JC in India

I first visited India in 2004. I’ll never forget my first immersion into the sensory overload that was India at the time. I can still vividly recall arriving by taxi into Old Delhi, seeing a cow emerging from the early morning mist and of feeling completely exposed to this strange new world.

When I first thought about trying to tell the tale of that first trip, I realised I could not better what has already been written by my friend Will, who I travelled with on that journey. 

Will and I first met at University in Plymouth, back in the early 1990’s and were fortunate enough to have been allocated rooms in the same student house in our first year. That marked the start of a close friendship which exists to this day – although admittedly we don’t see each other anything like as much as we used to, as he now lives in Canada with his wife Helen and their two kids there. Although in true Will and Helen fashion they’re planning a bit of a world tour next year, and Delhi is on the itinerary – so I’ll be hosting them over here at that time 19 years after we first visited the country together back on that first trip.

For my 40^th birthday (over 11 years ago ☹!), Will presented me with a photo book of some of our previous travels together, along with various scripts to go with each, describing the highlights from these journeys. We’d travelled far and wide in our younger post University days – trips which took in parts of Africa, Asia, the USA and plenty more.

Highlights that come to mind include arriving at the top of a mountain overlooking the Valley of the Kings in Egypt to watch the solstice sunrise, following an overnight hike to get there, only to realise we’d bought non-alcoholic beer for the toast. I remember running like lunatics across Death Valley in California in the deep dark of night unable to see our feet in front of us, leaving our camp fire burning on the valley floor as a reference point. I could fill a number of posts with stories of our travels, and maybe I’ll share more over time.

All in all quite a few adventures were had, as we shared the attitude that seeing the world was more important than seeing a bank balance! I often thought on our many trips, that it would be good to record our adventures and we could set up some sort of travel writing venture, with Will being the photographer (one of his passions), and me being the writer. However, seeing the quality of his writing I now think maybe we got that delegation the wrong way round!

So for this blog post I am going to hand over to Will, and below I simply reproduce word for word the script he wrote describing our first Indian adventure. It’s too good to keep locked away in a book for myself only. So (having got his permission) I’m very pleased to be able to share it with a wider audience, and to publish the tale of ‘Evil Beastie’….

The only addition from me is the inclusion of a few photo’s which coincide with the narrative.

Over to you Will!

“McCleod Ganj”, by Will Flanagan, 2010:

What a crazy trip! I’d jacked in work in Scotland and was wanting to bide my time ‘somewhere cheap’ before emigrating to Canada. By a lucky chance, you were also between jobs and, as usual, were up for adventure. This time, however, we were bringing our families!

The plan was to head to Western India – for the deserts of Rajasthan as a family group, and then you and I would go north to the Himalayan foothills. We kicked off the trip in the most magnificent marble structure in the world, the Taj Mahal – the namesake of so many curry houses around the globe. The Indians know they’re onto a good think with the Taj, and this wonder of the modern world comes complete with the all the tourist hustle you could ever want for.

Hoping to see a sunrise, I persuaded some of our team to check the place out at first light. The Taj was cloaked in think damp mist with icy tendrils, the same colour as the marble, wrapping themselves around the building and pulling it into two dimensions of matte flatness. It was so quiet, and for a timeless half an hour, I almost had the place to myself. I write about this now so that you know what you missed – you were sound asleep, snoring your head off. Never one to take the bull by the horns first thing in the morning, you did eventually crawl out to see what you’d flown half way around the world to see. By the time you got there, I still remember seeing that plaza so packed with tourists that you could hardly see the place anymore.

We pressed on – the pink city of Jaipur (you felt right at home with the colour there, as I remember), the blue city of Jodhpur where I was sick for a day, the golden city of Jaisalmer.

The colours of Rajasthan were just as amazing as we’d heard. We rode on top of a bus into the desert, where we spent the night under the bright starry sky on a sand dune, curled up with a wild dog who you thoughtfully named ‘Mr Mange’. There’s a good boy. You go and see Julian now…

We left Rajasthan after seeing the rat temple at Bikaner – just another wild Indian experience where holy rats run over your bare feet.

After another quick stop in the Om Hair Saloon to crop my mop, we moved onto the Golden Temple in Amritsar, and the other wonder of the Punjab, the daily standoff at the border between the Indians and the Pakistanis.

The crowds, the flag waving, the marching! The crazy head wear! It was kind of like a football crowd without the football game.

Now it was time to head to the hills and visit the Dalai Llama’s pad at McCleod Ganj in the foothills of the Himalayas. Whilst there, we came up with the great idea of going for an overnight trek – even though it was still early in the season, and the mountain snows were still very much present.

So we set off up the track, heading towards a hut at the top which would be our night’s rest. We made good progress to start, despite having a map that bore no resemblance to reality, and looked like the cartographer was well away on LSD when he scratched it out.

As we got nearer our goal, the obstacles got thicker and more frequent. Drifts of snow wiped away the path at times, the going got steeper. At one particular snow choked gully, a lump of ice the size of a coffee table broke off just after I had passed through, smashed into the ground between us where I had just stepped. The only thing that would have broken my fall if it had hit me was a really steep ravine and the harsh embrace of the mountain trees at the bottom.

We pressed up that final hill in the failing day light. Steep drifts fought to keep us back every step of the way – a couple of times I slipped a little and sunk shoulder deep into the frigid snow, and only you to pull me out again. Eventually, though we made it to the hut that was to be our refuge for the night. But what a place!

Half-buried by the thick mountain snow drifts, it was a rundown wooden shack that was totally empty. The outside had suffered from the licks of flames, and some of the boards were uninvitingly charcoal coloured.

Once inside, we found a dark and empty wooden shell that contained only memories of old fires, and one tiny window through which the last of the days light trickled. After taking stock of our surroundings, and eating our barely adequate dinner, we settled down for the night – both of us pleased to be here, however uncomfortable, and relieved to be out of the snow.

The mountain wasn’t done with us for the night, though. In the dark hours of the early morning, when people are most vulnerable, I was awoken by an unearthly screech. I just lay there to start with, hoping it wouldn’t happen again. It did. “Did you hear that?”, you whispered to me. “What the hall was it?”

Whatever it was it screeched an unholy noise several more times. Just as eerily, we could hear it moving around on the roof – just meters above our heads. Short footfalls in quick succession – thump, thump, thump, thump. Screech!

Despite how terrifying the Blair Witch Hut was in the wee hours, eventually silence fell and our tiredness caught up with us.  The rest of the night was uncomfortable, cold, but thankfully lacking in horrendous noises.

We’ll never know what that creature of the night was. As I opened the door cautiously the next morning, very big stick in hand, there were absolutely no tracks to show where it had been. No sign at all of the thing that had scared us witless the night before. ‘Evil Beastie’ had disappeared without trace into the Himalayan snows.