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Posts archive for: March, 2008
  • Photos XVII: Hairy Pothead and the Order of the Remix

    I've managed all but the last few stages of my journey; so far about 1000 miles by plane, 450+ miles by train, 100 miles at least by taxis and rickshaws (Chennai is NOT an easy city to get around, neither is where I am now just for sheer size) so I have just the last 400 or 500 miles on the bus to go, plus a couple of taxis, and I'll be in the capital of Laos as per the plan by about midday tomorrow, that's Monday.
    I wish I had changed my clothes since Friday morning but it's just not gonna happen. Hey-ho.

    Right now I'm in Bangkok. Yes, I made it as far as that :D Nice place, but I think I'm only seeing the best of it. More on that later though, because this post is relentless and uncaring - I really, really need to get through these photos!

    So I'm dispending with much of the explanations, just see if you like any of it:

    -

    More of the crocs:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture236.jpg

    Birds:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture235.jpg

    Senery:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture234.jpg

    And the bats:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture233.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture232.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture226.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture231.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture230.jpg

    Yes these are the bats, hope I got some pictures of their distinctive wingshape as well...

    Meh, birds mostly, with some rocks & water at no additional cost:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture229.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture228.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture227.jpg

    Ze painted storks and the black & white storky fella too, with wings in a perfect pose, on the right of the picture:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture225.jpg

    Regular birdstuffs:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture224.jpg

    This looks like it'll end in tears and bloodspray, somehw:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture223.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture222.jpg

    Nestage:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture221.jpg

    Big birds! :

    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture218.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture217.jpg

    A cormorant:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture216.jpg

    A cormorant and friends (they were also there all along, the devious swine):

    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture214.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture213.jpg

    Neopolitan avian lifeforms 3s 2235 - 2236:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture211.jpg

    Storkstuff:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture209.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture208.jpg

    Big fat porker of a crocodile! I wouldn't say it to his jaws, mind you:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture202.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture207.jpg

    Photobucket

    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture204.jpg

    And - yay!! Guess who this is on the right (no not the croc :P ) and I'll just prepare yself for the war to be offiially declared ;) :D
    :

    Photobucket

    That's her again, see, but only just; plus, the Storks actually are more interesting in this shot. Becasue you can see more of them than just a fraction of arm, probably:

    Photobucket

    And her ladyship in-situ with the wildlife again:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture200.jpg

    Storky nesty flappy things:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture199.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture198.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture197.jpg

    Things:

    Photobucket

    Branches:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture195.jpg

    Can't see it properly whatever it is:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture194.jpg

    Lots of roosting bats:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture193.jpg

    -

    Big bird in flight:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture192.jpg

    Big bird nesting:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture191.jpg

    Something green and leafy:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture188-1.jpg

    -

    I'm going a little nutty sat here.
    Right, I'm off to see a bit of Bangkok. Shame I wasted another great title on this motley collection of snaps, but hey.
    One day we shall be even and up-to-date, one day...

  • Photos XVI: Hairy Pothead and the Droplet of Ire

    The first person to congratulate me on the sheer aching brilliance of the title today gets a gold star. Don't push, form an orderly line please.

    Right, I have a laptop now and while my wallet wishes me to curl up and die quietly, I on the other hand am gonna make good use of it besides just watching a bucket-load of films, and try to do most of the writing on there thus saving me internet bills and fees. So not too much waffle here, just photos :)

    -

    The title is particularly good to describe me today yesterday, but not really the pictures as they are all super happy fun time stuff, not me in my fluctuous (yes I own that word too, as of now) mental state. It's been 20 21 days of controlled drinking, or it will be come tomorrow midday-ish, and aside from feeling chuffed with myself I'm going a little crazy with it.
    This includes doses of inaccurate and randomised wrath towards nothing in particular. Also peevish. Hence the `ire`. I should shut up now lest my wallet starts its crowing again.

    -

    A distant stork/crane/light aeroplane:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture103.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture104.jpg

    -

    This tree, is cool. It was perched in the quiet recess' of the bird sanctuary (actually bang in the middle of a little courtyard, but it was a quiet day) and clearly was there only for decoration.
    Look at Maria in the bottom corner. See the way she is looking at the tree, as if somehoe sizing it up:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture099.jpg

    The charming and daring Maria, illicitly climbing one of the amazing trees that thrive through aerial roots alone. She wasn't supposed to be here, of course, but she's out of control really. Not a thing I can do.

    Now I'm not sure why I wasn't climbing myself and was therefore able to take this picture, but there must have been some blindingly enormous reason because I'm well 'ard, I am. I would swung up there in a sec- no, I would have levitated up there in an instant had I wanted.
    Obviously I didn't want, for some reason:

    Photobucket

    Photobucket

    There you go moi darlin' :) I finally got around to posting those pictures. Rotate them with the magic of the right-click and they're all yours. At last...

    -

    This is the right way up - if you ever wondered just how those aerial roots start, well, here you are. Very much like a gigantic, many-limbed potato only with leaves, and proper roots, and densely fibred woodstuff, and..
    ..okay it's not much like a fucking potato. But then a potato isn't a nut either, contrary to that silly rumour, and bananas are not herbs.
    They're both actually varieties of personal defensive weaponry, elegant weapons for a more civilized age... takes anti-psychotics

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture100.jpg

    Trust me, everyone, at least one of those links will be cool ;)

    -

    Jungley tree things, very atmospheric although possibly only to botanists:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture098.jpg

    You'll be wanting a botanist and a geologist for this one to be any fun:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture097.jpg

    -

    A brief detour back to Mysore.

    In the park outside the maharaja's palace, apart fom the well-dressed man taking a piss against a tree in full frontal view of the busy street, there were a couple of odd trees with strange fruit in them. What was that album`strange fruit` again? I'm sure someone I once knew of released one with that title.
    Anyway, real non-musical (as far as I know) strange fruit. Trees. :

    Photobucket

    This one I do know, these huge seed cases are where the spice tamarind comes from. The spice is very strong and sour, and therefor immensely popular in regulated doses. You see these seed pods all over India, from little ones half an inch wide and a few inches long, to these monsters and bigger - as they get larger the outer shells become very tough and woody and as they get up to about 18" in size they could probably be used in combat :D
    :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture264.jpg

    Photobucket

    In the hotel room in Mysore we filled ourselves silly with sweets (ohhhh my god Indian sweets... virtually lethal doses of sugar in every single one. Mmm!) and I noticed the container - now yes, I know it's only a cardboard bnox, and yes, we all know that this little symbol is innocuous and actually rather uplifting and noble in this part of the world.

    That isn't stopping me from labelling this place as the Third Reich Sweetshop and Bakers GmbH, however:

    Photobucket

    It is just odd to see swastikas everywhere - even on bakery boxes - when all you've ever seen of it before has been in relation to goose-stepping numpties!

    -

    A few pictures of houses on the way back from the bird sanctuary - I just love the architecture in India. I hope I managed to actually get some of the better buildings though; these were all taken form a taxi at full speed:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture262.jpg

    Yay!
    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture260.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture259.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture258.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture257.jpg

    Ahhh, that's what I was looking for - these are just regular `middle class` (middle/upper caste) houses:

    Photobucket

    -

    Back in the wildlife sanctuary, I shall save the picture of Mari and I lest I incur much wrath (I think she looks lovely but of course I'm gonna check if I'm rioght first ;) :P ) but instead ou may have this, ridiculous picture of a grinning idiot. The bamboo looks nice, at least:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture252.jpg

    There's those crocodiles as shown to you by the park, before you get into the boat:

    Photobucket

    The entrance to the park was something like 150 or 125 rupees per person (per foreigner anyway, Indian nationals pay about 15-25 rupees from memory), but they also charge you 25 rupees for every camera you have and 100 rupees for a video camera! Obviously they need to make money, but it's a bit clinical the way they've worked it out I thought. Par for the course though, so no worries.
    But then the boat trip costs 500 rupees extra once you are inside...

    Now this in the real world equates to around £6.50p but I am a severely cheap man and living here for a month or three makes you readjust your expenditures, anyway. I've been thinking in rupees for almost half a year now, I adjusted my thoughts very quickly on the advice of some seasoned travellers in Arambol.
    So the boat was gonna cost four time the price of admission - per person!

    Of course it would have been foolish to listen to me because then I wouldn't have seen any of the incredible wildlife (durr!) so Maria stepped in, paid the whole fee, and managed to snaggle the boat for one lot of rupees for us both.
    She was so charming and we were so enamoured with it all that the scheduled half-hour trip became 50 minutes of wonderment on the lake.

    There was another tourist, an Indian guy with a bald patch and more expensive camera equipment than I'd ever seen outside of a showroom before in my life, and he offered us a generous 25 rupees to share our little private boat.
    I thought he was proper cheeky at the time, but Indians only had to pay about 25-50 ruppes for the private boats, so it was all in good favour after all. Once we returned to alnd of course we were far too overwhelmed and buoyed up by the experience to take anything for it.
    It really was spectacular :)

    -

    Glassy water with distant white bird creatures:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture250.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture249.jpg

    You can see these for yourselves o' course:

    Photobucket

    Photobucket

    Now have you guessed what those black things hanging from the trees are yet? :

    Photobucket

    Yes, that's right. Bloody thousands of gigantic bats!

    Hopefully got some shots of them in flight - they had, quite easily, wingspans of a metre or more. They were very, very big bats. Probably fruit-eating, or so I hope ;)

    -

    Did I happen to mention that I think crocodiles are cool? :D :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture244.jpg

    Photobucket

    Photobucket

    This one of the egrets fluffing its feathers - and being slightly more relaxed than one would have thought being so near the carnivourous beastie::

    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture239.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture238.jpg

    Finally, have a lovely tree :) :

    Photobucket

    Right I gotta dash - got a train to catch to Chennai (643km) then a plane tomorrow night to catch to Bangkok (1300-ish km) then a train to catch on Sunday morning to the Laos border (about 700km) and then I gotta actually get into Laos.
    Phew.

    Looks like it'll be fun - I wont be posting here, obviously, probably until Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday depending on what the state of the internet is in Laos.
    Unless I can get online at Chennai airport and have done some work on the new lappytop, at any rate.

    See ya in the new country, I hope!! :D

  • Photos XV: Hairy Pothead and the Provisioner of Diazepam

    Look, right, you try thinking of titles to rhyme with the entire Harry Potter and keep them slightly relevant to the subject matter.
    So what, I don't have any pictures of a chemist in this one but come on, I've been banging on about all the lovely, freely-available valium over here for months now ;)

    Actually that isn't quite true, it seems to be more or less limited to Goa unless you go and get a prescription, which I probably will do later today or tomorrow. I have more genuine cause for the stuff than pretty much anyone else travelling through here so stop reading at me like that! :P

    So the title might be more appropriate than we first thought.

    And oh yes, those spammy astrological nonsense poeple have been booted out by the lovely chaps/chapesses at Blog.co.uk Three cheers for sensible thinking and the snide upsetting of ethereal pseudo-apple-carts, yay!!

    -

    We are still at the bird sanctuary and will be for a little while, which is nice :)

    A painted Stork all it's lonesome and, well you can see this one so I needn't go on:

    Photobucket

    -

    It's me! And a friend:

    Photobucket

    I like to think that this is me being tongue-in-cheek but actually it was a more like turd-in-pants because we'd backed up to this guy - a sleeping 9-foot crocodile - and I had no idea, was chatting away facing the other way right up until maria or the guide made some suitable gesture to indicate my proximity to a reptilian finale.

    Happily enough he was sleepy, I probably would have mentioned it if things had gone the other way, but my, I see this picture now and can't help thinking: Bloody hell I really do look like Dad sometimes, minus the grimace of course:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture158.jpg

    -

    Another of our crocodilian chum:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture157.jpg

    And a lovely few shots of a stork in various places:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture156.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture154.jpg

    (rotate 'zis one)
    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture153.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture152.jpg

    (Rotate this) a black & white stork standing there with an alarming similarity
    to my old boss. It's the thin legs and shark's-fin knees that do it. My old boss or one of the Bash Street Kids outr of the beano, anyway :D :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture150.jpg

    (Rotate this one too) birds, night heron, stork, nesting storks and egrets, all in lovely perspective, or something.. :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture149.jpg

    -

    "Terence! Did you shit on this rock???
    You did din't you? All over the blasted thing. Everywhere. You're a disgrace"
    "Errr, no, well I've been ill, err, oh fuck it I'm off to the pub" :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture146.jpg

    An Egret and four storks,
    sitting in a tree,
    ------

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture145.jpg

    A nicely silhouetted shot of one of the islands, you can see how many pairs are hanging out even on this less densely crowded one:

    Photobucket

    A pretty featureless silhouette shot, but still, Isn't water just lovely? :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture143.jpg

    Yes I did get a lot of photos of painted storks didn't I:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture142.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture141.jpg

    Now these two, umm, were going at it like knives, quite frankly. In public too. Disgraceful:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture140.jpg

    I want a huge lake with little islands like this in it, nowww!!! ;) :

    Photobucket

    And these guys? Yeah they're a must, seriously. Crocodiles are so very very cool:

    Photobucket
    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture136.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture135.jpg

    Photobucket

    Same thing with added background avians and worse lighting :P :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture133.jpg

    Scenic:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture131.jpg

    Some birds - plovers of some kind? Too big? - that I clearly can't recognise, in a tree, at 90 degress so get out your rotating frock and spin 'er 'round:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture128.jpg

    Birds nesting, doing little of interest:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture127.jpg

    Ahahahaha!! Guess what these are:

    Photobucket

    These you can see, you don't need to guess, but when was the last time (or any time) you saw a whole gang of Herons, le alone night herons, let alone nesting, eh? They're a bugger to spot in England, so I thought this was kinda novel and cool (rotate I'm afraid):

    Photobucket

    Absolutely load of the bigger, black and white storks nesting. I'll look up what species they actualy are soon, honest:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture124.jpg

    And a sleepy crocodile, aww, isn't he swe-GNARF!LAR!!*mangle*GRAEURGH!!HRKCHUURG!!*chew*AIIIAIIII!!!!IIILLCHGGG!LLLCHK!!!*spit*UUuuuurrrrrrr.... :

    Photobucket

    Okay there is nothing OBVIOUS in the way of wildlife to see here, but it is awfuly pretty:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture122.jpg

    Still, can you guess what they are yet? :

    Photobucket

    The low, silent menace of crocodiles at sunset.
    Is it all that dark for you actually? I'm in some cheap-arsed little internet cafe (I have a thing to say about the phrase `internet cafe` by the way) for the sake of only paying Rs. 15 instead of Rs. 25 per hour and not insulting the Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys, I'm sorry, the people of France, and the monitors here are a bit crap. Everything is dark, so I hope thes eare better lit on better screens.
    Anyway, stunted menacing sunset crocodiles, and all that:

    Photobucket

    Lots of shiny water - beyond that I can't see a thing; can you? :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture119.jpg

    Our friend the crocodylus humanochompus once again, in the distance, and in a pair:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture118.jpg

    Looks a lot like an egret, although if you twist your head you get a better view ;) (rotate it, in other words) :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture116.jpg

    Crocs a la rocky distance:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture115.jpg

    Gigantic creep vine a la bambeau strangleur:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture114.jpg

    This was that first sight I got of the crocodiles - you can see why, if it didn't move a fraction over several minutes, one might reasonably assume it was a prop, part of a light-hearted attempt to mislead the gullible tourist.
    I was wrong, of course, thankfully :) :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture112.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture111.jpg

    Now I doubt you can see it, slippery little bugger, but I tried to catch this crimson and russet coloured little devil by stealthy stalking, whch of course didn't quite work, so he's in there for my benefit as much as anything:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture110.jpg

    He's somewhere in the middle - yes, that tiny smudge of reddy-brown!

    -

    A small white bird in a larger brown lake. With stones, no less:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture108.jpg

    A small black bird (a Cormorant) in brown lake with lillies:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture107.jpg

    Spin this round for a lovely view down that man-made lake, nice trees on the left, too:

    Photobucket

    And that is it for today, PhotoBucket no longer wishes to speak to me, once again.
    Toodle pip.

  • I'm Feeling a Little Spendy..

    Hmm, I seem to have made a small but fundamental error: I've spent £610 in the last 48 hours, which isn't quite within my usual budgetary limits...

    The repairs to the camera (RS.1,500 : £19.50) were annoying but justified, and I slipped into the repair shop again this morning (just about morning, anyway; not sleeping before about 2/3am still) and the little repair man took it and confirmed the freeness of his impending repair, which was nice. No more costs there unless something's actually buggered, and he damn well should have spotted it the first time, really :roll:

    The plane ticket out of India; this Saturday; is justified but bloody annoying. My ticket to Bombay, India from the London Heathrow, UK - a distance of about 4450 miles - cost me £290.
    A flight from Chennai (Madras) on India's East coast just to Bangkok, Thailand - about 1300 miles - costs £140, almost half as much.
    I can well appreciate economies of scale and the minimum cost of these things, but even still something just a fraction under the 100 quid mark was what I would think is reasonable.

    Bear in mind that I am using every one of the following sites when I look for flights and go with the cheapest, between them you should be able to find some spectacular deals. Try them yourself - all of them if you want the best price, because they all searcc differently and they put different fees on varying flights and itineraries.
    As it happens, SkyScanner is often the best of these, and most actual bookings seem to be going through eBookers (the actual seller of the ticket: these following sites are all what they call `screenscrapers` and they trawl through dozens of different airlines for you) -

    http://www.kayak.co.uk/flights?tab=flights&oneway=n&cabin=e&travelers=1&depart_time=a&depart_date=8%2F04%2F2008&nearbyO=n&return_time=a&return_date=15%2F04%2F2008&nearbyD=n

    http://www.travelsupermarket.com/travelmerge/travelsearch.aspx?package=4 (theis one is just for UK departures so no good for me for a couplea years!)

    http://www.skyscanner.net/

    http://www.sidestep.com/

    http://www.foundem.co.uk/search/flights.jsp

    http://travel.kelkoo.co.uk/c-172201-flights.html

    http://www.momondo.com/

    http://www.expedia.co.uk/default.aspx?eapid=737-3&AFFCID=expe.uk.001.000.995083

    http://www.travelocity.co.uk/

    http://www.mobissimo.com/search_airfare.php

    http://www.opodo.co.uk/opodo/HomeServlet?locale=en_GB&CMP=uk-aff-gen-000000

    http://www.ebookers.com/shop/home?tduid=983fec690784d65167b00b1b17d116a8

    http://www.airline-network.co.uk/?partner=affiliate&AID=10460889&PID=1658918 (Uk departure only).

    -

    Hopefully the above lot might be useful to someone :) Onto the meat of the thing though, I went and bought that laptop didn't I?

    The sharp mathematicians and most accomplished liars :P amongst you will have worked out what this cost already: £Too,Bloody,Much,Pounds.00p

    I went just a little bit overboard and bought an AMD Turion Dual Core wotsit processor in this flat, shiny computery thing I now own, with 2GB things of memory stuffage, a graphics card that hopefully is capable of playing all the cheap, ripped-off DVDs available here of which I intend to buy a monumentally inhuman amount :D and the usual assortment of DVD rewritable drives, supra-100GB hard drives and with that shiny new Windows Vista that I've heard so many complaints about already :)) which is probably par for the course in desktops these days or possibly even old hat (it is so hard to keep up to date with the advances in computers, isn't it?) but for me, being a cheapskate, and for a laptop, being essentially a compromise by very definition, this makes me very very smiley :D

    i) DVDs in this part of India cost Rs. 70 or Rs. 80 for a single film, or even a 6-films-in-1 disc thingy! That's either about £0.92 or £1.00 each, for many new-ish films not yet on DVD I imagine (such as, maybe, Jumper, HP & the Order of the Phoenix, Hitman, War, sveral dozen others. I have no idea if these actually are available yet on DVD in the UK, but I had only heard of War, Hitman and HP before I left 5 months ago, and there are loads more big-name films I've not been aware of).
    I think you can probably hear me say "sweeeeeet" from over there in England :D

    ii) Yes, I had to look up `supra-`. Intended for use as the opposite of `sub-` I hope Mother and Father dearest :D can tell me if this is even appropriate :?:

    -

    If you want to be even more confused than you thought you were already by the way, have a look at the Wikipedia page for this processor. And that's just the processor - one chip of hundreds in there (admittedly the most sophisticated, but you get the point). And Wikipedia is supposed to be an accessible resource, even aside from the debacle that is the debate ;) :P surrounding its reliability.

    -
    -

    Anyway, right, well I wrote the above yesterday but got lost in a mire of moviedom after, predictably enough, I started watching films! The good films are of course the ones you pay more for. Regular DVD players have no trouble with the 6-in-1 or 8-in-1 discs but it appears my shiny new Microsoft flagship rules & regulations enforcement, genuine "advantage" bollocks, overly-legal, goody-two-shoes operating system isn't having any of it.
    Happily enough I've swapped all the mutiple-film discs with regular single movie versions this morning, so, I now have 10 films to watch which should keep me slightly out of trouble for a day or three :D

    -

    I did get to watch a couple of movies last night though, which was very nice indeed, and if I may play at being Jonathon Ross/Barry Norman for a minute....

    I can reliably inform you that War, with Jason Statham and Jet Li is a great action film with an excellent story that I'm sure must be an adaptation of an older Hong Kong movie, such is the thematic motivation of all the players and the pleasing supply of clever (although slightly dumbed down in this one I'm sure) plot twists. they were wholly predictable by about the halfway mark, but I put this down to Westernised dumbing-down, rather than any lameness on the part of the originator ;)

    It should entertain you for more or less the whole duration, it is rather good all the way except perhaps until the last 5 or 6 minutes, in fact, and if until then and no longer only because the details of that vital closing act don't really have time to sink in. You need the story to be continuing along a little for the events revealed there to have proper meaning.
    It is, however, very disappointing throughout in that Li does pretty much no fighting but rather a lot of shooting instead - for anyone who doesn't know or hasn't heard of Jet li, then I ask you: have you heard of Bruce Lee?

    Well, Jet Li is a far better, more accomplished martial artist with a vastly superior variety of disciplines at his disposal - contest this if you will, fight fans, but whether due to advances in cinematography and film quality and the understanding of how we mere human audiences watch and comprehend things, or whether it's down to sheer skill and adaptability and more highly accomplished & wide ranging styles, Jet Li's films are far, far more impressive. Even Especially discounting any of the ridiculous wire-work so beloved of our so beloved Yuen Wu Ping ;)

    2nd on the hit list, the `new` Haydn Christiansen film Jumper is, well, it's watchable but in the end it is very, very shallow. Really, the whole way through it seemed like they had rented each character from another movie, even the casual addition of Samuel L. Jackson couldn't properly revive this spluttering beast of a picture.
    Wonderful premise, truly superb as an idea and as an accomplished special effect, and there are some great bits in the first half of the film, but the complete lack of any explanation - of anything - makes it all very superficial.
    You can actually predict the film's level of thoughtfulness very accurately from the short, swaggering and incongruent opening voice-over ;)

    -

    Anyway that's quite enough from me: I have to negotiate the bloody minefield that is the new Windos Vista and try to make some sense of it. It's not easy, as anyone used to XP and its predecessors who now grapples with the weirdness of Vista will probably testify.

    Ho-hum!

  • PhotoOnslaught XIV: Hairy Pothead and the Camber of Egrets

    I am actually going to have to produce a wobbly Egret to justify the title today aren't I?
    Let's see what we can do.

    -

    And so, we find ourselves at Bangalore. This city is one of the two I.T. hubs of the nation and is responsible for a good part of the country's recent years of financial growth and success. Of course, as even the Lonely Planet can correctly note ;) there is a bit of a problem with this new-found wealth filtering down to anyone, say, below the level of Vice Chairman of a multi-national company already pulling in 6 or 7 figures a year, but hey, that's business!!

    Actually it's not, not always, at least. Except in this case it probably is - not that we saw much of the city (a taxi ride, a bus station, a train station, small chunk of an inner-city dual carriageway) but it didn't look strikingly prosperous as compared to anywhere else.
    Well it was quite clean.
    But they weren't distributing free iPod Nanos on the street corners or anything.

    -

    OKay, as I said we didn't se much, so, your insight into this famous, important and powerful Indian metropolis is limited to the train station and anything muggins here was able to snap along the way.
    Speaking of which I got my camera back from the repair shop today - lens works but the shutter button doesn't, so I can't actually take pictures, although I can look at them on a miniature LCD screen instead of going to the bother of lifting my gaze and peering at the real article. I will be wearing my best angry-but-still-civil hat down the same said repair shop tomorrow...

    Bangalore train station from the footbridge; it all looks pretty familiar:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture018-1.jpg

    The somewhat idiosyncratic/blunt/discriminatory/benevolent (delete as per your own interpratation and cynicism levels) nature of the railway carriage sub-division:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture016-1.jpg

    This is only there to prove where I actually was - all I wanted was a picture of the platform sign and a 20-foot platform to stand on to take some nice shots of the station as a whole (and the massed ranks of autorickshaws out the front, must have been over a hundred) but no, I couldn't remember that much. So I settled for a purposeless photograph that I will now, purposelessly, share with you:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture015-1.jpg

    You can see things are pretty damned informal despite the guys in the photograph below; if you fancy it you can drive your little 3-wheeler right onto the platform to make unloading easier and everyone croses the tracks at one end of the station by wandering carefree over the rails:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture014-1.jpg

    This is very typical of urban houses I've seen in cities, even if it was just a passing shot of a random house. If you can't squeeze the mansion into the city, squueze all the features of a mansion into the space you have got:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture012-1.jpg

    -

    Hampi group photo!

    There was a very interesting guy called Dave at Hampi, staying in the same guesthouse. A Yorkshireman who lives half a year over there climbing, and visits his highly adaptive, highly adapted mate who live here pretty much all year round in a cave some miles away!!
    That's Dave int he thoroughly ridiculous hat next to Maria, and the two guys on the edges were some of the ever-helfpul staff - I cannot bloody remember their names. The guy on the Left had one you'd think you might remember - Maria, can ye help mae oot, lass?? :

    Photobucket

    -
    (Bangalore again)
    He he he - this is cool. I suppose with the recent assassinations and stuff I shouldn't have been taking photos of armed security personnel; not that it ocurred to me, mind you, but Maria (seen here harassing ;) them for all their worth) was just about to duck or start running:

    Photobucket

    -

    Back in Hampi just briefly...

    Another unlikely balanced rock - if anyone knows that they have seen these exact pictures before do let me know please :) :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture005-1.jpg

    Rocks, mountains, bloody rocks and mountains...

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture003.jpg

    Sodding carvings:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory155-1.jpg

    F*%†#!± temples! :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory148-1.jpg

    -

    And now we must break for some video. It seems I have an absolute shedload of videos - almost the whole last 2 pages of this album - so I'll stick some here and another load more in a video post afterwards to clear them all up, as it were.

    Course, we gotta hope I actually still possess the things......

    Ahhh. It seems that we don't :**: >:-(

    I'm not going to swear, but I will tell you that now none of us will ever get to see a full wraparound shot of Mysore Palace and Gardens; the Waterfalls near Madikeri *fume*; the uber-bumpy bus rides; the - I can't help myself, the fucking bastard fucking shits - Indian traffic dodging films which are worth small lumps of pure gold; the eagles circling the city skyline in Mangalore, from the hotel roof, no less; the waves crashing and throwing up clouds of spray and streaming in rivers over rocks on Mangalore beach; the cats and crows from the same area walking around each other without concern; and of the videos of the huge birds, bats and crocodiles flying at the bird sanctuary near Mysore; the coconut rop spinning from the backwater trip here in Kerala; the view of the valley - it was SOME view believe me - on the ridge of a mountain on the last day of the Madikeri trek (we'd only spent 72 hours getting there, of course I'm not bitter); the local cigarette roller who was making the Indian cigarettes, bedes, at a rate of knots; etc. etc. ad infuriatum.

    In lieu of this I'm gonna let Kevin Kline say it for me. Just the first two scenes sum up perfectly how I feel:

    -

    I feel better for that. Gonna have to get A Fish Called Wanda when I get that laptop... right, okay, moving on; the only video that seems to work at all is this tiny, 2-second `film` where you can at least see a croc moving. About 6 inches. Still, better than a slap in the face with a wet disembodied limb:

    Soooo... Woohoo!! B) :>> 88| :wave: First dedicated travelling album finished! That's one and a bit albums down, one more to go. many duplications so hopefully I'll be able to clear through them in the 3 days I have left in this country not dedicated to transport and running away (booked my flight to Thailand this afternoon, see).

    -

    And, we have achieved the wildlife sanctuary, at last. This place was called Ranganatthittu.. Ranganananathituu... Rangang...Rananga... *checks* .. Ranganathittu Wildlife Sanctuary (come one now, I was pretty close) and it was wonderful.
    Wonderful beyond measure, the guide took us out in a little boat and rowed as almost silently out across a large lake studded with heavily-wooded islets, and, well, the sheer volume and variety of life was incredible.

    Night herons, painted storks, cormorants, cranes, egrets, Ibis', spoonbills, even pelicans Kingfishers go without saying, of course, but you lose them in there - you lose anything smaller than a bloody heron in there - because of the size of the biggest birds. There were, among the painted storks (and the colours! Ohhhh!) were another kind of stork even larger and almost as big as the pelicans which were, frankly, almost implausibly large.

    There were also, of course, absolutely loads of Marsh Crocodiles as well, they may not be Saltwater or Nile crocs, but they were big enough and thorougly magnificent.
    Anyway, enough of that, have a look at some of the stuff:

    Night herons:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture187.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture188.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture186.jpg

    Painted storks nesting en masse:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture182.jpg

    I have to say here that I was too excited to get proper photos; we were in the middle of these guy's flight paths and right next to hudreds of each species nesting, flying in, flying out, repairing nests etc. and it was pretty overwhelming, plus my camera isn't a proper one ;) so I apologise for the fect many photos are quite distant and possibly not very well focused :oops:

    Just a bit of lake scenery:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture176.jpg

    Nesting Pelicans!! Not easy to see I'm afraiod; they were hard enough to spot as they nested in the very highest of the trees, almost above us by the time they were pointed out (we'd never have spotted them ourselves):

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture169.jpg

    Lake scenery with nice glassy water effect:

    Photobucket
    Photobucket
    Photobucket

    Nesting birdies:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture178.jpg

    A nice chunk of rock, it seems:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture177.jpg

    This, I believe, is a painted stork in its lonesome:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture174.jpg

    This definitely is an Egret - the fine feathers in the tail fan out over the eggs in the nest, as seen here. This one was doing so with its back conveneintly to us, right at the edge of the island where we passed:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture173.jpg

    That other kind of Stork - not gonna wina ny beauty pagents but my, are they impressive nonetheless (needs a little rotate from ya):

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture172.jpg

    This look a lot like another kind of Heron... not sure. Not a stork I don't think, but then, there are anothyer dozen species living there that I couldn't identify for a cash prize! :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture171.jpg

    The subtley ominous signs of a crocodile in the water, but at least you can see 'em. It is when you can't that you are in trouble, as any Australian will apparently tell you:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture170.jpg

    More storks up in the trees:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture168.jpg

    A little culvet that ran through one of the islands, not sure if I got it but the foliage is lovely anyway :D :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture167.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture164.jpg

    Storks in both flavours:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture165.jpg

    And in neopolitan only :D :

    Photobucket
    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/Picture155.jpg

    - And.. *drum roll* no, it's not a plastic prop (I though one on a rock in the middle of the lake, silent, unmoving, was a model to entice the tourists at first!) but is in fact the first proper glimpse of the Marsh Crocodile, or for those not trusting Wikipedia, the Marsh Crocodile ;)

    Photobucket

    Plenty more of these guys later, too. Toodle-pip!

  • A Note From My Liver (to: Myself)

    This isn’t for anyone else’s benefit, but is for my own undastardly (for once) purposes. It’s highly personal and not especially interesting, so, unless you have 10 minutes of your life you feel like sparing for no good reason, or you know me personally and want to sympathise/taunt me, then there’s not much here to interest ya.

    I hope you’re not waiting for a punchline or anything ;) really, this is just something I have to say for my own benefit, sort of thing.

    -

    Is it Monday today? Yes, good. Okay so I had a few beers 2 says ago. On Saturday night, no less!!
    Hardly shocking you might think, let alone worth two whole exclamation marks of its very own, but I am looking at this sort of thing a little differently than I used to, and from how most people probably view the ritual of the Saturday Night Beer or indeed any booze, at any time.

    I am an alcoholic. Okay that seems a bit of an exaggeration considering the very serious kinds of alcoholics that spring to mind after hearing that phrase, and I haven’t developed the shakes from not getting a drink every day yet (I had the shakes anyway :lol: ) but I have felt like a bloody alcoholic in almost every way for the last couple of years.
    There are of course the `classic` signs to watch out for which I’ve displayed in `admirable` quantities:

    Drinking every day for months and months on end – that would be 30-40 months consecutively now for me, practically;

    Drinking on my own far more than with people,

    Not even enjoying the sensation of being drunk, and certainly not getting the happy thrill - just a sense of ease with the world after too long a time sober.

    Drinking to stop having to think about anything much (apart from how to get the next drink).

    Hideous quantities consumed and weekly unit counts (when you can remember to note them down all the time) that reach triple figures with ease.

    This doesn’t make me quite as bad as the guy from Leaving Las Vegas, but makes me a lot worse than most people because I could happily plough through a lot of the sauce each and every day, and I did.
    And then it got a lot better, I arrived in Kochi and went out the first night, had a drunken yet rotten time (see here: http://versive.blog.co.uk/2008/03/17/needs-new-ttlte-3893218 ) and after the debacle that was that first night, I stopped, pretty much dead in my tracks. Maybe `rut` is a better word here though ;)

    And that was it; I didn’t even feel like drinking. I went about a week without wanting a drink and being very happy writing all day instead.

    I have tried this before of course – quitting - and on the first day I would usually be gently challenged by it, and be a noticeable but tolerable distance out of my comfort zone though pleased with myself. Maybe I’d feel the same even on the second day, too.
    But three days in and simply thinking about a cold beer would completely change me – and I would go vast distances out of my way, would spend all the money I had available, and be utterly miserable, until, I had had something to drink.

    Really, just thinking about it would make me happy and excited (I could literally feel the surge of warmth and happiness rise in my chest and up to my head and engulf me) and then that was it: I wanted to drop everything and go get some, and, usually, that’s what I did.
    I flaked out from meeting people, avoided phone calls, even totally shut myself off for a day or two every now and then because all I wanted to do was get steaming, and not have to speak to anyone or have any responsibilities or any thoughts other than those that floated up through a haze of muzzy numbness: just having films to watch and cigarettes to smoke took care of everything, I didn’t need anything – or anyone - else.

    In fact the only thing to be said for it is for when you are watching movies: you don’t have to think about picking anything out or being discriminating or choosy in any way, because no matter how shite a picture is when you are too pissed to focus on very much of the screen, `magically` it all becomes brilliant!! ;)

    So having had 3 occasions now when I have drunk in the last 17 days means my ambition to cut it out like a snap of the fingers isn’t working out, you could say – but this is not, in truth, a suitable phrase.

    It really is working out very well. Out of seventeen days I have only drunk three times – I am getting the urges to do so more often now but that’s to be expected, not least because I’m thinking and writing about it this very minute, but considering that I went from a full-on state of drinking stupidity to this, having a few beers on just 3/17ths of the days I’ve been here, I know that this is a huge improvement.

    And I did have good reason to drink this Saturday as well as sheer desire, would you believe.
    I’m not rationalising it, I am being totally truthful here.
    Number one was of course that I wanted a drink, obviously. If that wasn’t the case none of this would matter.
    Also worth bearing in mind though iare the body’s need for some sense of stability and the mind’s need for some sense of reward. A little drink every week or so to ease what remains of my organs and functioning systems from a state of near total insobriety to a safe – and low, for that - level of drinking is a good idea.
    Few people can cut it straight out, and toning it all down rather than cutting it straight out is usually the best way to make it stick as a habit – this is endorsed by healthcare professionals, by the way ;) I’m not trying to sneak around the rules.

    The other is that after being so good for a while and doing things that justify some kind of reward, it is only healthy and reinforcing to chuck a carrot to the donkey.
    On this occasion (Saturday) I had just written up the post `Daily Haze and Film Geek` which was rather long, and took a little effort, and I was very pleased with it (even though it really needs editing for typos and one lost clause ;) ) so I genuinely had in mind not that I deserved a reward so much, but that giving myself one would make me feel better, if you follow me. I wanted the drink because I want a drin, default state, but giving myself that reward would, I suspected, make me more inclined to treat drink AS a reward rather than just another form of breathable air as I did before. Plus with treats in mind I am even more likely to work harder, so the theory goes.

    I was playing amateur psychologist with myself, and also even more so in that I wanted to see just how I felt about drinking after giving it this sort of mediated break.

    Come Saturday eveing time, I didn’t enjoy it much – but then I was both being overly greedy, and drinking the wrong stuff. That 8% beer they call Haywards 5000 is a killer, and I had three of those after sauntering into one of the proper licensed places on Marine Drive, then on to the nicest Chinese this side of the bridges for an overly expensive meal (delicious, mind you) and a regular 5% beer that I couldn’t bring myself to say no to because the staff and food are great, and my automatic binge-O-meter swung the needle firmly yet exasperatingly to the “Oooh yes please!” side of things when the manager asked. I think it was one of those under-the-counter places because my beer arrived, and stayed, wrapped in a hefty amount of tissue paper ;)

    I never finished it. The last of the three strong beers made me feel a little bit sick, then the rickshaw ride over bumpy, potholed streets didn’t make it much better so finally, even after wolfing some Chinese food down, I couldn’t face the last 3rd of the weaker dram.

    Overall it wasn’t very enjoyable at all because I had too much too quickly and I hardly felt even positive (just that predictable relief of self-made pressures and stresses that are oh-so indicative of the addict), so the next time I have a drink – hopefully not even in this country but wait until well over a week for me to get to Laos first – I will have only 2 slowly-absorbed beers, just like I did on the other two occasions since getting to Kochi.

    I went to sleep more easily Saturday night, but any goodness in this respect was negated by the severe feelings of evil towards god, man and beast when waking as I had a stinking hangover yesterday that only abated after hideous quantities of paracetamol. I haven’t even had more than 4 paracetamol in the last 17 days, and those were only against illness not hangover symptoms! Drinking brings out the worst excesses of everything.

    So that’s my confession, as it were, and as I said at the start this is for my benefit and not for entertainment purposes. I am just telling the truth about what happened and what I was thinking because I need to do that, semi-piblically even, in order to get along with my current plan.
    I never made it to AA meetings (I was about to last year) but I can see just how they help, so this is nothing more than my version of that process.

    If you have read this, then think of yourselves all as assistants in my therapy or something if you like :) It actually does help a lot, so, thank you.

  • PhotoOnslaught XIII: Hairy Pothead and the Philanthropist's Moan

    I Told ya the Harry Potter material was coming out soon. Someone please think of something appropriate for the next 6 title please, I'm stumped!

    Riiiiight, where were we? Ah, yes.

    -

    First things first - does anyone want to see a funny video of a man cutting off his hair; dreadlocks no less; with a knife? :D Well, here you go:

    Graarrgh! That bloody video was nearly a minute long, damn it!! I've erased the memory cards now of course, that was back in Arambol in November. Yes, that is me. I had dreadlocks, but then the knife happened.

    It was vaguely eloquent and maybe even funny and I'd dare to say possibly even a little charming, that bleeding video, but of course Photobucket has cheated me. How could I be so naive.

    Right.

    All videos are now going to be bloody MAILED back to bloody ENGLAND to make sure they don't get chopped up.

    Upload them manually from here I hear you cry, why, of cousre you can't, that would be too easy!!
    The connection is as slow as it was back in 1997, it's dial-up speed all the way - a one minute video would take literally an entire day, and cost me about 200 rupees in internet usage.
    I hope
    I just can't wait to get to Australia and, more specifically, New Zealand :>>

    -

    Anyhoo, some stuff.
    Something I overlooked before; the nicer residential streets in the capital of Goa, Panerji, actually had pavements for once ;) but the tree planting and integration of said organisms lacked a certain subtlety:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/tdm072.jpg

    -

    Right, that bird snctaury near Mysore gets its first airing, here is, I believe, an Egret on some lillies. I have to warn you that the pictures start off pretty tame, and then disappear for another 5 posts because another batch got uploaded in front of them, again.
    Bear with me...

    That Egret:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture085-1.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture088-1.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture086-1.jpg

    -

    Those waterlillies were arranged rather nicely:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture089-1.jpg

    And so was the centre of this massive flower, would you believe, because that powdery stuff in the middle, from a cone a good few inches across and a few inches high, is all pollen!
    Enough to germinate several million female plants, I would say.
    Then again, when the likely transmitter of the stuff is a bird boasting a 7-foot wingspan, I guess this plant could afford to slightly over-evolve the stuff:

    Photobucket

    -

    Ah, we seem to be in Mysore city now. Right, well they certainly were fond of their ornate roundabouts, complete with miniature temples:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture076-1.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture074-1.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture052-1.jpg

    Same structure as last time but closer - you gottaa rotate this one:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture075-1.jpg

    And the craft trade in that city is world famous as are their sandalwood incense factories which supply a good proportion of the worldwide supply of that particular product
    And of course, to the beleagured and most hapless of tourists, Mysore is also (in)famous for the fake sandalwood oils and staged incense factories set up in various places ;)

    There is a large hall in the city somewhere called the Cauvery (which is the name of the great river in this region of India) that houses a lot of genuine hand-carved ornaments, shrine things, carvings, wooden toys, furniture etc. including these few things I managed to get pictures of - no photos inside of course - because they guarded the lobby.

    A rather fine carving/idol of Ganesh the elephant god dude, needs rotating:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture073-1.jpg

    A large swing seat, all hand carved:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture072-1.jpg

    And a 1/32nd size elephant (something like that anyway) that was still quite big enough to cause problems if left in the hallway:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture071-1.jpg

    They had this little thing called the Maharaja's Palace:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture078-1.jpg

    (Rotate this one) ;
    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture077-1.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture079-1.jpg

    And a little cathedral tucked around the corner, looks like it's not just Kerala that can do this trick, then:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture080-1.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture081-1.jpg

    I was leanig out of a just-about-stopped rickshaw for those by the way, hence the dodgy angle ;)

    -

    Our hotel had a rooftop restaurant, that apperently never opened, but still. I took a photo of another restaurant from there when we went up to inspect it, for reasons I can no longer rememebr. Perhaps you might be good enough to tell me yourselves... :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture064-1.jpg

    -

    Bird sanctuary just briefly again - I wish I could rotate stuff for you because this should really be displayed in full. Those trees are just brilliant, and that sign sums up a lot about this country:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture084-1.jpg

    Where else is a restaurant going to give you lessons in ethical philosophy by proxy?!

    -

    Somewhere in the markets we stopped for this - you see it all over the place, I have no idea exactly what the powder is made from, but it is body paint and temple/house decoration and will adorn just about anything you can think of.
    Those colours!

    Photobucket

    -

    Cows. They get everywhere, including your local roundabout as I turned around from taking the photo below and saw this relaxed chappy. Adaptation is a wondeful thing, on the part of both cows and humans - only a neophyte adventurer would stop to take a picture of this, of course:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture068-1.jpg

    -

    Arcane and amusing: traffic offences in Mysore.
    This was on public display on one of the roundabouts, too small for any drivers to safely read, but perfect for sarcastic tourists to take photos of and pick apart later :D :

    Photobucket

    -

    A purple minaret from a purple mosque just next to the hotel - choral warfare not noted at this time (needs rotating):

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture063-1.jpg

    -

    Back up on the roof, you can see some lovely parkland and turrets of the Palce poking out from the sea of treetops; some of these are fully zoomed-in so you can guess how far away they were - it looked awfully pretty and fairytalesque, and it was all I could do not to slip on a frilly ballgown and go waltzing out the hotel entrance every day... actually no. I was thinking of one of those poor souls so tragically and comprehensively poisoned by the Disney corporation, wasn't I? :> :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture061-1.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture060-1.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture059-1.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture062-1.jpg

    -

    I saw this story in every paper for a week and on all the TV news stations for 3 or 4 days; a nasty man from Indialand jumped over the Pakistani (or Nepalese, I forget) border to try and run away form Mister Policemen and his friends. The nasty man had been taking people's kidneys - their kidneys! - away from them in exchange for either a) a lot of money or b) a painful death, depending on circumstance.
    He also appeared to be telling all his friends to do the same thing as well.
    Now, isn't that the face of a man you'd trust your children with? :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture056-1.jpg

    What was equally photo-worthy in my book was the other part of the subtitle, giving the flight number and place of departure. I'm amazed they don't give the gate number and scheduled time of departure: what is it with details in the Indian media? Is this just an anglo-american thing, keeping a safe level of anonymity to everyone, or is it practised outside our sphere of media?
    It seems a little bizarre - classified ads in newspapers always give the full address, stories in papers give names and address' of victims and criminals, news stories give the flight details and location where a hated criminal will be, exactly - all this extraneous detail. It doesn't take much imagination to see the glaring potential for recriminations, revenge attacks, thefts and general do-baddery.

    Perhaps I just have a criminal mind :-/

    -

    Occasionally, gods painted blue infest trees. True. :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture055-1.jpg

    And Bollywood stars can attain heights of up to 14 feet, in some places:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture054.jpg

    -

    I have a thing to mention about this fondness for pink; I really don't understand it. But, then, I simply come from a culture where it is a colour largely stereotyped as being overtly feminine and is in turn implicated to convey some kind of softness or lack of strength. Hey don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger.
    As a result of this rather unfair assumption (towards the colour and the entire female gender) it isn't used much in architecture.
    But in India there is a strange fondness for it, one I can only call unfortunate due to my own cultural bias.
    See what you think. See if a pink train station is your cup of masala chai:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture051-1.jpg

    -

    On the way to the bird sanctuary (no! You can't see the crocodiles yet!!) there was a massive concrete viaduct aquaduct locoduct railway bridge, which I thought would make a wonderful example of the use of perspective.
    I took it from a moving taxi thoguh, so no idea if it has worked... :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture050-1.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture049-1.jpg

    I think the first one kinda did - pretty long bridge, huh? That's only half of it as well of course, the road went through the middle.

    -

    Here's hoping it works: I saw this from the train between Bangalore and Mysore (yes this jumping around in time is confusing isn't it?) and the contrast of the startlingly bright greens of the remaining rice paddies amid the fields of harvested brown was worth a snap:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture048-1.jpg

    As was this small but impressively remote temple:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture047-1.jpg

    And as we went across a river, I saw it in its full glory, which was rather nice:

    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture045-1.jpg

    -

    And of course I couldn't resist leaning out to get a shot of the train while we were moving - yes, parents, I checked there were not potential wounding posts or anything else sticking out onto the track in the other direction! Very cool that you can stand there with the door open as you go along - a lot of the shabbily-dressed manual workers sit out of the door dangling their legs, in fact:

    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture024-1.jpg

    -

    And in some parts of the country, it's still the Jurassic era. Which was nice:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture041-1.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture040-1.jpg

    -

    Here is a shot I really wanted to get: one of the busy road crossings where rickshaws from an entire town pile up against the barrier.
    I wanted to share this to get across the level of lane discipline you see over here; this is not a one-way street:

    Photobucket

    -

    Those amazing aerial roots and vines, again, impressed me (needs rotating):

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture037-1.jpg

    -

    Some cozy little station we briefly stopped at. Nothing remarkable, but it's nice to see that we didn't just leave a general fondness for the British and a few transport networks behind i India; we also gave them old fashioned British Rail-style platform signs:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture036-1.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture021-1.jpg

    -

    Padyy fields, where hopefully you get a better idea of how they are seperated out and stepped:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture035-1.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture034-1.jpg

    -

    And a far-off hill wreathed in mist (ooh, we are getting all posh aren't we) that needs rotating I'm afraid:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture029-1.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture030-1.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture028.jpg

    Another one a bit further on:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture025-1.jpg

    -

    And a little architecture (to finish, apparently). Some of the buildings here are amazing and brilliant and totally original:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture023-1.jpg

    Some are rather more familiar:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture022-1.jpg

    -

    The varied features of the landscape are often strangely comparable though:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture020-1.jpg
    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture019-1.jpg

    -

    I should never have insulted photbucket, it's stopped talking to me completely :roll:
    So that's enough photo silliness for today methinks - next stop our very brief foray into Bangalore and, more than likely, Hampi yet again XX( :))

  • Me and my High Horse. (Abuse!! Abuse!!)

    There now follows a short letter from my own fair hand to the peoples of Blog.co.uk
    Someone is using our lovely site for a commercial ripoff - and they're crazy tarot card, moon goddess types, too! Natrurally I could not let this tomfoolery stand :D

    I hate to be the snitch and everything, but...

    I went looking for stuff tagged with `travel` to compare with my work, and found the following sites.
    Quite apart from the pointless catch-all tagging when it has nothing to do with travel; each one is just the same business advertisment; is this kind of use within the terms of service?

    At least 4 different users/blogs and 5 posts all trying to redirect users to a commercial site:

    http://myastrosagar.blog.co.uk/2008/03/21/teen-age-child-guidance-article-3916747

    http://angel-love-us.blog.co.uk/2008/03/21/article-counsel-to-teen-age-child-3917034

    http://sonyentertainment.blog.co.uk/2008/03/20/teen-age-child-guidance-3911669

    http://warnerbrothers.blog.co.uk/2008/03/20/teen-age-child-guidance-3911605

    http://myastrosagar.blog.co.uk/2008/03/20/20-discount-on-counseling-services-based-3908188

    You might have noticed by now that two of them could threaten intellectual property rights from a couple of rather large players... even if not, that's misleading and some kind of misrepresentation doohickey is going on - using Sony's and Warner Brothers' names to advertise for something unrelated must be against the rules somewhere down the line.

    I only report this because astrology gets on my nerves - people are entitled to whatever opinions they like of course, but advocating, promoting, directly making money from, in fact, something as baseless as astrology is ridiculous, and they are abusing blog.co.uk in doing so, in my view.

    Moreover it is immoral and exploitative to try and do so as a solution to serious psychological problems - it all seems very underhanded.

    I mean, come on. Tarot cards and star signs to solve failing marriages and `talking to angels` to make your pubescent angry teen daughter stop rebelling - please.
    Anyway, I hope not to see these clown around again - I'll be complaining in my usual fashion on my blog soon, so if you can't remove them, I am at least going to point out their wicked ways to anyone who reads my stuff.

    Cheers all!
    Best regards,

    _______

    Now. I was going to add a short note about the sheer bloody ridiculousness of astrology and the truly terrible way that people in serious trouble can be exploited like this, but, in case anyone is actually into that, I shan't. My opinion is but one way of looking at the world, so fair enough, love to know why, but fair enough.

    I am just going to remind everyone of this little event undertaken by the reknowned magician, skeptic, and soon-to-be personal hero of mine, Mr. James Randi.
    You see, there is an easier way to get money, Mr/Mrs scamperson - all you have to do is be able to prove that anything you pretend to do actually works, and you've got a million dollars - that's £500,000 - for just one day's work!

    And it's hardly new, although they are stopping it. I mean, they are giving any would-be paranormal types another 2 years to claim the prize so someone should step up if it's not a load of exploitation and wishful thinking. Mind you, they've only offered it for only ten years straight already :roll:

    Amazing.
    If I was an astrologist or tarot reader I'd certainly have a try ;)

  • Daily Haze and Film Geek

    It wasn't even 3 O'clock in the morning. Before three AM they started, and unsurprisingly I wasn't sleeping after they had got their groove on. I could have almost murdered them, those bloody Christians.

    Yes, the small cathedral around the corner (Kerala is such a place that you can have small cathedrals, and they can easily tuck themselves around corners) began their morning sing-song session sometime around 02:45 on Maundy Thursday, two days ago, all in celebration of the start of the Easter Egg Chocolate & Drinking Festival, and some old-time wallah allegedly getting himself nailed to some sticks.

    Yes, my religious sensitivities are just soooo at the forefront of my mind today ;)

    The super-super-fun time started a few minutes before 05:00AM though when we had full-on religious war being fought with soundwaves, as the call of the Muezzin came hailing down from the minaret of the local mosque.
    The aural tapestry of this, if you will, was actually rather peaceful; roughly typical Christian hymn-work of the choral variety in constant flow from one window, and the intermittent yet persistently mournful wail of the Muslim call to prayer floating in from those on the other side, punctuating the choral drone and sounding not a little like the start of a potentially very good breakbeat track (I was thinking: DJ Shadow would freakin' love this).
    Of course, I had been awake grinding my teeth for a little over 3 hours by that point, so any kind of change was welcome and in any case my nerves were numbed with pointless rage.

    When I say "roughly typical" and "hymn-work" I'm not quite doing it full justice: the Syrian Christian community in Kerala may be devout, as proved by their early starts, but they are either tone-deaf or they like to try and compete on an equal playing field with the muezzin when his time comes to join in. Singing in a flat key works for the latter, it's part of the charm (not to mention the actual bloody melody) and they are very good at it.

    I'm pretty sure the Christian lot are just going at it hammer-&-tongs in the hope that it's only really the trying that counts, and that God judges favourably those who simply give it everything they've got.

    Take it from me, the trying, the piety, the inherrent heavenliness of singing with (far) more gusto than talent - it's not. Really. God may be pictured as the fair and equal judge of all people, but the Devil has the best tunes and, frankly, by this time I imagine the big G would rather like to catch up. Eat purgatory, bitches!!

    The trying is impressive though as my second (and final) complaint on the matter explains; the hymn-work was just that; work, and pretty laborious it sounded; because they managed somehow to sing continuously fom their deeply unGodly hour of commencement until well gone 06:30, longer than your average shift at Tescos, and about the same amount of time a healthy person spends in the employ of any call centre.
    I stuck at one for a month once, and I tell you, I've never felt compelled to have a shower after work every day either before or since.

    I, being just a little bit pissed off with Holy Joe and the Joettes on one side and Moaning Myrtle on the other by this time, came downstairs while the staff were still sleeping.
    They woke up shortly after to find me drinking multiple drinks from the fridges, and having powered up and started using the computers without their knowledge or consent, and a few handy guesses at the network options to get the things online.

    My only concession to the proper decorum of things was a little note on the counter as to what I'd drunk by this point and when I'd began working. Good job they know me pretty well by now and weren't really surprised - twice in the past 2 weeks they have clocked me in at 10 hours internet usage per day! Time to buy that laptop, I feel.
    Or I could keep on there just to piss the other guests off ;)

    -

    Actually I was simply going to wax inconsequential about what I had done one on those rare, rare occasions when I wasn't irritating the French peoples, and actually went out during the day. Today is not one of those days because the monsoon has started giving us a less infrequent and more cheerfully aggresivetaste of things to come

    The showers, if such a word can apply to waterfalls that punish areas over five square miles, are keeping me more or less indoors. Doors of taxis, internet cafes, hotels and restaurants, whichever fits - it's just the dashing to and fro in between them that gets ya damp.

    That, and the self-assured knowledge that being British a mere bit of rain wont bother you at all, ha, look at all these fools with their unbrellas, honestly, well it's just lovely to have the street to one's-self for once, isn't it gr - ah. Ah, ah, oh. Oh dear. It is rather heavier than it looks isn't it? Oh there seem to be no space under the hoardings either, no, excuse me, ah, sorry can I just, no, oh sorry excuse, do you mind if, ah, ah. Hmm.
    Shit.
    I'll be needing a taxi and a change of clothes, then.

    -

    Back in the far-away time, in the long-long-ago before the rains i.e. Thursday morning, I went out to see a little more of this city which had been my home already for 2 weeks, to see what it compared to and how it differed from others, this being the last place in India I will be seeing in any meaningful way.
    I'm flying out to Bangkok next Saturday from Chennai (Madras) international airport, over on the East coast, straight after an overnight train from this place so I wont see any of the intermediate scenery, and the flight times will allow me little or no time to see Chennai. Apparently it is no great loss being much like other cities only smellier, so I'm not much bothered.

    I took a little walk from my hotel and discovered that the lumpy and partly-paved, partly cracked pavement lead quite efficiently to a good street for me, one with the cinema, a shopping mall with a place to fix my camera, and a swanky coffee shop.
    Not just any swanky coffee shop, mind, but one where they take coffee rather seriously; the staff all seem to really care about you and your drink in that heartwarming way that only comes from an employer who pays fuck-all in basic wages, and you can have almost anything you want in there, except proper Irish coffee (half coffee, half anything with "40%" on the label)

    They do interstingly still list `Irish coffee` on the smart, orange menus though. I bet it's just coffee made with heart-stoppingly large amounts of cream - I can't bear to find out either way as it would be disappointing not to find it laced with whisky and unhealthy to find out that it was.
    -

    Most things about that place were either orange or brown in fact; the walls are half each, seperated only by a dado rail; the chairs are orange, the tables are brown; the soft padded chairs in the upstairs bit which looks very nice and posh are a deep leathered brown, and the carpet in there is a startling orange. The printed text on the orange menus is an unrevolutionary and less-than radical brown.

    I came up wth a brief and slightly cynical theory about this the first time I came in, something to do with the orange complementing the stewed tea they probably serve and the brown reflecting the faecal scrapings that likely make their way into each and every cup, but this was before I actually tasted the stuff, and it is very good which alarmed me because I had such a neat line to write about the place if it was shit. I hope this isn't a sign that I have a fondness for rat-turd lattes or anything.

    The other possible distraction that caused me to drop the cynicism for half a second was the decor; a hundred and one still life drawing of various kitchen and coffee-related articles all by someone calling themselves Naomi, and some larger, slightly abstract drawings including an almost life-size caricature of one Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin, bending almost double in an impossible pose just to serve coffee from his equally unlikely, gravity defyingly-poised tray.

    It was very nice, all original works by someone who clearly had a fair bit of talent, more so than me by a long chalk. But something wasn't quite right and it lacked a little coherency. Why the bloody hell would Charlie Chaplin be serving me coffee? :??: I guess I haven't seen enough (any, actually) of his films.

    -

    Continuing along this pleasant and useful thoroughfare I realised what was missing from Cochin - dogs. I hadn't seen a single one either here in mainland Ernakulam, or in Fort Kochi across the water. Before my encounter with the skinned cattle heads I would have made some deeply suspicious commenst about where some places were getting the beef from, but alas now I can't because this place is, after all, mostly Christian, and as long as you don't eat meat on certain Tuesdays and Thursdays and at least pretend to have given up something during the 40 days beforehand then you can, aside from that, stuff anything down your cake-hole, be it cake, chicken, flesh of cloven beasties or just an overly-zealous quantity of the communion wine, which is I think the main, possibly only reason for going to Church :P

    Why the dogs re not present I can't say - the city makes up for this lack of four-legged life with a generous and, actually quite genuinely charming quantity of both rats and cats, all terrified of humans of course I mean we are rather large to them, but they are two things that you actually don't see so much of.
    Cats I have seen, maybe... a dozen in all the other places I've been to? I saw that many in Kochi by the second or third day, most reassuring because cats are, after all, vastly superior to dogs ;)

    Rats as well I was strangely glad to see - they nip around and jump from holes in the pavement to gutters and vice versa all over the place as long as humans aren't too close and it isn't drowning weather in the street like today. I quite like rats - kept a couple as pets before and I love their inquisitiveness and, believe it or not, affection - although they can keep rabies and the Black Death to their bleedin' selves, so only `domesticated`, pet-shop rats for me in terms of conscious physical contact.
    Still, they'd probably not come anywhere near even if you tried - unless there were millions of them of course, swarming all over the poor hapless fool who falls into the sewers, eaten alive by a hundred thousand nibbles a minute... I seem to have drifted into other peoples nightmares, sorry. Mine usually involve the French these days ;) (Okay okay I'll drop it!)

    -

    I am going to buy a laptop. Actually am, watch me, don't say I wont that's not fair.
    Bit disgruntled at taking a fair chunk (£300 - £350 :( ) out of my travel fund of course because that is the kind of money that gives you up to two months more time on the road, but honestly there is one thing I actually miss in the extreme, and one thing I actually need that these cafe and hotel computers cannot supply:

    I need to be able to type when I am comfortable and when I have the inspiration; I have somehow trained myself to feel excited and inspired on entering any internet cafe just so long as the seats and tables have been cleaned at least once since the trees were felled, and my feet don't stick to the floor with each step, but as you can tell this isn't always a pleasant experience, even while wrapped in the warm glow of a tasty paragraph.
    Also I have worries about my long-term mental health if I feel so happy entering such scabrous and filthsome environments.

    I really miss watching films, would you believe, my immense geekery on the subject has been revealed to me at last in fact through sheer deprivation.
    All those years waiting uncountable years for films to arrive on British television; edited senseless and always shown at the worst times; have finally paid off, and all that useless knowledge about actors, directors and suchlike at least gives me motivation now to go get the computer of my dreams (pretty shoddy dreams of course, perhaps something like those you might get just before being woken by a bunch of religious nutters >:-( :## ).

    -

    So in lieu of any of my favourite films being around - such as The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Resident Evil 1 & 2, For a Few Dollars More, Henry V, Hudson Hawk, Die Hard (unedited for TV version ;) , Amazing Grace (yes I rather liked that although I may have been blisteringly drunk, sue me :P ), Time Bandits, the Lord of the Rings super-extended over-reached wonderfully-glorious unedited 16-hours-per-movie Trilogy, Planet Terror, Hard Boiled, A Better Tomorrow 1 & 2, Bullet in the Head, Amelie, Delamorte Delamore, Revenge of the Sith, Kind Hearts & Coronets - I went to see something that won't ever make onto my top twenty or even my top 300, but at least it was there: 10,000BC.

    If you have seen the Me Gibson I'm-sorry-I'm-such-a-raging-Chistian-nutjob-these-days film Apocalypto; that doens't concern the brutal slaughter of a chappy from the Roman days but DOES concern the slaughter of dozens, implied thousands, even tens of thousands of South American tribesmen and women; then this film may seem a little bit familiar.

    It is, it's really so familiar that the words "rip-off" spring quite quickly to mind and amazingly this is mildly off-putting at first because Apocalypto is actually a fairly good film, artistically or whatever you call it. The dialogue particularly is good, and the pacing and gradual exposition through action and suggestion rather than just having your characters conveniently tell their close companions things they would all obviously know already ;)
    It is really quite original in visual style and character development, and the story is at least new in the overall sense (meaning, possibly 'no-one's used this plot for 20 years so we can nick it, no-one'll notice').

    10,000BC lacks this basic idea of creating your own story and borrows more heavily than is comfortable from Apocalypto in visual style, plot devices and characters, not so much dialogue though because it is all just senseless exposition, but still it is very different in conclusion and it borrows heavily from many other films too; Stargate, Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World, 300, all spring instantly to mind; which at least makes it an accomplished thief :D

    It is quite enjoyable despite my attempt to say otherwise; I lost a lot of it, though, due to two quirks of the Indian film experience:

    -

    i] The editors havy itchy fingers.
    Films shown on TV and in cinemas too, apparently, in this country are prey to the Indian censorship board (the CBFC) and they don't like you to have any fun. Nonononono...

    If you watch a film you have seen before - I saw Die Hard in a hotel in Mangalore or Madikeri, and it's a brave censorship authority who screens that film to this man because I must have seen it somewhere approaching a 80 or 90 times - at some wee small hour of the morning. Your children are not going to be watching, or if they are and you care so much, you should be watching them better. It's called `responsibility` (apparently!) and is why I will never spawn any younglings myself ;)

    From memory, the full unedited version of Die hard contains about 20 - 25 instances of the word `fuck` or other variants being used, two instances of brief nudity, and about a hundred and seventy-five instances of extremely enjoyable violence and/or graphic depictions of personal wounding.
    Amazingly they managed to keep out almost every one. And they didn't do this with creative voiceovers and swift, artistically-sensitive minimalist editing like ITV did back in Britain, no, they just either cut the scene off partway through, even if one side of a conversation just goes unanswered, or remove the scene from the film entirely.

    Understandably this is easier for the man with the scissors, but it means the film doesn't actually mean anything anymore because as with most films, the best bits (i.e. the bits with swearing, violence and nudity) are at the tensest points in the plot where, usually, something of vital importance to said plot if revealed.

    Chopping them out removes essential sections of the story from the film - if Die Hard were shown in cinemas here then I would have taken notes, done some maths, and gone up to the ticket booth afterwards and asked for six thirteenths of my ticket price back or whatever.

    Anyway, with 10,000BC this wasn't dso noticeable of course becasue I had neevr seen it before, so I wasn't able to judge. Beyond realising that all the scenes of wounding and violence (and there are a fair few) magically cut short of any gore being seen (there are about 2 pints of blood seen spread across the entire cast, as it were, and about five hundred people die. Go figure) and that there is no kissing scene between the two bits of love interest until the final few seconds, you'd never be able to judge, anyway.

    I managed to follow the plot because the characters are something approximating neanderthals and that's the level of dialogue I am most comfortable with, but even I, with my just-barely-Cromagnon brain and deeply protruding forehead could tell that vital scenes were missing because a) people in this film often did things for no explained reason and b) people in this film go from one place to another very very quickly as if something was missing in the middle, hmmm???

    ii] The audience wants putting in a loony house.

    The audience - woah, boy. Actually I rather liked it, apart from the guys sat right next to me, but still.
    From the top:
    *Deep breath* 1) You can't buy a ticket until about 15 minutes before the film starts. Imagine the queues? You cannot, repeat, cannot go to the booth at, say, 7pm and buy a ticket for the 9:15pm showing, as I tried to do. Can't be done. I asked everyone including the security staff and to customers: nope.
    You can reserve but it has to be done at least a couple of days before apparently - the booked ticket area in the body of the screen-room was almost empty I'd just like to add.
    Gotta cram up with everyone else who wants to see the film in the 15 minutes immediately preceeding the lifting of the curtain. Doubly annoying because;

    2) They start the film when they feel like it, bugger the trailers, and bugger the time on the doors, the schedule, the display boards, the ticket, the front of the building, etc.
    I got into the screen at 9:07 or so and the film had clearly started, was a good 5 or 10 minutes in in fact, I (had to) guess - they certainly do have such a thing as trailers because I've seen films before in cinemas in india, and my watch was defintely accurate as I double-checked with the clock in the ticket office. Hmmph. Oh well...

    3) There are no seat numbers for those who want a little spontaneity in their lives and don't wanna book up days in advance or cram up with 200 sweaty men to get inside the cinema. The tickets were all `gallery` and it was a free-for-all on the seats. I took a nearby end of aisle seat and halfway through the first half - yes, they have intermissions here even on regular films. Kinda charming I think :) - some clown comes and sits next to me and tries to squeeze me off the armrest we regrettably shared for the next 74 minutes. What a bastard.

    He also liked to share his Winter diseases with me because not only did he cough a lot, a lot, whenever he was swarming a limb over the armrest, but he coughed into his hand in such a way that was very obviously blasting his miniscule unwanted flecks of spittle an mucous right onto me. We were right next to a large fan as well which assisted him in his mission.
    Now come one; has someone tattoed a nazi flag or some racist slogan onto the back of my nexk ro something? Why are people being so bloody petty-mindedly-vicious towards me all of a sudden? :'( :`(

    3) You can clap louder, the actors might hear you...
    Now this is actually endearing. At first. It shows a deep empathy with the characters on-screen and a tenderness of heart and touching personality. However when the Main Thing Happens (I might as well tell you, it's amazingly predictable, but I'll let you watch it anyway) near the end then the first clap is shocking, you feel a little second-hand embarrassment on their behalf as they're clearly not getting any of that themselves, but then it continues in ragged spurts and you begin to wonder after 15 seconds whether the people in the main chamber below are wathcing the same film as you.

    Then there comes the free for all which has been started by that first person who you found so touching and charming, and then every fucking clown in the gallery is whistling - not a gentle whistle but one so loud it actually hurts - and catcalling and clapping erratically and screaming and shouting, and you realise with a definite sinking feeling that you know Western cinema far better than anyone else in the room and that there's at least 4 minutes of wrapping up, thread-tidying film to be watched, and you are going to sit through it because you always see the whole film to the very end (bar the bits you'll never know about thanks to Big Brother the CBFC) because that's part of what watching films is all about.

    The other key part is being to watch them on your own. This is more important than most people realise, probably up until they come to watch films in Cochin, anyway.

    When, in the last minute of the picture the male lead and the emale love interest finally kiss, there is more coherency because underneath the now steady and enthusiastic round of aplause from above and velow there is a constant stream of wolf-whistles.

    Basically, it is a lot like watching a film along with 300 or more 13-year-old children, and no teachers.

    -

    Right, so anyway, before I got distracetd by the films I was idling through the other idle pleasure this city has to offer, or at least the boring places I visited in my times of need, namely, the camera repair shop.

    It was just nice to find a place that can repair it, althouh as we were coming up to the 3-day holiday I was a little wary leaving my lovely camera with some strangers without any fomr of receipt for the item. Happily enough they gave me a receipt without prompting, looked pretty business-like overall, and before I came in I spied the technician that I spoke to through the partition to the back rooom, and he was working on an actual digital camera with proper screwdrivers and everything, so they probably aren't just another Arm of the Goa Tourist Police and Tourism Scamming Bureau(cracy) Office of India ;) (okay I'm sorry, I'm sorry: Cynicism Disengage!)

    -

    I went out on Thursday evening to find a restaurant and managed to stumble into one that served food just like, as in, literally identical in taste, to Chinese food in the UK. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, I leave that up to each of you, but it means at least that they have actual Chinese chefs, not Indian chefs cooking Chinese food which, take it from a guy who's had about 250 of these nationality-crossover/experience-loss dishes, is one hell of an improvement if you fancy some chicken with bambooshoot & waerchustnut, noodle of any variety, or pork balls with tomato, as I believe I had that night.
    They were superb.

    I was reminded of the benefits of an adequate attention span though, when halfway through my meal I realised that the reason everything was hard to cut was because I was attempting to eat dinner holding the knife by the blade and cutting with the, quite understandably, rather blunt handle.
    This has happened before. A few times. I guess if the cutley is made from pressed steel so thin that the handle has no noticeable differnce to the blade for a course and a half then these things are just going to happen.

    -

    Apart from all that nonsense, and a brief detour to one of the two train stations here; only to find that, yes, trains here are as busy as a dead dog on a hot day and, yes, the system is often pedantic and inscrutable to the foreigner; I have no further wonderful insights. Except that this was Maundy Thursday, a holy day named after something to do with a foot-washing ceremony, and this seemed somehow appropriate what with all the obsessiveness about feet around here.

    They are unclean, apparently, to which I say: fucking wash them then you filthy buggers; but the strange thing is that they are so unclean, yet you walk barefoot into all holy places, up to and including most internet cafes ;)

    Now of course the road is dirty and the dirt is on your shoes, so it makes perfect sense to not tread that all over the shop just as many people insist that you remove shoes upon entering their house in any country, but the stigma is so strong here that in Hindu temples at least you are not supposed to even point your feet at anyone else or anything sacred i.e. altars, icons, paintings or those little super-sacred mini temples-within-the-temple where the God apparently actually resides.

    This is actually impossibe because everything is sacred and the place is usually packed to bursting, so I guess all devout Hindus play a little game called `Priorities of Offence` whenever they go to Temple, and work out which person or God they can most afford to piss off.
    -

    So in a country where they are hardly afraid to take a hosepipe to a 100-year-old church and all its paintings, and where feet are so filthy that you shouldn't even point them barefoot at strangers, and where the time spent inside a worshipping one God or another directly relates to how crappy or magnificent your next incarnation is supposed to be:

    Why does no-one bloody well buy doormats??!?

  • A brief Complaint about Certain People

    I've had a few days not using the computers much at all - yesterday, in fact, was rather good for this. After an early morning piece of posting where the `latest` videos and pictures made their debut, I went out and did things, a great shock to all the staff and fellow residents here :D

    On that matter I am concerning myself with for this post because I just want to get something off my chest. It may not be the most even-handed thing a man has ever written, nor the kindest, but still it has to be said. It is a touch less than polite and a little bit judgemental, but that is nothing as to what has been directed towards me, I think you'll find.

    -

    A fine hotel this is, even despite the cockroaches, for the staff are pleasant and helpful at all times. In a strange and unexpected contrast to this the other residents were, I thought at one point, ganging up on me. At least all the French ones seemed to be anyway - I had a strange few encounters with 2 out of the 3 older French blokes who are staying at the same hotel over the last fortnight: they really, really don't like me using the internet...

    The first was when one of the men, whose English was partial and fragmented, said to me; well actually, `dictated` would be a better word; that I "shouldn't be here", and that I should "get out and see India". He said to me (after asking me my age - I reply; 26) that he was "48 years and so I know, I know, okay. You should not be on 'ere. That's all I say." He turns away and refuses any further conversation, such as my attempt to explain one or two things.
    -

    Through gritted mind I sought to try not to explain the too-complicated reasons; specifically that this was my displacement therapy to avoid a continued life of miserable alcohol abuse and he can quietly go and fuck himself leave me the hell alone if he thinks that he stands a chance of ruining that. I remained calm, although frankly shocked that anyone would have the nerve to say all that to a stranger.

    I knew this wasn't going to quite work, but;
    I tried to explain that I have seen rather a lot of India, 128 days of it in fact at the time when he said this (I worked it out later in a moment of pettiness) and had had quite enough of India in many ways, having been uncomfortably close to some of its less desirable aspects.

    Also that I probably had seen considerably more than he had, and if he cared to not go about telling strangers what to do then maybe the worldwide opinion of the French people might improve.

    Okay, I wouldn't have added that last bit, that would have been rude; the thing is though, that in the opposite situation I got the distinct impression that he WOULD have included it. My deductions are lent slightly more weight in the following examples, I'm not just being rude about the French. I'm telling you what happened. Then being rude about them. A little bit. Nothing unfounded, as you'll see.

    His parting line to me was, to cap it off: "you are not a good man." Well really. Whether this was a misundertanding of the English words and their meaning, or he was just a rude bastard I'm not certain. Either way I don't need to be judged so briefly and heartlessly by a total stranger, thanks all the same.
    Wait until you get to know me before you can realise in full what a complete and utter bastard I am :D

    -

    The second case was a few days later, and I was using one of the machines in the late afternoon. Another of the French chappies - who I had never spoken a word to but had recieved the odd possibly-filthy look from - was sat opposite me in the lobby, and was perhaps impatient, although I hadn't noticed.

    He comes up to me after about 10 minutes sat there though, and his English is better, he says "I must use the machine, you cannot stay on. You have been here all day. I have very important email to answer, you must leave" in somewhat less-than polite tones. To the point, yes, but rather lacking in manners.

    Okay, yes, I had been on there for 5 or 6 hours by this point, that's true. There are two computers though and he never even asked the guy on the other one, just came straight for me. I said okay, no worries, I'll just save my work and then fair enough, he can go right ahead, mostly because it was polite and partly because I was once again stunned at the presumption.

    I knew by this point that what both these fellows were thinking was that they should be using the facilities I was using instead of me. And by thinking, I mean that they thought they had more right to use them than me, otherwise they would use the other one after a little wait. Yes it's not perfect, but then I have to wait for someone to finish often too. Same deal, chummies.
    -

    Just to make this clear: this is over a pair of computers in the hotel lobby, computers only installed in the last few months and not detailed in any guides; no-one comes here thinking they'll have easy internet access, it is a total bonus.
    There are two machines, as I have said, and the other is almost always free in the daytime, and often free in the evening.

    There are also at least 25 internet cafes in Ernakulam, the closest is 5 minutes walk away, the next closest about 7 minutes. I'm hardly monopolising the entire concept of internet communications, I'm just taking the first option available to me, and if they are both in use I go to one of the other places that are close, as I had done a few times before, as I have done a few times since.
    First come = first served, them's the rules, so you can like it or you can stuff a baguette up your arse, quite frankly.
    I have only begun getting a little ratty about French, though, after the third case.
    -

    Now after the last example where I was, not incidentally, typing up that other photo post from a few days back that mentions the glorious nation of France and the very very chatty French girl, I hastily saved my work on the computer. Whether it was fair enough to look or whether he was a nosy, snooping git I can't say with equanimity, but the French guy who replaced me on the machine looked it up and read it. Yes, somewhat over-inquisitive, what?

    Anyway he clearly didn't quite understand it in its entirety because that evening, after he had `monopolised the machine for many hours` ;) he left it to me once more, and as he was leaving he came over with an overly-polite and highly condescending air and, leaning over as if the sheer smugness might cause spasms if he stood up straight, he said with a conceited little smile "I read what you said, you say you are a journalist, I will read it" (Okay I had said that I was. More of a hope than a fact yet, but hey. You were hardly compelled to read it though) "I read what you say, about the French blah-de-blah" so, thinking he had understood the finer points and global perspective of such matters, I offered a genuinely pleased "oh, you read it?" and he returned an almost ineffably smug "Yes" and sauntered away with a self-satisfied smile.

    It was all he could do not to say "Oui." and primly purse his lips into a twisted smirk while stroking a small dog that had recently savaged my ankles, I'll bet.
    -

    So anyway, the third case was days later still when the French girl and her chums sat down while I was using la Computere, and this time I had only just started, been there 15 minutes, I got off less than 10 minutes after that as I had done what was needed. Not an excessive time to wait, I think you'll agree.

    As I got up to leave the French girl in question gave me an arch "you are finished???" and when I affirmed the overly-suggestive suggestion an impressively dramatic "Arrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!" sprung from her lips, complete with overacted throwing up of the arms (they just about brushed the ceiling), and then a steady stream of dialogue spewed forth to her compatriots. Much guffawing and chortling was to be heard as I walked away, much of it in my direction just as their disparaging looks I saw clearly in the mirror were.

    The French man had told the French girls that the Englishman had been making wisecracks about their very nationality - and they don't know each other, they just happen to be staying in the same place and are all French. They don't talk to each other in passing, never noticeably make eye contact, never have had a conversation in the fair few times I've seen them together in the lobby.
    -

    Hence the conspiracy theory. Now I ask you; if you were in foreign hotel and you noted something a fellow traveller from some other country had said or wrote about England, maybe your perception of it was not wholly nice, but it was hardly damning or racist (actually somewhat complimentary...) - would you go and tell the other English guests, who are also strangers all about it?

    I can see that it is plausible that you might. It could have come up in conversation, yet it is all but impossible that it would have come up without some reference to the person who wrote it; perhaps this happens because some people from some places are more given to being either a little unrighteously indignant, or perhaps have the arrogant attitude necessary to publically find fault in strangers? I hope it could only be one, and not both of these.

    Combined with the 1st case of exceedingly hasty judgement and the audacity to actually tell a stranger about this judgement you have made of them, plus the impolite insistence and lack of diplomacy in phrasing of the 2nd case where you go and tell someone else to not use some public facility because you want to use it instead, leads me to think rather less of the French, sadly.

    -

    These are only the incidents that happened to one person of course, but they happened in one room, one public space, in less than one week. Makes them seem a little arrogant, non?

    Then again of course, they might all just be Parisians.

  • PhotoOnslaught XII: Every Which Way But Loose

    I have run out of inspiration for titles, as you can tell. I'll be using the Harry Potter material soon ;)

    Still of course, the name had to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is the exploitation of monkeys - I'm sorry, the exploitation of us by monkeys, as seen in one of these videos. Cheeky devils will pinch anything!

    I can't hear any audio on these so I cannot screen them for my embarrassing dialogue which is surely there - I remember I usually tried to say something to put most of the videos into some kind of context, but whether it worked, or if I just say something stupid each time I have no idea.
    That's my disclaimer, and I'm far too far away to hear your howls of laughter if I do make a blunder, so it's all good :D

    -

    Monkeys at the Hampi reservoir, take #1:

    Monkey at the Hampi reservoir (a.k.a. Thieving Little Bugger) take #2:

    -

    I thought I would get the sheer violence and devastation of those lethal ducks down on camera for all the world to be appalled at, but it seems the video does not want to play ball. Nor any kind of sport, game or distraction at all, so instead I have to leave you with a sideways video of someone else (Jon) jumping into the water. Yes, I was a coward and never did it myself, yes, I do feel slightly ashamed, yes, I do hope to make amends by launching myself out of a plane at 30,000 feet.
    It's the least I could do.
    Anyway tilt your head if you wanna see properly:

    -

    Poxy videos are not poxy working or are damn poxily short; does that first video of the monkey play for any length of time? I'm sure it was a good 5-10 seconds long...

    Someone please have a look at this one - cute baby animals, awww! - and see if it plays for more than a second, it's a link through to the video seperately, of course:

    http://s22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/?action=view&current=cric322.flv

    Might just be this computer not having the software and technical doohickies. Hope so!

    If it is then these should work, if not, then fuck it. My videos are all lost and the Photobucket fast uploader is not to be trusted! We shall see; see for yerrselves if any of these work -

    Jono in the water again; after climbing that large rock at Gokarna he had to get back to shore, which proved slightly more difficult and infinitely more amusing :D He makes it though, obviously. I'd be a bit of a bastard posting up a snuff movie of my mate now, wouldn't I? :>

    Getting through the rocky waters:

    http://s22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/?action=view&current=cric323.flv

    Making a break for freedom and the shoreline:

    http://s22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/?action=view&current=cric324.flv

    This was taken on the ride to Paradise beach, I haven't exactly been kind to your necks here (if it even works) as I rememebr twisting the camera about a bit - but you can see the coast and the rocks and the waves (hopefully) so it's probably worth it:

    http://s22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/?action=view&current=cric325.flv

    I bet this doesn't work. I'm just betting; it probably ain't worth much anyway, all it is is a quick film of the town of Hospet, which is the only town near Hampi and the only place nearby with an actual train station. This is just a street though:

    http://s22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/?action=view&current=cric326.flv

    And here are the cheeky little monkeys once again, this time taking proffered bananas at the top of the steps (gasp!) next to the Hanuman temple. Cute they probably are, but I wouldn't trust 'em an inch:

    http://s22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/?action=view&current=cric327.flv

    -

    So ze actual photographs, I take it you still have ze microfilm, hmmmm, Mr. Bond? Hand it over zere's a good little schpy...

    Now, does anyone know about the Crying Indian? It was an `advertisement` campaign on US Television, actually a public awareness government message to try and get citizens to not throw their Starbucks plasti-card drinks cups and Wendy's wrappers all over the floor. Well. I know about it because I watched Wayne's World 2 of course, and I thought a few crying Indians for this picture would be appropriate, nice even, if only to see that someone actually appreciates how much of a fucking disgrace it is to see everyone throw rubbish down everywhere, whenever they like, without a second thought.

    I have been criticised, bloody well criticised for putting rubbish in my pockets and not throwing it on the floor, locals have laughed at me, two people on two occasions told me that it's `not England` so it's okay to drop it anywhere, and someone else gave me the old lie; "Well it's okay to litter, because it gives someone a job" - how about giving people proper jobs at refuse sites, or even having some kind of proper rubbish collection??! The idea of a recycling system and having recycling centres and employing people there is, I'm sure, vastly unrealistic otherwise I'd have ranted about that instead at first ;) .

    The problem is that the government, local or central, either can't or can't be bothered to fund much in the way of rubbish collection - I ahve seen nothing apart from the occasional little old man with a big barrow, topped with a cage maybe 2 cubic yards in size and full of rubbish.
    To be honest I think these guys are taking it somewhere quiet to pick through and see if there's anything of any use left in there - they are always among the more destitute and downtrodden looking people.

    The result is that people take all the rubbish from their houses, offices, restaurants etc. and throw it all on the ground in some similar place, like here, right beside the beautiful backgrounds and natural features of Hampi:

    Photobucket

    -

    The little video of the ants didn't seem to work, but here are my little friends that I experimented with - caution! The subject of this photo may actually be almost in focus. Nearly:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/IMG_0566.jpg

    This is more genuinely cool, although simple - the view of the shortcut across the paddy fields near Goan Corner, at Hampi:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/IMG_0569.jpg

    And this is a guesthouse - not ours - but one that caught me eye as it boasts of being the `only guesthouse in Hampi with beautiful garden`. I had a quick look, quite nice it is too:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/IMG_0571.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/IMG_0572.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/IMG_0573.jpg

    A busy intersection ;) of the shortcuts 'cross them thar rice fields - you can also sort of see how they are stepped, which is what I was trying to record but will probably have to wait for better examples elsewhere (and for my camera to be fixed):

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/IMG_0575.jpg

    This here is the wall at Gaon corner - notice the bows and arrows, and the wishful sign and legal disclaimer that is really there only for such times as the authorities might come around; bit like all the `No Smoking` signs in every restaurant in Goa, right next to where they keep the ashtrays :roll:

    Also there is a tendency for confusion because local business owners confuse the words `keep` and `leave` sometimes, due to the second-hand pronunciation or something. If you adjust for that you can see that a) the words on the tope frame of the bookcase actually mean anything, and b) that the owners are pretty shrewd and demanding when it comes to swaps! :

    Photobucket
    A couple of points on the list that, if being honest, I would have to address;

    1) [presumably] I never saw a C-form in nearly 4 weeks staying there...
    2) Didn't really need chilums when everyone made joints all day long...
    10) Added as an afterthought, as you can see. Well no-one ever raised an eyebrow about the vast quantity of spiliffs being manufactured, and the establishment stocked and sold plenty of beer just like everywhere else on that side of the river so, really, over here, don't believe hardly anything that everything you read!

    -

    Anyway this was my final walk around the rocks if I recall correctly, so I treid to get a gfew of those pictures I hadn't achieved yet. Let's see if it worked -

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/IMG_0582.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/IMG_0581.jpg

    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/IMG_0587.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/IMG_0586.jpg

    Photobucket

    Photobucket

    Photobucket

    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/IMG_0584.jpg

    Photobucket

    -

    And then I climbed up the back way (the easy way) onto some of the lower slopes of the little `mountain` near the guesthouse, and got a few more lovely scenic pictures -

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/IMG_0590.jpg

    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/IMG_0591.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/IMG_0592.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/IMG_0593.jpg

    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/IMG_0594.jpg

    Someone has been 'ere before, methinks:

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    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/IMG_0598.jpg

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    And I think, finally, that is the last of Hampi! Whether you're sick of the damn pictures of damn rocks or not I don't know, but next up are the picture of Mysore and the very first oft he bird sanctuary, but you'll have to wait for those, especially the really interesting ones of those (trust me, there are some very, very cool pictures from there) because I can see the order is, unsurprisingly, a little messed up.

    That's all for now, folks!

  • Trails in Fort Kochi

    Good news/bad news:
    Bad news is that my camera lens refuses to leave the safety of its battered shell in an orderly manner any longer, so for all intents and purpose it is broken. The display even tells me: `lens error, restart camera` which is thoughtful of Canon to have included, but a little inaccurate in my case. `lens error, buy a new one` is more accurate but, I suppose, a little blunt.

    The good news therefore I is that, by default, this means I'll be able to catch up on the backlog without further burdening myself with extravagant photographs of anything interesting or important :| .
    I did drop it twice, once in Goa, once in Hampi, and the month-long delay I can only attribute to... well I can't. Weird, but there are places here to get them fixed apparently.
    Ho-hum.

    -

    Return to Fort Kochi

    Cochin, or Kochi, is a coastal harbour town largely comprised of mainland Ernakulam and Fort Kochi across the water, effectively an island of decent size that guards the harbour, and it became of most sizeable interest to the Portuguese when they arrived a bit more than 500 years ago, and there is also a scattering of other, smaller islands within the harbour.
    One of these at first seemed to have been turned over entirely to the manufacture of greasy smoke, a commodity I had never thought viable on todays markets, but it cleared one day and I can see that instead they have just been turning the entire island into one big quarry, bless them.

    In the spirit of national pride and empire building the Portuguese did what explorers of that age always did on exploring a brand new country, the tried to turn it into another version of their own, with all the same stuff they had always seen before. Travel was a different thing back then, it appears.

    Misguided and silly as this was and remained misguided, silly and extremely popular with everyone for the next 400 years, it has at least left us with some nice things to have a look at, which I did, and thankfully I at least managed to get some pictures of the main draw in Fort Kochi, the oldest European-built church in India (arguably the earliest. It's a convenient lie until anyone comes up with another place, it seems) before my camera gave up the ghost in the church grounds.

    I have to admit I looked around briefly for a tiny grave with `Canon A570 IS, October 2007 - March 2008, Abea Ambivalentia Memoriam` just in case this was a timely, thoughtful, deeply cynical and therefore thoroughly appropriate sign from God that he actually existed ;)

    Alas, it appears I was right all along and so I lugged the corpse back to the hotel that day. As days go generally it was very pleasant, so I will start at the beginning:

    -

    Sunday 16th March, a bloody stupid day for sightseeing being a Sunday, but still. That much didn't occur to me until I had scrambled down the stairways and off to the ferry jetty, queued, ferried, wandered through quiet streets until finding a place for breakfast and sat, after ordering some food and coffee, studying the map and planning a route, dilligently checking opening times (Pardesi Synagogue, 3pm - 6pm, must do that after other stuff etc.) and quietly emitted a resigned yet satisfyingly hearty "bollocks" (a great word, especially for use in public, I've always felt) when I looked at my watch properly and noted the treacherous little `SU` in the corner.
    It is amazingly easy to lose track of the date, let alone the day of the week out here.

    My utterance was quite heartfelt yet I wasn't exactly surprised, and was quite satisfied in a strange way at being able to say such a thing loudly and proudly in the calm knowledge that I was abroad and could swear pretty much indefinitely without causing offence. Happily enough a German family the table across from me was able to share in it, and evidently were quite able to translate, too.
    I presume the next thing they said to their stroppy-looking young son was "Never speak like the English pig-dogs, Gunther" but unfortunately my German isn't as good as their English.

    -

    The ferry was unremarkable to me now, having been in India since November, but I imagine if you compared it with native experience of ferries it would seem a bit strange. Nothing bizarre, but just picture the differences:
    Once again I saw the seperate queuing for each destination therefore eliminating mental effort on anyone's part, either customers or employees but there were two queues for each destination, separating the women from the men.

    Whether because of discrimination or to eliminate groping I can't say with authority (since I haven't gone and asked them), but I'm pretty sure it must be to keep the poor women safe because Indian queuing is a pretty intimate affair. This caused a slight problem for me.

    I do not like being pressed from behind in a queue - it is rude and very annoying and you get jabbed in the kidneys with elbows and bags and it's totally pointless, there was plenty of space behind us all - and this is the chief activity of the queuing Indian man, it seemed.
    Clearly something had to be done, so to stop myself getting irritable and wound up with the tiny yet deeply annoying little stabs and pokes, I effected my version of the Gaijin Smash maneuvre previously documented and stopped and pushed backwards a little with my whole body, elbows and feet at more or less the same time, returning the minute blows to the git with the sharpened object behind me, and forcing the queue not just to stop shoving but also to move backwards a fraction, something that I imagine does not happen very often.

    It seems to me a lot like the driving mentality all over the world that is more obvious here in Asia because of the very low speed of vehicles and rather small roads; everyone has just gotta get ahead, gotta keep pushing, gotta overtake one driver then another etc. - it seems in this society, at least, they are unused to exercising any restraint when it comes to other people's space.

    So taking advantage of the fact most of these guys can't shout out "Oi! Keep moving!" in any language I can understand, and they know it, plus the fact I would have reminded them of their rudeness and they'd have felt mildly and typically abashed at this (which they looked), this happily worked very well.

    It also works because Indian men are generally quite small in scale (it is rare to see Indian men over about 5'10" and many are much shorter) and almost always very thin and therefore very light, whereas I am a fraction over 6 feet tall in my boots and fairly expansive - and ever-improving in this respect ;) :D In this country if I push, other people have to move - I have a perfect example to illustrate this later on in fact; no I wasn't being an arsehole to anyone, before you ask :P

    He shied away as hoped and took the queue with him, as it were, and I was left to quietly buy my ticket and be ripped off half a rupee for it - everyone has to make their little bit from the tourists, but I made sure I had exact change for the return trip partly to prove this point, and partly to prove that the cost actually was 250Paise, or Rs. 2.50, and that I therefore hadn't mis-remembered a hazy concersation with Manoj where he told me the price of the ferry to Fort Kochi, just over a week beforehand. I like to know my much-addled grey matter can perform now I'm not drugging it to oblivion every day.

    I felt extremely petty-minded asking a stall-holder on the island for two 50-Paise coins I have to admit, but I was actually correct in my memory and disproportionately righteous about depriving the little ticket man of his half-rupee; the ferry was pleasant itself and the crossing only takes 20 minutes, and was, predictably enough, packed to the rafters and offered no views because I got on just about last.
    That there were several dozen more passengers than legal limits dicate more or less goes without saying :)

    -

    Arriving on the island, I followed my map to the various places I had earmarked for food, coffee, etc. and on the way passed a Catholic church of St.'s Paul and Peter (very tacky, brightly coloured, definitely not 500 years old) and then around a few more streets the more impressive yet still not particularly ancient St. Enrico's Basilica - no I lie, that was another reference to a Discworld book - I mean of course the Santa Cruz Basilica which features a lovely pastel-coloured interior and, on this occasion, about 40 or 50 people with hoses inside the church, spraying water freely and extravagantly over the floors and right onto the wooden pews, laying waste to tiled floor, marble pillars and pastel painting alike in their Christian fervour to wash and scrub the entire building down.

    Yes, hoses. Remarkable. All over the marble and lower paintings, too. The water was hot (I walked through the torrents coming out of the main door and was surprised at the heat) so God knows (ha ha) what happens to the pictures - maybe this is why they are pastel shades and not striking in colour like most churches; 103 years of pious work with the dishcloth.
    Still, they all seemed happy enough, or, being Catholic, at least seemed occupied enough :P and had evidently done this all before.

    -

    For breakfast (I'll just add that it was gone midday now because I had risen late) I found a place that was open for business on only the third attempt, it not occurring to me that there might be a reason lots of places were closed until a little later on.

    I pored through the menu plumping in the end for a `steak sizzler` because if nothing else, it is always nice to see the Indians being inventive when it comes to beef. It is a brave thing to do, putting beef on your menu in a country that views cows as sacred animals, and again I was not diasappointed.
    A steak sizzler was, in fact a satisfyling over-large beef burger; and a damn nice one too! I was fairly sure it would be non-threatening to my poor weakling excuse for an immune system because it cost so much, and the place was very clean, even despite my language.

    Besides, it was 8 flights of stairs up and down to the actual restaurant and if there was any trouble on the way I'd still be within striking distance, not to use too colourful a phrase, of a toilet.

    -

    Anyway I wandered out and along and found the Oldest European Church In India (Honest) around the corner as promised, it was understandably in a bit of a state and not that impressive (nowhere nearly as ornate as the 350-odd-years younger establishment, but I was pleased to note that it had retained a commendable feature in any eclesiastical establishment: siege defences.

    The walls still had the unmistakable angled arrow-slots that afforded a good field of fire to the defenders, while offering a very poor target for the seething hoards below who would, of course, have made the church a key target in the 16th Century because there was a 80%-odd chance of them being Hindu or Muslim.

    It's nice to see the old ways kept up.

    Then my camera died and, well, I wasn't too pissed off actually. I was expecting it a lot sooner, and I had at least just taken 3 or 4 shots of the church, and nowhere else of interest (apart from the Chinese fishing nets, about which we are to learn shortly..) actually allowed photography, so hey, screw it. Job done.

    -

    I missed a turning and avoided the Bishop's House because that was the one place that did allow photography and all they have is a collection of 17th Century vestments and altar-ware, and while that would have fascinated two people I know ;) to me they really are not much interest, and I was rendered photographically inert so couldn't do them the favour of vicarious perusal anyway. So, meh.

    So I came across the Chinese fishing nets.... you can see them here, better pictures than I could take: http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=chinese+fishing+nets&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2

    They are the most intriguing looking contraptions, these pictures mostly wont do their scale justice I'm sure, and I can be very sure of their scale (large, impressive) because I helped operate one of them!

    Yes, they let little old me assist them in hauling in a couple of catches, I think they thought it would be slightly funny to watch some pasty-faced Westerner struggle with the heavy work, but all those years at the brickyard and a steady diet of pies & pizza paid off in the end: I could easily just lean my weight down and appear to be doing my share of the work :D

    The system the nets use is always called cantilevered, but I like to think of them just as big see-saws :>> ; but even for that they are most amazingly balanced things - maybe 35 feet long and extending around 15 feet over the jetty, a square net is suspended at the far corners from two widely-angled beams, and the near corners just under the main platform, more or less on the tide-line.
    By lifting the dozen or so rocks of increasing size, the weight is gradually, precisely and magnificently tipped in favour of the other end of the cantilever; see-saw; and the net is lowered into the sea.

    A few minutes of idle chatting later, and 4 guys can pull on the thick ropes to bring 'er back shorewards, lifting the far edges of the net out of the water first and trapping any foolish marine life in the devices.

    And what marine life - first thing I saw, I identified it in my head straight away but didn't say outright for fear of being not properly understood/looking like a twat, was a barracuda.

    Well, I never knew they came this far inshore, nor even that they were native to the Arabian sea, but there you go. Not huge, only 15" or so, but still, my first real life barracuda with fins.
    Also silverfish and red snappers and kingfish were among the catches, and a couple of others I forget. Not really fond of catching and killing things unless I have to any more, I left them to it and was just damn pleased to have been able to help - pretty darned cool, I thought.

    -
    -

    After that, I thought I had better do some proper touristy sightseeing and stop messing about with the locals, so I went off in search of the two remaining famous things that are genuinely interesting to look at in their own right (rather than just being old) namely the Mattancherry Palace, and the Pardesi Synagogue which is to be found in a part of town rather unsubtly named Jewtown, although only one or two people genuinely not actually anti-semetic will find that funny, viz. myself and the guys I used to live with in Hull.
    You had to be there.

    -

    Mattancherry palace took some finding - I wandered in a direction I knew to be correct, but along some very narrow streets obviously never traversed by tourists and over a truly horrible pollutant-grey river. Along the way I dodged and jinked my way around the local movements, avoiding traffic and negotiating people in a happy if slightly lost state, then I casually glanced down at one point mid-avoidance-skitter to find myself being stared back at by a very large basket of freshly-skinned cow skulls, I kid you not. Real bef it is then, for once.

    They were very cleary cow skulls complete with horns, but thickly smeared with blood and, I told you I was being stared at, still contained the overly-large and grossly staring eyeballs.
    Yummy.

    -

    So after I left my lunch by the wayside (only joking, but it was a bit of a shock for a second) I walked on to the palace, originally built in 1555. It is also called the Dutch palace because they got in on the colonial act in the same period, and came along to trash the place, including the palace, only to rebuild it in its entirety a few years later around the 1660s.

    I hardly need point out the missing step in the logic here, but hey (actually it was rebuilt as the Dutch were leaving as a military force because they had come to pretty friendly terms with Kerala, and the palace was rebuilt by way of a reconciliation gesture and to secure those friendly trading links. Shame really, because my way of presenting it was much better, but hey, we can't have everything).

    Inside, the murals are nothing short of astonishing, for their detail and sheer scope - the paintwork covers the walls entirely, showing scenes from the Mahabharata and the Ramayan featuring all the gods we know and love, and the whole of them, quite impressively, cover over 300 square metres and that is just in the relatively small section of the palace available for public viewing, although elsewhere they are not particularly well preserved nor quite as detailed, apparently.

    Krishna gets the best deal here because there is famous mural of him downstair doing quite rude things with some milkmaids. At this point in the myth, Krishna was living the life of a goatherd somehow managing to fool all the locals despite being bright blue and having six arms.
    Amazing what you an get away with as a god - those six arms and, inventively both feet as well are being put to an extremely un-shepherdly use in the famous mural, but there are 8 highly contented milkmaids down there. That's all I'm committing myself to.

    -

    I trundled a few more streets through Jewtown, noting the hoards of `antique` shops and sellers of curios of all kinds, of which there were possibly several hundred.
    They tended to sell very similar things without actually selling the same crap like the market stalls in Goa do - among the more arresting pieces was a large boat, a very large boat, made int he same surprising way a boats are still made today where the wooden boatrds are actually stitched together, which looks unlikely as it sounds but works amazingly well.

    The large boat was so large, in fact, that it almost projected into the street and spanned the length of 3 open-plan rooms inside - I can't guess at its size because of my acute perspective, but it was very impressive.
    I avoided most of these and their greeting, open question of strangers-asking, highly tourist-ready owners, but went into a couple near the end of the winding route in search of weapons.
    Well, you never know.

    I found a place where, at the back of the store, an ancient and rusted sword blade hung up and was shown to me; it was a simple blade and handle (that's called the `tang`, the continuous bit of metal extending from the blade that goes into the handle) with a curved handguard that was extremely rusted and looked not especially convincing.

    I know the trick - it's the same trick used to make everything look like an antique - where stuff was manufactured carefully and by hand maybe 5 or 10 years ago, and has spent the entire time since then buried in the ground to give it the right appearance, or, in the case of some metals, is left in wet ground and periodically aerated then returned to wet ground, nicely rusting up and achieving almost instant antiquity.

    This place wanted 1000 rupees for the `sword` and I noted this happily in the knowledge that I couldn't if I wanted to, so I wasn't even halfway tempted.
    Sensing that maybe I was a little unbelieving, he fetched another piece of more interest; what could, possibly, have been a genuine kukri.

    This was more like it: the kukri is the traditional and iconic weapon of the Gurkhas, that fierce and famously brave North Indian and Nepalese people that served in the British army since colonial occupation, and have one of the most impressive reputation outside of it still today.

    Seeing as the Gurkhas have continually served in the Empire and Commonwealth armed forces for well over a hundred years it is possible that this was the real thing. Would have been nice - it seemed certainly to be the right weight and dimensions (I have seen quite a lot of Kukris, have owned a few and that were not genuine but have seen the real things, in archive pictures and film, and in live use by one of the present-day regiments) and was made in the proper style and proportions, with a very front-heavy blade which was also definitely the right kind of steel, whether it had been falsely aged or not.

    The handle was the interesting bit though (to me anyway ;) ), it looked to be the real thing which was perhaps more important, although a new blade could eaily have been aged for a few years and fixed to a genuine handle by a good armourer.

    See, the thing you have to always bear in mind, looking at the millions of pieces of craftwork all around this part of the world, is that not only is this big business and has been done on a very large scale, in order to supply all Asia with fake antiques, but that it has been going on for 20 years or more already, more than enough time to weather and wear down newly made reproductions for sale to the tourist market.

    The thing here was that at least part of it - the handle - was very hard to fake with real ivory :( inlaid into buffalo horn, all genuine and genuinely inlaid that I could tell, and faking that is not really worth the effort much because the genuine things really do exist, so it is a pretty good bet that I had in my hands something at least in part truly from the 1920s or well before.

    Well, it was nice, but even if I had wanted it I couldn't have sent it to England with the ridiculous (well okay, probably quite justifiable) laws regarding weapons, but it's always good to have a poke about in your favourite field and make a nice find :)
    Strange how it's perfectly legal in the UK - and very easy - to buy new pointy things that are far bigger, stronger, sharper and more lethal, but hey ;)

    -

    I found the Synagogue at length (after putting all the weaponry down and explaining that I was English, and we just didn't allow that sort of thing any more *cough* I did thank him profusely, though, because I was genuinely grateful) and it was a little odd, a little disappointing but still had some commendable features. It cost 2 rupees to enter, and the Mattanmcherry palace had cost 2 rupees to enter as well. Cleary they were not going out on the beer with profits here, which was very nice and reassuring and somewhat refreshing.

    The inside of the synagogue was much as I had expected, even never having been inside any synagogue before, but basically it is a church with even more dangly shiny bits. Like how I imagine a Greek Orthodox church in a richer town would be, sort of thing: chandeliers coming down to head height all over, gilt overhangs and screens and platework everywhere that threaten to cut pieces of your head off, and those weird and tacky coloured lights from about the 1950's that only a religious building could leave in use for so long without getting embarrassed.

    The chandeliers were from around the '50s as well, possibly even more recent, and hadn't been taken good care of; whoever had been taking them down for cleaning had not been very careful at all and the crystals were chipped to hell, all over.
    I've seen a few crystal (and `crystal`) chandeliers too, believe it or not, and either these were bought on the cheap or the maintainers had practically dropped them - Del Boy and Rodney chandelier cleaners made it over here, I see ;)

    Still. The whole place was novel and impressive in one unexpected way, in that the entire floor was covered with willow pattern tiles, that blue-painted artwork favoured by the Chinese myth & lies department and English potteries for the past 200 years or so ;)
    Again, nothing too spectacularly ancient about them but still, they were all hand painted in that style, and lent a little peaceful blue & white sanity to the god and gaudy lightung everywhere else!
    The building was suitably ancient and you had, once again, to remove your shoes to enter, somthing I didn't know was a feature of Jewish worship, and may not be. I shall have to find out.

    -

    I trundled back in a rickshaw having walked a few miles in the glaring heat of the middle day, and struggled onto the ferry early enough to get a window seat one row from the very front - and you never take the very front-most seat here on any kind of public transport, because the very front row has a slightly larger gap than normal, so is guaranteed to be crowded hugely by the hoardes.
    It was. I was smug.

    Just before I left, I thought it wise to not put myself through unnecessary hardship on the return crossing so I duly followed a sign near the main tourist attractions to a toilet enclave. The enclave was more accurately the world outside this fetid shithole, but still.

    As I was leaving I heard that msot annoying noise: the "Tsss!!" or "Tcchh!!" that Indians use to scare of dogs and attract the attention of people they aren't actually happy with - it is a bit of an offense to hailed in such a way so I almost always ignore it. It's only used when someone is pissed off with you, or is just plain rude - on this occasion the offender had a nice person with them, who called out "hello!" or something; the thing is, you had to pay 2 rupees to use the place.

    It wasn't worth 2 rupees - it wan't worth 2 Paise - and that is doing it a favour by not mentioning that it was truly filthy, smelled as terrible as only an open-sewered toilet can, the doors were literally hanging off their hinges (I pretty much removed mine entirely when I tried to exit) and there were no washing facilities at all! Oh, I seem to have mentioned it after all, whoops.
    It was a dreadful operation, and the question of course is; Why does it cost as much to have a piss as it does to visit a 16th Century Palace?

    There were no signs on the way in that it cost anything and this, I suppose, was my obvious mistake. The most important single cultural difference to tourists here, if anything, and the most irritating at times, is that they do not like giving you the price of anything until you have already started using it, because then you are obliged to pay, and they can often charge oxorbitant fees (see: Taxi men).

    If you saw the price up-front you'd never go there. I find this hugely dishonest but, to be totally truthful, what I've been involved with a ion a low-key way for years because it's exactly the same business practice that my former employer used, for decades in his case.
    I tried my own brand of winning charm and actual sales techniques as much as I could while working there myself, of course ;)

    Anyway I paid up - obviously more pleased that one can view a 16th Century palace for the same price as a mere piss in a pigsty than annpyed at the reverse - and boarded the ferry.
    In doing so I witnessed another perfect example of the struggle to always get aheah, and the curious segregation of society.
    On buying a ticket (2 queues, men and women) the men are herded into a holding pen, I kid you not, with shut gates and the women are all allowed to board first. When they opened the gate you can see why.

    It was a rush as if of schoolchildren careening madly for the back oft he bus - these were grown men, but they were pushing each other - not with arms or legs but their whole bodies - while running, literally running, the short distance to the ferry. I could hardly believe it and avoided the rush for the back of the boat (could have guessed) and went to the front where, unaccountably, almost no-one wanted to go at first.

    I found it amusing, but really, what the hell? Why does it matter so much to these men that they get onto the ferry first; a clue is that the women are already there, perhaps.
    There is a strange tendency of Indian ment o go to extraordinary lengths to sit next to women in public places, trebly so to Western women. There seems to be a belief that by sitting next to them (Western girls) there is every chance that they, being little more than whores of course, will turn around and offer themselves to the lucky male who manages to secure the closest seat.

    I cannot even begin to appreciate this but I understand it, and hate it, and pity anyone who believes it. Strange, but true.

    I shall expand on this theme shortly...

    -

    I thought I might just add a final note; I rather liked Fort Kochi, it's even better in the daylight when you're not arguing with the inhabitants ;) and the first immediately noticeable thing was: even on a Sunday, on all the parts of that part of town marked in the Lonely Planet, white people outnumbered the locals.
    I suppose it fair to assume that the cluster of hotels, combined with the disinclination of the locals to do much on a Sunday explains this, but it it is kinda weird playing `spot the Indian guy` in a country so densely populated when you know you're actually not in Goa :D

    Anyway, for now, adieu :)

  • Kerala Political (Like L.A Confidential? No? Well it's all about politics anyway....)

    Kerala is the long, thin state that flanks the Western side of India along much of its south coast; much like Chile does for the continent of South America, Kerala bears the brunt and the benefit of the East-edge of a vast expanse of ocean, both shielding the country beyond from an unpredictable climate, and reaping such rewards as the ocean brings.

    Because of its position in the nation, Kerala is justifiably famed for its seafood as well as its diverse weather which occasionally surprises (I've been surprised once or twice - this is the season for flash storms, unannounced downpours, and surprise tourist/pavement impacts) largely because it is affected by two monsoons and some unusual structuring of the annual climate, as you can see here if you're interested. This rainy climate may not agree too well with the city of Cochin's civil engineering maintenance program though, for example, because I was walking back today under some low-slung electricity cables during the start of another shower, and felt an extremely sharp sting on the top of my head which was, really, quite sharp.
    I'm not saying that the public electricity supply is less-than perfect and the wiring is dodgy (althoguh I probably could quite reasonably) nor that I was electrocuted right in the skull, but, I doubt insects appear that suddenly and briefly (materialising for maybe just a nanosecond or two) and that I smelt burning hair. That's all I can say.

    Literacy is one of the big goals of India, even throughout whatever governmental change may it will remain one of the essential policies; it is an important precursor to the kind of developed status everyone wants where, eventually, they can happily buy McDonalds and Gucci in the morning and throw their weight about in smaller, less-developed countries for oil profits in the afternoon.

    Chuck a few scandals of global proportions onto the table come evening-time, and we can all say that India truly is developed, and get on with bitching at them over the G23½ Summit conference table ;)

    -

    Kerala it is the most literate state in the country currently acheiving, get this, 100% literacy according to the local newspaper. I don't buy that at all myself, but at least it is among the most literate and is almost certainly the leading place to be if you want to read a book, even more so if you want to buy one because one hugely noticeable thing that makes Keralan cities different to those in Karnataka and Goa, for example, is the number of modern, newly-stocked bookshops - a many as one in every 30 shops is a bookshop, I would say, and although many of them sell the same stuff (most of them, in fact) this is still remarkable, and very different to everywhere else I have seen.

    Kannur (Cannanore) and Cochin (Kochi) seem to have modelled their downtown or city centre areas very similarly - both are comprised almost entirely of bookshops, hotels, a scattering of assorted business' operating from roll-shotter fronts (half close, half open, on aggregate) and mini-malls.
    Mini malls dominate the city, you can find at least 18 on MG road in Ernakulam (I counted) and that's only one half of the whole street: mini malls are where it's at. I suppose low rents and a guaranteed passing trade must make them quite a good bet, premises are small but stock can be held anywhere. There are certainly plenty of lockups around the place.

    Literacy as defined by UNESCO, a comparison of literacy with nearby countries, and the importance of it particularly in India is explained here on the lovely Wikipedia for your leisure and boredom, and you can see if you just look at the little chart near the top (reading the whole thing is a bit of a chore unless you have a vested interest) not just that India generally fares well, but more pointedly that in every country the youth rate is higher than the adult rate.

    It is quite easy to understand why - education has come on so far recently and was pretty dreadful or didn't even exist in many poorer places until the second half of the 20th Century - although I think Kerala's governing bodies may be a little bit optimistic with the `100%` thing here.

    100% Everyone. Everyone between say 8 and 16, anyway, but I would refute this entirely because there are a great many `hidden children` of the lowest castes and homeless who never see a classroom; the state only counts those it wants to count.
    Bit like George W.'s Florida election all over again - hey, maybe they're more developed over here than we thought! ;)

    -

    I like Kerala. It doesn't like me much (I chopped my thumb up on its border, came into a state of emergency and public killings in the most Northerly city, and got into some trouble on my first night in its capital) but I'll settle for this unrequited friendliness because of the way a few people have distinguished themselves over the masses, and the masses have distinguished themselves over masses elsewhere by dint of being good readers, containing fewer hasslers (panhandlers and beggars), and having cities like Cochin which, although not drastically different at first glance, has some subtle differences that rather impress.

    One thing that I love and laugh at equally is that on the traffic islands at all junctions in the city, they have official metal signs, proper ones paid for by the state not hand-painted like many elsewhere, that tell everyone to "OBEY TRAFFIC RULES" - I love both that they took the time to remind everyone about these rules (God knows what they are - `kill or be killed` I would say by looking) and also that the ever-cheeky motorised citizens of India need reminding at every junction. Brilliant.

    They also have, check this, traffic lights. I never even SAW traffic lights in this country until I got to Mysore (Goa, supposedly, must have passed laws against them on grounds of slowing down taxi-men and potentially ruining tourist revenue) but Kochi (Cochin) has them almost everywhere they are needed, which is to say everywhere they are most needed otherwise I could get into trouble.

    Not just any old traffic lights mind you, at the biggest junctions there are traffic lights that count down from 60, or 52, or 45 seconds (depends on time of day I think) to the point of changing, so that everyone can gun their engines like a mad thing when the counter reaches to single figures - does this happen anywhere else in the world? Has any other country someone has visited got these digital-display timers for their traffic lights? I would love to know.

    -

    The thing I least like about Kerala though is the system of government - because half the time it is Communist, and I mean literally half the time. It is a bit of a paradox this place; it has the highest literacy levels in the country and is the only hotbed of Communism (perhaps no surprise there - plenty of impressionable people who've just learned to read at every school) but also it is the richest state in the country but also has the most tentative and unreliable state of governance: the time is split equally, by all accounts, between the Marxist Communist-led side and the Indian National Congress-led side, and the defining majorities are incredibly thin.

    How any state prospers when the people in power change every few years, their goals and motivations changing along with it, I have no idea (although 20% of the state's GDP is sent in from Keralites living and working abroad - quite impressive as the state has a high GDP for its size).

    I disagree with the Communist ideal on principal (I like to work harder to earn more, capitalist through and through baby!) and am long fed up with having people snatch up the idea because they love the glamour of being an idealist, but I have to admit that there is a huge advantage here, because the Communist part is willing to subject itself to elections instead of just storming the Winter palace and killing everyone who's rich, like they do in other places ;)

    Still, my main objection to the Communist party is best not voiced in public because they do like to have a bit of a march (and the occasional beheading) and there are posters everywhere for the CPI(M), brackets optional.

    This was in fact one thing that annoyed the hell out of me when we went on the little backwater trip; both sides of the road for miles were lined with concrete posts (I would say lamp posts, but I'm sure I wouldn't have a well-lit drive down every country road in central Kerala ;) ) and on every post was the `CPIM` marking and some more lines in Malayalam, the regional dialect. The posts seem to have been made for the purpose. There are thousand, literally, of them on every roadway, making sure no-one ever forgets, it seems.

    There are posters everywhere for the CPIM party, there are huge metal red stars with appropriate party messages on them (one down the road from my hotel is 12 feet high or more, just sat by the road at an entrance to a Marxist party building) and in many districts huge metalwork stars and sickles, painted in red, adorn buildings and street signs and everything else you could think of.

    Everyone's favourite mis-used poster boy, Che Guevarra, is prominently used too, in posters on every imagineable surface, and so are the local figureheads of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

    This is hugely annoying to me because it seems in direct contradiction to the whole purpose of Communism: this is hero worship, they are treating their marxist party leaders to more poster space than their actors and advertisments, and even more than their gods.

    What got me going really was a shrine by the side of the road as we changed boats - a shrine, as you see to Hindu gods - dedicated to the worship of 3 sour-faced fuckwits gentlemen from the CPIM just bult there by the side oft he road.
    I asked out guide if, possibly to avoid wrong-stick-end grabbing, these three had died in some way, but received nothing but a nonplussed negative.
    Now correct me if I'm wrong, but if Communism came to succeed all other forms of government then what would become of these much-worshipped leaders - why, they'll be in charge, of course, and everyone has already been worshipping them so they will take over the life of the rich, elite capitalists in the name of the poor, everyman Communists, and likely become tyrants as almost every Communist revolution has proven.

    It takes more than constantly wearing a military uniform to be one of the people - not when you are living the life of luxury and condemmning the masses to the same (or worse) as they have always experienced.

    Poor old Che Guevarra, too, is treated like a `hero of the revolution` as he is by naive 17-year-old students back home, although of course he is now incapable of rallying the indoctrinated at party raliles ;)

    And my gripe here though is the indoctrination, the constant reminders posted on every lamp-post for 20 miles, the hero worship, the rallies, the massive signs and party artwork on every street and building, the speaker cars that patrol the streets (you'll hear at least one every day in Cochin) proclaiming the right and might of the Communist party - why, if it is such a great idea, is it advertised so vehemently and unrelentingly?

    Surely this is the sign of a weak idea being force fed to impressionable, desperately hopeful people who are given no time to think?

    -

    Literacy. It may not be quite the solution to economic problems that everyone hopes for, not when the only people taking full advantage - I think it fair to say exploiting, in fact - of it are those with an idealistic form of government that has, on every attempted occasion, shown itself to be just as corrupt as anywhere else and marks itself out only in that standards of living are lower than in the capitalist countries is supposed to be a solution to.

    To use the vernacular, Bugger That For A Game Of Soldiers.

  • PhotoOnslaught XI: A Few Hope (these titles will improve..)

    Has anyone else ever thought that the French just make their language up as they go along?
    I've got a French girl talking on the telephone next to me at the moment, and it's, well, it's quite something.

    They say that Italian is the language of passion, French is the language of love, and English is the language of business or money. It occurs to me though, sitting here amid the most remarkable gutteral utterings and flying dipththongs, that French is probably the language to be completely insane in.

    It sounds fascinating, but I'm sure no other nation on Earth would dare fit in so many "heeeuuurrh!"s and "Nnooorrrrrr!!!"s into an everyday conversation and still claim to be even partway sane, but they must have done something quite spectacularly right because they held the keys to Europe twice since the middle ages, and they had a few empires and even more Napoleons, despite the really successful one actually being a Corsican.

    'Nuff said really - I've always held that the slightly crazy and the interestingly disturbed figures in history were the ones who started Kingdoms and Monarchies and Empires.

    Just to make sure my dear old Mum doesn't think I'm being too gracious to anyone in particular here ;) , here's the comparison to her favourite other country's light-hearted reign of historical tyranny across the world :D Don't say I never do nothin' for yerr, Madre. ;)

    -

    Anyway, I have a few more photographs for you - you may also be pleased/surprised/horrified to learn that I went out and did things the day before yesterday and even today, too, and have a couple of small stories and reflections to impart. Which I will do a bit later; still have about 1,500 photos to look through to see which are worth sharing, so without further ado...

    -

    Gokarna, again. Told you the order was gonna be messed up - these are not well lit but are evening-time shots of the same coast seen before, this one showing some mysterious Western-ish revellers walking the clifftop between beaches to perch on one particular precipitous ledge to watch the sunset (which I was too busy to see through watching this lot of course):

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric235.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric237.jpg

    And this one with another example of the things people can make do and live in; it was the little shanty shack at the near right that got my attention. Still, lovely views, and at least the air is always going to be clean which means hopefully some of the risk of disease is removed:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric232.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric233.jpg

    I mean you do get used to it, but mostly India is open-sewers all the way and it smells like it, and all inner-city rivers are well beyond green and brown: they have acheived polluted grey, which is that advanced state when the mix of awful things is so potent (and pungent) that normal colours just give up.

    -

    Posh coach, posh paintjob. 'Course posh is a bit relative; I know the prices were pretty posh... yet despite the lack of space inside (see that DOUBLE row of windows there?) it would be nice if everwhere put a bit of effort into the outside of their coaches like these guys do:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric241.jpg

    Although this can be as much a problem of total ambiguity as something individual to appreciate - there is no regulation colouring, no branded design or paintwork and no company colour scheme on any bus I have seen India, and there is no bloody number, either.

    They all have names, but this is more a token of affection and piety rather than a source of anything useful to the traveller, and the locals obviously seem to know where the bus stops are although I'm buggered if I do half the time.

    Outside Goa actually I have to say, bus stops do exist. It's not always a case of "Why, we stop by that tree everyone in the village knows, and everyone knows it so what'd we ever need a sign for?" that becomes a source of deep irritation trying to get around cheaply in that tiny state.

    Not only but also - sorry folks, this thought occurred at the time but I forgot it completely - many times you will see a plain concrete shelter by the road and it looks like the ones buses have stopped at before, so sometimes, before you have learned your lessons properly, you patiently wait there and a bus going in the right direction comes along and passes you without slowing and you see without cheer that it has, yes, it's stopped by some big tree half a mile away across the hillside, which you walk past 15 minutes later on your way back to town and it shows no sign of anything, not even a poster or advert which is rare in itself.

    Within such shacks and shelters as buses do stop at there is precious little hope of any timetables, bus numbers or anything at all save a small pile of something dead/thrown up/shit out in one corner, and a couple of rival ant tribes marching patiently to and fro between it and their secret lairs.

    This happened to me twice around Madikeri - I was on the right side of the road both times and everything - and it taught me the sheer inevitability of taxis. And the folly of taking long walks out of town on odd spits of urbanisation; I do recall that after the trekking Madikeri lost even more of its charm than the fallacious Lonely Planet maps had extracted, which is why I hastened away, although I can't actually tell you where right now :-/

    -

    A literal, if not exactly traditional approach to the English language:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric240.jpg

    -

    Yay actual sunsets, woohoo!

    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric230.jpg

    Some have weird/bad lighting - no idea what this looks like....

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric228.jpg

    -

    This bit of beach looks just lovely, but you gotta flip it 90 degrees I'm agfraid:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric224.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric223.jpg

    -

    The fishing boats which double as tourist ferries for all us pasty travelling types around Oma beach and Paradise beach in Gokarana:

    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric221.jpg

    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric219.jpg

    -

    Sodding typical; I did get a well-lit shot of those shanty huts by the sea after all:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric216.jpg

    And you can see how they cluster up the hill in this photo:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric215.jpg

    And sit on odd spits of rock in this one:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric213.jpg

    -

    This was pretty nifty, although you probably had to be there; view from inside the totally sheltered corridor of palm leaf & bamboo huts that were the accomodation for that place we stayed at in Gokarna:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric211.jpg

    -

    Somewhere - oh yes, in the same guesthouse beach-shack place - was this posetr of the monkey god Hanuman. This one is not a made-for-children version; I sure hope this is something to do with the Ramayana or the Mahabharata or something, 'coz otherwise it's just wee a bit disturbing:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric209.jpg

    -

    On the beach in Gokarna, at the very same residence as ours in fact, I met up randomly with Chris here, a Belgian guy from Palolem. He seemed to be hooked-up with a female member of the Palolem tribe but from opposite ends of the beach in different gangs, last time I saw, and hitherto unknown to each other. Funny how things go; very snug they seemed too :)

    Just caught him on the way somewhere from somewhere pretty high, by the looks of it, I wonder where exactly myself:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric206.jpg

    At the beach there was something quite amazing, something I have totally failed to capture on video I think, unfortunately - there was a large flat rocky plateau on the beach and the whole thing was riddled with holes, and you could clearly see the sea coming in underneath you in hundreds of places, I guessed the rock was largely iron and the softer parts had eroded, leaving a maze of just-about-underground tiny tunnels right there on the beach where the tide flowed in and out and shot up several feet in great geysers when it travelled along certain parts of the tunnel network and hit the end of the tube!

    It was like a gigantic sieve built on truly massive proportions; some of the holes were more than a yard across although most were about a few inches to a foot, and the whole rocky shelf was huge, a single chunk of iron-rich rock several hundred feet from side to side.

    At least, I think that was at Gokarna, I'm sure it must have been but there are no better pictures than the following 3 close ups of one larger hole - neither show you what is really what, but hopefully more will turn up in about a hundred pics or so :DD:

    Anyhoo the not-great, extra-close shots of one hole - I really hope there's something better, or that I got some video though:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric202.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric201.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric203.jpg

    -

    Oh look, we're back in Hampi again :D

    Views fromt he top of the Hanuman temple once more...

    Rocky perspective shots from both sides with different views of the sprawling landscape:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric312.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric308.jpg

    Landscape of rice fields, rivers and bouldrous hills. Yes, bouldrous. Copyright me 2008 ;) :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric310.jpg

    And a closer shot of those farming-style rice field things taken from an elevation of several hundred feet (and 575 steps):

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric307.jpg

    -

    Right, seems we're back at the lake for a swim... or perhaps not. Look closely (needs rotating) and see if you can fool yourself that this is a helicopter shot of a vast, square-banked canyon. Go on, give it a try. If you can, then I am a genius, and not some misguided fool who wasted valuable time clearing everyone and all their shit away from this tiny, narrow yet suggestive little path right next to where we gleefully vacated land for water in that glorious reservoir (fresh water though, so I sunk even faster than usual. Slightly terrifying..)

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric305.jpg

    -

    Competition for most erratic boulder entry #1567:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric304.jpg

    I mean look at that thing, how the hell were we ever supposed to learn about physics with things like that about the landscape?

    And this wouldn't have exactly helped:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric301.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric303.jpg

    It's marvel we ever got past stumbling across fire and the wheel, and started painting little animal-esque pictograms to communicate with each other, I sometimes think.

    -

    Last but (hopefully) not least...

    Okay, we are about to experiment. No not with drugs, that's already been done, but with video. Yes, video. We are about to see if this bloody thing bloody works or not - I've added all my videos to Photobucket, and honestly have no real idea if or how this is going to work, so, here is the equivalent of the direct link like with all the pictures:

    http://s22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/?action=view&current=cric315.flv

    And here is the code, embedded directly into the webpage so I really can't tell if it'll be working for any/many of you at all, so this may require additional plugiins, activeX controls, java downloads, goat sacrifices etc. as per usual. Let us pray....

    (It's supposed to be of a large-ish lizard from one of my huts at Goan corner):

    Gosh I hope at least on of them works...

  • A Tale of Slight Shame; 1st Night in Cochin...

    I remember when I arrived in Cochin (Kochi) on the 7th of this month, and I have to wate a couple of paragraph bitchign about it I am afraid but it's okay. I lighten up right afterwards :D

    It was after The Train From Kannur and that journey fully deserves the Pratchettesque use of capital letters: bit of an ordeal, sleeper class (which is misleading in the extreme: you can only sleep sitting bolt upright crushed between bodies and with the aid of anaesthetics) for 7 hours or so, and the damn thing left an hour late, was delayed twice en-route for no particular reason, and then spent an extra 20 minutes sitting just outside the station waiting for a platform to free up.

    I met a guy on the train who tried to strike up a business proposition re: his brother being an interior designer and sculptor looking for export contacts, all after I gave the usual lie about my building houses for a living. I gave him my email because there's no harm in it, and anyway, after reading the actual wording of the adderss I like to use any business response was pretty damned unlikely ;)

    Against my wishes I lie a lot here, because every Indian you are in the company of for more than 60 seconds will ask you what your job is, and it is hard enough to explain to English people in their own country what my bloody job was, so over here I just lie.
    I have tried it both ways and it is useless trying to explain it, because I had no job title and no definite position, and the industry is one that doesn't even exist in this country - it's rare enough in England - so all that is ever acheived is a irritable lack of comprehension at me not having a proper, normal, conventional job they can pidgeonhole nicely without too much stretching of the mental comfort zone, or, ironically enough, a sense that I am lying about what I do :roll:
    No-one but Greg, Stefan and maybe one or two Brits have ever grasped what it is that I used to do for a living in the past 4 months, and many of those I experimented on were European.

    Believe me, my time is more valuable ;) And so is everyone else's!

    -

    So I arrived after the usually comfortable `safe time` (before about 6:30pm) in a new city, with no hotel, and if had been anything less than a city I would have truly been up shit-creek sans paddle, because a new village at 9:30pm in India does not present many, if any, reasonable prospects of accomodation. You have to have a readiness to use that emergency blanket you've got filed in the `Paranoid` section of your luggage and crash down in some outdoor shelter where no-one can see you, rob you, or accidentally pitchfork/knife/poker you to death in mistake that you're trying to steal their goats/soft drinks/stock of fossilised turds, depending on your choice of unfortunate venue were it to go all wrong.

    It's about 50/50 chance of there being no hotels or guesthouses, and none that are open to new arrivals, in the smaller towns and villages I would guess.

    Happily I was okay despite being almost 3 hours late or something equally ridiculous, and managed to effect the fastest hotel check in in history: I had already selected my place of residence from the LP and knew exactly where I was going, also I trusted the Good Book because Kochi is a popular place, and the staff at LP HQ themselves would have been pitchforked to death by travellers if it wasn't competantly accurate.

    With a haughty wave to ward off all taxi drivers, I walked sufficiently far into the city proper to realise that it was a bloody stupid idea to think I should better walk to my hotel just to save a few rupees; my legs were partially atrophied from the train journey and my irritable nerves weren't ready for an Indian city, so after less than a mile I reneged on the macho idea of taking my first trip through a strange town at night with luggage whilst tired, and hailed myself the first empty rickshaw I could. I'd barely made any ingress into the city, as, from my map I could tell (maybe 10% of the way), and the taxi cost just Rs. 25 so I probably shouodn't have bothered. Mind you, the taxi from the train station would probably have neen at least Rs. 60 or Rs. 70, such is the nature of tourism ;)

    Here is a formula for you, or rather a `to do` list if you need to book budget accomodation in India:

    > Arrive. Smile at everyone, it's free :D ;
    > Ask for a single room only to be told there are none (they always say this even if there are);
    > Ask the price of a double;
    > Whatever figure they give repeat it back a little louder and and with a question mark at the end, and most importantly, do not put any of your luggage on the floor. Be ready to leave in an instant;
    > Wait for the price to be lowered a bit and ask to see the room;
    > As long as it's not plastered in grime and the bathroom has what you need for the (new, improved) price, say `thanks very much` and go throw your lugagge down there;
    > Lock the door;
    > Give a (often false, up to you) name;
    > Hand over the key to reception so the following evening of drunken stupidity doesn't see you arriving at your hotel at 5am not only to wake all the staff up, but also to face the tricky negotiation of getting a second key to replace the one you have unaccountably lost to a room you have booked under a false name and that you can't remember the location of, due to being unable to see in a straight line;
    > Run away into the night for aforementioned night of silliness.

    In this case, despite my floor being two storeys heavenwards and having to move my luggage up there on my own (not a posh enough place for porters, of course) this process took less than 3 minutes and happened completely by reflex, and I even filled in (very messily) the `C form` that all guesthouses & hotels must take from their customers.
    I even used an only slightly false name.

    -

    From there I went looking for beer. This was my first night in town and I managed to pack an impressive amount into it, though I do say so myself.
    I was given the most amazingly convoluted instructions beerwards though, and I'll just quickly explain why:
    In this country which is most religious you have the following tribes competing for followers and temple space - Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Jews and Buddhists. Almost everyone is Hindu, Muslim or Christian, but the other three get a good look in - here's the thing though; In Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism alcohol is illegal, a crime against God(s) and society, and in Buddhism it is strongly warned against; exceedingly strongly in fact.
    Judaism and Christianity allow room for it of course, and Christians, being mostly Westerners, therefore being largely drunkards :D even include it in the conventional Mass. There, see, they've got one thing going for them, at least ;)

    So beer or booze of any kind, outside Goa, is extremely hit and miss. Technically it shouln't be there at all and strict Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus should really grab the bottle out of your hand and give you a drubbing to show you the error of your (their) ways if you drank it in public, but like many things here it is more relaxed in certain ways.

    Oh, and it seems that I couldn't help myself and that I just wrote this post on a forum about Chinese history in reaction to the digging about I just did - gives you more of an idea about the various religious views of alcohol, if you ever wanted to know.
    I just can't leave anything alone...

    Anyway despite all the competing god-botherers, bars exist. It's just finding them that takes the effort...

    I walked down the road a while, asked at a stall if they had any beer (the sign above said `Drink` which was good enough for me) and they, the stall and his nearest 5 customers, directed me to another corner, and another stall. They probably wanted just to get rid of me.

    The 2nd stall directed me along a road to a certain corner; third corner on the left after turning left just there or something; and that took me into a sort-of back yard that somehow managed to be on the front corner of a dark, gloomy and seriously delapidated building.
    There was an ancient BAR sign strung out the front around about the first floor level, and the building's personal space and associated doorways were quietly humming with activity; there seemed to be a hatchway serving horrid-looking fried pieces of animal to somewhat less-than discerning customers, and on the approach you had to half-leap over a sheet of corrugated iron left angled like a tank trap.

    Being a highly keen self-medicator of course I hopped it and approached the hatch with a thirsty gusto, but it was not to be; I was motioned to the side of the hatchway and towards a door I hadn't dared to enter - I was hoping to buy beer and take it away in the manner of the best reclusive lone drinkers and alcoholics, but instead I had to enter the bar proper. Oh well...

    I did, I found a darkened, pillared room mostly full, with lots of activity and a grimy look and feel to everything - defintely a local place - and after a few seconds surveying the darkness and the low interior walls and pillars that held the building above in place, someone ushered me politely but firmly out, into the tiny ante-chamber before ejecting me streetwards and opened a cupboard door to reveal a set of stairss, a neat trick if ever I saw one, and ushered me wordlessly but smilingly up them.

    Another bar. Same dark and grime, slightly fewer customers, mostly slight better dressed.

    Again after a few seconds I was spotted by someone (I presume these were the staff) and removed from the room - removed through the other end of the room in fact and these guys were less drunk, so as I made my way busy tables and aisles I got more stares than before - and sent up to the roof, where I was promptly sent down a fire escape, back to ground level, to emerge as I could see inside a small, totally enclosed courtyard: I was wondering at about this point what the hell was happening; the reminder that cows are sacred yet many menus advertise `beef`, and this was a was unpleasantly clear in my mind.

    Bottom of the metal stairway, door, looks a bit cleaner (how clean is your average abattoir, I wondered?), through there a restaurant that survived despite being apparently sealed off from the outside world.

    Again a polite, smiling, unspeaking and quite resolute person took hold of my arm and guided me gently through the restaurant (half-full, much cleaner, clientele much like the last place but a bit better lit) and out to their own stairs which, after climbing a good few flights in an environment of semi-clean white tiling and only very slightly greasy stair treads, I emerged at last, a good 5 or 6 minutes after entering the whole labyrinthine complex in the rooftop garden of one of the posh places in town.

    There was a bloody great fountain and waterfall scene of rock, wood and ornate metalwork constucted across one whole end wall of the place, spanning a good 10 feet or more under the metal-posted frame and corrugated roof that supported that protected the few diners and I from the elements, and which would have been even more spectacular had it had any water in it or been switched on, but still.
    It was awfully pretty and you could see just what they had in mind when they made it, with channels and spouts and a big collecting basin with, no doubt, hidden feeds for the water to be pumped back up again. I just hope that it did actually work when required because it would have been a lot of effort to go to to make, and even more effort for me to plough through all those fucking stairways and passages to come and see it.

    If I hadn't been in such a good mood at the prospect of beer I might have bitched to the management and tried to get it switched on or filled up or whatever was needed to make it go - the thought did occurr to me, but then also so did the thought that behaviour like that would make me a complete arsehole, so I left it, seated myself and order beer. I had dinner there as well.

    -

    Now, what happened after that I can't prciely tell you, firstly because I can't remember all of it and secondly because I don't want to; it was not my finest hour, I know that much.

    I was stopped as I was elaving by two Indian guys with some pleasantry, and answered, chatted a couple of exchanges and they aked if I had time to stay for a drink or if I had to leave.
    Always time for one more, I thought, so I stayed.

    The guys, a certain Vinod and Manoj, according to my subtly scrawled and hard to read notes from that evening, were pretty cool. We chatted for maybe an hour, drunk 3 small bottles of rum between us, got downstairs by some hidden (i.e. blindingly obvious) doorway and found the street, then found the various motorbikes of Manoj and Vinod in different lockups and garages nearby and we raced through the streets for what must have been several kilometres, because we ended up at a festival and elephant parade in Fort Kochi and we started off 4km away by road in the mainland city of Ernakulam, unless that restaurant was even larger than I gave it credit.

    Anyway these guys had procurred a larger (very large) bottle of rum from, quite literally, a hole in the wall: there was an illicit night-time trade in booze through a slit in a rollover lockup door - you know the steel shutter doors that roll down to protect shop fronts? Well one enterprising soul thought that about a square foot of his shop front was worth leaving unprotected for the sake of all the business he could do after hours.
    It was a fair bit less than a square foot in size actually; the bottle had to come out sideways and wasn't much smaller, but it's hard to fit a more precise description into a neat sentence ;)

    We went back to someone's house - I have no idea whose - and sat up, finished off the bottle amid much drunkenness and I learned, at one point, that an Indian man, one of these two anyway, could happily dedicate his entire salary and spare time to a hobby, one could say Obsession and make a half-witty joke, of collecting cologne.

    Never before have I seen such a thing - and this I do remember; an entire large standalone cupboard, fronted with glass, every part of at least 6 shelves decked out with expensive aftershaves and fragrances such as is not seen outside of an airport's Duty Free. Must have cost him every spare Ruppe for the last couple of years, I guessed at, because cologne is one of the things not so drastically affected by the exchange rate; it's a serious fucking luxury to have a bottle, and this guys had about a hundred or more, easily. I've spent more than 5 years approximating large quantities of similar items at a quick glance (thanks to y mysterious job... :P ) and he had a LOT.

    Indian men, I came to realise, can get seriously devoted in their attempts to attract Western women, and some of these are anything but sinister. Just a little misguided maybe, that's all - although that arsenal can hardly have harmed his efforts.

    -

    We made it back to the elephant parade and this is where things went a bit wrong. It was hugely, I mean hugely lit all over with a million bulbs of many colours (mostly yellow for some reason) and the whole place inside the parade area seemd to be about as bright as day. Everything was festooned and lit, everything was laced with streamers. The riders and elephants and many of the watchers (who you can't easily distinguish from active particpants to be honest) were dolled-up to the nines. It was pretty and cheerful and completely over the top.

    I seperated myself from those guys to march next to the elephants as more came down the road and into the parade area, and was getting a little disturbed by all the whippings and apparent stabbing that the mahouts, the elephant trainers, were giving the creatures; I've got a bit of a fascination and love of elephants for some reason, and seeing all that being done to them didn't exactly improve my humour; regrettably this made me enter the stage generally known as `weepy drunk` when one of the loveable giants didn't want to back into the allotted stall while his big brother was trotted out around the front, and the little mahout with his little sharp stick stabbed it right into the elephant's hide what seemed about six inches and I hope that was just the skin giving way, to its obvious and immediate distress. Not cool :(

    I spent the next 10 minutes next to the open-sided stalls feeding that elephant and others bits of bambee and leaves that they were collecting in tiny amounts from the flat floor with their trunks, but which I could scoop up in big, healthy bundles and give to them straight.
    After that I wandered off down the road somewhere, and managed to somehoe focus my irritation on the ridiculous party lights and gaudy decorations, and passing a low wall strung with a long stream of them, kicked a bulb in. I may have kicked more than one in, in fact.

    Someone saw me, and they appeared to own the bulbs: they were NOT happy, and I soon had a large crowd of shouty angry people, really quite amazingly large, what seemed to be maybe 15 people without exaggeration, and the front couple screaming at me in Malayalam, a language which, perhaps for the best, I do not speak a word of.
    Some other person must have headr me when I said "I don't understand" a few dozen times anf they spoke pretty much perfect English, and thankfully seemd not to own any lightbulbs in the vicinity because he tried reason, instead of shouting.
    Yes, I agree that it wasn't right to disrespect their culture in their country as the sensible man said, but all that I could manage was something along the lines of respecting - and not stabbing up - the welfare of the elephants, which are supposed to be sacred, after all.

    As I said, hardly my finest moment, but still - after all the fuss and the English-speaking guy placating the crowd somehow, I slipped away using my stealth ninja I-don't-wanna-get-knifed-just-now-and-I-see-an-opening skills, and legged it quietly but rapidly down an alley, into a road, jumped over something and crossed a bit of wasteground and got around the corner as quick as I could. Well, you never know, they're not gonna be able to find me that quickly if they wanted blood and all I needed was a rickshaw. Easy! Millions of rickshaws!

    They all wanted to wait until the elephant goading sacred and important and not-at-all-thoughtless festival was over though, and I had to try and wake them up; they sleep in their rickshaws largely anyway, but especially now when there is something going on, they cluster in the surrounding streets until later in the morning, I think this thing was due to go on until almost sunrise.
    Eventually I found someone awake, after only trying to steal one unguarded rickshaw in my drunken haze (well, you never know) and he didn't even rip me off ont he fare back to my hotel and back to mainland Ernakulam.

    That was when I knocked up the poor staff of the hotel at something around 5 in the morning, and this completes my sorry tale.

    The whole of which - the embarrassment at being so bloody stupid and, yes totally fair enough, extremely inconsiderate not to mention ill-advised, coupled with a fear of going across to Fort Kochi or even leaving the hotel, were what started my productive little stint here, which has caused ouright alarm amongst some of the guests at how little I have left. I stayed on because I was enjoying it, and yesterday I bit the bullet and risked lfe and limb (well, actually I'm more afraid of having to pay for anything) and wspent the day in Fort Kochi and saw and did a bunch of cool stuff.

    I didn't disrepsect anyone's culture or anythign - far fro it in fcat as you'll soon see.

    I just thought you might like to know that :) PLus I felt I had to share, my embarrassment having gone down enough after 10 days for me to do so :D

    *** Ooh, I would also say that the cause of my embarassment is the fact I let it get to me, and the fact that I went and trashed something that belonged to someone else in a situtation I didn't understand and should only ever have been a spectator to, if I was to respect the cultural norms. That last point is up for debate philosophically, but in someone else's place (country, house or whatever) you usually do what they demand. Or you leave. I'm leaving after Cochin, because I can't really stand the attitudes to many things any longer :)

    This is still not cause enough for me to go and make amends, though, for the sake of being scrupulously and thoroughly decent. I couple of poxy light bulbs out of possibly half a million or more are next to nothing, and the whole thing is probably funded by the Communist party who are massively popular around here so the cost of a few rupees goes to the league of tens of thousands who spread the load of all payments, allegedly - I'm sure that in truth the driving reason behind people taking offence so quickly, and it didn't take long for the to ask for money, as my translator told me they were doing, was an open opportunity.

    An obvious tourist, an obvious (if minor) crime, and there was no way I could know anything of the value of these things myself so I could hardly repudiate any figures they attached to them, and they would willingly taken full advantage of a drunk as well, I am sure.

    Culturally, I'm not happy I pissed anyone off. But they can go hang if they want some crazy amount of money for their lightbulbs - exactly how much does it cost to go into the forests and capture wild elephants, I wonder?


    End of rant!!!!!
    Sorry!! Thank you!!
    I just needed to get that off my chest. Phew.

  • A quick note. Yes, an actual quick one.

    Please excuse all and any typos from the last post - will be tidied up in a bit :)

    -

    Okay, I actually didn't get a pizza delivered today, yet, but instead managed to struggle out of the routine of this incessant logorrhoea. Good word, that.

    I got up, late of course after my night of joy, wrote the early morning entry and then managed to pry-bar myself out of my seat, away from the computer, and very nearly almost out of the front doors of the hotel before a magnetic attraction brought me back.
    I shook off the giant magnet, cursed myself for ever buying such a preposterous thing to wear around one's hip girdle, and left the place properly.

    No mean feat, when you think about how much I like to sit on my mozarella-filled arse here :D

    -

    I have had 2 strong beers today; I say this right away for my benefit more than anyone else's. I've also eaten proper food, been to an art gallery, had a reasonable walk and taken a couple of autorickshaws, so at least I have experienced more gregarious activity than the previous 2 days put together

    Despite my enjoying the beers and the accompanying food (no sign of intestinal trauma yet, we live in hope) and their effect a fairly good amount, and the fact I managed to get one of the novel features of Cochin (Kochi) on video, I felt extremely bad about the beers within an hour of drinking the last, and after a pleasantly-numbed meander down the quiet part of the busiest road in the city, I was not Lovin' It™ much at all.
    I have to say, mind you, that major roadways in Indian cities can really only be happily navigated by the slightly drunk, because the busyness of both traffic and humanoids, and the hectoring of the more desperate humanoids actually bothers you, unless a good hazy cloud of booze takes away all your give-a-shitability, as it were.

    I came back here to write the photo post and realised I just couldn't. I couldn't think the way I wanted to (i.e. in a straight enough line to twist linguistically as I wanted to) I knew I could neither create new scribblings nor edit them, to any degree of satisfaction.
    I went upstairs and slept it off and managed to pass out within minutes. Typical. My body wants it for its regular functions but every instinct and thoughts really doesn't, just doesn't any more, not until suitale justifiable (and moderate) social situations arise and I can enjoy what I think of as a valid drink i.e. not me getting blind drunk on my own because I want to stop thinking.

    I've rather enjoyed thinking recently, it's been wonderfully novel and splendid :D

    Still though, and I'm sorry to prattle on about this because not many actually cvare bnut thjis is my demon I'm grappling with here, even now I'm writing with another window on Wikipedia in the background and I cannot, I just cannot be arsed to read about Peter the Great of Russia at any length and I know almost nothing about the man or his legacy! It's something I have always wanted to know, but even the fading effects of a couple of beers (they are big beers, mind, and 8% ABV) after an hour and a half's sleep sap my will to have a read of it.

    Fuck that - I look forward to the day when I can safely stash away a decent enough potted history of the Russian Czars, it'll be a kick, even if only a subconscious one, to remind me how good it is to be able to think straight and more importantly, so much more importantly to want to think straight.

  • PhotoOnslaught X: Army of Artness

    We shall begin with some humour. Here's a recent photo of me!
    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric295.jpg

    Ha-freakin'-ha, I'm sure if someone's supposed to be taking the piss then the extractee shouldn't be yourself.. :-/ Could have got a better pic/had shave/looked happier I must admit.
    The picture I had in mind was in fact this, an advertisment where the first thing you notice is the fact the advertisers are dealing you a personal insult - great marketing strategy lads!

    Photobucket

    Oh what a sundry and splendid thing it is, culture.
    Of course something about whatever it is they are selling revolves around there being two of them, or that it only takes 2 minutes, or perhaps Victory in Europe day was unexpectedly popular over here and they'd all like to remind us, but still; "Tark abowt laff! Oi pissed moiself!!"

    -

    +50 points to Gryffindor for getting the reference in this post's title by the way. It's nothing to do with Harry Potter, I just like awarding `points to Gryffindor` to people in conversation. It sometimes contrives to make me seem funny, you see.
    All the titles are a bit similar to existing movie series' that's all I can say, and I'm sure Rikmos will get it straight away ;)

    -

    Now, things get a bit confusing from here on in. Because I went sort-of back in time with lots of the pictures (thanks to uploading only a few at a time over ones stored before in batches all in the worng order anyway) and because I went back in time to re-visit Hampi and took loads more photos, and even because internet here is sometimes just an evil tool for deceiving tourists and I'm also even an idiot sometimes, things might appear out of place and order. Just in case you wondered.

    -

    Okay I found this boulder formation on my first visits around Hampi and, being the clever sod I am, realised it was something of a good picture. I may not have a taken a good picture, mind you, but I knew it was in there. Other's thoght so too, for it appeared on postcards available for mere rupees in the bazaar when one could insanely go to all the effort of stopping between temples and photographing it yourself for free.
    I had an argument with someone that the the rocks in the postcards were close by, someone was adamnat they just weren't, so whoever they were: nyer nyer nyer :P

    Also, down there in the corner, that's Maria, that is. When she turns around she's got a real proper face and everything, too:

    Photobucket

    Okay links to save your sanity - I worked something out by the way folks: you should probabkly right-clisk and choose `open in new window/tab` all the links 'coz if you click 'em they navigate you around in this same window.
    If you click the images that are posted in full in order to see the other half then it takes you away automatically, but you gotta right-click the links, althoguh most of you probably worked that out a lot sooner than I did ;)

    Another shot of the Lotus Mahal, a small but perfectly formed temple:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric291.jpg

    A watchtower in the corner of an old Muslim compound, needs rotating, and it's something a bit different:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric292.jpg

    Goddamned rotation tool - this one is pretty cool, taken from inside one of the Elephant Stables near the Ranazana temple, you can see a cool view through the little human-sized doorways that connect each stable, reflecting the same arched patterns:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric290.jpg

    -

    Artefacts fomt he museum, photography strictly prohibited ;) these are just various knick-knacks of bronze/copper/porcelain:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric289.jpg

    And assorted ivory relics:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric288.jpg

    And the best stuff, naturally, the admittedly paltry but still cool weaponry artefacts; Caltrops, arrowheads and a length of ancient sword-blade(or a somewhat serious arrowhead!):

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric287.jpg

    -

    A length of salvaged carving from one of the numerous ancient empires around there (quite nice):

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric286.jpg

    A miniature temple carving from the facade of a full-scale temple, and great photos of the Lotus Mahal when it was first decided to restore it int he 1940s, and the present-dy result (rather nice):

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric285.jpg

    -

    Ah yes, the demented children: on my second visit to the Vittala temple with Maria in tow, as we were eaither leaving or arriving I, note that I, not we, got totally swarmed by a ferocious crowd of completely mad children - a school trip I have to suppose.

    They were fascinated by me, in a way I can't begin to describe; they swarmed up to me like a body of water and I had immediately 2 dozen or more small hands to shake and `hello!!`s to answer from every direction.

    I had to give my name at least twenty or so times and ask theirs in turn and dish out a `Nice to meet you` or a `Pleased to meet you` each time in that way I have of not being able to really deal with kids, but amazingly they knew the English civilities amazingly well, and actually sort-of blushed away at being treated so politely.
    It was in this way only I managed to disperse the menagerie, and return them to the care of their keeper, or `teacher` as I believe they are sometimes known.

    It's hard to get acropss quite how voracious they were in their desire to devour all knowledge of this pasty foreigner, and I had to proclaim my nationality, `country`, loudly and frequently and, this was what they really loved, I was wearing a T-shirt and they saw the edges of various tattoos and before I knew it my shirtsleeves were up, pretty much terminally had they not been kept supervised as I understand you can have vital arteries and nerves cut off via the armpit ;)

    In any case, they would not let me go without me having a picture of them - four pictures in fact - and were delighted beyond measure when I showed them the display on the camera, and it was much yanked about by tiny hands as each of them sought to see themselves immortalised in my photobucket account.

    It was, by a large margin, the most enjoyable, least embarrassing (for me), and you could even say the most successful encounter with children of my adult life.
    Here they are:

    Photobucket

    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric284.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric281.jpg

    -

    Back on the temple trail - somewhere inside, I think, the Achyturaya temple, although I've forgotten how to spell that properly by now - there was a doorway just begging to be photographed. So I did. I'm not one to deny a building when it actually speaks to me and begs, for Christ's sake:

    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric280.jpg

    One of those examples of carving from around the same area that I got strangely hooked on; I have never much seen the attraction in carvings, art galleries, the insides of holy buildings or many other culturally rich things since coming to India (although about 25% of Rome deserves an honourable exemption from this statement) but bizarrely here I was, expending time, thought and camera batteries taking pictures of chiselled hunks of rock. Many are great, some like this are just mediocre but still, I found myself getting oddly fond of seeking out all the different ones I could find:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric276.jpg

    -

    This is cool so it's going up in big format - the view all the way down Hampi bazaar from some huge steps at the far end - remember how big that Virupakshur temple is? Well, you can see it down the end in the middle. That's how long Hampi Bazaar is:

    Photobucket

    -

    There is a picture of Maria and I together just here in the collection, but we both look frighteningly constipated so it's going well out of the way, thank you so very much :|

    -

    I managed to get a shot of that amazingly tiny and ancient school in the Bazaar again whent he kids were in session, as it were:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric274.jpg

    -

    With a lot of editing, this could make a very cool picture, but it needs the work ;)
    The following few shots I took while on an acid trip, so the quality, blurring, sense, reason and meaning of all are open to questioning ;)
    Nonetheless, for the fact it was a stupid picture to take (see above) the motto on the sticker is indisputably worthy, and undeniably true:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric273.jpg

    I thought this would seem like a path to nowhere, or something equally profound at the time. Tripping. Sensibility. Right out the window.
    Better light would have been nice too... :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric272.jpg

    Rocks are cool: this is official, and also beyond question 'coz I wouldn't answer any, so there :P
    Therefore these rocks, although like a great many other rocks, were valid subject matter for me even though the top of my head had begun to open up by this point and good-sized bucketfuls of Serotonin were sloshing into and out of the various canals inside my central nervous system.

    I actually managed to get it quite nicely in frame, looking at it now. Amazing:

    Photobucket

    -

    Right, I don't care that I was a drug-addled fool at the time, or that you have to rotate the picture and not even the fact it's a little bit blurred - this, I think, is cool.

    There was a restaurant and guesthouse called the Tipi, or Teepee (the former spelling is actually correct, at least in this part of the world) owned and loosely run by Rishi, when he wasn't getting smasheroonied.
    This was one of the nights his staff did all the work - Rishi dropped the acid with us, or drank it, rather, as we did, and you see him here atop the massive boulder that flanks his restaurant and premises on one whole side - we travelled about the scenery a bit around this time to various mountains in the same valley and always tried to pick out `Rishis's boulder`.

    He had climbed up it while tripping his face off on acid, though he probably wasn't all that hammered I suppose because he often did this sort of thing (I am seriously out of practice myself ;) ) and he often climbed the boulder, too.
    Rishi is the dark figure standing still and I have no idea who the person dancing on top of such a precipitous rock is, only that I remember Prague, and did much the same thing at a simlar height on some huge rocks in some steepl-slpoed forest, and it is cool, is dancing on big rocks.
    Anyway here's the first one:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric270.jpg

    And the second one is actually a good picture, although zoomed out and features no dancing hedonists, so it goes up in full:

    Photobucket

    This also, I believe, is a fairly good picture but you gotta rotate/squint at it as necessary. Featuring once again the JonAlia beast, turn it round - seriously actually do it to this one (Windows XP/Vista only: right-click, edit option, go from there) - and see how one man with a brain full of LSD can actually take rather good photos:

    Photobucket

    That Tipi on its own (rotate if bothered):

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric267.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric265.jpg

    And another cool thing from the world of undisciplined geology; one of the many semi-symbiotic tree/rock occurences caught mid-flirtation. If we'd missed it by just 50 years either side we'd have missed the tree completely ;) :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric266.jpg

    Oh yes, our friend. You're arachnophobic. You will drop LSD within the hour and you KNOW you're about to go do some acid, and you KNOW how things stick in your mind and repeat and undo and reanalyse themselves in that state, so what could you hope to find within 12" of your doorway? This fellow, not the largest, but certainly the most unwelcome spider I have seen in India.
    Mind you, you could cure yourself of arachnophobia within the space of one 12-hour trip if you got your head right about it; still, I'd ratehr this guy hadn't chosen this moment to start living in our bin (a large cardboard box) right by the front door of our hut:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric264.jpg

    See, I could have put the whole picture in there, but quite frankly after that trip with all the siggestions of octo-leggery at the edges of my vision and my mind the whole time, I don't think I ever want to see him full-size ever again!

    -

    More small creatures - and this isn't anything to do with spiders although you'd have a hard time believing it at first. It is an ant's nest, an entire colony, seemingly living among and along the branches of a tree. I have to admit that I abused these ants, in one sense of the word: I found them in good numbers traversing a washing line hung between two huts carrying a constant chain of food; scraps of stuff, other dead ants of their species and many others, live wriggling larvae of some other insect, bits of leaf, bits of other insects; and they did this on their washing line highway at a place right on a convenient route from our hut to the restaurant, so to be strictly accurate the first few times I abused them quite physically and horribly by headbutting the wire, possibly slaying hundreds. Such is life :-/

    The rest of the time, after I had noticed the little guys and almost every time I passed, I liked to fuck with them a bit to see what they would do so I would block the washing line on the top, bottom, or all around; cut bits of leaf off that formed part of their route to the tree, seeing how long they took to make a workaround; removed ants in vital positions in the chain (Carefully, mind, I just put them on the floor or wall near some other part of their operations) that seemed to be occupied not with carrying food, but with giving physical body-language signals; shook the wire mercilessly a couple of times when in a bad mood, I admit - my, but can these buggers stick to something though, they never budged; blew on the chain of progress for 5 minutes straight in order to interrupt them and so to see what orders might come through from Ant High Command; and generally made the prsence of some obstruction or other being known to them to see how they might deal with such a thing.

    The nerve centre of the place semed to be this structure made of fibres looking a lot like spider's silk. How the hell exactly they managed this, I would love to know:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric262.jpg

    Photobucket

    -

    Okay, this is about the least picturesque arty shot you might ever see, it is a dead dog. Framed nice against the sky, like, but undeniably a canine who has breathed his last. I was stumbling near Goan Corner one day in a bad, unfriendly-drunk sort of mood, and happened across this poor departed doggy, and that just put me in a great mood, I can tell you ;) :(

    I'd only recently learned that all the restaurant owners habitually beat the stray dogs, sometimes to death (if you had a restaurant out in a semi-rural area with literally hundreds of dogs in town, often 5 or 10 or more in your restaurant amongst your customers, you might look upon it quite differently to the way we probably all do, I can understand that much of it, especially if that's what your parents did and their parents and theirs etc. etc. but still - beating a fucking animal to death is Not On in any circumstances other than those in which to save your own life) so, feeling a little bit drunk and a bit, I admit it, weepy, I recorded this RinTinTin's last resting place, until some other creature came and recycled him, at least:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric261.jpg

    -

    Okay! We all sunshine and smiles after the dead dog yeah? Great! Let's see what else we haad that didn't involve any kind of trauma...oh yes, a sign like those at every entrance to the rocky plateaus and hills near Hampi where climbers climbed, tourists wandered, and lusty couples occasionally snuck off for a shag amongst the rocks, or so some of them told me. Well one half of one of them, anyway. Good enough a place as any, I suppose (wouldn't mind bringing a bit of bedding or something soft, personally).

    This sign was a little shorter and far more legible than most others, which were odten cut into or painted onto a handy large rock. Each listed a set of woes ready to befall a tourist, many of them specific to women which really hinted at a happy and untroublesome past eh? Now it is so full of wiry climbers, who are made of little more than bone and muscle, that I would think everyone is safe such is the impressive physique and numerous deployment of these adventurous clamberers (I'll be one myself again one day, you'll see). My answer to the few point on this one would, I suppose if asked my advice by the authorities, be;

    1) Darwinian theory, natural selection, ever heard of it? Leave this sort of person to the probabilitiy ratios, I would.

    2) Good point. Goooood point. Many cops around here to catch these robbers; what, none on this side of the river? Oh well done. Well done indeed, I can see you are obviously able to travel the two miles needed by some religious teleportation ritual, in lightning speed enough to stand a chance of ever catching anyone, ever. Yeah. Great effort guys.

    3) Where were the nearest cops again? Yeah good luck with this one....

    4) Thank you, the acual useful bit. I suppose advance notice of about an hour from any criminals is necessary for this to be much practical use, but I can see you are at least happy to come and clean up the body parts after the fact if necessary, which is something.

    CYNICISM

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric258.jpg

    -

    Now this, this, folks, is the sign (literally) of someone who really wants some fair play in the marketplace but just has to be realistic at the end of the day and play the same tactics as his would-be detractors.

    This belongs to the German Bakery in the village North of the river (beer side) in Hampi, the village actually being seperately called Virrupapur Gaddi but only people like me ever seem to note that down, and the owner; a nice chap who actually looked Vietnamese or Cambodian or Thai, always smiling and friendly; is obviously still a leeeetle bit pissed off about things.

    Not only does he serve the best breads and baked cakes and stuff in town, and gets less for it than anyone because he was the cheapest place, but also his is the German Bakery actually listed in the Lonely Planet, and rightly so, whereas no less than three other `German Bakery`s sit on the same side of the river on the same sodding road.

    At least he treats it pretty light-heartedly, for all the business he clearly must have to relinquish:

    Photobucket

    -

    Crap photo, good point illustrated; I was on the back of a bike or in a rickshaw or something coming back from the lake one time, while I took this and was trying to get a shot of just how some people managed to live with almost nothing - this is someone's house:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric254.jpg

    Who would have thought a bit of trellis would somewhere have to serve someone as a building wall? And they only had enough for half that side of the hut. Incredible.

    -

    Righty ho, I've reached T-minus 12 pages (that's just 240 photos, folks) in this album whic means only a few ;) more photo posts and we're up to speed. The of course there's the next album, 984 pictures, then Dtefan's collection of super-high-resolution photos from the trek which he burned to CDs for me before we parted, oh and of course there are videos as well. From November 5th onwards - only about 40 vids overall though and I don't know if they'll even play or embed in this properly - we can all have fun finding out together, yay!

    Oh yes, I left the hotel and did some stuff today, and have a thought or two which I will share with you becasue of this, going up just after this post, which has been previously prepared. It's a bit self-absorbed so you can skip it if you like.

    Ta-ta folks :)

  • Authentic Cuisine.

    Well, I broke the habbit of a week yesterday and didn't eat Pizza Hut takeway for dinner. Fact I had it for breakfast is none of your concern! :>>

    Look, I'm allowed to do this, and this is why.
    I trundled (well, waddled) across the road to a lovely looking (remember that's a bit of a relative term here - there were no dying animals out front and the walls and floor had been cleaned within the past few days, a week at most) restaurant called the Colombo (after the Sri Lankan capital, I supposed) which proclaimed its speciality in Chinese food on the main illuminated sign.
    I'll put the bracket keys down now, it's okay, it's okay, "Step away from the parantheses, and we can all go home safely Son..."

    It was almost fully packed with locals - a good sign one might say - although strangely after darkening their door, utilising essential seating space and creating such arduous work for their waiting staff as to bring me a whole double-folded sheet of cardboard most of these Indian customers smartly vacated the place, into which I am reading nothing of course. It must just have been Eating-Up Time in the Hindu calendar or something.

    I scanned the menu, then read the menu, then scrutinised it closely to find some justification for their claim to Chinese cuisine, because all I could see there amid all the normal Indian veg and non-veg stuff that was discernibly Chinese was Gobi Manchurian (Manchurian, okay, fair enough that's a Chinese sauce - or `gravy` as sauce is always called here - but Gobi is just cauliflower in Hindi and is present in every menu of every restaurant in this country, I'd bet. It's even on the PIZZA HUT menu as a topping) and 4 chop suey dishes.
    One of which was `American chop suey` as well which rather defeats the point. Strange.

    Anyway it was busy when I got there and I was finishing off the Bill Bryson book about Britain, Notes From A Small Island which is simply fantastic by the way, so I didn't mind the long wait for service and the subsequent wait for my food in which my beard appreciably grew, but the food itself - hot & sour soup, veg American chop suey (well, I can eat what I want can't I? The others all had meat in anyway) and a little cheap Indian bread called a parotha (or parota or porota etc) - was quite delicious, and it was at least a whole hour after finishing the last of it until I was sick back in my hotel, intractably dedicated to the toilet (a proper sit-down one thank fucking Jupiter) in a number and variety of ways I would not care to mention.

    In any case I didn't get to sleep until past 4am again, although this was profitable in its own small way because I started to read the excellent Conan Doyle Sherlockian compilation His Last Bow, which was very good and nice and intriguing between bouts of shitting myself silly, although being of a sugggestible mind anyway and especially vunerable to feverish thoughts when even slightly ill, reading a book where the first 100 pages comprise stories that are based entirely on suspenseful blood-imbued gruesomeness and a very effective kind of light horror was probably not a good idea at all.

    I was half-looking at the doorways in my room waiting for some murderous Red Circle Italian to come and do me in (although it's amazing that Conan Doyle made the most chilling sentence of the Red Circle story one where a beautiful woman `might just have seen something`. Good bloody writer), or for a giant cannabalistic and yellow-faced ogre to appear as a face at the window, to then find a chicken torn brutally to pieces in the bathroom sink.

    I mean I was literally shitting myself anyway. Come on.

    -

    So, you can't trust the food, as they say, I was scrupulously being totally vegetarian which I don't even usually do, so that means someone probably flicked some poo into the chop suey or something, which isn't exactly reassuring.

    Anyway, I'm having Pizza Hut for breakfast again and sod the world if it says I'm wrong. It may be expensive, but I make a net saving on toilet rolls.
    And I might add that it is only `breakfast` and not lunch because the fucking Indian fucking vegetarian fucking supposedly fucking popular-with-the-locals-so-it-must-be-alright fare kept me awake until gone 4am, so I haven't eaten yet (local time 12:39pm) it's midday, I've only had 3 cups of tea and I'm 8 days on the wagon, pretty much.

    So there :P

  • Addiction: A Slave to the Keyboard?

    I have a slight confession to make even though it is more a statement of pride, in a sense.

    Apart from 2 beers on the Backwater boat trip two days ago, taken with lunch in the middle of the day and quite metabolized by about 4pm, I haven’t drunk a drop of alcohol in, now, seven days.
    That’s a week, for those of you not up with post-Babylonian events ;)

    This is going to be well received by some people, those with an active concern for the state of my internal organs for example, besides myself of course; whose concern has been pretty lax these past 6 years or so; a total nonplus for anyone whose not known me in person or at length, and a mark of shame for a bunch of people back home steadily hardening their arteries as I usually do in daily fashion.

    This is the reason I have been so active on the blog lately – it’s called displacement activity; when one pattern of lifestyle is replaced wholesale by another, it’s just about the only quick-fix solution this universe has yet offered, and I’ve done it myself before...

    -

    I used to be something of a pot-smoker: a proper stoner. I stayed in single rooms for whole days, memorably once managing to not leave the same room for the best part of a week, having food brought by people who visited me to smoke with me (and perhaps do a little business ;) ) and, I am ashamed to say, relieving myself of excess liquids courtesy of a handy window.
    The body can metabolise an amazing amount when you are young, supposed to be fit and healthy, and a huge quantity of Marijuana is added to the system, and you rarely need to process anything else, if I may make my insinuation without becoming too coarse at this time in the morning, for days on end.

    This was in, in fact, the reason I had to leave the room after five days, if memory serves – and it’s incredible that it does serve anything at all after all that weed.
    And Charis.
    And block.
    And Thai stick.
    And skunk – lots of skunk, lots and lots and lots as anyone back home reading this who has known me a few years will testify.

    To celebrate the Millennium my best friend, Brother and I made 7” or 8”-long joints and sat in a cheerful if semi-tranqilised state to welcome it in, watching something BBC-ish on TV to mark the precise event and, I planned this precisely such was my dedication, after filling my gob with an unhealthy dose of smoke, the very first thing that I did in this millennium was inhale.

    -

    I used to be something of something to reckoned with as a stoner, in fact, such were the vast and copious quantities of Cannabis that I inhaled, and among a few social circles if someone was to be thought of as one of the hard core smokers who would sit for up to 12 hours getting unmentionably stoned and knocking scores of others under the table, along the corridor, and out of the door, then one of those was definitely me.

    I decided to stop it one week, having forgotten my name and address just one time too many, and within that week I had almost completely displaced pot with alcohol, better for my short-term memory, far worse for my overall complexion and physique. Unbelievably, a drinker is less fit than a stoner, from the outside.

    A little known fact: Stoners have great abdominal muscles and are almost always very thin. How many fat stoners do you see? Almost none. The stoner of fortitude will have great abs through coughing an awful lot, a good percentage of one’s day is spent coughing in fact, because even though they are used to the smoke the mark of a stoner is always pushing oneself to get something back of those first great highs - so through devices known as `lungs` `shotties` or `shotguns`, `buckets` and many others, along with an interesting range of designs and sizes of spliff, the stoner’s lungs and throat are constantly tested for weaknesses, and the brain is constantly harassed with near-lethal levels of intoxication in an attempt to see just how close you can get to sensory overload and throw up, pass out, faint, or perhaps die if we were really lucky.

    And coughing, though you may have never thought of it like this; engage yourself in it for a full minute, with gusto, and you will feel the strain in your stomach muscles; is in fact your body trying for a full-on rejection i.e. to vomit, but your stomach muscles keep it in check through reflex, thus we are not plagued with oil-slick technicolour-yawns on every pavement and bus in the city of London :)

    -

    So this, dear friends, is why I have been so active here on Versive this week, and so inactive in the bars and booze-shops of Kochi (cochin).

    It's something of a badge of pride I wear, in fact, because I haven't managed more than one or two mostly accidental days without drink for a couple (read: around 4) of years straight now, apart from an ill-fated attempt to give up for exactly one year beginning sometime about 18 months ago: after running around telling everyone I was quitting the sauce for 12 months in the hope that setting myself up for such shame as would be wrought if I failed I would be kept on course; I managed only six weeks off the drink and had two little lapses where I snuck a couple of cans of lager away (nothing more, mind you - I was drinking a full botttle of spirits and some beer every day usually so they really where quite small lapses) and I also distilled my own whiskey in that same period, reasoning that `If I actually make it myself it doesn't count` so really, it was a bit of a shambles.

    Therefor I'm pretty chuffed that I can displace drinking with writing, although I know I'll have to go and get a few beers in a few days because physically my system is in need of it (I haven't been sleeping more than a couple of hours in the early morning each `night` - I usually drink myself to sleep you see) but still, I find this a great deal more enjoyable than drinking which has, like smoking pot before it, become a pretty hollow experience.

    As long as I keep reading and learning and doing the occasional stupid/mentionworthy/exciting/picturesque thing, however, I will never tire of trotting out prose :)

  • PhotoOnslaught IX: Timdiana James and Past Displayed

    I'm cringing at these titles myself now, that one is a bit contrived, isn't it? Sounds like the title of a Harry Potter book ;)

    I've enjoyed reading old HP and his adventures through mystery, magic and puberty, but frankly it seems as if Ms. Rowling read the Hobbit and the whole Discworld series and simply abstracted a made-for-modern-children version from there, using 3 serviceable, if rather predictable main characters. I've read the whole lot and I have to admit that the bad guys are far better, and far more likeable than Harry `Saint Potter` in this series.

    Oh well, enough of the literary critique, lets see what I got up to a while back.

    -

    Gokarna

    Yes, this is only the stuff from Gokarna - I was there, what, 6 weeks ago? There is a lot of catching up to do as you can see...

    The first bunch of things are just going to be links - click the link to see the pic which should, with a bit of voodoo good luck (`Hocus Pocus, Harry!!` ;) ) open in a seperate window each time.

    Oh yes, the quick story: Jon, Alia and I left Hampi to go on a wild-goose-chase on a very stupid whim, and were about to travel to the very North of India to do something silly, stopping in Gokarna to meet Jon's friend, Maria.

    Maria is far more intelligent than than the rest of us and had a little thing called `reason` which she brought along with her, and the mission was aborted and none of us have to do any jail-time, which is nice :)

    Nonetheless the three Stupideers first arrived in Gokarna at about 2:30am, with no idea where we were, hunted down a truly idiotic taxi driver who had no idea where anything in his own town was, a few arguments and a lot of pointless diversions later we arrived at a clifftop cafe overlooking the beach at about 4:00, the taxi driver tried to overcharge us and 3 of his mates came out to help on his side of the argument, naturally - and Alia, being Indian, harried and argued and insulted the man in Hindi: she was screaming at him the worst things one Indian can say to another, a bit like me going into a Harlem nightclub and calling everyone a dirty N***er over the P.A. system. Great start.

    So with four irritated men at our backs and a windy clifftop before us, we found ourselves, too early for dawn by a long shot, making our way down highly treacherous steps from a clifftop to the beach: in almost total darkness, in a fair gusty wind, with heavy backpacks.
    Anyway we made it - even in daylight those steps were fucking awful, I'd just like to mention - and wandered the beach as dawn broke somewhere over the horizon around 5:00am and found a bar/restaurant, which we promptly hijacked, chucked out bags down and each commandeered a hammock.

    The staff found these strangers in their restaurant a couple of hours later - we had to stay there rather than any another place after that; It would have been a bit rude otherwise, I thought.

    Anyway that's how we got there. Here. And this is some of the stuff we saw:

    -

    Not seen much fishlife at this point so this little fella was worth a snap I thought - about 4 weeks down the line I saw some amazing fishlife and have some real worthwhile things to see, but give this little guy a click anwyay, go on:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric200.jpg

    There was a great restaurant with a really cool entranceway - an arched bridge. Pretty redundant at this time of year with no river underneath it but I guess around monsoon - when no-one visits the beach - it looks just lovely:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric198.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric197.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric196.jpg

    -

    This is, in fact, the best cow-on-beach picture I have ever got:

    Photobucket

    -

    Nice shot - no-one we know of course (the cow or the man) but I liked the way the cow's footprints trailed in the sand. And of course hated the fact that this guy is all slim and toned, the git :P :

    Photobucket

    Here is Jon and Alia, I say `is` rather than `are` because they function as one single unit ;) :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric192.jpg

    And - this one is just for you Mum - a carved elephant that looks a lot like some others we know of :)

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric191.jpg

    -

    I call this one `Sunset as taken by a drunk` ;) Actually you have to allow for the fact that this was dawn and only sophisticated human eyes and thousand-pound lenses could show this properly so a normal shot on my little digicam would show just blackness, so this was something like a 5-second exposure:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric190.jpg

    Point is, you get the idea of the lovely sunrise, if not any actual detail :D

    -

    I thought some of you at home might like to see what these beach huts we all stay in at Goa, Gokarna etc. look like and are constructed - this is a slightly posh one, they provide their own scabby mosquito net:

    Photobucket

    -

    A little part of the Gokarna coastline, seen from a boat (the following shots are from Paradise Beach, a tiny, slightly busy yet lovely little beach a short boat ride from Om Beach at Gokarna, which is where we first landed):

    Photobucket

    Photobucket

    -

    Animalia; order arthropdia; class Insecta; genus bigguss fuckoffius cricketus : This is just a cricket, not a machine for moving soil, just a cricket. Bloody hell, as Ron might say ;) :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric183.jpg

    -

    Jon and Alia laughed at me for this, literally laughed at, in a bad way: it's an Indian squat toilet. I realise that you don't perhaps want to see it - it's quite clean it is just the size and impracticality of it that I want to impress upon you - and you have to rotate it anyway.
    I'll understand if you don't want to:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric182.jpg

    -

    Young Banana tree, almost correctly framed against the seashore:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric181.jpg

    -

    Palm leaves, just palm leaves, but I thought the way they sat together was quite... I don't know, it just looked kind of like the essence of the palm tree, when you get past the weird way they can grow out of the ground:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric179.jpg

    -

    This is sheer brilliance, although I can't quite remember why, except that it shows how something about how many places treat the most wonderful of things - like a beautifully patterned natural cliff face - by slapping a very large, very messy mass of concrete right onto it without even tidying up the edges :(

    I can't see the picture because good ol' Photobucket isn't allowing me to enlarge anything, so I'm working entirely from a 6-week-old memory, but I know it shows the same message in loads of languages and that the message is slightly stupid, or really sweet.
    It's gonna be either "Fun is Prohibited" or "We are all one with nature and each other" or similar.
    I'm betting on the former:

    Photobucket

    -

    More Gokarna coastline from the ride back to Om beach:

    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric174.jpg

    Photobucket

    -

    Here we have Jon, slightly out of focus but still there, climbing a massive boulder in the sea - crazy sod swam out to it and climbed barefoot from the sea up one of its oceanside faces. I have some pictures of his glorious victory posture atop the thing somewhere in here as well...

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric173.jpg

    -

    Kingfisher; an airline, a brand of beer, a variety of packaged drinking water and, apparently, also a bird.
    Damned hard to track down, the little devils, but these are the best photos I have of them so far - they do love the sea with all the easy pickings around the low-lying, rocky tide pools:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric172.jpg

    Photobucket

    -

    Ah, Jon in victory mode on top of the rocks - shame he was so inconsiderate as to let the sun be right behind him, but I did the best I could to move him out of it using the magic of geometry, and some careful rock-jumping around the big tidal plateau that lead up the boulder:

    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric165.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric166.jpg

    Photobucket

    -

    This was just a nice way of showing the ambience of most beach restaurants around this part of the coast; walls of the place built into the boulders that the whole thing must be built on, half-hidden hut where staff live in the trees just off the beachfront, and the name; Namaste - one of the very typical and usually very limited selection of tourist restaurants.

    If it ain't called Namaste something, Om something, Ganesh something, Buddha something, or Surya, Shanti or Shiva something then it just ain't authentic-fake-authentic-fake-Indian but actually truly Indian tourism :D And I mean that in the nicest way :)
    That's Jon and Alia climbing the steps there by the way:

    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric162.jpg

    -

    Okay, this is the cutest puppy ever. I've got this huge yellow elephant-pattern towel thing I bought in Arambol (it was forced into my collection of purchases by the stall-owner, in that kind of I'm-selling-you-this-as-well-whitebread, don't even think of putting it back way they have).
    It has been one of the most useful things I've possessed out here: it is a blanket for light nights, a scarf for when I'm travelling at night and can become an instant blanket, Alia used it as a sarong for two days, when Greg cut his foot up in the sea at Palolem I tore a big strip off and it wrapped his foot until we could get some proper bandages, it was what I got Stefan to use to tear off from and wrap up my thumb to staunch the flow of blood, and this guy in Gokarna found it when we turned our backs one late night, and made his bed in it's soft folds.

    I found him and wrapped him up, naturally, tucking him into bed like a kid :D Isn't he just the cutest little puppy you ever did see? :

    Photobucket

    Photobucket

    -

    Sunsets/horizons - and these ones are almost in focus!!

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric156.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric155.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric154.jpg

    Photobucket

    -

    Just some cool rock textures - the fissures of these shots run in the ground as you can see the water gathered in them; I thought the large one in the centre was like a sort-of scale model of Loch Ness, although I admit I'm only extrapolating this from what I see on an Ordnance Survey map of Scotland - where the Loch runs from Fort William to Inverness, from memory, it also breaks at the ends but the water continues in other lochs, all the way across the land so that to me, the OS map of Scotland always looks as if the country is actually two giant, close islands instead of one landmass.

    Anyway after all that bollocks I can see (now Photobucket wants to play again) that I didn't quite capture on camera what I saw in real life. Hey ho, but here you go anyway:

    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric150.jpg

    -

    And this is Om Beach at Gokarna - pleasant, nicely sandy, dramatic rocks chucked randomly across the scene and amazingly not busy at all.
    A few weeks before it was tourist hell, so my Irish friends who migrated there briefly do tell me.
    Right then, though, it was as nice as this:

    Photobucket

    To show you just how the boulders project from the sand:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric147.jpg

    -

    The Second before Sunrise, pinned down on paper (well, screen) like a Lepidopterous god, although I may be giving myself slight airs and graces with a phrase like that:

    Photobucket

    This was a cow that just didn't know the people/animals/places rules:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric145.jpg

    The same cow after we told him his place. He was quite lonesome and upset with us, the rules and his lot in life, and I took this mournful, bleakly-lit shot of the wandering bovine pariah traversing a great beach of solitude:

    Photobucket

    I might have laid that on a bit thick. And lied about it being the same cow. Actually it was the same cow now I recall, so I'm not a complete fibber.

    This is a cool shot - not only because it shows a little spit of land with a lone tree springing from it, but also the tide lines - all those arced lines on the beach are where waves have each washed a little detritus onto the sand.
    Cool huh?

    Photobucket

    -

    Okay, actually this might be the coolest cow-on-beach shot, if only for sheer volume of beefy presence:

    Photobucket

    -

    Right this is as we were leaving Gokarna - sorry about all the actual posted photos folks, if it saps your bandwidth anything like it does here it must be a bit of a bugger! - check out the logo of a liquid gas truck:

    Photobucket

    "cook food . serve love" seems a bit like seeing a bottled Calor gas truck in England with "Heat rooms - Warm Hearts" down the side.
    All obviously painted by hand, too, such is the generosity of Bharatgas' financial department; and with a skull & crossbones on there, too.
    Cook food . Serve love . Don't fuck with the connector hose or else.

    -

    That was in the truck stop, where our journey back to Hampi with Maria in tow :) began in earnest, after a short ride in some other local contraption - this too is the truck stop and there's not much point in looking at it, it just shows an array of vehicles ready to go do something profitable with masses of tourists some time in the middle of the night:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric135.jpg

    -

    Okay, save and rotate this one, it's worth it. It is the inside view of the buses - the Deluxe Luxury AC Sleeper buses, that cost half as much as a taxi - and their wonderfully generous allocations of space for baggage, central aisles, customers, driver, wheels etc: basically this is the same type of thing as where Jon and Alia, on the way to Gokarna, bribed the driver to sleep in the cab with the other driver and his mate and where Jono was flung into steering wheel when the driver made a sharp turn.
    I baksheeshed my way into the only spare single seat just beforehand myself.

    On that first trip we had booked tickets but actually had no seats or bunks or anything - we had in fact booked tickets to stand or sit in the narrow GANGWAY of an overnight bus for a 10-hour journey. On Indian roads..

    And Indian travel bookers see nothing at all wrong with this: this journey, the way back, we made damn sure we had confirmed seats with actual proper numbers and everything (you can easily book `seated` tickets to find that, without seat numbers, everything else is booked up by other people and you, basically, have a ticket to nowhere or you can stand in the gangway).

    Anyway have a look at the space we all had anyway, even with proper seats tickets - try and squint down the back of the bus; those `gangway` tickets don't really allow for the fact that there is no space for luggage for anyone who is in the seats and bunks, so you also have to compete with 45 other people's rucksacks and travel accesories for any space.
    And of course you need somewhere for your backpack too:

    Photobucket

    Long exposure shot of the bumpy bus ride - total mess but still it looks kinda cool:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric133.jpg

    This was the view to the front of my position in the bus from, thank Vishnu, an actual seat:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric131.jpg

    -

    I thought for some reason this would make a good photo, suitably rotated (it's just the side of a balconied building):

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric130.jpg

    -

    Hampi - yay!!!

    We made it back. The first thing I recorded for posterity were some of those reassuring ridiculous boulders, ahhh, what a relief it is to be back in this LSD-fuelled alien landscape:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric125.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric120.jpg

    -

    Three Psychotic Ducks - at a restaurant in Hampi called Gopi's there was a little pond, and these three monsters guarded it - I swear they were carnivorous - and I managed to get this shot with full zoom, just before they turned on me and I fled, like a girl:

    Photobucket

    -

    Everything but the Hippy: this was our rickshaw back to our first place of residence, I jumped out to take the picture and, as you can see, there is just barely space for one normal person to fit in beside Jon, let alone a 5'11" 102Kg chubster like me ;) Poor Jon, I think the expression on his face says it all, really:

    Photobucket

    -

    Every autorickshaw has some superfluous ornamentation, this one is surprisingly modest; stickers, flowers (especially flowers) and tassled thingies hang from every vehicle, and the proliferation of Western or Westernised brand stickers and cultural icons (you see dozens of little 125cc bikes with a big `007` painted on the front windshield and it's all you can do not to laugh sometimes, although it's actually rather strangely sweet) are amazing.
    This guy settled for just a few tassles and few strangely feminine decals:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric121.jpg

    -

    Back in Hampi we made our way back to Goan corner where the secret police all but interrogated us each, because of a presidential visit and the river crossing was sealed off, no-one was allowed within about a bajillion miles of it in fact, and every guesthouse, and practically every guest, was checked out.
    Paranoid inefficiency quite frankly, because as I have said before if you want to assassinate someone all you need is a really really powerful sniper's rifle. They have to appear in public somewhere, at some time, and I guess you just work out a place from there.
    I should have gone for that career as contract assassin, I knew it...

    So we got back, we found our base and established our presence with the usual aplomb and indiscriminate rudeness :D but inbetween times, I went about getting photos of these quite lovely patterns on the wall of every hut in the guesthouse.
    I think that's just a really lovely touch, someone came around at some point and made individual Rangoli, painted blessing patterns, on the wall of each hut:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric119.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric118.jpg

    Photobucket

    -

    New hut, new view - and far better than the other one! This was what we woke up to on opening the door each morning - how cool is that? :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric116.jpg

    Photobucket

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric114.jpg

    And evening:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric113.jpg

    -

    Fucking motherfucking Butterflies - remember, you may, that I was hunting down the SwallowTailed butterfly for 3 months, trying to get a shot of one or even see one properly? And I settled for a half-arsed picture taken at distance a week or two before, and thought nothing more of it.

    Something is telling me to be a hippy; I literally just held my hand up one day soon after getting back to Hampi, I had my camera, switched on, in my other hand by coincidence as well, and this guy came and landed on my finger. Lazily, he seemed to want to live there, I could even turn my finger around and he drunkenly clambered back to an upright position. If I was a hippy I'd say soemthing about getting what you want only when you've let go your desire for it. But I'm not :P :

    Photobucket

    Photobucket

    He finally went and sat on the floor in the perfect positio for a photo of his wings spread out - I just call that cheeky, I do:

    Photobucket

    -

    Back in Hampi holy part (non-beer side) and I took a few photos to record the state of the town, such as the river:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric109.jpg

    A typical street in the maze of houses, guesthouses, shops and stalls in the backtreets off the Bazaar:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric107.jpg

    A sign showing the enterprise, multi-skilling and lies of the local business operators, and also the humourous spelling which isn't fair to make fun of, but still, I'm a bad man.
    I'm betting that a lot of those massages and treatments are remarkably similar ;) (rotation/head tilting needed) :

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric106.jpg

    And some more local Rangoli, these are just the daily chalk patterns drawn outside most homes and business'.
    I had no idea what they were apart from obviously being something like a blessing, but I did some reading of the Glossary in my Lonely Planet on a train the other day, and found a fascinating wealth of new information - including what the heck these things were actually all about. Also called Kollam, so the LP said, they are sometimes beautiful, complex and colourful, and sometimes rather simple.

    This couple fall into the latter category really, I'm afraid:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric105.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric104.jpg

    -

    A rather nice temple rather spoiled, from a certain point of view, by stall selling generic `Om` and Che Guevarra T-shirts, as stall holders in Goa and Hampi are wont to do.

    The bullding itself is far nicer:

    Photobucket

    -

    Hehehehehe - the back of a rickshaw owned by a man of admirable, yet somewhat silly ambition:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric102.jpg

    -

    It's a monkey! Jokes about `that great picture of you there, Tim` are not appreciated or actually funny :P :

    Photobucket

    -

    And there were seven fat cows and seven thin cows, all running away from Tim... Maria, Australian Holly, a guy called Span (after Spandau Ballet - he was one of those guys still stuck a bit in the 1980s) and I went off to go swimming in the reservoir - at a sensible place where you don't have to jump half a mile into the water, Jon ;) - and I disturbed these cows (buffalo really) purely for the sake of phorography. I must be a git.

    The strange thing was that these buffalo, each quite capable of reducing me to a loose sack of meat and shattered bones with suitably determined trampling, were terrified of me. And there were, what, 6 or 7 or 8 of them? I know they had some young 'uns with them, but still.
    The fear of the lash I suppose :(
    Anyway here they are, legging it from me in a most picturesque way:

    Photobucket

    Photobucket

    And one looks back at me veeeery suspiciously:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric298.jpg

    -

    And, finally because this has been quite enough for one post, the very first motorbike I ever rode, awwww! Still the only motorbike I've ever ridden, a little 50cc chicken-chaser of a thing (and my best mate has just bought himself another proper bike of like 600 or 750cc or something - I feel shame :( ) looking lovely on the little chunk of land where we all went to for a midday swim - and lovely it was too.

    Mine is the shitty little thing at the right and the rear that looks like your granny would shun it out of sheer pride:

    Photobucket

    Phew, once again. I've got the pictures sort-of sorted now, so, just a matter of ploughing through them and NOT worrying any more - yay!! :D

  • A Day of METAL, also Football Cont. and Old Friends Back Home.

    Okay, today is a day of Metal. I have decided, fate says it should be so, and god damn I not only miss my Sinatra collection but a good bit of Pantera-style `fuck yeah!` heaviness.

    I sat down at the computer today, and after a few minutes the speakers shared by both PCs in the hotel lobbby here sparked into life with the tones of a really heavy death metal band - the guy on the other computer looked a likely, if surprised-at-the-sudden-appearance-of-metal candidate, so I asked him if he had made that happen - and he had: it was his band on MySpace and the page was loading erratically (surprise surprise), and he was, once again, a German I have met travelling who was really quite cool.

    His MySpace page with his band's stuff is here - it is really quite hardcore or heavy though, you have been warned: www.myspace.com/deafaid

    I have a fantastic opinion of the Germans as a people as result of travelling, apart from a pair of stoners in Hampi - who were totally nice guys but were just a bit young I think, maybe, and tried a bit too hard at everything - every German person I've met, from those guys of about 18 in Hampi, to Stefan who managed to save me amputating my own thumb in the jungle, to the 75-year old Naval captain I talked with for a long time in Margao, and all others inbetween, have been the best travellers to hang out with, and the coolest people, along with the other Brits.

    And folks like Greg (the goddamned yankee) of course who I am meeting up with again soon, and will hopefully remain in touch with and good friends with for the rest of my modest life, and Maria who of course deserves some kind of honourable mention here too. Probably. Maybe. Well she's alright, you know? She's okay ;)

    So there you go. I've forgotten The War and so should you ;)

    -

    I also checked my emails not half an hour ago, and there was a message from my very good friend Dude (A.K.A Ben, if the page don't load then his profile is private: basically his surname is Jude so he has gone by the former moniker for about the last decade. Dude is one of those good solid people, never one to let the light of proper metal music fade :D ) to join a Facebook group called Rock Vs Rap - right here:

    http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5877894235

    The group posting wall may have descended into total nonsense, but I just saw the title and thought "Fuck Yeah! Gimme some of that!" reflexively.

    My long-haired, redneck, gun-loving, hard-drinking, Pantera-worshipping past is not lost, and that makes me so very glad :)

    -

    In honour of this, I challenge and request that anyone reading who doesn't think that they like rock or metal, and has never heard a Metallica or Pantera song, for example, to hunt one down and listen with unbiased ears.

    Metallica are the most accessible metal band out there, I guess, and they have released somewhere around a three hundred or more songs since forming in 1983 or something, but please, in honour of the whole genre, my indulgence, your willingness to try something new, and a whole generation of people who like their music guitar-based, heavy and hard, relinquish any misgivings you might have about Hard Rock or Heavy Metal and just go have a listen to something :)

    If you want to hear music for free without leaving the computer - and this applies to anything and everything of any genre by the way - you can `stream`, as we say, music from all over the WWW using this site, without paying, without having to do anything more than search for the band, artist, composer, song, writer or singer, and waiting to see what comes up:

    http://www.b3ta.cr3ation.co.uk/site/music-plus/

    Search for `Metallica` and you'll get a mixed bag - if you get the result, or if you search for it, I recommend in particular a song called `One` (just search for "Metallica one" without the quote marks) and another called Master of Puppets (search for, you guessed it, "Metallica master of puppets").
    To play any song simply click it once, make sure your speakers are on obviously, and adjust the volume to your level of heavy metal resistance :D

    The optimum volume in these matters is, always, the very loudest setting possible with the best of whatever equipment you have access to :D

    -

    Also, if you want a quieter life, they have many more melodic songs such as `Nothing Else Matters`, and `Unforgiven`.

    If you want something heavier after that then search for `Killswitch Engage` or `Slayer` or `Slipknot` or `Entombed` or `Gorgoroth` or something else you can find by looking for "heavy metal bands" on Google, but I'm guessing by the names of those guys that you might be a little turned off from the harder stuff, if metal isn't already your thing ;)

    If you want to hear some of the most melodic, dramatic, emotive and excellent music ever played on electric guitar then I strongly recommend you have a little search on the cr3ation site there for a band called `Faith No More` who are not very loud or `heavy`, as we say, for the most part, but are something incredible when it comes to soaring melodies and excellent tunes :D

    There, that's the last outrageous thing I'm gonna ask you today - normal faux-eloquent service shall now resume. By the way, this thought for the day particularly applies to you, oh Mother and Father, for I know you are reading :D Go have a listen to what turned your son into the evil genius he wishes he could be, ahahahahaha!! *ahem*

    -

    As you can probably tell I'm a lot less serious and a lot more silly today - I am feeling good. I spent the night with two girls in my bed and I've found a solution to the photograph problem, so life is pretty sweet :D I may have to hunt down and kill every last smiley ever born for use on this page today :D you have been warned ;)

    The photos, finally, although I will still have to slog through the posting process, are under control. One of the PCs in the hotel here can actually accept a little Java application I downloaded for Photobucket - Long Story Short, I can upload ALL the pictures from my memory cards onto the inetrnet, and they are now safe. Phew.

    There are three copies of some of them and only one of others, in various places throughout two thousand-picture-each albums so I still have to plough through my entire accumulation of 'em in reverse order to make sure post the rights ones i.e. almost all of them, but I can now do that from anywhere, even after leaving the sanctuary of this glorious hotel (and India is going to be hard on me when I do, it's been so lovely getting all this done) in a few days and probably just getting a train straight to Chennai (Madras) and getting a plane to Thailand.

    4 and a half months in this country may have been enough - and my friend Chris keep whining at me; "haven't you gone to another coouuunnnttrrriiiiiieeeeeeeeee yeeeeeeettt??"; so I feel like at least one other person is rooting for me to leave.

    This really is turning into a post for my old friends rather than the guys on blog.co.uk isn't? Well fair's fair - I only hope one or two of them actually read it today :)

    -

    The girls in the bed - well, it wasn't as exciting as all that. In fact in many ways it was the very opposite of exciting, for the reason they were in my room was one of charity (no not like that, I'm sure they're very attractive young ladies for their respective partners ;) ) and football. Hardly a promising night, is it?

    Even though I do enjoy watching a good game I wouldn't usually go out of my way to see anything less than an England game somewhere past the qualifying stage (except maybe unless it bizarrely turned out we might not qualify for something, hmmm?), so quite why I made myself stay up until 4am this morning for football that never actually materialised, I can only explain with the following three facts:

    Fact 1: These two girls I met last night, Jody and Lucy, were really sound lasses and I enjoyed chatting with them. There is another English guy in our hotel too and the four of us were the last to leave the lobby last night, spending an hour or two chatting and relaxing and conspiring to make the poor guy behind the counter to go to the whole other end of the building and makes us tea; how very British of us :D ; and trying to make the Pizza Hut deliver way past the allotted hour of closing.

    Also they were football crazy and needed my assistance to actually watch the game (see below).
    Jody was in fact quite properly football crazy, she knew more about Portsmouth Football Club's signings, seasons and history than anyone I know back home seemed to ever know about Southampton FC, the poor ailing Saints who seem unlikely to ever March Back In to anywhere except the local cemetary.

    Excluded from this, maybe, is my 78-year-old mate Harry Manns, who's brother is the reason for Manns Estate Agency, and who I worked with for years and is the Fan's Fan when it comes to Southampton FC: his son is the prime-time DJ on The Saint, their radio station, and he has so much sway at the club that he often sits in the private boxes at the St. Mary's stadium for free chatting to the management over a pint or twenty.

    He has free season ticket access to anywhere else he likes anyway (he'd have free drinks at the bar, too, but he could have easily drunk George Best under. I made the mistake of going head to head with Harry once at my first leaving do; I was re-employed by those guys three times, long story; I was fed water and led kindly to the taxi while Harry was still ordering more whisky and beer together. The man has the liver of a Camel.) and is a man of much affability, charm and pleasantness and who knows half the players from the last 40 years of Southampton FC's existence personally.

    The great and the good at the Saints all know old Harry, and he gets an honourable mention himself here today because I emailed the old firm and they tell me he's laid up in bed with gout, the poor silly sod :P Still working at 78, too.

    Fact 2: (it has been a long time since fact 1 hasn't it? I do get distracted) The girl's room, in which they were staying only a few hours until 5:30am when they were leaving to catch a train, was infested with cockroaches. I usually don't mind them too much and although I felt compelled to kill one or two recently - and been impressed and mildly terrified at their size - I generally would say they're not too bad: something you can put up with especially if you have a mosquito net.

    After the rains last night though, maybe, they were a little bit nutty and were certainly numerous, gigantic, and energetic and flew into and around these poor girl's attemped accomodation with vigour and zip such as is not often seen outside of Biggin Hill airshow. They were fucking crazy for it - whatever `it` was - and some of them were the size of driveable vehicles.

    The management take this sort of thing in their stride - the same way they do dead people in the road and toilets taken from the imagination of H.R.Geiger - but the girls, understandably, didn't want to sleep in a room where they were outnumbered about 14:1 by evil-minded flying beetles with those weird wavy antennae of theirs.

    Have you seen a cockroach lately? The big ones look like they are perpetually trying to tune into some phantom radio station lost on a bandwave not cared-for since Marconi, the way they oscillate those sodding things, which is somehwat ironic as we shall see. And the antannae are always about as long as the fucking cockroach, giving them an unnerving reach even while static.

    You can make your own jokes about Marconi and static there, but I wouldn't bother myself because it would only end in a pun.

    -

    Item 3: (we're getting there!) The football had to watched on television, none of us having the luxury of omnioptometricity (read that one carefully ;) ), and there was no TV in my room - I didn't want one, wishing to actually see something of the place I was staying in; ha! - and the girl's room did (along with an over-generous distribution of insect life) contain a television set.

    What I did, in a moment of nobility and decent-minded rectitude and having been asked would have felt like a right bastard if I had said no - was swap rooms with them, technically as was first verbally affirmed, although of course ended up just sharing the room because leaving me to the cockroaches would be bit bloody unfair. So, there's potential for a juicy tale here, eh?
    No fucking chance. Not for that being on anyone's agenda anyway, but the source of my irritation was the sodding telly which wouldn't sodding well find any sodding channels despite us having a) the right leads b) there being an actual proper aerial socket in my room, despite the defecit of television, and even c) us knowing the time and channel the game was being shown ; ESPN, 1:45am to 3:30 incl. half time interval.

    Everyone else seems to have a televison mind you, and I'm beginning to suspect there is a good reason for that...

    I could not get anything tuned in - I found out how to tune stuff in, mind you, which was handy 'cause the TV's control display could very well have been in Hindi which would have been hilarious for about 0.2 seconds, but, despite working through the process for the full 90 minutes that the game was on, and the interval, chatting to Jody while Lucy had sensibly - with a touch of foresight not available to myself or Jody - crawled under the mosquito net and into bed, I could attain no reception beyond a few hazy channels of obviously Indian content, and a seriously half-arsed attempt at the Cartoon Network (which I probably would have been satisfied with by about 3 O'clock).

    I guess there was a problem with the aerial socket; maybe that's why I'm the only one in the hotel without a telly, huh? Well I wasn't feeling too clever, I'd already hit my head once that day and banging it against the television in an attempt to make it let us see football wasn't going to happen, thankfully.

    We still tried to tune the fucking thing in until the allotted hourn when the game was over, and Jody received a text from her boyfrined back home that the score was 4:2 in favour of Portsmouth. Pompey were through! Or so I thought.

    It seems my statements about yesterday's football fixtures were not correct for Jody mumbled something about points and tables at this point that I couldn't understand and she possibly didn't enunciate correctly. It seems that the potential four candiates for the FA cup are Cardiff, Pompey, Birmingham and Barnsley, but who else could get it I have no idea - if SecBack ever reads this (and makes it this far down the page ;) ) then maybe he can explain it, coz I for one would love to know what the fuck I spent 3 hours trying to tune into if it wasn't an FA Cup semi final.

    -

    We did have an amusing diversion before the game, between us runnning out of tea and us getting back to the hotel, apparently for me to run three floors like a burglar clutching a televison set and hoping none of the management were still up and about to see me; the girls and I (the other English bloke sensibly went to bed at midnight or so) bundling out of the hotel and along midnight streets, looking for a rickshaw and some food.

    It was probably a pretty bloody stupid idea although we ended up finding a rickshaw guy who looked ancient and decrepit enough for either myself or either of the girls to take him out if he turned funny, but still not ideal to end up on the main MG road in Ernakulam getting late-night street snacks (omelettes and dosas, fried up right in front of us, bloody nice :) ) from a place surrounded by a dozen Indian men, some workers, some buyers of the mobile fryery.

    If the girls had tried it on their own, well... you just don't do that sort of thing. So I went with them and, despite essentially being, from one point of view, the only that stands between ten or twelve potential attackers and two white girls in India at well gone midnight in a deserted street, I was reasonably happy.

    Happier once we were in the rickshaw going back mind you, but happy - for the sake of all three of us of course, I hope you don't think I would for one second NOT be that barrier betweensuch attackers and two women - it's just that if dastardly deeds had been afoot then I have no illusions about surviving until morning.

    India really isn't the place for this to happen; the people, despite being ever-ready to engage you in a little light swindling, are not the nasty type and are as peaceable a collection of humans as you'll find in any of the very nicest places. Still, I wouldn't feel entirely comfortable doing that anywhere on my own, let alone as a potential human shield, but still all was good and the guys at the stall were very friendly and polite, spoke enough English for them to sell us some stuff and only charged us about twice what they would an Indian, as it happens it was cheap as hell anyway because street food here is: 45 rupees for one dosa and 3 omelettes, and the omelettes were really rather good.

    It's just that, maybe ideally, you do this sort of thing with 3 or 4 good-sized lads rather than two women and a guy with a paunch that prevents too much excessive exercise ;) Not an issue as it was, but still, I like to have the luxury of being prudent if actually possible.

    Says the guy who ran in the rain and smashed his head on the floor yesterday ;)

  • Football, would you believe; the English, and an Accident

    I resent the fact that most people will say “don’t run” in mildly perilous situations involving slippery surfaces or gravel slopes, that it’s generally accepted that you shouldn’t jump fences to take obvious shortcuts out of courtyards and compounds, swing yourself under the railing next to the entrance instead of walking the long way around, or jump across the gap to the other side rather than take a tediously sensible meander to reach it whole seconds later than is possible, thus wasting tiny potential portions of your day to perform other such only very-slightly-manly timesaving maneuvers .

    However in a very Darwinian sense these people are quite correct, more generally correct and sensible than I, anyway, because I just now legged it out into a tropical shower here in Kochi for the hell of it (as you do) and I ran back, suitably elated and universally soggy, but as I did so my feet, like the unfaithful bastards they apparently are, went right out from under me and I fell straight onto my back.

    I wouldn’t mind at all because I generally throw myself about a bit and take the knocks and bumps in an amused, even slightly self-satisfied way at my ability to take such knocks, and would have laughed it off happily and heartily even despite the large crowd of witnesses, who had sensibly gathered themselves by the lobby because of the rainstorm no intelligent person would subject themselves to, but unfortunately I broke the fall with the back of my skull and, although I was still impressed at the speed my brain still worked (and that it was still switched on) when I got up to a crowd of gasps upon thinking that what I should do, right, is I should rub my head quickly as Jackie Chan does after a stunt goes wrong, yeah that’ll look suitably man-of-the-world won’t it, and also I’ll immediately go and pick up my inadvertently catapulted drinks bottle, smile sheepishly yet clearly coherently at the first face that comes back into focus, and say something self-deprecatingly charming to the locals and tourists left looking at me variously with worried faces and slight smirks, some possibly even taking sly looks at the point of impact to see if I might have left some more of my blood there.
    Or maybe a modest, but appreciably gruesome, section of skull.

    Perhaps India is trying to make me distribute my fluids, tissues and calcareous structures across it in a thin yet even layer before I flee the land.

    Maybe India thinks it will miss me more than I’ll probably miss it, and wants something to remember me by. Such as my entire mortal remains, piecemeal.

    -

    I just met two girls from the Southampton area in the hotel lobby, one of them went to Romsey school only year above me. I’m sure this actually did happen and isn’t just a result of the concussion but just thought I’d mention it.

    If anyone reading from my hometown knows a Lucy Dovey (of the farming Doveys from all around Sherfield English and Romsey – I actually know her uncle Perman myself, through work) and/or a Jody Rowles who is reading from back home, then I just met them. I’ll hunt them down and add them on the old Facebook thing so, if anyone happens to want to get in touch with them, then they’ll soon be masquerading as Friends of mine on that wonderful social networking construct of digital lies and spam that we know and love – actually I do like FB but I can’t get my fucking pictures on there without sweating blood, and it just pisses me off.

    They are both lovely people, but I am totally nonplussed that they are here, if they’ll pardon th flippant dismissal if they ever happen to read this - I met the guy who moved into one of my best mate’s houses right after he left just a few months ago, and a whole bunch of other startling coincidences have eventuated at me, it is just not even remarkable, this sort of thing – I expect to meet my best friend from primary school in every restaurant I go into now, so frequent are these things.

    -

    Funny thing though. They just came into the lobby (where I live, of course) and I heard them ask about TVs and asked about them having a certain sports channel; being Indians, of course, the staff immediately asked what was on, and they said a Portsmouth/Birmingham game was their target viewing.

    I had to ask who they were gunning for; it would have been cruel if they had been Pompey fans for me not to have offered them some piss-taking entertainment by telling them that the ailing Southampton FC was, technically, the team I should be supporting, if I actually supported anything other than the notion that people should be free to run, jump and climb trees, and fall on their own heads if they wanted to. Thus did we discover the whole coincidence of our common ground.

    After we had finished laughing at me though, they told me a remarkable thing though; this match they were after was the FA cup semi final – Portsmouth (spit! ;) ) versus Birmingham, and they then told me that the other semi final was between, wait for it, Cardiff and Barnsley.

    Now I don’t follow football. I usually wouldn’t have a clue what goes on with what sport, to which country, in what decade, but a few things have broken through this shell of ignorance in the recent past.
    Strange things have happened in sports, especially with England not even qualifying for this year’s European championship, an event I couldn’t believed I could give a shit about, but it seems that I actually do.

    I was present when they were cruelly thrown into footballing purgatory for 4 years by Croatia (2:1 to Johnny foreigner :( ) at a bar in Arambol back in November: the central European majority in the bar cheered most cruelly as it happened and, even though I don’t support any teams or care much for football at all, so I thought, my national pride was, I am amazed to say, quite stung.

    I think I retired to my room in an actual state of sadness – who would have though that possible? I suppose the fact I made the effort to watch the match could have told you something, but as it happened it was the bar I’d hardly left ina week and all my friends were going anyway, especially Kristian the Danish polymath who, as well as being brilliant as everything else, managed to follow every single league of every single sport in England, probably in every single country, and knew more about English football club players, history, management and politics than all the English footie fans in the town.

    Jody and Lucy here would have loved the man.

    -

    Now strange things seem to be abroad, or afoot, or something, when the possible winners of the FA Cup could be Cardiff City or Birmingham. Or for that matter, Barnsley. Apparently Barnsley kicked Liverpool’s and Chelsea’s arses this season and previously their only entry into my stream of consciousness was a dreadful sketch in the equally dreadful Russ Abbott show, that steadily and mercilessly took the piss out of the town for 4 solid minutes.

    Now they could be lifting the FA Cup – as could Birmingham, a city which I unconventionally love (it’s actually great! Go visit! They’ve taken all the shit away and made the city centre sparkle, I promise!) myself, but could never have imagined being any good at kicking a leather ball between wooden sticks.

    I suspect some kind of Dark Hand of Justice is extending itself over the country at the moment, righting wrongs, undoing and unseating the mighty and giving the humble something of a gigantic leg-up, in order to redress the cosmic balance sheet somehow.

    Either way, it’s all a bit weird, but writing this little entry has at least kept me awake for an hour or more since smashing my head in, so if I do go to sleep soon, the chances of a coma are vastly and reassuringly reduced.

    Now isn’t that nice :)

  • A quick note (shock! Horror!) - basic essential travel advice!

    I was just now asked on Facebook for any travel tips, by a friend soon to join the silly amongst us humans and stick a multitude of things inside of various containers, jump into a big metal thing with wings, and arrive somewhere hot, leaving the rest of you English, sniffling cold-sufferers alone for a bit.

    My advice, predictably enough, turned into a short essay but I'll make use of it and share the crux and nubbin of the matters here, for the benefit of all :)

    This is the cynical advice of someone who just may have been in India a tiny bit too long:

    "....regardless of your desire to not backpack it and live in a little more luxury, and your ability to take vast truckloads of luggage if you wanted to, don't bother.

    You really do not need curling tongs and hair straighteners in the middle of Indonesia, nor hairdryers, nor more than about 6 sets of clothes (yes, only six sets maximum, even for a woman!! :P ) and basically you can eliminate a whole bunch of the creature comforts you may have been thinking of taking. They weigh a lot, and every item you bring brings with it a small amount of inherent worry ("will it work? Have I lost it? Will it get stolen? Why does it weigh so fucking much?")

    If you're staying in mid-range hotels, all you need are your MINIMUM toiletries and suchlike, forget all the voodoo potions you women love to anoint themselves with (the friend in question is actually not one of the crazy ones but still I had to mention it - and a certain lady friend of mine is likely to poke me in the eyes for saying this much, too :D ) keep it to a minimum - and basically enjoy the fact you'll be getting hot, or at least warm water everywhere, probably room service if you want it, and the daily cleansing and changing of your bed linen which is something I find such a luxury in some of these nicer places that I'm practically hanging from the doorman's leg when I check out screaming "Can I live here Can I live here Can I live here PLLLEEEEEAAAASSSSE????"

    On a more sensible, realistic note: work out your daily budget, work it out in English then in whatever currency you will be using - and allow for percentage reductions in the exchange rate.
    Whatever the rate is it'll be a bit worse when you change it of course - and it has a nasty habit of going down once you've got somewhere!

    I was banking on 83 rupees to the pound when I left on November 5th, easily allowing we to convert daily spends from 80 rupees and being pretty accurate, only slightly too optimistic - but it has dropped to 76 rupees per pound now which means I NOW have to calculate everything at only 70 per pound - which is a big difference, one seventh less affordable!!!
    The problem is whenever you draw money out, Indian banks take a fee. English banks take a fee too if you're not prepared, and if you're not prepared you will end up losing maybe a hundred quid or more over time! Not good.

    What you need, this is almost my best advice ever by the way, is to open a new bank account if haven't got the right one already. The Nationwide Flexaccount with the Nationwide Visa Debit card is the ONLY cashcard you can use abroad without being charged, by the english bank at least. Foreign banks may still charge, but you can cut the cost of all this fee-charging evilness in half by getting the right account and the right card - and it's a Visa, so it will work in every cash machine ever made.

    If I hadn't done this, I've estimated I would have lost well over £50 just in the English bank fees already, which is enough to keep me living in this country for over week...
    Do it. Go to nationwide and open the account, if you haven't already got it :)

    -

    I do miss Romsey, the latest thing about the trek in Madikeri even mentions the Olive Tree - lol!

    Other tips... be ready for when you arrive because you're gonna be a target for touts and low-level cons straight away. Basically, this is probably the best thing to bear in mind when travelling anywhere and especially where you don't speak the native language fluently, NEVER go along with anything anyone approaches you with.

    Always find it yourself.

    If the people right outside your airport come and ask if you want a taxi, they are gonna rip you off completely, possibly even worse, bad and evil things could happen to a young lady - how do you know who the hell is a proper taxi driver in a country you've been in less than 90 minutes?

    Book taxis from inside the airport, there's always a desk, don't leave the airport for any reason until you have done because security wont let you get back in (all part of the same scam network, in many places) and the taxi desk will give you the license number of your car or bring the driver in for you or something - and always, always, always agree the price before you go anywhere!

    Even now I never get into a taxi until the driver has given me the price, or punch-started the meter. I accidentally got into one while distracted just a week ago and realised I hadn't got a price - I was given triple the rate and once you're inside, they can argue and argue and argue until you agree, and if you refuse they simply wont stop driving, seriously.

    The German guy Stefan from that last blog about trekking? He got into this situation and ended up stopping the cab by grabbing the driver by the throat, besically he only got proper treatment and a proper price because he knows can handle himself - he was just being driven around and around because he wouldn't agree to the inflated price. He even actually paid the right rate after all that, even if he did just throw the deflated sum at the driver in disgust before walking away!

    Messy old business - it's part of the honour system in parts of Asia; agree ALL prices for everything in advance and they will be a fair - start receiving any service like a taxi ride, or take hold of some goods or something without them first telling you the price, and they are virtually ALLOWED to rip you off, pretty much.
    The culture supports this, and sometimes you can end up arguing with a small crowd over a hiked-up price because someone has dragged their mates into it. This happened most often in Goa with taxi drivers, I heard plenty of stories about it and vaguely involved myself with other sympathetic passers by in other, random traveller's arguments a few times, on their side of course, knowing what was going on.

    Being harassed in broken, limited, intimidating English ("You pay!!" "You take it, you Pay!! Pay, pay now!!") by a whole group of shouty foreign people is something you can probably do without ;o)

    -

    Anyway that's all I can think off right now - of course in India it's quite a lot more hardcore than some other places, but if you're going to Bali, bear in mind it is a HUGE tourist place as well and where the tourism is big, the exploiters of tourists are both hardcore and brutal.
    And by the standards of some societies, right is on their side not yours when in the middle of a ripoff, so they can drag passers-by into the argument.

    Now I dunno if S.E. Asia (Thailand, 'Nam, Laos etc) is as harsh as India, in that respect and by all accounts it's actually a lot nicer, but still, agree prices up front, and find whatever you need YOURSELF. From haircuts to food to taxis to money changers. Especially money changers ;o) Get everything with your Visa card.

    Don't follow touts to "hotels they know, very cheap, very nice", don't take bottled water from kids who just come up and offer it to you, don't buy anything anyone brings to you - go to it yourself.

    Here endeth the lesson - have I become hard and cynical, at all? ;)

    Laters mate"

    I hope that wasn't too jaded a message to send someone about to leave for another country...

  • A Brief History of Timing

    This actually hurts - but I gotta do it. If you want to read something good, witty (I hope) and actually about the stuff I've done and the cool things that have happened, please skip straight to the next post.
    This little post is here only as part of my medical treatment for a mental health disorder.

    I have been online exclusively - apart from 5 minutes to order a pizza delivery and another 5 minutes to let a German woman check her emails - since 1:15pm, and right now it is 11:13pm, and I feel like I should be allowed a bit of a cry if I really wanted to.

    I love writing and in particular I have enjoyed writing stuff up today immensely, but these photos are doing my head in: I have to get them up here though because....

    Long Story Short: I have only 2 memory cards, one full, one almost full, I have no idea exactly which pictures I have already saved onto Photobucket because of my incredibly bad idea of timing in saving up 2 gigabytes of relatively low-resolution pictures, then suffering in ever getting them online because of the haphazard way I was forced to put some (but which ones?????) online in the dozy little internet cafes further North, and now the only way to make sure I don't lose these precious pictures I have taken - and they're precious to me (I cannae even be bothered to do Golem jokes such is the sinking level of my numbed mind) because some of them are quite good - is to systematically trawl through them and delete the ones I've already got online -

    - but, with 2000 pictures and counting, I'm not going to remember which ones are already on the computer (i.e. the internet; i.e. the Photobucket.com site) or already on the camera, which isn't much good to me if I go out and erase the ones on the camera (i.e. the memory cards) to take more pictures when I don't have them on the computer (i.e. the you get the idea and I might just lose it if I don't finish this).

    Now, probably not many of these pictures are any good, but some are. And if I don't work through the whole lot, I dont have any idea which. See?

    I'm probably missing a vital step of logic here (very likely) but this is why I go through this process. You didn't need to know any of this. I'm just clearing the thoughts in my own fogged-up head, plus....

    Plus a certain person (hello sweetie XXX) keeps telling me to get some fresh air seeing as I've been at this for 5 days now, so I feel doubly bad for doing nothig else for so long BUT, if I hadn't had this reminder rammed through my thickening head, I would probably stay here for a week, gain 20 pounds right in my arteries, and die from cheeze-pizza poisoning (a rare but tragic disease).

    I'm actually quite near the door and the place is lovely, so that's not a problem - I even go walking for a mile or two every morning, or at least up and down the corridors a few times ;) - but I am starting to see her point and therefor I'm off on a backwater boat trip all day tomorrow.

    Where I will take some more photos ;)

    Keeping on top of this situation is making me only slightly crazy though, so don't worry; I shan't be wearing underpants on my head with a pencil in each nostril saying "wibble" for a little while yet, unless I'm doing my famous BlackAdder impression, at which point most people leave the area out of sheer embarassment because frankly, that's just been done far too many times already.

    There is also now a global shortage of the words `frankly`, `actually`, and `really` that's down to me because frankly, I actually use these three terms far, far too much. Really.

    I'm just reaching for the pants and pencils right now....

  • Trekking, Mutilation and Frappucinos: The road from Madikeri

    So Before the madness and badness in Kannur, and after the loveliness that was Mangalore, I was in Madikeri (Mercara) and I wanted to see something of the Kodavu (Coorg) people.

    You are going to have to get used to all the bracketed names here in India - for various reasons the Disctrict Commisioners and the Central Government has been renaming places over the past years at differing times and for differing reasons.

    Some want to shake off the image of the British Raj and Portuguese (and French, and Dutch, and Muslim, and Christian etc etc...) occupations or influences, and some may just want a prettier new sign for the town.
    Either way it can get confusing so you have to learn both names for any given town, and be ready to deploy either or both when asking anyone about anything when travelling from place to place.

    -

    Anyway - Madikeri is a small town, built on a series of ridges and hills that the roads follow lovingly and calf-achingly, but the map doesn't. One thing I have learned in India is that the Lonely Planet, lovely as it is, actually wants you to amusingly fail to get anywhere sometimes, and the maps in there are sprinkled with the occasional lie.

    Almost every map has been broadly accurate, but streets obviously decades if not centuries old very occasionally appear or disappear from the map, even when they are main thoroughfares. I can see the guys in the LP office having an occasional snorting chuckle about this from time to time, and I appreciate the need for humour in the workplace, but some things can get beyond a joke just occasionally, and if I ever run into the guy responsible for page 262 of the LP South India guide, 5th edition, I am going to stab him with a fence post.

    In Madikeri the map was merely a wood-pulp-derived artefact of fatuousness, celebrating perhaps exactly how many visual lies it is possible to fit into each square inch of published work.
    Even after navigating the way through my usual ritual in these situations: find an undeniable point of reference; turn the map around; turn yourself around; find any road, path or straight up-and-down thing that corresponds to anything on the map; check drunkenness level (00:00 at that time, in case you were wondering); check stupidity level (50% but that's my mean, median and average);look for the signs of any OTHER indefatigable landmark; bite the bullet and ask someone; find someone who understands you and ask them; start crying quietly in the street, whichever fucking one it actually is) I couldn't find a damn thing that looked even halfway like anything from the map.

    Perhaps rather stupidly I followed the LP's other main notation, that a guesthouse, the Cauvery Hotel, was right besides the bus station.

    Right beside the bus station was the first of a million hills I would see, laugh at, and completely refuse to climb during my experience in Madikeri. This time after laughing though I climbed it, possibly because I had also recently been involved in a little gentle crying (see above) it didn't bother me this first time, and on reaching the top I saw what you can predictably expect to see in these situations, at least 5 different buildings called Cauvery Hotel (or Caveri Hotel, or other variations. Names cannot be precisely trusted, as we saw at the very start of this post...) because many Indian businesses take their inspiration from the non-existent copyright laws here and, as soon as a place is mentioned by name in an edition of the Lonely Planet, up spring several others with the same name in the same street, or at least very close by.
    Some of these might be okay, but the majority are guaranteed to be like that Norman Bates' motel from Psycho at best, and cesspits surrounded by 4 vertical stacks of brick at worst. But with a cash drawer somewhere.

    With a speed of thought that stunned and impressed me I remembered that the LP lists telephone numbers, I have never called a hotel in advance to make a booking so quite why this occurred to me I'll never know, but it did and by comparing the ones on the charlatan's signboards and the one in the book, I found the genuine, recommended Hotel Cauvery (their sign had it spelled `Caveari` so it just goes to show, you really can't trust names).

    For the price, it was a palace. Fuck it, it really was a palace - apart from a few small cockroaches in the bathroom it was just great; the bed was soft (a real rarity), there was cable TV with all 5 documentary channels available, the power never failed while I was there (first time for that, then!), the staff were polite and helpful and the corridors were actually really tastefully decorated, with semi-lush draped curtains between room doorways, discreet gold braid surmounting the tops of each wall and the whole outer side of the corridor was half cut-away, with a stretch of wall alternating a stretch of railed openness that afforded an airy view of the rest of the hotel with its similarly attractive openly railed corridors, and the courtyard below.

    If only the courtyard hadn't contained an angry taxi driver, a cow, lots of the cow's shit and an unfortunate accumulation of litter (because it was at the centre of a depression thanks to the surrounding roadways) at almost all hours of the day, the effect would not have been spoiled.
    As it was, it was a pretty enclosed courtyard and there was a restaurant right next to the hotel lobby entrance. Now don't get me wrong, this was a budget place, but it was truly wonderful in its own way and very well priced.

    I wanted to do some kind of trek in an effort to prove my manliness (bad idea, as we shall see) and see the famed countryside, and on checking in, seeing my room and instantly starting that internal cackle of the traveller who has been given the price for a room, haggled it down a bit, seen the room and realised he has struck gold, I threw everything onto the bed (including my lovely new rucksack recently bought in Mangalore, by the way, which is worth mentioning because it cost 1050 rupees from what seemed an up-market but genuinely local shop, and from spending a good few minutes checking out luggage prices in other places to find that similar things were priced at 2000 to 3500 rupees on the more popular, well-mapped-in-the-lonely-planet streets, I was well pleased with my savvy and cunning) and went back downstairs and checked in.

    Immediately the receptionist guy offered me details of a guided trek - almost always a bad sign because if a place doesn't make its money from the room, it makes its money from all the other shit they try to flog to you - but I felt strangely trusting, and having enjoyed Mangalore so much and realised that I was going to taxi it everywhere in this new town thanks to the laughable hills, I enquired further.
    There was one leaving the very next morning and they usually take a day or two to arrange, so I was hopeful - there was, apparently, an Israeli girl and a German guy already lined up for the trip and I could join with them so to speak, I thought, quite happily.

    The price included all experiences for an entire day and was 200 rupees under my Daily Target Spend (which almost always gets thrown out the window: thus, thanks to the joy of mathematics my D.T.S. has decreased continuously since November) so I signed up for the 3 days of economical joy that this offered on an impulse.

    The `includes everything` is often a caveat rather than a positively mentionable feature: `includes everything` can feasibly exclude food, water, bedding, a bed, a house, a guide, any actual trek at all or possibly even an escape route if you find someone really untrustworthy, but this was Coorg town, the capital of the only district in India where citizens can legally own guns, and quite honestly I had in the back of my mind that I could possibly fulfill my fantasy of being shot at here, or perhaps even steal a firearm all of my own, so I was feeling open to possibilities.

    This trek actually included everything though - it even included the novel idea (you're gonna hate me for this, folks) of spending 3 days in close quarters with a German and an Israeli; someone almost certainly Jewish; and devilish thoughts of making unsettling jokes and horrible double-entendres entered my mind like a truly dastardly bastard. I'm a bad bad man, aren't I?

    Sod it. You know I wouldn't have done anything, on purpose anyway - I would have probably felt more awkward than the others did.
    I met the German guy when I returned to my room as his presumable palace was right opposite mine, and he was a really great bloke, very friendly and intelligent, spoke fluent English and was a general all-round interesting guy; a highly skilled photographer (hoping to be a photojournalist so if we stay in touch, there may be some professional collaboration in the future if things go well for us both) with the most impressive camera I've ever seen, bit of a writer, bit of a technology geek (all men actually are, really, some of them just find the church or sport or something earlier in life) and, my mind leapt at the possible deliciousness of the awkwardity (that's a new word - I just made it), he served for eight years in the army.

    3 Days with no-one but a native guide for company-

    A (Ex)German soldier.
    A Jewish girl.
    An Evil, Evil, man called Tim.....

    I have to admit that I virtually let go of all my qualms, scruples and decency and almost started preparing material on paper the night before, but, I went and ate after chatting to Stefan (such was the German guy's name) for 20 minutes and in the place I went for an evening meal was one other obvious traveller, a girl of about my age, who asked to come sit with me.

    Although she looked quite pale by comparison and her accent was not typical, it turned out she was the aforementioned Israeli girl, and she told me she wasn't going on the trek tomorrow when I brought it up in conversation.

    Still, not all of us can make Jokes About The War at Other People's Expense all day, can we?

    -

    The trek itself is, I am afraid, hardly going to be done the justice it deserves today. I have an abundance of photos and when I finally catch up to the current day in the photo situation, this will all seem a lot more coherent, but for now, let me just give you the facts and the gruesome details, and in about a week or two when the pictures appear here I'll remember anything funny, thrilling or interesting that happened to accompany each photo, or just make some stuff up in the intervening time :D

    Basically, we walked for 3 days. Sounds exciting, I know, but that's what trekking is - what trekking shows you of course is the main draw, and we started off after a 30-minute bus ride (just me, Stefan and the guide who was a good guy called Kumar who really knew his stuff, and spoke pretty excellent English) we saw one of the biggest local sights after just 30 minutes of walk; Abbi falls.

    In the main language of Karnataka, Kannada, Abbi actually means falls, or waterfall, so in a desperate bid to detract the ridiculous and leave just the sublime (the waterfall itself really was beautiful) the British Raj injected a local governing family somewher4e back in the 19th century, and ordered the parents to have caused a tragic accident to a spare daughter at the waterfall, so that they could subtly change the name and pretend that `Abby` falls was named in her honour.
    Unfortunately for the convenience of British etymologists, the daughter was called Rachel and the whole plan was fucked up.

    I made that up. Well, some of it - there actually was a girl called Rachel named and even displayed in some ancient portrait who was part of the British Raj's local governing family, and her naming and framing (as in pictures: forget the stupid little yarn from above) was indeed noticeable at Abbi falls, right next to the visitor's shit-strewn shack centre, although I'm really not sure why because the little display by her picture gives only her name and family, the fact she was the governor's daughter and, from memory, that she went back to England and married someone-or-other after being a sensible human being and growing up.

    She didn't die there, she only even lived within a hundred mile radius of the place, and the whole purpose of her picture being there at all was beyond me, Stefan, Kumar the guide, and probably even the local government. If the sole fact that some British girl `really liked` the place a hundred and fifty years ago is good enough for her likeness to be immortalised there forever, then I want my fucking picture and entire life story displayed very prominently in Edinburgh, London, Manchester, Prague, Mangalore, the Olive Tree Pub in my home town of Romsey and a thousand other places by the time this trip is over!

    And the negative cosmic equivalent - and an ancient and deadly curse - placed in Kingston-Upon-Hull (especially in the council office building), and inside every autorickshaw in Bombay....

    -

    Anyway the trek continues, for several painful hours, my manliness is tested as we pass coffee plantations which were in bloom, and there may be no sweeter bloom on Earth than that of the coffee bean bush, or at least when half a million of them are wafting their scent up the hillside and into your nostrils it certainly seems that way.
    The scenery, was simply incredible.

    We passed a whole bunch of coffee plantations, and the flora of the landscape seemed to be able to germinate, propagate and distribute just about every spice you can think of; we pass a palm-looking tree and dates (or chickoos or something, I forget the details of that one exactly) hang in bunches, pass some tall grass and it's lemongrass; yes, glorious lemongrass, the stuff from all those great Chinese dishes that Waitrose will cheerfully extract a quid from you for grows in vast swathes by the roadside, and the trackside, and it just fills in the gaps between the coffee and palm trees - it is, in fact a weed.

    A tree we went past was set upon gently by Kumar, he knifed a little of the bark off near the base - Cinnamon! It's the bark of a bloody tree! The rest of the tree is next to useless after this fact of course, because cinnamon is the finest flavour and spice in the world.
    Another leafy plant held the secret to Cardamom - it's in the roots somewhere although I couldn't actually pick out a cardamom in an identity parade, not even next to the Birmingham Six, so I'll just mention that it was there, too, and move on.

    There was mint on the ground, and the horrible smelling, gigantic, knobbly Jackfruits growing in clusters from trees, Mango trees, Coconut palms (obviously - they are everywhere in India) and a whole bunch of other spices, flavours and scents, and I was in a strange botanical paradise from which I hoped never to emerge, except unfortunately that was all we could do, and we had to emerge by walking and my feet had predictably begun to blister a bit.
    I actually, truly, genuinely, can walk a lot and my stomping gait over the last 10 years or so has given me armoured feet, and if not an immunity to blisters, then an ability to completely ignore them until about the 3rd day, or the 80th or so mile

    We stopped at some point about 1pm, after walking through the hottest part of the day (?????) for a lunch of rice, with rice-flour bread on side and rice-derivatives to flavour (the staple food of India is not rice, the staple rice of India is also sometimes called food) and I checked to see how many of my possessions had been claimed by the bush or otherwise demolished; incredibly, everything had survived intact up to this point.

    We wandered through more scenery for a bit (several bits actually - we had gone up and down and up small mountains for many hours, and my manliness was hiding somewhere at the base of my soul screaming "WHHHYYYY!!!!! YOU TERRIBLE C***!!!!!" at me. I ignored it and concentrated on the strangely exquisite pleasure of blisters instead, and tried to look at the scenery every once in a while) then the day ended quite early, at a local house up a hill.

    The owners of one of the very many coffee plantations also participated in these tours as the provider of a nightly stopover point, very familiar with these travellers Kumar kept bringing along, the lady of the house spoke no English at all but gave us cup after cup of coffee - real coffee. Coffee made from beans, not synthetic compounds with a wlittle coffee somewhere mixed up in the petri dish - it was thin, but wonderful, and I am now a convert to Real Coffee. We had at least 24 cups between us; and I don't think I'm even joking.

    Staying here was strange - the food was nice and plentiful, served around 7pm after at least 3 hours of Stefan and I drinking all the coffee, chatting and joking, and wandering about taking photos until the light faded - but then everyone, the man and wife and a few errant workers and Kumar and by Inference also Stefan and myself - went to sleep, at about 8pm.
    The thing is, there is no electricity at all, so once day's work is done while light holds, and food is eaten by the extremely dim light of some ancient paraffin lamps, there's nothing to do.
    So they sleep.
    And wake up at sunrise, and begin working.

    It's surely a noble way of life and the scents and flavours are incredible - but Fuck That, as a form of existence, quite frankly.

    Mind you, they do get to own guns....

    -

    Anyway the second day was heavier going, we walked higher hills, my manliness disappeared and I regressed to the personality of an 8-year-old girl, and after a lot of sweating, heavy breathing, and only just about restraining myself from crying for a rest stop, which we only had a couple of each day, besides lunch, we reached down into a little pocket of jungle-like dense humid forest, and, while whittling my walking stick down a bit, I dug my beloved CRKT M-16 AUS8-steel, tanto-pointed knife a generous three-quarters of an inch straight into the end of my thumb, end-on, and it pissed blood over me, Stefan, and all my clothes and possessions.

    Stefan, bless him, doused it in the neat whiskey I had brought because I'm still a little bit of an alcoholic - an experience I do not ever wish to have repeated - and he wrapped it all neatly up for me and fed me half the painkillers in my bag (which obviously was quite a lot ;) ) while Kumar decidedly looked nervous - although we had seen almost no wildlife beyond some birds, one giant spider in another bit of forest which WOULD have killed us please get away from it, says Kumar (their webstring is so strong it is woven to make bullet-proof jackets, among other things) and the tail end of a massive King Cobra (damn thing slithered right away as soon as we had noticed it but it was BIG) - there was still a very real danger that such a generous quantity blood would attract other nasty beasties, so Kumar was very pleased after we had washed all the blood that I apparently had to spare from off my trousers, arms, boots, and from off poor old Stefan, too.

    We carried on cheerfully, soon I was physically hallucinating from the painkillers and didn't give a shit about what was left of my thumb, the trekking, animals attacks, global warming or anything else, and we arrived at another home-stay sometime in the second evening, although by this time my legs were about to detach themselves from my pelvic region and fall down the hill on their own, in a last desperate bid to escape the total bastard who was powering them along.

    As it turns out, a group of 3 Israeli lads turned up to share the same hilltop with us and were, as I have observed before with their countryfolk, a little bit standoffish. Not so much with me, but they found Stefan after a few minutes of settling in and stretching grunting and looking a bit overly-macho to be quite honest (none of them were wearing shirts, and there's not much point in that, you see. You sweat just as much as if you wear white cotton as I, Kumar and Stefan had done, but get bitten a lot less if you're not half-naked, but I guess it looks a bit more macho that way) and upon realising he was German, they were actually quite rude I thought.
    I mean he's not a fucking 1941-dated card-carrying SS officer, is he?

    Problem is, as observed before, the Israeli tourists in India almost exclusively come straight from 3 to 6 years in the Army, and frankly I think the Israeli government, especially through the army, indoctrinates their young into always keeping the holocaust and a vague hatred of North-central Europeans at the back of their minds.

    It was no issue though - Stefan made friends easily, I gave them my whiskey in a gesture of international friendship and wanting to make sure no-one got any funny ideas about putting that on my thumb again the next day, and we all retired to bed like good boys around 8pm.

    -

    For 2 days, since realising the excellence of local coffee on the first night at the first house we stayed at, Stefan and I had kept ourselves going through bush and path and forest and jungle and plantation and hot, baking, real long hot and baking desert-like roads in places, with wish dreams and recipe ideas for Frappuccinos - you know the things; you go to Starbucks and give them about 14 quid, and they can then supply you with delicious flavoured iced coffee loaded with ice-cream, full-cream milk, fruit syrups, loads and loads of caffeine in fluid quantities somewhere approaching about a pint each time.

    After all the banter, teasing, planning of actual ingredients and thirsty longings for anything in any way cold to drink (sadly unavailable both in 38-degree sunshine, and smoky hillside huts without electricity) we were gonna do this in style.

    So, when we finally finished the trek, we got to the hotel and set our bags gratefully down and escaped to the cafe where, for 48 hours beforehand, we had visualised the truly obscenely delicious Frappuccinos that we were to have there.
    It took a little thinking, and some shopping around, and a lot of persuading to the restaurant staff to let us have a jug big enough, but basically what we did was make ourselves very full, and more than just a little bit ill, by consuming a truly mammoth quantity of home-made frappuccino.

    The ingredients for which I will list below as my final word for the day:

    The result of which was that, although we had walked 16 kilometres up and down hills in 38-degree heat and eaten only some rice and a bowl of thin veggie curry all day, neither of use had any dinner that night.

    The pictures from which, due to my traditional timekeeping skills, you will see in about a week or so.

    Good evening to you all :)

    -

    Stefan & Jimbo's Truly Stupid Frappuccinos.

    You will need - Materials

    * A big fucking jug. No, bigger than that. You got it.
    * A lack of common sense.
    * A spoon capable of serving the main ingredient in `people's heads stew`
    * A lack of any sense of scale (3 days walking in hot places dreaming of cool drinks are good for this)
    * About 120 rupees
    * Somewhere to lie down.

    You will need - Ingredients

    * 3 ½ litre bags of semi frozen, full fat milk
    * 4 double Espresso coffees
    * 6 large ice coffees. Big. Larger - minimum half a pint each
    * 8 tubs (about 300ml each) of vanilla ice cream
    * 500ml (half a litre) of coffee-blossom honey

    And collapse....

  • Open Mindedness: Three little, or not-so-little things.

    Okay, 3 things of varying levels of horror (wait and see) before any more photos or even my catching up on recent scribbles and thoughts:

    -

    1} I know these blogs are really really long. Some clock in at well over 4000 words, and I understand that most people have jobs, friends, social lives etc. and would rather not spend quite that long in front of the computer, but hey - I gotta say what I gotta say!
    Plus in a very real way I actually lack all those things myself.

    I'm travelling on my own and feel a huge lack of meaningfully directed energy because I'm not employed - yes, I actually really like to work would you believe - and also, and more importantly, so far I've only been in a country where almost no-one speaks English well enough for me to have a satisfying dialogue with them; this is not to say that I feel any better about never learning another language fluently myself, it's part and parcel of what I'm doing and I accept that totally.
    Many people here speak an impressive amount of English, whether Indians or travellers from anywhere else in the world, but I talk in much the same way I write - as Maria very kindly said of me in my first proper conversation in weeks last night (on le Tele-Phone of course); I cover a lot of ground and change styles and topics frequently, and this is very hard to understand in any real way for non-native speakers. To be honest, people back home find it hard to keep track of my tangents and twists sometimes, although usually only after the first half of the bottle, to be fair ;)
    Plus I talk fast - and so I type pretty fast too - which is another reason for the vast swathes of prose.

    My main defence in the case against my obscene loquaciousness is that I often go for days or even weeks without having a conversation. A proper one, one that satisfies me; so this blog is my way of talking about everything that I just can't say or discuss, the only place to really speak about my feelings on anything.

    Which makes you all my bestest fwiends, awwww! Quite equally it makes you the victims of a painfully lengthy diatribe every time you click onto `Versive`, probably quite often about something you've never heard or care of, but, if you reach points where you have to actually flick of the main power switch for your PC such is the disgust at the words you read then PLEASE, do not just write me off because of it, because thoughts change and flow, both positively and negatively in my head just as much as in yours, and I'll have nice things to say, too, about all; most; well, some of those people or things that I may degrade.

    I have no other outlet for the many thoughts running amok in my oft-addled mind, unlike most people, so this blog, really, is my entire social support network :)

    That's both rather depressing :( and extremely heartening :) at the same time.
    And "That's Life...." , as Frank used to say.
    ("...that's what all the people say;
    I'm riding high in April;
    shot down in May-
    but I wont ever change my tune...."
    - damn it, but I really do miss having even my meagre Sinatra/Dean Martin/Sammy collection. Maybe I'll pick up an iPod in Singapore as well or something (Say, Mum: wanna PayPal me about a thousand bucks, huh? :D ).

    -

    2} I retract some of the bad things I said about Ernest Hemingway the other day; I have just read a couple more short stories, including especially the one called fifty grand, and I have to say that he was some writer. Of course most people knew that anyway, but, seeing as I'd had a bit of a pop at the guy I though it only fair to redress the balance: seeing as I haven't read everything by him and about him ever written, my opinion of the guy is still developing - as should all our opinions of anything and everything, I suppose.

    -

    3} I just wish the mad bastard political fanatics in Kannur (Cannanore) appreciated the same level-headed open mindedness and flexibility of thought that I'm striving for there myself - my main receptionist friend here at the hotel in Kochi (I live in the lobby: the computers are here :D ) comes from Kannur, and yesterday he told me that the Communist Marxists dragged another 3 people from the rival political (BJP) group into the street, and decapitated them. Cut off their heads.
    Public beheadings have a particular sense of horror for me, I stupidly went looking for videos on the internet of some once, and someone had a video on their phone at a barbecue I once saw, and both times I was so shocked and upset that I didn't really sleep for a few days and was in a proper state of shock for hours afterwards. I just couldn't get the images - or the imagined sensations - out of my mind:
    Murder, by someone's own hands, by slicing a knife through the meat of a human neck and working it between the bones of the spine, arteries gushing and a vast ragged wound separating the centre of a human being's thoughts from the body that was its tool and temple. The very zenith of human savagery I thought, although unfortunately now I think about it I can think of a hundred worse things to do to a person: but the fact that it seems all too common in this world, still, just shocks me.

    It is such a gruesome and intimidatingly symbolic way to kill a person, that's my main problem with it really, aside from the bullshit politics, jealousy, anger, greed, religious fanaticism or insanity that may be the cause of it. At least, even, in most places with capital punishment they stretch the poor bastard's necks, or give them the gas chamber/electric chair/lethal injection, depending on how George Dubya was feeling on the day ;) although of course when the deaths are officially sanctioned it can't objectively be compared.

    But the violence in Kannur - which I may have only marginally escaped myself, I have no idea - Is something deeply shocking to me but seems all too common to local people here. Death is still a daily occurence for many people and - as the old observation by western travellers goes - taking the roads in India, especially the bus, is all the more terrifying when you look at the way everyone drives and realise you are in a land where everyone believes, really believes in reincarnation. If you die over here it's just not quite seen in the same way as it is in other countries ;)

    While the clashes started and the fighting and killings started, I took a long walk on the day of the most danger in blissful ignorance, while riots moved through parts of the city and people were dragged from vehicles and knifed to death in the streets, I was amiably slouching through about 6 miles or more of the city, and just happened to choose to go mostly through the Muslim quarter and some old industrial bits, and by some of the beaches all quite by accident, and was far removed from the danger zones.

    If I had wandered down to the train station or been near one of the museums where some of the gangs of lunatic political fanatics started rampaging - pretty likely possibilities for a tourist - then there could have been some sorry tale to tell on my part, although, thankfully, these murderous idiots seem only to care about politics and gang wars, and seem to know who the supporters of which parties are, as is born out by the fact that the first few victims were attacked standing in the street or dragged from their vehicles - 2 rickshaw drivers, one lorry driver and a man just standing on a corner were the first 4 to die, from memory, although which side killed which in which case I simply could not care less - they are all stupidly insane, and insanely stupid, in my opinion.

    Interestingly enough, the police and politicians apparently (according to a couple of the national and local newspapers) are strongly implicated in furthering this violence: hundreds and hundreds of police were drafted in from around the district, but not until much later on the first day of violence did they arrive after hours of riots and attacks, because the various divisional offices in surrounding areas had, reportedly spent the whole morning changing rotas and deployments, removing BJP-sympathetic officers from duty and posting them elsewhere, bringing in many policemen from surprisingly far-flung districts, and almost all the police who were `defending` the city apparently were Communist supporters, themselves.

    There are a few eyewitness reports in the Mangalore/Kannur/Kochi local papers of police surrounding the houses of BJP officials and important party figures after allowing Communist gangs into them, and preventing BJP party gangs from going anywhere near it. Whole families have been beaten senseless in some cases.
    These were the houses of the first 2 people (BJP) to have died who weren't attacked in the street on the first day - the number of murders from the city over this issue is now 10, apparently.

    This police and local government involvement is sinister indeed, and if I was to venture an opinion it would be thus: it was orchestrated to look to the rest of India that Communism was riotous and causing murder in the streets, so that the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was to lose positive public image because generally, I seem to gather, the Central Government of this country favours democracy and capitalism over the fringe lunacy of the CPI(M) party policies, and more power to them for this ideology, because communism in any pre-existing community is a massively stupid idea as far as I'm concerned, although I would love to be proven wrong.
    A tragedy and a travesty that the Central Government might have used the lives, and brutal deaths, of 10 or more people to go about this political maneuvering.

    And all because people just can't be open to new ideas :( :(

  • PhotoOnslaught VIII: Timdiana James and the Raiders of the Lost Past

    The titles wont be getting better any time soon by the way. Sorry :P
    I'm being a little kinder on your bandwidth today and providing clickable links to many of the photos, and not posting up so many that it takes a week to load each page ;)

    Straight into it - have a look, if you have not yet seen, the stunning scenery around Hampi. I particularly liked the boulder in the lower centre with the unaccountable divot in it. God knows what did that - same thing probably that left millions of rounded boulders in gravity-defying positions in the middle of Karnataka, I suppose.
    Also, check out the tiny temple on top of the hill near the top right. Apparently it's quite popular - but what do these Gurus expect of their disciples: crampons and a handy knowledge of belay-climbing?:

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    Three weeks before this shot was taken that mud flat in the middle was a river - this time of year, halfway through the dry season and three months since monsoon - water levels drop rapidly - and dangerously - in many parts of the subcontinent:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric073.jpg

    I invite you once more to look at the sheer magnificence of the terrain and scenery in this place; just a little way down from the ghats (steps) and the river crossing is this giant snake of boulders rising from the river and swarming the far bank, the fringes of said bank are lined with luxuriant palms and banana trees, and behind is (yet again) the Virupakshur temple which, despite its millions of appearances in photos of Hampi, still is something rather special to look at.
    Beyond that even are the bouldered hills and ancient, tiny temples - what a place to stay, huh? I took this about 50 yards away fom my hut:

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    One of those roof places I mentioned in the last post about cheap travel here - one place even provided the mosquito nets themselves, and on the roof of the house of the owner was this setup so that she could accomodate even more travellers; 50 rupees a night, one sixth of the cost of a hut, and as long as you don't mind waking up with each sunrise (as you had any kind of choice ;) ) then you're just fine:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric070.jpg

    A couple more shots from the same roof, showing the extent of the place where we mostly stayed in Hampi; Goan Corner; which was, quite frankly, rather impressive considering it was all bamboo-thatched rooves but with solid walls. Every hut had woodworm that could probably have dug the channel tunnel a good deal faster than we did - the munching, crunching noise was amazingly loud, but you did get used to it.
    Getting used to finding all the fresh sawdust on top of your mozzie net eaxch morning was a bit weird though.
    Anyway, this is what some of the place looked like from the roof of the owner's house:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric069.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric068.jpg

    And this was the actual view from my doorway every morning for a week - it ain't the beach, but it ain't half bad:

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    This is what these actual huts look like at Goan corner, basic, but neat, and with real actual genuine proper solid walls and everything:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric066.jpg

    I found this guy in my room first time I went in there - there is a video of him in her too - he was massive by lizard standards over here, around 10", or 250mm, in length I would guess, most of them are half that so, you can imagine how excited I was to see him on the wall as soon as I moved into my new place! Unfortunately I couldn't resist, as always, trying to have a good look and he scuttled off, dragging his monstrous form over the edge of the wall in seconds - which led me to notice one important thing: these huts, although they have solid brick walls, have no actual filling between walls and roof so mosquitos, beetles, scorpions, lizards and crickets have freer access to your room than you do - you have to undo the padlock to get in, they just climb the wall:

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    Still, when you get room guests as cool as this guy, I couldn't mind in the slightest :D

    Right, I have a bit of history with this guy: a swallowtail butterfly. Since arriving in Goa in November I have seen hundreds of these buggers and wanted to see what they actually looked like but, unique among the insect world, apparently, these little sods never actually need to land on anything, ever, for the entire course of their lives.
    I chased them around - more literally, stood patiently whenever one flew within 50 yards of me - waiting for one to stop for a second for me to admire its glory but no, no, these little shits have a conspiracy against me, and only by waiting with a poised camera by their favourite food bush for lengthy periods of time, plus accidentally walking almost past this one quietly chilling out there, did I finally, finally manage to see one, and get this picture:

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    Okay, you gotta flip this one around 90 degrees yourself, and it's pretty low-light, and out of focus, but this was the ebst I could do while slightly drunk and swaying in the late evening light, trying to catch the reflection of the mountai in the water of the paddy fields:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric060.jpg

    Sunsets. Aren't they nice:

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    Gotta flip these two, sorry:

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    And this one too - but isn't that just an amazing picture? It's easy to take good photos with this kind of scenery :D :

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    Oh, and the finest temple in Hampi next to, ahem, the finest poo silo in Hampi: in the middle of the main bazaar is this bizarre miniature version of the virupakshur temple in corrugated iron.
    It's a giant shit silo for all the cow `leavings` that these sacred creatures bless the town with; quite why they put it in the middle of the main shopping and living area in the whole town is, frankly, the strangest thing in the whole place (and I met some AMERICANS here!! ;) )
    Again, you gotta turn this one around yourself with a deft bit of `right-clicking`, but hionestly, it may not be worth the effort:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric053.jpg

    With all the crap I've espoused about the mistreatment of women, it is a strange thing to see that one of the billions of bumber stickers ont he back of a leading rickshaw, was this:

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    This culture I will never quite understand, I'm sure.

    Okay, this is just cool: I took a rickshaw ride from Hampi into the nearest city, Hospet, because as usual the one and only ATM Cash Machine in Hampi had run out of money. This happened every single week, and was out of available funds almost half the time.
    Why a banking organisation cannot have the foresight to stock up such an important and oft-used cash machine is beyond me; my only conclusion is that there is some backhander deal negotiated with the autorickshaw drivers, who's main hang out of some some 40 or so vehicles is directly opposite the ATM, and who always know exactly when it is out of money (and sometimes they even lie to you saying it's empty when it's not, trying to sway you into a 200 rupee round-trip to Hospet city to get some money out.) I was approached by one driver and told this once, but checked anyway and was able to take out enough cash to keep me going for two weeks, and on emerging was treated to a cheeky grin by the rickshaw driver who had approached me!

    Seriously - this is the kind of corruption you'll see if you come here, it's all mild-mannered and in a a way a bit of fun, but all designed to tease just that little bit mmore money from the tourist's wallet.
    Anyway I checked and it this time and it actually was out of money, so I went to Hospet in a bone-shaking relic of a rickshaw that actually lost pieces along the way, such was its state of dereliction.
    Then again the road was kinda bumpy; we passed an arch each time we went to and from Hospet, and I always missed the chance to get a photo except this time - as we turned the corner at near-lethal speed I leaned out and got this photo, the rickshaw was at such an angle turning the corner, and catching the mirror place perfectly in the bottom corner, made this one of my favourite photos of the trip:

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    Some nicely-frame rocks and a little shrine-stone, up on the plateau above Goan Corner where all the thin and healthy peiople went climbing ;)

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric046.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric048.jpg

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    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric044.jpg

    And I'm not sure if they'll thank me for this, but this in turn is Luisa, and Jon, showing a very difficult balance posture up on the rocks.
    Anyway, I look silly 'cause I'm overweight, so they may as well look silly being fit and healthy, so here they are:

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    And this guy was just an amazing climber:

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    Okay, as you can tell by the background you have to flip this shot 90-degrees clockwise too, but I had you fooled there for a second didn't I? :D

    Another one to flip around - do it, this is one superb photograph although the scenery, rather than the skill of the photographer is the root cause of this fact:

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    The shot along the ridge where all the climbers were donig their thing:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric037.jpg

    And a few of them doing their thing:

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    Another great shot from up on the plateau; the fields and the Goan Corner complex which is what you see in the middle did a nice little geometric thing for me, so I took it like this:

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    Another flipper, these were some rocks right up near the boulders where those other healthy types were throwing themselves about; kinda looked like lions to me, somehow, or at least it reminded me of the Lion King.
    A pleasurable absence of Elton John also made the scene even better :D :

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    Temple hill again - the one with the rock-climbing disciples struggle mightily to get to see their sacred guru (I suspect that there's actually a road or something going up the back):

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/cric030.jpg

    This is a small part of the plateau where most of the boulder climbing took place, viewed from the only rock I was able to climb myself - it practically had a ladder up against it ;)
    You can see my very good friend Jon in the corner, giving a sense of scale to this bizarrely patterned rocky expanse:

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    Jon again, perched on a big-ass rock and with me trying desperately to make it look like he was on the edge of some vast mountain - he was on top of a pretty big boulder, but the effect I wanted to acheive was something akin to a likeness of Edmund Hilary surveying his latest conquered cordillera:

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    Dunno if it quite worked out...

    The plateau in other places (the entrance to it, for example, places that I could get to myself ;) ) was home to these irrational boulders, or, as I believe they are better known `erratic` boulders ;)

    That was a poor and rather esoteric attempt at a joke, and seeing as not even dictionary.com or wikipedia.com has a page where I can link in to show you that the term `erratic boulder` is actually a valid phrase, it might not even qualify as a pun, let alone a joke.
    That'll teach me to try and be clever, eh? The best wikipedia can do is this by the way - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_erratic
    It was probably actually a badly inferred reference from the Discworld book Interesting Times, where the character known as `Teach` (itself, I think, one of Terry Pratchett's myriad brilliances of parody relating to the pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard who gave up an honest life to become the epitome or piracy), who used to be a geography teacher but has turned to the life of a mild-mannered barbarian, analyses a landscape to the mystification of the even more superb character, and far more superb barbarian, Cohen. He mentions that the landscape is not suitable for erratic boulders or artesian wells, an observation on his part essential to the plot of the book, but the terms `erratic boulder` and `artesian wells` just confuse poor old Cohen, who simply likes to chop bits off monsters or evil priests, nick the treasure and the slave girls or the magic sword, and bugger off for a bit to enjoy the proceeds.

    Seeing as we are in the middle of a diversion based on my fond memories of this truly excellent book, I'm gonna mention as well that, although Pratchett introduced the character of Cohen in only the second discworld book The Light Fantastic as simply Cohen the Barbarian as a parody of the comic and film character Conan the barbarian, he later manages to extract further brilliance from the same enigmatic character 15 books and 8 years later in Interesting Times, by revealing that he has a first name, Ghengiz, making his parodical exploits of Ghengis Khan in the later story blend seemlessly once more into the finest fictional world ever dreamed up (in this guy's opinion).
    If I ever achieve one tenth of the brilliance of Mr. Pratchett I will be a rich, happy, successful and almightily smug bastard until the day I die :)

    Anyway, digressions aside here's them boulders I were tellin' you about:

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    These larger and less erratic-looking chunks of expatriate magma simply looked nice, and I can't think of any literary diversions so you can just have a look at the pretty pictures instead:

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    This also looked nice; actually it looked so amazingly green that I was wondering if someone had laced my plain sodas with something a little more exciting, but actually I had to wait a bit for all that ;)

    Anyway before there's a world shortage of smilies, here's the picture:

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    And this is Jon in full-on posing mode - the jammy bastard does actually look a bit like Mick Jagger (in certain lights) and also even the lead singer of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers (Anthony Kiedis), at least not when he's taking the piss a bit like he is here, and to cap it all off he actually is the lead singer of a rather good rock/metal band, although I'll leave it up to him to define the actual styles because, quite frankly, I just can't keep up with all the definitions in modern music.
    Anyway this is him, looking thinner than I'll ever be, standing on a big-ass rock he had just climbed:

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    Git :P

    Anyway I clambered about over the ridges and hills in a different direction a day or so later, and found a whole load of great photos to take, which I did, and they're here. Amazing thing this `internet`, isn't it? :D

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    And I don't know if I've already gone over a couple of these but these are among the last ones for today, I promise - Lakshmi the tmple elephant having a morning wash down at the bottom of the Ghats in Hampi (on the non-beer side) about 8 in the morning.
    Me scraping my arse out of bed, across the river, and getting set up in time to catch the old girl at this sort of time in the morning is something of a miracle in itself, but here she is:

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    You might remember what I said about the about boats that crossed the river in Hampi, and this one was frankly underloaded and practically deserted; I only count about 14 people and a bicycle on board; but these same craft were the ones taking up to 27 people and a motorbike across the river, so I hope this gives you a sense of the scale of matters:

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    And a moody and dramatic (I hope) shot of an ancient inscribed tablet in the Virupakshur temple in Hampi central (the one I was too cheap to go into, remember? :) ) with a lovely exanmple of some ancient Hindi script and a dramatic looking tree bringing up the rear:

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    And one of the Vittala temple again, with the musical pillars, and a group of Indian women there give you a sense of the vibrancy of the colours that people wear here as a matter of habit, I find both the temple, and the glorious love of colour just about equally pleasing:

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    Right that's about as much as I can manage, for now.
    Tomorrow I'm gonna try and actually leave the hotel and see some sights - I have felt compelled for the past 3 days through a mixture of low-level illness, shame in my actions on the first night I got here (I'll explain, I'll explain..) and a desperate need to catch up on the pictures and sort through the possibly several thousand photographs that I need to get online, and out to you good people, to stay almost totally inside the building, I only went out half a day yesterday, and frankly it's now getting a little bit silly.

  • Administration: an Explanation of Beggary, & the Cheap World of Travel

    In a little change from the recent pattern (whereby I have been demolishing the rods and cones on your beleaguered eyeballs with hundreds of photos) I'm going to try out some administration. I need to do this to keep me as sane as I already am, probably questionable at best anyway, but at least I can still pose myself such questions so I may not have lost the battle yet!

    The way I keep track of things and, frankly, think of any kind of halway decent material to put here in the hope that some of it becomes funny somewhere along the line, is by making notes as and when worthwhile thoughts occur to me. This usually happens, as I have mentioned before, in places of extreme awkwardness, so I find myself carrying around for weeks or even months, for example, little scraps of toilet paper with a neat phrase written on it in a shaky pencilled hand that I originally thought up while being violently ill in some ghastly little oubliette of a Goan toilet, or reflections on public behaviour and attitudes in India secretly scribbled on high-quality linen knapkins taken from expensive restaurants, where the theft of such knapkins is almost surely a severe offence, and if they had also read what I'd actually written about them and their countryfolk I could well have been dragged out into the street, and attached via a rapidly shortening length of rope to a handy lampost.

    Thus some of my ideas come to me, and thus, I am now going to divest myself of a load of them so that I can feel good about the clearing of mental clutter, refresh my new audience members of some of the aspects if life in India, and so that I can once again actually fit money into my wallet.

    -

    First off, I have some not-very-nice things to say about some of the people of this country. This is not my opinion of many of the people of this country at all, as most of those I have met are warm, thoughtful, dilligently hardworking and polite and generally all-round lovely people. The problem lies in the fact that among all these thousands of pleasant souls, the ones that engender strong reactions tend to be far more memorable, and these stronger reactions have been often been those of repulsion or anger. Even still, I am scratching from notes made 2 months ago and still remember my feelings quite acutely, so, please brace yourself for some negativity to start with...

    -

    I understand that a lot of people here are poor - so unimaginably poor that we cannot even comprehend. `Extremely poor` in the UK means either jobless, houseless and living in shared emergency housing with bad bathrooms and maybe one horrible meal a day, maybe it means being a heroin addict and stealing electrical goods daily for your nightly fix, or maybe it means being totally homeless, where food and shelter are found through only the salvation Army and rooting through dustbins; a lifestyle where the density and integrity of cardboard is an important daily consideration. Not a lot of fun, I'm sure you'll agree. I have however known a couple of homless people in my time, and in England, they often manage to live surprisingly well even though they don't get to change clothes more than once in 50 days, they can almost always eat, one way or the other, and many enjoy some surprising benefits - we had a guy called Gary crash very occasionally on our sofa at out place up in Hull, for example, and he himself was never shirt of at least a pound or two and a little bit of food.
    One other character known locally as `The General` was technically insane, but so polite with it that he was almost always seen up and down the city in local people's front gardens or driveways, with a politely but thoroughly battily requested free cup of tea! I think he actually was a serving officer in the Spanish army or something but lost the plot somewhere, yet remained courteously insane enough to get by as a surviving tramp for decades.

    In the worst parts of India that I have seen, `extremely poor` means wearing the same clothes for an entire year or more, eating the same things the cows do from rubbish tips, being beaten up and beaten away from every doorway, street and shelter and having to SLEEP on the rubbish piles and, basically, dying from a cocktail of horrific diseases at most one or two years after achieving this unpleasant social status.
    This is why I have no sympathy for panhandlers, because at least they can sleep in the street and have obviously the clothes of someone not about to die from Tuberculosis. Quite a LOT of people sleep in the street as it happens, in fact most street traders in most cities do because the temperatures are mild, and the people themselves are extremely hardy, and in the cities I've seen - maybe 15 or 20 of them so far - there must always be several thousand of street-sleepers who actually do okay out by it.

    Panhandlers - beggars and harassers and false gurus and swamis - no matter how many people like me ignore them they always receive a little bit of free money every day, even if it is just a rupee or two, and this easily enables them to buy, say a couple of bananas, if they can't scrounge or steal or find some of way of getting that much anyway.
    My point being, as shit as it is for them at the worst of times they can still eat food and avoid a painful death, the `extremely poor` with absolutely no way of gaining any money at all, ever, are a lot worse off.

    Almost all panhandlers actually do relatively well I imagine; a few rupees from a few people every day for doing nothing more than faking a miserable expression and doing the annoying, hand-to-mouth beggary sign language that has served street people worldwide for centuries isn't all that bad relatively speaking; the ones I feel sorry for are the small traders, with sacks or clothes laden with cheap, tacky goods and fall-apart-within-minutes merchandise, because these guys actually DO need the money, and they are often supporting a small tribe of elderly or infirm relatives, or perhaps some of the many poor deformed souls too crippled to actually walk the streets to beg. There are thousands and thousands of severely crippled people in India, but many are actually deformed for economic purposes - children will, I was once shockingly told, sometimes be selected to have bones broken and set at horrendous angles so they can beg their lives away as one of the more reliable forms of family income.

    The others I feel sorry for are the truly able but uneducated, of which there are millions, who are able and willing to work, but simply will never achieve any meaningful employment because the education situation here has been so dire for so many for so long. A great many of these people are women - far more than men - and the rights, treatment and situations of women in India is a topic only recently being even addressed properly.

    I say what I feel about the liars and the beggars and the false takers of other people's money to justify to myself the fact that of all the people who have asked me for money in India, I have given some to only 2, both of them sharp street kids who made me laugh with their witty and self-aware banter, and I did that because I know that 99% of the beggars, arm-clutching children who follow you through two or three whole streets pawing at you and grabbing at your clothing, and the often suspiciously mobile `crippled` men who walk around with outstretched hands are false, fake liars, who are making a bad name for their country, and depriving those even worse off than they are from the little they might otherwise get.

    Many, though, are just part of a racketeering scheme and really are as in bad condition as they appear, but who will receive nothing of what you give them because the whole begging operation is part of very well-organised crime, and every beggar has a handler who will remove all their takings from them each day and give them maybe their daily rations of drugs, booze or food, possibly a severe beating just to remind them how powerless they are, or dole out to them whatever it is that keeps them in these situations and stops them from running away from it all. It's not a pretty picture, but it justifies the fact that when I was in Margao I refused to give any money, not even any genuinely spare change to possibly the sorriest-looking soul I will ever encounter.

    She was a woman of maybe 90, with the worry lines of someone pushing 120 - she stretched out her hands like they all do, and she had no fingers. Not one - at the stump where each should have been was a tiny bony pustule - she was almost certainly suffering from leprosy, and even aside the revulsion at her appearance, the fear of that terrible disease, and the fact that I had it on good authority that the begging in Margao is all racketeered, the reason I felt no sympathy was the look on her face, mouth stretched down at the corners so dramatically that they seemed to reach below her chin on both sides.

    Despiteb her obviously terrible condition she still seemed more as if she was faking it completely - mugging like a terrible actor, this learned facade of mournful sorrow was as fake as a the Rebbock trainers you could buy at the entrance to the train station; if she has survived as long as she has, with no fingers, but has remained alive, she has some kind of support or can get plenty of change from other suckers, because this one just wasn't buying it.
    This sounds harsh, I know, but I know exactly when someone is acting when they are patently so bad at it, and no matter how much money I could have given her - which would probably have gone straight to a controller anyway - she would be back onto the next person with the same lying look.

    It is not that I have no sympathy with someone who clearly has a life that is shit in every way compared to mine (I mean, having lost all your fingers to leprosy, can you even imagine it??) it is that the whole thing was an act and I am disgusted by the way tourists are lied to all over the world and I stick by my belief of ignoring beggars even in the face of such truly horrible sights. In any case, moral and personal issues aside, there would be nothing I could actually do to help her anyway. If you DO want to help the truly poor of India, donate to NGOs and volunteer to help in medical centres, but giving change on the streets only truly puts it into the hands of criminals, cheats and thieves.

    -

    Unfortunately there is a lot of this, and there is no shame in asking for money among a certain class of people - and by class I mean liars, not social classes or Untouchables or lower castes or anyone else in that sense, I disapprove of the caste system here generally speaking like I do of the class system in England - I just mean people who, as their stock in trade, lie to other people in order to take their money.
    I think you only see this in India more than in other countries because it has a population of over a billion, and because I follow, more or less, the Lonely Planet guides to cheaper hotels and like to visit museums and other tourist attractions, and the liars know exactly where their deceit is most profitable.

    `Babas` are meant to be holy men, gurus or swamis or the like, but in Hampi they approach every westerner on the street, set up a situation in order to pose for photographs all friendliness and smiles, then outright ask you for 200, 300, or even 400 rupees just for the photo; and you are supposed to feel obliged because these are supposed to be `holy` men.
    A whole family earns less than that in a week in some places - these `Babas` in Hampi abuse their own religion for huge profits.

    Mark (or Ross - I can't remember which) was the guy I met in Goa who did the Rickshaw Run - http://rickshawrun.theadventurists.com/index.php?page=overview - was sat at a bar in Hampi drinking a beer and an unknown man walked in, took a glass from behind the bar, and sat opposite Mark and tapped his beer bottle with the glass. Obviously a bit confused Mark was politely trying to find out what was happening when the man just poured himself a glass from Mark's bottle, drank it all, and tapped the bottle again.
    A stranger walking in off the street expected to be able to take a Westerner's drink right out of his hand, as it were, and when Mark got another bottle the man sat there again and tapped the bottle with his glass. Mark walked off with his new bottle and left the bar, followed by low shouts of complaint from the beer thief - this is about as cheeky as I can imagine anyone being short of stealing your wallet and keys, and coming back to ask your address and where you were parked!

    There is a catchphrase with local kids all around Goa and Karantaka, it is "schoolpen" and you can be mobbed in places by hoards of them chanting it. It menas, quite literally, that they want a pen, for use at school.
    Bullshit. Well, 90% of the time it's bullshit - I bought a few pens after being mobbed a few times, and had them handy for when I walked through a few poor areas in Goa; I got approached by a small tribe, dished out a pen or two, then the cries came back, much, much louder: "Ten rupee!, Ten rupee!" They were just as bad as the beggars - they don't want pens for school at all but have been taught to ask westerners for "schoolpen" and then try to keep up the attack by begging money from them as well.
    You can't blame the kids of course, but some of the bastards who teach their children to beg like this from the tender age of 5 should be taken outside and given a thrashing! Of course in some paces, this is the most viable kind of family income and can be excused, if not exactly appreciated, but you just know that much of this is just the start of a long career of lazy idle-handed skullduggery, and kids deserve a better chance than just being taught to take, and take, and take, their entire lives.

    -

    There are a few tourist trap people you see whith baby monkeys on choke-chains who come around the guesthouses, especially in Goa and Hampi. Monkeys are cute, but these are young monkeys, they've had their ears pierced, and they are yanked back on a metal garotte whenever they playfully climb on the tourists their handler has accosted - unless of course the handler gets some money, the monkey keeps getting dragged back and choked. I can't think of a more horrible way to exploit a creature short of making it actually fight.

    -

    -

    Now, bitching and horrible social commentary aside, I've just got some general stray thoughts here that I need to get down on paper, as it were!
    One is that, if you wanted to, and could live at a certain level, you could survive as a tourist even in the popular areas - i.e. the ones with the greatest natural scenery - for months and months with only a couple of hundred pounds, enjoying all the great people you meet as fellow travellers, eating and drinking in restaurants every single day, and soaking up some of the most incredible natural scenery the whole time.

    The formula is thus:
    Cheap guesthouses - wherever you are, no matter how crummy (and I've stayed in some really crummy places ;) ) the owners have somewhere even less desirable for you to sleep. The best trick is sleeping on the building's roof, if they have proper buildings (most places in Goa are elaborate bamboo-thatch-and-pole constructions, even the popular guesthouses which are really just large hut compounds) and picking up a mosquito net and some string. If you have a mosquito net, and enough string, and can get yourself clear of the ground, then you can live and sleep in India almost anywhere outside of the cities.

    Eating out - there is a stable Indian meal called a Thali and it is usually enough to fill even fat bastards like me up; within this simple name includes rice, sambar (a thin, spicy veg soup/gravy), dal or dhal (quite thick lentil soup), curd (literally curd; the stuff you get from treating milk somewhere between the milk and yoghurt stages - it's horrible at first but you get used to it), pickle (basically a highly flavoured chilli sauce), a roti or paratha or two (indian breads - basically like thinner naan breads in the UK) and sometimes popadums and some extra vegetables as well - and these Thalis usually cost around 15 to 35 rupees.
    Most muilti-cuisine restaurants will charge you 50 rupees MINIMUM for the msot basic of dishes, like chicken fried rice or an Indian veg dish with gravy or a smallish plate of falafel or the simplest and smallest of vegetarian pasta dishes, and most main courses cost about 80 to 250 rupees, everywhere you go, but the Thali still probably costs you just 25 rupees, and is a complete meal.

    If you can live on Thalis, and you can survive happily on one a day if you eat in the late afternoon, you can eat in India for practically nothing.

    Drinking - in restaurants if you like a hot cuppa, get used to black tea; it costs about 5 or 8 rupees a cup, is better for you than tea with milk and the milk here; being unpasteurised buffalo or goat milk and never refrigerated properly; is always enough to totally fuck up a proper cup of tea anyway (I say this for the benefit of you, Mother, because I know just how dear to your heart a good cup of tea is :D ), and you can happily plough through 3 or 4 cups for the equivalent of about 25p.
    Coffee, also, taken black, is superb - and around Karnataka it is REAL coffee, probably the first real coffee you've had in your life. This is stuff picked and dried within the last week or so somewhere just up the next mountian, with absolutely no chemical treatments, just optional jaggery - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaggery - or chickory - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicory - to taste - both also grown in nearby plantations and locally processed probably just a few miles from where you're drinking it. I love Indian coffee, it tastes thinner than anything in the West but it tastes like it actually came from plants, not laboratories!

    If you like soft drinks - get used to the genius that is the plain soda. Most of the reason Coke (TM) and Pepsi (TM) and similar products are popular are because they are fizzy and the novelty still just hasn't worn off even after a century and a quarter, and all that sugar basically just rots your teeth away and gives you a brief high and subsequent low, no matter how small and unnoticed you don't actually gain a thing from it.
    Plain soda is the carbonated drink of choice for the ultra-budget traveller, and often is so fizzy that parts of your nose start twitching alarmingly as if a sneeze capable of removing a nostril is about to make an appearance (the sensation of which I just love!).
    It's also the best cure for indigestion and actually even heartburn short of licensed medicines - if you want to kick-start your guts into getting through that huge roast turkey you just shovelled down your face hole then the best thing to do, besides munch a lump of charcoal, is drink some fizzy water, right?
    Exactly.
    It usually costs about 8 - 12 rupees, or about 13pence. For a soft drink in a restaurant, you really can't do much better.

    Booze - don't drink beer in bars, for Pete's sake; find the place the local alcoholics and winos go for their torporiffic fixes, and buy the cheapest, nastiest rum or brandy they have. Usually a whole big 75cl bottle (yes, they give you that extra 5cl over here we've been missing out on all these years!) will cost you about 100 to 150 rupees in Goa or Hampi or most of Karnataka (outside of the cities) which is the price of 2 beers in the restaurants.
    Score?
    Score.
    Get used to cheap rum and plain sodas too - it'll lighten the load on your wallet, and cure your alcoholism faster than anything else when you realise what that shit you drink actually IS, when you don't lace it with E-numbers and fancy chemical processing.

    Transport - of course getting to and fro in your world of cheap Indian sightseeing can be either the most, or least expensive thing that you do.
    The trick is really to ride the buses - they go everywhere in India and cost, quite literally, almost nothing. A 200 kilometre journey can cost just 35 rupees - 40pence.
    The problem is that, as I shall tell in a soon-forthcoming tale, they are seriously bad for your physical and mental health, and are often even more crammed than the trains and the bumpy roads can actually sperate your vertabrae, such is the reckless speed at which these things are driven.
    The best way is the train; cheap class. Sleeper class or, lowest of the low, 2nd class train travel costs only about 4 times as much as the buses, which still means you can get from one end of Karnataka to the other - 900 kilometres or more - for just 550 rupees, about £7.20.

    You can't even get from Southampton to fucking Bournemouth for less than 8 quid in the UK, a trip of just 40 kilometers.

    -

    Getting away - actually, I'm stumped on this one myself. I have a bit of a problem at the mom' as I need to get to Laos, but really, really don't want to pay £350 for a couple of flights to do so.
    Any suggestions or help really is welcome! I think I may have to get to the Madras (Chennai) on the East coast and get a boat to Burma or something, then train it through 3 countries to achieve my intended rendezvous with Greg in Laos.

    Anyway that was one scrap of paper finished with - and another post completed.
    There are plenty more to come, believe me....

  • The Man Who Couldn't Sleep.

    Current time -> 08:24am

    Last night or, rather, this morning since I finally left the lobby computers (and the poor guy who sleeps in the hotel lobby) at 12:30am, I could not sleep. Not for love, money, toffee, nor beans could I sleep, probably not even for unified world peace could I leave the realm of the awakened such was my state of unyielding consciousness.
    I made the mistake of ordering several of those vast jugs of tea (which I'm again just starting on) during the day so my caffeine levels may have been somewhere close to the lethal level; I think if you added it all up I drank somewhere around 24 to 28 cups of black tea since waking, something my Mother would be proud of me for. She, too, is a certified Tea Addict, although actually she's just a Tea User, technically, because addicts go to meetings about these sorts of things.

    I had also strangely passed out from about 1pm to 5pm as well, which is odd because I did fuck-all of any effort in the morning except wander the streets and a small bit of parkland for maybe only a mile or so before quitting like a pansy in favour of autorickshaws in order to seek out my daily quarry: the most overcrowded, un-tourist-friendly cinema yet created. Needless to say, I shall not be seeing 10,000 BC for a while ;) Is it out in England yet? Am I talking abiur a film people now buy from Amazon and Play.com in my homeland??

    Anyway I passed out in the afternoon; perhaps, not incidentally, after reading a few Hemingway short stories. I like the man's stuff in general but I think maybe he took his first name a little too seriously throughout his life, and never got around to writing much of a positive nature. I understand he didn't think it worth much of a laugh in the end and shot himself: the importance, perhaps, of NOT being Earnest.
    At half-past midnight I tried in vain to sleep, mosquitoes are allowed free access to the rooms here because I'm too cheap at the moment to stay in a place with mozzie screen on the windows, so they practiced their impressions of WWII Stukkas on me for a bit so I gave up, spent a few angry minutes with strings, fixing points, hazily-understood physics and vast swathes of fabric and erected my mosquito net in my room at last.
    The next half-hour thinking happy thoughts about anguished mosquitoes dive-bombing into the permethrin-poisoned layers of my woven bunker still didn't manage to ease me blissfully into sleep, though.

    I haven't drunk any booze in two days, and have also eaten only one large meal a day and didn't over-order as I usually would have done, so had left myself without my two normal standbys of passing-out-in-emergencies (i.e. a big bottle of spirits, or enough food to handicap my digestive system into a state of total bodily shutdown) so all I had were my medicines, including my last 2 Valium.

    Pharmacists in Kannur were strangely relectant to sell me valium, they actually wanted proper doctor's prescriptions which, although technically a legal requirement everywhere, no-one else seems to give a shit about anywhere else I've been. It's okay to do this in India too - if you're travelling, you really NEED things like Valium because train journeys can last up to 36 hours if you were mad enough to go North to South all at once, and the conditions aboard mean you just don't want to be awake on the bigger trips.

    Now don't get me wrong, I love the trains here especially the cheapest 3 classes because that makes them actually cheaper than getting a taxi, I love trips of a few hours or so, but really, anything more than 6 hours in the cheaper classed seats where 4 or more people sit across each other's knees on every bench that was designed for only 2 human bodies, and where every inch of standing room is filled by a body or a bag, is a bit too much to handle and it's better to not be in any way conscious.
    Imagine if you will a train carriage, built about a foot narrower than the English type, with literally 220 people or more in it. This is 2nd class train travel in India, and many of those aboard are the panhandlers and beggars; the poorest people who can afford to travel by train in India and may be wearing clothes unwashed for weeks or even months at a time, and these are the people who get CLOSEST to the tourists to ask them all for money.
    I'm allowed to have some fucking Valium, methinks.

    -

    As it happens, my medicines overall are rather precious to me; another reason I couldn't sleep was because I was ill, hence the only one-meal-per-day thing, but I could normally have cured that in a trice and happily passed out had I not been over-caffeinated and under-tired; in my medicine kit I have just about everything.

    I have acidity and heartburn tablets enough to cure an actual fire inside a person's body, I have painkillers, tranquilisers, laxatives, constipatives, malaria medication to do an appreciable amount of good in Africa, I have antiseptic creams, mosquito wipes and 70% alcohol (undrinkable) wound-cleansing wipes, and, one of my favourites, a substance of suspiciously oily consistency called Rumbalaya, which is actually an extra-strength form of the muscle-relaxant cream Deep Heat, just pretending to be ayurvedic.

    In short, I have everything needed to lick your wounds, ease your itchings, burn your bodily tissues into an ecstatic jelly, numb yourself to all physical sensation, launch counterattacks against all the chilli peppers you can eat, shit yourself, knock yourself out, block your intestinal tract for up to a week, or simply just get really, really high, depending on your needs at the time.
    I love me medicines and, piece by piece and part by part, they love me.
    But, I only had two damn Valium left.

    -

    I wandered around my room switching things on and off for a while, and opening the drawers in both the desk and the other weird cabinet thing in my room: I am always slightly disappointed whenever I open a new drawer that there is not a handgun inside, as there would be in any decent televison show or film from the 1980s. Furthermore, furniture in hotels is always like furniture in films from the 1980s so I always expect, hope, to slowly draw back the carpentered tay and find a neat, polished revolver nestling inside, ready for me to draw out at a moment's notice should a bad guy come into the room, or so that I can slowly and ominously remove to go off and perform some wicked and sinister deed.

    I considered involving myself in some push-ups and on-the-spot jogging to weaken my body's attempts to keep me alive, then realised it would take more than the feeble number of pushups I could manage to tire me in any appreciable way, and jogging is only for the early morning or late evening at the beach, as far as I'm concerned. With no way of measuring how far you have travelled the exercise, pardon the pun, is pointless.

    -

    Those single meals I've been enjjoying each day have so far all been takeaway pizza from Pizza Hut. Yeah, I'm that much of a slob - but I have my justifiable reasons which I'll tell you in another entry. When Pizza Hut deliver they leave behind an array of condiments both vast and confusing (tomato ketchup, chilli flakes, and italian seasoning? These together are about half of what all pizza is made from. Why not order the item with the right amount of each of these on them in the first place?) yet, in a twist of irony that didn't escape me, they were all the food I had along with a packet of saltine crackers, and I know that every time I stuff myself silly my body wants to shut down and process all the poisons and saturated fats I've thrown in there in a vain bid to save me.
    These were all things invented to compliment meals, but together, with a little imagintion and a lot of desperation I made them into a meal themselves, and after consuming 8 packets of ketchup, 5 sachets of chilli flakes, two of italian seasoning and a whole packet of disgustingly over-flavoured saltine crackers I found myself not only unfulfilled and fully awake, but more than slightly disgusted.

    I crept downstairs and stole some bottles of water and orange juice - every budget hotel here in India has the staff sleep in the lobby, and almost always the lobby is where all the hotel's refreshments are kept, often in a locked fridge or two, but in this one, a trustingly-open display stand and a fridge actually incapable of being padlocked. The fools.
    Hotels like this simply don't reckon on people as sneaky as me; I can walk incredibly lightly when I need to (despite still weighing well over 100Kg) and had put on thick hiking socks to soften my footfalls yet further. Sneakier yet, before leaving England I made sure I had torches with varying levels of brightness and even of colours unlikely to penetrate the eyelids of wary sleeping guards; I found my way in and out of the lobby using an extra dim blue-bulbed light (green is the most visible colour to human eyes, then red and white, and lastly blue. Look it up; trust me, I'm a sneaky fucker :D ) and slunk off with my free goods.
    Look, I may tell them about it in the morning, but honestly, if they're too cheap to put mosquito screens on the windows making every guest lose precious bodily plasma every night then a couple of errant orange juices and water bottles are quite an acceptable compensation, in my mind.

    -

    Still, none of this was actually any good, and in the end I had to bite the bullet around 2:39 in the morning (not that I was counting ;) ) and necked my last two precious Valium tablets, 20mgs of peace and quiet that might just let me rest my bones.
    I knew I had to be up and active at about 7:30am so this, frankly, was a stupid bloody idea and I should have had one of the things at half-past midnight and just set my watch alarm, but hindsight is only good for the philosophical and the smug, and I'm not feeling either this morning.

    The really great thing about the Valium, of course, was that once taken it I knew the time constraints weren't practical for my purposes so I ended up taking them not to sleep, but because it's actually really rather nice, is Valium, and it meant I could sit and read outside of my mosquito net (which never raises above the bed properly and always scrapes you annoyingly at both ends) and not give a shit about the frequent aerial mosquito assaults launched against me, because after twenty minutes I was over the irritation mountains and in the happy valley of contentment, and I spent the next couple of hours reading some superb books of humour and amusing myself with my medicine collection; adding a few normal strength painkillers to my stomach to make sure I really wasn't even noticing the mosquitoes, smearing soothing creams on my thumb wound where, in Madikeri, I had recently sliced a large part of it almost entirely off while out in the forest; before you panic as you read this, Mother dearest, it's really okay now thanks mostly to a stellar chap called Stefan who I was trekking with who, having served many years in the German army, knew what he was dealing with straight away he sorted it out and bandaged me up so well that it's almost healed already, only a few weeks later; and playing with that most favourite of ointments and creams: the Rumbalaya.

    Has anyone ever else got the Deep Heat out of the medicine cupboard at home when you hadn't actually pulled a muscle, and just experimented rubbing it over your limbs? It is a most satisfying experience and I recommend that if you have any in your house, that you go get some right now and spread it out over your shoulders. Give it a minute, wait for the soothing burn, and.... ahhhhhhhh. Doesn't that feel great?
    We've all got tension in our shoulders, unless we've actually acheived enlightenment and are sitting smugly somewhere under a lotus tree, so this is the best thing you can get next to a massage without a) having to leave the house, b) worry about whether the masseuse wants you naked or not (you can never tell, it's a bit of a minefield), and c) have to pay more than about £4.50 for the experience.

    I sat reading Bill Bryson's book about England, Notes From A Small Island, and the superb Bill Cosby volume called Time Flies, whch really is an excellent book. Bill Cosby is one funny, funny man, and even without the influence of Valium I found myself howling with laughter reading it. After a while I turned over happily to note that the tie was 5:15 in the ay-em already and dosed up another bodypart (tops of the thighs, always a little bit knackered, felt fantastic) with my trusty Rumbalaya and settled back for some more highly enjoyable, lightly-drugged reading pleasure.

    I drifted off somewhere about half past six (I heard the Muezzin calls at 6am so I made it well past that), ridiculously close to my target objective of sauntering down to the lobby at 7:00am to order an urn of tea and fire up the computers, and my emergency body clock only kicked in in time to wake me for 8:22 so, in fear of having already lost one of the only two internet computers in the lobby to some other early-rising bastard, and still quite heavily drugged by valium induced sleep clearly awoken from the deep sleep phase, I fell down the stairs, thanked tha Dark Lord that one of the computers was free, ordered an even larger than usual jug of black tea and began writing this little account :)

    I kept notes of all the times, and a few choice phrases that had occured to me during the Valium'ed phase throughout the night, but, due to my silly timing and inability to forward plan, this morning you are not seeing any more glorious photos of Hampi but are instead reading the dribble-laced account of one man who simply couldn't get to sleep :D

    Morning all!

    Current time -> 10:12am

  • New Faces: Total Trip Outline

    A couple of new things - I changed the background for this page (plenty of palm trees in the photos anyway!) because the loading times must have been getting a little silly, even on the non-photo posts, plus it is of course somewhat more relevant to the spirit of this blog. Still not ideal to my mind though; suggestions for a new backdrop are most welcome :)

    The way it displays is pretty appropriate, as I'm only visiting a tiny part of Africa and wont be in Europe again for nearly 3 years the bits that are left showing mostly cover where I'm going to visit, which is pleasantly convenient. Another quick thing - I spent today inviting a whole new crowd of people from the blog.co.uk site, so for the benefit of any of these guys who read the first page here, here are the facts of what I'm up to:

    I am in India at the moment, have been for the past 4 months now and will be leaving within 2 weeks or so for Laos (that's the quiet country next to Vietnam and Thailand) then down through Singapore just for a few days, and into Indonesia for a month or so. Sumatra, Borneo, Java, Papua - all the exotic places where you could never quite remember where they were ;) well they're pretty much all parts of Indonesia. See, you learned something already :D

    Then it's a couple of months for me in Australia, one whole year in New Zealand to kickstart my new career; whether that materialises into one of journalism, coffee-house slavery or male prostitution (hey, we all gotta make a living somehow and that Deuce Bigolo film wasn't all that bad ;) ) I can't reliably predict, but either way, whatever happens, I hope that I get to write in relation to my new job(s) and also that I get a lot better at it :) You just can't use smilies in professional journalism, so I am gonna have to learn some impressive language skills...

    South Africa should receive me briefly (a month or two maybe) some time in late 2009, then I'll be inflicting myself upon the Americas for hopefully at least another year and a half, basically wanting to live in and around the Amazon Basin countries and make use of my impressive Spanish skills, that I had better entirely learn while in New Zealand because right now all I know is the Spanish word for `shoe shop`, and I doubt that this level of linguistic maneuvering will get me out of trouble in deepest, darkest Bolivia. Speaking of which I have the strange desire, you may or may not believe this, to be shot at, and South America seems the best place to give this lethal little diversion a go.
    I think it would be fairer and a lot more accurate to say that I want to be shot at and get away, but the basic idea is the thrillseeking aspect of escaping a crazed bunch of gunmen. I don't really go into thrillseeking stuff much - yet - but part of the plan in spending a whole year in New Zealand is to allow me to jump out of aeroplanes, fling myself harnessed to nylon contraptions from cliff-faces, and attach large elastic bands to my feet and hurl myself from the nearest bridge, as it were.

    Just the thought of these things threatens to make inroads into my collection of laundered underpants, so in the spirit of overcoming one's fears, this basically is why I want to try and go do them. We'll see if I survive past New Zealand sometime about Easter 2009 :D

    -

    After South America it's central America, which gives me the excuse to traverse the Panama Canal, go to Jamaica on a decent excuse, and basically dick about in the Caribbean for as long as I can pretending to be a pirate.
    They also have a little place called `Cuba` around there, and I fancy drinking Banana Daquiris in street cafes and pretending that I'm Michael Corleone from the Godfather for a bit.
    Yes, the observant among you will remember that it was actually the treacherous Fredo Corleone ordering the daquiris in the film, but if I hadn't mentioned it you probably wouldn't have remembered that scene ;)

    -

    If I have any money left (unlikely, unless my writing improves and they pay me millions while I'm in New Zealand) I'll go on to Mexico, travel a little up the West coast of the United States taking in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and avoiding Las Vegas like the plague that it is, go through the rocky mountains into Vancouver in Canada, somehow make my way to Chicago then onto the East coast, New York, Washington etcetera, hopefully not come within one thousand miles of fucking Disneyland in Florida and catch a boat back across the Atlantic, and re-enter the land of hedgerows and Milky Tea that we call the United Kingdom via the green and lordly vale of Ireland, avoiding the poisoned North and drinking enough real Guinness in the proper part of the country to sink George Best.

    Thence to somewhere in Wales, possibly by a hastily enforced swimming lesson after making so many rude comments about Northern Ireland (I really have nothing against it and even don't really have any problems with the old IRA and UDF - except with "Doctor" Ian Paisley who is a charlatan and a bastard - but will they PLEASE just stop shooting each other? I know ostensibly this has happened but everyone still has a huge chip on their shoulder, it was all about a silly religious split and the English monarchy being so bloody stupid as to try and only take over part of a country, the accent is horrific when you hear it next to a dulcet and melodic native of the lovely Southern segment, it is industrialised to a point past sensibility, and the Guinness there, apparently, is dreadful. This last crime alone justifies my occasional nasty sniping comments), and finally coming back home to Southampton, where I shall immediately begin to plan my next two trips: Europe by bicycle and foot, and Africa by armoured personnel carrier.

    -

    Finally, some of the new guys I invited I noticed may be offended from time to time by my opinions on religion or nation states or whatever - your opinions are of course always as valid as mine and I welcome all debate and fresh ideas. I've had the odd ranting theological debates/tirades with my father from time to time; who will in a few months be a Deacon in the Catholic Church and is an extremely well educated student of theology (there ya go Dad, you get the occasional real compliment too :D ); so if you don't like anything I throw out there, please say so and we can politely slug it out, as it were :)

    Apart from that I'm a nice guy, so most people seem to think, and am always happy to welcome new faces and friends :)

  • PhotoOnslaught VII: The Quest for a New Title

    Hey! I just noticed that the clicking of photos from this here blog opens them in a new window anyway - hope this works for everyone. If that takes you to a page in my Photobucket account you can click the images again there for the full size version. Some of them, just one or two, are 7 megapixels in size, so it may reduce your computer to a whimpering slave for a second or two ;)
    99% of them are only 1600 x 1200 pixels in size or, in English, about the same size as a decently big monitor screen. So don't panic. Please insert your own impression of Lance-Corporal Jones from Dad's Army here :D Interestingly I couldn't remember the name for a minute there, and a quick search brought up this slightly charming little rundown of the characters from that Dad's Army.
    Always a favourite programme of my Grandfather, I'm rather fond of it myself, and found myself reading the whole list with more than just a touch of nostalgia, which I now invite you to do so, too :) - http://www.phill.co.uk/comedy/dadsarmy/char.html

    Another piece of goodness extracted from that site was this - a previously unknown Simon Pegg series! Well it was unknown to me anyway (Simon Pegg was the genius behind `Spaced` which was, obviously, the greatest audiovisual production ever created. Never heard of it? Well up yours :P )
    Anyway this previous series, called `Hippies`, must have been his first attempt to get paid real money for portraying a stoner on television, which is ideal for a man of his quality and vision seeing as he is, quite obviously, a stoner in real life. Or at least he definitely used to be ;) It didn't work out so well, but you can read a bit about it here: http://www.phill.co.uk/comedy/hippies/index.html

    -

    Anyway a bunch more pictures from me today, still at Hampi (well I was there for a month and did quite a lot of sightseeing - plus there was an incredible picture pretty much everywhere you looked). If you ever go to India, and only have time for one place besides the eagerly-escaped airports, I strongly recommend making it Hampi.

    This is the view of the sunset from the top of the Hanuman temple mountain, and I just wished to buggery that I had a proper SLR camera (and knew how to use the thing) so I could do this scene justice. My half-arsed attempts are just here:

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    And this is, I think, one of the best ways to illustrate the best and worst of Indian culture. Pretty bold claim for a hazy, poorly framed photo huh?
    Well the signs on the rocks; this is at the temple on Hanuman mountain; forbid anyone from climbing on them, even though it does no harm to anyone at all - the temple is at the top of a flight of almost 600 steps and not that many tourists could come here and wear down all the rocks ;) - and the sign on the far left which I really wanted to include but forgot about fosusing the thing properly, say `photography prohibited` and `no photographs` in big blue letters. This, on its own, would make it one of the most bureaucratic, pathetic and petty-minded little things I could even imagine, let alone see.
    The good part? Everyone ignores it, the monks have no problem with you climbing anywhere or photographing until your fingers blister. They have even built little stone paths between the more difficult rocky areas on the plateau to let everyone get everywhere aroudn the top of the mountain, which is immensely sweet of them.

    What almost certainly happened is some officious bureaucrat came up here with his red and blue paint pots, saw how much of an awesome thnig this was for people to experience and remember, and decided to try and stop anyone having any fun. I think this only because I have seen some strange and hitherto unrealised aspect of the human mind here in India, among those few annoying officials and unhelpful police I have spoken to; situations where they will go to great lengths to PREVENT you doing what you want to, need to, or feel like doing, just because it gives them a petty little thrill. It is what we know as the `little Hitler` mentality, people who have no power in their lives use whatever they can find through their jobs to make life difficult for other people, because it makes them strangely satisfied to think other people can be unhappy too.
    How fortunate for everyone that the Hanuman priests have no time for that nonsense, and disregard that petty little bastard's signs, and he was pretty handy with the paintbrush; there were big red crosses on all routes onto the rocks, messages of `no access` and `dont climb here` daubed on all available surfaces.
    There were reminders that photography was not only prohibited, but one rabid scrawling around the rear of the main rockhead proclaimed that `Photographs are illegal!` which I thought was really a step too far.

    Anyway you can hardly even see what I've been going on about here, just a couple of the red crosses and things - but the first time I went up there it got me thinking and it really got me annoyed, because I know just the kind of pathetic individual who would go and do that.
    Thankfully, these people as are rare as rocking horse shit, as my Mother used to say :P and we all got everything from the experience of the Hanuman temple that we could have:

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    Anyway after all that pious ranting, here are a bunch of extra-cute monkeys, doing monkey things (although I still don't have the ones that Holly took of the monkey on my shoulder! Holly where are you?!):

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    This one was heavily pregnant and the others were all grooming and looking after her:

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    And other monkeys - with baby monkeys! God, they are as ugly as a sackful of needles when they're young like this, but still unbelievably cute:

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    Monkeys and crows playing and squabbling on the edge of the mountain, in front of the most amazing view of the surrounding country:

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    There's some more of that mountain-top viewing:

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    Down at the lake (which I failed to jump into - gotta get over this fear of deep water!) there were some great photo oppurtunities but, unfortunately, you're going to have to flip them the right way up yourselves because Photobucket have just introduced some new gizmos to edit pictures that the computers here can't handle, so from now on, a few pictures way come up sideways. Sorry. They're quite lovely shots though:

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    The `lake` was really a reservoir, and you can see the cutoff edge in these pictures where the height of the place really becomes obvious; standing at the reservoir's far edge you could see right down into the most amazing valley of paddy fields, palm forests and banana plantations:

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    Of course all of those are from the jumpioong rocks well away from the edge, I hope I got some fo the valley below but we rode past it on the bikes each time, so I'm not sure if I did....
    ..anyway, more stuff! :

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    "Seven fat cows, and seven thin cows, and the all walked out of the water..."

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    Great shots of the little bridge you have to cross to get into the reservoir area proper - I saw this goatherd guy coming down the road, and scrambled like a mad bastard up onto a rocky outcrop in time to get the pictures while he was on the bridge:

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    Last thing I saw by the reservoir that day, was this rock cracked amazingly down the middle:

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    Back in Hampi town, this is how the levels of the river were dropping after just a couple of weeks:

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    And from the holy Hampi side (the non-beer side), taken from just above the top of the stone ghats:

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    And, finally for now, because I woke at 7am and it's 10:40 now and I haven't eaten yet (the things I do for you lot, honestly) these are the fields we crossed whenever we wanted to take the shortcut to our lodgings. Honestly, it's a hard old life.... :

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    Adios, for now, guys.

  • PhotoOnslaught VI: Timdiana Jones and the Temples of Doom. Well, Hampi.

    I'll get these photos up to date so I can start doing this like a proper travel writer if it kills me. There a LOT of photos in this one, but first of all in an effort to stay on top of the proper travel writing process; which is where a writer tells you about where he has just been while all the thoughts are fresh, and provides relevant and recent photographic evidence to back it up instead of parceling out the pictures from several months in the past - I'll just tell you quickly where I am right now. It's very nice, so a cup of tea while reading might make a pleasant choice of accompanying refreshment - I'm extremely pleased to say that there are absolutely no decapitations in today's entry :)

    >

    At the moment I am in the lovely city of Kochi (cochin) in a great value and very nice hotel that thankfully doesn't offer rooms with TVs within my budget. This means I might actually get out there and do something
    The hotel - the Sapphire tourist residency - while not selling food of any kind is also willing to serve me tea and coffee in containers so disproportionately massive that a human head could quite feasibly be stored inside of one, without any further reductions.

    They also have superb, by Indian standards, internet access right here in the lobby next to the tea and coffee deployment vats and the lobby itself is small, clean and charming, and offers a view of every arriving and departing guest which allows me to spot all the pasty white folk like me, an extremely easy method of surveilling fellow travellers, and even engage them in conversation if I feel like having any friends that day.

    Today I do not feel like having friends, nor anyone to have to speak to for more than a single sentence, except maybe the staff of the pizza hut again; after last night I need about 3 weeks in a rejuvenating vat of Aloe Vera and B-vitamins, and another couple of pizzas. They have a genuine American let's-make-yerr-fucking-fat-and-charge-ya-fucking-shitloads-ferr-it Pizza Hut here in Kochi, and after getting just a little crazy eating all the Indian food - which I honestly believe is done far better back in England because over here it almost all tastes of only 3 or for slightly unpleasant things - I went there after rising bright and early only slightly after midday, and ate two whole disks of gloriously Western food that made me happier than I ever thought possible.

    The lobby here really is very nice; it also lets me scope out all the attractive Western female travellers, which makes it a lot easier than usual to practice my chat-up tricks and try and bed a few more Scandinavians (I'm only joking honey XX Mostly joking, anyway... :D )

    Unfortunately, the table and chair combination directly supporting this internet access setup is just slightly too achingly small in its size, and is all solid wood construction making adjustments totally impossible.
    The only way to make myself properly comfy here, I suppose, would be to slice small portions from the bottom of my feet, a discomfort issue I will avoid and simply put up with the usual `made for Indians`-sized furniture one, and have the soft tissues of my knees slowly pressed into a jelly.

    -

    Photographs:

    Right, we're back at Hampi again and, yes, there are still rather a lot of photos of the temples and suchlike ancient scenery. There are also a whole bunch of nice landscape shots buried in with them, and I hope I remembered to take a couple in high resolution because some of the views we had over there were absolutely breathtaking.

    Just a couple of carvings here first off - as usual, click the links for the full pictures. If you didn't know it, you can right-click on the links and choose to open them each in a new window, so save this bloody website from constantly taking you off this page!
    I mention this just in case, because some fo the links really are worth seeing, a lot of people don't know you can do that, and it is infuriating to say the least when your computer navigates you all over the internet when all you want to do is read one bloody page of it.

    Some female god, probably one of the five million or so incarnations of Ramayan or Devi - very good detail though:
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    Hanuman, looking all the tough-guy-simian-deity thing as usual:
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    Some.....thing, Man or woman, I have no idea:
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    Hanuman again:
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    And a man or god that is either running reeeeaaallly fast, or just does not know how to dance well at all:
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    Okay, onto the cool stuff; the temple entrance left standing alone at a site near Kings Balance; subsidence and a few earthquakes have cracked the entire structure as you can see, and the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) teams restoring Kings Balance nearby will get to work saving this pretty soon, too:

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    This is from one of the buildings in the impressive Vittala temple complex - the reason the stonework in this 500-year-old site looks so clean is because it was disassembled and removed for individual restoration, and I took this shot because you can still see the numbering on the stonework that allowed the ASI teams to take away and fully re-erect this massive, hugely important historic site:
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    Lizard I caught on the temple wall. Reptiles: aren't they just the coolest creatures?:

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    Another building from the Vittala complex; there are some parts that just can't be restored safely so, just like the Colloseum in Rome, vast concrete slopes exist to keep the structure's integrity intact and keep the whole vast edifice from crashing down. It ain't pretty, but it lets these things survive:

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    Small temple shrine on the way to Vittala, near the site they call the Kings Balance:

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    A slightly closer shot of that, if you want it:

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    Part of a temple complex I can't even remember:

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    The front of that solitary temple entrance we saw before - this is the real beauty of the site, as you can see the cracking at the rear has only partly come through to the front of the structure:

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    And these are a few of the ASI guys putting back together some of the Kings Balance site:

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    This is the main thing standing at Kings Balance, and seems to be what the King was actually Balancing, which leads me to believe yet further that the Kama Sutra was perhaps popular reading, back in its day ;) :

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    The majority of the Kings Balance site:

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    Same site from further up the hill, a pretty typical thing around Hampi; a massive scene of rolling hills and impossible boulders, with lonely temples and ancient Bazaars standing in the middle of the scenery:

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    The hill with the Hanuman temple at the top - 575 step lead up to it and the builders had never heard of a ruler - every single step seemd to be of a different height or depth, making the walk up it not just energy-sapping but tortuously irritating as your footfalls kept stopping or dropping unexpectedly or you had to spend the whole time staring at where your feet were going. If you did that of course, the monkeys might come and pinch everything on or near you not actually stapled in place, so those ancient builders were receiving some very modern cursing and swearing from me every time I went up or down that path.
    I walked 5 kilometres in the baking midday heat to get these photos of the path going up the side of the mountain, then took a rickshaw to a nearby village the next week and saw the whole thing much closer and with far better views of the winding, walled steps. C'est la vie... :

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    Most boulders around Hampi were playing this sort of game with gravity and the minds of tourists:

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    A tree dropping aerial roots, and the occasional monsoon landslide, had turned this anciently paved path into an uneven and unusable roadway - now, it is part of a peasant's land and the course of progress alonside the river, to and from the Kings Balance site, has had to be drastically changed. plus, it makes a lovely picture don'tcha think? (you don't need to answer that ;) ):

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    From the top of the Kings Balance site you can see the post-holes cut into the rock for the future restoration of the ancient monument - and the lake beyond is actually part of the river, so wide and shallow it makes you forget how powerful and fast it is just a little bit downstream. The mountain hosting the Hanuman temple can be seen on the far left, in the distance:

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    Boulders fucking with gravity again:

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    This was the view from inside one of the bazaars, the main Hampi bazaar in fact, thankfully this part of it is entirely bereft of tourist traps, beggers, panhandlers and autorickshaw drivers!:

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    That same deserted end of Hampi bazaar, at a quiet time of day even so and viewed from the edge of the pillared corridor from the last picture:

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    And this might just be the coolest schoolhouse in the world - only for the infants, and this was a day off or something, but that ancient building is now where Hampi's youngest residents learn their ABCs (and their 3 `R`s: Religion, religion, and religion ;) ) :

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    I tried to get a good photo that would show you all how the people here live inside the ancient structures around the bazaar - like the school, this pillared building serves as house, home and garden for a small group of families. They even string their washing line from the stonework:

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    Now this, this could have been a brilliant photo in its own right in so many ways; the angle and colour of that line of water was just begging to be framed up and photographed; but this kid just wouldn't leave it - or me - alone. So I got one that shows up something quite neatly in itself anyway; the kid is playing with one of the spinning top toys that English kids gave up as "just so last year, Gooooohhd Mom" in about the 19th Century - but it's all hundreds of the kids around here need to keep them happy, and more power to them for that. He was an annoying little tyke, wouldn't stop tugging my arm and showing me what he could do with the top thing, but this is where he gets his fun; and this is where he has to - right next to a stream of poisonous, acid-green water running right through the bazaar just outside his home. That's a water standpipe where locals draw drinking water from in the middle of it, by the way:

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    The smaller Gopuram of the Virupakshur temple complex at the rear of the picture. I never did get inside that one even though I walked past it almost every day; the day I went to look at last I found they wanted 250 Rupees for it (the same as entrance to 3 huge complexes just down the road), and it was tiny and still in use so you couldn't even fart in there without causing some heinous hanging-worthy sacrilege, and they wanted you to leave your shoes outside in a big pile right near loads of panhandlers, and I'd had another pair of mine stolen the day before. So, I thought with a sound mental balancing of the available cultural benefits and vital insights into the workings of a real Hindu temple; Fuck It. Anyway here it is:

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    The main Virupakshur Gopuram, from the bottom, obviously. It is angled so steeply inwards after a few dozen feet that you can see only the first few layers from here:

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    Monkey:

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    Monkey again:

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    A power-sharing exercise between cows and crows; so they are handy for something, then (the crows I mean):

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    And I thought this was just a neat shot, a crow right between the horns of a cow:

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    COOL SCENERY:

    Some of the divisions among the paddy fields make for some great lines and angles:

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    And some of the rocky plateaus offer great vies up above them:

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    Mount I-ain't-climbing-you,-bitch seen once again from near the ground. You ain't gonna see it from much higher than this ;) :

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    And proof! Proof yet again that I'm actually in India - yay!!! :

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    Stupid pose provided free of charge :D

    These are the ghats where early morning washing of clothes takes place by the men and women from the entire town. Still in Hampi, South side of the river in the holy part (where you can't get a beer) the photo taken from me riding on the boat back to the North side (where you can get a beer but it's still illegal, so sometimes you have to get it served in teapots). The word `ghat` means mountains, ceremonial steps, and high altitude paths, depending on context, but you can see the kinda correlation I'm sure:

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    A view down the river:

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    And some more carvings, a whole row of them seried along the stones by the boat docking area:

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    More carvings, from the outside of the Ranazana temple I think....:

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    A cool little miniature temple carved in the side of the massiviature (sic) temple of the Ranazana complex:

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    I found thjis tiny thing out the back of the Elephant Stables, untouched for decades and the ASI boys hadn't got round to working on it yet. It was protected by only a flimsy triple layer of barbed wire and a massive ditch - no match for me, my heavy walking boots and the nice fresh bloody grazes on my back :D :

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    Have a look around this picture and try and find all the tenmples and shrines - there six in all, and this is just one random hillside out the back of the Elephant Stables complex in the middle of nowhere!! This really used to be a major population centre of one of the ancient (Vijayanangar) empires:

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    The funnelled web of a funnel-web spider; these are, literally, everywhere in India:

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    Another part of the templed land I found around the back of the Elephant Stables - thing is, I just wandered down a random path between a banana plantation looking for somewhere to relieve myself of some excess fluids I was needlessly carrying about, and I saw the little ramshackled shrine hidden by the barbed wire and the ditch. I investigated after divesting myself of about half a pint of processed 7-UP and found not just that, but this:

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    Then I looked over to my side and found THIS:

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    A whole abandoned fort of some kind, without even a signpost or any kind of road or even pathway access. All there was was an ancient sign from the government; the usual one about ancient protected monuments; but it was rusting and weathered, and I don't think anyone has even thought about this place for the last 30 years. Only in Hampi could you just lose an entire ancient fort.

    Let's play the hidden temple game again; there are 6 in this picture:

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    And another 7 in this one, although one or two of them are the same ones from the last photo:

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    These are the cute little chipmunk, squirrel creatures you see all over. They may be pests to some but , gosh darn it, aren't they cute? :

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    They can climb upside won pretty well too:

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    This is the Lotus Mahal, a symetrical shrine of some antiquity in its own private grounds called the Ranazana complex. Yes, that's what that is all about; a great big garden for this:

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    I found yet another little museum inside the same complex with another vast collection of carvings of gods and characters from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata; I'm gonna bore you with the pictures because these ones are actually quite good:

    Hanuman:

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    Nagini:

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    And one of a pair of elephants outside the gates - but Not Ganesh, who sits like a human, has the usual over-adequate supply of Hindu god's arms, and carries stuff in them like sceptres and maces, swords and vases, scrolls, severed heads and bloody sickles. Most Hindu gods have some anger issues, I suspect, but anyway here's that elephant:

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    Me at the Elephant Stables, again proving that I actually did come to India and am not hiding out at a small internet cafe in Slough :D I may have had a drastic haircut but I still haven't learned to shave, obviously:

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    The Elephant Stables, amazing in size and detail, and age - these were each home to a royal elephant, 500 years of monsoons, not-so-civil wars, general neglect and pachyderm shit and still they're standing and looking pretty damn cool. I really, really love elephants, and even being in the place where these creatures were living for hundreds of years under various Maharaja's rule made me all warm and fuzzy inside:

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    This was that museum in the Ranazana/Lotus Mahal grounds, formerly quarters for staff of the elephant stables and the Maharaja's other personal peons, chefs, flaying victims etc ;) :

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    The roof of the Stables:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture127.jpg

    The side view along the Stable front:

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    And some more of the domes of the stables themselves:

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    Each dome is slightly different, all are unique as I imagine were the creatures that once inhabited them.

    This was a gate tower in one corner of the Ranazana compound:

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    And this was one, in another corner:

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    The Lotus Mahal again from the outside:

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    There was a vast layered foundation in the middle of this compound, the foundation for the great palace that once stood there for the Queen; because this was her personal enclosure int he days of the Maharajas. The Lotus Mahal was built as a symbol of love for her by one of the rulers, but the palace - her actual living quarters - wasn't left in much more of a state other than its base layers. Excavations nearby showed that foundations for another, smaller building were huge and deep and there is a belief, according to the kindly tour guides that I eavesdropped on (I wasn't gonna pay for it when a bunch of fat Americans already have done) that the Queen's personal palace would probably have been something really quite huge, perhaps a hundred and eighty feet tall which, for a building to actually live in in those days (because of the space needed inside - you couldn't just make it solid stone like the Gopurams at the Virupakshur temple) really was something incredible. These foundations are all we can see of it above ground:

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    Another corner of the same complex was guarded over by this tower:

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    Which looked pretty cool from the ground:

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    I just had to sneak some photos of these ancient weapons artefacts in the museum - this one was less guarded but Indian tourists were everywhere, and I didn't wanna get shouted oput of the compound!:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture110.jpg

    Far better quality, this great black marble statue of Ganesh, one of the best I've seen in India:

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    And another marble, lathe-turned pillar:

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    -

    Back in Hampi, on the flimsy little boats that ferried us all across the river twice each day, they carried up to, I counted one particularly full load, up to twentyseven, that's 27 people, and, when needed, a motorbike as well on the front. These boats were only about 12 feet long abd when this full, the waterline was about a half-inch from the sides! Anyway, this is the best shot I could get of it, seeing as I was one of the 27 myself:

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    Right that's it, too much for today already, going slightly mad. I hope to return with the actual written stuff soon, if I get another few mountainous jugs of coffee, maybe even tonight :) Toodle-pip!

  • PhotoOnslaught V: Revenge of the Pith(y comments)

    The titles are geting worse, I know that now. I'll move onto Indiana Jones stuff or something soon , I promise.

    Anyway, just before I go crazy and throw a bunch more photos of the temple sites around Hampi at you, I would like to say a few words:

    Argh.
    Ouch.
    Help!
    ShitShitShit!
    Oh, fuuuuuck....
    &
    thank god it wasn't me.

    See, things have been a little weird and dangerous here lately, for strange reasons. On monday, I was a little bit drunk and in my nice new shiny hotel (I checked into another 3-star-alike place; it's not really up to 3-star-standard but the cockroaches are always very polite, and the prices are very reasonable) and I tried a little trick that Chris taught me in his apartment block in Little Britain in London - yes there is actually a street called Little Britain, it's in the City near to St. Pauks - which is that when in a lift you can press on the inside walls while moving up or down and create a terrifying screeching noise that really puts the shits up everyone in the lobby, particularly funny if you're heading that way yourself and upon ariving you casually saunter from the lift compartment a if nothing like a nuclear holocaust had been heard by you at all, and stare into their mortified visages, carefree and insouciant as if you have no idea what sounds of the hellbeasts coming from their liftshaft could possibly have been, and that it must all be in their imaginations, the silly little souls.

    A jaunty tapping of your room key on the reception desk and a cheery backwards wave as you leave once more for the pub makes this whole exercise even more rewarding; the challenge is keeping a straight face until you get around the nearest corner.
    Really, the sounds this little trick produces are terrifying, especially in large marble-lined and echoing lobbies, where the lifts face the reception desk, such as there were in my hotel.

    So, I did it - in fact I ran along the stairs up an extra floor to make the effect even more dramatic and so that the the hellish sounds last even longer, but, quite stupidly, totally forgot that this was an underfunded, loosely-maintained piece of Indian engineering and that even the slightest abnormality in its operation could have led to fatal occurences. I started on the 3rd floor, pressed the key for the lobby and, giggling like an idiot braced myself fully at 90 degrees to the door's opening and leant my full and impressive weight upon each wall, which apparently destroyed the lift's mechanisms almost instantly, made me drop at least a floor in less than a quarter of a second, and set off alarm bells all around, although I realised after a second that these were just in my head and that I had to press the panic button manually, which I did. At length.

    After a minute or two a voice came back on the intercom to ascertain that their valued guest was still alive, and after 20 minutes of me slamming myself into the lift's doors trying to force them one way, and the staff on the first floor pulling on them the other way, I eventually stopped to get my breath back and the doors opened a few inches and it became clear I was trapped between the first and ground floors, and that there was a gap of about 18 inches above me that I had to clamber up through.
    Knowing the lift had already fallen I instantly realised what would happen if it failed again as I was halfway through this narrow gap - that I would be sliced into two neat halves.

    Rarely have I moved so fast in a vertical direction, the Royal Marines would have been impressed at the display of obstacle vaulting, and I hardly even noticed the huge bruises on my knees and elbows until some time later.
    Needless to say, the lisft is out of order, and has been for five days now.

    Hooray for English tourists - it's given me a bit of exercise though, going a couple of floors up the stairs about 5 times a day.

    -

    The other thing of mild terror were the murders; and the city being shut down for 2 days. I'm in Kannur right now, Northern Kerala, and the Communist Party if India (Marxist) or CPI(M) as the papers all call them, took a bit of a disliking to some of the memnbers of the BJP party (I have no idea what that one stands for, make uo your own rude acronym decoder yourself ;) ) and they dragged an autorickshaw driver from his vehicle on Wednesday morning, beat him, cut off one of his hands, and then stabbed him to death, right down the road from me near the train station.
    They also dragged a lorry driver from his vehicle and stabbed him to death, too - the BJP boys didn't take it all lying down though, they beat and stabbed a Commie to death that same night somewhere downtown, all apparently in retaliation for what some bearded Russian Idealist said about all the rich people 150 years ago.

    Fucking, fucking politics - the police moved in 600 officers, half of them firearms officers, and shut down the whole city for most of wednesday and the entirety of Yesterday, not a single shop was open about from hotel restaurants and one little phone shop.
    Every mall was closed, every little precint abandoned. The streets were pretty much deserted for miles around the centre - I know this because on Thursday morning (I hadn't left the hotel much at all on wednesday) I woke up at 6am and took a 10 or 12 kilometer walk around the city's poorer and less commercialised suburban areas, largely around the Muslim district although I only noticed it was such after seeing the 16th or 17th Mosque looming into view ;)

    As it was, it was about the safest place I could be, this was all about politics, not religion, although even there there was a virtual curfew and only snack stalls and fruit sellers were open for business. I got back to the city centre about midday and tried to find a net cafe - or in fact anything at all - that was open, but the entire city centre was locked up, not a single shop was open after 2 more hours of wandering about, only a phone shop, the staff of which didn't seem to want to talk to me anyway.

    Last night, Thursday night, somewhere in the streets of the city centre the Communist Party of India (Marxist) workers dragged another autoprickshaw driver from a street corner and, after blow up several explosives in his general direction, decapitated him right there in the road.
    And who said war was the continuation of politics by other means - politics is simply the justification of murder by any means, or so it seems to some poeple around here.

    I'm leaving in - one hour now, in fact, and don't have time for any of those photos I'm afraid. I just had to share that with you - I'll see you all (figuratively speaking) from Fort Kochin some time tomorrow.

    Ciao for now.

  • Photographic Demon(stration)s

    Okay the picture thing is really getting to me now. The dilemma I face is that, unti I catch up on what has already happened, what I commentate on in the here-and-now bears so little relevance to my mind that I may as well not bother doing anything. Plus, these fucking keyboards keys always stick and the process of re-editing everey single line is in itself an exercise in personal restraint; making me wan to kill things but just about having the wil power to save lives. Goddam this is annoying though!!

    Annyhooo - Here is the news: a bunch more pictures are available for your viewing pleasure, just bear in mind that most are gonna be wihout proper explanation:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture071.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture070.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture069.jpg

    The four-pillared templed gates at Ramazanhana:

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    Some things:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture065.jpg

    Some goats:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture064.jpg

    A rather impressive gateway somwhere out on the Hampi hills:

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    Yet another temple ruin:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture061.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture059.jpg

    -

    And some weird gateway I came across while trekking through to the Viittala temple:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture058.jpg

    And scenic pillar scenes, too:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture056.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture055.jpg

    -

    I'd like to finish this short entry with a little carving of Nagini, the snake god purloined so effortlessloy by J.K. Rowling as the name of her bad guys's (Voldemort's) chief snake creature thing, in the finest spirits of unimaginative plagiarism. But still, it's quuie well done, really, for soething over 1600 years old don'tcha think?

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    Ta ta For now.. :)

  • Photos, Episode IV: Attack of the Stones

    Is anyone actually getting the Star Wars jokes in these photo post titles? I hope so. They take so long to think up ;)

    So, here we are again at Hampi - I will skip the architectural stuff (well, most of it) and concentrate on the scenery. If anyone wants any more of anything leave a comment below, I have any amount of images of ancient carvings, palaces, trippy scenery etc.

    Okay I lied, all the scenery stuff is on the next album - so this is mostly temples, carvings and architectural loveliness. Archeologists please adjust your seats for maximum comfort.
    Demolition engineers please leave the room ;)

    -

    So, this is the old Krishna temple ruins with the big water tank from the last photo post seen just behind the pillared structure, and the ancient Krishna Bazaar off on the right. Please note the impossibly balanced rock to the left of the picturre - Hampi's a lot like that all over the place:

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    You can see a lot mroe of the bazaar here, if that's your sort of thing:
    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory075.jpg

    Temples, sculptures, carvings etc, right here:
    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory069.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory068.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory067.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory066.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory065.jpg

    This one is quite cool actually:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory064.jpg

    As is this one, great piece depicting an elephant:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory063.jpg

    -

    Alright, this guys is cool. A statue of Yoga Narasimha, the fourth incarnation of Lord Vishnu, if I'm not mistaken (their gods liked to make frequent loosely scheduled appearances), bit of an ugly bastard but this is a monolithic statue almost 7 metres tall (23+ feet) a few kilometres fom Hampi town, all carved from one piece but unfortunately the ravages of time have broken off most of his arms (and he did have quite an adequate supply, as usual). Still, it's quite a piece of work nonetheless:

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    -

    These next few are from the Vittala Temple, Ramanzana complex and Elephant stables, all of which I had to pay twenty-five times as much as an Indian national to get into to look at, so you'd better bloody appreciate them, a'ight? ;) :D

    These are the pillars that support ther Vittala temple - there are hundreds of these, all carved to the same level of detail. Some piece of work eh? They're at least about 7 feet tall as well:

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    Dragon carvings that edge the stepped entrances to most of the more imortnat temples - these are probably the best preserved of them all, again, lovely peices of work:

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    Inside the Vittal temple compound, one of the many ceremonial halls complete with the `musical` pillars`:

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    -

    Those climbers/jugglers/stoners I met in Palolome them again in Hampi, Darrol, Adam `Fucking` Wherley, and Reuben:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory050.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory049.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory047.jpg

    -

    I may have mentioned something about a moniolithic Ganesh stature, and here he is. Perfectly preserved, and housed in his own little temple - a great addition to the atmosphere around Hampi:

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    -

    Just a view across the paddy fields out the back of Hampi village, nice reflections in the water, I thought:

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    A couple of Egrets in the paddy fields - had to wait ages to get close enough to them, and even then the focus wasn't quite up to it on my little digital camera. Still, I got a lot more wildlife later one :D -
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    Hampi Virupakshur temple complex from the side of the lower tower, or Gopuram:

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    A bouldered hill:

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    Sule Bazaar:

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    A lathe-turned pillar I snuck a photo of in a museum:

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    Sule bazarr ith yet another bouldered hill in the background:

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    -

    The stone chariot in the Vittala Temple. The wheels used to actually turn and life-sized carved elephants were once attached to the front - now sadly removed and/or destroyed. Still, the chariot is pretty damn cool! :

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    The main Vittala Temple - the musical pillars all produce different notes when struck,, and songs used to be played on them for important ceremonies and royal weddings. Each pillar i differently sized and none of them actually connect with the roof - only the others inside do the job of supporting the actual roof. It is in the middle of a major restoration now, and I couldn't go inside:

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    That stone chariot again:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture104.jpg

    And again:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/Picture103.jpg

    -

    Another of those step-flanking stoneworks - another brilliant peice of artwork I think:

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    Some spooky temple:

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    - And I thought this was quite a cool shot, inside the Vittala complex with a withered tree and one of the few remaining monks wandering beside the partially ruined temple:

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    -

    Some of the best, best preserved and most ornate carvings in all of India, or so they say:

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    -

    And just a few more photos of pillars and shit like that and we're done for the day - yay! (is anyone still actually awake out there?)

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    My word, but I had no idea how many pictures of this stuff I had. Honestly, I'm going a little crazy with it all.

    The moral of the wotry? Keep up to date with my photo postings, don't leave it until there are over a thousand with nothing done to them!!
    I'll try and spare you most of the rest, don't worry...

    Shanti!

  • Star farce: a New Pope

    Oh god, this is just genius funny. You need to be a bit of a Star Wars geek to appreciate it but hey, it's pretty sweet anyway:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ9sJVJMiYM

    Hoping at least a few of you will get the joke in the name; it kinda fits rather neatly with all my bad star wars jokes about the names of the photo posts recently, too - thanks to the guy from The Secular Backlash and in turn his blogging mate Pharyngula for the link.

  • Breakout!

    Doesn't inspiration come at the damndest of times? Sitting on the toilet is my mind's personal favourite trick to play, also any time out on a quiet walk somewhere where you don't have pen or paper, and even if you did there's just no way you could get all those elusive little thoughts and phrases down in writing before most of them slipped away, little silvery fish of creativity that they are.

    The other and, most annoying, time and place for these lost moments of thought in time is while travelling in a busy city, or better yet, on a bus. This has been happening to me a lot recently, I need a dictaphone and I'll just have to get over the fact I hate the sound of my voice.
    The least marvellous part of it all is that you'll look a little insane with one of these things, talking apparently to yourself on a major roadway, public park or pavement, and the problem of the matter is that half the things I think of are less than pleasant about the people around me.
    Not that I think badly of them more than anyone else thinks any worse of any other human beings, but my observations always come from all angles, being the fair and just fellow that I usually am, and the nice facets of a stranger's air and outward appearance are so much easier to think of after the fact, whereas watching the fat arse of some over-zealous pie-eater blocking pavement traffic is a lot easier to note as it happens, and thoughts of kindness, justification for their fat arses and wellwsishing for the success of their next diet are so often better crafted a little later, once you have finished your outraged circumnavigation of their gigantic behind and onto the pathway ahead. It is also usually arranged in your mind a little more entertainingly at the time too, as a rule.

    Today, though, I don't have a problem with this :D

    -

    I have a strange and slightly silly story to tell. It centres around hotels, as some places have the outright audacity to call themselves, more often than not whereas words like `borstal`, `correctional facility`, and `penitentiary` line up in your mind far more readily once you have braved the check-in process.

    I stayed at one in Madikeri, a place where I can share the details of quite soon. The room was cheap, I wasn't expecting much, and for only 200 Rupees a night I didn't get it. I was surprised and impressed that the cell walls actually included something a bit like an en-suite bathroom, although they also included an open drain and a window that was incapable of being shut, so on the first night back from the trek I presume one of these basic breaches of healthful security was how the cockroach got in.

    It was about the size of a small hatchback family car, with feelers further extending out from the front of the beast that were far larger than a Nissan Micra's windscreen wipers could ever hope to amount to. They could doubtless clean the windscreen of my Mum's old Micra a shitload better than the factory issue ones ever could, that's for sure.

    I don't really mind insects, not even cockroaches large enough to eat a whole human torso in one bite, but with a huge gap under the door to the `en suite` I felt something had to be done, so, with great regret, much remorse, and a neckerchief to protect my precious respiratory organs I sprayed it for a full half-minute with a concoction made of 50% DEET; the other half possibly being a mix of Agent Orange and cyanide.
    After about 5 minutes of poor, awful, and guilt-inducingly pained wriggling the wretched thing upended itself in the classic "I've had enough now fetch the fucking priest please" posture and, with a little help from a shovel and a kindly local crane operator I managed to cram it back out of the window, where it fell two floors and killed three people and a passing cow.
    Such is life - T.I.I.!!

    -

    On a more serious and totally truthful note, I had to abseil out of my hotel in Cannanore this morning. I hyave since left and found myself a proper place to spend m,y money in, but this place was worth it for the experience alone...

    The owners were, unfortunately probably still are somewhat lax when it comes to basic hotel management - I'm getting a pretty good feel for these things by now and this place will probably be shut down by the government health and mental care departments pretty soon.
    The price for a room at 300 Rupees for a backstreet motel with darkened, flickering corridors lit on aggregate only 50% of the time thanks to exceedingly bad wiring and some very cheap flourescent lightbulbs, was not exactly inspiring, or encouraging.
    The place is patrolled both by smirking, mustachioed grease-magnets of receptionists/clerks who probably think they represent the very peak of international hospitality, and also by murky, suspiciously lurking and only half-glimpsed janitors swathed in clothing usually only seen inside mental institutions, or maybe just very briefly right outside of the walls before they develop a patchy shades of crimson. ;)

    Anyway, these proper Charlies lock the gates at night - all the gates - and with a bed you could break rocks on (someone had already experimented with this by the feel of it), a TV with no English channels, and excessively obtrusive noise from the wailing fellow inmates and the snoring staff sleeping on the floor right outside my door, I just had to get out.
    Trouble was it was 3:30AM and the asylum probably didn't open for new inmates until about 10, so, patrolling about the place I found that the `hotel` itself was actually just one of many, many small businesss forming part of one of the little malls you see dotted everywhere in Indian cities - basically a lower parade of little shutter-fronted shops, a walkway mirroring the pavements one floor above and then another parade of shuttered shops again mirroring the establishments below.

    Thankfully they had included railings in the design of this upper section, lest anyone ever realise the dreadfulness of the places there and decide to end it hop off and all, so, knowing that there was a 24-hour tea and coffee shop in a posh hotel a few blocks away, and with a desperate and desperately English yearning for a few hundred cups of tea, I found a window that was `forceable` (I only had to kick it a bit) and climbed out, onto the little legde between shopfronts, and managed to edge along and grab the railings, getting onto the upper walkway.

    Bear in mind here please that a) it was about 4am by this point and no-one could see me, but I couldn't see very much either, and b) I really fucking wanted some fucking tea, so this didn't actually require much deliberation. I saw my goal and just went for it.
    The cunning part was the Parachute cord I have been carrying around since November - thought I was daft did you, eh? - well I just looped it around the lower railings, gave myself a double-thickness line down to the ground, stripped off my shirt to wrap about my right hand and, with a single loop around the shirt tyo slow my descent slid myself straight down two storeys and onto the ground, landing only slightly heavily but with a pretty well controlled descent. Not even a friction burn from the cord either, but when I wandered into the coffee place at half past four in the morning my shirt looked like I'd wiped my arse with it.

    Still, you can't have everything. I redeemed myself by checking into the far more luxuriant and expensive hotel next door and now enjoy telephone room service, laundry by telephonic demand, and staff who had never been subjected to suspicious medical experiments back in the 1950s.

    Some of them even have ridiculous hats; I feel right back at home again :)

  • PhotoOnslaught III: The Phantom Pennist (yes, I said pennist. As in `writer`)

    I realise that the last post contained 2 identical pictures of the elephant chariot. Far be it from me to go back and correct such an easy and easy reconcilable mistake, I believe that precisely none of you would bot5her to go back and look, even I asked you real nicely. So here is the promised Queens's palace from some 400/600 years ago:

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    Wasn't it worth waiting for? Well actually no, which is why I got some good shit for you later on instead :)

    The following, by the way, isn't it. It's just a bunch more statuary, engravings, carvings and the like thyat I was encouraged to photograph so as not to hurt my guide's feelings, which of course I did.
    Photograph them of course, not hurt his feelings. That would just have been cruel:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory095.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory096.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory097.jpg

    That last one is hard to see but it's of the spear, or rather the trident, that the god Rama cast at his enemies on the hills after the little rough 'n' tumble they all had with Hanuman the monkey god, you remember from the last post? You do remember I hope? Jeez, you're not paying any attention are ya? Well Screw it, I'm a-carrying on anyways.
    Rama was, is, the principal character from that lenghty olof poen thje Ramayana, the one that, like the Mahabharata, forms the basis of all Hinduism.
    Think of them like the bible, but with a bigger budget for actors, and a smaller budget for costumes.
    You see these things on Indian TV all the time; re-enactments from both books; and all unsavoury and tasteless joking about people from one country all looking alike, these guys had literally one wardrobe manager for every show and he was a little bit slow in the head.
    The servants and kings all have the same headress', helmets, armour and chariots.

    I guess contracting these things out en-masse to the same production company back in 1981 wasn't such a great idea when they wanted to fire up the imagination of India's youth ;)

    Anyway, at least the scenery far surpasses the early audiovisual skills of 1980s television companies; this is the view from the temple of Rama's spear:

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    I took a little walk out on the road to Anegondi one day; about 4km in the middle of the day, it wasn't a very clever idea; but I did get a couple of photos that show the river at its narrowest pass - here and one other place the normally 150-foot wide river blasts through these channels only about 8 feet across. The water must be about 40 feet deep and, if you fell in, the currents would likely tear you in half before you even left the crevasse:

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    More temples - there is a never-ending supply here, in case you hadn't guessed - this one of Ganesh although the monolithic statue is elsewhere; and is quite spectacular:

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    The carvings on the pillars are amazing, and these are just some very simple examples:

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    .....and I hunted high and low for this, tracked wild beasts (well pretty tame, actually) through temnples and towns, hills and valleys, tried in vain to catch a single image that shows you just how commonplace cows are in this country. The cows aren't all that is common of course; the course of nature runs easily for, through, these mild mannered beasts and thanks to a natural stoicism, a highly-evolved olfactory ineficiency, and a slightly ludicrous religious requirement to deny themselves of the tastiest of meats the domesticated realm of animalia has to offer, these beasts can walk the Earth unmolested by man and his well-sharpened knives.
    Quite why these an animals are revered when pigs, chickens and goats are cooked for food, and when elephants and tigers are unthinkingly slain whenever they threaten crops or wildlife (something cows are quite adept at themselves) is beyond me, but hey. Here is a typical street scene from India:

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    -

    Tanks; not mechanised contraptions of mass murder but basically publiuc baths; are a pleasantly common and aesthetically superb part of many landscapes. I wouldn't bathe in one of these myself no matter how many bottle of SDailor Jerry you promised me, quite frankly, but still - they do look fanmtastic, don't they?

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    I must apologise for the brevity of this entry, the lack of interesting detail provided along aith it, and the slightly rude manner in which I have presented one or two details.
    Rest assured all these are products of a long day, long overdue in fact, typing up a few thoughts and plodding steadily through the many hundreds of pictures I have left to go.

    Do not worry however! All the entries concerning and containing photographs will be obviulsy labelled and you can skip over the dozens of boring carvings, idiotic temple structures, silly little bits of scenery and other such visual tripe as you might care not to see.

    Now I'm off for lunch, it's 5pm, and since massacring the buffet at an unsuspecting 4-star hotel this morning I haven't had a thing to eat.

    Really, I do almost feel sorry for the poor buggers who lay out these buffets when they bhave no idea, no idea at all that I am due to arrive.

    Toodle pip!

  • Photo Onslaught Episode 2: return of the JPEG

    I am behind. Waaaaay behind in all my computerised dealings - finally having caught up with Mangalore, I now realise I missed out on another important city, Mysore. Well, I sorta missed out - I missed all the important stuff anyway, fom your point of view so now, I am playing catch-up. Get ready.... -

    Temples in Hampi, rocks in Hampi, many more and other things from, surprise surprise, Hampi. Here are many of the best:

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    The walled palace of siome queen or other (it was such a long time ago, sorry..) but please, notice the detail on the wall carvings - these are some of the best in all of India:

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    The Underwater Palace - the whole centre of this thing is flooded. VERY Indiana Jones :D

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    Direct links to some more pictures of the place; (clicky for biggy images):

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory143.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory145.jpg

    These things are wonderful - stonework guttering in the shape of Elephant's trunks - not to let the blood flow out, gore fans, but simply as guttering because water was used in many offerings at these temples.
    Okay sometimes it may have been blood too, but it sure scrubbed up nice, huh? ;) -

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    Great carvings - direct link so as not to bore too many of you:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory141.jpg

    This iron platework was preserved and restored from a temple in the same underground complex. Worth a big picture, I reckon:

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    Pillars from the same place:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory160.jpg

    The lovely history of the Mahabharata ;) only joking - Greek stuff is far worse and the Mayans - phew. They had some anger issues no doubt about it. Anyway, here's a nice man being killed with an arrow, all in charming stone relief:

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    Now it is hard to grasp the scale of this, but this, this is an entire city, or at least the stonewallings that formed the foundations. And this is just the shot from one angle standing in the middle:

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    Here's another looking in a slightly different direction - this place was, as you can see, pretty huge:

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    Outside the archeology museum in Hampi (they just about allowed to photograph outside):

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    A temple of some kind. I can't remember for beans, to tell you the truth. Looks nice though:

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    he ueen's bath - no much to look at from out here:

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    Inside though it's pretty groovy:

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    And, some things from a place called King's Balance, if memory serves correctly:

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    Bunch of rock things linked through to the images to save your page loading times, that you may, or may not, find of any interest. I took 'em all for a reason though so, you never know:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory193.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory192.jpg

    A temple on HemeKuta Hill:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory191.jpg

    Hindus believe that if you touch the statue, the Earthly image, of a deity then thatr deities powers, prowess and favour will be bestowed upon you. I love to embrace the cultures of the world's peoples but if I want to go and grope a statue of Tony Robbins or Robin Williams then I have no illusions that I'm gonna get successful or funny. I'd just do it for ther sheer perverted pleasure of it all :D lol

    Ganesh

    Photos from inside the archeological museum - photos definitely prohibited but, as you can see, a little sleight of camera plus knowuing where the security office window is can work wonders:

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    Those last two are of a scale model of Hampi - and you can't even see that damn Virupakshur temple the place is so huge. 240 square kilometres of boulders, bouldered hills, hills of boulders and all manner of round-shaped rocks all piled up on one another.
    I personally like the legend of Hanuman - that he, the monkey god of profound physical strength - had a bit of a neighbourly tiff with the other gods and they all legged it down to their fortress in Hampi, tens of thousands of years back in time. Hanuman, being the badass so-and-so he is then single-handedly took them all on in their stronghold around Hampi and the land of the ancient kings and, standing near the Himalayas he threw each and every massive boulder down on them and beat them into submission.

    There is a place back up in the Himalayas where the scenery is quite similar - boulders and so forth - and story tells it that Hanuman went down to Hampi by which time many of the gods had fled back up home to the Himalayas, so just to make sure they got the message he chucked a shole shitload of stones back at them, whupping their arses once and for all and letting everyone know that he was THE man. Or rather, The Monkey. Either way - don't fuck with the Monkey God, especially when he's got rocks handy aboput the place.

    -

    Okay this one is for archeologists and weapons specialists.geeks only: I snuck some shots of the stuff on display around the Elephant stables near Royal Centre about 4km from Hampi. The photos are blurry but there were guards all around; the finds are fascinating though. There is a kind of push dagger or arm dagger I've never seen before, although there other specimens in Mangalore.
    Images linked because I know only a few of you actually give a damn about this stuff :) There are some knives from the 15th Century as well, and swords from the pre Vishayanagar empire that no doubt inspired and were responsible for the cavalry sabres used by Prussian, Napoleonic and British cavalry for the next 300 years. Personally I find it fascinating, but hye, colour me geeky :D -

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory187.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory186.jpg

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    Okay, back outaide the museum I was able to take the camera out of my shirt pocket and get siome proper shots. It amazed me that some of the best sculpture was on open and extremely public display in the rather overly public gardens, free for children to stick gum on, draw all over (which I saw some of them doing) and dogs to do what they do best up against. But, hey-ho; at least we got the pictures:

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    There's that Virupakshur temple again:

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    eah, another temple. Click it if you want it, people:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory204.jpg

    This is rather good - Jain temples, the Fourth and most easily forgotten religion in India but actually the third largest, bigger than Christianity despite the best efforts of the missionaries. Hinduism and Islam take 1st and 2nd places, in case you were wondering - Jain architecture started early with thousands of bsic cuboidal stone pillared temples, but progressed to an alm,ost oriental style around the 13th or 14th Century, if memory serves correctly. Anyway here are a few of the later examples - pretty strikingly different from the Hindu styles:

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    This is aty least a blend, if not an entirely Hindu structure - often the Islamic and Hindu styles cross ver so much it's hard to see what is what, this, well, this just looks pretty, dom't it? :

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    I thought this was kind of nice, whether you agree or not I couldn't say!

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory202.jpg

    Classic Jain temples:

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    From HemaKuta hill, Virupakshur temple to left, main climbing mountain over the river and far away, to right. Early and basic ain temples centre and bottom - a whole history lesson in one photo - cunning eh? ;)

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    There are LOADS of rocks balanced like this and worse. One shove and it seems they would go over. They don't though, I tried; of course I did! -

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory198.jpg

    Cute little monkey in cute little tree - guard your valuables though, the76y know exactly wehat you need and aren't afraid to pinch it!

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    Cute monkey again - see above...

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    I think this was actually the smaller of the two Gopurams - gateway towers - of the Virupakshur complex. Still, pretty badass -

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    And here is the info board for Hemakuta hill - maybe worth a read? maybe:

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    And two of said Shaiva (temples dedicated to Shiva) temples on the Hemakuta hill area;

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    And a bunch more stuff linked directly because, by now, you may just be sick of all thes bloody temples. After Hampi, I am pretty much all templed out, but here they are just for you, just in case you ain't sick of 'em yet:

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory217.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory216.jpg

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    This was worth a big picture though:

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    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory211.jpg

    Did you already see me with monkeys? I can't remember. The photo order of all this is confusing as hell - here y'are again just in case. Should I maske one of the my FaceBook proflie picture do you think? -

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory122.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory123.jpg

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    The view from the Hanuman temple. Simply outstanding:

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    The gong pillar atop the Hanuman temple - like an armilarry sphere, almost:

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    Okay - you have GOT to click this one for the bigger view, it is something amazing. Really:

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    Wildly huge views of Hampi from the top of the temple hill. Click for biggy if you want some lovely scenery shots! -

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory114.jpg

    http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory113.jpg

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    Okay these two are pretty damned amazing as well:

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    A rock. And a tree. Nothing special to see here folks, just a rock and a tree. Nicely framed though, I thought:

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    That river again - note the level of the water THIS time:

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    I stopped this poor guy, made hi drag his cattle and plow out of the field, took a couple of photos and literally ran away. I'm guessing he's used to gettign a little baksheesh for this sort of thing judguing by the speed with which he dragged his rig out of the firld and onto the road, but, frankly, at that time I was a little fed up with what amounted to one huge, conspiratorial tourist trap.
    I see now whay they HAVE to do this, harvest time is the only time they have any money and capitalising on that is what keeps them going - and alive - in the monsoon.

    Still, I snapped and ran, in the best traditions of the evil paparazzi :D
    -

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    -

    Okay, I went to a temple; I couln't tell you which one now for love, toffe or beans; but I saw this on the wall and, well, I think it speaks volumes about the culture and religion. Not that I'm suggesting they are a bloodthirtsy lot, but really, is it necessary to be quite so graphic, in a place of holy worship? -

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    Okay, quickly now because it's a Sunday and I'm keeping these poor people at work!

    The Queens temple in Anegondi, a few kilometres from Hampi. Sadly now in ruins and painted abou a thousand times, but originally over 600 years old:

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    And finally, this is something very very cool - an Elephant cart, pulled by ceremonial elephants during festivals, its wheels are armed with blades and the whole is adorned with garlands of flowers, blossoms, and lithe young women Sweet :D :D

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    -

    Anyway taht's enough for now - hopefully I'll find another 'net cafe across the street.

    Ciao!!

  • Mangos Galore

    Okay, it's just another little piece about Mangalore, not the city of Mangoes at all but, Bangalore meaning `the city of the boiled bean` (legend has it that an ancient king once stopped here in dire need of food, sustenance, and some people to boss about but was served only a humble meal of boiled beans. Being graciously grateful and, not stooping so low as to have the impudent peasant chopped into little pieces on the spot, he had a moment of good humour, founded his capital there, and called it Bangalore, the city of the boiled bean).

    After hearing this story I always imagined that Mangalore was the city of the Mashed Mango, or MangoStewiStan or something like that, but in fact it is named after the Keralan princess Mangaladevi, who unfortunately snuffed it pretty soon after the naming ceremony was finished, leaving an awkward little quandary about what to do with all the canapes and dessert, I imagine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangalore#Origin_of_the_name

    I found this city worth expounding upon a little more becaue I rather liked it. The first thing that really inpressed me was that the taxi drivers all, without fail, used their meters and the fares were minimal and fare (ha ha), not to mention so laughably cheap that I found myself cackling like an escaped nutcase as I traversed the city for an hour and a half in one of their black yellow contraptions for no other reason than that it was costing me less than half that of a ten minute ride anywhere around Goa. I got some funny looks, but was too busy bent double in gleeful joy to give a shit.

    I took a few tours around the city: one day I visited all the churches, cathedrals and other testaments to Christ's questionable influence and all of them were daubed in some ecclesiastically institutional shade of grey. No doubt some homage to the level of interest of most of the memmbers of the catholic church and their enfeebled imaginations, my parents notwithstanding, of course :) Quite why they were ALL grey is beyond me: Rosario cathedral, a lovely building of decent enormity with some quite lovely interior stained glasswork and statuary (photography forbidden, naturally, but I have found that there is little one cannot photograph with a few distraction techniques, the cancellation of your camera's flash facility, a steady pillar or baptism font to lean upon and a decently increased shutter speed).

    Rosario cathedral is, in itself, just one part of the impressive institutionalisation of India's youth. The large and mostly grey complex includes the Rosario infant and pre-school (the only building not actually grey in itself, but not far from it with all the peeling paintwork), Rosario High School where victims, I'm sorry, students from the ages of 8 to 18 are schooled further in the ideas of mathematics, religion, science, religion, arts, crafts, geography and religion, and, of course, extra religion, at least if they behave really well.

    There is something called the Rosario Composite Pre-University college, also amazingly in shades of grey within the extensive grounds, and just adjacent to this praiseworthy compound is the Rosario Catholic University itself. Needless to say all these facilities have paths leading directly into the grounds of the cathedral, although, if one were being cynical, none actually leading out ;) Give me a child until he is 9, and he is mine for life, or so they say. At Rosario they take you from about the age of 4 to 22, and then there is probably very little hope :P

    There is also a Rosario gymnasium where the muscles can be numbed to make the mind a little less able to resist the imprecations of King/Queen/Saint Rosario (I gotta stop this I'm sorry, this is a bit one-sided isn't it?), then also The Rosario Hostel Hall where the recently graduated young professionals can be assured of not straying too far from the Motherland, and there is even the Rosario Cultural Hall to make quite sure no-one ever develops the independence of thought to leave the place after the age of 35.

    Tucked somewhere around the back there is quite probably also the Rosario Elderly Care Home, the Rosario Graveyard and possibly even the Rosario Fertiliser and Compost Recycling Centre.

    -

    The rest of the post is less anti-Rosario, whoever the hell he/she was anyway, I promise.

    Another place of worship I visited was the Aloyitious(sp?) College Chapel (surprise surprise, it's a chapel in an educational establishment, and this time the whole bloody place was painted grey, all 20-odd buildings of it). And my, what buildings they were, each one larger than the entire college I went to, and at least I had the good grace to get my arse kicked out of that before it got it's claws into me too deep.
    The paintings inside the chapel are magnificent - hardly a rival to the Cistene chapel but apparently the closest India has to it, and, having seen both now with my own eyes then I am quite impressed by the comparison.

    Needless to say I threw some small change down the central aisle to distract the nuns and the stick-reliant and worryingly wobbly bursar while I sneaked some photos of the ceiling, windows and stonework, and just about remembered about the flash settings in time to get some okay photos, albeit a little too far away to capture the best of the detail.
    I almost got caught that time but I gave them a hasty `shukrya, Sisters, Father` and legged it before they could fetch the thumbscrews or the collections box.

    There was another (grey) church somewhere along the way but I can't remember much about it. Not much worth saying, I guess, but the day before that I found a real marvel of Indian culture.

    -

    I took an early morning taxi to a museum recommended in the Lonely Planet. They said very little of importance about it but I found it fascinating - the statues, sculptures and weaponry dating fom 1100AD onwards was incredible, and the art - the Art!! I have never appreciated art in museums before but this one small room on enterting the museum contained at least 10 of the finest 15 pieces of work I have ever seen. There must be something about Indian artistry; the colours, the contrast, the capturing of movement and feeling in just a few simple brushstrokes, lines of penwork, or daubs of watercolour taht seemd to jump of the canvas' at me and make me appreciate, for the first time ever, what Art should truly be: something that moves you inside, without you even knowing how or why.

    There was a portrait of an old man in indian headdress, glasses and suit and Indian-style tie that I swore was a photograph, even up close. The shading behind the glasses was immaculate and I half expected him to begin speaking to me. It was unbelievable, and even having seen a few pictures by world famous artists here and there I was still very, very impressed.

    I wandered upstairs and found case after case of weaponry used in the First War of Indian Independance - the Sepoy Mutiny. I snuck a few pictures and was caught halfway through by the curator; I bluffed through pretending that I was only about to take a photo, explained my interest as a weapon collector and proved my point with knowledge of the works enough for him not to confiscate my camera. I tried to baksheesh him into letting me take a few pictures - without flash of course - but I learned another important thing about Mangaloreans; almost universally, they are honest through and through.

    -

    Another morning before anything was open - I wake early in India because of the heat - and wandered down to onme of the citiies many small shopping centres or malls. Everything was shuttered closed of course but still I could get in and get around, and did my usual trick of sneaking past the early morning cleaning staff onto the upper floors and got some photos of the city from the rooftops. This is the best place to spot the Eagles, and they are eagles I am sure of it now. Once ono the roof of Hotel Poonja International one mistook me for an early morning snack and I got a head-on shot of him swooping straight for me - pretty terrifying (these things can achieve wingspans of over 6 feet and are armed and ready to kill small dogs and lambs) but an amazing photo, even if I did duck in terror and only get him from over 30 feet away.
    Still, it shouod be a good photo.

    -

    My main note of praise for the people of Mangalore though is that they are not tourist hunters, the panhandlers only rarely are even noticeable (but the few kids that are aound are vastly more persistent than those anywhere else, I have noticed, so I tended to slip them 5-rupee notes when no-one else could see me doing so) and the taxi men NEVER, I mean Never ask you if you want a taxi. This, in itself, makes the city worth a visit.

    There was a time on my final day when I realised that, aside from needing some change for the buses the next morning, I would rather like some decent drawing paper and a notebook. I have been reading a book called The Monk Who Sold His Farrari, and when I get off my arse and onto a form of public transport not designed to crush the human spine (i.e. not a public bus) then I will read it all again. The book urges one to keep a notebook, which I now do, and seeing a stationers across the way I stumbled in, tripped over a small dog or possbly just a very ugly child, and before the girls at the counter could stop laughing I bade them Namaste, which means hello, goodbye, how are you and all that sort of thing.

    My pronunciation is not good, I will admit freely, but the looks they all gave me led me to think I had just asked to sodomise their mothers, and furthermore to do so live on the internet for personal profit and in a public place. They looked as appalled as you might if some had asked you if you'd like another cup of coffee, but had instead apparently said "fuck off, aye?" in a thick Scottish accent right to your face.

    Thankfully the proprietor kenw more about foolish Englishmen than the appalled young girls she employed, explained to them what I had said and they giggled uncontrollably for half an hour saying `namaste` amid hushed giggles in much the way I imagined I had said it myself. The importance of correct annunciation has rarely been more apparent to me; the next 20 minutes asking for paper, drawing paper, plain paper, plain paper please, A3 paper, pens, biros, gel pens, ball-point pens, unlined paper, yes unlined paper, please, and other assorted disasters caused me to turn to a shade of red that any beetroot farmer would have been famously proud of, and caused the girls behind the counter to actually require assistance with their breathing such was the hilarity of my failure to speak properly.
    They may have just escaped from the Rosario home for the mentally irritating for all that I know (it was just across the stree) but in any case the fault was all mine, I'm sure.
    I tripped over the dog-child again as I left and even at knife-point I shall never enter that shop again.

    -

    One final thing I saw which was beautiful and somewhat poetic: two tiny rust-red butterflies dancing together in some primal dance that no doubt would have lead to lots of little caterpillers sometime in the future; jutting and weaving around the base of an ancient tree - and I hear a screech above and just 30 or 40 feet from me two rust-red eagles are matching their dance, wheeling about each other and stalling in mid-air, catchign themselves in perfct syncrony and swooping off together into the distance.

    A perfect end to another perfect day in Managlore.

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