ghost writers in the sky

Back in the stinking hot sprawl of lepers and wristwatch salesmen and delicious street food and horse poo that is the modern metropolis of mumbai. Everyone here wants me to be an extra in a bollywood movie, or sell me coke, or show me where the best nightclubs are. Leopolds is pretty funny (If you’ve read Shantaram, you’ll know what I’m talking about, and if you haven’t, don’t), although a round of drinks cost me rps850. At least I got to dance to justin timberlake in the v.i.p room.

I haven’t been able to post for a while, cos down south internet access is patchy at best. Plus the monsoon came, which means everything kinda shuts down. Kerala is exactly like the vietnam of apocalypse now (which was actually the phillippines). Leeches, water everywhere, jungles etc. We hired a scooter and gave it quadrophenia out to a few beaches a lot lusher than brighton. The arabian sea is as warm as bathwater, and it’s hosing with warm monsoon rain, and everything seems hysterically funny. Cochin is overrun with really cute goats, stinks of fish, and features Jewtown, a jewish settlement founded in, like 500a.d. You can find Jewtown by following Jew street. Kerala has the only democratically elected communist government in the world, so there’s all these hammer and sickle flags hanging in the jungle.

A day’s train ride, then the world’s most most precipitous ricketty bus disgorges us in the freezing cold mountainous hill station of Ooty (Udaghamandalam) a little fairytale kingdom of displaced tibetan midgets in the south. Surrounded by verdant tea-fields, and possessing No mod cons, it’s a really cute place and plus it’s funny to see indians wearing beanies and wooly jumpers.

After that was a 35 hour train ride back to mumbai where we couldn’t get beds, so had to sleep on THE FLOOR. By the TOILET. It was ok, actually kina hilarious. we laughed the whole time. I just wanted to bitch about it here. I love the trains. next time I’ll write a whole post about them. Right now I’m off to some tomb in the middle of the ocean. Then pushkar.  Sorry this one wasn’t very funny/interesting. bit pressed for time. love you byeeee!!

casio :: Jun.18.2008 :: Uncategorized :: 1 Comment »

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