After the horrid horrid bus ride, we grabbed our bags and climbed down from the bus into the scrum of jostling tuk tuk hawkers. I’ve gotten pretty good at ignoring people since being here. It helps you get along; when there’s a billion people you just can’t give everybody the time of day. Continue reading
My fourth day in Udaipur was spent doing glorious beautiful wonderful nothing. Two weeks into my trip, and I was feeling exhausted. Heat and booze and a constant flurry of new faces and the ever-looming dread of food poisoning, which has ravaged literally every single person I’ve met bar me, all conspire to leave me absolutely knackered. I spent a half hour in the morning doing yoga on the rooftop with Sandeep, and then happily committed myself to a blissful day of fuck all. Continue reading
I’m writing these a few days behind, so some days are a little trickier to recall. However, as far as memory serves, I spent most of my second morning in Udaipur doing very little, apart from nursing a hangover on the terrace. As time has gone on I’ve found exhaustion setting in; I’ve gotten lazier and lazier in the intense heat, and when you’re shattered in the first place, it quickly becomes a huge task to simply get up, get dressed, and leave the relative serenity of the hostel for the rapture of the streets. Continue reading
In the morning I had breakfast on the terrace, sitting alone with my laptop to write. I’ve been smoking a lot in India purely because there’s a large amount of sitting around in the sun or gazing out at majestic views, and they go together nicely. I asked an Indian guy a few across for a cig, and he handed me one smiling. A few moments later he came over to me and introduced himself, and asked to join me. He told me his name was far too long for a western tongue to pronounce, and told me everybody called him Prax. Continue reading
Woke up hungover again despite being in a booze free town because I am scum. Had breakfast with the new gang – Ellie, Jonas and the newly-revived James, who had recovered to the point where he was now able to go an hour without erupting out of both ends. At midday we headed out on what turned out to be my favourite day in this country so far. We went on a quest to find Aloo Baba. Continue reading
India, man. Fucking India. I’m astonished.
I woke up around 10am and had breakfast on the roof terrace with Jonas and James, and met an English girl called Ellie. She’s been travelling for sixth months and it shows; she’s covered in scars and bruises with a wild story for every one of them. We spent an hour talking, then I set out into the town of Pushkar with Jonas – see, while Jonas had recovered from his stint with food poisoning, James had tagged in to the sickness ring, and was curled up on his bunk sweating and groaning. Continue reading
Every day in this country is insane and the further I travel the more absurd it gets. I love it.
Dave has been in Delhi this whole time, doing god knows what, and he messaged me last night to say he’d be arriving in Jaipur at midnight. I left a note with Sid at reception for Dave, telling him hello and that if he tried waking me I would fucking shank him. I spoke to Sid in the morning and asked if Dave had arrived, and he said yes, four hours late, and that they smoked hash together sitting on the floor. I said yes, that sounds very much like Dave. Continue reading
Got up in Agra at 6am because I had a bus to Jaipur booked for 7.30 with two guys I met the previous evening, James from Auckland, New Zealand and Jonas from Copenhagen, Denmark. I told Jonas I know Denmark pretty well but he wasn’t particularly interested. Nobody ever is. Perhaps I should stop using it as an ice breaker with Danish people. Perhaps. Continue reading
It’s all so close, goodness me, it’s all so very close now. I can almost smell the runway tarmac. I can almost taste the soggy airport sandwiches. I can almost hear the grating rumble of 20-something girls insisting on dragging their miniscule suitcases over the cobbled ground– PICK IT UP FOR FUCK’S SAKE SARAH IT WEIGHTS ABOUT 15 GRAMS MY GOD –I can almost see the rooftops of Berlin shrinking majestically below me.
So I’m flying to Delhi on the 1st of March. My last day at work is the 23rd of February. Back to the UK for two nights to bid loved ones farewell and drop off any shit I don’t want to inevitably lose on the road, then a quick return to Berlin for two days of goodbye-ing, then away. That’s the plan as far as you know it thus far. I have since planned in a tad more detail. Continue reading
It’s the 19th of February, and these dairies have been running on for 18 months now. They’ve become less frequent, sure, partly because I’ve got used to life in the city and therefore am less inspired to write a 3000 word dirge fresh off the heels of yet another evening’s ketamine and kebab consumption, and also partly because I have, through no fault of my own (honest) been drunk a LOT. We’re not talking Oliver Reed or Shane MacGowan levels of astoundingly ever-twatted, there’s no need to worry, but certainly enough booze quaffed over a 6 month period to reopen Bärenquell Brauerei for a long weekend. Continue reading