Return to India

It’s nice to be back in India, but my gosh what a difference the south is! Because of the long period of time I plan to be in India I’ve decided to break down my blog into provinces as this is a country of many countries. Of course I will give you some more detailed updates on some provinces as the experience I have are sometimes blog worthy – but I’m sure you’ll all agree this blog is more interesting now with less “today I did this” style writing!

The plan now I am here and due to the high temperatures experienced in the south is going along the lines of

April – Southern – Central – North East India (Kerala, Karnataka, Andrah Pradesh, West Bengal)

May – North East India and Nepal (Darjeeling, East of Bangladesh (wish I had a multi entry then would have gone to Bangalesh!), Nepal

June – Nepal, Yoga Ashram, trekking in Northern India, Shimla, Ladakh

July – continue trekking in the North and tea plantations…avoiding the plains and the heat as long as possible! Finally in mid July – Mumbai, Pune, Bhopal and HOME 25^th of July (I am so excited about this so hope my London crew are too!)

My plans are constantly changing so seeing this written in a month will probably have me in fits of laughter. At the moment I want to get trekking while the weather is clear in the north and I can buy some kit in Nepal which seems the most logical place to start this big walking adventure…my treks so far on this trip really have reminded me how much I love this family past time (which we call Tramping incidentally, Brits don’t judge you call it Rambling!) so roll on I say and touching wood I stay injury free to achieve this goal of mine…

For now I would like you to imagine walking down the street, on your own in a different city. Shutting your eyes might be good for a moment but for obvious reasons would defeat the purpose of reading…so your walking along, camera in hand, wearing poo pants (yes it has flashed back to the 80’s and your down with your inner MC Hammer), scarf wrapped across your shoulders to cover your relative bareness, white skin on your face, deeply tanned for you but remarkably white to a new observer, smell of the sewer at the tip of your nose, drowned out by the strong scent of jasmine from a garland seller outside the Vodafone shop, horns being honked in every direction becoming part of the white noise of life, a group of small children walk past smiling and saying “hi” “Hi” “Hello”, “from which place you come?” in unison, with outstretched hands all needing shaking, responding “New Zealand” echoed with nods and giggles. Men stare and someone chortles “you want to see temples/palace/my place, (depending on relevance of city) I have moto”. The sun is beating down on you and the humidity has you drenched in the small of your back and on your upper lip (seriously who knew you sweat there!), the human interaction is repeated several times, many on response of “New Zealand” respond with some cricketers name you have to test my grey matter to remember from Nathan Astell, Brendan McCallum and Daniel Vettori (crowd favourite in Bangalore as their IPL captain). A hand will be cupped towards you at some point by a big eyed girl in a pretty, yet filthy dress of rags, you’ll nod knowing your rupee will be taken from her and wont feed her…charities at home will be the better choice you hope. A cow will walk in your path and you’ll have to stride several times to avoid its shit or the spit of a hundred hacking folk in the season of flu’s. Someone will be making a bashing noise in a side alley and you’ll see a woman doing washing, a sewing machine rattles and the firing spits of someone soldering a door. You’ll look for road signs and see none, you’ll drink hyper coloured fizzy to keep you pepped up for all this stimulation and you’ll arrive back at your bedroom and fall horizontal and thank your lucky stars that you know what a hot shower is like, knowing you have food in your belly, how to read, write, use manners and that nodding your head up and down at the same time is generally meaningless, yet charmingly Indian.

That my friends is my daily life.