Well, I've finally done it! I've given up the sand and surf for the bright lights and glittering piss soaked pavements of Managlore City! On the plus side, i actually slept in a bed with a real matress and a real pillow last night!! Pure heaven!! So anyway, I' actually just here on a stop-over as I head towards.. ummmm.... madekiri?? I think that's what it's called. Apparantly it has lots of trees and bugs or something.... To be honest I haven't got a clue, but I figure I'd better start moving or I'd spend the whole next few months trying to decide where to go! I've said goodbye to my dear Bro, who is heading back up to Mumbai to catch his flight home. It's been a real pleasure travelling with you bro, have to do it again soon! :) So... ummm.... funny stories.... I did actually write some down, but I forgot my book.... Hmmmm....

Well, I did test out my theory of the west coast of karnataka being a tropical paradise and the Lonely Planet omitting it as part of a conspiracy to keep tourists away from it's unspoilt natural beauty. Turns out it's just a bit shit. Me and Joel rented a Hero Honda (the ultimate Indian motorbike) and burned down the coast to the next town of Kumta. We arrived and cruised through the centre of town, which seemed to consist of one long chaotic road. We parked the bike and started wandering past numerous identical shops selling an assortment of unidentifiable goods... but something wasn't right... something felt very odd indeed... Then it hit me! Everyone was ignoring us and getting on with their normal business!!! What was wrong with these people!!? Having got so used to being stared at, smiled at, scowled at, and generally given huge amounts of undue attention, the annonymity of being ignored was overwhelming! What's wrong with me?! Is it my hair? Does my breath smell!! Why don't you love/hate me anymore? I can't bear the indifference!!.... Some people did glance at us, but no one would meet our eyes, like everyone had been given a special order from the head priest not to acknowledge any foreigner's existence. We tried ducking into a cold drinks shop to have a drink and chat to the locals. No such luck. An old man sat down next to me and I stared at him, waiting for his glance to cross mine before unleashing my most charming smile possible. He scowled and looked away as though he has just smelled something rotten... Oh well, it was a response at least!

Eventually we gave up and headed out into the countryside. As soon as we were away from the town the atmosphere changed. We wandered down a small track and met a family living by a temple, who we chatted with for a good 25 minutes, despite not sharing a single word of common language. Much nodding, smiling and gesturing later, we headed back towards the bike, our faith in humankind restored.

Joel's face has pretty much recovered from it's puss filled grossness, thanks to the wonders of anti-biotics... You can knock them all you like, but when it come to a choice between taking anti-biotics and being eaten alive by a puss-producing bacteria, I know which one I'd go for... :)

Right, i'm gagging for a piss, so i have to cut this short!!

seeya!

Ommmmmmmmmm

I can't be long becuase I'm actually melting and I'm afraid I might drip molten flesh on the carpet... Fuck me it's hot! Anyway, in case you were wondering, I am no longer wasting my time doing very little lying on a beach in goa. I am now doing even less lying on a beach in karnataka. It's a really rather special little beach called Om beach, becaue it's in the shape of an Om... You may remember it from my last trip to India... well I'm back sleeping out under the stars in the exact same spot as before. The beach is inhabited by a rare tribe of hippies who occupy there entire day sanding small pieces of coconut shell with the noble intention of making "mixing bowls": basically a small bowl for mixing tobacco and charras to use in "chillums": a device designed to make sanding small pieces of coconut seem fulfilling.... and so the circle is complete. These "Coconut Hippies" have also been known to sometimes break out of the shackles of bowl production and branch out into pipe making and even the occasional digereedoo... I however have resisted the temptation to give myself blisters doing manual labour all day, and have instead opted for the more realxing pastime of hammock testing... this involves buying a hammock, lying in it for a day, and then having it stolen, leaving you free to buy a different one.

My brother joel has been suffering lately from an infected mozzie bite which got worse after the chemist gave him steroid cream instead of anti-biotic cream... in fact he has just been to see the doc again and been told he needs to stay in town and get injections every day for 3 days! poor bastard. We're gonna go back to om beach now and move our stuff into town... well, that bought Om beach to an abrupt halt! By the way Mum, Joel's fine, no need to worry... just a nasty infection... Ok, I better go find him and start the move!!

laters!

Sunset Surprise...

There's something magical about the light at sunset. The way it seems to make everyone look 10 years younger, hides blemishes, deepens suntans, and saturates the whole world with warm apricot. It was during such a sunset that I found myself strolling down the beach with my friend Michelle the other day. It was a stunning piece of beach, where the mouth of a river estuary joins the sea and the two opposing tides battle for right of way. The tide was out, and the stretch of unmarked sand was practically deserted, save for a few romantic couples taking hand in hand strolls and enjoying the sunset.

I stopped for a moment to take a photo of this beautiful piece of natural watercolour art in the sky before continuing to stroll aimlesslessly up the beach. Then I realised that i no longer had my slippers (flip-flops). Realising that i must have put them down to take the photo, I turned around and scanned the beach where I guessed they must be. Imagine my surprise when I saw, in exactly the spot where my slippers should have been, a man squatting and taking a shit smack bang in the middle of the beach! Now I've seen some fairly public shitting in my time in india, but even when people shit in the road, they always use the SIDE of the road! This guy had chosen without a doubt the most exposed, open, and visible part of the beach possible. Add to that the fact that he had not bothered to dig a hole. Add to that the fact that he was in the process of creating an ihumanly large pile of shit that would have put a horse to shame. Finally, consider the fact that he is doing this apparantly ON my slippers and you can understand my surprise.

But what to do? Even from the distance at which I was stood I could already see more than I wanted to. There was no way I was going to walk up to him mid crap and ask for my slippers back! So, I did what any normal person would do: I started taking photos. I got a few real crackers. Very artistic framing and everything! So anyway, after he finished creating his mountain of poo, he held his trousers round his ankles and waddled down to the sea to wash his arse. I saw my chance and headed back to reclaim my slippers. You should have seen the look on his face as, returning from the sea, he sees me making a beeline for his pile of poo! Obviously oblivious to the presence of my slippers, which turn out to be about 2 feet from his turd, he must think I am moving in for a close-up inspection! Holding my nose i make a grab for the slippers and run away as fast as I can, the haunting image of his mega-shit following me like a bad smell..... :)

Are You Too High?

I had a pretty hectic day yesterday. I decided to go to Mapusa, the nearest town, to see a dentist and get some new CD's made. Everyone told me to rent a motorbike to make the trip, but being stubborn, i decided to take the local bus. Silly me. You see, my mistake was that when picturing the ride on the bus, I had imagined myself sitting down. Sitting down on the local bus is actually fairly pleasant, if a little bumpy. Standing up however, is a different story, especially when you are tall, as you have to have your neck constantly bent at a 45 degree angle whilst your head gets pounded into the hard roof. Anyway, I got there eventually, and set about finding the dentist. 20 mins later and I'm siting in the dentist's chair with his drill in my mouth. Now, compared to the 1 year waiting list I was offered in England to get dental treatment, I'd say that's pretty fucking quick service! So anyway, there I am, lying back trying to ignore the fact that some guy is willfully destoroying important parts of my anatomy, when the dentist leans back and says, "Are you high?". After struggling for a few minutes to understand the significance of the question (and failing) I eventually answer "Nnnnggg" (my mouth is packed full of cotton wool), and look at hime questioningly. "Are you too high?", he asks again. I start to wonder if maybe he hasn't been slipping me some gas and air while I wasn't looking... hey, maybe i do feel a little high after all! Or then again, does he maybe think that I'm really stoned, and it will interfere with the treatment.... "Too high??" I finally manage. "Yes, the filling, it is too high?" he finally clarifies. Ahhhh, the filling. ok. oops.

I also managed to get a load more cd's made whilst in mapusa, and sold 5 last night at the jam session at lokies bar. I made 1500 rupees for chaaarity! i wonder if they'll make me a saint?... Right, i'm starrrrvin, so i'm gonna go buy some super cheap food while i'm in town (at the beach everything is tourist prices)... masala dosa sounds like a plan....

laters! :)

Man. I've just been reading the news again. It's fucked. So many places I've been have been completely destroyed. I keep thinking about all the people I met there, locals working in guesthouses, shopkeepers etc. For most of them life was a constant struggle anyway, without having some random geological event destroying everything around them. Always seems to be the people who are already being fucked over who get hit by these things doesn't it? Or maybe it's just cos when it hits developed countries they're always well prepared and insured. Either way, reading the news it's hard not to start feeling the weight of all those suffering people pulling on your heart. It feels so wrong sitting here on the beach a bus ride away from the devastation and watching people play frisbee and sunbathe... but what to do? I'm thinking of trying to organise a benefit concert to raise some money... better than doing nothing i guess. anyway...

Happy New Year!! hope u all had a good one. I'm still recovering from mine... went to a rave and danced in the baking sun... :)

right, gotta go. promise to try and write something interesting next time... lot's has happened but just not in the mood to write abt it!

Hi all.

I'm ok, just in case you were wondering. I was quite a way from the coast when the earthquake hit. Still piecing together the news reports. Pretty fucking awful by all accounts. Would like to go and help but think i'd probably get in the way more than be of use... still will check out the possibility... Heading back to goa for new years, have to get sleeper bus tonight. Hopefully will be better than the last one! Mind you, I have a dodgy stomach coming on so maybe it'll be even worse!! should make good reading...

Is everyone out there ok? Was anyone in thailand when it hit? Was Singapore affected at all?

Right, need to go lie down and hope my stomach settles... I'll try to write all the amusing stories about hampi at a later, less sombre moment...

take care all...

Hell Ride to Hampi in the Cage of Death

"Maybe if I grab hold of that rail I'll be able to hold myself away from the tarmac" I thought as the bus careered on two wheels towards the black emptiness beyond the roadside. It's funny: you always wonder what will go through your mind the moment before you are killed horribly in a sudden accident; whether you will panic, start screaming and cling on to the old lady in the seat next to you, or whether you will remain calm and try to enjoy your last few exciting moments of life. Well, in those few moments while the bus was trying to decide whether to continue on it's wheels or on it's side, I managed to picture the entire pending disaster in my minds eye, and to be honest, it wasn't looking too promising. First I would be thrown against the window, which would promptly implode as the tarmac got to work on it. Then there would be nothing between me and the unpleasant prospect of being "grazed" to death. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself, let's backtrack a little.

So my mum arrived in Goa, and for a few days we enjoyed lazing around and enjoying the beach, but pretty soon we were all getting itchy feet. Then, one evening, we suddenly decided to leave the very next day and catch the sleeper bus to Hampi, which we had heard was a stunningly beautiful place to chill out. I had also heard that it was a complete nightmare to reach, with luxury buses turning out to be tin cans on wheels that drop you in the middle of nowhere etc etc. However, our minds were made up, and we bought tickets the next morning, and by 6pm we were sat outside the Paulo travels office in Mapusa being eaten by clouds of mosquitos and waiting for our first glimpse of our "luxury sleeper bus". Finally, an hour late, a small mini bus pulled up and someone started shouting "hampi! hampi!". After a moment of panic, we discovered that this was apparantly just the shuttle bus which would take us to the main bus in Panjim.

In Panjim we climbed aboard the bus that would be our home for the next 14 hours, and set about finding our seats. Mum and Joel had hit the jackpot, getting an upper berth bed right at the front of the bus. Me and Joanna were not so lucky. Our lower berth seat/bed didn't work, and despite numerous attempts to call over the steward bloke, we had still got no closer to a solution. In the end we managed to make him agree to let us take the opposite bed, and we tried our best to get comfy. After a few minutes a man came up the bus with a clipboard asking everyone to write down their name and adress and a list of what items they were carrying. He seemed very cheerful and we had a bit of a joke with him. In fact, to be honest he seemed pretty pissed, but I didn't think anything of it, I mean you don't have to be that sober to get a bunch of tourists to fill in a form.
After an hour or so, we stopped to have a piss break. As I was returning to the bus, the drunk guy, who was by now clearly hammered, started shouting at people. "Hey! Slow down! No hurry! This not train or plane! haha! Shanti!!". What a nice fellow, I thought. Little did I know that some hours later I would come close to punching his lights out.

Back on the bus I set about the arduous task of trying to sleep. Our bed was near the back of the bus, which in India is a baaaad idea. For some reason indian buses are designed with the wheels about halfway down the length of the bus, meaning that any movement in the front of the bus is amplified by a thousandfold by the time it reaches the back. This makes it less like a bus ride, and more like a fairground ride. I wouldn't be surprised if the indian military require all their fighter pilots to ride at the back of a sleeper bus at least once to test their resitance to multi-directional g-force. Anyway, by wedging myself in the bed, which is exactly the length of my body, I was able to fall into a kind of half sleep... until the crash.

I was awoken by a sound so horrible that I found myself instantly sat bolty upright. The first thought in my mind was that we had just hit one of the indian stall holders who have their portable stalls dangerously close to the edge of the highway. The sound had been of crunching metal, breaking glass, and screaming. Then suddenly my concern for the welfare of this imagined individual dissapeared as I realised that the bus was completely out of control and swerving violently towards the edge of the highway on two wheels. With the help of about a thousand different gods, we somehow ended up back on the highway, driving in a straght line, still at high speed. But the driver didn't stop. If anything he speeded up! About this time I realised that there was some commotion going on in the bed behind me. Joanna pulled back the curtain to find that the window over the couple behind us has smashed inwards and showered them in glass whilst they were in their sleeping bags.

Finally someone managed to shout at the driver to stop, and we started to try and sort out the mess and figure out what had happened. I climbed off the bus and headed around the back to inspect the damage. The entire back side of the bus was scraped and dented, and you could see where the window had been forced out of it's frame. I could see straight away what had happened. In india it is standard practice for buses to spend the entire journey dangerously overtaking trucks that they only have a 5 mph speed advantage over. This leads to continuous close shaves with the trucks coming the other way, who never slow down in the slightest, putting all their faith in the power of their horn and their karma. I have been in numerous close calls where the bus has swerved back onto it's side of the road and just avoided being clipped by a truck. Obviously this time it had been a little too close...

As I was thinking all this, the drunk guy from earlier came up beside me and started explaining what had happened. "You see! Truck coming here! But blinker still flashing! So I saying going left!". "I'm sorry, what do you mean YOU were saying going left?". "I driver!" he said, grinning at me. "But... but... your drunk!!" I spluttered, too shocked to be angry.. yet. "huh?", he stared at me prentding not to understand. "You're DRUNK!!!" i shouted, miming drinking from a bottle. "Ahhh, yes!" he said, still smiling. By now, a group of Indian men from the bus had begun to gather and were starting to understand the situation. They began shouting at the driver and occasionally pushing him and slapping him as he tried to profess his innocence.

After another ten minutes this was still going on but slightly calmer than before, and I started speaking with onme of the indian passengers. He explained to me that none of the indians on the bus had actual tickets, but had just paid the driver some baksheesh for the spare beds on the bus. Because of this, they actually had no authority to tell the driver what to do, and only one of the foreigners could really stop him from driving on. Minutes later I saw what they meant. Despite all of the abuse he had taken, the driver was back in the driving seat shouting at everybody to get on! Some of the tourists were climbing back on, and I suddenly realised that I had no choice but to get involved. I climbed up to the drivers seat. "Turn off the engine and get out of the drivers seat", I said in my most authoratative voice. "You go sit down now, no problem" he said, waving me away with his hand. "TURN OFF THE FUCKING ENGINE AND GET OUT OF THE BUS NOW!!!!", I shouted in his face. That got his attention, but still he was putting the bus into gear and getting ready to pull away, despite the fact that most people were still half on, half off the bus. "YOU WANT TO LOSE YOU JOB?!! YOU WANT TO LOSE YOUR JOB HUH??!! YOU WANT TROUBLE?!!", I shouted in his face, already wondering exactly what kind of trouble I was capable of giving him. Luckily this turned out to be enough and he grudgingly began climbing down out of the bus.

After further enquiries we discovered that there was another driver, who was only a BIT drunk. after all taking it in turns to smell his breath and ask him questions, we decided that we had no choice, and so with a group of indian men sat up front watching his every move, we set off once more.

As I'm sure you can imagine, sleep was not exactly easy for the rest of the journey, as every time the bus stopped I thought the drunken driver had bullied his way back into the driving seat and had to get up to check, but he soon went to sleep and I finally relaxed. Many very bumpy hours later we arrived in Hampi, and have been relaxing here since. Nothing exciting has really happened yet.. oh, except for accidently going swimming in a crocodile infested river... but that's another story... :)

...so luke skywalker's sitting with his dad on xmas eve. the fire's going and the xmas tree is twinkling away. then luke's dad says:

(darth vadar breathing and voice) "Luke. I know what your getting for xmas"...

"But Father! How can you know?!"

"I've been feeling your presents for some time now..."

Bu Boom.

as you've probably guessed, I have nothing interesting to say. I hope you like my joke tho. It needs to be told out loud with Vadar voice and sound effects to really work. I told it to this Irish guy the other day, and all through the joke he was grinning inanely and looking like he was getting it. Then I told the punchline and he just stared blankly at me. "You know, it's a line from the movie.." I said. "Which movie?" he said. "....Star wars!", I said. "Star wars.... Umm, no, don't think I've seen that one...." Trust me to find the one person in the world who never watched star wars!!!!

I also told that joke to a girl from manchester way whilst quite loved up at a trance party the othe day. "That's the shittest joke I've ever heard" she exclaimed. "It's just not funny!". "Have you seen the movie?" I asked. "Yes, but it's just not funny, it's shit, I mean how is that supposed to be funny?". "Well, it's a line from the movie, 'i've been feeling your presence for some time now'..". "Well, that's just shit isn't it, your just repeating a line from a movie". "Well, no, not really, it's a play on words, presents and presence...". "Yeah, but it's shit isn't it?". "Ummm, ok.". I think she fancied me.....

Hello.

sorry, I know I know, it's been long time... but I've always said that If I'm having a good time then there's no point me writing my blog... I mean you guys don't wanna hear me going on about how relaxing and chilled my life is right? you wanna hear how i nearly got hit by a truck trying to save my pack from being crushed whilst simultaneously puking and crapping myself due to severe food poisoning, right? well, I'm sorry, but that didn't happen. Actually I have been thoroughly enjoying myself, becoming a minor celebrity in the arumbol music scene... :)

I don't know if I mentioned before, but I managed to hook up with Joanna, who some of you may remember as the american girl I spent last xmas with on a beach in brazil.... so now I'm gonna spend another xmas with her on another beach!!! wierd huh?! yesterday joanna, my brother Joel and I managed to make it to one of the parties in anjuna. It was pretty cool, but the music is non stop banging trance, which can get a bit much... There's some great characters there tho, from young techno hippies to ageing 60's casualties... fun for all the family!!

I sold a cd the other day!! so now i am officially working when i play guitar in bars and restaurants... admittedly it doesn't pay that well (although I do tend to get free beers and food) but hey, it's still an income! 300 rupees I got for the cd... that's GBP 3.60!! enough for 2 large meals and 4 beers!

right, i really can't think of anything to say as nothing bad has happened... I will endevour to have a shit time over the next few days and with a bit o bad luck the next post will be more interesting....

seeya!

Greetings from Goa.

can't stop to chat, very busy day. work work work... it's relentless I tell you! Today I'm going to be working on my tan for most of the day, with a few breaks to work on my appetite. If I get bored of just sitting around and swimming however, there are countless courses designed for spiritual enhancement dotted along the beach. You can do Tai Chi Yoga mixed with spiritual healing with a guy called Panda, Satsang with an insane smiling lady called neeru, or sunrise Yoga with many self proclaimed western yoga gurus who are dedicated to helping your find yourself (if you were unlucky enough to misplace yourself in the first place).

There is also a fair bit of live music about. I've already had my first gig here, playing at a place called the "Surf Club" owned by a couple of aging english rock and roll hippies. They were kind enough to let me get up and bang out a few songs with the full band behind me, which was pretty damn cool, and I can go back and play every tues and fri!

I have a lovely room on the cliffside overlooking the sea. It has a blacony and everything, and is perfect, except for the fact that it has a family of rats living in between the wall and the roof, and they have a habit of squatting over the edge of the wall and shitting on my bed. very rude if you ask me. My balcony is also strategically placed so that i can sit and sing songs and everyone within 100 metres radius is forced to listen, which is cool... :)

I am aware that sitting on a beach doing nothing but getting brown is not going to make very interesting blog material, so I have made the decision to go along to "Satsang with Neeru" (the one with the crazy smile) so that I can write about it. judging by the posters that I've seen scattered around, it should be pretty interesting. The posters all say things like "You have been searching for it all your life.... it's all about you..... life is a moovie (sic), just sit back and watch." and then have a picture of either Neeru smiling and holding her hands together in prayer, or her husband, Vimal, looking serious behind his huge santa claus beard. anyway, watch this space.... :D

right, gotta go eat before I start fully working on the tan...

Billy Breaks the Indian Music Scene...

The air is filled with exotic wailing as the Bhati family kick off their traditional Rajastani music concert. On the left there is Praveen Bhati, the youngest son, his fingers a blur as he masterfully teases a hundred different tones from his Tabla Drums. In the centre there is Mama Bhati, sitting cross legged before what appears to be an indian version of the accordian, and wailing mournfully into the precariously balanced microphone. At her left shoulder sits another cross legged young man, pale skinned and long haired. In his lap he holds a guitar, which he looks at from time to time as if wondering what it is for. Who is this guitar guru? Could it be Billy, the undercover hippy? Actually no, it's Joel, his younger brother. Billy is sitting in the audeince laughing and taking photos... :)

It all started when Kelash Bhati, the family sitar player, tried to convince me to come to his concert. After discovering he wanted 100 rupees for the show I told him no thanks, but we started chatting anyway, and eventually he discovered that i played Guitar. We arranged to meet up and have Jam, and 2 days later me and my brother Joel met the bhati family in a small garden behind the Sunset Cafe. They told me to play one of my songs, and Praveen tried to accompany me on Tablas. To be honest it was pretty appalling. The tablas just weren't designed to play slow 4/4 beats to folk songs! We got some better results from just playing random chords over his beats, and after 20 mins of jamming we were renamed the "Rajastani Western Fusion Band", and arranged to meet at 7:30 for the gig.

By 8pm ppl had started arriving and there was quite a nice little crowd developing. Eventually, after about 15 mins of crakle and feedback, the musicians got up onto the stage, including my brother, and seated themselves cross legged before the microphones. The one of the brothers called to me, "First my mother she play one song for the God...". "Ok" i reply. Joel saw what was happening and tried to get up, but he was too late. "No, no! You stay there, no problem!" the family all chant in unison. And then the concert begins.

After Joel's rather awkward couple of songs, Mama leaves the stage and Joel performs some solo guitar accompanied by Tablas which goes down very well. Then I join them and we bash a load of "fusion" songs, some of them mine, some of them improvised. After each song the mother comes up and grabs my hand in hers and thanks me as if I have just saved her baby from a lion. Things are going pretty well! Then the sound man decides he's probably not needed and goes to sleep under the table. Somehow we continue on regardless until I am sure my hip is about to dislocate from too much sitting cross legged and we finally call it a day. Our first indian gig is a roaring success... it's only a matter of time before we hit the bigtime... :)

The camel fair has come to a close, but many of the fairground attractions are still around. Yesterday i went to see the "Wall of death", which I have always wanted to see since seeing it on tv as a kid. It's basically a larger wooden cylinder, about 50 feet high and about 35 feet diameter. You climb a ladder and stand around the top rim of the cylinder, while inside at the bottom wait two small cars and two motorbikes. The the show begins. At first just one Fonzy looking indian guy wearing flip-flops comes in and revs up his motorbike. seconds later he is driving it at high speed around the INSIDE of the cyinder. So yes, he is basically driving horizontally along the wall and using centrufugal force to keep him from falling. As if this wasn't enough, he then takes his hands off the handlebars and starts smoking a beedie whilst riding side saddle, 40 feet from the ground on a fast moving, gravity defiying motorbike. But it gets better. By the end of the show there are two motorbikes and one car all driving simoultaneously around the inside of the cylinder. The car driver is hanging out of the door whilst driving and the two motorbike drivers are sitting back with their feet on the handlebars smoking beedies. Somehow, nobody dies! Brilliant! :)

Nanu, the owner of our guesthouse, has a habit of smoking brown sugar before breakfast. When this happens you can be assured of some very strange and confusing conversations. Yesterday he was spotted rummaging around in the shower, lifting things and looking puzzled. "What have you lost?" asked Kieran. "Huh? Yeeesssss, lost. I have lost it. Lost my leg. Cant find it....". Today when I got up he was still searching around the yard, sifting through the ashes of the fire and everything. "What are you looking for?", I ask him. "Yesss, I lose it". "What?". "I lost my smoking good feeling thing...". Ahhh, well that would explain the frantic searching, although if you ask me his wife elka probably found it and dumped it down the toilet!!!

more tales from the edge soon... :)

Greetings foreign beings!

You may remember a while back I posted a story that I was submitting to a newspaper competition. It was about a chance meeting with a homeless indian man who was fanatical about Alfred Hitchcock and told me a fantastic story about his life, losing his family in the Gujurat earthquake etc etc. Well, the other night I was st around the fire with some other travellers, and I proceeded to tell this story. Before I had got through the first two lines, one of the listeners, and american guy named Bear, interjected. "Yeah, his father was a judge!". "And his family was killed in the earthquake!" piped in another american called Alec. What was going on?! How could these guys possibly know of my incredibly unique and fascinating encounter? It turned out that I was not the only one who had had this unique experience. They too had discussed the special effects in star wars. They too had heard of his need for a hip replacement. In fact, they had both had the same exct conversation, word for word, that I had had here over a year ago. The only difference was that they had both had it only a few days ago!! Apparantly this man, now known as "Star Wars Guy", sits in exactly the same spot every day telling this exact story to anyone who will listen. Right down to the ending where he tells you he is currently trying to save up enough money to get the spare part needed to get his hip-replacement done... After further scrutiny of the story, we started to wonder if maybe the entire spiel is a fabrication designed to inspire sympathy... after all, he's had over a year to get together the 300 rupees he said he needed to buy the hip-replacement part! Our final conclusion was that, truthfull or not, the story and the teller are both so fascinating that it really doesn't matter. After all, he has never outright asked anyone for any money, which is pretty incredible in India, and his story has entertained many a lone tourist. I think today i'm going to go and find him and see if I can re-enact my original meeting word for word... :)

I have to go now as I'm taking part in a homemade game called the "Crazy people of Pushkar Photo Challenge". We've made alist of all the nutters in pushkar, and the first one to get a digital photo of all of them wins a beedie! so far I have orange man on a tray, short man with umbrella, and giant sunglasses mini-shrine man. Next on the list is the somewhat elusive "t-shirt man", who walks up and down the road holding his t-shirt away from his stomach with both hands (if he wants to smoke a beedie he holds both corners in one hand temporarily...).

byee!

Billy Breaks Bollywood

namaste! Wow what a week! There's just far too many stories to tell you, but I guess I'll just try to tell one or two...

I'm sitting in the garden of an Indian summer mansion in the baking heat wearing an all white Indian pajama suit and a white headscarf. My hands are together in prayer and I have an inane grin on my face. I am grinning because I am watching my 6 year old nephew being forced to eat something that looks like a cross between peanut butter and lard. His neck is being snapped from side to side as another of his uncles, a large bearded man with a giant turban, wraps his head with an orange piece of cloth. Also sitting with me are 3 beautiful Indian ladies wearing expensive looking saris. They too are staring adoringly at the small boy as he goes through this strange ritual. Is is a dream? Has Billy finally "gone native"? No, it is in fact the filming of a commercial for "East End" Ghee. Let me back-track a little....

So, me and Sarah managed to buy our tickets from mumbai to Ajmer, the closest station to Pushkar. Unfortunately all the 2nd class sleeper tickets were sold out, so we had to buy air con class tickets, which cost 4 times as much.. Anyway, we headed home to chill. Back at the hotel, the reception guy seemed very pleased to see us. "Ahhhh, my friends, you are back! I have good news for you! My friend he wants you to be in Bollywood film!". I knew that sooner or later someone would spot my potential as a big screen bollywood star, I'm just surprised it didn't happen sooner. "What's the part?" I ask. "Wait, I call my friend, he come!". So, 20 mins later we are chatting with a young dapper looking Indian guy wearing hip western clothes. He tells us that actually it's a commercial for an as yet unknown product, and that they need a western couple as extras. We'll be picked up at 8am, and then taken to our train by 7pm. And on top of that we'll be paid the whopping fee of 500 rupees! Now I'll be honest here, I wasn't exactly that keen. I mean, I've done filming before, and to be fair it's more about boredom than glamour, but Sarah was really keen so I figured ahh, why not, even if it sucks it'll be good blog material!

So we agree and at 8am the next day we are met by bobby the Bombay stud. Bobby is wearing a wifebeater vest underneath a flowing black chiffon dress/Indian garment, and looks like a bit of a lady's man. We head off for the local train. Once on the train we manage to get seats, but Sarah decides, against our advice, she wants to stand by the doors to watch the view pass. Bad move. Mumbai local trains are like American stomachs at an all you can eat buffet. Empty at the start, full by the middle, and yet always making room for more. After half an hour, Sarah was so crammed in by Indian men that she couldn't get back to us even if she tried. To add to her predicament, every time the train stopped at a station, about 50 people would try to get off at exactly the same time as 50 people tried to get on, making each stop a mini hillsborough disaster, with Sarah in the middle of it. Add to this the fact that lots of these Indian men had the tendency to accidentally cop a feel in the confusion and you've got one uncomfortable English girl. Eventually she did manage to get back, and promised to listen to our advice in future!

Meanwhile Bobby had been telling me about his 16 girlfriends. "Sixteen?! But how do you manage to see them all? There's only 7 days in a week!". "2 days each girl them move on" he explains. Cunning. Eventually we arrive in some remote part of the city and jump in a rickshaw. The journey to the film set is pretty crazy as we drive through some of the most alien environments I've seen so far. At one point we see a crazy man in the road doing a perfect imitation of John Cleese doing an imitation of a crazy man. Fascinating!

We arrive late at the film set, which is a big old "bungalow" (mansion with two stories, a pool, etc) and head to the "changing room". There are lots of people milling around the place. They are mainly separated into two categories. Beautiful people and ugly people. The beautiful people are the actors, producers, director etc. The ugly people have lots of different jobs, but in true Indian tradition each person has only one job and sticks to it. For example, the is a guy who's job it is to bring you water. However, if you want water, you cant ask him for it, you have to ask the guy who's in charge of taking care of the actors. There's also a guy who's job is to hold an umbrella over our heads while the shooting is stopped. However, he doesn't seem to know when the camera is rolling or not, so he just stands at the side opening a closing the umbrella and trying to look busy. Another guy is in charge of filling up some empty chapatti flour bags with cotton woo; to use as props. One might think this would be a fairly easy job, but this man has other ideas. After about 3 hours he has still only filled up 3 bags (they are the size of a bag of doritos) and is still looking very unsatisfied with the result. He keeps trying to make them stand up, as if they are filled with flour, but of course they fall straight over. He then shakes them a bit, to help the cotton wool settle to the bottom and tries again. He was still doing this when I left him....

So, we are called and made to sit on a rug on the lawn with other extras who are playing the family and friends of a small boy whop is obviously going through some kind of rite of passage ritual that uses ghee. The poor kid spends the entire day sitting in the baking sun having his head yanked about and brown sludge shoved in his mouth. I hope he was getting paid more than me! After about 53 seconds the novelty wears off and I start to get bored. And hot. Very hot. Sarah gives me a look that says "Sorry! You were right, this is going to be a nightmare and it's only 11am!". I ma informed by the producer that actually this commercial is not being filmed for Indian TV. Oh no. In fact it's being filmed for ENGLISH TV!!! Yes that's right, if you are a big fan of that Asian cable channels, as I know you all are, then you will be seeing me on your screens very soon indeed!
Nothing very interesting happened for the rest of the day. I just sat around waiting for nothing and eventually we left to catch our train at 6pm. The train journey was pretty pleasant. The AC class we were in was good and bad really. It was very clean and more comfy etc, but it was like being in a bubble. You couldn't hear the sound of the train going over the tracks, you couldn't smell the sudden contrasts in aroma (poo... toffee.... flowers... poo...) or feel the wind on your face. We were sharing our compartment with a nice Indian Lady with two children. The younger was only 9 months old, and had a habit of trying to chew through my rucksack. We also met a nice old man in the compartment next to us. "Did you sleep well?" I asked him in the morning. "Oh no" he replied, "All night I am rushing for urination!". Poor thing.

We arrive in Ajmer and set off to look for the bus stop. At one point we have to cross the main road, but as we reach the centre dividing wall, Sarah trips over her flip-flop and flies headlong into the traffic on the other side. Somehow, despite the momentum provided by her giant backpack, she manages to pull herself back just in time to avoid being decapitated by a giant rickshaw. The first thing she says is "Owww! My knees!"....
At the bus stop we meet a nice young guy names John who runs a guesthouse in Pushkar with his older brother. We agree to look at his guesthouse, but when the bus comes it is too full. "No problem, we ride on roof", says John. Cool. On the roof we have to keep our wits about us as some of the branches we pass under require us to actually lie completely flat to avoid being whipped off the roof and deposited in a heap on the road. Finally, we arrive in pushkar!!

So that's where I am now. Good old Pushkar. It's the "Camel fair" at the moment, which is pretty damn cool. It's kind of like a cross between Glastonbury, Indiana Jones, the fairground, and Mad max. Today I want to the big stadium to watch "Women's Musical Chairs Competition". It was a close competition I can tell you, and there was quite a crowd!! There was a large army contingent, as well as an entire primary school in attendance. I had my money on nice black haired little thoroughbred, but she let me down in the closing stages, getting outrun by an old lady in a sari.

right, that's more than enough for one day. I'm staying at a great little place out of town called Nanu's Garden Paradise. Come visit me! :)

Namaste!

man, i don't know where to start. I've only been here since yesterday morning, but it feels like a week. This is possibly to do with the fact that I went to sleep and got up twice during the day yesterday due to severe jetlag! The flight was pretty good except for one huge catastrophe: I lost the squishy bit off of on of my sony headphones!! Now this may not seem like a catastrophe to most of you, but you have to understand that these headphones are my way of blocking out the world when necessary, like on hellish bus journey, and without them I am completely exposed to the harsh realities of Indian travel! However, i have a plan invlving an earplug, a swiss army knife, and a tube of superglue, which may yet resolve this catastrophic situation...

So anyway, I arrived in bombay in one piece, as did my guitar (thank god!), and we both made our way to the luggge claim, where I met some nice girls who wanted to share a taxi. After driving for 45 mins past some of the worst slums in the world, we finally arrived in coloba, and set about finding a hotel. By now it was 7am, and i hadn't slept since leaving england at 2pm the previous day. It would have been so nice to just sleep for 8 hours, but this would have been disastrous, as I would have woken up in the evening and been jetlagged for days, so after a quick nap, me and sarah (who i'm sharing a room with) headed out to meet the other guys from the cab ride, and set of into bombay. blah blah blah... sorry guys, I hate telling stories as a sequence of events like this... it's so boring and forced and qute frankly, it's just not flowing, so I'll just write radom things as and when they pop into my head. :)

Last night was the last night of Divali, which is an indian festival kinda like bonfire night crossed with xmas. We had heard that marine drive was the place to be so we jumped in a cab and headed there. We arrived to find an enormous long promenade packed with families setting off fireworks. The first thing I noticed was the shocking disregard for health and safety! In england, dad sets up the fireworks in a bucket full of sand, and then the kids stand back at a safe distance while he lights them. Here, dad hands his 8 year old kids a handful of fireworks and a burning wad of newspaper and tells them to go and light them by the main road while he sits on the wall of the promenade and watches at a safe distance! Even more reckless were the yound teens who would try to outdo each other with acts of stupidity. My favourites were: holding fountains in your hand, trying to light a group of fireworks after the first few are already going off and recieveing a face full of hot sparks, letting bangers go off in your hand whilst hlding them next to your ear, and my favourite of all, lighting random mentalist fireworks (ones that explode about 50 times and leap around the place shooting fire in all directions) whilst standing 3 inches away from them.

What was most fascinating of all about this display of apparant bravery/stupidity was how blase everyone seemed about it. A kid would light a firework, stick his face in it, very nearly lose and eye, and then laugh hysterically and do it again. Absolutely no one jumped when an explosion happened right beside them except us, the wimpy foreigners! In the midst of all this madness we made friends with some yound indian guys. One guy came ad started talking to me. He told me he was in the Indian Navy and was on shore leave. I asked his name. "Niel Ikshalamalam Pandit" he said (probably). "Ah, ok, I'm Billy Rowan Salisbury" I replied. "You can call me Billy for short if you like. What's your short name?". I was, of course, assuming he would say Niel. "Een Kee Pandit", he replied, ruining my hope for an easy to remember name. I decided the only way to remember this was to find an english sounding equivalent with an image to go with it, and finally settled on the Inky Bandit, fastest fountain pen in the west. :)

After the police had been by a few times in their jeep telling everyone over a large megaphone that the the 10pm firework curfew had just been declared, we headed of with the young Indian guys to have a drink. They said they knew a great little place to have a beer, which turned out to be the very Indian "Paulos Italian Pizzeria".

right, times up. lots more to tell but no time. heading to pushkar tomorrow night to the camel fair...

seeya! :)

Ladies and gentlemen!!

The billy's blog experience is about to be re-opened, re-vamped, and reincarnated! That's right, I am finally leaving this wet little island and heading back to india on a journey of awakening! Well, awakening, a-sleeping, and a-eating to be precise... Yes, it's true, I, Billy Salisbury, am going to attempt what only a few million people have been brave enough to attempt before me! I am going to fly to india, and set upon a completely unplanned adventure of visiting places, eating food, playing guitar, and sunbathing. Despite the obvious dangers, (suicidal bus drivers, unpredictable cows, chronic diorreah), I have decided to give up the joys of an english winter, sacrifice my potential career as a high flying clever person, and head of into the realms of the notverywellknown.

I fly on the 13th November, which is literally days away, and then return to the UK on 27th April 2005, which is also literally days away (although thankfully quite a few). In between these two dates I shall be wandering the back roads of india like a wandering sadhu, only cleaner. My only luggage will be a toothbrush, a spare pair of boxer shorts, a pair of fisherman's pants, (this is an actual item of clothing common to thailand and is not supposed to be interpreted literally), a 300 pound guitar (cost not weight), a brand new top of the range HI-MD player, a digital camera, and a box of plasters. Leaving behind all the luxuries of the modern world, I shall wander alone, my only travelling companions being my guitar, my pack, and about 1.5 million israelis. Together we shall beat the beaten track until it is well and truly beaten, all the while trying desperatley to get off it, only to find that when we do, the track we are on becomes beaten as well, until all tracks are beaten and getting off the beaten track becomes purely a figure of speech.

India is such a land of contradictions, and yet at the same time, it's not. You know what I mean? :)

So yes, enough said. Spread the word to all, Billy the blogger is back, and this time he has a guitar! Which incidentally, I have just this second succeeded in winning off of e-bay. I have only recently discovered e-bay, and already i hate it! It's completely addictive, and very stressful! Items that normally I would just have gone out and bought, have now become a complex process of sifting through thousands of identical items searching for the best deal, then spending days waiting in a constant state of anxiety, before finally finding that I've been outbid at the last minute and I'm back to square one!!! It's evil! Having said that I have just bought a guitar worth about 300 squid for 150, so that's not too bad. I also bought a LED headlamp for 1p yesterday. plus 4 quid postage mind you... but still, 1p!! Now they've got to post it to me from Hong kong... and before you all start laughing at me and thinking I've been ripped off, I'll have you know I think they eemed like very reputable dealers and I have every confidence that they will deliver the item on time... perhaps.

Right, gotta go pay for my new guitar... whoopie! New Toys! :)
So, watch this space, the blog is back in town.

Hey guys!

sorry it's been so long... you know how it is! well, todays been a bit shit to be honest. It started at 9am with a car crash... I was driving into town to do some decorating at my dad's house. I was driving down a main road, which was perfectly straight, and up ahead I saw a car waiting to pull out into the road from a junction on the left. Then, as I drove past him going about 45mph, he pulled out!! Straight into my passenger door, sending me skidding almost onto the wrong side of the road, where trucks were flying past at high speed! I managed to get the car under control and pulled over. When i got out, I had a quick look at the damage: door caved in, wing scraped and dented, wheel smashed up, and then walked over towards the other guy's car. For some reason he hadn't got out of his car, probably because he knew he'd just nearly caused a major accident and was worried i might hit him! As I got closer I realised that he was about 90 years old! He had glasses as thick as plates and a hearing aid, and his hands were shaking (mind you so were mine!). We exchanged details, but I didn't really manage to get much sense out of him... I kind of felt like telling him off like a kid, but was held back by my embaressment at berating someone 4 times my age!! But the fact is, he shouldn't be on the roads. Even a drunk person wouldn't be useless enough to pull out into the side of a fully visible car! His excuse that I had had my indicator on (I hadn't) and he thought i was going to turn into the turning he was on. What, at 45mph??!! Anyway, the simple fact is that at a certain age ppl are likely to become a danger on the roads, and this guy certainly was.

So anyway, after my crash I managed to drive to my dads and spent the day repainting his living room despite having a stinking cold... but now I've started I have to finish!! Arrghgh! On a brighter note, I just sold my first CD!! Someone who heard me play in a cafe at glastonbury festival e-mailed me and asked to buy a cd!! Woo hoo!! I'm 10 pounds closer to my first million!

btw, the results of the writing competition don't come out till october i think...

right, gotta go to bed, more painting in the morning! :(

laters.

Hey guys,

I'm planning on entering a competition in the Guardian (english newspaper) to win 2500 pounds towards my travels and the chance to write weekly updates for them to print in the paper and put on the website. To enter you have to write 500 words explaining what you want to do with the money, i.e. where u want to go and what challenge you intend to set yourself. The best 4 letters will be featured in the paper and the readers will vote for the best 2. My first attempt ended up being over 1000 words long, but after much brutal editing I have come up with this. let me know what you think:

------

"So what's your plan now?," my friend asked me as we sat drinking our beers.
"Go to India," I replied immediately.
"What??!... But you just got back!! You can't travel forever Billy!"
"Why not?," I asked.
"Because! You need to get a regular job so you can get a good credit rating so you can get a good mortgage and buy a house!."

Right. And then I suppose I've got to change the rooms using MDF and a handmade stencil, go bargain hunting and fill the attic with worthless junk to sell at auction, build a Roman column feature in the garden using cement and an old drainpipe, and then finally sell-up and start again. Ok, yes, I could do that. Or I could wander around India armed with nothing more than a very large smile and a very small guitar, trying to find the most interesting characters in the world and hearing their stories. The most fascinating encounters always come in the most unexpected places. For example:

Whilst filling my water-bottle at the local well in Pushkar, I encountered a man squatting by the pump wearing nothing but a tea-towel wrapped around his waist. He was washing a dirty rag, which on closer inspection revealed itself as his one and only shirt. I gave him a smile and we started chatting. The conversation seemed fairly typical at first. Name? Married? But once he found out I came from England it all went rather surreal.
"England!!" he exclaimed. "Ahhh, I like very much English movies! Hitchcock he is my favourite!!"
I was speechless.
"What movies he make!" he sighed, gazing off through the cows and pigs eating a pile of nearby rubbish. He then listed about fifteen of Hitchcock's movies, commenting on particularly good performances by actors I'd never heard of. We continued discussing Hitchcock's directorial technique for some time while he squatted in his tea-towel and pounded his soapy shirt on a slab of rock. Unable to contain my curiosity any longer, I asked him how he knew so much about movies.

He told me he'd studied film at university in Gujarat, where he'd lived with his wife and children and held a respectable job. Then in 0000, the earthquake struck, killing his entire family, destroying his house, and almost claiming his legs. He only escaped the amputations by dragging himself out of the hospital window and using his life-savings to pay a private doctor to operate. Left with nothing, he hitched to Pushkar, and has been there ever since, living in a makeshift tent on the edge of town. He considers himself a lucky man. He survived.

India is a country overflowing with stories, some already happened, some waiting to happen. Rather than searching for these stories, I plan to draw them to me like The Pied Piper, wandering the country playing my small guitar out in the open and allowing them to find me, like they always do; the discovery of each story a story in itself.

---

So, there it is. Man, if only I could win that'd be so damn cool. 2500!! oh, and a digital camera as well!! Actually, more than the money I just want the chance to have my travel writing featured in the paper!!! ok, tara for now...

Hahahaha!!! I'm in the hereford library using the internet, and i just tried to go to my www.undercoverhippy.com site, but got this response (with a huge red "Stop" logo at the top):

You cannot access the following Web address:
http://www.undercoverhippy.com/
The site you requested is blocked under your organization's filtering policy. It fits into the following filtering category(ies) that your organization has chosen to block: Tasteless/Gross

You can:

Submit a site review request to your network administrator.


Temporarily bypass filtering on this computer if you have an authorized override name and password. (Note that your administrator may be notified that you've bypassed filtering.)


Use your browser's Back button or enter a different Web address to continue.

Lol!! What is tasteless/gross about my site?? And anyway, how do they know?? There must be 1000's of kids all over the world being denied access to my site by the parental controls set up by their folks, just cos someone, or maybe even some piece of software, has decided my site is gross and tasteless!! oh well, i guess they didn't like the design.... Ahmad, it must be your artwork, cos it sure as hell aint my music! :)

right, times up! laters!

Hey guys,

I'm not gonna bother writing anything right now because i've got a feeling everyone will have left by now and stopped checking this blog... but! If a few ppl respond and post a comment I will try to resume my regular posts.... :)

Wow, what a beutiful day!

It's been so sunny today! It's like summer is finally here! (except that it's forcast to be horrible tomorrow...). I went into town today and did some busking (playing music in public for money). It's the first time I've ever done any busking in England, and I have to say, I was a little nervous. So I set myself up at the opening of a nice little cobbled street called "Church street" which opens out onto the Cathedral Close, a small park outside the Cathedral. After I'd sung about 3 songs, a guy came over with a guitar case and said

"You jammin?".
"Ummmm", I said.
"Great", he said as he pulled his guitar out.
"Tanglewood huh?", he commented pointing to my guitar.
"Uh huh", I replied, wanting to carry on singing my next song.
"Are those heavy gauge or light gauge strings?".
"Ummm, heavy i think".
"Ahhhhhh" he said, nodding sagely. "What's the action like?".
"Ummmmm".
"So what do you play?".
"Ummm, all sorts really".
"Yeah? Well I'll just play to you then, I can play pretty much anything. Been playing for 15 years".
He looked at me waiting for my acknowledgement of this achievement.
"Uh huh".
"Ok", I said, "this is one of mine. It's pretty simple, just four chords: Am, Em, Dm, F". I played it through to show him the rhythm. He started joining in, but every time he would start one bar too late, so i would play Am, then as I moved on to Em he would come in with Am as if we were playing a round. After about 10 mins of this I finally managed to convince him to start and let me join in....

I managed to play the song through despite his noisy uptempo twanging beside me, and when i finally finished he turned to me and said, "I was pretty good considering I never played that before huh?". "Uh huhhhh". I started trying to play another song, but now he began to play something completely different right next to me, banging out seemingly random chords and riffs. All through this encounter, a girl who I assumed to be his girlfriend was standing in front of us with a walkman on and only one headphone stuffed in one ear, dancing to a combination of her own music and my guitar, and grinning inanely. In the end I decided enough was enough. "Actually to be honest mate, It's a little bit distracting having you playing stuff next to me like that...". I was expecting him to be a bit offended and tell me to piss of or something, but he did the complete opposite. "Shit, sorry mate!! I'll come back later and see if your still here then. You gonna be here long?". I wasn't quite sure where this was leading. "Ummm, I'm not sure, probably... it's a beatiful day for it". Alright then mate, well I'll pop back in a couple of hours and see if the spots free.. I'm homeless you see.", and with that he was gone. Yes, I am officially a bastard. It's just as well I didn't play him my song about the homeless guy... But how was I to know?! He was wearing all clean clothes and looked pretty ok to me... Oh well, maybe next time he'll get the spot first and I'll be able to give him a couple of quid...

right, somehow it has manged to become 10pm, but it has only just got dark so I still feel like it's early evening! better go and watch tv!! Who knows what treats I could be missing!!!! (for interesting cross examination of Billy's reassimilation, go read february's posts...).