Maiden Voyage: Things the soul cannot 'un-see'!

Jaipur completes the golden triangle tour. I spend three comfortable nights here. I find a Buddhist hotel (Sunder Palace Guest House) and as I book in I’m soothed by the incense candles burning, dark wood fixtures and extravagantly but tastefully painted surroundings, it proves to be a peaceful retreat from the bustling city and a vast improvement (although in a similar price range) to my previous hovels. You need places like these when backpacking, they allow you to recharge your batteries.....and get clean of course!!

Jaipur is known as the ‘Pink City’ it was the first pre-planned city and it shows. It’s more organised, with wider streets and tidier buildings. The roads are just as congested and as manic as ever though with horns franticly honking in every direction...the horn in India as a whole has lost its meaning, it’s used now as a habit only ....it makes me laugh inside and soon becomes white noise to me again.

I visit the Albert Hall museum which for me is an architectural explosion of delicacy utilising raw material. It was built in 1876 as a concert hall purely to ensure Prince Albert of England (during Queen Victoria’s reign) would visit Jaipur during his tour of the country. In celebration of the Royal arrival the city was also painted pink. The point of it all was of course political and the Maharaj intended this flamboyant gesture to strengthen ties with the Royal connections....impressive hey? I’m not sure what went wrong for me, there was certainly no Royal welcome on my arrival, just the usual stares of complete inconvenience at my very presence...ha ha I’m used to it now, I’ve grown a thick skin.

I throw myself into the city, the main places of interest and wander the streets, bazaars and parks. I really like and enjoy Jaipur. I like that it quashed my presumption of an intense, unlikable, poverty stricken place where you would be constantly hounded and intimidated. I happily wandered wherever I wanted generally undisturbed, I was very pleasantly surprised.

Amer fort - an impressive Arabian feel building set in the dry mountainous terrain, a city set in walled grounds. It’s Barron and you can’t help your mind wandering to consider how the workforce with so little provision of water, food, tools and machinery ever created such a vast and beautiful empire.

Hawa Mahal is next up. This building sparks curiosity in me. It’s a five storey facade essentially. The Hawa Mahal was built solely to allow the kings wives a viewing platform for the Main Street activities below. The views from inside out are extremely limited due to the tiny pains of glass and windows, it hardly feels worth the effort. The design primarily ensures the wives cannot be viewed from the street. It feels oppressive institutionalised and controlling to me....I would be sure to fail as a royal wife, I’d rather jump of its frickin’ roof than be controlled in such a manner.

After two enjoyable but fast moving weeks in the north I’m on the move again. I’m heading south west to Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and have really looked forward to this leg of the trip. I’m booked on an overnight sleeper train. It takes over fourteen hours to reach Mumbai via this method but it’s one of the parts of my travel adventures I enjoy the most.

I’m in good spirits as I arrive at the station but it’s not long before the stares take their toll - they are on a whole new level. I’m the only westerner in sight and literally every mans eyes are boring into my me. The fascination with the female foreigner is undeniably overwhelming in India. Seriously I’ve had my bum groped and ‘brushed’ countless times now and I’ve seen more penis’s here (men flashing from the public urinals) than I’ve ever seen in my life, they constantly pester you for selfies ....oh and of course let’s not forget the metro ‘dry humping’ incident! It’s a constant and ongoing battle to remain ‘untouched’ and stay one step ahead of these ‘creepers’ ...but I’m hanging in there!

As the train pulls into the station bodies appear from every direction, scrambling, mauling, frantically pushing....it’s a stampede for the prime seats in ‘cattle class’. The guards are taking bribes to move and assist individuals who’ll cross their palms with silver. It’s all corrupt and very desperate. There are people actually on the lines...it’s crazy....i’m flabbergasted at the chaos that surrounds me.

The calm before the storm ....

I’ve bought a ticket in a first class private cabin with A/C. Sounds plush hey?

Digs for the night!!

My trust companions for the journey ...i'm loving these little savoury snacks and am now addicted to masala chai...mmmm

I did know however what I was letting myself in for, nevertheless I still giggle as my room for the next fourteen hours reveals itself to me....it’s so kin scabby, grotty and unclean...I smile at India’s loose interpretation and plonk myself next to the smeared window. I look out intently on the changing landscape and most desperate of circumstances. There are thousands of makeshift tents, small villages and towns en route that are cut off and totally remote. They have no infrastructure, people are semi naked bathing in the railway station’s drinking water for passengers or collecting it in large pots for camp. As night draws I watch children playing unsafely amongst the railway construction equipment, fires are lit in the camps to provide light from sawing local tree branches off. It’s a heart wrenching, harsh and distressing sight, it really gets to me and I question our individual responsibility to our fellow human - doesn’t everyone deserve to have a little hope and dignity? As the sun goes down I imagine such a pitiful fate in the dark with no hope for tomorrow, this gives me an ache inside I’ll never forget.

As the train plunged into darkness I lay out my liner & inflatable pillow on the brown suspect fake leather mattress. As the clatter if the rails shake the train I find myself being tossed around like a green leaf salad. As the body reacts to the motion, my internal organs follow with a slight delay. It’s not long before I’m feeling queasy. I can only akin it to lying on your kitchen worktop directly above your washing machine on main wash cycle...hours and hours of it! I try both ends of the bed, laying on my front, back and both sides....all of which result in numbness and temporary loss of the use of my limbs. It’s hopeless and the harsh realisation dawns there’ll definitely be no sleep this evening!! ....but I wouldn’t change it for the world, I remind myself of the sweat box cattle class in the remaining twenty+ coaches of this train, along with the people sleeping under the stars tonight...I press my nose to the glass and absorb in wonder the resilience, resourcefulness and strength of these people.

Mumbai is a cosmopolitan city where rich and poor brush shoulders, the colonial architecture, wide streets & leafy suburbs intermingle harmoniously with dusty grey back roads and dirt ridden but humble street sellers... it works in a bizarre sense and I like it.

The food I’ve sampled thus far in India has fallen a little flat for me, whilst flavoursome it’s been a combination of ‘safe choices’ and ‘mild’ dishes with restaurants afraid to ‘spice things up’ for the tourist. So I book onto a street food tour we head off on the local train network to visit a number of places across the city. This tour teaches you the names and safe places to eat and what look out for to avoid getting sick. For the next four hours my tastebuds are tantalised and tingling with spice and tradition ...absolutely loved this experience!

Chow Bazaar

Since reading the beautifully written mesmerising novel Shanteram I’ve had a desire to see the Mumbai slums. I arrange an afternoon tour of the Dharavi slum, this is the third largest slum in the world. The tour intends to put a positive spin on life in the slum, portraying it as a ‘city with a city’ with its own economy. The guides, who are from the slum themselves provide me with hope that it is possible for these people to improve their circumstances, but sadly otherwise I remain unconvinced by the 'line' I’m being strung here.

The conditions are savagely cruel. Back breaking labour in undersized sweat boxes. Faces are drawn and hollow, muscles are pulsing in the skinny fatigued bodies of the workers scraping a living at the very bottom of the human food chain. The slum is piled unhealthily high in every single nook and cranny with waste. The residential areas consist 10m square room, no toilet facilities. Communal welfare facilities are provided at one per 1400 persons (provided by independent studies). Children play with waste products, waving and shouting ‘hello’ in open sewer alleys, barely wide enough for a human to fit. They are unaware of their misfortune. But the strain shows on the adult faces. This is the very definition of the toughest living, but somehow these people fight on to live another day. I don’t feel pity, I cannot help but admire them. I’m left feeling aggrieved at the cover up story being fed to tourists of opportunity, contentment and stability.... which if you use your own eyes can only be translated into suffering and exploitation.

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