Journey's End

it isn't, of course, but I'm a sucker for literary titles.

Day before yesterday I think I actually made it to the southernmost tip of India. But cannot be certain.  And since I'd had this geographical end-of-the-subcontinent in my sights for some time, (Why? Because it's there!) I feel in a sense the physical journey is done...

For want of other words I shall treat you to an extract from the daily private diary I'm keeping during this trip, alongside this 'ere blog.

Some photos first:

From Saturday 7th March:
...then the usual throw of temples, til the soles of my feet hurt and was gettin thoroughly brassed off with the catches. Rupee Pie time again. Temple scams, and a rather shocking Gandhi Shrine scam. After all this time still didn't see it coming... And a right rip off waxwork museum. What was Michael Fuckin Jackson doin here keeping company with Mother Theresa, The Pope and Charlie Chaplin?

The Cape. The southernmost tip. A mayhem of ferries, broken life jackets with no instructions (I decided to hold mine on my lap and hope for the best -  no one was checking anyway,) gods, and ice cream sellers tang tanging on their bells. Roasted peanuts, garish overpriced clothes stalls, traders in seashells macraméed into lampshades, fixed onto wall clocks, glued into photo frames, and rides on horses, a cockade of plastic roses. For this was Blackpool, Margate, Tenby, without the fudge, the sticks of rock and kiss-me-quickery but every bit as wonderfully tasteless. The mingling and meeting of three oceans? The Indian far out and to the south, left The Bay of Bengal, to the west the Arabian Sea. Ghandi would have stirred in his ashes. And the Southernmost point? Like everything else in this land, it was not defined. It was everywhere, and nowhere. It was hereabouts.

Mad dogs and Englishmen

Ten days of midday sun.

Thangassery came up with something special and I am grateful. But time now to move on, and leave the unmade art behind...

VW & VB

Painters' block.

Only write or make Art about what you know...

Nearly five months in India and I still find strangeness everywhere. Probably seen more palm trees and platanes than you could shake a monkey at, but just spent the morning making a pig's ear out of a banana tree. To be binned.

Currently holed up in a coastal shack somewhere between Thangassery and Thirumullavaram, winding up the journey, and planning the final stage a few days from now

The time at the party when people who didn't pull settle down to late night charades in the lounge.

My turn.

Book title

Three words

First and second words very short

Third word two syllables

OK. Some picture clues...

DriedFish

"Don't know where the week's gone!" A familiar enough feeling when I was working; but gone it has. It's been pleasant enough to take long rides on public ferry boats across the backwaters. A seven hour return trip for about 38 pence is a bargain, especially when you are sharing the same scenery, the same waterways, the same fresh air and the same photo opportunities with those afloat in the luxury palaces for eighty or ninety quid plus. Can get crowded on the ferries, mind. But so too can the palace routes, with boats jockeying for position like the auto rickshaws on land. The ferries of course don't provide cushions, loungers, or servants to fetch fresh lemon drinks or another Kingfisher... But on the other hand, you get to meet interesting, likeminded budgeteers.

For all that, there is nothing to keep me in Alleppey.

Have been debating which way to go next. Options being to head back inland to the mountains and zigzag my way south to Trivandrum airport, or to stick with the coast. It was a difficult choice until two days ago, when I did a recce to Kollam (aka Quilon) and found a typically scruffy, not at all beautiful, dirty, dusty, fumey, littered town, unattractive and unengaging...
...and then, only a couple of miles from the centre, chanced on a fishing community, sprawled part on the shore, part on firmer ground. Another world. Dingy shacks and bright coloured stucco houses. People crouching in the shade stared, smiled, waved  as I passed by. Small boats hauled up, the latest catch of tiny fish spread out to dry like silvery white biscuits in the sun. Inspiring. I need time here...

So I have found a four-pounds-a-night lodging house, (no wifi at that price,) and I'm planning "a bit of a stay" and a proper painting holiday. At long last the sketch book and water colours may well come into their own. And there's a chance that a significant bit of the exorcism that's been taking place during this long journey will be completed before I have to get the plane home.

Well, it's possible... I'll let you know.

Loaded

"...expect the unexpected," understates one of the guidebooks. I do, but am still constantly caught out. Today it was by a fausse chaise longue loosely roped onto a truck and bouncing along in front of the rattlebus.

(This post will be of far greater interest to some than to others.)

Moving on...

Well the mood of tristesse brought on by the air ticket was short lived. It was just that for the first time in four months I'd committed to more than two or three days ahead, and what felt like the end of freewheeling didn't sit easily.

But wait a minute! I still have four whole weeks before me! One fifth of the journey still lies ahead! I am constantly meeting travellers who are here for that long in total, and who intend to see and do far more than I could contemplate; distance no object. An age thing, I conclude.

By way of farewell to Kochi revisited the best bits of The Biennale, treated myself to a second Kathakali performance, and yesterday I prised myself away by ferry, rickshaw and  rattlebus for a short hop south to Alleppey, "The Venice of India"... I've booked in for a week.

¡Seguir bailando!

=>Yep, Just keep on dancin...