bed bugs and bus stations.

Bed bugs and bus stations. Not a phrase that conjures quite the same image as the Disney film with which it shares its illiteration, but a very big part of budget travel in India. And it being so, I usually wouldn't complain. I make my own decisions and I deal with the consequences; I'm a big girl after all.

This time, though, the decision to sleep 'budget style' was made for us (and it being so, I feel compelled to whinge about it).

Off to Fort Kochi we were. Down from the cool breeze of the hills to the humid coast, where the air is heavy with the promise of rain. By late afternoon- by our third bus ride in a day of travel- we realised we would probably need to stopover for the night; it didn't matter where, a bed in a room was all we wanted. First town: not possible. We sweated from lodge to lodge in the loud evening streets to find that every single one in the bus station cluster- and there were many- was full. This we found perplexing but decided it didn't matter, there would definitely be space for us in the next town. So on to another bus we heaved. And we arrived at a station and it was eleven pm and we were definitely not getting to Fort Kochi that night. Will went on a hunt. He came back 15 minutes later, elation absent from his face...how could they all be full?!!

They weren't. After several portly managers grunted 'full' from under their moustaches and impatiently waved him on, one man took pity and explained that these lodges couldn't afford the expensive licences required to allow foreigners to stay and, therefore, they were "all full".

Well done Indian bureaucracy, you thwarted us yet again. After a consolitary almost-midnight snack in a brightly lit bus station cafe, we searched for the most comfortable corner to call our own in amongst the all-night snack shops advertising their open-ness with techno music, the rubbish and the encroaching rain, and the Indians waiting for late buses or waiting for nothing, with nowhere to go. Amongst this we lay down on our sheets for a night of unrest. And we un-woke at four am to discover that you don't even need to be in a bed to suffer the wrath of bed bugs.

Grrrrr.

But we slept it off and then we swanned around Fort Kochi, looking at fancy things and pretending we were richer than we are. Until we got hungry. In our battered old clothes, scratching our bites as we sat on a roadside drinking chai and eating deep-fried triangles, were we fooling anyone?

our odyssey

in a house in the hills

lived Will and Jordan

they worked all the time

causing no end of boredom

then came the day

when one of them said

"let's quit our dumb jobs

and go traveling instead"

so they packed all their bags

and headed northwest

up to nepal

where the trekking is best

they trekked through hills

mountains and snow

and then headed south

to glimpse a rhino

then yet further south

across a border

to a place where corpses

are burnt beside water

they went on to hampi

goa 

mumbai

then down to meet chacko

a mad indian guy

they surfed to sri lanka

the island of tea

of big rocks 

tall stairs

and  thieving monkey

they jumped on a plane

and flew really far

to the land of olives

vino

and a fine tapas bar

and they met jordan's sister

to share in their mirth

while they hung in barcelona

greatest city on earth

then off to the finca

of cathy and james

a farm of thirty cats

all with different names

morocco was next

with casbas and medinas

a rather nice place

for our wandering dreamers

a bus took them then

on to portugal

a marvellous country

for one so small

they couchsurfed

ate fish

met many a friend

but like all things do

it came to an end

so they hitch-hiked through france

to chatellerault

where aunt virginia lives

and tall sunflowers grow

they made it to paris

using only a sign

the city of love

they thought it sublime

some days later

they reluctantly left

for the island of ice

and depsite the bad weather

will's cousins were nice

they marvelled at london

had devonshire tea

and met an old friend

in cantebury

after two months of wet

they began to feel glum

so they headed for cyprus

the isle of sun

they farmed in a town

they planted and weeded

their time in the sun

gave them just what they needed

then before they knew it

they were back in nepal

this time with will's brothers

one loud and one tall

they hiked through the mountains

and spied a high lake

at one point they feared

their lives were at stake

they went back to india

pumped for round two

and spent a whole month

in tamil nadu

they swam in the rivers

and worked on the land

e-spied many elephants

the beasts are quite grand

their trip so far

is what i have told

but who knows what new adventures

are yet to unfold...

by will.

fifteen months.

Today was my fifteen month 'awayaversary'. Which means 15 months of no Saturday morning coffees with my BFF, 15 months of amazing new people and places and experiences and 15 months of wearing variations of the same 10 or 12 items of clothing that I have stuffed in my backpack (so they smell bad too). Seriously, I hardly even notice what I put on in the mornings now- if it is hole-free and doesn't have stains on it, it is my outfit for the day. So you can imagine the excited anticipation with which I await the arrival of a care package from home containing cheese, knitting needles (Will has a beanie to finish) and different clothes! And possibly even better than the thought that soon I will have a new selection of clean, rumple-free fancies to dress up in is the fact that they are being delivered personally by my mum. New clothes and a family reunion- what could be better? 

In my giddy excitement I decided that I shouldn't be the only one who gets to dress up in something new and gave wander with me her first makeover in...ever. I hope you like it. 

Other than blogstyling and planning Indian coffee dates with my mum, Will and I have been living the high life in the Indian jungle ever since leaving the farm a couple of weeks ago. We were couchsurfing/volunteering (but not really because we did nothing) with an incredibly hospitable English expat who lives in a tiger reserve in Tamil Nadu. 

 This was the view from the left side of the roof on his wonderfully airy house...

and this was the view from the right. Pretty nice spot he has there.

Apart from admiring the view we did (some) other things at Johnnie's place. Like cancel out all the physical work we did at the farm by scoffing so much home-made pasta, freshly baked bread, date-banana bread and entirely-home-made-even-the-cheese passionfruit cheesecake (I may have got a little over-excited at the presence of an oven) and drinking so many rum and cokes. And we swam in the pool and chatted to  Johnnie's elderly parents about living in India. 

And on a trip to the shops one day we saw twelve wild elephants. This little guy was just outside the car window, about a metre away. You would not want to be caught walking alone on this road...

And, most importantly, this is where we did our relaxing. Relaxing is a very important part of life you know.

We occasionally roused ourselves from catatonia to go into the nearby town for supplies. We saw this and decided the amazing packaging was well worth the $4 the packet cost. I'll give you a million dollars if you can guess what's inside...

We went for a wander one day and stumbled upon this colourful little temple. We couldn't decide if it was a tree growing around a temple or a temple built around a tree. Though considering the size of the tree, I would be inclined to go with the latter. Will walked along this path alone one afternoon- I was baking or sleeping or secretly eating cheesecake- and  eventually found himself in the forest. The forest that we had very recently been told hides an enormous wild elephant population, at least 100 Bengal tigers and bison and panthers and probably lots of other jungle creatures. Because of this, Will thought it would be a fantastic opportunity to get up close and nearly dead with some wild animals without a jeep, a guide or a cautious girlfriend. He thought it would be fine, as he told me sheepishly later: 

"I figured that I would keep walking til I saw an elephant, then turn around and go back. I forgot they aren't stationary." 

He lived to eat another slice of cheesecake, obviously, but it could have turned out very differently. When he came wandering back to the house hours after he left, he  told me the story of his walk. Of how he spooked a wild boar then came face to face with a bison (like a bull on steroids with horns the length of arms that could gore you to death with a single manouvre) and had to scramble to safety in a nearby Bodhi tree. Of how when he climbed back down the tree he followed the path to the river and saw an elephant bathing and just as he decided he was satisfied with this show and turned to leave he heard an ominous trumpet in the jungle behind him and realised he was stuck between two wild elephants and he really liked living. Of how he tried several times to get out of the jungle but he kept running into the elephants and subsequently clambering up his Bodhi tree in terror. And of how he finally escaped, by slowly walking up behind the elephant then briskly marching past, his face averted, pretending he couldn't see it- as you might do in the street when walking towards an acquaintance you really don't want to chat with. He told me this and I realised I would never be taking him on safari in Africa...in fact even Monarto may be unwise.

On a lighter, less my-boyfriend-came-very-close-to-being-trampled-to-death-in-the-jungle note, these are some of the very fine products you can purchase in India:

Your eyes do not deceive you; it is indeed a padlock and a firework endorsed by the biggest Nazi of them all. And a sanctimonious box of incense, just for good measure. 

Oh India, you crazy thang.

p.s. the beautifully packaged package contains 400 handrolled Indian cigarettes, wrapped in leaf and tied in thread, called beedis. Did you guess it?

our adventures with mowgli...

 

 

I wish we had adventures with Mowgli. Walking through the intense green of the jungle to a soundtrack of eternally chirpy birds and chatty cicadas it is easy to picture Shere Khan and Kaa plotting and Bagheera and Baloo watching over us from a distance. But I think they know we couldn't hack the jungle, these white folks who go back and sleep in their barn every night, and so they stay hidden. I know they are out there though.
And before we left we did actually meet two of them...Colonel Hathi and Hathi Junior. Remember who they are?

Have a guess and I'll tell you later.

As I said, we had a simple existence in the jungle. Our mornings were spent digging and planting usually, and fighting the curse of the lantana- an Australian plant that has found the subcontinent much to its liking and has invaded every single free space that there ever was ever. Which makes the coffee harvest impossible without vigorous slashing. So sometimes we would head out into the weeds, jungle knives wielded high above our heads, to do battle, and we would return an hour or two later, covered in scratches and disbelief that we had only cleared 20 square metres.

More satisfying was to wander around the garden beds in the cool of the evening and watch the beans climbing up their posts (which is only a teeny exaggeration- after a night of rain and a day of sun their curly little tendrils would have stretched at least another centimetre or two) and the corn sprouts tentatively peeping out of the soil, and picking beans and tomatoes and beetroots and parsley for dinner. One day while we were clearing weeds to dig some new beds we stumbled upon a patch of wild ginger that had sprouted in amongst the chaos.

There is an abundance of fruit trees scattered through the jungle aswell. Every few days somebody would go for a walk and come back with armfuls of green skinned Indian oranges or local sweet limes, or clutching a bulging shirt filled with little berries- an as yet unidentified fruit that is bright red and tastes of sour cherry, or very occasionally a guava or two. Or perhaps a rose apple, which looks nothing like an apple and tastes kind of like Turkish delight. There are also papaya and jackfruit and mango trees, baby banana trees and a tree in the corner of the veggie garden that was drooping with little green starfruits that were so sour they tasted like warheads dipped in lemon juice.  

With all the fruit we harvested we made jam over a campfire. We tried so many times to make oven-less bread...flat-bread over the stove (so much rolling), damper in the fire (we were thwarted by impatience and monsoonal rains), and a lovely looking loaf that we left at the mercy of a "pizza oven" built by termites. We ate a lot of bread that was simultaniously charcoal black and uncooked dough. How did we possibly eat it, I hear you ask? With enough jam, anything is possible.

And when all the work for the day was done, we wandered downriver and washed off all the dirt in a pool under a little waterfall. On Sundays we clambered over rocks and through undergrowth to find our way to the second waterfall, deep, deep in the jungle. And it was one on of our last afternoons at the farm that we encountered two of Kipling's creatures. As we were drying off on the rocks, after our swim, somebody gasped a four-letter word and pointed just downstream, about fifty metres from us. And there, in the water, were two wild elephants, mother and baby, having a bath. It was an incredible sight. And despite the potential danger of the situation- wild elephants can run very fast and they are very huge and strong- we watched transfixed, until they slowly glided into the invisibility of the jungle. Then we climbed the steep hill back to the top of the waterfall quite quickly, lest the elephants changed their peaceful minds.

 

 And now we know what we want to do when we grow up. So if you meet a little farm who is looking for a couple of grubby youngsters to take good care of it, please let us know.

    

delhi. lucknow. bikaner. gokarna. kodaikanal.

Sooooooo. It's been a while. We have been following the path less internetted. And since it as been so long since we were where these pictures are, I will keep it brief. 

We spent one day in between trains in Delhi and most of that day we hid in cafes and restaurants, but we did go walking and this is what we saw... 

And then we went to Lucknow. This was a mistake. These two photos show the city in the best possible light. Otherwise it is your standard loud, dirty, expensive, un-endearing Indian city. We left quicksmart.

And went to Bikaner. A relatively small town on the edge of the Thar desert in Rajhastan. We helped in a guesthouse and learnt that owning a guesthouse is not something we really aspire to. We did much dusting and sweeping and ever so many dishes. We also watched a boy fill the rusted out bottom of a van with water in order to clean the sand out. What he actually did was make a muddy pool of sandy water on the floor. And add another layer of rust. I did lots of painting for the matriarch of the hotel; a wonderful smiley woman who plied me with sweets and ice coffee and lassi as I painted flowers for her and we tried to chat.

These pigeons lived outside (and sometimes inside) our room. Every step out the door excited a burst of feathers and flapping.

And we went to the rat temple. Which is not actually what it was called but it is a temple that houses thousands of rats so it makes sense. I don't know what we were expecting but it was not what we saw when we arrived...thousand of rats, sick looking rats, scurrying across the floor and dying in the corners. And poop everywhere. You aren't allowed to wear shoes in an Indian temple.  

But we saw the white rat. We have luck forevermore. 

And then there was the kite festival. A celebration of the the founding of Bikaner, thousands of kites and fireworks. Will practised all week but in the end he couldn't find the knack, and so kept his kite flying private, on the roof of our room.

We went to see how the Indians did it and found a sky filled wit colourful fluttering and streets all tied up in kite strings. We got invited onto somebody's roof, listened to his friend go mad with a loudspeaker to the hundreds of people spread across the roof tops, got our picture taken for the local paper and saw many, many kites.

And along the way Will picked up a new hobby. He still needs the uniform though.

And then we escaped from the heat of Bikaner; ran away to the beach like the coastal people we are. And spent five days on a near deserted beach, eating fruit and doing nothing. 

Now we are deep in the jungle, where elephants roam (though they have wandered down to the plains now, for the rainy season) with bison, monkeys steal fruit from the farm and peacocks sing in the distance. We play in the dirt and watch our planted seeds sprout and make cherry jam over the campfire. We sleep in a barn with a bat and stress about nothing.