From Chennai India to Bangkok Thailand...As my mate Brian put it, if Carslberg were to sponsor a visa run...this would be it

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Namaste from Bangkok's Khao San Road area....I am one of the 5,000 000 travellers that's descended on this little area's backpacking hostels to party like it's the last night on earth. The net cafe I'm writing to you from is connected to a hostel, where just a minute ago a lagered up middle aged Westerner was kicking off randomly and having a stand off with about 10 staff from the hostel...and it's only 5 pm...christ it's going to get messy here in a few hours! Love this place....when the neon pink taxi dropped me off here from the airport last Saturday I absolutely couldn't stop laughing when we pulled up on Kho San Road...There were casualties sitting and wandering aimlessly all over the place still drinking at 7am...and people still going in the hostel bars that spilled out on the street...Quite a culture shock coming straight in from Madras...

Well...Thailand has to wait for another blog...I’ve had quite a few adventures since my last post….let me try and retrace my steps….ah that’s right, doubled over in agony with food poisoning in Mysore about to leave for the beautiful backwaters of Kerala…well I never actually made that 1 unfortunately. My temperature rose and the cramps got worse, I had no choice but to have a night of sweating and moaning in agony in Mysore (glad I was staying with an ayurvedic doctor, they wet my brow and fed me strange tablets) before gathering enough energy to get a train to Kerala the next afternoon, thinking that I could just pass out on a sleeper train for 15 hours and take it easy when I got there. Well I got the first leg of the journey ok to Bangalore. I arrived 3 hours early to catch my connecting train to Kochin in Kerala…I met this guy from London in a net café at the train station while I was waiting. He looked a bit…how can I explain ‘rung out’ so we bonded instantly. He told me that he’d travelled the whole of India in 2 months and wanted to get the hell out of there, he’d had more than enough. This guy couldn’t have stood still for more than a day, he must have been exhausted. He was catching a train to Chennai to wait for his flight to Thailand. I was also supposed to be going to Chennai the next week to catch my connecting flight to Thailand. So, anyway, I went to the platform to catch my train. I got there and it looked dead , so I asked some train guards where to catch my train from and they directed me to another platform. I went there and a train pulled up 20 minutes later. I got on, and asked some people if it went to Kerala, everyone looked at me blankly, no one knew. In the confusion I was getting harassed by a group of young boys begging…I was the only white face around and they honed in on me….not helpful. I was beginning to get agitated, and I don’t normally do agitated. in the end I got off before I ended up in Timbuctu, as nobody thought it was going to Kerala…the next train pulled up half an hour later…no one thought that was going to Kerala either, but some helpful people said it was going to a city where I could get a connecting train to Kerala. I got on the train, looked at my map and saw that the city they told me about was about 500 miles in the opposite direction to where we were already. I got off the train and waited again, my stomach still in knots and still sweating with fever I collapsed on my bags and waited for the next train. The next 1 definitely didn’t go to Kerala. Infact no one had even heard of Kerala on it, even though it is the next state across from Bangalore. Weird huh! There was no1 around in charge, so I gathered all my bags and walked up the stairs along the foot bridge again which was quite a long way. I checked the info board and the only trains left for the night were to Chennai. It was late, almost midninght and I didn’t fancy trying to get a room for the night in Bangalore I couldn’t face going through the whole episode again the next day….I just wanted to get somewhere…anywhere. So I thought sod it I’ll go to Chennai for the week so there’s no danger of me missing my flight to Thailand aswell! So I went to get my ticket but the queue was soooooo long and there was someone at the front asking 1000 questions about his ticket for a train which was probably in about 1 months time…I began to sweat more…only had 15 minutes to get the train. Well no1 had checked for my ticket before so I thought, let’s chance it. As I crossed over the bridge again, I happened to run into the guy from London and told him about my new episode, he empathized with me, obviously having had more than his fare share of BS over the last couple of months. He told me they’d kick me off the train without a ticket, so… back over the bridge again and to the ticket queue, where I was nervously staring at my watch and thinking there’s no way I’m going to make it. Some guys pushed in to the front of the queue, ‘aagghhh…shit…never gonna get there at this rate’, so I went over to have a go at them, they looked into my eyes and cowered, they could see a desperate and dangerous woman, they replied to me by saying they’d get me my ticket too, so I said ‘okay’ (much to the annoyance of everyone else in the queue who had been on my side previously.) I got my ticket, ran over the bridge (again)the train was there, it was full, all the sleeper beds were reserved, all the seats in 2nd class were taken. So I got on the woman’s only carriage and the train took off straight away. The women’s section was only 1 carriage and was packed full of Indian women and children looking as though they were moving house. I found 8 mm by the door with all my bags and every few minutes for the next 7 hours, I had to move myself and all my stuff as the doors opened and people got on and off the train. This was one of the most memorably uncomfortable nights of my life….but I was so happy when I finally dropped my bags down in Cristal guest house Chennai (sounds posh doesn’t it?) that it was all worth it!
For the next week I nursed myself back to health. Chennai was incredibly hot and overpopulated. I was staying in a very local busy cheap end of town…Everytime I left my digs to there were 10 rickshaw drivers waiting to vye for my business. They almost had punch ups over it. I think they were waiting all day and night for me…then when I walked 2 minutes to the bottom of the road, same thing. So I had a fleet of drivers that would take me around the city at the rockbottom (even for India) prices. The 1st thing they would say when I got into the rickshaw is how many kids they had. As the journey progressed I found out some terrible things, 1 had just received an eviction notice that day from his landlord, another had all his money stolen that day, another’s house was falling down, and would probably collapse that day….all on the same day that I happened to get into their rickshaw! God I must be spreading bad luck or something…so I sympathized with each and every 1, even went to look round some tourist shops with some of them so they’d get money from the shop owners (these were amazing btw…wow antiques and jewellery from Chennai is the way to go!!!) Then b4 they did the sales pitch I told them how I’d lost all my money in a fire that day too. It must be spreading… (I wanted to save them the embarrassment of turning them down flat)

I had a really good week in Chennai….Had a few trying episodes that tried to crush my spirit, but I fought back.…1 of these revolved a swimming pool. Not something you'd think could be such a big deal in the whole realm of things, but in the world of travel...when you don't have to go to work everyday (sorry to gloat! hahaha) ...you can dedicate your time to pursuing small things that you'd normally not have the time or patience for... It was so hot in the day, that you had to get up early to move around then stay inside somewhere with a fan (what’s air con?) for most of the afternoon. The few days I did venture in the great outdoors in the afternoon I really needed to find somewhere to cool off…and went on a hunt for a swimming pool. It was a mission but with sheer determination and tenacity I found the only public swimming pool in Chennai. The rickshaw riders kept taking me to hotels, but I was not going to be bullied into paying 3 quid at 5 * hotels to use their pool! Eventually a hotel receptionist whispered to me that there was a public pool next to the beach, but I wouldn’t like it. I told her that I’d be the judge of that…one of her colleagues overheard her and told me that women weren’t allowed. They really were trying to talk me out of going! (I have found Indian women on the whole not to be keen on public displays of flesh and this extends to the entire gender of women in the whole human race. When swimming in the sea they will remain fully clothed) Then one of them said she thought there was an hour a day that women could swim. She said it was 4-5 in the afternoon…so I waited around the air conditioned hotel lobby for a couple of hours and went to cool off in the pool. I found it at the beach (no swimming there, waves were Tsunami like….but amazing all the same….biggest beach I’d ever seen…took about 20 minutes to walk from the sand to the sea...this was a good thing as there are so many people on it 24/7 they need all the space they can get) Eventually got to the pool and tried to buy a ticket. The very serious pool guard, told me militantly that it was only male swimming, women could only swim between 9 and 10 in the morning! I remember muttering to him something about Indian progress and women etc…he didn’t seem to listen or understand and then I turned on my heels and left. I didn’t let this experience put me off however….next day I got up and ready, got one of my rickshaw chauffers to take me back at 9am…and got to the pool in time for ‘women’s hour’….I was the only person in that whole massive pool for the entire duration! (it was the size of about 6 olympic pools and surrounded by palm trees..you could hear the waves crashing next to it and the smell of sea air) it was the best pool I have ever swam in, and so worth all the hastle!
So anyway the tide started to change after this and things started to go my way for once. Do you remember me telling you about learning to teach transcendental meditation (the art of flying with ur eyes closed, spooky...hahaha) well, I arranged a meeting with a transcendental meditation teacher at said school in Chennai. There's only a few centres in India where they teach this strange type of meditation, and they were not good at answering emails or telephone calls for that matter (Think they're too busy staring at the wall) I had been calling for weeks and wasn't getting anywhere...so I went in person which was the best thing I could have done. I was strictly vetted. I told that they only take Indians and why did I a Westerner want to learn? What is the aim of my life? Where have I been? Where am I going? What's the point of it all? How did I feel about death? etc etc....After answering their questions with ambiguous answers, they looked me up and down approvingly and said they would let me on the course for 5 days as an exception. They wouldn't normally do this though, and I would have to prove myself. They then said when I get settled in Australia, they would assign me a teacher from their school over there who would train me to be a teacher, as I need to be in 1 place for a little while to learn (that's going to be the most challenging thing 4 me!)...am so chuffed...going to start at beginning of August and I'll sneak my pal April in with me too. Think I'll tell them she's my medium!
I found this really great musical instrument shop on my road when getting my violin strings fixed (the gurus kids in Mysore enjoyed plucking my violin like a guitar....little darlings!) It sold all these great Indian instruments - Sitars, Vinas (the southern Indian version of Sitar) tablas etc....it was great...I hung out there for a while watching them making the instruments in the workshop next door, and having a go myself....was really wonderful...definately going back there for tabla lessons when April comes over. So we've got it all sorted and ready to go when we get there in a couple of weeks....
Would love to tell you all about my adventures in Thailand (and there have been many....I am having a blast), but it deserves a blog or 2 of it's own....got to go diving now to the Japanese Gardens...will take pics with my new underwatercased cannon Powershot G9 (awesome!!!)....hope my hangover from drinking a bucket of SamSam last night (- and the rest! Thai version of a Bullfrog served in a sandcastle bucket- tastes like cough syrup and probably is!)doesn't cloud the experience (god, I remember dancing on a tree quite high up...got to stop doing that...can't believe I'm admitting this to you all either, hahaha) As you can tell...holding back on the partying to train for the yoga championships in a couple of weeks in Mysore has not gone exactly to plan...hoping I can wing it ? We'll see

Tune in next time....

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