The North Face at my feet

Sometimes the shape goes peared. It was a bit like a plan, tentatively researched, defiantly discussed, practically decided. I think it’s the reason I left the beach, but my beach mind has few recollections, I just remember it took two attempts to abscond.
I even bought some hiking socks, North Face they said on them, as fake as a dolphins smile, they would write North Face on a banana it they thought it would double the value. The preparation continued with the purchase of 8 cinnamon and raisin energy bars. I was ready for a high altitude encounter with Himalayan hospitality.
Of course we are going to trek; this is where the term ‘trek’ was born. Another much associated phrase with this mountain range was ‘heroic failure’. George Mallory’s failed expeditions in the 1920’s eventually resulting in his death on his third Everest summit attempt. Its unknown as to whether his demise was on the accent or decent. In 1953 Sir Edmond Hillary became the first man to summit and he did it on the day of the Queen’s coronation; so it would have been a neat bundle of coincidence if I could make it to Annapurna Base Camp for her grandson’s wedding day, not as an act of patriotic common mounting you understand, just to avoid the bloody thing.
Compared to some expeditions, this may be snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef but its still participating in what’s on offer. Be it under the sea or atop a mountain.
One of our party had a runny tummy, if there is one travel trauma I can emphasise with it’s that one. No worries, we’ll wait it out. But it ran on and took with it all her energy. If you have to be ill this is the place to be. Good food of every description, clean peaceful guesthouse, a lake and mountain views. I know how it feels to have no energy; Nepal knows how it feels to have no energy. Electricity cuts are a daily occurrence and last so long it’s remarked upon when there is power not when there isn’t.
After several days of listless low pressure whether and a self inflicted high pressure to get better. Both had a turning point. The muggy humidity bought a storm that flashed and cracked and hammered down olive size hail stones. If I had had a G&T in hand and a helmet on head I would have stepped out and caught a heaven sent ice cube in my cocktail glass. Instead we stayed in the shelter of a local restaurant and watched in silent respect at the power of the whether, because talking over it was impossibility. The hotel attached restaurants did well that night.
The next morning bought a clear sky and the snow capped 6000m peaks were beckoning. Well they were to me. My friends’ decided they couldn’t do it. I hadn’t seen it coming; I hadn’t heard it coming, the dilemma must have been debated in Deutsch. I was quite happy to wait. So simultaneously shocked and disappointed I found myself once again in solo traveller mode. An easy but still quite sad and mainly unexpected transition. I got my trekking permits and headed out into thin air.
Some people take porters to carry their luggage, helping the local economy it their excuse for their laziness. Some carry their own packs and hire a guide. Some travel independently in groups. Some carry ski poles because they want to look like utter twats; well they look like ski poles to me, maybe they’re just dip sticks. It’s not advisable to trek alone but it’s not really alone. A 10 day trek to the Annapurna Base Camp is well trodden, even at this end of a quiet season time of low traffic trek, there’s not much solitude.
It’s easy to get in trouble though, I realized turning round on a bridge over a river to view the mountains and losing my balance.

But it’s easy to be ok too. Theft and mugging is a slight threat but isn’t it everywhere? Landslides and falls are a rick too but as my friend said the other day when she was contemplating pulling my ponytail to wake me up. ‘No risk, no excitement’
I was looking forward to some extreme exercise in contrast to my beach and hammock malaise.
You jump in at the steep end. Climbing out of the taxi and straight up stone steps from the valley floor. I soon adjusted to the temperature of sweat and exertion. That kind of feel good gym type pain. And with a funeral march type pause in my step I left the valley. Every time I strayed from the right track a local was in the vicinity to shout and point.
The first mountain village was a tourist trap where the food is still pizza and apple pie and the trekkers sit gasping for breath or at scenery and speculate as to whether they have bitten off more than they can chew. It’s the first proper view of all that’s to come and I take off my pack and take it all in.

A tattooed mountain lad approaches me and starts the obligatory conversation; I'm tired of it, so I can’t imagine how the instigator feels. ‘Where from? Where to? How long?’ The small talk before the offer, ‘want marijuana?’
‘No thank you kind sir, I have come for a natural mountain high’ and anyway the only thing getting stoned ever made easier for me was... sorry forgot where I was going with that one.
Later an old man sitting in the shade of his hovel gave me the ‘Where from?’ And followed it with an unexpected, ‘What city?’ Ooo I thought, are you going to tell tales of enlistment into Ghurkha regiments and displays at military tattoos held in reverence of my home town audience? No it was just a twist on the same prefix before he offered me hashish. Shit, the stuff grows wild anyway, its more common that stinging nettles and if the strength of the sting in the Nepalese nettles is anything to go by the weed is gonna... well you know... like, totally get me stoned or something.
I was pleased with my ability to stay on the path, get up the hill and carry my gear. All’s well, I carry on. When I trek I like to do it alone even if I'm not. Like fishing, it may not be done absolute isolation but you are left in your own space with your own thoughts. I suppose motorcycling has that aspect to it too, strange how my favourite pastimes all involve an element of solitude. Still if you’re not familiar and comfortable with your own company how can you know what aspects of it are worth sharing?
Step by step I forge ahead. The annoyance of the noisy group becomes even less tolerable, once you’re into your personal mountain climbing space. I go to a tiny unattended food shack to order my noodles. A big healthy plate of stir fried vegetables and greasy carbohydrates. Yum. Now will I stop before my designated nights rest or beyond it?
Another half predicable conversation ‘First time Nepal?’
‘No second’
‘Yes, looks like it’ the man said with a sort of rhetorical wisdom.
The one down side to hiking alone is when you’re not hiking, typically the day ends early. 7 hours of up or down action is enough. (And the same rules apply to hiking) That's when the boredom can set in. My own company may be enchanting but you can have too much of a good thing. There was no way I was taking unnecessary weight such as a book, I did, at the last minute remind myself that an iPod is only the size of a cassette and 7000 songs were never so easy to carry, then discovered I had left it on last time I used it, so that too was staying with the majority of my luggage at the Pokhara guesthouse.
I reached the village where the obedient majority spend their first night; it was predicable busy, dip sticks everywhere. Yuk. But then I never gave ‘em a chance, I wasn’t looking for company, that's not why I go up mountains. I carried on. Anyway it was still early. And that, right there, was the massive mistake. That and probably the speed in which I got there. Not exertion beyond my capabilities but perhaps a little to rigorous for a body of recent leisure. And the third thing I have come to reluctantly admit is, if I’d have taken dip sticks, maybe, just maybe my knee would not have exploded. The ladder wound; it’s been many years now but it’s been longer since I did a serious hike. The 20 foot fall from a ladder, landing on a pea shingle drive way, on my knees! I've never been the same since; but I got better. Barley a twinge these days.
It took a long half hour to find a quiet room for the night.
A half hour that could have implications for a long time to come.
‘How much?’
‘100’ Humm 89p, under the circumstances I don’t think I will haggle.
I took an ibuprofen, a big pink one for special occasions. Finish trekking at 3pm, eat my curry at 5pm and stand around looking at the imposing mountains of ungaugeable perspective as it gets colder and darker, until 7pm and then bed. I felt it throb and grind all night as I fidgeted in my rented down sleeping bag of questionable cleanliness.

‘The only thing you will find at the top of a mountain is what you took with you’ is a quote I read in some spiritual enlightenment magazine once, or maybe it was the inside of a portaloo door at Glastonbury, I forget. But it wasn’t true, I left with phone reception and fitness and now I have neither.
I was up where I belonged, close to the unfeasible large peeks. It’s all the incentive I needed to carry on into the wondrous vastness of the world’s highest mountain range. But incentive was not an ingredient that was lacking.

By 5am 10 hours sleep was enough, I had a whores wash* under the cold shower, (*whores wash - pits, tits and private bits) as the sun came up I took photos of pink mountains and took more pink pills.

Usually in such an environment I'm quite content with the sounds that surround me, the distant crashing water over rocks in the river bed. The ritual of the dawn sweeping of the dried hardened muddy yards and the bird song. I rarely miss my iPod in such situations. But last night’s discomfort was all the more painful due to an annoying song in my head. ‘He’s on the ball, he’s on the ball’ where did that come from? Some connection to football injuries? No, in the morning song, I realized one irritating spices sings the first 4 notes of that song over and over the only 4 notes I know the words to, if only the dawn chorus had a verse it wouldn't be so repetitive.
Ten minutes into the next day’s trekking and despite being bound in tubigrip and knew that it was over. I came to the fork for the alternative route back. With utter disappointment, frustration but mainly pain I took the low road. A decent of uneven stone steps to a river at the bottom of a steep valley. Every pace was a 2 step process both feet on every step before I went to the next one.

The only consolation was that I was heading back. But the regret was as big as any mountain that eluded me. There are fatties and oldies doing this and I bloody cant.
I met an Englishman with a relatively cool stick, more like a staff; who told me he hurt his knee yesterday too but had taken some codeine and was carrying on. I wasn’t about to play knee hurty one-upmanship but I'm dam sure he didn’t hurt his the way I hurt mine. He offered me some codeine, well it makes a change from marijuana, but in a non masochistic way I would rather feel the pain and not fuck my knee up entirely.
I left town wondering how long my cameras’ battery would last and retuned running out of things to photograph.

A small plus to doing the alternative route back is no one was on it. Not even me. I was shouted at, in a nice way, from a stone built house on top of a terrace of paddy fields. ‘Naya Pul?’
‘Yes Naya Pul’ they gestured I turn around. I did, and then they shouted again, well what then? An old man nimbly scurried down to my assistance and led me over the narrow divides which are miniature dykes and keep the water in the irrigated rice fields. He led me back to the path; I was falling behind with my limp. I was yet mastered it with any consistency; it just looked like I was trying to get a sick note from the doctor. He continued to lead me to the next fork, a choice of route where I would inevitably have made another mistake. He didn’t ask for it, or indicate that he expected it, but when I shook his hand I slipped him 50 rupees like ya grandma used to when the visit was over. (If you grew up in Nepal and visited granny who had such western habits, I’m assuming she did that when you went to leave. It’s the 50p pushed into your palm before you jumped into the back seat of your parents’ car and looked surreptitiously to see what half expected wealth she had gifted to you this time.) He was genuinely surprised and equally grateful. I think it was the right amount and the right time. Always a tricky equation to figure out, but his smile and glee told me I had got it just right. Now fuck off ya longhaired trespassing cripple, with ya idealistic childhood memories, he didn’t say.
Cripple I may be but the path flattened out as it followed the river, and strolling presented not significant pain. I managed to catch up with a group of English youths led by an insufferable older colonel type. ‘Right everyone pay attention, everyone, that means you too Samantha. I want you all smiling in this one, righty-ho, say cheese. Sorry it took so long’ not as sorry as I was. I got past two of the oblivious troop when they finally realized they were not the only people on the path. But decided I would sit in the shade and let attention deficit disorder Samantha and her dominated friends go on ahead. In the hope my progress would not be thwarted again by colonel flustered with the dip stick in the noodle restaurant, when he orders 7 different dishes for his party. Some people don't have a clue.
The kids started asking for rupees, the litter became more evident, the locals were drunk and the path had turned into a dirt road. Concrete and re-bar half built monstrosities were appearing all around and I was back at the alternative starting point. The only advantage I can see of starting here is the incentive not to turn back.
I caught a local bus for the 90 minute trip back to town.
I wandered back into Pokhara, I've been gone a day and a half, my friends have gone, left for Kathmandu and their room, the entire guesthouse was fully occupied. Baba the owner looked after me; I knew he would, a man of ample size hospitality and kindliness. Yeah that’s just what I want to do, limp around trying to find a room for the night. But he called around for me and led me to a neighbouring guesthouse.
I wonder if I should have taken a day off in the mountains and then carried on, but a stole round the lake two days later was enough to convince me I wasn’t up to it.
Alone and gimpy I do the homeless shuffle, I have 10 days to kill, I will find somewhere cheap and lovely to stay. As I go from guest house to lodge my introduction changes form, ‘can I see a single room’ to ‘I’d like to see you best single room, I'm alone, and will be staying a while’ that always gets their attention, I'm a marlin on their hook and they want a prize 10 dayer in their hotel at almost any cost. Without baggage I can easily escape their clasp and they need to bait it well to keep me interested. I find an end of terrace, cable TV, Wi-Fi, bit of a view room and haggle it down to 400rps a night £3.60 ‘I will come tomorrow, and don't be putting any 10% service charge on top of that.’
Its cut, dried, decided and singed for but for some reason I hobble into another lodge, down the driveway past the vegetable garden of cauliflowers and cannabis. ‘I would like to see your most wonderful room’ its sumptuous, windows on 3 walls, a private balcony, writing desk with a TV on the end, no nearby building work, a double bed with marshmallow pillows, carpet, and a flower garden to eat my breakfast in.

Very nice and how much will this one be? I'm thinking I’ll stretch to 600rps for this.
’2700 per night sir’
‘What?’ Oh shit, show me the steak when I want a burger.
We haggle, my 10 day duration casts its spell but he wants bigger wad that my wand can produce.
1170 plus tax. I walk away, that walk is always a slow one, wait for the call to come back. Even with the reluctance to leave such splendour and a dickey knee the call does not come. So I return anyway; I've shown my hand but dam it, I'm worth this place. I deserve such magnificence we settle on 1000rps all inclusive that’s less than £9 per night. The room even came with a long legged beauty included.

So I live on sandwiches, haven’t had a drink in 8 days, beer has western prices here and I can eat dinner for less the cost of 650ml of San Miguel.
And that's my Himalayan experience. At sunrise and set I climb to the roof to remind myself what I'm missing and simultaneously why I'm not there.

I hope it’s not the end of my hiking days; I'm going to have to slow the pace and possibly resort to dip sticks next time, because if I can’t carry my own load I'm not going at all. Well at least I still have biking, I dying to get back in the saddle and start leaning and stop limping.

Tiger tails from the Western Terai, Nepal.

‘There is absolutely nothing to see or do in this boarder town.’ says the guide book. We stayed 3 nights; such long term residency practically made us locals. There was loads to do, including a wall of death. Moped riding, flip-flop wearing Nepalese, fearlessly going round like a rupee in a washing machine.

I've always wanted to do that, I really think I can, if ever there was a chance to try it,it was here and now but with sandals and baggy hippy pants in a remote town; I may be better off living with, thinking I can rather than discovering I can’t with this particular experience.

But I know I can do it. I'm going to build one when I get home. Scaffold planks and ratchet straps is all ya need. It’s got to be better than the ‘come round and see my hot tub’ line. ‘Come and see my wall of death, I’ll even put a pole in the middle for pole dancing. Fun for all the family. Yes these are the thoughts of an idol mind.
Then there is the longest suspension bridge in Asia,

which we climbed down from at a support mid way, hang on a minute isn’t the very point of a suspension bridge that is has no supports?

Anyway we paddled back to shore through the strong current of a Ganges tributary, not holy yet but Himalayan fresh; the cleanliness next to godliness.
It’s just stupid stuff but it’s really fun, it’s the unexpected sites and the spontaneous actions that make this element of travel exciting in a dumbed down kind of way. If foreign travel is a fair ground we are riding on the dodgems not the wall of death.
More juvenile that motorcycle travel but with less responsibility needed, means less to lose. When losing my balance will only mean losing my camera. As opposed to my Kazakhstan River crossing where I was lucky to only lose my camera.

And having the right travel companions is a plus too. The sort of people who climb off a suspension bridge like it’s the most natural thing in the world to do, which I suppose it is if you’re a manic street preacher. I'm not sure I would have considered doing it at all if I was here alone.
Obstinate travel, insolence in the face of recommendation. My 4th hand guide book is over 10 years old. It’s great. There are now more places to stay, more restaurants and better roads and services. Ok the prices have gone up but expectations are exceeded when you travel with information from the past. Wi-Fi was never a service back then, some things remain the same. If we had know the European government websites said ‘Don't go, it’s too dangerous, boarders are closed without warning, road blocks of burning tyres and sudden strikes the entire country stops, buses crash all the time and there are NO survivors.’ then we would still be here, just a little more appreciative of how easy the travelling and bus catching is. We happily ride on roof tops of the public buses, (depending on the type of crash this may be the safest seat) to National Parks where empty mud hut guest houses have reduced prices due to the majority of tourists having done research from this century and taking heed. More tigers for us, more rhinos.

Less travelled paths, off season, off the beaten track, off the radar.
‘You have come from India today?’
‘No, Mahendranagar’
‘Oh you came from India last night?’
‘No, 4 days ago’
‘Are you ‘aving a laugh? No one stays in Mahendranagar for 4 days’
‘We did, that's how come I can pronounce it’
I don't need a guide to show me round Buda’s birth place; but on a 13 hour walking jungle ‘tiger’ safari without him, I wouldn't have even noticed the tiger footprints let alone the tiger.

Its starts with dung, I really find it hard to get excited about shit, regardless of what bottom it came out of. The footprints in the sand stirred my enthusiasm a little more. But cynically I thought that it was not inconceivable that some ranger came this way this morning with a special walking stick that made big cat prints in the soft sandy soil, just to keep the tourists intrigued. Without the patients of the guide I would not have seen the hippos. Well I would have seen them I just wouldn't have known.
‘To the left of the island’ he kept saying
‘What the black island?’
‘What black island? No the grassy island, to the left of it’
‘Yeah, what? By the black island?’ Then the black island moved, it was hippos.

‘Oh right, I didn’t expect them to be so big.’ But I crept closer all the same.

Then came the long wait above the river in the shade of a bamboo tree, bush, sprout, whatever their called. We got to eat our ‘tiger packed lunch’ that out guest house had made for us. Anywhere else it would be called vegetable fried rice and chapatti and a ¼ of the price but packed in a kind of Tupperware, specifically designed for a jungle safari it was a ‘tiger lunch’ the most exciting cold rice you can possible have, hence the price. I’m surprised they didn’t feed us Frosties for breakfast. We were warned in advance this is where we would sit out the heat of the day, ‘so bring something to do’ I thought I would use the time to make a ‘tiger bracelet’
Out guide was fantastic. I knew it last night when he came and introduced himself. He was so softly spoken, like his trade required, his whole persona was quiet, calm and stealth-like and with his moustache, bucked teeth and visible cheek bones how can you mistrust anyone who looks like Freddy Mercury. When he is too old to be a guide, he has the perfect demeanour to work in a tiger museum.
He sat attentive for a while whilst I shuffled my uncomfortable arse in the sand. Then I watched him lean back and close his eyes, ‘Oh yeah’ I thought ‘the act is over now, sleeping on the job, I suppose this is a cat nap.’
Then the monkeys screeched from the trees. Freddy spoke monkey and knew exactly what they were saying. They were saying ‘Fuck me; there’s a tiger down there!’ they’re so bad. Freddy instantly translated and understood. He sat up and with excitement but no sound, he beckoned us to look. And one of only 14 Royal Bengal Tigers in an area of nearly 1000 square KMs, walked out of the bush and my cowardly sarcastic cynicism ran away.

His mussels heaved and his stripes looked like black tattooed flames on his rippling torso. Knowing he was the hardest bastard in the vicinity he nonchalantly walked into the river.

Slowly and fully alert he submerged himself up to his neck.

This wasn’t a tail disappearing into the undergrowth sighting; it was a 20 minute viewing of Mr. Tiger taking a bath. He yawned and looked around and slowly he exited the river on the other bank, our bank.

When the guides high five each other you know you’ve seen something rare. They only were flip-flops but they all have iPhones to record the event and tell each other where to be and what to see there.
Duly elated, the monkeys and barking deer, elephant evidence and python hangout was no match for our stripy sighting.
The heat stayed after the adrenalin had worn off and I was hanging like a monkey form a tree. Dragging my feet for the last tired walk out of the jungle and back to our mud hut home. This doesn’t bode well for the Himalayan hike to come.
An old Austrian couple complained that in 5 hours (they were too fat to do the full day) they only saw 2 rhinos and a tiger. I guess they wanted it all and they wanted it now. We sat with Freddy, viewed our photos on the laptop, drank a beer and talked tiger into the night.

Out here in the Western Terai, the locals greet you without a ‘rupee please’. It’s just ‘Namaste’ and it’s free of any request other than saluting the god in me.
Mud huts and thatch, homesteads of means but not excess. Cleanliness and order, neatly stacked logs, and hay, goats tethered, buffalo watered, children schooled, and bicycle is the only sight and sound of transport.

Its basic, simplistic and its lives up to the time that it stands in.

Every ditch has clear mountain water flowing through it. The rivers too are fast flowing with clear warm water; that is good for cattle, fish, bathing and laundry. All of which combine an element of recreation.

It doesn’t look like poverty it looks like survival and then some. No thrills, no excess, no needs not met. That's what it looks like to me, it’s what the smiles confirm, the friendliness ensures. It’s the impression I'm given and it’s what I take with me. Walking through the villages as the sunsets, heading to the elephant sanctuary; we were not treated as intruders nor tourists, just passing through and accepted.

You’ve got to watch those cheeky little elephantlets, they offer their trunk to shake your hand, and if you give them more that a finger they wrap their trunk round ya wrist and pull you towards them. They my only be babies but they are big and strong and to my elephant ignorant mind they are unpredictable.

On to the roof of another bus. The long, sun baked, wind dried, roof rack surfing journeys that my travel insurance company doesn’t know about. The trip only becomes uncomfortably hot when the bumps stop at another army check point and there is no breeze to take the heat away. It was Nepalese New Year, 2068, due to their months being Luna and not longer, never thought I’d make it to 2068. Everybody’s happy everybody waves, ‘Happy New Year’

Culture can look so appealing in a book. The temples of forgotten, the ruins of time which are the birth place and palaces where Buda spent his first 29 years. With oppressing heat and long walks, we saw what was essential and left the rest for the enlightened and the appreciative.
‘Let’s build a concrete square prison-looking building over the remains where once was the tree where Mrs Buda gave birth.’ Couldn’t she have gone up into the foot hills where it’s a bit cooler? Would’ve kept the flies off the afterbirth.
‘Let’s make it the least spiritual design we can come up with. A cube, a square concrete block. With scaffolding here and there.

And then let’s invite other countries to build a temple of their own within this complex of world unity.’
Some did, the French and Germans, (famous European Buddhist countries) not the British though. Perhaps we could contribute a railway, like we introduced to India, a little Nepalese lite rail to take the half hearted from temple to temple. Maybe with the profit we make from hosting the Olympics we can do that. It is for world unity after all.
In last night’s twilight, from the bus I saw the magnificent profile of sculptured elegance. It was the World Peace Stupa. It was the last site to see.

White concrete and marble steps. Now I'm not stupid, I've seen stupas’ before, but somehow due to its immense size I thought it just has to have an inside. But no, it was solid and so as we hurried round the burning floor trying to find shade to rest out blistering feet (out footwear obediently left at the entrance)

I wondered just why I couldn’t have been content to have just viewed world peace from a distance.
Mosquito infested room and no electricity, hot stagnant air. Heat at its peak before the monsoon breaks it. I stand in the shower waiting for the boiling water in the pipes to run cool but the plumbing is flawed and it never flowed. We don't want to spend another night here, when the power stops the fan turning, its too hot to get under a sheet and so with no turbulence the mozzies come and feast on your sweating flesh. Bugger that. Culture is cool but mountains are cooler we decided to elope from our enlightenment and 3 more busses, 3 more roof tops took us to a hill station for the night.

The tease of the hazy Himalayas is over we enter the misty little mountain town of Tansen. It consisted of narrow steep twisting streets of dark open fronted shops, usually with a sewing machine or primitive loom stood in the area of the dim dying day gloom. This is a weaving town. Ware the wresidents of weavers wrighteously wun their wittle wentures. They make the fabric that the hats are made of that most Nepalese men wear. Like tartan, it’s same same but different.
Being foreigners we were given the trusted room above the bank. ‘Quieter at night’ we were informed. We had our own private balcony and everything, well that was about it really. It was, I decided it was the perfect balcony to cut my fingernails off of. Later whilst waiting for my friends to use the ATM I realized I was right beneath out balcony and looked at the ground to see if I could spot little bits of me. I was lost in this ridicules diversion of awareness when a mature western couple walked past with and inquisitive ‘Hello?’ Sometimes it’s just not suitable to explain your actions as an introduction.
Being the coolest temperature I have experience since I left home it seemed appropriate to sample the local whiskey. A process I was doing surreptitiously in the restaurant, pouring said liquid into my tea and getting away with it nicely. Until, that is, the cup jumped from my hand and spilt its contents all over the table. The waiter must have known full well what I was up to, when his cloth mopped up the spillage of alcoholic fumes. Oops.
And then after 10 days of being the sites, we take a 6 hour roof top ride into the valley, Pokhara, back to where the westerners go.

Time to unpack the back pack and do what backpackers do, pizza and apple pie, essential fodder for the imminent Himalayan trek.

I forgot how to travel

Stay in bed for a month and you forget how to walk, I stayed on the beach for a month and I totally forgot how to travel.
It really didn’t seem like to difficult of a challenge. All I had to do was walk from my cliff dwelling to the taxi I had booked. He was going to take me to the station where I got the pre booked sleeper train for my 24 hour journey to Delhi. The train was leaving from the state above Goa which meant crossing a river which meant catching a ferry. Which typically, being a little pushed for time was on the other side of the river when we arrive. ‘No matter’ said my driver ‘we get special ferry’
I scanned up and down the river but could only see the one ferry. Special ferry meant driving to the front of the line of cars and trucks down by the river bank and flashing out lights and tooting the horn, indicating to the ferry captain that we were prepared to pay 50 rupees if he came across now instead of waiting for his tiny deck to be full of bikes, passengers and cars before he departed.
It worked, the ferry slowly chugged across the river for us to board before chugging back. All the time I'm looking at the clock on the dashboard which is now showing that it has gone 11am. The time I was told to be at the station to get the 11.25 express train. As we sped through villages and along country roads the minutes ticked by and there was still no evidence of any thing railway related. Now the clock was 11.15. Out of nowhere a tiny station appeared. As I leave the taxi I have 4 minutes left until departure time. The amount of people congregated around the station and on the platform suggested that the train was yet to come. I bundled myself into a stinking toilet cubical trying to touch nothing that wasn’t attached to me and keep my backpack off the ground. When I came out the train had just pulled into the station. ‘Well that was good timing’ I think to myself, they are so long, Indian trains. I find carriage B1 and jump on, it leaves almost immediately. Right, ok, relax I'm going to be here for the next 24 hours. I'm directed to my seat, it’s already at its full capacity of 6. But that's not unusual, from memory seat numbers never meant much to the travelling natives. Although I do question the validity of my dodgy black market ticket. Loud giggling girls with camera phones take photos of each other and shriek at the results. Well this is going to be a fun journey; the hours are simply going to fly by. I put on iPod, get out book and wonder who is in the wrong seat. The ticket man arrives to sort out the discrepancy. It’s a straightforward mistake. I'm in the wrong seat; in fact I'm on the wrong train. This one goes to Bombay not Delhi. This is quite a significant mistake. I hadn’t looked at the time since I left the taxi. The clock on the dashboard it appears was wrong. To ensure punctuality or induce panic in the passengers I'm not sure of the reason but wrong it was, fast. It’s still not 11.24. I gather up my stuff and at the next station, I’m led to the Station Masters office. Much discussion is made about my situation. There is no transport here, if there was a rickshaw it could take me back to the station I just left in time to catch my train which is running late by half an hour. So it is decided that I should continue to the next station, and there jump on a southbound train and head back to my original boarding point. I try to apply my western logic; there surely is a station where both this train and the Delhi train stops, but if there is the information is classified. So I get back on the Bombay bound train, hang out of the open door and try to explain my predicament to the inquisitive Indians. God as soon as I get off of the beach and into the real India I fuck things up. I would have thought that 25 years of travel would have thought me to at least have checked I was getting on the right train or even to have checked to see what the time actually was. The train slows and stops at another desolate station I jump onto the tracks encouraged by my intrigued observers. I glance for oncoming trains but the horizon is free of steel wheeled transport. I climb up into a carriage and explain all over again to the southbound passengers exactly what this crazy foreigner is doing. I was so clean and fresh a few hours ago. White socks on tanned legs and trainers laced on beach hardened feet, both worn for the first time in a month, hair washed and platted, pockets holding small denomination money for the chai sellers. It all seemed so strategic and organized.

Now I'm a sweaty, stressed mess. The train I've jumped onto stands still, my Bombay one leaves for its destination. I'm not sure I've made a good decision here, getting on it was not right but getting off it seems even wronger.
My new train is not moving and I can’t possibly work out how, despite the lateness of my intended train, I will be able to catch it. Nothing moves, ‘Sit down’ I'm invited, but no I would rather stand here anxiously looking out the open door, down that track and waiting to see what I don't want to, but what common sense is telling me with each passing minute is inevitably going to happen. I know why this train is not leaving the station. Its waiting and I know what it is waiting for. Bugger. Sure enough with loud horns blaring, thundering power, lightening speed and unstoppable force the mighty engine hurtles towards us on the track I was just walking on. It’s the Delhi Express, I only caught the first 2 letters it’s the only thing on my booked train that I did catch. It was painted like a carnival. Like a circus train. A blur of murals and colours just too really rub in what I was missing. That there, that just blew the hair that had already fallen out of a plat, was, with my pre paid, over paid dodgy ticket, my accommodation, food and transport to met my friends in Delhi who have already booked for me my onward journey to Nepal. Well bollocks. Inevitably as soon as the train of dreams had left leaving nothing but dust and a desperation in the vacuum, and the nightmare scenario. The south bound train I'm on that is heading for a time and place that is too late, starts to move and it is suggested I get off it now. Well I'm pretty fucked whatever I do. They seem to think it will not take me back to my starting place, so I get off.
I go and see the Station Master. Something I should have perhaps done in the first place but was under the impression that I had to jump trains quick and had no time for a plan B.
‘Hello, Station Master?’
‘Yes’
‘Big problem’ I have to explain why I am on his station. Every few minutes a bell rings and he presses buttons, lights change colour on his big map of railway lines. I wonder if he had the power to stop my train so I could have got on it. But it’s too late now. The best he can do is organize a rickshaw for me to take me back to my original station so I can get a 50% refund on my ticket which is actually 33% because I paid over the odds in the first place. And where I can book a train to Bombay and then catch another to Delhi. It’s all sounds quite improbable; anyway I have just got off a train to Bombay. So I thank him for his help, one thing about India, at least English is widely spoken. Until I get in the rickshaw that is. But as we crawl back the way I came. We pass the labours working on the roads. Carrying baskets of cement and stones on their heads, breaking rocks into stones with hammers and true grit, hard physical labour in the burning sun. Thin and bony, their sun blackened flesh matches the tar; they perform their task with wiry mussels and with the strength of survival. We pass their camp, a triangle of blue tarpaulin on a dry dusty floor. Not even a proper tent. The hottest shade, the least secure protection from any elements, flies, mozzies or snakes. As I look at their miserable existence I realize what an insignificant spoilt western brat of a problem I have. Perspective is a wonderful reliever of stress. I don't think my situation would even get comprehension let alone any sympathy from these man machines. They don't seem to know its Friday, everyday is Labour Day. What I wasted on a ticket they wouldn't earn in a month, what I spend on a flight takes me high above their earning capacity.
My rickshaw driver takes me to the bus station, ‘No, train station’ I say, then to reiterate I make train noises, I do all things train I can think of, including showing him my useless ticket. I of course attract a crowd. My ticket is passed about until someone says ‘Railway’
‘Yes railway’ why didn’t I think of saying that?
‘100 rupees more’
Oh you speak some English then? It’s no surprise I'm not arguing for less than two quid.
I explain my situation one more time at the station and fill out a ‘cancelation/refund form’ and get back 1000 rupees, the next train to Delhi is the day after tomorrow, well this will not do. I think I’ll go back to familiar Goa, reassess the situation and start again. I can’t do anything here, not without an internet connection. So I go find another rickshaw to take me back to the river. I say ‘ferry’ and draw a picture in the dirt of it crossing the river. ‘Goa, ferry, river’ what is the word you need to hear? Why am I not getting through?
‘Arrhh ferryboat’
‘Yes ferry boat’
‘250 rupees’
I have to haggle, just have to,
‘Ooo that's sounds expensive’
‘Ok 200’
Principal’s intact, I get in, and we are on our way. I look out at the palms, my 3 hour excursion out of the comfort of Goa and I fucked it up totally. How much is this costing me, taxi, rickshaws, missed trains, food and lodging? Oh well.
I stand in the shadow of the bridge that is not yet finished. The bridge that will illuminate the need for the ferry and even the special ferry. When I was first in Goa there wasn’t even a railway came this way, now I'm waiting for a bridge, the progress is phenomenal but still a little too late for my needs. The ‘not special ferry’ appears to be free for foot passengers and a bus waits on the other side, for the price of a cup of chai I'm back. A long walk down a hot road and with all the discomfort and dirt of a long distance traveller who didn’t really go anywhere, I'm back in beach land and logging onto a cheap flight website.
One more bonus sunset. One more consolatory pina colada. One more night, 2 more flights and tomorrow I will be where the train would have taken me, same time same place, somewhat more expensive.
I call my taxi driver ‘what happened?’
‘I’ll explain it tomorrow; can you pick me up at 4 am please?’


I get on the right plane all by myself. It’s a miracle but its short lived, at Bombay as I pass through the metal detector they find the Swiss army knife I forgot was in my hand luggage and Goan customs failed to find. I've forgotten how to travel. I’m not giving it up boy, not to you, you wouldn't appreciate it and anyway I've this for 15 years. From a time when I could and did take it on flights, regularly, along with lighters and cigarettes which could be lit and smoked. I go back to the check in counter but it would have to be checked in in my hand luggage I'm not checking laptop and camera. So I stash the knife between a lens and camera and take it through a different metal detector and it is not detected. I skulk around the departure lounge feeling watched and guilty. But I'm not approached, and armed with an assortment of utility attachments I board the 2nd plane.

Delhi has a brand new underground system the line from the airport has only been opened for 2 weeks. I kind of recognise New Delhi station. But I'm not on the side I think I am on. The people, it’s a bit of a shock, the cycle rickshaws, the crowds, the bustle. Thankfully the heat at least I have become accustomed to. Wearing my packs front and back it’s impossible to disguise what I am and where I am going. A little knowledge and little sense of directing and a 7 year absents. It’s the ideal recipe for walking the long way round to where I’m heading. I refuse to be led, carried or taxied, it can do this and eventually I do, a sweat soaked victory with a pounding head, and aching shoulders from a straining creaking back pack, packed to stay put on a beach, but a month of inactivity was too much I can’t do a second, especially when the opportunity to travel with some friends overland to Nepal presents itself. A keyboard and Spanish books, hammock and other ridiculously heavy non travel essentials. I drag myself up a flight of stairs and lie on my solid mattress; as the sound of the bazaar crashed through the open window like waves have been for the previous month.


Cows in the street and food sellers push their carts, open fronted fly infested restaurants, the vague vagrants in suspended transit, plot well and truly lost. The roof top restaurants offer a better view of the smog and hazy chaos below. The traders of all things tat and the symphony of this combination of commerce is a novel annoyance.
But in this city of millions I meet to familiar faces and we fill our smiles with veg kofta and for one showing only I tell my disastrous tale of double travel and ineptitude.
I remember this place, from several visits over 2 decades. I enjoy it like a movie I've seen before. Refreshed memory and no need to participate. I could go out but it’s been a tiring trip and a half. And for the first time since I left home there is a TV in my room. I'm going to have a quiet night in, under a ceiling fan watching a movie I have seen several times before. And feeling a little guilty at not going out into the realist experience a capital city can offer. A calling for food eases my guilt and my hunger. I head into the street lit bazaar for a samosa. Look that's where I stayed in 97 to pick up a message form a friend to arrange a meet in Rajasthan. That's where I stayed in 2004. That's enough, that's the vibe, the smell, the memory recharged, refreshed, revisited. The dogs bark and the cats walk on the cooling tin roves.

The cows barge past, the vendors call out and I never knew I had so many friends here, ‘Come my friend, please, look inside’ the beggars beg, the hippies loiter. The backpackers leave and arrive. The hoteliers shout and the smell of Delhi belly wafts and clashes with the street cooked sun baked, fly infested fried food that caused it in the first place.
In the sanctuary of my room I eat my masala flavoured crisps and tentatively bite into my samosa. I hope it’s safe and doesn’t keep me going through the night.


4.30am another alarm and onto the silent but not dead streets. People sleep on the streets in shifts because the city never truly sleeps. A rickshaw driver with a blanket wrapped around him is ready for our business, ‘perhaps we should get two’ but 3 packs are loaded and 3 western arses are squeezed into the seat. Oh right, we fit, I've forgotten how to travel. We pass through the predawn darkness of a time past. The streets are alive with production. Menial work, the loading of sacks of heavy, from trucks of slow into shops full of it. Cleaning of streets and teeth, bodies and shop fronts. All stick figures, all in the glow of artificial lights, all unreal, it’s the slightest view of this world, not all modernized for foreign investment, call centres and mobile phones. Some of the past remains and works through the night. The cycle rickshaws are overnight accommodation for their driver, feet balanced on the bicycle seat, bodies twisted across the passenger seat, a blanket covering the contortion. The cows still have rite of passage and the smoke from burning debris chokes all who woke to find themselves still breathing. The constitution of the morning. The ritual of the working street. The sight of a world that burns my wide eyes. I’d forgotten this bit of the movie when I forgot about the travelling.
The train station is a better class of bed. The travelling families sleep on the clean white floor underneath florescent lights, their possessions around them.

We stare at the red glow of the departure board.

Platform 5. My friends first trip to India, but they have been moving and are blasé about it all now. I'm staring like I've never seen it before. I’m conditioned by beach life and now I'm thrown into what I have forgotten. But I do remember one thing, the station chai the sweetest chai in India. For the price of a text I have my sweet milky revitalizer in a thin plastic cup too hot to hold. It’s a taste I remember so clearly and I haven’t found anything to match it not in any restaurant anywhere. Platform chai is the cure for the taste of an early morning mouth dry from a dust I dare not consider the consistency of. We stand under the sign which is alight with our destination and again I'm not checking the time. I watch the flow of people that passes me and happily await the late arrival of out train.

A fake holy man approaches us with unconvincing begging, he holds is belongings and a 3 pronged staff and spits a curse at us as we ignore his requests. Luckily my friend did not put all his faith in the Indian logic. Our train is leaving the other platform. Ignore the sign and the empty platform we run to platform 3, we jump, we land in 3rd class and the train pulls out, no warning which was audible to our ears. I almost missed another train. I blame the curse of a spurned holy man. I've totally forgotten how to travel.

Train to rickshaw, rickshaw to bus, buses to buses dust to dust.



Things to re learn. Check the time and platform of the train, check the price of the rickshaw, check the tyres of the bus, do they go round and round, and now remember to look the man who holds the reigns of the horse drawn taxi cart in the eye. Make sure he is not a crazy horse man.

The first clue is that he stops after 10 yards to have a chai, I assume its living hand to mouth, but then he wants to go before we finish ours. Next sign is him shouting something that sounds like ‘fuck India’ at everyone we pass, as he takes us to the Nepalese boarder, further evidence is the brutal way he hits his horse with a stick as it hobbles along. Poor nag, owned by a crazy man. Now I notice the eyes, now I have all the evidence I need. We pay half our fair and leave. We walk the 5kms to the boarder.

>
My pack is so uncomfortable now. I cup my hands behind my back and life the weight to rest my aching shoulders. I have to stop, oh wait, those tensions straps, I remember now, I tighten them, the creaking stops, and the weight now redistributed now disappears. I've completely forgotten how to travel; look at the monkeys,

I forgotten how good fun it is to travel, I thought id out grown backpacking, apparently I haven’t. I cross a bridge into Nepal.

New country, let’s see if I can do this one a little better.