State of the trip
Well, we have been “off the grid” for the last few days for one reason or another -
In Goa, I had an atomic level attack of the Indian stomach bug which put in me in bed for two days — I drank 8 liters of water in one night and not a drop was pee’d out! Oh, it all came out sure enough, just not as pee, say no more.
After this we went into the wilds north of Hampi and spent a few days in a little village with no connectivity at all. A brilliant experience and one of the highlights of our trip so far. Then I saw Cesca in a Sari. OMG!
Now we are in Bangalore arranging our trip to Mysore for tomorrow. Cesca’s laptop’s power supply has died and we have been getting a replacement today.
Featured posts coming up include Laos (a trio of posts by Cesca), Vietnam (2 parts by Basho) and The American War (a special post by Basho). All are 90% ready thanks long train journeys in India and will be posted when we fully get back online.
Stay tuned!
Basho
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Sitting in Arambol, Goa, Cesca and I catch the last rays of sun
illuminating this little traveller’s rest. Then off to a hideaway (and
packed) Italian restaurant before bar-crawling our way back home. It
might not be the ‘real’ India, but it is a lot of fun!
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Cesca and I sat in the heat of the Mumbai movie theatre around the corner from the Victoria Station – that defining landmark at the centre of the city – and waited for the film to start. All around us were packed in hundreds of the Mumbai crowd. I scanned their faces. The film was in English with no subtitles, other than those found in the international edition, so most of the audience were those more educated types who understand English very well. None-the-less, I was sure that all over the city a large variety of people packed in to cinemas and movie houses to see this film and its greatest star.
The city of Mumbai itself.
We had wandered around this blend of rich textures and smells, that passes for a modern enlightened city, for two days now and I still found it hard to get a handle on. Millions live here of all financial levels, seemingly divided by success and yet managing to live together. To some this is a dangerous cocktail that after a few days has you tearing your hair out, but I’m from another city alike this one; London; and I know how to stop a city from getting to you.
Or at least I thought I did.
The film features scenes of the harshest looking kinds; shanty towns, rubbish dumps, concrete jungles, disgusting garbage and kids begging on the streets. It is a testament to the film’s quality and reality that the young beggars all look exactly like the little fellow that was yanking on my arm only a few hours earlier, asking for a dollar.
Not since Children of God, the film that told the story of Rio, has a film so nailed the sense of a city. For while Slumdog Millionaire is a fictional story, it has a real smell of truth about it. Make no bones, this is a movie that isn’t afraid to make your stomach turn and your heart break.
The story is simple enough; a young man is doing very well on the Indian version of “Who wants to be a millionaire?” The police however know that he is a simple boy from the rough part of town; a slumdog; and shouldn’t be able to answer such hard questions correctly. They arrest him for cheating and, after torturing him mercilessly, take him through his questions as he explains how his past enabled him to simply know the answers.
His past is relived by us in colourful, horrible, smart, loving, flashbacks that are full of loss, life, hate, pain, tears and the inevitability that a slumdog is inherently a nobody. The final question changes from “will he win the million?” to “will he win the love of the girl?”
Of course there is a girl involved. I did say that the story was simple. There is even a dance number at the end, over the credits.
Slumdog Millionaire showed me more of the soul of Mumbai than I had gleaned in my two days visiting the city as a tourist. It showed me the underbelly; the necessity of crime to survive in a place that can be so grim and yet, somehow, so beautiful. In the end the story is perfect for Mumbai, the home of Bollywood, in that it is a romantic love story and thankfully a really good one.
We both loved the film immensely, the acting is uniformly great and the romance believable and so recommend it whole heartedly. 8.
Regards,
Basho
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The trappings of travel
When I started this trip my arms were bare, I just carried the obligatory watch of a 9-5er. Thankfully that didn’t last long. My watch strap has been broken for months now and I don’t feel bound to time so closely now, much to J’s annoyance! So time, or the lack knowing it, has changed me both inside and out and now my wrists are permanently adorned with colour so my current jewellery collection is as follows:
- Beaded wire ring – bought from NYEMO to donate money for vulnerable women and their children
- Pink cotton bracelet — made for me by a child on Serendipity beach in Cambodia.
- Amber stone and black bead bracelet — bought two in Sihanoukville, one is for my sister
- Bamboo bracelet – made for me by a Karen tribesman in the jungle of Thailand, near Burma
- Coral Fish bracelet – kept since I was eleven from the island of Granada in the Caribbean
- Multicoloured bracelet – given to me by a Buddhist Monk
Adding to this budding collection I also have a bracelet, given to me by Lauren (Bobbits), that I’m only supposed to wear “When the fairies are guiding me”!
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A few months ago I said, “see you tommorow,” to three friends jumping
into a tuk-tuk to go looking for a hostel. “Tommorow” turned out to
be three countries later on the eve of their leaving for southern
Thailand. In the end Cesca and I took a taxi to the Ko San Rd in
Bangkok and people-watched till we saw them. We didn’t have long to
wait and were so happy thatvwe partied into the small hours before
hugs and goodbyes came round again. Next time we will catch up sooner!
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After 5 hours trekking into the Thai Jungle, near the Bridge on the River Kwai, we found a local Karen village and stayed over night in a bamboo hut. In the morning I was called over by the interpreter who was watching our guide dig into a small hill with a hoe.
“What’s he doing?” I asked.
“Finding you as spider,” said our interpreter.
Great.
Two minutes later and a monster tarantula arachnid was dragged from his, surprisingly deep, hole. He was completely wild, even livid, at being woken up this early in the morning and tramped around and reared up to scare us way. The guide however, simply grabbed him and swung him into view.
Held expertly by the guide we were shown the spider’s fangs, which were a good inch long. He wasn’t happy. The guide brought him closer and I gingerly stroked his foot; it felt soft and warm. Cesca, eyes half closed through fear, touched a random part of him and stroked.
“That’s his balls your stroking,” I said and she shrieked.
After this violation, the spider was placed back into his nest. No doubt he will move somewhere quieter the next day!
Thank god the guide didn’t eat it, which is apparently the normal procedure!
Regards,
Basho
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