Cha Chi Makes Good Business

If someone had told me that I could achieve the illusive and genetically impossible firm and shapely thighs of a pilates instructor, further more that I could master the fine art of tantric breathing in a matter of minutes. I might be forgiven for assuming I had been whisked off for a comfortable few weeks at an exclusive health farm. Sadly, this health farm was purely mythological (and the firm thighs short lived). The truth of the matter being that a healthy dose of Delhi Belly and six months of some of Asia’s finer squat toilets and open air urinals can have a similar effect. My new found physically enhanced body came care of India. To squat is to have thighs to die for and to breath through ones nose is a recipe for disaster!

I didn’t mean to fall in love with India. I sort of tripped and fell and found myself with an unreasonable affection for a country responsible for such inner turmoil in the bowel district! I suffered my love for India much the same way you might suffer your first kiss. You know it’s good for you though the experience is somewhat confusing. Breathing becomes an issue and something you have to plan. You know you’re supposed to be enjoying it but there is a part of you that just wants to get it over and done with. Yet, without a shadow of a doubt you are aware it can only lead to finer things…but with a little more hindsight this time! I loved India despite myself. Once breathing through your mouth becomes normal, once squat toilets are merely a case of rolling up your trousers and literally wading in and once the local food has stopped passing through your system in three minutes flat, well, you really begin to quite like the place!

It wasn’t my plan to spend the next six months perfecting my bartering skills, or learning the fastest way to disperse eager rickshaw drivers or compiling the top ten ways to reject opportunistic marriage proposals. It wasn’t my plan to be in India at all, but life doesn’t always take into account what you actually want, irrespective of timing, destiny had decided that India was to be my next port of call. You see, I wasn’t looking for the meaning to life, I wasn’t doing the nine to five and searching for the light, I wasn’t having a midlife/early twenties crisis. I wasn’t gap yearing, or training to become a Buddhist. I wasn’t disillusioned with the rat race and looking for adventure, I wasn’t an adrenalin junkie looking for my next high. In fact I was the total opposite. Having soul searched, sky-dived, found the meaning to life, learnt inner peace, achieved spiritual enlightenment, realised the desire to put down some roots, got focused, had adventures, done carnival, sowed my wild oats, had my first maternal instinct and on my return from two years away incidentally found love on my doorstep – I was ready to ‘settle down’. Twenty four months on the road and I was happy to let go of the back pack strings and ‘be content’. But fate and it’s little posse of devilish minions had very different plans for me. I was convincing no-one.

According to my sisters I had achieved full Brownie points by getting job, boyfriend, eclectic social group, new nickname and status as ‘local’ in the village pub in a mere six weeks. So of course, next step is to leave all these glorious home comforts behind and head off into the unknown sporting the brand new title of Tour Leader. If life is too easy it seems you convince yourself something is wrong and do your up-most to send yourself back into the lap of turmoil and confusion. And if turmoil and confusion are what you are looking for you could do no better than a trip to the India subcontinent.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 28th, 2006 at 9:45 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.