Moving On to God's Own Country

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I think that title is a U2 song??? Or have I lost it??

I am now in Kerala - after spending a whopping month of my three months travels so far living in Mysore and studying yoga. It was been a weird, and sometimes emotional time there. Firstly I attempted to settle down somewhere - and it was a very strange, incestuous community - a handful of westerners all living and studying together - and living in relatively close quarters. I loved some of my time there - in the main coming to grips with living in India again - or at least living on the edge of it all. Where the yoga shala was situated is in quite an affluent suburb of Mysore - and it felt fairly safe to wander around even in the evenings - but still every day was a veritable sensory assault, no matter how long you have stayed in one place.

My final "resting place" for the last 10 days was in a string of apartments adjacent to the yoga school. Every morning when leaving the gate, you were confronted with a beggar, stretching out his deformed hands looking for more money. The local washerwoman came knocking on my bedroom door on several occasions, hand outstretched and making hand to mouth gestures which signifies "give me money".. it really is hard sometimes dealing with that. I overheard one fellow yoga student saying "I am only giving out money now to the noticably deformed" which got snorts of laughter from the other students, but although it is a grotesque thing to say, he has a point - in that you cant give to everyone - and of course being western and clearly loaded in comparison, we are approached all the time. That all said, living here has also restored my faith in India for being fabulous on many counts. Each trip down the street brings a new joy - from walking past the back of the police station seeing a prisoner outside, attempting to clean his teeth whilst shackled up with almost cartoon like chains to his handcuffs - yet smiling away at me as I passed, the staff in the ayurvedic spa (weight loss therapy generated not an ounce of weight loss by the way) singing and dancing to bollywood songs as I sat in the wooden steam box, the local dentist telling another yoga student that the fact that she is grinding her teeth whilst she sleeps probably means she has worms, the xmas parade which marched loudly through the streets at 2am singing Jingle Bells and ironically Silent Night - it can be hilarious.

The most memorable thing about Mysore though - with the exception of the yoga, which has been very challenging, has been watching, and sometimes participating in the social network of students - and watching how a society springs up and works in the confines of a 1 km square area in the midst of this country. For some reason there seems to be a huge amount of stoners amongst this group - which seems odd - but a lethal batch of brownies was cooked up last week and several people were seen to be stumbling around town, heading to the local pastry shop for more sweets.. Spending xmas here was so uneventful that there really is nothing to report - towards the end of my time, I chummed up with the nothing short of fabulous John who is camp as you like, and I think hiding in India to get over bad breakup with boyfriend back home - he has rented an apartment, a scooter, had broadband and cable installed, and after only a handful of yoga lessons has done his knee in and now spends some time each day at the local hospital getting ultrasound treatment and has no plans to leave. He is fantastic, and scooted me about on his scooter, and was also partial to the odd beer in the evening which was great. All very non yogic - but being that everyone was stoned out of their minds all the time, I felt quite healthy in comparison. Dinner plans were often made in secret from each other, which leads to tensions from all cases and way too many people claiming to be "working through some stuff..". It was often exhausting just being here and I too sometimes felt down in the dumps - but generally the problem is that after the yoga, Mysore doesnt really offer much in the way of entertainment - and so boredom does set-in. Even as I write that it seems mental that I stayed so long.. but I wanted to finish the yoga course, and I think to be honest I might have gone through a three month dip in my own head after travelling and living out of a bag. The therapy ended up making my entire body ache so yoga has been hard for the past week, it is also such a small place, and because of the yoga schedule, I found myself having conversations with men I had known for a week about the fact it was my period and I couldnt practice ("lady holiday" it is sometimes labelled as). I definitely need to get out and do a lot more travelling - and be wary about staying put in one place for too long.

The three month dip thing may have been brought on by contact from home for xmas etc.. but am not sure that is true really as am not really a xmassy person. Is more that when you do actually stop travelling for a bit, and "live" in one place, you do miss home comforts and also your people back home. I met a few people who scorned the fact that i wasnt cooking for myself, didnt haggle for 20 mins to save 10 rupees on a taxi, etc.. and that is a general travellers attitude sometimes - but I am still living pretty frugally (for me). I found the whole thing hilarious, especially when meeting a guy from scotland whose mother turned out to be my first home economics teacher!! Small world or what. He has travelled all through europe, either camping or sleeping rough in bus shelters and was pretty astonished that I was not impressed by this. I was more interested in where he had been - he seemed less interested in the countries he was visiting and more delighted with himself that he had achieved some low-rent international outward bound course. The tide started to turn then and my low dip passed and I found a lot of humour in what I was seeing around me.

Charlie, the ever charming Arizonian told me that he didnt need my "special medicine" as "the pendulum has swung" and he now has a chronic case of the shits. The lovely australian girl living in the room next to mine had hooked up with an old boyfriend and was claiming to be upset as he has decided to go on a yogic journey and has sworn a vow of celibacy to himself. I felt quite bad for her as I knew she liked him, but was less sympathetic when it turned out that between the hours of 11pm and 1am he seemed to forget his vow and night after night I had to listen to them at it through the wall. I fell briefly in love with a(nother) gorgeous israeli man, Daran, who used to swing by my room and chat - maybe time would have developed something more, who knows - he was great and dressed in rock star yoga type clothes and mirrored shades and did a good line of jokes about the israeli tourist trail of which Mysore is one of the only places I have been which isnt on it. But my favourite find was Trish, or "Mrs Pat from USA" who the local school children (with their sheep on a string) had named. Mrs Pat must be mid forties, swung by for a week and was so fantastically honest about what she saw "what the f*ck is wrong with these people", "does anyone else find themselves rocking when alone in their room" - she saw it for what is was - a very very strange society that was struggling to cope. She was also brilliantly mad and came in with a series of bumps on her arm one day that I - the new afficionado - could easily identify as bed bugs. I told her my fears and she confessed that they had only come up after she had been trying on some of her landladies clothes.... WHO ON EARTH DOES THAT? I was hooting with laughter and told her that she should know that trying on ancient saris from a mothball cupboard was only going to attract bad karma. She pissed herself as well and we went out drinking beer in secret (to avoid the scheduled chanting evening in someone's room - honest to god) with camp John and had a whale of a time.

So eventually I left, headed back Bangalore which has a cool airport - much more together than Delhi - and I jetted down here to Kerala. I am staying in a town called Varkala which is a clifftop resort which is exactly what I was after. Its clearly a touristy place, I am again free to wear summery Goa type clothes without too much concern.

First full day was yesterday and I went out with a group of people (including Milly and Silas who are here) on a Dolphin boat tour. There were loads and loads of dolphins - tonnes of them. They were so lovely, and came pretty close to the boat. Got to swim in the sea, learned to dive off the boat (huge achievement for me) and had a brilliant time. Kerala is called God's Own Country - by the tourist board anyway. It does seem very very beautiful - more lush than Goa as I flew over, kind of separated from the rest of india by a range of mountains called the Western Ghats - and apparantly the first ever democratically voted communist state. How this affects economics, etc.. I have no idea. But it does seem wildly different from Karnataka where I have just come from. Much more tourist driven off course, being on the coast where I am - but also there are very high levesl of literacy here, and women hold a much stronger place in society. That said, I havent seen a single woman working in the restaurants, etc.. but I will keep my eyes open..

New Years Eve is today - as is my brother's birthday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY TONY (32). I really dont think there is going to be a wild party - just a bunch of people in a bunch of different restaurants - but we have vodka and western music which is a treat for me alone to be honest. Am even plannning to buy some new clothes for the occasion which is a HUGE deal.

Happy New Year everyone.. xxx

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Photos

Spot the Dolphin
There were loads, honestly - just camera shy

Fishing Nets
Charming old fishing nets line the backwaters catching lunch