Dear Julio,

Here we are back home now for 2 weeks and we are still recovering from some tiredness or may be we got the dreaded “chicoungonia “. I woke up this morning thinking it was 8.30 a.m. but it was in fact 10.00 o’clock! It is a big difference from my 6.30a.m. rise before going to visit Mamie. Not that it will worry you very much as I have been told that you don’t surface until 1.00 p.m.!

We had a great time. When I say we I mean I as daddy seemed to be suffering all the time from one thing or another: barking dogs, heat, sweat, insect bites, lack of chocolate, lack of cheese, loud music, sea, either too bright, too low, too high, too murky after the rain or full of seaweed…. The litany could go on for days as it did indeed go on for days! Luckily at some point I dived too fast and I was partially deaf for a while. As we arrived, daddy wrote a slightly demented blog entry. I will have to ask Olivier to erase it.

The days went by with the same sort of pattern. Daddy was chopping wood and cooking lunch on the fire outside. Mamie and I, we occupied our time by going to church, visiting friends, swimming twice a day (great) and cleaning (not so great!) We went there armed with quite a few devices to ward off the mosquitoes but we got bitten still. We took the bus now and then to go to a different beach. They are still using their rackety buses on those treacherous roads bending up and down the hills. Daddy and I gripped tightly on the bar in front of us in the manner of a rollercoaster and only letting it go on the flat. I must say the drivers were very skilled. There are a lot more houses on the coast but the interior is just as wild as it used to be with lush and mysterious vegetation. We did a very pleasant walk over the hills to Anse Boudin and Cote d’Or.

We spent Christmas with Miette, Pat and family ( they are Mamie’s friends). We had plenty of delicious food but no fish. We had less of it this time due to over fishing or bad weather I am not sure.

Our stay was spoilt by the cancelled flight. We got to the airport at 7.30 am on the small island to be told that there were some problems with the small planes as well as with the flight to Paris. We eventually got to the main island at 9.30 and our plane hadn’t arrived yet. So with a couple of hours before checking in, I went on a hunt for fruit and I arrived laden with some green ones: papaws, guavas, caramboles, one breadfruit and two cocos to drink.

They let us through the departure lounge and we waited 1, 2 ,3 hrs…, when tiredness, starvation and panic started to grip the passengers. Mothers with children and babies demanded food and we were given a few rupees for a sandwich and a drink. Needless to say, the tiny bar was depleted in no time. Some 20 ferocious Italians (they had been there since 4 o’clock having missed their flight) were complaining about missing their connecting flight, working the next day, never again will they fly Air France. Yay, yeah, ye said everyone, shouting: wild gestures ensued with the arrival of the police. The Swiss were trying to appease everyone. The Germans were getting redder and redder in the face trying to conceal their violent feelings. Groups were forming and attacking any passing airport employee and bombarding them with questions and demanding explanations but on the whole the rest of the group behaved quite well with some even playing cards and reading.

At 7h30 we were given our luggage and sent to different hotels. We arrived at ours at 8h.30 to find closed doors and no one in sight. As we saw our bus disappearing down a drive, I asked Nicky to stop the driver when he comes back. After a phone call the owner appeared, unconcerned: ‘no there will be no supper it is too late’. What are we to do on this remote part of the island? We decided to walk down the drive to the mammoth hotel where they agreed to give us some food. What an amazing place it was! A palatial restaurant had a vast buffet, a Creole orchestra was playing, a few dancers were pirouetting joyfully. We calmed down a little while gawping around. We rushed to the multitude of scrumptious dishes and took a little with the intention of having some more later but I could not eat due to the tiredness (it was 9h30 by then), the stomach shrinkage and the emotion of the day and our companions felt just the same. Nicky was the only one who polished his plate. We walked around the beautiful grounds, the beach, the other restaurants and the 600+ rooms and back to our place for a restful night. I refused to eat breakfast: stale bread when the smell of fresh bread was wafting by, probably from the smart hotel with an infect beverage that they try to pass as coffee. No, no, surely not, who do they think we are!

We got back to the airport for another long morning. We had lunch at two o’clock and we arrived at home in the early hours of the following morning. Next time I will make sure I have a good supply of biscuits just in case.

Love Mama.

To be honest, I think I’d need to be paid money to do a Nevis (or any other type of) bungy jump. Looking at the various videos on YouTube just confirms it. Utterly insane.

In those pics, jul looks like he could be one of the Others in Lost, or a thin, long-haired version of Mr Echo…

I purchased a Snowboarding helm today, so that when I do my crazy tricks on the slopes of Austria, my noggin will be protected. I also have the added advantage that it makes me look like an idiot.

well, shantaram took place a while ago so perhaps things are different now. the crowd didn’t look likley to turn ugly.

your epic tale of trying to catch a few winks is not disimilier to trying to snooze in palolam. the barking dogs, the enfirnal heat, the cretins on the beach constantly letting off fireworks left over from new years. not much sleep here.

heading to hampi tonight. should be fun.

 

julio

Clearly you haven’t read Shantaram yet. In the early part of the book, Lin – the narrator – is travelling in a taxi with his Indian guide. Their driver is reckless, either a lunatic or out of his head on noxious substances. Eventually, he smashes into a hand drawn cart, sending several people flying. The driver is mometarily concussed. The taxi is boxed in by other cars, so Lin and his guide can’t get out of their rear doors. The guide is frantic to escape; Lin assumes this is because the taxi might explode in flames. They clambour over the front seats, and once out, run until they are well clear. Lin looks back and comments on the taxi not having been engulfed by flames. His guide explains that that was not a problem; the likelihood – or near certainty – of their being lynched was. He points out that the driver has been dragged from his cab and is being beaten senseless by the angry crowd that has gathered. That, apparently, is the standard fate for those deemed to have been the cause of accidents. Presumably, the reason the passengers are considered as guilty as the driver is because if they hadn’t commandeered the taxi in the first place, the accident would never have happened!!!

onwards to palolam!

so we decided that Vagator, not the jolly christmas retreat that we imagined, was to be left as soon as possible.
We asked our hotel bloke whether a train ticket could be bought from him, he looked like a chronically frightened weasel at the best of times and now he looked especially shifty. he told us that the best way would be taking a taxi (the hotel taxi of course) to Panjim and then a bus to palolem from there. weakened by lack of sleep from the previous nights excesses, we agreed. the next morning we arrived in panjim and where dropped of at the bus station. much like when Flo and i went to our first station it was a process of trail and error to find out how things worked. the bus station was a bustle of activity, with signs everywhere written in one of the 87 languages that are actively used in India. i queued up at a likely looking office, only to be told to go someplace else for palolam. the bloke wasn’t clear, his wild gesture taking in the entirety of the bus station. the station was built like a hub, so we struck out a quarter rotation in the hope of seeing something. i found a bus heading to margaon, a place halfway there, but i had no idea how to get a ticket. asking around i discovered that what i first thought to a be a large mob aimlessly clogging up the station trying to sell stuff, turned out to be the queue to get tickets. as i considered the rabble, trying to work out where it ended or even began, a couple of travelers wondered up. turns out they where from the chek republic and the prospect of queuing scared them. they offered to share a taxi with us to margaon. this seemed a good plan so we got a taxi after a protracted haggling session with the chek guy happily inventing fictional journeys he had taken of similar length but for a quarter of the asking price. i was in the back with the chek couple and lucy was in the front apparently pretending to be a deaf mute. i chatted away to the couple who were really nice. a couple of times during out conversation the taxi driver would swerve violently and break to avoid such things as the side of the road or a tree. this isn’t unusual in india, so we really didn’t take it onboard that we where in the hands of someone who had only the most rudimentary grasp on the concept of driving. it was also possible that he was drunk. i joked about the lack of seatbelts, miming strapping myself into my seat in mock terror. we all had a jolly laugh. what seemed like moments later we came to an intersection and i glanced up to see a moped appear in front of us. the driver braked wildly and i watched in slow motion as we smashed into the moped. the rider crunched into the windscreen, spiderwebing it inwards right in front of Lucy. the taxi stopped, shedding its newest addition. i looked around, no one seemed harmed. Lucy was understandably in a state of shock and covered in glass dust. suddenly a crowd appeared around us. i saw the mopedist being supported by a couple of people, he looked alive, if a little mangled. after a moments indecision we all got out and wondered around for another taxi. our driver, now on the phone to his boss, tried to charge us, but we declined.

as luck would have it, we had crashed directly opposite a bus stop. a bus rested on the tarmac like some blessed apparition, it was going to margaon, it was empty and it cost rp8 a tiny fraction of what the taxi would have cost.
on reflection, this is all disturbingly lucky.
this enchanted bus soon filled up and took approximately a week to get to margaon but the bus from there to palolam it was speedy. we had worked out the buses at that point. you just leap on the one with palolam printed on the back and hope for the best.
on this bus we met a guy called Miles, a very nice chap who become our companion in palolam for a few days.
we slid back into the thing of things in palolam fairly quickly. getting drunk with Miles every other evening and taking a rest the next day.
a note on Quicksilver.
this has become one of the finest books i have ever read. it bypasses even the quincunx as a pleasure to read. it centers on the royal society and natural philosophers in particular. a subject i new a little about having listened to a radio 4 program on it a while back. natural philosophers such as Newton, Hook and Liebnez created the way we view the world today. inventing such diverse things as the telescope and the clock to metaphysical notions such as calculus and the philosophical language. fascinating stuff with a really engaging story. Samuel Pypes was a member of the royal society at the time and has a small role in this book. when i have the chance upon returning home i might have a read of his diaries and see his perspective on certain events such as the great fire of london and being “cut for the stone”.
been in palolam for about nine days now. new year was an anticlimax of similar proportions to christmas. it was fun for a while but i went to bed at around 5am bitterly annoyed that the network had collapsed and not only could not send any messages but any messages sent to me where somehow lost in the aether as well. i’m still waiting to receive them. thinking about heading on to Hampi in the next few days.
see you anon!
love Julio

Flo and lucy scrumming down some pemello in the park in mumbai.

some urchins, of which, there are many, in agra.

a traditionally painted heavey goods truck.

me trecking into the heart of monkey island, armed only with a glazed expresion and a staff of my own construction. those monkeys had better watch out!

still on monkey island, i rest for a moment and enjoy a good pose as i servey my claimed land. i shall name it von julion land or some such.

a foul creature thats has crawled out of someones nightmare. they populate the beaches of palolam in their millions.

i believe i have messed up the uploading again. but this computor is like a satan and is not making it easy.

It can’t be Jermaine or Michael. Is it Randy?

Also after my epic bungy jump on the highest bungy in the country at a mere 134 meters and 8 seconds free fall those who wish to see more should go to Youtube and type in “Nevis Bungy”. You will see what I did done by some other random bloke.

I highly recommend the experience to all – it is highly exciting but at the same time gentle on the poor body with no strain put upon it and certainly no eye dislocation likely. The only downer is the sheer cost of the thing!
Happy New Year from a pleasantly warm South Island