FEAR AND LOATHING IN CHENNAI and other Indian tales....

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From East coast Chennai to West Coast Mumbai and all the way back in a week...picking up my travel companion, taking in freaky communes, near death experiences and competing in the international yoga championships. Just another week in the life of bohemian wonder woman...crazy fool she is....

THE VERY BAZAAR

My first stop from Chennai (after being accosted in transit by tango pilgrim man in Triplicate....see previous blog) was in the ruin city of Hampi (also named Vijayanagar) This was the most powerful Hindu capital in the Deccan (hindu Indian emire...b4 Raj's and colonialism...wow wonder what would the world be like if it hadn't been carved up....) in the 14th -15th Century...now it's full of Israeli hippies dancing to Goa trance...same same, but different! The ruins looked ancient despite being only 500 years old...the town was blown appart in raids by a 6 month Muslim siege and now left to ruins. The Vijayanagar peoples spread south and took their architecutre with them...so many of the great temples and expansions of ancient temples in the spiritual south (Tamil Nadu state) stem from this tiny little town....You learn something new everyday...

Words like 'wow', 'epic' and 'I feel small' come to mind...drinking a cold beer on the roof of my hostel watching the sun set over the ruins and ancient boulders.

I wondered out on my 1st night down the little allys lined with makeshift ancient jewelery and tye dye t-shirt stalls picking up the odd trinket (my weakness) to hampi bazaar (more of same stalls...willpower willpower) to a monumental temple at th end of the path shadowing everything. I could hear Indian jazz music blaring out, it was amazing, I felt compeled to go in and as I did I saw a few monks walking around playing, an enormous elephant wondering about and people hiding in the shadows...very surreal experience

The next day (after tapping my foot to Goa trance over fruit muesli yoghurt at breakfast...btw fyi the pappaya is so much better than in Thailand) I got on my bike, hired a small child who should've been at school to show me round the ruins. He wasn't sure at first about cycling in the heat, but after I convinced him he'd have the most fun day ever!!!! and get enough money for sweeties he agreed.


FETCHING MY TRAVEL BUD

so I boarded the 14 hour sleeper bus to Mumbai to pick up me old pal April from the airport...cost me about 8 quid and I had a bed on the upper back width of the bus...was one of the best journeys I've had in india... it had plug points and everything...it was just b4 i posted my beloved laptop back home (i miss you xxxxxxxxxxx) and I watched a few dvds I picked up from Bangkok. Watched Ricky Gervais's politics....wanted to se it for ages...don't know why but i used to find him so hilarious...now nothing....think my sense of humour has evolved since I've been in india. This place is flippin hilarious... Shame...so settled for factual blue planet instead (good recommendation reedy : ) ) The journey passed in no time (despite having to hold on tightly over large speedbumps every 100 yards)

Mumbai airport was a test....I'd run out of cash....no ATM machine worked...they wouldn't let me inside without a plane ticket to try the machines inside (their hands were tied) luckily I managed to resort to converting some of my emergency US dollars to some dodgy guy on the roadside...April's plane was 3 hours late and there was no sign for this anywhere...so after 2 hours of waiting I found someone to ask who told me about the delay!

Wasso great to see her! I dragged her to the 5* grand hyatt next door and we got a bottle of wine and chatted for hours..............think we looked funny to the brief case brigade as we sprawled out on the luxourious leather sofas with our backpacks...knowing this would be the last time we would see clean again 4 a long while and lapping up the service with much finger clicking

OSHO COMMUNE PUNE

We bypassed the infamous Osho commune in Pune on the way to Mysore for the International yoga championships. I've been reading his books for a couple of years now...he's a really smart, funny and poetic philosopher and have been intrigued about his commune for a while. OSho lived in his commune until his death a few years ago (think he was murdered) and addressed his commune every night with lectures which were videotaped and are now played on a big screen every night. He wrote lots of books, created his own meditations and composed his own music for each one...Really should have gone to the morning induction before going in to the evening meditation in our robes....was quite scary....in an enormous hall with hundreds of mad people...
next morning up at the crack of dawn for dynamic meditations and a game of zennis (tennis with extra grunting.) I'm not even go to talk about the disco....you need to see it to understand. Anyway we had a great time....met a really diverse bunch of people from all over the world and felt really positive about the whole thing.

YOGA OLYMPICS

So we journeyed to Mysore via Bangalore overnight on our 2nd class sleeper train...not knowing that as we were arriving at Bangalore 6 bombs had just gone off in the city. Some1 mentioned it to me on the train as we got nearer...thought better of it to not let on to April as she's just getting used to the place...might send her over the edge! 'I thought you said Bangalore train station was hectic' April asked me as we walked through an empty station....Think it was Pakistani terrorists over Kashmir rather than AlQuaeda....scary....we're praying things calm down by the time we get to Northern Himalayas near Kashmir....
Arriving at Mysore felt like coming home! Was so good to catch up with my yoga buddys....spent a couple of days training for the international yoga championships and got myself ready just in time....managed to perfect some quite difficult postures (got April to push me in to positions...like this travelling in pairs thing) CAME 6th....was so happy....my whole yoga school did so well Shilpa came 1st Jebbyn 3rd in their categories and so many others got rankings that my gurus school came top overall and got the trophy for best academy of the year...Was so honoured to be performing with these top athletes who are now such good friends...they're all so encouraging...hope I'll go back next year to see every1 and compete again

CHENNAI...blood, sweat and tears
We pulled up at 5am in missionsville - Chennai... crazy city...ran by mafioso Bollywood actors and Capital of the poor (is there a link there?)East coast. It also has the 2nd longest stretch of beach in the world (not that you can use a lot of it...after venturing out a few yards away from the crowds and being told not to incase of rape - ooer maybe not) ....not sure why but even the the traffic horns are 3 x louder than normal...just to add to the dizzying kaleodoscopic array on the senses. We went back to me old digs...the not so posh Cristal hotel...everything was going perfectly until a death defying SICKNESS got April by the throat...Whatever she had was EVIL and after 5 TRYING days of trying in the poorest part of the world we decided to leave our sweaty hostel and get on a bus to ANYWHERESVILLE...

AUROVILLE (Sounds like anywheresville)
Pondicherry the French colonised seaside town 3hours bus ride from Chennai...home to Auroville the largest commune in India....What better place to get over EVIL Indian stomach disease...
Things had taken their toll...it had been a real test 4 us so far....even tho we've been buddies for 8 years now...our friendship had been through the ultimate test....we went through hell and back...a few fiery street arguments later (think I met my match) and after scaring aswell as entertaining the peoples of a chilled out seaside town and hippy commune we came out the other side better mates than ever....this is the ultimate test of friendship...would definately make or break you...now think we're in good stead for moving to Oz in November.


HAIRY MOMENTS
well india travel is the ultimate...despite its ups and downs (our knives have now moved from deep down in the backpack to our handbags)...the rewards for any shit you have to deal with more than make up 4 it. Had a few hairy moments but nothing we can't handle...you want an example? ok....um Ok moved hotels from 1 fleapit to a slightly lesser 1 when April was recovering from EVIL disease when we 1st got in to Pondicherry. It took us a while to find1 on our cheap budget...we thought we'd landed on our feet when we saw some normal French people checking out (that should've been a sign). We checked in around midnight (thinking how quaint it was at night with all the cool French buildings and French street names - the streets were dead from11pm due to mafia street shootouts which the rough guide failed to mention!!!) Got in at the same time as a coach load of middle aged weird Indian men...I could see their shadows out of the room...we were being subtely patrolled by men from every floor...always on guard for weirdness, we caught it within minutes and despite being tired and weary raised the alarm....every 1 in that hotel knew about it including the manager who we woke up at home and demanded a refund and transport to another hotel...which they did...don't know what could have happened if we'd stayed there...

Anyway...we're more than ready as we move north up the centre of the country and up to the highest points of the Himalayas ....sure they'll be more highs (Altitude sickness???),lows, adventures and laughs to follow


Until next time.... BWW xxxx

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Comments

[manish dikshit]

nice blog
liked your photography.....good to know there are such places in india, i havent visited yet. have a nice time

[jose rajesh francis]

no foreings should
No foringers should be allowed in india especially france,italy america,jamaica or africa so don't repeat it anymore i don't like it india is a very poor nation and democratic it is ours the foringers don't know its values bye sir