Nose to the Grindstone

Gosh, it’s been a long time since I posted here eh? And what’s happened? Let me explain. No, let me summarise, it would take too long to explain*.

Got back to England, got sick from a stomach virus, spent three weeks in bed / on a couch / on the loo, got better, spent two weeks on holiday in Devon and Cornwall with Iona, spent a final week girding my loins before heading back to work, and now here I am, back at work. Nothing has changed.

So, principally for all my travelling chums, I’ll be keeping this blog updated every now and again so you can keep in touch with the oh so thrilling world of Johnnie. And remember, you are all very welcome to pop in any time you find yourself in Leicester.

*And what film is that line from then?

Nepal Update Update

Given all the strife currently in Nepal, it was no big suprise to me that the guys I was going to do my trek with have cancelled it. Having come to terms with that, I realised I didn't really want to stay in India. So, having nowhere else particular to go, and having a pretty strong inducement to want to head back to England, that's what I'm doing.

And now I've got a flight organised for Friday, and realise that I'm really going back, it's hit me that I'm not sure I'm really ready to stop travelling yet.

Still, got a couple of days left, and we'll be having a fairly major leaving party tonight, and then it's the Indian railways experience for me, travelling overnight from Varenasi to Delhi, a day round Delhi and then home.

See you all soon.

I Love / Hate India

Still can't really get my head around India. It is just so alien to everywhere else I have ever been. And even though we're travelling in a truck, that sanitises us from the real flavour of the streets, it's still an awesome experience to travel through the country.

And that's what we've been doing. Travelling. Lots. It's been a mad dash from fort to temple to palace, and then back to another fort and another temple. We're about templed/forted/palaced out now, which is lucky, cos this is the end of the trip. However, one building stood out. Of course, the Taj Mahal. Had the same sort of feeling seeing that for the first time as I did when I saw the Grand Canyon for the first time. I'd seen all the pics and films before, but they just don't do it justice. We went at dawn to catch the pink glow of the rising sun (didn't happen, too smoggy) and again in the evening to catch the golden rays of the setting sun (didn't happen, too cloudy, and got caught up in beach cricket anyway).

So now it's just about time to say goodbye to another bunch of new and good friends that I made on this trip. I hate this part; it sucks bigtime.

Nepal Update

For those of you (few I know) who may be concerned about me going to Nepal in a fortnight given the strife going on there at the mo, here's the SP.

If the FCO advice stays as it is, I won't be going. Dragoman, who I'm travelling with, won't go even if the FCO advice changes and they still feel it would be dicey. In this case, I may head home a bit early and do something in the UK; Scotland for instance.

If the situation radically improves, woo! yay! Off I go treking. However, things look a bit bleak at the moment, so I am doubtful to say the least that this will happen.

Suffice to say I'm keeping tabs on the situation, and won't do anything too stupid.

Namaste

Driving update: familiarity certainly doesn't breed contempt. Tried a few more driving modes apart from taxi and truck. These include auto rickshaw, bycycle rickshaw and sitting on top of a jeep. All of these apear to be extremely perilous, and, in fact, they are. Still, only seen about 100 accidents so far, so probably all will be well.

In Delhi at the moment, and yes, I was here when the bomb went off at the mosque, and no, I was nowhere near, and yes, I'm fine. I much prefer being out in the sticks compared to being in a city. All the days have been good so far, but the best have been when we've been invited back to a couple of our local guides houses for dinner.

The first time was when I was on top of a jeep. After bush camping (which involves finding a flat bit of land and camping there, paying the farmer a few rups if he turns up to find out what's going on), we took a trip to Rafiq's (our guides) house. I was on top of the jeep, but that's only because there were 14 people inside or hanging on the outside. Oh, and there was another 5 people up top with me.

We were fed and watered well, and the whole village came out to view us eating. Ricky, our driver, got his guitar out and there was a bit of a sing-song, many of us had our hands and arms henna'd up, and a great time was had by all.

Had a couple of impromptu cricket matches as well, and hope to get a few more in. I'm itching to play a proper match.

Mad!

That's what India is. Mad.

Got into Mumbai airport at around 9pm, and got a taxi from the airport to the hotel, drive of about 3/4 of an hour. I've seen some crazy driving in my time (stand and take a bow Iran, for instance), but this beats them all to hell. It's a long time since I've been in a car that was made before I was born, but that was no big deal. What is a big deal is the rules of the road. To a good first approximation, there are none. And there are cows. Lots of them. In the middle of the road.

Oh well, I always figured it would be a bit different. The people I'm now travelling with are all a good bunch, and we've bonded well over the last few days bush camping. This has mainly involved playing games on the truck, drinking, eating together, drinking, playing cricket, drinking ...well, you get the idea. We're now in Udaipur, home of lots of palaces and suchlike, and it's good to be back in a town after being on the road for a week.

Long Time No Speak

But I've been doing heaps. I knew India would be a bit frenetic, so thought it would be a great idea to chill out for a week or so in and around Perth. Fortunately, Steve, friend from Leicester, had relocated himself there last year, so I was able to crash with him for the duration, and also he proved to be an extremely useful new local guide. Did most of the tourist sights that were there to be done in the vicinity: Rottnest Island, Art Galary, Zoo, The Pinicles, Freemantle Maritime Museum, Sunday Session and so forth. All good.

Then it was a brief stopover in Hong Kong on the way to India. Did my best to be a proper tourist, but didn't really have enough time to do anything too wild. Still, a trip on the Star Ferry is alwasy worth the money.

And then, India ...

My, what big teeth you have ...

Big Croc
Originally uploaded by Johnnie Shannon.

... and they were quite close to me.

Photos from the Red Centre and Top End, illustrating the Red Centre and Top End, can now be found on Flickr. Of course.

That is all.

Say Hallo - Wave Goodbye

In the last 12 days I have met 54 fellow travellers and 5 guides. I guess I had at least one decent conversation with about half that number, clicked and got on with about half of them, and made good friends with about half of them. We saw the sights together, eat together, drank together, slept together (no, not like that) and shared loads of great times and memories. I doubt I'll see any of them again in my life.

Most people I've met on travels are predisposed towards being sociable and, so long as any language barrier is surmountable, it's quite easy to fall into easy going friendships. The shield against the sword of Damocles is the swapping of email addresses as you say farewell to your new friends. It may just be me, but what follows tends to be receipt of sporadic group emails detailing the latest travelling escapades of whoever, that then tail off into eventual silence. So now I pretty much only divulge my email to real or potential good friends. If you're reading this, you're obviously on the A list by the way.

It's great meeting people, sad saying goodbye (to some anyway) but hey, that's life folks.

Red Centre and the Top End

Ayers Rock. Uluru if you like. It's big. It's red. It's in the middle of bloody* nowhere. Nothing there at all. Oh, except, remember I mentioned that Alice Springs had flies? Well, now I know that Alice is where flies go when they want to get away from all the other flies that live at Ayers Rock. Jeez, there's millions of the buggers.

Many, many people went for the fashionable flynet look. I thought I'd go for the whole outback experience, develop the Alice Wave, and went sans flynet. It was tough, but on the whole, I managed it. Aren't I the hero eh?

Anyway, Ayers Rock is very nice and all. Saw it from a distance at sunset, then walked around it. From a purely aesthetic point of view, the Olgas (or Katja Tiju - maybe, something like that) were more beautiful. Sunset at the rock aren't quite the wilderness experience it may seem. There are heaps of tour groups, all serving some kind of champagne or the other, clammering to take piccies.

On to Kings Canyon, which was rather groovy, then three of us went on to camp at more remote locations, before heading back to Alice.

The trip up to Darwin was long, long, driving days. Still had time for a brief walk or two, but essentially having to travel over 500Km a day in a coach puts the mockers on any other activities. Got a good impression of how vast the landscape is though.

Then it was on to Lichfield and Kakadu national parks. Very beautiful, full of fantastic waterfalls and warm water swimming. And mosquitoes. Hell, for the first time in six months mossies bothered me at night. Not bad I suppose.

And then it was out of Darwin and on to Perth, and here I am now, staying with Steve. Raining hard at the moment, but I'm sure it will clear up.

*Heard that Australia Tourism's "Where the bloody hell are you?" campaign has been banned in the UK. Sorry if I bloody offended any bleedin' person there with the use of that "bloody". Oh, for the sake of whatever god you pray to; grow up UK. It's only a bloody word.

Ice Cold in Alice

Err, it's not.

And there are flies also.

Anyway, photos of Tassie now on Flickr. Go, go go!