19 August 2011

Passage to India

You might remember how excited I am about my chickens.  Every day they give me joy and eggs.

Now, I have decided to go on an adventure.  I know what you're thinking.  Chickens and an adventure in the same year?  Bit hasty?  Not a bit of it, I need to have these experiences while I can still breathe.

Changing the subject for a moment, I am detecting a positive change in my writing style that I ascribe to using Twitter.  Because it is limited to 140 characters, I have had to learn to edit out any redundant words,  Words like "just", "after all", "seems", "might", "very well", "have had to", "out", "any".

I am going to India in November.  On my own.

The last time I did anything like this I was fourteen or fifteen and I would regularly hitch hike up to Scotland and stay in Youth Hostels or anywhere else that would have me.  I lived on porridge oats and what I could scrounge from better equipped travellers in the hostel kitchen.  My successful technique was to sit mournfully at their table slowly stirring my thin gruel and sighing in the direction of their delicious supper.  I have a feeling that this will not work in India and I will need a better plan.

Because of my love of tea, I decided to go to Darjeerling.  Fly to Kolkata and take the little steam train known as the Toy Train that goes up the mountains and has documentaries made about it.  Sounds great.

My son has a very good friend whose family live in India and he told him about my intentions.  Immediately, he emailed me to invite me to Kerala and offered me his family home to stay in.  I replied that Darjeerling was my chosen destination, but thanks anyway.

I've been like this as long as I can remember.  I decide to do something, say eating an apple.  It is pointed out to me that the only available apple is bruised and maggot infested but that succulent juicy pears are available in abundance.  I eat the apple.  Why?

So I have caught myself in time, thrown away the apple, grabbed the juicy pear and am off to Kerala, the most beautiful place in the whole world.

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