melt and guts set on fire or what it looks like for a burning head to fall off and be picked up by over sized bamboo tweezers and placed back on the fire. It is best to see for yourself. It is not a sad of grim atmosphere, it felt more like watching old men play French bowls or a father teaching his son how best to turn the sail on a model boat on Regents park lake than the burning of a bead body. This goes on 24/7 all day and all night. All around children play, kites fly in the sky, cricket bats swing, beggars crawl and holy men dressed in orange chant. Cows walk around, dogs bark, goats lick at hip bones that have washed up on the shore. The Ghats stretch for miles and after walking most of it I decided to explore the old town, wandering it the Muslim area where I found silk weavers making the cloths. Varanasi is also famous for its silks. I passed what must have been 50 Hindu temples. I asked how many temples there were I was told 100,000 or 1 million. I contemplated jumping in the Gangees myself it is the kind of stupid thing I would do, but my gut instinct told me not to, I had a feeling that somehow the sins that were washed off everyone else might stick to me. My head could take no more, for a place with so many sinners washing their evil deeds and for so many widows waiting to die it was bursting with life but a bit of a brain-ache. It's funny how different cultures view such an undeniable event. After seeing and taking a picture of the "ETERNAL FLAME" (said to be burning for over 4 and a half THOUSAND years) I headed back to the hotel for some lunch. The waiter brought over my Vegetable Thali together with a 1.5metre stick. Before I could ask what it was for I could feel the "eyes" on me ". MONKEY" he grunted and walked off.

http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m128/craigtalbot72/videos/?action=view&current=monkey.flv

I looked up and saw a baby monkey on the balcony above with Daddy money eyeballing my curry. I'm feeling pretty tired now, 17hr and not much sleep on the train and straight to the river for sunrise. I ordered a beer and watched the sunset. From the hotel balcony with over 50 children's kites in the air as the sun dipped behind the temples and trees. The chanting got louder and the drums more frantic........I feel Varanasi is just coming alive now the sun has gone, but will I have the energy to explore a city that is older than history itself?

Back to Reality

2006-11-19T11:17:00.000Z

After just over a week of chilling and relaxing in Darjeeling I have arrived in Siliguri. How best to describe Siliguri? Well if we can think of India as an animal that is full incredible joy and happiness, bursting with misery and despair. With many heads holding many minds that lead to wondrous excitement and adventure. Many faces and mouths with tongues speaking many languages. With many arms and legs reaching out in all directions to touch the lives of over 1 billion people. With multiple beating hearts pushing the blood of hope and filling the many souls that live within with dreams of joy and despair. Then it also stands to reason that this incredible and unique animal would also have many arses. Well Siliguri is a one of the holes.

As the jeep hit the plains from Darjeeling the temperature immediately rose, and I got bitten by a mozzie before I had chance to apply lotion. I got touted immediately as soon as the jeep stopped. The cycle rickshaw was actually a nice fella as he peddled like mad past the open sewers to my hotel. It's a Sunday so it's kinda quite. There is not much to do in this rather uninspired transport hub other than to burn time until my train to Varanasi tomorrow morning. This is a return to India proper after finding the small hill station oasis
In Darjeeling I was getting too lazy, it was getting to be a joke. I am glad to be on the road again after over 1 week chilling. Each day I did almost nothing, setting lazy goals like " buy a book and some AA batteries", next day "go back to Internet cafe to find books I bought and left there", sit in town square chatting to 83 year old Gurkha veteran from WW2, play billiards with new pal in the Old English Gentleman's club the Planters.
Sigh.....what a life.....I left just in time really, I was reverting back to being a kind of student subspecies.
Not much else to say, tomorrow will probably be a 12hr train ride to Varanasi with lots of bites.
The pictures posted are a bit random. One of the Planters club Tea garden, a Japanese Buddhist temple. A man selling coloured balloons. A crazy woman feeding flying rats. One picture is of the hotel owners nephew with one of the little girls that "works" in the hotel. I don't think child labour is illegal in yet West Bengal. They made it illegal when i was in Karnatika (Bangalore). At least the girls working in our hotel get to play. The hotel owners give them school lessons, not quite as bad as working "down-pit'.

Face Bleach

2006-11-13T12:07:00.000Z

Not much to write today.
I have decided to stay in Darjeeling for a few more days, I really like it here. My hotel is cheep and friendly and I have a new Indian mate, who arranged my trek. We are meeting for a drink tonight. Last night I watched Liverpool Vs Arsenal with 2 scousers in a bar, we had a lock in. Normally the police walk around blowing their whistles at 20:00 to warn people not to be naughty. Yesterday I went for a long walk. Off the normal roads in Darjeeling and down the other side of the many hills. I ended up at a Tibetan Refugee Centre. Darjeeling is really a mix of Nepali and Tibetan people with a smattering of Bengali Indians. On the way back I took some pics of some boys painting rocks with religious symbols. I don't know if they were Hindu or Buddhist. I got my hair cut today for the standard Rs10. Unlike Bangalore they did not offer a face bleach for Rs50. People in the rest of India are obsessed with being paler. Even to the point where the last Cricket tournament was sponsored by "Fair and Handsome". A product that promises you untold popularity with the ladies. There are similar products for the girls...all amount to the same thing, bleaching the melanin from your skin. I will try and go white water rafting in the next couple of days. Then off to ride an elephant, but that is 145Km away, so will be a bit of a trek. Then I am off to Varanasi to see dead bodies floating in the Ganges.
I did start this entry just to post some video clips I took with my phone of the trek.
So have a peep if you like, not great quality but you'll get the idea.

Day4 of the trek
http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m128/craigtalbot72/videos/?action=view&current=trek1.flv

Day7 of the trek
http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m128/craigtalbot72/videos/?action=view&current=trek1.flv

Not sure of the day, but walking over a suspension bridge
http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m128/craigtalbot72/videos/?action=view&current=bridge.flv

Also the rest of my photos are kept here if you're really bored and wanna have a look. I think the ones from the trek are the best so far.
All My Photos
http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m128/craigtalbot72/

P.s. This is why I am Pure Veg while in India