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Wedding Bells and looking swellz

Having came for Indian summer I had thought Goa would have been as far south as I’d dare to venture. My good friend Nabeel though had other plans and managed to get me an invite to an Indian wedding. I had heard weddings here could last up to a week long and with Nabeel about things always tend to get messy. So I decided to arrive a few days earlier to explore the city while I was still feeling fresh.

Stormont 

The first thing that struck me was the sheer size of the city. In the tour guide only one small section of the city centre was covered in the map but that still took me over two hours to walk. That meant picking a hostel was all about location. 

Cubbon Park in the city centre

Thankfully I lucked out when I choose mine, Electric Cats, as it was only a twenty-minute walk from the newly running metro. Only one line of the metro is opened running laterally through the city. It has taken 5 years and $2.1bn (3 times the budget) to build, slow even by India’s standards of red tape and bribe based construction hold ups, but when all the lines are up and running it will make travelling in the city a lot easier. Autorickshaws will hardly break the bank at £2.50 for a 1 hour journey but the exact same route by metro took me 20mins and cost me 14p. The idea of a metro is still quite alien to a lot of Bangalore’s inhabitants. Kids bursting with excitement at the ticket booth, cheated death rushing through the slide doors before they guillotined back shut. The blank stares the older generation returned to the many aides and helpers reminded me of the same look with my mum when I showed her how to use on-demand for the first time. But getting off at MG Road station I felt like I could have been back in Shanghai’s East Nanjing station or any western city with the number of big label shops and boutiques. Advertising boards everywhere, each adorned with the whitest Indian guy you could find just to make sure the product sells.

Tipu's Summer Palace

Iskcon Temple

Over the first few days I visited my fair share of temples. In the south of the city was the Bull Temple, a towering black bull statue reared up on a platform in the centre. He seemed too colossal to be housed inside, giving the impression that with one snorting toss of his head he could tear the whole building down around you like a Minotaur of Ancient Greece. After that was the Hare Krisna Iskcon Temple in the north. It had a strict dress code so lungis were needed to cover bare knees and all shoes and socks deposited at the door. The whole complex was laid out in a winding loop with the metal handrails reminiscent of cueing for an amusement park ride. First we went through two small temples, serving as a prelude of what was to come. Ornately carved wooden doors and a collision of colour adorning the statues on the altar. Ponytailed disciples lit incense and planked in worship at the front. The doors of the main temple were at least 20ft high and again each panel had its own intricate etching. Inside my eye was immediately drawn to the main altar comprised of three open doors, a mess of stories played out by statues and incense all gilded in gold. True to form the railing wound round the front of it so everyone could see up close and make their offerings. In the centre of the room there was a band sitting on plump embroidered cushions playing sitars and traditional pipes. Others chanted along with them the same praises to Krishna, who looked down on approvingly from detailed fresco paintings on the ceiling. I was to see a lot more of Krishna after that though as we wound our way through four separate souvenir stores. This gave me plenty of time to stock up on everything from pencils and postcards to DVDs chronicling his adventures and all emblazoned with that blue spectral face.

Blinds and Basket Weavers in the street

It says a lot about Bangalore that after seeing all that there wasn’t really much touristy left to see. 

Toit's Microbrewery

Again, like Shanghai, it seemed a city I’d rather live in than want to visit as a tourist. And like Shanghai when there’s nothing else on, day drinking is always an option. So it was I found myself with a crowd, including the hostel owner, at around noon sampling the beers at Toits, a microbrewery. These have sprung up everywhere in Bangalore and are not so slowly spreading to other cities. After our first few pints we were even offered a free tour of the facilities and saw exactly how they made each type of beer starting with the malt and right through to the finished article, putting the rather tame Guiness factory tour to shame in comparison.

Jackfruit Vendor

One of the big highlights were the games in the hostel at night and learning backgammon in particular. It was always a game I had seen but never played, like Spyro because of Xbox. Playing with a fiery Egyptian who was a big fan of learning by doing he schooled me in the first few before I was able to come back and hold my own. Another first for me was trying jackfruit, I had never even seen  it before and so it was like hearing they had brought out a new flavor of skittles. About the size of a melon but with a skin more similar to a bulbous grapefruit, the vendors have to hack it down to the wee nubs of fruit that look like a deflated light bulb. With a knife they pry out the stone and you are left with a rubbery chewing fruit that tastes a bit like a fruit salad bar. Tasty but you have to be able to get over the nauseating image of the swarms of black flies covering them before you buy them.

The monsoon has seemed to have pulled a fast one on all meteorologists, showing it’s not only Ireland, and the first few showers have came early. At first these thunderous downpours were sorely needed, dropping the temperature from the high 30s and releasing fresh smells from the parched ground and plants. That was at first. After an hour roads were starting to swell and footpaths were transformed into shifting swamps. Garbage blocked drains unsurprisingly failed to deal with a week’s worth of rain coming in a couple of hours. Getting home became its own adventure powering through shin deep mud brown water and dodging cars that were amphibiously splashing past you, all desperate to get back. That night I had to navigate my way across town to check in at my hotel for the wedding. Indian practice dictates that the family of the bride pays for everything as after, she will then live with the groom’s family. This included my hotel bill, a friend of a friend of the bride, crazy but I wasn’t complaining. The first night we went for the pre pre wedding Mehandi ceremony in her family home. Here artists use natural dyes to draw intricate patterns on their forearms. The longer these dye-tattoos stay on the bride, the longer the marriage will last. All of the bride’s family were getting tattoos too so as a sign of solidarity I allowed them to do my hand as well. However I didn’t realize that the Mehandi is usually only for the females in the party so rather than draw an intricate feminine hand tattoo, the artist went for the sort of scorpion he’d draw for a 12 year old at a family party.

The Bride's Mehandi, her mum getting her's and my whopping scorpion

The next day was the ceremonial puja in the morning before the more festive Sangeet in the evening. It was like the set of an Indiana Jones party; an old ruined temple, illuminated by strings of fairy lights and colour lamps hanging everywhere. Entertainment was provided by the bride and her friends in the form of traditional choreographed dances. Even the kids were getting in on the act with a few modern takes. Pride of place in the centre of the marquee, was a sofa for the bride’s mother and father to sit back and bask in the affection lavished on them.

Sangeet

Offie/Bar complete with rum carton, bleak

Being a Brahmin wedding though meant there was no drink and strictly vegetarian. The first of these was easily negated and the last of which wasn’t even an issue. 

The younger generation congregated in the car park and drank out of bottles they had snuck in with them. This was mostly Old Monk’s rum, coming in a Ribena like carton, it only cost marginally more at 80p, and was actually quite tasty. Going in with my pre-poured bottle I was a little nervous, like sneaking drink past your parents. The bride though asked me if I was drinking coke or coke (whilst simultaneously waggling her head from side to side). The Indian head waggle signifies a lot of things, it means hello, it means yes and basically the equivalent to a wink. Happily I passed over my coke and she downed a good quart before passing it to the groom to do likewise. After that the bride and groom were always first to be visited after a trip to the car park so they could get their own share without being seen to go out. After that was the food and my oh my was it good. A train of servers first laid your leaf, cleaned it, sprinkled salt, sprinkled chutney pickle, the rice, the veg, the salad, the sauce, the sweet, until you had a little bit of everything and were ready to tuck in. There was no cutlery so guests were expected to eat with their hand, I was in heaven. Picking up fingerfulls of rice with a scooped hand you then use your thumb to push it into your mouth. Mixing in the sauce and the veg as you like and each handful is different but so good. The only mistake I made was trusting Nabeel to make my pallet cleanser at the end. This is called Paan and is made of a beetle leaf wrapped around chilies and chuna, lime stone. Nab being Nab decided to put way too much of the chuna paste in and afterwards I was struggling to remember my name let alone taste anything.

Two meals on banana leaves and the dreaded chuna paste white top right

Two Rajs

The only cure I decided was to keep drinking to wash the corrosive taste out of mouth. It might not have been the best idea as the six of us who followed that course of action all slept in the next morning and missed the main part of the ceremony. We were there for breakfast though which was another feast like the one before. I soon gathered a crowd of excited kids who were very interested in the foreigner in their midst. They decided that they must teach me a bit of Kannada, Tamil and Hindi, and were hysterical at the poor attempts I made to repeat them. For lunch and dinner they then coached me how to eat properly and made sure that I ordered all the best bits. Afterwards it was on to my spin bowling in cricket, standing on opposite ends of the reception area and pinging tennis balls at each other regardless of who was walking by. Kids playing cricket in general in India has been such a real experience to watch. It has a very jumpers for goalposts vibe about it with kids using broken chairs, bottles and even stacks of stones to serve as stumps. They will play it anywhere too; on the beach, in back allies, half deserted car parks and everywhere else in between. After another night of car park drinking it was back to the hotel to sleep it off. Nab showed me a proper hungover Indian breakfast of Chicken 65 (spiced chicken with chilli and veg), chicken lollipops (fried chicken drumsticks) and aloo (Indian flat bread stuffed with paneer and potato). Perfect send off before we go our separate ways for a few weeks. Now it’s on to Mysore before pingballing around the Jungle for a few days.

Goa Have a Good Time

The Life of Reilly/Saol an Bhó Bháin

Getting to Goa meant getting a slight respite from the heat with the sea breeze. And as long as you avoided being out during the hottest part of the day it was all pretty bearable, despite the locals’ constant complaints about the soaring temperatures.

A Taste of Goa

A former Portuguese colony, Goa was the last part of India to be retaken after an invasion by the Indian army in the 60s. It has still kept much of its Southern European characteristics, in Panjim the capital, cobbled roads are lined by terracotta tiled terrace houses, with worn wooden balconies and a plethora of catholic churches to rival that of any Mediterranean town. Goa’s reputation was built on sandy beaches and psytrance parties bur unfortunately the high season for the festivals is around New Year. Most hostels were only ever half full and a few bars had already closed before the coming rains but there was still plenty to do.

Holy Houses

Goa is Electrifying!

First up was Old Goa, the old colonial capital city that previously boasted a population greater than both Lisbon and London. Since it’s heyday as the ‘Rome of the East’ it had been decimated by cholera and was now home mostly to ruins and churches. There were churches everywhere, from basilicas, to cathedrals, to chapels, to convents, you name a religious institution and it would probably have a building in Old Goa. In a global leaderboard of churches per population, I think it could have given even the Vatican a run for its rather sizeable money.  All of the buildings were in such spotless condition too, with immaculate stonework and sprawling green lawns, no mean feat to maintain in that stone splitting heat. The tick-tick-tick of the sprinkler seemed to be counting every rupee spent here rather than on the rest of the town, which lay in various states of disrepair. Crumbling walls lined every road and where covered in a pale hay like creeper, resembling an old man’s whispery, whiskered beard. Even the weeds had dried out, as all water was commandeered to sate the thirst of pristine parochial lawns. Time had caved roofs, rotted boats and grown up so thick upon buildings that they now housed more animals than a cottage with Snow White singing in it. A sad fall from grace for any place. 

Holey Houses

All aboard!

Getting between the towns though was easy, with a spider’s web of buses linking most towns. The buses chug along with the driver wrenching them up and down through the gears. They were small school buses, decorated with a wide-ranging collection of religious ornaments and keepsakes, covering everything from Christian to Hindu deities. Rounding corners at speed would indiscriminately topple bags and standing ladies a like and send them sliding down the aisle. Most journeys resembled the Knight Bus from Harry Potter, racing through gaps that weren’t there before and bouncing over potholes in the country roads that jolted every passenger out of their seat toward the well-cushioned ceiling. The drivers preferred to just slow down rather than stop completely when passengers were embarking or disembarking, maybe out of a fear of being unable to restart the engine. But overall at 20p a ride you couldn’t really complain.

Vagator Beach and Fort Chapora

Vagator Sunset

Up the coast things got a bit livelier. The beaches in Vagator were packed with people and no wonder with the Arabian Sea being bath warm here. It wasn’t quite as peaceful though when, at shin deep, waves were rolling in already towering above my head. On more than one occasion my swim shorts were being pulled towards my knees before I managed to get a hand there to yank them back up. Being caught with your shorts down in India mightn’t in itself go down too well, as due to traditional modesty both men (sometimes) and women (all the time) were wearing knee length trousers and t-shirts amongst the waves. However it was made stranger to see these groups of teenagers in their Victorian Era swimwear whilst some of the little boys playing nearby were sporting more Stone Age counterparts. My Indian roommate explained to me this was due to the intellectual caste these kids came from rather than a naked flouting of convention. With him I discussed everything from karma and life to vegetarianism and gender equality, and although we didn’t always see eye to eye it was really interesting to hear his traditional perspective and debate the details. He also helped me with my first foray into the mad world of Indian cuisine, onion and banana bhajis in particular being a roaring success.

Goan Brekfast, Spice Farm Lunch and Fish Thali

The food in general was pretty amazing, extremely cheap and very flavoursome. In Panjim in particular I fell in love with one restaurant, Viva Panjim, eating lunch and dinner there every chance I got. The kingfish vindaloo and a chicken xacuti were two of the stand out meals. Thalis, think tapas platter, are common everywhere in India with each state having their own flavours and offering meat, fish and vegetarian options. The hostel I stayed at also offered a traditional Goan breakfast in the morning, a mild chickpea and potato curry with a sweet bread and samosa. The samosas too, everywhere fried and crispy samosas, if you are what you eat then I must certainly be a parcel of spiced vegetables folded in golden pastry because I was eating them morning noon and night.

Arpora Night Market

Fine Feni and cashews

Although the season was in its last death throes the Saturday Night Market in Arpora was a surprisingly good night out. Not only did it have the usual crowd of dealers selling knickknacks and trinkets but it also had at least six or seven stages blasting all kinds of music. Nothing like taking a break from your weekly shopping to bop one out in the corner with a load of spaced out hippies. Stalls held a rainbow of spices most of which I didn’t recognize let alone have a clue how to use. Wanting to know a bit more about what I was eating I headed inland to Ponda for a tour of a spice farm. The guide was a cookbook of herbal mixtures each with their own medicinal qualities. She listed so many and so quickly that I had little or no chance of remembering the half. I do remember that nutmeg and mace for pepper spray comes from the same plant, as does cinnamon and bay leaves, crazy I know. I was amazed to see cashews growing each attached to its own apple. The apple although not ate raw was fermented to make a liquor called Feni, used to stimulate the appetite. But rather than pique my hunger it picked the hairs up on the back of my neck as it went down.

Palolem Beach

Having admitted defeat in my quest for a proper Goan party I decided to chase after Goa’s second most sought after treasure, the Goan beaches. In the sleepier south of the state, soft white sand beaches dotted the coast. Nestled between rocky outcrops, the headlands flank the beaches on each side enclosing them in its own secretive embrace. A forest of palm trees line each sandy expanse giving it that Robinson Crusoe/Castaway feeling of total seclusion on an untouched beach. Palolem the busiest of the beaches has a Noddy Town of wooden beach shacks, restaurants and shops propped up and painted in strong primary colours. A sort of Utopian community living there throughout the season, who’d shunned the city life for a life of sun. 

Agonda Beach

Agonda a 3km long strip of sand a scooter ride to the north was a quieter if equally beautiful break. Trekking through the heat along the inland road south, I made my way through a few of the villages before rounding a headland to find a shoal of fishermen fixing their nets and boats. Cutting out on to the beaches I walked the whole way home along the deserted Rajbag and Patnem beaches, where it was only the waves and I. Like the north though those waves were something else. Lazing about in the water was only possible between the lulls in the big breakers, which catapulted you through the air or rolled you under depending upon which way they hit you. Still, at times it felt like I was the only one there, floating on my back, bobbing like the flotsam of a wrecked ship washed up onto the beaches of a New New World.

Sunset in Palolem

Leaving Goa the tranquility I had been enjoying was shattered in miserable Margao. With nothing to see in that squalid town, its only importance was as a transit hub for travellers, and even there it failed miserably. After two days of cancelled buses and phantom trains, arguing with officials and lugging 15kgs of backpack through the heat, I finally managed to slink my way into a cupboard under the stairs style cubbyhole/bed aboard a bus to Bangalore with wedding bells ringing softly in the air.

Mumbling Mumbai

With the inevitability of a proper full time, big boy job looming in the Autumn I decided to go out on one last trip before starting the dreaded 9-5. Picking India was an easy decision and with my pasty white complexion what better time was there to come than during the hottest part of their year.

Got to start with a picture of the Mahmata!

Touching down at 4am in Mumbai even then I could feel the heat. After a quick change out of jumper and jeans into something a bit cooler I headed for the taxi. As soon as I stepped onto the taxi rank I began to feel like a prize bull on market day with incomprehensible bids flying at me from every which direction. It wasn’t long before one driver had beaten the rest to the punch, had me bundled bags and all into the back of his motor and we were trundling off on our way.

Driving those first few flyovers I got quite a good feel of the city in the early morning light. If I was to sum it up in a word, it would be chaotic. Everything from the sprawl of buildings, the majority that looked like they hadn’t seen a fresh coat of paint since the Brits left. To the haphazard swerving of the drivers weaving their way through thick lanes of traffic.  To the beautifully blended cacophony of tireless motor horns and the bellowings of hawk nosed vendors hawking their loads of goods. Chaos everywhere.

But somehow it worked. Wherever there wasn’t a market stall on the footpath there was a homeless family living on the streets. Slum housing used the gable walls of run down colonial buildings as a springboard to create a mini settlement, crashing up the side of them and reaching two stories high in places. Graffiti dabbed every free corner and piece of fencing, be it religious, political or environmental it all seemed to be imploring a change that didn’t look to be forthcoming. And everywhere there were the cows, cows to be fed, cows to be patted, cows blocking roads staring with bovine wonder at the exasperated drivers who were honking their horns in a vain attempt to get them to move. Smells drifted in through open windows, the lower tones of filth and car fumes being overpowered by sharp lemon grass and onions in the veg markets, to give way to fish so freshly caught it probably was still dreaming of opening waters.

The humdrum of humanity was deafening and after 24 hours of travelling with little to no sleep my brain was struggling through porridge trying to cope. I decided it was all too much so made for Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, CST, station to get a train out of there. I’ve been to a few megalopolis’ in my time and didn’t have the fortitude of will just then to push myself through another one. Thankfully on arriving at the station I learned that the train I wanted was already gone so it would mean spending at least one night in that huge colorful riot of a city.

Open air laundrette

Being close to a holiday there were iPhone release day cues of people already lined to buy tickets for tomorrow, a full hour before the ticket office opened. Standing in line, in full view of the taxi drivers and bus boys though meant I was subjected to the advances of a hundred salesmen all offering me alternative transport from the city. I explained to them that I wanted to get the train because I had heard it was a very scenic way of travelling and would give me a good intro to the Indian country. This seemed to have earned the approval of Birmingham born woman with a fondness for cursing, who told me about my special Gringo bonus of a cue jump desk for foreign tourists.

 

Jain Temple 

Tickets were easy to get but a couple of Indian men spotting me with my pen and filled in form cornered me. At first I was naturally defensive that four men would come over to me, especially these four who looked like they would maybe not have been the biggest proponents of Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent protests. But rather shyly one of them asked me if I could fill out their forms for them. It was an easy ten minutes for me filling in names, addresses and date of births but made me think how much of a daily struggle it must to be the illiterate population in our rapidly modernizing text based world.

Anyone fancy a spot of cricket?

As I had an early morning train I wanted to be close to the train station so I could get there easily the next day. One of the taxi drivers who had been chancing me earlier came back for round two and persuaded to take me to a hotel near by. It was a hotel in the loosest sense of the term. A reception, a room, a hole in the roof I assumed from whence water must come if you wanted to shower. But it was somewhere to leave my bags. The taxi driver had offered then to take me on an impromptu tour of the city, and being too tired to walk it seemed like a great offer. After a bit of haggling we settled on a tenner for a full day of driving and him telling me tid-bits of information. His English was good, even if he was a bit arrogant. He had only taken me to two or three of the destinations however before he asked me for an “English bonbon”, to which I seriously pissed him off by telling him I didn’t have any. After that we fortuitously bumped into his brother, another taxi driver, and he was quick to shift me into his brother’s car to finish off my tour. The brother was more pleasant, even if he spoke less English but I was happy with that still having had little sleep from the night before.

 

City cows and holy pigeon coup

In a morning I pretty much saw everything I had wanted to see. I visited a Jain temple with ornately decorated doors and shoeless worshipers, meeting ahims worshippers with covered mouths doing so to not accidentally kill a bug that might fly in. I watched games of cricket being played on the lawns in front of the ornate houses of justice with a mini Big Ben standing beside them. A religious parade passed with robed grandfather and toddler grandkids being pushed down the main road in flower-garlanded trolley by a prayer chanting, incense burning, banner furling friends and family. I even passed a Parsee temple, followers of an ancient religion based in Persia (think the bad guys in 300) but unfortunately they don’t let outsiders in. Mumbai has one of the largest populations of Parsee outside of Iran and by chance I managed to find myself quite close to their Tower of Silence at one point. Parsee’s don’t believe in burial or cremation for their dead instead they leave them out on platforms for the birds and elements. The air was dotted with every form of carrion bird you could think of like the barflies that gather around empties left over from the weekend before. Tree boughs everywhere hung low under the weight of vast flocks of the crows and vultures sitting idly in them. Chilling stuff.

View from the hanging gardens of the world's most expensive house down the centre, in the trees to the right is the Tower of Silence with birds wheeling overhead

After that ghastly spectacle I visited the colonial buildings down by the waterfront. The Gate of India and the Taj Mahal Palace, which I recognized on the news from the 2008 Mumbai Bombings, were impressive but I was losing interest in the day. I walked home via a quick stop in Leopold’s (for all the Shantaram readers) back in the general direction of my hotel. It was only as I got closer though I realized I had no idea where I was going. The name card that the hotel owner had given me with the address on it was actually just a vague description of the location of two nearby markets. I must have been stumbling about in the stifling midday sun for more than an hour with patience levels draining faster than my fluids before I found it.

Taj Mahal Hotel and the Gate of India

Of course the hotel didn’t have wifi and that evening when I followed the owner’s directions to the nearest internet café I was lost in that backstreets of Mumbai in minutes. At least he was consistent in his vagueness. It definitely felt well off the beaten tourist track as I wound through stalls and side alleys, dodged cows and scooters in equal numbers, ducked under billowing silk awnings and past huge elephant bags of spices, none of which I could recognize but choked the air regardless with their smell.

Backstreets of Mumbai

It was only after finally finding my way home, no mean feat mind you due partly/mainly to my terrible sense of direction, that I realized I hadn’t ate all day.  The heat had wilted my appetite so I settled for a dinner of a 10p samosa which was very tasty and a 45p idli, a rice like bread with dips, not so tasty.

The next morning I was up at the crack of dawn to get my train from CST. I was travelling south to Goa, hoping to catch the end of the travelling season there before it all closed up with the oncoming monsoon. The only option for booking was the air conditioned carriages. This was both a blessing and a curse as twelve hours in a heat blasted metal cabin might have proved to be more than enough. However the windows there were small, translucent, glass rectangles with an extra layer of a decade or so of dirt to reduce visibility further. At first I tried looking out but all that could be seen was the blurry outline of the train of trash and discarded debris that runs parallel to the tracks that had built up over the years. The level of litter in India has been pretty shocking, you see everyone from kids to their mothers finishing a bottle or carton and immediately dropping it on the floor, which is a shame in such an otherwise beautiful country. The rubbish followed the train the whole way out of the city, piling up in places almost like sand forming castles to build heartbreaking homes of cardboard and corrugated iron.

 

Leopold's Cafe in Colga

Abandoning my seat view I went outside the cabin. The doors are those heavy metallic lever doors you’d imagine in an old school submarine and it was easy for me to swing one open. Immediately I was blasted by the heat, but almost as soon the wind had whipped it away leaving me feeling fresh as I stood in the doorway. The thunderous rattle of the rail echoed my heart beat, exhilarated sweat fill palms were blown dry by that grasping wind. Rollercoastering through tunnels the train let out a vacuumous roar as the air rushed past me seeking to get out of the train’s path. It felt like it was threatening to suck me out in its place, to be dashed into the heart of darkness. Holding on the tighter I could feel it in the awkward positioning of my wrists as I clung to the rails, until finally I burst out into the sweet sunlight. Chancing a peak out the dust and wind whipped fiery at my eyes. The train was a creeping centipede of shelled carriages with both the head and tail lost to sight.

CST Station

The wall of trees and rock in front would give way to reveal magnificent vistas as the ground receded away below and the track took a higher path. On the back of a bird’s wing soaring over mud brick homesteads, patches of green crops and kids playing in pebble-strewn riverbeds. Harley-Davidson handlebar horned cows were tended by their herdsmen crouched down in a motionless heron pose. A position that only looks possible to hold all day in the intense heat if you share a birthplace with yoga. Each image was seen only for a few seconds but left a lasting print on my minds eye. All that before hurtling back through the abyss of another tunnel to repeat from the beginning again.

I stood there for about eight hours, until the sunset and the darkness took all of those views back for itself. It was just a peak into what lies ahead but my mind was already racing with the possibility of it all. Finally the train pulled into my station in Goa and jumping down with my bags it was a quick taxi to my next hostel.