Karnataka fling: Mysore and Gokarna

Momentarily distracted due to shifting continents (twice in a few days - not advisable), we´re now back on track and aiming to recap on the last few weeks of our time in India before we are swallowed by our new South American adventures! Now before I start I should emphasise that there are plenty of bad travel experiences and mini-furies littering our 3 months in India. I´m aware my posts are beginning to sound like endless cheerleading of the awesome view this, incredible dinner that variety - and should therefore preface my discussion of our time in Mysore with the admission that there has in fact been plenty which looks less rosy. I´ve been grumpily, lingeringly giardia-ridden more than once. We´ve had entirely sleepness nights` travel beside broken windows on wildly uncomfortable buses. There has been rudeness and bad meals, frustrations and indignations. At one point I wanted to punch a mosque attendant and at another T went ballistic over a tiny portion of calamari. Even as I write, my blood is still kind of boiling (disproportionately, unduly, should-be-reserved-only-for-serial-killers-child-molesters-and-Jeremy-Clarkson, boiling) at getting ripped off - for probably the only real occasion of the trip - on our sleep-deprived arrival in Bombay the other week. So the adventures have been full-bodied - as asphalt-smooth to landslide-rough as the Indian roads we´ve followed around the country.

So when I say OMG we kind of fell for Mysore and totes heart it big time, it is not because we are altogether without any means of discriminating, yeah?? Ok? Good. Our Mysore romance, if you will, then, was fuelled with the jasmine and sandalwood which fills the air, vying with the usual eclectic and heady mix of exhaust fumes, street-food, sewage and incense. And there is history and grand architecture infusing this walkable, friendly little city. The opulent Indo-Saracenic funhouse of the Maharaja´s palace is the necessary starting point, smack-bang in the middle of town - the first destination to which the ubiquitous cruising/stalking rickshaw-wallahs are desperate to take you from the moment you set foot outside to the second you retire at night (similarly in Fort Chochin, where you wonder exactly how lucrative this can be, the driver-cum-self-style tour guides often appearing to outnumber tourists five to one). This stunning, extravagent palace has its royal descendents - no doubt also suckers for the Belgian glass chandaliers, Glaswegian stained glass (I kid you not) and Indian precious metals in which their predecessors decked it out - still fighting to reclaim it from the state government. But alas the canny bastards ban photography inside so you´ll have to take my word for the interiors.

And of course, even more synonymous with Mysore (at least for the history buff) than jasmine or astanga yoga-bores, is the former city of Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore - dangerous oriental tyrant to a generation of Raj administrators and an entire colonial historiography but freedom fighter, gentleman and scholar to the region. And he gives damn good palace too. Plus a beautiful mausoleum, losing points only for the inevitable banishing of his wife´s body to the outer tombs (I know it´s culturally-appropriate etc., I can just still never get with it, kids...). The entire epic complex of Srirangapatnam, filled with temples, paintings and monuments to past glories, is just a short bus ride out of town and made for a great half-day trip, where we ate fantastic cheap veg manchurian for lunch - generally subscribing to the Indian streetfood calculation whereby extreme tastiness and affordability of food is directly inverse to the apparent cleanliness of the culinary operation - and negotiated a reasonable rate for a rickshaw driver for a few hours. We also had some particularly endearing Photo-Session-with-Foreigner (an inevitable part of the tourist´s day in India, whether you spend it refusing or embracing your new-found celebrity), including the family captured here; our encounter with whom, for all the sterness of their photo-faces, was almost literally like being enveloped in a wall of beaming, glittering colour as we wandered back from the ghats.

Phenomenal food accosted us at every turn - I developed a fairly serious morning addiction to masala dosa breakfasts in the brilliant Indra Cafe (that only Bombay was subsequently able to deliver on) and flaming hot Veg Hyderabadis and seemingly endless rice meal dishes served on huge banana-leafs in Hotel RRR on Gandhi Square. Tobes had managed to go what we call ´full Indian´ by this stage ( a very useful term which can connote for us either `authentically Indian´or its polar-opposite,´typical-but-slightly-inexplicable-backpacker-in-India-behaviours-see-ludicrous-atire-very-loosely-`inspired´-by-subcontinental-dress-but-which-no-Indian-would-ever-dream-of wearing) in the sense of eating with his right hand. While I, sadly, never quite manage to lose the cutlery in its entirety for rice dishes... God I want a masala dosa. Really. I may need to Google south Indian food in Patagonia right now, the craving has hit me like a wall.

And beer came back! Glorious, cold lager sipped on the roof of the Hotel Shilpashri looking down on the square at night. Go to Mysore, man. It´s pretty great. Even our passage from Kerala felt plain sailing, so easily are our travel ambitions fulfilled these days - aircon inter-state bus! with free blanket to use and bottled water! and clean! and clean(ish) toilets in the bus station!! Ah, South India had us even then, with its citrusy flaming sambars and chutneys and its smooth highways. 

Mysore´s Devaraja Marlet is a metropolis of the senses, all organised by produce (the onion and coconut line, the flower line, the banana line and so on). Heads turned, we actually shopped in the city - a beautiful jasmine and rose garland, silks all round and a box of essential ois from sandalwood and black jasmine to waterlily and neroli. The latter was sourced from a stall run by the engaging Amil and Azam, incongruously, as they laughed, on the onion and coconut line: phoning down the alley for chai, the guys welcome customers from around the world for tea and banter while they guide you through their heady wares, offering thick volumes of recommendations to which your own picture and message is added if you choose to buy.

So we were smitten and could probably have whiled away longer in this friendly, relaxed town, luxuriating modestly in its embarrassment of historical and sensual riches. But it was time to go; this had just been the perfect city-break (and also our 8 year anniversary). Time to leave the efficient and pleasant pilgrim´s choice, Dasprakash Hotel (if austere and unsmiling - never an issue for us if the the former categories are ticked) for which we´d padded the streets checking five hotels on our first morning in a short-lived bid to stop being lazy and return to a more energetic, discerning backpacker selection process.

A mere twelve hours later on the 6am, 500 rupee public bus we clattered into a dark bus station, secured a 200 rupee rickshaw and disappeared down bumpy roads into the night, our only clue to the sea so tantalisingly close, the faint but growing smell of salt. And by 9pm there we were. Looking out onto the Indian Ocean by night at Nameste Cafe on Om beach, food ordered and beer in hand. I literally exhaled and said `I am very happy to be here´. 

I love travelling in India. But eventually you need a beach. You really, viscerally do. Gokarna is where people headed when Goa got ´too much´and somehow, despite the growth in popularity of the holy town´s gorgeous beaches strung out slightly inaccessably around the headland, Om beach has stayed resolutely tiny in scale. Nameste is its mid-range, there is one upmarket holistic resort hidden expensively from view, and then across the second bay there is a range of small shack restaurant-cum-guesthouses offering basic huts and, well, cement cells is probably the best way to put it. We moved from our first, pre-booked night at Nameste to an oppressively airless hut along the second bay at a quiet, pretty cafe. (You´re basically living on the beach so no big matter, however we did kind of file this room under ´too old for this´and resolve to up our game a little in Goa).

And that was it: for 3 days we swam and ate and drank a few beers in the evening and hiked further along to more remote beaches and swam a bit more... and looked out at this. Seriously, go away and travel - book a ticket somewhere, anywhere, now. I actually found it a bit harder to unwind than I´d expected, as sometime happens; it being hard to lose the tension that comes with Indian travel, however glorious and dynamic it is. And yet. When you casually wonder whether jacking in your job amidst global recession is a sensible move; when you add up the extent to which you´re embroiling yourself in debt and consider the holes in your CV; when you find yourself on the cusp of dysentry with another 10 hours on a bumpy death trap of a bus, breathing in dust and fumes, stared at by a hundred strangers and wondering if all this was such a great idea after all.

You end up on this beach after the sun has set, unable to remember or care that there could be any downpoints whatsoever.

 
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Addendum: if all this sounds idyllic, if life sounds too idyllic (even despite the dysentry talk), a reminder that it really is. And that I´m unaccountably, undeservedly fortunate. That among the jasmine and cascading heaps of fresh chillis in Mysore, one of my most abiding memories is this: at Srirangapatnam between sights, grabbing sodas to hide from the afternoon sun, a young girl around 8 or so, gesturing outside the shack for money or food, shrouded in a grubby oversized coat and blanket despite the heat - hair matted, skin peeling and eyes blank, in retreat from her own existence. We gave her some money. But not enough, not even close.The obscene inhumanity of which gets easier within a few days of landing in India than you would ever imagine possible from the West, where such deprivation is miniscule by comparison and hidden from view. And, yes, what could ever be enough? And how could you ever discern to whom and how much? And... But these are excuses. I can´t forget her face - or my shame at not giving more. And I shouldn´t.

The South

 

It seemed no-one else would get any of M.'s roadside pineapple

The beckoning palm trees, laden with coconuts; pineapples cut fresh on the carts of roadside sellers ;and yellow, green, pink bananas hanging for sale on every corner. Buddhism out, Christianity in - the vibrant, colourful and ritualised Catholicism of Portuguese influence, spliced with Hindu stylings. Here are the biggest, newest churches packed with  prayer goers, incense and effigies. Hindi has given way to the Dravidian languages. Konkan, Malayalam, Kannada and more. All written in the flowing, spiralling script that looks like tamed spaghetti. This is Southern India.

Our taxi dropped us at the relaxed Palm Residency cottages out near Finishing Point. Starting point and Finishing point are where Allepey's annual snake boat races are run. Each village crafts a sleek, long, narrow hulled boat and then  packs it with its strongest men to paddle madly in a series of races during August. Our plans were much more sedate - a luxurious house boat to slowly ply the backwaters stopping only to offer us massage and the chance to buy prawns. And we took good advantage of both opportunities. The massage was my first Ayurvadic experience and it was certainly an intimate affair. Herbal oils are key to the restorative properties of Ayurveda and any clothing at all is surplus. Even so, the slippery pressure on my perineum and vigorous buttock massage was an eyebrow-raising experience. I could only hope my mother, being massaged at the same time, was also taking everything in her stride. The prawns that we purchased delivered even more. Massive specimens, more akin to lobsters, were waved at us. We took them, and our boat crew cooked them.

Giant Prawn

The food in the south is dramatically different to that of the North (Northern, Mughlai and Punjabi food also being the more familiar to British tastes - rich tomato and cream sauces like the ubiquitous Rogan josh and Kormas). Only the word Vindaloo seems to have traveled from Goan shores - as the British dish bears little relation to its inspiration. But here we were in Kerala, self-proclaimed God's Own Country - and on the cuisine alone it beats that other G.O.C claimant, Yorkshire, into pulpy mush. The rice is fat and attractive, perfect for dressing with sambhar - a thin red sauce that belies it sharp spicy hotness. Thoram, usually made with cooked cabbage, mustard seed and a hint of ginger, is a moreish salad to balance the curry dishes. Here the curries are laden with Kerala's sine qua non - coconut oil. Everything is cooked in it, and it lends an aromatic hint of sweetness and nutty depth to their veg, meat and fish dishes.

So our evening meal on the Allepey boat was a feast. served on the traditional banana leaf plates, with all of the above plus a spicy okra, flavoured with dried Kashmiri chillies. Mum and I tore into the fleshy prawns, chewing through the sweet meat and licking our fingers for the hot gingery marinade. Mhairi looked on, only to note that we'd spent our beer money (her money, actually) on the shellfish that she wouldn't eat. With empty wallets and only water drink on the boat, I don't think mum or I regretted the choice at all. All of this against the slow-moving and luscious backwaters of Kerala - with nothing to do but relax in our wicker framed barge and watch the world go by in stunning green and blue hues.
 

Garam Masala for rice, made in M's hand

Kerala , for all it is less known to British ears, is very rich. Once known as the Malabar coast, it exports spice worldwide. Cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, mace, and more all grow here naturally in great quantity. They only admit to importing Saffron. They make their own tea in the hills of Munnar - some of which ends up in your Tetley tea bags. Coffee grows wild, for the most part uncultivated. Cocoa thrives only where a few small farms allow it. For tea is king here. The boom in the Middle East, where south Indians head to make their fortunes, has also sent back cash. The beauty of the coast and its exceptional food and climate sees returning millionaires (either from the Middle East or Mumbai) driving down  past tourist Goa to the beaches of Karnataka and Kerala. They either retire, or found a luxury hotel and invite their friends...

And all this wealth has been marshalled by the (democratically elected) Communist run state to provide better services - education, welfare, waste management (see Varanasi) are all way above national average. Is this a better alternative to the left/right centrist swings of our own democracy?

Helping to pull up the Chinese Fishing nets

Further up the coast in Fort Cochi we visited the Matancherry Palace, home to Kerala's local rulers the Wodejars from 1399 until the Indian nation became a state in 1947. Portguese, Dutch and British influence made deep inroads but never assumed direct control. The matriarchal line lent strength to the Wodejars survivability. And the high status of women fuelled a more equitable balance of power. Stability, Feminism, and Elected Socialism - they have succeeded in making Kerala prosperous, peaceful - and very clean (for India). If only they'd relax the tough drinking laws a little, Mhairi and I could maybe live here.
 
The other big force in our Fort Kochi was Bernard Fernandez, the Keralan papa of our homestay at Dreamcatcher. His personality easily as big as his generous frame, Bernard plied us with good offers on tickets, sightseeing journeys and so on. All the time, he warned us about unscrupulous rickshaw drivers, slandered the dirt and bad governance of the North, while endlessly checking that we were happy and needed nothing more. We truly felt like extended family come to stay.

Bernard helped us get tickets for Kathakali, the visually stunning traditional Keralan dance art.

The more we stayed Kerala the more we uncovered
its secrets. Leelu's cooking class deconstructed the mystery from some of the dishes we'd tried. A visit to Munnar, with its  verdant, tesselated tea hills brought light on mysteries of the leaf trade. Walking through its slopes with Anoop, we learnt how black, green and white teas can all come from the same plant - and it is the picking and processing of the leaves that matters. The tea factory in Munnar, started up by some enterprising Scots in the late 19th Century was eye-opening. The leaves, hand-picked, are then curled, torn and cut to different grades for different qualities of tea.

We stopped to see the elephants, and watched them be bathed and scrubbed clean by their mahoots, before being offered the chance to feed the hungry beasts succulent pineapples and ripe bananas. No peeling required of course, the elephants just demolished whole baskets of the fruit.

Munnar as a whole was a beautiful and cool breath of fresh air from the hot and luscious coastline. Everywhere in Kerala though, the spice and the generous climate kept impressing on us how bountiful this area of the world is.

As we whiled away our final night back at Kochi's iconic fishing nets, the south seemed to be drawing us in. A stunning sunset settled over the sea. Tourists and locals promenaded along coastal path, drinking in the view while holding hands with loved ones. From here we headed to Mysore, though my Mum's short Indian adventure was over.

Delhi redux and on to Shimla

Nepal was a much needed tonic. We'd hit Kathmandu having both got ill in Varanasi and at the end of 2 days of travel via the dusty, bleak roads of north-east Uttar Pradesh on one barely-held-together tin can, two serviceable but no less bumpy/leaky buses and one night in a border town dive. We were more than ready for the break and for some mothering by the lovely Samiksha Rai on our arrival.

On our return, though, having had a wonderful first Nepali adventure (the next already taking shape in our mind's eye...) I was rested and ready to hit India anew. And our wallets, having taken a sizable hit, were definitely ready for Indian pricing. Racing back down to the Sonauli border from Pokhara to keep our one and only deadline for these 3 months - meeting T's mum Kate in Delhi for her two week holiday - we mixed things up a little. Pushing straight on through the border we accepted seats in a shared jeep for the 3 hour drive back to Gorakhpur. Quoted little more than the bus fare by intense touts, our healthy skepticism - even as we agreed in the spirit of adventure - happily turned out justified only in so far as our broker managed to squeeze (by both persuasion and straight up physical coercion at times) some dozen of us in, so unutterably tightly - even by Indian standards - that we had our work cut out recovering circulation. The journey raced by in a whistling scenic belt of hot dust whipped through glassless window (my blanket still tied to my rucksack on the roof, a trauma it remains unrecovered from) as we passed miles of farmland, villages and border towns. 

Fortunately, good travel karma reigned despite the odds and, down to our last 80 rupees, we hurtled into Gorakhpur in plenty of time to get cash, gorge on cheap dhaba fare (after a week or two of reverting largely to Western food in Nepal, our Indian appetites were back with a vengeance and knew no bounds, no dal fry overlooked, no stuffed parantha left behind). 

Our overnight sleeper train, complete with teenage cricket team slumbering two to a bed in our 6-person berth, had us in to Delhi by mid-afternoon; giving us a much needed day and night to recharge from another epic 30-something hour trip - 1 train, 2 buses, 1 jeep, 2 autorickshaws and 1 cycle rickshaw and counting!

This would be our last of three stays in Delhi and I felt some guilt at treating the venerable city as a such a transit - first on arrival, then on our return from Ladakh and now, as the first stop on our trip with Kate. But a fantastic dinner in Pahar Ganj's lovely, if slightly over-priced, Tadka restaurant, a rooftop movie at old-favourite Ajay's on the Main Bazaar and a long sleep followed by a leisurely day visiting the Qutb Minar - the impressively well-maintained monument complex of the 'slave kings' of medieval Delhi (long before the Mughals left the steppes) - and we were ready for the next leg, in that weirdly resilient way that prolonged travel eventually breeds.

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We began the fortnight with Kate by gorging unashamedly on the Grand Godwin hotel's breakfast buffet (we were in at the cheaper Amax Inn just down the street, which despite LP's rave reviews, I was fairly underwhelmed with for the price and would probably revert to the slightly cheaper Ajay's in future for that 800-1000 price bracket- already a big step up on our usual budget) before exploring the Red Fort and Humayan's tomb. For whatever reason, the former felt more run down to me this visit than the last time I'd been, unfortunately - but the latter was as thrilling as ever and I honestly think I'd pick it over the later Taj any day. Lunch was a pretty phenomenal spread at Karim's near the Jama Masjid, which we were excited to find as more than living up to its veritable reputation. Which from a vegetarian commenting on a predominantly carnivorous menu is saying a lot. I will tell you this, the naans were the size of a house and my paneer palak had a kick I've not found anywhere else. 

Exiting Humayan's resting place (and indeed, that of his barber - let no man brave the underworld without his hairdresser), the heavens opened - a white dust bowl sky began to swirl ominously and we were drenched before leaving the park. Submitting to the inevitable 'rain tax', we made our way to Nizamuddin by cycle-rickshaw and, welcomed in by its owner, camped out over chais in one of the dhabas that line the streets of this ancient mohalla. The shrine to Sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin itself was kind of a delight - I'd hoped to catch the Qawwali singers at dusk but even without that treat, it was an exquisite den of colour and serenity, buried deep in a muddle of narrow alleyways that we followed barefoot along rain-drenched muddy marble floors. It was also movingly impervious and yet tolerant of our presence which is always an unexpected joy in India.






And so to Shimla.

It was Shimla - or rather a small hamlet called Charabra around 20 km outside - in which I spent three months when I was 18 on my first trip here. And funnily enough, I'd never felt much urge to return, despite it's beauty and the seminal impact of my time there. However, it was one of the places Kate was most interested to see and I was very happy to visit again after so long, particularly as it would make such a good contrast with the second week, which we planned to spend a world away in Kerala. We'd hoped to arrive in the quintessential way with the still-ticking toy train of both Raj-era and - more importantly - Dil Se (yes, that again) train-scene fame. Alas, tardy planning and heavy autumnal bookings meant it had to wait until our return journey and we instead flew up out of the plains to Chandigarh and wound our way into the cool mountain air by taxi. 

Rediscovering Shimla was quite dream-like - half-forgotten, I'd already squinted at guidebook maps, trying to square my own hazy memories of distance, layout, favourite spots onto those in front of me. Yet so much came flooding back, even within my first wander up through Lakkar Bazaar and onto the Ridge, as I went from our pre-booked guesthouse for Kate to hunt down budget accommodation for T and I (no mean feet in the Himachal Pradesh capital). Indian families wandering the Mall; kids taking pony-rides slowly up and down the cobbled streets; ice creams everywhere despite the fierce pre-winter chill; Shimla-styling of suit trousers or salwar kameez with woolly jumpers and warm beanie hats pulled on tight; endless promenading and hanging out people-watching, whether crowds of teenagers, honeymooners or old gents of the town. And goodness it was cold - perhaps more so than September Ladakh had felt. Though perhaps it was just the wind rattling through our drafty bedroom at the charming old ramshackle YMCA that overlooks town - and the feeling in Shimla of being perched literally on a ridge, a vertiginous 2200 metre precipice of surreal Little England-on-high; with the foothills rolling down to the plains on one side, and on up to the Himalaya on the other. 

We spent a peaceful few days exploring town: the steep hike up to Jakkhu temple, the old Viceregal Lodge, the state museum - and above all, just strolling the streets and rummaging through the bazaars. Beers in faithful old Himani's - a quintessentially Indian bar (solely populated by men, in pairs or alone, the drinking done in gloomy backrooms far from the respectable streets and served with touching formality by attentive, bewildered uniformed waiters); a masala dosa breakfast in the Indian Coffee House; the first night a celebratory birthday meal in the Oberoi Cecil - Shimla's luxury hotel - with the untold thrills of both a pre-dinner cocktail and wine with dinner. (A vodka martini! In India!!)

It wasn't just the nostalgia which was so compelling for me in coming back - or its unexpectedness, for I'd had few assumptions about returning and had actually been oddly unreflective about it in advance, such that the rush of warmth I felt for the town caught me by surprise It was also the sense of seeing Shimla clearly for the first time; in focus. When I arrived there in 1998, it may as well have been - for all it's anglo-legacy and genteel trappings - another planet. Never having been outside 'the West' before and knowing almost nothing of India, apart from the whim to go there, my immersion for those 3 months came prior to any real context and so I took everything at face value. I that sense I think I missed Shimla's very real eccentricity; it's anomalous character and quirks. 


Because despite what tends to be thought and said of it, Shimla is not 'English' and it never was - even as it came into being as the summer capital of the Raj (even when the capital remained thousands of miles away in Bengal, a detail which had escaped me before). It was, rather, a space of the 'unruly' subcontinent the British made out to cultivate as a corner of England - of English orderliness and temperate domesticity in a vast, extraordinary land which defied British classifications or systems of order. A place where English country flower gardens and stately homes could be tended, the business of a universe could be conducted from a drawing room and where Indians - India itself, really - could be banished from the upper reaches of town, its Ridge and Mall, to the bazaars below. While the hierarchies of power and status are no longer so transparently spatialised, you still descend from the Mall, as you walk around town, into India proper; where wide cobbled walkways give way to narrow, bustling markets, Western-style ice cream parlours morph into sweet shops with rows of gulab jamun and rasgullah and cafes give way to dhabas, tailors and silk shops, spice vendors and stores heaving with cooking equipment and bargain trainers - an original Petticoat Lane.


Shimla is a resort, not just a state capital where people work, sleep and study, but an Indian resort above all. That was a clear and refreshing find about our stay. For all its anglocentricities and heavy imperial legacy, there's seldom a banana pancake or lemon-ginger-honey in sight - and few backpackers to eat or drink them. The town is neither 'British' nor India-doing-British. It is a quaint hybrid, a rather beautiful and strange little world, now thoroughly reclaimed. A stunningly situated little hilltop outpost from which, as signs remind you, around a quarter of the world's population was once ruled. From where in 1947 in the Viceregal Lodge amidst its landscaped gardens on the hill, a deal to butcher the subcontinent in two was struck, a cataclysm as defining and decisive a shift as Independence itself.

And on a much more insignificant scale, it was also the place where I first met India. On our last day we hired a taxi driven by a brilliant guide called Cucky and headed into the surrounding countryside. Reaching Narkanda and driving up to the Hata peak we met with breathtaking vistas and a box-fresh new Durga temple - sitting, of course, next to the original temple where the fearful lady herself still resides within a corrugated iron shed. On our way out we ate one of the stand-out breakfasts of our trip at a roadside snack joint, thanks to Cucky - gigantic puffed up puris and spiced chickpea looking out on the mountains.

And on the way back we stopped in Charabra where I wandered down the village strip, now thronged with textile stores, and up to the school I had stayed in. In Simla my memories have been more tended because they are shared with Kate, another student volunteer teaching in the town: unbeknown to either of us at the time, we would go on to be travel then university buddies, flatmates and ultimately life-long friends, with all kinds of other fortuitous connections and bonds having grown from and around our meeting. But for Charabra, since I lost touch with my co-volunteer, the place and time really has become transposed in just 15 years into a place which exists only in my mind, a parallel plane. And returning was both disarming and powerfully poignant. Like finding out that Narnia really exists. (For example....)

And the monkeys! Again, in my mind's eye I hadn't realised the uniqueness of Shimla's simian population: it's India, but of course monkeys will dart through your window to steal your clothes or grab food from your hand as you walk up to Jakkhu (truly the hill of Hanuman). But having travelled more widely, I can't say I've encountered such monkeys as these anywhere else. All sizes and shapes, hammering on drainpipes, galloping along rooftops, howling and scrapping, nitpicking in the sun and hissing at passers by: it is they who hold Shimla. Empires will rise and fall, partitions will give way to partitions and the tourists change with the season. But these guys will outlast all and they know it well.

Nepal!!

Swayambhunath - are those eyes on the temple watching over us,or just WATCHING us?

Welcome to Nepal! It would be easy to write a very short post here, basically saying, Go to Nepal, it's awesome. But perhaps I should justify this a little bit…

Thamel, Kathmandu, is backpacker central. After the heat, stress and assault of Indian cities, the traveller area of Kathmandu is a haven: all manner of global goodies stock shop shelves - I even had a Yorkie bar - while veins of Nepali culture course through the narrow, crowded streets. Thangka paintings and Khukhuri knives bristle from the shops, jammed against stores rammed full of climbing gear and trekking essentials. ‘Om mani padme hum’ chimes out of a hundred little outlets, almost like an unofficial national anthem to accompany the wanderings of hippies, mountaineers and the rest through the busy lanes.

Our experience was coloured heavily by having a Nepali contact - Samiksha Rani, ex-work colleague of Mhairi's. The kind acts of hospitality that Samiksha performed for us are too long to list, but none were greater than introducing us to her sparky and good natured friends - Diplaw, Shriya, Anki and Ayush. Together we hit the town one night, Thamel also being where the bright and beautiful youth of KTM go out on their Friday nights. Trisara, The Factory, Faces. Here it's a global mixed crowd with friendly locals to chat to and we had our own posse. On the second night we ate some wonderful home cooked food with the gang while playing Marriage - a card game traditional during the October festival period, where its main function is to satisfy the gambling tendencies of family members.


In contrast to our evenings, day times were a riot of temples, statues, and palaces. The fusion of East Asian and Indian influences, Buddhist and Hindu religion, has created distinctive Nepali styles that are exquisitely detailed and that vary dramatically. Nepali pagoda, mountain and stupa style temples are some of the finest to be seen anywhere. And the Buddhist temples in particular, with their distinctive Nepali eyes have a powerful and engaging presence. 






 In the UNESCO areas of Patan and Bhaktapur, in the main temple sites of Swayambhunath and Boudanath, KTM’s fascinating cultural heritage is deep and engrossing. And perhaps nothing more clearly illustrates this than the continued art of Thangka painting. Centuries old, this painstaking art-form paints Mandalas and Buddhas to incredible detail with tiny individual brushstrokes. Students train for years, and it takes a lifetime to become a master at the most precise and patient vocation.

Thangka painting dude!

 
After three days of city living and high culture, it was time to take the bus out west to the lakeside resort city of Pokhara - jump off point for a 3 day trek to Poon Hill for spectacular views of Dhaulagiri and Annapurna. Pokhara has that timeless air of a city servicing the relaxation requirements of pre- and post- adventure. The climate is warm with cool breezes coming in from the lake, and none of the humidity common to southern areas of Nepal. The wide streets are lined with open air cafes and bars, massage and spa centres, and a multitude of small tour agencies to organise treks, paragliding, zip-lining, jungle safari - all backed up by having the most stunning mountain ranges in the world on its doorstep. Our decision to trek to Poon Hill came from strong recommendations, the fact that we only had 3days and that I'd read Maurice Herzog's account of Annapurna's first ascent in 1950. 

The brutal story of Herzog's trip is awe inspiring. With only dirt poor villages in the Annapurna region, the expedition carried 5 tonnes of equipment to supply itself, and only with the express permission of the Maharaja did it venture out. Herzog was to suffer agonizing injections during the descent to fight off necrotic frostbite and still lost most of his fingers and toes, ultimately having half a pound of maggots taken out of his feet back home in Paris. Nowadays, for Poon Hill or Base Camp, ten dollars gives you a license to trek with all the other tourists and resupply with water, coke and chocolate every 500m or so. Around 300 people make the trip every morning up Poon Hill, where an overpriced tea stand provides chai to watch the sunrise by. 

Baby Nepali that Mhairi considered stealing

You can go and up and down by pony on the well-trodden tracks. Not that anything detracts from the majesty of the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri ranges. Seeing the sunlight crest onto the summits of these giants, and watching as they transform from dim, forbidding shadows in the pre-dawn half-light to their blazing white splendour was breathtaking.

View from Ghandruk to Annapurna South

The other 300people on Poon Hill with us

In total, we had 10 days in Nepal, with two of those spent in transit. With such limited time, we feel like we missed a lot - treks to Everest base camp, or to see wild tigers in Chitwan were agonisingly impossible this time round. To be fair, our budget could not have held on longer. Tourists want to go to Nepal and prices reflect this, including the American standards of quoting prices without tax and tipping. But if you're not on a traveller budget, those gripes are meaningless and the payoffs in any case are so great. I find myself agreeing with the Nepali tourist board slogan - Once Is Not Enough.

Varanasi shake

Stepping out on to the sun-bleached ghats, Varanasi almost seems quieter than I remember, the first stroll east from Dasasvamedha ghat allowing us to fold into the City of Light undetected. Dogs bake, lethargic in the sun (the better ready to howl and prowl all cool night long), while pilgrims recline on raised platforms, taking refuge from the afternoon rays to snack under parasols. 

Meanwhile the ghat-side buildings - an incomprehensible tangle of the sacred and profane - appear to slide just a little further as you watch into the murky mother Ganga, their primordial appearance belying post-18th century construction for most; earlier sackings having destroyed most of the city's truly ancient buildings.

Then: 'Sir boat? Massage? Very good massage, you are from which country sir?' England - accepting an extended hand under the vice-like grip of which it seamlessly becomes an elaborate arm-massage, shoulder-massage and on to the forehead.  The inevitable and unavoidable payment is laughingly handed over at the coerced-massage, this first of Varanasi shakedowns, in our recognition of a true craftsman at work. But you don't accept a handshake twice (and, really, who wants to be that guy??) So for T it's the boat-massage-hashish guys (he's doing a strong line in drug pitches - the 'hashish' is pretty standard but it's so ubiquitous and so instantly followed by 'LSD? Opium?' - as if it's simply the intoxicant of choice that is lacking - we're starting to assume it's the Beard). And for me it's the candle-bindi-postcard girls - the six, seven, eight year old sales madams with their Varanasi-on-sea postcard decks, their henna, their boxes of sparkling coloured powders - the virtues of which, 'Very beautiful', are demonstrated on the back of my hand - and their candles to offer the Ganga as the sun starts to drop in the sky.

 

And so it is that in this holiest and most singular of Indian towns, set along a few twists and turns of the heartland of the river (which starts so ice clear and pure up in the Himalayas, practically drinkable even by Rishikesh), which guarantees those who die or burn here instant moksha, release from the mortal cycle, that the visitor easily spends half her day fielding hustlers, con-men and a steady, semi-desperate stream of straightforward but incessant sales and donation requests. And, for the latter, who can blame them? Life is brutal and the competition is fierce. There's really little choice but to be the first petitioner of the day or, alternatively, the one who finally scoops the jackpot when the beleagured tourist finally lets their guard drop.

That's Kashi - city of contradiction. Cheaters and saints; day-trippers and pilgrims; cheap salesmen and revered scholars; sites of worship that predate even Hinduism, where the sun God Surya was honoured long before Shiva lost his earring in Marnikarnika well and where thousands travel to cremate their loved ones on open pyres by the water's edge; but where tourists can be rowed profanely close to the very same spots to get their perfect Kodak moment of a stranger's journey to the other side - and where spiritual purity is surpassed only by the festering refuse lining the Old City's labyrinthine alleyways. The Ganga may cleanse your soul but, full of lead, trash and decomposing biological matter, it will poison your body faster.

T hated it. Couldn't see past the rubbish, the smell and the shit. Fair enough, you might say (and indeed some rogue bug picked up in Calcutta by us both had him laid up for 36 hours of our stay, poisoned and half delirious, which hardly helped). But I was fascinated a week or two later to read a very similar response from a 19th century traveller to Benares in Sunil Khilnani's excellent The Idea of India - a searingly insightful and articulate analysis of the post-Independence political landscape and identities of the country. Explaining the evolution of Indian cities, the psycho-geographies of Imperial urban planning and the ways in which so many cities had to be essentially re-colonised after Independence - otherwise alien impositions requiring reclamation by their own inhabitants - he is particularly striking on the collision between European and subcontinental understandings of public and private space. Only one of the most apparent areas of conflict, he notes, is the wildly different responses and attitudes to waste - and here Varanasi-Benares-Kashi offers a prime example.

Whether as rubbish, as excrement or as death, the city has no borders, no rationalised geographical division between public spaces and their refuse: 'Benares seemed, to the foreign eye, indifferent to the need to constitute itself as a city of public arenas, with distinct borders between public and private acts, the hygienic and the unhygienic'. Instead, waste in all its forms - from corpse to dung - is right there with you all the way, crowding the streets, the ghats, the river, the temples. Fascinatingly, he notes that even Gandhi was pained by his first visit to the city, where approaching the hallowed Visvanath temple, he was distressed to find it full of decomposing flowers, the sacred contemplative space he'd expected at the end of a grimy alleyway full of noisy shopkeepers, pilgrims and flies.

Still, when drifting along the river just after dawn - even alongside a number of others, motorboats full to bursting with Indian tourists and pilgrims, guides bellowing to their wards by tannoy, while rickety rowboats carrying Westerners pursuing an unattainable and misguided mirage of 'authenticity', clutching their Nikon SLRs (yes yes, me too - just with a cheaper lens) - I find it hard to care about the seedier side, the hassle and the squalor. 

 Here all of human experience is laid out ahead; strung out precarious but resilient along the water's edge, from ghat to ghat. At ablutions and at prayer, its most privileged and its wretched, its ancient and its young - washing clothes or playing cards, meditating or watching the last embers die down from the night's funeral pyre. And yes, sometimes calling 'Mam, massage??' And you can't look away.