A few days in Udaipur

This is a pleasant place to stay for a few days and relax.  My room has it's own balcony which gets the sun up to about 3 pm each day and from  there I can do up onto the roof to continue with the sun until 6pm.  But it's not all been loafing about and sunning myself.  
I booked a trek in the countryside which turned out well. They picked me up from my guesthouse and took me to a beautiful house in the countryside. It's a hotel run by an English guy and looks expensive.  They gave me a guide and we set off on paths across fields, through woods and tracks to small villages. The hills around the town are fertile and contain hidden lakes and streams even at this dry time of year.  I came across my first holy man who lived in a tent next to a cave.  I wanted to ask him if I could take his picture but he was too busy talking on his mobile so I missed my chance. The walk lasted about four hours and ended back at the house for delicious lunch of mushroom soup, salad and toasted sandwiches. These people eat vast amounts but this food was delicious so I ate it all.  Finally they  took me home on the back of a motorbike.
I took a boat ride cross the lake to one of the fancy island hotels.  Once there I realised their attraction.  They are quiet and free from the ever present tang of urine which has come to characterise India to me.  The great smell of Cow shit and urine.  The hotel had laid out tables in the sun for lunch.  I didn't get to see the menu.  Every menu I have seen consists almost entirely of potatoes. Potatoes with cheese, potatoes with tomatoes, potatoes with mixed veg.  It doesn't seem to matter what the menu says, you get potatoes.
These are my last few hours in the city. I have a sleeper bus leaving at 4:30 for Agra and from  there on to Delhi and the plane home.  I am pining for a bowl of Vietnamese noodle soup and a menu that has no potatoes on it.

By car to Udiapur

Sometimes a bit of luxury is called for.  The bus ride back to Johdpur was cramped, dirty and slow and it was great to be back in the Yogi guesthouse where the owner had arranged a lovely room for the night and a car to take me to Udaipur the next day.  The Yogi guesthouse is the nicest place I've stayed on this trip. Hot water, soft beds and pretty antiques.
My driver, Ganesh, and I left Johdpur at nine the next day and headed for Udaipur via the temple complex of Ranapur  midway between the two cities. I'd heard a lot of bad things about Indian roads and Indian drivers but they have proved to be untrue so far.  Ganesh seamed to enjoy overtaking everything in his path but he did it safely and the little Indian designed and manufactured car was fine.  When will we see them on British roads I wonder?  They have one that costs £2000. I've seen a few, they look ok.
It took two hours or so to get to the temples.  They are Jain temples and as far as I can understand the Jains are the Indian equivalent of the Free Masons in that they have a lot of business interests and a lot of money.  A lot of that money went on the beautifully carved temple complex.  It's a bit like a small version of Ankor in Cambodia.  The same carving style has been used but this time in white marble rather than the brown sandstone of Ankor.
The rest of the drive went smoothly and Ganesh delivered me to my hotel in Udaipur, another pretty one but sadly only room for me for one night.  The next day my flirtation with luxury came to an end and I found myself a budget place but I have a private balcony overlooking part of Udaipur's famous lake and a TV so it's not all hardship.

Camel Safaris

The safari is over but the pain continues.  
I finally achieved my goal of going on a proper camel safari. Three days balancing precariously on top of a camel just in front of its hump and bouncing across the desert.  It was an experience not to be missed and probably not to be repeated.  
The trip started with a jeep ride out into the desert to meet the camels and the camel men.  I joined a group of two Danes, two Frenchmen and two Dutch people for the adventure.  We rode through the day and slept under the stars at night.  The days were burning hot and the nights cold but, with enough blankets over me and my wooly hat clamped firmly on my head I survived.  At night after the moon disappeared the stars shone so brightly. The trip was worth it just for that.

Camels are strange creatures. They have long articulated legs that fold completely flat.  You climb on their backs and they launch you ten feet into the air as they unfold first their back legs and then their front.  You are thrown forwards then backwards before being perched above the rocky desert with nothing much to hang onto as they set off.  hours.  They regurgitate their food and chew it over and over again all day and smell bad. My inner thighs are still sore with the stretching that they recvieved but on the plus side I can now sit  cross legged for hours.

The desert was harshly beautiful.  A fragile landscape of tough bushes and clumps of indestructible grass.  Somehow birds, foxes and antelopes live wild out there surviving on the leathery foliage and the little water that falls during the monsoon season.  Farmers make some sort of living off goats and sheep but fewer do now than before.  The camel men said that it rains less and less these days and that wells have to be sunk 600 meters into the ground before water can be found.  In the hot season the temperature rises above 40 degrees, no tourists venture out then.  

Our camel men fed us well on chapattis and vegetables and eggs and we chatted amongst ourselves swapping traveller stories whilst not being bounced about on top of a camel.  It was nice to back amongst Europeans after so long.  
After three days we returned to Jaisalmer tired but happy and for me at least with a resolve not to go near another camel again.  Well not for a while anyway.

Jaisalmer

I hate getting up in the morning but the trains around here are infrequent and early so I dragged myself out of my bed at 4am to meet the train.  I'd been wait listed by the super efficient Indian train service and my confirmation had come through.  The train arrived on time and I crawled into the recently vacated and still warm sleeper berth and started towards my new destination, the desert city of Jaisalmer.  That's the best thing about sleeper  trains. You can lie there and watch the world go by in great comfort.
I and a Japanses girl were met by a driver at the station and taken to the Hotel Tokyo, modern, functional but a little away from the main sites. 
Ive booked the canal safari and the evenings are beginning to get a little warmer so hopefully it will work out well and I'll have a great time.  I've done too much site seeing and need some activity.
Today I'm doing the city. The fort is impressive, it's almost the only thing here. People live in it still and it has a beautiful palace, a labyrinth of tiny rooms designed to keep cool and catch any available breeze.  It would have been the place to stay and I will after my safari is complete.  The lanes are narrow, just wide enough for a motorbike or a cow and the walls and windows are delicately carved from the local yellow stone. There is an old bit of town too which I'll explore after sipping a lemon juice on the roof of one of the many fort restaurants. Oh yes, and I found the Bhang shop.

Johdpur

After four days of loafing about it was finally time to go.  I dragged myself out of my very uncomfortable bed at 8am, threw my few possessions into my bag and went.  It is always cold at that time of day but I was lucky to get a bus out of town straight away.  It was full locals on their way to Ajmer, the nearest large town.  It was a bone shaking 30minutes but the sun was getting stronger.  
From Ajmer there was another bone shaking wreck of a bus to Jodhpur.  The five hours being bounced about passed, the bus was warm and not too crowded. It even stopped for lunch.  We haven't reached the desert yet. The landscape is still scrubby fields and small trees.  It's all quite brown after the end of the rainy season and the air is very dry.  I feel like the moisture is being sucked out of my body and I can never drink enough to replace it.
The bus arrived in Johdpur at around 3pm and for once there was no trouble  from auto-rickshaw drivers.  I had booked this lovely old guesthouse just underneath the fort and the driver just took me there for the agreed sum of 50 rupees, about 60p.  This new place is beautifully furnished with wall hangings and antique furniture.  It's set around a central courtyard with three floors of rooms overlooking it.  I have a room with a view of the old city and it's elaborate clock tower. From the roof top restaurant you can look up to the fort which grows out of the cliff side.  The outside is bare and rugged but the inside is a beautiful  palace with cool marble interiors and delicately carved sandstone windows.  
The city is quieter than the others and I would have stayed but my train ticket to Jaisalmer  has been confirmed for 5:05 tomorrow morning so I'll be leaving without really experiencing the city.  One thing though, they still have horse drawn carriages as a form of public transport!

Fourth day in Pushkar

Today is my fourth day in this strange little town.  I was going to leave today but felt like a longer rest.  I spend my mornings wandering by the lake looking for the sun.  I have located a network of little rooftop cafes with wi-fi so I can do a bit of surfing and hotel booking.  Yesterday I made the major decision to book my hotel in Johdpur, thereby forcing myself to move on.  This place is getting to be addictive.
I did the one day camel safari as a taster for a longer trip next week.  They picked me up, took me for a wander through the surrounding fields and orchards and on to a village.  All very pleasant with the camel gently swaying along.  At the village I got the sales pitch for longer trips, up to six days if you want but I declined.  It would have been just me and a camel driver stuck in the desert alone for six days.  What would we talk about?  I'll try to fix up a shorter one with other people.
I went up the local hill with a temple on top and got a good if hazy view of the town, it's lake and the surrounding countryside.  And I've read another book.  Sitting on the roof of my little hotel in the afternoon with it on my lap, dozing off from time to time.  And that's all.

My plans for the lake

The roads surrounding the lake are packed with shops making money out of the tourists who flock here in their thousands.  The shops sell all the usual stuff that you can buy in Camden Market just at a slightly lower price.  The town is strictly vegetarian and non-alcoholic but their vegetarianism, like most people's stops at leather belts, shoes and handbags.  This supposed to be a holy place but it's been almost completely handed over to tourism and  money making.  I counted about six collection boxes on one set of steps down to the lake and everywhere you go someone wants to "give" you some holy flowers or put a blob of colour on your forhead.  This should come as no surprise really, this combination of religion and commerce.  Think of the Vatican bank and all it's scandals, American mega-churches and the Church of England's vast estates not to mention the entrance charges to their popular buildings.
But the lanes are crowded and the ghats empty so I have a vision for a more economically viable Pushkar Lake where the Hindus can get in on the act too.
BEACH BARS
Think Goa, the beach capital of India.  The steps down to the lake make for perfect settings for a few umbrellas and reclining chairs.  Sand could be imported from the surrounding desert to give the place a more authentic look.  Ok, there is an alcohol ban but that could be lifted just for tourists.  A lot of the popular cafes are run by Israelis  and they could buy the beach bar franchises.  The pilgrims would still have part of the lake for their rituals, say the west bank.  During the popular camel fair the Israelis might have to set up extra bars in the area but that is just good business sense not an intrusion into someone else's space.
BOATING
Clearly boats on the lake would be a terrible affront to the visiting pilgrims.  Tasteful peddellos however might be acceptable.  Peddellos in the shape of holy cows might be fun.
PHOTOGRAPHY
There is a photography ban around the lake.  Why not sell permits to those tourists with long lenses?  They could then photography the pilgrims at their rituals without causing offence.  After all these activities take place in the public realm and we have the right to know what goes on.  It's in the public interest after all.  Any money raised by selling pictures to tour companies and the like could be given to charity after all.
CONCERTS
They have them on a lake on Hampstead Heath and the atmosphere is lovely.  The audience bring picnics and sit out on the grass and listen. It's quite respectful and civilised.  They might even play a bit of Indian classical music.  Ravi Shankar is a Hindu, he might like to come.
These are just a few ideas to create a Hindu Enterprise Zone in line with current Neo Liberal thinking so let's  give it a go.

Towards Pushkar

Every journey takes a day.  I left my hotel around ten and took a tuk tuk ( they call them auto rickshaws here ) to the bus station and caught the 12:30 to Ajmer and then on to Pushkar.  It was a nice clean AC bus and I sat next a friendly guy.  He asked me where I was from and I usually ask them back.  Of course they're from the country I'm in but this time he said "Mexico". They get around these Indians. 
The motorway driving wasn't as bad as the guide books led me to believe.  There was a bit of indiscriminate lane changing but that's all and we arrived in Ajmer mid afternoon.   Mercifully the bus's tv wasn't working so we were all spared three hours of Bollywood dance moves.
In Ajmer I began to wonder if this country can get any rougher.  Dusty, dirty, chaotic with old buses crammed with people.  I caught one of the old buses which just managed to climb a hill and descended into Pushkar, the sacred Hindu pilgrimage site now a major tourist magnet.  The old part of the town is a maze of gifts shops,  restaurants and hotels surrounding a lake. Its all  stunningly beautiful.  The surrounding temples are all gently crumbling into the waters.  
I had to ask about six people directions before I found my hotel and I have a fairly barren cell but right by the lake and set in a well tended garden.  Finally after checking in I sat in a cafe by the lake and had tea ( the town is strictly dry ).  A crowd of attention seeking Italians appeared and a row of urchins with bare feet and wrapped in blankets paraded past the Italians and disappeared to the sound of snapping cameras.  Two tabla players started up and were joined by a shaven headed hippy.  Pushkar, it's like Brighton, full of foreign tourists, gift shops and ageing hippies.  

My first railway journey

It was a very early start for me to get the 6:05 train out of Delhi to Jaipur.  My night was made even more difficult after eating a disgusting meal in the hotel. I was up most of the night and felt really bad the next day.  A shame really as the train journey came with food and something they called a "tea kit", a little paper envelope with two tea bags, sugar and powdered milk. I managed the tea but passed on the breakfast and slept most of the way there.
My new hotel, The Savoy no less, is charming. The room is big and the bed covered an embroidered quilt.  I slept really well and kept warm unlike the room in Delhi.
Jaipur,like Delhi, is chaotic, dusty and noisy but on a much smaller scale.  I did the City Palace, took a cyclo tour around the old city and visited the Hawa Mahal, a beautiful palace where women would peak out of tiny shuttered windows to watch the goings on in the streets below.  From the top you get a fantastic view of the city and the forts on top of the surrounding hills.  The old city is painted a dusty pink and contained by city walls.  You can walk around it if you want but I'm planning to take it easy and not rush about. It's the capital of Rajasthan and still big and I'm looking forward to my next stop in Pushkar which is tiny and has a religious lake in the middle.
I've seen my first camel and first elephant and yes, the elephant was wearing makeup.  I videoed two musicians playing a drum an accordion with my iPad.  This thing is coming in very useful for writing, surfing and now filming.  It'll be on YouTube very soon.

Some video clips

I've taken a few video clips of the street outside my hotel and the market outside the Jama Masjid mosque. They are on YouTube and linked here, here, here and here. Enjoy!

Old Delhi

Where to begin. This place is crazy. There are too many people with a different view of personal space from me and from the people of east Asia.  I'll just have to learn to push and shove.  
My day started with a big breakfast of masala dosa, a huge stuffed pancake with curry dips and a cup of hot sweet tea.  I then made it to the tube station I arrived at last night and bought a one day ticket, unlimited travel for about £2.  The tube is ultramodern, quick clean and sleek once you get into it.   You can make calls on your mobile and even plug in your laptop.  Imagine that on London transports.  Above ground it's almost invisible amongst the broken pavements, stray dogs, tuk tuks and people. I took it to Chandi Chowk the heart of the old city where the red fort and the Jama Masjid  are. As an obedient tourist I did the fort which was more interesting from the outside. The mosque was shut for Friday prayers but looked spectacular and I shall be going back tomorrow to  try and get in. The lanes and alleys surrounding it contain everything, jewellery shops, sari shops and incense shops. What else do people need?
It's cold though. A lot colder than I thought it would be. I bought a wooly hat from a man by the train station and might survive with what I've brought with me.  An overnight camel safari will be a challenge unless they provide warm things for the nights.  I have become used to the soft tropical warmth and have forgotten what being cold is like.  The locals wander about wrapped in blankets and scarves, giving the streets the air of a rather large and permanent refugee camp.  I think it might actually be that for some of the people who look like they have no home to go to.
Despite the brokenness of everything I like it more than New Delhi.  Edwin Lutyens designed New Delhi and at the same time must have invented the dual carriageway and the roundabout as that's what this part of town is.  I endured a confusing ride in a tuk tuk from a tube station to Humayan's tomb. The driver seemed to enjoy whizzing round in circles but I didn't .  The tomb was beautiful and set in a large and peaceful ornamental garden.  It was a contrast to the morning's sights.

Delhi

I am going on holiday to India to escape the Vietnamese Tet holiday, it,s a bit like Xmas but without the snow.  Most people leave to avoid the near total shutdown and I have chosen India.  I've never really been there apart from a short trip to Delhi for a recruitment fair so this is a big adventure for me.
I'm flying with Air Asia, the local budget carrier and so far it,s been good.  The food and wine was fine and the aircrew were lovely so this is not the easy jet of the east.  The airline even have their own terminal at Kuala Lumpur airport for budget travellers where the beer at nearly£4 a glass is nowhere near budget but hey, I'm on holiday.
I've booked a hotel near the central train station for three nights and then a train ticket to Jaipur on Sunday morning.  You can do it all online, no wonder Thomas Cook went bust, who needs them now.

I'm planning to spend three weeks in Rajasthan travelling by train, bus and hopefully camel and visiting palaces, forts and deserts.

I'm going to blog about my experiences on my boring old blog that I have neglected for the last four months and I can do that using my lovely new iPad that I have brought along for the ride.

My hotel is in a dusty lane full of other backpacker type hotels and my room is a bit cell like but it does have a flat screen tv and a shower.  After a long day on planes it was nice to savour the atmosphere of the city. Dogs barking, fires burning and people wandering about wrapped in thin blankets against the cold evening air.  The air is a shock to my system. Anything below 30 degrees seems cold to me now.  I need to look in my guide book and plan tomorrow's sightseeing.  The red fort sounds colourful so that could be on the agenda and there are plenty of other attractions.  The underground system should take me to most of the places I need to go as long as I can work out where places are.

  The people out in the street have been cooking bread over charcoal tonight so that's going to be breakfast but now for sleep after a slurp of dutyfree whiskey.

Time to get a new belt

I’ve been away, in England and Scotland, for an annual visit.  I’ve been to Brighton where you think that any two men seen together are gay  ( probably they are ).   The town is full of red faced street drinkers and seagulls.  It deserves it’s reputation for supporting an alternative lifestyle and is full of characters.

I’ve been to Portsmouth where every other shop is a take-away.  It’s one of the most densely populated cities in the South with more people, take-aways  and tattoo parlours per square mile than any other city I’ve ever known.

I’ve been to Surbiton where the Travelodge runs a hotel with no staff.  It’s totally automated and allowed me, for a very reasonable £19, to spend a comfortable night.  TV, kettle, even a bath included. WiFi was 8 pence a minute for the unsuspecting inmate but free in the pub next door.

I’ve been to Northampton where you can buy a 3 bedroomed house for under a hundred grand.  1 hour from London, about the same to Birmingham and less to Milton Keynes.  With all  those easy commutes why don’t people move out of London and buy a house in Northampton.  Something dark must be happening there!

I’ve been to Wakefield where you can visit the new Barbara Hepworth museum and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.  Wakefield is the Portsmouth of the North.  Barbara had the right idea, she moved away to London and then Cornwall.

I’ve been to Edinburgh where the clouds come down to the ground.  This weather happens often and they have a special word for it.  It’s still a great place to see though, with its castle and parks and squares.  There’s a  nice view from the adjacent hill too, at least if the sun shines.

And now to the belt.  I’ve been criticised for my belt before.  It’s old and has lost it’s gloss.  The worn notches on it show the expanding and contracting of my  waistline over the years ( no, I’m not fatter than before )  but it still holds up my trousers. But you know when it’s finally time to get a new one.  The security man at Heathrow stopped me at the scanning machines and held it up for closer inspection.  I thought for a moment that it was now illegal to wear belts on aeroplanes but no, he just wanted to say how old and worn it was.  I felt like saying “it’s a bit like you then” but stopped myself in the nick of time.  After all, with the current state of the security laws, he could have me rendered to Guantanamo Bay for a spot to water boarding for a remark like that.  Instead I smiled weakly and headed for the duty free. 

Early one morning

I don't like to get up early in the morning.  Most days I'll lay in bed reading the paper on the internet and drinking coffee for a couple of hours.  Nine seems a sensible time to move out of bed and onto the sofa.  Not today, as a friend from work said he gets up at four thirty every morning and was planing an early trip into town.  Stupidly I said text me before you go.  Staying healthy has a whole new meaning in this part of the world.  Back home some of these people wouldn't look out of place in my local mental hospital. The results of this mad jaunt are here.

Some say this is a bit voyeristic but I all I know is, it's a fascinating socio-cultural phenomenon.  

Tomorrow I'm staying in bed 'til noon.

Rain

The sky goes grey, the light goes dim and the rain smacks to the ground and bounces of the window ledge, through the open window and into my room.  The ground outside the window has turned into a wide brown puddle of mud and battered down vegetation.  Only the frogs enjoy the weather, spending the evenings croaking to each other.  The insects have been smacked to the ground and the bats fly pointlessly around searching for food.

Even the never ending stream of motorbikes slows a little as the drivers stop to put on their rain covers.  Tropical storms are supposed to come in the late afternoon to relieve the heat of the day.  These come whenever they like.  I can watch the clouds rotate around the city until they head in my direction and drench my suburb.  But somehow the ground soaks it all up and drains it all away.  If the sun can creep through the roads and paths dry off and the children come out to the play park outside my building again for their evening’s playtime.

I’ve got some protection against the weather.  I have a collapsible umbrella suitable for a London commuter and so almost useless here and a large plastic cape that the university gave me.

This particular storm, the second of the day, came and went quickly so now the clouds are thinning a little and the remains of the day’s light has returned just in time for dusk and what might turn out to be a spectacular sunset.

And its going to do this until November. 

I've been playing with my video camera

Green Grass Jelly Drink

Previously on my blog I have extolled the virtues of grass jelly, the healthy alternative to raspberry or strawberry with their artificially enhanced red colour and synthetic taste.  Grass jelly was sure to be a big improvement on those with its ‘green’ environmental agenda.  But I understand that there’s a drawback and that was the lengthy cooking process that grass jelly in a packet required.  The instructions on the grass jelly sachet expected consumers to add the contents to water and boil them for three minutes.  This may well be too much for the modern consumer with their busy lifestyle.  It was certainly too much for my daughter Charlotte to whom I sent a packet ( on request I may add ).  When I asked her what it tasted like she informed me that she hadn’t even tried!  And that, after the lengths I went to to send her some.

Well now it’s all different because new, convenience grass jelly drink is available in cans.  I was excited by this find in my local supermarket so bought a can and rushed it home. The ideal mixer for one of my weird bottles of rum or fake gin I thought.  But now I’ve checked the ingredients and found synthetic sweetener and synthetic green colour and synthetic flavour listed on  the side of the can.  In fact, if you remove those from the list all you are left with is water and something called ‘gelian gum’.

So it seems that you can’t beat the traditional method if you want the real taste of grass jelly.  It looks like I won’t be rushing off to the post office with a consignment of canned grass jelly drink any time soon.  Sorry Charlotte.

A long weekend

Ho Chi Minh is a big, sprawling city full of motorbike noise and people squeezed onto pavements so, from time to time it’s nice to get out and see something of the countryside.  Last weekend was a long one, a bit like England the week before, but for us it wasn’t a wedding it was May Day coupled with the liberation of Saigon on 30^th April.  We had Monday and Tuesday off, so to make my escape I joined three other teachers  on a two day trip to the Mekong delta where the towns are smaller and the air fresher.  These trips are cheap and easy to arrange from one of the many travel agents in the backpacker ghetto of Pham Nu Lao in the centre of the city.

The highlight of the two days came early with a boat ride from the Saigon River through the city down murky waterways cutting through the surrounding countryside to the town of My Tho.  For once this was a comfortable boat ride in a speedy boat.  Most of my other boat experiences in South East Asia have been long, noisy and involved hard wooden benches crammed with too many people.  This one whizzed across the murky water even going past the university on it’s two hour journey to the delta.

The truth about the Mekong is that there really isn’t much to see.  They take you to every small scale production facility doing things to the local crops that they can think of.  So we visited a coconut candy factory, a nice noodle factory, a plain rice factory ( which was closed ) and a fruit orchard complete with folk singing locals.  On day two they delivered boatloads of tourists wholesale to the floating market to eat pineapple and watch the river traffic go by.  But the towns are small and quiet, with fewer motorbikes and cleaner rivers.  It’s cheap, relaxing and simple and very well organised.  We all came back happy and thinking about the next weekend away with the tour guides.

Shopping

I’m usually quite careful with money.  I’ve had a few years of training recently when I haven’t had much cash to thank for that.  My new job, coupled with a very low cost of living, has meant that now, for the first time for a while I can buy most things that I want.  Most within reason of course.  I still can’t afford an iPhone 4 or an iPad but as I don’t want either of these things I’m not bothered.  ( well I could be tempted by the iPad ).   So it was a surprise to me that on Sunday I had a bit of a splurge. 

There’s a bus from Phu My Hung into town that drops and picks up along Dong Koi Street, right in the heart of the expensive tourist district and I often take it at the weekend.   When you get off the bus there’s always a group of motorbike taxi guys touting for business and various people selling cigarettes and newspapers to the rich foreigners.  Amongst these there is a bunch of fruit sellers with baskets mangos or oranges or melons depending on the season.  I love mangos but they are usually sold green and eaten either soaked in spicy oil or dipped in salt and chilli so I don’t usually buy them.  Along the street there’s a woman who must have realised that Westerners like mangos sweet as she has a basket of them just about on the turn.  They are soft, slightly bruised but if you get them home in one piece and eat them up quickly they are fantastic.  They make for a very messy eating experience, with mango juice dripping everywhere, but a very rewarding one too.  

I’ve become a bit of a regular with the lady who sells the mangos now and always stop to say hello.  She knows that I’m going to buy from her and makes a big show of selecting the ‘best’ ones from her basket.  I always get a free sample and sometimes a free banana too.  For about £2 I came home with five squashy mangos, which are now in my fridge ready to be dissected and eaten over the next few days.  I hope they last until Thursday.

Next to the fruit sellers and motorbike guys there’s a small indoor tourist market.  It’s much less hassle than the main market in the centre of town but sells more or less the same stuff.  It’s has the things that tourists are assumed to want, joke t-shirts, ethnic bags and fancy scarves.  The people there have a photographic memory for faces as I discovered yesterday.  I bought one shirt a few weeks ago and they still remember me and the price I managed to bargain them down to.  So, as I walked past the stall yesterday the woman dragged me in and somehow managed to sell me not one more shirt but three!  For £8 each I now have three silk shirts.  They are large, baggy and very comfortable in the heat and humidity and quite subtle in colour.  The trouble is they don’t all go with my trousers so I may have to go back next weekend for more clothes.  

The concert

Finally after all the waiting it happened.  RMIT’s big move into show business has finally reached it’s peak.  Bob Dylan was appearing in front of a decent sized crowd in the sports field where I work.

I got there early enough to see something of the support act, a woman belting out some jazz apparently influenced by ‘the Vietnamese Bob Dylan’.  Between acts I moved as close to the front as I could and squeezed into a gap left by other people in the crowd heading off for food or drink.  This left me about 6 rows from the front and with a great view.  Where else could I get this close?

Dylan came on wearing a wide brimmed white hat and took up his place behind a small keyboard surrounded by a 5 piece band, 1 drummer and 4 guitarists.  They played for just under two hours running through the vast back catalogue which included ‘A hard Rain’, ‘Highway 61’ and ‘All along the Watch Tower’ to name just a few. It looked like he was enjoying himself and I certainly was.  From time to time he strapped on a guitar and came out to the front of the stage to join the rest of the band and occasionally he rasped into a harmonica.

And still the stupid press reports from China criticised him for submitting a playlist to be authorised by the Ministry of Culture and endlessly repeating the ‘protest song’ narrative.  With a repertoire of over 800 hundred songs how many are in any way political?  10 maybe 15?  No wonder the guy gets fed up with being asked about it.  They are about women, just like almost every other pop song!!

It ended with ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ and  ‘Forever Young’, two of my personal favourites with the crowd joining in, shouting out the chorus ‘How does it feel/how does it feel/to be on your own/no direction home/a complete unknown/like a rolling stone/.  Well, to me it felt good all this way from home.

They say he’s lost his voice. They say he won’t engage with the crowd.  They say you can’t recognise the songs.  All true but to be there in the crowd taking part in rock history was a privilege.