India: See it, Smell it, Taste it, Love it, Hate it... 1 India: See it, Smell it, Taste it, Love it, Hate it... Copyright © Intellectual Property Rights Bryce James 2018 The right of Bryce James to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998 2 India: See it, Smell it, Taste it, Love it, Hate it... This insight into my life is dedicated to my child. 3 India: See it, Smell it, Taste it, Love it, Hate it... Contents Page 1. Footsteps on the Long Road 2. Our first night at Curlies 3. A bit of a shitty night 4. A day at the beach and two likeable lads from Leeds 5. The beach and the bugs, world war fucking three!! 6. Salt water, sweet water 7. Easy riders 8. Getting to Colomb Cove 9. Delhi, Delhi, Delhi, Delhi, Delhi, Delhi, Delhi, Delhi!!! 10. Strangers to fill my heart 11. Life’s choices 12. The day before Shimla 13. To a great little town called Kalka 14. The toy train 15. The rolling road to Dharamsala 16. You have to have new trainers to be on the run 17. Delhi, take two 18. Five star luxury 19. Rang! 20. Jaipur and the very poor 21. Agra and the Taj Mahal 22. The road to Varanasi 23. Varanasi and Mother Ganga 24. Bruce – The man, the legend 25. Breakin’ the law 26. The road to Pokhara 27. We’re not in Kansas anymore Toto 4 India: See it, Smell it, Taste it, Love it, Hate it... Footsteps on the Long Road Heathrow airport. It’s not too bad really. Check in can be done online these days so you don’t even really have to queue. You can just stick ya’ nose in a good book, tune out and look forward to the holiday that you’re already on your way to. That is until the new phone you’ve bought from a small street-side phone shop on the Green Lanes in London is swabbed and stuck inside some machine which turns out to have yellow flashing lights and a blaring siren. No matter how clean you are, your asshole always puckers up at an airport when shit like that happens. Louise was already disappearing into the crowd and I tried to ignore the bead of sweat that had started to trickle down the right side of my forehead. What would two grams of fish-scale cocaine, two one gram rocks of MDs, six of hash and four Hoffman acid trips being trafficked to India get you in a prison these days? What a hell of a noise the machine was making, I couldn’t believe. And it’s flashing yellow light said it all. But what was it on the phone that had set it off? Drugs? Explosives? Fuck knows? A very disappointed looking lady with square shoulders and her mouse brown hair tied back came over to me from behind the counter. She pulled a blue pair of powderless rubber gloves on as she looked me in the eye. ‘What’s ya’ name love?’ her gaze never faltered. ‘Bryce.’ ‘Full name please?’ ‘Bryce W James.’ The bead of sweat now reached my cheek and burned there like a guilty itch I could never scratch. ‘Right Bryce W James, where are you flying to today?’ ‘Goa, India.’ ‘Fine, fill out this form for me please?’ The form only asked for my name and destination, and reason of travel. Nothing else. Where were the policemen? The dogs? Was I about to be shot down in the street by the police like Jean Charles de Menezes ‘cause the guy who’d owned the phone before was a suspected terrorist? I did have a beard. I pulled out my passport to hand it to the lady. ‘No that’s fine,’ she said, waving it away. ‘Here’s your phone back, enjoy your flight.’ Eh? Don’t think just walk dude. Act disinterested and just walk the fuck away. Maybe I should ask some questions though? I have just set an alarm off at an airport security counter; surely it would be more suspicious to say nothing? To not enquire to what it was, and explain that I had only bought the phone the day before. Shut the fuck up, say nothing, put ya’ phone in ya’ pocket, turn and go find Louise. There she was, my little shnookums, trundling back through the crowd looking out for me with worry on her face and her bright blue eyes shining under the false lighting of Heathrow airport’s security area. ‘What was that?’ she asked. 5 India: See it, Smell it, Taste it, Love it, Hate it... ‘They swabbed that fuckin’ phone I bought yesterday and whoever the fuck had it before me either made bombs or sold smack or some shit. Fuck knows but they didn’t even wanna see my passport, just had me fill out a form and sent me on my way. Fuckin’ ridiculous! What if I was a terrorist or some shit? Fuck it; let’s go get something to eat.’ Louise said, ‘Let me just try some of the free shots they’re giving out, oh and have a spray of perfume first.’ ‘Oh true, I’ll have me a spray of my Gucci while ya’ at it. I don’t think there’s much point buying booze here it’s gotta be cheaper in Goa.’ So we sprayed and Louise sampled the vodkas and then like a million other Brits on tour we found the Whetherspoons pub in the corner of the airport and got the eggs benedict. I can’t drink before flying any more, I just crawl the walls too much for a cigarette. And after the whole disgrace of getting thrown off the plane trying to leave Colombia, yeash; all I do these days is take a few sleeping tablets and try to pass the whole trip by without paying it any attention. Louise was on holiday too though, and she’d just spent the last year working her hot little ass off in a London hospital. So now for her it was time to relax, have a drink or three, smash a fat bastard meal and plan our next ten weeks in India and Nepal. The plan was simple originally, we were gonna fly into Goa and dance on the beaches. From there, head across the country to Odisha to homestay with one of the local tribes of out there natives that are into facial piercings and tattoos. From there we were gonna avoid the major cities and head up and across the country to Manali and try to track down some of the infamous Manali cream hash. Then we would cross whatever border was nearest and head on into Nepal where we would meet her mum and bestie, Chrissy. The idea was to stay away from the slums and the shit and try and see the national parks and the beautiful side of India instead. The only thing was we couldn’t figure out the online train booking crap. You couldn’t just book a sleeper carriage and get on the fuckin’ train. There was some bollocks about a waiting list and there wasn’t just one train, there were several different companies all with different trainline numbers. The journey from Goa to Odisha varied from thirty hours to sixty three! We only wanted first class, thought fuck it, there’s only twenty quid different in price and everybody said the standard of travel was totally worth the extra bit of cash. Besides, we wanted to copy Rick Stein and try the first class train mutton curry. We’d watched his entire season on travelling through India before we came. Truth to tell we’d spent the last few months watching every documentary and film about the place that we could find. The toy train from Kalka to Shimla was very much on the ‘to do’ list. But just like what we imagined the rest of India to be like the train booking website was a chaotic mess, so after giving it a proper good try, we gave up and figured we’d just sought it out when we got there. Sometimes that’s the best way to travel anyway innit. So at least for now, we weren’t tied down to any dates except one in the end of March when we would pick up Chrissy and Lou’s mum, and another on the fourteenth of April when we flew out of Kathmandu and back to London. For me, the flight from London to India was ya’ usual shit; shit food, shit seats, and only fizzy drinks to be downed. Louise on the other hand loves plane food, and was free from the 6 India: See it, Smell it, Taste it, Love it, Hate it... slavery of tobacco to drink as many gin and tonics as she wanted without the scratching feeling of need and desperation that I get when I drink booze and can’t light a fag. The diazepam did its job anyway and I was asleep most of the way there. We did have to change planes in Mumbai though and as we passed a discounted stack of tequila on our way through the international terminal to get to the domestic one, I grabbed a bottle from duty free just for the sake of it. You never know when a forty ounce of tequila will come in handy.