thewomensbackpack

Shopping

2009-05-13T03:46:00.000-07:00

I have often heard of Japan having a ‘bicycle economy’ - in other words, stop pedalling and you fall off. Well, most economies are like that, but shopping here seems to be something of a national sport. If you have enough yen and a tiny figure, clothes shopping could be great fun - especially if you love designer clothes, because even the scruffiest people here are fashionably scruffy. But I say ‘could’ because I have never attempted it. Apart from being a terrible shopper and having no interest in fashion, I don’t even bother to think of clothes shopping here; although I have no problems getting my size in the UK, in Japan I would probably have to find an outsize shop or look in a maternity section.

But the shops here are interesting. In swish malls you can find bright, fashionable clothes on the same floor that you might find all the necessary items for being a Geisha. Electrical shops are like an adult’s playground and there is no problem in trying out the goodies; while I was busy getting a massage a few days before by moving from one massage chair to another, my sister-in-law was having great fun trying out the exercise horses - little mechanical bulls designed for toning core muscles and thighs in the comfort of your own home (alternatively you could put it on its highest setting, get a couple of cowboy hats and invite your friends round for some beer and rodeo).

My weakness, however, is for homeware shops and 100-yen shops. Japan is big on cookery and food presentation, so it is a great place when looking for ideas. And as for the 100-yen shops, these are to be found everywhere. Surprisingly, they actually sell some pretty decent stuff too. (Just look for the Y100 signs, they usually can’t be missed.) And if you are between shops, you can always use a vending machine - cigarettes and non-alcoholic drinks are on sale everywhere in machines on the side of the street or at train stations.

The only disappointing thing about Japanese goods is that the really enticing stuff - the ultra-modern electrical items are for the very low Japanese electrical current (110v). If anything, I suppose it stops me from feeling tempted to buy a new stereo system, a massage chair and a mechanical bull. Shame. But I shall never be short of chopsticks.

Shinjuku

2009-05-09T12:31:00.000-07:00

View of Shinjuku

"Did you see the Tokyo tower?" my friend Reiko asked. "You can see it from the bathroom."

"No," I admitted, a little embarrassed. "I was too busy admiring the toilets."

Sorry to lower the tone but I have to talk about toilets - because if I had my way, the UK would be flooded by Japanese lavatories. Okay, maybe that is the wrong choice of words but I know what I mean.

Anyone who knows me may also know that each time I return from Japan I spend at least two or three weeks mourning for the loss of the Japanese loo seat. So it is about time I explained. Not all but most of Japanese toilets come complete with a control panel at the side with buttons for heating the toilet seat, bidet, general wash or constant flushing sound. The heated toilet seat means that you get a hot bot when you sit down which, at first, can be almost as shocking as a cold loo seat, but is actually rather comfortable. The wash and bidet facilities are obvious, and the constant flushing sound is to mask any embarrassing noises you might be making. Instructions are usually in Japanese, but the pictures on the buttons are self-explanatory - it is very hard to not understand what a bottom being splashed with water means. But the ladies' loos in the Hotel Century Southern Tower in Shinjuku went one better in the cubicles with an extra finishing touch of pink ribbons adorning the spare toilet rolls. I was so impressed that even when I visited the ladies' second time round with the sole aim of sneakily taking a photo, I still forgot to admire the Tokyo tower out of the window.

Typical Japanese lavatory control panel

Best-dressed loo rolls. Well they do say the first bite is with the eye...

Shinjuku is a bustling shopping area in what might pass for central Tokyo. When people aren't buying clothes or lifestyle artifacts, they're drinking coffee or queuing up to buy Krispy Kreme do(ugh)nuts. The Shinjuku branch of that particular purveyor of the sweet stuff was the first ever in Japan and, according to my friends, people would queue for up to two hours before reaching the counter. Now the novelty has worn off the queue only looks about half an hour long.

Mum and I were in Shinjuku to meet Reiko, a friend of mine who has kindly shown me around the city in the past. She had booked Tribeks restaurant on the 19th floor of the Hotel Century Southern Tower because it commands fabulous views of the city. But it was after I privately nearly suffered a mild heart attack at the prices (one orange juice was Y1,000 - about seven pounds fifty pence in these days of the pathetic pound) that we ordered from a set menu; a goats cheese and mushroom cake to start, soup, roast lamb and dessert.

The descriptions on the menu were good and we awaited our food with anticipation. And soon our first course arrived, a delicious, white, savoury mousse atop.......erm..... what looked like a 3cm long crouton.

Okay, so whereas in America your plate will be piled up for a few dollars, Japan is known for tiny, expensive portions. Even so, I was a little surprised. I think we had all been expecting a bit more than a crouton, and I was wondering how it could have been described as a 'cake'. But nobody said a word as we tucked into our croutons appreciatively. Mum, who was brought up to always leave a little for Mr Manners even left some of her mousse on the plate.

Of course I felt a right twit when the real starters arrived. The crouton, it seemed, had been an appetiser and probably also a test to see how used we were to eating in posh restaurants - to see whether we would use the right fork, which to eat a crouton is a bit difficult I can tell you.

I am embarrassed to admit that along with photographing the loo (well, I had to photograph the toilet rolls and a control panel to illustrate what I was talking about) I did also photograph most of the courses. But in my defence, this was again to illustrate what I am talking about and also, ever since I saw a Japanese businessman photographing the peanuts in the upper class lounge in Helsinki airport, I decided the Japanese might understand. So here, for your delectation, is my dessert for the evening.... a white chocolate brownie, pistachio nut and fruit cake....

But the sweetest thing was yet to come (after Reiko fought for the bill and probably took out a small mortgage to pay for all of us). As Mum and I headed back to the outer fringes of Tokyo we jumped on a train which we hoped was heading for Tachikawa. "Tachikawa?" I asked a young girl who looked like she probably didn't speak English. "Mmm. Maybe," she said, before leaping off the train, having a quick look and nodding at us before getting back on. A few stops later she attracted my attention and showed me a notebook. There, in immaculate handwriting, she had written "that other train will be faster". She pointed at a train that had just pulled in on the opposite platform. While she hadn't had the confidence to speak, she had taken the time to construct a sentence for us before ushering us onto the other train. So sweet. Who needs Krispy Kreme, eh?

A star is(n't) born

2009-05-07T08:51:00.000-07:00

A photo that has nothing whatsoever to do with karaoke

Even though karaoke has died a bit of a death in the UK, it is still big business in Japan, its homeland. And even though it has taken me since 2005 to try it here, I think it should probably be compulsory. Because while in the UK and elsewhere you can go to a bar and embarrass yourself in public, here in Japan you can go one better by booking a private booth where you can choose from an enormous selection of music, order food and drink, and howl to your heart’s content without embarrassment or annoying anyone else.

I have only vaguely tried karaoke in the past, but here in Japan I have - according to my brother - now discovered my niche. That isn’t to say that I am any good at it. On the contrary, I was rather embarrassed to discover that what has always sounded spectacular in the bath was pretty dire when put together with music and a microphone. I think my best performances were to Led Zepplin, Amy Winehouse and Queen, but trying to take off Robert Plant was bound to take its toll and soon my voice was worsening with strain to my vocal cords. It was probably for that reason that my brother looked horrified when his wife and I decided to add another 30 minutes to our two-hour slot as it was running out. But I was still there, squawking along to Whole lotta love long after my niece and nephew had passed out with exhaustion.

I would love to go again, but I’m not sure everyone else’s ears could take the abuse. Yet the beauty about Japan is that it wouldn’t be unusual or strange if I booked myself into a booth on my own. But it would be pretty sad, wouldn’t it…

Konichiwa from Japan

2009-05-04T22:24:00.000-07:00

Stepping onto Japanese soil is like stepping into the future. From bathrooms with control panels, to electrical stores selling the latest and tiniest gadgets, Japan feels like a huge spaceship at times; quietly efficient and extremely advanced. Yet despite its modernity, it respects the ancient. Not only does it have its shrines to the native Shinto religion, but it also has that old-fashioned, quaint piece of technology - the public phone. Whereas the public phone is dying out in Britain for two reasons (people increasingly using mobile phones and morons vandalising them on a regular basis, making them expensive to maintain), in Japan, where pretty much everybody carries a mobile phone, they still exist because they do not get vandalised. Young people in Japan clearly have better things to do.

And if you head out into the city at night you will see the young Japanese out and about. Life expectancy in Japan is one of the highest in the world and maybe the younger generations, who have their own sense of fashion and aura of vibrancy, know that.

Of course it doesn’t mean that nobody misbehaves. A couple of days ago, as my family and I stepped onto a local train, a young man was completely sprawled out on the floor of the carriage, his t-shirt lifted up so his torso was on display, his head comfortably resting on his bag. He hadn’t just passed out, more bedded down for the night. So as everybody got on the train and walked to the seats away from him, my four-year-old niece, with a big smile, decided to sit on one of the seats near to him. We all then watched as a guard tried unsuccessfully to wake him, before fetching an emergency officer who also failed. Eventually they dragged the comatose man out of the train and propped him up, still trying to wake him. When he finally responded, they decided to put him back on the train where, faintly smelling of booze, he fell asleep again and probably spent the night going back and forth between Tokyo and Kawasaki.

I have been told that recently, after a heavy drinking session, a member of a Japanese boy band ended up publicly naked and shouting out that there was nothing wrong with being publicly naked. But generally people behave and so on this, my fourth visit to Japan, it still feels like the safest place I have ever seen.

A Japanese friend once told me that a characteristic of the nation was that everybody, regardless of their job, worked with a sense of pride. And wherever you go, everybody is extremely courteous. Even ticket inspectors on trains bow to and greet the carriage before carrying out their work. But then a Japanese ticket collector is unlikely to be abused or threatened…

This doesn’t mean that crime never happens. On my first visit to Tokyo in 2005 an apartment lent to me was broken into after my friend and I had left. Whoever did the deed smashed a patio door on the second floor balcony, let themselves in, stole nothing and then considerately patched up the window before leaving. Of course for a potential burglar it was all very polite, but we were left completely embarrassed because until the police found a man-sized footprint, it looked as though we had broken the window by accident, patched it up and done a runner without telling anyone. But from what I have been told, crime levels are low.

There are many things that I wish Japan would send to Britain; heated toilet seats with their built-in bidets, showers programmed to the exact temperature you want, really compact bread-makers, seasonal sweets made with cherry blossom, my brother with his wife and children, and shiatsu massage shops. Two weeks on from carrying my backpack and the hard bed in Dharamsala, India I was still suffering with a painful hip, sciatica down my left leg and problems with my left arm, so the first item on my Japanese list of things to do was to visit a walk-in massage shop in a busy shopping centre in Tachikawa. There, along with three other fully-clothed people on a line of massage beds, I lay face down as a young man with fashionably-dyed brown hair found all of my painful bits and poked them very firmly, transforming me into a new woman. My Japanese sister-in-law says that these massage shops can be found elsewhere but one word of advice is to look out for packets of tissues with slips of paper outside the shop. In Japan it is common to see people hand out little packets of tissues with a slip of paper. These are invariably discount offers and in the case of the Tachikawa massage shop, offered the first ten minutes for free. And when you have a sore back, painful leg and arm, and have to run after your fifteen-month-old nephew like a really decrepit old aunty, ten minutes of extra poking is a bonus.

Sex please, you’re British!

2009-04-24T10:06:00.000-07:00

Sex scenes are common in Indian art, but morality remains strict

When the mercury hits more than 40C, most of us find our thoughts turn to nothing more strenuous than eating ice cream, with even the thought of sex being far too much effort. But not so the gentlemen of Delhi, so it seems.

Any woman travelling around India alone – or even with a friend or partner – will usually be on the receiving end of ‘Eve teasing’ at least once. Subtle harassment, offers of ‘jiggy jiggy’, and of course the well known ‘boob swoop’ are, sadly, common experiences. But recently, in a different form of harrassment, a friend has just spent three days fending off a whole line of men who persistently invaded her guesthouse, intent on getting her alone, and all seeming to think that they were entitled to bother her.

It started when a driver attached to the agency that booked her guesthouse smarmed his way onto the premises by claiming to be a friend of hers. Later there were attempts to get her alone with what turned out to be a phoney errand to drive her to the travel agency (he claimed they needed a copy of her passport, but once getting her into the car appeared to make a phone call only to conveniently discover that her passport was not needed after all, and so “where shall we go?”). But after she had managed to get rid of him, another turned up, and then another – all connected to the travel agency.

Because these men were connected to the agency and the guesthouse, they could use their social status over the servant to enter the place, sit around, order food and bother my friend. This was how they managed to get access to her – a woman alone – even going so far as to follow her into her bedroom. As she was the only guest in this small, private guesthouse, this left her feeling vulnerable, making her dependant upon the servant to protect her.

Of course what makes any sane woman angry about this is the assumption that:
a) she is interested in sex
b) she is interested in sex with them.

Never at any point did it occur to these men that my friend may not be interested in them. It was as if they assumed that a foreign woman is so rampant that she will do it with anyone.

One man who gave my friend the Indian version of ‘my wife doesn’t understand me’ made his thoughts very clear. He’d had an arranged marriage, he told her, and so had ‘never had a good time’. It is quite likely his poor wife hadn’t had a good time either, but that was clearly not his concern. And when my friend asked if he thought that just because she was a woman alone did that mean he assumed she was ‘up for it’, he said yes. “You’re English aren’t you?” he said. Foreign women, he assured her, were always up for a good time.

Of course it is understandable how some men end up with this idea. Western women do go to India, wear next to nothing on the beaches, have affairs with locals, and generally behave in a way that most Indian women would not dare. Even I, many years ago, when holidaying as a young woman in India met a gorgeous young man and cackled inwardly that I was going to enjoy myself - before reminding myself that I was in a different country and culture and so had to behave. Had I been at home, however, a meaningless flirtation would not have been out of the question. So by Indian standards many western women are loose. But the problem is that then comes the assumption that we are easily available to anyone. For any men reading this, watch my typing. It is so not true.

But western women have always been seen as being morally loose compared to Indian girls. Years ago, Bollywood would show the slut or vamp as wearing western clothes, drinking and smoking. And now India has access to satellite TV, with a variety of American programmes that depict scantily clad western girls hopping in and out of bed as and when they like. In my opinion, it hasn’t done the foreign female tourist any favours. In the twenty plus years I have been travelling to India, I feel the choice of foreign programmes on Indian television - especially when contrasted against Indian media depicting more traditional roles - has given Indian society an even worse impression of us foreign girls.

So what to do? How do you react when your rickshaw driver (as happened to my friend) is making obscene gestures with his tongue at you saying, “You have love marriage? Love marriage? Lots of good sex?” If you had the energy you could call a policeman and tell him that the driver has been harassing you. You should actually shout at him and tell him off, but in fact you will probably ignore it. ‘Eve teasing’ is something that is covered in my book A girls’ guide to India, a survivor’s handbook. But in the meantime, here are some tips that can help:

Never sit in the front of a taxi. My friend did and was subjected to the driver’s inability to work out where the gear stick ended and where her leg started. Any driver who asks you to sit in the front is up to no good. Trust me on this!

Say your father has told you not to talk to strange men. Even if you are alone, this is language people understand and indicates that you are a ‘good girl’. I have in the past managed to get rid of a few people using this line.

If you are old enough to be his mother (as can be the case), make a big show of telling him off in a matriarchal way, ask him how old he is, and tell him you could be his mother. This will usually freak him out and shame him at the same time. Very amusing to watch.

Adopt a granny. When travelling alone, befriend an older woman – especially on trains. This will usually offer you a lot of protection because if you have an ‘auntie’ watching over you it is unlikely you will be bothered.

If a man asks you in conversation if you drink or smoke, if at all possible say you do not. This is often a way of working out how much of a bad girl you are and if you are horrified at the idea of intoxicants it will show that you are a girl with morals.

Do not flirt. Flirting in your own country may just be harmless banter or a bit of fun. Flirting in India is taken much more seriously and is seen as an invitation to a lot more.

A Girls’ Guide to India, A Survivor’ Handbook is by Louise Wates and is available through all online bookstores. It is also available as an ebook through http://www.authorsonline.co.uk/

The burning boy and a 'hot' Sim

2009-04-18T05:10:00.000-07:00

As I dumped my bags in the hotel reception at 4am, time to check out and take a taxi, I realised that the night boy was sitting behind the desk with a scarf wrapped around his head, just over his eyes. Novel way to get some sleep, I thought, approaching the desk silently. “Good morning,” he said. I chuckled and asked him what the scarf was for and he told me that he was sick.

Because his English is so weak and I am too lazy to construct a sentence in Hindi, I decided from what he said that he had trouble with his eyes. “Touch this,” he said to me, pointing to his arm. I was a bit confused - why would an eye problem affect his arm? “No problem,” he said. “Touch this,” again pointing to his arm. I gently touched his arm only to find that the poor lad was burning. “Tomorrow hospital,” he told me. From our broken conversation it became clear that he thought he had malaria.

Although last time I went to my local travel clinic I was told that anti-malarials are not so strictly recommended for India, malaria is a real problem. My cousins in Hyderabad told me that they have all had it, but with the kind of irritation that we in England speak of the ‘flu. I was amazed that this boy was waiting to finish his night duties before taking himself to hospital. If the situation were reversed I would stick a blue flashing light on my head if I thought it would get me faster treatment.

And then my mind turned to the collection of bites on my arms and legs. Because there were no mosquitoes in McLeod Ganj I was less organised than usual and had not been eating B vitamins (in the form of Marmite) nor covering myself in Deet once we got to Delhi. As a result my arms and fingers were covered; and my ankles, which were by now unattractively fat because of the heat, were also itching like mad. I looked at my bites and wondered if one of them could be nasty.

But my taxi turned up and I had to say goodbye to the lad. Wongden House will book reasonably-priced taxis for the airport, but you have to give up any thoughts of luxury. Even on the new Delhi roads, because suspension and shock absorbers were a dim, distant memory for this car, I seriously wished that I had been wearing a sports bra, and was quite worried that my curves might have dropped by an inch or so by the end of the journey. But I was glad to get to the airport alive. My driver clearly thought that all of these new traffic lights that are springing up around Delhi are purely to make the roads look pretty, and as he swerved between lanes I did wonder if he had been on the toddy.

And so it was goodbye to India again, leaving Simita fast asleep in the hotel. We’d had a farewell glass of wine from a tiny bottle of Shiraz she’d managed to find during her last foray into Connaught Place - during which time she had brought much joy to the men of New Delhi by going out in jeans and a vest top (that showed her b-r-a straps! Chi, chi, chi!). Having lost weight while in McLeod Ganj (how come it never happens to me??) she also realised far too late that the top was now baggier than she recalled and so offered quite a few clear views of her bosoms. Apparently she had sat on the Delhi metro with her bag in front of her chest but, she said, that only made it worse because people then realised that she knew they could see her boobs. Either way, she got a lot of smiles yesterday… heheh…

The last days

2009-04-17T07:13:00.000-07:00

This bull would park itself outside a McLeod tea shop and refuse to move
until he had been given some food...

This morning when we finally dragged ourselves into Wongden House in Delhi, I had yet another run-in with the boy who watches the desk at night. Again he wanted to hold my passport until the clerk came, and again I wasn’t going to let him. This time he became even more insistent that I leave it, and was very firm in his ‘yes’ to my ‘no’ until he realised he wasn’t going to get anywhere with me. After dumping our bags Simita headed off to Connaught Place while she could make the most of the chilly morning air (probably about 30C, or 89F for those of you who are still working in old money, predicted to rise to 37C / 102F), and I collapsed on my bed to make up for lost sleep.

Yesterday, while Simita spent the afternoon with a surprisingly good astrologer, I was with Tsewang discussing consciousness, form and attachment - nothing too heavy. And then, because I had whinged so much about having to carry our backpacks back up the Yong Ling steps, Tsewang had lined up two friends to help. As we retrieved my bag from the storeroom of the Pink House, Simita wasn’t around so Tsewang said we would take her bag too and leave a message. I suspected this could go horribly wrong, but left a message with the hotel manager to tell Simita that we had stolen her bag and gone off to sell the contents. No problem there. Tsewang’s two friends then took a backpack each while Tsewang looked at me in confusion. “Don’t you have any more luggage?” he asked. I also had a rather full hand luggage bag but, no, that was it. “Oh,” said Tsewang. “No need for two people to help.” Because of my complaining he had obviously thought that I needed a small group of Sherpas and possibly a couple of yaks. “The bags are heavy to us,” I explained, feeling rather pathetic. “They weigh a tonne!”

And so Tsewang and his two friends trotted off up the Yong Ling steps, carrying our bags as if they were nothing more than a couple of small bags of groceries, leaving me carrying nothing but sweating and puffing behind.

At half past five, when Simita arrived at the bus stand, she was in a panic because her backpack had disappeared from the Pink House. Unfortunately when she had gone to the store room, the hotel manager was not there and all the hotel boy could say to her was ‘friend’ and ‘okay’. Relieved to discover that we did have it, she joined in with the goodbyes as Tsewang hung the traditional white katas around our necks, and - dosed up on travel sickness tablets - we said our farewell to McLeod Ganj.

The bus ride down from McLeod is always worse, so travel sickness tablets are essential. Part of the problem is simply just that the drivers are able to go much faster going down than when going up, so as the driver skirts around hairpin bends on rocky roads, the bus sways from side to side as if it is going to tip over. For a long part of the journey it felt so bendy and rocky that I wondered if we had accidentally got onto a bus to Manali by mistake, and began wondering how I could get back to Delhi in time to catch my flight. But eventually, with the help of an inflatable pillow and a cheap MP3 player that refuses to play most of what is in its library, I managed to doze off until being woken by a couple of passengers shouting at the driver. Simita told me later that the driver had dared stop for a break and that two European passengers began shouting at him to drive, threatening to call the police if he did not. While the man shouted at the driver, the woman began kicking the luggage-boy, who was asleep in the bus gangway. Kicking him to wake up she demanded to know if he was the driver. Hmm.., well no he can’t be because your boyfriend is busy shouting at the driver…. Eventually a very angry driver shouted back and started up the bus, leaving me hoping he had rested enough to take on the rest of the drive. He seemed okay, but I think he also wanted revenge because I am sure that after that he was deliberately driving over potholes - especially because the shouty couple were sitting at the back where they would really get their arses slapped. And so it was with sore backs and bottoms that we finally got off at the Tibetan colony, said we didn’t want an auto/rickshaw/taxi about a dozen times, and then found our hotel.

So early tomorrow morning it is Helsinki and London for me. Simita, who isn’t due to fly out for another three days, will try to make the most of Delhi in the mornings and evenings when it isn’t roasting too fiercely. It was a short but good trip. Simita plans to go back to McLeod for sure. Me? Well right now I could murder a decent cup of tea.

On the road to Bagshu

2009-04-14T06:14:00.000-07:00

Last time I saw this busker and his daughter, the little girl was one of the cutest things I had ever seen. Two years ago she sat playing with her baby brother, but now she has wised up and knows to beat a rhythm with stones when a possible punter appears. Rest assured I didn’t take advantage and I did give them a decent amount for filming - handing it to the girl who wisely tucked it under her leg out of sight.

Although he was playing what sounded like the same tune from two years ago, he also decided to entertain with a rendition of Happy Birthday to You. That particular tune is still under copyright, but I am sure the estate of the two old dears who composed it are not going to chase after a poor musician in northern India. Saying that, I waited for the usual composition before taking the risk of filming.

This particular musician works a patch on the Bagshu Road. For those of you who used to love it, Bagshu has changed a lot over the last seven years. More cafes and trinket stalls have sprung up, and - what I found a real shame - the worn, earth and slate-chip path to the waterfall has now been replaced with an immaculate, slate-tiled pathway. The Café with No Name also seems to be closed, although the chill-out room filled with paintings still remains. At first I was disappointed but then I walked down to the bottom, clambered onto a large rock in the middle of the stream and took my boots off to dip my feet in the cold water. Even in the midday sun I could have sat there for ages, because with the sound of the water, if one ignores the Bingo chips packets and Choco-crunch wrappers that get stuck in the nooks between the rocks, it really can be a little piece of heaven.

Norbulinka or bus(t)

2009-04-13T00:30:00.000-07:00

The new Loseling Monestary, near the Norbulinka

Yesterday I wrenched my left shoulder and sprained my right hand. I don’t usually fall out of buses, but when getting off a little local bone-shaker on the way to the Norbulinka, I missed the step completely and would have fallen badly if I hadn’t been holding on to the door.

The Norbulinka is a small oasis of calm back in India Proper. Meaning precious garden the complex is named after the Dalai Lama’s summer palace in Tibet, and comprises a garden, temple, museum, craft centre and shop. It also helps to provide refugees with skills and a livelihood. Getting there is a bit of a mission, involving being shaken about on the bus to lower Dharamsala and then switching to another to be shaken around again, but it’s well worth the trip. It’s just the return journey that seems to be worse…

After a very long wait for a bus to get back to Lower Dharamsala we were finally seated on a vehicle that had filled to bursting point; with a local mela (fair) going on, large swathes of locals were also trying to get home. And as everybody squeezed on, the bus driver soon lost his patience with a man who was leaning too far forward. Of course the man had no choice - he had barely room to breathe. But the driver wasn’t having it and after shouting at him for a bit, suddenly stopped the bus and hit the man hard two or three times. From our seats we could see that emotions were now running high at the front of the bus. Having seen so many punch-ups in India, I wasn’t completely surprised. Simita was shocked that the driver had hit a customer, and said that the man should have him charged with assault. But from what I have seen in India, a big man hitting a little man, in size or social status, is part of the status quo. I did sympathise with the victim but began to worry more that we would never get back to Dharamsala because even after being hit so hard, the man began ceaselessly badgering the driver, tapping him on the shoulder and demanding to know why he had hit him. If anything, he was resilient.

Then after that ride ended we had to get into a staging of Pamplona’s running of the bull to get on the next bus. As the bus to McLeod pulled up next to an open sewer, the hoards of people waiting surged forward in a desperate attempt to get onboard. In a free-for-all Simita ran around to the front of the bus, I was pushed out of the way by a very small but exceedingly determined child, and several of us were held up by a small cow (with horns) that got caught up in the excitement and was also running in the middle of the crowd towards the bus. Eventually with a laugh, Tsewang pushed the cow out of the way so we could get closer to the bus. I finally crossed over the open sewer and managed to get on at the front. By now the bus was full but one seat was empty except for a bag. A Tibetan man in the next seat moved the bag and I sat down gratefully until an Indian man came along insisting that it was his bag and his seat. Miffed, I looked out for a ‘ladies only’ sign so that I could point at it and go ‘Ha!’ at him, but what were the chances that I was on the only bus in India not to have gender-specific seating. Bah. I moved, but then a young man kindly gave up his seat for me. I did refuse at first but he insisted - something I was later grateful for as the bus weaved uncertainly back up the hill.

By the time we got back to McLeod it was dark and we were exhausted. The beauty of the Norbulinka and the new Loseling Monastery, which the Dalai Lama had inaugurated that morning, were distant memories. But I was happy. In my shopping bag I had a silk, hand-made cushion cover bought from the Norbulinka. Each time I have visited the Norbulinka over the past seven years I have come close to buying one but could never justify the expense. But yesterday I did not care and bought it. £23.00 for a cushion cover. Yet it must have unleashed something in me because last night, I had a very happy dream in which I had bought a Ferrarri; an odd coincidence because at the moment I am reading The monk who sold his Ferrarri. Perhaps I’m missing the point of its message…

Decisions

2009-04-11T19:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Simita and I gazed in wonder at the beauty of Amritsar’s Golden Temple, admiring the skilful architecture and relishing the serenity of this religious icon. Of course looking at photographs on Google Images isn’t the same as being there - we appreciate that. But following a decision not to go to Amritsar, Google Images was the next best thing.

There is a list of very valid reasons as to why we are not going. These involve health, climate, travel conditions, etc etc. But all of those reasons, as Tsewang aptly pointed out today, can be summed up in one word - laziness. (As I said before, very perceptive, is Tsewang.) Our desire to go is just outweighed by our reluctance to move.

In our defence, although the weather has improved here giving us the most stunning surroundings, we have been exhausted - probably because of health, loss of appetite, and an inordinate amount of walking. Yesterday as we struggled up the Yong Ling steps, Simita wondered out loud where our hotel manager walked down to the hotel because we knew he did it in a matter of seconds. I said that there was probably a secret lift or escalator that only locals knew about, and at the hilarity of my own joke had to sit down on a step because it was physically impossible to laugh and climb steps at the same time. This attracted quite a few looks as I sat and laughed, in pain, probably because it must have looked as if I had sat down and started crying.

And it has been hard work. I have declared that I no longer cared about having flabby thighs and I will never care again because I just don’t want this kind of exercise. A couple of days ago, as I panted heavily while walking through the nunnery, I thought that the nuns - who were inside at the time - must have been freaked out wondering who the heavy breather was outside their rooms. Even Sim is suffering badly, taking opportune moments to ‘admire the scenery’ to stop and have a break.

Yet anyone who has stayed here will also recognise the simplicity of our time here. The only worrying moment was when walking along the water pipe ridge, a large dog came bouncing up with unclear intentions and made for Simita. I quickly grabbed a stone and the dog hesitated. “Pick up a stone!” I yelled at Sim, who stood frozen. “Pick up a stone!” I yelled again. I shouted at the dog and showed it my stone so it backed off. Then when Sim picked up a stone and I shouted at it some more, it bounced off in the opposite direction. I have never thrown a stone at any animal here, nor seen a stone be thrown, but all of them - dogs, birds, monkeys - get out of the way if you pick one up. But with Rabies being a problem in India, dog bite is not something either of us wants to round off our holiday.

Apart from the general McLeod life of watching monks debate, walking and an awful lot of book-shopping, yesterday we went to the screening of a film based on the Chinese presentation of the ‘liberation’ of Tibet and events surrounding its 50th anniversary. The film, Distorted Propaganda, showed images of Tibet from Chinese media as well as other contemporary images. The discussion afterwards, for me, highlighted what feels like hopelessness for the situation. While the Tibetans live in hope that change will come, the rest of the world relies on China for cheap clothes, spoons, toys and anything else. Even souvenirs in many countries, supposedly symbols of those places, are made in China. And for as long as we decide to keep buying cheap stuff and do not care about how it is made, then nothing will change. Such a shame.

Now back to my room and a spot of TV because Indian television does not cease to amuse. While there are still the unnaturally white actors and actresses, and adverts that are filmed so that the models look as white as possible (they actually look more grey), a new development has been English subtitles on English programmes. So when watching a movie on HBO you can keep the volume down and read the subs instead - that is unless there is any filth in the script. Words like ‘sex’, ‘penis’, ‘rape’, breast’ are all banned; so that characters are shown as saying things like, ‘so we had last night’, ‘she didn’t marry you for your’, ‘ he me’, ‘did he you?’ or ‘so you want to improve your stroke’ (the latter sentence being about swimming). And in the move Music and Lyrics a joke mentioning the Dalai Lama was completely missed from the subs. Needless to say, it can get confusing. But there is always Tom and Jerry, and it is very hard to muck about with that.

Little bits

2009-04-09T19:33:00.001-07:00

Because I was busy moaning about the weather and sickness, I never really mentioned the little, memorable things. Before falling ill I did get to see a bit of the town and reacquaint myself with familiar faces. There had been a lot of recognition, shaking hands, exchanges of ‘how are you?’, and sitting drinking tea with old friends. Many faces here are unfamiliar to me, but there are some who were here when I first lived here seven years ago. Many of the younger Tibetans move on if they can but the traders, the beggars, the monks and nuns, and many of the Indian traders have stayed. Of course those faces change a bit. While we all age, one of the women lepers sadly seems to have lost a little bit more of her face, so while she is recognisable she has clearly deteriorated. The man who lived in the little metal box on the Jogiwara Road still lives in his metal box, and other such signs of poverty remain.

But it was a real pleasure to see my friend Yeshi (formerly Tracy to those of you who knew her). Yeshi nursed me through times of sickness seven years ago, and pushed me up the Yong Ling steps when I was exhausted and she was six months pregnant. She finally returned home to give birth to the very beautiful and lively Machig, a daughter who now bounces through life with insatiable curiosity and energy. Machig had known about my existence and like most children was excited to meet a new friend. As we walked out from the tea shop where we met, heading off to dinner, she took my hand asking if we were going to my house. I needed to use what I call the ‘Richard Gere toilets’ - so named because the actor was one of the sponsors to build this much-needed facility. “No Machig, we are going to dinner but I need to use the ladies,” I told her. A minute or so later, as we stood before the overwhelmingly smelly entrance to the underground convenience, Machig looked up with childlike wonder. “Is this the way to your house?” she asked in joyful fascination. Thank goodness no, I thought, while laughing loudly.

Some of you have asked how McLeod has changed since your own visits. It is difficult to say except that more buildings have mushroomed up in the valley, and the main cinema shack on the Jogiwara Road has gone - in fact that entire building has gone with nothing there but rubble. The post office seems less trustworthy - when I went to post a bag of blankets to my sister I was told by a female clerk who has worked there for a couple of years that there is no sea post and no surface/air mail, only air, which of course is much more expensive. According to her, all sea post has been suspended from India since the 1st January. I paid up but later checked the India post website, which mentioned surface/air mail as a quicker option to sea and a cheaper option to air. There was nothing saying that either service was suspended. So yesterday I went back to the post office and asked the woman about surface/air mail, at which she simply turned her back on me and ignored me. So I repeated the question a couple of times until the clerks began discussing it between themselves. One of the male clerks repeated to the woman what I had said about the India Post website, so eventually she told me that yes, surface/air post did exist but it was unreliable, which was why they were not using it. I could use it, she told me, but so many packages were being returned. I did not feel there was any reason to believe her, especially when she later told Simita that books were sent by sea. (The suspended sea service??)

Although McLeod Ganj is very inland I definitely smelt something fishy. The post office used to run a very good service with tourists sending huge packages on a regular basis. But now if they are sending everything by air, tourists will be spending double the price on postage. So now two shawls I had promised to a cousin in Australia are packaged up but have not been posted because the postage would make them more expensive than what she could buy in Melbourne.

Even before this postage hike I had told Simita that I saw the female clerk in the post office as a problem. Before she arrived a couple of years ago, it seemed to run more smoothly. Yesterday this was confirmed by Yeshi who told me that the woman had ‘a reputation’ for being unhelpful. Pity.

Business in McLeod is quiet too. As HH only gave a one-day teaching this year, the traders missed out on the one-month trade that usually sets them up for most of the year. No teachings, poor world economy and awful weather have all taken their toll… awful weather? Heaven be praised, the sun is out and it is a beautiful day…

Too hot too cold, too wet too dry

2009-04-09T09:54:00.000-07:00

Tibetan butter lamps

At 3am today I woke up to the sound of monsoon rain. It had not stopped raining since yesterday; just when it seemed as if the clouds were running out of water, they would squeeze out even more with the sound growing louder and harder. The town had completely disappeared as thick mist made it look as though somebody had lined my windows with cotton wool. I wondered about Simita, who was further down the Yong Ling steps in a much colder room. Last night I lent her my baby-sized hot water bottle (thank you Graeme!), which today she said was an absolute life-saver when she woke up with her back paining from a hard bed and cold.

I had also been feeling like an ancient crock. While I had managed to drag myself out of my bed yesterday, I now had a sharp pain in my hip from the hard bed, which bothered me when I stood, sat or walked, and I was still weak from being ill. As the rain hammered down both of us were completely fed up, and I felt incredibly sorry for Simita because she had not been able to see anything of the place. So we started looking at our options.

Too wet - too dry, too hot - too cold; that was our problem. While we were freezing in McLeod Ganj, a check on the weather report showed that our next destination (Amritsar) was baking hot. Oh to be in England! At least that was the thought that crossed our minds more than once - especially with news that Blighty was enjoying pleasant weather right now. But we finally decided to leave McLeod on the 13th for Amritsar, or earlier if the weather did not improve - before rheumatism set in.

At 3am it looked as if we would have to leave. But eventually, after the mist lifted, dropped, lifted, dropped, and lifted for a final time, bringing or taking the rain with it, the weather cleared. Grabbing the chance we headed up the steps and into town.

So this afternoon, Simita finally got to see something as accompanied by Tsewang we plodded down the long, long flight of steps to a monastery where Tibetan butter sculptures are on permanent display and where monks learn the art of making sand mandalas. Of course this meant we had to walk back up the long, long flight of steps - something which took me much longer than usual (which would always be a long time) as queasiness and low blood sugar slowed me down.

As Sim enjoyed a ‘Goan chicken curry’ and I picked on baby baked potatoes, we discussed our options for Amritsar. Apparently the best way to get there is the 5am bus from Lower Dharamsala. On this we are in complete agreement - it doesn’t matter how convenient or direct it is, neither of us is getting out of bed at 3.30am for anything. The next option is a local bus to Pathankot and then train or bus to Amritsar. Having done the ‘local’ bus to Pathankot, I favour taking a taxi to Pathankot. Simita, never having done it before, understandably wants the adventure and to take the local bus, despite my attempts to put her off it. In the end she may take the bus while I take a taxi and meet her there. So there is always a compromise. In the meantime, we are hoping for sunshine so that until then we can enjoy this wonderful place. I suspect this could be my last trip to McLeod so I don’t want to go without saying goodbye properly.

Not a good start...

2009-04-07T09:55:00.000-07:00

Early this morning I was lying in bed with a small bottle of water and a rehydration salts sachet, but too weak to put them together. From about 10pm I had been throwing up so violently that at one point I thought I’d come close to finding out what it would be like to choke to death on my own vomit. On the bright side, it had only started once the electricity came back on. Yesterday it rained for most of the day, beating down like a monsoon, and then finishing off with a tremendous storm. As bangs and crashes could be heard from the valley as objects hurled about in the wind, the electricity was turned off in the entire town. Thankfully I wasn’t being sick then so didn’t have to do it all by torchlight.

Getting sick in India is no great surprise, but I have never had it happen so quickly. I’ve also never had it happen so violently - in the small hours I had to drag a chair into my bathroom so I could puke in comfort. But I think I have been lucky; now the worst has passed there is no stomach cramping, so it looks like it could have cleared.

Since then I have been locked away in my room, watching TV and occasionally nibbling plain biscuits and sipping bottled water. As a bonus, my room does have wi-fi access so right now, I am lying down, typing this with one hand. Two hands would involve too much energy. I had planned on going to the second day of a conference on Attention, Memory and Mind being held by the Dalai Lama and a group of scientists, discussing science and Buddhism. Of course ordinary folks like me don’t get to attend the real thing - only high lamas, the scientists themselves, and invited guests like Richard Gere. But the whole procedure is being screened live to a room in a nearby monastery.

On the first day of the conference, I initially thought that I was the only westerner there who wasn’t fluent in Tibetan. In addition to the Tibetans, the audience was filled with grey-haired westerners who were clearly all Buddhist practitioners. Ironically, though, the westerners seem to take things much more seriously than the Tibetans. At one point during the discussion, a psychologist was comparing the mind to a jigsaw puzzle before presenting the Dalai Lama with one saying, “And now you own your own jigsaw puzzle.” While most people chuckled, two European women to my left frowned, angrily pursing their lips into what I call a ‘cat’s arse’ face. “Treating him like a child,” one of the women muttered to the other. The second woman agreed.

Then the psychologist said to the Dalai Lama that his study of the mind made him an engineer. “Your Holiness has said that if you had not been the Dalai Lama that you would have liked to have been an engineer. But you do not need to come back in your next life to be one because you already are an engineer.” The two women did not like that comment at all, this ordinary mortal being so familiar with HH. “He has no respect,” the second woman muttered.

When the session ended I overheard them discussing how they didn’t like it when people spoke to the Dalai Lama with such familiarity; yet the man himself clearly enjoys it. One reason why he is so popular is because of his sense of fun. At the end of the session, when the psychologist was having trouble with his microphone, the Dalai Lama offered to hold it for him, with a big smile playfully waving it like a sword in front of the man’s face.

Hopefully tomorrow I will be up and about and able to attend the next session of the conference. Even sitting on a cushion on the ground for hours at a time beats staring at the view from my window. Being poorly is a miserable experience. Being poorly in India is not to be recommended. And it’s at moments like this that I wonder if I could be getting too old for this backpacking lark…

My friend Simita, however, has had her own troubles. A couple of days ago she took a pair of boots to be resoled. Simple enough, one would think, except for the fact that the man gave her size 6 soles instead of size 7.5, even cutting the boots to make them fit the new soles. She then ended up waiting for hours while he got another shoe repair man to support him, went looking (unsuccessfully) for the original soles so she could get them repaired, and was abused by a crowd of people who gathered and told her that she was a woman and should know her place, and that she should pay the man because he was poor - even though he had ruined her boots and she had to pay a lot more for them to be repaired by someone else. Eventually she said she would go to the police and so the matter was dropped, but even now she feels she can’t walk down the Bagshu Road.

Not a great start to the holiday, but we remain optimistic!

The Himalayan workout

2009-04-05T08:56:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up in pain. My legs, unused these days to doing very much at all, were protesting angrily at all the work they’d had to put up with in one day. Hardly surprising because yesterday, as I carried my 65-litre backpack up the stairs to the Pink Hotel, my legs were literally shaking. Who needs Cher Fitness Videos when there are the foothills of the Himalayas?

My friend Tsewang finds my suffering very amusing; understandable considering he is someone who walked from Tibet to Nepal through the Himalayas, and so it has to be laughable that I can’t manage a few measly hills and steps. But I have my excuses, the main one being that common western disease - the middle age spread. Six years ago in McLeod Ganj, I was half my current size. “It’s not enough exercise,” I said.

“It’s chocolate,” he said. Very perceptive, I thought.

So today, by the time I had dragged myself out of bed and up the Yong Ling steps, the sun was beating down fiercely as it was getting close to lunchtime. Cutting through the nunnery opposite the Chocolate Log cafe, I took the short cut along a ridge covered with water-pipes to get to the Buddhist Dialectic School where Tsewang lives. Depending upon the time of year, the ridge can be in a variety of states. All year round it is an obstacle course as a steady stream of monks, nuns, laypeople and tourists pick their way over the latticework of thin pipes that runs half its length and sometimes spouts precious water when broken. During the monsoon the ridge is half washed away, and when the weather is mild, parts of it will be covered in building materials or it will be dotted with holes as work is carried out. Sometimes, on a day like today, the ridge is hopping with monkeys or alive with white, black-spotted butterflies; but always it commands the most spectacular views of the hills.

Conveniently, I arrived at the school just as another monk was cooking for Tsewang and a group of students. While we waited for lunch (or breakfast for me), Tsewang showed me film footage of his village in Kham, Tibet; a place he left more than two decades ago when he was just a boy of fourteen. Because of the Chinese government’s reaction to the protests in Tibet last year, communication to his area is cut with phone lines and email still disconnected one year on. But word does get out eventually and according to reports, he said, a number of farmers had been recently hurt or killed after carrying out their own protest by refusing to work on the land.

Tomorrow, in pain or not, I need to be up early. The Dalai Lama is holding a conference with scientists on Buddhism and science, and Tsewang has invited me to attend the live screening in the Dialectic school. This means I have to forget being on London time and be there by 9am. In my time that means 4.30am. Eek.

Hopefully my legs will have stopped shaking by then.

Leaving Delhi

2009-04-03T23:07:00.000-07:00

True to her word, Sim had sorted out tickets to get us to McLeod Ganj straight away. But by the time the Bedi Tours bus turned up it was so late that instead of giving passengers time to board, it started up and took off while people were still trying to find their seats. During that time I received a small bang to the head by a stray elbow, so ending the curse placed on me earlier by a beggar woman.

Why was I cursed? Because after I had given this elderly woman a little change I refused to add to it when she came back for more. My refusal with the additional comment that I had already given her money fell on deaf ears as she continued her ceaseless mantra of pleading for more cash. So eventually I did something I have never done before; I stuck my fingers in my ears and sang out ‘la la la la la’. Of course this only made her step up her efforts, as she pleaded loudly and tugged at my sleeve. It was then that I told her to go and she retaliated by cursing me with ‘bad luck’. So when I was knocked on the head about ten minutes later, probably with the same impact as a falling acorn, I decided that the curse had been completed.

After the usual sleepless night, bumpy roads, and playing ‘find the toilet’ at chai stops, we arrived in McLeod Ganj and found rooms at the bottom of the Yong Ling steps (about 100 steps down into a valley). Later on I found a nicer room at the Pink House (your old room Melissa!) and slowly carried my backpack back part way up the steps.

Sim and I have had chai, she has had banana pancake, I have had toast from Tibetan bread, and I have popped in to see my good friend Tsewang. Now before hitting the shower room and washing off the remnants of last night’s bus journey I am now enjoying a spot of modern Indian culture in the form of the Cartoon Network - old Tom and Jerry cartoons. Brilliant. Then sleep…..

Delhi and doubts

2009-04-03T04:09:00.000-07:00

A view from my hotel. Delhi.

Lying on the hard, wooden bed I wondered if I had done the right thing. Despite India still being that one bit of abroad that always lures me back, it has to be (in my experience so far) the most irritating country anywhere.

I think I say that with affection…

I was in good humour from the airport. My driver, who charmingly introduced himself as Raj, wanted me to sit next to him, patting the passenger seat with what he probably thought was irresistible allure. But I know my place and as a female travelling alone with a male driver, it is definitely not next to him! Ignoring his disappointment I hurled my backpack into the back, but then the nagging began. Of course there were the usual questions of profession and personal life, and I almost slipped up by not pretending to be married, catching myself in time and inventing a manly yet intellectual husband (my husband of choice this time was an army officer until I went off the idea and made him a college professor instead - thankfully Raj didn’t seem to notice the switch). But travelling alone without my husband was very bad, he told me. Not having children was very bad too. Did I drink alcohol and smoke? he asked. At this point I realised he was checking to see how loose my morals were and so feigned horror at the very thought, after which point the conversation suddenly died.

I was grateful for the silence because with Raj’s nagging and the late hour, I was tired. Relaxing, I stretched my arm along the back seat only to retract it quickly. As I felt a string of little bites I realised that something was living in the upholstery so for the rest of the journey sat away from the seat, imagining being taken over by fleas.

So I was glad to see Wongden House in Delhi’s Tibetan Colony, where I had reserved a single deluxe room. It only took a few minutes of ringing the bell and knocking on the door to rouse the hotel boy who was clearly off kipping in a room rather than at his designated spot on the floor in reception. He gave me the room key and asked for my passport. The desk clerk wasn’t going to be in for a few hours, he explained, so he’d keep it and return it later in the day.

Yet ever since a bank clerk once wandered off with my passport for more than an hour and scared the living daylights out of me, I have developed a strong, protective instinct over my passport. “No, I said.” I would keep it and come down to register in the morning. The hotel boy produced a pile of highly valuable passports that were sitting unguarded on the counter as proof that I had nothing to worry about. Hmm. Somehow, that just didn’t make me feel any better about the situation. Yet my refusal had thrown him, as he insisted and insisted, looking quite distressed when I put my passport away in my bag. I knew that I could trust him, yet I also knew that I would not get one wink of sleep if I handed it over. Also I wasn’t in the mood to play ‘shanti shanti’ with something so important.

Finally after lugging my backpack up four flights of stairs, stopping to claw my way back from the brink of a heart attack every few steps, I found myself in an ordinary room. “I booked a single deluxe,” I told the boy, who began mumbling and poking around the tiny room, looking under the beds and prodding the mattresses. This, the mumbling and the poking, carried on for a little while and even though the sensible and experienced part of my brain knew I was onto a losing battle, that I would not get my single deluxe, the tired, grumpy part of me just wanted to shower and do whatever I needed to do in a private bathroom. “Where is my bathroom then?” I asked, as he carried on looking under the beds, thinking you‘re not going to find one under there.

But there was no point to the conversation. “I will go downstairs…mumble mumble mumble… and come back… mumble mumble,” the hotel boy lied.

Of course I knew that he wasn’t going to check anything and no way was he coming back. This was just his way of saying, “You are scaring me now so I am running away to go and hide.”

Defeated, I locked the door, deciding that my need to sleep was more overpowering than my need to be clean. And as I lay on the bed, exhausted, I wondered what the hell I was doing in India.

An hour later I was suddenly awakened by an urgent banging on my door. I called out ‘just a minute’ but the banging continued. Could there be a problem? I opened the door to a young man who was pointing down the corridor and saying one word to me. I thought he was saying ‘sheet’, and wondered why I would need clean sheets now. But he was saying ‘shift’, instructing me to change rooms. “No thanks,” I said, and stomped back to my hard, wooden bed for some more disturbed sleep.

But since then things have improved, mainly with the onset of sleep. The desk clerk, when I finally checked in, was very apologetic about the room mix-up. Having rested, I was more rational and knew that it wasn’t a big deal. My friend Simita, who has been in Delhi for two days, then met me at midday for a long lunch to catch up on the gossip. “I’ll have a banana pancake,” Sim told the waiter.

“No, no pancakes now,” the waiter informed her. Breakfast was over. “Not possible,” he said apologetically.

Unsure of what to order, Sim studied the menu again and found banana pancakes listed under the desserts. Could she have a banana pancake as it was also listed as a dessert? “Oh yes,” the waiter said. “No problem.”

And so despite the irritation, I think that is why I always come back. Because to use an American expression that says it all, India just makes you need to go figure. At least it is never dull.

The Cat Empire, a night out in Frankston

2009-03-23T09:03:00.000-07:00

As I didn't get a photo of The Cat Empire, here is a meerkat instead

Before leaving Aus I had to sample at least a little bit of the Victorian nightlife; although of course when I say Victorian this refers to the state of Victoria, not the historical period under the British queen who reigned for about a million years. So rather than taking me to a gin shop full of street urchins and vagabonds, followed by some jellied eels and a cheap ticket at the music hall, cousin Sydney took me to Frankston to see Melbourne band The Cat Empire.

This was a gig filled with potential; the venue, Pier Live, was filled with Cat Empire fans who knew all the words to all the songs, and the band comprised talented musicians (despite some rather long, self-indulgent solos and rather a lot of wailing from one of the vocalists). But with a terrible sound system, sadly it sounded as if the band were playing in the pub next door rather than on a stage maybe forty feet in front of us. And to add to any sensory deprivation, anything we could see was partially ruined by a couple dancing/simulating sex right in our line of sight. Yet it was a good night, probably especially for the couple in front of us.

But to the management of the Pier Live venue, you really need to sort out your facilities. One trip to the ladies’ room meant wandering forlornly from cubicle to cubicle, trying to find:

a) A clean cubicle
b) A clean cubicle with a door
c) A clean cubicle with a door that shuts
d) A clean cubicle with a door that shuts and bolts.

Well no such luck there. I think one cubicle may have had all of these qualities but only the brave would have ventured inside because the toilet seat was down - and we all know what that means. And so it was the old thing of having to hover while jamming a foot against the cubicle door. Yes, yes, it is all part of the nightlife experience, but is it really necessary? So please, Pier Live Management, sort it out!

Yet it was probably all in keeping with Frankston, which at night turned out to be a bit rough around the edges. Syd and I ended up in a late night chip shop surrounded by late nighters who staggered into the shop and outside on the street, shouting and, in some cases, gibbering. As we walked along the pavement towards the car, I overheard a young woman asking a young man if he made sausages. Keep in mind that we were no longer in the chip shop. “No but do you make real sausages?” she said in a voice loaded with meaning.

Ah, and who said romance was dead?

The best excuse for a delayed train - Aussie style

2009-03-16T04:47:00.000-07:00

I’ve heard some excuses for delayed trains before; in England it is usually something to do with fat leaves on the line, the weather being too hot or too cold. In India, well, they don’t give you a reason, in Japan… well the trains aren’t usually late… but today on a train into Melbourne city I heard the best excuse ever. I didn’t get everything but this is as near as dammit:

“This is an announcement for the passengers who have just joined us, especially the man who joined us at Cranbourne who was looking at his watch. This is a seamless train which is a Teutonic tribute to engineering, which after five years of buck-passing still has unresolved braking issues. Safety advisors have said that the train should not be driven at more than 30Km per hour when approaching stations, which I will do accordingly because I don’t want to risk my livelihood driving this sub-standard rolling stock. So this train is late, and will get later. I seriously advise you to reconsider who you will vote for in the next election.”

I suspect the guy could lose his job for that one, but you could hear where he was coming from.

Once in the city I joined a cousin before getting arrested and slung into jail, ending up in a stinky cell with the lights out. This was all part of the Old Melbourne Jail tour, where tourists are treated like criminals, made to line up, given a cavity examination (just of the mouth, you’ll be relieved to hear) and shouted at a lot by an actress who looks like a cop from Home and Away. Being a woman, I got off lightly compared to my cousin; the men were slung into a cell with an overflowing drain - you can probably guess what that was all about. What struck me was how easily people fall into the role of obedience in the presence of authority - even fake authority. Once told to line up in the cell we found that even after the door was slammed shut and the light switched off nobody moved. I was thinking that if it was lights out we wouldn't still stand in line, but when another woman commented that we couldn’t just stay standing another said the cop would kill us if we dared move.

After our release from jail we headed off to one of Melbourne’s art galleries. There were many wonderful pieces but the broom nailed to a wall had to top it all. This exhibit comprised a broom, a picture of said broom, and a dictionary definition of the word ‘broom’ all stuck on the wall. I’m sorry but brooms stuck on walls or sewing machines wrapped in sheets and tied up with string just try my patience when it comes to art. This is when we need to have that train driver around for a bit of straight talking………

The sublime to the ridiculous

2009-03-12T19:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my cousin Sydney took me to the beach where we had lunch, chatted, walked, watched the fishermen and the sea. But by the time the sun had begun to disappear over the horizon, jet-lag was overtaking me, so this photograph was taken from inside his car; I was feeling far too lazy to get out of the vehicle and just stuck my camera out of the window. Yet the fire in the sky, creating a halo above the sea was sublime.

And then there was the ridiculous.

Sydney openly chuckled in my face when I had said we should have a gelati each. But in my defence, usually if you order gelati in England, you get a sensible bowl with a couple of scoops of ice cream. Here, in this beach-side restaurant there was a sensible bowl, oh yes, but just take a look at the size of the dessert...

Flavours included mint choc, vanilla, orange and chocolate, mango, strawberry, and something else that I could only describe as 'Indian jam' - very sweet, with a hint of soft fruit and cough medicine. Thankfully the waiter ignored my order and brought only one. After merely denting it, Syd and I left the rest to melt, flood the plate and cause a puddle of liquid sugar...

Postcard from Melbourne

2009-03-11T12:51:00.000-07:00

Melbourne's 'fairy tree' by Olga Cohn, MBE

Australia, for me, has to be the hardest country to blog about. This is my third visit to the place and I am yet to find anything that has made such an impact on me - for good or bad - that I felt compelled to write about it. And this is because, firstly, I obviously have not seen enough of the country and, secondly, because Australia is a nice country. Not only is it spacious, clean and friendly, but the culture is pretty easy to slip into. Admittedly, when one of the airport customs officials called me by my first name it did offend my formal, English sensibilities; after all, we had not been introduced, I didn’t think we were on a date and, more importantly, he was just a whippersnapper. But that is Australia. Yesterday, when out roaming Melbourne I found myself sucked into quite a few conversations. It was a little unnerving at first; I had gone to get a morning coffee and while ordering my cappuccino was asked by the waiter if I had a busy day lined up, where I would be going, was there anything I had planned on seeing…. So much so that I instantly had flashbacks to American passport control.

But as a tourist, that easy friendliness is what I like about Australia. As a London-suburbanite it can be hard to fathom because, let’s face it, in the southeast of England we don’t talk to each other even though we can be forced to be intimate every day - squashing up together on the underground so close that we could be making love. So for us it can be hard to interpret that Australian friendliness. For instance, when I found a set of car keys in a café yesterday and asked two nearby businessmen if they belonged to them (they did), I was told by one, “But it’s a great way to meet people.” Now if a man in London came out with that line it is unlikely he’d be sober (which is probably why he lost his keys in the first place).

And just to add to Melbourne’s friendliness the city has parked red-shirted volunteers around the place to help out any confused tourists. Now, one asks, just what is wrong with the London system of tourists approaching somebody for directions and being told either, “I don’t speak English,” or “I’m not from here.”? It’s worked in London for years, but for some reason that system just ain’t good enough for the Aussies.

So after all this praise of Australian affability, what did I end up doing? What Australian attractions drew my attention? Well, there was Captain Cook’s cottage, which has been transported from Yorkshire, England, to a public park, there was a model Tudor English village to look at, and, finally, I spent the afternoon soaking up a beautiful exhibition at the Immigration Museum…. on Hampi, India. In between, I met my cousin Ruth for a curry at lunchtime. So with Tudor England, a Yorkshire cottage with its authentic English kitchen garden, and the sights, sounds and tastes of India, I think I am yet to discover Australian culture. But there is still time.

California dreamin'

2009-02-19T07:39:00.000-08:00

This lucky ducky gets the pool all to itself, bah!

Whenever I head off to California, people at home always get excited for me. And I guess this is because the west coast of America always drums up images of blue skies, beaches and, for those of us old enough to know it, the music of The Mamas and the Papas.

And it is true; there are wonderful beaches and a sky so blue that it could have been painted on. There are mountains, sometimes topped with snow, sometimes brown and scorched by the sun.
But then there are also the endless roads that look the same, having to drive for half an hour just to get anywhere, the box-buildings that could be a supermarket, a book shop, a Taco Bell - with no way of knowing until you see the sign because they are all identical.

And then there is Bakersfield.

There is an old Burt Reynolds film called The End in which he plays a selfish divorcee who discovers that he has a terminal disease. When trying to explain to his young daughter that he has to go away, while implying that he is going to die, he says that he has to go away. "Where daddy?" she asks.

"Bakersfield," he replies gloomily.

It says it all.

My friend's husband also told me that before he accepted his current job in Bakersfield he had gone to the doctor with back and shoulder problems only to be told that many people seemed to develop psycho-somatic symptoms before transferring to Bakersfield. It's not that Bakersfield is terrible. In fact Americans have a lot to thank Bakersfield for - carrots and beetroot in particular, so I am told. In fact this is a huge farming area responsible for putting a great deal of grub on the counters of America's all-you-can-eat buffets.

But the highlights of Bakersfield life are limited. Near to where my friends live there is a woman who has to dress up as the Statue of Liberty and stand on the street corner with a billboard. That is quite interesting because it livens up the streets that are otherwise devoid of any kind of human existence. And one can get quite knackered trying to make it from one end of the mall to the other. Beyond that, the glamorous life of California Dreaming is far away. Even Barbara Streisand's sister, a successful singer in her own right, recently performed in front of a tiny crowd. My friend, who has now lived here for a couple of years, said that while Bab's sister was wonderful, people in Bakersfield just don't really go out for that kind of evening.

And so at the moment I am enjoying what I came for; the company of wonderful friends. There is a luscious, blue swimming pool outside, but only the plastic ducky can use it right now until the sun heats up the water during the summer scorcher. But we chat in the car and go from one chore to the next, we have lunch in a Panda Express where one can eat until one explodes just for a few dollars, and we walk around the neighbo(u)rhood admiring the mountains in the distance. And there is always ping pong and croquet in the garden.

It's a good life. Who needs LA, eh?

Happy landings

2009-02-14T04:40:00.000-08:00

The Happy Landing was the name of a pub in a town where I once lived, yet even though the pub sign depicted an aeroplane, I didn't really know what the words meant. To me it was just a place where we met the school bus.

But a happy landing depends upon a couple of things; firstly, obviously, landing at all and preferably breathing and in one piece. Secondly, what kind of welcome you get at the airport.

My favourite airport experiences so far are in a toss-up between India, Japan and Australia. Once at passport control in an Indian airport my mood was instantly lifted by a gaudy, fake flower in a gaudy, fake flower pot on an immigration official's desk. For anyone who hasn't been to India, locals decorate their buses, trucks, elephants, anything, and so this was fairly typical for India, but not usual for their airports - more is the pity. I have never seen it happen since then, but still hope that India makes flowers compulsory for all of its immigration officials' desks, or even better, little shrines to God complete with flashing lights.

Of course flattery is nice too. While one Indian official (a few years ago, now) complimented me upon my youthful looks, I once also enjoyed the twinkle in an Aussie official's eye. Well he wasn't being flattering, just twinkly and rather sexy, which always goes down well after a long flight.

Sadly though this is in contrast to the USA. While security is a great concern for everybody, it seems that America is turning it into an art form. Recently, the USA introduced an online visa waiver authorisation, which all people travelling under the visa waiver scheme must complete at least three days before travelling. This is in addition to the advanced passenger information one must provide to the airline, and - so I heard - is supposed to replace the green visa waiver forms passengers usually hand in on landing. Yet even though the online visa waiver authorisation asks the same security questions as the old green forms (are you a terrorist, insane, etc), the old green forms are still being used - even though, rather ironically, they mention something about paper reduction at the bottom - duplicating passenger information.

A while ago the USA also introduced fingerprinting for all people entering the country. From what I recall from previous trips, this meant having one's photo taken and index finger and thumb printed. However this clearly is not enough now and so under current procedure all fingers and both thumbs are printed. As I passed through Los Angeles immigration the other day, it left me wondering if there were any other parts of the human body that are unique and whether these will be photographed too. Maybe American airports will introduce a 'wobbly bottom' line-up or 'knobbly knees' competition. Okay, I know I am being silly. Let's be realistic. They will probably just introduce DNA swabs and be done with it.

And then there are the burning questions. In America one is asked one's profession and duration of journey at about three separate points. This cunning plan is clearly designed to trip you up, because while you might remember to lie the first couple of times and say something harmless like 'office clerk', on the third questioning you might forget and slip up, accidentally revealing that you are a spy, evil dictator, or something really malicious like a lawyer.

But I shouldn't poke fun. America's burning questions are nothing compared to when one is entering Israel. And if travelling on El Al, the interrogation begins before boarding (or at least it did a few years ago - it could have changed by now). Then one is interrogated by dark-suited officials who disappear after about twenty minutes only to be replaced by a new batch who ask the same questions, and almost convince you that even your mother could have planted a bomb in that packet of chewing gum she gave you before the flight. There are no lie detectors or bright lights in your face, but somehow it feels as though these would make an interesting effect.

Yet, seriously, the burning questions reflect the concerns of the country. Australia, which in a cheerful, characteristic way writes, 'We hope you enjoy your stay in Australia' on its visa authorisation, is obsessed with food. It's not that the Australian nation is starving - far from it, the country has some of the most amazing restaurants I have ever encountered, one of which still gives me very happy memories of a boat-shaped lemon pie with creme Anglais. Australians just don't want any of your food. 'No thank you,' they would probably say. 'We have enough food. We just don't want yours because it smells.' In my experience (so far) the Aussie airport official is friendly (occasionally sexy) and polite, but will reel off a mouthwatering menu of items that you had better not have stashed in your knickers. Bring in a ham sandwich and I suspect the cheerful persona will instantly end.....although, in retrospect, I imagine that if it was discovered that you had something like a pot of honey with you the official would probably say, 'Oh mate, I was so going to let you in but now I'm going to have to throw you in jail for a million years. That is sooo disappointing. I feel for you mate, but one drop of that honey could wipe out our entire eco-system, and interfere with our bees so much they'll be making a float for the Easter parade.'

The other burning question, of course, is how long you are staying. This is something that really should be done with tact - after all, tourists are visitors to a country; imagine how it would feel if you turned up to visit friends only to be asked 'when are you leaving?' before you had even walked through the door. Australia seems to do quite well on this one because it seems to use reverse psychology. While officials in other countries (okay, particularly the USA) may ask for how long you are staying with a tone that implies that you are not really welcome, in my experience (so far) the Aussie official is offended if you are not staying for long enough (within the confines of your visa, of course). You should have heard the tone of one who appeared quite miffed that my mother, sister and I were only visiting for 10 days. "Why only 10 days? That's not long enough," as if we had just insulted his family. He then listened to our reasons with an unconvinced expression and did not look best pleased when we said we couldn't change our tickets.

But finally, there is Japan. Japan asks these questions too, takes security procedures, and bans certain items into the country. And yet you may barely notice it all happening because it will be done in a polite, harmonious way that quite possibly promotes inner peace. Last time I visited Tokyo the little computer screens on the officials' desks had borders of pink cherry blossom with the word 'Welcome' in a white fluffy cloud. A sign with a cartoon character holding out his paw in a 'stop' gesture told all travellers what items were prohibited into the country, and before I knew it I was being helped by a very sweet and polite gentleman to open up my luggage for a harmonious inspection of my personals. But on putting my suitcase onto the counter I discovered that the lock had been broken, causing me to gasp in horror and surprise. Rather comfortingly, he was horrified and surprised too, and I think almost as sorry as I was.

All of these things, politeness, empathy, gaudy flowers, pink blossom and a 'spunky' immigration official can make a landing a happy one. So, in conclusion, I guess that is what the pub sign meant....

Taking off

2009-02-13T06:59:00.000-08:00

In this world of political correctness, part of the fun of people-watching is over because even if others conform to the stereotypes of their nationality, we are not really supposed to mention it. But it works both ways, and every time I get on a flight from Here to There I notice what a British stereotype I can be.

Yesterday - or thereabouts - I had been playing that popular British sport How to queue nicely while waiting to board a British Airways flight to America. This meant that when my fellow passengers broke the rules and committed the heinous crime of queue jumping, I gave them the appropriate Evil Look and stepped forward to claim my rightful place in the queue - even though the flight wasn't exactly going to take off without me. And when the lady standing behind me, who culturally (and I say this from years of experience of her country) had no concept of personal space, and seemed to want to cuddle up to me while queuing, I would give her the appropriate Glare of Irritation and take a step forward to create the required space between us - only for her to step forward too, filling the space immediately. Who knows, maybe a space threatens to turn into a vortex and suck up the universe, and I am just ignorant of such things and she was fact saving all life on earth by nestling up to me.

Once boarded I was sat next to two women, a pleasant New Zealander heading home, and a graceful German who despite having legs that stretched up to her earlobes was able to curl up in the foetal position and sleep, hidden under a blue blanket, for most of the flight. But of course we hadn't got to the sleep stage yet. First our flight had to go through the traditional delay, with a wait of one hour and twenty minutes during which time the New Zealander simply pulled out a book and read, even though she faced missing a connection. The poor German girl, however, succeeded in getting very agitated, giving regular updates on how much time had passed and how terrible the delay was; I suppose that is the curse of coming from a country where transport tends to be efficient. I just had the expression 'mustn't grumble' going on in my head.

Towards the end of the flight, when the final rounds of tea and coffee were going on, as the steward reached me and I said, "Tea please" a look of mutual understanding passed between us. There didn't seem to be many other Brits in my part of the plane, and to me it sounded as though my accent and desire for tea conveyed something that only he could understand.

"It's a good Northern brew," he told me with a smile. But the words meant so much more than that. He was my drug dealer and he knew it. He gave it out but he also had intimate knowledge of the pleasure that it gave. Aye get it down yer neck girl. It'll do you good - put hairs on yer chest that brew will. That's what it meant. And if I wanted to dabble in the hard stuff, I could always have a chunky Kitkat on the side.

When he collected my cup he asked if I had enjoyed the flight. "Yes thanks," I said. ".....and that was a good cuppa." I looked him in the eye hoping he could read my mind. He was the man with the pot (of tea), and he had me hooked. What I wanted to say was any chance of another? but the flight was coming in to land and so I knew it was futile.

He just smiled at me, as one stereotype to another, and moved on.

Ciao ciao Cyberabad

2008-12-08T09:14:00.000-08:00

With a flight booked for 7.30am I had to be up by about 1am. But any hope of getting as much sleep as possible was dashed when I was woken by two of my cousin's friends who had turned up late at night for what seemed to be a late night chat - and because one didn't want to go to his mother's house to lock the gate (Don't ask - I'm just relaying what I heard). My poor cousin had sat up with them all night and so had missed out on any sleep and now looked exhausted.

Dominic was escorting me to the airport, but when the taxi came his friends bundled in too, making more of a party atmosphere to my leaving. And so with Lata Mangeshkar screaming out Bollywood hits through a speaker right by my ears, we zoomed off into the night, with Secunderabad looking something like a deserted film set, all empty doorways and dusty roads. When it was this quiet without the headaches, I felt quite sad to leave it. But recently during the night, I had been woken several times by loud bangs and for the the first time ever in India, found myself wondering whether it was fireworks or gunfire. Of course with the wedding season in full swing it was fireworks, and yet I found myself worried at my own paranoia.

To wake up the boys we stopped briefly by a tea stand by the side of a slip road into what looked like a motorway. Hyderabad and Secunderabad are full of modern roads and constructions, and yet as though clinging on to the old ways, three women wearing modern safety jackets over their saris bent double as they swept the road with small, grass brooms; a pointless task, it seemed to me, as the Indian dust relentlessly takes over roads, homes and living creatures. As the women swept in the gloom, men huddled around the stall drinking chai and gossiping. I didn't want tea so stayed in the car, while remembering that feeling of drinking hot, sweet chai in the cool night air, with the sound of bottled gas burning as the chai walla makes fresh omlettes for the hungry hoards.

But soon we arrived at Hyderabad's airport, a place that goes by the name of Shamshabad, or Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, or Hyderabad Airport, or - as the stamp on my passport now shows - Cyberabad. And with British Airways taking its maiden flight from there, everything was to run like clockwork, with BA staff doing their utmost to make the experience a good one - even presenting each passenger with rock hard, Indian-made chocolates in a BA box bearing a celebratory picture of the Charminar. But it's the thought that counts. And everyone loves a freebie.

Yet while BA was doing its best, despite the modern glory of Cyberabad airport, the old 'shanti shanti' attitude was still rife. At passport control, two men sat at their posts looking as though they were having a nap. When I approached one he blanked me for several minutes and continued his rest; he didn't look at me and didn't say anything to me and so I stood confused, unsure as to whether I should go to another counter. Eventually he showed signs of life, sat up, stabbed a finger at his computer and took my passport. "Form," he grunted. I handed over my departure card. Without looking at me at all, or even checking to see whether I matched the mug shot photo he stamped my passport and handed it back without even glancing my way. So if I were someone else travelling on a stolen passport.... whoopee!

At the next stop - security - several people in uniform sat around chatting without it being clear which machines were in operation and whether anyone was actually working. Barrier tapes stretched across most of the gates so it was not even obvious where passengers were supposed to walk. Eventually a man or a woman - I couldn't tell which, either a plain girl or a pretty boy - looked at me and wordlessly made a waving hand gesture. "Sorry?" I said, unable to understand this form of communication. S/he made the gesture again. I said "sorry?" again. S/he waved his/her hand again, this time more irritated, before saying in a voice that implied that I was an idiot, "Put your bag on the machine" pointing to a machine that looked unmanned and switched off. I put my bags on and said to him/her in my most disapproving voice (which I have been told can be quite nasty), "Sorry, I didn't understand what (makes hand gesture) meant." S/he looked away. The mood I was in, I wished I could have been evil or at least sent him/her to the corner of the room to stand in shame.

Once through security I found myself in Shamshabad's glittering duty free emporium. But no sooner had I walked in then I was descended upon by at least half a dozen sales assistants who despite being in this plush, modern set-up, behaved no different to street hawkers; hassling me to look and buy. So whereas I actually needed some new sunglasses and wouldn't have minded looking at the cosmetics, I ended up refusing to look at anything and escaping as quickly as possible, rushing to hide out in the very comfortable Plaza Premium Lounge.* And so with very mixed feelings of sorrow, irritation, regret and relief it was goodbye to India. More than usual it has been a roller coaster ride, and this time with a real appreciation of my guardian angels.

* For an annual fee, travellers can purchase a priority pass, which entitles them to use lounges in airports around the world. If like me you travel in cattle class, it is well worth the expense. See www.prioritypass.com

Pants

2008-12-05T05:49:00.001-08:00

And very quickly I had to share this with you all. As many of you know, India is a real combination of the modern and ancient. And yet it seem that the proliferation of the modern hasn't yet spread all the way through Hyderabad. This became apparent to me when the servant produced a rather large, comfy pair of men's underpants and asked me if they were mine. Apart from being slightly offended, obviously (to moi) they were my cousin's. I refuse to believe that it could be thought that a woman could wear something like that.... surely!!!???

Coming to the land of ice and snow...

2008-12-05T04:49:00.000-08:00

Limca: 'Contains no fruit'

Out of twelve trips to India I have cut four short; one by four days because my husband and I were exhausted and sick, and the train journey to Varanasi and back seemed soooo long, another because the UK Foreign Office warned me to leave immediately, another because after a few months I felt it was time to stop being a lazy bum and go home and get a job, and now this time. (Out of those twelve trips two were extended, so it works both ways.)

But one thing always happens once that decision is made; apart from feeling anxious to just get on that plane and plug into light entertainment, I always start enjoying India more. Today, after picking up my ticket Dominic, his friend Claude and I headed off to see Hyderabad's stone Buddha. Standing at over 17.5 metres it is one of Asia's (possibly the world's?) largest monoliths, set on a small island in the middle of Tank Bund. Since first attempts to erect it resulted in it keeling over and killing a few people in the process, it has been considered unlucky. I did hear a few years ago that nobody would inaugurate it (bless it) because of this, but today noticed that HH the Dalai Lama did the job two years ago.

I wanted to see it again because it is only when one gets close that it is possible to see its beauty. From the road it looks like nothing much at all, so first sight is very deceptive.

Dominic had said that last time he went with a relative to the Buddha they paid a higher price for a boat that had 'some dirty women dancing to some music'. This, he said, was a disgrace and a complete waste of money. Naturally, I thought that it sounded like completely classy entertainment and wanted the dirty women boat. But that one, unfortunately only sails around the Buddha island and doesn't stop; whereas for Rs45 each we could have ten whole minutes on the island.

To get to the boats one has to go through Lumbini Park, a nicely-kept piece of greenery which involves a Rs5 ticket and a security check. Always worth mentioning, there is also a very clean public toilet block where a guard in uniform blew his whistle at us and waved his hand irritably to shepherd us in. At first with all that fuss I wasn't sure if the loos were out of bounds or not and so hesitated, which meant that I got whistled at even more. Good job I was near to the ladies' by then because I had to laugh...

After the Buddha we headed back via a couple of chores Dominic had for his niece's up-and-coming wedding (the cake tastes very nice!). And as I sat drinking ice-cold, allegedly-carcinogenic Limca in a rickshaw, I wondered if I was doing the right thing by leaving. I have stayed in India many times when it has not been considered safe to do so, but everyone has to trust their gut instinct and I do feel that it is time to go home. There will be more Limca another time, if I want it. If all goes well, I will be in Londinium this Sunday, courtesy of British Airways.

And then...

2008-12-04T04:23:00.000-08:00

If you take a local bus in India you will see that most passengers are men. There will be women, but they are definitely in the minority. It is the same when you are out in the streets, shops and chai stalls. Women clearly exist, well there are a billion Indian citizens to prove that fact, but in India even though the role of the woman is changing it is still definitely men who live in the Outside World and women who preside over the Inside World; the domains of society and home.

There is a woman living here in Hyderabad who almost never goes out. She did work before and plans to again, yet at the moment for the foreseeable future she is at home looking after the house. If any groceries are needed the servant can bring them, or the seller can deliver them; there is no need to go anywhere. And so I suppose that when this way of life is seen as normal for women, it is understandable that people cannot fully understand why I am becoming frustrated as my options to move about become fewer.

It turned out that yesterday's shooting at Hyderabadi police was terror-related, in that the police were trying to arrest a 'known terrorist', and since then in a separate turn of events three of India's airports have been put on high alert as a warning came in for a planned attack. There is even talk of India and Pakistan going to war, although I suspect that is not likely.... as a news junkie and someone who has some experience of the media, I find the journalism here sensationalist and possibly even war-mongering. The one channel I am able to understand for news used dramatic music and sound effects while reporting the attacks on Mumbai, and when introducing one particular story used a computerised blood-soaked effect, making its news stories only one step away from a Bollywood spectacular.

The effects of all this make it difficult to do anything or go anywhere. My plans to get away from Hyderabad were thwarted by over-crowded trains and the prospect of being stuck here for days. I had hoped to go to Aurangabad, but it would be a while before I could go. My own advice has always been to have a Plan B and a Plan C in case of emergencies, and I have spent a long time studying the map of India looking for alternatives. But each location within reasonable distance for the time I have left and the time of year (it will be very cold up north) either didn't appeal or I had already seen it done it worn the t-shirt. There was the possibility of Goa but my gut-instinct was against this. According to the local media Indians are choosing to avoid Goa at present because it is considered a potential target for trouble, simply because it is so popular with tourists. However this wasn't my main concern. Really I was less inclined towards Goa because I find it so utterly boring.

So having booked nothing, by the time I left the reservation office in Secunderabad, where I'd had to deal with a particularly unhelpful and moody woman, I was not in a good mood. The heat was scorching and the traffic fumes and dust were making it hard to breathe. So when I then checked the internet and saw about the threats on Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai airports enough was enough. I am now trying to get a flight home direct from Hyderabad so I do not have to bother with Mumbai at all. My cousin Dominic has tried to persuade me to stay, saying that I am safe with them. Of course I know that I am safe with them but sitting in the house watching the world outside become increasingly tense is not my idea of a holiday. I am now waiting to hear from an agent with a confirmation of a flight but as I have said elsewhere, IST really does stand for Indian Stretchable Time so who knows how long I will have to wait.

Planning to plan

2008-12-03T21:22:00.001-08:00

Snow World, Charminar, being over-fed by my family, giving drum lessons to my little cousin... my world had started to become extremely normal and relaxed; so much so that yesterday, after working for a little bit on my current writing project I was overcome by the urge to sleep. After all, it was about 1pm and I had been up for at least three hours.

But the servant shook me out of my slumber with a cup of tea and then when my cousin's wife returned from work squealed on what I had done that day. I had - prepare to be shocked/disgusted/appalled - bought a packet of tea! Yes, sob sob sob, I am so sorry. I couldn't help it. I had used up the last of the tea and so went out and bought some more. And to add to my sins, I had bought a loaf of bread too... can I ever be forgiven? Of course going out and buying groceries is not proper guest-like behaviour, so my shopping list became quite an item of news yesterday. But as you all know, I am an addict and I couldn't face the thought of needing a cuppa and being without.

This is the thing about servants in India; they see everything and they report everything. It's a good job I don't have a gentleman caller because that would be reported too.

But this easy-going atmosphere was broken yesterday afternoon with news reports that two policemen had been shot at just down the road. Hyderabad can be something of a touch-point for communal violence, although all religions do generally get on well, but it still shook me to think that there could be trouble here too. It was more a feeling of 'oh bloody hell, not again'. It's very off-putting being holed up in a house or hotel while people riot nearby. I've gone through it a few times in India, and let's just say that the novelty does wear off after the first few seconds.

So I emailed the British Consulate in Chennai for advice - they have not contacted me, thank you very much! And then I contacted the person who would definitely know best - my mum. Mum, of course threw it back at me and said to sleep on it. And so I did.

Last night I had a fairly good night's sleep and only had to show Puppy the cricket bat twice. By the morning people weren't rioting outside but I have still decided that it is time to move on, and I am pretty much decided where, but that is to be confirmed. Of course my lovely cousins are not happy about this, and I know are going to try to persuade me to stay. Last night when I was discussing the police-shooting incident in Hyderabad, Dominic told me not to worry because it hadn't been terrorists. "These are some private people," he said. Ah well, that makes all the difference! Seriously though, I do know what he meant, but it just doesn't help me to want to stay right now.

Time to make a move.

Postcard from Charminar

2008-12-01T22:07:00.000-08:00

Looking up at Charminar

Charminar (meaning four minarets - char being four) is one of Hyderabad’s iconic buildings, constructed in the 16th century to - according to the Lonely Planet - commemorate the end of a devastating epidemic; a bit of a strange way to mark the end of an epidemic, perhaps. I would have thought a wild party would have gone down very well instead. However the Charminar is a beautiful building, as Islamic constructions tend to be, and is worth a visit. Surrounded by a busy market area, the monument stands like a graceful oasis to the mayhem of the old city. But like most Indian attractions it costs more to get in if you are a foreigner. In the good old days when I had a resident’s permit I could get in on Indian prices, but no longer, unfortunately. So while it is five rupees for Indians, it is one hundred for foreigners. My cousins say I should insist that I am Indian, but of course I would never get away with it. (Anyway I did try that one a few years ago at other tourist attractions but locals can sniff out a foreigner or NRI at fifty paces.)

Hyderabad was my first port of call as an adult twenty-two years ago, and despite spending a great deal of time in the city and returning a few years ago, this was the first time I actually got to go in the Charminar. The reason for this is that the monument has remained shut for many years, after it proved a rather popular place for lemming impersonations. One story I heard many years ago was that three orphaned sisters jumped to their deaths to spare their brother the burden of finding them dowries, but according to my cousins there are several other such cases.

To get to the top one has to climb very narrow, steep, winding stairs. There is one flight of stairs for up and another for down. But of course it should have been predictable that I would meet a bunch of idiots coming down the up stairs, leaving me and those behind me almost no room to pass in the dark. The Idiots chose to block the nice, fat part of the stairs, leaving us to pass on the inside. As we were going up a spiral, this meant about an inch or so of foothold. The Idiots were also standing by a landing and could have moved out of the way but this was obviously far too complicated.

A spice-seller negotiates his way through rickshaws

Once at the top, one gets a stunning view of the madness below. A person who shall remain nameless, but she knows who she is, told me once that she was taken to the Charminar after smoking dope, and found the whole experience completely bizarre as the traffic honked its way round and around and around. And the view from the top is really worth seeing as down below rickshaws, street-traders, taxis, cars and pedestrians pass round the Charminar, vying for road-space and trying not to be mowed down by something bigger. When Maryann (Keith’s wife) and I also tried to cross the road to leave Charminar we had to play chicken along with everyone else and take our chances.

I had chosen to go to Charminar because I thought it was about time I did some shopping, and because this part of Hyderabad has a variety of fabric, sari, leather and jewellery shops. But after being shown a few overpriced saris and feeling my throat and eyes burn with the dust and pollution of the place, I lost interest. “Did you buy anything?” my cousins asked when Maryann and I returned home.

“A bunch of bananas,” I replied.

“Oh, nothing nice.”

“They’re nice bananas.”

And so here is a short film of a view from Charminar. For some reason the madness does not seem so apparent in the movie, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

While I was away, Dominic was at home busy making a huge star to put over the house for Christmas. This started out as a wooden frame, which was covered in silver paper and then illuminated with a green bulb inside. I thought it was a little early for Christmas decorations, but apparently the 1^st of December is the traditional date for this branch of the family. I did also wonder about the star of Bethlehem being green, but hey, who knows what colour stars were in those days.... and Dominic just gave a big grin and chuckle when I mentioned it.

Anyway the star was launched over the house with much ado as I tried to take a photograph. This resulted in a little crowd of men who all had an opinion on how I should take the picture. “That should be zoomed,” I could hear being murmured behind me, “Yes, yes that’s better.” Not a surprise really. I have even had a group of people in India expressing an opinion on how I should stick down an envelope, so really complicated stuff like photography is bound to attract attention.

While the photos were going on Dominic’s two friends/assistants climbed up onto the roof to have their picture taken with the star; one remaining up there and posing long after I had put the camera away.

Ah, you have to smile.

Now to head off - the keyboard and mouse in this internet café are sticky... also I think something has crawled up my trouser leg and is feasting on me...

Snow World

2008-11-30T21:38:00.000-08:00

Watch Hyderabad's winter wonderland

One of the reasons why tourists begin to tire of India is because most things turn out to be a mission, especially when trying to get things done without being ripped off.

Yesterday with two cousins' wives and five children, I headed off with great anticipation to Snow World, recently made famous at home by Paul Merton on his televised trip around India. But before we could even get there we had to pass the obstacles of the usual rickshaw rip-offs and one driver who insisted that we had to buy the tickets from 'an office near the station'. Hmm, is that line ringing any bells? I said no, and that we would buy the tickets at Snow World; but possibly this was not translated to him or it was said into the deaf ear that all rickshaw drivers seem to have, because he took us to this special 'office' anyway, where, after the initial business of "come, come" from the rickshaw driver and pretty much being forced to follow him to what turned out to be a shabby wooden stall by the side of the road with three men squeezed behind it, I had to insist that I was not going to buy tickets from them. Even after we walked away and got back into the rickshaw we were followed by the ticket 'agent' who wasn't going to give up so easily. The rickshaw driver wasn't making things easier, insisting and insisting until I told him to mind his own business. "We only want you to drive a rickshaw," I told him. "Nothing else." No idea if he really understood but it seemed to work.

Snow World is a mini theme park area between Secunderabad and Hyderabad. There is a Scary House, bouncy castle, coffee shops and go-karts. While we were waiting for our Snow World session the children had four laps each on the go-karts, putting me in mind of that famous story The Tortoise and The Hare, but with the children creating more of a Tortoise and The Tortoise slant on the situation.

Then the queue for Snow World began, with punters excitedly shoving past each other in their efforts to be first in line. The atmosphere was charged with anticipation as we queued up for slightly musty-smelling quilted jackets, mittens, socks and boots. Bollywood music pumped into the foyer adding to the air of excitement as we handed our own shoes in and changed into the clobber that made us all look a little bit like garden gnomes. Then we sat and waited while a puny security guard with an annoyed expression blew furiously on his whistle to keep the chattering hoards under control.

Yet as a group of excited school children from Bangalore giggled and shoved each other, one of their party sat glumly on a stool next to me. Her name was Swati, she told me, and she was afraid. Most of the punters going into Snow World had probably never seen snow in the lives, and had no idea what to expect. Poor Swati was really scared. And so I explained what snow was and that nothing would hurt her. She cheered up a little but was still looking slightly terrified when I left her.

After half an hour of waiting and starting to roast in our jackets, gloves and boots, the doors finally opened to a great cheer as the quilted hoards scurried through into yet another waiting room, pushing and shoving, where the tension really began to build up. Then as more double doors opened into this winter wonderland, our five children disappeared into the throng, only surfacing every now and then to lob a snowball at me. For one hour visitors to Snow World can climb a little snow mountain (not made from snow), have a go on a snow-merry-go-round (backwards, for some reason), toboggan down ice slides, hide in an igloo, play ball and have photos taken with a plastic Yeti. By the Ice Hotel there are even tables and seats carved from ice; I did see some people sitting on them, which almost brought tears to my eyes. Ouch. (Piles??) But when the snow machines began firing fresh snow out of the window of a faux alpine house, the cheers got really loud, as children and adults rushed to the other side of the room where the snow dancing would soon begin. Then as the Snow World staff looked on in boredom, Bollywood music pumped into the little snow dance area while disco lights flashed away.

But of course those of us who experience snow at least once a year know that the fun doesn't last. About fifteen minutes before our hour was up the happiness had turned to misery, as little fingers and toes began to hurt with cold. It was around this time that the queue for hot, watery tomato soup at the 'ice hotel' was growing, and I sent the children to get something to warm themselves up. As the Snow World staff began blowing on their whistles to herd us out again, one of the children, almost desperate with cold, didn't want to move and had to be persuaded to leave.

An hour or so later, after finding a couple of rickshaw drivers who didn't try to charge us double for the fare home, we settled down to some dahl, rice, halwa and coffee. Keith's daughters, still feeling the cold, cuddled up to their daddy to warm up. Never really feeling the cold so badly in Snow World, I think my body heat was restored in moments, especially now that the cyclone has buggered off and the weather has returned to normal.

I am glad I went. I had been really looking forward to drinking coffee out of a snow cup, yet all the snow cups were off, so it seems. Shame, because I am sure that it was coffee from a snow mug that I had flown half way around the world for.

And so last night, exhausted, I went to bed armed with a large cricket bat in the hope that it would help me get some sleep. I am on a bed/couch in the living room and even with the mosquito net up one of the family dogs - a sweet-natured mongrel called Puppy - keeps trying through the night to curl up on top of me. Being a stupid mutt, he doesn't seem to notice the mozzie net, which thankfully hasn't ended up with a dog-sized hole in it. I don't like to threaten animals but after a couple of very broken nights' sleep, I reluctantly took the cricket bat to bed because although he has never been hit with it, one sight of it causes him to run away. It's pretty horrible being woken up by a cold, wet nose shoved in one's face, I can tell you.

Yet there was a different disturbance last night. Both puppy and the other family dog, a sausage dog called Puggy, were growling and barking. When I woke up Puppy then thought it was time to curl up on me, so the bat had to be shown. The growling and barking then continued into the night, setting off other dogs down the road, so that I had to plug myself into my MP3 player to get any sleep. It was only this morning when Dominic pointed out a little ginger and white cat, huddled up in a high window ledge in the kitchen that the reason became evident. It had been up there for hours, apparently. But the siege soon ended after I climbed a chair, plucked the cat off the window ledge and released her - Puppy running barking after her, but she got away, bounding over the laundry lines and over the wall to freedom.

Hopefully there will be sleep tonight? (Boo hoo!)

No plans for plans

2008-11-29T21:50:00.000-08:00

My view right now... and just when I was planning to...

It was perhaps with gallows humour that yesterday I mused, 'if I wanted terrorism and bad weather, I would have stayed at home'. Ok, in poor taste I know. While still watching the events in Mumbai on television, we were staying inside as much as possible because the weather has, much to my disgust, turned positively British. There had been a cyclone warning for Chennai (Madras) and being in Indian terms only down the road we have been suffering the ripple effect so that the pages on my chick-lit have been curling with the damp, and clothes are still hanging up to dry.

I think this compounded my gloom and so yesterday I told Dominic that I wanted to get the next possible flight out of Hyderabad for London. Because of the situation in Mumbai I felt unable to travel back to Maharashtra - which was where I had been planning to go next - and I wasn't too sure about anywhere else either. I felt stuck. Dominic, in an attempt to cheer me up, tried to inspire me to see Hyderabad instead.

"Then you should see the Charminar."

"Seen the Charminar loads of times."

"Then you should see Golcunda."

"Seen Golcunda."

"Then we could go to the museum."

"Seen the museum."

"Then we could go to the zoo."

"Seen the zoo. I want to go home."

"Ok but then you must stay at least until Stanford (Dominic's elder brother living in Aus) comes. You should see Stanford."

"I've seen Stanford," I replied. "In fact you look so much like him I could just pretend that you are him. Hello Stanford, how are you?" (Sorry Stanford, it was not a good day that day.)

What struck me yesterday as I went through my emails was that this is not the first time I have received 'are you ok?' messages from home. It seems that me being out here has put some of you through it a few times.

But this morning I decided that perhaps I would stay. I will keep you all informed.

Lx

Events in Mumbai

2008-11-27T22:00:00.000-08:00

Thank you to everyone who sent messages to check up on me. I didn't know about what had happened until about 2am, the morning after it all started, when I got a worried text from a friend who had heard the news while on holiday in Egypt. The tragedy of the attacks on Mumbai has been dreadful to witness, but we have been watching the news throughout the day as events have unfolded.

Some of you will know the places that have been attacked. It started in Leopold’s Café in Colaba, with the terrorists opening fire indiscriminately. Having been in Colaba only recently, and only ever eating in Leopold’s, I must admit the news sent a real shiver through me. If this had happened one week ago, I would have been there too. There is definitely a feeling of ‘there but for the grace of God go I’, and yet I can’t help but think of all the people who weren’t so lucky, including the lovely Leopold’s staff , and the tourists I met who had planned to stay in Mumbai for a while and who may have been hurt, as well as all of those unknown innocents. Some upmarket cafes in India have security guards on the door, yet Leopold’s is completely open to the street and so it would have been easy for the terrorists to come in and attack in the way they did.

In between competing with Dominic in an attempt to fatten me up, my cousin Keith started keeping a closer eye on me. He was worried that people might react badly to seeing a foreigner and so didn’t want me wandering too far. This is because the attack in Mumbai was clearly aimed at foreigners, with Leopold’s being a prime target, and at the Taj hotel American and British nationals being singled out (another reason for a shiver down the spine). But apart from walking the distance to the post office to - rather ironically - send cheerful postcards, I stayed close to the house.

At the moment I am reviewing my position in India and am unsure whether to continue my trip. Not only does it seem wrong to holiday when such a tragedy has happened, but any joy has gone. I have also been wondering whether I will come back in the future, even though I already have a flight booked to India for next year. Nearly every trip I have taken to India has seen some trouble somewhere; not always close to where I have been but quite often in the next town, down the road or even in the same city. And although I have been in a city when riots have been going on, this is the first time that I have felt like I have used up a life.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has issued a warning against all non-essential travel to Mumbai. I am sure that by the time I am scheduled to leave the situation will have calmed down, yet I am not sure I want to see the scars in a place that always felt so safe. So at the moment I am thinking about what to do next....

Being a fat auntie, and other stories

2008-11-26T05:06:00.000-08:00

When I first arrived in Secunderabad there was almost a shift in the youth-age balance, as I acquired a bodyguard in the form of 13-year-old Maria who wouldn't let me even stay in the internet cafe on my own. But the natural order of things was quickly put in place and now I am 'Auntie'.

There is a lot to be said for being an auntie. I do not actually have any nieces or nephews here in India, but by just being an elder I have been socially elevated. It is a role I have easily fallen into and those of you from Indian or Anglo-Indian extraction will recognise the scene; picture me sitting inelegantly on a couch, eating curry and rotis while pretending to be strict with the children. Yesterday they were determined to get permission to bunk off school today - perhaps my promise to take them to Snow World, a faux Alpine environment set up in a warehouse near Tank Bund between Secunderabad and Hyderabad, had unsettled them a little. And so they kept nagging me to say they could take the day off. This persistence ended in a magnificent performance in which they floated out of the bedroom, dancing gracefully while chanting "Auntie please...auntie please" as the eldest boy beat out a rhythm on a drum. Then they performed a graceful conga around the room, still singing and chanting. That kind of initiative and creative expression needs to be rewarded, so I said that they could choose whether to bunk school for a day or go to Snow World. Interestingly, the subject was dropped.

It made me think about when I was first in Hyderabad as a girl of 19, sitting with my real aunties. Ah how the wheel turns...

So today, continuing a family theme my cousin Dominic, a friend of his and I headed back to the cathedral to ask to see the records. It was the first time I have ever been persuaded to get onto a local bus in this area; being rush hour it was totally full and once I had squeezed inside I had to hang on for grim death to stay standing as it lurched and juddered. One bonus about Indian buses (if you are a woman) is that they have Ladies Only seats, even though these are often full with fat chaps while the girls are left standing. I noticed with annoyance that this was the case today; and while I do not think women should have extra rights just for being female, I also think there is no point in being in a sexist society without trying to reap whatever benefits that are available. And so Dominic's friend indicated to a young man that he should give his Ladies Only seat to me. I, feeling on full bitchy form, made a show of declining because they were Ladies Only seats and so the two men sitting there must be ladies. They very quickly insisted that I take the seat.

Once at the cathedral, what we found was limited, and frustrated at first by glaring inconsistencies in the records. The (still rather grumpy) priest and the (not grumpy) clerk explained that the originals were old and falling apart, and so all we could see were the duplicates. But because there appeared to be obvious mistakes, we asked if it was not possible at all to see the originals. There, in a glass cabinet, wrapped in a sheet were piles of original registers, many of which were completely crumbling away. Much of what was left was in tiny pieces because the paper was so dried-up and brittle. And yet we were very lucky. All of the time periods we wanted to look at were intact.

To ensure we had a record of what was written on the original registers, I photographed the pages much to the concern of the priest. The originals should not have been made available to us, and the church was also worried as to why we wanted the information. "We already have one police case," the clerk told us - something about someone being married or not married or goodness knows what.
Of course what we found has only left family history open to individual interpretation, and Dominic and I ended up having a very lively argument today as to what history we preferred, even after we had agreed that "what is, is" as Dominic said sagely.

And I doubt we will be able to find out anything else from the cathedral - probably if we went back they would now kick us out. Oh well. (Note to family, I will write up everything as it has been found and mail it out.)

So after our many hours of research we stopped off for my first glass of cane juice, which was absolutely delicious. I can only share the making of it with you. Enjoy...

Cane juice being made

And ready to drink....delish!

Postcard from Secunderabad

2008-11-25T02:42:00.000-08:00

Click above to take a bus ride with me!

As you probably guessed, I arrived in Hyderabad a couple of days ago after a six-hour bus ride from Raichur. As soon as I got off the bus I headed straight to Secunderabad, where my cousins Dominic and Keith live with their families, and have been enjoying wonderful hospitality since then. It has been great to just sit back, chat, watch the children have dancing competitions, and tease them when they get scared at a Hindi horror movie (the Indian equivalent of The Exorcist - you should have heard the screams!). But of course Indian hospitality, as some of you may be aware, can be a problem. Let me explain - I am probably one of the few people I know who can travel to India and actually gain weight, and right now if I am not careful I will return home fattened up for Christmas. Today I had yet another long debate with a cousin that I really did not need to eat. I had eaten a late breakfast only five minutes before at his brother's house, and yet he insisted that I now needed to eat a huge portion of chicken, potato curry and roti. The food looked absolutely delicious, but bearing in mind that if I burst out of my current clothes then I seriously will have nothing left to wear here or at home, I had to decline.

Because I am still investigating family history, today Dominic and I took a rickshaw to the cemetery with the family plot so that we could find out the date our grandfather died. To our surprise, it was today - the 25th November, in 1951. And so Dominic paid the caretaker to wash the tomb and bought flowers, which he arranged around grandpa's name. The caretaker, an elderly, bare-foot man called Brian, with leathered brown skin and fading eyes, told me it was lucky for him that we came that day. "I had full enjoyment," he said. Well, he made a few rupees.

Tomorrow we will head back to St Joseph's Cathedral in Gunfoundry (Hyd) to see if we can access the parish records. We did speak briefly to the parish priest, a young, good-looking Hindu convert; but he was clearly not pleased to be disturbed from his afternoon nap, and was not as obliging as we anticipated. As we left, I reminded Dominic of a family story that our great-grandmother (Cecilia Mary) was supposed to have slapped a priest. "Now we know why," I chuckled.

I could not have done any of this without the people who have helped me so far. Although years ago I spent a long time in Hyderabad and Secunderabad and knew the place quite well, it has now changed so much that I hardly recognise a thing. Some things will probably never change; for instance, as we took the rickshaw home the driver had to negotiate around a man who had chosen to lie down in the middle of the road for an afternoon kip. Driving the wrong way up a road is still fairly normal, and pavements everywhere are still splattered red with chewed-up paan. Although there are more cars on the road than years before, it is still common to see couples on one motorbike, with a couple of children wedged between them. As the city has become wealthier, it is the cycle rickshaw and cycle that seem to have disappeared.

The temperament is also different here; in Mumbai and Raichur it was more easygoing. For the past couple of days, for example, when I have come to the internet cafe that I am in now, I have asked if internet is available only for the rather shop owner to tut at me in irritation and shake his head in annoyance. I did wonder if it was irritation at the lack of internet but today, even though it is functioning beautifully, he is still bad-tempered. How dare I want to bother him and give him any business when he could be watching the world go by instead!

So as you can probably tell my mood has improved without the need for tea, and I am glad I made it here.

- Thank you all for your comments so far. Allison, today I saw the little lad who used to help out at Grant's house - but now he is easily 6'! He remembers you very well, as do my cousins. They asked after you :o)

Hi Ruth, I cannot begin to think how many miles I have travelled but the route was Mumbai, Raichur, Buddinni, Wandali, Hutti, Lingsugur, Maski Buddinni, Raichur, Hyderabad, Secunderabad. Guess what - I am going to stay put for a while!

Bye-bye Mumbai - the inbetween bit.

2008-11-23T23:17:00.001-08:00

Having only just emerged from rural India I am behind on the news. Now where was I?

It turned out that I was wrong. The Brit girl with the itsy bitsy teeny weeny skirt was not fresh off the plane. In fact she had just spent a month teaching theatre to the slum children of Jaipur (a very conservative area) and was well aware that a mini skirt showed more flesh than was usual in India. But she didn’t care, she said. An aspiring actress, she was used to being stared at.

Having now put something back into society by sharing her craft with the poor children of Rajasthan, who no doubt will be much better off in life knowing how to pretend to be a tree, she was taking part in a Bollywood movie, but was more than keen to go home. Mumbai, she said, had “no culture or history” and if it hadn’t been for the Bollywood opportunity she wouldn’t have bothered to stay.

But India had changed the way she thought, she said, because now she would really appreciate any of the hotels her parents took her to on holiday. Like many travellers to India she didn’t know what to feel about the people. “Do you like the Indians?” she asked, hesitantly.

“Yes,” I answered honestly.

“I don’t know whether to trust them,” she said. This is a common feeling among travellers who feel as though they are seen as walking wallets. And yet, she revealed, she had been helped out by a complete stranger when she was unable to withdraw money from an ATM. A lad at an internet shop had lent her Rs5,000 (a tidy sum here), no strings attached, and told her to send him the money when she could. The memory of that one act of kindness did make her pause for thought.

And so she set off to be in a film with “Someone really famous, supposed to be the biggest Bollywood actor…Am, Am…”

“Amitabh Bachan?”

“That’s him.”

There are probably middle aged women all over India swooning at the very mention of his name.

And I headed off to Dadar railway station to nearly miss my train. “It leaves at 8.30,” a guard told me, looking at my ticket.

“No, isn’t that reporting time of 8.30 and departure at eleven minutes past nine? It says 21.11.”

“That is the date, madam,” he said patiently.

Along with my backpack, that seemed to weigh heavier than usual, I was still carrying a feeling of lethargy, wondering what I was doing in India. And yet I began to slowly cheer up. Before the train arrives, station platforms have a real air of anticipation, with men, women and children sitting on the ground with their luggage, vendors and hawkers prowling up and down, whole extended families turning up just to say goodbye. And even though I was on my own, I was not alone. Once on board, an elderly lady adopted me for the trip, and then when it was time to sleep I simply plugged myself into my MP3 player so I didn’t get disturbed when my neighbours began trumpeting in the night.

But used to men being annoyingly attentive I did feel a little ignored and decided that maybe I was finally over the hill. But thankfully, just when I began to feel as though I has lost my sexual allure I was hit upon by a little, quite elderly, booze-reeking man with stained teeth. He approached me in the morning as I stood by the open carriage door, enjoying the scenery as it whizzed by and the cool morning breeze. As he drew closer I couldn’t go any further back without falling out of the train and so I was stuck for a bit until he moved enough for me to make an escape. He wanted to accompany me on my travels, he said. Lucky, lucky me! I clearly still have it, baby! (Boo hoo!)

And now, click below to see an early morning scene at a rural Indian station.

When a picture tells a thousand words

2008-11-23T23:11:00.000-08:00

Here it is! The stone covenant showing the curse of the over-friendly donkey! Enjoy. This photo cost me two hundre rupees! Apologies it is so dark, but there was no (p)lash photography.

My name is Louise and I am an addict

2008-11-20T23:01:00.000-08:00

Breakfast at the Salvation Army Red Shield Hostel has not changed in the six years since my last stay. Guests are given four slices of white bread, a hard boiled egg, a small dish with some butter and a blob of luminous strawberry jam, a banana and a small cup (European coffee cup) with hot water and milk, with a teabag on the side. (Not bad for the price.) Of course I had my jar of squeezy Marmite with me, marking me out as one of those Brits who can't cope without a few home comforts; but of course anyone who has read my book knows that there is a reason for carrying Marmite around India.

After a night of broken sleep, disturbed by Mumbai's young and partying, car horns, dogs barking, Bollywood music blaring, I was still wondering why I had come. It had seemed such a good idea at the time, and now I wasn't so sure. So at breakfast I had my tea and thought about what I would do next. Soon my tiny cup was finished, so I refilled it with hot water from an urn; and as the teabag had sucked up enough milk from the previous cup, sat down to enjoy what was a pretty good cuppa. It was then that I noticed my mood improving. And by the time I had finished the little cup, I felt rather happy to be where I was and ready to take on the day.

My name is Louise, and I am addicted to tea. Clearly.

I've been wandering around Colaba on my own. There are plenty of other travellers in the hostel - I saw one young female Brit, who has only just arrived venture out in the tiniest mini skirt and spaghetti-strap top. She is young, pretty and curvy so although Mumbai locals are pretty used to tourists I wonder how many road accidents she will cause once she hits the backpacker trail - or if she ends up getting frustrated at being stared at or harassed, without understanding why.

I'm not sure what category of traveller I fit into (probably the 'know-it-all' type), but Europeans definitely go a bit funny out here. Yesterday at the train station I saw a young European woman dressed almost for purdah in a sari with the pullu covering her head. She had red threads galore on her wrist and no shoes on her feet, and to be honest she looked like the living dead. She looked ill and lifeless - there is a fictional description of such characters in a book called Are you experienced? (Author: William Sutcliffe), and yet they do exist for real.

This morning I headed off to the Prince of Wales Museum (now called the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya... no I did not remember that off the top of my head). This is a glorious homage to the British Raj with a rather beautiful collection of sculptures and paintings. I had specifically gone there to see if I could find an ancient stone tablet that marked a land covenant. According to the translation when I read it years before, the tablet said that anyone who broke the land covenant would be lurved by a donkey, in a Barry White type way. Although the wording was almost faded, there was still an engraving of a man with an animal on top of him that looked like a cross between a donkey and a bullock. Either animal wouldn't be fun. Anyhow, I paid my Rs300 to get in, plus another Rs200 so that I could take photographs inside, just in case I found it.

Of course having a camera pass is a bit of a pain because the moment one whips out one's camera a security guard comes rushing up to check the pass and then scolds, 'No plash!' (sic). One guard watched me with an evil expression after I failed to be taking photos illegally, clearly hoping I would do something naughty and liven up his day. Even when I was leaving another guard wanted to check my camera pass, so I guess everyone does a day's work.

The museum is definitely worth visiting. Rs300 is a bit steep when on a backpacker's budget but the entrance price includes an audio tour that is actually worth listening to.

After the museum I headed across the road to the National Gallery of Modern Art. Apart from the fact that this place is cool (ahh, aircon!) and quiet, it is well worth visiting for what is on display, showing that Indian art is more than gods and goddesses.

That's it for now. I am now off to refuel and contemplate how I am going to get a taxi to Dardar station this evening without too much of a haggle with the taxi drivers. That is the bit that I really hate about India... and which I don't think I will ever get used to.

In one piece, but melting fast

2008-11-20T03:40:00.000-08:00

Apologies for a potentially awful blog and one full of typing mistakes. It is 33 degrees here (C), I have had about three or four hours sleep on the flight over, and have only eaten one peanut bar to sustain me. I am flagging fast, but will do my best.

India no longer surprises me, so maybe it is time for me to retire from holidaying here. After all the excitement looking forward to the trip, suddenly one hour before leaving for the airport I changed my mind; I didn't want to go. I often feel like that before travelling anywhere but this time it was stronger. I felt as though I was being ripped away from my comfort zone and the most of anything that I wanted to do was lie on the sofa and watch reruns of CSI on Freeview. There had been plans for my sister to come too but as we started arguing before we could even get out of the house, it was decided to veto that idea. Thankfully I hadn't booked her flight.

The mayhem of India is normal to me now. Mumbai in particular is an immoral extreme of absolute wealth and abject poverty, with slums built not far from new, high rise buildings and shanty towns holding up precariously by the edge of water and railways. All of this is normality here; a group of women and their children bathing in what is little more than a large mud puddle is nothing unusual, just as is a man bedding down for a morning kip by the side of the road using nothing but a garland of flowers for a pillow. Because life very much goes on here. Children turned out in neat, blue school uniforms play tag by tarpaulin slum homes, a girl in a pink dress dances by the window of a grubby apartment block, cars - once a rare sight - now weave around each other with motorbikes and bullock carts now a rarer sight.

I have grabbed a bunk at the Salvation Army hostel in Colaba, where it costs Rs165 (about two pounds fifty) for a grimy bunk. The travel sheet and inflatable pillow are out and I am looking forward to getting close to them.

But I need to get to Raichur, my next stop, so walked through the heat, humidity and car fumes to VT station. Apologies, it does have an Indian name, but I can only remember Victoria Terminus right now, and the locals knew what I meant when asking for directions. There, after being assisted by several people who wanted to 'help' I found the tourist desk where the clerk sang 'hurry hurry hurry' at me before booking my ticket for tomorrow evening. The assumption here is that any foreigner is heading straight for Goa and so my destination of Raichur has been greeted with a great deal of suprise with an expression that says, 'What do you want to go there for?'

I then argued with a few taxi drivers for a fare back to Colaba. I was told at the hostel it should be Rs25-30 but the lowest I could get was Rs50. But my driver was very honest about why he was ripping me off - 'taxi will come back empty' he told me. I was too tired and hot to fight, and he knew it. As it happened, as soon as he dropped me off he got another fare, so so much for that excuse! However he was entertaining and chatty so I guess I got Rs20 worth of conversation.

As always there are the beggars and hawkers, although the former don't seem to be out in force as much as before. The new thing is to beg for an 'English coin'. Flippin' heck, I know our currency isn't worth much these days....

Anyway I am now going to go to Leopolds, an over-priced cafe near to here that probably keeps its business going because it is in the Lonely Planet. But it has air conditioning, which is every reason to go (the train station booking office had AC too, so I loitered there for a bit, I can tell you.)

Anyway, more later but for now I need to refuel and then sleep.

Visa vagaries

2008-11-18T04:46:00.000-08:00

Anyone who is thinking of booking a last minute jaunt to the Indian sunshine, dreaming of Goan white sands or Keralan backwaters, had better be aware that the days of the Indian-insta-holiday may now be over. As of this year the Indian government has farmed its visa application system out to an external agent, making it no longer possible - certainly in the UK - to book a trip with just a couple of days to spare.

In the past, UK nationals applying for an Indian visa would have to get up at the crack of dawn to arrive at India House at about 8.30am, only to find that the queue already snaked half-way around the building. After about an hour of chatting to the person in front, giving evils to anyone who tried to jump the queue, and admiring the carvings on the fascia on India House, the applicant would eventually reach a little window where they’d be given a queue number. Then after an even longer time they would squeeze into a small hall where they’d wait for their number to be called, hand in their papers, and then wait for the batches of passports and new visas to be handed out. There was almost nowhere to sit or stand, and there was always the air of fear that one may be in there forever.

Ah, happy days.

But what took a matter of hours now takes days. All applications need to be made online to the Indian High Commission’s agent VFSGlobal. It can be paid for online, and an ’appointment’ slot booked for forms to be handed in. Applications are then tracked online before a return journey is necessary to collect the passport. (A postal service does exist.) For UK nationals, VFSGlobal says ordinary tourist visas take a minimum of two to three working days after the application has been submitted.

A relative who recently went through the process, reported being rather traumatised after seeing the agent staple an envelope to her passport. “Is that legal?” she later asked. Out of curiosity she asked the clerk what travellers should do for an urgent visa application. “What happens if there is an emergency?” she asked. “What if someone’s relative is dying?”

“There’s no emergency without a death certificate,” the clerk replied.

“But it will be too late by then,” she said.

“No emergency without a death certificate,” the man repeated.

The process itself has not changed except that it is now slower and costs a bit more, with an agent’s handling fee levied on top of the usual visa fee.

If you know anybody who travels to India, do pass this information on so that they don’t get caught out. Having had a look at the information on travel sites, many people will not be aware of the change because so much information on the internet is now out of date. But the best rule of thumb is to always check for visa changes on the relevant embassy website, for whichever country you are visiting. Countries do change their systems and it is easy to be caught out. And if you find a last minute holiday on the internet leaving for glorious Goa in a couple of days, forget it.

Polly's pointers

2008-11-05T10:51:00.001-08:00

Polly Cozens, a good friend and a well-travelled woman has kindly shared her pointers for memorable gap-year travel.

1. Arrive, feel clueless and a bit of a fraud and intimidated by your fellow, seemingly more experienced travellers. Hide in your hotel, hire a tuk tuk to cross the road.

2. Panic that you don't know where to go or what to see and that you might miss something but at the same time not wanting to be a sheep on the traveller trail. Obsessively read the Lonely Planet and have it on your person at all times like a comfort blanket. Don't go into any hotels or restaurants that haven't been recommended by LP.

3. Think that you are being really daring and adventurous with your travel plans and then gradually realise that every 18 year old from Surrey is doing the same route.

4. Start to realise that the "experienced" travellers and the ones that seem to know everything are actually idiots/blaggers/socially inadequate, that the Lonely Planet is of limited use and that you are better off making it up as you go along. Feel confident and experienced. Smirk at clueless travellers who have obviously just got off the plane. Feel like you could travel forever.

5. Get ill/ripped off/lost/homesick - start to wonder what the hell you are doing living in squalor in a developing country spending all your savings while your friends at home are busy paying off their mortgages and building their careers.

6. Get bored with tropical beaches and temples. Start to think that working in an office in Slough wouldn't be so bad after all.

7. Meet inspiring and worldly people who make being a world citizen and travelling forever seem really easy. Vow never to go home.

8. Go home, expect everyone to be excited to see you but find that the world didn't stop while you were away and that some people didn't even notice that you had gone (added by Louise).

Man Child

2008-11-01T03:32:00.000-07:00

Because men are traditionally the sexual aggressor, in most cultures it is probably usual that when a man moves closer to a woman she - instinctively - moves away. Women will often complain of feeling uncomfortable when a man other than their partner of choice is pressed up against them, because it has overtones of an unwanted sexual advance. Commuters are generally worst affected, which is probably why on trains women can frequently be seen squidged into a tiny space while an unknown man next to her spreads himself out and dominates her seat space too.

My own approach to intrusions into personal space has shifted over the years. When I was much younger, I too would contort myself away from any encroaching male, shrinking into myself as he came closer, as I experienced that uncomfortable sensation of heat from a stranger against me. But I remain convinced that because I am small in stature I am perceived as a bit of a pushover, and wonder if a six-foot Valkyrie would be treated in the same way.

I used to think that when a man sat with his legs splayed, he was simply being proud of his tackle and expecting everyone else to admire it and be proud of it too. But no, apparently this is not so! I was eventually informed by a very good male friend that a gentleman needs to sit like that because rather than being delightful and lovely, the package is in fact rather hot and sweaty so cool air is required. With that knowledge it at least allows us women to be more sympathetic.

However, this does not mean that we should continue to be pushed aside. These days I am calmly assertive, whereas in my London-commute days, where nobody has any patience, I could happily humiliate a man. "I know you need to air your balls," I once told a man on the commuter train from London, using my new-found knowledge, "but do you think we could have some space please?" This was aimed at a young man who had spread himself so much that I next to him, and two women opposite had almost no room to sit comfortably. As the two women opposite chuckled silently behind their evening newspapers, the man quickly SAT UP (yes he had been selfishly slouching) and drew his legs in.

But often the worst situations happen on planes; the place where everybody is competing for space. Again, because I am small (and probably because I am a female travelling alone) I find that I am occasionally bullied by a man who wants my space. This year on a flight from Tokyo I had deliberately booked an aisle seat because I am often out of my seat, and don't want to disturb whoever is next to me. But the man next to me had designs on it and asked if I would like to move. When I politely declined he pushed the matter becoming increasingly nasty in his tone. His face, under a shaven head and with a full compliment of tattoos around his neck, became uglier. Speaking in quite an aggressive way, he listed the various ways he would make my journey uncomfortable - "I'll probably end up kicking you because I need to stretch, Ok if you don't mind being disturbed because I get up all the time and then I'll probably end up kicking you, etc etc." The attempt at intimidation was clear.

But yesterday I met the man child who was simply vile. After being extremely rude to a stewardess, he proceeded to take over my seat. When I politely asked him if he could move his arm he snapped at me, "Well you should stop moving!" Yes I was moving (within my seat space) but mainly because I could not get comfortable because he was leaning over the armrest onto me. I politely explained this and he huffed and puffed a bit before moving. But soon he was almost on top of me again. I laughed, apologised (in the English way) and said "I know we don't have much space here, but could you please move to your side?" to which he snapped at me again that it wouldn't be a problem if I didn't move, and told me to "just shut up".

It is at this point that a woman can feel threatened, especially when the abuse is coming from a large, uncouth male who has been openly burping and farting without even the decency to try to do it sneakily. And so I calmly said that there wasn't much room for either of us, but I had also paid for my seat, so could he please move over. "Don't talk to me! Don't talk to me!" he snapped loudly. And then he delivered his coup de grâce.

HE BLEW A RASPBERRY AT ME!

Man child, indeed.

And so with his final, childish retreat I had won the battle but to win the war I needed to act quickly. On my next visit to the back of the plane I explained the situation to the cabin crew, who had already encountered Man Child's rudeness. Because he was downing the drinks quite quickly I asked if they could not serve him any more alcohol. There were no available spare seats, and I did not want to sit next to a drunk.

Of course I didn't think Man Child would thump me or anything like that. His method of attack - the childish raspberry - showed he was probably more mouth than trousers. But if cutting off his booze supply would stop the dangerous emissions from his backside, it needed to be done.

Of course it is not just men who take over. Women do it too; I have had mothers put their child who was travelling for free in my seat and expect me to find somewhere else, and old ladies - in particular - take their shoes off and stretch out so that their feet are right at my nose level. A friend recently swore that she would never travel by a particular airline again because of the old ladies who stretched their feet into her seat space. But my friend's problem was that while she got angry, she didn't deal with the situation and, instead, fumed for the entire journey when a polite 'could you please move?' could have solved the problem.

There is no need to fume. Aggression, often the first resort of so many stressed travellers, does nothing to help the situation. If necessary, public humiliation can work quite well in some cultures. By loudly asking a gropy or encroaching man to move it will often draw the attention of others and shame him into behaving himself. Or if on a plane, speak to the cabin crew. If it gets unbearable then you may at least be able to sit on a jump seat for a while.

As for Man Child, I felt tempted to take his photograph and post it up for a naming and shaming, but that would be unnecessary and cruel. After all, I only had to put up with him for five hours whereas he has to put up with himself for a lifetime.

And those last little crunchy bits

2008-10-31T00:53:00.000-07:00

View through a chandelier, Aya Sophia

Last night I spent the evening on the roof of Bahaus with good company, big bags of rather nice Turkish-variety Lay crisps (chips for all you non-Brits), bars of Turkish chocolate (I can especially recommend the pistachio variety), a cherry-flavoured sheesha, and vodka with a variety of mixers. My French girlfriend, whom I had managed to escape during the day, joined us and got up close and personal by closing off any personal space, stroking my arm occasionally, touching my thigh, and telling me that "kaka" (poo) was her favourite subject. So I realised that I was sitting next to the French equivalent of Gillian McKeith. "That is what we are asking people when we say 'how do you do'," she said. "Because if the kaka is well, then all is well."

But it turned out that she wasn't after my body; she was after everyone's body. When I had left the bar for a while, she began stroking and touching another woman, who later said to me, "I wanted to tell her that she had the wrong woman, and that you were downstairs!". But she manhandled men and women alike, so I had not been specially chosen after all.

It was only this morning as I bent over my suitcase, trying to pack quietly without disturbing the rest of the dorm, that I finally told her off after she gave me a cheeky slap me on the backside. Call me old fashioned but unless you have a) given birth to me, b) dated/married me, or c) known me a while as a good friend, my rear is out of bounds. The poor woman was deeply apologetic and explained that it was just how she said 'good morning'. Flippin' heck, I would hate to work in her office.

Last little bits

2008-10-30T08:31:00.000-07:00

Decorative guard at the Topkapi Palace chats to a tourist

There is a fair bit of bling in the Topkapi Palace. Treasures from the Middle East, India, China, Korea are displayed in their glass cases, glinting away to make every magpie jealous. My favourite item had to be a throne plundered from India, made with gold and studded with... well I can't remember exactly what, but they were definitely shiny things. But as happens during one of those occasions when one becomes drowned in one type of art, the calligraphy, the fine craftsmanship, the intricate blue patterned tiles on the walls all began to merge into one glazed-over experience. At least I had time to wander on my own and choose my direction, whereas the bus-loads of tourists had to keep to their schedules, following their sign-holding guides like little ducklings following their mummy.

After a late start today there was no chance to go to the hamam, but I'll just have a hot bath when I get home and get a friend to thump me on the back. It may have the same effect and will certainly be a bit cheaper. After the palace I had my last chance to go to the Grand Bazaar and attempt some shopping, so hamams were 'orf' the menu.

Turkey is yet another country where haggling skills are necessary. Different countries have their own styles but of course the best thing anyone can do is be prepared to not buy the object they want. Today I spotted some long, cotton tops that I thought might be ideal for travelling in India, but the salesman soon lost his patience with me when I wouldn't name a price, while refusing to pay his.

"What is your price?" he asked repeatedly.

"I don't know," I said.

"How can you not know what price you pay?" he asked, exasperated.

So I had to explain. Firstly, I hate shopping. Secondly, I am mean with money. He grinned at me and asked, "True? You are mean with money?"

"Oh yes," I said. The price came down further, but I annoyed the poor chap even more by not buying anything even after he had expended all of that energy. Instead, I headed to a cafe for a Turkish coffee that probably put hairs on my chest.

And so it is soon goodbye to Istanbul and hello to Mumbai. I have enjoyed my stay and here are my ratings for the city so far:

Safety Rating: I cannot comment on safety at night time, but during the day Istanbul gets a ten out of ten for safety from a lone female perspective. :o)

Helpfulness Rating: Again ten out of ten.

Cleanliness Rating: Nine out of ten. Just a few loos where the Shewee could have been useful, but otherwise excellent.

Salesman Aggression Rating: On a scale of mouse to shark, Istanbul's salesman - in comparison to the shawl-wallahs of India - are pussycats. If you are not experienced with such salesmen, then they may possibly have a rating of undomesticated pussycat.

Traffic Rating: I had heard so much about Istanbul traffic, how mad it was, and was actually quite anxious. But again, in comparison to any Indian city, Istanbul's traffic gets a rating of boring to dull.

Cat Rating: Excellent. Istanbul is full of very cute, very soppy cats, usually sitting on the laps of street vendors or curled up on carpets out on display. Locals are seen to treat them well, and so they are very friendly. A bonus for a cat-idiot like me.

Accommodation: Bahaus gets competition from The Big Apple which is opposite, and which people say is cleaner and a bit cheaper. But for atmosphere, friendliness and helpfulness, Bahaus gets a clear ten out of ten. Definitely recommended.

Kebab Rating: Very, very good. But I don't think I want to look another kebab in the face for a very long time....

In a sober mood

2008-10-30T01:41:00.000-07:00

Domes in the Blue Mosque

Last night Dude came into the hostel with a worried face. Had he done anything he shouldn't? he asked. Always if he'd had a little too much to drink, he explained, he didn't want to "make a scandal". And yet my reassurances weren't enough, and as each guest who had sat at our table that night appeared from their day's sightseeing, he asked the same questions over again. So last night Dude stuck to coffee and I was on my own sucking the life out of an apple-flavour hookah. But soon we were joined by a solo French woman who within an hour or so had invited herself along with me, told me that she liked me, and - rather disturbingly - manhandled me by pulling at the waistband of my jeans. While the French may sometimes be less reserved than the English, I didn't think it usually extended to groping strangers. My best friend, who is French, has still never manhandled me in the twenty-two years we have known each other. So I was a little concerned this morning over breakfast when she told me that I must give her my email too. I guess it makes a change from attracting carpet salesmen, but it still isn't what I would have in mind.

So on reflection, I think I preferred it when T (formerly of pest status, but actually very sweet and a lot of fun) was trying to hand-feed me nuts.

Other than that, being the lazy so-and-so that I am, I eventually skipped out of watching the Turkish Republic Day celebrations, coming to the conclusion that if I were Turkish I would probably sit at home and watch the fireworks on television. And so I did; there were some bangs, some sparkles and so it was over. Sim, however, went off to a stretch of coastline, to see the celebrations for herself, yet came back in a neutral mood. The fireworks had happened before she'd got there, and then it was far too smoky and foggy to see anything else.

Today, if we finally emerge from our respective hostels, we plan to see the palace before heading to a hamam to have those tensions steamed and pummelled away. Ahh!

Happy hour

2008-10-29T01:45:00.000-07:00

Medusa, upside down, as though things could be worse for her, in the ancient cistern

What Bahaus hostel lacks in finesse it makes up for in atmosphere. So while it offers the most basic facilities, with metal bed frames and lockers that made me wonder if I was up-to-date with my Tetanus jab, and a stripy quilt now stuffed above the roof beams to keep the rain out, it transforms into a party palace in the evening. Last night Dude (the owner, whose name I cannot spell) had arranged for a belly dancer and decided that we would all get drunk together. "It's nice!" he declared. Earlier on his feelings had been hurt by a guest who had stayed for one night before criticising the breakfast. "He wanted cereal," he said. "But I thought criticise the roof or anything else, but not the breakfast!" Like an unappreciated host, he was quite upset and wanted cheering up.

Dude, it turns out, grew up in the university of life. Orphaned at the age of nine he was out selling bottled water on the streets of Istanbul by the age of eleven, graduating on to water melons by the age of fourteen, via corn on the cob. After a brief stint through junior boxing and selling t-shirts, he ended up in the hospitality trade. He sees his business as a way of helping tourists. His mother, he tells me, is his conscience, showing me a black and white photograph of a handsome woman who bears a strong resemblance to her huge bear of a son.

By the time the belly dancer had arrived Dude was holding court at a table and rushing off to refill guests' glasses before they were emptied, creating havoc with the staff who were trying to maintain order in the kitchen. Only when his chair collapsed did it all threaten to come crashing around his ears. But undeterred, he propped the fallen chair-leg back up and carried on until it collapsed again, nearly taking the entire table with it.

It was only at midnight when he rushed off to fetch me another drink that I did not want that I ran away. Ten o'clock UK time, it was getting close to my bedtime. From what I hear he was a little upset I had vanished, spurning his hospitality. But any disappointment was short-lived as he decided to head off with the guests with more stamina to a nightclub.

I now have a box of Turkish Delight on standby to give as thanks.

Republic Day today, Turkey is on holiday and coach loads of tourists, Turkish and otherwise, are disgorging themselves into the area of the Blue Mosque. Accompanied by Sim, a friend from England who arrived yesterday, I headed to the underground cisterns, an eerie length of ancient subterranean waterways with heads of Medusa as the main attractions. Tonight, if we have the energy, we plan to head to the waterfront to watch the celebratory fireworks, organised by pyromaniacs from Australia. But first I need to rest and avoid Dude for at least a little while in case he wants to party again.

When my pants were on fire

2008-10-28T07:25:00.000-07:00

Photo - Imagine a picture of a shop, brıghtly lit with lanterns hanging above it, but a bin-bag hanging with them, spoiling the effect.

Sometimes you have to lie; it can be the only way to survive. But let me backtrack. Firstly, Istanbul feels incredibly safe for a woman on her own (i.e. me). People are helpful and friendly, and so far the only danger is from being bored to death by men wanting to talk, lure you to theır shop, or 'be your frıend'

It started this morning with a two-pronged attack that I have called 'The Shag Pile', mainly because the man in questıon kills two birds with one stone by firstly trying to get you to look in his carpet shop and if he has no success there, tries for a snog (probably more a shag

It seems to be that the Blue Mosque ıs a popular hangout for this unholy activity. Having trained long and hard at deflecting salesmen in India I was initially creative in my rejections. Pretending to be allergic to carpet is a beautifully simple way of killing off the first attack. 'I love carpets,' I lied, 'but sadly I can't have them in the house.' The second prong in the attack is to ask ıf he can 'talk to you'. Despite my polite rejection that I just wanted to walk around on my own I was forced to resort to the husband-inventıon tactic.

'I would like to talk to you,' he informed me for about the sixth time.

'I really just want to walk on my own, not to be rude.

'It's just that you are really gorgeous,' he informed my bust. 'And maybe we can become friends.'

'I don't think my husband would approve,' I lied. Message heard loud and clear and he quickly melted into the crowd.

But such creativity doesn't last and I found that eventually I became less bothered to lie, shook my head when asked if I spoke English, eventually adopted a vague expression and refused to make eye contact, and then became rude and told some unfortunate young man that he was being 'boring'. That was when I knew it was tıme to go back to the hostel and eat chocolate.

In between these annoyances I have been privileged to see the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sophia. There is a rush to get into the mosque before prayers begin, and when one reaches the point where shoes are removed, there is an overwhelming aroma of feet and socks. I sniffed at my own shoes cautiously and was relieved to know that I wasn't guilty. Inside both the mosque and Aya Sophia is clear evidence of the skill ın Islamıc art, with stained windows and intricately patterned domes, although both are undergoing renovation.

Apart from the relics of empire, Istanbul is curiously placed between the ancient and modern world, with all the gaudiness of a modern tourıst trade. Much of what was on sale in the Grand Bazaar could be found in the streets of Indıa or in London's Camden Market.

Tomorrow, however, could be a very different day. With the flags out in their full glory, Istanbul is gearing itself up for Republic Day. At least the carpet shops might be closed....

Turkish Delight

2008-10-28T03:19:00.000-07:00

(Picture not available on account of it costing 4YTL to upload! So imagine a very big mosque with lots of minarets and an old guy sitting knitting near the entrance.)

When it comes to eye candy, Tal of Tel Aviv still has to be the current prize winner. An extremely handsome young man, Tal had the dubious fortune of meeting me at the airport when I flew to Israel on a press junket many years ago, and ushering me into a taxi before I could get lost or blown up. So gorgeous was he that despite my hair swishing and eyelash batting, his presence made me feel as though I were the ugliest, smelliest creature to get off a plane.

Don't get me wrong, I am far from interested in sampling the local produce these days. But a handsome man always makes travel a bit more interesting, even if they just enhance the view a little bit. So as I like my eye candy to be tall, dark and with a bit of a welcome mat in the chest area, I wondered if my airport greeter in Istanbul would match up to Tal. But sadly it was not to be. Instead, I was met by a young man who looked as if he were still slowly emerging from puberty, and used margarine to style his hair.

"Welcome," he told my breasts. I thought I had put those away, but as I ventured into Istanbul it seemed not.

Margarine man was soon replaced with a driver; a sweet chap with a shy grin who took on the look of a maniacal six-year-old as he screeched around the corner of the airport car park to pick up his fares.

Arriving in Istanbul at night leaves little to be desired. Driving in from the airport, the city looks like so many other places except for the large Turkish flags fluttering gracefully in the wind, reminding you where you are. And so I decided to write off the first night, find some food and relax for the evening.

I'd booked into Hostel Bahaus, a tiny backpackers' favourite near to the Blue Mosque, where I was shown my functional dorm bed, the free internet (so why am I paying for an internet cafe now? Duh!) and the bar upstairs. My host, a dude with long hair whose name I shamefully forget, introduced me to the kebab cook and gave me the grand tour. Already upstairs a dozen or so backpackers sat chatting companionably so Dude turned the music up loud. "People can't talk over music," he explained to me later. "But this is a bar!" he complained. Dude also showed me where breakfast would be held the following morning, and the places where the roof had leaked the day before, before unsuccessfully trying to close a window with sticky tape. It was then that I noticed the large metal pots hanging from beams on the roof. At first I thought they were for decoration, but soon realised that they were there to stop the guests being dripped on.

After settling myself in to the dorm I headed back to the bar. There a young Turkish man looked at me as though I were the sexiest creature to sashay into the room since time began. "Helloo!" he smiled at me. "What's your name? Where are you from?" And yet my gaydar was going off like crazy.

T (I shan't name him) was busy flirting with all of the women, playing with their hair and trying (unsuccessfully) to hand-feed me nuts. As a dear friend once told me, apparently I can have an air of f*** off about me; and sometimes I think it just helps, especially when one doesn't wish to be hand-fed nuts by a pest.

But it was still a pleasant evening. I ate kebabs and drank vodka and cherry juice while chatting to Yoel, a Finnish chap who claimed he has never vomited on the streets of Tallinn, and who giggled sweetly when telling me of the time he sampled the beer in Belgium.

But after a long day of travel I soon heard bed calling; climbed into my top bunk, wondered what on earth the piece of wood hinged to the wall was for (I don't think I will ever find out), and fell asleep.

And so ended night 1.

Crackdown on Delhi taxis, but no news is good news

2008-10-23T04:27:00.001-07:00

And if you don't fancy taking a taxi there are exciting alternatives...

Two days after a Saudi businessman was murdered in Delhi by a prepaid-taxi driver, Delhi airport is “still unsafe for foreign tourists”, according to the Times of India (TOI).

To check it out, the paper had duly dispatched its own hacks to Indira Gandhi International Airport to see if the authorities had got their act in gear. But what they found was that despite police attempts to make the airport taxi system safer for tourists, by encouraging use of the prepaid-taxi system and discouraging the touts who hang around outside the airport waiting to pounce on sleepy and naïve tourists, many new arrivals to India were still heading straight out into the Indian sunshine without a prepaid taxi voucher. And so despite the crackdown, within 15 minutes the TOI journalists were offered a ride for Rs500 for a journey that would have cost Rs350 under the prepaid-taxi scheme. Tourists they spoke to were surprised to find out that they were being ripped off.

“For foreigners therefore,” the TOI writes, “the idea that a 'visibly government-certified cab' – in this case a black and yellow taxi – may not always be safe, is rather strange.”

Ok, so let’s backtrack for a moment. For those of you who have never used one, a prepaid-taxi is booked and paid for at a desk inside the airport before you are shown to your driver, who should not expect any more cash from you apart from a tip. If you pass the pre-paid taxi counter and decide to take your chances with the touts outside, then it’s up to you to haggle for a ‘good price’.

But the TOI article is unclear. There are clearly dangers here, after all a businessman was murdered by a taxi driver. That is bad, very bad. And reading the headline and intro to the news item, as a regular solo (female) traveller to India, who sometimes lands at Delhi, a moment of visceral panic struck me. But hang on a moment. Wasn’t this poor man murdered by a prepaid-taxi driver? The only reported danger from the taxi touts outside was that tourists could end up being charged an extra couple of hundred rupees.

So in a spot of armchair research I decided to see if there were other reported stories of taxi drivers turning nasty. Yet the results from a quick internet search from stories in the UK seem to indicate that the person more at risk is the driver. Of course the UK isn’t India and so the stories may not be comparable when looking at crime. But the TOI’s article could end up shooting Indian tourism in the foot; because instead of steering tourists away from touts and directing them to prepaid-taxi drivers, it presents both type of drivers as unsafe.

There are strategies for using taxis in India, many of which are written about in all the usual guidebooks, including my own (A girls’ guide to India, a survivor's handbook). But perhaps one very important tip that doesn’t get mentioned, is that whenever a taxi driver asks you if it is your first visit to India, always say "no"! Say you have visited a couple of times, but don’t offer any more information because chances are you won’t be asked to elaborate. The less naïve you seem, the less likely you are to be drawn into a rip-off scam.

Personally, as someone who has survived many a broken conversation on the latest cricket scores with Delhi taxi drivers, I will continue to use pre-paid taxis on arrival to India, and will use taxi touts in the numerous places where no pre-paid taxi counter exists. There is no choice. And as with travelling to any part of the world, I will always trust my gut instinct.

For the full TOI article visit:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Delhi_airport_still_unsafe_for_foreigners/articleshow/3630855.cms

Testing times for a moment of relief

2008-10-19T11:06:00.000-07:00

Close encounters of a nasty kind

Anyone who has travelled outside the mollycoddling environs of a plush package holiday will probably know that the lavatory in this picture is absolute luxury compared with some other facilities in existence – or, more to the point, not in existence. And for women, who unlike men are less able to find relief against a tree, wheel of a bus, in a telephone box, shop doorway or any of the other usually-favoured venues for personal release, travel and bodily functions are often incompatible. We risk, at worst, contamination. At best we face exposure, humiliation, and accidental self-splashing; none of which come under the heading of 'Things to do on holiday'.

For this very reason, and because I am soon to hit the road again, I decided to test the Shewee, a portable plastic funnel that is designed by a woman for women, to find out if my own days of finding the nettle patch could be at an end. With the Shewee all one needs to do – theoretically – is unzip one's trousers, pop the Shewee in, relax and act like a man. Goddamn!

I had already received words of encouragement from Trixiexx and Stacey (see previous post) and was keen to get going. Practice, it must be said, should only take place at home where you have access to soap, water and clean pants. Never venture out with the Shewee without trialling it because that awful sensation of dribble down the legs is very disheartening.

And so I left the device in my bathroom, kept the toilet seat up (!) and inbetween cups of tea tried, tried and tried again. Yet I was a failure. Rare occasions of success were soon followed by a bit of an accident. Undeterred, I ordered the Urinelle, a cardboard funnel which, according to the manufacturers, can be flushed away to biodegrade in the sewer system. Different in shape to the Shewee, I hoped it would be the answer but again there was little success.

It's rather frustrating for a woman like myself, who likes to do well, to find that I can 't even pee properly when others around me are singing the praises of these contraptions and hailing them as 'lifesavers'. So I asked the questions but soon found out that a dribble-free Shewee experience is not as common as I had been led to believe. Steph, a regular Shewee user, says that dribbles are "inevitable", but "preferable to wetting yourself". Tasch, who takes the Shewee on her numerous trekking holidays, finally fessed up that it wasn't as marvellous as she'd made me think. Dribbles were inevitable, tissue was necessary and disinfectant hand gel recommended. But again, for Tasch, it was better than squatting the usual way because it did, at least, allow for better aim; something most ladies do not have when Mother Nature calls at the most inconvenient moment.

Checking independent reviews for the Shewee and the manufacturer's own site, it appears that a fail-safe technique does not exist. Finding out what suits you, it seems, is the only way. My own recommendation is that if you are wearing trousers, put tissue paper under the Shewee first, and lean forward as much as possible to allow gravity to work with you.

Even then, Steph warns, practising at home and using it in a real situation are very different. For instance, standing while trying to hold on during a bumpy train ride could easily end in tears. And so in some senses it seems that hovering above dirty loos or, when in the great outdoors, squatting in the usual way may sometimes be simpler and quicker. If on the other hand you are in a stationary lavatory where you just don't want contact with the seat and can remove clothes so that they don't get hit by any fallout, then the Shewee and Urinelle could have a great role to play.

So despite their imperfections I will take a Shewee and packets of Urinelles on my next Indian adventure. But a long skirt or shawl to hide behind will have to be there on standby. And in the meantime, if anyone knows of that holy grail for women who love the outdoors – a fail-safe technique, then please let us know!

To shewee or not to shewee, that is the question

2008-10-13T14:13:00.000-07:00

A woman scans the Himalayan landscape in the faint

hope of finding something to hide behind

There is one clincher in the argument for God being a man; men have a much easier time when it comes to writing one's name in the snow, as it were, and surely if God were a woman She would have made sure that women had equal, if not better, snow-writing abilities.

My experience of poor or non-existent toilet facilities began many years ago, and not just at some grungy festival. I still recall with embarrassment squatting behind an abandoned building in Goa a couple of decades ago, and leaping up in fright only to smack my head on the branch of a nearby tree – just because a twig had scratched my derriere and I thought I'd been bitten by a snake. And it was probably that same evening that as I tried to take another private squat, I was startled by a young man who suddenly appeared next to me, nodding companionably with the words, "all right?" as he unzipped his jeans and began watering a nearby bush.

As any woman knows, especially women travelling alone in India, toilets are an adventure all of their own.

So I was thrilled when a friend told me about the Shewee, a plastic affair that allows a woman to urinate like a man. What this little moulded funnel has is a part that slips into your pants, underneath all the important bits, allowing the Shewee to act as a kind of directional spout. And with more off-the-road travel in India coming up, I was seriously tempted to get one.

But apart from the hassle of having to carry it and make sure it is clean, here's the problem: no woman travelling alone in India wants to draw too much attention to herself, and it has suddenly occurred to me that if I am able to slip off and relieve myself au vertical, I may possibly draw more attention than if I am trying to squat somewhere with my bottom on display. Because in a country where the Shewee is probably yet to make a splash, a woman standing up to relieve herself has to be only one thing - a man.

So I am no closer to making a decision. While I have friends who have used the Shewee while trekking or hiking, it has never been in a country where about a billion pairs of eyes are watching one's every move. I have about five weeks before I hit the Indian road again, so would be interested to hear from anyone who has used one of these gizmos. I'm sure other women would like to know too. So to Shewee or not to Shewee? Your answers, ladies, please!

Moving pictures

2008-10-10T15:23:00.000-07:00

Trawling through a pack of CDs at home, I found a few clips from India which I have now posted on Youtube. Hopefully there will be better ones in the near future, but anyone interested can find them under the dreaded holiday movies link to the right.

Here is a sample of what you will find! One of my favourites, a Kathakali performer in Kerala demonstrating the hand gestures that spell out a polite invitation. "An invitation to what?" a friend asked. I really have no idea, but nobody from the audience ever got up to find out.....

A Kathakali invitation

I enjoyed the performance from these guys so much that I went back a couple of days later. Having taken up residence in a wooden shack near to the beachfront in Varkala, Kerala they gave demonstrations and explained make-up and costume before acting out the story of a lustful demoness who tries to lure the son of a god. If ever you go to Varkala, look out for them. You won't be sorry.

Precious gifts

2008-10-05T14:10:00.000-07:00

The meeting had been all too short, just one long weekend was all that was possible. Now it was time to go. He had already handed me a picture to treasure and three gifts that I had stowed away in my luggage for safety. He handed me an apple and with concern casting shadows over his sad, almost-black eyes said, "In case you get hungry on the way." He'd made it so clear that he did not want me to leave but when he knew that I could not change my mind, he thought of my comfort. He offered me two other gifts but I declined.

We waved goodbye at the train station as I caught the train back to London. Many, many hours later I arrived home and unpacked my bags. The apple was still there - I had chosen wine and chocolate for the journey instead of his healthy option. I also unpacked the precious gifts; two baby-sized and oddly-shaped pumpkins and a plastic dinosaur. Gifts from a four-year-old.

The presents I had declined? A plastic watering can (offered in case I got thirsty along the way), and a hose/garden sprinkler game for children (offered because I might need it). That's ok, I said. I have a bottle of water if I am thirsty and I don't get too much time to run around the garden so best you keep the game, I said.

Boys, don't they just break your heart?

Eurostar

2008-10-04T02:11:00.000-07:00

Notices from Eurostar said that because of delays caused by the recent fire, arrive earlier than usual for check-in. Arriving an hour before departure I was almost asleep in my seat before the train finally eased its way out of the station. Others, with sweat running down their cheeks, had clearly had to rush at the last minute, only to find that they had been booked into someone else's seat.

In theory, the train into Europe should be easy. But somehow one always still ends up spending part of one's journey queuing outside a loo while someone inside takes up residence. If you want to take a book into the toilet/bathroom and spend half an hour or so in there then fine, if you are at home. But it seems awfully bad manners to do it on a train.

I think that has to be my only complaint. Not an exciting trip, I know. But soon I will be in Istanbul and will hopefully have something much more exciting to write!