The Wobble

I am writing this approximately 100 yards from arambol beach in goa. Goa is the second smallest state in india but one of the most affluent. You might aswell be in a different country altogether. After my last post I charged myself with the task of getting out of mumbai – I got up at about 10:30 and strolled out in the general direction of the Victoria Train station. Walking up the main thoroughfare in colaba can be a trying task, there are so many beggers and hawkers that its impossible to avoid eye contact with all of them. Halfway up the road I got stung, this young mother, her kid and their pet monkey accosted me. She kept repeating that she didn’t want money, just wanted me to buy her kid baby powder. She was incredibly insistent and persistent. I ducked into the first place I could to get away from her, but when I got out she was still there. At this stage I gave up and bought her the baby power – it might sound horrible of me that I didn’t do it straight away but you really have to walk down mumbai to see what it is like! If you gave in to every request you would be with them in the slums by the end of the day. I read before travelling that alot of these people are being pimped and any money they acrew from you goes right into the pocket of the local al capone, so I guess with buying milk powder at least you know where it is going. I managed to get a few pictures of her monkey though so there was a bit of trade going on
In the midst of my feeble duel with this mother I ducked into this place called the naval and military cafe. Given that I totally chickened out on my previous culinary excursion I had now found myself as the only white boy in a place teeming with locals (always a good sign). no sooner had I ordered my food than one of the locals sat in beside me due to the lack of space, this upped the stakes quite a bit as I had to now adhere to local eating etiquette. Try breaking naan bread while sitting on your left hand!! The food was v spicey but delicious. I was stuffed after it.
After the food I continued on my way into deeper mumbai. There are far less beggars and therefore hassle outside of the tourist zone. It was a great way to walk in amongst the people going about their daily business. I took several photos on this trip, some mad sights. One photo was taken and it looks like its just of a parked car, this one was going at about 40 miles and hour and missed me by a matter of inches!! Eventually made it to the train station and booked my ticket out on the over night train to goa on the following night. Booking the ticket is really simple if you are willing to forgo 2 euro extra to pay some official to do all the dirty work. I don’t understand people who would spent well over an hour queuing up, prob not knowing what they are doing for the sake of something you wouldn’t think twice about at home.
Next task was to find jean and brian, my friends who had flown in from dublin that morning. After some time missing each other at various tourist haunts we finally met up in leopalds bar and had a great nights craic, We resolved to get up the following morning to go to the elephanta (total misnomer) island – about aran island distance off the main harbour. On the way back from the pub there was one very harrowing and sober reminder of the poverty that exists in that city. A young couple laid flat out on the pavement with no cover with two toddler children in between them. That is no way to exist…
The following morning I packed up my things and went downstairs where Jean, Brian, Ciaran, Barry and Neill were waiting for me. From there we went for some western style breakfast then on to the gate of india once more to get the ferry across. Having been at this site before I was able to dodge them easy enough, the rest of the lads apart from jean (we reckon its because she has boobs that they didn’t hassle her) had their heads wrecked by all the scams. Twas quite amusing to be honest. they have to learn someway I guess.
The ferry took just over an hour and the island itself was pretty cool. The monkeys were all over the place and were great entertainment for everyone. We hadn’t too much time to spend as I had my train to catch so we headed back to mumbai for about 7.
We went for a tasty feed in someplace I can’t think of its name and had a few beers. For 6 of us the bill came to 24 euro. Savage stuff!! Popped into the local sports bar where I caught the first half of the liverpool bolton game. Torres is starting to grow on me . I bade my farewells to jean and co pleading with them to join me in goa but I knew it was a losing battle.
A quick march back to bentleys followed by a shared taxi with an english chap called dave from devon, nice chap but he didn’t get a word in edgeways with my beer talking
Again the station and train experience despite all the horror stories was great. Far better than irelands service. It left on time, there was plenty of food plus lots of officers to ensure nothing funky was going on. I would recommend second class AC to anyone. Though the train journey did have one seriously low point for myself personally. I was up on the top bunk so when the time came to jump up didn’t the crotch in my slacks give way completely – massive 8 inch hole that not even the county council at home would attempt to fill in. Very embarassing. I waited for everyone to nod off to sleep before making my way to the jacks – which reminds me, never stand under a bridge in india!! – to change into another pair – on the bright side I guess you could say it has lightened my load a wee bit!!
The final couple of hours were very enjoyable, I was able to stand in the doorway and watch the sun rise over the rice fields, over rivers valleys and lakes, you could even jump out from time to time when it stopped as it took it so long to get going there was no fear of being left behind.
When I got off the train I decided to head for the beach furthest up north in goa. It took about 40 mins in an autorickshaw to get there. Arambol is the name of the town, its really relaxed hippie vibe. Caught up on a few hours kip in the guest house before heading to the beach and sucking back on a few beers with some food… So that brings me up to date. No more photos tilll I find a place with a USB drive and a decent upload speed…

Please keep the posts and mails coming

Zurich was cold, very cold. I had pretty much every layer of clothes I had with me, on me. I looked like the michellen man carrying a backpack full of battery chargers and malaria medication. Stepping into the station and then onto the train where they had it warmed up to acceptable levels was a major relief, well for a while. With all the layers on me twasn’t long till the sweat was hopping off me again, sitting across from an old couple, I assume they were local I accidentally gave them a wink and then started to take my clothes off bit by bit and putting them into the bag, they must have felt tempted to check their tickets to see what kind of crazy add ons they accidentally signed themselves up for, them online booking machines are forever putting in pre ticked boxes selling insurance you don’t need or on their way to india, pasty skinned irish male strippers, ya know for 5 swiss francs extra you too could travel in style!!!

Plane journeys are pretty unremarkable, this one was long, 10 hours. I have never travelled for that length of time before! In ten hours you’d be long supping pints in the kingdom after a leisurely drive from the breffni. I really started to beat myself up on the plane, I was so bloody nervous. I cursed myself, I hated myself – I figured it was as a result of cursing and hating myself that I booked myself a one way ticket to go to india on my own. I felt so completely out of my depth, nervous as hell – for anyone who has done any kind of travel before this probably seems like idiocy but this was my first trip and before it had even started I just wanted to turn the plane around and drop me back home, back to what I know and understand. I figured the only way to calm myself down, to reassure me that the stories weren’t true that I would be okay etc etc was to talk to the guy next to me.

Now I have serious trouble sometimes starting a conversation with someone I don’t know, with someone I know I have no such difficulties, I could talk the arse off an elephant, erm if I knew the elephant or erm and if he had the ability to converse, well you get what I mean. It seemed everytime I got myself psyched up his bladder gave way from all the red wine he was consuming, eventually I managed it. And we got talking, a lovely guy. He told me all about his home town and how he was sent over to germany for 6 months for training with some engineering company based in bangalore. I asked him if he had far to go, he had a flight the following night to kerala. I thought great, I can share a taxi with this guy into big bad bombay, he’s a local, he could look after me. I asked him which hotel in mumbai he was staying in, he laughed and said ‘Mr Phil, Bombay is too crazy for me, I will sleep on airport floor until my flight leaves tomorrow’. If its too crazy for him, what the hell is it going to do to me. Back into the foetal postion.

From the gps map on the onboard entertainment system I could see that we were close, I looked out but no lights to be seen yet. The twinkles of mumbai did come into view eventually, we seemed to fly over it for an eternity. The city is huge, 18 million people, I looked out with wonder, a little part of me never wanted the plane to land. When it did, the palms started to get sweaty. I got off the plane and into immigration. It was chaotic, there must have been thousands of people there. You could see one or two western people, a couple of hippies but the vast majority were from the sub continent. It was difficult at first to see which queue was which, it seemed to be every man woman and child for themselves. I stood in the queue for 40-50 minutes before getting to the desk. I didn’t mind, it felt like a stay of execution. But there is some order in this chaotic machine, it worked in so far as I found myself out at baggage with my bag all dusty lying out on the floor as if it had a thick expression on it. I took a wee minute to gather my thoughts and work out what I was gonna do. There was nothing to work out but I felt I definitely needed the time to compose myself. I walked, almost trembling out past the pre paid taxi booth and out off the arrivals hall into the thick, warm air. You could almost chew it. There was a stunning bay of people held back by rusty old rail, their hands waving, reaching out to grab you, to consume you. I searched furiously for the guy the hotel were to send to pick me up. My heart leapt for job when I saw him, anthony, a lad of about 30 years of age and 5 ft 6 in height. I grabbed him and pushed my way past all the people. Some of them followed me, they tried to relieve me off my bag, their way of making a few rupees. Some offered no service at all, they just walked up to the car with me. I felt good when I got into passenger seat of that car with my bags in the back.

The journey is not something I will forget very soon, if ever. The way people drive is nuts, complete nuts. On several occasions I was ear flicking distance from the car/bike/auto rickshaw beside me. The poverty i was exposed to on the way in, nothing could prepare me for it. People layed out on the pavement, ontop of cars, shacks built on shacks that look to be on the verge of crumbling. It really was harrowing yet in an absurd way rewarding. I couldn’t help myself staring out at them, its not that I pitied them, in hindsight I do but the shock of seeing life this way just completely stunned me. I thought to myself that I should be taking photos, I am a tourist after all, but when I clicked on the button and the flash went off I felt really bad about it. What am I doing taking their photo, how humiliating is it for them to have some johnny foreigner with more money than sense pointing a cheap camera at them so he can show the pictures to his mates back home or future travel colleagues. I put the camera away and spoke away to anthony. He offered to take me around for the day the next day to see the sights of the city, I figured it would be a good thing to get out of the room and into the madness that is mumbai. But first, I was exhausted. We pulled up in a street just off the colaba causeway and outside Bentleys Hotel.

The hotel itself is sparce. The tv just has hindu channels and it didn’t even have them this morning. I booked an 8:30 wakeup call with the same driver who dropped me off so he could give me a tour of the city. Sure enough he arrived right on time – out into the mumbai sun to see the sights. First port of call was the Gate of India, which is this massively impressive structure built to either welcome the british back in the day or to see the hoors off, this place was crawling with hawkers trying to sell anything you could imagine and more, one man in particular worringly declared that he could arrange anything I want, absolutely anything, wonder if could arrange for the pool to win the premiership or cavan to put a decent run together for once.After I escaped his clutches another hawker, this time a young enough boy of about 14 i’d say beckoned me over, he looked non threatening enough, which should’ve been enough to make for the hills there and then. He had a cap on the ground which he pointed at, once my attention was brought to it he slowly lifted the thing up – out jumps a bloody cobra!! I thought that was the end of me, though in hindsight it was pretty cool to see one in the flesh!!!

After the close encounter with the low bellied kind we headed off to chowpatty beach where a rather intense game of cricket was taking place. after watching the boys for a while I took a stroll along the beach, this is after chickening out on getting some food from the food stalls that are there. The beach would be really lovely if and its a massive if the pollution wasn’t so apparant. there were still people going in for a swim. Braver people than I!! after a while I met back up with anthony the driver. We headed on up to the hanging gardens which gave a lovely view out over chowpatty beach and promenade. I didn’t stay too long there as the hawkers there were pretty insistent on flogging me a karma sutra book – given the amount of people in this place they should really change their reading material, ‘is nice book sir, very nice, no looking charge, see niiiice pictures’ even the deviant in me wasn’t tempted somehow. After there we headed to what was mahatma ghandis old house and now is a museum. Its a definite hilight so far.On down the road and into the midday sun and worse some pretty hectic traffic. We eventually got to this public bath which was huge, the road ran up about 20 feet higher than the actual baths. It didn’t seem right taking a picture but I somehow regret that now after that we hot footed it back to the hotel where I caught up on some much needed kip. On my first adventure at the moment to find some food – freakin starvin.Later