Double Whammy

Not one week has passed since what happened with Sev that a demon from my past has decided to rear it's head, bringing with it a whole reservoir of pain and anger I've been holding in most of my life. Sometimes we try to leave the past behind us, to move on, but it inevitably catches up with us at some point in our lives, and mine has. It's strange how all these things seem to arrive all at the same time.
It's not something I will go into in detail right now, suffice to say that the last few days, no, the last week has been one of the most trying times emotionally in my life so far. It's tough dealing with it out here on my own, and it is something I have to deal with on my own, but sometimes it's good to have an outlet, and I have this blog. So I hope you don't mind me talking about it, as I need some form of release.
I have plenty of time to deal with this situation, that's one thing I have a lot of, although when it first landed on my lap in the form of a viscous but pathetic email, I couldn't find the heart to move on from here, Madurai, for a couple of days as it hurt me so much. It's put a dent into my plans for travel, I'll have to miss out on a few places I wanted to visit as I have to get to Chennai (Madras) by the 3rd May to catch my flight to the Andaman Islands. At least I'll have 2 weeks to decide how to deal with this whilst out in the Andamans.
When something has been haunting you, hurting you, for most of your life, some people bottle it up, like I did, and it's finally poured out in one go as the person involved has decided to confront me. Everyone has some problem in their life that follows them throughout. It's high time I decide whether to try to resolve this or cut off from it for good. I know if I try to resolve it, as I have so many times before, it'll just hurt me time and again. I believe the best solution is to sever it for good, and move on with my life, but I'm not going to make any rash decisions and take my time.

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What have I done since my last post? Well after Alleppey, I took a boat through the stunning Keralan backwaters, a massive network of canals, rivers and lakes fringed with coconut trees. The wildlife is rampant here, from fishing eagles to the iconic and majestic blue and orange kingfisher. Chinese fishing nets line many of the more open stretches of water, with small fishing communities dotting the banks. Children and adults swim and play in the waters, shouting greetings as we passed by, although the children mostly asked for 'One pen! One pen!'. The 8 hour boat ride took us to a fabulous backwater resort nestled amongst a few islands where we had a brief stop for lunch, eating fried fish, dhal, and vegetable masala with rice served on a banana leaf and eaten with your right hand (left hand is reserved for 'cleaning').
Later that afternoon, we stopped at Amritapuri, the home to Amma, the hugging female guru. The pink skyrise residential complex stands out in great contrast to the surrounding environment. It reminds me of a lot of the residential blocks of flats in Hong Kong with it's pink facade. As my time was short, I never stopped there. It was a Thursday, and if I had stayed, I would have had to stay for a couple of days as Amma doesn't hold darshan (her hugging sessions) on a Friday. So I stayed on the boat, saw a very strange statue called the 'Goddess of Light' which was totally out of place on a private estate on the way to Kollam, reaching it by 6:30pm.
Once at Kollam, I didn't plan to stay the night, as it's very similar to Alleppey with not much to see. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the train station, I had missed my train to Madurai by 5 minutes, so I hopped on another train to Trivandrem, south of Kollam, and spent the night there before catching another train to Madurai. It was at Trivandrem that the afore mentioned situation developed, and since being here in Madurai, I haven't spent much time sightseeing or moving around.
I arrived in Madurai early in the morning, a 5am, and checked into a hostel. I wanted to get more sleep than the 4 hours I got on the overnight train from Trivandrem but couldn't sleep from thinking about this ordeal. I left the hostel after a few hours and walked over to the Shri Meenakshi-Sundareshwar temple complex, one of the most prominent temple complexes in the south of India. The complex is large, enclosed within a 6m high wall with huge, gaudily painted gopuras at each of the four gates at each point of the compass. The temples inside hold some 33,000 sculptures of deities, many covered in ghee (clarified butter) and kumkum powder which worshippers touch to apply the three white horizontal stripes across their foreheads (marking them as worshippers of Shiva) and a red bhindi/talik above the bridge of their noses. As a non-Hindu, I wasn't allowed inside the heart of the shrines to Meenakshi (a form of Parvati, Shiva's consort) and Sundareshwar (Shiva).
The gopuras, large tapering towers, are also seen on a lesser scale within the complex, much smaller than the 46m high ones at each gate. On each of the numerous tiers rising up the sides are a huge number of sculptures of deities, all restored and painted in bright colours, visible for miles around.
The interior is vast and mazelike with the two main shrines dominating, many smaller shrines to deities such as Ganesh (the Elephant god, son of Shiva and Parvati) and Hanuman (the Monkey god), and some of the sculptures and reliefs on the walls and pillars are even worshipped by the hundreds of devotees.
On the way out, for a small donation, I was blessed by the temple elephant who took the coin from my hand with its trunk before laying it across the top of my head.
I found a rooftop cafe nearby where I sat for a number of hours, looking out over the city, thinking and enjoying the view. As sun set, flourescent lights and coloured neon strips came on to outline the gopuras. It seems anything of note in India is made much better and more desirable if it's brightly lit with colours and light.
At 9pm, I returned to the temple to witness the icons of Sundareshwar and Meenakshi being taken out of their respective shrines to be united after a hard day's work blessing their worshippers before being put to bed together for a good night's rest. Even gods need their beauty sleep too it seems...
Tomorrow I'll be heading to Pondicherry, a French colonial town on the south east coast of India before heading to Chennai to catch my flight. There are more things I wanted to see here in Tamil Nadu, such as Mammallapuram (seaside temples) and Kodaikanal (a peaceful hill station), but I've run out of time due to the 5 days I spent wallowing in my pathetic self-pity over Sev and the last few days in Madurai trying to come to terms with this new crisis. I need to get a move on!

Revolution of Passion

You know what? I'm feeling DAMN GOOD.

I thought I would need a long time to get over this, but 2 bottles of 1 litre whisky, 31 bottles of 650ml beer, 60 cigarettes, football on TV, and 3 meals in 5 days holed up my my plush hotel room, only leaving twice for supplies, sorted me out. I wonder what type of person the cleaner thought I was after leaving that mess in there.
I realised many things whilst I was in there. I realised I had no future with Sev, even if she accepted me back. She's wrong actually, we don't want different things in life, we just have different passions in life. They are two separate things. And I've discovered that passion I have in life, passion for what the future holds.
I now know with certainty that if I had given to Sev, moved to France and had lived the kind of life she wanted in hers, I would lose that passion for my life, and I would lose my passion for her.
She's happy with a simple life, to be content with being married by her target age of 30, with children, living in one place all her life. I realised it wasn't me she loved all this time, it's her love for the life she wants to live, which is why she has met someone else and lost all feelings for me so soon after I left. She just needs someone, a man, in her life to complete that picture. She often told me I was selfish, that is true, but she's been just as selfish in that respect, by not taking the time to understand me and how I felt, not being able to give me one year after all our time together. She's always been impatient.
So that's her passion in life, to live contented, snug and warm in her small bubble of life, which in my way of thinking is not life at all, but every person is unique and has different dreams. Mine is to experience all there is in the world, test my boundaries, to learn as much as possible in the time I have here, a life that could be my only one. If I lived and followed her life, a life I thought I lacked and needed, a simple life in one place, it would be like living a life as a caged bird in her house. And I would lose that passion for my life, and only blame her for it later on.
I live for the moment, my moment, my future, my love, my passion, my freedom that I now know I've always had in life. For the last 6 and a half years, I was happy, more happy than I've ever been, but I realise there's more to come. I have a whole life ahead of me, with unknowns, happiness, loss, fear, surprise, love and most importantly this passion for life that I've rediscovered in myself.
If her passion is to sit back in a rocking chair and observe the immediate surroundings of her life, then mine is a marathon, moving from one moment to the next, where ever it may take me, for I realise my love in life is the uncertainties that I'll encounter along the way, the lessons I'll learn to overcome each one, and move on to the next checkpoint along the route to the finish life of my life.
I'm now happy with my life, with the choices I've made, and for the first time in my short life so far, I am truly content. Although I may turn my head to look back at the things I've despaired over before with a rueful smile, I know my eyes look forward to the next challenge in life and the fulfillment I know I'll have at the end of the road.
Thank you Sev, you've meant so much to me, and made me realise who I really am, by showing me how different we are, and I'll never forget that. I'll always owe that to you. You've helped me be the person I am today, and I'll always look back and remember you as one of the greatest teachers I've had in my life. We never forget our favourite teachers and you're one of them.
We learn so much in life, and I've just learnt another. I've learnt about compassion from Mr. Folkard, a teacher at St. Paul's. My father taught me responsibility to others through his own faults. My mother has taught me dedication and sacrifice. Dan Goetz taught me brotherhood and inspiration. Kowshik Podder has taught me friendship without judgement, discrimination and total honesty. And now Sev has taught me passion in life, beyond anything I've felt before.
There are others to come, and I look forward to each lesson from a teacher I've yet to meet.

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So what I have been doing so far? Well isn't that obvious? I have been blind drunk for 5 days non-stop in my hotel room. And I've been thinking FAR too much. All this waffle is the by-product, the waste that's left behind after being coccooned in that puke, stale beer and smoke filled room in Kochi (Cochin). I only spent one day sightseeing in Kochi, where I took a ferry to the island of Fort Cochin to see the chinese fishing nets along the seaside and sample fresh ginger and chilli crabs. I also attending a showing of the famous Kathakali dance form, native to Kerala, where the dancers can take up to 2 hours to do their makeup. I also bumped into Leonard and Stef who I met in Hampi and had a nice chat with them. The first time I had a good talk to anyone in 5 days. I remember a local man in a restaurant near the hotel who tried to talk to me on my second drunken day there, and after he realised I had a 'bad mind' (Indian way of saying someone is depressed or angry), invited me to dinner that night with his family at his house. I refused, knowing I'd be bad company, but the friendliness here in India, the heart shown by people to complete strangers makes me feel there's so much good in life.
I left Kochi the following morning after my sightseeing, eager to move on, continue my trip with this new found passion in life. So I'm here in Alapphuza (Alleppey - all the names are changing in India!!). I bumped into Nils (the Dutch guy I went to Hampi and Bangalore with) totally by coincidence last night. He left today, but I'll be grabbing a boat to travel through the famous and beautiful tropical backwater rivers to Kollam (Quillon), with a possible stop in between at Amritapuri to visit Shri Amritanandamayi, the reknowned female guru, also known as the 'Hugging Mama'. Depends if she's in town at her ashram. If so, I'll have to queue with thousands of others for hours to get one of the millions of hugs she's given to people around the world. It couldn't be more perfect timing if I do, getting a hug at this time, when I've lost something dear to me, but now found something I never realised I had.

Farewell Sev, my love...

I wrote this in my diary a while ago:

"Sev

"I miss you my little piggy-shark. The past few weeks my mind has been
thinking of you more and more. You're right. I have been somewhat
selfish in taking this year out. I've recently been thinking about
your perspective in my leaving, and now I feel I've hurt you. I didn't
mean to. I think I needed to get away, from London, because I've moved
all my life. It's become a part of my nature. My whole life has been
'hello's and 'goodbye's to people I've met. I thought a year out would
give me time on my own, to not have to say 'hello' and 'goodbye', but
on the contrary. I've said more 'hello's and 'goodbye's than I would
care for. I've met so many people on my travels, people I know would
be good friends if I had more time with them. And that's when I
realise what I had with you, and what you mean to me.

"I never really felt at home in London. But these last 3 months, I've
yearned for my life there. I thought I genuinely missed the city, my
work, my friends, but I don't. There's something I couldn't put my
finger on that wanted to draw me back to that place, and now I know
what it is.

"It's you. The home I have been lacking, the home that I've loved, the
home that I've wanted all my life is you Sev. You are my bastion of
love, my bed of content, my pillow of passion, my blanket of comfort..
When I need to think of a happy place or period, I don't dream of a
location, but my time with you.

"It's been hard for me the last few weeks. You haven't called, replied
to my emails, and I can understand why. I left you, you are right. But
you have to understand, as you know me so well, that I needed to do
this. It wasn't because I wanted to return to Asia, the home you
thought I needed. I was confused, and had no identity. That's how I
realised I do have an identity, and that's being Dom, the Dom you
love, the Dom who loved you.

"My home has never been a location, a place, a city, a country, a
continent. My home is with you baby. And now I'm looking forward to
coming back. I'm homesick. I need to settle at home. For the first
time in my life, I know I'll be content, happy, when I'm by your side,
feeling the warmth of the fireplace of your heart, dispelling the
chill of loneliness and feeling of belonging that has frozen my bones
and heart all these years.

"I love you Sev, and I hope you still love me too... I'm coming home
soon. I hope you can wait."

.....but stories, real stories, in life seldom have fairy-tale endings, and this one doesn't.

After telling her I was going back to her, telling her I now knew what I wanted in life, and as she sat and took it in the last few weeks over the phone and emails from me, she never told me until yesterday, when I asked her why she hadn't been replying to my mails the last couple of months, that there was no chance of me going back to her, that she had met someone else recently that had changed her life. She told me she doesn't love me anymore, and that we want different things in life. That's true, but the thing for me was I never knew what I wanted in life. That's why I took this year out. And I found it. It was her. But I can't have that now. It's too late. She really hurt me by doing that, making me believe she was still missing me, listening to all I said the last couple of months, and talking about it, until now. She also hurt me by changing so quickly, to say these things after so long together, after she told me she loved me so much. And I hurt. I hurt more than I've ever hurt before. But I did it to myself. And I deserve it.

So my fairy-tale story is gone. I told her I was about to fly out to France to see her this week, to return to her, to convince her that I loved her, and in a soppy romantic gesture, to ask her to marry me, but her last email stopped me short. She said she would definitely say no (after saying before I left that if I asked, she would say yes), and that I would just end up hurting myself more. She's right. I would. And I know I would hurt her more too.

My last 6 and a half years, I will cherish with her, and I will always love her, more than she will ever know. But it was my fault for leaving her, taking this trip out. Then again, I would never have known how much I loved her if I hadn't have left.

So my advice to any of you out there who has a loved one: Don't let them go. Hold them tight. Never take your eyes off them, for the moment you do, they might not be there when you turn around again. Next time you look at them, whether it's in the next minute, hour or day, realise what you have with each other, hold it to your heart, and feel it's warmth, realise that love you have for each other. Never let it go. I did, and it's become the worst mistake I've ever made in my life.

Sev, I wish you all the happiness in life with the new person you have found. You deserve it. I was never able to love you the way I should have until it was too late. I had already left you. I hope the man loves you as much as I loved you, and more, because you are truly a beautiful person, who certainly deserves all the love a person can give in their life.

So bear with me folks. I've kind of lost the will to travel (and live!) at the moment. I've just arrived in Kochi (Cochin) and splurged out on a nice expensive hotel to pamper myself in light of recent events. I've had to endure these feelings of pain and hurt for 18 hours on an overnight bus after being stuck in traffic in the hills for 10 hours (due to a crash 20km down the road) with a snoring man next to me. I had 18 hours to think things through with no sleep. I still don't know what to do with the presents she asked me to buy for her at each place I visited when I left!

I won't sightsee today, I'll most probably lie in bed and watch the Arsenal v Villareal game on TV in my room tonight with a nice bottle of whisky or five (come on Arsenal!). You might not hear from me in a looong while. I'll need time to get over this, alone. I'm sorry... I hope you all understand.

Hampi

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The last day at Palolem, I met a Dutch backpacker called Nils who happened to be taking the same bus as me to Hampi. We left Palolem beach together, heading into Chaudi, the next town, where we took our bus. It was 2 hours late, and totally overbooked! Luckily, Nils and I found an empty double sleeper amongst the chaos and confusion of who was supposed to sleep where, as seat (or rather sleeper) numbers meant nothing. I was assigned sleeper 30, but there were only 20 bunks on the bus. Typical! The journey was pretty bumpy, and we took pity on an English girl called Sophie who was crammed into her single sleeper by 3 local men sitting on it, and let her squeeze into our roomy double.
On arrival at 8am in Hampi, a hot, windless village on the Deccan plains, Nils and I parted company with Sophie who stayed inside the bazaar, the area that comprises the village of Hampi, and we headed across the river on a quick 20 second boat ride to check into a river side guest house (70 rupees a night, 1 quid, with attached bathroom and fan, as opposed to 200 on the other side of the river!). The views from just outside our rooms, in a small courtyard complete with a mango tree and hammocks below it, gave us a great sighting of the Virupaksha temple, a towering, tapering 16th century Hindu structure at one end of a 700m long colonnaded boulevard. Gigantic smooth boulders make up much of the topography of the area, including the hills, river bed and sides and plains. Some 6km south of Hampi bazaar is the Royal city of Vijayanagar, former capital of the Hindu kingdom in India, lying in ruins, virtually levelled to the ground after a Muslim invasion in 1565.
First thing I did was have a shower, and for a moment, after turning the single tap, I thought they only had boiling hot water. It wasn't until about 30 seconds later cold water run out the shower head, and I realised the sun had heated the water in the pipe to a scorching temperature! Nice way to start a shower though, hot before it turns freezing cold! After we freshened up, we decided to walk across the river instead of paying the 10 rupee fee for the 20 second boat ride, thinking the river was pretty shallow. We were quite wrong. It took us 30 minutes to find a path that was traversable and the water still soaked our pulled up shorts. Nils slipped in the deep part but managed to keep his bag and camera above his head.
Once in town, we headed to the Virupaksha temple, which was unfortunately closed for lunch. On the way out, we noticed blood dripping from the archway of the main entrance, and noticed a monkey giving birth in a strut above our heads! So we stayed and watched the miracle of birth. Yay!
So to fill in our time, we walked down the length of the boulevard towards the monolithic bull, Shiva's transport, which faces the Virupaksha temple at the other end. Climbing some ancient stairs over a low hill, we came into the Achyutaraya temple complex, empty of any of the tourists so readily visible around the bazaar. The temple complex isn't large, but it's fairly well preserved and was pleasant to view without anyone around. Another long boulevard leads from this complex towards the river, but we headed back the same way into town as it was quicker.
As we sat in a cafe, sheltering from the intense afternoon sun, made all the more worse by the stillness of the air (Hampi has a severe shortage of wind. Not even a light breeze ever blows there!), we spotted Sophie walking down the boulevard and joined her in viewing the Virupaksha temple, where they sat and spoke to a local as I paid my respects to Shiva and received a tilak on my forehead and ginger flowers to put behind my ear.
That evening, we had dinner at the Mango Tree, a delightful riverside restaurant 10 minutes walk out of town with amazing vegetarian food. The seats and tables are arranged on terraces unrolling down the slope of the riverbank, and a single swing under the immense mango tree helps you cool down in the still air. After dinner, Sophie headed back to her hotel, and Nils and I went to catch the boat (we weren't going to cross the river after our last attempt!), only to find it didn't run after sundown! We asked a local and paid them 30 rupees to show us the 'local' way to walk across the river. So thus armed with the secret path across, the following days we always walked.
The second day, I was going to buy my ticket to head on to Bangalore. I was only planning to stay two days in Hampi, but after the travel agency told me about the Yatra festival (more on that later) a couple of days away, I decided to stay on. Nils and I hired scooters and rode 20km to Hospet, a neighbouring city, to get some cash out as Hampi has no ATM facilities. The ride was pleasant, and we got a good tan that day, riding from Hospet back to Hampi via the Royal city to the south.
The Royal city is very large. It's easy to einvisage what it must have looked like during its heydays in the 15th century. Almost no walls remain of the place, totally destroyed by Muslim invaders after they captured it. The only structures remaining are a couple of temples and the enormous elephant stables. We ended up paying a guard 50 rupees each at the back gate of the elephant stables so we didn't have to pay the official 250 rupees at the front! It's so corrupt here in India! We didn't approach him, he simply came up to us and offered! On the way back into Hampi, we spotted some filming going on at Hematuka hill above town, and went to take a look. It's was amusing to see the immense crowd gathered (we were just as guilty!) at the edges of the set, curious and hoping to catch a glimpse of any known actors or actresses. The police were there in force, keeping the peace violently with strong swipes of their lathis (bamboo canes they are armed with) at any or all spectators that venture too far forward, or anywhere else the policeman decides. Men, women, children and old people are not exempt from such punishments, and surprisingly, it is simply accepted without any fighting, shouting or rebuttal at what would be construed as severe, unprovoked, police brutality in any 'civilised' country. That evening, we met up with Sophie and had dinner by the river in town before heading to bed.

The third day, before the festival, Nils, Sophie and I woke at 5am to head up the Matanga Hill, on top of which is perched a derelict temple to Hanuman. We sat on the side of the steep hill to watch what is touted as one of the most spectacular sunrises in the world (according to quite a few guide books), and it certainly was. The undulating horizon of boulder speckled hills and ruined temples amongst coconut trees and tropical vegetation provide a fantastic backdrop to the shifting colours of light as the sun rises out of bed. Monkeys came out to bask in the sun, hulddled together, shaking off the coldness in their bones under the warm rays of the morning light. We sat for near an hour, and climbed back down the treacherous path of boulders back to town, were Nils and Sophie attended a yoga class, as I headed to the Mango Tree for lunch and relaxation for a few hours. That evening, Nils and I found a nice restaurant on the other side of the river (same side as our guest house). Most places on the other side of the river have or are closing down since it's the end of the high season.
The Yatra festival (or Car festival as some locals call it) is a celebration of the marriage of the deities. In Hampi, they celebrate the marriage of Shiva and Parvati by placing their icons from the Virupaksha temple into an enormous chariot, some 15 meters tall. Preceeded by dancers, the temple elephant, Lakshmi, and drummers, the chariot is pulled by some 100 men down the 700m long boulevard as hordes of people hurl bananas into any opening of the tall 'car' as an offering. Sitting on the roof of a cafe on the roadside, I really had to look out for low flying bananas, after being hit on the head, arm and right in my bollocks one time. That really hurt.
It just so happened that an English guy, called Olly, came up to me. I had met him and his girlfriend Hattie a month before on the train station platform in Jaipur as we smoked a cigarette. We ended up chatting for ages, and we all headed to the Mango Tree that night for dinner, where I met two Canadians, Stef and Leonard, through them. After dinner, we found a restaurant in town that served alcohol (Hampi is totally dry, but there are a few secret places you can drink). We had probably the strongest and nastiest drinks I have ever had in my life. Half a glass of what must have been some Indian whisky made from cows urine, plus a splash of coke and a squeeze of lime. Tell you what though, two of those made each of us all quite woozy!
The final day in Hampi, I simply relaxed in the hammock, watching the visiting crowds of Indians left over fromt he festival bathing in the river, the buffalo grazing the banks, and the hostel dog begging me for food I didn't have. In the evening, Nils and I caught a rickshaw to Hospet where we jumped onto the overnight sleeper train to Bangalore.
It's raining here in Bangalore. It's the first bit of rain I have seen since Jaisalmer, nearly a month ago. It's a nice respite from the boiling heat, but it'll just mean it's going to be well humid afterwards! Accomodation here is really expensive (I'm paying 400 rupees, 5 quid), but I get a TV and hot water in an attached bathroom. There's no budget places here. All the cheap places are full, so we managed to find a semi-cheap place. It's ok since I'm only here probably for one night. There's not much to sightsee here, it's my junction stop before heading to Mysore (since I can't get from Hampi to Mysore direct). Bangalore is really an upmarket city, the most modern city here in India I've so far seen. There are modern, aircon shopping malls everywhere with Levi's, United Colours of Benetton, Nike, Reebok, Sony, KFC, Starbucks style coffeeshops, and plush office buildings housing some top software companies from around the world. This really is the IT software powerhouse of Asia.
So tomorrow, off to Mysore, and one of the most famous markets in South India!

Goan, Going, Gone

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So, it's after half a month in Goa that I leave these fairly fine shores of Palolem. The last 16 days here have included much lounging, lying by the beach in the restaurant at D'Costas, people watching and thinking my thoughts. I have grown used to the simple way of life here, the lack of electricity, my daily wake-up call of ants biting me in bed, preferring the squat toilets over the Western one, cold showers (if there's any fresh water at all), watching and learning the habits of the beach dogs and their territories, the old resident German lady who hogs the sunbed at the crack of dawn every day with a sheet but never uses it, the Ethiopian man who walks past every day at 4pm without fail in his native dress, the middle aged Spanish yoga enthusiast in his oh-so-lovely, not-so-flattering loin cloth and the daily cricket match at sundown between the Indian and Nepalese staff. Even the hawkers and beggars no longer bother me as they've gotten to know me.
For once, I've begun to appreciate this simplicity in life, without the luxuries at home. TV seems like a distant hum in my memories, reading of books a previous chapter in my life. Feeling at peace in this plain bubble of life (even though there are lots of places which are even more simple and lacking in facilities than Palolem beach), it amazes me how we take comforts such as water, garbage collection, flushing toilets, supermarkets, cornershops, washing machines, constant electricity and transport for granted at the expense of a simple, effective life, where everyone is happy. How many times have I heard people complain that these indulgences are malfunctioning, how they should work, or be fixed at a moments notice? No one here does. If there's no fresh water, you bathe in the sea. If there's no electricity, you light a candle, or go without. I was once woken at 3am by an typical chubby English girl crying and complaining, to the point of screaming, to her two large female friends in a hut nearby that she couldn't use the toilet because it hadn't been flushed by the previous person due to water shortage. I stood outside and shouted at her to '....shut the f*ck up and deal with it! It's 3am in the morning, we're trying to sleep and you hear noone else complaining!".
But don't get me wrong. I miss these little amenities that we have all had the privilege to experience. I sorely miss them, but only because I've tasted the old way of living, and that puts a lot of things into perspective for me. I know now that when I return to a 'civilised' place, I will appreciate these comforts all the more, but the inevitable, inescapable creep of ignorance and selfishness shall once again return, and I'll find myself again sinking into the beanbag cushion of luxury, bubble-wrapped from the life I have lived in relative modesty for a time.
So as the sea of sorrow washes it's tears upon the shore of my cheeks, I say 'goodbye!' to Palolem beach, my home for the last 16 days. I'll be back, I promise!
So onward, and beyond! To Hampi, the ancient capital of the Hindu kingdom! My itinerary for the next 4 weeks has mostly been planned, as I venture round the southern tip of India, Mysore, Kochi, Kollam, Madurai, Pondicherry, before having to arrive in Chennai on 4th May to take my leave of the Indian peninsula, and dabble in the sapphire shores of the Andaman Islands for 13 days, before returning to the mainland in Kolkota (Calcutta to you British Imperialist heathens!).

Aloha Goa

10 things to do when you're on a beach in Goa:

1. Talk with other travellers
2. Drink beer
3. Sleep in
4. People watch
5. Go swimming
6. Play cricket on the beach
7. Get a Royal Enfield motorbike and cruise the shoreline roads
8. Break down on an Enfield motorbike miles from anywhere
9. Save a girl's life
10. Get arrested by the Indian police

Click here to see the photos

So here I am, in Goa, on Palolem beach. It's a nice chilled beach, in the south of the region, away from the main tourist center in the north that's filled with bars and trance clubs on the beaches. Matt and I arrived by train in Margao and took an hour bus ride down to Palolem. Found a nice little hut operation called D'Costa at the north end of the beach, away from the couple of late night bars at the south end of the beach. The huts are simple bamboo and plywood constructions, which doesn't leave a huge amount of privacy as gaps here and there allow anyone willing enough to take a peek inside. The doors are pretty secure though, and there's always people around to prevent break ins and thefts. There's a restaurant attached to the hut operation, with some really friendly Nepalese waiters (Shuman and Utam) and cooks. The whole place is run by an Indian family that live behind the site. I've got myself probably the hut with the nicest view in the encampment, the only one facing forward towards the beach and sea. Electricity is off twice as much as it is on here. In the evenings, we carry a torch or candle to the shared toilets when it's down. I've showered once in pitch black, with the water running out. It's all part of the life here, and I'm enjoying it.
The beach here is lovely, stretching almost 2 km, fringed with coconut trees, speckled with fishing boats, with a lagoon on the north end. The water isn't clear blue here, which is a shame. The guide books call it a paradise beach, but I guess I've been spoilt by places like Koh Tao.
The first couple of days we met some lovely people staying at the same place. Andrew Short, a professional photographer living in Bath working for Future Publishing, who had also lived in Hong Kong for 9 years working for the South China Morning Post and The Standard. He spent time in Bosnia during the war too. Chris, a fantastic travelling/trekking American from Seattle, one of the nicest Americans I have ever met. Ami, an Israeli waitress was good fun to talk to, and Yoav a guy from Jerusalem who has been travelling India for 6 months. They weren't your typical Israeli backpackers that people moan about.
They've all left now, within a couple of days of Matt and I arriving. We got to know a lovely French woman called Leo, who works helping people quit smoking. Yes, she's had a go at me already! Matt, Leo and I hung out the last week here.
Life here is very basic, simple and fun at times. Most days I sit in the bamboo restaurant, gazing out over the beach. We've visited some interesting places around Palolem, including the bat caves, where some rocks plunge into the sea. About half an hour after the sun disappears over the horizon, dozens of bats start to flit in and out of the gaps in between the rocks, missing your head by millimeters. It's quite an experience, and a beautiful sight to witness.
Days meld from one to the next here. I sometimes find it difficult to remember what happened the day before, unless we did something interesting. It's nice to just relax back and do nothing the whole day. Sometimes I play cricket with the staff on the beach, and other travellers join in from time to time.
The week has had its interesting days though. After Andy, Chris, Ami and Yoav (who turns out is the nephew of Benjamin Netanyahu) left, I hooked up with a British guy called George Netherington whilst playing cricket on the beach and through him, met Sarah, Leela and Emma. George is your typical toff. Went to public school (St. Paul's in London in fact, where my Aunt Linda works, and where I had attended Colet Court, the pre-prep school), lives in Holland Park, has very rich parents ("Daddy has a house in Holland Park, and Mummy lives in Chelsea"), and has an air of positive arrogance around him, but he is funny to talk to. Sarah is a gap year student, a real wild child who does what she wants. I'm sure she's born 40 years too late. She struck out on her own after a bust up with her best friends in Vietnam. Leela and Emma are both graduates, travelling before finding work back in England.
We all went out for a big night out at one of the bars here as it was George's 22nd birthday, meeting up with three other English guys, Andy, James and Paul, whom I had seen on the bus into Palolem. Went to a reggae night at the Titanic bar, where I was rudely rebuked by the MC for asking for a birthday announcement for George ("Birthday announcement? What the f*ck would I do that for? Why is it so f*cking precious to you?"). Oh well. Moved on to another bar, Cafe del Mar and drank till 7am, watching the sunrise, and met Anil, a hut manager, a true easy going Goan local, and Harley, an English guy who DJs in Palolem.
Spent most of the next day sleeping and recovering needless to say. Coincidentally bumped into Andrea, a Canadian paramedic Matt had been chatting to in Jaisalmer. She had checked into the huts right next door to ours. After Sarah, George, Emma and Leela left Goa, Matt, Leo, Andrea and I hung out together for the next couple of days.
Spent one morning with Andrea and her friend Nick taking a boat out to sea to see the dolphins and go snorkelling of a remote beach. Turned out the beach was sh*t and visibility was zero for snorkelling! We sat in the shade for 3 hours waiting for the boat to come back so we could leave. I got so bored, I built a miniature forest out of twigs and leaves for the crabs to take cover.
Took a bicycle with Leo and Matt that afternoon, once Andrea and Nick left Goa, and rode 40 minutes to Agonda beach, just north of Palolem. Lovely, quiet, unspoilt stretch of beach with big waves. Maybe 20 people on a 2km stretch of sand, with none of the huts, restaurants and boats you see on Palolem beach. We mucked around in the surf for an hour so before heading back.
The next day, I hired a Royal Enfield 350cc Bullet Machismo motorbike, something a motorbike enthusiast must do if visiting India. It would be sacriligeous to forego the experience! Must admit, I was very nervous about riding it. I haven't ridden a manual bike with a clutch in 4 years, and it's a big hefty mother too. When I pulled away, I did so a bit too quickly, releasing the clutch into 1st gear to fast. Got used to it very soon though and it's a real pleasure to ride, hearing the roaring engine, and the occasional backfire from the exhaust whenever I eased off the accelerator.
I was only going to ride as far as Agonda beach, which I visited the day before on bicycle, as I was only out for a quick test ride before lunch, but as I got there so fast, and was enjoying the ride so much, I ended up continuing on for more than 25-30km, almost all the way to Cabo-D-Rama fort, 40km away from Palolem. I stopped the bike on a hill to admire the fantastic palm tree covered hillside plunging into the Arabic Sea below. I smoked a cigarette in the scorching sun, wishing I had brought my camera with me, then hopped back on the bike to return.
That's when I noticed something was wrong. I couldn't find neutral gear, essential to start the engine, and found the gear shifter by my left foot very loose. After a minute or two, I managed to find neutral, kick-started the bike, but could only get up to 2nd gear, as the gear shifter seemed to have totally come loose. It wasn't until I reached Saleri, a tiny village half way back to Palolem, where the bike stalled and stopped that I realised what had happened. As I was overtaking a bus, with plenty of time and space, an oncoming car decided not to let me finish my overtaking maneouver and sped up, forcing me off the side of the road into the dirt. Since I couldn't change gear, and I had stopped the bike, the engine stalled in 2nd gear.
For 5 minutes, I could not restart the bike, as the gear shifter just wouldn't go into neutral. That's when I put the Enfield on it's stand, and took a close look at the gear shifter. The flick bar that you use to change gear had been broken before, and spot welded to the shaft into the gear box. The weld was a tiny spot of metal, only a few millimeters across, and had easily cracked, so the foot bar couldn't grip the gear shaft. I kind of panicked. I was some 20km away from Palolem with a bike that I couldn't start.
Luckily, a man in a shop spotted my dilemna and pointed me to a motorbike repair shop 20 meters down the road. After fetching the repairman, full of hope, he took one glance at the foot bar and shook his head, declaring I needed a welder. Where the hell was I going to find a spot welder, in a tiny village consisting of about 10 thatch huts and 4 shops, miles from any town? Hey, this is India! There just so happened to be one right across the road from where I stood! Life can really deal some nice little hands sometimes.
So 10 minutes later, and 14 rupees less, I had a working Enfield again and returned swiftly back to Palolem for a very late lunch with Matt and Leo, sharing my motorbike adventure with them.
That afternoon we went out to Agonda beach again to escape the crowds, the two riding bicycles and me on my full charactered Enfield. It wasn't going to be the only adventure of the day. The evening was still to come, and with it, probably the most harrowing experience I have ever had.
Nine years ago, back at Imperial College, when I was staying in Beit Hall, a friend of mine, Cem Eyi had gotten immensely drunk. Martin Frowde and I carried him back to his room upstairs and put him to bed with me keeping watch as he was in a real state, breathing fast and shallow, shaking and tossing and turning. Gurjen, the sub-warden of the halls, and two security guards supervised and left me to it. Not 5 minutes after they left, as I sat by Cem's bed reading a book, he suddenly went silent and still. I checked his breathing and it had stopped. Needless to say, I panicked. I wanted to start doing CPR, but had no idea how to. I had never been trained in it. I ran out the room and to the staircase where, thank God, Gurjen and the two security guards were still talking. One of the guards resuscitated Cem and called an ambulance. I vowed then that should such a situation ever arise again, I would not panic, and have the training to perform CPR. It wasn't until last year, 2005, that I did my Emergency First Response course for my Rescue Diver qualification. And thankfully, it's still fresh in my mind.
So the evening after the motorbike incident, I had dinner with Matt and Leo, feeling tired from the day's sun. I had promised Harley that I would pay a call on him at the Dancing Shiva bar at the south end of the beach as he was DJing. After dinner, Leo retired to bed and Matt headed off to the internet shop. I decided to head down for one beer to be courteous, as I was very tired. On the way, I noticed some football showing on a television in a bar a couple of places before the Dancing Shiva, and since I couldn't find Harley there, I popped into the bar to find Arsenal, the team I support, playing Aston Villa. During the match, I met Brendon, a 40 something British man, well built, shaved head, and a well spoken accent. He now lives in India, having retired from a life of crime as a gangster in London. He managed the ticket touting scene through the whole of Soho during his time and made a fortune before quitting into international ar dealing (also a form of money laundering for criminals). We had a long and interesting conversation about the philosophy of life and his past experiences, and found him to be highly intelligent and well educated, a man of much experience in life. We chatted long as the football match on TV concluded, Arsenal winning 5-0 much to my delight.
I was just finishing my second and final beer before heading to bed, when a blood curdling scream ripped through the air, very close to the bar. It went on for 15-20 seconds, the kind of scream from a girl that holds terror, desperation and a distinct cry for help in it's echoes. As Brendon and I looked at each other, I realised we were thinking exactly the same thing. Rape. It took not half a second for us to launch ourselves off our bar seats and down the stairs to the beach to find a few people standing in the sand, staring up at a hut right next to the bar. As Brendon and I approached, we noticed the hut shaking violently on it's stilts, the screams from the girl endlessly continuing. Brendon was first up the stairs to the door of the raised hut and began ramming the door with his broad shoulders. As I stood behind him, I noticed through a tiny gap between the door and the jamb that rape was not the case here. I could clearly see a local Indian girl, in her 20's, fully clothed, rolling around on the floor, eyes open and screaming violently. I knew then that she was either freaking out on drugs or having some sort of fit.
At that moment, the manager of the huts arrived and implored Brendon not to break the door down, his livelihood and cost of repairs much more of a concern to him than a person in trouble. I quickly explained to Brendon what I had seen inside, and suggested pulling away the flimsy rattan wall to reach round and unlock the door from the inside. Within seconds we were in, along with about 4 or 5 local men behind us there only as onlookers and an English woman called Lucy, who declared she was a psychiatric nurse. I stepped back to let her through to the girl on the floor, and she knelt down to cradle the girl's head. I asked if I could help her in any way as I was a qualified EFR and to my surprise, she told me to take charge as she had no first aid qualifications.
The first thing I did was ask if anyone was a doctor, or someone to find one. I lay the girl in the recovery position, Lucy holding and stroking her hair whilst whispering soothing words into her ear. The Indian girl still had her eyes wide open, unblinking the whole time, her arms outstretched grasping the air whilst calling for someone named Zahid in between her fast and shallow breaths. That's when I looked up and noticed an unconscious man on the bed for the first time. I yelled at Brendon to check on the guy, he was fine. Next I yelled at everyone to leave the room, and with Brendon's brawn, he cleared the room. I asked him to keep both the balcony door and front door open to facilitate the ventilation through the room. Turning my attention back to the girl on the floor, I checked her pulse which was a rapid 120 beats per minute. I used the torch in my bag to check the response of her pupils which seemed normal. Her temperature seemed fine too, so I started to rule out drugs, although not entirely. You can never be sure, especially with all the varieties of local intoxicants out here.
At that point I heard another girl, also a local, say she was the girl's friend. I immediately started asking her questions, the girl's name (which I have now forgotten), what, if any drugs she had taken, how much she had to drink, what she had to eat, what she had done that day, and the events before she came back to the hut. After a minute or two, I had discerned she had had half a bottle of tequila and 5 beers that night, with no dinner, no drugs that her friend knew of, that she had been in the sun all day and drank very little water. I still didn't really know what to do. I started to panic. If only Andrea had been there, she was a paramedic! I asked someone to call the doctor or hospital. I felt like I couldn't handle the situation and she wasn't improving at all. Then I remembered to ask her friend if the girl was on any medications, and she told me she had taken some antibiotics and showed them to me. She had taken Ciprofloxacin and Tinidazole, and another pill labelled as an analgesic and antispasmodic. That made me ask if she was prone to epileptic fits, to which the answer was no. It then occured to me, with her rapid shalow breathing, to ask if she was asthmatic. Bingo! She was. I asked her friend if she knew where she kept her inhaler, and luckily her bag was in the the room. The friend started going through the bag so slowly, that I grabbed it out of her hands and emptied the contents on the floor to locate it. I got Lucy to pinch the girl's nose shut as I clamped her lips around the inhaler and released one puff. Her breathing inproved almost immediately, becoming deeper and more shallow. 10 seconds later, I gave her a second puff. She was still calling out for her boyfriend Zahid (I found out from the friend) who was the guy passed out in bed. I then told her female friend and two male friends who had arrived that she should be taken to hospital to be checked up on and cleared by a doctor as I didn't think her friends could watch over her the entire night. Apparently, one of the had a car, but before we could move her, I had to try and stop her freaking out, as she was still wide-eyed, calling for her boyfriend and not responding to any of us. I used a trick I learned from a paramedic years ago, rolling a pen hard over her fingernail, delivering a sharp, intense shock of pain to her system. It worked very well, she screamed again from the pain, but turned her eyes to me and began blinking, no longer calling for her boyfriend. Two guys picked her up, ready to carry her down the stairs when she suddenly complained of a pain in her side. I told the guys to lay her in bed, and it occured to me she had probably rolled off the side of the bed, onto the floor, injuring herself, making her freak out and bring on her asthma attack. She was calm in bed, in the recovery position, when suddenly two burly men entered shouting at us and asking Brendon, Lucy and I who we were. They identified themselves as Goan police with badges. Brendon proclaimed we were there to help the girl and that I was a medic. Before I could correct Brendon's mistake, the cop turned to me and said, "You doctor? Where is you license?!". I told him I was not a doctor, and before I could tell him I was only an EFR he shouted, "She is Indian citizen! If anything happens to her, I will arrest you!!", pointing right at me. I pulled out my EFR card and produced it to him and I just lost my temper. I asked him if he had a mobile phone to which he replied positively. I demanded he call a doctor or hospital, as noone had seemed to do so, so far. To my surprise, he complied and went downstairs mobile in hand. I reckoned he didn't know how to help, had probably not even done first aid, and was worried if the situation worsened, he could be blamed, so tried to pin the blame on us instead.
After he left, I turned my attention back to the girl, and everything from the night with Cem came flooding back. The girl had stopped breathing. I had to perform CPR on her. Her pulse was slowing. Everything from my course came back to me, little things I had forgotten. Listen for breathing. Give two rescue breaths with 5 seconds in between each. Check breathing. Another two. Check breathing. Another two. Check breathing....
She started breathing again. Within a minute, she started another asthma attach, and with Lucy's help we administered another two puffs to her from her inhaler. I asked Lucy to watch over her for a moment and climbed downstairs to tell the policeman what had happened and to get a doctor over as soon as possible.
That's when I got the shock of my life. The minute I mentioned she had stopped breathing, he grabbed my arm and screamed at me that I was under arrest for the death of the girl. As the handcuffs came off his belt, I felt a surge of anger so strong, I yanked myself free from his grip just as the cuff was about to hit my wrist. I ran up the stairs, turned back to him and screamed at him to check on the girl, that she was okay, and I was just trying to explain to him what had happened. And thank God he did, instead of arresting me again. She was fast asleep, breathing normally, her eyes finally shut for the first time. I asked the cop if the doctor was on his way, and in a weird turn of events, he said the girl looked fine, and wouldn't need a doctor. He let me go, but took some of the friends of the girl to the local station for questioning.
Brendon, Lucy, the female friend of the girl and I were left in the hut with the girl and her boyfriend fast asleep in bed. I was nervous about helping out more after the police involvement, and gave the girl's friend some directions to looking after her friend, to check her breathing once in a while, to keep two bottles of room temperature water by the bed and keep the inhaler handy.
I retired back to the bar with Brendon and Lucy, to rapturous praise and applause from the staff and some travellers who had watched the events. As I sat and talked to Brendon and Lucy about our efforts, beers and drinks were bought for us by almost everyone, including the hut manager. I didn't feel heroic or that I had done anything amazing. I guess I should have. I just felt damn tired, exhausted, relieved. My heart was still pumping, and adrenaline still coursing through my veins. This is just a fraction of what doctors and paramedics go through, and I have the utmost respect for them.
I stayed for almost an hour in the bar, checking on the girl every 15 minutes before saying my farewells and heading back to my hut. She just needed some sleep. I'm sure she woke up with a stonking hangover the next day.
In contrast, the rest of the time here has been so simple. Visiting the bat caves and other beaches, watching people walk by on the beach as I lie back, smoke and have a drink, thinking about nothing and everything as I stare out at the sea's horizon for hours.
Life plays it's little twists and games with everyone. I sit, in the evening, at a candlelit table in the sand, listening to the waves tumbling lightly upon the shore, the stars and constellations bright above. I came here to relax and spend time thinking after all the hub-bub of the cities, only to find it injected with a day of hijinx, adventure and some real pant staining moments. It really makes you think, someone, something, fate, God, or some un-nameable entity really is playing with and testing part of you all the time. Despite what you think, life can really have an unescapeable control on you, throwing you into the most unsuspecting situations in the weirdest places, and the coincidents and luck that comes along at times make you think and feel much more aware of life and it's unexpected turns. Today I find myself taking the things given to you with more acceptance, and find myself fighting against them less and less.
Life is good, if you're good to life.

Matt left yesterday. I've been travelling with him for the past 5 weeks, and he's become a very good friend. I'm gonna miss you mate, and I'll certainly come to see you in Germany soon! It's been a real pleasure to have met you, and known you as a friend. I don't think I would have survived India the first few weeks without you. But there's one thing I'd like you to remember Matt. England WILL beat Germany in the World Cup. There's no two ways about it.

Once Leo leaves today, I'll finally be on my own for the first time in India. I haven't gotten to know any of the others here. I think it's all winding to a close anyhow. The high season is drawing to a close, the beach is getting less and less crowded, the sun is getting hotter. Before the week is through, I'll most probably move on either to Hampi or Cochi.