One Night Stand

Right still miles behind with updates, waiting for a bus, so here goes again….

Having real problems understanding Indian English, kids coming up to you and asking for ‘chikum’?? you want some chicken? Do I look like Colonel Sanders, in reality what they were after was ‘chewing gum’. Same when a driver shook my hand and said ‘my heap’. Yes, thanks your help was very much appreciated, him repeating ‘my heap’. Again, excellent help my friend before it dawned on me that ‘my heap’ translates better as my tip. Jeeeeeeeees (not cheese, an abb. of Jesus)

Onto Pushkar then, a spiritual town where the Ghostbusters obviously haven’t been as this remains intact, annoyingly overflowing with western hippy’s who are down with the vibe but all wear daft baggy trousers and colourful patterned tops. Here a young girl in our hostel asked my name, James, I replied cheerily, ah James Bond she said. Yeah, that’s me I thought before attempting to run up some stairs and tripping up, whilst hoping no-one noticed. Yeah, classic Bond…Also we sat down with the owner and shared jokes, after telling a few, he went on the mother of all joke telling tales, absolutely pissing himself at his own jokes, cutting ours off halfway and ripping out another stinker. Eg. Him: You know eggs? Us: Yes. Him:Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahaha waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahaha. Us: Oh yes, haha. Is that the time?

Next, Jaisalmer. A dessert town where they sell only puddings. No, sorry a desert town with a big fort (not boyard). We checked into the Jane Cobb affiliated ‘Swastika Hotel’ expecting to see Hitler and being rather suspicious of the showers, instead we learnt this is a sign that actually means ‘good travels’. True. Out into the desert then for a camel safari, which was smashing. My camel was a bit of a tyke and had to have his gob taped up because he kept trying to eat the other camels, he was also rather adept with his mud trumpet and knocked out a fair few one vocal burst sounding similar to the Inspector Gadget theme tune. Night came, as did the ghost stories from our guide, women with feet pointing the wrong way (I was parping it slonks) and teeth like tombstones (asho). Had  a bash at making chapatti which is like a frisbee but made of bread, scoffed curry and then settled down to watch the stars, slowly moving across the still night sky, with no sound to be heard, save for a slight gasp as a shooting star whizzed by. Beautiful. Then something crawled across the bottom of the blanket. PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRP. Going against my first instinct of screaming and sticking my head in the sand (good one ostriches) I booted the offending thing, peaking up, it was a dog whining something along the lines of ‘you git, ow, woof, I’m off to call the RSPCA, whine, woof”

Back to Delhi and a return to having a small coal mine of blackness up each nostril. Then by local bus to Corbett National Park. The local bus was dusty, bumpy but mostly funny, as you settled into dreamworld before the window was slid back from the outside and water, bhaji’s, nuts, inflatable hammers etc were shoved through the window for us to purchase. Upon arrival, it was disappointing to note that Ronnie Corbett was in no way affiliated with the park, instead we’d have to make do with wildlife, boooooooo. Supposed to be tiger’s there, but seemingly he was busy with kellogs as the only thing we saw were footprints, fresh that day apparently….Yes fresh, as some guy had walked around with tiger print things on his hand. Was rather good though as we saw deer, tortoises, vultures, owls and elephants, heard the trunk noise for real as well, apparently they eat for 16 hours a day, judging by the size of some of the brown boulders in the road, it seems they poo for the other 8. The monkeys sit cross legged, look down, scratch, play with their cocks, and scratch again. Class.  Perhaps we’re not that evolved after all.

Oh, Happy Christmas by the way! To prove my sincerity here’s a Christmas present for you all introducing the ‘Briggs Belly Buster Program’….tried and tested by my good self.

First sit on a local bus for 7 hours and ‘come on, come on, feel the vibration’ as your stomach as rattled in the same way as one of those electric shock pads, producing rock hard muscles with a slight nausea side effect. Then consume the local buffet before retiring to bed. Lads, here comes the really clever bit. At 2am proceed to the toilet with a mild belly grumble. Sit, poo. Now, feel nausea defying gravity, note impending barf, grab nearest available vessel, in my case, a jug for splashing your behind with. Hold under mouth and barf violently. Et voila….multi-tasking and instant weight loss.

Un-sodding believable!

Other stuff:

Mobile Phones: They’ve all just got one, f*ck me, it’s like those gits on trains back home who play with their ring tones on full blast, times that by a billion people….

Hot water: Is usually a bucket of cold water, where someone has rubbed the bucket to generate warmth, for 6 seconds.

Haggling: Is fun and easy, except when your travel companion, instantly up’s your first bid, to make it fairer on the trader…….

Male affection: Is hilarious, Blokes walk the streets hand in hand or lie in each other’s laps, all the while portraying an image of ‘man is powerful god, woman is beast for reproducing’ (Moorsy/Elliott you’d love it)

I have 3 kids watching me writing this now, I’m not sure why. This sort of thing sums up India thus far. Currently in Mumbai (mumblei) and heading to Goa tonight to sneak up behind blissed out hippies and tango them.

Wishing you all a Mary Christmas and a Happy Hardcore New Year.

Male affection for the women and spitting for the blokes.

Briggsy xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Namaste from India,

Shit! Well, where to start….shit is actually a good starting point as there is plenty of it, mostly cow’s, who’ve sacred privileges, the best one being they can’t be killed for steak.. This further extends to being able to walk around all the streets and down dual carriageways, motorways etc, without so much as a grumble from motorists or pedestrians. More animal observations later.

Upon arrival, people literally fight to get you in a taxi, we settled for a chap who liked like steptoe and had the driving skills of Lewis Hamilton after a large bag of pick and mix. Trying to find a guesthouse was hard on the first night and it appeared steptoe would ask for directions as he rolled down the window, instead he produced quite possibly the best ‘hoik’ you’ll ever see, depositing a lung, half a kidney, a shoe and some spit on the pavement, on again and fighting between stray dogs we were home in Delhi.

Spitting is common as muck…, it is everywheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere (see even on keyboards….)

Trying to get out of Delhi was not so easy, as you approach the train station to buy tickets, more touts await, offering up sone fantastic excuses as to why you should buy tickets from them instead of the station. The station is closed for painting (hasn’t been painted ever), the station has moved (no, still there in front of me) and my favourite, the station has been overtaken by the honey monster, tony the tiger and the coco pop monkey.

Out of Delhi then and onto Agra, similar to Agro, but not quite as aggressive. Also home to the Taj Mahal, it’s possible to be blasé about this, but it is pretty amazing in all honesty, and was built as a shrine to a deceased lover….zzzzzzzzzzzz. Looking at it it looks like a painting and also the thames television sign?! The most common activity here is being approached by Indians asking to have their photo taken with you, whilst mumbling is it really Craig Mclachlan, ask him to sing Mona, no, no get a photo…

Onwards to the pink city, Jaipur, where everything is blue. No, not really this is where the pop star ‘Pink’ is from, likewise the panther and people come here to get tickled…..you get the idea. Lovely Royal Palace with a snake charmer, who was offering flowers to it and reciting poems, no sign of a flute anywhere. Also took in a Bollywood mvie called Aaja Nachle which was quite entertaining if indecipherable, as the kids cheered everytime I ate a piece of popcorn, or more likely when their favourite star appeared on screen, very much like the English cinema experience though in that you still got hoofed by people in the chairs behind. Also people think nothing of holding a full blown conversation in the cinema about who is going to buy the choc-ices. P.s. Walls ice cream is called Kwality Walls, which is well quality. Then all aboard, the night train. Which is like band camp, except with adults and no instruments. Here you sleep in bunk beds, 3 high, with snoring and aggressive bed turning mandatory. Fun all the same.

Udaipur – Home to a huge lake and where the Bond film Octopussy was filmed. Possibly my favourite place thus far. Balls, just broke the tray with keyboard on (shhhhh).

Um, here we got lost, searching for something and finsing nothing but a flase teeth shop and hordes of children asking for pens, when they realized we didn’t have any, they noted our flip flop clad feet and  guided us to the nearest cow poo, providing added wamth for the toes! Onto another palace where the Mughals lived (Harry Potter people?), impressive. Then hired a pedalo, where you actually pedal quite low, then high, then low again, perhaps should’ve been called a peda-high-lo? Still managed to cause a nuisance as we bordered a private jetty prompting a mad rush by the water authorities in a speed boat to tick us off then over to a royal island where a birthday party was happening, shocking rave music and all, blatantly ignoring the 50m restriction until we got within lip reading distance and could see them mouthing, ‘piss off with your silly plastic boat’. Point taken, after getting within shaking hands distance, offering an outstretched arm and then placing a thumb on the noise before doing a sideways wave (try it).

Spitting Break.

All that fresh air then and all night until we were woken at 5 fecking am, by what appeared to be the start of the thundercats credits, huge mumbling nonsense followed by song so ridiculously bad, they thought they’d play it 6 times in a row. Spirituality now being rapidly replaced with anger. Our room next door to a mosque/Alco’s house, apparently. With musical vengeance in mind, we had a music lesson on the tabla drum. Hilariously inept, the teacher got bored with my constant missing of the camel skinned drum (quite an achievement) and took a lively interest in the scab on my knee, we had an depth conversation about the state of hard pitches in england before he decided that that was my job and I had every right to be rubbish at the drums because he’d be rubbish at football. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was actually a footballer and a lead guitarist…

Finally to the Monsoon Palace on top of a hill overlooking the city, very romantic at sunset (Rich & Pete take note for your hols), our rickshaw driver thought so to as he played what he termed as ‘american pop’ with lyrics of ‘I want to f*ck it good, f*ck it hard, f*ck it like an aardvark (anteater bit = lie). We found it he was married with three kids and about 50 the bloody big soppy swine.

So yep, that’s loads and covers about the first week..

Other things:

Hair: People love it, mostly men. Which makes it….People who hate my hair: 34,742. People who love my hair: 37

Tea: Chai is the national drink here, 1 billion people love it, I hate it.

Staring: Everyone does it, mental note to be made to carry tissue to wipe curry from face.

Everyone is your mate: then tries to tell you something…’Hey friend, what your name ,where you from?”

“ Clarence from Cucumber, North England’

Enough, hope you are all dandy and beano in the run up to chrimbo, no sign of it here (boooo).

Peace, love and saliva.

Briggsy xxxxxxxxxxxxx