Delhi to McLeod Ganj

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delhi, not long after the last post...

I must order some food, my minds wandering and I cannot think in a straight line. Then again I never could, but the curves becoming as pronounced as a scimitar sword. If only it was as sharp. I need food, haven't eaten since dinner on the plane last night, something to take the feeling of being drop kicked in the belly away.

I broke my alarm clock, the very first thing off the plane, it fell from my luggage as I was checking I had everything just so. There's a metaphor there for my current state of mind, but I'll let you do the foot work.

So, as I wait for my momo's in the hauntingly familiar surrounds of the Tibetan Colony in Delhi, monks and kids in the their civvies walk past, nothing to do, seemingly. Basketball clothes and American boybands are still de riguer here, but then I guess it would have been a real shock to see emo Tibetan's or Goth monks. Hell I would have packed up and gone home there and then, it would have been too wild and strange for me to deal with in this delirious mode of thought.

My dinner arrives, a fat plate of steamed and steaming veg momo's (dumplings you thick) all cabbage and onion and with a fresh ginger kick. They are gone too soon, but I feel bloated and happy at the end. I have a Maaza for dessert. Maaza is a coke product- a mango fruit juice drink served very cold and gone in a flash of searing head freeze and joy.

I feel somewhat more awake now, and have the energy to go to bed, ciao.

Delhi's social scene...
or rather, thank you Rohit

Again a feeling of terror and confusion has risen from the pit of my belly as I search for a some means of identifying the driver in case he mugs me, thats if he doesn't kill me out right... It had seemed a good idea at the time, but then I was still asleep when I made the call and allowed myself to persuaded to meet tonight. I thought breakfast would have been better, but Rohit was up for it tonight. So at half eleven, I jump in the back of a taxi from the local stand and off we whisk, into Delhi's deserted streets.

I arrive in one piece and the taxi driver offers to wait outside for me, smilingly joking about his family, as he has been the whole way, in broken joy filled English. I settle into what is considered Delhi's premier watering hole, Aura Bar, int the Clarige Hotel. I settle in at the bar, alone in a room of couples and pounding eurohouse. I order a western beer- I haven't any confidence in Indian Beers since the last lot made me violently ill, although that may have been the quantity. Whatever, its not worth the risk.

A crowd of Indian playboys enter and stand behind me at the bar, along with an Israeli, who I'm sure is a confidence trickster. He is introduced as the Jew, like a crap East End gangster in another failed Guy Richie flick. The Indians are mates, and are discussing their various business's. The Jew is lying through his teeth, name dropping laughable, claiming to know everyone and everything in big business in the world, whilst at the same time appearing to be trying to sell timeshare. The Indians soon get bored and wander off, chatting about 'bitches and ass.' The Jew looks furious and stares wildly at me, before I half nod to him, and take a sip of the beer. He looks away.

Rohit arrives in a flurry of hugs and laughs. He orders whiskey and I immediately regret leaving the bottle in my room. We chat away and drink for some hours, relaxed and boasting like old acquaintances do. He drives like he means it, wildly quickly, laughing at the cars he's written off and the surgery he's had to put his nose back in joint, power sliding round police check points. His uncle is a politician, and the police are meaningless.

Delhi to the mountains...
or rather the long dark night of the road

I didn't sleep on the drive up here- I can't when traveling at the moment. We passed a road accident just after Chandigarh, Le Corbusier's triumph. There were two cycle rickshaw wallah's were lying in the road, their rickshaws overturned and blood poring out the side of one of their heads, the other just lying still. A crowd had gathered, but no one was trying to help seemingly, and then we were goon stretching into the night. Perhaps this is why I didn't sleep.

The only other tourists, other than the instantly dismissable Israeli stoners, were a number of women of a certain age. They are traveling alone, or in pairs, and all are European, they look wary and lost, but confident and a little stand off-ish if you catch their eye. The look at the Tibetans hungrily, fingering their bus tickets, reading books on Buddhism. I'd guess that either the kids have left home, or they never had any, and suddenly the need for meaning and membership of something bigger has driven them to come here, this dusty bumby bus across the sodden, humid planes, to the mountains, where perhaps they'll find some questions for all those answers they're looking for. I suspect I have the same look.

One of the benefits of not sleeping is watching the sun come up, gradually burning away the fog to reveal the mountains, the grand snow capped Himalayas, terrifying in scale and drama. I feel my heart leap to my mouth (a medical issue I'll have to get sorted) as we round a bend in the foot hills and a silhouette looms sudden and solid, gently clearing into full view as their glaciers and snowy peaks sparkle in the morning haze.

Back once again to the mountain home

I'm settled into Om Hotel now, one of my old haunts, and have a very comfortable room, with a working hot shower and a western style toilet. I've been for a wonder and grabbed some breakfast. Despite this idealic setting, with views stretching down the sunny Kullu valley, as I watch a group of English teenagers, I can't help but hope that they're being savagely burned by Raleigh or one of those other rip off merchants. They are digging and laboring away at a new school building or something, but I can't stand this sort of thing- it's utterly counter productive, taking some poor workers job for an ego massage. But perhaps its just the mood I'm in.

I've been back to Chucki's, where I practically lived and it's gone, replaced by some shithole Italian restaurant, serving some horrible parody of the best chai in the world and at twice the cost.

Still somethings never change and it is good to note, in a way, that a lot of the same old faces are around, the same leprous beggars and the drum sellers. Good in a kind of íts not the worse that could have happened' way, rather than them winning the lotto, or whatever.

Anyway, I'm fading fast and must get dinner and read some books.

All my love and hate, or you know whatevers applicable,

Andrew

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Comments

[the british are coming]

i like it
more please. im itching to go back to india and your blog helps to keep up my motivation to save. i wont be in india till nov/dec. unless you know a way to pay off a credit card without having to pay? more more more.