Morgalogue

With a heavy heart and dodgy stomach I write to you from Bangalore. Lidka reluctantly flew home on Saturday to start her new job after 10 beautiful days spent touring Kerela. After moping around the completely uninspiring city of Kochi feeling sorry for myself with food poisoning, I have decided to jump-start my survival insticts with a trip to a frightening megatropolis. Also not a bad place to pick up a new camera. I arrived this morning on the night train, a little short on sleep, so I may become incoherent soon. I haven’t seen much of the city since the sun came up, though it has already confused me. I spent over an hour trying to find a hotel that wasn’t full with the mass influx of visitors to the big Farming Expo - not quite the IT boomtown I was expecting. Some outskirts of the city are also under curfew after rioting yesterday. At 5am this morning I was slouched at a newsstand trying to make sense of the following headlines: 2 dead, 40 vehicles burned as riots blaze Bangalore. Jade Goody admits racist slur. “Oh god, what has the silly cow done ? Maybe I should take a taxi” were my initial thoughts, but after reading on, the stories were thankfully unrelated. (more…)

This was meant to be my christmas report, then an account of a workshop I ran in one of the villages, then a goodbye Sri Lanka post, It’s been a hectic few weeks. I’m now writing from Kerela, South India where we are having a well earned rest at Kovlam, a touristy but really pretty nice beach resort. My camera has been stolen (along with my diary by baggage handlers) so I’ll spare you the photos. Our last weekend in Sri Lanka was spent with our affectionate surrogate family. We joined them and the chronically unfit Sri Lankan masses on a pilgrimage to the top of Adams Peak (2200m) to watch the sunrise. (more…)