I am an atheist, I have a very different take on who God is. Man invented God because he needed him. God is us. — Carl Reiner

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photos from cambodia

top — skulls from the killing fields
middle — a girl peers through a fence and begs for money
bot­tom — an old man fin­an­cially com­pensates a girl for ser­vices rendered

travel diary — day 350

day 346 — it snowed like mad the whole day. after break­fast i walked around town tak­ing pho­to­graphs of the snow. it was a lot of fun because people were happy to let me take their pic­ture — even though it was snow­ing and freez­ing cold. i returned to chow­khang gompa and took some pho­tos there too.

it was cold and my clothes were start­ing to become wet from melted snow. i retreated to the inter­net café for a while to warm up, then i returned to the snow and took more pho­tos. i bought some food and returned to my hotel to let my clothes dry out and read my book. i fin­ished the book in the even­ing, packed and slept.

day 347 — there had been no flights out of leh for the past three days, due to the bad weather. so when i went to bed the pre­vi­ous night, i secretly feared that the poor weather would con­tinue and i’d be stuck in leh. being stuck in leh isn’t so bad actu­ally, but i wanted to keep mov­ing and was keen to reach kash­mir. when i woke up it was still dark, but i went out­side and looked at the night sky — it was dot­ted with stars and i knew that the weather had cleared.

i packed and left my hotel right on dawn. i walked into the main street but there was nobody awake yet and no taxis. i man­aged to get a ride with some air­port work­ers and arrived in time for my flight.

the flight was delayed by five hours because the air­port offi­cials hadn’t been able to clear the run­way of snow from the pre­vi­ous day. sur­pris­ingly, they had no snow-clearing equip­ment and the local army had come in to clear the run­way using shovels. dur­ing the long wait i got talk­ing to a couple of kash­miri guys who work in leh but live in srin­igar. we talked about india, cricket, islam, kash­mir and numer­ous other things. it passed the time and i was happy.

even­tu­ally we got on board the plane and flew to srin­igar. i’d already arranged a house­boat and guide, who was wait­ing for me, so i was quickly whisked off to dal lake to my house­boat, some food and hot tea. on the way to the house­boat i couldn’t help but notice the enorm­ous num­ber of sol­diers lin­ing the streets, sup­por­ted by vehicles and armoured per­son­nel car­ri­ers. i star­ted to worry that maybe it wasn’t as safe as i first thought, but the guide reas­sured me that it was just a reg­u­lar sight in srin­igar, espe­cially when some kind of event was com­ing up — like the planned strike on the fol­low­ing day.

the house­boat was really nice and i enjoyed sit­ting in the warm room with food and drink. i found out that the owner, who is a kash­miri muslim man, has a french wife. i talked with the owner’s son for a while and after din­ner the french wife appeared. she intro­duced her­self with a huge reefer in her hand and asked “do you want to smoke?”.

her name was vic­toria and she was actu­ally the owner’s second wife (his first wife is also kash­miri) and they all live together on the house­boats which he inher­ited from his father. we talked for quite a while and i got some sleep.

day 348 — i spent the morn­ing relax­ing on the house­boat. the boat was warm from the fire in my room (inside a huge stove) and the gas burner in the liv­ing room. i ate and talked with the owner, mohammad, and organ­ised a four day itin­er­ary to see srin­igar and the kash­mir val­ley. i talked with vic­toria a little bit, drank some great cof­fee, and walked into town.

everything in town was shut due to some local strike, so i walked for a bit and had a snack at a local tibetan res­taur­ant. nearby was an inter­net café, so i also checked my email. i returned on dusk and spent the quiet even­ing watch­ing a movie on my com­puter.

day 349
— i had break­fast and then went on a long two hour boat ride around dal lake. dal lake is enorm­ous there are thou­sands of house­boats scattered around it. parts of the lake have small islands and these often con­tain shops, mosques and schools. we went through some canals and saw the old city side of the lake. the place is amaz­ing and it was nice to look around and see the whole thing.

after­wards i spent some time edit­ing and back­ing up pho­tos (which i hadn’t done since ladakh). then i went into town to with­draw money. i had a cof­fee, checked email again and returned to the boat. i edited some more pho­tos and went to bed.

day 350
— today i got an early start and we drove out to kash­mir val­ley and the city of pahal­gan. i ren­ted a horse and rode to the top of the hills which had a great view of kash­mir and the val­ley itself. i took a break at the top and had some cof­fee. there were a few vendors there and i had the chance to go sled­ding. instead, i fol­lowed the sled­ders and took photos.

i rode back down and returned to the car. i had some lunch and then vis­ited a hindu temple called ‘the fish temple’. inside the temple is a small lake which comes down from the moun­tain. fish live in the lake and it’s part of the temple’s long his­tory. the place wasn’t very inter­est­ing though, except for the fish, so we kept going and wandered around some ruins of another hindu temple which are 1100 years old. the local care­taker was keen to guide me around (i knew he’d want money) but i scorned him for how dirty the place was — littered with cigar­ettes and fire­cracker paper. he blamed the local kids, but i didn’t care since he was the care­taker and it should have been his respons­ib­il­ity … not to men­tion the fact that the site was looked after by the indian archae­olo­gical society.

indi­ans have a way of say­ing ‘as you wish’ when they want money. it’s sup­posed to mean ‘pay me as much as you wish’ or ‘you decide how much to give as a tip’ … of course, they’re never happy with the amount of the tip and will always sug­gest more. i’d become fed up with indian bak­sheesh and, since i hadn’t asked for the guided tour, walked off without pay­ing any tip at all.

we returned to srin­igar and when i returned to the house­boat a float­ing store (a paddle boat act­ing as a shop) came by. i bought some snacks for the even­ing, edited some more pho­tos, had din­ner, watched a movie and slept.

photos from cambodia

top — angkor wat reflec­ted in water
middle — the ruins of angkor wat
bot­tom — the faces of S21

travel diary — day 345

day 341 — i got star­ted early for my flight to leh. at 5am i got a taxi to the air­port but had to stop along the way when the taxi shred­ded a tyre. retreads are very com­mon in india and the qual­ity is, in a word, shit. 10 minutes later we were going again and i soon arrived at the air­port. i grabbed a quick break­fast and then flew to ladakh.

leh was sunny but cool and my first impres­sions were of a beau­ti­ful town. i found my hotel and walked around the mar­kets and the main street. the town is small and it didn’t take long to wander around nearly the entire vil­lage. being cold i figured that i needed to get myself a warmer jacket and did a little shop­ping, but the prices were high and i was dis­ap­poin­ted. i figured i’d try again the next day.

i couldn’t do much today, since the risk of ams is high on the first day after fly­ing to a high alti­tude, so i got some thukpa for din­ner and res­ted in my room.

day 342 — i walked into town and decided that i needed a jacket regard­less of the cost. i found a store and man­aged to haggle a good price. i also bought a beanie. then i went for a walk up the hill to the old leh palace and soma gompa. fur­ther up the hill was namgyal tsemo gompa, which had a great view of the town.

i walked back down the hill and into the main street. i found an inter­net café and checked my email. i had thukpa for din­ner again and returned to my hotel before it got dark (and too cold).

day 343 — today i went on a driv­ing tour of leh and the sur­round­ing area. being winter there are no tour­ists and little busi­ness. i’m the only guest at my hotel and the owner offered to take me on the tour him­self. we vis­ited 4 of the district’s major temples. shay gompa was really nice and at thiksay gompa a young import­ant lama had been invited to give talks to the monks. the mon­as­tery was full of people — monks were listen­ing to the talks and buddhists were sit­ting out­side listen­ing via speak­ers. there were so many people, but they were all sit­ting quietly and shar­ing tea. i drank some tea too and looked around.

hemis gompa was hid­den high up in the hills and it took a while to get there. the roads were icy but the scenery was amaz­ing. the gompa was mostly empty but it turns out that my guide and hotel owner is very well known amongst the loc­als and is prom­in­ent in the buddhist com­munity. in fact, he’s met the dalai lama sev­eral times. so whenever we arrived some­where, tea was served, doors were unlocked and we were invited to watch and par­ti­cip­ate in the local celebrations.

the last temple was stok and we arrived at the begin­ning of a 49 day mourn­ing cere­mony for an old lama who’d died. monks had been invited from as far as bhutan to per­form rituals and chant to bless the lama. we were invited inside and got to sit with the monks while they chanted and prayed. i sat quietly and respect­fully, some­times tak­ing a photo or two, and enjoyed the atmo­sphere of the scene. actu­ally, i kicked myself that i hadn’t thought to bring my mp3 player which is able to record sound. it would have been nice to keep a record­ing of the chanting.

we returned to leh and i walked back to the main street to check email again. i had a quick din­ner (more thukpa) and got some sleep.

day 344 — i woke up to find leh covered in snow. it had snowed dur­ing the night and the entire town was white. most of the shops were shut (because it was sunday, not because of the snow) so there wasn’t much i could do. i walked around town and wandered through the tibetan mar­ket. much of it was shut too, dur­ing the tour­ist off-season, but some stalls were still open. actu­ally, when i was in goa i dis­covered that many kash­miri and ladakhi people head south dur­ing winter to make money. many of them work in the goan mar­kets or in hotels then return north again for the sum­mer tour­ist sea­son. obvi­ously though, some people remain in ladakh and tried to make the most of the winter season.

the inter­net café was warm so i devoted an hour catch­ing up on chess. i grabbed some food and returned to the hotel. actu­ally, nights are really cold in ladakh, so i was always keen to get home before dark and crawl into my warm bed to read.

day 345 — i had break­fast in town and returned to the tibetan mar­ket. more was open this time and i bought a ‘save tibet’ tshirt and some long under­wear. i walked to chow­khang gompa, which is hid­den in the middle of town, and walked north of the vil­lage to find the korean mon­as­tery. the mon­as­tery must be small because i couldn’t find it. but i enjoyed the long walk and pho­to­graphed some kids slid­ing down the ice slopes. leh also has an out­door ice skat­ing rink, so i watched the local kids skate and play ice hockey.

the even­ing was really cold and i finally gave in and got a heater for my room. up to now i’d been sur­viv­ing without one, but the days were get­ting colder and there was more snow around. i also grabbed a book from the hotel lib­rary, paulo cohelo’s ‘the zahir’, which i read in my now-warm room.

photos from cambodia

top — the giant faces of ta promh
middle — loc­als sit­ting amongst the ruins
bot­tom — a buddha, clad in saffron

travel diary — day 340

day 336 — basic­ally, i’m killing time until i get my pakistan visa. i can’t leave delhi without it. so i have been spend­ing my days as lazily as pos­sible, try­ing not to spend too much money.

i bought some under­wear and spent much of the day online. i had din­ner at a rooftop bar which was unli­censed. they sold beer in mugs which they called ‘cap­puccino’. i watched the liv­er­pool game live on tv, returned to the hotel and slept.

day 337 — i had break­fast and did some research about pakistan. then i returned to con­naught place to find a beg­gar i’d seen a few days earlier. she was old and had patches of dif­fer­ent col­oured skin on her face. i really wanted her pho­to­graph. i walked around for half an hour but couldn’t find her. then, sud­denly, i almost bumped straight into her. i took her photo, gave her some money (and craig’s old phone!) and ran away.

i returned to the hotel and inquired about flights to ladakh and kash­mir. the hotel owner also told me about a friend he knew in srin­igar who had a house boat. it soun­ded prom­ising, so i planned to make arrange­ments the next day (after con­firm­ing the pakistan visa).

day 338 — i went to the pakistan embassy early. i got inside and had to wait two hours for the inter­view to get my visa. the inter­view was fast (fur­ther proof of the bur­eau­cracy) and i returned to main bazaar. i scanned some pho­tos, with­drew money and bought two flights: one to leh (ladakh) and one to srin­igar (kash­mir). i would have gone in by bus, but at this time of year, the roads to leh are shut and the only way in is to fly.

i checked email, had a nice cof­fee and apple pie at the bakery, and spent the rest of the day online. in anti­cip­a­tion of going to leh, i also star­ted a course of anti-ams (acute moun­tain sick­ness) med­ic­a­tion. i would be fly­ing to leh, mean­ing a quick ascent to high alti­tude, which i knew could be a problem.

day 339 — i picked up my pass­port and pakistan visa. finally! i still had two more days to kill, so i spent the after­noon online. in the after­noon there was a power surge which fried the ac power cable. damn! another freak­ing thing to go wrong.

day 340 — i went to see if i could get a replace­ment power cable. i ended up at a hp ser­vice centre and was told that the cable was nearly $50. to hell with that! i went back to the main bazaar and got a non-genuine cable for a quarter of the price.

i checked email, picked up my wash­ing and packed my bag. after din­ner i with­drew some more money, paid my hotel bill and went to bed early in anti­cip­a­tion of a very early start the next morning.

photos from cambodia

top — the face of ta promh
middle — angkor wat reflec­ted
bot­tom — a girl in tra­di­tional costume

travel diary — day 335

day 331 — aus­tralia day — i woke up, had break­fast and packed. the hostel had no water at all … so no shower … and i was covered in bed bug bites … again! i stored my bag and headed into town. i checked out a few cam­era stores, checked email and returned to the hostel to get my gear. when i returned, the water was work­ing, so i had a long shower. as i was leav­ing, i noticed a dis­carded copy of ‘nat­ural born killers’, upon which the film was based. i threw the book in my pack and decided to read it on the train.

i bumped into the french and span­ish tour­ists again, so i talked with them for a few minutes before i left to get my train. the french guy gave me his iran lonely planet (in french) which i figured i could use for maps and stuff. i had some ira­nian food for din­ner and got the train to delhi.

day 332 — i spent the day on the train. i read ‘nat­ural born killers’ and fin­ished it in a few hours. i listened to music and also listened to some singing from the com­part­ment next to me. the people in the com­part­ment were trav­el­ing as part of a group. i couldn’t fig­ure out whether they were reli­gious or a good samar­itan group or what. they sang a lot, which was fun, and in the even­ing they did a prayer. i had a long con­ver­sa­tion with an indian guy and was given some lit­er­at­ure about ‘love, life and the uni­verse’ by one of the sing­ers. it seemed like hippy/cult/religion stuff, so i smiled politely and didn’t read it.

day 333 — the train was delayed by six hours and we arrived really late. the train had stopped at a sta­tion an hour south of delhi in the early hours of the morn­ing. many people got off, think­ing that the train wouldn’t con­tinue, and went in search of buses. the con­ductor told every­one that there was a prob­lem with the train.

i was in two minds whether to go or stay, when sud­denly they announced that the train was leav­ing. i jumped back on and got to delhi. the train was half empty and i think there must have been a lot of angry people stran­ded on the plat­form or look­ing for a bus.

we arrived in delhi and i had to wait another hour for a con­nect­ing train to the new delhi sta­tion. when i got to new delhi i walked through the main bazaar and checked into a hotel. after a shower and change, i headed straight to the pakistan embassy to start my visa application.

the freak­ing pakistan embassy require a ‘let­ter of intro­duc­tion’ from the applicant’s home nation. i couldn’t get the let­ter or pakistan visa applic­a­tion forms until the next day, so i headed back to main bazaar. i had din­ner in a nice rooftop res­taur­ant, checked email and did an upgrade on my ubuntu os.

day 334 — i got up early, had a quick break­fast and went straight to the embassy district.

the pakistan embassy offi­cial gave me the applic­a­tion forms and con­firmed that i need the let­ter of intro­duc­tion. that meant walk­ing to the aus­tralian embassy (which was nearby) and fork­ing out $30 for a stamped let­ter. damn! i returned to the pakistan embassy, filled out the forms, had them typed (as is required and is a retarded rule) then walked down to the bank to sub­mit my visa pay­ment. apply­ing for a pakistan visa is a ridicu­lously com­plic­ated pro­cess. it’s not dif­fi­cult, it’s just stu­pid bureaucracy.

i had to wait three days to com­plete the visa.

i then headed to the ira­nian embassy to see if there was any easy way of get­ting the ira­nian visa (without the approval code issued by iran’s for­eign min­istry). the embassy offi­cial was very rude to me and told me to get the visa in aus­tralia. so i gave up and returned to the main part of town.

i walked around con­naught place, bought a phone and decided to relax for the even­ing. i chat­ted and played chess online.

day 335 — i had break­fast and walked around the bazaar. i found a small bakery which had nice food, and the owner liked to play chess. we played two games (1–1) and i was happy with the res­ult. i sold some books and had dinner.

photos from nepal

top — a gompa against a blue sky
middle — a young girl poses for the cam­era
bot­tom — wheat fields in spring

travel diary — day 330

day 326 — i arrived in goa in the morn­ing and headed to the taxi stand to arrange trans­port to anjuna (the town in goa where i’d decided to stay). at the stand i met a french girl called elsa who’d been on the bunk dir­ectly beneath me. we hadn’t spoken on the train, but we star­ted talk­ing at the taxi stand and decided to share a taxi. she was going to vag­ator, which was near anjuna, and i figured i’d work some­thing out along the way.

when we arrived in vag­ator i real­ised what a nice little vil­lage it was. the hotel elsa had booked was nice and she invited me to split costs and share the room (there were two beds). i agreed and we dumped our gear and went for breakfast.

being wed­nes­day, today was the day of the fam­ous anjuna mar­kets. we ren­ted a scooter and rode a few kilo­met­ers to the massive weekly mar­ket. the mar­ket was fant­astic and i enjoyed walk­ing around. there were bands play­ing in a few places so we sat and listened to a few, drink­ing beers and talk­ing about travel.

we split up for a while to explore the mar­kets sep­ar­ately. i bought a chess set, a new diary and a cheap tshirt with a ganesh pic­ture on it. elsa and i met up again in the late after­noon. she wanted to return to see the even­ing bands and i thought it was a good idea. we sat and watched the band per­form. after they were fin­ished, it was late and we rode back to the hotel. we got some tibetan food for a late din­ner and, since i was tired as hell, got some sleep.

day 327 — i had an early break­fast, checked email, then met elsa. together we took the scooter to panaji (a big­ger city) to see old goa and get tick­ets (bus/train) to our vari­ous des­tin­a­tions. on the way we were stopped by police because we weren’t wear­ing hel­mets and didn’t have a licence. we paid 600 rupeees as a “fine” (bak­sheesh) and con­tin­ued to old goa.

old goa was fant­astic. we vis­ited bom jesus and st fran­cis of asissi. i bought a small fig­ur­ine of st chris­topher (the pat­ron saint of trav­el­ers) and we wandered around the other chapels and churches.

we took the coast road back, hop­ing to avoid police, and enjoyed the goan vil­lages along the way. we stopped for a late lunch and rode up to chapora fort for sun­set. in the even­ing we walked to the beach for beer and cigars, then returned to the room to sleep.

day 328 — elsa was head­ing south towards the ancient city of humpee. i decided to check out too and move to anjuna beach for a few days. i had a small sleep and wandered around the mar­kets. i bought a ticket back to mum­bai, then had din­ner on the beach and watched the sun­set. i watched a movie on my com­puter and went to bed late.

day 329 — i had break­fast and spent a little bit of time online. i was run­ning out of money and made the 1.5 km walk to the nearest atm. when i returned i decided to buy a train ticket to delhi, since it seemed that the trains were busy and i didn’t want to be stuck in mumbai.

after lunch i had some beer and took a long walk along anjuna beach. it’s a beau­ti­ful stretch of beach, but (like much of goa) is crowded with indian and for­eign tourists.

i had a very early start the next morn­ing so i organ­ised a taxi, packed and got some sleep.

day 330 — i woke up at 3.30am, got a taxi to the sta­tion and got on the train to mum­bai. some arse­hole was in my bunk, so rather than wake him up, i slept in the vacant win­dow bunk. in the morn­ing, the same arse­hole wanted the win­dow bunk (which was his ori­ginal seat). i swore at him and let him take the seat. fuck­ing shit­head didn’t want the win­dow at night because it was cold, so he stole my bunk and then wanted his back dur­ing the day when it was warm. hoo­ray for indian ethics!

i arrived in mum­bai and was for­tu­nate enough to get a bed in the sal­va­tion army hostel. i didn’t want to stay there, but it was the cheapest place in town and i was pre­pared to play the ‘bed bug’ roul­ette game. i checked email and had din­ner. in the even­ing i got talk­ing to some french and span­ish tour­ists that had come through iran and pakistan. so we chat­ted about travel and shared advice on what was hap­pen­ing in the places we’d been.

photos from nepal

top — bells on a rope against the sun­set
middle — a gompa in kath­mandu
bot­tom — a mon­key sur­veys his territory

travel diary — day 325

day 321 — it was cold on the train and i had dif­fi­culty sleep­ing. without a sleep­ing bag i had noth­ing to cover me or pro­tect me from the cold wind that came in through the gap in the win­dows. the morn­ing was bet­ter and i sat in the sun read­ing my book and look­ing through my india guidebook.

not long after, some old codger came along and star­ted ram­bling at me in hindi. i couldn’t under­stand what he was say­ing, but it was pretty clear that he wanted to sit in my seat. being an indian train, people sit wherever they please, des­pite the alloc­ated seat­ing. rather than fight­ing with him, i moved. then i grabbed my bag and walked the length of the train (if you’ve been on an indian train, you’d know that’s a damn long way), and found the con­ductor. i com­plained and asked for another seat. he obliged and i had a nice win­dow seat to myself for the after­noon. i listened to music, read and tried to get some sleep through the cold, drafty windows.

day 322 — i arrived in mum­bai early in the morn­ing. it was still dark. i got into a taxi and asked to be taken to a hotel. the driver said that the hotel i asked for was shut down. in india, that’s a typ­ical scam used by taxi drivers to get you to go to a dif­fer­ent hotel which will be more expens­ive and pay a com­mis­sion to the taxi driver. so, nat­ur­ally, i didn’t believe him. i told him to take me to the hotel any­way … and as it turns out, the hotel was shut down. damn!

i walked to a few nearby hotels, which were all full, and headed back towards the main street. i found the sal­va­tion army hostel and was told that i could check in after 9am. i waited and man­aged to get a bed in the dormitory.

i was happy. i put in some laun­dry and headed off for break­fast. then i went to a shop­ping mall to find a sleep­ing bag. one store had sleep­ing bags, but they were quite expens­ive, so i headed to the main bazaar. i got a cheap sleep­ing bag and returned to the hotel. i read my book, found a café which served beer (a rar­ity in mum­bai, appar­ently!) and got some sleep.

day 323 — i had break­fast and checked email at a wifi café i found near the main inter­sec­tion. then i went to the train sta­tion and bought my ticket to goa. i decided to have a lazy day and spent the after­noon read­ing my book. i went for a walk through the street mar­ket, had a shave (which is always fun) and col­lec­ted my laundry.

day 324 — in the morn­ing i woke up covered in bed bug bites. des­pite the sleep­ing bag, i had been bit­ten by bugs in the mat­tress. annoyed and itchy, i moved bunks. some of the other guys in the dorm also com­plained about bed bugs. it was then that i checked the guide­book and it men­tioned bed bugs in this hotel too. damn! rather than move to another hotel, i decided to com­plain to the man­ager and hope that the new bunk was clean.

i went for break­fast, scratched myself silly, checked email, scratched more, and walked around town. i returned to the hostel to read my book and met a french­man called chris­tian. we star­ted talk­ing and in the even­ing decided to go for a walk to find some beer. we ended up walk­ing half way through col­aba (the touristy sec­tion of mum­bai) before we found a small place which served grog. we had a few beers, talked about trav­el­ing, and returned to the hotel for the night.

day 325 — today was my train to goa, but the train was in the even­ing, so i had a full day to kill. chris­tian was leav­ing too and his train was also at night. we decided to spend the day together and go to ele­phant island. i had break­fast and some cof­fee then we got the ferry to the island. much of the island is free, but the caves and grot­tos require an entrance fee. chris­tian didn’t want to pay it so we walked up the hill to the lookout point and saw the old guns which were used in ww2.

then chris­tian asked a drinks vendor if it was pos­sible to walk around the hill to the caves. the vendor, wait­ing until nobody was look­ing, showed us a small path. we fol­lowed it over the hill and around the corner, jumped a fence, and were inside the caves area. sweet! we enjoyed the free caves and grottos.

we had lunch and returned to mum­bai. i spent an hour check­ing email then met up with chris­tian again for din­ner. we ended up talk­ing to two indian ngo guys we’d met at the hotel.

after that, we jumped in a taxi to the train sta­tion and, upon arriv­ing, chris­tian real­ised he was at the wrong sta­tion. he scrambled back into a taxi and made the dash across mum­bai to his train. i had plenty of time, so i got some water, bought an inflat­able pil­low and got my train to goa.

day 321 — it was cold on the train and i had dif­fi­culty sleep­ing. without a sleep­ing bag i had noth­ing to cover me or pro­tect me from the cold wind that came in through the gap in the win­dows. the morn­ing was bet­ter and i sat in the sun read­ing my book and look­ing through my india guidebook.

not long after, some old codger came along and star­ted ram­bling at me in hindi. i couldn’t under­stand what he was say­ing, but it was pretty clear that he wanted to sit in my seat. being an indian train, people sit wherever they please, des­pite the alloc­ated seat­ing. rather than fight­ing with him, i moved. then i grabbed my bag and walked the length of the train (if you’ve been on an indian train, you’d know that’s a damn long way), and found the con­ductor. i com­plained and asked for another seat. he obliged and i had a nice win­dow seat to myself for the after­noon. i listened to music, read and tried to get some sleep through the cold, drafty windows.

day 322 — i arrived in mum­bai early in the morn­ing. it was still dark. i got into a taxi and asked to be taken to a hotel. the driver said that the hotel i asked for was shut down. in india, that’s a typ­ical scam used by taxi drivers to get you to go to a dif­fer­ent hotel which will be more expens­ive and pay a com­mis­sion to the taxi driver. so, nat­ur­ally, i didn’t believe him. i told him to take me to the hotel any­way … and as it turns out, the hotel was shut down. damn!

i walked to a few nearby hotels, which were all full, and headed back towards the main street. i found the sal­va­tion army hostel and was told that i could check in after 9am. i waited and man­aged to get a bed in the dormitory.

i was happy. i put in some laun­dry and headed off for break­fast. then i went to a shop­ping mall to find a sleep­ing bag. one store had sleep­ing bags, but they were quite expens­ive, so i headed to the main bazaar. i got a cheap sleep­ing bag and returned to the hotel. i read my book, found a café which served beer (a rar­ity in mum­bai, appar­ently!) and got some sleep.

day 323 — i had break­fast and checked email at a wifi café i found near the main inter­sec­tion. then i went to the train sta­tion and bought my ticket to goa. i decided to have a lazy day and spent the after­noon read­ing my book. i went for a walk through the street mar­ket, had a shave (which is always fun) and col­lec­ted my laundry.

day 324 — in the morn­ing i woke up covered in bed bug bites. des­pite the sleep­ing bag, i had been bit­ten by bugs in the mat­tress. annoyed and itchy, i moved bunks. some of the other guys in the dorm also com­plained about bed bugs. it was then that i checked the guide­book and it men­tioned bed bugs in this hotel too. damn! rather than move to another hotel, i decided to com­plain to the man­ager and hope that the new bunk was clean.

i went for break­fast, scratched myself silly, checked email, scratched more, and walked around town. i returned to the hostel to read my book and met a french­man called chris­tian. we star­ted talk­ing and in the even­ing decided to go for a walk to find some beer. we ended up walk­ing half way through col­aba (the touristy sec­tion of mum­bai) before we found a small place which served grog. we had a few beers, talked about trav­el­ing, and returned to the hotel for the night.

day 325 — today was my train to goa, but the train was in the even­ing, so i had a full day to kill. chris­tian was leav­ing too and his train was also at night. we decided to spend the day together and go to ele­phant island. i had break­fast and some cof­fee then we got the ferry to the island. much of the island is free, but the caves and grot­tos require an entrance fee. chris­tian didn’t want to pay it so we walked up the hill to the lookout point and saw the old guns which were used in ww2.

then chris­tian asked a drinks vendor if it was pos­sible to walk around the hill to the caves. the vendor, wait­ing until nobody was look­ing, showed us a small path. we fol­lowed it over the hill and around the corner, jumped a fence, and were inside the caves area. sweet! we enjoyed the free caves and grottos.

we had lunch and returned to mum­bai. i spent an hour check­ing email then met up with chris­tian again for din­ner. we ended up talk­ing to two indian ngo guys we’d met at the hotel.

after that, we jumped in a taxi to the train sta­tion and, upon arriv­ing, chris­tian real­ised he was at the wrong sta­tion. he scrambled back into a taxi and made the dash across mum­bai to his train. i had plenty of time, so i got some water, bought an inflat­able pil­low and got my train to goa.

photos from nepal

top — a boy prac­tices car­ry­ing loads on moun­tain tracks
middle — a holy man in kath­mandu
bot­tom — yak, yak, yak

one year on the road …

march 1st marks the anniversary of a full year of travel. in the past 12 months i have vis­ited 17 coun­tries, been to 2 wed­dings and returned home for the first time in 8 years.

i had my ipod stolen, bought a new lens and a new ‘point and shoot’ cam­era, met hun­dreds of inter­est­ing people and adven­tured to the top of the world (5600 meters).

the next 12 months will hope­fully be even cra­zier than the last 12 months …

travel diary — day 320

day 316 — i had break­fast and talked to dave for a while, then star­ted my new book ‘the bas­tard of istan­bul’. the book annoyed me (focus­ing on how much armeni­ans hate turks and visa versa) and i refused to read more. i’m sure the book has a happy end­ing and they all grow to love each other, but i wasn’t buy­ing into the storyline and shut the book.

i headed into town for another wander around the streets. i had din­ner at a street stall and bought an assort­ment of junk to eat in the even­ing; chocol­ate fudge, a giant apple, a hot corn cob and beer.

day 317 — i was woken up by someone talk­ing on a loud speaker at 3am. at first i thought it was pray­ers from the nearby mosque, but it soun­ded dif­fer­ent. it could have been some buddhist ser­mon or some­thing else … i don’t know. it was quite loud and took me a while to get back to sleep.

i woke up later, had break­fast and checked out. i checked my email then got a taxi to the air­port. my flight to india was busi­ness class (yay!) so i spent the free time in the vip lounge drink­ing beer, eat­ing snacks and watch­ing bbc news.

the flight to india star­ted late and, due to the stop­over in gaya, arrived in kolk­ata in the early even­ing. it was dark by the time my taxi reached sud­der street and many of the gues­t­houses were booked solid. i ended up stay­ing in a dorm, with three other koreans. i bought a lonely planet india, had din­ner and slept.

day 318 — i changed hotels in the morn­ing, return­ing to hotel maria — an old favour­ite from my pre­vi­ous trip to india. i walked around the mar­kets, with­drew some money and bought myself a train ticket to mum­bai.  i mailed some pack­ages to korea and aus­tralia, then found a book­shop and acquired a copy of ‘1984’ by george orwell. i had been want­ing to re-read it and snagged a copy very cheaply.

i headed back to the mar­ket, looked around some more, and spent some time online. i returned to my room and star­ted the book. i bought some deli­cious kim­chi bokeum­bab for din­ner from the street stall out­side, read some more and went to bed.

day 319 — i had break­fast and checked my email. then i devoted a few hours to find­ing a sleep­ing bag. i had no luck and decided to leave it until i got to mum­bai. i returned to the same book­store i’d gone to the pre­vi­ous day. this time the owner showed me some rare and expens­ive books he had for sale. some were beau­ti­ful, but there was no way i could buy them. i picked up a copy of ‘around the world in 80 days’ by jules verne. it’s an old clas­sic that i’d never had a chance to read. i also got a book on buddhist dharma for free.

i walked through the mar­ket, had a great beef mas­ala for din­ner, then returned to the hotel to read and sleep.

day 320 — after a cold shower, i checked out of my hotel. the train to mum­bai was late, so i had all day to kill. i had break­fast and con­tin­ued read­ing 1984. then i spent some time online play­ing chess and chat­ting. in the after­noon i got some take-away kim­chi bikeum­bab from the same res­taur­ant, jumped in a taxi and headed to the train sta­tion. i ate din­ner on the plat­form, read my book and waited for the train.

the train depar­ted and i read for a little while longer before going to sleep.

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