Put myself through it - why?

Morning all. I made it to my chosen destination of Kodaikanal in one day. What a bitch of a day. I left my hotel in Trivandrum at 10 am, took one rickshaw to the bus station. Then I took an eight hour bus to Madurai, accompanied all the way by the incredibly loud soundtrack to a Bollywood film. They actually had a DVD player in the bus and I had the mixed pleasure of seeing about three films in their preposterous entirety.

Then I took a rickshaw to another bus station to catch my connecting bus to Kodai. Except I went to the wrong bus station (how many bus stations does one city need?) so I took a very crowded short bus ride (with my luggage on – no where to put it) to the proper bus station where I discover I’ve missed the last bus to Kodai.

Ok…but there was a bus to another random place where I could just make a connection to the last bus to Kodai from there. So I took my chances and just made it onto this final bus. And I spent half of the three hour journey standing up until I offered a biscuit to the boy on the seat next to me and he let me squeeze in.

So I spent about 13 hours on the move and in that time I was unable to eat any actual food. When the bus stops mid-journey, you have time to jump off, have a piss, grab a chai and gaze broken-heartedly at the selection of food. I was offered biscuits, nuts, and the nearest thing to food are the street snacks like samosas and pakoras that have been sitting in a glass cabinet in the bus station where daily hundreds of buses shit out the foulest stinking black guff from their exhaust pipes which we all have to inhale, and then eat.

I set off in shorts and a t-shirt and spent the day sweating from head to toe in blistering heat and when I arrived in Kodai (where in the evening, it’s 10 degrees C) I was underdressed for the occasion. I was a bit of a nervous wreck having been unable to eat anything all day, but a nice man on the bus showed me to some cosy and reasonably priced accommodation where an Israeli couple made me mint tea and let me sit by their electric heater.

Phew.

So after that slightly traumatic day I took a look around Kodai. I fell in love! Wow, it’s beautiful here. I met an eccentric middle-aged German-born, English residing woman and spent the day wondering around with her drinking chai and meeting the locals. I also bumped into loads of Israeli friends and I spent a lovely evening with a bunch of Swedish people in a gorgeous room with an open fire and a high ceiling. I entertained them with song and it was really nice for me as the room had a slight echo and I had a chance to really hear my voice. Normally I’m having to sing over the sound of people talking or I’m in an open space where the sound gets lost.

Plus they were much more keen on hearing the songs I had written than covers.

At the end of the evening we put on Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother (somehow I’ve not heard this before, but it’s fooking great), had one candle burning and we all slowly passed out with big smiles.

So today I will take a proper look around, try and find myself a room on the side of a mountain a bit further out of town and reunite myself with Chen who has apparently just arrived - my guitar playing lady friend.

Something tells me I will be here a long time. I have a new visa so time is on my side and due to the sensible temperatures, incredible nature and abundance of friends – it’s clearly going to be hard to leave. Besides, after my last journey I can’t be arsed to get on another bus.