A Place I Call "Om"

I'd chosen Orchha as a place I could escape all the tourism and get my last fix of local Indian life before heading off back to the homeland. When I got there, it looked like a polar-fleece convention, with bus after bus of camera-faced foreigners following their tour guides like lambs to the slaughter. After a well deserved lunch and some broken Hindi, I found a nice room at very little price. It confused me that it was so easy, I couldn't imagine where all these tourists were staying, until I looked from my rooftop and saw them quickly buying postcards and shaking children off their legs before jumping back onto their buses. "How long will you be staying, sir?" asked Mukesh, "one night, two night?" I looked around me, and replied "better make it six."


Orchha is set around a cross-road, making it very easy to find your way around. North is the Rama temple, east is the river, south is the fort, and west is to go back the way you came. I headed for the river, imagining it to be a polluted puddle forcing it's way past the town, and was pleasantly surprised to find water, calm and clear, reflecting the sky and the tops of the temples in the background. After finding a nice rock to sit on, I found myself sitting there for hours, letting the sounds surround me and wash away all the stresses and bad thoughts (hence why it took a few hours). On my way back I met a very friendly man who'd just caught some fish. "Pish?!" he said, pointing at me and then at the chunks of whatever fish it was. "Yes, I like fish" I replied, assuming this is what he meant. "You, pish, my howse, aath." This took a little longer to understand, but after showing me his house, I gathered he wanted me to come to dinner at 8, and in the words of my camel driver many weeks ago, "why not?"

I returned at 8 after buying an assortment of home made sweets, which all basically consist of sugar and milk and some variety of rice. I sat by an open fire stove, and was quickly served a bowl of fish curry and a couple of chapati. Whilst eating I was interrogated by the daughter, Manu, who went to school and was obviously wanting to impress her parents with how much English she knew, their eyes lighting up every time I replied to something she said. They had no idea what I was saying, but with every answer I gave Manu, they were seeing money well spent, and a future for their daughter. I'd wondered why they weren't eating as well, thinking they must have already helped themselves. Then after the 10th serving (I insisted I was full after 3) They started dishing up for themselves. I was embarrassed at first, but was later told by a girl from London that this is the way guests are treated for dinner, as a sign of respect. I felt a bit strange sitting there watching them eat, and I had a feeling Manu was clutching at any last phrase she knew, so I bid them goodnight, and dragged my stomach back to my room.

I woke up early on the morning of the 26th January, wrapped a thin blanket around me, made my way to the river to watch the sun rise. I then headed to what became my breakfast place, a rooftop restaurant overlooking the cross-road. I'd just finished my poori and then I heard it, in the distance it's insistant wail slowly tearing it's way through the town to drown us in it's high-pitched echos. Yes, it was the Republic Day Children's Parade. There's nothing quite like watching kids being forced to entertain adults, their outfits their parents made suggesting such professionalism, until it's wiped on by a young man picking his nose, blocking the path of the other children. I couldn't watch the whole thing, as I was meeting up with some local guys I'd met the night before who insisted they show me around Orchha since they didn't have jobs and therefor had lots of free time. Republic Day wasn't over, however, and I was taken to see some dancing, which was also performed by the children, music blasting us so loudly I was waiting for someone's head to explode, or at least to see some bleeding ears. I'd seen enough dancing for a while, and after discovering that my friends were only there because they thought I wanted to see it, I insisted we find something else to do.

I eventually did some sight seeing, paying far too much to see inside yet another fort, you could see where they'd recently painted a number 2 in front of the previous 50 rupee entry fee. I usually don't mind paying, however there was no sign of that money going to any use in terms of conservation or customer assistance. By the end I walked up to the locked doors of the "museum", pushing and banging on them until someone came over and told me it was closed. I'd waited until there were plenty of other tourists around before insisting that I'd paid too much money and demanded they open it immediately, which they did hoping I'd have a quick look and they could lock it again. The ideal situation for a paid guide is that you get your customers in and out as quickly as possible, suggesting that part of the palace is boring, or not to walk that way because it's dangerous. Once the museum was open, every other tourist wanted to see it, their guides glaring at me while they were forced to answer questions about the different artefacts. I later discovered it much more fulfilling to just take myself stumbling around the ruins scattered across the landscape, finding several different places all with spectacular sunset views.

My friend Sunil took me to some of his favourite places, one of which was the top of the dome above the biggest temple in Orchha, where people aren't meant to go but we snuck up quite easily. I was suffering intense vertigo until I looked out at the view, feeling like I could see the whole world, and I was it's king. It's amazing how Indian people will treat a dangerous situation with such calm and ease, which is why when Sunil shouted, dropped to the ground and covered his face, my vertigo returned and I knew it wasn't going to be good. A swarm of wasps quickly surrounded us, and I followed in Sunil's survival technique, not knowing what the likelihood of being attacked was, but knowing that if we were, there really was no where to run. The buzzing surrounded us, drowning out every other sound and emphasized by my eyes being closed, my face wet with sweat, from my head or my hands I'm not sure. Holding my breath, every part of my skin preparing for the worst, wanting to ask Sunil what to do if we got stung but not being able to see him or call out to him. After what felt like half an hour, the buzzing subsided and Sunil slowly got up and looked around, the expression on his face telling me that I should be very happy to be alive. We took no time to get down, rushing through the labyrinth of dark stairways, not saying a word until we reached solid ground, we just looked at each other and started laughing.

I knew my trip was coming to an end, but part of me had to drag myself away, kicking and screaming, trying to get a grip on the nearest... cow. I usually time it so that I'm only in Delhi for one night, to avoid the chaos and pollution I've always associated with it. I've found the more I go there, the more I seem to like it, and I wanted to give Delhi a second chance (or fifth). I'd already done all the sightseeing I possibly could there, so I took to walking around everywhere, navigating shopping areas and underground markets. Watching the silent film of traffic and lights through the window of the metro railway. The pollution wasn't as bad as I remembered it, a combination of emission reduction efforts, and the winter cold pushing the rest up above us. Over beer and bhurji, I reflected on the time I'd had, going back to the first weeks with Alana, making it feel like I'd been there a whole year. It's interesting to see your subconcious at work, in the week leading up to coming to India, my mind was flooded with mini-memories I'd thought forgotten. And in the week leading up to my plane home I began thinking of Melbourne, of Jeremy and my friends. I thought of the people I'd met on my travels, those moments of absolute joy when all else seems hopeless, those big smiles and small gestures of welcome, the whole confusing contradiction of a country I'd wanted to walk away from, I think of these things and I know I'll be back. As the plane takes off, I shed a tear for India, my heart already home, and I can't wait to meet it there.

Indian Idols

You can't walk very far in Mamallapuram without hearing the "tack, tack, tack" of the chisels the stone carvers use to make their millions of different gods and godesses into marble masterpieces. Being like a display case of great Indian stone work, look to your left and there's a giant bull (nandi) from an ancient civilisation, look to your right, and there's a street of 1000 miniature nandis for sale and export. Because it's so close to a major city (Chennai) it's a place frequently visitted by tourists, many staying for months purely because they can't bring themselves to leave. I was so happy to be somewhere with food and a decent room that I was worried I might do the same.

I eventually managed to find a part of the beach to go for a swim, which I'd expected to be a relaxing and refreshing experience. As I was told by a Canadian woman in a restaurant in Pondicherry, "don't expect ANYTHING!" It was more like a game of dodgeball. You prepare to duck under a wave, but the water beneath sweeps your feet out from under you, you go under the wave, coming up thinking it's safe, only to be tackled by another wave right behind it. While it was nice to cool down, the relaxing part was getting out of there and back on solid ground.

My new friend Anand helped me to find a new room, since I was happy to spend a little bit more here, and the daily construction work was reminding me too much of Melbourne. His brother offered me a room in his guest house, directly on the beach front, with a balcony overlooking the fishing boats, with the shore temple in the near distance. I'd been intending to have some kind of spiritual reading, be it palms, astrology, some kind of voodoo whirling trance, I was open to anything, but I was dubious about many of them, until I saw the pamphlet sitting in my new room. Shaman Remedia was from the philipines, born into a tribe of healers, and when I went to ask her some questions about her practice I couldn't resist her charm. I booked a sessiong for the morning of my birthday, as a gift to myself to make the day more interesting.

Until then I drowned myself in my drawings and in the ocean. I met a beautiful girl from Finland named Kirsikka, who I quickly made friends with. Not with any effort or intention, we just happened to keep bumping into each other everyday, everywhere. Mind you, I had shaved my head only a few days before I got there, and it appeared she had also, and it's not really that difficult to spot a big white egg amoungst a sea of black bouffant hair. One of the places us egg-heads found each other is the dance festival, and in true Indian style there was no holding back in terms of entertainment. Each night at dusk, a different part India would come on stage and showcase their talents, costumes of every colour, ear-bleeding music, and all set in front of a cliff of rock carved ceturies ago, the lighting catching each character in mid-air as though they were dancing themselves.

I woke up on my birthday to the sound of the ocean and only one mission in mind, to find my laundry I'd handed over to the guest house days ago. After being told the 15th time to "come back in 2 hours," I told them no, I would not wait, pulling the only singlet I had up to my nose, making a sniffing gesture, and then pretending to cry. I think the message got through, because within half an hour I was in clean clothes and having my aura and chakras read by Remedia. With the help of her husband Richard (since her English was limited), she proceeded to tell me about past lives, loves lost, inner fears and true talents. At one point we were interupted, and while Richard was speaking to someone out of the room, Remedia told me that I had spiritual talents too, and told me to close my eyes and try to see her. I tried, and when it wouldn't work I just tried to clear my mind. After 5 minutes she started giggling, and asked if I could see her. I dissappointingly said no, and she told me she could see me as a young boy. The whole thing put me in a completely different frame of mind, and I walked into town feeling light, happy and open to the world. Whilst talking to Kirsikka in the street just before she had to leave, a nearby cow must have picked up on my energy, and walked accross the street to start licking the back of my hand. I considered it a birthday blessing, and after some more dancing Anand took me to his favourite local street kitchen.

I'd made plans to leave the day after my birthday to head back north, however I was loving it too much and delayed my train, and also changed my destination. Eventually the day came, I felt sad about leaving (and the 28 hour train trip ahead of me), and yet again, by the skin of my teeth, got on my train to my next destination. The journey required a stopover in a place called Jhansi, and when I found a room with a hot shower (it's cold up here at night) I turned on the telly, and what did I see? "Indian Idol!" It was much the same as the American or Australia equivalant, just better outfits, and I can't understand what the judges are saying. The next day, a short trip brought me to my new town, Orchha. This place is already a favourite of mine, both because it's surrounded by beautiful old temples and palaces in every direction, and because I found a cheap room with no effort at all. Almost everything in India can be catered to suit a tourists needs, but they still haven't got the hang of making doors tall enough for the average westerner. After bumping my head so many times, I find myself walking into rooms bowing, as though I'm paying respect to the objects in that room. I bow to the bed, I bow to the chair, I bow to the little bucket next to the toilet that is intended for you to was yourself with, I am at their service!

Enough from me now, I'm too eager to go exploring, and I have to go meet a local family I had dinner with last night, but more about that later.

Baba Shaun

The Wheels On The Bus

After remembering what my budget for this trip should have been, I decided to start taking the local buses between destinations. This basically requires knowing where you need to go, standing next to a bus, pointing and saying that destination in the best Indian accent possible. You may get a definite answer, or you may get a head wobble, which could mean anything, in which case you get on the bus and if it's not yours they will tell you to get off. Easy! My next destination was Madurai, since it was the next major stop, and I decided to stay in the warm South considering I'm missing summer back home.

If you google pictures of Madurai, the first thing you will notice is the 4 hypercoloured entrances to the Sri Meenakshi temple reaching up into the sky. I however, didn't. I thought I may have been dropped off in the wrong part of town, until I got to my guest house and noticed 4 unsightly thatched huts climbing up out of the city. This was a slight disappointment, but I managed to find my way inside the temple to witness something like a rock concert for the Gods. People were running around everywhere, throwing coloured powder here and bowing their heads to the ground there, hundreds of young bearded men in black lungi's (material wrapped around the waist) pushing their way through like part of some punk gang, and stalls selling any number of things to cause you to go into a ceisure, conveniently placed next to stone carvings from centuries ago. The city was not so much different, so I decided to get on another bus to Thanjavur.

With very little hearing left, thanks to the high pitched squeeling of the movie being blasted through speakers right next to my head, I found my way into the town and into a nice room, birds chirping through the windows. I decided this was a nice place to rest and introduced myself to some Indian television. There's nothing quite like watching "Dexter's Laboratory" dubbed in Hindi. I eventually made it to the temple, and could see it! There was something magical about this one, so I found a tree to sit under and drew until the sun went down. The next day I headed into a neighbouring town for a music festival, only to find I arrived 6 hours early, so headed back into town to look at the Palace before going back out again. It wasn't as big as I expected a festival to be, but the performers were amazing, each band having a different focus instrument, all the locals very welcoming and helpful. I was sad to leave but my bus addiction had kicked in, so I was soon on the road again.

I didn't much care for my next stop, which was sad because the name Chidambaram sounded great. I visitted a couple of temples, but by the time I left it was a state wide festival called Pongal, to celebrate the end of the harvest season, and I could not find an open restaurant in sight. I imagined my next destination, Pondicherry, to be much nicer. It was colonised by the French a long time ago, and has since kept a lot of thos aspects, including French people. The place was fully booked, and I was hungry. I eventually found was someone considered a room, downed my last bus stop biscuit and headed to the water. I figured I was just getting tired of the process of finding a room every 2 or 3 days, and so headed for a previous destination which I knew would calm my nerves.

Yet another bus got me almost all the way to Mamallapuram, being the last day of Pongal and also a dance festival on, almost all of India was headed in the same direction as me. I found an old friend of Jeremy's who ran a guest house here, and after getting a room I headed for water again to chill out. Big mistake! I'd never seen so many people in all my life! Thankfully it was just for that day, and after a nice walk along the beach and a hearty breakfast, I'm ready to rest my bus-bruised knees, do some drawing and count the cows go by.

Shaun.

Eeney Meeney Miney Munnar

Hello, where are you going?

It was a big effort to leave Varkala. The daily routine of eating, swimming, eating, swimming, walking, eating, plus the perfect sunny climate and laid back attitude made the idea of entering back into the real India was terrifying. I managed to meet some other travellers (including a few Aussies) who made it a lot of fun, with a great effort on their part we managed to spend New Years with cold beers and even some fresh Mojitos, bought a table of freshly grilled Butterfish, Snapper and Prawns, and had a swim under the moonlight before watching the sun come up. Hence the next few days were a haze, but due to a communication failure between me and the guy running my guest house, I was basically kicked out of my room and found myself saying so long to my new friends, and on a train to Cochin (Kochin?).

While my previous memories of the place were of cobblestone walkways between dutch cottages, chinese fishing nets and live tabla, the city centre has much left to be desired. Mind you I did arrive at 11:30 and they had no rooms available anywhere, but I was glad to be only spending one night there, and I didn't want to share it on the footpath with the rats. Having no idea where I wanted to go before I left Varkala, and having heard different stories from others, I decided on Munnar, a town set in the Western Ghats boasting fields and fields of tea crops. I'd remembered seeing pictures of it before and thought it looked too good to be true, so I got myself onto a very uncomfortable bus and up the hills into a new kind of paradise.

You can't help getting a sore neck on the way to Munnar. Not just because of the bumpy ride, but as soon as you see the mountain peaks you can't stop looking up at them. I was very excited and eager to start this new journey on my own, though I hadn't thought about the fact that it's not the kind of place that attracts single backpackers, and after walking around for hours with a heavy backpack I was soon enough on the verge of tears when I found a lovely man who ran a homestay, which is basically his house with some extra rooms attached. I couldn't resist his kind nature, and after that I dropped my guard and set out to savour the sights. The food here is amazing, and I've yet to have a meal over $2. After some lovely smiles from my local restaurant I headed into town and hired a bike for the day ($3), grabbed a dodgy map and headed out to what I thought was the right direction. Luckily it wasn't, because I was soon riding through the hillside of an incredibly large tea estate, and found even more smiles from the workers along the way. One man asked me where I should be going, I was headed for a dam which he informed me could be accessed further along the track. Riding, smiles, mountains, the smell of tea, more smiles, and I found where I was headed. If I'd gone the way I should have I'd have been sharing the road with a million Indian tourists, horns a blazing and not a traffic rule in sight. I deicided to head back to town through Hobbiton again and find some other sights to see. After more smiles I was about to return the bike before a bunch of schoolboys asked if they could have a ride. I had some time to spare so watched them one by one zig-zag into the distance while their friends practiced their English on me.

Now, bike returned and a hot bucket of water at my homestay, I'm heading out to the street for some fresh coked dinner. I don't know what their making but it looks bad and smells better.

Love (and marriage)

Shon