Cast iron stomach I said...no way I'll get Delhi belly I boasted.
"You poor white fool," says my Stomach.
"You foolish, lilly-white pasty Western white fool," mocks my Ever-streaming Nose.
"Haha dickhead!" mumbles my Sweaty Sheen sitting on top of my skin with its awful pallor.
Those of you who don't have my goldfish-style memory may recall that Kath and I were due to go on a horse trek to Pushkar...... but we're not there, and I haven't ridden a horse. India strikes again.
We caught an overnight sleeper bus back to Udaipur from Delhi just as a localised moonsoon was beginning to focus itself on my nose. Once back, having paid for some riding helmets and a back brace, we found at that beginners wouldn't be allowed to ride on the trek - which would have left me in a jeep for 7 days while Kath rode. 'Bugger that' was the conclusion we reached after talking about it some. So, we came back to Udaipur for nothing. Although it wasn't all bad because it was a good place to do some serious hibernation.
Almost a week on. We have moved from the country's north, to the Southern capital of Chennai (where we lost Kath's phone) and now on to a small town called Mamallapurum. I'm still getting better and have finally conceded after some prodding about my grumpy behaviour, that it is not an unmanly thing to do to go and see a doctor and that if I admit that I might not be able to beat the Indian bug on my own...that I won't automatically sprout bosoms and tearing up when people talk about their feelings in movies. And I've also realised that Kath has a point about getting me to eat things, so I started yesterday on soups and plain bread. So far so good.
Yes the last week has been shitty. But it has given me time to more thoroughly consider India's major cities.
I don't like major Indian cities very much, but I know why. I don't like them because they are squalid, polluted, painfully populated and interminably repetitive. But most of all I don't like them because I am yet to put any friendly faces to them. We've have great drivers, hotel managers and tour guides but we haven't really hung out with anyone except the odd whitey backpacker yet. And in places that don't have much going on for them aesthetically, the people really make or break the experience.
This time travel is very different for me. I've got little desire to get boozed all the time or to smoke, because it was bloody hard to give up last time (and am flatly not interested in the other kind of smoking). I've observed a few backpackers so far and the people who seem to be most enraptured by their Indian experience are mostly stoned, younger and stick to bars and hostels. We have yet to see many of this type of traveler out or doing much. That's partly why we're thinking about blowing off Goa. We guess, too many drugs, too much faux spiritualism and BS hippies practicing cringe-worthy and contrived Western to Indian transformations through trance music and following their phallus' to other like-minded Shiva t-shirt, thai fisherpant enthusiasts.
So where does this leave us? In a happy place actually.
We're in Mamallapurum, south of Chennai and finally out of the big smoke. Hooray! Many palm trees and the prospect of doing some walking in better natural surrounds, coupled with the availability of very cheap, fresh seafood is making things look brighter. I've swallowed my pride so far as seeing a doctor and am probably about to swallow a course of antibiotics.
The people here a cool, more chilled out and not so many touts looking for victims. Fingers crossed we might meet a couple of Indians to talk to as well. Kath has suggested we try and go out on a fishing trawler with the fishermen. It's a great idea.
Three cheers for South India.
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