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Kingdom of kings

Ornate turrets perch above roof tops, stately arches form entrances to pink stone buildings, elephants stand side by side swinging their tails back and forth, brightly coloured patchwork designs adorn every inch of stalls standing at the side of streets full to bursting with cars, autos, bikes and pedestrians.

Palaces are hidden behind busy streets, or are reflected in lakes. City walls surround an inner chaos. We cross paths with elephants trudging back from carrying guests to visit the ancient fortresses guarding the city. Camels can be spotted down quiet alleys munching leisurely, finding their inner zen, before it’s their turn to trot noisily between oncoming traffic pulling rickshaws with ‘Merry Christmas’ signs hung from the back, jungle bells hanging from their necks and tinsel dangling in their eyes. Street sellers accost you with puppets, Rajasthani sweets and vegetable thalis.

This was Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, the kingdom of kings, where I met my dad who’d come to keep my company for Christmas.

We walked around palaces, ate in palaces, slept in palaces, drank in palaces and admired palaces. There was decoration on decorations, gold plating gold, patterns within patterns.

After a few days, once the cows, sheep, goats, pigs, dogs, camels and elephants roaming the streets of Jaipur were no longer enough to satiate our desire to see wildlife, we boarded a local bus to Ranthambore National Park, famous for it’s high concentration of wild tigers.

Approaching the bus station, we were sold a ticket for a ‘delux’ bus which bumped and bounced it’s way through every village en route (or not) to our destination, arrived and collapsed into a bed with a tiger print furry blanket and paw prints up the walls.

Having some prior experience of the Indian ‘safari’, we avoided the offers of boarding a jeep to race around the park with all the other jeeps. Instead we set off into the National Park on foot, and made it safely through the park entrance without any questions. We passed plenty of deer, nilgai, and a couple of crocodiles basking by a lake. Our levels of excitement were taken up a notch when a jeep passing in the opposite direction stopped to roll down it’s window to alert us of a leopard on the tracks.

Luckily we reached without incident Ranthambore fort, strategically positioned at the top of a hill, with a neighbouring temple swamped by monkeys. As we reached the top we heard rumours of a tiger sighting a few moments before and as it began to get dark, we decided we’d done enough walking and hitched a ride for the journey home.

For our final destination in Rajasthan we choose the desert trading town Bikaner where my grandmother’s family moved to after the partition. We opted for an overnight train ride this time, but the lack of tickets available left us in sleeper class (the lowest carraige class) without blankets. We spent the night huddled on benches in wooly jumpers and jackets, until the train deposited us at Bikaner station at 430am, where we waited bleary eyed until our hotel owner kindly let us in. 

Most of our memories of Bikaner were created after sunset, as early on in the trip we befriended the party king of the town (a descendent of the maharajas), a kindred spirit who ensured our nights were always full of life and with our glasses always full of… well anything alcoholic. We saw the sun set on 2016 from the top of a sand dune in the middle of the desert and spent the rest of the evening attempting to dance whilst balancing glasses of gin on our heads to the accompaniment of an Indian village bagpipe band.

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Modi’s money

At the same time as Trump was creating a ‘hoo-ha’ of American politics, the Indian Prime Minister decided to distract his countrymen and women by proving himself a worthy opponent at wild decision making.

At 7pm one evening, TV and radio channels suddenly announced the recall of all notes higher than 100rupees (approx £1). Not personally possessing a broadcasting gadget of any kind (along with 80% of the country’s inhabitants), a thoughtful friend called me at 1130pm and told me I had to deposit my 500rupee notes in an ATM within the next half an hour or I would lose them. If I hadn’t seen a similar post on facebook a few minutes before, I would’ve thought he was joking. The ATM opposite my accommodation had queue around the block so I went back to bed, guessing that another solution to enable the 1.2billion people in India to deposit their money would present itself.

Sure enough the next day we were informed that it would be possible to deposit old notes for at least a month… if you were brave enough to face the queues.

The motivation behind this demonetisation was to catch illegal ‘black money’ and tax avoiders who’d been hoarding piles of notes at home rather than paying them into bank accounts and paying tax. A limit was imposed on the total deposit amount, so that anyone stashing huge piles in their homes would be taxed 200% on anything above this limit. Stories circulated regarding bags of money found floating in the Ganges or being set on fire. 

The government began distributing the new notes to the banks and imposed a daily withdrawal limit of 2000rupees (~£20), given in the form of a single note. Without any 500rupee notes in circulation, these 2000rupee notes were almost useless since no one had any change...

By the time the first weekend came, I still hadn’t found the motivation to join queues so long I’d heard had caused deaths and had about 50rupees left in my pocket. That put an end to my plans of being able to afford an auto into town, eating in a local restaurant or buying any beer!

These were minor problems compared to the rest of the population. Life in the campus wasn’t as badly affected as those living outside. People would give services on loan and our ATMs were refilled daily.

It would have been quite a different story for the local tea waller, selling chai for 6rupees on every street corner, or the coconut seller, collecting coconuts to sell in order to feed himself and possibly a family each day. After one week of everyone’s cash drying out, these folks would have no income for days, or even weeks.

Plenty of the population don’t have bank accounts or even an address! This situation left them unable to use what little money they had, and the necessity to spend many days standing in the queues (without work) to exchange their notes. 

It was also wedding and tourist season, causing a lot of stress for those planning either of these. And even though hospitals, train stations and airports were supposed to accept the old money for a few months, in rural places this was not always the case, leaving patients unable to obtain their desperately needed medicines or treatment.

Local businesses started giving stuff on credit as the amount of cash in circulation dwindled. People switched from buying groceries from the local market to using online supermarket chains. To me it felt like all the wrong people were benefiting from this.

One month later saw little improvement to the situation, and instead I heard stories of banks threatening to run completely out of the new notes. The population however appeared to adapt, and even the local fruit sellers began offering the ability to pay through mobile phone applications.

Exactly who suffered and if it was worth it is still not clear (to me at least). You never saw any smart business men in the mile long queues forming outside the ATMs. I heard plenty of stories of dormant bank accounts suddenly acquiring an influx of cash for a few days (which the owner of the account couldn’t actually withdraw), which then magically vanished again, as well as tales of gold sellers allowing people to buy huge amounts of gold and back dating the receipts. 

Now that more than 2 months have gone by, it seems the worst of the situation is over, 500rupee notes are now available and there is a lot more cash in circulation once more. I am left wondering how much of the black money really ended up in the hands of the government, and how much is floating at the bottom of the Ganges, or distributed among family and friends of the crooks. How many tax avoiders simply found new solutions, new people to bribe, or new tricks to cheat the system, and will this scare really will make them think twice about repeating the same behaviour in the future? 

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Traveling home for Christmas

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Indian wedding season

The darkened streets are filled with the rhythmic pounding of drums, bright lights flash from moving processions of glittering chariots flanked by dancing crowds. Wedding season has hit India, as dictated by the weather, the moon and the stars.

The autumnal season of the humid subtropical climate of northern India, lends itself perfectly to weddings and other celebrations. Particular days are chosen by priests using horoscopes to be the most auspicious, and recommended for the greatest success of the wedding - an occasion some families spend their whole lives working towards.

I’ve just returned from my 3rd wedding this season and here is what I’ve learnt…

Indian weddings are as much a marriage of the two families as they are of the actual couple. Traditionally they consists of 4 different parts; the giving of rings, rituals for the bride’s side, rituals for the groom’s side and the wedding itself. These can be on consecutive days, or weeks apart.

These ceremonies constitute gatherings of huge numbers of people (500-1500) in large lavishly decorated areas (inside and out). 

The main event (the religious rituals) for that day mostly begin in the evening, and take place on a sparkling stage sprinkled with flower petals, whilst crowds mingle and eat extensively laid out buffets in the background. 

Paparazzi are never far away!

The priest blessing the gift from the bride’s family to the groom... (below)

Servers come around offering slices of curried paneer, fried snacks, cold drinks and coffee. Queues form for the live preparation of dosas (a kind of Indian pancake), pani puri (a edible cup shaped crisp containing spicey liquid) and my favourite; chaat, a typical roadside snack which just seems to consist of everything all mixed together!

Preparation of huge numbers of Indian sweets!

However at Hindu weddings there is usually no meat, and even worse... no alcohol. 

So instead of downing prosecco, I entertained myself by admiring the outfits of the crowd, from the glamorous brightly coloured saris of the women (which can be so heavy that the women are physically exhausted by the end of the evening!), down to the golden pointy shoes of the men. The cutest were the little children dressed in spangly waistcoats and tutus of roses. 

Of course the bride and groom stole the show with their theatrical entrances to the scene by chariot, horse or the under a hand held canopy (no elephants sadly). Watching the bride emerge covered head to tow in jewels was especially breathtaking. I'm quite curious to try out this nose-to-ear piercing ;)

I finally got a chance to wear a sari, borrowed from a friend, who spent half an hour folding, pinning, tucking and folding some more until I was securely wrapped in it. So securely wrapped that it caused my stomach to bruise after devouring half of the buffet.

My favourite wedding was that of the first female tattoo artist I met in Bangalore whilst I was there earlier in the year on a conference. She was marrying a german, and around 40 of his friends and family had flown out to join in the proceedings. The enthusiasm from both sides to participate in everything from decking themselves in full Indian wedding gear each day, to the customary dance show which tells the story of the couples relationship (through a lot of head wobbling), along with the mix of cultures made this wedding feel particularly special… (plus there was alcohol - woohoo!). It felt like a mini festival, taking place at a grand hotel on the outskirts of Kolkata where we gathered everyday to take part in various activities from dance rehearsals to covering our hands in beautiful henna designs.

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My spiritual awakening

With the food poisoning, hair fall, homesickness, loneliness, sleepless nights, humidity and bed bugs of the last few months to contend with, I’d been struggling to gather momentum with my work and my mind was unsettled to say the least. I decided it was time to turn to spirituality to see if it had anything on offer to help me cope better.

I began by attending a seminar on Ayurveda - an ancient medical science of life developed in India thousands of years ago (Ayur = Life, Veda = Science). I learnt that there are 3 personality types, dictated by physical appearance as well as personal preferences and habits; Vata, Pitta and Kapha, comprising of the 5 elements, (space&air, fire&water and water&earth respectively), and was made to do a quiz, which told me I was Vata-Pitta (quick/tense and reflective/moody). However after being preached to about the merits of healthy eating and sleeping habits from 6-10pm with no dinner break at a venue an hour from the campus, I was starving hungry and too tired to want to get up at 5am to attend the next class.

My second stab at spirituality took the form of a weekend trip to Varanasi, the spiritual capital of India. Situated on the bank of the Ganges, it is considered the holiest city by many and famous for sending burning bodies into the Ganges.

Arriving at 5am (after another sleepless night on the Indian railways), I made my way through crowds of barefooted orange devotees filing past to fill plastic containers with holy water. Even at this early hour, stalls were already selling orange key rings, orange flowers, orange trousers, orange scarfs and orange religious offerings. I began by visiting the ghats (steps leading down to the river) to watch some early morning religious ceremonies, dodging an enormous amount of shit, and sadly two dead cows slumped in the alleyways covered in flies on my way.

I’d booked to stay in a peaceful looking yoga house in the hope of spending the weekend practising yoga. However since it was off-season there was no-one else around, so my only option was a private lesson from an old dude with a massive belly who’s first words were to tell me I looked like Robert Redford?! So the two of us began our sun salutations overlooking the Ganges to the accompaniment of the laboured breaths from my instructor and a loudly belching cow below us... ‘Inhale... Exhale..... beruuuurrrghhh’ - the cow was definitely good at the latter.

Later I enquired about the possibility of a massage at around 6pm. The masseuse reached for my wrist, checked my pulse (for less than a second) and told me that 4.30pm would suit me better, due to my digestive system?! I’d heard stories of people who practice Ayurveda being able to tell your personality type (Vata, Pitta, Kapha) just by feeling your pulse, but in this instance I got the strong impression that my masseuse had plans at 6pm...

On my last evening I visited the famous burning ghats, where they burn the bodies and throw the ashes in the Ganges. Or in instances when burning of the body is not allowed (I think this is the case for Brahmins - a particular class of Hindus), they instead tie rocks to the body before throwing it into the middle of the river. On arrival we were whisked up to the top of a tower to watch the ceremony, but weren't allowed to take photos. It was explained to us that it is Shiva’s fire which is used to burn the bodies, and that it never stops, not even when it rains (probably because the main fire is kept undercover) and has been burning for thousands of years. About a dozen bodies were on fire at a time and apparently there are bodies burning all day and night. Crying is not allowed (it is deemed bad luck for the dead person) and there was a calm atmosphere, with a group of locals playing cards on the deck of a nearby boat. Despite this I was grateful for the company of a friend I’d made earlier in a cafe. Women are also banned from the ceremony because it is assumed they will be unable to hold back their tears! 

Before putting the body on the wood pile (renewed for each individual), they must first wash the body in the Ganges to purify it. After a while two water buffalo pushed through the crowds and sauntered into the washing spot for a cool down. This turned out to be problematic for the next candidate to be cleansed, and the bearers had to wrestle the body from the grasps of the water buffalo as they tried to nibble the necklace of flowers. 

Finally when our red streaming eyes couldn’t take the ash and smoke any longer, we received our blessing and paid our donation for eternal good karma which would be used to pay for wood to burn for the deaths of people who cannot afford it and headed to a cafe for some live music, lassi and rather unbelievably cheese fondu! There were some clear signs that Varanasi is popular with the tourists and throughout the weekend I received plenty of warnings that I was emotionally ‘blocked’ in some form or other, and each time a solution was offered in exchange for my rupees. I politely refused.

Despite these efforts, my most spiritual influence has been my neighbour Rani. Originally from Kerala, she and her husband spent the last 10 years living in the Netherlands until she finally decided last year that she and her son would move back to India so that he might spend some of his younger years in his homeland. In Kerala Ayurvedic medicine is the normal medicine which the doctors practice and Rani has clearly grown up surrounded by such herbal anecdotes. I’ve found her warm open caring nature and amazing cooking very soothing to my soul, and we spend most weekends cooking, gossiping, applying henna to our hair and honey and rose water to our faces! 

She once explained to me that the word ‘yoga’ itself means the union of the body, mind and soul and that meditation is the highest form of yoga. When you are successful in your practise, your chakras become activated, and once they are all activated you become enlightened. Becoming enlightened makes you realise that everything is within you, that energy cannot be created or destroyed, which applies also to the energy within us, which lives on in our soul. Only on this planet are we faced with so many limitations and go through so much emotional upset. She also talked about the idea of there being past lives which are not labelled as being either good or bad. The idea is to learn everything, from how it feels to be a worm, or a tree, to live as a prince or to live in a war zone. But there is a law of karma, so whatever you do there will be consequences for your actions. Before embarking upon a life, you have meetings with a spiritual mentor, a kind of higher self of you who you can talk to and they are always in touch with your spirit guides. They help you plan what to do to for the next life. Apparently we are also in groups, people that effect your energy in a positive or even negative way are part of your spirit family and you will meet them again. She said that we we are made to learn to help ourselves and others. I like that idea.

But there is no escaping it, Kanpur and the insular isolated IIT campus can be a lonely place for a single foreigner at times, where most people my age are married with children. So I joined the gym, played my fiddle till my fingers blistered and took up german lessons (with plenty of head wiggling) until it was time to reunite myself with Europe and everything and everyone contained within that I had been missing so much it for a short time.

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Battle of the Bugs

Arriving back into the campus in Kanpur, I had to cross a river to get to my apartment. Apparently the rains had arrived.

Even though the temperature had dropped (very slightly), humidity had crept in so that I was constantly covered in a layer of moisture. We were not allowed air conditioning in my building since the electrics weren’t set up to be able to deal with such a heavy drain on the power, so sleeping became a distant memory. To make matters worse, a plethora of creatures seemed to condense out of the moisture and fly across my room. I often found small ants crawling up my arms and legs, I found almost invisible white creatures wriggling across my book, brown fleas attached to my ankles, cockroaches running over my feet and lizards slithering across the walls (I liked theses guys because hopefully they were eating the rest). Meal times became a constant battle with heat flies.

After a few weeks I started to notice small red marks on my calves, which I first thought might be a reaction to the constant heat and sweat, but they soon multiplied in number, spread to my thighs and stomach and began to itch. I started to suspect bed bugs and would wake suddenly in the night itchy, jump up and turn on the lights to scrutinise my bed for the culprits. 

Then one fatal evening as I was lying in bed reading I spotted a creature walking across me. It looked identical to the bed bugs I’d encountered briefly once in Tanzania 6 years ago. I jumped up convinced that it was bed bugs and started to panic. I stuffed the bedsheets in a bucket in the bathroom, moved the ‘infected’ bed away from the other bed (who was I kidding, if one bed was infected, the other would surely be), put the feet of my second bed in cups of water (I’d read this might prevent the bugs from clambering up - I was desperate OK) and lay down again with the lights on. No use, I kept imagining bugs everywhere making my whole body crawl. I did some googling, ranted to a few friends online, and tried to lie down again. I worried about how I was going to survive the next few days or even weeks, as surely there was going to be no quick fix to a problem like this and I envisaged endless sleepless nights. From my googling it seemed you needed to boil all your bedding and even clothes for hours and to get in an exterminator to treat the room. I had no idea how to go about achieving this kind of thing in Kanpur - an under-developed city lacking in infrastructure. Would an exterminator even exist in this town? Who could I get to help me with this? I lay there panicking about the future of my sanity until eventually I was so exhausted I finally managed to nod off for a few hours. It wasn’t long before I woke up scratching again.

After a relatively hysterical explanation to the hall warden he agreed to get an ‘exterminator’ to chemically treat my room next week and so I took myself off to the nearest air conditioned hotel to get some sleep and regain some clarity.

On arrival back to the campus I decided to stay at the visitor hostel. That night as I pulled back the sheets of the bed in the visitor hostel, I found the dead body of one of the same bugs I’d found prancing across my mattress the few nights before, along with more tiny white insects (looking suspiciously of larvae from freshly hatched eggs). I immediately went back to reception and asked to change room. This time I pulled back the sheets from both beds straightaway to check before getting in, but as I lay there reading, I watched as slowly one by one 4 of these same tiny black creatures started to crawl over the mattress of the other bed. I couldn’t believe it!!! Was the whole campus infected? 

I eventually conceded defeat that I wasn’t going to find anywhere that was bug free, and tentatively lay down with the realisation beginning to dawn on me that perhaps they weren’t bed bugs and the words from friends that it was simply “bug season” ringing in my ears.

Back in my room the next day, I got a knock on the door. There was a guy standing there with a small spray can. This was the ‘exterminator.’

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Banging Bangalore

My travel to Bangalore was spent praying that my bottom wouldn’t erupt, and the first few days of the summer school followed in a similar manner, with me positioned close to the lecture theatre door…

During this summer school I experienced my first real mood drop since being in India. Micha had just left, it was raining, cold, and I was to be confined to an institute in the middle of nowhere, 20km from the city, comprising of grey buildings, under a grey sky, with nothing around, and whose perimeter I could traverse in less than 5 minutes. It may also have been caused by residual effects of the stomach bug, or the fact that we had to share rooms, and being a light sleeper this meant my sleep was even more disturbed than usual. Just to add salt to the wound, the Brexit news came out, and my country appeared to be in disarray, with no prime minister and the political parties fighting amongst themselves. My Indian colleagues seem more concerned about the football result.

But I got up, got dressed, got blessed (by Lakshmi the elephant in Pondicherry) and tried to be a success. Slowly I began to regain some motivation and to discover plenty of hidden pleasures in Bangalore. It was a highly cosmopolitan city, similar to a major city in many other countries (with an Indian twist). It had shiny shopping malls, imposing business districts, plenty of fancy restaurants and bars which felt like being back in London at times, and amidst it all, the holy cow was still grazing in the middle of the road. 

I ate BEEF burgers, drank cider, attended an exclusive roof top party and made new Indian, American, Australian and Polish friends. In short, there were a lot of things to enjoy in ‘the Bang’. The traffic however, was not one of them. Every venture into the city involved hours in Uber or Ola (an alternative to Uber) taxis. Apparently the population of this city has doubled in the last few years wrecking havoc on the road systems.

One weekend I made a visit to Pondicherry on the east coast with an american guy I’d met at a couch surfing meet up. The bus station where we got our overnight coach from was buzzing the coaches and the bus itself was pretty plush, with blankets, cushions and curtains. It seems the south is well geared up for coach travel, which makes sense with destinations like Goa, Hampi, Ooty, Madikeri, Wayanad and Kerala all an overnight coach journey away from each other. 

Pondi turned out to be a (relatively) clean coastal town with a heavy french influence. There were street signs with the words “rue de la …”, and a long broad walk beside a pebble beach from where you could sip red wine with your steak-frites. 

We rented a scooter for the weekend, drank beer and watched the waves on a sandy beach south of the city. 

We also visited Auroville, a community founded by “the mother” in the 60s (surprise surprise) for people from all countries to live in peace in a self sufficient community. It had grown into a small township with approx 2500 people living there (1/3 are indian) with people from 49 countries. In order to join, you have to forgo your earthly possessions (and a large sum of money) and in return you get a house or land and building materials. All the money goes into an Aurovillian ‘pot’ from which anyone is allowed to submit a request for and withdraw from. We wandered around and saw some large houses resembling those found in the country back at home, with large well-kept gardens. They do organic farming and at the visitor centre we also learnt that they’re running lots of workshops for everything from yoga to using bamboo as a building material to help the locals as well as themselves. Whilst admiring the grand houses of some and hearing tales of in-bitching as well as complaints from some of the locals, it is hard to know whether this idealistic lifestyle is really working for them.  

Overall the summer schools had been interesting, and it was nice to notice that there were a large proportion of females in the audience… though no female speakers. After 3 weeks of lectures however I decided I could sit still no longer and I “Brexited” back to Kanpur to get on with some work of my own once more.

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To Nepal... or not to Nepal

The same day I bid farewell to mum at Delhi airport, I later returned to greet Micha who had flown out to ‘patch up’ some holes forming in our relationship.

After a few days acclimatisation in fancy air-conditioned hotels (with pools!) in Delhi we made the move to Kanpur and the task of surviving the now 40 degree heat in my un-air-conditioned room. Micha spent a large proportion of the following few days sprawled like a lizard panting in the corner, only getting up to pour water on the floor at regular intervals - his attempt at cooling the place down.

After a week of this routine I decided I needed to move Micha out of this environment before he melted into my mattress. We escaped to Lucknow from where I had a devised a plan to travel “5 hours” (said google maps) to the Nepalese border, cross, and visit Bardia National Park in Nepal for the weekend.

Things did not go to plan. We traveled 5 hours. We did not reach Nepal. I hadn’t realised that the journey would be on small lumpy country roads, which we’d dared to attempt in un-air-conditioned local buses lacking in suspension, making it painfully slow jolt to a town called Bahraich, only about half way to Nepal. Here we hopped off and found a hotel for the night, only to begin again early the next morning for the final leg.

Finally after 10+ hours of offloading as many galleons of sweat on non ac forms of transportation, we were happily filling out forms at the border control under the watchful eye of an immigration officer who spoke little english, when disaster struck. After filling out the forms he first took Michas passport to stamp and read aloud “single entry visa”. Shit. We’d completely overlooked this fact, which meant that if Micha left the country, he would not be allowed back in.

Back out into the midday heat in the teeny border town of Rupaidiha, there was certainly no possibility of finding an air-conditioned joint for some respite. Our only option was to retrace our footsteps, disappointment written all over our sweat drenched faces.

Our supportive no-longer-future host in Nepal suggested we visit a national park (Dudhwa) on the Indian side of the border about 200km away. After one short bus ride in reverse and some frantic googling, we found ourselves at a small peaceful train station Nanpara, where the animals outnumbered the people. Donkeys, cows, dogs and monkeys (who stole our bananas) played in the shade of a giant tree on the single grassy platform. Our arrival at the station turned all eyes in our direction. Whilst talking to a young guy who could speak English about our desired train, a crowd gathered around until the entire platform’s population surrounded us with wide eyes. Foreigners were obviously not common place here…

The ticket price at 30p each for this 5 hour train journey to Palia Kalan (the closest town to Dudhwa National Park) with unreserved seating did not bode too well, and sure enough the first few kilometres saw us crouched on the floor of the hallway delightfully close to the toilet. Luckily for us, our direction of travel saw the train emptying out rapidly and soon there were enough free benches to even lie down (which Micha did at once). More enjoyable though was to sit in the doorway with the wind rushing past and watch as the train travelled through remote villages, forests, crossed huge rivers and even ran through part of the national park we were about to visit. It was truly mesmerising and probably one of the greatest train rides I will ever take.

We had accidentally stumbled upon a very authentic unique experience as we were clearly in a very remote corner of the country, with most stations resembling little more than a jungle pathway with people lined up between the trees. We even encountered a train with it’s roof full of passengers! Here was the real india!

We arrived in Palia Kalan in darkness where we were greeted by the owner of the hotel we’d booked online. He recommended an early morning safari the next day and so we went straight to bed.

On entering the park the next morning our luck changed and straight away we stubbled across a herd of wild elephants hiding in the bushes, followed by a herd of deer and some exotic birds. The elephant safari was the main attraction of this park and we put our names on the list without holding out much hope due to the crowd waiting. However as the last people returned on their elephants and with everyone else gone since it was park closing time, our guide slipped the elephant rider some dosh and we were allowed to board this mighty creature. We had mixed feelings about the whole idea but since we were here we decided to give it a go. On the back of an elephant was the only way in which you were allowed into the rhino enclosure, and it felt very exotic to be bobbing through the long grass or wading through swamps to get close and personal with several rhinos.

The rider however, hit the elephant constantly with his stick as he rode and we couldn't decide whether an elephant trained from birth was any different to that of a horse given the same treatment or if the elephants were suffering. Overall compared to stories I've heard about other elephant safaris it looked like they treated the animals pretty well in this park and it also provides jobs for a lot of the local villagers.

Finally we had our last 5am start to catch a bus, Hindi music cheering us on, as we bounced our way through the villages homeward bound.

During our final few days together we took it in turns to develop severe food poisoning. I spent our last journey to Delhi (for Micha to catch his flight home and me to head to Bangalore for a conference/summer school) burning up in sleeper class (there were no ac tickets left). The train took about 5 hours longer than planned and I was so feverish I was amazed my insides hadn’t turned to ash by the time we arrived. And so our final hours together were spent alternating between hiding under the bed covers and running to the toilet.

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Pommy pilgrims

Finally everyone in kashmir had finished asking me if I wanted to buy a shawl, and it was time to wind our way back down the mountain (via the last beautiful hill station called Pahalgam), to where life simmered away in 40 degree heat. Before we parted ways however we had one final destination on our whistle stop tour; the religious town Katra, to join the millions of pilgrims spilling in and out every year to visit the holy Vaishno Devi shrine, hidden 14km up in the Trikuta mountains.

Due to time constraints and to avoid the heat of the day it was advised to walk up over night. Having arrived at our hotel in the late evening (after an 15hour coach ride!!), this meant we were only able to snatch a few hours of precious sleep before embarking upon the pilgrimage.

It was a relatively pleasant and quiet ascent, which we realised on the way down would have been much different if we had been going during the day, and for this we were grateful. There was still music blaring from speakers, and the odd hassler demanding rupees in return for a push! (Often so persistent that they began pushing despite our forceful refusals). There were food and drink stalls, shops to buy the usual assortment of red and gold religious paraphernalia, and even medical centres offering to test for blood sugar levels, blood pressure levels and ECG en route! As we neared the top just before dawn, glimpses of the sparkling lights from the shrine above us enticed and encouraged us to come closer still.

Upon reaching the top, we were amazed to find that these twinkling lights represented such an established maze of buildings nestled in the mountain crevice. Hotels for pilgrims, shops and more food and drink stalls, were all engulfed in a sea bodies filling every available space. After shuffling around for half an hour or so we grasped that in order to visit the dozen or so shrines on offer, you first had to join a queue to obtain tickets, to enable you to join another queue for the shrine itself. A process, we estimated which could take days, and we hastily agreed we were ready for our descent. Unfortunately cameras were not allowed so I have no photos to share with you.

The way down was a rather different affair. Now that the sun was coming up, so were the masses, and we had to fight our way through the crowded narrow pathways, along with mules pulling carts filled with bricks and other building materials (which almost filled the entire path alone), with the same hasslers now offering massages instead of the push. It became an almost dangerous affair to dodge the vast number of unfaltering pilgrims on foot, horseback and even on ‘palanquin’, a chair usually containing a particularly elderly or large pilgrim, balanced on metal poles carried by 4 people marching in rhythm.

We had been told it would take 5-6 hours each way, so were quite proud of ourselves when we were up and back in a total of 5, including a stop at CCD (Cafe Coffee Day, the Indian version of Starbucks), a novelty to find on the pilgrimage pathway!

I was even more impressed to hear that my friend Utso’ dad, had not only queued 5 hours to visit the main shrine, but had then walked a further 5km up the mountain in order to visit another! When his father had not returned by lunch and with our phones not being allowed signal in the Kashmir area for security reasons, Utso was understandably concerned. His worry turned out to be unnecessary however when his father finally bounded in with a smile stretching from ear to ear.

Once back in civilisation, it was time to say goodbye to our fellow travellers as mum and I flew to Delhi for a few days respite (encountering an exceedingly thorough security check at Jammu airport, including having to identify our bags out a back door where the luggage was lined up near to the planes before being boarded), before we too parted ways sniff sniff.

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Dreamy Dal Lake

I had been dreaming (which turned out to be quite an accurate description of the experience) of the houseboats in Srinagar since I first saw photos at the beginning of the year, so mum and I took a day off from the sightseeing agenda to fulfil this desire.

The moment we stepped onto the shikara (the small wooden boat used transport people to the houseboat) adorned with lace cushions and flowery curtains, it was as if the whole place had been transformed and reality dissipated like the ripple from the heart shaped paddle of our oarsman as we glided soundlessly through the dusky waters. The sparkle and glow from the nearby houseboats reflected from the painted wood between hand woven curtains of passing shikaras which our driver deftly manoeuvred us between, until the only thing left to manoeuvre were patches of dark green lily pads in the ripple-less lake. It was intensely romantic. 

We had struck gold with our choice of houseboat which was around the opposite side of the lake to where the majority were lined up side by side, and was almost alone with only a few other boats even within sight. Once a-light we sat in stunned silence in the semi darkness of the balcony mesmerised by the symphony of crickets and croaking toads intermingled with the softly murmured Muslim prayers as we sipped freshly prepared Kashmiri tea.

We began the next day in a similar fashion, only the performers of our musical accompaniment had changed to the variety of birds gossiping nearby as we resumed our position on the balcony with more Kashmiri tea in our hands. We watched the as the sea of lily pads gave birth to a smatterings of golden yellow flowers opening themselves up to the suns warmth, as an eagle swooped to perch on a wooden stump 10 metres away and huge dragon flies danced before our eyes. We spent a blissful day as the ladies in the days of the British Raj may have done, writing, painting or just gazing at the lake with the only other human sighting belonging to a local fisher lady piling her canoe high with lilies to feed her cattle. 

As the day heated up, the clouds evaporated like curtains being raised at a theatre to reveal a stage of majestic purple mountains rising pompously over the lake, and we took a swim in their perfect mirror image in the clear waters… 

you had to look very closely here if you wanted to make out the outline of a plastic bottle or wrapper hidden in the dense clusters of lilies…

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Kolkat-ian Kashmir

Arriving at Jammu train station (after a 20hour train journey) you would not have recognised it for a war zone. The platform was as crowded as any in India, with the usual family groups sprawled on mats on the floor sleeping, eating, waiting. Arriving in the north west of the country I noticed a change in the faces again (similarly to Darjeeling - the north east - where they had appeared more circular), only this time they were more oblong, with prominent ears, noses and beards.

Despite the throng of people spilling out of the train we were instantly greeted by our tour guide Mahesh (having never met any of us before, it will remain a mystery to me how he managed this) and we all piled into a car, for what was to be the first of many MANY hours spent on the road over the next 10 days…

I was travelling with two lovely friends who had invited me to join them and their equally lovely families on this trip which they’d organised through a tour operator in Kolkata. 

We were part of a group filling 2 mini buses and composed of about 20 guests (with ages from 20 - 60) plus 3 cooks (below) who prepared us typical Bengali style cuisine every day! 

During this first journey the car was full of voices as all members of the group old and young sung along to songs on the radio, with a pause outside a small shrine to consume an offering from God in the form of sugar. The highlight of the day though was when we arrived at our hotel for the first night to find my mum waiting for us! Now it would be a family trip for me also :)

The following day was a painful crawl like a tranquillised sloth around the mountain bends behind a conga line of Tata trucks. Armed men in camouflage lined the streets and as we drew closer to Srinagar their frequency increased. They appeared everywhere, in doorways, on rooftops, in trucks filing past. Finally we arrived in the dark to the mystical Dal Lake glittering with houseboats, and to news that there had been a terrorist bombing at the local police station killing several people only a few hours before.

During the next 2 days we became well acquainted with the intricacies of the mini-bus due to land slides and more Tata trucks, as we traversed the breath taking mountain pathways to visit two famous valleys; Sonamarg and Gulmarg.

In both places we arrived to find a hub of cars, tourist buses and hundreds upon hundreds of horses and people everywhere. We haggled with tour guides from £150 down to £30 in seconds for a car (to take us further up the mountain), and dodged horses skidding up and down the muddy slopes under the whip of their owners and children wandering about with rabbits or pigeons in their arms hoping for money for photos with these poor creatures. Soon enough however we found ourselves halfway up these majestic mountains, playing with snow (for the first time for some of my companions) and were always heavily rewarded for our perseverance by the spectacular scenery offered by this infamous mountain range. 

In Gulmarg we rode the world’s highest gondola (after spending 2 hours queuing for it!) and I sniffed out the area for revisiting for a potential ski trip this winter (anyone interested?!).

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Subterranean Homesick Blues

And so concludes my first 6 months living in the east. My second visit to Kolkata was drawing to a close, I had learnt to program, embraced the hair loss (by employing new hairstyles), and made new friends in and outside of work. I’d spent weekends racing through the city on motorbikes and spent nights sharing a bed with pregnant friends and their grandmothers (it is believed to be good luck for pregnant women to share the bed with the oldest family member). 

Time has past so quickly and it feels like I’ve only just begun my life out here, yet during the last few weeks pangs of homesickness have started to creep in. It is my first time experiencing these feelings, despite having lived abroad before, it has never been for so long in a country so different from my own… and there is still a long time to go (another 1.5 years)! These feelings usually strike when something reminds me of home, such a photo of a snow scene in a sleepy german town, or on the rare occasion when instead of the constant jingle of hindi music (which becomes a soundtrack to life out here), my ears are shocked to recognise a coldplay tune from some progressive new cafe, and subconsciously my mind reminisces about home, friends, faces and times shared. Distance also seemed to be taking it’s toll on my relationship which was getting me down… but enough nostalgia, there is still so much left to enjoy and explore…

And so I returned to Kanpur for few days, to a layer of dust, cobwebs, frazzled cockroaches, and the task of trying to survive in 40 degree heat without the luxury of air conditioning. But luckily I only had a few nights of rolling around in my sweat drenched sheets before a train whisked a group of us off to seek solace in the Kashmiri hills (against the advice of the foreign office!).

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The vanishing sea

During this stay in Kolkata, I decided to spend every other weekend exploring the surrounding area. This mainly involved beach hopping along the south coast (Bay of Bengal), as it was too hot to do much else.

My first two trips were to the neighbouring state of Orissa, firstly to a popular beach town called Puri, where I arrived in the early morning after a difficult overnight trip on a sleeper coach, trying to control my stomach after eating (what I found the next morning was) raw chicken. I had been in a rush to get the coach the night before and had clearly made an error asking for super fast preparation of this meat for my takeaway dinner.

The beach scene which greeted my weary eyes at this early hour felt surreal. Half the population of India appeared to be crowded together between lifeguard huts, with brightly decorated donkeys and camels prowling the periphery saddled with flowery bed sheets, tinsel and glittery pom-poms dangling in front of their eyes. It was absolute chaos, with big family groups splashing about fully clothed in the surprisingly large waves, taking selfies, praying and squealing. The sari (in my humble opinion) is not well designed for swimming, but instead works excellently as a trip hazard, and drenched grandmas were being rescued by laughing family members left right and centre. And at the back, chilling under the shade of chai and coffee stands, lay the holy cow, winking at the camels and philosophically surveying the madness.

My second trip was the complete contrast to the first. It began when I arrived at my hotel in the middle of the night and looked out from the balcony to a field of sleeping cows - not quite the sea view I was expecting. The next day I found that this sleepy seaside town of Chandipur, famous for a “vanishing sea”, remained fast asleep with an almost empty long sandy beach which “vanished” as much as 5km at low tide. Here I watched scenes of domestic bliss from the local villages as families fished peacefully together in the shallow waters, mother and father holding either end of the net or turning over huge piles of sand for their children to search through for creatures. Sadly I also saw the mound of plastic accompanying the fish retrieved from the nets, and wondered what their catchers made of this.

My final trip was to lesser known Tajpur within the state of West Bengal and was my favourite for two reasons; firstly because it was the most stereotypically beautiful, and relatively untouched, with long white sandy beaches lacking in people, but instead often covered in carpets of red crabs scuttling sideways with pearly white eyes standing to attention. The second reason was that I was beginning to feel a tad lonely undertaking all these trips on my lonesome, but here finally I made some new friends as well as being joined on an impulsive visit by my office mates from Kolkata. That weekend I woke up on Sunday morning with a well overdue hangover and sat on the beach watching the waves, drinking sugary coffee, eating freshly caught seafood whilst having my head massaged. Not bad.

My return journey added a yet another dimension to this trip. Rather than pay the overpriced hotel taxi to take me to the bus stop, I decided to walk with the idea that I might try to hitchhike. My luck was in and two young Kolkatians drove past and offered me a lift not only to the bus stop but all the way back to Kolkata! This road trip with a soundtrack of blaring bengali music was an adventure in itself as we stopped off to enjoy the nature of the surrounding villages and another famous beach location Mandarmani where we witnessed the local fisherman sailing (yes with sails!!!) into the shore and running up the beach with their catch, to be auctioned off as soon as it touched the ground.

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Get dressed, get blessed. Try to be a success.

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Heat, hearsay and hair loss

With one last festival to partake in in Kanpur involving colourful powdered paint, it was time for my second visit to Kolkata.

I arrived at the beginning of April, and spent the next 2 months living in a sauna, sweating constantly, as temperatures soared into the 40s, and cafes started discounting cold drinks proportional to this increase. I read reports of hail, ice and rain back home, with the sound of air conditioning units growling beside me as I tried to work or sleep (not so easy)… A lizard crawled into one once and electrocuted himself, we found out from the smell the next day…

Walking through this humble city, with its tumble down old colonial charm, the sun bleached damp stained walls, balconies and shutters looked as if they themselves were perspiring, droplets of moisture rolling down their sides. The streets were filled with bobbing umbrellas protecting their owners from the sun’s power beneath a canopy of lush green trees peering out between the buildings.

It was an exciting time to be back in this city painted blue and white (to reflect the colours of the leading political party), as elections were coming up, and talk of politics filled the air. Stories of corruption, slander, sexism, voting for jailed ministers, outrage as the leading party were caught taking bribes only a few days prior to voting and potential candidates plying the public with booze and dosh to try to win their favour (shame I was unable to vote really), filled my ears…apparently it is not uncommon to turn up to vote only to find your vote already cast…

Amongst this excitement I formed a nice working routine, beginning with yoga every morning lead by ‘spiritual gangsters’ (as read their tshirts), instructing us in Hindi to reach our hands to the ceiling, where I could watch a lizard keep perfectly still on a beam of the bamboo roof, before wiggling his way across and out through a hole where the fans were gently whirring. Then into downward dog position, and instead I found a tiny ant crawling across the wooden floor below my nose in rhythm with the meditation music tinkling softly in the background… All beneath the gentle gaze of a meditating guru sat peacefully on a bed of flowers in a giant portrait at the front. This routine was finished with a glass of home grown, freshly prepared neem or raw mango juice to cleanse our system.

Despite enjoying the heat, and feeling quite well in the climate, I was encountering an increasing amount of hair falling from my head and covering my pillows, bed, sink, desk and floor of my bedroom, bathroom and office, as well as swamping my fingers after running them through it. After hearing various horror stories regarding hair loss and noticing that most shampoos here have replaced the usual “for smooth glossy hair” advertisement with “to prevent hair loss”, I decided to use this opportunity of being in a big city to interrogate a doctor about potential causes. The first I spoke to told me to visit him at a big hospital just 2 hours after we spoke. I rushed over, registered, queued, waited, and was eventually ushered to the front of the queue lining up outside his office. Once inside, the doctor fired a handful of questions at me in between checking his mobile, wrote me a page full of prescriptions for tablets and lotions, mumbled something about the possibility of a steroid injection being developed in the states, and rang the bell for the next patient leaving me back out in the corridor before you could say “bald eagle”. Feeling more scared than reassured looking at my prescription list I opted for a second opinion. This time following the recommendation of a friend I found myself in the front room of a grand house close to where I lived belonging to a sweet elderly doctor. His professional routine checks, patient explanations and mocking smile at my worries left me feeling instantly better. He explained slowly that there are a combination of things causing hair loss in India such as pollution in the air, lack of protein in the diet and high mineral content in the water coming out of the shower. He prescribed me iron and vitamin E tablets, some funky shampoo and told me I should wash my hair more often, which I did, and promptly caught a nasty cold from having wet hair in the air conditioning…

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The power of love

So Micha came back, and this time we spent his first half day in the country sweating our way around Lucknow on a cycle tour. We discovered a great city full of culture and heritage, as we fought our way amongst wild traffic and cows, squeezed our way between the maze of narrow alleyways, backstreets and hidden entrances of the crazy old town.

After a few days acclimatisation introducing Micha to the peacocks on the campus, we set off for Agra, home of the Taj. Booking last minute train journeys in India is a struggle, since everything sells out fast with so many people in the country. Thus we departed with only a confirmed outgoing ticket and reservations on the waiting lists for 4 different returning trains. Fingers crossed.

We spent the first 6 hours of our ‘mini-break’ circling Kanpur station, walking around in the dust inhaling the pollution, listening to nonstop high pitched recitation of train numbers over the tannoy, waiting for our increasingly delayed train. I think this lack of punctuality was particularly hard to bare for a german.

But it finally arrived, and we found ourselves sharing a carriage with a smiley couple who despite not sharing a common language with us insisted in sharing their food. Having been warned that Agra would be manic, we were pleasantly surprised to arrive in the darkness in peace and quiet to our hotel 100m from the Taj entrance (turns out this was a pollution producing vehicle exclusion zone).

Awakening the next morning we began our tourist program, hunted and obtained tickets for the Taj and in return were hunted and captured by a beaming guide (in the green shirt in photo below). Despite my protesting Micha agreed to let him accompany us, and I got my revenge by encouraging his enthusiasm for (romantic) photography. The Taj Mahal, a symbol of love (mirrored by the theme of our guide’s posing instructions), was built to house the tomb of the favourite wife of a Mughal emperor. It was truly breathtaking, and despite high expectations (and scaffolding around some parts) we were still completely blown away by it.

After inhaling one last great gulp of the beauty and serenity of the palace gardens (along with the other 5 million people within), we said goodbye to our guide-cum-photographer and his tales (repeated by every other guide in the vicinity), and we were out in the chaos of the inner city, crawling with monkeys, cows, autos and sellers, surrounded by red stone buildings and dusty streets lined with brightly painted walls

During our time in Agra we encountered the most extreme hassling to date. Often preferring to walk between sights or even to stroll aimlessly in the evenings with no particular destination, we were easy targets for the cloud of businessmen, autos and rickshaw drivers, who engulfed us the minute we stepped outside, driving slowly by our side babbling pitches incessantly.

On day 2 we visited Fatehpur Sikri (the remains of a highly impressive walled city built 400+ years ago), and at the beautiful still operational mosque here the hassling crescendoed almost to aggression when we refused to purchase any anklets or enlist the help of unauthorised “guides”.

With one last final sight to admire - Agra Fort, we spent the rest of the trip doing our best Mughal emperor impressions, lounging in ornately decorated gardens, bars, restaurants, parks, roof tops or even swimming pools, with a view of the Taj never far away... Until finally one of our wait-listed trains was confirmed, though our seats were in separate carriages, so we shared one bunk, and I gassed Micha with my feet all the way back to Kanpur.

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Sailing ships in indiaaaaaaar