Now, writing this, it is 21:00, mid-April in Northern Ireland and the sun has just set on a mild day. When we first arrived back, England was damp and chilling to the bone. We acclimatised ourselves slowly, taking a lazy week at Mum’s place, followed by a long weekend in London with our friends. All that time the honeymoon wasn’t quite over, as we were still living out of our bags. We were pathetically under-clothed for the cold waits at rainy bus stops in London. It was only when we walked through the front door of Emma’s parents’ house in Northern Ireland that the train finally stopped for us. We emptied our bags, showered and dressed in clean, smart, western clothes. People asked us how it felt to be back and we could offer little besides, “A bit weird”.
Now, looking back, our trip is telescoping into an ever-shorter timeframe. It already feels normal to be here. It is interesting to note that we did not have to suffer the anticlimax of returning to a life unchanged from our absence, as we are now living in a new country, starting everything from scratch. It is hard to discern what specific lessons we have brought home with us, what new perspectives we have gathered, but somehow we know we have gained greatly. Of all the places we visited, India and Nepal surely made the deepest impression on us. Now they are no longer in our skin, though they will forever be somewhere in our hearts.
EMMA IN MUM'S CLOTHES KEEPING OUT OF THE COLD
Now, finally completing this blog, I wonder if we will read it in later years. I wonder if it will evoke the memory of our travels enough that we will once more smell and feel the highest and lowest times from the trip. It may serve as little more than an exercise in writing, as well as entertainment for its small, committed audience. Hearing that anyone at all was giving time to this rather long-winded journal was a powerful fuel to keep writing it. For that, we owe you our thanks and hope you’ve enjoyed the ride. Maybe just once you’ve felt close enough to reach out and touch a distant place, as seen through our eyes. If so, all that writing was worth it.
Part I: The Party of the North
The train from Mangalore stopped six hours later in Margao, the second city of the tiny coastal state of Goa. Goa, not really India, the old stronghold of the Portugese and their Catholicism. Good old Goa, party capital of India, beach capital of India, booze capital, tourist hot-spot, richest of all the states; not really India yet still inescapably Indian. Our final stop after five months on the lam. Avoiding Goa’s famously expensive cabs, we asked a rickshaw driver to take us from Margao station to our friend Pubali’s house in Anjuna. We had to steal ourselves to accept the shocking price of 600 rupees (about seven quid) for the hour-and-a-half rickshaw ride, although a cab would have been outrageous at about 800 Rs, such was the level of pedantry we had reached. What’s more, taking the slow way across Goa gave us a deeper view of its beauty than we had got the first time we were there, back in November. Being a Sunday, Christian weddings were blooming everywhere and our driver insisted on stopping at several of them so we could peek through their gateways, into festival gardens full of lights and the energy of celebration and family.
Fumbling through clouded memories of our last visit, we guessed our way to the path leading to Pubali and Matt’s house, buried deep in the palms, on the edge of impassable jungle. The night air was heavy with cicadas and sweat. Far back in the loaming we could see the light from the living room. Then, closer, an explosion of fur as the two familiar bundles of Pubali’s pet spaniels, Sherlock and Diva, burst onto the veranda to snuffle at our ankles and welcome us back, back to the tropical coast of India.
ANJUNA SUNSET
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02 Feb – 06 Feb
ROTTING TRUCK IN FORT KOCHI, KERALA
We emerged into the lobby of Chennai airport weary and wary. We were back in India, in the thick of it. But it didn’t look so bad. The build of the airport was basic, the walls stained in places, but it was tidy. I took myself on the adventure of my first visit to an Indian toilet in almost three months and was surprised to find it to be modern, it even had urinals. As I relieved myself into this most luxurious of Western appliances I wondered what all our anxiety had been for. Then I was distracted by a sprinkling sound. The urinals had been screwed to the wall but not plumbed into any pipes so the urine just fell through the hole in the bottom onto a drain on the floor, splashing sandalled feet on impact. Did I cringe? No, somehow it was like coming home.
We treated ourselves to our first ride in the ubiquitous limo of India, an Ambassador car. We had wanted to try one out since first seeing them in Delhi but they always felt like a luxury for the extra few rupees. They are ancient, curvaceous tanks with bulging seats and acres of flared steel. Inside, we sank into another world. The radio was at full power and the air was alive with the bleat and buzz of horns and engines. The beast-car held us snug under the dome roof of its gurgling belly as we stared out, wide-eyed, teeth-bared, into the hot night city lights. Here was India raining on our senses once more, captivating, suddenly making sense all over again. Thus acclimatised, we knew how to purport ourselves when we arrived at our hotel, storming into the hallway and kicking the sleeping porter awake off the floor. He took us through a series of high atria that crowded us with walls full of cracks and creeping foliage, through archways and corridors, to a vast room at the back with double-height stone walls and a bed in the middle. The pale blue walls and window shutters were leant an eerie charm by a strip light on one side of the room. 350 rupees you say? This’ll do.
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We staggered, blinking from an overnight flight on which we were barely touched by sleep, into the “Budget” terminal of Singapore’s renowned Changi Airport. It was 04:00. We thumbed through a copy of Young Parent, Singapore’s No.1 Parenting Magazine, it’s insights were discomforting. A relationship psychologist described housekeeping and a career as “basal instincts” for women and men respectively. Almost every word about children was actually about school, as if a formal education was the only thing that could matter in their young lives. The magazine’s fashion section illustrated the clean, consumerist society we could see walking past us in the terminal: “Polyester Trenchcoat – $400”, “Jeans – $269”. They were all wearing new clothes with designer labels, chatting softly amidst the quiet clatter of suitcases and omnipresent Muzak. Every toilet is staffed by a permanent cleaner who follows your ankles out the door with a swift broom. All this fitted with the sterile image we had formed of Singapore on our first visit (argh! I’ve lost that blog post!) but our opinions were about to be pleasantly contradicted.
SINGAPORE JUNGLE AND TOWERS
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Our final weekend in Australia was set to be in Perth, zillions of miles from anywhere in the southwest corner of the country. I have two friends who live in Perth so I called them from the airport when we landed. One of my friends didn’t answer his phone and we never managed to make contact over the whole weekend. However, Spencer answered his phone on the second attempt, he sounded gravelly and confused. “Have I woken you up?” I asked.
“Ahhh, it’s okay, it’s fine, no worries. What time is it?”
“It’s pretty late”.
“I had a big night”.
“Sorry mate, I’ll let you sleep. I just wanted to see if you were still up for meeting us today”.
“Nah man, it’s all good. Get yourself a coffee, I’ll be there in half an hour”. We have some lovely friends.
EXPLORING THE COAST AROUND ROCKINGHAM
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(24-30 Jan)
SUNSET ON STRADBROKE ISLAND
Our off-roading jaunt to Fraser Island was behind us so it was strange to find ourselves out the next morning with Steve, Millie and their three youngest, Justin, Kaleb and Madison, once more bouncing over fallen branches and revving up hills. Such was our entertainment en-route to an afternoon jaunt at a nearby mountain resort called O’Reilly’s. I was passenger this time, while Emma and Madison opted to observe from an air-conditioned distance in Millie’s car. Steve had the wheel beside me and showed us what can be done in four-wheel drive after a reckless young life in Queensland. The track led us to O’Reilly’s, a pleasant hideaway with birds to feed, tree-top ropeways to traverse, and misty blue vistas over the hillsides, through which columns of bushfire smoke were slowly marching.
KALEB AND BEN EXPLORING O'REILLY'S MOUNTAIN
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Chapter 1: Island of Dreams and Nightmares (20-23 Jan)
OFF-ROADING ON THE ISLAND
I had heard of Fraser Island from friends and travel magazines but Emma hadn’t. I knew we had to go there if we could. It didn’t take much describing before the island’s siren-like allure sank into Emma too. The thing is, it would have been unthinkable for us to fund a trip there this far into our travels. But we had Derek and Margaret. They’d given us a 4×4, food and cash, we just couldn’t believe our fortune. Steve filled the boot of our car with everything we could want and more: a 4×4 rescue kit, an air compressor and tire gauge, a tent, deckchairs, rugs, fishing rod and tackle, torch, ice box… There’s more but I can’t remember it all. Thus loaded, we hit the road again.
Now please give a moment to this. We had left home over four months previously. Our lives were packed into two rucksacks each weighing under 15Kgs and a pair of small day bags, supported by the combined wealth of our savings plus the generosity of our friends and family. Picture how we felt then, high up over the blacktop behind the wheel of our kitted-out car, roaring up a coastal highway with the radio blaring and the smell of diesel riding with us in the cab.
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17-19 Jan 2010
POSING WITH A POOING KOALA AT CURRUMBIN WILDLIFE SANCTUARY
Our plane was three hours late leaving Sydney for Gold Coast and we’re deeply suspicious of Tiger Airways’ reasoning for the delay, if they even gave any. It seems the current favourite excuse for airlines is that the previous flight was late. I always want to ask, “So, our plane is late because the last one was?” I take it that causal rationality is not a training requirement for ground staff these days. Tiger have plenty more than delays to be criticised of but I won’t grumble now, there’s much happiness to tell of. What’s more important is that Derek, Emma’s mum’s brother, and his wife Margaret, collected us from the airport and introduced us to their rather groovy home.
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BEN SQUINTING TOWARDS MANLY WITH SYDNEY BEHIND HIM
On approach from our budget airliner, Sydney was hidden behind a layer of low cloud. When we ducked under it at last we were just above the rooftops. A matrix of neat little box houses slid under us like a toy town on a conveyor belt. We never saw much of central Sydney on our previous visit, we were always passing through to be with friends nearby, such is the allure of slow-forged companionship. This was the case again now, as we went straight from plane to train to visit our old family friends Peggy and John once more.
We felt a slight sense of unease looking out the window of our double-decker train (brilliant inventions!) through the long chain of suburban towns between Sydney CBD and Penrith. They all looked liveable – spacious, modern and well appointed with amenities – but almost every one seemed to centre around a shopping mall owned by one of only a couple of monopolising brands, primarily Westfield. Shopping centres are useful but what’s wrong with a town square and some locally-owned shops?
We were treated to a few beers and a delicious Chinese at the local club. They have this obsession for club membership in Oz that we can’t fathom. We signed a temporary membership form for practically every pint. What’s more, few bars exist unaccompanied by gambling facilities under the same roof. Imagine if every British pub had a Ladbrokes Lounge. But more of that later. We got happily sauced and revelled in the easy conversation in which John and Peggy are so well versed.
The next day we woke to a feature of Australia the impact of which we had almost forgotten: the birds. Of this whole trip — India, Nepal, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand — the Aussies crap on the rest when it comes to avian superiority. Dozing in John and Peggy’s spare bed that morning I started a new habit of describing the birdsong in my notebook. Novelty mobile phone rings; snoring giants; bells rung underwater; girls shrieking; rats being tortured; a whoopee cushion being stamped on… Oh but more of that later, too.
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We had hoped to catch much of the family on our way back through North Island but we laid low for most of it at Rod and Wendy’s, organising the piles of words, photos and videos we had accrued since landing in NZ five weeks earlier. Nevertheless, we took some time for sightseeing when Wendy treated us to a tour of Waitomo Caves. The highlight was a boat ride in total darkness for the last stretch of the cave system. Overhead there twinkled a galaxy of glowworms, uncountable green lamps in the darkness. We also visited a bird centre which I won’t splurge much ink over except to immortalise one thing I noted there on the dietary habits of captive kiwi birds. The birds’ keeper told us that the kiwi in front of us was noshing down on a healthy mix of tofu, peas, porridge, carrots and cows’ hearts. Cows’ hearts? Fear the bloodthirsty might of the kiwi!
THE MOUTH OF THE GLOWWORM CAVES AT WAITOMO
We spent our last night in New Zealand precisely where we had spent our first, back at cousins Ben and Mon’s house. We were late arriving due to an important detour to deliver a T-shirt from the owner of a Nepalese nature reserve to his brother in Auckland. It was a long-standing promise to a kind man and his family, finally put to bed thousands of miles and a few months later.
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