S'il vous plait, un pain au chocolat.

Yes, I really spoke those words.....
This is because I am now in Pondicherry - the old french colonial seaside town which manages to mix french speaking Indians and hectic tamil street stalls, honking richshaws and empty french architecture-filled streets in a pot and create a chilled out place where dosas meet croissants (in my stomach) quite happily. Whats more, the ashram where I am staying serves the best cheapest coffee in town whilst overlooking the sea. Someone is a happy bunny.....
My last post began on the train to Bangalore which was a good calming stop over ....I was told to give in to Adi's mum spoiling me and so the next few days consisted mainly of eating lots of wonderful home cooked food, short trips into town, discovering new breakfasts (like crumbled chapattis in warm milk and sugar), a visit to the Bangalore Club where Churchill still has a debt of 15 Rupees and seeing Adi. 
Bangalore is a very green and yet its not really a walking city between enclaves.... It is 'high tech city' but in all reality it is still just a bustling place with as many potholes and street filling antics as any other. There are fruit-sellers with mountains of watermelons everywhere, countless stray dogs and cows with their horns painted. One never walks on the pavement - in most of India this is true- as it continuously goes up and down if it isn't being dug up or covered with rubble.... 
We (me and Adi) took a day trip to Mysore which is one of the most touristy experiences of my life - the bus even stopped off at shops and in the evening a lit up musical fountain that 'danced' to bollywood tracks! Yup, only in India.... However, the Palace at Mysore was impressive and Tipu Sultan's summer palace, the first place we visited in  Sriangapatnam was worth the 16 turned bus journey (and the punctured tire on the way back).  It was a gorgeous two floor indo-islamic design with every wall, ceiling, surface bar the floor painted in trees, flowers and geometric patterns. Thought the paint was peeling and it wasn't well looked after its the only place I would want to revisit. 
It was lovely spending time with Adi, meeting his friends, getting my first coconut water, seeing his old neighbourhood and generally catching up. So five days later, armed with lots of Adi's mums recipes written down, I left on a sleeper bus to Pondicherry and back to the sea.
One thing people tell you to see when you go to Pondy is to check out a place called Auroville - a small international community with land bought by 124 countries that has new age bonkers written all over it. In the name of Totnes I thought I had to go. It also has a reputation for lots of artists and craft and amazing paper....
Deciding to save money I'd been told by the women who booked my flights that I could get a bus there. I knew I'd have to walk through a village a little way to get there, so when the bus dropped me off on the main road I set off expectantly.  I passed scores of coconut trees blown over in fields, which I'd been told is the reason that Pondy is hotter then normal for this time of year, a steaming 32-36 degrees with about 50-60 % humidity. In Pondy there is always a light breeze as its on the coast but in land it was a different game entirely. It was hot, seriously hot. But with the same stubborness of my mother on a long walk I was determined not to give in- it was good to feel like I was doing something. Besides, dotted every 500 meters was a few shops with names like Auroville boutique and cafes serving drinks should I want to stop.... My family may remember a time when we walked several hours in the Sinai Desert to the town that never seemed to get closer - and then we discovered it was 10 K away. This wasn't too dissimilar. The woman at the travel agency had omitted the fact that the walk was 8 K which was why I was the only one walking - everyone else passing me on rickshaws or motorbikes.
Eventually I arrived....exhausted....  The visitor center after  explained the new age idea of a township outside of nations boundaries and prejudice bla bla bla with no religion .... everyone works but there is no money and no religion and yet everyone seems to worship this french woman called The Mother and a guru called Sri Aurobindo.......and to top it off there is a big bizarre gold ball look a like monument that isnt meant to be a shrine but no one is allowed in to see the crystal that represents something significant.
The only achievement I really saw was in the environmental issues - lots of organic farming, solar power and re-forestation - and craft. That said, the paper was no more impressive then some I've seen in Paperworks in Totnes i.e. not worth carrying home. I was too tired to really explore and it didn't seem like one could really just wander into Auroville itself with much welcome. I took a rickshaw back, resolute in the fact that I'd seen a lot of countryside and several real Indian villages and had a (mostly) enjoyable long walk.
I like walking and rickshaws don't seem to get this..... however, they do have a lovely policy of closing the road by the sea every evening from 6 pm so people can walk freely up and down the beach .
The only real frustration I've had in Pondy is that unlike Bangalore where no one cares, here I feel like a walking exhibit. By the end of last night I was ready to smack the next person who asked for a photo- I look forward to being anonymous again.  That said, I've been drawing and found some very happy models and some not so happy models. Last night I was eating in a restaurant that was busy when a man, without looking at me or asking, rudely sat opposite on my two person table. I got my sketchbook out and drew him and having drawn up his own fate, he couldn't really move tables.ha.I felt we were even by the end.
Next I travel onwards to Madurai and possibly into Kerela or the Western Ghats.....  and then mid- april I fly up to Delhi to explore the north- up into the great Himalayas: Long family walks on Dartmoor and elsewhere will not have been in vain......
love
L. x

' Look Mum, Just Hands!!!'l

Helloooooo from India!


I'll try keep it not too long but so much has happened in the last few weeks up till now.apologies to those whom I promised short entries, phew... India is a crazy wonderful place. That was the first impression I got when I landed in Mumbai and its stayed with me, everything I see seems to repeat and strengthen that description.
I'm writing on a train (okay, I'm actually typing on a computer but I wrote this on a train... )-upper berth  in 3rd AC with curtains so it feels pretty luxurious as I head towards  Bangalore. Yup, I am going to the hi-tech city of India to see an old friend. But lets not get ahead of the trainride....
So speeding back, I landed in Mumbai and took  a taxi into town through all the slums at about 6 in the morning. They are the most characteristic buildings I've seen, each kilometer looks like thousands of stories all piled up on top of one another.Shacks built on shacks and then homes built in the spaces in-between. It really does look like a city in a city, as I've been told.
Mumbai is sprawling and mad and intense. You can turn off a main street into a village look- a like area with no roads and then back into modern honking Mumbai. Then you have the huge colonial-era buildings: European architecture towering over a street that's so unlike any in Europe that its surreal.  The weather and the dust have not been kind to the fascades of the buildings, which makes them seem even more obscure. In one way they fit with their surroundings: people hang washing from some grand balconies which are almost in ruin and they too become part of the street.... whereas other buildings are clearly still used for official business. What's more, out of gardens poke tropical flowers and plants, gardens that look western in design with crazy pinks that you'd never get in northern Europe. I love it.
I didn't really go sightseeing, I just walked around the city a lot, first by myself and then after two days with Aimee (friend from Totnes, at the end of her travels who joined me in Mumbai )  and Kat.
Kat is a story..... so after two nights at a dingy hostel I booked from home, I joined Aimee at the Red Shield Salvation Army hostel - where you cant prebook but you can sleep in the center of Coloba for 225 rupees a night (amazingly cheap). Its a place with character, lots of steps and sunny dorms (and bucket showers when the water ran out. ). Waiting to rendevouz with Amy there,  having put my bag down and collapsing on my bunk bed, in comes a girl carrying an enormous sitar case with pink hair which pretty much sealed my first assumption of - I like you. My first impressions were right, Kat hails from plymouth, was lovely, had been to India three times, took me for my first masala dosa and gave me lots of good advice.
My first night in Mumbai, Ruchita (Adi's gf who I know from London) took me out to a gig in Bluefrog.Yes, rather crazy, jumping in the deep end, but it sorted out the jet lag by going to bed extra tired and late. Bluefrog is considered one of thebest music venues in India, and its interior with crazy pod seating and the sound system was very impressive for any standard. We went to watch a band whose music is a composite of traditional Indian and modern rock. It was fantastic, not just the music but also seeing the cosmopolitan contemporary side of the city. I also visited Ruchita's house where her mother made a feast of all the traditionally south Indian food- dosa, uttapam, idli, samba.... which was delicious.That however, wasn't my first big food encounter in India. My second night i persuaded a Mexican guy in my dorm to come out for a meal. We walked through Mumbai till we came across a busy restaurant where they spoke no English. After debating whether to go for the point and see method of ordering, the waiter told us to order 'dinner' pointing at the chalk board on which something illegible was written, to which we obliged. Dinner turned out to be Thali.- a platter of lots of different curries and chutneys with rice and chapatis in the middle - no knives or forks, just hands. This was a real welcome to India. I watched as other people ate gracefully, spooning rice with delft movements into there mouth, making no mess. Watching and learning I did manage to eat-albeit messily. After three weeks most food ends up in my stomach and not on the table  but I've still a long way to go to being elegant.
The other big adventure of India is the trains.Before you go everyone says trains are india... trains are amazing, you must take trains etc.... and they are right, the train system here is so impressive it makes me wonder how national rail can be so crass. Aimee took me at 6.30 am to buy my first train ticket. Being high season still, most trains for the next week to Goa were booked up, so Aimee took me at 6.30 am to buy my first ticket - an early start to catch the first reserved tourist tickets of the day which generally sell out within one hour. We filled out the form, sat and waited until the office opened with about 8 other tourists.... and at eight we watched as the ques grew in all the other lines till the ticket hall was jam packed. I owe my ticket to the lady at the counter who was sorting out about ten peoples tickets at the same time, calling us up for something and then sending us back. Half praying, half frantic searching, and did I want the emergency ticket, you must answer now yes or no or yes or no..... by magic that lady made a ticket appear on a train that had none spare.
Even then the adventure was not over. I managed to misinterpret the station name.... headed to the wrong station and spent the taxi journey back to Mumbai CST comforting Aimee that it wasn't her fault (why would it be)  and how as a Milward it was in my blood to be running late but still arrive just on time which we did: With five minutes to spare I even bought a bottle of water, as Aimee found my carriage and settled me in.  That was mostly thanks to a taxi driver that seemed as anxious as us (when we said we only have half an hour) to cross every red light to get us there. Luckily he was one of the rare drivers that knew where to go. Most of my rides have ended in rickshaw drives asking other people for directions as Indians it seems rarely say they don't know or give no for an answer. And a word on drivers -especially in Mumbai, I think they must be the best drivers in the world because they drive like mad men- not aggressive just with very few rules. The roads are chaos and they must dodge other rickshaws, motorbikes, bikes, carts, taxis, people, cows, stray dogs and yet they never seem to crash, they simply flow and miss everyone else by an inch without flinching.  If people drove like that in England there would be five crashes a minute.  India is the epitome of organised chaos.
However, I was heading for calm.....
I arrived in Palolim, south Goa, the next morning afternoon after a bus ride so packed that the porter was hanging of the door for half an hour.  Kat had asked her friend from Krishna's bookshop to save me a room.... on arrival I was told that Krishna had no more rooms but his next door neighbour was keeping a room for me. Only Israeli's who arrived at the same time had taken up all the other rooms and the lone girl of the group needed a room. I was waiting around to speak to Krishna when she comes up to me and says to I want to share a room. In a mad decision I said yes.  Partly because she was Israeli I trusted her, partly the group she was with, partly the daring, and because it would be a lot cheaper ..and so the next chapter began.

Goa is beautiful, the sea was warm etc etc but it didn't really feel like India. Aside from the cows, it could have been a beach in any hot country. And for someone who skipped the party scene in north Goa and is used to empty beaches, it felt quite touristy. It was a lovely chill out spot, we went for boat rides, saw dolphins and eagles, tried to get past the election curb on alcohol sales after 11 pm and spent a lot of time hanging out the the bet habad (spelling? ) a.k.a jewish home. Weird to have that kind of thing in India, a place for Jews run by volunteers..... where we could eat for free, play there guitar, make coffee.....When I say we - I was hanging out with Hofit (the girl I was sharing a room with) and big group of Israeli guys, Nimi, Guy, Shalom, Amit, Dan, Ron, Raz, Shani, Nadav, (pardon if I've forgotten names, its another Milward trait) whom I got to know in direct proportion to how well they spoke English . .

From Goa I travelled down to Gokarna, another beach spot which was less touristy about two hours south. Hofit came with me and the  following day we moved to the next beach down the strip - which meant carrying our backpacks about 3 kilometers up and over a hill to the next crescent of shiny sand-  to rendevouz with Guy and Nimi. When they got bored two days later, I decided to take join them on the 10 hour local bus ride to Hampi rather then risk travelling alone (I'd been a little bit ill).Yes, I did just write 10 hour Local, no air con, bus ride. It was long and bumpy but after that I think I can do anything.

Arriving in Hampi was the most gratifying experience I've had to date. Hampi is well known for its ruins, the remnants of what was for one short period of time the largest Indian empire. Hampi's real beauty lies in its landscape. It is a landscape like no other- fields of bright green rice paddies from which giant hills covered in dry sandy rocks and boulders rise up and tower over. Greener then Devon after rain and with hills that look like they hide dinosaurs, it feels like a jurassic landscape. It reminds me of no other place and has a real sense of stillness to it.

In Hampi we met up with the gang from Goa, and some newbies who had found their way to Shesh Besh- the grimy restaurant which became THE Israeli hangout. I was the only English person in a sea of Hebrew. Even the waiters knew Hebrew. I swapped Hebrew for English with Shalom and quizzed everyone else on words right up until I left, the end result being that now in Bangalore I  keep wanting to say 'Ma ze' and 'Todah' and offer Adi 'mime'. ......
Days in Hampi consisted of walking around temples, getting rides to the lake and to the monkey temple. The monkey temple was about 500 steps up a huge hill. At the top , after removing shoes, you come to a small white temple surrounded by lots of monkeys.Barefoot one climbs and walks over a huge puzzle of rocks to  watch the sunset before racing down before the dark settles. It was absolutely stunning. The temples are impressive, like seeing greek temples covered in carvings, huge columns and such, but they have nothing on the landscape. Driving through paddy fields was magical and our pilgrimages to the bird temple and monkey temple were something I could have done endlessly.

And then there was Holi. I'd planned half my trip around Holi - the festival of colour. The story it celebrates, as far as I understood, is the killing of a demon who could not be killed by a weapon. So the hero tore him apart with his bare hands. I don't know how that translates to throwing colour on each other but my fingernails are still pink, a little reminiscent of blood which perhaps relates to the blood on the hands of the hero. Who knows....
During festivals there are no shops open - no food till 6 pm ... and no rules. This makes festivals potentially very dangerous. We stayed on the other side of the river to Hampi town so it was smaller... and  having a big group made me feel safe after all the horror stories I'd heard (just about eve teasing and allergic reactions to paint, nothing really bad). We woke up, put on our worst clothes, mixed pigment and water in bottles and set about covering everyone we knew in paint. There was a big procession with a marching band and everyone dancing all the way up and down and up and down the 'highstreet'. The dancing was mad and beautiful. Indians have a rhythm of their own, fast,  twisting and natural, sometimes their dancing almost looked violent. Its the kind of atmosphere of crowds where you get drawn in and cant remain separate- mass mentality where everyone is letting loose.  For hours we were dancing, going wild and chanting and finding more paint..... no women though, just young school girls and foreigners. The festival finished officially at 1.30 pm .... after which we went back to Shesh Besh for more dancing with the owners (who took great relish in being allowed to cover our faces in paint). By four, exhausted and having pesuaded a place to make us  food, we all crammed into a rickshaw (about 10 of us and a few on motorbikes) and went to the lake, laden with soap to wash. At this point happy Holi became cursed Holi as the paint didn't wash off .... I got most on the paint on my face off  but Hampi was littered with red devils for days afterwards.
I wont write much more.... aside to say that parting from the Israeli's was a very sad moment - an end of an era. I will miss them and hopefully I will meet them when I go to the north.
I write more from Bangalore. Right now I am at Adi's, chilling out, being papered and playing with his dog Sandy - missing Dylan.
I miss you all. I'm having a fantastic time. The tan lines from my flip flops are getting ridiculously strong and I send you all of my love.
L.