India part 29: Chennai

Little of interest to report from our one night back in Chennai, but a long journey there - 20 hours from Bhubaneswar (which we referred to throughout as "boobs"), then a a walk round the block to St Andrews' Church, a sleep in a crappy hotel, and an early morning train to Guntakal Junction, followed by a rickshaw across town to the bus stand, a local bus to Bellary (on which I chatted animatedly to two very friendly gents, one of whom was the bus conductor, pictured below) another bus to Hospet, and another bus to Hampi. That was interesting for you.

Signs I have seen #413

When there is no Blu-Tack...

India part 28c: Puri and Bhubaneswar

Pictorial highlights from these three places.

India part 28b: Konark

To the famous Sun Temple at Konark, which is inevitably spelt with an extra 'a' ("Konarak") if you say it out loud to a local. It puts Mamallapuram's Shore Temple to shame, frankly. Our bus from Puri broke down on the way, which was quite a relief, because it was incredibly cramped and hot, and I felt a bit weird listening to Nicki Minaj cussing in my headphones while standing next to a demure Indian lady holding a baby. We managed to jump in a taxi - the bus was never going to be fixed in under two hours, whatever was wrong with it - with an American couple who liked rock-climbing and an English woman whose next stop was South America - she said she'd been offered a job as a weathergirl there.

Just a warning, before you scroll down: some of the temple's carvings are enough to make a Premiership footballer blush. Or, as the Rough Guide puts it:

Konark, like Khajuraho, is plastered with loving couples locked in ingenious amatory postures drawn from the Kama Sutra - a feature that may well explain the comment made by one of Akbar's emissaries, Abul Fazl, in the sixteenth century: "Even those who are difficult to please," he enthused, "stand astonished at its sight."

Or am I seeing an innuendo that isn't there? Here's what it all looked like, anyway.

India part 28a: Puri, Konark, Bhubaneswar

The overnight train from Calcutta exhausted us both; I hardly slept, even though my fellow passengers were relatively quiet. Having said that, a noisy chai-wallah did come round at around midnight - not an ideal time to take tea, imo - and half an hour later, a man was hocking up phlegm so noisily it sounded like he was vomiting a shoe.

Within three hours of arriving in Puri, Orissa - east coast, yo - we wandered to the garden lushness of Golden Green Restaurant, where the menu temptingly dangled the offer of a "jam burger" in front of us for just 15 Rupees. We walked in to Arcade Fire's 'Keep the Car Running', the title of which could have been code for "get out, quick", I suppose, but is also a Good Song, so I took this as a Good Sign. And it was: both the restaurant, which we returned to several times, and Puri were lovely. Each traveller ghetto has its own peculiarities, and this one's was the abundance of restaurants and cafes with amazing leafy gardens.

Puri's other quiddity is that everyone here is obsessed with this strange little god called Jagannath. Here's what he looks like:

Not really your average Hindu god, right? Cute, though. He has his own eponymous temple, in town, and an enormous festival dedicated to him; also, his big round eyes stare out from every other wall.

In Puri, we met Paul, a Scot with a voice like Ivor Cutler and a face like Iggy Pop. We asked him how long he'd been travelling for: "Twenty years." He declared himself disappointed with the "smoking scene" in Puri and suggested we stay "out" for another year, citing the recession as a good reason not to go home. I suspected his suggestion was less out of concern for our well-being than to add two more drifters to the world's pile to keep him company. He said he'd advise any young person these days to take out a loan "from anyone stupid enough to give them one", spend it all, and declare bankrupcy. I'd just read the much-shared BBC article Twenty reasons why it's kicking off everywhere and I guess what he was saying tallied with point one: "At the heart if it all is a new sociological type: the graduate with no future." Interesting fellow.

There were other interesting fellows in the same restaurant; the next day, while I scoffed the biggest pile of fruit, muesli and curd ever seen by human eyes, I tried to block out the voices of an American, an Italian and an Australian talking about bloody Shantaram, the American's "like"s getting more and more noticeable, reaching an insane level when he started talking about people who, like, like Shantaram and those who, like, don't like it... Later he went a bit nuts, apparently suggesting the Aussie was comparable to those who commit genocide because he made a few observations about "Indian people"; this guy seemed to be suggesting, with classic rising inflections, that just to use the word "Indian" was racist, because India is, like, so diverse? And grouping people together like that is really narrow-minded? The Aussie fairly reasonably explained that what he understood by the fairly well-recognised term "Indian" was "people who live here in the country of India". The American, who didn't really respond to this defense, did a "Jerry Springer's final thought" type thing at the end, sounding very superior: "You're just saying this is your perception and not necessarily the ultimate reality? And that's fine, I'm sure you mean no harm by it, but for so many people it is the only truth..." Blatantly a Eng. Lit. student (with modules in structuralism and post-colonial studies).

India part 27: Siliguri

We spent a tragic six days in Siliguri, an utterly unremarkable city, waiting to see if the strike would end. It didn't. At first we stayed in a hotel where they'd forgotten to take the cellophane off the ceiling decoration.

After two nights, we downgraded to somewhere that didn't have ceiling decorations. Sarah went on a secret assignment and I stayed inside and did some writing. Then at some stage - the chronology of it all has defeated me - we saw some kids in a parade, and thought it might be Holi, one of India's most famous festivals (the one where everyone throws powder at each other). But it wasn't - this was some kind of big-up to Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of wisdom. Word.

If you ever get stuck in this city, though, I'd strongly recommend eating all your meals in the Vinayak Hotel, where we had two of the best feasts of our whole trip. Here's the most joyous picture of all, though. So long, suckers!

Signs I have seen #401

At least you're honest.

India part 26b: Darjeeling

The next day we bought a paper - pretty much the only cash transaction on offer, apart from buying bandages and mineral water - and found out that two protestors had been killed by the police in Sibchu. Pondering this, we went on a long walk up to the northern end of the town passing, on the way back, a smouldering building, which we soon found out was the charred remains of the tourist office. Okay, then.

Within a couple of hours of arriving back at the hotel, we got word that the police were evacuating all foreign tourists from Darjeeling. With the good wishes of our worried hotel manager ringing in our ears, we checked out and joined about 10 other backpacked foreigners outside, where we were marched down to the police lines a kilometre and a half off, passing on the way a woman burning a shoe, presumably in homage to the Charlie Chaplin movie The Gold Rush. On arrival, we found a sizable gathering of cops in camouflage gear. Many had rifles, but some just had wooden lathis and charming wicker riot shields. It was amusing, amid the helmets and berets to see the odd police wearing one of those woollen Tibetan hats, usually seen on old women and stoned Westerners.

For some reason, given the apparent seriousness of the situation, I thought we'd be on the move quickly. But we were still working to Indian time and sat around for an hour until a police van drove us back up the hill we'd just walked down. We then sat in the van outside the Foreigners' Registration Office for over two hours, apparently waiting for more transports for the other tourists so we could drive in convoy (there were about 30 or 40 of us by this stage). And Sarah and I had thought we were the only ones left in town.

Passing the time, an Australian girl related to us how she and her friend had gone for a walk the day of the protests and, heading past the Magistrate's residence, she had taken a picture of a car, a White Ambassador. "For no reason," she said. "It was just a random photo, really." She showed us the snap on her digital camera. "And the next day," she said, "This was in the paper." She pulled out a clipping from the Times of India. It was the exact same photograph - same car, same angle, same size - except in this picture, the car was on fire, having been torched by protestors. We were all flabbergasted and wondered whether her camera had magic powers. I asked her not to take any more pictures of the van we were sitting in.

Just before we left, the man who'd taken our passport numbers for the embassies popped his head through the back door of the van and asked, "Finished?" This question was greeted with no small degree of hilarity, since we'd been sitting there doing nothing for two hours. "I think the question is, are you finished?" quipped the hairy Australian sitting next to me. After a long, bumpy drive, we got to the city of Siliguri at about 11.30pm, the police dropping us all at the roadside.

Although the afternoon's events had implied a certain gravity in the situation, the atmosphere in the town hadn't seemed that edgy. There were lots of people strolling around (usually in the opposite direction to me and Sarah), kids playing cricket and badminton in the empty streets, teens opting for hacky sack using what looked like rolled-up pan scourers, the benches of Chowrasta (the central square) filled with the usual bunch of old men, perhaps reading their newspapers more intently than usual, and the shutters down absolutely everywhere. Even the protestors' gathering point, which we'd visited the previous day, hadn't exactly been animated, with lots of people staring up wistfully at the Gorkhaland sign and a small line of women holding up the movement's distinctive green, white and yellow flag.

The next morning, we'd peeked out the window to see a hundred or so protestors filing past, though we had been warned not to do this by our anxious hotel manager. "They get very emotional," he said, shaking his head.

India part 26a: Darjeeling

Or do I? The plan was to spend a few days in the hill station of Darjeeling, then head on east to the obscure village of Mungpu, where Sarah was set to do some teaching. The plan was thwarted by the echoing repercussions of history and race, as usual.

The views in Darjeeling are breathtaking, though we couldn't actually see any of them, due to clouds. Instead, we saw St Andrew's Church, which could've done with a scrub...

...and visited the two-in-one zoo and mountaineering institute:

Then, on the evening of the third day of our stay, things got interesting, and we were forced to begin preparations for a siege. It was announced the town would be shutting down to show their solidarity in favour of the creation of the independent state of Gorkhaland. I shouldn't have made that joke about 127 Hours in Calcutta.

"When you said Darjeeling was a striking place, I didn't think you meant this!!11!!1!" As a result of the action, everything and everyone was closed, with pharmacies and hotels the only exceptions (and even they started locking the doors behind you).

As it became clear that the strike would be indefinite, the tourists started fleeing and we watched from our hotel room window as a long line of jeeps headed down the mountain. Sarah and I thought on it, and decided to sit it out. I felt like the guy in the movies who passes up his place on the last chopper out of the embassy to stay behind and help the people - although our plan was actually to eat biscuits and watch Burn Notice on TV. Our reasons for staying were fairly prosaic and practical: Mungpu is only 35km away, and the trip back down to the plains long and sick-inducing.

To be continued...

Signs I have seen #394

Hmmm, bit vague, I think you're making this up.

That was at Darjeeling zoo, by the way. I do wonder if this bear-fighting dog might have taken its inspiration from Star Wars bad guy Jabba the Hut, and Han Solo-ed this poor grizzly: