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Another epic adventure begins. My final one in fact before I become a respected member of society! Five and a half months: India, KL, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Japan, Australia and Bangkok. By my side is that friendly scamp who goes by the name of Orlando/Luba/Orluba/Lubie/Lubatron/Lubes. Here goes…

India – Mumbai (Bombay), Udaipur, Jaisalmer and Jaipur

India is instantly hectic. Very humid, horrific driving, horns everywhere, very persistent beggars/children/street sellers/missionaries/rickshaw drivers screaming “hello, how are you?, where you from?”. The village children are very ruthless and combine the word hello with a number of other nouns e.g. “hellobottle?”, “hellochocololate?”, “helloshampoo?”. They couple this with a sweet face and hands out. Luckily I am pretty heartless so can wave them off pretty easy but I think Lubes struggles.

I have never been to such a pungent place with smells good and bad greeting you at every turn. When a country has over 1 billion people and a birth rate that is still so shockingly high it is understandable that it feels like the biggest rat-race on earth with everyone scrambling for air!

Rainy season in India. First purchase, an umbrella. My umbrella is the shittiest, girliest piece of crap on Earth and is not monsoon-proof. I regretted the hastiness of the purchase but it was so cheap compared to other shops that I just gave him the money and walked off without really checking it. I think a small child would find it laughable. Oh well.

Being university graduates, one from a highly respected Scottish institution, the other from a town where my train often had to stop when bricks were hurled at the train (NEWCASTLE), we’re all up for culture and that. Museum this, fort that, boat here, climb this, temple there, read that, learn this. You get the idea. I’m not gonna ever write any specifics about all the things we see because I don’t want to bore you any more than I already am. But just to let you know, we are lapping up the culture like no mans business :P

Transport

Imagine poorly treated poultry being transported in tiny cages across Europe and you get an idea of Indian bus travel (that was perhaps a little exaggerated). The roads are damn bumpy, the bus man has a pimp-my-ride super horn, and you sleep on bunks that are too short to lie straight. The sleeper bit has a certain fish tank claustrophobic feel to it, and to maintain a good temperature without getting wet, you need to continually alter the window’s openness. The mattresses haven’t been changed since the bus was made and I try not to imagine how my particular mattress became so damp. Trains on the other hand are very cool. You get to meet loads of other travelers and loads of Indians who instantly take you under their wing, feeding you all sorts of stuff and chatting about old British rule.

When Animals Turn Bad

I love animals and animals love me. But Orlando has a mortal enemy from every corner of the animal kingdom. Take an innocent cow for example. Just minding its business down a tight alleyway in Jaisalmer when the intrepid explorer (Orlando) creeps up behind it and tries stroking it. The cow/bull definitely was not a fan of this petting and quickly gave Orlando two blows to the stomach with its blunted horns. I watched this from afar but is it wrong that I was just laughing my head off as opposed to leaping to the rescue? Case number 2: the monkeys at the Amber fort in Jaipur. We’re exploring a MASSIVE fort (proper tomb raider shit) that overlooks a lake and town below. We find a platform at the back of the fort where we find a load of monkeys in a tree. Orlando starts recording their antics, all the while I notice a particularly big monkey has ascended onto our level. What proceeded to happen can only be summed up by the following blair witch style video.



Out of shot, I use my spidermanesque ability to avert danger whilst Orlando was borderline considering hurling my new camera at the angry monkey. I think Orlando has bad karma after suggesting just before shooting the film that we should throw some stones to “liven them up”. I’ll keep you updated on what happens when Luba gets introduced to an elephant, tiger and Panda when we reach China. Something crazy is bound to happen.

Bollywood

You can’t walk 2 minutes down the streets of Colaba, Mumbai without being offered a role in a bollywood film. Unfortunately, they were shooting a European night club scene and wanted people to dance for ten hours in the background. Despite our Kevin Bacon inspired moves and the amazing acting skills we acquired at Elliott, we couldn’t handle that so instead decided to see a film at a cool retro theatre in Jaipur. The queue was amazingly long and people were getting really angry which culminated in a bum fight. Actually, it was more of a bum beating as the angry mob turned ugly on a drunk old tramp who tried to push to the front. The cinema is the most famous in Rajasthan with an art deco theme. We watched a film called “Chake dee” which was (to our disappointment) the first film in years which had no singing or dancing! I sensed the crowd weren’t feeling it and after 2.5hrs, lubes and I weren’t either especially when you consider the theme of the film: the Indian women’s hockey team. I can only think of one man that might like that (Fergus Dunn).

Udaipur and Jaisalmer

Amazing fort cities built on hills with all the buildings painted a certain colour. Udaipur was the places where James Bond’s Octopussy was shot, and I can remember clearly 007 taking out a number of Turbanators. Jaisalmer was also beautiful with thin alleys and a very Moroccan vibe to it. Many of the hotels have a medina design and great views on to the desert. From there, we spent two nights and three days on a camel safari. Riding a camel for 6hrs a day is actually quite painful, and my ass is still a bit bruised now. The camels are very nonchalant. They just chew on dry feed and do their job. I thought I had built a good relationship up with mine, as he reluctantly began to allow me to stroke him. The coolest camel was called Jonny Walker and our guide claimed he was the fastest camel in Rajasthan after winning a number of Camel derbies. At night, we slept on sand dunes under the stars which was amazing- I have never seen such a detailed sky before and I impressed some English rahs with my physics banter. I am so cool.

Gems and the Indian Mafia

To cut a long story short, we have come to realize that it is quite rare when an Indian just wants to chill out and be your friend. We meet some blokes who seem pretty minted, and want to take us to the coolest (and only) night club in Jaipur. The place is like an Ibiza superclub with massive capacity. They take us to this private room where we can order any drinks/ food we like (all paid for) whilst we watch people down on the dance floor. Next day, they want to show us around the city, buy us breakfast etc until we eventually end up in a bloody gem shop owned by their uncle who wants us to transport some back to England for him. I lost my patience very quickly (after reading about these scams in the bible) but the situation was a bit hairy so we remained somewhat polite and managed to escape.
Posted by Will Ryan under the categories India and Travel
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