The London Sockexchange and other tales

God I'm bored. No amount of free (or more correctly "free") wifi-internet can make a more than 10 hour wait bearable. I am in the international terminal of Mumbai airport. I have been here for 4,5 hours. I will be here for another 5,75 hours. In 2,5 hours, I can start the check-in procedures. God I'm so bored. I've got a great book (Salman Rushdie's The moors last sigh, I'm addicted to the man), I've got internet, I've got paper and a pen, but it doesn't make a jot of difference. I am utterly bored out of my mind.

This morning I stood with my feet in the Arabian Sea, my hair in the wind, and my face in the morningsun, my bananatoastpineapplejuicecoffeebreakfast in my tummy. I could have stayed there like that forever. Alas (poor yorick?) it was not to be, which is why I am now sitting here in this not-so-very-comfortable seat at mumbai airport. India is magic. Belgium is just as magical, but in India, I don't have to work/study/clean/... I don't have to do anything. How brilliant is that? But sitting here - bored out of my tiny little mind- has made me think of some things (I am excluding people from the missed-belgian-things-list, if you read this, you may readilly subsume I miss you) I miss about Belgium: The Delhaize-supermarket. My underwear collection. Brown bread. Walking in the rain, and having a hot bath afterwards. My kitchen. Having normal conversations with men. My kitchen again. Cheese that tastes like cheese. My senseo... Reading this, you can more or less think what my day will look like tomorrow. I have heard it's quite stormy there in Belgium. I hope this doesn't cause too much delay. If everything goes according to plan, I should be in Brussels by 7:15 tomorrow morning.

I have kept a small diary of some indian-adventures. I will post you the best of them here during the next week or so. Like that the story doesn't end just yet. I really am having a hard time leaving this place (well, not exactly this particular spot, off course, but you know what I mean). I'll be fine though. I got some intensive messenger- mail- and sms-coaching, and I've already got 3 dinnerdates, some lunchdates, a promdate, a moviedate and several teadates this week. There goes my new-found relaxchillslow pace of life! But I love you all for it. Wish me patience in my boredom, and clear starry skies tonight...

Another day for me and me in paradise

This morning around ten o'clock my coffeemug containing a double espresso to kickstart my day told me two things: 'Simple life' (which made me feel rather hobbit-like) and 'Enjoy happiness'. Because one should never argue with coffee, I set out for another day of enjoying happiness. Enjoying happiness in Goa consists (for me) largely of riding around on the back of motorbikes with my hair in the breeze, sipping mojito's in the sun, reading Grimus by Salman Rushdie (which I bought for 50cts), eating huge (no really HUGE) shrimp, doing silly things like trading my watch for a hennatattoo (who wants to know the time anyway?), lounging in my hammock, buying junk for no money at all, and listening to the waves and the wind through the palmtrees at night.

I had a chance meeting with Leo, who also studied indology, and his brother and friend who were visiting him, yesterday. Great fun, beer, swims, cocktails, pizza and dinner was had by all. They're off exploring Hampi, but I am already too much into the mellow-goan-beach-vibe to face a 10 hour busjourney. I'll probably regret it later. Not now however. Oh no. Now I'm off to hunt myself some food. Tomorrow is my last day in paradise, and it is with severely mixed feelings I'll put down my golden spoon, and get up from the table. I miss you guys, but I could definitely eat some more of this rice-pudding... But my flight is reconfirmed, and my transport to the airport negotiated. I've got a taxi-flight-bus-transit-flight-train-tram-day starting monday at 11:30, and ending tuesday at 10:00 (aprox., make it 12:00 if I fall asleep on the train and wake up in Ostend or Knokke). If I find internet, I'll write you from the airport in Mumbai. If not, the next post is from... shudder...Belgium.

Teaser...

Just a short message to make you all jealous. Today I took a motorcycle to Anjuna to buy some suitable hippy beach-clothes. I promptly threw away my way-to-hot-anyway-long skirts and pants. I had my first feni (local coconut-derived vodka-ginnish substance). I just watched the sunset over Palolem, lying on the beach sipping coconutmilk. Now I'm off to get myself some Pasta Arrabiata, which costs exactly 1 euro. Afterward I am going to lie in my hammock, on the veranda of my bamboobeachhut and laze about, perhaps stargazing a bit. My shoulders are ever so slightly burned, because temperatures reach 30 degrees in the afternoon. Have fun in Belgium (and don't hate me too much)

Wink,
Empress

Lost count of the days… Orchha to Panjim

Well my fine friends, let me tell you, the Portuguese are not as silly as they look. I am typing this in my colonial-style bedroom, from my colonial style huge bed, opposite the table with the real rose in a Bombay sapphire bottle (not kidding), next to my fridge wherein one finds that strange and rare liquid gold: beer. But first things first. I left for Varanasi-station an hour before my train was due. This should’ve been more than enough, but something was brewing on the main street… My cyclerikshawala made it his sacred duty to get me to the station on time. So we bumped and skidded through the backstreets, colliding head-on with several cows on the way. Nearly running over a policeman, that would’ve wacked the rikshawala bigtime if I hadn’t been a western tourist. I think this was the first time someone actually deserved his tip. I got on my train just in time. Arriving in Jhansi in the early morning, I awaited dawn to go and find myself transport to Orchha. And what transport it was… A motoriksha with not one but two teenage drivers, and the biggest rikshasoundsystem ever seen. It actually had a subwoofer under the drivers seat. So at 7 in the morning, we were cruising along the Indian countryside with the latest bollywood hits thumping from the speakers. After a short, but well deserved crash in my palatial room, I set out to explore the 16-17^th century Bhundela ruins and palaces that dot the fields around the village for a day and a half. The entrancefee for the central palaces is a stunning 300Rs for one day. I am gonna be so out of money when I get home… And the thing is, the palaces are wonderful, but the outlying tombs and ruins, that are in fact free, and practically deserted and devoid of tourgroups, are ten times more scenic, As you will see when I succeed in uploading some pictures. Orchha is really just a village surrounded by fields, with irrigation channels, goats and flowers. It’s really nice and peaceful to just roam around a bit, especially in the morning. When I was little I wanted to work on a farm when I grew up. (After that, I wanted to be a vet. A few days ago I wanted to be Alexander Cunningham... Strange how these things change.) Except dashing through the countryside, getting dusty in search of semi-ruined temples, I also spent my time drinking freshly made pineapple-pomegranate juice, whenever I passed the main street. The juice-guy must have thought me some kind of junky. I think I went through 10 pineapples on two days.

And then there was yesterday. A day in which –get your maps of India out- I managed to get from Orchha to Jhansi to Delhi to Dabolim to Panjim in 14 hours. My train to Delhi was 90 minutes late, which made me quite nervous, since I had a flight to catch. So I said (don’t laugh), to the rikshawala (I don’t know what I was thinking), the following (I said don’t laugh): Please hurry (yes, can we get on with the story? Thank you). Now, these guys drive like madmen even when they’ve got nowhere in particular to go to. So saying something like that is, in retrospect, suicidal. I clung on for dear life while we drove up the wrong lane on the freeway, raced through a Tibetan bazaar, and slalomed through a military convoy. I got there in one piece, however, and wondrously, on time for a smooth checkin-security-sandwichcumicedtea-boarding flightprocess. As we were gaining height, I suddenly noticed something was missing. The riksha-deathride seems to have cured my fear of flying. It was dark by the time I caught a taxi to Panjim (state capital of Goa). Accommodation here is a pickle though, especially when arriving late at night, so I am stretching my budget a bit. Only for two nights. Unlike the rest of India, which was ruled by the stiff-upperlipped-greatbreakfasts-but-not-much-else-Brits, Goa was Portuguese until 1961. Walking through the city, you can definitely sense there’s something Mediterranean in the architecture and general way of life. And after North-India, it’s nice to finally see some women in the streets again. So that’s that for now. By tomorrow night I ought to get to Palolem, in the south of Goa, for some serious doing nothing at all, before getting back to Belgian Reality. Not that I don’t miss it (and you) just a little bit…