Queuing, claustrophobia and the escape to the country – Tirupati to Jeypore, Orissa

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The temple of Lord Venkateshwara is supposedly“one of the richest and most popular places of pilgrimage in world, drawing more devotees than either Rome or Mecca” (Rough Guide, 2011). Around 100,000 people visit the temple every day (Jenny Dufour, 2012), some queuing for up to 14 hours. Now that’s devotion. A shorter queue is available although you do of course have to pay a premium for the privilege. Sounds like quite a spectacle. Well yes it does until you hear that even in the ‘premium’ queue you will probably have to wait around 4 hours in line with several thousand Indians who to be honest don’t follow British etiquette when it comes to queuing. All of this to see what our tour leader described as a pretty average temple that you only get to spend a few minutes in before being whisked off to make way for others. Did I mention also that the passage for the queue is in tight narrow corridors and the day time temperature averages around 38 degrees. Hmm all of a sudden this doesn’t sounds like such an attractive proposition. Still tired and needing a little space and some quality ‘Mark time’ I decided very quickly that an afternoon of claustrophobia induced panic, queue rage and probable heat stroke was not a very attractive option. Did I feel guilty for not going? Did I feel like I was letting myself down? Well yes a little, but when I say little, I mean an amoeba of guilt in a universe of really not giving a shit. I believe I have discussed before the importance of taking some time out when necessary and this very much was one such moment.

When the group returned (about 7 hours later!) many told me that they had really enjoyed the experience whilst others were fairly muted about the experience. Apparently it had only taken 2 hours to queue but the group were delayed for several extra hours as poor Colin (a new Glaswegian passenger) had his wallet stolen (surely stealing at a temple can’t be good for your Karma) and also because another passenger, Dave did not realise where the meeting point was, he wasn’t everyone’s favourite person that day as I’m sure you can imagine. Apparently the temple had been more impressive than expected and certain group members had been understandably moved by the sight of the Hindu pilgrims wallowing and going into a ‘trance like state’ upon entering the temple. After hearing all this I felt a little guiltier about not visiting, but in all honesty I was and still am very happy with my decision to stay at the hotel and indulge in some much needed me time.

We would be bushcamping for the next two days and as such eating all meals from the truck, this meant a visit to the local supermarket (never a dull day) to buy food was in order. Noel, Colin and myself were in cook group A and were as such first up to plan, buy supplies for and cook (cobble together) a dinner, breakfast and lunch. My initial idea (and a popular one) was to make meatballs in tomato sauce and serve this with pasta, everyone loves meatballs right? Unfortunately the meat ball dream was scuppered very quickly upon the realisation that the supermarket didn’t sell any meat at all, not even eggs (the supermarket was owned by Jain’s who are strict vegetarians). Bugger. Fortunately Noel and Jenny very quickly came up with a very good back up plan, vegetarian stir fry. I actually really enjoyed the planning and purchasing process, It was really fun buying food enmass and trying to work out how much of everything we would need to feed 20 people (yes your right I am entertained by strange things). I was also amazed by the price of vegetables, a cauliflower was 15p, tomatoes (and nice ones at that) were 20p per kilo, a kilo of green beans was 18p and onions were so cheap it was hardly worth them charging us for them, fantastic.

Over the next two days we covered over 1000km almost completely traversing the state of Andhra Pradesh state (Indian states are rather larger than those at home). Unfortunately Andhra Pradesh is a very boring place to drive through, the landscape is very dull and monotonous consisting mostly of dry and largely flat scruffy grassy plains and very little else. There was however approximately a 10km stretch where the land on either side of the road had been cultivated into colossal nursery gardens that went on for as far as the eye can see growing various types of household plants, I wonder if some of them were destined for our shores? This brief but beautiful section helped distract us from the otherwise never ending cycle of flat, scruffy plains and ugly traffic chocked towns. Andhra Pradesh is one of India’s poorest and least developed states and we certainly saw evidence of this. On several occasions we passed people who were living in very basic thatched buildings, most didn’t even have any walls. Seeing this really brought home the poverty India still has in parts, especially when contrasted to the designer shops and Mercedes’ of Mumbai. It is all too easy to forget that the national average yearly wage for an Indian is only around USD $300-500 (Lonely Planet, 2011).

Little, other than sweat and boredom happened on our drive days however the evenings did hold some excitement. On night one after a very long drive we arrived at our camp just as it was getting dark, not a great time really to put up our tents and setup camp. We didn’t actually think we had arrived at camp when we stopped as the location was laugh otherwise you will cry poor. Strewn with scruffy dry grass, about 15 metres away from the state’s main highway and with zero privacy to go to the toilet, this was not the finest camping spot I had ever seen. In many ways it was good we arrived in the dark so that we couldn’t actually see much of our hellish industrial wasteland surroundings. However, not all was bad, for tonight was cook group A’s big night in kitchen. The weight of anticipation hung heavily in the air, for weeks I had been talking about my love and food and cooking, now it was time for me to prove that I could actually cook. I was rather nervous, my hands were even shaking a little and my mind was a scrambled mess, I was trying desperately to concentrate on the cooking process but my mind couldn’t focus. Finally after some deep breaths I managed to calm myself and focus my mind on the task in hand. We worked efficiently as a team to chop a ridiculous amount of vegetables, prepare the sauce and get the humungous pan of rice cooking, after about 30-45 mins of solid prep work it was time to cook. Getting enough heat in the pans to quickly fry the vegetables rather than steam them was a challenge, as was cooking so many vegetables in just two pans, I wasn’t convinced it was going to work. When the vegetables looked just about done we threw in the sauce which we had made from some Oyster Sauce that we had on the truck, a little honey, soy sauce and chilli sauce. After frying for a few seconds we tasted for seasoning and then added a little (a lot) of extra salt and Soy Sauce, voila, service time. The feedback was unanimously good, the vegetables were crunchy but not raw (somehow), the sauce was tasty, plentiful but not over powering and the rice was light and fluffy, despite us not following any of the conventional rice cooking rules. I don’t know how, but we had done it and done it bloody well. Cook group A and I think me in particular were both very relieved and happy that it had gone well.

Despite the good meal result and a few Kingfishers It was difficult sleeping that night. Firstly because it was the first nights camping in a long time and adjusting to sleeping in a tent can take a few nights. Secondly because of the incessant honking of horns from the nearby highway traffic which was as vigorous and brutal at 4am as it was at 9pm.Thirdly and finally because it was first of all bloody hot when I went to bed and then really bloody cold halfway through the night, just about the time when I had to crawl bleary eyed out of your tent for a late night wee. I had not taken my sleeping bag to the tent that night as it had been so hot 24/7 since we arrived in Mumbai that I simply didn’t think that I would need it. It was a depressing and distressing realisation that we were returning to colder climates, I knew it would not be long until I would have to retrieve my jumper, sad times.

Our second bush camp was a whole different affair all together, situated by a lake on verdant green grass this was more like exotic location we had all hoped for last night. Big smiles and palpable signs of relief appeared on all our faces as we arrived and examined our all together more agreeable surroundings. Pretty much as soon as we had setup camp some friendly locals came over and joined us for a game of cricket, although I abstained as I was on beer drinking duty. Just before bed, which was a rather embarrassingly early 10.00pm that night, some locals we had not met previously came over and offered us some (a lot) of raw corn on the cob, about 30 pieces to be precise. As it transpired they were looking to trade the corn for beer, something we were not really willing to do, as such we thanked them for the corn and told them we were going to go to bed. After much persuasion and a few token bites of raw corn at their persistent request we finally managed to convince them to leave, I went to bed shortly after this. I slept well until I was awoken at around 11.15pm by a woman screaming, I quickly realised this was our tour leader Jenny and that she was screaming something along the lines of “someone is trying to get into the truck, I know your hiding in the bushes you can’t hide from us”, myself and half the camp quickly ran out of our tents and joined a very wide eyed and scary looking Jenny by the truck, in all honesty I’d be a scared man if I had been caught by her. It turns out the corn boys had come back to the truck and were attempting to climb through a broken window on the truck to steal our beer (or so we believe) and at the same time they were also trying to steal one of the Chris’s bags which was left by the window. Fortunately Jenny rumbled them before they could reach far into the window and they only managed to get away with Chris’s coffee cup which was no great loss in the grand scheme of things, although I don’t think he was to impressed. While nothing serious was stolen it wasn’t a very nice experience for any of us and left us all feeling a little paranoid and on edge, it was the first time in India that I had thought and been aware of crime and safety. It was an unfortunate experience as India is normally a very safe and largely crime free travel destination and crimes like this are not common. For some it was only their fourth night in the country and must have come as an unwelcome surprise. We were all very grateful that Jenny woke up in time and stopped the thieves from taking anything serious.

After two nights of bushcamping we were glad to arrive in Jeypore, it had been a long sweaty drive which had been delayed in part by a fatal accident involving a crashed lorry (we were not involved in the accident). We hypothesise that the lorry driver in question had lost control whilst driving too fast downhill, we then believe he crashed into the side barrier of a bridge causing the person sat in the passenger seat who wasn’t wearing a seat belt (or didn’t have on for that matter) to be flung fatally straight through the windscreen and onto the road below. It was a grim, upsetting scene and as good an advert for wearing a seat belt as you will see.

Jeypore was a scruffy jungle town with little to see and do, but for some reason I liked it and enjoyed my afternoon here strolling the streets. I decided while in Jeypore I would get a haircut and a shave as my hair was starting to get a little scraggly and a bit too warm and thick for the fierce sun we had been encountering as of late. Following the advice of the hotel receptionist I sought out the best men’s salon in town, Choices. It was a tiny shop with just two chairs and two staff. The blank expressions I received when asking for a hair cut and shave indicated that the staff spoke little to no English or perhaps that I had been in India so long that I myself was no longer speaking English but some form of bastardised blend of Hindi, English and Mark talk, it was hard to tell, I was confused, was my name really Mark? How the hell did I get here? And why did I have that awful ginger ferret growing above my lip? When I finally managed to gather my thoughts I came to the realisation that I would have to use the universal language of charades to make them understand me. Both staff members looked on at me with disturbed bemusement as I tried to mime having a haircut and shave, the look of fear in their eyes as I mimed a scissor action was palpable. Fortunately after a lengthy period of intense miming (and much to my relief) they realised that I wanted a haircut and shave, or at least I believe they did anyway. Asking for specific requirements was out of the question, this was a case of you will get what you are given, which hopefully was not the same awful haircut as the two staff members. I was a little horrified when the barber attacked my hair with clippers on what appeared to be ‘military/thug skin head’ setting, however after some aggressive trimming the barber slowly but surely used scissors to skilfully blend the violently short shaved area with the rest of my hair. This resulted in a semi military looking but certainly passable haircut, I was pleasantly surprised. Next up was the shave, after applying shaving cream the barber shaved away my stiff ginger bristles using an ultra sharp and worryingly Sweeney Toddesque blade. He did a great job and didn’t fatally slice my throat which was pleasing. After the beard he went to work on my now almost one month old (but still rather pathetic) moustache with a comb and scissors, once again he did this with expert precision, transforming my ginger lip ferret from hobo to business pro. After this the barber washed my face before gently but thoroughly massaging a very pleasant woody smelling oil into my face. He finished by applying some surprisingly good smelling aftershave which stung like hell, not that I showed I was in any discomfort of course, this was an all male establishment, any girly pain noises were strictly forbidden. The whole process was not only very enjoyable but also left me with a passable hair cut, a tidy moustache and closely shorn, squeaky smooth skin. I was therefore gobsmacked when I went to pay and the barber told me the cost was 100rps (around 1.20 GBP), this seemed ridiculously cheap considering I had been in there for around 1 hour. I ended up leaving a 100rps tip (which is still really nothing) as I felt like I had just ripped them off, something the barber seemed to really appreciate.

Tomorrow we would begin our drive into the heart of Orissa state and into the remote tribal lands.......

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Photos

Children at our second bushcamp
They wanted to hold the beers for some reason, it looked funny so we didn't refuse.

Random local crowd watch us at a lunch stop
We always draw a crowd of intrigued locals wherever we stop.

Comments

[JOAN]

GREAT BLOG MARK. i UNDERSTAND WHY YOU GAVE vENKATOSHWANNA A MISS, THE TIGHT CORRIDORS SOUND Aaluables with WFUL. As for the attempted robbery hope you keepyour vou when you sleep.!!!!