The Eclaires

My sole experience of India was nearly twenty years ago in transit to and from the UK to Kathmandu. We had had one full day in Delhi. So naturally we spent four hours each way in a taxi to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. One day a week entrance is free and we had, by luck, hit that day. Bad luck – it was absolutely heaving.  We had also had just long enough to catch the shits.

Naturally to get from Guangzhou to Bangalore you have a night in Kuala Lumpur. This was distinctly unmemorable – beer cost 9 euros for a decent sized bottle in a shop – I am used to paying about 60 cents in Guangzhou.

Got to Bangalore OK and got 1,000 rupees at the airport. I wasn’t sure of the exchange rate but went to the pre-paid taxi place and got asked for 1,500 rupees. I realised that I had made a decimal point error and had changed 12 euros.  I went back to the ATM and got another 10,000 and then got the bus into town.  The bus dropped me off at the wrong place but I found the hotel after a bit of wandering. This was easy because, to my surprise, English is almost universal in the city.

Off for a bit of a wander and found the crowds, the cows in the streets and roads packed with tuc-tucs (they are called auto-rickshaws here but there are no manual rickshaws). Not really what I had expected in the IT hub of India – there are no skyscrapers. I am told that all the big companies have their own compounds out of town where people live and work in a western style with western facilities but I didn’t see any of that. I was ambling along when I heard this cry of “Ed” and saw Ed the Wiser waving from a tuc-tuc but they didn’t stop! Bastards.

The reason for choosing Bangalore as my destination was to spend a bit of time travelling with Ed the Wiser and Claire D – hence the title.   When I got back to the hotel I realised that the reason that they hadn’t stopped was that there were three of them and lots of luggage in the tuc-tuc. Since arriving in India, Ed and Claire have had a continuous stream of visitors and there was another one (Louise) leaving that night.

Worryingly, on my wanderings I hadn’t located a bar but E & C are old Bangalore hands and that was soon remedied. Ed is a real veggie so food-wise he is in the ideal country. Claire is a coeliac so places with lots of rice dishes suit her. Dinner for three (no booze) - 7 euros. I think that China is cheap but it ain’t that cheap. The next day E & C both had organizational things to do so I wondered off to the big botanical park (“The Kew Gardens of India”). Kew it isn’t but it is still worth a visit. There are lots of different types of trees with some good flower displays. It is well used too, lots of people (most of the women in traditional dress) picnicking on the grass, a few monkeys and black kites everywhere. Black kites are fairly common in the tropics but I have never seen anything like the numbers that there are in Bangalore.

Oh, I didn’t mention the traffic. The roads are narrow and full of potholes, there are approximately  equal numbers of motor bikes/scooters, autos (I still think of them as tuc-tucs) and small cars (fortunately there are few Range Rovers and other such revolting tanks that are so popular in Guangzhou) – there are virtually no push bikes. This makes for interesting driving as everyone jostles for position constantly – there are, naturally, no lanes - and all drivers must know the exact dimensions of their vehicles to the centimetre. I am used to similar jostling in Guangzhou – the main difference (apart from the aforementioned absence of revolting tanks in Bangalore and the absence of motor-bikes and tuc-tucs in Guangzhou – banned, of course) is the speed. The jostling in GZ can be at anywhere from zero to 100 kph, in Bangalore it is from zero to 15 kph.

Claire decided that she had things to do – that was her excuse anyway – so Ed and I were off on a night bus to Kerela. This is the most south-westerly state of India and has a good reputation as a nice place.

I haven’t done a night bus for a while and I know why. We had acquired a small quantity of rum and coke to encourage a bit of sleeping. There were two buses that left at 9.00 and we had deliberately chosen the slower one so that we didn’t arrive at our destination at 3.00 a.m. Instead we chose to arrive at 7.00 a.m.  The difference being largely accounted for by the bus pulling over and stopping for a couple of hours or so. An excellent chance to sleep! No. An excellent chance to listen to myriad different snoring tones.

When we arrive at our homestay our overly solicitous host gives us breakfast and a rest and says yes you can get an “auto”  to some caves and walk back – 15 kilometres.

Sounds OK. The caves are a bit of a disappointment – some rock carvings from 3,500 years ago but hardly caves, just small areas that might provide a bit of shelter from the rain and, because of their location, from some enemies.

There were some nice things about the walk back – did you know how lovely and sweet coffee flowers smell? – funnel web spiders are ridiculously common – convolvulus of many colours etc. Bit of a problem though - it was all roads of various grades. If they were fairly narrow you only had to leap out of the way when vehicles were going in both directions otherwise you can poodle along at a reasonable pace. On the bigger roads there is constant traffic in both directions so you just have to put up with walking in the gutter (there are no pavements worth the name, even in Bangalore) enjoying the sounds of constant horn-blowing. I should mention that rubbish bins are rarer than new ideas in India. In any Chinese city street they are every fifty metres but still the assholes throw their fag-packets on the ground so there is an army of street-sweepers. In India it is simpler – there are no bins and no street-sweepers so  everything lies comfortably on the ground – for years.

Ed is commonly known as Ed the Wiser because he is wiser than me. So this sage informs me that Kerela has ambitions to become a completely “dry” state – I have no idea why, there are a few Muslims but not a significant number. What this means is that you are constantly on the look-out for bars (even in January walking in Kerela is pretty hot) and you don’t find them. After 4 hours walking we were in this rather mundane town but it had a bar. This is a dark dinghy affair (typical I am told by the fount of all knowledge. I can understand where the term “dirty drinking hole” comes from now) so we down a couple of large Tuborgs and go looking for the local “wine shop.” You don’t go to such places to buy wine but to buy local rum, whiskey and the like.  These are cheap. I should explain – the Eclaires have been on the road for nearly six months travelling from London to India without flying – buses, trains, ships, hitch-hiking all the way – so, although India is cheap, money is not to be thrown around. I have no problem with concurring with that attitude. After a bit of effort we found the wine shop but, and it was a very big, but it had a massive male, of course, queue outside. This queue was not moving so we guessed that it hadn’t opened yet. We realised why the queue on the morrow.

If you want to understand one of the key differences between India and China walk around when schools are closing for the day. In China many kids are picked by their parents in cars or grandparents to take them to the bus or metro; you will see a few kids walking home in ones and twos with maybe a couple of different school uniforms to be seen – and that is in the cities. In India at 4 or 5 o’clock the vast majority of people on the streets are school kids. It clearly illustrates the success of China’s one child policy and the fact that it was persisted with for about ten years too long. It also illustrates that India has need for a couple of decades of such a policy.

After another hour or so we came across a “Toddy Shop.” These are excellent institutions that take the sap from coconut trees and let it ferment during the day and flog it the same day - you can see the stuff fermenting in your glass. Nearly forty years earlier I had tried something similar in Tanzania and that made us very cheerful, very quickly. The Indian version had the same effect. So, after consuming a litre and a half between us we bought another litre to take away but found no other wine shops.

Ed and I had had the impression earlier that white people walking down country roads is not common. Walking down them in the dark is certainly not common. We were late for dinner, so chickened out and got an auto.

The following day it was off for a mountain walk. I won’t dwell on the walk but there were several things about the day that were very educational. Public transport. Chinese cities have superb public transport in the cities but not in the countryside. In India you can get buses from anywhere to anywhere – you just have to change a lot and it takes a long time. Our homestay really is in the middle of nowhere and it is a good twenty minute walk to the local village. It was then three buses and one and a half hours to do the 30 km to where we want to go to get a tuc-tuc up the mountain to start our walk. After our walk, we could not get a tuc-tuc down the mountain because there was a road block. We did the seven km off the mountain in eighty minutes with no sign of a road block.

We were also back into the problem from yesterday – where to get some beer etc. On the walk to the village in the morning we had passed the local toddy shop and I had enquired on Ed’s behalf about closing time - 9.00 p.m,. so a backstop.  We enquired in the various towns where we had to change buses about wine shops and they were all closed for “the holiday” (We later discovered that  it was Mahatma Macoat Day and the old todger was famously abstemious from anything that sounds like fun).

So a dry day! Santosh to the rescue. We had begun to warm to our hoist quite a lot. Me - “Santosh, how do you stop the birds eating the rice?  Santosh - “How much can they eat?” Santosh is a non-boozer but he produced a quarter bottle of his father’s honeybee brandy which seemed to have the desired effect.

At 5.30 in the morning I set off with Stephen, another resident, for the wildlife sanctuary. Ed isn’t called The Wiser for nothing - he went back to Bangalore. The sanctuary was shit. I saw much more wildlife in Santosh’s father's farm later in the day. However, if you like to see a chained up elephant the “nature reserve” is the place for you. The vehicles took us out too late, they have rooves too low to look out of, the guides didn’t give a shit. We were back in one hour having seen a few buffalo. It was a disgrace.

However, it turned out to be a fun day. Back in the nearest town I was looking for a wine shop to replace the honey-bee brandy when I wandered into a local “Jain” place. Don’t ask me what “Jainism” is all about – it is some religious nonsense.  Anyway, in I went . There was not much too see but it emphasised the overwhelming nature of the demographic. I was seized by three 15-16 year old girls and quizzed about where I was from, where was my family etc. to the extent that they forgot to take their shoes off when we wandered near the inner sanctuary. The guy told them off (but not me, obviously, even I could draw the relevant conclusion) and opened the inner sanctum – not much to see. An easy morning - probably only twenty photos taken of me. Why am I not considered handsome in the West? (No answer required.)

Anyway, the wine shop must be found and, after a lot of farting about, asking directions, autos (yuk) etc. I got to the place in time for the midday sun.

Did I mention a queue a couple of days previously? Well that was nothing. I had to join to replace the stuff that we had drunk the night before. Initially the queue did not appear to move at all but after about twenty minutes there arose the idea that I should go to the front of the queue. Why? There were quite a lot of other old men as well as me (naturally, there were no women). So I stood in my place but they all pushed me forward. Inverted racism is an odd thing but I have seen quite a lot of it on my travels.

There is no honey-bee brandy but I get the next best (plus a spare – obviously). The oddity was that the guys who I had all delayed clapped, cheered, shook my hand and hugged me

 Question one for you. Is the fact that I was pushed to the front by the oppressed minority racist? Easy answer, I believe.

Question two? Was I right to accept? Trickier!

 

Back to the farm and what do I do?

Well, obviously, I visit the toddy shop on the way, refuse a lift from Snatosh’s neighbour and thoroughly enjoy looking at stuff. Stuff consists of birds that I don’t know, plants that I, mostly, don’t know and people doing things that I do not understand.  When I venture forth on the farm I am in a birders paradise. I guess that I saw thirty different species in half an hour – naturally I could identify none of them unless they have cole tits in India.

The brandy had proved a wise investment as when I got to the Toddy Shop the next day they had sold out by 3.30. I was in the company of a couple of Americans (technically he was Chinese). Jasmine had had an ambition to milk a cow for three years.  Today was her day.  She asked a local who took us off to an old lady’s farm where the deed was done. I have to say that Jasmine was pretty crap. When we got back to the farm Santosh, without hearing the full story, immediately set about arranging cow milking for the morrow. BTW he had already got in the man that morning to demonstrate tree climbing and coconut cutting. The coconut juice was especially welcome that evening for the brandy.

The Americans were a late booking so I was moved downstairs into the house proper so I could drink brandy and coconut juice with Santosh’s dad. Bed and board was down to five quid a night but this was mate’s rates – Santosh liked me and I like him. Will I be back?

The next stretch proved rather odd. Santosh had given me instructions about where to go next. He was a bit inaccurate but it didn’t matter. People just help and I got the next bus in the right general direction until I reached my goal and got a train. The oddity in the bus was that I was sat in a three people seat by the window. A young guy was sat on my left and, after the right hand seat was vacated, he seemed to think that it was OK to lean on my thigh with his right elbow. When his left hand also appeared on my thigh I made my feelings plain and he moved away.  Why should a young guy – no matter how perverse – be interested in a 63 year old man?

Well here I am sitting in an air-conditioned carriage on a train to Goa. There are sleeping places for six and, at least, room for twelve people to sit on the seats at normal level. This can’t be an Indian train. I have lashed out 8 euros on this 5 ½ hour trip. There is clearly something wrong.

I wrote that two days ago. The food in Goa was good and the streets quite clean but it is not India; it is the sanitized version like Hong Kong is the sanitized version of China. Maybe I should have ventured to the beaches where the westerners hang out to try a drug or few.

This train (with an upgrade) has cost me two euros for another five hours – I am sure that I will end up somewhere! There are loads of men wandering up and down the carriages selling shit. I am fairly sure that they are speaking some variety of English but I have no idea what they are selling.

The town I was heading for proved to be real wild west. There were loads of drinking holes.  The gin came with orange already in the individual sized bottle. You bought soda water (no tonic) separately. Naturally they cost pretty much nothing so I had a couple.

To Hampi. My hangover has gone and I am awaiting the Eclairs who are getting a night bus to arrive in the morning.  This is a real hippy tourist spot – with no booze! I don’t know how The Wiser will cope.

Well the Wiser coped very well. He bought a bottle of whisky and a bottle of rum which the three of us demolished in one night. We weren’t the brightest crowd today. Yesterday we cycled but were too rough to do so today so we hired little motor bikes and I used less than a litre of fuel and we probably did 35 kilometres.

Hampi is a lovely area. It is famous for temples but we spent more time looking at the rock formations and the incredibly green rice. There are lots of birds and Claire bought me the local bird book which was very useful.

 Obviously it was a washing day. The Eclairs had left and I wandered off to see a couple of temples but there was Lashme in the first temple. We had met her a couple of days earlier emerging from her bath. I stood and watched for a bit whilst she collected coins, ate the odd banana and tapped people on the head. She is 28 year old Indian Elephant. The tap on the head is thanks and the coins go into her trunk for here keepers to retrieve. The temple was mildly interesting but when Lashme was off for her bath I left. Indian Elephants are considerably smaller than African elephants – I doubt that she weighs three tonnes – and I have little experience of them. The oddity is that her back was humped whereas an African elephant sags in the middle of its back like most large quadrupeds. Still pretty tall though – 3 metres plus in the middle of her back but is she deformed?

Once down to the river the chief mahoot (elephant trainer) persuades her to lie down on her side and scrubbing commences. This isn’t a gentle tickle with a back brush but vigorous scrubbing with scrubbing brushes and rough rocks. Most of the time she is kept in the temple so tics are not so likely but the skin is very thick and peeling skin can be very itchy. Apparently, in the wild, Indian elephants spend three hours a day scratching against trees. 100 rupees (1 quid) to join in the process for the tourists and after 45 minutes it is time for her to turn over. This is a very slow process taking five minutes or so but even then when she finally dropped her head in the water there was a damn good splash. Her ears got particular attention and she certainly didn’t complain – an enquiring trunk was an obvious good sign. I didn’t join in the scrubbing but did rather regret not getting the offered ride back to the temple. (No photos, my phone had fried.)

This took an hour and a quarter. A bit of a wander round some obviously poor area plus a couple of temples and there was much more traditional washing with lots of beating against rocks by (mainly) women.

 A relief at lunch time when beer appeared but it was time to move to Hospet. This is close but not touristy – the hotel I am in is twice the price of Hampi but half the efficiency – and that is saying something. Yesterday in Hampi it had taken twenty minutes to produce an orange juice for Ed; two minutes to collect a beer for me today had turned out to be twenty and “half an hour” to prepare lunch had been over an hour.

I was wandering in to town when I came across a man waist deep in the river. He was washing his cow. And, judging by the fact that the other three cows were pushing close, it isn’t only elephants that enjoy a good, vigorous wash.

The last wash of the day was a man with his tuc-tuc (sorry auto) next to the river getting that good and clean.

OK I was the last wash of the day but that can hardly be classed as edifying.

Back to Bangalore. Travelling is a bit slow but the general principle is get on whatever bus or train is heading in the direction you want to go – don’t wait for a transportation device to your specific destination. This concept works quite well but I got caught out by not hurrying a bit. A night in Hospet, having arrived at 5 p.m. seemed like a good idea. It wasn’t. Hospet is a complete dump and if I had got the train to the next junction I could have got to Bangalore the following day in time for a good boozy night with the Wiser before I left.

In stead roll in near midnight and watch the Wiser working for much of the following day. Well actually that statement is not true. Brunch together for the three of us and then drag Claire off to the pub to talk about places to visit (on their way back to the UK) in Myanmar and China. I didn’t force her to watch cricket – honest – she was willing.