Goa – Mumbai. 2 days.

Tick…

March 14th

Ok. First stop Mumbai. We got up early checked out and had a last breakfast in our local café. They were such a nice bunch. As a leaving present they served Merryl her fruit salad with rat-faeces in. I would never have known as I am not an expert in rodent poo. Merryl on the other-hand is doing her PhD in the study of epidemiology in water voles. She complained. They were so kind they removed the cost of her food from our bill.

We took a taxi to Anjuna airport and checked in. The flight was delayed. We had the illusion of time to kill. Airports are one of the strangest and most fascinating places for me. The whole concept of being at an airport is transience. No-one belongs in an airport. Every person here is passing through, or working to effect the passing through of another person. Major airports are as busy and as vivid as a city. Sometimes they are even busier, so many people, so much activity, twenty-four hours a day, with shops, bars, hotels, restaurants, fountains, chapels, mosques. They have every convenience, amenity, and comfort available, yet everything in an airport serves as a sole-function to enable you to leave. You would never just pop down to an airport to hang out for an evening, or to do some shopping, despite the fact that everything you need is available to you in one location. Alan de Bottain’s Art of Travel explores, in elegant and eclectic detail, the exquisite ennui of the human experience of travelling and the places that facilitate it. Planes, trains, and automobiles are oft considered the anathema of the backpacker the world over, however I don’t believe this is true. They are all part of the tao of travelling. There is nothing more focusing than spending 12 hours on a cramped bus, 8 hours waiting for a delayed plane. 10 hours on a train with people climbing through the windows and sitting on your lap. It forces you to live completely in the present, hones your mental acuity to accept the discomfort of life, and compels you to interact with everyone around you – whether you like it or not: Enlightment in a departure lounge.

We flew into Mumbai late in the afternoon. The airport was a teeming mass of opportunists. We were – to them – large bundles of rupees fluttering in the warm breeze. The average wage of a denizen of Mumbai is around 145$ US per month. The population of Mumbai is over 20 million and the density of the populus is 22,000 people per square kilometre. Here you begin to glimpse the dark underbelly of this vast country. India has 1 billion souls dwelling within her bosom. The number is growing exponentially. In ten years it is projected to reach 1.4 billion. I wondered, in a curiously macabre way, does the site of rich tourists walking through arrivals make a person salivate.

We fought our way through cries of ‘Sahib’ and offers of free help, free accommodation, and free taxis outside into the ever rising temperature. We haggled for a fare and jumped in a taxi via a rickshaw. For the sake of saving 200 rupees we had to head off away from the airport and pay in advance. I was kicking myself at being so naïve and was gearing up for possible fisticuffs with our driver who would soon ask for our fare once again, claiming he didn’t know the people we paid at the airport once we arrived, however it turned out to be ok. He did try to squeeze us for a little extra, but there was no elaborate scam going on.

The journey was long and hot and took us right through the centre of Mumbai. The city is vast and the slums are extensive. They are amazing and strange places and I was really hoping to get a chance to visit them. Partly to satisfy the perverse voyeur in that is compelled to wish to view such things; partly to genuinely seek to understand how people can live in such conditions. The poverty in Mumbai was a little less than palatable. Kids washing and running naked on the side of the road. Starving children trying to get into your taxi. Not just begging for money as professional beggars. They are starving. You can see there hallowed skin, sunken, bright, feverish eyes. They are not just asking for cash. They are asking for food.

We got to Colaba late afternoon. We had our bags dumped on the side-walk by the taxi driver who sped off. We tried out the first hotel, recommended by the Good Book. It was fully booked. We then tried out a second option. It was a real shite-hole but we took it. We took it because it was late in the day, blisteringly hot, and we were exhausted. It had a fan and a lock on the door. The shower was only cold water, but refreshing. The toilets were shared and were squatters [from this point on you can take it as read all toilets will be squatters with a jug and a bucket for flushing, unless otherwise specified].

We had barely put our bags down when there was a knock on our door. It turned out a scout was hunting for western people to star in a Bollywood movie the next day. The deal was 750 rupees (£10) to spend the day on a film set as extras. We told the enthusiastic rep we’d think about it as we only had 48 hours in Mumbai. But even before we’d discussed it we both knew we’d do it. Some things you just can’t miss out on.

After we’d settled in, so to speak, we took a walk up along the causeway road and stopped off for dinner. We then spent the rest of the evening hanging out in Leopold’s. This restaurant/café/bar has been immortalised in Gregory David Robert’s book, Shantaram, as the place to be seen in Mumbai. Everyone from Gangsters to Movie Stars frequented the place. It was a bustling hive of activity with marble floors and ornate booths perfect for skulking inside and watching the world go by.

India and the Great Cannonball Run.

… It is a warm Thursday afternoon and we have just rolled into Anjuna. We have to drop the bike off this afternoon but first we are going shopping in the flea market in Anjuna town. Then we are going to sit down and make our plans in solid water. We have 17 days left before my visa runs out for India. In this time we have 9 cities, and 8 places of interest to visit, 4 flights, umpteen train and bus journeys. Inter-spliced with this we need to obtain visas for Pakistan, and enquire into visas for China. Oh and it’s my birthday.

So it’s time to roll up our sleeves and take deep breaths. Thus begins the Great Indian Cannonball Run of Merryl and Philip...

Like a clock reflected in a mirror darkly, time is constantly passing through distorted perception, it is fractured and fragmented, shards and discards of moments I am now recalling. However the human mind interprets a fractured mirror. Perception is the beginning of a process of you lying to you. By the time you have taken a percept and subjected it to the many required unconscious processes in order create a memory, it is completely distorted. That’s the way the mind works. That is how we remember things: Wrongly.. fantabulously… it is a well-known fact that eye-witness testimony is one of the most unreliable forms of evidence. This testimony I am recording here is a fractured splinter of my overactive mind. But as far as I believe, it is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth… after a fashion.

On the road again!

March 6th - March 13th,

It was time for us all to part ways again. Merryl and I wanted some time to ourselves and Marcus had plans to do a paragliding course in a town called Kamshet, about 100km SE of Mumbai.
We’d been hunting around for a bike to trawl the coastlines of Goa on. We’d hoped for a Enticer but there didn’t seem to be a decent hire bike anywhere in Anjuna. Things weren’t looking very hopeful until we bumped into Miriam who put us on to a mechanic who renovated bikes in Anjuna old town. We popped in to see him early one morning and he offered us a 350cc Royal Enfield for a week. I was a little dubious at first because I had never ridden one before and the gears and brake are on opposite sides to any bikes I’d been on before, but my reservations lasted all of five seconds. The minute I laid eyes on it I knew it was going to be the perfect bike for us for a week.
It was a perfect week.

… We are riding along the coastal road from Goa Old Town to Colva Beach. The scent of musky flowers hangs in the air intoxicatingly. The sun is gloriously hot. The road is long and stretches ahead of us along the side of a long valley. Luscious, verduous, forest greenery flows in every direction. The wind whips through our hair and on our skin. We are both in shorts and singlets as it is simply too hot to wear anything else. Our bags are slung on either side of the Enfield counterbalancing perfectly. The bike is heavy but not cumbersome. Enfields are delicate machines and need to be treated with respect. The gears are not to be stamped on, but must be treated gently, like a lover’s caress. The engine starts perfectly every time. First you must half crank the kick-start to bump up the amps, and then one kick and it purrs into life. It handles like a dream and it goes forever. Despite the heat, despite the dust, it is consistent and dependable. I love this bike. Later today, much later, we will reach Colva and Benolium and take a secluded beach hut by Arabian Sea. We will sit and eat and drink red wine and get lost in each other. But for now we are both right here in this moment, riding without a care in the world, without jobs, without responsibility, along a coastline of coconut trees, on an endless road of smiling people, and white – low-roofed – houses, and nothing but time on our hands…

The next week belonged to just Merryl and I. Nobody else in the world came into it. We met many people and chatted and had fun. But they just flowed into and faded out of our world. We’d waited a very long time to be selfish together. Something that didn’t depend on one of us working, being somewhere, or catching buses, planes, trains, visting ruins, meeting people, or leaving one and other. Something that just involved no-one and nothing but us. Life isn’t always fair. Sometimes you never have these things, sometimes nothing works for you and everything goes wrong and it all just falls apart; however sometimes things do go well, things do work out, miracles do happen, you do get a chance at happiness, and you can trust and let go and allow yourself to be happy just being. Keats may have got it slightly wrong. You cannot be too happy in thine happy lot. If you put your faith in the present - whatever may have happened in the past, and against whatever the future may have in store – then you can find something truly magnificent in yourself. May it happen for you.

We explored all of Goa’s coastel towns: Colva, Benolium, Palolem, Patnem, Agonda. We visited many of the places Marcus and I had, and many others we hadn’t. We did the tourist trail and got caught up in a life that involved, hammocks, beach life, and a care-free lifestyle. A week passed without us even realizing it, but that belongs to us.

Before we knew it, though, it was time to get the bike back to Anjuna and to evaluate our remaining time in India.

Goa, with Merryl.

March 2nd - March 5th,

Merryl and I spent the next few days in a fantastic little hotel with a huge room and beach-beds outside our room. It was reasonably priced and only 25 metres from the beach. It did have the unfortunate drawback of having a group of teenagers staying next door. They were constantly stoned and drunk and played loud music and stayed up all night. Bloody kids!

Marcus had taken to running on the beach every morning. We’d usually meet him for breakfast and then we’d all head down to a spot somewhere and grab a deck-chair or beach-bed and chill out all afternoon. Most places served food and drinks to where you were sitting on the beach. All you had to do was whistle. It was pretty much what you imagine paradise to be.

… We are all sitting outside Lilliput’s bar on the beach. We are drinking cocktails. The sun is gorgeous but I am sitting in the shade of a beach umbrella playing with my new i-touch Merryl has brought out for me. The sea is full of people jumping into the surf. The waves are nothing on Varkala's beaches but they are still pretty frisky. Cows casually amble up and down the beach in search of free food. If they catch you eating your dinner you end up in a game of musical deck-chairs as they are impossible to get rid of. Unlucky for the people a couple of chairs down as a white cow, with a huge sticky string of drool hanging out of its mouth, is trying to eat their lunch. The barbeque-cum-reggae evening is on tonight and the staff has just started the setting up the music and camp-fire…

Merryl managed to last a whole day before getting ill. I was impressed. She’d done better than us. I think it was probably mild food poisoning coupled with a complete change in lifestyle. She was laid up for two days in bed feeling very ill. It was a shame because probably the last afternoon rave was being held on the beach whilst she was ill. Marcus and I both headed up and grabbed some beers but I had to duck out to see how she was. It was quite fortunate as she’d decided to go for a walk on the beach and, shortly after I’d met her walking back to our room, she had a complete whitey and fainted in a café. After that we took things easy for 2-3 days.
When she was feeling better we decided to hire some bikes for the day and explore the north beaches again. Marcus was itching to try out a geared bike and Merryl was itching to get up and do something interesting. There was only one Enticer available which Marcus wanted to ride so we took a Honda GT 100. They are nice enough little bikes. A two-stroke engine has a slightly less cruisey feeling to it but it did have a cool little power-band at the top end of each gear which gave it a real kick. We headed up to Mandrem and then worked our way down back along the beaches to Anjuna. We also headed over to a tiny little town called Chapora. It was supposedly untouched by development but turned out to be overrun with European backpackers, Israelis, and aging Russian hippies. One with half his head bandaged up wandering around drinking vodka. It was an interesting place. It had a nice restaurant called the Yak bar in which we decided to eat dinner. I was pretty happy. Afterwards we had a little ropey ride home as Marcus’s bike had no back light so we had to shadow him and be his back light. I then dropped Merryl off and took the bike for a rag over to the nearby town of Baga to get some cash.

A long awaited arrival and an unexpected twist in the plot.

March 1st,

Saturday came around and Marcus was better and up and about. Merryl and Omar were winging their way across Europe and were due in at 5pm. We had been busy making plans for their arrival. As it was Omar’s birthday the next day we planned to pay for a massage for him and we asked our local restaurant to bake him a cake. They asked us what we’d like to write in icing on the cake for him. After much deliberation we decided on 'U R GAY'.

5pm came and went and there were no sign of them. I had originally planned to take a taxi to the airport but if the plane was delayed things would get complicated. So I left instructions for them to take a pre-paid taxi and gave them the address of the restaurant.

I finally went to check my mail and found out the internal flight (from New Delhi to Goa) had been delayed by an hour. Oh and Omar had forgotten to get a visa for India and had subsequently been deported. Mmmmm…

M finally turned up by taxi looking very tired and a little stressed but very happy. It was so good to see her. She confirmed the story that Omar had forgotten his visa in the UK. They’d tried everything they could think of but it boiled down to the simple fact: No visa no entry. H e’d been put on the next immediate flight home. If it wasn’t his 30th birthday the next day, it would have probably been funny. No, actually, it would have been hilarious. None of us had thought to ask him if he’d applied for his visa and it didn’t cross his mind. It was a simple mistake but we were all of us gutted for him. We sat in the restaurant feeling pretty helpless and downhearted about his misfortune. Then we decided the best course of action would be to have several birthday beers for him. We cancelled the cake. Probably a good thing all in all.

Then it was time for Merryl and I spend some time catching up.

Goa, on the road.

February - the last week.

The next day we were both feeling healthier than we had done in over a week. We had met a lovely couple, Miriam and Roolfe, a couple of days before, and they had recommended a great place to hire some motorbikes for a week. We had just that: one week before M arrived, and also our friend, Omar, was coming to meet us for his 30th birthday. So we decided to kill some time and explore the coastline of Goa.

We dropped our big packs at the house of the guy who was hiring us the bikes and inspected our steeds. Well, that is to say Marcus inspected his moped. I’d decided I was old enough and responsible enough to stop crashing bikes now so I had hired a Yamaha Enticer. However it hadn’t turned up as yet. In fact it took two hours for him to locate and bring the bike to me. It was worth the wait though. The Enticer is a wonderful machine. Ithas a small capacity - 250cc - for a bike its size but it is a 4 stroke engine and has a very low gear ratio. It is designed to cruise on, not to race. It has an electric starting motor, a drop seat and large moose-like handlebars. Basically, it looks like a Harley Davidson, and when you are riding around one of the most beautiful coastlines in Asia, that is what’s important.

We headed out of Anjuna and rode south. First down to Old Goa town where we could join the highway and cross the two estuary points of the Zuari. This meant joining the highway. Surprisingly on the highway in Goa you had to wear a helmet if you were riding a motorbike. Interestingly enough this rule didn’t apply to passengers. The traffic police were notorious for stopping and fining tourists and extracting bribes from them, however we had been tipped off and were well prepared. We had hired bikes with authenticate hire plates (red ones) we had the papers of ownership and we had helmets for the highway so we didn’t get stopped.

The ride down was interesting, to say the least. It had been over 12 years since I had ridden a geared motorcycle but, in much the same way as having sex on a trampoline: it comes back to you. After a couple of hours I was pretty comfortable with it. The highway was a little insane but we managed to traverse it without killing ourselves, although we did end up a little bit off course. Marcus heard from a friend he’d met travelling around South America. She was in Goa for a couple of days – in the south, in Palolem. We decided to take the bikes all the way down the coast in one day. It was about six hours all in all. We made it way before time. The last 40 kilometres were mountain roads and we spent the whole time dodging buses, trucks, and oncoming traffic whilst weaving through deep canyon passes at break-neck speeds. I loved every minute of it.

We arrived in Palolem and, after a bit of arsing around, found a fantastic room with A/C, hot showers, and a TV for a decent price. Palolem was a beachfront town curving around the bay so enclosed it was nearly a lagoon. With two natural breakers on either end that kept the tide to a minimum flow and ebb. It appeared a little touristier than Anjuna but that didn’t detract from its beauty. Also because it was the end of the season it wasn’t too busy.

We met up with Marcus’s friend, Nikki, who turned out to be excellent company. She had a wicked sense of humour and was a good party person. We went out for some food on the beach – in a nice little joint called New Orleans – and a chat. Nikki was a project manager for charity relief organisations and had been working in East India completing an analysis of the efficacy of the charity organisations set up to provide aid after the 2005/6 tsunami in the Indian Ocean. After dinner, several beers, and a Nargile, we stumbled off up the beach to some flashing lights to see if we could find a party. We managed to find a noiseless rave.

A noiseless rave, we found, works very much the same way as a normal one. People flock to the party, pay the entrance fee, listen to live DJs, dance, drink beer, and socialise. The only difference is in a noiseless rave there are no speakers. No music is played anywhere save from through the wireless headphones you hire when you pay your entrance fees. These amazing little bits of electrickery have a range of over 100 metres and two channels on you can select which music stream you want to dance to. If you get bored of one DJ or you spot someone bopping along to a different beat you think may be better, you just flip channel. The whole setup is a bit weird. It works fine whilst you have the headphones on but taking them off and watching a beachful of people dancing silently to the flashing strobe lights is more than a little surreal. Good fun though and the main point is no noise pollution.

The next day we took it very easy. We rode the bikes over the next beach, Patnem, which was even quieter and sunbathed, swam and read. In the evening we played pool and had dinner in the hotel where we were staying. I was still feeling pretty ill so I opted for an early night and left Marcus and Nikki to catch up.

The next morning we were still midway through our bike hire so we decided to work our way slowly back up the coast. Nikki wanted to check out Benolium beach. So she hitched a ride with us up the coast for the afternoon. We stopped off at a Hindu Temple and I got my first Bindi spot. We were invited to an annual procession in two days there but we were a bit dubious about making it back.

We got to Benolium and checked into a very quiet out the way place that took ages to find the road in to. But it was worth it in the end. We had a late lunch with Nikki then I dropped her at the bus stop in the nearby town and then Marcus and I chilled out and had a couple of beers. In the evening we went and watched some belly dancing.

The next day I ran along the beach at dawn and then we spent the day doing the same as we always did: reading and doing nothing. Marcus was interested in riding a geared motorbike so we found a quiet road and I gave him some basic lessons. He took to it really well and I left him ride around the backroads for the afternoon. We went out in the evening and I had to come home early – still feeling ill. Fat bastard himself had a huge Kingfish sizzler. I think it may not have been as fresh as he’d hoped as he was to find out over the next few days.

It was time to bring the bikes back the next day. We could have kept them longer but we wanted to get back to Anjuna. We also wanted to chill for a day or so as Merryl and Omar were due out on Saturday. We road back up along the coast. We stopped off at for lunch. It was like Benidorm for Indian people. We didn’t dally there for too long. We checked out the Portuguese fort at Fort Aguada and then headed back up to Anjuna pulling into town just in time for tea. By this time Marcus had been visited by the stomach faeries and took himself to bed. I decided to pop down to the flea market – that runs every Wednesday in the old town. I found the most amazing pair of trousers I had ever seen in my life. Joseph’s technicoloured dream coat would have paled into insignificance by comparison. I spent over twenty minutes haggling with the market stall owner and finally got them for a song. They were phantasmic. I was so excited by them that I had to go back to the hotel and jump around the bedroom in them for 10mins. It’s not often you procure such a pair of pants as this.

The next couple of days we did relatively nothing apart from hang out in Anjuna watching movies in the bars in the evening and making plans for the week-end when the others were to arrive. Marcus was too ill to even get out of bed for most of the time so I mooched around, breaking in my new pants, reading books, swimming, and chatting to people. Oh actually we did make it out one evening to catch a live trip-hop/reggae band. They were brilliant. A cross between Portishead and Peter Tosh. Everyone in the bar was so off their face it beggared belief. People were falling off stools and one guy was swinging his guitar around and knocking peoples drinks all over the place.. only in Goa.

Anjuna, Goa state, the first couple of days, and the Full Moon Party.

February 19th - to February the something or other

We flew into Goa airport on a hot and lazy afternoon. The flight had been brilliant. It left on time and the aircraft was brand spanking new. Well that is to say it had nice carpets and a fresh lick of paint and, as everyone knows, when you are travelling at 18,000m above sea-level, that’s what’s important.

Goa has in contemporary history (i.e. mine) been hitherto known as a party place. In the 80’s and 90’s it was renowned for its marathon psychedelic parties pumping away for days on end, around the beaches of Anjuna, Palolem, and Benolium. At the end of the 90s however this became too much for the local inhabitants, not to mention the local tourism board. Although they welcomed the steady influx of tourism and money, they were becoming increasingly fed-up with the decadence, the vices, and the lack of respect for their culture and religion. The Goa that exists now still has a good party vibe and is still a fantastic place to visit, but it is much more chilled out and relaxed. There is a curfew on beach parties set to 10pm. There are, as always, exceptions but they are done on the sly - and every now and then there are full moon parties, or so we were led to believe. Funnily enough there was one due a couple of days after we arrived. What a coincidence!

We got a taxi from the airport past the city of Vasco da Gamato to Anjuna beach. Goa is divided into the northern and southern areas. The river of Zuari serves as a demarcation point between the two. The north is more famous for its parties, the south is more of a chill out area. Anjuna is about 25kms north of Goa town. We rocked up in the late afternoon. We’d gotten some suggestions for a hotel from two Russian guys we shared a cab with. We tried the popular place recommended in the Good Book but that was full. So we took a chilled out place down by the beach. We dumped our bags and I sauntered down to the shop to get some sundries. Marcus was still ill at this point. I got accosted by a guy from Moscow drinking shots at the shop. Yes the shop sold shooters. He was definitely not on the same planet as me and I was looking forward to joining him there later. Things were looking pretty good.

Marcus dragged himself out of bed, despite feeling manky, and we wandered along the beach. It was dotted with bars, shacks, cafes, and pool dens. It was also beautiful. We spent an enjoyable afternoon adjusting to our new surroundings. After some food and some beers we wandered up to the next beach to check out the paragliders Marcus had spotted. To our surprise we discovered an afternoon rave going on.

… We are sitting in the afternoon sunshine on Anjuna beach. The sun is warm and the sand is golden. The sea laps around the beach gently. Around us is a multitude of people partying in the sunshine. Techno music thumps out of a giant marquee to our left. Happy, happy, dancers bop away to the beat worshipping the music, and the sun. A miasma of smoke hangs in the air. Huge freezers sit by the dance floor selling soft drinks, beer, and spirits. You could be forgiven for thinking you are at a free rave in England on one of its southern beaches.
I am sitting taking in this human tapestry of wonders. This isn’t your normal raving crowd. The age ranges vary from 18 to 80. I have been watching a middle-age lady smoking a huge chillum and doing some very interesting moves on the dance floor. She looks like a librarian. She has nothing on the guy dancing on the sand though. He is in his late 40s, wearing a pair of Speedos and spinning around and leaping into the air in a shamanistic frenzy. Marcus and I peg him to be a primary school headmaster from Preston. He really has had one too many mushrooms. Back at the tent there is a guy with dredds down to his arse wearing a crop-top t-shirt. He has a huge belly hanging over his jeans. The list goes on. It’s amazing. Marcus is pretty ill and is going to have to go and lie down soon. But I am going to sit and watch this circus late into the night…

The next couple of days were spent in much the same fashion as usual - beach, food, beer, reading. There were a lot more cows walking around on the beach. As the bovine family is sacred to Hindus you will find them everywhere. They have carte blanche access to just about all public places including roads. Marcus continued to be a festering disease-ridden organism for most of the time. He also continued to extend the follicles on his face to obscene lengths. The next morning We were thrown out of our hotel as apparently someone had booked in advance. Nice of the owners to let us know. We checked into another quiet little beach front and stayed there for a couple of days.

When Marcus was feeling better we decided to hire some mopeds out and go exploring. Bikes are really cheap – about 200 rupees a day. After fecking around for an hour trying to find some half decent ones we finally headed off. We decided to head north to visit the beaches of Mandrem. It was a gorgeous day and zipping along the coastal roads was great fun. When you first encounter the roads in India, it is a pretty terrifying experience even if you are just riding in a 12 ton bus. In much the same way as the Middle East, chaos rules supreme. Bicycles zip in and out of cars. Horns beep continuously. People shout and scream. Nobody wears seatbelts and no cyclists wear helmets. Entire families pass you on motorcycles: A father driving with his two four year-olds riding pillion on the fuel tank, and his wife on the back riding side-saddle. Upon closer inspection however, you begin to see a method amidst the apparent madness. Because there are so many vulnerable people riding cycles motorists are hyper-aware of what’s going on around them. After a while it actually seems safer than the UK.

The beaches were almost deserted and glorious. The season was coming to an end here and we had our pick of the best beach chairs and nothing but peace and quiet. When we got to Mandrem we stopped and had lunch. I ordered a fish tikka masala and it tasted wrong. I now know it was wrong as I was ill for a week after eating it. We sat and watched some people learning to kite-surf. This type of surfing I had seen in Tel Aviv. The surfer rides a board and is also attached to a rectangular parachute – much like paragliding – they ride the waves at breathtaking speed in and out of the wind. Today’s surfer was just beginning though, and spent most of the time being dragged on their arse down the beach as the wind was pretty fearsome.

We dropped the bikes back and went walking through the village to the next beach that night. Someone gave us five chillums in a row. I laughed like a maniac as I skipped in and out of the surf all the way back to the hotel.

The next day I began to feel pretty disease-ridden myself. Today was also a full moon and rumour had it there was supposed to be a full moon party going on. We hunted up and down the beach but there were no raves going on anywhere; however we did hear the party was to take place inland at a place called the West End.

We had a couple of quiet drinks and then were heading home when we bumped into two lads from Sweden. They convinced us to share a taxi to the West End so we all headed over to the all night rave. It turned out to be a nightclub. Now any other night I would have been happy to party my arse off but that night it was all I could do to stop throwing up. I had to duck out early in the end and Marcus – being not overly impressed with the place - did so also.

Fort Cochin, Kerala

February 16th - February 19th.

Kerala is marketed at tourists as God’s Own Country. Catchy slogan. It is written everywhere. On posters by the side of the road; on buses; In hotel foyers, beside the potted plants; in shop windows; on the back of auto-rickshaws. Everywhere you look, you are informed that you are standing in the country chosen by God. What God was that I found myself wondering? Surely not the God of Judaism. He dwells in the chosen land. Allah perhaps? I don’t think it likely it would be for a Vedish deity. It seemed to have a Christian feel to it. The Portugese, among others, brought the Good Word to India. But before that, much before, Syrian Christians were in these parts. Along with Rabbis and, by and by, Muslims. India has a great history of racial tolerance. Prince Gautama Siddhartha aka Buddha actively encouraged all religions: The way to Nirvana can be reached through many paths. Islam initially had the same belief. Western Christianity never embraced this concept.

I took a train from Varkala to Fort Cochin. It was a pleasant enough journey once I’d fought my way through a throng of striking transport workers to get to the platform. I also had to push past a gauntlet of police deployed in response to the strike. One of them told me this was the warm-up for the proper demonstration in two days. The train ride took about 5 hours. It was through the day so I did not get to fully embrace the experience an Indian train journey. The sleeper train would have to wait for a little while. I met a nice couple from Scotland who were doing a whistle-stop tour of India. They’d originally planned to get just see the north. But like any good holiday it had warped itself into a fully-fledged trek around the west coast of the country. They got off at Alleppe bound for the back-waters. I got a bit hemmed in by an Indian family that invaded my booth for an hour or two. In hindsight I think I had probably stolen their seats.

I arrived in Fort Cochin in the late afternoon. I caught a rickshaw to the Hotel Marcus had already headed for. Rickshaw’s are funny vehicles. They are pretty much lawn-mowers with three wheels and handle-bars on. They then have telephone booths laid on top of them with a divider in the middle to effect a front and back seat. You get in the back – usually – with your luggage – usually. I say usually because I have seen, with my very own eyes, 7 people in one of these things. 4 in the back, although 2 were actually hanging out either side, and 3 in the front, 2 sitting behind the driver. I have also seen (and had) luggage on the roof. Zippo’s Circus could learn a lot from Auto-Rickshaw drivers.

After getting stung for the fare – but being too tired to care – I arrived at the hotel in Fort Cochin. It was a pleasant enough place. The area was geared up for tourists and there were plenty about. There were a couple of roads teeming with cafes and restaurants. I dropped my bags in and checked in and met up with Marcus. We went across the road to a restaurant and grabbed an early dinner. We then sat and proceeded to get spectacularly drunk. Fort Cochin was a step up on the nudge-nudge wink-wink tea malarkey. Here you get served “special” tea in teapots with china mugs. It’s still good old Kingfisher lager of course.

There was no particular reason for this afternoon’s session apart from we could. I love impromptu accidental boozy afternoons. Good company, good conversation, and cold beer. The afternoon gave way to evening and then to night. The helicopter peddlers strolled past launching there cobalt blue copters into the evening sky. The moon was waxing in a clear and starry sky. People lazily strolled by us smiling affably and sometimes stopping to eat or drink in this roadside café, Marcus and I ended up having a very interesting debate regarding the nature of free will, and if, if one assumes thus, it does exist in the first place. There have been a number of great thinkers who postulated that we may not have free will. The universe may be, by its very existence, deterministic. We may believe we have the freedom to choose our thoughts; to make decisions; to act; to change our minds, however this may all be an illusion created by a reality that has already been decided for us. The interesting question would be how to prove – or disprove – the hypothesis. Despite our drunken state we did come up with a couple of ideas that stuck in my mind. If the universe is deterministic – who is determining it? It could be that the natural order of things in the universe is functionally deterministic. Moreover it could just happen to be a reality that has predetermined everything along a time line and we all have the rules of how to act and think encoded in the fibre of our being. It could also be that a deity has a hand in this design; a divine nob-twiddler as Mr Dawkins puts it. This line of thinking also begged another thought: If the universe is deterministic and something is controlling it, then believing that you don’t believe in the entity that is determining the illusion of free will you are under the impression you have, is a pretty good cosmic joke.

Lying in bed after chatting I came up with another idea that if something is pre-determining the thoughts and actions of everything we do – wouldn’t it be cool to sabotage the whole thing. By this I am expanding on a scenario here. If we were to use Arthur C Clarke's third law that Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Now imagine if we were all part of some scientific experiment for a young entity’s science-project (this is, of course, making massive assumptions: That there is such a civilisation, that they have procreation and linear growth, that they have schools, that they have science-projects, that the young entity is actually working and not out scrumping for space-apples in the local cosmic orchard (yes, what a stereotypical cosmological pastiche but you get the picture)). Imagine that our reality is part of a supremely advanced software simulation (yes – imagine they have Microsoft). Wouldn’t it really scupper things if everyone in the world decided to top themselves at the same time. Of course you (the human race) would never know for sure but imagine the look (assuming it had one) on the young entity’s face (and yes assuming it had one of those too). “Mummy, Mummy, my science project world has just committed mass suicide!”

“That’s a shame dear, did you leave it too close to the radiator?” (assuming of course they feel cold, have sibling bonding, use language… etc)

It would be priceless (assuming they had a economic society) unless of course the entity intended us all to do this in the first place. Of course we’d all be dead and never know. But it would be a grand cosmic joke.

Anyway I woke up the next morning with a hangover and thought that was all a bit silly.

The next day was a very quiet one. We headed down the river to see the Jewish Synagogue. No offence to Jewish people but this one was crap. We walked along the estuary of the river and watched the fishermen trying to net a catch of fish en masse with a very large net that resembled an upside down clothes-line and took about 30 men to operate. There weren’t too many fish at the end of it either. Fort Cochin was beginning to get on my nerves.

We decided to quit Kerala and head north, missing out the state of Karnataka, to Goa. We also decided to make use of the internal domestic flight system. Domestic flights in India are very, very, cheap. It cost us 35 quid each to fly from Cochin to Goa. We booked the flight for the day after tomorrow. Marcus had fallen ill again. Badly. So he spent the next 36 hours in bed. I chilled out and read. We did make it out for a quet walk that evening to see the national elephant parade. All over India elephants were marching in full regalia up to the temples of Ganesh. It was pretty impressive seeing these graceful and ancient looking beasts standing so elegantly amid the noise, drums, and music. We had planned to get a taxi to the airport early on Wednesday morning. However the strike was planned that morning. We didn’t realise but it affected all forms of transport except for aeroplanes. That meant we had to travel to the airport the night before and stay over in an overpriced hotel.

Still we were at the airport bright and early the next day and ready to fly to India's famous party state.

Varkala – Allepe – backwater canals.

February 14th – 15th

Happy Birthday Alli!!! Where's my dinner?

With great self-discipline we finally wrenched ourselves free of the bosom of somewhat utopian Varkala.

It was time to move on. Kind of.

We decided to book ourselves onto a cruise around the myriad of backwaters that make up the canals between Varkala and cochine. The Good Book had told us it is an experience not to be missed.

We left Varkala at 6am. Our rickshaw was late. Whilst we sat around waiting for it two 12 year newspaper boys tried to sell us Marijuana. The taller one informed us his dad was one the best dealers in Varkala. It seems he was going into the family business.

We took a train from Varkala Station to Aleppe. There was a strike to be held over the the next couple of day for all public transport. We arrived in Allepe and took a rickshaw to the canal boat. It was somewhat smaller than I was expecting and we had to share a room. We spent the rest of the day cruising around these beautiful canal waters. I must say, we could have done the whole thing in an afternoon and not stayed over for a fraction of the cost. It was nice enough though. The food was in abundance and was very good. After the sun went down that evening we sat and drank beer and played cards amidst a cloud of insects that descended on the boat. It wasn’t the most romantic Valentine’s day I have ever had. Marcus’s beard was now reaching epic proportions and try as I might, he just wasn’t my type. My type was over 2,000 miles away in Oxford. We turned in pretty early.

I woke up the next morning to find something had climbed into my bed and bitten my arse so much it had swelled up like a football. Well a pair of footballs to be exact. Over 40 times I could count. I couldn’t sit down, and I couldn’t stop scratching. We did get to see a beautiful sunrise on the canal that morning, although I was more concerned with the contents of my pants for most of it.

We got back to Allepe and we parted ways for a couple of days. Marcus headed to Fort Cochin and I took a bus back to Varkala. I still needed to obtain a crime report for my bag. The bus trip was pretty uneventful. Apart from the fact I couldn’t sit down, the driver was insane, and so many people got on they were sitting on top of each other. The bus didn’t go as far as Varkala. We alighted about 30miles away. I hooked up with a French lass, her son, and her mum, and together we shared a rickshaw then taxi back to Varkala. I managed to get the necessary documentation for my insurance and also laid my hands on some much needed anti-histamine. I wisely avoided the chill-out bar and took myself to bed early.

Varkarla Extracts - the next seven days - Kerala, India

Thursday 7th February - Wednesday 13th February.

… I am sitting in the Chill-Out Bar. Surprise Surprise. Tonight there is a live music evening with sitar players. The place is packed. We have grabbed a table right at the front. It is so busy we have to share with a couple. They turn out to be an aging Italian Casanova with a grey pony-tail and a pretty young American girl with dredds. We engage in polite conversation. It seems they have just met. The girl is very chatty. The guy gets a right mood-on. I think he has one plan in mind for this evening. He really starts to sulk when we all have a smoke. I shrug at the girl and she pulls a sorry face. Polite conversation ends round about there. The sitar players are pretty good. One is Indian, the other Scandinavian. We all sit and enjoy the music. Later on, Bradley, the American guy, who is a regular here, will have his guitar out and we’ll be bombarding him with requests. Anyone who chances in on the place will be dragged into the warm group of lovable hedonists. There is Steve, from Essex, who is constantly stoned of his nut. His voice is a mix between Michael Caine and Johnny Depp (doing Cap’n Jack Sparrow) He’s got a fantastic sense of humour and keeps everyone in stitches. Then there is Veronica the Swedish girl, Manesh the owner of a nearby hotel. Also we have the two Spanish girls and the Spanish guy who is partner to one of the girls. All constantly stoned. There is the French girl, who has just started seeing Bradley. She has become his singing muse. There are the several guys who work here; one of them has fallen asleep. And then there is Marcus and I, who pop in every night for a quick beer, and never leave. The sitar evening has finished and the usual suspects – us – are gathered around a table laughing and drinking and running out of beer. Steve grabs a load of newcomers that have made the mistake of stopping for in for a drink. Our number increases to over twenty. Bradley is cajoled into singing for us all. I check my watch and realise it has gone 3am. There is an ancient looking guy at the top of the table. He looks like Keith Richards older brother. He is dressed like an Indian holy man but he looks like he is from Germany. He lights up a chillum. A big one. He hands it slowly around the table. Everyone takes a turn on it. “Would you like some?” The girl next to me asks.

“Mmm…no thanks” I say.

“Don’t insult the Father.” She admonishes. I am not sure if she is talking about the huge phallic thing in her hand or the scarecrow at the top of the table…

… I am chatting to one of the two German guys staying next door to us. They have coming here fifteen years in a row. They are huge stoners. He tells us that they smuggle their own hash into India. This is news to me [Marijuana grows here on the side of the road. Everyone here is stoned. The café owners are all stoned off their faces. All day. That’s why food takes so long to arrive. Even the cooks are stoned. In the evenings the police stop by and do random raids on the cafes to check for the illegal selling of alcohol. They don’t care a toss that all the staff and punters are skinning up and smoking. They usually then turn a blind eye to the selling of alcohol to tourists. Personally, from what I can observe, they mainly pop in for a smoke. Alcohol is served surreptitiously under the table. You then drink it from huge tea mugs. It’s all good weird fun] The German guys are real connoisseurs of the ‘erb. They have brought in three different types: “One to get you really high. One to bring you down again, and one to help you sleep,” Karl explains to us. I note he must have smoked too much of the third type as he fell asleep on the beach and now his head is bright red. He keeps it shaved and usually wears a hat. He must have forgotten today. There are huge blisters bubbling up on his crown…

…It is late in the night and I am swimming on Varkarla beach. Marcus and I are skinny-dipping. We have been out for the evening and got back to the room and were bored and pretty merry. We took some baileys and vodka down to the beach. Well I did. There is something fundamentally liberating about getting down to your nuts and bolts and going swimming. We are making like Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams in the Fisher King: Letting it all hang out. Except instead of parading around central park in the moonlight we are going swimming [There are lots of hypotheses as to how we have come to evolve in the way we have. Our relatively hairless bodies; the reason why we walk on two legs; our predilection to omega-acids in the food from fish; our love of water. Bruce Chatwin wrote a wonderful book called the Song Lines. (he actually wrote several wonderful books, and would have continued to write many more had he not died at an early age). It explores with great eclectic insight some of the origins of these aspects of our condition and behaviour.] Regardless. Skinny dipping is great fun. It’s much better fun with several members of the opposite sex. But as long as you observe the code of man and don’t get anywhere near, nor look at, naked male friends. It’s acceptable behaviour. There is relatively no light on the beach save from the moon. Tonight there is no moon. The swells are the size of bungalows. The waves are crashing onto the shore with ferocity. We are ignorant of the fact at this time, but in the near future we will learn that the current at Varkarla beach is deadly. It has been known to pull swimmers out to sea and drown them. For now though, we are both blissfully unaware of this. Marcus is so far away he is a white dot in a mountain of swells and dips. He keeps disappearing far out to sea. I suddenly realise that the algae in the water is bioluminescent. Everywhere I move my arms and legs I leave a trail of glowing clouds. The water is alive with microscopic stars, swirling amid the turbulence of the waves. I try to shout out to Marcus but he is busy being hurled upside-down by a massive breaker he has rode into shore. He is going to have a sore head in the morning…

…I am at an all-night party someway along Varkarla beach. It is around 2am and it hasn’t started going yet. I have a feeling it is not going to either. The venue is a tiered area of grass back from the beach. Lights hang from coconut trees and music thumps from a pretty powerful sound system. However, it is coming to the end of the season and most of the party people have either headed home or headed to Goa. The barman is from Norway. He is quite a cool old codger. He is working the bars here. He is nearly ready to go home himself. I have got chatting a young couple, the girl knows the organisers. She is explaining why it is so quiet. The number at the bar increases as people congregate around the sole place of conversation. A Icelandic aircrew turn up. They have just come off duty and start getting very, very drunk, very quickly. I make a mental note to try not to fly with Icelandair…

…Chill out night in the chill out bar again. What night? Who knows. I’ve lost track of what date it is. Steve has managed to acquire three joints at the same time. He is a happy camper…

… I am preparing my craft for its maiden voyage. I bought it from one of the many helicopter sellers that peddle their wares along the cliff-top. You can see them every evening. They have these ingenious little plastic helicopters they fire high into the night-sky. They have tiny little magenta LEDs under the blades that light the craft up beautifully as it arcs into the night sky. I had to buy one. I dubbed it fuckwit 1. Marcus has annoyingly – and quite rightly - pointed out that the one isn’t apropos until the second craft is launched. The LED has already fallen off but I have taped it back on. We do a T-10s countdown to launch. I put back the elastic band and fire it high into the evening air. The light doesn’t come on and the blades don’t release. It hits the ground somewhere with a dull thud…

…A wedding is taking place on the beach. The couple are European. English, to be precise. I am sitting above the beach, upstairs in a café having lunch. Marcus has gone down to film it. The bride and groom are making their way along the shore atop of two elephants. The elephants are adorned with gold and very bright coloured material. Ahead of them are 4 young lads, naked from the waist up, hammering out a beat on large drums strapped to their torsos…

…I am sitting outside of the police station. I have had my bag stolen earlier on today. I have been to the police station three times today. All I want to do is get a police report number, or acknowledgement of some sort that the crime took place. This is not proving easy to do. I have been told to wait for the Police Commissioner. He is busy out on his rounds. I have been waiting this time for two hours. It is nearly 10pm. Suddenly all the lights start going off. Everyone is going home. I try to ask the desk sergeant what is going on. He says they are closing. Come back tomorrow. I am leaving Varkarla at 6am the next morning…

…Marcus and I are doing a cooking course. We have chosen five meals from the menu and we are learning how each is cooked. We have hot and sour soup. Fish Tikka Masala. Vegetarian Curry. Vegetarian Bhryiani. And paratha bread. The two chefs are a right pair of Casanovas. By the sounds of it, they are boffing most of the female customers they have on the course. They spend most of the evening sms’ing their many girlfriends. One of them is so focused on his txt’ng he nearly cuts his finger off. The food tastes great though…

Varkarla - the next seven days - Kerela, India

Thursday 7th February - Thursday 14th February.

... Marcus and I have become beach bums. We have embraced the concept with open arms and spirit. Gone are the fleeces, jumpers, thermals, socks, hiking boots, and pashmina scarves. They have been banished to the bottom of our rucksacks along with our long sleeved tops. The shorts are out. I have been shopping and I am now sporting a sleeveless red singlet with the Om Shanti symbol in the middle of it. It is the tackiest thing I’ve bought in ages and I love it. Marcus has decided to grow a beard and is also sporting a bandana. He is beginning to look like an extra from Pirates of the Caribbean.

Life is good.

Life, in fact, is better than good. Life is fantastic.

Varkarla is paradise. A series of cliff top huts, shacks, cafes, bars, restaurants, and shops, nestled in between coconut trees, beautifully coloured flowers, and shady jungle plants with the sounds of the Arabian sea crashing on the beach below. The town itself goes far back from the beach. A couple of kilometres is the proper Varkarla. But as a visitor to this place the cliff front is all you really ever see. It’s all you need.

We are strolling along the winding path that follows the cliffs. We are trying to decide where to eat lunch. There is no shortage of choice. Every other building is a bar-café-restaurant. The food is superb, especially the fish, which is caught fresh every day. The main occupation of people living locally to Varkarla is fishing. Fishing villages run up and down the coast. Varkarla used to be just a small collection of huts twenty years ago. Until the back-packing route descended upon it and it began to thrive under the eager pitter patter of western travellers, looking for a piece of paradise. Now as you stroll along the cliff top you find yourself amidst a hotchpotch of used book-stores, two-storey bamboo restaurants, serving every cuisine you can imagine – from Mexican to Italian (and serving it well), clothes stores, material shops, tailors, Yoga centres, barbers, massage clinics, and internet cafes – amidst this menagerie is where you find us.

We decide to head up to one of the many cafes just down from where we are staying. We walk along in the baking sunshine, following the stream of human consciousness: most of it immersed in a warm glow of THC - Italians, Danish, Russians, Canadians, French, Spanish, Israelis - people from every walk of life amble and mill around us. They are at various stages of civil deconstruction. Some, you can tell have just arrived: Lobster coloured, wearing tourist clothes and looking pretty confused by the bombardment of music, and pseudo-culture that Varkarla projects. Then you have the seasoned travellers. Tattooed, deeply sun-tanned, with easy smiles, loose cotton clothing, adorned with beads, bracelets, dredds, and beards. Along this spectrum we fall somewhat closer to the lobster look. Then of course you have the people that came here 20 years ago and never left. They are amazing to behold. It’s like Dicky Attenborough has just created them from DNA strains he has found wedged in between the teeth of a retired Mancunian Football fan, that bit the ear of a hippy at Woodstock in the sixties. They are the real deal [When I was in Turkey in Istanbul I met a fantastic guy from Oz called Troy. He had just come back from an amazing trip through Kazikstan, down into Pakistan, and over the border in Iran, before heading through Georgia and Armenia into Turkey. I was most impressed. Of one of the many stories he had to tell was of meeting a guy, sitting under a tree in the mountains, who had following the hippy circuit in the 60s – Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, and never left. The guy, who was European, spent his life since just wandering the mountains and living off food and water he could scrounge off of people. I imagine he’d also got through a fair bit of hash]. We step out of the hubble-bubble into the shade of a café. Beer and fish masala curry. And roti. Coming right up! Well at Indian speed that is. We settle in for a long wait…

A week has gone past in Varkarla. It seems like the blink of an eye. Time is most definitely relative. It still passes at the same speed. Your brain just records it differently. We have been busy doing things. Things fall into several categories: 1) Getting up. This is completely dependent on 2) getting hammered. This happens pretty much every day, all day and all night at the 3) going to the chill out bar. The chill out bar is about 25 metres from our room. It is frequented by a number of stoned, and drunk, very happy people. The owners included. Most nights don’t finish until 5am (see 1 and 2). Most nights we have no idea of what we have spent on drinks. That’s ok though because neither do the owners. We usually work out some happy medium. 4) Eating. This takes place at various times every day. Breakfast is usually around 1pm. Followed by a beer. Then lunch takes place around 4pm with a beer. Then we have a couple of beers before going out for dinner. Fresh fish is the order of the day: Marlin, grouper, red snapper, tuna, and lobster. All cooked in steamed coconut leaves, or in a gorgeous tikka masala sauce. The restaurants purvey there goods in chilled refrigerators out front. The eyes of the fish are clear and they smell fresh. We usually have a meal with a 5) Beer. See everything. 6) Exercise. Amazingly enough we manage to fit in regular runs on the beach and swimming everyday, usually before breakfast at lunchtime. 7) Reading books. There are so many fantastic bookshops here and most places run an exchange service 8) shopping. 9) Sleeping. This occurs every day at random intervals. Rather like Garlfield trying to cross a sunbeam in Jim Davis’ comic strip. Snoozing can occur anytime, especially in hammocks. Zzzzzzzzzz.

Thiruvananthapuram airport and Varkarla, India, Kerala,

Wednesday 6th - Thursday 7th February.

I landed in Trivandrum airport at around 4am, Indian time. India is 5 1/2 hours ahead of the UK and 2 1/2 hours ahead of the Middle East. I had a brief sojourn in Sharjar for 3 hours. Given that I didn't have any Qatarian money, or dollars, or even Jordanian Dinars I was unable to purchase food on either flight. I managed to stop at the duty free shop and buy a load of chocolate, which was nice, so I was riding on a rollercoaster of caffeine and sugar. I was up all night. I managed to finish the Rubik's cube though. The air hostess was most impressed. I also got chatting to a guy sitting next to me. He was from Trivandrum. He worked in petroleum and commuted to Qatar on a regular basis. English is the second language in India, Hindi being the first. Most Indian people also speak the local dialect of the state they are born in. In this case, Kerela. On top of this, it is quite normal to speak the language of a neighbouring state such as Karnataka. So, on average, many Indians speak four languages, however the inflexions make the spoken English language sound much different and at first I had trouble understanding what the guy was telling me. I was also over-tired and wired on caffeine. I desperately needed some sleep. But sleep was not forthcoming. I had read so much of Robert Fisk I had lost my faith in humanity a couple of days beforehand. I had left the Middle East in the midst of a spate of the coldest winter it had seen in over five years. In short, I wasn't in the best of moods.

That was all to change in Trivandrum. Completely. Radically.

Stepping from the plane was like stepping into a hair-dryer. At first I thought it was from the engines, slowly whirring, as they cooled down from there supercharged efforts. As we walked away from under the wings to arrivals though, I realised it was the air itself. My fleece was now lolling like a dead limb in my arms. I was also wearing jeans and a jumper.

Thiruvananthapuram International Airport was teeming. Thiruvananthapuram is the full name of what most people call Trivenderum, and is located in the state of Kerala, on the south western coast of India, on the shore of the Arabian Sea. I wasn't planning to spend much time in the city itself. Marcus had already landed here several days ahead of me and checked the place out. He had decided to head 45 kilometres north to the small village of Varkarla – a reputed idyllic beach resort and a haven for peace and quiet - and I was to meet him there.

The entry process to the country was pretty straightforward. I was required to fill in the usual forms - enquiring into the duration of my stay. My purpose for being in India, and the places I intended to visit. I made most of it up. Having had obtained my visa from the Embassy in Damascus. I got my passport stamped and I was through immigration in under an hour. I stepped out, sweating in my winter gear, into my first Indian night and a melee of eager taxi drivers.

... I am sitting in the front passenger seat of a pre-paid taxi. My driver is a happy bunny. He has seen the amount of cash I have drawn out of the ATM and he knows I have no change. He also knows I know he is going to try and screw me for a tip. The thing most people don't realise about travelling is that maintaining a budget, for a traveller, is like trying to account for the weight of the universe. Every experience you chance across causes your carefully planned expenditure to be slightly askew. Everyone expects some kudos, usually in a pernicious format. It may sound a little parsimonious to wax lyrical like this, given most people you meet provide a very good service, and depend on you to some extent for their livelihood. The truth of the matter is that, although each minutiae experience costs a mere fraction of your budget, the net result, one projected over a long period of time, is one of a huge unseen force that sucks out vast quantities of your meagre savings, kind of like dark matter. Taxi drivers, bell-hops, toilet attendants, waiters, guides, shoe-shiners, brain transplant surgeons, teeth-pickers, bellybutton-fluff-removers, the list just doesn't end - especially when I start making stuff up.

I turn my attention out to look out of the taxi window. The vehicle is ancient. It looks like the car Morgan Freeman drove in when he took Miss Daisy into town. The driver has told me it will take an hour to get to Varkarla. I thought the LP had got the distance wrong but I now realise that this car goes 45kmh max. I am not worried though. Ever since I arrived in this country I have been mesmerised and at peace. All the fatigue from the last 24 hours has just fallen away from me. I have my head out the window and the wind is warm on my face. I can smell jasmine and sandalwood, floral scents that I can't begin to place. The unique and aromatic musk of marijuana is everywhere. It has just gone 5am and the streets are filled with people. Night is the coolest part of the day. Kids are playing cricket in the street. Men are walking around with skirts on. Women in brightly coloured saris and beautiful jewellery are walking together in the streets. Some are covered in henna. The ambience is incredible. It feels so welcoming and so right. There is such a strong feeling of warmth pervading from this place. It is evident in the faces of so many people...

The taxi drive to Varkala was my first experience in the pace of Indian life. It was slow and languid. From the Porgy and Bess song M loves so much. Summertime – “and the living is easy…” That is how the speed of this place moved. We stopped along the way twice. Once was for a level crossing. We sat amid a queue of people waiting to cross the tracks, some on foot, others bicycles, and also on motorbikes. There was one guy with a donkey and cart laden with fruit.

The second stop was to get me some food. I was, by this point, gnawing on the car window pane. I’d asked the driver to stop somewhere as we left the airport. He managed to do so forty minutes later. We both took breakfast in a small eatery off a main street in one of the towns we passed through. It consisted of a chai tea, lots of roti bread, and a curry with a boiled egg in. I passed on the egg.

I got to Varkarla just after 6am. Marcus had told me I’d be dropped off at the helipad. I was half expecting helipad to be some surreal description for a carpark. But no, there was a great big helicopter landing pad at the end of the road. Marcus had mentioned something about staying in Mother’s place. I strolled down the beautiful beach cliffside in the pre-dawn air. Waves crashed along the beach and the smell of sand, salt, and coconut was in the air. I was finding it hard to take it all in.
Luckily someone was up in Mother’s Place. They had no record of any English people on the guest list though. Hmmmm... I should have printed out the email. I went for a wander outside and, in that strange seemingly synchronic way of things that you experience when you are younger; I bumped into a very sun-tanned Marcus just coming out of the room he’d rented a little further back. It had a hammock outside.

I dropped my stuff in and we headed down to the beach for a swim before breakfast. The waves were huge and the current was extremely powerful. They were breaking on very shallow ground though, so there was no surf. This didn’t sit well with Marcus as he liked to get out on a board when he had the opportunity.


We went straight in for a swim. The sea was fresh, salty, and the waves were fantastic and huge. They crashed down on you, picked you up, spun you around, and then dumped you on your head. Afterwards we sat on our towels, chatting and catching up whilst we watched a multitude of people slowly began to arrive on the beach and do yoga, swim, or jog. Mostly yoga.


… Marcus and I idly conversing about our experiences over the last couple of weeks. We are sitting on the gorgeous beach below the cliffside town of Varkala. The sun is just about to rise above the cliffs behind us. I note with some anticipation that it will set over the sea. Along the beach people are doing yoga. Celebrating themselves, the sunrise, and giving thanks for the sublime joy of simply being alive, and well. The sun’s first rays start to lazily fall onto the beach. It is going to be a beautiful day…