Wednesday, 1st June 2005 8:53am
Hello all
firstly, can I start by saying how disappointed I am in you all. I haven’t e-mailed for god knows how long, and when I finally get to my inbox all I have is four very agitated e-mails from my mother, a news letter and some adverts for something called “V1AGRA”. I could have been dead in a ditch…or worse! But did any of you care? Did any of you phone the home office, make appeals on Channel 4 news or start a campaign? NO! You make me sick. You’re all in deep trouble.
Anyway, on a lighter note, I’m now into the home stretch. I’ve left my little hospital and am now on the open road...just me, my backpack and my guitar. Oh and Ben. Who I now hate. With a passion. And, I suspect he may feel the same about me by now because we’ve spent pretty much every waking moment with each other for 2 months.
We left Karaikudi on Thursday and got a sleeper train from Madurai which left at 11pm and arrived at 8 the next morning. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before and gave a whole new meaning to the phrase "Cattle Class". I think India bought its trains from Germany in 1946 because they suddenly had a surplus of public transport for some reason. Apparently they were used to take people to special camps to improve their concentration or something, and now India’s using them for long distance public transport. The conditions are pretty grim. I slept on a wooden shelf with no padding and was woken up at about 4am, which is apparently what time Indian men get up when they want to annoy people...I think I may have bought a Sadomasochist Apex ticket by mistake. The guy below me was meditating. Actually bloody meditating, at 4am like he was Mr. Miyagi or something. For some reason he did this by loudly mooing like a cow.
Since last I wrote, absolutely bugger all has happened, until this weekend. The last two weeks at el-hopital were shit; the new volunteers were lame and things just weren’t as fun without our group. This weekend however, we went down to another TPA weekend which was good because it meant I could get away from Ben, who apparently really needs his sleep these days, and so was in bed by 12 evey night. Everyone else stayed on the beech 'till sunrise, playing guitar and jumping round in the surf (though there was a little too much male nudity for my liking; bloody public school boys). I also met up with Steve and Lizzy, a couple I befriended two weeks earlier on the other TPA thing, which was cool. Steve and I made a huge sand-penis (is “sand penis” one word, or is it hyphenated? I’m never sure…) on the beach. I have photographic evidence and it is epic. It’s modeled on my own, except smaller obviously. It was a little embarrassing when half way through a middle aged English woman came to see what we were making. She stopped about ten feet short once she had realised what we were doing; "oh...I see...how...er, fun" and walked away while we threw sand at her and did whirly-birds with our cocks out, Lord of The Flies style.
The weekend was really good fun, laregley spent drinking cocktails on the beach, watching pirated DVDs and playing in the surf. I’m going to meet up with Steve and Lizzy in Mumbai/Bombay at the end of the month, which is the only thing getting me through 24 hour Ben exposure (“Bensposure”?).
We bought our train tickets on Monday for our entire trip as well, which came to about 80 pounds. That was mainly because we had to get first class sleeper tickets from Goa to Mumbai (2200 km) which came to about 40 quid. Not bad considering you get your own room, meals and its how all the ministers supposedly travel. Anyway, this time next week i'll be in Goa, in two weeks in Mumbai, three weeks time I’ll be in Delhi or Agra and in about a month I’ll be home and wishing it was a month ago.
hope all is well and that exams are going well...haha...only joking! I don't give a shit, I'm off to the beach!
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