I travelled all day from Cochin to Chennai. When I arrived I was endlessly bothered by touts. In a Zen like state of ignorance of foreign stimuli, I now float by them without so much as a look. They really try hard to get my attention, but it usually works...with one exception. One dude, crawled along behind me in his autorickshaw, every now and again calling out "Rhoom? Yu want rhoom? Rickshaw, rickshaw?". I ignored him for the first 20 minutes, but eventually my now eroded patience and low threshold for irritability had been crossed and he was to feel the wrath of it. Nonetheless, I thought about the situation in a calm and collected manner. I decided I had to make him feel what he was making me feel i.e. discomfort, unease, fear, lack of safety. Unfortunately I couldn't deliver it in the same slowburn fashion that those reactions had been delivered to me, so I thought I best deliver them all in one go for maximum effect.
He called me over and I finally looked his way. With an air of curiosity and a slight frown "Oh! What my this gentleman want?", I wondered over. While he tried his best to use what little English he knew to reel me in, I leaned in closer as if interested and slightly confused...until I was less than a foot away from his face. I then screamed bloody murder with every last breath I could muster throwing my arms to help push out every last bit of air in this diarhetic release of anger.
He threw his entire weight away from me, almost falling out of the open rickshaw. Naturally, shifting his weight that way, he began to turn and hit the accelerator as soon as he regained circulation. Before I knew it he was gone, my throat hurt, but finally I had some peace.
The Salvation Army Guest House I found was grim but bearable. I booked in for two nights.
The next day I had planned to go to Mamallapuram, a former port city where the Pallavas built, what was meant to be, an amazing temple on the shore of the Bay of Bengal around 800 AD. The temple was underwhelming, especially since the photos I've seen of it, all picture a temple longingly looking out to sea while the waves crash on the white sand on which it stands. Instead, it was surrounded by a cruddy barbed wire fence and trees that blocked the view of the water and the usual touts asking if we wanted a guide.
At the entrance, I met two lovely German speaking girls (one was actually German, the other of Persian origin, but had lived in Germany most of her life). They were very sympathetic to my constant moaning and wanted to know all about my trip. We wondered around the town for the afternoon to see the sights together.
The bus there and back was draining to say the least. It took over two buses, several hand gestured conversations and entire dialogues that only involved the repetition of a place name, just to go one way. I was told off by huge woman for sitting in the Ladies section. I don't know why she chose to make a snide comment and a rude grimace rather than just simply explain to the foreigner that these seats were reserved for ladies (I can't help but thinking of Matt Lucas dressed as a woman in Little Britain when I use that word), but it didn't help my mood.
The next day I decided I would do whatever I wanted, rather than seeing any sights. And I decided I wanted to go to the cinema. I didn't care what I saw, I just wanted to watch a film in silence for two hours while I gorge myself on poor quality snacks. Well I didn't get, but what I got was far more fun.
Being its release day, the only film that I could see was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I. As a stand alone film, it's average to poor due mostly to poor acting, bad dialogue and awkward scenes. The experience of watching a film with hundreds of Indians however was priceless.
The first main character to appear is Hermione, standing in her room alone, she looks melancholic as she toils with burden of a great responsibility of saving the world. Pathetic fallacy in full force meant that a gloomy English rain sprays the windows and the room made colourless by the grey clouds. In complete contrast however, the crowd went crazy, howling, screaming, clapping as if she was actually on stage. Every main character got such a greeting, Ron Weasley's being particularly groopie-esque.
Spoiler alert (don't read if you plan on seeing the film and haven't already read the book): At one point, the elder Weasley boy delivers the bad news that Mad-Eye didn't make it. Saddened, the camera pans around as the characters bow their heads and look to the floor at the sad news of their friend's untimely but martyrly demise. The crowd however burst into tear inducing laughter at Hagrid's need to stoop down in the Weasley's house due to his colossal nature. I couldn't help but laugh myself. The line that received most applause, cat-whistles and howling was, and I kid you not, "Dobby has no Master. Dobby is a free elf" when the small Harry Potter version of Gollum pronounces his right to freedom in a William Wallace-esque proclamation. I cringed and had goosebumps simultaneously. I'm almost willing to go back to India to watch Part II.
That night I made my way to the airport where I began the first of four flights over two days from Chennai, through Colombo (Sri Lanka), overnight in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and finally Hanoi (Vietnam) where I am writing from now.
Kuala Lumpur is a Western city in Asia essentially. Sky scrapers everywhere, large well planned streets and parks, and shopping malls with the high end mansionhold brands (e.g. LV, Gucci), but impressive mosques and Hindu temples centrally located, markets everywhere, busy streets and a slight hint of South East Asian chaos.
In one of the markets, I paid to dip my feet into a bath full of 4 inch long black fish, that crowded around my feet and in a ticklish massage, rid me of dead skin and the like. It was quite a novel experience, well worth a try.
The night in Kuala Lumpur was relatively fun. I met a very warm and friendly Moroccan girl with whom I could speak French. With another Brit who spoke better French than I did, we had a French style dinner of slowly eating, drinking and discussing politics and religion over three shared plates of Chinese food.
The alcohol slowly peeled back layer after layer of the Brit's personality, at first showing a calm, incredibly bright and well educated person, then tweaks of arrogance and pomposity, and eventually a 34 year old who became a dive instructor to **** girls and nurture his misogyny. Somewhere between a poor quantum physics joke about wave-particle duality (which he recounted to nurture a bond in a fellow geek, but also alienate what he considered the ignorami sitting around us) and endless recounting of his carnal conquests in Indonesia as a dive instructor, he lost my respect - but probably didn't notice for his ego was in the way. He was fully aware of his flaws, he admitted them to me openly. I may have been slightly envious of his brightness at first, but later had little to envy when I found him three sheets to the wind following a group of girls into their hostel, slurring their names which, having got their names wrong, they would correct him and slip away from greasy grip.
Having not drank regularly, any amount is enough to be too much for me these days. A paternally inherited intolerance for alcohol means that sleeping becomes impossible as the room spins whenever I close my eyes. So I was up late waiting for the nauseous side effects to ease and am awfully hungover today.
I'm now Hanoi in North Vietnam. Jo is currently flying across Asia to meet me tomorrow morning. I'm really looking forward to her arrival.
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