Everything's ruined!

Next morning, Pondicherri.  Chandan came and picked us up withouth any Austrian intervention and we proceeded to drive the whole day to Pondi.  In the meantime we stopped at one of the most astounding historical/archaeological sites ever of Mamallapuram and had snapper.  Now this kind of cheapens the experience by saying we had snapper but it was great snapper, at a restaurant called Moonrakers.  There is another restaurant called Moonrakers two doors up owned and run by the brother of the one who owned and ran the one we were in.  They were feuding at the time.  Having been called James Bond again by the orphans the previous day, I thought it was fitting.  As an aside, Heather and I have been eating out in India every day, neither of us have been sick.  Look, it's really not hard, be mindfull about your hygeine but not obsessive, be aware and you'll have no care.  I should be a copy writer.

Where were we? oh yeah mamallapuram, so you can see by the photos in bc times people were carving this stuff out of granite, the noses may have been chipped off in a later invasion/occupation by the islamic based culture but the beauty is still evident.  Yes, granite, yes, thousands of years old.  The sad part about all this is the disregard in which this heritage is held.  Sure the majority are proud of their heritage and bang on about it, but little actually understand or appreciate it.  For instance, there was a site we visited beforehand that was recently uncovered by the last tsunami.  It features roman walls built around a basic monolith temple and no one knows why.  There were sure to be relics, peices to be picked up but it's been cleaned out by the government.  Check ebay.  All that stands now is the original excavated site,in a field surrounded by a rudimentary rope fence and cared for by none.  I was standing amongst roman built structures, unencumbered by guards or any security, I could have brought a roman brick home.  WTF?

For the ignorant, and I mean that nicely as I'm talking about myself also.  Yeah, the Romans were here, so were the egyptians, the early chinese, pretty much everyone.  That's why i have a lot of reading to do.  Thats why I'm kind of shocked at the blase attitude india has to its heritage.  Maybe because ours is so short, or maybe because we also take for granted the heritage we have before the europeans arrived.  Anyway, moving on.  Rant averted.

So, we arrived in Pondicherri and well, it was all that every town/city in india I've experienced so far at night should be.  Busy, a little dirty, crowded and confusing. Chandan did take us to a wine shop where we got beer for 50 rupees, about 6 times less than the resort (longnecks no less) and we checked in and slept.  Oh and Chandan the empathetic soul asked me if I was worried about his driving on the way up.  Nup, not a bit, different country different driving and he did this trip more than once a week.  He even asked if I wanted to drive, to which i politely declined, I don't have the temperament for driving here, it'd be a diplomatic incident in the extreme.

Chennai (not Madras)

The boat trip was really really good. Plenty of opportunities to take gratuitous sunset, rustic fishing boat and people washing themselves in the river shots.  Because as we know, there just aren't enough of them.

The scenery, endless rice paddies, and the tranquility.  Only broken by the JCB directly across from where we were moored, dredging the canal.  It's dulcet bass tones upsetting the watermouse that gracefully scurried across the port railing above heathers sleeping head.  That's right, a watermouse, because that's what I decided on heathers behalf and so it shall remain.

Lunch was exceptional except for a repeat of the local fish stew, fins and all, which neither of us could look at.  We decided to risk the chicken for dinner as it was only and hours flight to Chennai (formerly Madras) the next morning.  Possibly an unwise move as it was also an hour to the airport beforehand and it's facilities.  But we escaped unscathed, or the facilities did anyway.  After a few beers and peach vodka with lemonades and, a bizarre massage experience, we went to bed.

Chennai! (formerly Madras!) what a merry old town. Except it's not that merry, only bits of it are old and it's not a town.  Other than that it's great.  Went to a cooking class the evening we arrived and I wasn't tired or grumpy at all.  The class cheered me up though and I learned a lot about Indian cooking, chennai and the local culture.  It was Jacobs' idea and dare I say a good one.

We were to meet our guide and soon to be new friend, Chandan, downstairs for a tour by locals of Chennai.  Unfortunately he wasn't late but had picked up a couple of Austrians who answered yes to 'are you heather?' and was showing them around a bit before they fessed up and he came back for us.  Which was quite funny :)

Chandan then proceeded to put Chennai (formerly Madras) into an historical perspective for us.  It was originally a fort town built by the british after they were granted the land by the then rulers and also after the portugese made it difficult for them on the original land they'd been granted 5km's south.  There is a story that the Brit who petitioned for the land so earnestly to the British had a local girlfriend on the site.  Unfortunately this will remain a romantic rumour only, but a nice one.  So the Brits started trading, enlisted a local militia and generally did what they'd always historically done which is succeed in a strategic hearts and minds campaign and gradually took over everything.  It's important to note that they were'n't the brutich and harsh warmongers they are generally portrayed as and the inclusion of locals in the militia was a very important step in the hearts and minds campaign.  They only resorted to war as a last resort and of course were very devastating at it.  None of the other colonist countries enilisted locals by the way.  They then built huge buildings and were nice to people.  Really not that hard to impress people with that strategy.  The rest of course as well as this, is history.  The buildings they built hundreds of years ago are still in use today.  Average age of a colonist was about 45-50, pretty harsh times.  Though if you made it back you were rewarded quite hansomely i.e. there are a few british families still using the riches they'd gleaned from originally being here.  So a shitload of money even by russian drug/arms dealer standards.

Onwards to the museum, the name of which I don't remember, where we saw priceless bronzes from 9th to 14th centuries that were beyond description and off limits to photography unfortunately.  At a time when the rest of the world was barely out of a Monty Python's Holy Grail type age where the main employment opportunities were piling shit on top of other piles of shit and dying early, India was producing this stuff.  It was then that I realised my complete and utter ignorance of Indian history, it's part in world history, and history as a whole.  So I have some reading to do when I get home.

Then, we visited an orphanage, which was for me a major highlight of this whole trip.  It's kind of hard to express what I felt but I got teary.  I hid it quite well, though even writing this I am again.  There was a lot of love in the room.  Basically this guy and his family have brought in about 20 children of dead or dying HIV parents and is raising them, as his own.  Sounds simple doesn't it.  Often the simplest ideas or solutions are the most amazing.  Not one child wants for anything but a family and he has provided it with more love and warmth than I've ever experienced.  The kids were the most well adjusted I've seen, and they've all adopted each other really as one family unit.  You know, he didn't even ask for money, not a cent.  We did notice that they had a lack of books so we matched Chandan in donations to buy more for their library.  It was frankly a beautiful experience.  We'll be keeping in touch with them.

So what do you do after such an experience?  What do you write as a follow up?

We then went and had Italian with a friend of Heathers who had recently fallen in love and returned to India.  Such is the contrast that has been our trip :)  Let me preface this story with my lack of short term memory, hence the lack of names in all my posts.  Maddi had met her partner many years ago when they were younger and had said yes to marriage, she then ran away, as we all do when faced with such a commitment at a young age.  Maddi then travelled and got married then divorced, her partner the same though he was also stationed up north on the border in the military.  In short, their time wasn't right until now many years later, and they are a wonderful couple.  I've glossed over the details but this is the essence of their love story :)  We also met two of Maddies friends, mother an daughter, who had come over in the 70's at the founding of the big golden globe thing I'd been rather unkind about on facebook and the ashram of a lady called 'The Mother'.  Both very serene, dignified and nice people ready for a laugh.  It was about that time I'm sure that Maddi realised I was barely hanging on and called it a night, it had been a big day and she's nice like that :).

See ya Singers.

Left Singapore on a Silkair flight to Cochin, Kochi, or however else it's spelled or pronounced.

Mostly Indian nationals as passengers, funny that.  All of them stocking up on heaps, and I mean heaps, of booze at the duty free.  I should mention that at checkin and seeing the amount of baggage that was going into this plane, I was feeling doubtful we'd get off the ground and also Heather and I were sitting in separate seats.  Oh, what fun I was anticipating.

Fun it was, stuck in the middle between a snorer and a constant toileter and turbulence as a slight distraction.

There was a frightening moment at baggage collect until after 10 minutes Heather informed me that all the baggage off the plane was on the floor at the end of the carousel and asked why we were waiting where we were.

Our driver to the Trident was lovely and had the sort of 'do' that made him only slightly resemble a short elderly brown Elvis.

Being in a car at night on the roads of India, bucket list entry ticked.

Straight to bed as it was midnight and to our untrained sleep patterns, 6am.

Up at 8 for breakfast and a tour of Cochin.  Now, did you know Cochin was Vasco de Gamas second last resting place? Nope neither did I.

Saw some chinese fishing nets the method of which the chinese brought over a fair while ago and a lot of dead fish for sale.  Saw the Maharaja of Cochin's palace, and a jewish synagogue.  There are 7 jewish people left from the original jewish diaspora (i.e. roman times) of about 2000 settlers.  Sad to say this may be the last.  Islam, Christians, Hindu and pretty much every religion you can think of live side by side in peace and harmony down south.  It's pretty cool.

In reference to that, while Jacobs was taxi ing back to the airport to get her luggage (Scoot only deliver to airports not addresses, and you have to go in person. Sigh), I had to go to the beer garden after her departure and have a few beers while reading the Times of India.  Fascinating read, traffic deaths are down from around the 32000 mark since the last tally in June, no detail on how down but something to be positive about anyways.  So I'm sitting there drinking and smoking and heard the call to prayer, felt like such a heathen, beautiful and haunting nonetheless.  Though it would get irritating hearing it many times a day, day in day out, much like church bells I imagine.

After about 4 hours the luggage returned with Jacobs in tow, I was getting worried so was waiting at the bar downstairs with strict instructions for the bar staff to pour her a sav blanc as soon as she arrived.  I think she appreciated it.

Later that night a drunk fellow popped in who looked like your stereotypical bollywood older star, the portly and gregarious one not the young chiselled one, and we got on famously.  Of course.  Turns out he's travelled the world and is a shipping magnate (yet to be confirmed), though thorough questioning and just watching his behaviour he wasn't on the con.  Nice fellow, kept calling me James Bond and invited us to drinks the next day at his holiday resort, but we had to refuse as we were travelling to the Taj in Kumarakom the next day.  I didn't realise what i was in for with this blogging  shite i.e. commitment to post.  Neither did you reading it.  More tomorrow.

The Taj (not the Mahal)

So yeah, no the big white building but the Taj Hotel in Kumarakom.

Before I get into that, did you know Hindi has about 58 letters in their alphabet? What does this mean for us, well glad you asked.  I had a chat to our guide in Cochin and basically asked that as Hindi has more letters and therefore the language would be more expressive and nuanced that our 26 letter english our jokes must seem to the average Hindi speaker like a 4 year olds knock knock joke.

To which he replied "yes".

So we woke up at the Trident slightly hungover and well shocked at the drinks bill, yep, bigger than the accommodation bill.  Then went to breakfast to await our driver to The Taj who was going to arrive at 12, it was currently 9.30.  

Coffee poured we were dutifully informed our driver had arrived.

Off we go through peak hour traffic then through backroad villages on to our destination.  Scary?  Not so much, if it's one thing an Indian driver has mastered it's brake application.  If I had acquired such skills at an early age everyone wouldn't be talking about Mr Webber leaving F1 to retire but Mr Villis.

Our driver, again a lovely fellow, had very limited english but his tourist guide script was delivered sincerely and earnestly.  His script was punctuated with Heathers spiritually biased interpretations of what was being said so that "and here is cinnamon and palm oil plan..." was interrupted with "you mean the oil they drip on the third eye! yeah that's amazing!" "...tations, and here is really good for fishing".

Imagine if you will two people on the same stage reading dialogue from different plays taking it in turns sentence by sentence.  Doesn't really make sense even though it sounds like it should and is as funny as anything from Python.  Gold.  Or should I say Halibut.

Remind me I need to look up the cost of importing a Morris Ambassador, actually this is me talking to me for when I get home otherwise I'll forget.

The drive was amazing not just for the braking skills previously mentioned but as a nice view from metropolitan to village vistas.  One thing all demographics have in common is that every flat surface from walls to house fronts had some form of advertising on it and almost every yard had their own billboard prominently displaying, well mostly vodafone.  I took a slightly interesting video which I'll attempt to load here later.

Fresh coconut water is awesome and costs 50c, fresh coconut flesh is included and is also awesome. Suck on that hipsters!

The Taj has turned out to be amazing and the canals and land it's all built on are by design and took a couple of thousand years to make, by hand.  The scale of time and the area is almost too much to take in.

On arrival we were greeted with a welcome drink of ...fresh coconut.  At least it was the yellow coconut which is much sweeter and they're smaller so we didn't have to insult anyone by not finishing them.

That evening we went on a sunset cruise of the lake where I learned the history I just imparted above from the Activities Director.  Yes, Activities Director and he is everything you are probably imagining right down to the shiny navy blue track pants and the shear earnestness with which he takes his job.  I'm going to say he's a funny little man but that would be charicaturing him, he's a lot more than that, what he doesn't know about the district and it's history you could put on the head of a pin, and the pride he takes in his job shows enormously.  He's being filed away in my Very Nice Person file, along with pretty much everyone I've met here so far :)

Today, finally I'm up to date, just did a cooking course on kerala cuisine which was great.  Had a good chat to the chef, as you do when your a wanker who thinks he can cook, and got a few extra tips :)  Had a good chat to a guy from Madras who after enquiring about my trip informed me that Madras is actually Chennai, our next destination.   He was nice about it but not so nice about the cricket to the english people we'd met who were also attending, I'm sensing a bit of enmity there.  I didn't have the heart to tell anyone I didn't know anything about cricket nor did I care so much.  Hey, 12 years in government has stood me in good stead for faking it :)

Looking forward to showing off a bit when I get home.  The cooking not the faking it.

This evening we're off on a canal cruise, the indian version of venice gondolas which is why I'm writing this as I have some time to have a beer and catch up here.

Forgot to mention Fancyworld, the Home of Fancy Fittings and the fact we were invited to a birthday party where I had my first authentic chai.  I'm assuming authentic means not out of a packet.  Boy they like their sugar hit, nice hit but the comedown was nasty.

Tomorrow we're off on a house boat and after talking to people here about it, they're view is it's as boring as batshit after a couple of hours, and we're overnighting it.  So it may turn into a floating Thunderdome when two enter and only one leaves, which will be me, because I'm not the short dude who sits on master blasters shoulders.  Or maybe I'm master blaster whos shoulders Heather sits on.

Yeah, whatever.  Beer calls.

Either way you may read about it in the paper tomorrow.

Room with a view.

So here we are in Singapore.  An uneventful trip except for Heather's baggage not making it.  Must've got tired. 7 hours 50 mins is 2 hours too long for any flight you're not unconscious on.

Started well with some short soup and dumplings at the airport, a beer and a wine also and half a sedative so I did'n't freak out in the air.  Freak out mitigation worked, so did the extra wine and cheese.  Scoot's not a bad airline, get the yellow seats and if you can upgrade to scootbiz at checkin, it's cheaper than online.  Surprisingly business and yellow seat class weren't that full!  I mean I've only been here 24 hrs and Singapore looks quite awesome, present photo excepted.

So Heather rang the travel insurance people and they said she can spend up to $500 on essential items, clothes included.  Being christmas time we went shopping, it was a chore up until she discovered a sale to end all sales, then it was a frenzy.  So I left and am currently writing this, with the new dongle I bought to charge the bluetooth keyboard that if even we had all our luggage someone had forgotten to bring.  Bought too tshirts for $20 also and yeah, I'm wearing jeans, it isn't that hot yet.

Missed my friend Ms Jane who thought today was yesterday and after 4 hours waiting at the venue we were to catch up in, pulled the pin.  What sort of commitment is that I ask you? :)

We're supposed to go and see some artificial trees later but I'm expecting someone to arrive back with plastic bags brimming with bargains and a need for sleep,  and no actual bag to pack them in for the next leg of the journey in 8 hours time.

The other thing i noticed about Singapore while watching traffic at breakfast, is that lanes are designated by the lane markers.  Let me explain, here, if you're not driving ON the broken white lines you're not in a lane, and this is quite simply genius.  It's like being on rails, no room for error.

Oh, and taxi drivers don't understand english enough to know the landmark you are talking about until you demonstrate that you know the address also, then they repeat it back to you exactly as you said it and not in the broken english they had before and take you straight to it.  No idea what happens if you didn't know the address but I'm sure it would be expensive.

Looking forward to seeing these weirdass trees.

Well we're not there yet...

India, a wonderful place, full of wonder and wonders and people with looks of wonder...and cows.

On my list of travel destinations it ranks barely higher than Nauru.

I'm an optimistic pessimist, expect the worst but hope for the best.  Low/No expectations mean no surprises.

Visa time and I have been advised by my Indian friends to use the photo booth at the visa office, as the visa people are very particular about visa photos.  At $15 a pop I expect they are also very particular about their Christmas party as well because I'm sure the two booths in the office are a large source of the funding for said event.

So I was very particular with my photo shoot as advised, I read the instructions, I looked at the examples of bad pictures and looked at the examples with little green ticks.  Determined this would be a $15 one off I was very pleased with the results.  Little Miss ILuvBondi however failed to do any of this and her mugshots were just that, mugshots.

If I had one of those pics come across my desk I'd take out an AVO with an injunction not to let her within 5 km of me, let alone not let her into a country.

Visa application over for now as we didn't have time to get another $15 for another Max Dupain.

So I applied online, but you can't even though it says you can.  Yes it's all very confusing and leads one to call the visa helpline.  Which wants your credit card so it can charge you 99c a minute, I'm sure, to tell you in a long drawn out way just to turn up to the office and submit your application.

Also for the convenience of filling out the online form and paying online, you're charged a $2 online process fee and another small charge for the transaction.

So if you're going to India just go to the Visa office and wait.

First impressions have met expectations.