Right now

UR

Right now, I am:

* Living in London, UK. On Wandsworth Road, Lambeth, SW8 2JU. Check it out on Google Earth if you want! And maybe scan over lovely Battersea Park, about 3km to the west.
* Spending time with Gabrielle :D
* Enjoying running, eating well, meditation and generally trying to stay strong, balanced and flexible
* Doing an internship with Eastside Consulting, three days a week. Lovely location of an Old Brewery in Brick Lane. Ultra-funky shops, cafes, restuarants...and stolen bike sales on a Sunday morning.
* Working part-time at Cycle Surgery in Spitalfields.
* Soon meeting with some people to see if I can't develop some great projects to make a contribution to London, and Global Sustainability: Timo and Eliza, Mark Young, and John Elkington
* Have put job applications in at Global Action Plan, Beyond Green, Upstream and WWF

And...more later!

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Life and death in great English cities

UL, LR, System

Much respect to Jane Jacobs

London is full of life. A wonderful diveristy of cultures, shapes (animate and inanimate), grit, urban regeneration and entrepreneurial spirit. It's heart beats at a rapid pace.

And, can stop beating in an instant.

When in London in June, I was riding back from a great meeting, feeling good and eyes wide-open to possibilities and the vibrancy of the city around me. Then I saw a dead cyclist, a person lying under a sheet on the other side of the road. My heart stopped and my gut did cartwheels. Myself and other cyclists heading the opposite direction just stalled and almost caused accidents ourselves. I don't know what happened, but it just brought home the reality that things change...fast. So I rode a bit slower, a bit more cautiously....for the next few kilometres.

I continue to ride quite cautiously on my old 'city' bike, but when I jump on Shirley I just want to go fast. This is not a good thing when there are so many traffic lights, other moving objects, and stationary objects to thwart your need for speed. The urge to take risks in the hope of getting a nice clean ride for a few kilometres is hard to ignore. Until you almost run a red light, almost head out into five lanes of accelerating traffic, and almost...test the skill of other drivers and the safety rating of your helmet.

Last night was another sickening example of death being an instant away. Riding from Victoria station back to Vauxhall bridge, again, happy after a group Vipassana meditation, a German Shephard dog bolted out across the road about 5m ahead of me. I saw it all. It's joy and enthusiasm as it rushed towards the dog on the other side of the road, and then the sickening impact as a car coming the other direction slammed straight into it. The dog slid 20m past me back down the road and traffic slowed as did I, drifting past the distraught owners covering their faces down a side street. Looking back, the dog (as they seem to do) had got up and walked to the side of the road. Howling horribly, limping, but still alive. The owner's uncovered their faces, people jumped out their cars...and I overcame the deep, complete, utter horror felt through my whole body and sort of wobbled onwards.

This morning, that idea arose again - death, I thought of slow death. I realised that I do not see many old people here. A few oler black guys hanging around the shops downstairs, a few dudes betting and drinking in smoky establishments, but no real elderly people like there were in Karlskrona. I think the pace and smog and cost (?) would be pretty hard for them to handle, but don't know. I will let you know if I found out more.

Until then, if you were like me as a younger cyclist - thinking I was happy to die on the moral high ground in the battle to beat the evil, polluting cars with my antics....let it go. Just chill. Be careful, really careful if you think about ignoring the traffic lights (think of the image you want to portray as a cyclist too). And just...it's better late than never, and choose the right time and place to express your energy, aggression and joy through your legs and a sprint around some obstacles. Maybe off-road : )

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Bicycle obituary - R.I.P. Shirley

Shirley the Surly has been stolen.

Barely a week into her jaunt to London she passed away on Greenman St, Islington. Stolen while I had a wonderful dinner with a whole gang of people loosely affiliated with SoL (jeans). The thieves so keen that they removed the street sign to which she was attached. And, a nearby CCTV / security camera failed (due to it being off!) to catch the guys on tape. No-one in the nearby pub on the corner was really able to help either....

<- See where the hole instead of a pole, and air instead of a bike!

Shirley is survived by trusty bumblebee. Poor old bumblebee the Bob Yak (now lime green, with speckles of undercoat and rust showing through) has survived three (expensive) bikes: Sunshine (Rocky Mountain Edge), A KHS softtail, and now Shirley. Collectively they represent at least AUD$10, 000 worth of bikes I've lost. Anyway...this is not about mourning, this is about celebrating the life that was!

Shirley was my trusty steed, whose grace and speed were only limited by my own abilities. She performed brilliantly from Adelaide to Melbourne, around Tasmania and Wildside, free-riding in Geraldton, and round and round the track at a couple of 12 hour races, AND through some pretty heavy snowdrifts mid-winter in Sweden. Touring, downhill, road-races, cross-country, mud, snow, heat and rain...she could do it all. An extremely rare quality in a bike...and the very reason I loved her heavy Cro-Mo, burnt orange frame so much : )

I loved her, but things change (anicca! - Pali word for impermanence) and ultimately you know it makes sense to experience the grief, go through the cycle of grief, and ultimately remain equanimous with whatever arises. My only real source of sadness is that she was real, alive, and truly deserved to be loved...and now may be in the hands of someone who treats her with none of the care and attention I did.

Perhaps if I get some travel insurance money I can start to fill the little hole in my life. Until then, it is a rusty black mountain bike, recovered from the backyard of some other Australian's house...that I will be using to drag off the expensive road bikes, and oh-so-cool single-speeds from the traffic lights in the London. And, I guess I will get even more into my running : ) If you are moved by all this, please check out Poetica on ABC (streaming audio) for their recent programme on Bicycling Poetry


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Aware of the subtle beauty

UL, LR

Subtlety is big in my mind at the moment: increasing and increasing your awareness such that you can peel back the layers and penetrate the detail and wonder in the everyday. Coming to London post-Sweden, post-transformation and post-meditation, my consciousness of many subtle aspects of London life is acute. This has manifested itself in an appreciation of things that I previously thought ugly or inferior.

Examples:
* the trees and vines out the back of Gabrielle's house in Vauxhall are no longer weeds growing amongst piles of rubbish in an urban hell, but just as much a manifestation of the beauty of the natural world as the wildly biodiverse mid-west of WA (though similarly subtle in its appearance as low scrubby heath) or the incredible reefs of the Abrolhos.
* Battersea Park is no longer some poor imitation of a natural setting in which to run and find some peace, but rather a truly inspirational spot complete with water features, massive golden statue of Buddha, beautiful flower beds...and a community garden (guess where I will soon be volunteering on Sunday mornings!).
* The population of this city are no longer a strange mix of freaks, suits, and fat lazy bastards whose main interest too me was as a contrast to the striking physical beauty of the Scandinavians. Instead, as I realised while stopped at on e set of traffic lights, watching many of them go by...so wildly diverse and intensely beautiful in a far more subtle (and internal) way, that I felt like hugging them all.

True, many of them may be nasty people, but even for them, by hugging them and believing in their beauty, perhaps it would help them feel more comfortable with allowing that to blossom in themselves and others around them. Even the people who stole Shirley, and the gang of small, violent children who threw stones at me while cycling to Gabrielle's from Liverpool station earlier in August. And, you better be aware - just for practical reasons - ALL THE TIME on a bike, or you are likely to be killed. Oh, what a different light this place is bathed in this time around. I guess that's how you know you've grown through travel and experience - not that you can remember seeing many different things, but that you can look at the same things through new eyes.

Which is where the equanimity-thing comes in....remaining open, open, open without interpreting, judging, slipping back into the old habits...as much as you can.

Awareness. Equanimity. Anicca (Impermanence in Pali).

India Part 5 - The jigsaw puzzle of the Indian psyche - peices added, peices lost (part 2)

LL, Sys, Box

Whoops, I accidentally sent that other part before I had finished it..... so
here's the rest.

To hire Tim's Royal Enfield (a famous British bike, now ruling the streets
in India) Ronnie got us to meet up with this strange Indian mobster who
owned the bike. We met him in his backyard, where he gave us chai and
"beedis" (cigarettes, but wrapped in a leaf instead of paper) and told Tim
(through Ronnie) how the bike worked, how much he wanted etc. This guy had
more hangers on and right-hand men than Anthony Mundine and Dannny Green put
together - he sat in the middle of his garden on a chair and they flanked
him on either side, nervously laughing at all his jokes, and not speaking
unless spoken to. We felt a bit uncomfortable, especially given that there
was a bloke writhing around and groaning in his garden shed just behind us.

Anyway, Tim got the bike and he and Ronnie rode to the Bay of Bengal for the
day, while I hung around town getting hot and dirty and eating icecreams on
the Maidan (the big park). I paid a visit to the India Museum, which was so
"old-school" a museum as to be an actual museum OF a museum. I can just
imagine a teacher taking some kids around:

"Children, this is what a museum used to look like when the British ruled
India. Come, lets look at the stuffed animals, fossils, and rocks in their
dimly-lit and dusty wood and glass display cases, each clearly and
methodically labeled with only their latin names. Oh look, there's a painted
fibreglass model of a bottlenose dolphin, and a pickled cobra in a jar! A
truly fascinating glimpse into the past."

The following afternoon we left Ronnie for a while and went to Aquatica, the
Kolkata version of Wet 'n' Wild. Of course, instead of being nice and clean
and cool, the water was a thick green amoebic meningitis soup - a dish best
served lukewarm. But having come so far, and paid so many rupees to get in,
we gave it a crack anyway - anyone who has seen the pool at my house in
President Street will understand when I say that I think I have built up a
strong tolerance to water-borne diseases. There were some fun slides there,
but every time we went down without fail there would be an Indian boy or
girl or man or woman stopped halfway down screaming or crying and, being
large white men unable to stop our momentum, we inevitably plowed into their
backs or heads or necks, causing them to scream or cry some more. This even
happened on the pitch-black tunnel slide and Tim had to kick this guy in the
back or the head about 10 times to get him moving.... incomprehensible
foolishness.

The highlight of Aquatica was this kind of watery disco, where there was
loud Indian music being played out over a wooden dancefloor impregnated with
little jets that shot mist up onto the groovers. A rope across the middle
divided the girls and couples (about 5 people) from the hormonal boys (100
plus, some doing pushups in their muscle shirts). Naturally, being a disco
fiend from way back, I had to give it a go. I thought being a white man
would allow me to access all areas, but I had to settle for the boys side,
where I put on a fine display of traditional Australian dancing - the
sprinkler, the lawnmower, the shopping trolley (I forgot to do the
shark).... I had about 100 people yelling and imitating my actions, but I'm
not sure they fully understood what a sprinkler or a lawnmower or a shopping
trolley is - at the Taj Mahal they mow the lawn with a team of bullocks
strapped to a harvester, and in Mumbai I saw ten men mowing the maidan by
hand with small sickles.

The next day we caught a local train south to Ronnie's village - I finally
fulfilled my vision of being in a fully packed Indian train and hanging out
the door.... excellent fun. When we jumped off there was a sudden commotion
as a big mob of men and boys dragged a terrified looking bloke off the train
and started slapping and punching him and yelling at him. Ronnie told us he
was a pickpocket they had caught - they dragged him off into a shed where
Ronnie said they would beat the life out of him. Swift Indian justice. I
can't describe the fear in this pickpocket's eyes - I'll never forget it
though. We stayed the night with Ronnie and his wife, which was great.
Ronnie, his neighbour, Tim and I got drunk and staggered around and caught
the train to another town and back, and generally had a great time.

Next day we got the local train south again into the Ganges delta, caught a
boat across the river, caught a rickshaw for 30 minutes, and then hired out
a big boat for the day to take us to the Sunderbans Tiger Reserve. The 3
hour boat ride was really relaxing and fun for me, but Tim and Ronnie were
really sick from the previous night's festivities and may not have enjoyed
it quite as much. Anyway we got to the Reserve, only to be informed that we
couldn't come in unless we had the correct authorisation letter from some
office in Kolkata - I blame the British for this. I was sure the Phantom was
in there too damn it!

"It's better to stare into the tiger's eyes than into the cold eyes of the
angry Phantom"*

But, boys and girls, there is one thing that I consider more dangerous still
than staring into the cold eyes of the angry Phantom - jumping into the
Ganges River (see email from Varanasi for description of river conditions),
and this is what we did. There is crocodiles in the Ganges too, but the boat
driver said there was none in this area - I made it a quick swim regardless,
because he also said we could get into the Sunderbans. We got back to the
town, and back on the rickshaw to the train station.

(start Fred Savage "The Wonder Years" narration with nasal American accent)

And so, as Tim and I rode facing backwards on the platform rickshaw, Ronnie
and his neighbour on the front, we no longer saw what was coming towards us,
but only what was being left behind. The sun was setting on the mangrove
forest and also on our 5 week journey of discovery in this strange but
wonderful country. Our quest to understand India and Indians was looking
like a lost cause. Everything we saw and every answer we got led only to
more questions, and we were no closer to discovering the holy grail, or the
single stitch that would tie together everything that we had seen.

But as I looked back at the village Indians smiling and pointing and
laughing as we flew by, I started to wonder if THEY knew why they threw
their rubbish on the ground, or why they could make Tim a cheese sandwich or
a tomato sandwich but not a cheese AND tomato sandwich, or how they could
have a constant water shortage in Darjeeling where it rains every day and
there is large rivers running by. I said to Tim that I had recently come
extremely close to throwing my rubbish on the gound or in the water - in
fact another week here and I almost certainly would have done it. Tim
admitted that he had been throwing his rubbish on the ground when he was
sure I wasn't looking.

At this instant I finally understood India. No Indian could EVER explain any
of these things to us in logical terms, because there was no logic behind it
and they would freely admit this. When we asked people in Darjeeling why
they didn't collect rainwater they would say "Yeah it's ridiculous, we
really should" and leave it at that. India doesn't make sense at all, and
there is no use fighting against it or trying to make sense of it. Indians
know this, and now I know it too.

And so as I looked back on this crazy decade, the 1960's, I knew that Winnie
and I had been through the good and bad times, and we were going to be OK.

(end of "The Wonder Years" narration)

Yeah we are back in Mumbai now, and hitting an Indian nightclub tonight. I
bought some new shoes for the occasion, but Tim's feet are too big for
Indian shoes so he's gonna try with the old Dunlop Volleys - banking on his
white skin as his passport through the door. I'm a bit crook, but he went
out last night and saw a Norweigan get bitten by a rabid dog - good old
India, I'll miss her.

Ciao.

Michael.

India Part 4 - The jigsaw puzzle of the Indian psyche - peices added, peices lost

LL, Sys, Box

Salutations friends,

Please consider this short play, based on a true story.

START OF PLAY

(It's a hot humid and hazy park, nestled between the haphazard metropolis of
Kolkata and the poo-brown Hooghly River, which slides past in the background
- similar to the park between Perth and the Swan River, but on a much
grander scale. There's a smattering of people over the vast area, and the
obligatory shreds of assorted rubbish on the ground.)

Tim Knight [Australian tourist]: So Ronnie, we've been wondering this whole
trip how Indians can just throw their rubbish on the ground without a care
in the world - what's the go with that?

Ronnie Benjamin [56 y.o, 5 foot, 40 kg burmese x indian, fluent in English,
Hindi, and Bengali]: Yeah those filthy f#@cken b@#stards, it's unbelievable
isn't it?

TK: Yeah it sure is...... so do you throw your rubbish on the ground Ronnie?

RB (without hesitation): Yeah mate I sure do, and after a couple of days
here, you will too.

TK (thoughtful): Hmmmm.....

END OF PLAY

We will return to this seemingly innoccuous event later because it's
dramatic importance is not yet clear to you, the reader.

From Gangtok we got a 5 hour jeep ride back down south to Siliguri/New

Jailpaguri (like Kalgoorlie-Boulder - two towns that are basically one) in
the northern part of West Bengal. We had a stunning victory, Socceroo-style,
over the Indian train system in Siliguri/NJP - a formidable opponent in
anyone's language. Arriving just past midday, we tried to book a ticket for
that night's "Darjeeling Mail" train to Kolkata from the Siliguri Junction
train station ticket office, only to be told that there were no tickets for
that night's train, or indeed the next night's. Faced with the possibility
of spending an unproductive day or two in this "nothing" town (that's where
in differs from the happening place of Kalgoorlie-Boulder), we took the bold
step of making the 30 minute rickshaw journey to New Jailpaguri station in
the hope of rustling up a ticket. After a short wait in line I made a failed
attempt, but just as I was turning to leave the queue my mind wandered back
to our first few days in Mumbai, when a helpful New South Welshman x Indian
got us a ticket to Jodphur by yelling the word "quota" a couple of times,
really loud. I quickly turned around, mumbled something about a "quota", and
suddenly two tickets became available for that night's train - you can't
imagine the relief and sense of achievement. I was high on endorphins for
several hours. A quick roadside samosa and 11 hours of fitful sleep later,
we pulled into Kolkata.

So many things happened during our week in Kolkata that it would be foolish
to try and describe them, so I will have to summarise. The first couple of
days we wandered around looking at stuff, eating stuff, drinking stuff,
breathing, sleeping and all that jazz. I bribed a security guard 20 rupees
to let me into the Eden Gardens cricket ground, which was unbelievable. It
was so small that I had to ask about 10 people "Is this Eden Gardens? Are
you sure?" before I could believe it - the ground is 2/3 the size of the
WACA yet it has a greater capacity than the MCG. It's all just bare
concrete, mesh and barbed wire, and it costs 2 rupees to get in for an
international match - that would buy you two bananas over here if you
bargained hard, and equates to about 6 cents. Needless to say, it would be a
mad and frenzied crowd.

Anyway, after a few days in Kolkata Tim met this fella Ronnie, as described
above. He normally tutors rich children in conversational English but it is
school holidays and everyone is away, so he was just wandering the streets
and parks. We ended up paying him 300 rupees a day to show us around the
city and beyond, and he took us anywhere we wanted to go: slums, markets,
the red-light district.... all stories on their own. He also got us anything
we wanted: I got two great shirts tailored, Tim hired a Royal Enfield
motorbike for the day..... in fact the only thing he couldn't organise was a
t-shirt that I wanted. It had to have a large Indian flag on the front, and
big black letters saying "Bring back British Raj!" - for some reason these
are unavailable.

For those that don't know, Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) was the capital for
the Poms during the "British Raj (Rule)" of India, which ended in 1947. I
think the main British influence that has been maintained in Kolkata, and
throughout India, is the love of ridiculous paper shuffling - forms about
forms, endless rubber stamps and signatures, ruthless pouncing on
administrative errors. One fortunate remnant is Brylcream, a fine hair
product, a tin of which I found on a little shop's shelf for a very
reasonable price - my dream of going through India without washing my hair
ended way back in Rajasthan, after a night sleeping on the sand dune. I got
the feeling that the tin had been sitting there since 1947 waiting for the
return of the British, and hence an increased demand for people wanting to
wax their moustaches.

India Part 3 - The "rain shadow effect" is a conspiracy!

LL, Sys, Box

Namaste,

Conveniently, "namaste" (literally: I bow down before you) is good for both hello AND goodbye, effectively doubling my knowledge of Hindi. Inconveniently, West Bengalis speak Bengali and Sikkimese speak Nepali, so I am back stumbling around in the linguistic wilderness. I am writing from Gangtok, the capital city (pop. 30,000 = Kalgoorlie) of the state of Sikkim, which is in the Indian Himalayas north of West Bengal. Tim has got the flu or a cold, and is resting under the influence of some "flu tablets" a roadside stall lady pulled out of a large bucket of random pill boxes.... I'm sure the foaming and that mouth and uncontrollable spasming is a harmless side-effect.

We found our way into Darjeeling, West Bengal, via a 13 hour train ride from Varanasi to Siliguri, and a 4 hour jeep ride up into the hills. The jeep ride was sensational, if only for the hand-painted roadside safety signs, many of which would have had all 10 of us (yes 10 in a jeep) plummetting to our bloody deaths in hysterics if I had been at the wheel. "Hurry burry spoils the curry", "If married, divorce speed", "Safety first, speed next" (Australian road-train drivers would say "Speed first, whiskey next, cheese sausage at Eucla"), "Better late than never dead" (I challenge anyone to explain what that means - it occupied my mind for two hours), and my favourite "Don't gossip, let him drive", which assumes that (1) the man is always driving, and (2) the woman is constantly interrupting his Johnny Cash tape with idle gossip.... so true, so true.

Darjeeling is tea country, and a select few of you will be recieving your very own packet of India's finest tea upon my return - (start sarcastic tone) oooh what excitement that will bring to your lives! (end sarcastic tone) I was tempted to mutter "Sri Lanka", and specifically Dilmah, whenever an Indian told me that Darjeeling produces the world's best tea, but I held back in fear of fisticuffs breaking out. Surely Merrill J. Fernando (the founder of Dilmah for the uneducated amongst you) lies not when he says "Dilmah, the finest tea"?

The hills of the tea region are MUCH bigger and steeper than the gently rolling hills I had imagined - think mountain goat country. The weather up here is quite cloudy and drizzly most of the time - a point not-so-subtley reinforced by the owner of our hotel in Darjeeling. He was a small Asian-looking fella (as many are up towards China) with crooked teeth and coke bottle glasses, and he said to Tim and I, while staring off into the clouds, hands behind his back, "You should have come in October (long pause) when the skies are clear and sunny (longer pause) you feel cheated, not only by the people of Darjeeling, but also by nature". I said (after a long silence) "Well we do now".

After a few restful days in Darjeeling and another 5 hours in an overcrowded jeep, as always blaring with tinny Indian music and falsetto female vocals (yes Indian music is just as you imagine it - no unfair Western stereotypes there), we got to Gangtok. On the way, Tim and I reviewed our high-school geography knowledge of the "rain shadow effect" - a universal phenomenon whereby the vast majority of rain falls on the leading edge of a mountain range. We therefore declared with considerable surety that Sikkimise skies would be a clear, azure blue. It's a lie! We still haven't seen the mystical Khangchendzonga mountain (kang-chen-joonga), which (so the postcards and books tell us) dominates the skyline from almost anywhere in Darjeeling or Sikkim.

There isn't a heap to do in Gangtok, so we went on a 3 day tour into the Yumthang Valley in far northern Sikkim, close to the Chinese border, staying both nights in a town called Lachung - all the place names, people, and food are more "chinesey" up here. The highest we got was a spectacular river valley at 3,400 m - this elevaton is not immune to the curse of Indian littering (un-bloody-believable), but IS apparently immune to the rain shadow effect. How were we to know that at 3,400 m, we were still on the "leading edge" of the Himalayas?

Lachung was in a valley bounded on both sides by tremendously steep mountains - a whole other level of jaggedness than Darjeeling, which I thought was pretty wild at the time, but is now a mere molehill. We couldn't see the tops due to cloud, but I got up early the first morning and saw the jagged, snowy peaks of the highest one - woohoo! It was cloudy when Tim got up, but I described it to him and we decided to call the mountain "Old Saw Tooth". We both saw it on the second morning and as we were leaving I asked our guide what the mountain was called. "It doesn't have a name because it is below 6,000 m" he said. At first we were deflated because we thought the mountain was so spectacular, but then happy because we had named our first mountain!

The roads through this area are absolute madness - single lane, and rockfalls everywhere! We saw a little truck crushed by a massive boulder - it happened only 2 days ago! I asked the guide how often jeeps roll off the edge and he said "At least 15-20 per year". You are only inches or seconds from certain death at all times.

Anyway I had better go and check on Tim. At this stage we will PROBABLY still go through Kolkata and the Ganges river mouth, before heading back to Mumbai. I have been wearing my money belt everywhere so it is quite smelly, but I might take it off in the Ganges delta - there won't be any theives there because "the Phantom is rough with roughnecks*".

Namaste!

Michael.

PS. Every Indian keyboard has a dodgy letter - this one is "i", so excuse any that are missing.

* Old Jungle Saying

India Part 2 - Hello from Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh

LL, Sys, Box

Hello everyone,

I am writing this message from Varanasi, a holy city where old Hindus come to die, be burnt, and be thrown into the Ganges. Hopefully my words will flow from the keyboard in the same way that the filthy Ganges spews it's cargo of rotting animals, rubbish, excretement, and charred Hindu bodies into the Bay of Bengal - though let's all hope that this message is more savoury than the aforementioned.

Our desert camel ride in Jaisalmer was more comical than inspirational, as we were led a few hundred metres away and parallel to a bituminised road, then crossed the road and doubled back down the other side, before going a few hundred metres away from the road to a sand dune for the night. At one stage Tim and I had to seize the controls of our lazy beasts, and point them over a dune - the camel owners were reluctant to have the camels walk up any dunes, but we demanded our 1000 rupees worth. These lazy and maingey lumps of furry flesh brought shame to "Ship's of the Desert" the world over with their incompetence and petulance - if Australian camel's were a Toyota Landcruiser, then these were surely Suzuki Mighty Boys. The night in the desert was hilarious too looking back - we got absolutely sandblasted and completely caked in dirt, thanks to sticky skin (sweat plus suncream plus facial hair) and a roaring wind. Needless to say, there was a lot of writhing around and very little sleeping, especially when a wild dog fight broke out about 10 m away in complete darkness.

We then hightailed out of Rajasthan all the way into Delhi, which was so furious, noisy, and polluted that we only spent one night there before continuing on to Agra. We looked at the Taj Mahal on the first morning and intended to continue our mission to West Bengal pretty quickly, but ended up spending 3 days there because we couldn't organise a train ticket out - I mistakenly thought that we had the train system sorted, but Agra was something else. I went to the station alone, expecting it to take 5 minutes and returned to the hotel 5 hours, two trips to the station, and several corrupt middle-men later a broken man, and honestly on the verge of tears.... and no ticket. Next day I sent Knighty to get the ticket and he returned 5 hours later with one - an extra 300 rupees, and a vacant seat magically appears. Anyway, the days in Agra were a blessing in disguise because it made us chill out, and we had a great time with our trusty rickshaw driver Rambev, and push-biking the backstreets.

I need to devote a whole paragraph to the Taj Mahal, which was the most amazing man-made thing I have ever seen and will ever see. We went there a little bit sceptical, having been unimpressed with a few dilapidated Indian monuments, but this thing was incredible. The three gates that lead to the main building are spectacular enough on their own, but the main building is absolutely inspiring in scale and detail, and is actually indescribable, hence this paragraph will now end.

Now we are in Varanasi for a couple of days (again, a bit longer than expected due to train dramas). The Ganges and the "ghats" (where people swim, get cremated) are an absolute juxtaposition of the best and worst of India - friendly happy lively Hindus mixing with a slow-flowing cesspool of sewerage, charred remains, rotting cow carcasses (we saw one getting eaten by a couple of dogs about 5 m from happy swimmers), and general filth. Like many things we've seen in India it's bizarre and amazing, but there are stark contradictions and incomprehensible things happening all around you.

I had a sitar lesson here too and it was AWESOME - don't be surprised if I bring one home!

We've got one more day here, then we are escaping to what has become some sort of highly-anticipated promised land for Tim and I - the tea-country and mountains of Darjeeling and Sikkim, where we hope to chill out and cruise for a while. We have been picturing ourselves there for a couple of days now! These hot, humid plains are extremely draining even for the Indians, and especially because it is in the "build-up" to the monsoon.

After the hills, we will be heading for the southern part of West Bengal (the Ganges delta), where we hope to ride an elephant and see a tiger. I'm really excited because it's also the home of The Phantom! I hope to either see him in the jungle hanging out with Old Man Moz, or else in Kolkata (Calcutta) where, of course, he will be "walking the streets as an ordinary man*". Apologies to non-Phantom fans, but shame on you for not revering the purple-jumpsuited hero.

Oh well, we're gonna get a few beers and go for a row down the Ganges now - ciao!

Michael.

* Old Jungle Saying

India Part 1 - Hello from Jaisalmer, Rajasthan!

LL, Sys, Box

Hello everyone,

Tim and I are having a jolly old time over here, and there haven't been too many ugly mishaps thus far.

We started off in Mumbai, where we stayed for two nights. It took us a while to figure out what was going on, though it didn't help that we were a bit drunk when we arrived - we managed to hold off drinking between Perth and Singapore, but then we succumbed to temptation of Australian Merlot on the SIngapore - Mumbai leg. We mistakenly figured that this was the only way we would be able to face the situation of landing in a mad new country in the middle of the night with no accomadation. We got a little bit fleeced on the first night, but not too badly, and we have since learned that the locals are generally pretty trustworthy, despite our initial doubts.

Mumbai is very busy, but great fun. There are millions of these black and yellow 1950-something Fiat taxis flying around (honestly every second car), making life hazardous on the streets, especially coming from Kalgoorlie. The secret is just to walk out in front of the traffic with no regard for your life or those around you - I think they must just respect your bravery and slow down or something, unlike in Australia where we would speed up to try and hit the bastards. We had a very interesting and hilarious time cashing in Tim's travellers cheques - we got sent to about seven or eight different banks, none of which would change them. In about the eigth one, a guy on the ground floor sent us to the second floor of the branch, where another guy sent us to the furthest corner of the room. The guy in the corner told us that this bank doesn't change them and that we should go to Thomas Cook, which was "near the fountain" - what fountain??? They were all smirking or giggling as we walked out in hysterics - there was nothing to do but laugh at the craziness of it all. We eventually found it about 3 hours and 5 kg of lost sweat later.

Tim also lost his little backpack in a taxi, which was a drama because it had our Lonely Planet India book in it - without this I swear we would never have got out of Mumbai. I vaguely remembered seeing a modern-looking bookshop somewhere on our Great Thomas Cook Hunt, and as remarkable good luck would have it, we managed to find it (and a new Lonely Planet, plus Hindi phrasebook) almost straight away!

Next we went to book a train from Mumbai to Jodphur (Rajasthan), and had some more good luck when we ran into a guy from New South Wales who had been in India for 26 years - he showed us how to fill in the train booking form and negotiated with the Indian lady for some decent seats. Like the Lonely PLanet, without this guy, we would almost certainly still be in Mumbai, or at least trying to walk to Rajasthan - the train booking process is wierd and difficult at first glance, but I think we have a handle on it now.

The train ride itself was hilarious. It was 17 hours long and Tim had a 1 litre duty free bottle of rum in his bag, so we did the only reasonable thing a pair of sane people could do - we drank it all within about 3 hours. It certainly had the effect of improving our fragile grasp of Hindi, and led to us learning off our fellow passengers what we think will become a very valuable phrase "Kanjus makhi cus", literally meaning "You are a miser and a fly-sucker" - the fly-sucker part means that if a fly flew into said person's chai (tea), they would suck the tea off the fly before they threw it away. Apparently it is a very valuable phrase when bargaining, but we are yet to have had cause to use it. Anyway, we had half the carriage in raptures with our Hindi until we reached a time when even our grasp of English was becoming loose at best, upon which we retired to bed.

The next day we arrived in Jodphur, an amazing where many buildings are an azure blue colour, and the entire place is backed by a gigantic and intricately crafted Rajput fort - I urge anyone with the internet to look this city up to get a feeling for it. We did the great audio tour of the fort, and then sat in a rooftop restaurant and had some more lovely Indian food talking to some Germans before retiring for the much needed boon of sleep.

Today we had a crazy 7 hour bus ride east to Jaisalmer, another Rajasthani Fort city. Our initial bus got confiscated by police halfway here for being overcrowded, despite the fact that there wasn't even anyone on the roof yet! So we just got booted off the bus in this random desert town, with no idea of when or if a new bus would come. We made friends with some local kids, then one went and got an onion for me off this cow-pulled cart that was full of onions and driven by this crazy moustached turabned fella. Anyway they wouldn't leave me alone until I had eaten it so I just ate it as some sort of show of gratitude. Luckily another bus came before they made me eat the rest of it - this was another bus full of people going to Jaisalmer, which we piled up with our whole busload of people. There ended up being about 4 people pre one-man sleeping cabin, but it was great fun and comfortable enough.

Jaisalmer looks good so far, and we are going on an overnight camel ride tomorrow night, which should be grand. Rajasthan as a whole seems quite touristy and we are looking forward to getting off the beaten track a little bit if possible - with 1 billion-plus people, you can imagine that many a track is "beaten".

Anyway, that's enough for now I believe. Send any news or reviews, and I will send another email when I get a chance, or when some more wierd stuff happens - whichever comes first.

Until then I remain,

Stumbling dehydrated and delerious around the Great Thar Desert,

MIchael.

Introduction to the India series

LL, Sys, Box

My brother Michael travelled to India this year. I was wildly excited when I learned of his plans, as he has always shown an interest in Eastern sources of wisdom despite limited experience with them. Also, I think he is an excellent, and very funny, writer. See what you think as we join him on his Indian adventure...