"You can drive in India without brakes, but never without a horn!" - Mukesh the cabbie

Time for another email from India, this one dated 5th March 2006.
Previous emails are here and here.

The pictures were taken but weren't actually sent at the time but I have culled them from my Facebook page.

"Hey everyone!
I'm gonna keep this one mercifully short! Not much time left and I just saw how long my last one was and it scared me! We are now in a place called Jaisalmer near to Pakistan. We met a dude called Stuart a coupla days ago and went camel trekking into the desert with him for a coupla days - camping out beneath the stars surrounded by the surprising amount of wildlife in the desert was great if a little uncomfortable! I like camels - they look like they're made of all the bits God had left over! Maybe from his Big Bucket O' Knees. Started reading Metamorphosis by Kafka whilst sat on a dune, and then all these black beetles appeared on the edges of my vision. Wasn't my mind playing tricks. As big as my thumb, they seem to dig in for the night and look very cute - kinda like a dog when it kicks dirt over where it's just pooed! Well I think that's kinda cute anyway. Then we had an 8hr bus ride to here, in a bunk that was a coupla inches too short, with a driver going hell for leather with no suspension! Fun! (where does the phrase "Hell for Leather" come from? If anyone knows, do tell) But out hotel here has an outdoor pool!

A beetle busily burrowing.

 Jaisalmer is great - there's a wonderful old fort at the top of the hill with great views of the town that is made entirely of sandstone (i think its sandstone!) and the fort has loads of winding little streets, hemmed in by ornately carved buildings, some are houses, some temples, and loads of colourful stalls selling textiles, paintings, books, food! Wonderful - so pretty!

Anyway - we need to pick up our pace a bit so we're hotfooting it to Jodhpur tomorro. Think I'm gonna watch a puppet show tonight, and maybe having an Ayurverdic massage tomorrow! Dunno what it is but I want one!

EEEKKKK!!! Literally, in the last 30 seconds, a group of 6 or so Indian transvestites, all be-togged in brightly coloured sarees piled into this tiny little internet cafe, and molested my head!!! They were all feeling my hair, pulling it (a little too hard!) to see if it was real, and as they all poured back outside, one of em kissed my hair! That has to be one of the more odd experiences I've had in India! Welcome to my Indian life!

My favourite road sign this week - A sign pointing the way to a school teaching: "PMT - AAAIIIEEE". I'd just LOVE to know...
Have fun all!

(This email has been short-ER)

Sandra: It's the same price for you to text me as normal. And you DO sound like a hippy!

Becky: You sound very busy! Hope you're enjoying yourself?

Jec: Don't say that! I'd kill for a vodka and coke right now!The food is great - the best food was the stuff the camel-men cooked for us while we were out in the desert!

Jen B: Thank you for your email - it made me laugh! Please send more - I loved it. The company was called Impact - is yours called Deep Impact? I'm sure you'll find something contemporary! Knock em dead! Oh - sounds like nothings changed for BSA!

Stephanie: Thankyou for a wonderful email! Truly a joy to read - send more! I just chatted to Wei - she sounds bubbly! I wanna chat to a psychopath! Chilling!

Matt: That IS an electric bill run up something really crazy! Made me laugh a little too much for a small internet cafe!

Ree: Didn't get the attached pic - what was it?

Jen R: I read the Time Travellers Wife - really liked it! Quite beautiful!

Claire: Will burn you KMFDM when I get back! Heard someone say Adios today and I remembered it!

Olly: Hello???"

 

I remember all of this surprisingly well!
Ah yes! Those transvestites! I remember being surprised that they were tolerated in India. Someone fairly soon afterward told me that that is their shtick, They travel around in groups making something of a public spectacle of themselves until someone pays them to leave. They are very much frowned upon and low down in social standing.
And I also seem to remember almost not making it to Jodhpur, but more of that next time.


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Barrett Plywood... Plywood that creates wonders!

Here's the next of my emails back home from my time in India:



"Hey again!


Subject line is presumably North India's premier plywood company. And

my favourite sign yet! It's to be found all over the countyside

alongside the road!

Last email was a bit sporadic. Lack of sleep and too much excitement

do that to me. We've now been through Agra, and that was not quite as

busy as Delhi, but it was smellier and dirtier.

Journey to Agra was so interesting. We passed lots of little

countryside settlments that were full of bustle. Some were just a

group of straw huts. It was so frustrating getting these tantalising

glimpses into these lives and then journeying on. I woulda loved to

stop and talk to the people there. However, the coupla stops we did

make, the people locally didn't seem to speak any Eglish so

ultimately, it may have been even more frustrating! I saw many animals

on the rads too - monkeys, water buffalo, boar, camels, and once,

sadly, a bear being led away somewhere.

i think I forgot to mention the smells in Delhi - it was one of the

first things to hit me! The place was very smelly - but in a good way

- the smells were everywhere and everchanging - cooking, incense, hay,

different cooking - mostly really nice smells but constantly chaning,

never settling. Agra smelt more often than not of stagnant river,

urine, and dead things. IT was a filthy city though we had two lovely

tuk-tuk drivers, Nijam and Hotilal, who didn't rip us off, didn't keep

trying to take us places we didn't want to go, and were very talkative

and friendly. Basically they were our guides of the city for a coupla

days. We saw the Taj Mahal at sunset and sunrise, and various other

things. Got offered our first jewelry scam by our hotelier who also

runs his own jewelry export company. We has one here in jaipur too.

Both were exactly the same almost to the word. Goes like this: he asks

us in for coffee, chats to us about England, India, what we do etc. It

seems to be obligatory for the guy to talk about how many tourists he

has slept with. Then, when the coffee arrives, he asks if we have a

tourist visa. He then goes on to explain that the government sets a

limit on how much they can export at a decent amount of tax. Over that

limit, the tax is 250%. What he wants us to do is sign a piece of

paper saying we bought some goods off him so they are legally ours but

no money will actually change hands. We post the goods back to

England. When we get back to England, we hand them to his contact in

England and he's evaded the tax. He will pay us 10,000 pounds because

its a percentage of what he saves on tax All he wants from us is a

photocopy of our passport and visa, and whatever payment we used (visa

card, travellers cheques etc). Now we don't know exactly what the

sting is, but there is plenty of potential there, don't you agree?



In Jaipur, the city is smaller, more upmarket, cleaner, nicer. But

still, our rickshaw drivers (Evil Salim and Viki) took us to a guy who

tried this exact same scam on us. I kept the guy sweet by seeming

interested tho cuz I wanted to buy some clothes of him. Knocked him

down from 35quid to 5 and he threw in a sarong! Our current rickshaw

driver (Good Salim) seems scared of these guys. He knows them but he's

forever asking us not to mention stuff he's told us, or where he's

taking us, or any recommendations he's made. It's all very political.

Never more evident than when we went to a restaurant with him and Evil

Salim and Viki turned up. No love lost there. Viki's trying to get me

to ditch Si, have a good time with him ("drinks, hashish, girls"), go

to Shekhawati with him etc. Presumably, to butter me up for this jewel

scam.



Anyway - unbeknownst to them, we're going to Shekhawati this arvo with

Good Salim. It's his home. It's a desert area with lots of small

villages, away from all the tourism it seems. There camel safaris and

it's all very peaceful by the sounds of it. Can't wait! Just hope this

tummy bug's gone by then!



Olly: Come to Asia!



Sandra: Glad to hear about your exams but you sound like you're

turning into a hippy!



Lucy: Just for you, I'm looking out for ANYTHING here with arnie on it!



Mahony: 2 things -

1) cuz I saved everyone's email address at bsa to my home computer, I

ain't got most of em here. Can you send me some if you have em please?



2) I think I'm secretly in love with you - you popped up in my dream

again last night! Maybe it's India - Didn't you turn into a little old

Indian woman once?"




Again, I remember this rather vividly!
We nicknamed the taxi drivers Good Salim and Evil Salim. We did eventually end up falling out with good Salim though. I'm sure that gets mentioned in a future (past) missive.

Here are our rickshaw drivers round Agra, Nijam and Hotilal: 

I feel bad. We were meant to send them a copy of this photograph. We promised we would but we never did :(

I remember they didn't charge us a fee at the end of providing their services. They asked us to pay them "as you will". If we thought the service was worth 1,000,000 rupees, then that was what we should pay them. If we thought the service worthless, we should pay them nothing. What a horrible thing to be asked! But smart. I'm guessing these guys knew we were fresh off the boat and fairly decent chaps to boot. They knew we wouldn't just stiff them and pay them nothing and also knew we had no idea what was even close to an appropriate amount. They probably knew we'd err on the side of caution and pay way too much than way too little and also knew that we hadn't gotten used to the fact that what was just a couple of quid and easily disposable to us would go a lot further in India.

We learnt a lot from them and they were very reliable and delivered on evrything they siad they would, even helping suggest meals from restaurant menus.
I can't remember what we did actually pay them. I know that we never did work out if it was appropriate or not. I know that Nijam and Hotilal didn't seem unhappy with it when we handed it over though.

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India!

After a few recent conversations, I have been thinking a lot about when Si and I went backpacking round India and East Asia.
I wanted to dig out the emails I sent back home from then to see what I thought of it all back then compared to my recollections of it now, 8 and a half years later. We set off from Birmingham on the afternoon of 15th February, 2006.
So here is the first from 19th February 2006 - copied and pasted verbatim, typos and all, and timestamped to the correct date. I was 22.



"Hello everyone!
Well, here's the first of my potentially boring emails. Read on or
just aknowledge I've sent it and know I'm back around 17th May. If you
don't read the email, fine. If you don't know I'm home, then I shall
hunt you down!

Anyway - Flights were pretty uneventful. Royal Jordaninan put us up in
a hotel overnight free of charge so all was nice and good. Reminded me
a little too much of a Travelodge and Heaven knows I've seen enough of
those for a while! Watched some damn awful US film called Playaz Court
about some badass B-Boys basketballers who are 'trying' some white guy
on the court for shooting one of their niggaz... see how the title
works? Anyway...

India blows me away! We left the airport to get a taxi, and the
operator banged a coupla parked taxis to see who woke up first and got
the privelege (spelt?) of driving us (it was the guy who belched
loudest). We got a ride with a couple who'd been round India before
(the 15km ride to our hotel cost 400 rupees, about 3.50 in pounds) and
recommended a few places to go to us, most of whcih we were hoping to
see anyway. Right - The roads are manic - everyone; bikes, cars,
motorbikes, rickshaws, buses, autorickshaws (cute little yellow and
green morris minor-style things), people all jostle frenetically for
space. Most motorbikes have a few riders. There are cows wandering
freely everywhere. A lot of Hindus around means they get treated well.
This was all only at 6 in the morning! It's a lot worse in the day! We
have a balcony on our floor overlooking Main Bazaar (A big backpacker
area - lots of cheap hotels and a street lined with shops, stalls and
running markets) and last night, with our body clocks still outta
whack, after giving up on sleep at 3am me and Si spend mosta the night
on it, playing card games and watching the cows sleeping outside our
hotel. The buildings are as I imagined but moreso. They look dropped
in place, some landing on top of others and knocking bits down or out
of the way as they land, others squishing in-between. And like this
has been going on for a coupla hundred years by looking at the styles
of them. It looks like a hen night of drunken spiders then decided to
go crazy and add a wiring system to the city! Every time I press a
light switch I tremble a little.

1st day, we headed out towards Connaught Place just to get our
bearings. It's fairly central. Within minutes, what was to be the
running theme of this trip began. People cannot get enough of my hair!
Seriously! I thought it was bad in England?! I kid you not when I say
people literally FOLLOW me around in groups like I'm some kind of
Messianic figure. And when I turn around, they're just stood grinning
or squinting at me. Everytime I walk down the street, people ar
constantly stopping me saying "is this your original hair?".
Apparently I look like some kinda prophet or something to called Sai
Baba. People are dropping outta normal society to look at me. I may
cut my hair so that we can go out without spending every half hour in
the hour telling people it's my hair.
Anyway - these guys were on some kinda tour hustle. Then a kid came up
"I just want to practise my English. I don't want money". Showed us
the way to Connaught, and some of the sights. Gave us some advice on
avoiding hustles and scams, usually involving a trip to a shop he
handily knew. "Buy Indian clothes so you don't look like tourist. Buy
ones from this shop I am showing you." Kid's on commission from these
places. Liked him though. More chirpy than most of the others since.

Spent a lot of last night drinking Chai tea with this cockney guy
called Mick. He's spent the last 2 and a half years outta the Uk round
Sri Lanka, Oz, India, and now he's off home. He's doing a photographic
book on low-class working life in India. He's been travelling on and
off for the last 10 years or so. Been doing lots of different jobs and
picking up skills, volunteering etc, now putting them all to use in
his book. Very envious of him.

Couldn't sleep last night for more than an hour so we ended up on our
balcony all night chatting, playing cards etc.

Went on a tour of Delhi today. Very nice man called Mukesh driving.
Most helpful - A brilliant man to have show us around. VEry open to
all sortsa questions about his marriage, sex, British occupation, his
hand in his kids lives, etc. Very interesting. Have avoided the
rip-off his company were trying to set us on - an overpriced tour of
Rajastan in 2 weeks. Instead he's gonna pick us up tomoro and take us
to Agra or Jaipur and leave us there. Delhi started well but once
you've seen one fort, one mosque, and one tomb, and you've started
with some of the biggest in the world, you've seen, well some of the
biggest. The others are smaller and as far as touristy things go, I
think we've seen enough. If we stay in Delhi much longer we should
probably get jobs.

Oh - interestingly, i noticed soon after we got here, bloke are much
more tactile here. They of\ten walk down the road laying their arms
across each others shoulders. I think its nice that they can do that.
And today we saw loadsa guys holding hands. Mukesh tells us we right
in guessing they're not gay - it's just a done thing here.

Anyway - times nearly up so I'm gonna love y'all and leave ya, and git t'going!
If I've missed anyone, sorry. Not much time and a big lista people.
I'll try to getcha next time!
Miss you all and big love!


PS...Sandra:How did your exam go? Hope you were sober when you took it?


Liz: Have a great time in Canada! I'm glad we got to catch up. This
place is amazing - you'd love it!"



It's weird re-reading this. Until now, this whole experience had felt fairly distant. Reading it now, this could be last month! I remember bits of it so vividly. I remember the face of the boy and of the guy doing his photography. I had completely forgotten the taxi-driver and his frankness but as soon as I read that, I remembered Si and I being surprised at just how frank he had been about things like sex. I'd forgotten how we couldn't sleep but now I remember just how awful our first hotel room had been and how we were worried they would all be like this. I remember watching the cows bedding down for the night in the half-ruined building across the street from out balcony.

My opinions of Delhi haven't changed. It's a riotous delightful mess of a place and could so easily be overwhelming, but it is so vivid it's sights and sounds are etched up here [taps his temple sagely] forever. (Degenerative neural conditions notwithstanding)