Dastardly Duo in Delhi Divide Disaster

And so it came to pass… The combined adventures of Martin Raj-Mahaly and Jonathan Chapatison Lee-Ji came to an end on the 8th of May, 2010 in a dusty back alley at the Smyle Inn, Pahar Ganj, New Delhi, India. Like Simon & Garfunkal, Buckingham & Nicks, and Bodger & Badger, there comes a time when all formidable duos must part ways in order to pursue slightly less successful side projects. With creative differences in tow, Martin headed North to the Punjab in search of Sikh warriors and temples of gold. Jonathan is to stay in Delhi with Kat ‘Yoko Ono’ Short (who had arrived a week before), to pursue noble causes and make a documentary about the Indian railway.

The week was taken up with casual sight seeing & making future plans. We arrived back in Delhi on Kat’s birthday and so a double-b-day-cake celebration took place. We spent the afternoon wandering around the serene ruins of Lodhi Gardens, before our Delhi-matey Rohan joined us for a swanky Italian meal and birthday drinks in one of Delhi’s smart, yet London-priced bars. (‘The least drunk Kat has been on her birthday since age 17!’). During the week we also explored Old Delhi’s medieval bazaars, the massive Jammu Masjid mosque, and witnessed the spectacle that was “The Red Fort Sound & Light Show”. It consisted of a booming voice, crackling out of ancient speakers, narrating the history of Delhi, whilst dim lights randomly lit up a few stone buildings in front of us. A masterclass in “so bad it’s good” tourist entertainment, but it was a shame we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes at the time.

Myself and Kat spent time searching for & viewing flats around Delhi. We will be staying in the city for the next 3 months, and wanted somewhere cheaper & more homely than a hotel, with internet, kitchen & living room. After looking in several areas we settled on a room in Hauz Khas Village, South Delhi, sharing with a friendly German couple (more on this in the next post!). Martin planned his passage through the Punjab, and Kashmir, and also applied for civil engineering jobs in New Zealand with the crazy idea of moving there after India. The adventure never ends!

Even though we have parted ways, this doesn’t mean the blog shall come to an end. No! Martin and myself plan to carry on narrating the good times, bad times and mere times on this here computer screen for all your entertainment. In fact I’m hoping that healthy spirit of one-up-man-ship will mean that the anecdotes become more preposterous than ever…

Chalo chalo!

Jonty

J

Kannur – wise words on the beach

After epic hill-walking and epic festival-going we decided to relax for a few days before the train ride back to Delhi… Kannur was where we ended up. It didn’t have much of a description in the guide book apart from ‘decent beaches’, so we thought it should be fairly quiet and un-touristy. We headed straight to the beach and ended up at an old Swedish-Armenian man’s beach front villa. He had spare rooms to let, and mysteriously added that if we stayed he would ‘teach us something’. We agreed and it turned out to be a beauty. We had full use of his kitchen so bought in a load of fresh fruit, veg, milk and cakes, and enjoyed four days of home cooking (including daily afternoon tea & cakes) – a welcome change after eating out every meal for 6 weeks!

Much like in Varkala we spent the days swimming, playing beach cricket with the locals and lazying about reading books. One day we enjoyed a South Indian ayurvedic massage, involving lying on the floor with a rope dangling above my back and a man massaging me with the oiled up soles of his feet, holding onto the rope for support… bizarre but rejuvenating.

We soon found out what the Swedish-Armenian sage had to teach us – each day we ended up sitting with him as he told us crazy stories from his life as a mechanic in the middle east and his quest for ‘the truth’. He explained to us how he sits staring at the ocean every day, observing himself (or his own ‘ego’) from the outside, in an effort to rid himself of it. He said that once you have woken up to your real essence (or found God within you), then the whole world becomes continuously vivid and interesting. Life will never be dull and boring again. He talked about the major religions and how they all come down to this same message – “God is is“. I asked if he had achieved enlightenment and his reply was “if I was, would it matter? I couldn’t tell you what it was like”. Whether it was hippie mumbo jumbo, or ancient wisdom, it seemed oddly appropriate.

Physically and spiritually re-kindled, we took the 40 hour train back to Delhi. It was a good job we were so rested, because within half an hour of the journey starting we discovered that our online-purchased sleeper tickets were invalid. The only seats we could buy at such short notice were in the 2nd class carriage (no guaranteed seats, no beds, crammed with as many people that will fit on!) Not much sleep was to be had for the next two nights, lying on hard luggage racks, sitting upright in seats, and in gangways, but we were surrounded by some really friendly Indian families and about ten kids, who all slept in a big pile on the floor, which kept us entertained for the journey.

Delhi ho!

Jonty

Thrissur – the battle of the temples

We arrived in Thrissur in the night, battered from bare-foot hill climbing and 3 days of village curries (my feet were cut all over and the size of balloons; Martin had a major case of Delhi belly). The massive Trissur Pooram festival was occurring the next day, and was our main reason for being in South India in April. We found possibly the last vacant room in the centre of town and settled down for a good night’s sleep only to be woken at 3am by some monumental explosions that shook the the entire building. I actually thought it was a terrorist attack, but went back to sleep anyway, not finding out what the bangs were until 24 hours later…

The next day was the climax of an 8-day festival, which consisted of two rival temples trying to out-do each other with increasingly bigger and more spectacular parades of decorated elephants, ridden by devotees twirling multicoloured umbrellas. Each row of elephants was accompanied by huge troupes of drummers repeating a brain-twistingly complex rhythm. It was hypnotic and very danceable, so we soon got sucked into the crazy mosh-pit of sweaty Indians jumping up and down to the beat. We befriended a group of Indian guys who were working in Leeds and had returned home for the festival, so they insisted on being our festival guides / bodyguards / dining buddies for the rest of the day.

We were told that the real show was the fireworks display contest (between the same two temples), early the next morning. After a quick nap, we were woken at 4am by the same huge explosions as the previous night. We quickly made our way to the hotel roof, where a couple of hundred people had gathered to watch one of the most ridiculous sights I have ever seen. Rather than the glittery falling stars that make up most English firework displays, this was like watching a war take place in the sky. It was a relentless succession of massive mortar-bomb-like explosions, followed by huge mushroom clouds of white smoke that seemed to be alive with electricity. By the finale we had our hands over our ears and couldn’t look directly at it anymore as it was like staring at the sun. Shortly after it finished, it actually rained ash for a few minutes. It lacked any subtlety and I’m sure would fail every EU health and safety law in the book –  best fireworks display ever!

Indiana Jonts

p.s. I’ve just found a youtube video of the 2007 fireworks – go to about 2 min30 to see the finale!

Tea Time Trekking – no socks, no sandals

And so the adventure continued… We found a guide and headed off into the wild. Rajiv was a sturdy, George Clooney-style mountain man, seemingly unshakeable in his amazing knowledge of the local plants, trees and wildlife, his simple life philosophy and his love of Jeffrey Archer novels.  He also insisted on stopping every hour or so to smoke a spliff rolled in a leaf and ‘enjoy the nature’ even more. The first day was a gentle walk up well made tracks to a Toda tribal village.  We were given tea or coffee in every single house and introduced to all the families, then the local boys whipped us at a game of cricket.  Kept losing the ball in a pen of buffaloes, which added an element of danger to the game as they were HUGE.  After cricket we played tag with the younger kids then sang songs around a camp fire, our rendition of Jerusalem going down paticularly well, and then back to a house so they could show off their bollywood dancing.

The next day featured a walk of epic proportions.  After many hours of pushing through denser and denser forest interspersed with the odd tea or coffee plantation we started to climb a huge mountain, on top of which was our bed for the night.  Our guide at first inspired confidence by telling us he was named after this mountain, but after a few hours climbing he admitted he was lost as it began to rain.  We abandoned the path and whilst heading straight up through the dense woodland we decided that flip flops were a bad choice of mountain-climbing footwear as it became impossible to stand on them.  We abandoned our shoes and continued on barefoot. Beyond the treeline there was dense 5ft high lemongrass interpersed with near vertical rocks and low thorny bushes but we pushed on regardless.  As dusk approached we finally hit the summit with incredible views making the pain seem somehow worthwhile, at least until our guide informed us it was still an hours walk to the village.

To celebrate our safe arrival we cracked open the emergency brandy. Our guide had jokingly mentioned he was an alcoholic earlier but didn’t take him seriously until the next day, when the first stop was the brandy shop.  He got more and more drunk from that point on, and during the last hour I had to drag him towards the faint sound of civilisation.  Felt quite guilty after that for giving him back the thirst, as he merrily waved us on to a bus, but he promised to sober up before returning home.

The trek cost us our pristine feet, our settled stomachs and even our cricket bat and ball (when one of kids did the puppy dog eye routine), but it still remains one of the most memorable things we have done so far.

Thats all for now,

Morley Morley-Morley

Oooh, tea.

Ootacamund, or ‘Ooty’ is an ex-British colonial hill station from which Southern India used to be governed during the hot Summer months, fuelled by acres of surrounding tea plantations. In recent times it’s become a typical crazily busy Indian town with colourful bazaars, spontaneous festivals going on all the time and hordes of visiting Indian families. However we’ve found that if you get away from the centre, you can find crumbling Victorian buildings, friendly villagers and all the amusements that the Brits created for their families back in the day…

So far we’ve been rowing on Ooty lake (attacked by Indian pedalo-ers from all sides..), strolled around the Botanical Gardens (like a well-manicured London park, but 10x steeper with the biggest trees I’ve ever seen), visited grand English churches, including one on Sunday morning (the vicar was from Hornchurch woaah!), and visited a working tea-making factory. After learning the secrets of tea production we sneakily plucked a load of leaves from surrounding bushes, which I’m currently withering in my back pocket.

Highlights of Ooty include the dingiest ‘Bar’ I have ever been to – a non-descript counter selling bottles of beer and brandy. After buying, you go inside into a tiny, filthy, window & chair-less room full of old men, downing their bottles in literally one minute. It was suprisingly friendly, but the other punters wondered why we were taking longer than about 10 seconds to drink our beers. In contrast, the next night we dined at the fanciest hotel in town, the Savoy, which was serving a massive & delicious buffet in an elegant wood-panelled dining room, complete with waiters in old-fashioned uniforms. Yeeeeas, it’s been a nostalgic few days, but on the advice of an old travelling sage we recently met (coincidently named Martin & from Devon), we’ve decided to head West, deeper into the mountains to remote tribal villages, wild jungles and apparently even more impressive scenery…

tally ho!
Jontgomery

Kollam – backwater boozehounds

Kerala is famed for its backwaters so or next stop was Kollam where we hoped to charter a houseboat to drift in style through the peace of the mangroves and palm forests.  After much negaotiation we found oursleves in a small punt winding our way through tiny canals no wider than the boat to the tune of someone reading out  hindu scripture over a loud speaker in a waterside temple.  We passed shrimp farms and isolated houses each with a tiny punt of their own, and saw how they make their wooden boats, which are acutally sown together.

Back in town the festivities were mounting for Vishu, which I think is new year in these parts.  There were huge processions of intimidating looking gods on the back of lorries which had somehow been rigged up to move about and brought the whole town to standstill.  After joining in the celebrations we found oursleves back at the hotel with nowt to do so ended up in a dingy bar having deep-and-meaningful life changing conversations which were thankfully forgotten by morning.

Martypants Morley

Varkala – beach, cricket, swim, seafood, repeat.

All this traveling about is hard work so we decided to take a well earned holiday and go to the tropical beaches of Kerala. We got a train ticket from a local travel agent who told us the journey would take 26 hours, which seemed pretty good considering we were heading to the southern tip of India.  Once on board we realized that it was actually a 50 hour direct train! Somehow we were non plussed by this and actually had a really good time getting to know the rest of the carriage very well.  Amongst others there was a group of soldiers coming from Kashmir, some welders on holiday, and a guru on his way back from the Kumbh Mela who would routinely take out a bag of ash and smear himself with it.  When we arrived and came out of the station we were faced with an elephant the size of a small house dressed up in gold jewelry, quite a greeting.

Varkala is probably the most touristy place we have gone so far, but remarkably relaxed.  Whenever we walked passed a restaurant the waiter would come out and spend 10 minutes befriending us before letting us continue.  This made getting anywhere very time consuming but is much preferable to the more direct sales tactics of the north.

We stayed in a bamboo hut, went swimming every day, and managed to acquire a cricket bat and ball so that I could attempt to learn to play the game every one here is so crazy about.  We set up some driftwood stumps on the beach to try and have a private practice and within 5 minutes we had a full scale game on our hands.  If there is one thing an Indian man is incapable of it’s walking past a game of cricket without joining in.  Every night we feasted on huge locally caught fish in restaurants shakily consturcted from bamboo perched on the cliff edge.

The locals are a very interesting bunch, one boy told us of the local method of getting your prayers answered.  You spend two weeks going to the temple every day and working yourself up into a frenzy, then they push a foot long needle through your cheeks and pierce your back and the backs of your legs with hooks.  The hooks are then used to suspend you in the air for 8 hours, no drugs or anesthetic required.  His brother did this and god granted him a rickshaw, he was hoping to do it next year and get his American girlfriend to marry him although if she ever finds out I don’t think she will be coming back.

Signing out,

Martin Taj-Mahaley

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A very Delhi Easter

We were to be in Delhi for the Easter weekend so decided to mark it in the most English (and yet very Indian) way possible. It started with a nostalgic Wimpy burger on Saturday (Wimpy Biriyanis also available). On Easter morning we attended a Church of my brother’s recomendation, whilst the rest of the Watson Lee clan attended his regular one, several thousand miles away. It was spookily similar to a modern English church, with familiar hymns old & new, notice sheets, screaming babies, a ‘youf-orientated’ backing band, holy communion (wine replaced with a shot of sweet cherry juice) and of course post-service chai and biscuits. The congregation was a mix of English, American and of course Indian, with everyone welcoming us kindly and inviting us to visit again…

After lunch and a stroll in the park with our Delhi matey, Rohan, the evening saw our first live Indian Premier League cricket match. Delhi Daredevils vs Royal Challengers Bangalore. It started with us dodgeyly loitering around the ground, trying to sell a spare ticket (Rohan couldn’t make it). Everytime we came close to a sale we were quickly surrounded by dozens of curious bystanders and then stern policemen with big wooden sticks, to move us along. We were ready to give up, finding it impossible for a couple of tall bumbling Englishmen to do a discreet deal in a sea of short Indians, but then the tout whom we had first bought the tickets from appeared. He was happy to buy the ticket back (at a third of the price he sold it for of course…).

The game started in front of a packed stadium of cricket mad fans. No alcohol was permitted but it wasn’t needed to get crowd worked up to a dangerously excited frenzy (complete with regular police scuffles). As with all Twenty-20 cricket, there were plenty of big hits and wickets to cheer about, with no time for the classic 5-day strategizing. It was exciting enough though, and a man-of-the-match 75 not-out by Paul Collingwood won the match for Delhi wooop! Martin & I were lapping up our fellow countryman’s glory, creating a range of new chants involving his name… (most of the crowd couldn’t pronounce it, let alone know who he was!). Apart from Colly, it was an international stars-fest with Daniel Vettori, Jaque Kallis, India’s Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, Gautam Gambir & Virendar Sehwag all playing, but best of all Kevin ‘KP Nuts’ Pietersen oh yeah! Quite a disappointingly familiar show for old KP though as he lost concentration and got bowled out for 16 after a few silly near-‘Red Bull’-run-outs. A good time was had by all.

Monday was taken up by the requisite WL family Easter museum visit. There were no stately homes nearby so it had to be the Father & sons’ choice of the Indian National Railway Museum – basically a load of old trains and carrianges, (many manufactured in Glasgow & Northern England), sitting there for you to clambour all over. The ultimate adventure playground!

Jonty

Kumbh Mela – greatest show on earth

We’ve just got back from the Kumbh Mela bathing fair – a supersized Glastonbury, but replacing music and drugs with religion and drugs. It takes place every 12 years in Haridwar, a small town on the Ganges and is the largest gathering of people in the world. Millions of pilgrims come here over the course of two months to bathe in the sacred river Ganges and make offerings in the form of an elaborate fire ceremony.

It was steaming hot when we arrived so we went for a swim at the main bathing ghat (steps leading down to the Ganges). It was dangerously fast flowing so I don’t know how all the frail old sadhus survived it, maybe their faith protects them. You had to remove your sandals, which we left in a large heap with everyone else’s but when we returned they had vanished.  We wandered the town barefoot like holy men and, accepted as pilgrims, were given a free dinner by a local restaurant, though we did have to sit on the floor outside.

That evening we made it our mission to try and meet ‘baba-ji’, the enlightened holy men who smear themselves in ash and attract legions of disciples. Each baba had his own part of the massive campsite with grand entrances and chandeliered tents for speaking to their followers. On entering the first camp we only glimpsed the baba and his musicians in a distant tent before chickening out and making a hasty retreat. On our second attempt we saw a baba sitting on stage being worshiped by his followers before being wheeled away in his chair without saying a word, a bit disappointing.  In the third camp we were actually invited in for a personal audience with the baba.  He asked us where we were from, then Jon asked him where he was from and one of his assistants hastily informed us that his holiness was the “head of all saints in India” (so presumably a silly question to ask!) before ushering us out. We were given another free dinner though so can’t have ballsed it up too much…

Just along the way we were again invited to sit with a very naked and even more stoned baba. There was a tent in the corner of his camp where a shift-taking group of musicians had been singing prayers 24 hours a day for the last month. It was understandably the most dreary music I have ever heard. After sitting in his entourage for a while we plucked up the courage to ask the baba-ji if had any great wisdom for us.  After smoking a little more in deep contemplation, he said that the past is just memories, the future hasn’t happened yet, so live life wholly in the present moment. God gives and god takes away so why worry. (As well as this he basically told us to become Hindus and follow him around – a bit less exciting and cryptic). Mission accomplished, we were invited to stay in his camp as we had no where to sleep, but the music was just too funny and the wind too cold so we found another spot.

Our second and last day there was an important bathing date and involved an endless procession of wildly dressed, or undressed, dreadlocked, ash-covered, holy men marching to and from the river, before being driven away atop cars and buses. A great show indeed.

Marty McFly

Rishikesh – the yoga capital of the cosmos

After a brief stopover back in Delhi we took a bumpy, death-defying seven hour bus ride up to Rishikesh. Our main mission was to visit the Kumbh Mela bathing festival in nearby Haridwar, our sub-mission was to relax in the cool Himilayan foothills after a week in the hot desert.

Rishikesh is a small pilgrimage town on the banks of the Ganges and is the place where the Beatles spent several months discovering Eastern religion, peace, love and facial hair. It’s still a major hippie hang out, known as the ‘Yoga capital of the Cosmos’. Since staying here we’ve met loads of interesting people, from old-timer hippies who remember the swinging 60’s, younger yoga-obsessed dreadlock eco-warriors, and also entire Indian families on pilgrimages, who insist on introducing us to every member (grandmothers, in-laws, the lot!).

Apart from crazy characters, highlights include a thrilling white water rafting trip along the upper reaches of the Ganges, with scenic rolling hills either side of us, going on a random jolly into the forest through surrounding villages, swimming beneath a waterfall, bending our bodies in ridiculously wrong directions during a few requisite yoga classes and cultivating extremely dodgey and/or ginger beards. It’s the kind of peaceful place that a couple of ladz on tour could stay in for weeks (some dudes have been here for months!), but we must move on, for South India awaits us…

Chalo chalo!

Jonty ’10 oxoxoxo