Mike Sinkovich Tells You How It Is

Rishikesh To Chautala with Mr Vinod

3:30pm 19th Sept: I leave Rishikesh with Mr Vinod, the manager of our guesthouse to make our way to Chautala, his home village out west in the state of Haryana. Captain Timbo will be staying behind and going on his own private mission in the form of a trek up into the mountains. We hail a tempo down to RamJhula and stop while Vinod buys some lockets for his nephew and niece.

4:00pm 19th Sept: After a dispute, the cause of which I have no idea about, he finally pays for the lockets and we leave. I try to ask what the hubbub was all about, but the language barrier pops up and I eventually give up trying to ask. I already see this is going to be a problem when we get out into the remote areas, and I will need him to translate for me.

4:28pm 19th Sept: We get to the bus station. I still don't know how you're supposed to tell which bus is going where as it is a general melee of people, money, tickets and shouting. I suggest we ditch the bus idea and get a rickshaw to Haridwar trainstation instead, so we negotiate a price, get into the rickshaw and watch the driver get out and wander off down the road. After a few minutes we give it up and head back to the bus.

Vinod shows me to a seat, and just as I get comfortable (as much as you can, crammed into a tiny seat with no legroom and a massive pack crushed into your chest) some dude gets on and starts shouting at me. I look to Vinod who neither translates or attempts to calm the madman. It transpires after heavy gesticulation, that he is the conductor and this is his seat. We move.

6:45 pm 19th Sept: We get to Haridwar trainstation and proceed to score some general tickets. As I will find out later, Vinod's plan is to bribe the conductor in order to score some sleeper seats. I'm secretly dreading this, as I don't fancy an 8 hour train ride crammed into the non-sleeper carridge if it doesn't work out.

7:10 pm 19th Sept: It works out, as Vinod uses me as leverage, playing the keep-the-tourist-happy card and we score top sleeper seats. The train leaves and we start playing some card. I quickly realise Vinod is a dirty cheater when it comes to cards, stashing them in his top pocket and sneaking them out while I'm arranging my hand. I call him a dirty cheating fuckwit, and he laughs because he has no idea what I'm saying but can tell I'm pissed at his cheating.

2:00 am 20th Sept: We should be there by now, but we still have 60km to go. I finally give in and try to sleep, but I just lie there with my eyes closed, praying for a fast, temporary coma.

4:00 am 20th Sept: I wake up suddenly to shouting and people running up and down the train. I ask Vinod, and in a moment of clear, translatory lucidity he quickly informs me that it was a thief nicking a necklace off someone on the bunk below me. He then tells me, with a smug grin, that he has eaten all the snacks we bought for the journey. It's going to be a while before any more food. I go back to sleep, or as close as possible.

5:30 am 20th Sept: I am woken by Vinod shouting "Williams!" over and over again, and open my eyes to see him stood below me looking in a state of panic. We are in Bahtinda, and he's waited until he's got all his stuff packed and ready before waking me to get off the train. I lug my stuff off the bunk and we jump off the train just before it pulls away.

A short walk down the tracks and we catch a cycle rickshaw across town Vinod's sister's house, where we have breakfast which consists of tea and some buscuit things, and some (what I would loosely describe as) bombay mix. After a quick exchange, it becomes apparent that there are little things living a happy life in the bombay mix. I don't get a chance to see them, but judging by the expressions they are not pleasant. The mix returns after being filtered throught a siv. I avoid it anyway.

8:50 am 20th: We get another rickshaw back across town to the bus station. Vinod immediately falls asleep and after a few minutes I try to remove a bottle of water from my pack without catching his head with my elbow. The noise of the plastic bottle crackling causes everyone to turn and stare, and just as I'm about to pour the water into my mouth, I realise this and go to say sorry, but my hand is already in motion and I end up pouring water over my face while gargling the word "sorry" through it. Everyone finds this amusing, and I have a chuckle.

110:05 am 20th Sept: Switch busses

11:31 am 20th Sept: See my first camel. I'm so tired I can only remain awake for a few seconds before nodding off. Vinod prods me awake every time to point out of the window and tell me things like "that's rice", "that's corn". I don't have the energy to complain.

11:50 am 20th Sept: We arruve in Sirsa and get a cycle rickshaw over to Vinod's 'Owners' house (his bosses father)

12:05 pm 20th Sept: I'm pretty tired by now, and we are told to sit in a spare room of the house and wait for the big cheese to appear and give Vinod some cash. I consider lying down on the bed and sleeping, but am worried about offending. When he finally does appear, he and Vinod have a long conversation in Hindi while I sit and try to regain some energy. I hear the words passport, visa and notice several glances at me, which combine with my tiredness and distill into a creeping paranoia that I try to repress. Have I been set up, are my parents going to find my body, throat slit and passport nicked somewhere in west India? Apparently not, they are talking about Viniod. I wash, look at my stupid, knackered face in the mirror and we leave to visit Mr Chopra, a crazy friend of the owner of the hotel in Rishikesh, who came to see us in Rishikesh and now "wants to see me" at his communications company on the other side of Sirsa.

12:20 pm 20th Sept: Chopra isn't there when we arrive, so we wait with his son, eat some random curry-burger things and drink tea. After an hour or so his son produces a CD from a random desk drawer and puts it into his computer. They sip more tea and watch porn as I fall asleep in my chair. I still have no idea how Vinod is still awake.

2:45 pm 20th Sept: Chopra turns up, at last, and sends myself and Vinod off to the other side of town to get him some cigarettes. Great, this is what I waited over two hours for. We take his motorbike, after Vinod reassures me he can drive one, and head off on our mission.

3:00 pm 20th Sept: Vinod is full of shit. He drives a bike like a nutter, dropping it into too lower a gear, causing me to lurch forward into him whenever he tries to slow down, and accelerating away too quickly, causing me to almost fall off the back every time. We, somehow, arrive at his mates house, where I am forced to try some random fruit I have never seen before which tastes like shit, but I eat anyway as I don't want to offend. We get Chopra's fags and head off back to Vinod's Owner's house to get out bags.

4:58 pm 20th Sept: Wearing a heavy backpack, made heavier by 4 litres of water strapped to it, while clinging on for dear life on the back of a motorbike, driven by a nutcase is highly sobering, and by the time we are back at Chopra's, I am wide awake. My MP3 player is passed around, and I introduce everyone (more have gathered since we left, after Chopra has called, what seems like, everyone he knows) to Steely Dan. They like it.

5:28 pm 20th Sept: Chopra wants to buy me a beer, so I am ushered onto the back of his motorbike and we burn off across the city to some dingy wine/beer/gin shop resteraunt thing. I narrowly avoid falling off, due to the weight of my pack, as Chopra makes wild turns down random alleys in order to show me friends houses along the way. I feign interest, too distracted by my own mortality to pass more comment than "uh-huh".

We make it to the bar, and I enjoy a few (too many) cold ones as I try to relax and calm down after the bike fiasco. They bring us some innocuous chesse, that they cover with lime and pepper, causing it to taste like the smell of stale urine. I eat it anyway, so as not to offend.

5:52 pm 20th Sept: We make it to Sirsa bus station, a little drunk, but feeling a lot better. I managed to convey to Chopra that I was close to falling off his bike, and he finally calmed his driving down. I try to sleep but I get that spinny feeling when I close my eyes and the motion of the bus becomes too much. I listen Bowie, and as I am staring out of the window, listening to Bombers, I notice an old man sat in a massive expanse of white sand wizz by my view. I give a smile, and try not to think about the odds of that happening.

9:08 pm 20th Sept: We finally get to Chautala, and trek it across the village to Vinod's Aunt's gaff, where the power promptly cuts out (over the next week I will come to realise, the power, out here, is never on for longer than 10-20 minutes for a couple of times a day). It's so hot sweat pours out of me faster than I can wipe if away. The magnitude of the trip is begining to pull me down, and I realise I will need to sleep very soon or just collapse here and have done with it. I try to wash but it's too dark to see inside my pack and I can't be arsed to remove every item to find the ones I need. We leave after some tea.

10:12 pm 20th Sept: Almost 31 hours after we left Rishikesh, and with just over 3 hours sleep keeping me vertical  we arrive at Vinod's house where I decline any food, make my excuses and fall asleep on the roof as it is too hot to sleep downstairs. Now I just have to make it through the week.

Upwardly Mobile

After a week at RamJhula, we have decided to move location up the river, to the other bridge. We spent most of yesterday looking about for a new home, and found a doozy of a gaff, up on the hill, with a balcony encompassing a pretty awesome 110 degree view back down the river, and up towards LaxmanJhula. The owners right hand man, upon learning my name was Bill, has taken to calling me Clinton, which makes Timbo my Monica, a joke we laughed at and then felt the regulated amount of hetro repulsion at the idea of sharing a room and possibly a cigar tube after this innuendo. And all for 150 rupees a night! (1.74 quid, between two). We get to live like kings of the preverbial for just over half a pint of beer in the ship. I think I have officially fallen in love with India.

Captain Timbo is getting his Yoga on every day and got his head shaved. I tried Yoga, but was fairly rubbish at it, and I have found having a cup of tea and reading a book much more to my tastes. Old dog, new tricks, not likely.

During our mission to locate new premises yesterday, we ended up having a lengthy conversation with some woman (or rather Timbo did, I sat and avoided heavy disagreement with some of her opinions) in a rooftop resteraunt, who went on to advise on a method of meditation for Tim. After talking in a very relaxed tone for just over an hour, she became slightly pushy for him to take up studying said meditation with her, and just as I thought "I don't think you should do this", she snapped up and accosted a group of travellers on the other side of the gaff about how they had no right to say he shouldn't study with her, and various other derogatory comments regarding their tourist status. I didn't hear them say anything, as they were sat a fair distance away, and my first reaction was that she was a nutter. I am still to decide as to this, as apparently, and I find this quite unnerving, spiritual gurus can become rather perceptive at "reading" (for want of a better word) your thoughts.

When I divuldged my inner monologue to Tim after the encounter, we decided that one explination was that she could be fairly good at this, but fell down at the stage of identifying the source of the thought. I hope this is true, as if she heard any of my other thoughts such as "you really need to wash that top" and "where were you when they were handing out breasts", I should probably try to avoid her in future. However it could mean that I am capable of throwing my thoughts onto other people, like a mind ventriloquist, and in an area of the world where there are quite a few people capable of the almost Jedi Mind Trick of intercepting thoughts, this could be a lot of fun for me. I intend to hang out around some spiritual dudes and make them all paranoid by thinking about how hot their wives are, and how I'm going to steal all their shit when their backs are turned.

Other than the awesome possibility that I posess super mind powers, and have the opportunity to use them for entertainment (or read bad if you want), we are planning on a four day trek into the mountains, and have attempted to recruit a group of people we met back down the river. Mostly because it would be more fun with other people, and a little bit because it's about 1000 rupees per person if we do. We were also thinking about rafting, but we've yet to figure out what happens if you get lobbed from the boat. I'm fairly sure it's alright, but a little seed of doubt can soon grow into a forrest of terrifying reality when you're pacing down white water rapids with little idea as to what you're supposed to be doing.

Someone remind John he has to sing at my funeral if I don't make it (he knows what song). And no-one go looking at me naked if I die. Unless you're a hot girl. Even then, that's a bit wierd that you would want to, but I won't mind because I'd be dead. Ah sod it, everyone grab a camera and come round.

The (abridged for your pleasure) Story So Far

5:20 AM (London): I'm climbing into a cab to go to the airport. Having spent the last 3 hours either wasted or hung-over, nothing seems real, and it will be approximately 22 minutes before I realise three key things. I forgot my glasses, I have nothing but a t-shirt and shorts on and it's cold and I, as always, let my cowardice get the better of me and failed to say things to people I wanted to say before I left. I'm ready to leave.

6:00 AM (London): Sat in check-in, wondering why the fuck you can't get a cup of coffee this side of Heathrow airport, and debating if I can be arsed to rummage through my pack to find the anadin my brain keeps telling me I need. I'm already ready to go home.

8:50 AM (London): The plane leaves the ground and I open a present I was instructed to. I read it and want to smile, laugh, cry and die all in the same breath. I put The Shins on my player and go to sleep.

3:30 AM (Delhi): Airline meals are the worst hangover ingredients, and we manages to get what seems like the only seats that had faulty games consoles. We meet Mike again, a Canadian we met on the Dubai-Delhi connection and he introduces us to Eula who he went on to meet on the same plane. We share a cab, and in a few minutes we're pacing it across town with a cabbie who only stops to take some amphetamine at the traffic lights.

6:00 AM (Delhi): I'm stood, stunned, tired and generally twisted out of my own reality by the past 24 hours, ontop of the hotel looking at the city. The dream is begining to lift and the realisation that this has actually, finally begun peeks its head round the door and asks if it can come in for a quick chat and discuss this whole "six months" thing. I go to sleep.

10:15 PM (Delhi) Three Days Later: The train from Delhi to Haridwar pulls out of the station, and Timbo and I begin constructing a rather swanky table by stretching my travel towel across the top two births of the sleeper carridge, to start playing some cards. Two girls from the lower births get involved, and we spend the next 3 hours or so playing "The Big Two" before crashing out. I use my pack as a pillow and try to breathe through my mouth to avoid the smell from the toilets.

5:22 AM (Haridwar): We finally get off the train, and we lug our packs down to the centre of town where we negoitate an auto-rickshaw up to Rishikesh. The ride is awe-inspiring, at the risk of sounding clichè, despite the drivers best efforts to kill my ears with some god-awful music. Something about "disco style!". He drops us off ages short of where we agreed, and we hop on another rickshaw to get up to the bridge across the river.

6:15 AM (RIshikesh): Timbo and I are sat on the back of a large wheeled metal truck thing that some guy offered to wheel over the river to our hotel for 10rps each. Almost every local smiles and greets us as we pass by, a glaring contrast to the intensity of Delhi, and I can already tell I'm going to like it here. The dude rips us off by charging 15rps for both, but we don't mind as it was some hard work on his part. We check out the room, agree the price and dump our stuff. The world begins to stop spinning and I fall asleep wondering what the next few weeks will have in store.