[Insert Applicable] India, February 2005 and June 2009

People people everywhere, Bombay Station

Irritating.  People often exclaim in utter disbelief when I explain that I was 18 and alone the first time I went to India.  Now at the ripe old age of 25 even I have started to believe that it was something of a feat.  Although not necessarily a dangerous country there are things that would test the most experienced traveller and requires all those who visit to be constantly vigilant of their surroundings.  I found it exhausting to constantly negotiate and renegotiate prices, ask directions from 10 different people and get 10 different answers , being poked and prodded at all times of the day or night and lastly being constantly followed by a hoard of men staring with love sick eyes hoping I’d accept their proposals.  Yet none of these things really got under my skin as much as having my photograph taken.  ‘What?’ you are probably thinking, out of everything that could happen the simple camera was the single most threatening device?  Let’s put it this way I know what pushed Brittany Spears over the edge.  I don’t mind the odd request or being surrounded by an entire family, shown off like some rare specimen.  In the end, even on the ‘traveller trail’ Westerners can be few and far between, but it was incessantness of it.  It felt like every minute of every day was spent staring down the wrong end of camera lens. The second time I visited it was even worse, the technology had developed to such a point that not only could everyone have a lifelong memento of my viewing but they could tell their friends about it, to this day I can’t stand camera phones.

Ornate Temple, Pondicherry

Enlightening.  I suppose everyone who spends any time in India has a spiritual experience, but no I really did.  I didn’t meet a guru or learn to meditate on a remote peak in the Kashmiri mountains but I did learn a lot about faith.  I don’t think many people could say with complete confidence they live a religious life, it almost isn’t very fashionable, so when you do come across someone completely committed to living by a set of rules set out by an authority that can’t be fully proven you sit up and take note.  I was lucky I didn’t just meet one, I met two.  Some of the cliché still stands; I was on a beach in Goa, staying in a shack by the sea, everyday we’d get up before sunrise and walk the cool darkness of the beach to watch the fishermen haul in nets thronged with quivering silver fish, but there the comparison ends.  The days were spent avidly reading every scrap of literature the two of them had with them about Christianity and in the evenings debating the things I had learnt.   Neither was extreme in their views nor aggravated by my constant questioning, in fact both were perennially calm because you don’t need to justify faith it’s just there.

Sunset out of Kochi

Idyllic.  Nothing happens quickly in India.  Despite 1 billion people bustling through their daily lives no one is rushed.  No matter how late you are an old friend in the street cannot be passed without sharing a glass of chai and nattering about the state of the government or pesky relations.  Nothing epitomises this outlook on life more than train travel.  Indians will spend days on trains journeying vast distances to work or to see relatives.  2^nd Class sleepers is where I spent most of time and they were basic but perfectly equipped.  6 people crammed  into a carriage; in the day, 3 abreast you are sat staring out of the window at the changing landscape and at night, lying in your fold out bunk you can stare at the stars.  One of my destinations was the Kerala backwaters where you can slip silently through a maze of waterways on traditional kettuvallams (houseboats).  Palms trees line the shores and houses on stilts cling to the banks.  The water is like glass, mirroring the boats above but also a portal into the turquoise depths below.

Market in Mysore

Indescribable.  Busy, noisy dirty, colourful, beautiful.  India simply defies explanation.  From one day to the next you are confronted with contradictions; old and new, traditional and modern.  The stillness and calm of ancient temples to an overcrowded buzzing marketplace.  The contrast is especially noticeable in the bigger cities where sparkling office blocks sit adjacent to thousand year old architecture or young people eating burgers and French fries in a packed out MacDonald’s go outside to pickup up dripping orange Jalebi’s.  This melting pot of paradoxes makes India bewitching, ensuring an unforgettable experience whatever might happen.