Saturday, March 11, 2006
Dum Dum to Kolkata, India
A knock on my door at 9am. I get out of bed, put a towell around me and open the door. Time to check out, says an angry looking guy with some sheets.
As I put the paniers on the bike a boy of about ten stood and watched, then out onto the street I get some more attention, and spend a bit of time answering questions like where am I from? where am I cycling to? how much did the bike cost? I take my camera out and take a picture of a cow and some people sifting through a pile of rubbish. I'm well back and don't zoom in on them, but it doesn't feel right.
It's an overcast day. I can't see where the sun is. I was planning on just heading West until I hit the river and then following it down until I get to the centre of town. I don't have a map. I ask someone directions and follow a chaotic main road, mostly riding pretty slowly, getting stuck behind rickshaws and bikes loaded down with goods, dodging speeding buses, everyone hooting, all the bikes ringing their bells.
I stop to eat an orange and realize I'm standing next to an open sewer. A lorry stops and two guys get out for a piss. People walking past stare at me. Some smile.
The area I'm in is called Dum Dum. It's a suburb of Calcutta, about 20km out from the centre. I ask a few more people directions to make sure I'm going the right way, but then as the buildings become more modern a the street wider it's obvious which way is towards the centre.
A boy on the back of a scooter points me out to his father who asks me where I'm from and then rides along behind me, passing me when I get caught up in a gutter and laughing.
After a while I get used to the traffic and road conditions. It takes about two hours to reach the centre of town. When I do I stop off at a hotel with doormen and go in for a cup of tea, though really just for a place to escape from the noise and chaos and look through the Lonely Planet to see where I can stay.
The room I'm in is basic, in Sudder street, the main backpacker area of Kolkota where there are a number of cheap hotels, but also plenty of beggars and drug dealers, and at the beginning of the street, near the hotel when I had the cup of tea, are a number of bird shit covered tarpaulins and cardboard shacks, women sitting with young children, older children playing in rubble.
Going for a walk down to Park Street to get some cash out and buy a plug adaptor I see what looks like a dog's tail wagging but as I get closer see that it's the stump of an amputated arm hitting the sheet on which it's owner is lying face down.
A woman on Sudder street has come up to me twice now. The first time when I was buying toilet paper she was holding out a baby's milk bottle asking for money to buy milk for her baby. I refused. And then later in the evening she followed me carrying a child and asking for money for rice. Again I refused. This afternoon a six or seven year old girl followed me asking for money for food and I refused. I've only given money to one person today, and that was an amputee who showed me his stump outside the hotel where I'm staying. I'm not sure why I give to some and not others. I never give to children, and in Thailand someone told me that the mothers with children you see begging there a lot, they hire the children. He said there was one just down the road and he saw her with a different child each day. In those cases the child was laying on a blanket in front of the woman doing the wai (praying) gesture.
In a restuarant earlier, which I was shown to by an Indian guy trying to sell me cannabis and prostitutes, I overhead the conversation of a youngish Hungarian hippy talking to an elderly American. The Hungarian was talking about how some people come here and want to change the place but he thought the rule of tourism was to just observe. "If you want to change the world stay at home and change things there." The American taps his fork on the table in agreement, but I don't think you can just observe without having an effect on the place you're in, particularly when you're in a place where you have so much more money than most of the inhabitants. In Thailand it was far more obvious how tourism has affected the country. Bars playing farang music, beautiful Thai women as hostesses asking to be bought drinks, farnag food being served in restaurants, with Thai food on the menu as a sub-section. Here in Kolkata tourism doesn't appear to have had such a great effect. In the posh hotel bar they were playing Indian music and in another bar I went to just now, attached to a guest house, they were showing a Premiership football match on the TV but then switched chanels to what looked like a Bollywood film.
But I hear people speaking English all the time, not just to foreigners, but Indians speaking English to other Indians. Perhaps this is because Indians speak different languages so English is the way Hindi speakers can communicate with Bangali speakers, but also I think it's to do with establishments wanting to appear upmarket and people wanting to appear educated. In arelatively expensive restaurant at lunch time I noticed an Indian woman speaking English to the Indian waiter.
I'm not sure what time it is now. The computer is showing 22:32 but my alarm clock shows ten o'clock. Is India 5 hours or five and a half hours ahead of GMT?
It is 23:57 according to the computer clock now and that's the one that's right. I am five and a half hours ahead of everyone in Greenwich. I asked someone out on the roof patio just now. He was passing around something that came out of an Indian cigarette packet. The Israeli was was also there said they don't put anything in it when I asked him earlier what those Indian cigarettes are like, seeing the packet and having gone for a packet of Marlboro Lights earlier in the day, thinking after this poaket I'll quit again. They must have put something in it, or it wasn't a cigarette (why would people pass around a cigarette?) because I don't usually start talking shit like this when I'm with other people. I talk shit to the computer a lot. Each new paragraph on this blog and I realize everything in the previous paragraph is shit. Each day I reaslze everything I wrote in the previous day's entry, which probably wasn't the previous day but several weeks ago, is shit.
That's why I stop writing and why I stop talking. It's only when I realzie what I'm saying that I stop. Sometimes it takes longer to realizze than others.
In one of the two bars I went to, when I lit up a Marlboro Light one of the barmen came over to me and said "excuse me sir, what is that you are smoking, sir?" There were ashtrays in the place and I'd seen someone else smoking in there so I thought he was just asking out of interest. It's a Marlboro Light< i told him and he said "no, there's something else in there. I can smell it. Please go and smoke it outside or in the toilets but not in here." I took out the pocket and showed him. Maybe it was because the filters are white, the same colour as the cigarette, or maybe they smell different to Indian cigarettes and the difference in smell made him believe he was smalling something he shouldn't be smelling.
Both bars I went to where very male dominated. Dominated by Indian men. Just a few foreigners, out of which a handful were women. There are quite a few in the hotel I'm in though. The ones out on the patio earlier got up and left when I sat dawn, conincidentally I think. But maybe not. I haven't had a shower since the bike ride, but looking at the shower here I think I'd come out dirtier than I went in.
Differences between Thailand and here: 1) Thailand is much cleaner. They take four showers a day. In Kokata I've noticed a number of KP (Communist Party?) signs saying things like "It's your city, keep it clean" and "Cleanliness is next to Godliness". in one case the sign was posted on a wall right above a pipe gushing water into a blocked gulley full of rubbish.
As I put the paniers on the bike a boy of about ten stood and watched, then out onto the street I get some more attention, and spend a bit of time answering questions like where am I from? where am I cycling to? how much did the bike cost? I take my camera out and take a picture of a cow and some people sifting through a pile of rubbish. I'm well back and don't zoom in on them, but it doesn't feel right.
It's an overcast day. I can't see where the sun is. I was planning on just heading West until I hit the river and then following it down until I get to the centre of town. I don't have a map. I ask someone directions and follow a chaotic main road, mostly riding pretty slowly, getting stuck behind rickshaws and bikes loaded down with goods, dodging speeding buses, everyone hooting, all the bikes ringing their bells.
I stop to eat an orange and realize I'm standing next to an open sewer. A lorry stops and two guys get out for a piss. People walking past stare at me. Some smile.
The area I'm in is called Dum Dum. It's a suburb of Calcutta, about 20km out from the centre. I ask a few more people directions to make sure I'm going the right way, but then as the buildings become more modern a the street wider it's obvious which way is towards the centre.
A boy on the back of a scooter points me out to his father who asks me where I'm from and then rides along behind me, passing me when I get caught up in a gutter and laughing.
After a while I get used to the traffic and road conditions. It takes about two hours to reach the centre of town. When I do I stop off at a hotel with doormen and go in for a cup of tea, though really just for a place to escape from the noise and chaos and look through the Lonely Planet to see where I can stay.
The room I'm in is basic, in Sudder street, the main backpacker area of Kolkota where there are a number of cheap hotels, but also plenty of beggars and drug dealers, and at the beginning of the street, near the hotel when I had the cup of tea, are a number of bird shit covered tarpaulins and cardboard shacks, women sitting with young children, older children playing in rubble.
Going for a walk down to Park Street to get some cash out and buy a plug adaptor I see what looks like a dog's tail wagging but as I get closer see that it's the stump of an amputated arm hitting the sheet on which it's owner is lying face down.
A woman on Sudder street has come up to me twice now. The first time when I was buying toilet paper she was holding out a baby's milk bottle asking for money to buy milk for her baby. I refused. And then later in the evening she followed me carrying a child and asking for money for rice. Again I refused. This afternoon a six or seven year old girl followed me asking for money for food and I refused. I've only given money to one person today, and that was an amputee who showed me his stump outside the hotel where I'm staying. I'm not sure why I give to some and not others. I never give to children, and in Thailand someone told me that the mothers with children you see begging there a lot, they hire the children. He said there was one just down the road and he saw her with a different child each day. In those cases the child was laying on a blanket in front of the woman doing the wai (praying) gesture.
In a restuarant earlier, which I was shown to by an Indian guy trying to sell me cannabis and prostitutes, I overhead the conversation of a youngish Hungarian hippy talking to an elderly American. The Hungarian was talking about how some people come here and want to change the place but he thought the rule of tourism was to just observe. "If you want to change the world stay at home and change things there." The American taps his fork on the table in agreement, but I don't think you can just observe without having an effect on the place you're in, particularly when you're in a place where you have so much more money than most of the inhabitants. In Thailand it was far more obvious how tourism has affected the country. Bars playing farang music, beautiful Thai women as hostesses asking to be bought drinks, farnag food being served in restaurants, with Thai food on the menu as a sub-section. Here in Kolkata tourism doesn't appear to have had such a great effect. In the posh hotel bar they were playing Indian music and in another bar I went to just now, attached to a guest house, they were showing a Premiership football match on the TV but then switched chanels to what looked like a Bollywood film.
But I hear people speaking English all the time, not just to foreigners, but Indians speaking English to other Indians. Perhaps this is because Indians speak different languages so English is the way Hindi speakers can communicate with Bangali speakers, but also I think it's to do with establishments wanting to appear upmarket and people wanting to appear educated. In arelatively expensive restaurant at lunch time I noticed an Indian woman speaking English to the Indian waiter.
I'm not sure what time it is now. The computer is showing 22:32 but my alarm clock shows ten o'clock. Is India 5 hours or five and a half hours ahead of GMT?
It is 23:57 according to the computer clock now and that's the one that's right. I am five and a half hours ahead of everyone in Greenwich. I asked someone out on the roof patio just now. He was passing around something that came out of an Indian cigarette packet. The Israeli was was also there said they don't put anything in it when I asked him earlier what those Indian cigarettes are like, seeing the packet and having gone for a packet of Marlboro Lights earlier in the day, thinking after this poaket I'll quit again. They must have put something in it, or it wasn't a cigarette (why would people pass around a cigarette?) because I don't usually start talking shit like this when I'm with other people. I talk shit to the computer a lot. Each new paragraph on this blog and I realize everything in the previous paragraph is shit. Each day I reaslze everything I wrote in the previous day's entry, which probably wasn't the previous day but several weeks ago, is shit.
That's why I stop writing and why I stop talking. It's only when I realzie what I'm saying that I stop. Sometimes it takes longer to realizze than others.
In one of the two bars I went to, when I lit up a Marlboro Light one of the barmen came over to me and said "excuse me sir, what is that you are smoking, sir?" There were ashtrays in the place and I'd seen someone else smoking in there so I thought he was just asking out of interest. It's a Marlboro Light< i told him and he said "no, there's something else in there. I can smell it. Please go and smoke it outside or in the toilets but not in here." I took out the pocket and showed him. Maybe it was because the filters are white, the same colour as the cigarette, or maybe they smell different to Indian cigarettes and the difference in smell made him believe he was smalling something he shouldn't be smelling.
Both bars I went to where very male dominated. Dominated by Indian men. Just a few foreigners, out of which a handful were women. There are quite a few in the hotel I'm in though. The ones out on the patio earlier got up and left when I sat dawn, conincidentally I think. But maybe not. I haven't had a shower since the bike ride, but looking at the shower here I think I'd come out dirtier than I went in.
Differences between Thailand and here: 1) Thailand is much cleaner. They take four showers a day. In Kokata I've noticed a number of KP (Communist Party?) signs saying things like "It's your city, keep it clean" and "Cleanliness is next to Godliness". in one case the sign was posted on a wall right above a pipe gushing water into a blocked gulley full of rubbish.
Friday, March 10, 2006
Chiang Mai, Thailand to Kolkata, India
Bangkok Airport. About to fly to Kolkata (Calcutta). The bike is in a tatty bike box and the paniers are in a bin liner, sitting on a trolley outside the airport cafe I'm in. I don't think anyone will steal them, but better just check they're still there.
They are.
Ordered a mango shake. I'm not sure I like mango.
It's hot in Bangkok. Someone said this is the hottest city in the world.
Didn't get any sleep last night. Had a good massage though. Just a massage. Not the extras you hear about. I don't know if they did offer that. I wouldn't know what to ask for. After the stress of getting the bike packed up it was good, and quite erotic, though the masseuse seemed to get a bit bored after the left leg, though I think she might have enjoyed walking up and down my back. I don't know, I couldn't see her.
I couldn't get the pedals off again. I took it to a bike shop a few days ago and got them to take the pedals off, spray some WD-40 on them then put them back on again, which the guy did, seeming to take them off very easily with a very large spanner, but then he must have tightened them up as tight as they were before because I couldn't get them off with my allen key or with a small spanner. I left it until the evening and by then the bike shop was closed, but I still managed to get the bike in the box, it just bulges a bit.
I had just as much trouble getting a bag to put all the paniers and tent in. Airlines only let you take two items of baggage. One is the bike so the 4 paniers and tent + sleeping bag have to become one item. I went to the main post office and asked them to sell me a mail bag, which would've been ideal but they refused. They sent me to a local garage and I got a bag that tyres come in, which was quite strong but not quite big enough so it's ripped and I've covered it with a bin liner, also not quite big enough so that's ripped and tape is holding it all together.
When I have to go through this I wish I'd sold the bike in Vancouver. Airlines should offer a bike and panier packing service. When they insist the bike must be in a box it means I can't cycle to the airport, and the size of the bike box means I can't get a normal taxi, though in Chiang Mai the taxis are pickup trucks so I was okay. I flew from Chiang Mai down to Bangkok rather than getting the train because I don't know of a bike shop in Bangkok. I don't like flying any more than I have to, though I guess I don't have to fly at all - I could just stay in one place, but which place? Chiang Mai seemed quite nice, though too many farangs and too many distractions, such as the massage parlours and lady bars, where if you buy a lady a ladydrink she'll pretend she finds you interesting and attractive for as long as it takes her to drink it. A ladydrink usually costs a bit more than a normal drink - the excess is what the lady gets. Most bars in Chiang Mai are of this kind, full of farang men and Thai ladies. Very rarely do farang ladies go to those places. The only alternatives seemed to be sedate restaurants and the English, Irish, Australian and German pubs.
Or the wats. Sunday is the best day in Chiang Mai. That's the day when the main streets in the old town within the moat are closed to traffic and taken over by local crafts people setting up stalls, wats becoming restaurants with the monks calling out bingo numbers, or prices, I'm not sure. I know Thai numbers so I know they were calling out numbers.
The lumps of mango at the bottom of the shake are quite good. Maybe I do like mango.
Just checked the bike is still there. I'll see if I can check in soon. It's now three hours to the flight. When I get to India I'm planning to head up to the mountains, probably Darjeeling. Maybe I'll cycle, maybe I won't. Either way I'll have a nice cup of tea when I get there.
Lunch time, but everything in the airport is really expensive. Speak Thai: kow pat = fried rice.
I'm getting tired of people asking me where I'm from. Or I'm getting tired of saying I'm from England so I've started saying I'm from China, which is true in a way. I came to Thailand from China, though I only spent two hours in Beijing airport. Perhaps when I get to India I'll tell them I'm from Thailand. In a bar the other night I think I almost convinced some of them I was Chinese, though they didn't appear to understand my argument that since one in every four people is Chinese and since the other three people sitting at the bar definitely weren't Chinese I must be. They asked me to say things in Chinese, which I did, explaining that I was speaking Mandarin Chinese. I don't think I was. I just made up things that sounded Chinese.
Well, that's how I've been passing my time in Thailand, hanging out in seedy bars talking Mandarin, so it'll be good to be somewhere else. It's too easy to be lazy in Thailand, and it's a very hedonistic place. The tourists are hedonists and Thai culture appears to be based on the principle of sanuke (speak English: fun). I can't say for sure though. I've been in the country for two months but have a very limited understanding of the culture. I've seen people praying in the wats, seen all the religious paraphernelia, the Buddha shops, but I don't know what they're praying or what they think about things since they don't say. I've asked many of them what they think of all the farangs that come to Thailand now and have only once got a criticism out of someone, which was that many farangs are very big, but I'm alright because I'm Thai size. I also tried asking someone about the political situation, which from reading the Bangkok Post seems to be a bit of a mess - an election next month which the opposition are boycotting, demonstrations calling for the Thai Rak Thai (speak English: Thais love Thais) Prime Minister's resignation, but haven't got an answer, though that's probably down to the language barrier. My Thai phrase book did have those kinds of questions in Thai but I rarely took the phrase book with me when I went out.
Speak Thai: choke dee kap/ka = cheers.
After a certain hour (about midnight) the ladyboys appear on the streets of Chiang Mai saying Hallorrrrrrrrr to passing farang males. When I see one I can't help starting to laugh, wondering how long the Hallorrrrrrrrrrrr is going to be, which is a problem because I think they think I'm smiling at them and so they can be a bit persistent, though if I ask them what their opinion is on the current political crisis they usually go away. If not, they can't run very fast in their high heels.
Thailand feels like a very safe country. The only violence I've seen is from farangs. Even when I went to watch some Thai boxing the other night there wasn't any violence. It was a pretty lame fight, between a farang and a Thai. They just seemed to size one another up for the three rounds. I think the Thai won, but it wasn't very clear. He went and shook hands with the farang so I assume that means he won, but I don't think a single kick or punch connected so I'm not sure how the judges decided.
There was a Thai movie dubbed into English that they kept showing in the hotel I was staying in in Bangkok, a kind of Thai martial arts movie where this Thai guy who's a kind of Thai Bruce Lee who doesn't like violence takes on nasty farangs twice his size in the Khao San Road in order to get back the Buddha head that's been stolen from his peoples' village, in order to restore the honour of the village. It ends with the main villain being crushed by the giant Buddha head.
Calcutta
The plane touches down just after sunset, though it's only 5.30. The clocks have gone back two hours. From the plane window the landscape is hazy. It doesn't look Indian. It looks like it could be anywhere. Canada even. It looks cold but we're told it's 31 degrees outside.
The bike is already waiting for me when I get to the conveyor belt, but it takes a while for the bin liner containing the paniers to appear. There are many bin liners on this conveyor belt. Previously by baggage has always been easy to spot among the suitcases and backpacks because it's by far the most scruffy. A bulging cardboard box held together with tape and a bin liner covered with tape, but here there are many bags almost as scruffy as mine, but when my bin liner does appear it definitely is more scruffy than anything else. A number of poeple handle it before it reaches me, perhaps wondering if it might be one of theirs.
I get through customs without any problems, though the woman checking my passport asks me what I do for a living. I tell her I make websites. So you're a hacker, she says. No, I'm the victim of hackers, but that's something for another blog, or maybe later in this blog.
A number of people ask me if that's a bike I've got in the box as I wheel my trolley out, and then ask me if I'm really planning on cycling in India. When I get outside a few taxi drives approach me but I tell them I'm going to put my bike together and cycle to a nearby hotel. One of the taxi drivers is quite persistent and follows me to a quietish spot where I decide I'll be able sort out the bike. He helps me get it out of the box, which is quite awkward since one of the pedals is pcking through the cardboard and is wedged. As I unload the box and the paniers a crowd gathers and as I'm reassembling the bike I'm being watched by a group of about twenty people. Occasionally they say things to one another but mostly they watch in silence. A few of them help out by holding something or holding the bike steady when I don't have enough hands. At one point some police or army people get them to move back because they're crowding me.
I get directions to the hotel I want to go to, which the Lonely Planet says is cheap and basic, but it's only about a kilometer away. I don't want to cycle the 17km into the centre of town in the dark. As I get out into the street and I'm confronted by the chaos, cars hooting like the hooter is what make the engine go. I realize the directions I was given were totally inadequate since they don't take into account the chaos. I start to think I must have gone past the place, and it turns out I had because I eventually find it down a small alley way.
Is the shower hot or cold? It's medium. Unfortunately no water comes out when he turns it on. He sticks a pin into the shower head and has a bit of a poke around and manages to get some water to dribble out. That'll do, I say, just wanting to get rid of him.
I go out to a restaurant, the only one I can find. I don't want to go to one of the street stalls, though this place cooks its food in the street but at least I can sit inside. There's a bottle of water on the table but no glasses. I watch someone come into the place and drink some water, which he does by holding the bottle above his mouth without it touching his lips. After the chicken biryani I'm thirsty and even though people have said don't drink the water in India, I think it's probably okay here. But I guess I didn't tip my head back far enough because most of the water went down my shirt and onto my trousers. I don't think anyone noticed, but I don't want to stand up and leave until the wet patch has dried off.
There's a knock on the door. It's the hotel owner again. He sees my packet of cigarettes. Can I give one? he asks, taking one. He asks me how much my laptop cost. £1000. That's 80,000 Rupees. Earlier he was asking if I had any English coins. He said his son collects coins. I fished around in the bottom of my panier as he was fixing the shower and found some pennies, a two pence piece and a five pence piece, but he seemed to want something a bit bigger. I found a two pound coin but didn't tell him. If I gave him that that would be almost what I paid him for the room, and I decided to change some of my Thai money into Stirling as a reserve just in case I can't get cash out here.
They are.
Ordered a mango shake. I'm not sure I like mango.
It's hot in Bangkok. Someone said this is the hottest city in the world.
Didn't get any sleep last night. Had a good massage though. Just a massage. Not the extras you hear about. I don't know if they did offer that. I wouldn't know what to ask for. After the stress of getting the bike packed up it was good, and quite erotic, though the masseuse seemed to get a bit bored after the left leg, though I think she might have enjoyed walking up and down my back. I don't know, I couldn't see her.
I couldn't get the pedals off again. I took it to a bike shop a few days ago and got them to take the pedals off, spray some WD-40 on them then put them back on again, which the guy did, seeming to take them off very easily with a very large spanner, but then he must have tightened them up as tight as they were before because I couldn't get them off with my allen key or with a small spanner. I left it until the evening and by then the bike shop was closed, but I still managed to get the bike in the box, it just bulges a bit.
I had just as much trouble getting a bag to put all the paniers and tent in. Airlines only let you take two items of baggage. One is the bike so the 4 paniers and tent + sleeping bag have to become one item. I went to the main post office and asked them to sell me a mail bag, which would've been ideal but they refused. They sent me to a local garage and I got a bag that tyres come in, which was quite strong but not quite big enough so it's ripped and I've covered it with a bin liner, also not quite big enough so that's ripped and tape is holding it all together.
When I have to go through this I wish I'd sold the bike in Vancouver. Airlines should offer a bike and panier packing service. When they insist the bike must be in a box it means I can't cycle to the airport, and the size of the bike box means I can't get a normal taxi, though in Chiang Mai the taxis are pickup trucks so I was okay. I flew from Chiang Mai down to Bangkok rather than getting the train because I don't know of a bike shop in Bangkok. I don't like flying any more than I have to, though I guess I don't have to fly at all - I could just stay in one place, but which place? Chiang Mai seemed quite nice, though too many farangs and too many distractions, such as the massage parlours and lady bars, where if you buy a lady a ladydrink she'll pretend she finds you interesting and attractive for as long as it takes her to drink it. A ladydrink usually costs a bit more than a normal drink - the excess is what the lady gets. Most bars in Chiang Mai are of this kind, full of farang men and Thai ladies. Very rarely do farang ladies go to those places. The only alternatives seemed to be sedate restaurants and the English, Irish, Australian and German pubs.
Or the wats. Sunday is the best day in Chiang Mai. That's the day when the main streets in the old town within the moat are closed to traffic and taken over by local crafts people setting up stalls, wats becoming restaurants with the monks calling out bingo numbers, or prices, I'm not sure. I know Thai numbers so I know they were calling out numbers.
The lumps of mango at the bottom of the shake are quite good. Maybe I do like mango.
Just checked the bike is still there. I'll see if I can check in soon. It's now three hours to the flight. When I get to India I'm planning to head up to the mountains, probably Darjeeling. Maybe I'll cycle, maybe I won't. Either way I'll have a nice cup of tea when I get there.
Lunch time, but everything in the airport is really expensive. Speak Thai: kow pat = fried rice.
I'm getting tired of people asking me where I'm from. Or I'm getting tired of saying I'm from England so I've started saying I'm from China, which is true in a way. I came to Thailand from China, though I only spent two hours in Beijing airport. Perhaps when I get to India I'll tell them I'm from Thailand. In a bar the other night I think I almost convinced some of them I was Chinese, though they didn't appear to understand my argument that since one in every four people is Chinese and since the other three people sitting at the bar definitely weren't Chinese I must be. They asked me to say things in Chinese, which I did, explaining that I was speaking Mandarin Chinese. I don't think I was. I just made up things that sounded Chinese.
Well, that's how I've been passing my time in Thailand, hanging out in seedy bars talking Mandarin, so it'll be good to be somewhere else. It's too easy to be lazy in Thailand, and it's a very hedonistic place. The tourists are hedonists and Thai culture appears to be based on the principle of sanuke (speak English: fun). I can't say for sure though. I've been in the country for two months but have a very limited understanding of the culture. I've seen people praying in the wats, seen all the religious paraphernelia, the Buddha shops, but I don't know what they're praying or what they think about things since they don't say. I've asked many of them what they think of all the farangs that come to Thailand now and have only once got a criticism out of someone, which was that many farangs are very big, but I'm alright because I'm Thai size. I also tried asking someone about the political situation, which from reading the Bangkok Post seems to be a bit of a mess - an election next month which the opposition are boycotting, demonstrations calling for the Thai Rak Thai (speak English: Thais love Thais) Prime Minister's resignation, but haven't got an answer, though that's probably down to the language barrier. My Thai phrase book did have those kinds of questions in Thai but I rarely took the phrase book with me when I went out.
Speak Thai: choke dee kap/ka = cheers.
After a certain hour (about midnight) the ladyboys appear on the streets of Chiang Mai saying Hallorrrrrrrrr to passing farang males. When I see one I can't help starting to laugh, wondering how long the Hallorrrrrrrrrrrr is going to be, which is a problem because I think they think I'm smiling at them and so they can be a bit persistent, though if I ask them what their opinion is on the current political crisis they usually go away. If not, they can't run very fast in their high heels.
Thailand feels like a very safe country. The only violence I've seen is from farangs. Even when I went to watch some Thai boxing the other night there wasn't any violence. It was a pretty lame fight, between a farang and a Thai. They just seemed to size one another up for the three rounds. I think the Thai won, but it wasn't very clear. He went and shook hands with the farang so I assume that means he won, but I don't think a single kick or punch connected so I'm not sure how the judges decided.
There was a Thai movie dubbed into English that they kept showing in the hotel I was staying in in Bangkok, a kind of Thai martial arts movie where this Thai guy who's a kind of Thai Bruce Lee who doesn't like violence takes on nasty farangs twice his size in the Khao San Road in order to get back the Buddha head that's been stolen from his peoples' village, in order to restore the honour of the village. It ends with the main villain being crushed by the giant Buddha head.
Calcutta
The plane touches down just after sunset, though it's only 5.30. The clocks have gone back two hours. From the plane window the landscape is hazy. It doesn't look Indian. It looks like it could be anywhere. Canada even. It looks cold but we're told it's 31 degrees outside.
The bike is already waiting for me when I get to the conveyor belt, but it takes a while for the bin liner containing the paniers to appear. There are many bin liners on this conveyor belt. Previously by baggage has always been easy to spot among the suitcases and backpacks because it's by far the most scruffy. A bulging cardboard box held together with tape and a bin liner covered with tape, but here there are many bags almost as scruffy as mine, but when my bin liner does appear it definitely is more scruffy than anything else. A number of poeple handle it before it reaches me, perhaps wondering if it might be one of theirs.
I get through customs without any problems, though the woman checking my passport asks me what I do for a living. I tell her I make websites. So you're a hacker, she says. No, I'm the victim of hackers, but that's something for another blog, or maybe later in this blog.
A number of people ask me if that's a bike I've got in the box as I wheel my trolley out, and then ask me if I'm really planning on cycling in India. When I get outside a few taxi drives approach me but I tell them I'm going to put my bike together and cycle to a nearby hotel. One of the taxi drivers is quite persistent and follows me to a quietish spot where I decide I'll be able sort out the bike. He helps me get it out of the box, which is quite awkward since one of the pedals is pcking through the cardboard and is wedged. As I unload the box and the paniers a crowd gathers and as I'm reassembling the bike I'm being watched by a group of about twenty people. Occasionally they say things to one another but mostly they watch in silence. A few of them help out by holding something or holding the bike steady when I don't have enough hands. At one point some police or army people get them to move back because they're crowding me.
I get directions to the hotel I want to go to, which the Lonely Planet says is cheap and basic, but it's only about a kilometer away. I don't want to cycle the 17km into the centre of town in the dark. As I get out into the street and I'm confronted by the chaos, cars hooting like the hooter is what make the engine go. I realize the directions I was given were totally inadequate since they don't take into account the chaos. I start to think I must have gone past the place, and it turns out I had because I eventually find it down a small alley way.
Is the shower hot or cold? It's medium. Unfortunately no water comes out when he turns it on. He sticks a pin into the shower head and has a bit of a poke around and manages to get some water to dribble out. That'll do, I say, just wanting to get rid of him.
I go out to a restaurant, the only one I can find. I don't want to go to one of the street stalls, though this place cooks its food in the street but at least I can sit inside. There's a bottle of water on the table but no glasses. I watch someone come into the place and drink some water, which he does by holding the bottle above his mouth without it touching his lips. After the chicken biryani I'm thirsty and even though people have said don't drink the water in India, I think it's probably okay here. But I guess I didn't tip my head back far enough because most of the water went down my shirt and onto my trousers. I don't think anyone noticed, but I don't want to stand up and leave until the wet patch has dried off.
There's a knock on the door. It's the hotel owner again. He sees my packet of cigarettes. Can I give one? he asks, taking one. He asks me how much my laptop cost. £1000. That's 80,000 Rupees. Earlier he was asking if I had any English coins. He said his son collects coins. I fished around in the bottom of my panier as he was fixing the shower and found some pennies, a two pence piece and a five pence piece, but he seemed to want something a bit bigger. I found a two pound coin but didn't tell him. If I gave him that that would be almost what I paid him for the room, and I decided to change some of my Thai money into Stirling as a reserve just in case I can't get cash out here.
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