Snakes in a Boys Town

Hi guys and happy Pongal celebrations and a great ‘Indian Republic Day!’

I have just got in from a rather long journey back from one boys town to the other – it is Indian Republic Day and there was a big party… I am now staying (and have been for the past few week) in the country north of Chennai and loving it – the novelty of Indian city life wears off quite quickly and it’s nice not to be surrounded by constant noise, pollution and dirt; the only drawback of my present location is now being surrounded by scores of deadly Cobras, Scorpions and swarms of malarial Mosquitoes…

I am in what is referred to as a forest area, however it in truth is merely a bunch of low bushes (picture the new forest with angry snakes), randomly dotted with villages here and there. The village nearest to me is a lovely little place named Amaranbedu which appears to be almost exclusively populated by old boys of the Rotary boy’s towns. I arrived the day before the four-day Tamil festival of Pongal, celebrating harvest time. At this village there was a party every night containing lots of special events including the climbing of an 8 metre greasy pole, lots of dancing competitions and a really physical game called Cabadi (which appeared to me to be basically British bulldogs without the running –I found it to be strange but good fun when I played it a few days later). There was one event in which I actually took part, before I realised what it was, and that appeared to be the relatively easy task of running, jumping and trying to hit a suspended bag with a stick. Note the fact I say appeared… firstly the bag was moved up by a pulley any time anyone tried (making it near impossible) but most importantly was the fact, of which I was blissfully unaware, that at the moment you jumped to swing your bat you were bombarded by two bucketfuls of water, drenching you and every piece of your clothing to the bone in a matter of milliseconds…

The above mention of dancing is interesting to note as well due to the fact the only dancers for the whole celebration appeared to be male – Due to the societal restrictions on any kind of public female/male intimacy it meant that the boys were all dancing with each other & the girls were in a corner giggling… I say dancing but they weren’t exactly floating round in a graceful waltz or boogieing to a twist – the Tamil village style of dancing appeared to be shaking epileptically to the bongo drum line – and when dancing with two people it was usual to face each other whilst oscillating violently in your own style around the other – it was a seriously weird way of dancing but after watching for a time you got past the initial reaction and it began to look strangely impressive and complex (Even if it did at first appear to be a lost Frankie goes to Hollywood video!).

Another amazing part about the Indian countryside is the country roads – no I don’t mean that they are soft or smooth or lined with wild flowers – the amazing thing is the reduction of traffic on them compared to Chennai city’s mad alleys. They appeared so calm that I decided to learn how to ride a motorbike on them, unfortunately however, as above, appearances were deceptive… the roads may look calm but whilst you are dodging pot holes, trying to out run violent, rabid dogs and dealing with elderly men who think as they are 70 they have earned the right to walk in the centre of the road and will move for nothing despite any build up of traffic (this is the case even if the road is such that it is impossible to drive around them – instead you can easily spend half an hour constantly stalling, driving 2m further and then stopping again wishing an immediate and violently acute heart attack on the old incontinent sadists). However one of the biggest dangers on the road apart from the afore mentioned terrors and of course myself, is the fact that at all time you must be on the look out for any stray buffalos. These creature literally have such a strong death-wish that they pounce out of their fields, generally from behind a large hedge, at any vehicle passing by in the hope it will put them out of its misery (I say its due to an inferiority complex – Indian buffalos are so very nearly cows that they have to put up with being milked, herded and constantly sounding constipated etc. but at the same time not having the satisfaction or excuse of being a worshipped holy animal). Apart from tall this there is something else you should also know about Indian motorbiking it is tremendous exercise – this is due to the fact that generally when Indians buy their fuel they normally only buy a half litre or litre (to put in a tank of normally at least 10 or 12 litres) and as such a 20 min jolly often turns into a 4 hour expedition due to having to push the bike the last 10 kilometres

There was however an even larger problem, I realised as soon as I turned off of one of these small calm looking roads onto a main road, which had by the way decidedly given up the pretence of looking peaceful and easy, and finally I drove along that right until I found out it ran straight onto a national highway was a positive bedlam of speeding trucks carrying gargantuan loads, massive 4x4s cutting you up every five seconds and still somehow omnipresent the odd suicidal buffalo… the problem? During all my focus on the starting and changing up gears I hadn’t ever gotten around to mastering the slowing down part… many shouted instructions and windswept gestures later I managed to slow down and turned round before I hit Calcutta…

Goa, goa, gone...

Ok – so I have pretty much been off the radar for a while and for that I apologise – my little trip to Goa wasn’t very technologically compatible!

So travelling halfway across India - sounds pretty easy… well at least I could never write about it being boring!

As you have no doubt already read my little rant over the nightmare of obtaining any sort of travel tickets in India (and if you haven’t - shame on you!) you will probably understand why I did not have much hope for my coach trip. When I saw the vehicle I was meant to spend the night travelling in what little hope I had was decimated! The ‘coach’ was, to be honest a rough amalgamation of dented and twisted metal that somehow resembled a giant, monstrous iron coffin – and sat inside it definitely felt like it! Basically I was not feeling at my most confident ever… But somehow I survived the mad dash to Bangalore alive – with me not getting a single wink of sleep all night nor allowing my knuckles to relax their tight white grip on the armrest that was brought on by the manic speeds and downright mad near crashes. When we arrived at Bangalore I quickly found the nearest park and passed out on a bench and let myself crash from a night spent completely pumped up on adrenaline.

After spending a very uneventful day in the city of Bangalore sat on a supposedly holy rock and looking at a few trees I decided that my luggage was too big – this was also in small part due to, like an atom bomb dropped on a large city, my bag had actually exploded at the seams and created a large sprawl of my belongings all over the nearby vicinity. After a few generous donations from my pack to any lucky passers by and my equipment halved I managed to, with some ingenious action with a needle and some dental floss (the most amazing invention in existence), repair my bag to something of its former shape – with the added benefit of it now smelling minty fresh – and I hopped onto my next coach which was the sleeper bus to Goa.

Now sleeper buses are a very novel idea to someone like me; I am a boy who has spent the majority of any of my previous long coach trips having teachers checking and making sure I’m safely buckled in. On a sleeper bus you don’t have a seat belt, in fact you don’t even have a seat – you have a small, open shelf to curl up on… well most Indians don’t have to in fact curl up but me with my ‘six foot whatever’ height I certainly did! The beds are bunks two high and were generally the size of a small child’s bed. This would still have been alright except for the fact Goa is so busy at new years that they had to double up passengers - for me this meant squeezing up with a French backpacker, who was actually quite a nice guy, and his guitar. Travelling with him, on the bunk below were a few of his mates, we all got on famously and it ended up with us splitting an apartment for a few days at a costal town named Calangute.

Despite enjoying the company, I was not particularly fond of the beach which had all the charm and energy of an Essex girl’s Mediterranean-island hen party on speed – and not in a good way!! There was always about 57 different songs blasting all at you and the locals were trying to scam you out of every penny you had… I eventually decided to head north to a beach that was said to be a place to chill out from all the parties in the area I currently inhabited – and I am so glad I did! I managed (after an excruciating hour-long motor bike trip with my massive pack on my back) to stumble across this little bohemian village paradise; it was a place where everyone was relaxed, the sun setting over the sea was celebrated every night by an acoustic jam session on the postcard-perfect palm fringed bay and, most importantly, the beer was extremely reasonable - being priced at only about 40p a bottle!!!

After stumbling about for a bit I managed to find this gorgeous little guest house, which was a cosy little place run by one of the best cooks I have ever met! It even had the added benefit of food available 24/7 – one night about 2 minutes after describing in passing the delicious virtues of a perfectly crispy potato wedge at about 3:30 in the morn, there was a whole massive tray full of them under my nose in varying spices and dips! The people who occupied the guesthouse were also completely and totally bonkers – one resident was an older Dutch hippy with a voice in his head named ‘Jo’, ninja boots on his feet and a squirrel tail duck taped to his hat…

And so eventually, with one of the oddest groups of people I have ever encountered, I passed the bell tolling New Year in complete and absolute paradise – I even had a few Scots there to give a crowd-gathering, rip-roaring rendition of ‘Auld Lang Syne!!!’

And getting back - how was that you ask? Well with a some help from a little know-how, some of that cheap beer and a few sleeping tablets (obviously not together!) the 24h direct return coach trip was a breeze!

I hope you all have a brilliant new year – I have a good feeling about 2010…