Someone one said that you forget what people say to you and you forget what people do to you but you never forget how they made you feel. I could wax lyrical about that statement all day long but what I want to use it for right now is to try and prove that taking a 4-year-old child travelling to India – or anywhere else for that matter – is not something that can be easily forgotten … and I mean for the child. There are details about our trip that I can’t even remember but my child talks about them often. He’ll tell me that we caught a train to Siliguri after Varanasi; he’ll tell me about the place in Kalimpong and the one in Jaldaphara, where we had to fill up a bucket before pouring the water over our heads from jugs to wash. He asked me where we got lost when we found that nice taxi driver to take us to the Science centre, which he remembers was closed. He’ll tell me where we only had cold water, where we didn’t have a shower at all and where there were only squat toilets. He tells me in detail about his swimming in the Ganges and recognises the names of the places we went to when he sees India on a map. Someone may have said something to you several years ago, something that had a profound effect on you at the time – you will probably have forgotten what it was a few days or weeks after the words were spoken but the effect will live with you – possibly forever. Memory of the detail will fade … maybe … but what he will always have is the memory of how the trip made him feel. He will always be that uber-cool kid who went backpacking around India when he was four and that is sure to feed who he is and work its way into his makeup. He is changed because of it … I suppose we both are.
Archive for 2010
Ubertravel
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010Forking off
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010My mother asked me what my next move would be. She was referring to the next step in the process of taking myself and my child through a divorce after my husband’s decision to fight for our marriage was followed swiftly by amnesia.
“To go for a run,” I replied.
On the brink of something so huge, I can no longer think in terms of years, months or weeks … sometimes even a day ahead is a stretch … so I think as far as the next few hours, and the only steps I can think of are small … and usually involve running. It ties up quite nicely with my intention to run a full marathon before the age of forty, a milestone that is fast approaching and one that I intend to reach in clichéd fabulousness. It means I can take all these next steps in a positive strength-gaining manner and achieve something solid when everything around me is tumbling down.
Or is it?
There is something to be said about rights of passage, something that begs the question on the outset: Is this really necessary? As it is with climbing mountains, the view from the top always surpasses the obscured view at base camp and the feeling of getting to the other side shifts all previous protestations into cries of, “That was so worth it!” So why are some mountains so damn difficult to climb? Is it because of the baggage we’re dragging … or the people?
Adapt or die. Is that the thing it boils down to? It’s taken me five years to adapt to life back in South Africa; five years to find my way to the life path I was searching for during the money-spinning days of London’s investment world; five years to turn my world on its head and redefine my life and who I am. Adapting to save a marriage would be devolving … it would be like both adapting and dying simultaneously.
I embarked on a spiritual journey just over a year ago. It is not a conventional journey but one that has led me to make choices such as giving up alcohol, caffeine and certain foods. Peer pressure aside, it has been relatively easy because I have come out with a greater sense of clarity, a strong, healthy body and energy I so desperately need to summit the next peak, baggage in tow. The feeling that I have gained from this journey has made my decision relatively simple. Not easy – never easy – just simple. I have realised if someone can choose a house, a bedroom, the TV, a bag of crisps and a pint of beer ahead of a marriage, then not choosing those things to the detriment of the marriage should also be acceptable.
But then in divorce no one is right. I desperately wish it wasn’t over but I am doing what I am being pushed to do – I am forking off down the road less travelled where my pioneering skills will lead me to a place of no mountains for a while. Or perhaps I will just have to go climb a real one.
“Same, same, but different.”
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010Just like the expression that rolls off the tongues of so many Nepalese stallholders, it just so happens that my sisters all have a totally different take on our household environment and the way we were raised … as though we were raised by different parents. What’s interesting though is that the older we get the more common ground we find … as though our cellular memories are starting to meld.
During this time of ‘escaping to mummy’, I have had the opportunity to spend the first ever quality time with the sister who is number three in line (I am number four). She’s never liked me but it’s never been relevant since we have never spent enough time together for it to matter. But talking this time, we have together discovered the reasons for this dislike.
You grow up in the same household as someone and just go ahead and assume what you know is known by your siblings too. You also assume you are being brought up by the same parents. Both these things are not the truth. I was stunned when my sister told me that she had no idea that I was a paid informer. I thought it was known across the whole snobby middle-class neighbourhood that my mother rewarded me to snitch on my sisters. It just seemed so obvious … the same way I learned never to tell my other sisters anything that I didn’t want my mother to know. I have had three sisters for almost 40 years and it is only now that a foundation for any kind of sisterly relationship is developing because of a mother who incites a kind of sisterly antagonism every time she is around. I know she never meant to but I can’t help but wonder whether deep down she harboured a jealousy of a bond she couldn’t be part of. Perhaps she was concerned that we might shut her out. Regardless, I ponder the reasons she seems critical of the bond I have with my own child and I realise that I carry with me a lot of her baggage when I proclaim that there will only be one child in my life.
“There are no facts, only interpretations.” Nietzsche
My life as an open book
Monday, June 28th, 2010You get people who brush things under the carpet. And then you get me. I lift the carpet. And then I search. With a flashlight. And I broadcast what I find.
I blogged about my travels. I put it all out there for everyone to read. People could read with horror or wonder and know what I was experiencing almost daily. And when I came back, I didn’t have to try and pack into a single conversation the enormity of the experience of travelling through India with a 4-year-old. Everyone just knew and asked for only a little information to fill the gaps in the story. A cultivated result.
But we tend not to do that with other life-changing experiences. We tuck things away and in the face of an enormous experience such as two great people parting ways, we have to explain how we got to this place without anyone noticing.
People were shocked when they heard my marriage was breaking up. It took them by surprise and I have been explaining for months what should have been out in the open for years. When you get to a point of needing support, it is useful when people know what you need the support for instead of having to bring your nearest and dearest up to speed. I had left a trail of crumbs on Facebook … a trail that didn’t lead me back home but rather straight into the witch’s house. My Facebook page became a forum for all the people who themselves had been tucking things away. Is my midlife crisis merely a sign of these new sandwich years – a generation stuck between a parenting style of shame, guilt and denial and a new enlightened age of gentleness and introspection? I haven’t seen the driver. Regardless, life’s experiences need to be shared. Not only do we learn from our own experiences but we also have an opportunity to teach. We don’t – and can’t – live in a vacuum.
“If you share with others, they will share with you”, I keep telling my son. And that kinda means I have to do the same … only this sharing thing just got a lot more grown up.
‘Mommy Dearest’
Friday, June 25th, 2010“Just make the decision to stay, and that’s that!” she says through puckered lips. I always find it amazing how someone of five foot can look down her nose so effectively.
I am in Durban at the moment. I ran ‘home to mummy’ to escape the stress of a tricky separation. Most people who know the relationship I have with my mother think that decision justifies a few months in a mental institution … and I might just be heading that way. What I was hoping for, and what seemed a few weeks ago like a very real opportunity, was the chance of using a truly shitty situation to heal the extremely tense and volatile relationship I have with my family. My friends may have a point though. In only one day, she went from being supportive to self-righteous and I feel like being a rebellious teenager and shaving off my hair. My child is all for it. Of course my husband thinks it’s about him. But my mother is too wrapped up in the fact that another daughter (the third) is getting divorced that she doesn’t care about my motives; all the wants is for me to martyr myself rather than risk the shame this will bring upon her. After a few days I realised that she would rather just ignore it, choosing not to speak about it lest something is not about her.
My child has already picked up on the volatility of this relationship. He was playing in the bath with a water pistol and he sprayed the ceiling … and the curtains and the wall and the floor. He froze, looked at me with his huge blue eyes and asked, “Are you going to get into trouble now, Mum?” Perceptive.
But the fact that I have chosen to spend five weeks in a household I spent 19 years of my life trying to get out of and the next 19 years of my life trying to heal from gives you some indication how bad the alternative is right now.
You can have a mother but if she isn’t there for you emotionally, then you may as well not have one at all. And I suppose the same could apply to all your relationships.
Favouritism or just a different perspective?
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010I was speaking to a mother of two girls and a boy – someone who claims to love her two daughters but to be ‘in love’ with her son. The topic of favouritism came up and she denied she has one … a favourite.
Is her denial just self-preservation because she doesn’t want to seem like a bad mum or does she really not see it? … because, really, it’s quite normal isn’t it? … to prefer one child over the other/s since, in the big mix up of DNA, the more children you have the greater the chances are of having one that is so like you, you just can’t help loving that one more. We show them that they are ok because someone else has the same quirks as they do. We provide a comfort. My mum favours one of my sisters while my dad favours me. I always wanted to be my mum’s favourite but, like my friend, she always insisted we were all equals. If she had just made it clear from the start, would it have been easier? Would I have been under less pressure to try and please her? Children always pick up on stuff anyway so surely we need to make it clear how things are so they don’t spend half their lives trying to find a way through the fug … and the other half in therapy.
The chicken and the egg
Monday, June 21st, 2010It sounds surgical every time I say this, but I am separating from my husband. I often wish it were surgical as both the procedure and the recovery time would be shorter. Besides all the material I have on the subject which you will no doubt be subjected to at a later date, I have to mention that our child has not slept in his bed for a very long time. Now most often when couples allow their babies/toddlers/children to sleep in their beds I would profess to an unhealthy marriage and one that is most likely going to break up. But my child has been in his own room, in his own bed since the day we arrived home from hospital and has only slept with my husband and me since we have no longer been sleeping in the same room let alone the same bed. I can’t help but wonder that perhaps the child in the bed thing gets a bad rap. What if the child in the bed is only the scapegoat for a marriage that is on the rocks anyway? What came first: the broken relationship or the child in the bed?
We’re back
Friday, June 18th, 2010We’ve been back for over two weeks already … although I can’t say ‘back home’ as the term ‘home’ requires a fair amount of redefining right now. The old adage, ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ does not ring true in my case. Less hostile perhaps but not fonder. What absence has done, however, is give me clarity as a person free from attachment and therefore free of influence from other people, where I am, or what I am doing. I have come back with a stronger sense of being.
All those who accused me of needing to run away to India to find myself were way off. I didn’t need to find myself since I never lost who I am. We never do you know. We always maintain exactly who we are but access different parts of self at different stages of our life, adapting and changing to different circumstances.
As suspected, the memories of India have blurred and faded and even looking at the photographs feels more like looking at someone else’s holiday, bar the gorgeous boy with long blond curls who looks very familiar. I don’t. India was the mountain I had to climb to get to ‘the other side’ and the person in the photographs who looks a bit like me is the person I lost touch with only days after touching down on home ground. The smile has faded too. But the strength and the courage and the feeling that I can do anything that I set my mind to … that’s still there. I may not have climbed the mountain to find myself but I have come down off the mountain with a far greater sense of self. I conquered fears and stereotypes and I created a whole new part of myself.
In a moment of missing his dad while we were in Bahrain, my son insisted on buying a book about a little boy whose dad wasn’t around and he imagined him to be on the moon. In trying to explain the moral of the story, I asked, “If you had to imagine where your dad was right now, where would he be?” “On Mars,” was his quick response. Hmm, just a coincidence? 
As I grow up … and just grow … I look for some element of change or growth in my partner. But, just because he’s not ready, doesn’t mean I need to wait; we’re all on our own timetables and have to evolve at our own pace. I know we still have stuff to work out but that will have to be in our next life. And what about the child, you ask. Well, he’ll be just fine.
As Darwin once said: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor is it the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”
A Magic Carpet Ride
Friday, May 28th, 2010I tear open the freshly-baked croissant and shove two triangles of white Toblerone inside. I eat it as it begins to ooze out the sides. This is my breakfast. I’m trying to find the two kilograms I lost in India and Mills is helping with her sublimely creative cooking; restoring me, body and soul. The Toblerone croissants were all ‘me’ though … who else could come up with something like that?
And so began a week of indulgence. That’s what Bahrain is all about it seems … the part we’ve been exposed to anyway. I wasn’t ready to go back home after Kolkata and it became clear why when, on arrival to total comfort and relaxation, I collapsed for two days, as did Nic. And just over a week later we are exhausted again, but for entirely different reasons to the things that exhausted us in India. We are exhausted because we are on a Milly itinerary – less adventure and way more holiday. There’s the food, someone else doing my washing and making my bed and someone driving us everywhere we want to go … it’s just totally indulgent.
We got kissed by the Middle Eastern sun at the Ritz-Carlton Beach Club where the sea is warm and the people more so. When the wind blows you don’t feel it because it is the same temperature as the sun that sits suspended in its own heat-induced haze and the sound, combined with the hum of the palms and the fountains, serenaded me to sleep on a chaise longue padded with towels brought by employees of the wealthiest man in Bahrain. The Ritz-Carlton makes it easy to settle in and is the trap that keeps people here. Why would you leave? Nic already looks the part in his Hugo Boss-style swim shorts and his new designer sunglasses from Dubai International. He chews gum. He postures. He thinks he’s cool. And, boy, is he just. He’s content. I’m relaxed. We’re happy. The sea is flat, the sand is white, palm trees frame the scene and the water is just cool enough to make the salty sting worthwhile. As if this indulgence isn’t enough we get confirmation of a luxury yacht trip out to an island – Melissa is writing about it for gulf Life magazine. After salivating over the pictures online, Nic declared that the “really huge one” would be just fine for him and he began planning his trips and his guest list. In Kalimpong he asked me if he had to be a monk when he grows up. I said no, he can be whatever he chooses. “But, Mum, I want to be a monk when I grow up.” “Ok, fine.” “Actually, Mum, I want to teach the monks.” “???” “Like the Dalai Lama, Mum.” But children can be fickle. A week in Bahrain and his conversations have taken a turn. He asks Melissa, “How much money have you got in your pile in the bank?” Melissa tries best she can to explain her financial position. He continues quizzing her while she navigates his questions without divulging too much information. Eventually she turns it around, “Why are you so interested in how much money I have?” “Because,” he says, “I want to have a thousand, million hundred in my pile of money when I’m older.” Ah, yes, the yacht he covets is the reason he no longer wants to be a monk. The wind stole the dream away but Nic was as unfazed as I was devastated. He said he didn’t mind because he was going to buy one anyway.
Unfortunately I found out after a marathon shopping spree, which ended only when my card was rejected, that our budget doesn’t stretch terribly far here. My exchange rate guesstimate has clearly been way off. The Bahrain Dinar is very strong; petrol really is cheaper than water … and pretty much everything else too. “I’m not that crazy about that one, Mum,” is what I get when I suggest clothing purchases to Nic. He chooses his clothes because he knows exactly what he wants … right down to the man-about-town straw hat. He’s looking island cool … apart from the Tom and Jerry T-shirt he couldn’t live without. But, after being dragged up and down escalators and into every shop with attractive window dressing for two hours in his swimming shorts with the promise of an outing to Wahooo water park on the shopping centre roof, I ran out of excuses not to take him immediately once Visa could no longer deliver the goods. “I don’t want to hear another word about it,” Nic said waving me away as he ran off to the toddler pool. The sight of the water slides and the noise of the water gushing from a giant-sized metal pail filled him with terror. He stayed well away from me in case I took him down one of the giant tubes that spit people out along with gallons of white water … but only at first. He is, after all, a far more confident child now and half an hour later he was running up the flights of stairs to whizz down the supertubes on his own. The Master Blaster nearly took my hair off … so I went again. But my screams drowned out the sounds of everything else and I discovered once again that I’m a totally different kind of thrill-seeker – speed just isn’t my thing. After 3 hours at Wahooo, Nic was amped for anything and the 1.2 meter height limit was all that kept him off the ‘thrill-seeker’ rides by the end of the day. He slept well.
As he did when I left him with Glenn on Tuesday night. It was the first time in five weeks that we were apart and we all survived … even Glenn who was terrified at the prospect. Dinner was at Bushido, a Japanese restaurant surrounded by a shallow moat lined with pale grey pebbles. We sat outside in the warm dry air and, guarded by models of samurai warriors, watched as the dust and the clouds made way for the stars and the moon and the palm trees were lit up in technicolour. The wind which had been howling all day had dropped just enough … not enough to go on the luxury yacht … but enough. It was a perfect finale to a day that was spent at the museum and fort where Nic relived the battles of generations fighting for the trading wealth of this small island – he was bored until Mills filled his head with soldiers and gun fights, and his audio guide completed the picture for him. We saw the excavation sites that once housed the first human skeleton Nic has ever seen and he lapped it all up. The wind rivalled Cape Town’s black southeaster though – my skirt filled with it like a spinnaker sail and we conjured up images of pirates and conquerors. As I clung to it in order to prevent my bare legs from tainting the minds of onlookers, a woman clutched her abaya close to her as though she wasn’t fully clothed beneath. It doesn’t feel like a conservative country when so much time is spent in a bikini but this was a reminder that those indulgences are well sheltered from the local lifestyle which comes with burkinis … not a typo but a lycra burka-style swimsuit – it’s the upmarket alternative to going in fully clothed.
Needing to leave Nic again for a night out, Nic vetoed the option of using Kamala, the housekeeper as a babysitter when Glenn had to work late. I suggested her son, Kamara, who has driven us around a few times, and Nic, like the Tom & Jerry pose on his new T-shirt, gave him the thumbs-up. Like everywhere we have been, he has craved the company of men, a sure sign that he is more than ready to be with his dad now. Mills and I went to La Fontaine with the promise of a deep meditation session. Seated on the floor amongst tea light candles on timber planks that still smelt of the tree, a heavy night breeze pressed in through Gothic-style doors. We were given a talk on fear. But then the lights were dimmed and the microphone was handed to another woman who began speaking gently in Arabic. Thinking I was still waiting for the English translation, I got up, went to the loo and collected another bottle of water, which I guzzled while glancing around at the peaceful gathering. The woman stopped talking, the lights were turned up and everyone got up to leave. I had totally missed the meditation. Thankfully the talk on fear which dealt primarily with attachment, and resonated with my dependency issues, plunged me back into the cesspool of self-knowledge that I had waded through so often in India and provided me with more benefit that the deep meditation I was initially after.
“Where is all that singing coming from?” Nic got quite frantic the first time he heard it, running around looking out all the shutters that surrounded the rooftop pool back at La Fontaine. We had just had lunch and Mills booked a massage so that Nic and I could lounge at the pool while we waited for her. We had ridden a camel in the morning and in true Bahrain style, it seemed perfectly normal to now end the day on loungers at a spa pool overlooking the city of Manama where towers of glass are strapped together by bridges and boast their own wind turbines in a paradox of eco-friendly and flashy. Perfectly normal since I imagine the camels might very well be getting the same treatment. Mills laughed when I asked if we could go on a camel safari – Bahrain just isn’t like that – but instead she arranged a trip to a camel farm where a Sheikh has built palatial shelters and brought in 400 camels because he thinks Bahrain needs camels – Bahrain is like that. It isn’t a tourist place and the entrance states very clearly that we shouldn’t enter but Mills had arranged a camel ride so we drove in anyway. It felt slightly unsafe at first, wandering around amongst these extraordinary creatures that bob their heads haughtily above you while looking down at you with hooded eyes. Occasionally one dives at you as though the puppeteer has lost control of the head string … but it is only to nuzzle on a sleeve or a beaded necklace and not remotely aggressive. The ride was short. Comfortable though and it gave me a taste of the trip I will one day do across the dunes of Oman, Bedouin-style. But that is for another day. Sitting poolside at La Fontaine, soaking up the dessert heat, the call to prayers begins. Like opera, it is magical and spiritual and wonderful in my lack of understanding what it means. It begins on one side, then becomes stereo and momentarily hits Dolby 5.1 surround sound before fading out as suddenly as it began. Mint sorbet completes the scene. And the end of the day is again marked by utter exhaustion and satisfaction.
We got our boat ride in the end – not the luxury one but the one to Al Dar Island. It may have been quick but it was exhilarating. Just this simple journey gave Nic such total pleasure that it made up for missing out on the luxurious trip – it made no difference to him; it was still a boat and he just couldn’t believe how fast it was going. It was choppy and it almost made me throw up, proving again how Nic’s thrillometre is set way different to mine. Al Dar is a patch of beach just off the main island of Bahrain, where you can hire a Bedouin-style bed and sip cocktails between dips in the flat salty sea. You can sunbath on a floating jetty and hire pedal boats for a jaunt around the island. You can swim until 11pm and dance till dawn at the full moon parties. It’s just another indulgent way to spend a day out in Bahrain. The wind was up so we couldn’t partake in all it had to offer but just a taster was good enough for me.
Bahrain is a quiet oasis of date palms and muted shades. It is a hub of consumerism but not outwardly bling like Dubai. It has a beautiful old town besides its beaches and islands and fabulous restaurants. It has been good to us. It is a wonderful island-style city and my time with my sister has been relaxed and rejuvenating. We have been indulged in all the best that Bahrain has to offer and I now feel restored and ready to go home to whatever awaits. Nic not so much. Apart from desperately wanting to be with his dad, my intrepid little travel companion has slotted right in here. Travelling looks good on him. My experience has expanded me though and I doubt I will slot easily back into my life. These seven weeks that have been just a blip for everyone else, have felt more like seven years for the growth I have experienced and, for Nic, this journey has been epic. I will have to take Nic somewhere else to accumulate his wealth though. My wealth is depleted and my tolerance for unadulterated indulgence is almost maxed out. I washed everything I bought in the bath – not because I had to but because I wanted to. I’m odd … but then no one who embarks on a journey like this in the first place can be anything but. Bahrain is mystical and magical and full of the finest things money can buy. But although I have found lifestyle here, I have found no soul. Definitely no regrets though – soul or no soul, this was essential down time with my sis.
Since people got over my taking Nic on this journey … although some haven’t quite … questions have turned to whether such a small child could possibly benefit or even remember anything from such a journey. All I can say is, “Absolutely!” His focus is so uncluttered that he remembers so much stuff that I think the more appropriate concern is whether I will in fact remember anything. I know the memories will begin to blur and then fade like I expect my eyesight to do one day … but I have one and a half thousand photos to jog my memory when the synapses fail to fire.
I’ve learnt not to try and predict what awaits so I can’t say if I will ever be back here even though I suspect I won’t … actually, I can’t say anything anymore. I am not at a crossroads; I am at a spaghetti junction that looks something like the slides at Wahooo water park. I could go on the Master Blaster or through the Black Hole but I suspect I may just sit in the toddler pool for a while and play in the gentle fountains. I’ll be ready for the thrill-seeker rides again one day but for now I am ready to go home. I feel like I have been breathing in for so long and that I can now finally breathe out. But, besides anything else, Nic has work to do so he can get us that luxury yacht and I’d rather it was this side of geriatric.
We’ll be home tomorrow night. Give me a day and then … run and hide before I subject you to the epic slideshow.
It’s a jungle out there …
Thursday, May 20th, 2010I could feel eyes boring into me. There was nowhere to hide. I looked down at my lap where I was holding onto Nic’s head, keeping him out of sight, out of harm’s way and trying to ignore the attention. But, as it began to get dark and we were still stuck at the station, the lights inside illuminated me, drawing even more attention from the gathering crowds outside. I felt like I was in Amsterdam on the wrong side of the glass. And as more people gathered, the shouting began. They began banging on the side of the carriage. They were screaming at me to get off the train. But even if I had wanted to comply, my body would not … could not … move. The adrenalin was prickling the back of my neck, working it’s way up behind my ears and turning my heart cold. There was a vacuum where my stomach had been. The crowd had become a mob.
I searched the carriage with my eyes. I needed someone’s help. A poster was stuck to the carriage opposite. It showed a man behind bars with the caption, “Harassing woman passenger is punishable offense.” Reassuring if not entirely helpful in the circumstances. My eyes found another pair. Wrapping my terror in an annoyed attitude, I asked, “What the hell was going on out there?” He sliced his finger across his throat. Before I could take it personally he explained … best he could: “One woman dead. Head off.” A woman had slipped getting onto the train at our first stop outside of Siliguri. Decapitated. “Person under the train” rang in my ears from the London Underground. The difference was that on the London Underground, people stay in their seats looking annoyed and bury themselves deeper in the Evening Standard. Not so here. People leapt from the train, cameras and camcorders at the ready. Even a cow ran with the crowd. But it was after they had filled their heads with gore – once filming conditions were marred by darkness – that they began drifting back up the platform … that they began gathering to stare, became restless, decided they needed to focus their anger on something. That something turned out to be me. A riot started. I was told not to move. There was not enough English in the carriage to know what exactly was going on but there were enough people on my side of the window to keep the riot on the outside and to lock the doors.
“It’s ok my noonoo,” I cooed, “just some angry people, that’s all. Try and get some rest.” I was trying not to rub the hair right off Nic’s head as I stroked it to keep him calm … to keep myself calm. And I tried to breathe. And tried not to look out the window. I was in the middle of nowhere, somewhere between Siliguri and Madahirat, en route to Jaldaphara Wildlife Sanctuary for an elephant safari. It was dark and I was scared. I had to be brave when all my body wanted to do was cling to the window bars and hurl.
The police did eventually arrive – 10 minutes sooner might have been better timing – with their sticks and their mustaches. And the mob just melted away as though it had never been there to begin with. Two policemen shone their big torches into the carriages while others, I presume, removed head and body from the tracks. And we were on our way again, deeper into the jungle, surrounded by people who couldn’t communicate with me but who were clearly intent on my personal safety.
The day had started climbing into a share jeep in Kalimpong at 9am, remarking to Nic that we might have to change jeeps due to the stench. Turns out my bag was smeared with crap which had made its way onto my hand and half way up my arm. It smelt human. Thankful for my hefty supply of wetwipes, antibacterial soap and liters of water, it was a minor hiccup in the day’s journey. On arrival in Siliguri, caked with dust-dried sweat, we were told all hotels were full, it was impossible to get a train ticket anywhere south and there was a strike due to start the next morning … a 12-hour strike that was likely to get violent. We had to get out of town and the only advice we could heed was to go to Jaldaphara (near the village of Madahirat) where we would be safe until the strike was over. With no bank facilities in Madahirat, I had to draw cash but every bank I got to closed or ran out of money as I got to the front of the queue … seems everyone was stocking up. By the time I eventually found one open, the sweat-sodden dye from my red t-shirt was draining into my white shorts, turning them the same colour as Nic’s cheeks … he looked faint. We now had only 15 minutes to get our train. I threw a bundle of notes at a rickshaw driver and told him to pedal fast.
It didn’t take long to wish he hadn’t followed my instruction.
I arrived in Madahirat carrying my backpack on my back, my sleeping child in my arms and two daypacks in my one hand … a multi-limbed Indian god. Still wide-eyed and shaking, we were thankfully met at the station by Mithan Das, proprietor of Hotel Relax, a hole-in-the-wall style hotel with roll-up garage door frontage. Pinched between the main thoroughfare to Assam and the railway line, the bug infestation, lack of windowpanes (hence the bug infestation), a toilet filled with someone else’s crap, the basin that drained onto my feet and the general filth of the place left me stunned and sleepless under the mosquito net that resembled a slice of emmenthaler cheese.
I began to plan my exit strategy … but not for long. On instructing Mithan the following morning to book our elephant safari asap and asking him what time the trains would be running the following afternoon, I was shocked into further silence. The strike had not only spread into the mountain regions, it had closed all forms of transportation east of Siliguri and no one was sure whether it would be over in three days or five. I was stuck. Stuck in a village where Mithan was clearly the only person who could speak any English and seemingly the only person who had seen a white woman before. Going out was like that Amsterdam window feeling again … we were like a freak show that attracted people to gather in groups and just stare. I could have got angry but instead we bought up all the cheese and crackers and Cornflakes we could find, stocked up on soda water and chips and stayed in our room playing cards and watching Tom and Jerry once the TV was fixed. I used the rest of my wetwipes and surgical spirits to disinfect the bathroom and I got used to the bugs … even the crickets that found their way into my sleeping bag liner.
“Drivers charging little extra … maybe double … their windows will get smashed maybe,” said Mithan when I queried why it was so much to go on a jaunt to the zoo. I declined, but not because of the cost. It was clear the level of mob violence in the area was increasing and it looked as though we would be stuck. The news that was filtering through in broken English was that the trains were running but they were just late. I was desperate enough to go to the station and just wait it out. But thanks to Rossy, my well-connected friend, the British High Commission was onto it. I was visited by the police commissioner and advised that trains were being stopped by mobs and cars and buses were being stoned. We were going to need to be smuggled out. Mithan knew someone. We just had to wait for his call. A couple more sleepless nights and we were set to leave at dawn the following morning. But then it became too dangerous and we had to wait again. Just as I had resigned myself to missing our train to Kolkata and our plane to Bahrain, Mithan knocked on my door. “You ready in an hour. My friend has car and you leave at 2.” The travel ban had been lifted for three hours to allow people to get out to get food. We had to be quick. It was a 124km drive on bad roads and we couldn’t risk getting stuck anywhere in traffic. I cried. And then I packed really fast. And then I dug in my bag for my emergency supply of Neals Yard frankincense moisturiser … it’s amazing how these little luxuries can rescue one’s soul …
I put Nic’s cap on his head and covered my own with a scarf. That was so we weren’t immediately conspicuous. I had a plan to say Nic needed medical attention … if we were stopped by a mob, Nic was primed to writhe around holding his stomach. It was a tense 3-hour journey. The driver drove like Schumacher … only his suspension wasn’t quite so good. Out of the highly volatile area, we could stop for a welcome (extra sugar please!) chai … but that only made my mood worse as every person within gawking distance turned up for a cuppa to stare at the foreigners. I should have taken commission.
The lumbering hour-long elephant safari through the jungle was worth it I suppose. Had we been anywhere else in the area, the trouble might have been worse. And although Hotel Relax seemed like hell to begin with, it turned out we would not have been helped quite the same had we been anywhere else …we would have got on that 6am train and we might never have made it out of the jungle. I am so grateful to everyone who helped us both physically and spiritually.
We are still in Siliguri after a night in a hovel with the biggest cockroach I have ever seen … which as far as I know is still trapped under the plastic jug next to the squat toilet, unless someone has freed it … since all hotels are still full. Nepal is shut down, the mountain regions are still suffering under the strike and no one knows when the end will come. We have eaten well, making up for the diet of crackers and Cornflakes for the last four days and nights.
We leave on an overnight train to Kolkata tonight. One night there in a beautiful place Mike has booked to help us recuperate … and then Bahrain for further relaxation.
I am looking forward to leaving India now. I am ready. I will be back again, I know. But this time, the end is most welcome.
If you can’t see them, are they still there?
Monday, May 17th, 2010“We won’t rest until we are fre from West Bengal!” “Ghorkaland” is painted on every doorway, car, shop and available piece of concrete wall. The political unrest is the reason I have always avoided this area. The Ghorka Movement clings to liberation here and the tea bushes cling to the vertical mountain slopes. I cling to Nic as he hangs out the window and waves at the army trucks. Houses are propper precarioulsy on the roadside ridge, the mountain beneath them streaked with garbage and sewerage. “Filling of water tanks strictly prohibited” marks a point where fresh water leaps off the mountain and where a truck is pulling away sloshing water from two over-filled water tanks. “Presbyterian Free Church” – free or free of Presbyterians, I wonder. A lone man single-handedly deconstructs a concrete road barrier with a mallet … it’s hard to tell whether out of employment or frustration. On a 53km stretch of hairpin and s-bends, I can’t help but mourn the loss. “No race, no ralley, enjoy the beauty of the valley” – a great sentiment but hard to comply … our driver answers his phone again as I stare, unblinking, at the oncoming jeep travelling towards us on the wrong side of the road, “Oh my Ganesha” in bold across the windscreen. A brave dog drops one in the middle of the road. We somehow miss both. Oh my Ganesha, indeed. “Rat Killer – to kill rats, not pets” shares a hook with some dried meat at a roadside stall midway between Darjeeling and Kalimpong. We have stoppped where water is being piped off the mountain and where every jeep on this route lines up to use it as a carwash. Nic negotiates the squat toilet. He has no choice … his constitution has finally failed him.
Our 3-hour journey to Kalimpong dropped us 1000m in altitude but the air is still cool and the mountain views are still masked by mist that wraps itself like smoke around the chimneys and drifts aimlessly between the floors of unfinished buildings. The rains have come early or the Lonely Planet lies. Mountain walks are marred by the risk of leeches.
But we have found Holumba Haven, tucked in the mist on an orchid farm, away from town. And a haven it is … not just for us but for hens, guinea pigs, rabbits, guinea fowl, squirrels, honey bees, a rooster and several dogs. The Xhosa people believe that your ancestors come to you in the form of dogs and if this is so, we are being visited again in the form of another tan stray that turned up the day we arrived and stays within inches of us at all times. We are also being followed by snorers and plagued by thin walls.
The town is small, the sites are few, but we are walking the streets and feeling the vibe. Nic is staying on the right side of the law by shaking hands with every army officer he sees and waving at soldiers as they drive by in their big trucks. He has told me in detail how they force people to climb in the back of those trucks and then lock them in cages! “But, Mum,” he says, “I’m just so cute that they would never do that to me. Hey, Mum?” I feel I may have been slack on controlling his TV viewing lately.
Kalimpong is again a whole new experience like everything in India so far. We spent an hour on the balcony of the large Buddhist Monastery at the top of the hill overlooking the town on one side and a huge army barracks on the other. The irony. We spent a morning being driven to all the sites … all two of them … One was closed, the other wasn’t exactly a site but it had Himalayan ponies for Nic to ride – he’s totally hooked. The clouds are like thick smoke that hangs on the view and obscures the only reason for being here. We leave town tomorrow. Patience has not helped us here.
But Nic has loved the down time and has spent hours playing cricket at Holumba and more hours watching T20 and Tom and Jerry. He has run out of fingers on which to count the friends he has made in India … and we have had even more sad farewells since we have been in Kalimpong. Perhaps his journeys with me will encourage him to put down the roots I have never been able to sink into any ground anywhere. But out of everywhere I have been, I am most in my zone here in India. I get asked regularly whether I live here – it might just be because people can’t get their heads around a woman travelling through India on her own with a 4-year-old or maybe I do just look comfortable. Like I belong. I’ve already dropped out of normal life back home so this is not too much of a stretch for me.
But I could do with a washing machine and a big Greek salad about now – Melissa, please note! I am counting the remaining days by the number of buckets of laundry I will still have to do. I’m down to one hand. Since we arrived in the mountains it has felt like I have been washing everything in salt water – nothing will dry. Tomorrow we drop to sea level. Life has slowed even more since I last spoke to you and so I have had time to change plans a hundred times a day … but, for now, it looks like Siliguri tomorrow and on to Mirik – either for a night if we get a booking for Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary (for which we will have to return to Siliguri) or for four nights if we don’t. I like the fact that things are wide open for our final week.
I may well only speak to you again from Bahrain … it looks like we will make it out of the hills and out of Ghorkaland …
Ganesha willing …
Looking down on the world from Darjeeling
Friday, May 7th, 2010“I know this bridge, but I don’t know where from,” Nic said, suddenly perky in the 45 degree midday heat. We were heading east over the mother river by autorickshaw on our way to the train station, the curtain drawn across the opening next to Nic in an unsuccessful attempt to block out some of the heat and dust. The driver had clearly misunderstood me. I told him we were in no hurry at all. I had allowed four hours to get to the station and find the right platform and have a relaxed meal. Ganesha deserved a bit of time off. But the driver was negotiating the traffic like we were in a getaway car and it’s the first time I felt really afraid in such a small, and usually slow, vehicle … one of the things about travelling with a child, though, is that you have to be strong and brave even when you’re a bundle of nerves and would rather curl up in a ball and wail. Nic was intrigued by the bridge so I pulled back the curtain to reveal the heat-shrouded banks of the ghats, far away now in a haze of pale pinks, yellows and blues … ever-changing as the sun shifted unhurriedly over the concrete. I could just make out a few tiny paper fighting kites fluttering above the buildings. It was like looking at a dream after waking up. Just out of reach. I closed my eyes to make it last. It felt like my chest might cave in on my heart.
I didn’t say goodbye when I left; we turned west out of Sita Guest House, away from the river, back through the black hole and into the labyrinth of smells, noise and dirt. The holy river of hope just faded away and it felt like it never existed.
By the time we got to Mugal Sarai station, 21km outside of the city, I was an overheated nerve ending. The station is huge and crowded and the waiting area was filled with eyes. And the smell of urine. We retreated. People stared at me with my heavy backpack, carrying both mine and Nic’s daypacks, a bottle of water and a pack of biscuits. I felt like a multi-limbed Indian god. We waited in a restaurant, consuming very little in the hopes that we wouldn’t have to use the public toilets – Nic is still terrified to admit he needs the toilet unless we are really close to our hotel – but three hours is a long time to wait in the heat without drinking and there came a time when I had to hover over a toilet afloat with a day’s worth of turds. Nic at least could keep his distance – it didn’t really matter if his aim was off in the circumstances.
I am proud to claim I have travelled rough in India before, taking unreserved and 2nd-class sleeper trains. But that doesn’t mean I would choose to do it again … the sweaty vinyl bunks, the stares, the mealtimes and social visits when several people make themselves comfy on the bunk you just wanted to fall asleep on, and the notification of a station stop being the wafting stench of urine and faeces as the air changed direction on slowing down. No, not this time. I booked 2AC – two-tier airconditioned. It’s still an open carriage but there are only four bunks, instead of six, there is a curtain you can draw to close off the passageway, you get freshly starched sheets and a pillow and there’s a draft of cool air piped into the carriage. There’s even a western toilet – granted, the seat had footprints on it but there is always a jug of water handy and this time I was carrying lots of disinfecting lotions and wipes.
As we slipped through the darkness, we crossed half the country and again passed into a whole new world. On arrival in Siliguri, I changed my mind about the train to Kurseong and asked the rickshaw driver to drop us at the jeep stand … we were heading up to Darjeeling straight away. Yes, I also thought the Jeep option was the posh route into the mountains … until we were squeezed into the back of a Mahindra between two paan-chewing blokes who had no sense of personal space and who spoke to us intermittently between clenched teeth and spitting. I was tired, I was hot and I didn’t understand a word so I ignored them. Nic had climbed onto my lap and fallen asleep anyway so I just closed my eyes, hung on tight and zoned out to the sweat and the blending of DNA.
We climbed the narrow, pot-holed mountain pass road to just over two thousands meters above sea level where the cool air gradually replaced the fug clinging to the bodies inside the vehicle. I had the usual anxiety about leaving the old and moving onto a new place but I knew it would settle in a day or two. And a few days in a quiet hill station seemed like the perfect antidote.
Arrival in Darjeeling was an assault! Buses, jeeps, crowds, smog, concrete high-rise hotels and market stalls … a reminder that despite the changes in climate, culture, the appearance of people and the language, we were still in India. The roads are narrow … the jeeps, trucks and buses are not. So, in a constant attempt to change the proportions, drivers just honk their horns … and they keep honking their horns until someone either gives in or runs out of time and reverses. I paced up a down the road a few times, trying to take it all in and block it all out all at once … and trying to find my bearings and some element of strength to find a place to stay … or stay at all. I considered climbing back in the jeep and fleeing. But instead, laden down with kilograms of luggage, we found a steep pathway and climbed. Nic just clutched his bear and followed – leaning into his stride with his heavy daypack on his back. He had had his sleep and was, once again, loving the adventure.
As we ascended, away from the bus/jeep stand, Darjeeling changed. The noise faded slightly, the sky became more visible and the feeling of being on top of the world became more apparent … I could hardly breathe from the combination of altitude and fifteen kilograms. We found a green hotel and, being Nic’s favourite colour, took it as a sign and checked in … well, there was also the small issue of being drenched from the afternoon thunder shower. With its wood-panelled interior and diamond-pane windows in the cosy lounge areas, the Dekeling Hotel is the type of place I can imagine elderly colonials sipping black tea, and I felt an instant desire to settle in for a month or two. It’s not exactly budget but our windowless room is the cheapest we could go without compromising on warm bedding and a warm shower … it’s a trickle but it works and you can’t have a shower while taking a dump here. The staff tolerate Nic’s need to wrestle in the mornings and towels, toilet paper and breakfast are included in the price.
We have been to the zoo, the tea plantation and passed the rock where Tenzig Norgay trained for Everest. And speaking of Everest, there are so many steps in this precipitous village that a morning out feels like a mountain trek. It has been impossible to get Nic off the Himalayan ponies and we have used them to get to all the sites around the village. “Faster, faster!” he demands. He bounces up and down in the saddle, giggling so much he could cry. He has conquored so many fears and leapt his hurdles with ease. We have been to the gompa on Observatory Hill, descended through the clouds to the magnificent and sacred Bhutia Busty Gompa, been blessed by monks demanding Rupees, hung prayer flags at the stupa and been harassed my monkeys. And I have found myself some treasures. Nic has made friends with a hundred people. The man at the shawl shop buys him chips and chocolate each time we pass – I probably paid too much for that pashmina – and he continues to get photographed and have his cheeks pinched by thousands of adoring locals. He is like a little god here. He is loving the hero worship and has developed an attitude bigger than West Bengal’s highest mountain peak, Kanchenjunga. I doubt he will ever be contained again … and who can blame him. We have walked beyond the noise and the crowds and found a place where we can watch the clouds writhe and twist around the hills below while watching local tourists, used to 40-degree heat, wander by wrapped up in shawls, blankets and woollen headgear. It’s not that cold. We sit at Chowrasta and sip Darjeeling chai brought by tea wallahs, looking beyond the hills in the hopes that Kanchenjunga will reveal herself. But she has been shy, only peeping out for moments before wrapping herself tightly in her white blanket once more. It doesn’t matter. It’s gorgeous, cool, relaxed. It’s a charmed life here. We’re staying an extra day, skipping Kurseong and Mirik completely and moving on to Kalimpong in a couple of days.
If Nic has just got over his hurdles, I seem to have just reached mine. It may be the caffeine I am consuming in Darjeeling’s chai or the quantities of sugar I am ladling on my morning porridge … but I just can’t sleep. The days are dreamy but, as the mist seeps in to mask the setting sun and the thunder resonates off the surrounding peaks adding the base to the bells from the monastery, I become distracted and skittish. At first I thought I was just overtired so I got some rest; I thought I was hungry so I ate. Nothing changed, I just felt melancholy. It is the pressure as we passed the halfway point of the journey; the pressure to pack more life into this time away. I keep changing the itinerary … sticking to one in India goes against the grain anyway … in an attempt to make the most of the final couple of weeks. I have moments of anxiety about leaving and going back to normality … I get a shiver down my spine just typing the word. Normality: what is that? The thing I love most about travelling in India is perhaps the joy of just ‘being’, and in that ‘being’, being able to be whoever I feel like being at the time. Nic narrows the boundaries of identity somewhat but there is a sense of total relaxation about self. I don’t have to own any labels. No branding. When you have no branding, you don’t have to fit any molds. Nothing to live up or down to; no expectations and no disappointments. It’s easier. So, to answer the question: why don’t I put down roots? When you put down roots you are identified by the very place the roots are sunk into the ground … rather than by the places the branches are reaching towards.
It is midday. The clouds have darkened and the sky is grumbling; not yet angry. The air smells sweet and damp.
In the arms of Mother Ganga
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010Nic was totally dumbstruck. He scuttled along beside me … more because he was tethered to me rather than any real need to keep up. “Good security,” the tout kept saying. I smirked. “Where you from?” another tout asked for the third time, to which I snapped back that I had already told him. Keep your distance, keep your cool, you’re almost there … my mantra kept playing in my head. Nic’s eyes doubled in size as I steered him between bikes, rickshaws, people, moving food stalls … and the dreaded touts. I stopped to get him an icecream … to buy time – I didn’t even argue over the inflated price. Nic’s bag was sagging on his back and heavy enough to cause him to walk with a forward tilt. His black bear was tucked into the strap across his chest. Sweat snaked a trail from his temples to his chin and beads of sweat began to form on his nose. His cheeks were rose pink. But he didn’t complain. He was learning to trust me.
A dead puppy lay bleeding a foot away from a food stall, a couple of cows scavenged on scraps nearby, crows filled the air with neck-prickling squawks. And then I saw her. Mother Ganga. Welcoming us with watery arms wearing jewels of midday light. We had successfully run the Varanasi gauntlet and the touts had fallen aside one by one. I had remembered, after 9 years, the way to the river … even through the madness … and just had to turn right and walk a few hundred meters to Sita Guest House.
Stepping onto the ghats is like finding a black hole in space and being transported a million miles away. She opens out in front of you and everything else melts away. You don’t look back, you just slow right down and keep on walking.
The river is low at the moment, waiting for the monsoon rains to replenish her and cleanse her. The locals say you can put anything in her and she will be clean. She is the holy river. I’m not convinced. Once settled into Sita Guest House where the massive ghekos still reside and evidence of the mouse lay around in the form of droppings, Nic ran in from the balcony and asked me if he could go swimming in the Ganges now with all those other children. “No,” I said with a little more force than I intended. When he begged, I did what all mothers do in this situation. “Ask your father,” I said. But when I heard the “Yay” on his end of the phone, I had no more ammo. I had to give in … trying desperately to push aside thoughts of sewerage, dead bodies and general muck. Millions of people swim here, I kept telling myself. It can’t be that bad. I could hardly watch as he waded in through the litter and ooze of the long dry season, clutching his blow-up beach ball and looking so enthusiastic. He was oblivious … or maybe he just didn’t care – he had after all found it hilarious watching the fishermen in Goa washing their bums after their morning constitution on the shoreline, dangerously close to where we were swimming. “Don’t put your face in the water,” I shouted after him. Swimming in the Ganges this far from its source has to come with at least one condition. I don’t care how holy it is.
He lived to watch the cricket tournament on the steps – a daily event. And he lived to watch the string of candles strung along the river like fairy lights floating gently with the current, each one overflowing with hope. We have been on a sunset boat trip and a sunrise boat trip, neither seeing the sun set, nor rise, but trusting that it did anyway. We have seen the washing wallahs beat the crap out of the hotel bed linen on the river’s concrete banks. We have seen bodies burn on the burning ghats and the remaining pieces set afloat on the water, narrowly escaping the scavenging dogs. We have sent our own wishes piggybacking off a candle and a few marigolds down the river. We have seen more prayer rituals than most people see in a lifetime. Yoga happens on mass along the banks. And everyone swims.
It’s magical.
You can’t help but be happy in a place where so many millions of people invest so much in hope.
Travelling with a small child here means you can’t be complacent though. Even the locals tell me to watch him every moment. It doesn’t help to just hope he will be safe. I have him tied to me permanently – dips in the river excluded – and imagine beating certain people to a pulp when they show more than appropriate interest in my child. Yes, holiness does escape me at times. Maternal instincts are on red alert. He got dragged down the alleyways yesterday and out of town to the holy Buddhist temples in Sarnath.
He is tired and overwhelmed and is watching cricket now while I type. We have a room with a TV and airconditioning here and the computers are right outside our room. Sita Guest House is exactly the same as it was 9 years ago and the owner even recognised me and gave me a good price on a room with a balcony. Granted the balcony’s view is obstructed by a lamp post strung with several illegally connected electrical cables … but did I mention the TV and aircon? The TV’s reception is kinda fuzzy. I am beginning to see the real reason for the discount. But the wonderful thing about travelling with a child is that he doesn’t see the flaws. He fell in love with the room instantly – a room where the only thing that brightens the shades of brown and peeling paint is the magnificent polycotton bed linen adorned with bright pink cherry blossom, swans, snow-capped mountains and a periwinkle-blue sky. He also thinks it’s just grand that you can pee, shower, and wash your hands in the basin under a trickle of water that you can’t shut off … all at the same time. He helps to settle me. Just what I need when my instinct is always to run immediately on reaching a place.
“Power cuts” the owner says with a shrug and a shake of his head – not a regular head shake but the sideways one that tends to mean anything and nothing at the same time. But the way the airconditioning unit shudders and jolts before it dies makes me suspect it has more to do with one of the enormous gheckos meeting its fate. I send a virtual candle down the river hoping for its safe passage to better karma in its next life. A brown-headed kingfisher sits on my balcony, an unusual site but one I saw at the ashram too. I can’t help but wonder if it is the same one. I always feel like I am being followed by creatures when I come to India, like I am being visited by old friends … some who have clearly done something bad in a previous life.
Varanasi assaults you on arrival but embraces you immediately afterwards. It is disgusting and holy and beautiful and scary. It steals you away in little pieces and staying here too long would risk total surrender. If my heart belongs to my children in Capricorn then Varanasi has my soul.
We leave tomorrow evening and that is a good thing … any longer and I might never go. I have always believed I am rooted in the air and perhaps I am. I move easily without fuss or any real sense of upheaval. But I hate to stay too long in one place. I have discovered it is because I am terrified of getting attached and sentimental. I don’t want the sad farewells. I don’t want to risk exposure to my soft core.
It is 9am here and time to tether Nic to me and drag him around the old town. I want chai and poori. I want to dodge cows and their shit. I want to be harassed by shop owners. I want to feel the sweat run in rivers between my breasts and settle around my naval where it will drench the Dollar bills tucked discreetly in my money belt. I want to see bright-coloured silks, smell carcasses strung up across hole-in-the-wall butcheries and hear the shouts of wallahs selling their wares as the bells on the ghats ring out for prayers. This isn’t life as I know it. This is sensory overload. And I love it. Hout Bay couldn’t be further away.
