Tom from India

The End

2009-06-02T11:42:00.000-07:00

So I have reached the end of my gap year.

I feel like I´m dragging the part of me that has grown in India to its death.

During my last few hours in Delhi I couldn´t really believe this place and the fact that I was not going to be a part of it any more. But the world is a big place and you can´t live everywhere.

To remind myself of this year...

It started off with monks, in a monastery, in rural paradise Puruwala,

got to know the Tibetans, taught their kids, really miss their kids now.

went to Nepal, had a mental time in the hills.

had a Christmas and new year away from home, in Daramsala and Goa.

Headed off to the desert to teach at BRCM public school. Got my teacher skills stretched to the limit.

Had a bit of fun with horses and Hindi songs.

Hopped over to Sri Lanka. Did a bit of lonely travel. Saw some of the stuff I´d never thought I would.

Back to the Indian kids and their shananagins.

A little jaunt in Rajasthan and a cricket match.

Went off on a big U shape route of the country.

Goa, Kerala, Madras, Varanasi, Nainital, Rihikesh. Lots and lots of stuff went along with it.

So it´s complete now and I´m coming back home.

I have been away a long time.

Being a Long Term Resident in a Delhi Guest House

2009-06-02T11:30:00.000-07:00

I´m a few stays short of being a familiar face at the Tibetan settlement but it wasn´t the first time I´ve been hanging around there. What better way to round things off than to spend the best part of a week hanging around Delhi.

Delhi is confusing. And tiring. A bit like India.

So I am fully aware I will be off soon and it is making me quite nervous. Not that I don´t want to go home but right now there are about a billion cars all horning away in unison, six beggars mumbling to me, the streets are packed, women are walking around in Saaris, the rickshaw driver doesn´t understand me, people are bumping into men carrying sacks of rice on their heads, the rickshaw is weaving about between trucks- strafing three lanes of traffic, and in Britain its... not like that, which will be funny.

The Taj Mahal

2009-06-01T20:24:00.000-07:00

It was really beautiful.

The light caught it in amazing ways.

I'm really sorry I can't think of anything more to say about it that you haven't heard already.
It's the worlds most amazing building, everyone knows about it.

It was incredible though. Imagine building that for your wife.

Indian clothes shopping

2009-05-29T07:53:00.000-07:00

Indians have got it going on fasionwise.

I'm not impartial to a good western suit but some of the stuff they get married in just blows anything we wear out of the water in terms of colourfulness and sparklyness.

Rishikesh the second time

2009-05-29T07:36:00.000-07:00

We had to go back down the hill because of expensive on-season hotels in Ninetails, so we decided to surprise the girls who were in Rishikesh. Rishikesh was one of the first places I ever went travelling.

India is the only place you would spend eight hours on a bus to surprise someone.

We arrived, and evaded the girls using cleverly cut newspapers. We got caught soon.
Rishikesh, despite cockroach problems is the perfect place to relax in an ashram or a cafe with an Isreli or two.

We went white water rafting this time. At one point the man stood up, swore, and began to panic, before guiding us onto a wave the size of a room. The squealing Albanian lass didn't help the matter. But the Ganga river was lovely and cool. Mmmm.

On the way out of Rishikesh, on the "deluxe" bus that I had paid Rs. 200 for, the conductor made all the foreigners wait a few metres away while he got all the Indian locals and their bags safely on the bus, then charged all the foreigners Rs. 20 "baggage charge" which he pocketed. He proceeded to cram 6 people onto the back seat designed for 5.

Saying goodbye to Rishikesh, with my bag and things, I was watching the shadow of a tree waving oabout on the water, and I suddenly became quite nervous about going home.

Troubling.

Ninetails (Nainital)

2009-05-29T07:21:00.001-07:00

We decided to escape to the hills, and in a way that is what we have done, in that we are in the hills and it is lovely and cool, but in a way we haven't really escaped because half of India seems to have "escaped" here too.
It's not such a problem really, because the place is still really beautiful. It surrounds a lake right up in the hills. I had another early morning run up a hill; a big one this time, and it in fact left me feeling quite dizzy and sick due to altitude and lack of breakfast. But the lake was really stunning from above with no boats on it. You could see the patches where the gas springs bubbled up from the bottom.

Just like we in the UK enjoy going to hot places for holidays, Indian tourists enjoy going to the hills for holidays, so places like Ninetails, Mussoorie and Shimla are always all done up with fairground rides and amusements. Me and Felix have been putting them to good use, frequenting the games arcade and visiting the coolest pool hall in the world.
I also found the most classic public library and I don't know why they don't make them like that anymore.

Unfortunately Megan and Felix were robbed of the chance to go really high up, but we decided to go exploring in search of a nice looking building we saw on the hillside. We found one of them, which we found out was the court house, and was an amazing colonial British stone and wood building. I love exploring. It's better than doing other things.

The Deccan Chargers won the IPL

2009-05-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

I have always found cricket engulfingly boring, but I actually got quite into the IPL.

As you may know, it was held in South Africa this year to avoid clashes with the elections.

The IPL (Indian Premier League) is like cricket that has been pumped with stimulants. 8 teams (I think) represent the major Indian cities. The best players from around the world are auctioned for by super rich owners, a lot of whom are Bollywood stars. The man of the match wins a motorbike. The advertising companies go nuts.

Instead of saying "six" when the ball crosses the boundary, the comentators have to say "AFL maximum," after an Indian insurance company. So replays of all the sixes sound like:

"And it's gone out for another AFL maximum"

"And that is a classic AFL maximum"

"And that is the 37th AFL maximum of the tournament."

It's quite funny listening to the commentators trying harder and harder to find new ways of using AFL maximum in a sentence as the match goes on.

It is twenty-twenty cricket so there are loads of boundaries and loads of wickets, which is why I can watch it.

Cricket purists do not approve of the IPL, but cricket purists can stuff themselves because India LOVES cricket and India, especially the kids, love the big names; and the IPL, for the few weeks it is on, is brilliant.

Playing with the kids

2009-05-29T06:54:00.000-07:00

Most of the problems in India are invisible to the traveller, so the lives of the beggars and the kids who sell things on the street are a mystery, but one of the most heartening things I have done here was to play with the kids selling postcards in Varanasi.

Varanasi

2009-05-22T00:29:00.000-07:00

Varanasi is probably the most spiritual place in India as far as the Hindu religion goes.
I'm in a guest house in the thick of it, but step out the door and you find yourself in a maze. The alleys are about 2 metres wide and you can't get more than about 15 yards without having to press yourself against the wall to pass a motorbike, a ginormous cow or a funeral procession.

The funeral processions can be heard coming, which gives you time to jump to the side instead of getting run over. The body is wrapped up and run through the maze to a chorus of "Rama Rama!" or other such chants.
They all end up at what is called the burning Ghat, which among the huge piles of wood holds several smoky funeral pyres at any time.

We took a boat down the river at 5am the other day to watch the people do their daily washing. Washing in this river is said to cleanse the soul of sin, so you can imagine its a pretty popular Hindu swimming spot.
In such a holy river, there were an awful lot of everyday things going on down on the Ghats in the morning, like a line of children in swimming lessons, a group of washing men flogging out the clothes on their stones, and loads of swimmers.
If we went swimming, we would almost definately die. The safe limit of faecal colliform bacteria for swimming is 500 per 100ml. The river contains 1.5 million per 100m, but the Indian locals who swim here every day clearly have much more powerful immune systems than us, since they all looked perfectly unharmed.

The other day we watched the nightly puja ritual while being sold post cards. The post card seller was a 6 year old called Haresh. He was a perfect salesman, knew all the necessary English and all the tricks. The little kids doing selling the face paints were all under 13 and were working to pay for school every day. We moved out onto a boat, and watched the ceremony from they water. All I can really say is it was quite stunning to watch and more than a little bit mystifying.

Sadhus are everywhere in their orange clothing. Some of them paint their entire bodies white which looks fun. You can't really sleep every long because a Sadhu with bells likes to sing really loud in the morning.

Anyway I must go because I have a Sitar lesson to attend.

Indian Railways Sleeper Class

2009-05-17T03:01:00.000-07:00

This time I was with other people, which was less lonely, but funnily enough made it seem longer, and also highlighted some of the damaging psychological effects of prolonged public transport experiences.

But really, where else can you fall into a curry while playing hide and seek on a train?

Kerala

2009-05-17T01:48:00.000-07:00

In Goa I actually got a semi permanent tatoo of a crocodile on my elbow so when I extend it the crocodile breaths fire.

However, we left Goa after a 3 hour night, spent most of the train journey knocked out and arrived in:

Thinuvananthapuram.

This is in Kerala, the monsoon debut state, right at the bottom tip of India. It's a communist state and has 100% literacy rate. Our first stop was Allepey and our day on the house boat. The town of Allepey had a long green canal running through it, and you could watch more and more house boats appearing as you drove closer to the famous backwaters.

The Kerala backwaters are quite an amazing part of the world and also quite hard to make sense of. Its a bit like an Indian venice, but even still very different. Not quite canals, a sea or farmland, it was a bit of all three. Rice fields and large areas of water were separated by long walls that made a sort of water roadway. We mowed along past all the women doing their washing on the steps down to the river. The house boats look a bit like dinosaurs and have thatched roofs; Ours was like a floating hotel, and I have stayed in hotels which were more expensive and far less luxurious. At one point when we were just having a little break, a small man in a paddle boat drifted up next to us, popped his head over the side and offered us to buy some freshly caught prawns. Yes please. We ate them for dinner, having had them cooked by the staff.

Legends spread all over India, and back in BRCM the boys did something called the "Kerala boat race" where they all had to make a conga line and do a sort of squat hop to the finish. Half a month after I left the place and I saw one of the boats they were imitating all those hundreds and hundreds of miles up north. A Snake Boat. Big long thin vessel, which on the boat race festival holds 120 crew all rowing at the same time.

We had barely stepped onto dry land when we had to go to Cochin. This involved getting hour-and-a-half long rickshaws and encouraging them to race so that we would get there faster. A crash and a wheelie later we arrived at the small old European style town with wooden buildings. The three things I wanted to do in Kerala were: houseboat, fishing net, Kathakali dancers.

Pretty much the first thing we did in Cochin was not just see these gigantic fishing net contraptions but actually operate one. The line of huge spider-like wooden framesgoes down the beach and every five minutes or so the fishermen get up from their perches and pull the giant net into the air. While we were there it only returned one fish. It seemed rather an effort to go through for one fish.

"Jew Street" was not especially Jewish, and the synagogue was closed, so that was a shame, but we were wondering when the Jews came over here. They must have come over with the Dutch or French. There are quite a few more Synagogues in the south than there are in the north, where the Jewish community is practically non-existant, except in Pushkar where one is needed to convert back all the Isrelis who go and convert to Hindu. I was once actually confused by an Orthodox Jew as being one, (probably due to curly hair) so I thought I'd fit right in. However as I said it wasn't particularly Jewish. It was a bunch of gift shops.

In the evening we saw the Kathakalis, which was yet another incredible dance experience. We watched them putting their make up on for an hour before the programme started. Keralan dancing is all about the facial expression, so it takes the form of quite a flirty, animated dance. Their eyebrows are exaggerated with the face paints. The programme showed all the lesser dances before the real Kathakalis came on, and when they did... the SIZE of them. They are dressed in the most ridiculously big costumes so that they could barely fit on the stage. Kathakalis represent different emotions with facial gestures, so a man sat on a stool and did a dance of about 12 different emotions using only his face, without moving his body.

So it was a bit of a crash through the palm tree state, but I saw everything I wanted to see. Life is much more relaxed down south. More coconts, less camels, much more humidity and roughly equivalent amounts of elephants.

Goa again

2009-05-11T08:06:00.000-07:00

em...yup...

we are a little bit stuck in Goa. Only a little bit though. Can't quite get a train to go the right direction.

Hampi!

2009-05-04T07:12:00.000-07:00

Had a few problems with the buses. Really surprising, I know.
I spent half the journey pulling my hair out with grief while the bus was stopped for no tangible reason and my friends had knocked themselves out with sleeping pills.
But we arrived and it led, as all buses do, to yet another incredible place. Hampi is a good few hectares of ancient Hindu ruins which were once home to a whole civilisation. There are temples, ancient markets, all sorts. 50p hired us a bike for the day and we cycled around the sites in the searing heat. At one point a gardner decided to make an extra Rs 10 by dropping his hose and giving us a guided tour of an underground passageway.
It's full of banana trees, temples, oddly balanced rocks and laziness.

Today we got a guy to give us a lift up the stream on his Moses style reid basket boat. There are loads of temples and meditation building ruins at the side of the river. If you were big on meditation, they would probably be the best places to do it in the world. We also saw the place Hanuman was born. Hanuman is a big deal. There are 36,000,000 Gods and Hanuman is in the top 5 most popular. His face is still in one of the rock formations.

It's been a good little excursion away from Goa. We're back there tomorow. Back to the beaches.

G-G-G-Goa

2009-05-02T02:58:00.000-07:00

I'm back in the state of sand and it's gone with an absolute bang this time. I couldn't feel more like I was in Goa.
Last night, for instance, we were sitting round a fire, on a beach, all seven of us, plus a bunch of other people who we met in our beach tree huts, and three aged hippies, one of whom was one of the most fantastic guitarists I've ever seen, drinking beers, chatting and "jamming" with the aged hippies. How is that for Goan.

We did the famous Anjuna flea market on Wednesday, where they sold all sorts of stuff. A guy even managed to paint, "Archdeaconfauntleroy" on a grain of rice for me. We went and sat in a beach restaurant and watched a live band with sitars and such like before going out to some insane trance party in a club in the middle of NOWHERE.

There are loads of little shaks with cats to stroke and sitting of the beach with a guitar the dogs come to listen too and keep you company.

Commonwealth Games

2009-05-02T02:25:00.000-07:00

They are doing a lot for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. They are building a huge Metro system, which is actually quite a lot better than the one in London, but I was wondering what they are going to do about some of the stuff.

The Indian attitude as far as I've seen is to pretend the scruffier aspects of India don't exist. When the BRCM boys saw a picture of some poor people on my camera they told me off and said "you shouldn't be taking pictures of poor India." (I should be taking pictures of the Taj Mahal and India Gate). They also liked to shout "slumdog" at beggars and turn around thinking I'll be impressed.
But when you walk down Chandni Chowk at night, stepping round rats on the pavement and see a line of beggars stretch right down the side settling down for the night, lots of them families sharing a rug, how do you ignore that? It's unignorable.
That made me wonder what they will do with the beggars for the commonwealth games.

When I came into Delhi I had two choices for sleeping. One is Paharganj. Some people seem to love it, but I think it's everthing that is wrong with Indian tourism. It's got neon signs, money changers, and it's right next to the Red Light District. I've never payed a decent price for a hotel there and they haven't been all that special. A previous gaper got her room broken into by the hotel staff.
Or
I could stay in Manju ka Tila, the Tibetan colony. It's a lovely little maze of alleys and eveyone is happy there. BUT they were planning to destroy it. Completely to the ground. That's the problem with illegally raised buildings. The government were going to rehouse the residents but it just seemed such a shame to destroy one the only places where people are looking after each other and not trying to part you with as much cash as possible.
I don't know if they are still doing this. I asked a monk who I was sitting next to at breakfast and he seemed not to know too much about it but thought the situation was better.
The reason they were doing it was because the settlement got in the way of their highway expansion and their beautification of the Yamuna River (good luck with that one.)

All for the Commonwealth Games. It's a big thing when the rest of the world is coming to visit a fast developing country. All you can hope is that it all pays off.

A Weekend in Delhi

2009-05-02T02:11:00.000-07:00

As soon as I got on the bus and started rolling away from BRCM it was like a weight that I didn't even know was there had been lifted off my shoulders.
I should stick up for BRCM a little bit though, I made it sound really bad, but it wasn't bad, it was actually full of very well wishing people and I do hope they all do well.

I was sitting in a dirty back room of a shopping market waiting for the security guard to tell me when the bus got there, and I was thinking, this is probably the last time I'll be in one of these obscure little places without knowing what is going on.
The atmosphere on the bus was brilliant and I had a Hindi conversation with the toothy bus conductor.

I love getting to know places better, and I was rushing all over Delhi so I began to piece together where everything was. I went to see a light show at Red Fort which was quite funny, but I got eaten alive by midges. Shaaman Khan, the disembodied, self confessed "cataloguer of the ages" guided us through the history of Delhi, which was nice of him.
I saw Qutub Minar the next day, which is basically a glorified version of the stack in Dundee. It was quite pretty though.

Finished the job

2009-04-25T00:28:00.000-07:00

As of two minutes ago I am no longer an English teacher.

In other news, yesterday I saved a poor little bat from drowning in the swimming pool.

The Century

2009-04-20T20:32:00.000-07:00

You wil notice that with my last entry I completed
"THE CENTURY"

100 blog postings.

It's up to you how you celebrate really. Perhaps you could get the neighbours round for a drink, or if that's not your thing, maybe you could just spend it with your family.

I hope it's been interesting. I think there's probably quite a few more to come.

Heat

2009-04-19T23:16:00.000-07:00

At the moment we have this hot wind named Lou. It comes straight off the desert and really slaps you in the face. It also dries out your mouth when you are playing football.
Heat does funny things. A guild of small insects have decided it is nice to meet just outside my door, so when I go out of my house I get a face full of flies. There is also the occasional massive grasshopper to spice things up.
To be honest I really don't know what I would do without the swimming pool. If I didn't have my daily routine of cooling off by racing the little kids at swimming and pretending I'm incredibly fast I think I would probably have freaked out in the heat and smothered myself in cold mashed potato.
Last night I was too hot to sleep so I had to get up at 4am and move out onto my balcony with my duvet. I didn't sleep very well there either.
Cold sensors are like everything else in the body though, they need excercise, and right now they aren't getting any, it's absolutely ROASTING.
I'm looking forward to getting to Goa, it will be cooler there hopefully. Did you know I'm actually about 90km away from the hottest place in India?

Sir please beat me

2009-04-18T00:06:00.000-07:00

Gyan Prakash is different from the average student.
He's really badly behaved but it isn't out of being obnoctious, it's out of being completely intense and highly strung. One minute he is absolutely despairing that he's not being picked when he has his hand up, the next he is absolutely pleading to go and drink water. He is absolutely desperate to impress me. He cannot stay in his seat even though you can see he is trying. In other words, if he was in the UK he would be diagnosed with attention deficit disorder.

Today he was lying on the desk crying because I wouldn't let him go to the infirmary for a fever which he didn't have, so after a while I gave up and let him go.

He came back having quite obviously not been to the infirmary. I carried on with the class making it quite clear that I knew full well he hadn't been anywhere near.

Then about 5 minutes later, he stood up, came to the front and said, "Sir beat me."
I said "What?"
And he told me to beat him or take him to the principal because he was lying that he had been to the infirmary.

To start with, it's quite an incredible achievement for him to be owning up to misbehaving like that. But when I looked at him and told him that I didn't want to beat him, I just wanted him to understand what he had done and improve on it-- I understood from his reaction what was wrong with beating.

All other punishment he has ever known has been a quick beating to get him to stop, and no one has ever really asked him to try and do better. It's always-- "Do this or I'll hit you"
The kids are not taught to 'try to behave'. They are taught to 'try to avoid being beaten'. Big difference.

Beating

2009-04-17T23:46:00.000-07:00

A computer teacher has just lost his job for beating a child with a stick.

Perhaps I should tell you what the school is like where beating is the disciplinary measure.

The same scenario arose the other day in two different classes: my class, and a regular teachers class.

1: My class
Sir can I go and drink water?
No, sit down
Sir please
No
Please sir
No, sit down.
Please sir, I'm very thirsty sir.
NO.
Sir...
NO, SIT DOWN. How many times have I said that now?

2: School Teachers class
Sir can I go and drink water?
(teacher shoots up from his seat, raises his palm, child cowers) WHY YOU ASK THIS? WHY YOU ASK TO TAKE WATER AND ALWAYS WANTING TO GO HERE AND THERE? THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR TO DRINK WATER? GO! SIT!

I should explain, that wasn't the man who lost his job, that was a fairly normal scene.
There are two main differences. 1) The teacher was very aggressive, while I wasn't. 2) The child sat down instantly in the teacher's class, but it took me 5 tellings before he sat down in my class and he asked again in a few minutes.

Basically, the children don't do ANYTHING unless there's a chance of getting battered if they don't obey. If they are asked in a normal tone, they just ignore you.

To make things even more interesting, the 12th class students are now on hunger strike until the band teacher apologises for hitting one of them.

So yeah, the discipline is a mess here.

Wrong stuff

2009-04-13T00:37:00.000-07:00

I have been trying my best to share a little bit of my knowledge with two people- the music teacher and the geography teacher.
The music teacher cannot be helped. I tried teaching him "Hey Jude" but he is so insistant that he can guess the tune without letting me help him that it was an impossible task. That's ok though. No harm will come of him playing Hey Jude wrongly.

The geography teacher scares me a little bit though.
He was making a presentation on poverty which consisted of statistics he had dropped in while flicking through wikipedia pages like you would flick through tv channels, and when I asked him if he understood them he said "no".
You hear a lot of distortions of the truth from Indian people about their country, perhaps that's where they all come from; teachers who teach without thinking.

Condolence visits

2009-04-08T21:59:00.000-07:00

At my usual Tuesday/ Thursday night haunt, the Ashok household, the big news was that Arjun, cutest little boy in the world, had been bitten on the arm by the mangy white dog who lives by the basketball court. He now has to have about 5 different injections over the couse of the next month. Over the course of the evening, various different teachers dropped in to see how he was. Not big visits, just five minutes or so. Turned up, expressed concern about the arm, watched national geographic for a few minutes, then said goodbye and left. That's the way things are done in India, if something happens to someone, large or small, you pay the person a small visit just as a token of interest and concern.
Another thing I've grown to really like is the abundance of little compliments you get every day. To start, everyone says good morning and good evening, regardless of how often you see them. And as you walk down the corridor, you get, "Sir, looking so nice." or "Sir nice shoes". Sometimes I get "Sir looking sexy," which is a bit different but I appreciate the sentiment. All the comments are genuine, they aren't said jokingly. They are just nice comments said for the sake of saying something nice.
The senior students decided yesterday, completely of their own accord, to invite me to their hostel to have a sort of "audience with Tom" so that the class 10s could learn a bit about Europe and the rest of the world and practice their English, which is a really good thing to do for their junior students.

It's the complete lack of cynicism they have that makes them so polite and genuine, and that's why I think all this sex obsession and other mindset problems they have are viruses of a sort. They don't actually belong in the Indian people, and I hope someday they outgrow them and are left with their own endearing, excellent nature.

Locked in the Library

2009-04-06T20:48:00.000-07:00

I just got locked in the library

2009-04-02T23:33:00.000-07:00

Finished my classes yesteday, got home, told it was holiday tommorrow.

Woke up (by "this is tea"), had breakfast, went back to room, got knock on door, told that they would like another 3 hours of workshop (of course, what else would you want to do on a holiday?), and that I had 5 minutes to prepare it.

Closed door, dropped fake smile instantly, banged head off wall, had no idea what to do, improvised way through reasonably crap workshop.

Went to principle's office and as politely as possible requested IF YOU HIRE AN UNTRAINED STUDENT WHO'S JUST LEFT SCHOOL WOULD YOU LIKE TO TELL HIM WHAT YOU WANT HIM TO DO BEFORE GETTING HIM TO DO IT????

The thought clearly hadn't occured to him.

Ploughing Ritual

2009-04-02T23:28:00.000-07:00

It's dry in the East at the moment.
A girl from Assam, who's father was upset by her not being a boy, was yoked to an oxe and made to plough a field in order to bring back the rain.
A number of other villagers including the priest were there to conduct the ceremony as well.

"High School of the Rod"

2009-04-02T01:08:00.000-07:00

Here's something funny,
"Dundee" in Hindi means "stick", of the kind you would use to beat someone with, so when I go to "Dundee High School", they imagine it to be like

"THE SCHOOL OF THE ROD" where people get beaten all day

Tea. Everywhere.

2009-03-31T00:54:00.000-07:00

This tea thing is getting out of hand. Seriously, sometimes I find cups of tea sitting next to me an I don't even remember who gave me them.

And sometimes I look away, and when I look back theres a cup of tea sitting on the table.

Today I walked into a locked classroom to find a cup of tea sitting waiting for me. It's eerie.

Back to School in a Different Place

2009-03-30T22:19:00.000-07:00

Talk about being dropped in at the deep end. I was picked up the other night at 8.00 and told on the way to the school that I was to prepare an 8 hour "English Communication Skills Workshop" which starts the next day.

I was met at my house by two teachers from Shivani school, but instead of being taken straight there, I was taken to another apartment block in BRCM and given tea. More and more teachers from Shivani joined us there. I can't really describe fully how bizzare it was, but it was. I didn't know whether I was at BRCM or Shivani school. It was like Indian public school limbo.

Anyway I'm here now and 5 1/2 hours through my 8 hour workshop. Shivani is a smaller operation, and has got boys AND girls. That really does make things a lot easier.

Despite being a lot more placid than BRCM, they are a lot worse for banging on my door. For a start, I don't have a door bell here, so their fanaticism can't be deflected onto that. It has to be the door.
I got woken up this morning by my door just about being battered down. I thought there was a police raid.
Opened the door.
"THIS IS TEA."
I took a few seconds to take in what was happening. There was a servant standing there. And yes, he was correct, it was tea, but tea is not that important. You do not have to destroy my door just to give me tea.

I have always suspected that Indians like to have celebrations just for the sake of having celebrations, but I have proof now.
This school celebrates something called "annual day."
"Annual Day"?? You can't just do that. You can't just make up a celebration and call it annual day.

Anyway its really nice to be teaching again instead of spending 40 minutes each lesson shouting "sit down."

PDC camp

2009-03-26T21:08:00.001-07:00

I've been at a "personality development camp" all week at a farm house which the school owns. They do it really well actually. The head sports teacher does it army style and they do sports and games and music. The teachers still don't quite know how to make use of me so in my slight redundancy I took it upon myself to be official photographer.

I decided to make my colonial forefathers proud, so I spent a large part of it sitting with the riding teacher in an arm chair, shooting things with an air rifle and drinking tea.

Next I'm off to Shivani Public school for a few days. This is the school which the exchange students from Gloucestershire visited, and who were so uncontainably excited that they induced one girl to have a panic attack, so this should be fun.

World Record: Longest Auto Rickshaw Ride

2009-03-22T23:09:00.000-07:00

The longest auto rickshaw ride ever took place on 22nd March 2009.

Tom Emslie-Smith was driven the equivalent of over three times the length of Dundee to Perth.

The journey cost him just over a fiver. And it was really boring.

(actually this isn't true at all, there is a rickshaw race every year which spans the whole length of India which I am really quite excited to have heard about and am going to enter next year.)

Just general...

2009-03-22T22:29:00.000-07:00

No real subject this time, just some things that struck me on my journey home.

I think there is a person employed on every bus and train to make the ride difficult or uncomfortable in some way. There is always something.
Tonight it was the ticket collector, who noticed I was lying on a big berth, at right angles to the window.
"Excuse me, that is your seat over there"
Oh... can I not just sleep here?
"But that is not S9"
But there is no one else sleeping here
"...but it's not S9"
But the carriage is practically empty and there is no one in this seat.
"...but S9 is over there (you see? over there, the stuffy top berth that's boxed in against the window, is about a foot to small for you, has a light where your head is that you can't switch off and is next to the man who's snoring)"
later on I am woken up at 1 am by some idiot in a yellow shirt and a baseball cap who doesn't speak a word of English who for some reason that is beyond me wants to inspect my ticket, labours through all the details on the ticket, gives it back and then leaves.

I arrived in Delhi and had a few hours to kill but with no shops open on Sunday. I decided to get my ears cleaned professionally. This is quite a common profession for guys on the street in Delhi. There is a whole caste (family) of ear cleaners that have had it in their blood for generations.
Guess how much he tried to charge me. Guess.
70 quid!!!!
HAHAHA
you want Rs 5000 to clean my ears with a cotton bud??
I gave him 1/100th of the price and told him to be on his way.

In the news today a Delhi college student was "ragged" to death. "Ragging" is bullying that goes on in college hostels, and usually it is ignored by the college authorities because the victims commit suicide, so the blame can be put on stress or mental intability or general "weakness" on the victim's part. But this time he was murdered. So will we see big changes? I don't think so.
It tells me that there is no sector of India, those with money and without, high caste, low caste, educated, rural, urban, that is without chronic and serious problems. If rich, educated kids with good prospects are bullying classmates to death for fun, who do you look to to get India out of the mess of religious and caste violence, corruption, and political crime?

The other day a statue of Charlie Chaplin in Karnkata was strongly objected to by a Hindu extremist because he was a Christian.
Which is funny, because the Nazis objected to Charlie Chaplin because he was a jew.

20:20 India vs European selects

2009-03-22T21:37:00.000-07:00

On arriving at the hotel I was asked if I was English. I said no, Scottish. He looked a little dissapointed, but asked me anyway if I could play cricket.
Next thing I know I'm on the dry river bed beneath the bridge introducing myself to ten other English, Australian and French people who had been similarly drafted in to the international 20:20 match between hotel staff and guests.
There were about 3 of us who had ever played cricket before, and another 2 who had ever watched cricket, which meant that over half the team had no idea what they were doing.
The press turned up, gave some interviews, took some pictures.
We got thrashed.
I was opening batsman. Got caught out on the first bowl I faced.
Another guy for some reason got changed out of casual clothes to smart clothes for the match, only to chase a ball straight into to the muddy river and come out with the bottom of his trousers and deck shoes covered, much to the enjoyment of the rather large crowd which had assembled on the ghat steps and along the bridge.

After the match there were trophies and a man of the match award, and free coke and tea at the owner's cafe. A bit later on they kept the roof top restaurant open all night for us and we sat and had drinks with the rest of the "cricket team".
I met almost all of them the next day, Udaipur being a small place, and went on a little trip with two of the guys who I got along with. We were in two newspapers and a national news channel. Can you belive that?

Sewage Incident

2009-03-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

I was walking along the street of the market, past cows and motorbikes when, through reasons beyond my control, the way was blocked due to a misunderstanding between a cow and a motorbike, made worse by a goat and a vegetable cart.
I diverted my coarse round to the right of the vegetable cart, taking me onto the side of the road. On the corner, where a building jutted out was a large paving slab inset into the pavement. The cow/ motorbike jam showed no sign of budging and I was pushed for space. Without paying proper attention, and not being aware that I needed to, I stepped onto the slab. The slab flipped over like a trap door and I was plunged ankle deep into the underground stream of sewage.

Most people don't know what Indian sewage is like. It runs down the side of the road on every main street and it is the filthiest, ugliest, most rancid, malodorous, poisonous, repulsive, repugnant, urin filled, vomit inducing mixture of industrial, household and human waste.

There I was, standing in it. I took about three seconds not understanding what had happened, and another three not believing what had happened, before panicking, climbing out, and still not knowing what to do.

The girls didn't bat an eyelid. Some shop owner casually pointed me towards a public hand pump where I washed my filth covered feet and flip flops and thoroughly as I could. I still felt dirty for the rest of the week. The paving stone stayed where it was, at right angles to the pavement, sticking like a shark's fin out of the grey and white disease fluid that flowed round it and on down the street.

Udaipur

2009-03-22T21:24:00.000-07:00

Udaipur is known as the lake city, but unfortunately its name has been besmerched since the lake has shrunk quite considerably due to dought. It's also got two of the top 10 hotels in the world within a mile of each other, one in the middle of the lake (and that's the lesser ranked one).

Inside the palace there is a model horse with an elephant's trunk. The reason is, believe or don't believe- it's still ture, that in the days of the Maharajas and Moghuls, the Moghuls used to give their elephants swords in their trunks so that they they could kill to death anything that came near. So, cunningly, the Hindu army attached trunks to their horses so they would look like baby elephants and not get killed.

Also, they are obsessed with Octupussy- the Bond Film. That's because it was shot here. Almost every second cafe has a 7pm showing of Octopussy every day and one of the cafes had a "temple of Octopussy"

Rajacamel

2009-03-18T06:05:00.001-07:00

Been cameling around in Rajasthan for a few days now. Actually no, I've not really done much in the way of camels. There is the odd camel, and they definately look as if they're at home here, but I've not managed to buy one like I had hoped.

Got into Jaipur. Couldn't believe the bus service had actually got me there. Phoned Chloe.
"Can you see a horse?"
"Yeah I'm right behind a horse, hang on. (Rickshaw driver- follow that horse please) Yeah, I'll be there in a second."
Jaipur is cool. I like it. It's called the pink city because some lady decided to make it pink, which was nice.
There is an astrological... thing... in Jaipur. It's called Janther Manther. I didn't have a clue how it worked but it was like Alice in Wonderland, there were loads of oddly shaped astrological intruments.

I'm in Pushkar at the moment. Can you imagine being the first hippie to arrive at this tiny little town surrounding a pond in the middle of the desert? Since then its become a little tourist town. It's still a bit holy, only its got a few things holding it back.
One- it's a tourist town. There are some absolutely baked looking Sadhus sitting by the lake but they're far too preoccupied with tourists to take care of any real religious followers.
Two- Its FILTHY. The lake has rafts of scum floating around on the top. This was a lake which came to be when Brahma dropped a lotus flower on the earth. Thousands of years later and it's got litter, filth and poo floating around in it. They are having to dredge the lake to clean it up.
That aside, it's the perfect place to run away to. There's plenty of proper hippies stuck here, some of them seem to have packed up for good and have started shops selling fire spinning aparatus and paintings of Sadhus smoking chillums.
I got up early today, crept out of the room and climbed up the hill at the back of the town before the sun came up. You could eclipse the town with the palm of your hand, and then all you could see was desert, for miles.

Indian Bus Travel

2009-03-18T06:03:00.000-07:00

is rubbish

Holi Festival

2009-03-11T20:45:00.001-07:00

I got a bit colourful

Leavers Riots

2009-03-08T21:53:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this in intense secrecy and I really hope it doesn't get monitored.

This school is insane!!
Some of the stuff that goes on!!
I only really learned last night

About a week back I got told to come to "Shanti House" to see something. What I saw were, sitting in the middle of the semi-indoor court yard, the remnants of quite a large bonfire which they had made last night, stoking it with their books and class notes.

I was fairly...surprised that this was what goes on in dormitories, but came to the conclusion that it was probably just a one off, and not as big a deal as it looked.

Fire crackers have been going off at intervals all week and when I was away in Sri Lanka, the prayers in assembly were interupted by a firework going off inside.

But if the talk is true, hell is about to break loose.

Plans are under way to smash tube lights, windows, throw chairs about, have fights with teachers, damage teachers cars, and a whole load of that kind of thing.

Just the other night two students stole a set of keys, broke into the library and tried to steal a load of cd's. Two students also jumped the wall and tried to run away and drink, while two others just got smashed in their dormitories.

In previous years the principals window has been smashed and fire crackers thrown inside, acid bottles have been thrown at house masters doors and teachers have been hit.

But right next to me is a small boy showing me an animated clip of some dancing letters spelling out "Happy Holi" (an Indian festival). Completely innocent. The school doesn't appear to be a rough school at all. There's nothing in their teaching, or running of the school that would give rise to that sort of atmosphere so I'm completely at a loss as to where that sort of ungrateful, malicious intentions come from.

The more I write, the more I start to feel sick. These boys have horses. They are given the chance to go horse riding every day. How many people in this country have the chance to go horse riding every day? And now they want to go about smashing windows as if they have something to feel bad about.

More things the students have said

2009-03-02T19:44:00.000-08:00

"You're eating a banana?? Here?? In front of everyone??"

"Sir, where are the exchange students from?
Gloucestershire.
...Greenland?
No, Gloucestershire.
...Glacier?
No, Glou-cester-shire.
Gl...Glo...Gl...Greenland?"

"Sir, can I show you an English song I have written?
Yes, certainly
(shows piece of paper)
(on piece of paper) "What you gonna do with all that junk? all that junk inside your trunk?
I'ma get get get you drunk, Get you love drunk on my hump..."

"Sir, what is your computer password?
Gullable
Sir?
Gullable
How do you spell it?
G-U-L-L-A-B-L-E
Gul-la-ble?
Yes
Thank you sir!
No problem.
(runs off to try and hack into my account.)

Pre-Emptive Rajasthan entry

2009-03-02T19:28:00.000-08:00

I won't dress it up very much, the students have become rather childish and recently their dialogue has degenerated from conversation to lists of sex-references. That's why of late, I've been farely dying to get out and see somewhere else for a while.
So since the words of approval were uttered from beneath the bushy moustache of the headmaster, I have been quite excited. I'm going to Rajasthan.

I'll confess the first time I heard of Rajasthan was on Monty Don's "Around the World in 80 Gardens"

But Rajasthan is something of a king of states. That's what the name means- "Land of the Rulers" It used to be home to the rulers of India. That's why it has so many forts and palaces, some of which are in the middle of lakes. Nowadays it's mainly home to camels.

It's funny how having something to look forward to changes your outlook. Your mind becomes less involved with the little frustrations and you tend to exaggerate the things you like rather than the things you don't. Bit like life really. :)

Farewell

2009-02-25T00:03:00.000-08:00

It was farewell for the class 12s last night. They had a big celebration with candles and music. Afterwards there was a disco where we were up Bhangra dancing for a solid hour and a half. Never been involved in anything quite like it.

Hindi Song

2009-02-25T00:00:00.000-08:00

I sang a Hindi song from a Bollywood movie at the cultural show during the exchange visit. It went down well.
I now have a medium sized picture in the local Hindi paper.
The video will be uploaded soon, keep checking this entry.

Sir do you have an Orkut i.d.?

2009-02-24T23:59:00.000-08:00

NO FOR THE 5 BILLIONTH TIME I DO NOT HAVE AN ORKUT ID!!!!

They did it

2009-02-24T00:05:00.001-08:00

Despite quite considerable odds, the school band managed to learn and perform the British national anthem.

They did it in spite of:

1) Having four days to learn the whole thing
2) Not being able to read music
3) Never being able to practice as a whole band, only ever being able to practice in classes, where only two or three of them are there
4) Not being given instumental lessons, only "band" practices, which forms a subset of problems:
a) See number 2
b) Not knowing things like how to be counted in properly
c) Having terrible technique
6) The band room being about 2 sq. ft. big
5) Being taught to blast as loud as they can, so they weren't able to play anything quietly
6) The kids who weren't in the band being allowed to muck around in the band room with the instuments so you couldn't hear a thing
7) Different instruments being in different keys, but no one knowing what keys they were in, and being adamant that it didn't matter.
8) The band master not speaking a single word of English, so not being able to help.
9) Having some sort of aversion to playing the last line properly

But the final result actually came out alright, so I'm really pleased with them.

School Exchange

2009-02-23T23:20:00.000-08:00

The English exchange students have arrived so I get to do fun things instead of classes this week. I feel a bit like their bodyguard, hanging around making sure things run smoothly for them. We went to visit a different school the other day, which has students from 100 different villages all over.

We then visited a cow shed which the school owns for orphaned cows. At feeding time we got to chuck sugar resin at them. They were all lining up to get their share, when a charged up bull came crashing through the middle of them with his mate running away from underneath him. It was hilarious.

The aviary across the road wasn't such a success since it had no birds and I almost caused offence by suggesting that Lord Krishna rode on an ostrich.

The other day we went on a trek to a hill with a temple on top. You have to remember, the English people are all a bit overwhelmed by India, so the temple in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of men who lived there and smoked sheesa pipes all day was a bit odd to them. And so it should be...

Bahal Sports Meeting

2009-02-13T23:14:00.000-08:00

There were no classes today, which was as much of a surprise to me as the boys, and they were suddenly told they were to go and watch the local sports event in the village. When there, it turned out to be rather camel orientated. Basically there was a camel art exhibition. The local men decoratively shaved their camels, paraded them in front of the judges and made them do funny stuff like dancing. While this was happening the crowd were closing in more and more round the staging area, and all craning for view. I exited the crowd and then found myself offered a camel ride. Whats more exciting than a camel? A white person on a camel. The crowd quite quickly lost interest in the stage and turned round to swarm round me. I was paraded through the judging area, and there was a Hindi announcement in the middle of which I could pick out the word "Scotland."

After that there was an old man race. There were men with stunning beards running, who had probably come out of meditation in caves specially for the event. The winner was duly swarmed and actually lifted up like a champion above everyones heads, before celebrating by doing cartwheels.

Lots of fun.

Hapy Valentines Day

2009-02-13T23:13:00.001-08:00

I got woken up at 5am by half an hour of the same four lines of music blaring out of the speakers. It's the first time I've ever been reduced to screaming into my pillow.

Guess who I met at the airport??

2009-02-13T23:10:00.000-08:00

None other than... the Indian cricket team!

Stilt Fisherman (or lack of)

2009-02-09T04:13:00.000-08:00

I went to Galle the second time to find the stilt fisherman. Unfortunately all I found was a fake one. It was full moon festival wasn't it? No fishing today. Gutted. (Me. Not fish)

Luckily I found my favourite rickshaw driver who got me a massage, a look round a spice garden, and a chance to hold turtles at a hatchery in someone's back garden!

That night I was lying on the beach watching the crabs running around in the darkness thinking I'm tired of buses and I'm tired of trains, and I'm tired of being by myself. I thought I could see India over the water (of course I couldn't) and I decided it would be nice to get back. That's where I'm supposed to be right now.

Tsunamiland

2009-02-09T03:57:00.000-08:00

Standing in the station waiting for the train to Galle, I was met by a man trying to persuade me into his guest house. It's more boring now than anything else, listening to these people. But he showed me some photos, I flicked through them as fast as I could without looking rude, when I came to a picture of the house completely destroyed.
"That's my guest house after the tsunami" he told me. Now I was interested. The next few photos showed a brick house reduced completely to rubble, a hotel owner standing beside it left with nothing.

On the way there, I noticed what I failed to the first time, which was that along the coast line was a series of foundations of what had once been houses. A bit further back, on the other side of the train and behind the palm trees were a load of newer houses which an Austrian lady shooting a documentary with her partner told me were the new houses built by aid organisations.

I remember out shopping in Dundee one day, mum slipped a cheeky little note into a can in Marks and Spencers. I never thought I'd see what that note was going towards.

Alone on the road

2009-02-09T03:13:00.000-08:00

Traveling alone is not something I would recommend. Aside from the fact that it's much harder to get things done, it's just about the loneliest thing I've done.
But it does have its advantages.

I left the cricket early mostly because it was getting a bit beery and drunken Indians are just tragic (and annoying). Outside I actually had to side step the rickshaws to avoid getting run over in their desperation to catch me.
"Junkies" a guy told me, and helped me find a decent driver. It was true as well, it's sad to see them all shouting, whistling at me, clawing at me and blocking my way in desperation. If I got in their rickshaws though they would have tried to sell me about 15 different other things and charged me about 7 times the amount. Helpless situation.

I had heard some tourists talking about "Negombo" so I decided to head there. Didn't get any sleep because of the Sri Lankan party/ jamming session going on in the lobby. Next morning I took one look at Negombo, decided I didn't like it, and left. I couldn't do that if I was with others.

I headed up the hill to Kandy. Kandy I would say is a classier version of Pokhara in Nepal. It's the hill capital of Sri Lanka and it had a lake and a massive Buddha statue on a hill.

I rounded the lake, which had huge bats flying around during the day, and got caught by an old Buddhist man. He led me with his walking stick into his Buddhist temple/ academy. In there I met the High Priest of the Temple of the Sacred Tooth (that's very important by the way, I'll come to it in a minute) He's very old- around 90 I was told, I was given a blessing or two and asked to give him a donation for medicine. I gave him a small donation. He said that was alright since I'm just a student (alright?? that was a gift!! (blessings cost money in this part of the world))
But this monk had been taking care of the Tooth Temple a couple of years back, when the temple was attacked in a bomb blast. He still had the burns from the attack which he showed me.

The "Tooth" of the Tooth Temple (which I visited next) belonged to Lord Buddha. So fittingly it's incredibly sacred to Buddhists and Hindus. I'll have to tell my monks I was so close to a piece of their Lord. The tooth has been stolen, and fought over for centuries (and was once owned by the British). I realised as I walked around, unknown to all the worshippers, I was actually quite familiar with most of it.

In the evening I saw the Kandyan dancing and some fire walking and fire eating. Wasn't so impressed with the fire things. Far more impressive and far more tragic were the fire eaters at Goa, who were basically taking mouthfuls of petrol and spitting it out into a flame, getting dangerously drunk in the process. These guys were far more professional.

Next day I decided I had seen most of Kandy, so I headed to Dambulla which is famous for its "cave temples" (a world heritage site). They were a let down.

Luckily, Dambulla was right next to "Sigirya" which was not a let down. It's a gigantic rock in the middle of a forest. I didn't have enough money to buy the ticket so I had to blag my way in for less, but climbing the rock was something incredible. No wonder the ancients chose it to be a temple. I've never seen anything like it.
The legend goes that the rocks are made from animals which turned to stone, hence things like "cobra hood cave" The animals were a bit out of proportion though, since the turtle was absolutely humungous and had a pair of lions feet half way up its back.

After that though I was sick of being on the road alone, but I still had a lot of travelling to get through yet.

LTTE

2009-02-04T23:09:00.000-08:00

I should probably point out that I am aware there is a war going on in this country, and it is quite serious. 51 civilians have allegedly died, but this is all going on in a very small area in the North, so here I am very safe.

What bothers me about it is that it doesn't seem to be that big a thing. Walking down Colombo main street and whoosh past go six jets and three helicopters. Taxi drivers are usually quite keen to tell me whats happening in their country, but so far I've only had one who seems that interested. You would honestly never guess there was a civil war going on in this country.

There is however propaganda all over tv. Feb 4th was an important Independence Day this year, because the government are setting out to clinch the North once and for all. All the Sri Lankan channels were showing ridiculous military related programes. Pop songs with the singer on a navy boat and interviews with army soldiers with a braveheart sound track going on.
The worst though were these infomercials with a bunch of actors in army uniforms with ammo belts and big guns doing skids on motorbikes. They were riding along on motorbikes, skidding to the floor and using them as shelters to fire from, it was hilarious but kind of scary at the same time.

Chasing the Cricket Team pt. II

2009-02-04T05:28:00.000-08:00

So I reached Galle by the time the match was over. I had missed them and they had run away back to Colombo.
I booked into a wonderful hotel that was British colonial style, but was deserted except for me and four ladies who had been there since British colonial times.

Next morning I woke up, checked out of the hotel and found the only honest tuc-tuc driver in Sri Lanka- the only one who didn't deliver the standard:
Do you want hotel?
No
Change Money?
No
Smoke?
no
Are you married?
no
Want a girl?
no
Very nice girl?
no.
He showed me round Galle Fort, in the tuc-tuc because we were pressed for time.
I drew some water from a Danish well, and then went on and found some cliff divers. We argued over the price of being able to film one of his jumps for a while and then settled for about SLR 100 (70p). He told me to pay discreetly though because there was a film crew there paying SLR 100,000 for the same. They dived off a fort turret into a hole about a metre wide, surrounded by water about waste deep. That's a good business. I stood and watched with a bunch of monks with parasols.

All in all it was a pretty brilliant morning, but I had to get on, because I had a cricket team to catch. The tuc-tuc driver sent me on my way and told me to find Sukadadasai stadium.
After a diversion caused by independance day rehearsals which meant we all had to get off the train and on buses, upsetting a lot of tourists, we ended up outside the station.
I jumped in a tuc tuc and asked for Sukadadasai...that's where the cricket is right?
No! That's a football stadium.
Ok... the cricket one then.

And I caught them!

The stadium was amazing. The atmosphere went from sort of funky during the day to electric at night. There were bongos and trumpets and people dancing non- stop. For the whole match the crowd was dancing away. I was one of the only ones supporting India. That felt good.

Chasing the Cricket Team

2009-02-02T04:41:00.000-08:00

I'm not really into cricket but I told the boys at the school that while i'm here renewing my visa I would try and get to see India vs Sri Lanka.

Here, by the way is Sri Lanka. It's a nice little island to get lost on. I put the visa form in and they told me to come back in a week. So I can do whatever I want now. I'm in some place called Galle.
"Galle? Never heard of it." (Man on train)
"Dunno, I think it's the last stop on this train. Excuse me, how long until Galle?"
"Galle?? This is Galle!!" (Sri Lankan man on train)
"Let's go then!"

So when I got there it was mid afternoon so the cricket had probably finished. I'm hoping the next match is here as well, or i'll be hopping on another train to catch it.

Must go though because I haven't found a hotel yet, and I just realised I haven't eaten all day becaue I couldn't convince any of the lovely food vendors to give me a real price on food, how nice of them.

p.s. I had an argument with a shopkeeper over 7 rupees today because he tried to charge me for putting the bottle in the fridge.

A Beggar's Foot

2009-02-02T04:31:00.001-08:00

I've read and seen two separate accounts of how beggars are controlled in cities now and they were both the same. The money goes to a master who takes them off the street and employs them in begging.
But they are given horrific injuries in order to make more money.

Today I walked past a man who's foot was in the shape of a globe with bones coming out at all different angles. And it looked to me- I might be wrong, I hope i'm wrong- like it had been done a long time ago, and like it hadn't been broken in a natural way, but it had been smashed repeated times until completely deformed. As in by a human.

But I think the key words there are "walked past." Hundreds of people "walk past" him every day. They can't really do anything else. That's the really horrific thing.

Really Nice Journey

2009-02-02T04:17:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had to sit on a bus that you know is going quite unstoppably towards a place that is miles away from where you want to go?
No?
Thats probably because you live in a country where it's not polite to give people wrong directions.

Basically after having been told it was the bus to Delhi out of "politeness" (because it's rude not to know in India) I found out that it was not in fact going to Delhi.

So I sat on it for an hour and then got off at the first built up area. There were several options to get off on the way but if i used them i'd probably be stuck there forever without money and have to become a rice farmer.

But this place was the end of the world.
If you have ever heard the phrase, "acted as if they had never seen a white person before," belive me it does actually happen in some places in the most literal way possible. Except they also acted as if a white person was some sort of exotic bird that was to be goggled at.
I absolutely swear i had 26 people in a crowd around me, some of them pushing to get a better view.
It was slightly funny but really uncomfortable at the same time, and probably a bit too uncomfortable, so I left the station. Trouble was I was stuck there for 2 hours and all there was in the town was a main road with about a billion huge TATA trucks hauling down the middle. In that time I was invited to two separate people's houses.

So thanks to that man, really polite.

Anyway I got to Delhi eventually and met Rekha, who's a lovely person so it's all good.

Things the kids have said to me so far...

2009-01-27T23:01:00.000-08:00

"Sir, do you have a girlfriend?"
"No"
"Why?"
"Just... don't have one at the moment"
"Oh... do you have a boyfriend?"

(In English class) "Sir can we go to the riding complex?" (em... no)

"Where are you from?"
"Scotland"
"Scotland...? Is that a hill station?"

(On worksheet about hobby's) I like to play sexophone

Honeymoon Sorted

2009-01-20T21:32:00.000-08:00

Here's a nice offer.
On my wedding night, the people living below me (head of geography and his wife) will fly me to India. They will bring me to their home city, Agra (site of the Taj Mahal) where I will be booked into a 5 star hotel free of cost. Me and my new wife will then recieve a complimentary meal worth Rs. 900. The next day they will book us a taxi chauffer us around the sights of Agra and India.

I will accept written applications from marriage candidates from the beginning of next month.

2009-01-20T19:01:00.000-08:00

I fell off my chair in the computer centre today. It was dead embarrassing.

Evening Schedule

2009-01-18T05:17:00.000-08:00

My working day is busy, not so much with classes, more with people to visit in the evening.

I have two or three classes a day, extra curricular things to teach to teach at games time, then I get a bit of a break.

Then my evening shift starts with a compulsory yoga and hindi lesson from the swimming master, then a visit to one of the other seven people who have invited me to see them for an hour every evening, then back to my building, where I'm to have a conversation with a teacher's wife so she can learn English. In return she will teach me Indian dance some time which I guess is fair given that she's desperate to learn English and I would probably rather not be taught how to dance.
Then I get home, become excited by the thought of going to bed... and then the door bell rings and in comes the neighbouring geography teacher who rifles through my stuff, asks me stupid questions, gives me stupid advice and pesters me to get him a job in Scotland.
Then invariably in the mornings I'm woken up by an odd Indian phoning me and making irrelevant and uninspired conversation and usually telling me what I should be doing at that moment.

Bahal Police Force

2009-01-18T05:04:00.000-08:00

The village behind me is called Bahal. I don't know what keeps it going since the agriculture is dead for 10 months of the year. We're on the border of the Rajasthan and the Thar desert, so in the summer sand dunes start to form. They have camels to pull their carts. Its a pretty sleepy town.

The police force is suitably sleepy. I seem to always get put in the care of the slightly mental staff. So between the absolute mentalist I was with and the 80 year old police officer, they managed to make a complete mess of my registration. It took up a whole page of this massive guest book and took about half an hour. (This is something I have to do every time I stay in a hotel, and takes about 2 minutes) The police force reminded me of Dad's Army. Fairly incompetent and slightly colonial. They sat me down at a table, gave me tea and got on with my passport details, writing "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" wherever "U.K." would have done.

If there were ever a serious issue to be dealt with, a dispute over a camel for instance, the police would not be able to solve it. But the good news was that one of the police officers was holding a large stick.

So yes. I'm in safe hands.

School time

2009-01-18T04:35:00.000-08:00

Yes! I've managed somehow to get the computer working.

Anyway, here are the facts about the school.
It's in Haryana, which by itself is a pretty unremarkable state so its often twinned with Punjab, the Northern capital of food and dance. The school is in the middle of a desert, which means its warm during the day and freezing at night. In fact its a bit like a little desert oasis. With peacocks. The college and school campus combined is called "Vidyagram" which means "Village of Knowledge" which I suppose is fair enough. Slightly unfair that only the rich people can enter the "Village of Knowledge" while the normal people sit outside in the desert and sell eggs. But thats ok if you don't go near the gates you don't have to think about it. The school does a lot of charity projects and things in the local area, one of which I think I'm spending a week in some time, but I haven't heard much about that since I got here.
There is no helicopter.
On 26th of January there is Republic Day, when they celebrate their independance, so big shows for that. And it means that every day at about 4.00 there are horses roaming around the campus and people on rollerskates weaving in and out of them. And peacocks.

No one seems to talk about the peacocks, they treat them as if they're normal. But they're not. There are peacocks everywhere its not normal at all.

So theres plenty to keep me busy. Loads of people want to learn guitar and do drama. (I'm thinking much ado about nothing...) And I'm to teach them some English songs to sing at a trans cultural entertainment programme in February when the English exchange students come over.

There are one or two challenging characters to get used to but thats ok. And I have a little house of my own (or not quite, the neighbour comes and goes as he likes. I come out of the bathroom to find him comfortably seated, deep in one of my books.)

Sorry Delhi

2009-01-09T05:30:00.000-08:00

Maybe I was a bit harsh on Delhi. It's actually quite nice, it's got more amazing historic tombs and temples than any other city anywhere, so sightseeing here is quite fun.

My problem now is this: I think I actually don't like good shops anymore. Everything in Delhi is so easy. Today I went to get a pair of trousers made. I can't pick them up tomorow so they are dropping them off at the hostel this evening. I paid half in the shop and I pay half when I get them. The man spoke perfect English. I guess having everthing turned into a mission keeps you entertained, but it's not a mission anymore. Aah! First taste of something I might miss back at home. Bit disturbing.
So yes, the problem is mine, not New Delhi's.

Today I have been focussing all my attention on trying to learn Hindi.
bohout doodh hai. aacha. :)

Back to Where I started

2009-01-09T05:20:00.000-08:00

I'm back to where it all started 4 months ago after the 41 hour train journey thundering up the country from Goa. Goa was fun, but I left my friends there and now I'm here, with new friends. Equally nice people, shame we're so far apart though.

Do you know what though? I don't really find New Delhi that interesting. It's the least Indian of Indian cities. It has big wide roads and a bunch of important or historic buildings kind of spaced out, but not in a way that you know what they are, so they all sort of nullify one another. And in between them is kind of empty space. And big wide roads.

But less about Delhi. Here's what I know about the next few months.
It's a public school.
It aims to be one of the top 5 in India.
Rumour has it they have a helicopter.
It's more likely they have a helicopter pad but no helicopter.
But they might have a helicopter.
They definately go parachuting and hot air ballooning.
The students are bound to speak perfect English so I don't quite know what I'll be doing- more likely sports, music or drama.

And hey, listen to this, I'm going to be spending a week or two checking out a water development project for GAP, so I'm well excited about that.

The Goa Express

2009-01-09T05:05:00.000-08:00

I was absolutely hammering my way up the country on the "Goa Express" sitting next to a cricket team.
What was in Goa? The most perfect beach in the world- Palolem. An island to swim to. The Arabian sea (warm).
So yes, it was a bit of a shame to leave so soon. I could have done it for a year. What we were doing was...nothing...of any consequence...it was brilliant. Yes, good New Year destination, New Year was a blast, even though we were at the wrong beach (fag butts and Indians in underpants). There was phosphorescence in the sea on New Years Eve at Palolem(phosphorescence is what micro organisms do to celebrate new year) so I was gutted to miss that.

But I had to say goodbye to the beach and sadly goodbye to my friends, who as I write are still living it up in a bar on the beach. But the Goa Express was making it very clear that I could not go back there. So regardless of mental inertia I was being swept back to where I started the whole India thing.

Goa time

2009-01-08T07:59:00.000-08:00

Hey! I'm in Goa now.
Not much time to write, I've got a beach to lie on.
The hippie movement pretty much started here

Christmastiiime

2009-01-08T07:44:00.000-08:00

What a lovely Christmas we all had up in Daramshala, the corner of India. We sat under a Himalaya, drank mulled wine, made by Helen and me using ingredients bought from the market, and opened our lovely gifts from one another under the Christmas tree we craftily assembled. Hooray.
In the morning we visited a quirky little chapel. In pretty bad condition, which it didn't deseve because it was really pretty from the outside. But it answered the question I had been asked two days before for local tv about how I would be celebrating Christmas. I basically told them I didn't know. I said it would be interesting in a Hindu country. But there we were, we ended up in a chapel. Christmas came to us. Hooray.

Daramshala, like I said is tucked away in the corner pocket of India snuggling into the snowy mountain behind it. A trek took us up to a plateau where we could see the snowline. (We made it up in 2 1/2 hours, which by the way is awesome.) Eagles fly around in the thermals where your head is and monks just generally chill out. A bit like us really.

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

2008-12-23T22:06:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I haven't seen a Bollywood film up until now. It's probably about twice as entertaining as the British cinema experience because you get to shout if your entertained enough. Massive cheers and whistling happened all through the film, including big ones for the motorbike chase scene and the choice of loyalty towards husband (very popular).

The biggest cheer must have been for the first appearance of Shah Rukh Kahn. He's pretty much the biggest Bollywood act around, is about 40 and has been in most big Bollywood films since the 1990's. He's massive. He was recently included in Newsweek's 50 most powerful people in the world.

Shimla

2008-12-23T21:51:00.000-08:00

I absolutely loved Shimla. It was CLEAN. But apart from that it was really charming. And people came up and talked to you, except they just wanted to talk. It was a really nice break from all the normal hecticness.

A funny thing was that there was Tudor housing, in India, and Scottish architecture, in India. Quite odd. The vice regal lodge, where Ghandi signed the Treaty of Independence, was a bit like having a tour of Glamis Castle. This part of the world is kind of Scottish. Shimla was right next to a place called "The Glen," I'm sitting in a place called McLeod Ganj and just down the road is Dalhousie.

We went to a roller disco in Shimla. Not since the 70's could roller skates look cool. The regulars were taking chairs from the cafe and jumping over them. They also had no women to dance with so they were figure skating with each other which was odd.

Before that we had been up a hill to a monkey temple, with violent monkeys which I had to fend off with a lonely planet guide. But listen to this. They had developed the habit of stealing people's glasses and then bribing the cafe owners to give them back in exchange for food.

Goodbye Time

2008-12-21T22:48:00.000-08:00

I can't pretend it wasn't sad to say goodbye to everyone. First goodbye was a couple of monks who had to leave the day before I was going. That's when I realised, I didn't really want to leave. It wasn't really something I wanted to do.
The last day I asked to take a photo of all the monks together, and was caught unaware with a surprise leaving ceremony. They all produced white scarves, lined up and presented them to me, one by one. So I'm now carrying more scarves than I now what to do with. One from each monk. That's 50+ scarves. And some of them gave me gifts, it was all very gratifying.
I left at 6.00 when it was still dark. Some of them hurried goodbyes before rushing off to prayers. And that's how I left them. Pinned up a goodbye note and took off.
Next I had to say goodbye to some of my friends, who I'm sure I won't see for a long time. That was really sad.
So that's the biggest lot of real goodbyes I've ever had to make.

So it's back on the road. I love it. We're in Shimla right now. Michael Palin's hang out. Not doing particularly much, just being here. It's eerily quiet and clean. Hmm.

Leaving Puruwala feels better now. It feels like I left with an amazing impression and perhaps left some sort of impression myself, so the experience is complete now, and no one can change it anymore.

"Romeo and Juliet" performed by the Sakia Institute Acting Company

2008-12-17T04:08:00.000-08:00

After a warm reception to the works of Shakespeare, the fullish performance of the balcony scene took place on the monastery roof. The cast, Tashi Danzin and Kunga, presented a moving enterpretation of the classic scene with a keen receptiveness to the torn love of the two protagonists, portraying longing, passion and forbidden adoration with their masterful command of dramatic verse.

The production was beautiful and the full audience of 5 recieved it with huge applause.

Due to technical reasons the film cannot be added to this post but this poster of the most moving parts can be released

critical praise for "Romeo and Juliet"

"Very interesting lesson sir, thank you." -a monk

"what is past tense of yonder?" - Nya (monk)

Royal Chitwan National Park: Safety Briefing.

2008-12-12T01:38:00.000-08:00

Dorjee:
While in the park there are four types of animals we might see that are aggressive to humans. Rhinos, Mad Elephants, Sloth Bears, and Tigers.

Rhinos
Find a good tree and climb up 7 feet. then wait for the Rhino to leave.

Sloth Bears
All group together and make big noise. Then if the sloth bear still come forward then we fight it. I have here a stick for to fight the sloth bear.

Mad Elephants
Look for the nearest forest and run to it, and the the elephant cannot chase us when we are in there.

Tigers
Run.

Elephant madness

2008-12-12T01:18:00.000-08:00

Next we went to Chitwan, for the cheapest safari holiday ever. It was pretty awesome aswell, floating about in those big long canoes. We also got a bucking bronco from an elephant and a hosing down. There were elephants everywhere. On the main street and all over the place.

We realised here that hiring bikes was by far the cheapest and best way to get around. The breeding sanctuary up the road was full of mental claustrophobic elephant mothers, chained, and cute little babies, unchained. It had fences of a sort, but not really. If an elephant wanted out it would probably just have to sit on it. and the evidence showed that that had already happened. A little baby elephant strolled out and said hello. We shook its trunk and sat and had a chat with it for a while. Then it got hungry and started charging us down if we got too near its meal. I never thought I'd have to hand off an elephant. But yes, I have done that now.

One night we went to the tour guides family's local hut. We got on well with the tour guide, his name was Dorjee. We enjoyed the food and had a long chat. Eventually a guitar was produced and the meal turned into a rice wine fuelled sing song, alternating between traditional Nepali and traditional English songs. They entertained us with such songs as the harvest blessing song and several traditional dances, we in turn entertained them with such British traditional songs as Tribute by Tenacious D, God Save the Queen by the Sex Pistols and If You Wanna Be My Lover by the Spice Girls. It was a most multicultural experience.

The Two Stupas

2008-12-12T00:56:00.000-08:00

I kept these in a separate entry because they were a highlight, not even just of the trip, of the world.
Two big towers at different ends of the city, Swayambunath and Bodnath, each with the Buddha's eyes painted on all four sides of them. Most things are impressive because of their height or their size, or their architectural cleverness, sometimes their history, but these had all those things and that still wasn't what made them so amazing. I don't even know what it was.
Bodnath is a massive pagoda shape with hundreds of Buddhists making their daily prayer rounds. There was a choice between entering through the front gate for 50rs or through one of about 50 side entrances free of charge. (???) We went right round and spun every single prayer wheel which took a while. Then the power went out and we had dinner on the top of a roof while the Buddha glared at us eating our chow mein.
Swayambunath was my favourite. Supposedly the lice from a holy mans head have evolved into monkeys up there, so thats why it has the title of "monkey temple" This one stood on the top of a hill and the eyes towered over the top of everyone, like they could see everything you couldn't. There wasn't much we coulnd't see though because we were so high up that we had a view of every single colourful house in Kathmandu. We stayed up there till darkness and watched the monkeys.
The Buddha's eyes appear all over Nepal, and you have to see them for real before you properly get it

Kathmandu

2008-12-06T21:15:00.001-08:00

As things worked out we ended up staying in a place built entirely for foreigners called Thamel. It was a good place with lots of fun shops and places to eat but I ended up getting scammed the worst I've ever been scammed. It was close to robbery. So I was fed up of that place that night.

But all you can do is go to sleep and put it behind you. Next morning, it turns out Kathmandu is the best city in the world. Escape Thamel, and its like nowhere else. We saw loads and loads of religious monuments on the way in, and they all accumulate in a place called Durbar square. It's an area of the city packed with Hindu/ Bhuddist temples. My favourite thing was that while we were wondering around taking in the temples, the Nepalis were going about normal life in the midst of it. The were kids washing in the holy fountains and school students flirting while sitting on monuments of Gods.
There was also supposedly a little Godgirl who stuck her head out of the window whenever her mood was such, which we could have seen if we were lucky. We weren't lucky, but we hung around for a bit in her courtyard just in case. She stops being a God at her first sign of humanness at a certain age so I think she was about three. Her selection involved being put in a dark room and frightened by a society of men making worrying noises. Cleverly, she kept her composure, and so, is now a God.

Pokhara

2008-12-06T20:45:00.000-08:00

Our first stop was a tourist haven with a big lake. We ate and slept like kings thanks to all the tourist stuff. Everything was so well run. The first day we hired a little boat and rowed out into the middle of the lake. From there we could see the mountain that looks like a fish, except it wasn't behaving very much like a fish because we were at the wrong angle. We ended up at a little temple on an island where they praised pigeons, being a sign of peace. They would pick up the pigeons and hold them to their heads while doing a ritual. The pigeons had no idea what was going on.

We also went paragliding. That was something else. Apparently the paragliding in Nepal is the best in the world because the rice fields hold so much moisture that the updrafts are really powerful and you can get really high. Anyway, flying is quite an experience. It wouldn't have worked to see the view of the lake any other way than by flying over it. We got really quite high at one point, higher than the hill tops, and we were flying around with about 10 other paragliders, one of which was the world altitude record holder. He was doing something called parahawking which was basically arial falconry. There was also another bird, which I don't think was attached to a paraglider, about 1.3 m across, flying about with us. So we were sharing the sky with this huge raptor.
The falcon's name was Kevin, and from time to time they enjoyed attaching a camera to its head. If your intersted, look up Kev cam on youtube.

In the evening we went to a bar which had a pet rat which crawled about the tables. It turns out Nepalis really like their dancing.

On the bus away from Pokhara I started to get a little uneasy, because its clear there are about three different places, and the roads that conntect them which are the only places tourists can go. It was a bit like being stuck in a tube. You could only see the country from inside the tube and it felt like there was a country going on outside of it but we were just floating along detached from it. It felt a bit artificial and unsettling and I really wanted to get on a cheap local bus and head somewhere random as soon as we got to Kathmandu.

The Journey Upwards

2008-11-30T04:52:00.000-08:00

"Eight hours??" we said, a bit dissolusioned by the thought another long bus journey after having finished the roughest one of our lives.
The travel agent confirmed: eight hours, but we knew it would be about nine or ten. The whole system was based on commision so half the words spoken were lies.
Southern Nepal was not a nice place. It was a lot like small town India but even more corrupt. We were being pestered at the bus station by men with amazing agression. But then we left that behind and started climbing into the hills and things started to get a little bit incredible.
We climbed our way up a track carved into the side of the hill. Amazing sheer hills covered in jungle, with palm trees and aloe vera plants on the side of the road. Roads like that are the inspiration for all the car chases you see in films. It went right up the side of the valley with frighteningly big mountains up ahead and a turqouise stream crashing through the middle of it. We went on. Little huts were dotted about all the way up. Real mountain people, and their rice fields spilled down the mountain sides all over the place. Then we stopped for a break on the side of the road, and for the first time, as if they were floating in the air, we could see the snowy himalayas, just visible in the distance.

Well now I'm surrounded by them, and Nepal is an incredible country. I really really never thought I'd ever be in the Himalaya, but now I'm quite amazingly on the verge of the roof of the world.

Nepal

2008-11-26T03:05:00.000-08:00

I'm in Nepal now. I'm fairly sure I used to dream about going to Nepal when I was a child, and now I'm here. I'm staying next to the birth place of the Buddha, in Lumbini, where the monks are have in prayer session for a while, during which I'm pretty much just let lose in Nepal. It's looking good, probably worth the 48 hour journey through U.P. (the worst state in India. no clean drinking water for two days.) It's quite exciting though. I'm sleeping in the monks tent tonight. There are good vibes in the campsite with lots of colourful tents and general monk good feeling.

Opportunist Umberella Salesman

2008-11-20T21:50:00.000-08:00

Indian Man in tracksuit: Hello sir
Tom: Hello
Indian Man: What country from?
Tom: Great Britain
Indian Man: Oh. Great Britain, very nice country.
Tom: Yes, I think so too.
Indian Man: Princess Diana, car accident.
Tom: Yes
Indian Man: Prince Charles
Tom: ...yes
Indian Man: Queen Elizabeth- queen
Tom: ...yes
(short pause)
Indian man: You need umberella purchase?
Tom: Sorry?
Indian Man: You need umberella purchase?
(produces filthy broken umberella from under his jacket)
Tom: Em... no thank you.
Indian Man: Ok
(Goes away)
(Comes back)
Indian Man: 1 rupee?
Tom: (looking in wallet) no, sorry, no change
Indian Man: 5 rupees? I need for cigarettes.
Tom: I don't have 5 rupees
Indian Man: 10 rupees.
Tom: Ok here you are, enjoy your cigarettes
(Indian man buys cigarettes using his hard earned money and returns 8 rupees change)

Rooftop Sensei

2008-11-18T02:25:00.000-08:00

We decided to go outside the other day onto the temple roof. So I was teaching this bunch of Bhuddist monks on the roof of a temple, which felt like something from a film.
I've been hearing more and more about the previous GAP teachers and I'm glad to know that I've entered into the legion of the "Good Teachers"
It sounds like there have been some real shockers. One guy with a short temper started with 15 students and ended up with two. Apparently the "Khenbo" (abbot) says I am a good teacher, which is nice given that I've never taught him. Like I said from the start, he has abilities of telekinesis, so that's how he seems to know.
The temple roof has a balcony on it, so in a few weeks the Advanced Class will be performing a scene from Romeo and Juliet. They don't know this yet but it will happen.

2008-11-12T21:53:00.000-08:00

The monks arrived suddenly on Saturday, so I'm happy. I've decided that monks are the best students in the world. Not as shy as the Indians but without the childminding aspect of the school kids. So my lessons are pretty awesome after the practice I've had with the other places.

We set off yesterday, a bus full of monks and the English teacher to go and watch an opening ceremony of a new monastery. (The monk's, being nutters chanted Indian pop songs all the way there) The new centre was of the sect that specialises in ceremonies so this ceremony was fittingly amazing. It had the silly hats and the sea shell trumpets and everything. We had to sit through a lot of chanting but every so often we got to throw flowers at eac other which was fun.

The Tibetan community in this part of the world (which I am obviously part of) is so small that you meet everyone at these kinds of things, all the teachers from the school were there, and the teachers from the nunnery.

Schools out

2008-11-12T21:40:00.000-08:00

The monks are safely home now and I've finished at the school. To be honest I'm quite happy. Primary school teaching is an impossible job. And it wasn't helped by the fact that I didn't speak their language. But I've had a really good time there and I'm glad I did it. I also never lost my temper once. I shouted quite loud a couple of times but The kids never really got the better of me. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe I should have cared a bit more. They all got really attached on the day I left which was quite sweet. It could have been because I just played games all day though.
A spin off is that they all come and visit me at the monastery. Imagine a swarm of human sized midges with voices like sirens. I'm surprised my phone and camera are still intact since all they seem to do is fight over them.
A little boy tried to steal my camera tripod the other day. After paying him to get out of my room the first time, he found his way back in picked it up and said
"Sir??"
"That's a tripod." I said hoping he'd lose interest.
"Sir I?"
"No you can't have it."
"What happen?"
"What do you mean what happen?"
"What happen?"
"I don't know get out of my room."
"What happen?"
I picked him up and lifted him out. Later on they both said goodbye. I searched his pockets and found my tripod up his sleeve.
"Sir, what happen?" He said.
"No. Not what happen." And sent him on his way after getting a refund of the rupee I had paid him to behave.

But I'm sure I'll give the school a visit from time to time.

Diwali

2008-11-01T23:53:00.000-07:00

I spent in Diwali Indian style.
I was invited to "Raj's" house. The evening started off decorating the steps of the computer centre with rows of little candles. It looked nice once we were finished. Then we brought out the fireworks. The next hour or two were spent playing with fireworks. I won't go into it for the sake of my parents but I was quite proud that the biggest explosions were from mine. Anyhow, the evening resulted in Raj getting his hand blown up by cunningly holding onto a firework and lighting it. He had to go to hospital.
The walk back to his house was like a mine field. There were bombs exploding everywhere. Little boys were aiming fireworks a at people and into sheds with people inside.
Raj got back home, smothered his hand in potato and went to hospital, so I was left alone in the local egg shop by myself. I watched the family light the candles and let them feed me. (Literally feed me). Then there was surprisingly little else to do so I watched a Hindi serial about the God Krishna which was a masterpiece.

Living in the Village

2008-11-01T23:32:00.000-07:00

Working every day outside the walls of the monastery has meant that I've met a whole load of new Indian people. Now just about the whole village is familiar with me. It has also meant that I am now giving English lessons in the local computer centre.

Indians go mad for English lessons. I think it's because they see it as a sort of ticket into a bright future. They associate it with education and development. It's a shame because it sums up the lack of hope that they have in their country. I speak perfect English and it doesn't make anything any easier, but they're still desperate to learn it.

The offshoot of this is that a load of Indian men now have my phone number. Every night I get a text saying
"GOOD NIGHT
TOM"
I don't know who it's from but I appreciate the thought. I also get walked home by a bunch of guys who like to practice their English, so I have t0 go the long way home, so I'm always late for dinner.
It seems I've been inducted into one of the social circles of the villagers.

The school hasn't calmed down either. In fact as I run out of steam day by day, the lessons get worse. (it's hard to make them work when you don't really mind if they do or not.)
Yesterday I made a big mobile with lots of drawings of birds that the class 1,2 and 3 kids had done. I also painted a picture of Minnie mouse in Tibetan dress on the wall. So my legacy will stay on in the school for years. Not just in the minds of the children. Minnie mouse might perhaps last longer than what I've been teaching them. The other day I ran out of ideas so I just did a whole lesson on soup.

Class Time

2008-10-20T04:13:00.000-07:00

Excercise: Draw three people with different jobs and write 4 sentences about each.

(boy brings out jotter)
Tom: Ok whats this?
Boy: He's lifting a table (shows drawing of man lifting table)
Tom: Ok... that's not really a job is it?
(boy stays silent)
So a job, like teacher or doctor or postman.
(boy nods)
So what's this?
Boy: Doctor
Tom: Doctor, yes, ok good. And what's this.
Boy: He's doing toilet. (shows drawing of man urinating.)
Tom: right... is that a job?
(boy nods)
Tom: No I don't think it's really a job.
Boy: He is very bad man.
Tom: Ok well doing the toilet's not actually bad. But its not really a job. I mean like doctor or teacher.
Boy: yes (doesn't move)
Tom: ...ok, doing the toilet, very good

Back to School Again

2008-10-16T04:00:00.000-07:00

Well I'm back to work, this time in a different sort of school. Two buildings: a lunch hall and a class building. 5 class rooms, one for each class and a small hut where dinner is cooked.
They don't have a timetable as such. I just kind of have to guess where to fill in when there aren't any teachers which makes it quite hard to prepare lessons.
Today I was paraded around the village by the nursery kids, presented with a pink juice flask which was hung round my neck as a sort of medallion and handed gifts such as sticks, stones and a cocktail stirrer.
In the morning the older kids, as a token of their thanks for my efforts, offered me a worm, which I turned down, so instead they put it on a drum and saw how high it bounced when they hit the drum.

Indian Private School

2008-10-16T03:35:00.000-07:00

I spent the other night chilling out with the high society of India at "The Doon School Founders Day 2008" I swear I have never seen a more impressive school. They had huge steel gates painted black "donated by the Hyderabad Society," with guards sitting on duty. Inside were loads of tall, grand buildings surrounding cricket pitches and the like. It's a boarding school and the boarding houses are sort of Roman villa style. It's good for once to see signs that some Indians are given opportunities like that.
So there was this huge boarding school like a walled garden in the middle of the city. They had a big show with speeches and dancing. Despite the school's elite reputation the music was dismal, but I liked the dancing. As if they knew I would be visiting the guitar and piano ensemble played a Celtic jig to remind me of home, which was nice, but like I said it was dismal.
I then went and had a small chat with Chris Patten who was the guest speaker which was fun.
All the private school operatings sort of reminded me of home, back at Dundee High. It was all very familiar, except it was the first time I had really seen it from the outside. It's funny that it happened to be in India.
In the corner of the school grounds was a 50m x 50m settlement of slum houses, with tin roofs and plasic bags for doors. It was the view from the balcony of the boy's room I was in. I asked the one of the boarders why they were there. Apparently the workers who had built the new boarding house which I was sitting in had set up camp there while they were on the job, and never really left. So the grime of the city had somehow made its way inside the school walls, just so we didn't forget where we really stood.

Monk friends

2008-10-11T04:02:00.000-07:00

A thing that was rather nice the other day was that I walked into the large monastery where the monks are currently staying, and I as I walked through the grounds, every so often I heard my name, and turned round to see a delighted monk. And they were all very pleased to see me when I went and met most of them in their bedroom.
I have a group of friends up here in India, who happen to be monks, which makes me happy.

Another Change of Plans

2008-10-11T03:53:00.000-07:00

Don't plans change easily.

It turns out I'm not travelling anymore. Down the road from the monastery there's a terribly understaffed little Tibetan school. Some of the kids know me already. They call me "Mr Tom" I decided it would be better to stay and teach here rather than being moved by GAP to a different monastery. On visiting to discuss the details I found out that they were desperate for more teachers and the headmaster was a very nice man. They were very excited and wanted me to start the next day. You can't break a Tibetan's heart- it would be like hurting a kitten, so I agreed that I would start on Monday.

It's an exciting prospect- I'm teaching 6 hours a day- sports, music and English. The children will call me Mr Tom and I will get to know the Tibetan village really well.

Then on November 15th the Monks are coming back and we're all going to Nepal which is also fun.

Staying by the Ganges

2008-10-06T10:14:00.000-07:00

I'm in the spiritual capital of the world- Rishikesh. It's very sacred to Hindus, quite sacred to Buddhists, and I'm sure it's sacred to some others as well. In the evening we watched some Hindus perform a ceremony over a stand of candles, before floating them out into the river. The place is full of shrines and people bathing in the river (I might just go paddling in it tomorrow).
Tonight we ate in this bamboo restaurant where we sat on the floor, while the Ganga flowed past us. We have vague plans to go rafting along the river tomorow. The trouble is, its a murky turquiose colour. Which is worrying.
Despite all the holy significance its still a really nice little town.

Musoorie

2008-10-06T09:57:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm on the road now, living away from Puruwala. For the moment I'm sort of based in Toral's house in Dehradun, but going away to surrounding places every day.

This weekend I went to Musoorie with two of the Dehradun girls. Musoorie is a town way up high on a cloud, like I thought heaven would be when I was a child. It had horse rides and a ferris wheel, like I thought heaven would be when I was a child.

This was the first time I'd ever ridden a horse, which I found rather funny, since i was riding it round an Indian town. There was an Indian man following each horse but we could have easily stolen them and ridden them down the hill to save us the pain of taking a bus.

The ferris wheel was man powered. There was a man who stood in the middle and powered the ferris wheel like a hampster.

There is a cable car ride to the top point of the town- "Gun Hill" Unfortuanately it was far too misty to see much of a view, so instead, I went into a photo booth, dressed up as a Moghul prince and knighted an Indian man.

Musoorie is what they call a "hill station" in that it is just a town perched on the very top of a hill. Although the views were not to be seen today, it was really nice to feel cool again with the altitude. There was just a touch of Britain about it, with the ferris wheel and the horse rides, but only a touch and no more. There were also a whole load of Indians on holiday. When Indians are on holiday their favourite thing to do is take photos of Westerners, so me and the girls must have wasted hours posing for photos for Indian holiday makers, sometimes with the men getting a little too close, and sometimes holding their babies.

The Post Office Catterpillar Farm

2008-09-29T01:18:00.001-07:00

Yesterday one of the monks and I walked through the network of paths through the fields to reach the post office. When we got there we found there was nobody in. (It was Sunday of course.) The post office is strange enough because it sits in the middle of a field, but if you go inside, you see two shelves and part of the ground laden with leaves. The first thing you're aware of is a very faint munching sound, before you realise that on top of the leaves are thousands of little catterpillars, all scoffing away. They're used as a local enterprise to make silk, and a couple had already spun their silk cocoons. But here were about 100,000 catterpillars, eating, in the village post office.

Fear of Insects

2008-09-29T00:58:00.000-07:00

My fear of insects has gone from virtually none to a constant underlying sense of paranoia. The monastery is insectopia. One day I watched my bathroom become infested with ants before my eyes. In the space of about a second they all pored out of a hole in the wall, each one holding a tiny little egg. But it's not really the ants that bother me.
One night while checking the practicalities of having guests in my room I found a little scorpion under my matress. Which was nice. I had been sleeping on top of a scorpion. It's gone now. Whether it's still in my room or not I don't know. I have pressed my matress quite firmly up against the wall though so it doesn't snuggle up next to me.

Before I came to India I knew that the most painful sting in the world belonged to some wasp which lives in the jungle. On a trek up a forest path I came across a small managerie of wasps. I didn't know if the wasp with the painful sting even lived in India, but I decided it propbably did, and therefore one of these wasps must be that kind of wasp. There was one big one which was yellow all over with long legs sharing a leaf with a huge red one, and one other circling their plant. (I later found out it wasn't the yellow long legged one since I watched one in the village which had landed on the ground on its back and couldn't get up again, so I decided that the most powerful sting in the world couldn't have been entrusted to something so stupid.) I tried to take a picture of them, but was scared in case I annoyed them with the flash and was stung by the vicious jungle wasp.

Today I was walking down a dried up river bed where I thought it would be nice to read, since it was leafy and shady and cool. However as I was walking along I got ensnared by a strand of spider silk. I stepped back, an looked for the web. It was next to my head and on it was a huge red black and yellow spider, about the size of my hand, sitting watching me from above.

Puruwala

2008-09-29T00:44:00.000-07:00

I went exploring the other day so I know a lot more about where I live now. It's three sides farmland anmd one side forest, and properly rural. It reminds me a little bit of the jungle book. The fields are small and owned by the people who live in the houses next to them. There are cows everywhere. Each house has an average of about 4 cows.
I went up the prayer flag hill, which was modest compared to the one at the nunnery, but still nice, and from there you had a view of the river and its entire floodplain. I also went exploring up the road a bit. The road up from the village is one of these roads which are carved into the side of the hill and wind all the way up it. When you reach the top it takes you into the middle of proper tropical jungle, with fluorescent green leaves and creeping vines, where I saw monkeys (in the wild). The road wound along the top of a ridge next to a valley, and on the opposite face of the valley, I watched an Indian lady who was cutting up and collecting undergrowth from on a sheer slope, and teetering on the edge of a 30m high drop of bare soil where the vegetation had given way under a land slide.
Today I was warned if I go up to the net village, up the hill I must not go into a house for tea, because they will drug me and steal all my stuff. So I won't be doing that.
Still I really don't want to leave this place so soon and I'm going to try and arrange to stay here over the nexty two months while the monks go away.

2 Month Holiday

2008-09-25T04:56:00.001-07:00

Big news everyone.
The monks have just informed me that they are going away and leaving the monastery empty for to months while they go to Dehradun to recieve the teachings of his holiness Sakia Trinsen. So I will be redundant and untied to travel where I like. There is a chance that I might get put into another completely different monastery, but at the moment it's looking like I'm heading up North to see all my friends in Daramsala, Shimla, Manali...
It was a bit of a shock at first. It's not often something that big gets announced out of the blue. But I'm really excited now. Who knows where I'll be in a few weeks?
We'll have to wait and see. You could never really predict that far ahead over here.

Indian Bus Travel is Rubbish

2008-09-25T04:53:00.000-07:00

The other night I was literally dumped by the bus driver about 5 miles away from Puruwala. He drove us to some obscure little town and then told everyone to get off. So I had to walk the rest of the journey through the pitch black Indian countryside.
That's the main reason why I hate Indian buses. But not the only.

You Can Never Fill a Rickshaw

2008-09-25T04:40:00.000-07:00

I'm in Paonta Sahib right now, and I got here in a vickrim with 20 people in it!
That's 20 people in the space of a ford escort, with the horse power of a moped.

Four on each seat in the back, two children on their mother's lap, five people on the driver's lap, four people hanging on to the outside.

I also just had an hour long haircut and shave at a barbers.

2008-09-22T22:02:00.000-07:00

I was in Dehradun the other week. I think its a far better city than Delhi. The main place is Polton Bazaar, which is next to the big clock tower. Its a proper Indian bazaar which sells all sorts of stuff like whistles and filthy clothes. You can usually see a cloud of pink candyfloss floating above the crowd, before you find out its attached to a stick and there's a man trying to sell it. The beggars there are even more desperate, and quite violent at times, which is really sad to see. There's also a chicken street which sells nothing but eggs, so its got shop after shop of hens in cages laying. I don't spend much time there though because its so smelly.

I was Paltan bazaar, shopping, looking around, when we saw fireworks up ahead. We went over to find out it was a big Hindu festival parade. There were men with big tubas and people dressed up as Gods on big carnival floats, and people throwing pink chalk everywhere. Several little boys tried to "pink" us. We tried to run, but we couldn't hide, and eventually we resigned to our fate of being absolutely covered in pink. We were then grabbed, somehow, and (I don't even remember how I got there) were suddenly in the middle of a Hindu parade, dancing with Indian men. They were loving it. So I was shaking hands with all these pink Hindu revellers, while dancing Indian style. Then a cameraman started filming us. I got separated from the girls I was with, but went back to find one dancing with an oxe, the other with a skeleton.

Next day at Toral's house we did Yoga. It wasn't spiritual, it was horrible. And it gave me back pain.

So we had fun in Dehradun, but I was really glad to get back to my quiet monastery.

The Local Elephant

2008-09-22T21:58:00.000-07:00

I have seen the local elephant twice now. Its got geenish blue Hindu patterns all over its face, so I think its a very spiritual elephant. It's ridden by a man who sits cross legged on a crate on its back whith a whicp to keep the flies off his face. I saw it once strolling about the farm next to me, and a second time when we had to squeeze past it on the bus back from the town.