Pictures And Words

Last night I got back to my room around 2am, closed my windows and as I turned around I saw a snake coming in my room under the door. panic. Later I knew I panicked because I didn’t even think to take pictures of it, I just wanted it out of my room. I opened my door to at least give the snake the option to get out, and to possibly look for help dealing with it, however right outside my room was a large male monkey, so I closed the door. The snake had gone under my bed, so I moved the bed out of the way, it was coiled up in a corner very still. I checked outside the room again and the monkey had gone, so I got a stick and came back to the snake. It was quite easy to get it out of the room, just a little encouragement and it snaked along the wall and came to the door. When it was gone I closed the door and blocked the bottom so it couldn’t come back. I am now in the city of Varanasi in the north of India.

India is the wonderland where you know you live in a dream.

One of the first places I went to this time round in India was a quaint seaside town in the south called Mamalapuram, its about one or two hours outside Chennai. There are several points of interest in this town focused around the towns claim to fame, its stone works.

The two temples in the first picture are temples that have been carved out of one piece of rock each, there were a few others around this area all of which were carved out of one piece, I’d never seen anything like this before, however I didn’t notice this fact until someone pointed it out to me, so I could have missed similar things in the past. The second is a mural done in a similar style to the temples.

There were people all over carving and chipping away on their own huge boulders right down to people nicking away at tiny stones. The ancient temples seem to keep on inspiring people in this town to take hammer to stone over and over again.

A simple snap of a food cart, and one of my favorite carvings I saw in the town, its Ganesh the elephantman god of knowledge and learning, and he’s moving with the times! He got a laptop!

Classic! A cawing crow, these birds are full of character, they half walk and half double footed hop along, when they see you they tilt their head and look at you with a single beady eye. I remember when I first came to India, I was amazed at all the crows all over the place, in every city and town and village you see them, joining in with the free for all richness (possibly filth, albeit rich filth) of India.

Being back in India means spotting dead things, and I spotted them left right and centre as soon as I got here. Here is a dead puffer fish.

If this was in one of them new fangled crime forensic detective show programs they would say that the length of intestine that is coming out of the squashed dogs mouth means that there was a heavy impact most probably from behind, kind of like one of them party whistles where when you blow it a coil unravels as it fills with air. Strange thing though, if it was hit from behind then it means that the driver was on the wrong side of the road, or the dog was hit over to the other side of the road. The story unfurls, kind of like the intestine did.

I was lucky enough to arrive in India just before Duvali, a great festival where everyone throws fireworks into the streets all day and night. I saw many people casually lighting a firework and throwing it in the road over and over and over again, like it was a job, just getting it done, getting it out of the way. Me and Lee who I was with at the time joined in. We bought a big bag of colourful, exciting looking tubes and cones and a couple of what looked like balls of thick twine, which we got told were a bit dangerous. We spent some time setting them off in front of the camera and taking pics of them. The twine ball fireworks turned out to be small bombs really, just a single massive BOOM!

This is called “Krishna’s butter ball”, quite the wonder isn’t it. I tried to give it a push to no avail, probably for the best that it didn’t teeter a moment then start to roll, crashing through the fence at the bottom then onto smash at least 4 people’s homes to smithereens causing multiple casualties, yeah, probably for the best.

Captured the wave nicely there. Mamalapuram has a lot of fishermen, parts of it looked like the fishing village of Puri I went to a few years ago, its nice to get a feel of how places fit into the natural aspects of the area, I got a good feel of the fishing aspect by eating fish and lobsters. The second picture is great! I’ve had it a few times where children burst into tears upon seeing me, and its always funny for everyone around, silly babies. The girl running towards us in the background is great as well, a great picture.

Me and Lee rented a motorbike and took a ride around to some of the small villages just outside the town. I seem to enjoy seeing the life as it is now over going to look at ancient temples, feels a bit like prostituted history when you go to ancient temple after ancient temple, everyone trying to sell you guides or coke or trinkets. In the local villages no one seems to be prepared and the most I have been asked for is pens, which if I were carrying one I would happily give it out. The temple in the second picture is a modern one that is situated in one of the smaller villages.

So yeah, I met up with Lee again. I hadn’t seen her for a year and a half, so it was great to see her. When I met her it felt like we had just said goodbye the other week, this happens so much when I meet people I haven’t seen in ages, makes me feel closer to them, like being apart doesn’t really mean I’m forgetting people. We enjoyed being back in India together for a few days, then she had to go back to Israel.

The mighty mighty ambassador reduced to being a goats house. This car is one of the many things the British left behind in India, its the choice of car for taxis, police cars, government official’s cars and now a goats house.

Mamalapuram looks like this, dust roads with shops all around and people sharpening things at the side of the road.

I settled back into India quite nicely in Mamalapuram, resigned myself to bland food in comparison to the food of South East Asia, engaged my selective hearing when it comes to walking past shops (Sir, sir sir! (as if i didn’t hear them) sir! over here sir! You want cigarette? or toilet paper? SIR SIR! HELLO SIR!), and mentally logged the state of each number 2 toilet, waiting for the day when your struck with what appears to be a number 1 coming from where a number 2 should come from. Despite all these negative things I really do love it here! Difficult to explain why there is so much love for this places, however I know many many people that share this love, it seeps into you when your not even aware of it, and life in other countries can severely lack at times, and your never really sure why. When you try and work it out the best you can come up with is the filth and dirt of India, its so dirty, but that really can’t be the reason for all the love now can it!

Being back in India of course meant cows, and lots of em! At night, during the day, on main roads, down back alley ways. Cows all over the blinking place!

After Mamalapuram I went to meet my good friend Johan. I met him in Bangalore, which was about the halfway meeting point for both of us. He had just arrived back in India after a similar size break to me. It was great to see the crazy bastard again. Here is he is blending into a crowd and angry in an auto.

This is on the local bus from Mamalapuram to Chennai, it makes me think of how the Indian people think of the tourists, I really don’t know what they think of us! The second picture is of a guy in the drains in Bangalore, he was cleaning out a blockage in the sewage pipes, quite a grim job but I guess he just gets it done, no gloves, no shoes, no special clothes, just right into the human waste. If it doesn’t make him sick and he washes before he socializes or eats then whats the problem with it I guess.

In Bangalore me and Johan went to this high tech beer club, the promise of beer full of wires and LCD screens was too much to resist. The second picture is a random one to keep the photos in two’s (a touch of OCD maybe), anyway the second picture is of an electrical cigarette lighter next to a phone on the street, you push the button and the wire glows red and you can light your cigarette with it, very useful!

In the high tech beer club was this bollocks. Its utter nonsense isn’t it! Both of them! Absolute bollocks, we laughed for ages at that first one, such a surprise when you come up to the machine bit.

This is sister of the children receiving a double kiss from her brothers. And there’s my hat which my good friend Jonathon bought me for my birthday this year, makes a nice picture

There’s Johan drinking chai in an eatery. We went to this place a few times, the menu offered “lunch” from twelve till three thirty and the waiters didn’t wear shoes. And there’s me sitting outside a chai shop. I’ve been drinking a lot of chai lately, Johan was a demon for it last time he was here and I decided to indulge as well. Chai for people that don’t know is a shot of incredibly sweet and strong tea, made with mostly milk and with a dash of cardamom and ginger sometimes. You can see people preparing it all around, boiling the hell out of the milk to extract full flavor from the ingredients.

After a week or so in Bangalore we both decided that we really wanted to be back in Varanasi where we were together last time we were both in India. So we booked a train ticket, first stop however was Delhi to break up the massive journey. The first train journey was to be around 35 hours.

This is on that 35 or so hour journey from Bangalore to Delhi. These kids took quite a liking to us, they didn’t speak such good English but they were asking us many many things, they were so friendly. Quite the comparison to the swearing knife wielding maniac children of England.

So then we were In Delhi, we bought a train ticket on to Varanasi right away, I didn’t really want to see anything in Delhi, if you need to get things done its ok, or if you need something specific, but it holds nothing to hold you.

This first picture is from the Muslim area in Delhi. We went to this area to go and see the big Mosque there, which after finding it we found out that it was closed to foreigners from 7.30pm. After asking a couple of times if we could just have a quick look, and then someone saying its possible, a man came along who proceeded to scald us for being to late, asking what we have been doing all day! As if we had been wasting our time or something during the day, he blabbed on for some time telling us to wake up earlier the next day and plan the day better, he was kinda rude and obnoxious. He eventually told us to leave and that its not safe for us there, to play up to the stereotype of the violence bent Muslim is such a stupid thing, it made me think of the rude behavior I encountered in Jerusalem around the wailing wall, I guess I should come to expect it again if I ever decide to go to the Vatican. The obnoxious Muslim walked away, and as he turned around I noticed he had obviously been scratching his anus, his pants and long shirt were wedged firmly deep between his buttocks.

After a couple of days in Delhi we boarded another train and set off for a 12 hour journey to Varanasi, easy compared to 35 hours.

This time in Varanasi I stayed on the other side of the main ghat. It a bit different, less tourist shops and more religion since the best Temple for Hindu’s is there, the Golden temple. This market is very near where I’m staying, its beautiful how the market is squeezed into a small courtyard area along one of the many windy narrow paths that work their way through all the old city. These small pathways are one of my favorite things about Varanasi, so much life in these passages, cows, monkeys, goats, rats, mice, dogs, filth and of course people, oh yeah, and snakes as I recently found out.

I’m living very close to the burning ghats now, which is where they burn bodies openly 24 hours a day 7 days a week. The bodies are carried there ritually by the relatives through the windy streets. You know when one is near as they have a kind of funeral chant they all shout out, I don’t know how many there are a day, but the other day Johan witnessed a traffic jam caused by too many people carrying bodies. I don’t have any pictures of these as the local people are quite particular about the tourists not taking pictures of this scene.

Most guest houses here let you onto their roof, since life exists at all levels in Varanasi. Stepping up onto a good roof gives you a view of the river Ganges, the life blood of the city. Looking around in all directions you will see monkeys all around, being threatened off some roofs by brave Indians, jumping from roof to roof, climbing up temples, walking around the handy ledges that are around all the buildings here. On our roof we get a bit of a glimpse into an alleyway where I often spy bodies being carried with chants to be burned. The picture there is of two locals who I guess sleep on the roof when the weather is right, the grandfather of the family I live with often sleeps on the roof here, its nice to have that luxury. The second picture is of the kites, its a major passion for children here to fly these simple kites. They are hard to get up, nothing like the one I had as a kid, where you threw it up and it couldn’t help but shoot up up and up. These Indian ones require you to pull on the string as the kite is pointing in the right direction, it would then shoot up, but if it points down, which they often do, and you mistime a pull, then it shoots down! I have one kite left here, i will try and fly it again tomorrow. Since they only cost 2rs (about 3p) its no big loss if you loose them.

This is the government bhang shop, bhang is simply minced up marijuana leaves rolled into balls. They are eaten with yogurt for celebrating whenever a festival comes along. Me and Johan ate 1/4 of a ball each and celebrated like Hindus, with hindsight 1/8 of a ball would have been more than enough, there was some heavy confusion for a few hours from both of us, all recovered now though, one ball cost 5rs (about 7p).

I was well aware of the monkeys of Varanasi since last time I was here I had running with one as it spied me eating bananas. So this time around I keep my eye out for them whenever I’m on the roof here. I do have love for other monkeys I have met on my travels, however the monkeys of Varanasi are different, I don’t have much love for them is what I’m saying. One walked really casually into my room the other day, went to my bin as I was shouting and waving things at it, casually rooted through and walked out with a bag or banana skins. If you make eye contact with them they instantly give you this “COME ON!” gesture, opening their eyes wide and making their mouth into a tight O shape and jerking forward bluffing a leaping attack, when they first do this to you you turn around and walk away. However in my guest house here we all like to sit on the roof and don’t want to have to hide away from stealing, threatening monkeys, so we regularly take up sticks and chase the monkeys away, if you run at them with a stick they do run, and there is a small but brave dog here that scares them away a lot. Everyday though there is some monkey incident so the other day we tried a tactic that I almost felt a little bit ashamed for, but i’m thinking about trying it again, so not that ashamed. That monkey in the picture is eating banana mixed up with the remaining bhang ball that I had. I thought that there would be a few monkeys fighting for the celebratory mixture, but as it was one small monkey came along and at the lot, even picking up the pot and running like a human as he spied another monkey coming along, and then he walked out of sight, I don’t know what else happened in that monkeys life.

I really like goats, they have such funny long faces, and the way their jaws munch away is very funny. I feed them a lot on the streets, they have an odd smell that’s not all that bad really. I think that man owned that goat, and when I showed interest in it he wrestled it up.

‘nuther goat, and some puppies with their mother. There’s loads of puppies around now, very cute and pure looking, soon to be spoiled and roughed up by Varanasi life. The dogs here are very pleasant though. They show a lot of respect to the people, never really causing troubles for them, and they always come to you wagging their tails when you call them over. Another reason why walking around the streets of Varanasi is very pleasant.

This guy sells Chai! Pretty nice chai as well. The whole chai culture is great, you can stop off on all your walks for small breaks to drink a shot of chai. And that boat is a common sight on the Ganges, large boat unloading a large amount of Indians that have been for a river cruise.

This is Murnay, a street kid who has befriended me. I think for her its a good tactic, to make friends with the tourists first, then she doesn’t even have to ask for anything, people inevitably buy her meals and bring her fruit. She lives with her mother on the ghats, there are many people that live on the ghats (when i refer to the ghats like this it means the steps that lead down to the river, there is a wide stone path that runs all along), and I don’t think it is such a bad life, and they know it, they’re not unhappy, there is a large social life, and if you have something to offer you can make some good money there. Murnay sells post cards mainly, but as I said she is very friendly with lots of tourists. She can speak English, Hindu, Japanese and Spanish. She looks very healthy and doesn’t really fit in with the stereotype of a street kid, in a way she’s simply living on the ghats with her mother, a perfectly viable life in India.

A rather thought provoking juxtaposition with the vodafone advert above the homeless sleepers on the ghats. And another similar picture of cows sleeping in front of a modern looking shoe shops.

A baba and a bull and a bull and a baba (baba is a common term for an older guy ranging from chai baba to religious baba, i think its a term of respect, even implying somone with wisdom). The second baba guy with all the get up is a common sight. I see guys like this all over, covered in ash with all sorts of adornments. They come across a bit cheap to be honest, a bit over the top, almost like they are doing it for the tourists, im sure some are genuine but you just never know, some are very obvious frauds though, this guy im not sure about.

There’s a restaurant behind the moon star one that Johan was a regular of, so this last week I have been eating in there a lot as well, its very Indian and very cheap, sometimes its quite good, but mostly its a meal with sustinence. And the second picture is a seller of religious trinkets, things to enshrine the shrines with, shiny things for the shrines.

The first pic was taken as I was arriving into Varanasi, lone walker, mystery man walking along the tracks, a drifter, town to town carrying his ever growing story, or someone who’s a bit lost. The second picture is a tunnel just round the corner from where im staying, it leads down to the ghats.

And I think im pretty much up to date with stories now, I took that tunnel picture about two days ago. Johan has left Varanasi now, he went to Delhi, and then he leaves India after only a month here, he has a girlfriend back in Sweden and is going home to be with her. I will leave Varanasi for Mumbai in 2 days, there I will meet my folks and also meet the editor of an inflight magazine for an indian airline, with the intention of being able to write some stories about my travels for it.

I have a few more photographs I want to share that are from different times.

This is of a beautiful cat that stayed at the guesthouse I stayed at in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. It was one of them cats that come running to you when you call them, very friendly and always smiling as you can see.

What looks like an earwig, I was always curious how the English ones would get you with their rear mounted pincers, this guy sure knows how to use his attatchments. And a marvelous chewing cow, as I was taking this he kept lowering his head trying to stab me with his horns, his huge long dangerous looking horns.

Some diet water for the weight watchers. And that sore is a bad case of flip flop foot. Always when old flip flops die and you get new ones you have to break them in, which always breaks your feet somewhat. I have recovered from this without getting an infection, my flip flops now fit perfectly.

These pictures are from way back! From Bali when I was with Richard and Lisa, my brother and his wife. The frog was spied from afar and I ran to collect it, we tortured it with a photoshoot before letting it go. I seem to have quite a few bat pictures now, getting lucky with them, they have to be one of the hardest things to shoot surely.

These are all from the sacred monkey forest in Bali (apart from the second to last, which is my bro and Lisa in their amazing hotel on Bali). The last picture warants some comment about the metaphorical term “monkey on your back”………Rick, you have a monkey on your back.

And thats it, im all done with this post. Life is good, new horizons are on the horizon (can there ever be more than one horizon?) in the form of potentially getting some writing work for this inflight magazine, could open up many new directions for me. Wish me luck.

Mum, Dad, see you next week.