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The Last Day: to the Sea
“Each day looks as beautiful as the roads that lead to the sea.”
“Beep... beepbeepbeepbeep... BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP.”
I know instantly where I am. It is a new day. India.
I feel fired with purpose. It is the last day. Though, of course,there is no such thing as a last day. To make an end is to make a beginning. The end – the source of the river – is where I start from. So, while the light fails on a winter’s afternoon in England, I have crossed the watershed in India and am walking down to the sea. Downhill for the first time in India.
The quiet road curves away into the tall trees. I fill my water bottles from streams trickling down the steep slopes. I stoop and sink my head into the cold, gurgling underwater world. It is a blissful escape.
I lengthen my stride, through the morning, through the fierce mid-day hours and on into the afternoon. I have left the trees and hills behind now. I am on the coastal plain. I have left almost everything behind. The final few hours are ferociously hot. Approaching the end now, I force myself to slow down, to rest awhile, eat some food and savour it all. I want to enjoy the end. For this time it really does feel like the end.
Ahead of me, the sky is huge and empty. A sea sky. I pass beneath a final row of palm trees and out onto the beach. I have nothing left in reserve. I take off my pack and walk slowly down the soft sand into the sea. Ending a journey at an ocean is very satisfying. It feels definite. I can go no further. The beach stretches away in both directions, white, straight and washed clean to the high tide line. The heat has gone from the sun, but it still shines brightly on the water. And I stare out to sea, beyond the wooden fishing pirogues, and out to the horizon. And I wonder what lies on the other side.
I feel absolutely drained and very content. It’s just the beach, the sea and me. There is no end of adventure hype, no World Record to validate or sponsors’ press release to issue. This is how I like it. I am alone except for one boy, aged about ten, with a red t-shirt and a crew cut. He comes and sits beside me on the sand. We have no common language so we just sit quietly. I like being able to share this moment with someone, even this silent little kid. The waves roll gently up the sand and the air smells of sea salt. This is a fine place to end a journey.
After some time the boy notices me watching the translucent crabs that scurry across the sand. He sets about trying to catch one for me. He darts after them, grabbing and missing, grabbing and missing. I watch and smile. The crabs bolt down holes as the waves slide in and out. He digs furiously at the wet sand.
Again and again he fails to catch a crab but we both enjoy sharing the futility of it. It is an endless task, an impossible task, but for that brief moment it is filled with purpose and pleasure. And that seems good enough for me.
The sun sets and the boy goes home. But I stay on the beach staring out to sea. The first stars begin to shine. The evening air is warm. So much has happened since I began chasing these journeys down the never-ending road. I haven’t done all that I want to. But it feels good to at least be on my way. These are the best days of my life. Out here I am free. I know what I am doing. I am good at it. I am happy. I am really living.
It is dark now. And tears are streaming down my face. It is time to go. I can’t keep escaping. I don’t want to keep escaping. But I know that I will never live the life of my choice in quite the same carefree way again. Opening the box never made Pandora happy. But at least she had the guts to open it. These are selfish tears, yes. But they are also tears of happiness. I have finished this journey. I’m a lucky man. For now it is time to go home. Time for real life. Time to really live. I’m going home to become a father.
~The End~
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Fehlende Folgen?
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The Last Day: to the Source
“I know that it might be better for you to come out from under your might-have-beens, into the winds of the world.”
“Beep... beepbeepbeepbeep... BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP.”
I know instantly where I am. It is a new day. India.
I feel fired with purpose. It is the last day.
I step over the sleeping night watchman and out of the dingy lodge. I start to walk. Really walk. I walk through the hilltop town past all the sweepers. I return the cheery greeting from the chai stall, its light bulb shining on the steam rising from hot drinks in this cold hilltop dawn. But today I decline their invitation. Today I have miles to go before I sleep. I want to walk 50 miles. To see if I can. To show that I can. Because I know I can.I have already zigzagged down all the hairpins to the valley floor and climbed back up the far side by the time the first rays of sun burst over the horizon.
“Here comes the sun,” I sing, for the last time, and I lengthen my stride right through the morning, through the fierce mid- day hours and on into the afternoon. I am so fit now, lean and hardened to these days on the road. And this is the last day, so I need keep nothing in reserve for tomorrow.
At the start of this walk, the people who lived along the river delta had no idea where their river had come from. Now, hundreds of miles later, high in these green hills, nobody knows where their river is busily rushing to. I have followed their river, my river, all the way, filling in the blanks. And now I am almost at the source.
Big, bright flowers bloom up the sides of the small houses. Forests sweep down the steep valley sides. I gaze at distant blue mountains and want to explore them all. It is a beautiful place.
I climb a sinuous rural road. The sky is darkening with storm clouds. They fill the sky like clods of earth. An angry headwind is brewing. I smell the storm first and then it hits me, its awesome power saturating me in seconds. People dash from the sudden rain under the eaves of buildings. They gesture urgently for me to join them.
“Come in!” they laugh, “We’ll give you shelter from the storm.”
But I am happy out here. I just wave and stride on. Clay-red streams rush down the road. I am as wet as it is possible to be. To thunder and sunshine I add wind and rain on my list of things that make me feel alive. The rain fizzes and bounces. I love it. Right, let’s move!
I leave the road and continue up a small track through long grass and wet bushes. Leeches writhe on my ankles. My legs stream with blood. I don’t care. They don’t hurt. I can’t feel them. And this is all about feeling.
Walking 50 miles in a day is an unimportant act. But it means a lot to me. It is one day that represents much of my adult life. Walking that far is stupid. It hurts. But it is not about the walk. That is only a metaphor for how I want to live. Years ago I began reading books about adventure and endurance. I devoured books of derring-do in far off lands. The books seemed so far beyond my own world that I read them purely as fun, fantasy books. But little by little, something sparked my curiosity. I began questioning myself, wondering whether some day I might be able to do anything like the things I was reading about.
Back then I could never have walked 50 miles in a day. No, that’s not right: when I began this life I would not have believed that I could walk 50 miles in a day. Little by little I have changed until now I believe that it is possible to succeed at almost any big idea. Not much is required except the boldness to begin and the perseverance and initiative to keep moving. I am slowly rising towards the challenge of making the most of my potential. I have already exceeded what I once imagined my limits to be.
So, this is who I am now. I just need to work out who I will become. I think nervously about what lies ahead, about my future. Can blasting 50 miles through a rainstorm really prepare me for real life? For the last fifteen years my answer would have been, “Definitely!”
But now that I am about to put it to the test, I am not so confident. Am I ready? The question does not really matter: my future is racing towards me regardless of whether I am ready or not.
And so I reach the hilltop temple. The start of the river, the end of my walk. My walk and my river are distilled to this one small pool that I have walked so far to reach. Red hibiscus flowers float in the holy well. A priest blesses pilgrims. I am surprised how happy and emotional I feel. It has been a difficult, fascinating adventure. It is no era-defining epic, but it feels satisfying nonetheless. The priest dips a silver chalice into the well and draws a small draught of spring water. He pours it over a pilgrim’s head and murmurs a prayer of gratitude to the river goddess. And so the water begins the journey I have just finished.
I give thanks to the river too, for guiding me through new experiences and for reminding me what I hold dear. I owe it to myself, whatever happens, to cling tight to those things. It is time to return to England. Life is going to be different this time.
Regardless of how my road unrolls in the future, this walk has reminded me what a life of adventure is really about. More than anything else, it is a state of mind. It is an attitude of curiosity, bold enthusiasm, ambition, effort and a rejection of mediocrity. I don’t need to walk across India for that. I can find it anywhere, if I am only willing to chase it. I have the choice.
~The End~
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Nightfall
“When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch... I don’t improve; in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable.”
This single day on the road is just an ordinary day from any journey like this. Today struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. Tomorrow and tomorrow I will do it all again. Except that I will not do it again. I will do it for the very first time. Because every day on the road is new.
The sun has set across India. How will my day on the road end?
I watch the sun set. The entire sunset. Back home I am often too obsessed with being busy-at-all-times to just sit and stare. I’m so tired that I can’t wait to sleep, even though it is early. I have turned feral, returning to the wild to live by the rhythms of the sun and the moon. I rig my mosquito net beneath the small tree. A gust of wind twitches the tree and my heart jumps. I have slept in hundreds of fields like this, so I am relaxed. But I am still alert for danger. I unroll my sleeping bag liner, plump up my rucksack to serve as a pillow and then lie down to sleep. I am cramped beneath the mosquito net. I am uncomfortable, sweaty and still hungry after my unappetizing pan of rice. But, after today, merely lying down in a field feels like a reward.
And what a reward! Above me are stars. More and more appear as my focus improves. The Milky Way too, and satellites and shooting stars. My wishes already came true. Far from streetlights and with neither my view nor my imagination enclosed by four walls and a roof, I am free to absorb the mind- blowing spectacle of the night sky. A moving, pulsing star that catches my eye turns out to be a firefly, flitting round above my head. You don’t get those in a posh hotel. Walk hot miles with a pack on your back and you will sleep well. Live your day well, with enthusiasm, dedication and curiosity. Do this, and you will sleep well, even if you are lying in a corner of a foreign field far from home. I am so content lying here, having earned my sleep, that I try to force myself to stay awake to savour it. But I closed my eyes and I slept.
*
Nightfall in a dusty town is different again. People are bustling in and out of the temples, meeting friends or buying vegetables for dinner. I find a place to stay beside the bus station. It is cheap, dirty and identical to last night’s. I dump my pack, swap the padlock on the door for my own and head out in search of food.I walk the busy evening streets, alone amongst the strolling families and couples. I see sweet stalls, piled high and gleaming, sticky beneath hot bulbs. Jewellers are hunched over intricate repairs on their outdoor stalls. I see pots and pans, dusty sacks of dry red chillies, children’s toys and snacks frying in broad cauldrons.
I see all this and know that the same story is playing out, right now, in tens of thousands of little towns all over India. I feel greedy for more. I want to see every town. I want to live every day in every town; every day that has ever been in every town. I want a satellite view from on high and a time machine to take me back and take me forward. And, at the same time, I want to burrow deep into every detail of right here, right now. I want everything. This is the intoxicating cocktail of wanderlust and the freedom to explore.
Take that man over there, the one staring blankly at me. He is sitting at a sewing machine outside a brightly lit shop, colourful with swathes of cloth. He has a moustache and is about 40 years old. That is all that I know about this man. A 40-year-old tailor perspiring in the hot Indian night. That is all you know about him too. But what stories he could tell us: stories unique in the history of mankind! Tales of a life growing up in India, a life so different to mine. His is just one out of a billion small stories here. But still, that is a one-in-a-billion story. Surely that’s a story worth hearing?
Butchers are packing away piles of unsold, plucked chickens from the tables they have been lying on all day, covered in flies and out in the sun. They will be put out for sale again tomorrow. They look revolting.
I enter a cheap-looking café. After such a hard day, I feel I have earned a delicious meal.
“What do you have to eat?” I ask, sitting down wearily. “Chicken.”
I arrive back at the lodge down the dark, rutted street. I hammer on the door. A single bulb outside the late night booze shop opposite is the only sign of life. The grumpy night watchman clears his throat and spits on the pavement as he lets me back in. The door to my room clicks closed behind me. I feel for the light switch. A pretty burst of blue sparks flash, the light flickers a few times then pings into life. Cockroaches speed to dark corners. The walls are covered with smears, stains and scuffs. I don’t care. It’s just the usual squalid, cheap room.
I am so tired. I undress. I pull off my trousers, the old nostalgic favourites, ripped on the right thigh and repaired with a bruise of purple cloth. I take off my shirt, the kind that looks smart in city offices. It is heavy with sweat and crusty with salt. I pull soggy, sweaty socks off my hot, aching feet.
I walk into the dirty bathroom. I look at my reflection in the small plastic mirror hanging from a nail. I pass my hand across the cropped stubble of my scalp. I look terrible. Almost broken. I grin. Almost.
Then, the day’s reward: I scoop a jugful of water from a bucket on the floor and pour it over my head.
Bliss.
You will have your reward, so long as all you want is a bucket of water.
I set up my mosquito net and climb into bed. Outside, the clamour of India continues. Another day on the road is over. I answered the call. I am so content lying here, having earned my sleep, that I try to force myself to stay awake to savour it. But I closed my eyes and I slept.
~The End~
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Freedom
“But the word timshel – “thou mayest” – that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open... Why, that makes a man great... He can choose his course and fight it through and win.”
How often do you wake in the morning with no idea where you will sleep that night? It is a hard way to live but sooner or later I miss it when I am not doing it. It is a declaration of independence. We hold these truths to be self-evident...
If you travel on foot then yours is the Earth, and everything that’s in it. You need very little money. And you can go anywhere. All you need is the time and the pluck. And fear not, my friend, the darkness is gentler than you think. If nobody has seen you tiptoe into a field or a wood, then you are absolutely safe from harm. The night is a vagabond’s ticket to sleep for free beneath the stars virtually wherever the fancy takes.
Many of my happiest nights have involved sleeping wild. A canopy of stars or a bright full moon, sleeping beside a campfire or swimming in a dark river: these experiences add to my life in a way that hotels or a sensible home can never match. Reduce my life to a small bag and my speed to walking speed and I feel as though I have everything I need in life.
The longest summer of my life was after I left school and needed to earn enough money to buy my freedom. So often in the world I have met people with fire in their bellies and questions on their lips who will never have the opportunity to see the world as I have. Raising the money for a plane ticket or getting a useful passport is out of the question. They will never be able to buy their freedom. But I could buy my freedom. I did so by trading minutes of my life for money in a mindless job. At last, I bought a plane ticket to Africa and the beginning of my life.
I stared, captivated out of the window for hours as the pick- up truck drove north from the airport towards the village that was to be my home for a year. The sky was enormous and blue. The land was flat and red and the black empty road ran straight towards the horizon. The air was hotter than I had ever known. A wild squeeze of incredulous excitement rose through me. I was in Africa. I really was in Africa! I was hooked.
Years have passed since that first adventure. I had no idea back then what lay in store for me down that long, straight road. But nor do I know today what lies in store for me down this long, straight road. Perhaps it is this unknown element and freedom of choice that is the key to the addiction that keeps me coming back for more.
Life on the road is a strange mix of paradoxes. I am free but I am a prisoner. I am a prisoner but I am free. I hate it and I love it. My days are routine and yet I cannot predict what may come along. I am free to turn left or right at the next fork in the road. It does not matter which I choose. Only that the choice may change the whole of my life. I appreciate how lucky I am to have that choice. It is certainly a privilege, a pressure and a responsibility.
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Sunset
“Better a thousand times that he should be a tramp, and mend pots and pans by the wayside, and sleep under trees, and see the dawn and the sunset every day above a new horizon.”
Today may finish in so many different ways. This is wearing and stressful over long periods but also enlivening. Today may end in the home of kind strangers, motivated by sympathy and curiosity to pluck me from the road saying, “come stay with us tonight. Rest. Eat. And tell us your tale.”
Day’s end may be far from people’s homes. The sun is setting. In towns, people will be streaming home from work. But out here, the road is empty. I am exhausted. It’s time to stop. The hills I slogged over are dark beneath a pink sky. Ducks fly quickly overhead. I refill my bottles from a small stream. I don’t have a tent, but the sky is clear and warm. I find a flat spot to sleep under a tree on the edge of a harvested field.
I light a small fire to cook rice. My dinner is just rice. It means I only have to carry rice and a little pan. And it appeals to the ascetic minimalism that is important to me on this journey. I settle back against the tree and eat my rice.
Or my day may end walking into a town to find somewhere to sleep after the punishment of the afternoon. Under a radiant pink sky, a cricket match is in progress on the stubble of a harvested field. The bicycles of the players and spectators stand propped by the road. The pitch is pounded earth, the bowling fast and venomous. The batsman swings a big slog and cracks the ball high into the sky. Everyone shouts “Caaaatch!” and the poor fielder drops it. I smile in sympathy as I walk by.
Arriving in the town, I sit by the river to watch the last of the sunset. What a day. I am exhausted. Just another day. I stare towards the sun, along my river flowing with a golden blaze of sunlight. Towards all that I will discover tomorrow on the road. And I realise that I did not come to India for anything as simple and lovely as this wonderful scene. I came here for other things. This is merely a bonus. I feel a surprisingly large sense of satisfaction. This is my lucky day.
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Struggle
“You can boast about anything if it’s all you have. Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast.”
It’s hard to get my head round the idea of a “struggle” whilst sitting in a comfy chair drinking tea and eating biscuits (and typing with o n e f i n g e r). But out there it makes sense.
I hate the gag reflex stench of road kill, the stickiness of sweat. I hate being stared at. I hate being asked the same questions a hundred times a day. But brutal days will end, as they always have and will continue to do. A different sunset, a different resting point, a different perspective. A little less road waits for me tomorrow. A little more road lies behind me. It’s just as it always was. And I have come far enough now to begin brewing the bittersweet, cathartic feeling that comes with completing a hard task. Pride, surprise and relief.
People keep advising me to take the bus or offering rides on their motorbikes. I decline one offer, saying that I have just 15 kilometres to walk before the next village.
“15 kilometres?” replies the motorcyclist. “Oh, but the pain! Your legs...” And his head wobbles in horror.
Indians have no notion of the all-or-nothing aspect to my walk. Take one lift and the whole thing is futile. Even on the rare occasions when people understand that I am walking across India they will still say, “But I will just drop you at the next town. It is too far and too hot for walking.”
I ask for directions. A man with a large moustache, hairy ears and thick glasses gives two options. I push him for clarification. “They are both exactly the same,” he reassures me, noticing my concern at his vagueness. “One is 25 kilometres, one is 40 kilometres. No big difference. No problem.” Experience has taught me that people have great difficulty giving directions to places they visit every day, if they only ever drive there.
Anyone scoffing at an extra 15 kilometres has clearly not done much walking. I take the shorter route. It would be silly masochism not to. But I walk it. Why don’t I take a bus? It would be silly masochism not to...
Is it as simplistic as seeking pain? Why drive when I could walk? For the struggle. So why walk when I could crawl? “Seek pain, pain, pain!” cried Rumi. What are the rules? Where are the arbitrary boundaries in this search for a difficult life? They move and shift like sandbars. I’m not sure they stand up to rational scrutiny. I suppose they are defined by what feels right at the time, to me and me alone.
I want it to be hard. I want to spend most of the time dearly wishing I was not here, battling in my mind against excuses to stop. I derive a grim satisfaction from it, like sucking a lemon if you are desperately thirsty. I enjoy sticking through things that most people would not or could not endure. “You’ve got it in the neck – stick it, stick it – you’ve got it in the neck,” repeated Captain Scott over and over on his way to the South Pole, a mantra for a struggle.
Some of the attraction is retrospective, the rose-tinted memories of completing something difficult. I look back at roads I’ve pushed myself down and I smile to myself. There was no applauding welcome at the end of those quiet roads, no tangible reward, no praise from others. The struggle reassures me I can still be hard. Or is “hard” the wrong word? Perhaps “daft”? But I would walk those roads even if I was not writing about them. It has to be for myself. It can only be for me, for we all have different thresholds of “difficult”. Epic for me might be easy for you. It is my trial and my satisfaction afterwards.
Why do I value all this? Is it only to enjoy stopping? Perhaps it is to prove myself (in both meanings of the word)? To set me apart and boost my prestige because you can’t do it, or won’t do it? Because if I can do it, so can you? Because if I can do this I can do much more?
It is an old story, this one of redemption through suffering. From the Bible to King Lear and Crime and Punishment to our generation’s contribution, I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. Pre-dating all that is the colourful world of Hindu myth and ritual.
I hear it before I see it. Gunshots and drumbeats! I turn to see yet another religious procession. But even by India’s high standards this one looks pretty mad. Dancing towards me are hundreds of men and women, draped with flowers and bearing large terracotta urns of burning wood on their heads. The fires light up the street. Sweat-wet drummers thrash out the rhythm for all to follow. A whirling, adolescent girl (a god, I am told) spins in a frenzy at the head of procession with crazed, unseeing eyes.
People urge me to join in. I am handed a blazing urn and I dance down the road. Hot embers rain down. The atmosphere is charged. After a few mad minutes, I hand over my jar of fire and step back into the crowd. People are more interested in me than the event itself, which does not feel right. At the rear of the procession is a lorry, moving slowly behind the dancers. An effigy hangs from a gantry on the front. With a shock, I realise that it is a man hanging there. Suddenly I see that the man is hanging from hooks skewered through the flesh of his back, pulled tight by his body weight. He is conscious but motionless. I look into his eyes for some sort of clue to how he is feeling. His face is completely expressionless and his eyes are like the windows of an empty home. At his feet other devotees have 12-foot metal spikes rammed through their cheeks. They walk gingerly, bullying themselves to keep going, step after step.
The men look drained, almost ghoulish in their pain. I try to imagine how they feel. The humid air pulsates with drumming and wild energy and the glow of fire reflects in all our eyes. I think about the searing pain as the cold metal broke their skin. The dull, nauseating ache throughout the long procession. How long will they bear these wounds?
Why are they doing this? To prove something to themselves, to their loved ones, to their god. Because they will feel proud of their devotion and commitment long after the night’s agony has subsided. No outsider can understand or share how these men feel, but that does not matter. Because, mad though their actions appear, this may be the greatest moment of their lives, a moment of lucidity and accomplishment far above anything they had ever imagined themselves capable of achieving. The moment that may define their life.
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Challenge
“You’re too young a man to be panning memories, Adam. You should be getting yourself some new ones, so that the mining will be richer when you come to age.”
Doing something fun is fun. There is plenty of space in life for it. But fun is not going to shape me. It won’t forge my direction in life or remain seared in my memory down all the years to come. The momentous moments in life are not merely fun. This is where the appeal of challenging myself comes in. It is what gives me my sense of identity.
A sceptical friend once described my masochism as “banging your head against a brick wall to enjoy stopping.” There is, I admit, truth in that. There is a warm glow of contentment when it is all over. But there is more to it. It is difficult to predict what challenges I will need to overcome during a day on the road. But I need to have the self-confidence to believe that I will be able to cope, or that I will muddle through. Or at least that I will be able to cope with the unpredictable consequences of not being able to cope with the unpredictable situation.
Each time I succeed at something I thought would be difficult I expand my boundaries and horizons a fraction. I am pleased to have succeeded. It fires my ambition. I want that feeling again. I set another challenge, daring myself to try things difficult and rewarding with my diminishing days and strength. It’s a vicious cycle familiar to all addicts: to get the buzz back you have to take a bit more, or take something stronger. My hope is that this is curable (the eternal delusion of the addict?) and that one day I will feel that I have done enough, that I have scratched the itch.
As well as striving for achievement and retrospectively relishing hard times, challenges help me to prove myself to myself. Overcoming something difficult is good for my self-confidence. I like fighting my weakness, laziness and nervousness in order to surprise myself and feel proud at what I have done. I store these experiences away in my memory to help me at some point in the future. Each one makes future challenges more attainable.
There is an element of using challenges to prove myself to other people too, either to win their praise, or as a metaphorical two-fingers to negative people. The “F***-You-Factor” is not the most noble of motives. But it is certainly effective. Thankfully, the older I become the less it features.
When thinking about which aspects of motivation to write about, I spoke to a fellow adventurer. An affable, humble man, he still confessed that earning bragging rights was an important part of why he did it all. The buzz of telling big yarns in the pub. To my surprise, for I am a secretly vain man, this aspect has never driven me. Perhaps I try to show off through my books (though I hope not). But I hate talking about what I do in pubs or at parties. I tell strangers I’m a teacher. I am proud that some of the most interesting things I have ever done remain unknown to virtually everyone else. There are no photographs of my journeys in my study. I don’t buy souvenirs. The memories are not terrifically important to me. It is the thought of what comes next that drives me, not sitting back trying to recapture the glory.
At university I developed two fascinations: travelling the world and taking on physical challenges. I joined the Territorial Army to earn money to fund my adventures. The TA taught me to move fast, travel light and live efficiently. I took the first steps towards an education in “hardness”. Being fit is easy, the saying goes. It’s being hard that is hard. I learned to be tough on myself and set high standards, discovering that the benefits would spill over into all facets of life.
Small incidents stand out to me now. They often did not seem special at the time in the torrent of experiences that rush past us every day. But one by one they set me down the road towards this hot, lonely one I am walking today. Which moment to choose... Perhaps this one: we were on a coach one Friday night, driving to some grim training base somewhere in Scotland. It was probably raining. There would have been Irn-Bru. The Regimental Sergeant Major, who terrified me, came down the bus to chat to a group of us. He was an impressive man, ex-Special Forces. He intimidated me, but I had huge respect for him.
He asked us about our plans after university. I had no idea. Everyone else spoke of joining the Army or jobs in the City. Sensible jobs. Ambitious careers. My turn came. My mouth opened. Mr Smart Arse.
“I’m going to be an adventurer.”
My pals burst out laughing at my daft audacity. The RSM looked at me. He was not laughing. He stared hard at me. I braved myself to hold his stare.
“That’s the best f****** answer I’ve heard all day.”
After university, most of my friends joined the Army. I jumped on my bike and cycled round the world instead. But there was sufficient appeal in the Army to draw me back when I returned home.
I found myself, one cold morning, running the torture of a “bleep test” with other hopefuls at Regent’s Park Barracks. I won. Last man standing. I beat a motley crew of strong men, far harder than me. How did I win? Doing eight hours of exercise a day for four years helped. But so too did four years of listening to my body, learning that pain would pass but the satisfaction of accomplishment would remain.
As we ran up and down I knew we were all hurting. All I had to do was refuse to stop. The theory is easy. The reality also becomes quite easy once it is habituated. Keep running until nobody else is willing to keep running. I’ll never be the fastest but I’ll never stop. Winner takes all. Who perseveres wins.
Unfortunately the Army messed up the date of my medical. I had to wait six months before I could continue, by which time life had moved on and the Army no longer fitted. So I never progressed much further than that bleep test. I suspect that the disappointment will always linger. Why? Because it was quantifiable. It was a chance to measure myself against set standards and other competent people. The problem with what my challenges, out there by myself, is that they are not quantifiable. Was I up to that course? I believe so. “Believe so” doesn’t count. I will never know.
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Afternoon
“I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I’ve lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment.”
Brown grass and scrubby bush have replaced the lush fields and palm trees. It reminds me of central Mozambique. I’m annoyed at myself for thinking that. Why can’t I just enjoy here as here? Too many places remind me of other places, other days on the road. My shadow marches along beside me. The way it mimics my every move irritates me. I’m grumpy. I prefer life when I have no shadow. It means there is no sun.
A hot wind is blowing. I’m struggling. I have stiff legs, bruised feet and I am tired. I’m making no progress at all. I’m a hamster on its stupid wheel. The damn road unrolls shimmering towards the horizon. How many roads must I walk down? I can feel the heat of the road through the soles of my shoes. Through my soul. My feet are on fire. I feel every pebble, every step. I stop, sit, remove my shoes. The soles have worn thin after hundreds of miles of pounding. I squeeze my feet, gently. I wince. They are badly bruised. I scour the roadside rubbish for something to pad them with. At last, here is a positive side to the litter strewn across India. I find a car’s inner tube, place my foot on the rubber and draw round it. I use my tiny penknife to cut an extra layer of inner sole. Every action is accompanied by a running commentary I do not understand from the inevitable gathering of people who crowd round me. My feet still hurt, but the new insole is an improvement.
A bridge spanning the river is not yet completed so people have to wade across to reach the other side. It’s odd how the mind works: my first thought, as I see all these lightly-dressed Indians crossing the warm river beneath fluffy clouds, is a memory of attempting to cross a frozen river in a Siberian winter, following similarly in locals’ footsteps. I was terrified of crashing through the ice into the death black water beneath. The kaleidoscope of strange mental link-ups is fascinating. But once I have negotiated my way across an unbridged river thousands of miles from home, the next time is understandably less of a surprise, less of an adventure. Perhaps I do not need to continually seek new places. Have I seen enough? Maybe there is a time to stop after all.
I shove my shoes into my rucksack and begin wading through the thigh-deep water. The current is gentle, the water warm and tiny shiny fish flash round my feet. There are a number of us crossing the river and we exchange smiles at how silly we all look.
The red dirt road on the other side heads slightly away from the river. The road is narrow and deserted. Farmers cajole oxen across tiny fields, dragging wooden ploughs. My trousers dry in minutes as I walk along. The silence is welcome. It wraps me in peace and I only want to curl up and fall asleep for all time. I know I need to eat. I am almost out of energy. I only manage about a mile before I have to lie down under a tree. I fall asleep until biting ants wake me. A stream of them run up my leg and into my pocket, eating my biscuits. The ants rush over my hands, biting, biting as I leap up and empty my pockets. I brush most of the ants off the biscuits – they are all the food I have left – and force myself to eat them. I know well the symptoms of heat exhaustion and I am being nailed by it now.
Even after all these miles on foot I still have a cyclist’s mentality that considers 10, 20 or 30 miles to be not very far. On foot, smashed by the sun and by hundreds of miles of walking, today’s final miles take many brutal hours.
I pass a wall on which is written, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” The gate is padlocked shut. I smile wryly and walk on, fuelled by obstinacy. I am light headed and nauseous, close to passing out. I suck the last of the unrefreshing, hot water in my bottles and stumble on towards the next well. I toss the metal bucket down into the dark well. It takes all my strength to haul it back up again. Green and stinking, the water is foul. The well has been contaminated by animal muck and rubbish. I take the water anyway and douse it with iodine.
The afternoon feels like an eternity. A motorbike stops and offers me a lift. I decline. Then another one does. I am so tempted. I consider cheating. Nobody would know. Just one small little ride. Just this once. Nobody would care. I think about doing the rest of the journey by public transport. It feels easy to justify...
This is it. This is the pivotal moment. In climbing speak it is the “crux”, the tiny section on which everything hinges. Get through this afternoon and I can get through anything. Capitulate now and it is all over. The rest of the journey would become irrelevant. Adventures like this depend on their “purity”, however artificial and contrived that is. It may mean no supplemental oxygen when climbing a mountain, no re-supplies of food in the polar regions. Here it means no lifts: I am walking across India and therefore I must walk every step of the way from one sea to the next. This moment will define the trip. Not only will it determine this trip, I suspect it will determine my future. Can I still do it? Or do I no longer care enough? Have I had enough? I wish I was at home.
I keep walking. The arguments continue to bounce round my head (“keep going, stop, keep going...”), but I am still moving. One foot in front of the other. Westwards towards the sunset, towards the end, towards home.
The land is empty now. The road angles steadily upwards. There are no houses, no farmland, not even any litter. Monkeys scamper around rocky outcrops as I start to climb the mountain. Even through my fog of self-pity, I appreciate that this is a wonderful place. Wonderful except that I am almost out of water and it seems unlikely I will find any for some time.
Mountains do not care how I fare on their slopes. They were around for millions of years before my petty quest began, and they’ll still be standing, beautiful yet uncaring, when my grandchildren’s grandchildren feel the same call to test themselves. I’m pitting my guts and my luck against them. I might win or I might lose, my face marred by dust and sweat.
But they won’t care either way. Perhaps that is part of the appeal of taking on challenges in wild landscapes. Do it for the doing, not for the praise of others. And don’t be put off trying something big by the fear of failure and the sneers of people who have not done anything.
I glimpse more hairpin bends winding above me. As my craving for water escalates, the wind in the trees sounds like water. It is all-consuming to be desperately thirsty. I am nothing but a metronome now, bullying myself to keep going, step after step, hairpin after hairpin. I hate this walk. I am angry with myself for being here, for attempting this stupid challenge. How many more times must I put myself through this? This is ridiculous. Pointless.
Ridiculous and pointless, perhaps, but I do not give up. I came here for a battle. I am going to grit my teeth and get through.
And, although I still feel terrible – as bad as I have ever felt – I feel a tiny speck of pride in persevering. As I push through these final terrible hours, the sun is imperceptibly softening and sinking. It is easing off the pressure and filling the world with golden light. I have passed the test. I have almost earned my reward.
-
Quest
“If one were properly to perform a difficult and subtle act, he should first inspect the end to be achieved and then, once he had accepted the end as desirable, he should forget it completely and concentrate solely on the means.”
When I am on a journey, I know exactly where I am and where I am going. It is a lucid break from the muddy waters of day- to-day life. I miss some parts of my normal life violently when I am away; my wife, comfortable familiarity, warm beds and cold beers. I often wonder whether it is worth it. But I also know that without adventure I find myself drifting. I don’t even treasure the things I miss when I am away. Another OK-but- not-great week. Another nice-but-not-memorable weekend. Not long until Christmas, to my next birthday, to my 40th, my 50th, retirement...
Time races on and I want to fill it with purpose. I want to keep the fire in my belly burning and to fall into bed each night satisfied that I have used my day well. This is why the feeling of being on a quest is an important aspect of my walk. Each day I am working hard towards an objective. That it is a relatively distant one can be demoralising, though it makes the eventual attainment more rewarding. A little time alone, afraid or forlorn is a worthwhile price to pay for feeling stronger, smarter and more alive.
Seeing it as a quest is perhaps grandiloquent. But the essence is the same whether it is a small journey like mine or the Odyssey. I’m taking a difficult journey and facing obstacles and doubt, in search of a goal. It ticks all the boxes of a quest.
The benchmarks for success and failure are clear. If I fail it will be my fault: because I am mentally or physically weak or because I am insufficiently brave. This will be painful but important to acknowledge in myself. Out here there can be no excuses, no sly shifting of blame. I have nobody to hide behind. There is no scaffolding of supporters propping me up. But I would rather attempt something difficult and glorious and then fail it than to merely trundle safely but tepidly onwards on life’s ordinary course. And, if I do succeed in the quest then that will be down to me as well. I will feel proud and more self- confident. Committing to something difficult is like stepping into a furnace, to blaze brightly and to emerge forged hard into someone distinct. It may not necessarily make me a better person, but it does sharpen my focus on who and what I am.
Before I ever really explored the world and stretched myself, I was pleasantly content. But each adventure seems only to stoke the virus of restlessness and agitate the demons. Perhaps then to taste the fruit was folly. Each trip may add to who I am, but it also fuels more ambition. It never takes long before I find myself reaching for my globe, hatching the next project. If there is one thing the quests have not yet provided it is an enduring feeling of completion.
Perhaps this time things will be different I think, as I walk on. Perhaps I will return home after this walk, after all this seeking and striving, satisfied at last.
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Pilgrimage
“We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go Always a little further: it may be
Beyond the last blue mountain barred with snow, Across that angry or that glimmering sea.”Pilgrimage makes prayers come true. Or, to an unbeliever like me, a pilgrimage is about commitment and hard work, about the time invested and the time to think. These are the steps necessary to make most prayers and wishes come true.
Walking is both slow and difficult so it makes for powerful thinking time. Slow is good. With slowness and effort comes anticipation and clarity. Rewards have to be earned; ideas can be mulled over. I can appreciate the motivation of the pilgrims to Mount Kailash who prostrate themselves with each stride.
Ablaze in golden robes, hundreds of jovial pilgrims are marching down the road to their holy site with flags and banners. I smile as I pass amongst them. It is chaotic and spellbinding. Lazier pilgrims ride pillion on motorbike, their outfits streaming splendidly behind them. To the right is my river. Wheat fields stretch to my left. Villagers have spread wheat across the road to be threshed by the wheels of passing traffic.
Penance; redemption through suffering; searching – there seems to be an element of secular pilgrimage to my wandering, though that is not intentional. My walk does feel almost monastic and ascetic at times. I share the road for an hour or two with the turbanned, vermillion pilgrims. Eventually our routes diverge. They turn from my path at a junction in a road. I am sorry to see them go. I look down their road as far as I can, then take the other, the road that parallels the river. I am alone once again on my own forty days and forty nights in the wild. I am eating simply, living slow and testing myself out in the world. I do not know where the road is going. It doesn’t matter. Wherever the river goes is the right way for me.
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Religion
“I have no bent towards gods. But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul.”
Religion is an integral part of India. Even my river is a goddess, revered at shrines along her course. Pilgrims come from all over to bathe in her sacred waters.
Every day I walk past temples, churches and mosques. I share the road with sadhus, wandering holy men. We walk side by side in amiable silence. I pass men dressed as gods (perhaps gods dressed as men too). Buses and cars are decorated with favoured deities, often the elephant-headed Ganesh. Roadside shrines depict lurid scenes from the Vedas.
I encounter so many festivals, ceremonies and wedding parades. There are celebrations of gods and goddesses and boisterous village trumpet bands practising for their celebrations of gods and goddesses. Flowers are scattered, garlands of marigolds draped round necks and girls tie fragrant white jasmine into their shining black hair. There is music, always music, with men thumping drums enthusiastically to the excited skirling of pipes.
Market stalls often cluster at the entrance to the village temple complex, the hub of community life. I pause to buy bananas. There is an enormous trench fire outside the temple, its pulsating heat stronger even than the sun. The air shimmers. Music blasts from crackling speakers. Suddenly about fifty singing and dancing children appear down the street. They are wet and muddy and are holding leafy branches in each hand. On the command of chaperoning adults, who pretend to beat them with sticks, the children stop, prostrate themselves, then stand again and continue dancing forward. They dance past me, into the temple, and are gone. The music stops. As so often happens I have no idea what I just saw. Nobody speaks enough English to be able to enlighten me. If I travel completely unprepared, I must accept that the price of surprised delight is occasional bemusement.
I stop at a mosque. The imam is rocking back and forth in the doorway, quietly reciting the Koran with three young pupils. He breaks off the class to chat and asks me to take his photo. Then, to my surprise, he whips out an iPhone and takes my photo. He enjoys having the modern gadget whilst the foreigner just has a clunky, old-fashioned camera. Even his beard is more impressive than mine. The imam gestures at the mosque and explains that it is very old,
“The mosque is 200 years old; three generations. My phone is 3G and my mosque is 3G!”
I happen across a Christian ashram and am invited to a service. The chapel is in a wood beside the river. It is plainly furnished. The congregation of about twenty people are squashed together on wooden benches. On the altar is a wooden cross and a bronze dish of fire. The priest sits cross-legged on the floor. His orange robes are vivid in the narrow strip of sunlight from the door, left ajar to allow a slight breeze.
I listen to the birds singing outside. The ashram is a good place for sedately, serenely looking for yourself whilst at peace. I am sun-fried, half asleep and half entranced as the chants, candle light, incense and gentle goodness wash over me. But I will be on my way shortly. I look for myself by hurtling, hurting and sweating.
I understand snatches of the service as the priest jumps around between languages. He intones words I recall from my childhood church visits,
“...through ignorance, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault...
He raises a chapatti scarred in baking with the sign of the cross. It is comforting and familiar, even if I dislike the dogma....hear our prayer...
I think of all the tiny chapels across the world where this ritual takes place. The world is so vast. Instead of chasing to touch it all, perhaps I should just try to find the essence of it in one place, like the tiny space at the heart of the lotus flower in which, they say, lies all the universe: the moons, the stars, everything.
...he broke bread and gave it to his disciples, saying: take, eat...
Maybe I should try to make the most of my life by remaining at the centre, where I am right now, and living well here. Perhaps I don’t need to be always yearning for the open road....for ever and ever, Amen.”
Though I am not allowed in the inner sanctuary, I am welcome to visit the small Hindu temples in each village. I leave my shoes at the temple entrance with a shrivelled old lady and enter. The only sound is the pad of my bare feet. The central courtyard, its flagstone floor cool in the shade, is an oasis of calm, a break from the noise and bustle outside. Inside the temple is an elephant. Worshippers put coins in its trunk. In response, the elephant pats them gently on the head, then drops the coin into its master’s hand.
Chipmunks race, tails up, around the elaborate pyramid above me. Monkeys watch from a wall. Swifts swirl across the sky, slipping the surly bonds of Earth. A man tosses a chunk of coconut towards a monkey. The monkey grabs it greedily and holds it tight to its chest. The man shyly offers me a piece too, then walks away. It tastes good.
A teenage girl, her hair in two neat plaits, with a garland of flowers round her neck and a school satchel on her back, pauses before a small carving of a god. Two candles flicker at its base. She puts down her satchel and squeezes her hands together in prayer. She is not at all self-conscious. The girl prays her concerns to her god, bends to pick up her satchel and then continues her walk to school.
A breath of breeze brings a scent of flowers. I treasure India’s endearing love of flowers. I love India. I love this journey. If I have a daughter one day, I will call her Jasmine, I decide. But no, these are my scented memories, my time. She must be free to choose her own life, her own flowers and memories.
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Noon
“And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.”
The sun is at its highest point. I am at my lowest. I walked and walked until now I just have to stop. My clothes are soaked with sweat. A prickly heat rash rages round my waist, across my shoulders, through my armpits and round my heels. It stings and it itches, but only when I think about it. The difficult task is to relax the mind when it is twisted and angry and summon up the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed. Succeed at that and the itching fades fast.
I’m tired. Ferocious heat. Thirsty. Force myself to drink warm, chemical-flavoured water. Eyelids so heavy. Want to lie down and sleep. Ten minutes, an hour. It doesn’t matter: there are more hours in this day than I can walk. At home, time is precious. Out here, I have cut everything unimportant so I have bought back time. I have as much of it as I need.
I’m irritable, impatient, out of love with India. Walking immerses me so deep that at times I feel I am drowning in it all, in the India described so well by Naipaul, “the broken roads and footpaths, the brown gasoline-and-kerosene haze adding an extra sting to the fierce sunlight, mixing with the street dust and coating the skin with grit and grime; the day-long cicada-like screech, rising and falling, of the horns of the world’s shabbiest buses and motorcars.”
I’m on the outskirts of a village. Pink bougainvillea flowers form tangled arches over people’s doorways. I peel off my clammy shirt, remove my shoes and socks and flop into the shade of a bus shelter. The floor is covered in litter, broken glass, tobacco spit and peanut shells. I don’t care. I sit cross- legged to keep the pressure off the soles of my feet. They feel as though they are on fire. Sweat pools in my Adam’s apple. Mid- day, middle of the journey, mid life crisis: hell, it’s been hard to get this far. Looking back, I feel I have done so little. So much remains to be done. Looking ahead down the road it is hard to convince myself to keep going, that things won’t always be this hard. But I cannot give in: I’m committed to the day now and this filthy bus shelter is no place to call The End. I can’t give in, but nor do I think I can make it to the end.
A very poor couple approach. I suspect they are homeless. Their movements are slow. They sit down next to me without speaking. They are sitting time away. The old man has a long beard and matted white hair. The lady is as fragile as a bird, old and hunched with empty eyes. Their clothes are faded. They chew paan6, a mild narcotic. Their few remaining teeth are stained red. They spit continuously, a stream of red saliva splashing at my feet. It’s too hot to care. I’m broken.
The old woman attempts to beg from me. It is the first time this has happened. She holds out her empty hand and gestures with her cloudy eyes. It is hard to see such poverty. But it is also alarmingly easy to ignore. What would happen if I gave her a hundred pounds? What impact would it have on this couple? It wouldn’t really be a big deal for me. I can earn another hundred quid sometime. But I don’t do it. I don’t even summon the energy to smile politely. I turn my eyes and look away.
In the distance an engine ticks over. I hear a sweeping broom and the rattle of a water pump. These small sounds accentuate the quietness. The three of us sit in silence. I wonder what they are thinking. The lady rubs her husband’s back, tenderly. She stands and walks slowly away down the road. A while later she returns, carrying a cup of chai given by a kinder soul than me. She hands it to her husband. And he takes the cup, and drinks. She sits back on her haunches. Not a word has been spoken. My life, my walk feels stupid.
I summon the resolve to continue and lift my bag back up onto my shoulders. The heat thumps me as I step out from the shade. I smile at the elderly couple. I’m light-headed, tired and weak. They smile back at me. I walk on.
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People
“I wonder how many people I’ve looked at all my life and never seen.”
The people I meet are a highlight of the journey. I meet good people, kind people, funny people, mad and sad and one or two bad people. But mostly it is a random selection of good people. Many invite me to their homes for chai, for food or to spend the night.
One day a stylish man stops his motorbike to chat for a few minutes. His hair is swept back, he has a big bushy beard and a smear of red paste on his forehead. He wears three gold rings and a chunky gold necklace. His pretty wife and daughter are perched on the back. They are sharing the headphones of an iPod Shuffle. He works in a bank. He hands me his business card.
“Come and drink tea when you reach my town!” he calls as the family hoot, wave and roar away.
I take up the invitation. The bank is the first air-conditioned building I have been into in India. I am aware of how dirty I am. I find my new friend at a computer, data-entering a pile of cheques. My shoes stink. He smiles in welcome, shakes my hand and slaps me on the shoulder.
“Let us drink tea.”
I want to ask some of the questions I’ve been unable to answer walking through areas where nobody spoke much English. About rural poverty and India’s rising power, about the caste system, inequality and water wars. But he is not interested in any of that. He only wants to know about England. It’s good to be reminded that my normal life, my normal home and normal country are as interesting as anywhere else when seen with fresh and open eyes. The barrage of questions is charmingly frank.“Are you having love marriages or arranged marriages? If your father does not like your girl will he ban you from his home? Are you circumcised? How many castes are there in England? Are you Christian? Are English villages like Indian villages? Do villages have water and electricity as well as the towns? Does it really rain everyday?”
I still have not seen an angry person. Indians seem to share the same mild characteristics as their revered cows. But one day I see an Indian cry. The sight jolts me. A middle-aged man, his spectacles askew, a friend’s arm round his shoulder, pushes through the market crowd. His eyes are shiny and numb with grief. Surrounded by the noise and rush of so many strangers it is easy to forget that each has an individual story.
Most of my memories of people are from the briefest of connections. Moments that flash through the gulfs between our lives and simply connect on a human level. A woman, about my age, is running down the road towards me. She is wearing a red and orange sari. It is rare to see Indians running, particularly women. I like the way her gold bracelets jangle and the self- conscious look on her face as she runs. I smile. She catches my smile, grins back at me, but keeps running. Two people on the same road at the same time. Our lives meet, but in opposite directions and then we pass out of each other’s life for ever.
[NOTE FROM AL: This is the lady on the front cover of the book.] -
Joy
“Every man has a retirement picture in which he does those things he never had time to do – makes the journeys, reads the neglected books he always pretended to have read.”
I like doing exciting, unusual things, particularly if they are thousands of miles from home and laced with an element of risk. The call to adventure is hard to ignore. And life is not all work. It’s not all Nietzsche and granola, penance and planning for retirement.
“I won’t have it,” declared Annie Dillard. “The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee.”
I want fun and joy and laughter in my life. Many people dream of travelling the world when they retire or win the lottery. My trip is inspired by similar motives to people who sign up for the retirement cruise of a lifetime. It is just a lot cheaper than a cruise. Walking across India cost £500, of which £300 was the plane ticket. I want good food and the warm glow of the sun on my face. I want to visit beautiful places, see shooting stars on warm evenings and forget about life for a while. These are the joyful times. The good times.
There is nothing complicated to this: travelling the world and living adventurously is a lot of fun. When people ask, “why do you do this?” there is no simpler or more honest answer.
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Landscape
“And then – the glory – so that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man’s importance in the world can be measured by the quality and number of his glories.”
Most adventures revolve around beautiful landscapes and impressive wildness. But not this trip. This project was about normal-ness. I was not seeking the Top Ten Tourist Views of India. I did not see the Taj Mahal. I was looking for ordinary India (what an oxymoron!). I didn’t want the tourist highlights because I didn’t want the hassle, expense, disappointment and tedium that accompany them. And I wanted to see things I had never seen before, not even in a photograph. I wanted to see what real India was like, in the same way that a visitor to Britain will learn little from taking a photograph of Big Ben.
At walking pace, there are always interesting landscapes. Being outside all day and often all night as well, I tune in to the rhythms of nature. I wake at dawn and sleep at nightfall. I know where and when the moon will rise. I notice if the wind changes direction or if clouds begin to build in the sky. There are places of beauty, such as the beach where I begin the journey. I walk along the hot white sand, followed by dark-skinned children with huge white eyes and smiles. Pulled up to the high tide line is a row of narrow wooden fishing boats, pirogues. It feels wonderfully far from London. Waves roll gently up the sand and the air smells of sea salt. It is a fine place to begin a journey. Unusually for me, I do not stare out at the ocean and want to cross it to see what is on the other side. All my thoughts are inland, along the route of the river I am about to follow.
I run my hands through the warm river water as it mingles with the sea. This is a pilgrimage site for Hindus. A father mutters prayers and dunks his shining, surprised-looking baby several times beneath the water. A dozen men sit cross-legged in prayer round a small fire. Each has a coconut, broken open as an offering, puja. I breathe in the sea air, look forward to the next time I smell it, and begin to walk.
Hundreds of miles later, after walking towards the sunset each day, I have left the hot plains behind. The riverbank is tangled with trees and boulders and the tiny road struggles to hug the river valley. It climbs high and drops down, twisting round the compass, through forested hills. Coffee estates are dotted on hilltops, the coffee planted in amongst the tall forests. Birds screech and cicadas click feverishly. They fall silent until I have passed. I love the aroma of fresh cardamom, the hum of beehives and the creeper-hung trees dripping with moisture. Not a bad landscape to walk through, I think happily. Not bad for a haphazardly chosen strip of India unheralded in the Sunday papers’ Best of India pullouts.
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Learning
“And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world.”
My life really got going the day I finished formal education. I began enjoying learning at about the same time, when I began wandering the world. Knowledge became gold dust. No longer was I learning stuff merely to regurgitate it in hot exam halls. I do appreciate the benefits of the little bits of paper I earned, but school on the road is different. Geography, culture, history, politics, religion: the way of the world begins to fit together. And the more I learn the more I learn how little I know.
Travel far from home and even mundane, ordinary events become out of the ordinary and fascinating. Knowledge and exciting fresh perspectives are thrown at me all the time. This doesn’t happen when life’s normal routine is ticking over. But I do have to caution myself to travel slowly. If I rush my journeys, one eye on the clock, eager only to tick off miles, countries or sights, then I’ll accumulate lists, but I won’t learn much. Truman Capote would dismiss it out of hand: “that’s not travelling, that’s moving.”
But backpackers and other holiday makers will learn at least as much about India as I will on my walk. And I hadn’t even particularly cared whether I did this walk in India or any other place on the planet. So I am not really doing this to learn specifically about India. What I want to learn from this experience, spending time amongst lives very different to mine, is about myself and the direction of my life. The slowness of a walk is a good chance to reflect on the past and contemplate the future, two things I never get round to doing at home. I am yet to find a better recipe for really learning about myself than a physically difficult, uncomfortable adventure thousands of miles from home.
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Food
“What does a man need, really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment.”
A boy asks me about English food. I find it hard to describe, particularly without mentioning the delicate subject of roast beef.
“Is it burger? Pizza?”
And because it is hot I just agree with him.Indian food is even harder to summarise. It is certainly very different to the Great British Indian Takeaway. It is rarely fluorescent orange. However, although there is undoubtedly a vast variety of food across the whole of India, in any one place, at any one time of the year, the poor people will eat a very limited repertoire. Most places serve the same one or two dishes. I eat them every day until a hundred miles or so later a new option emerges. The general theme, however, is always “curry”.
I eat curry for breakfast. I eat curry in the mid-day heat. I eat it three times every day. And I eat a lot of rice. I eat rice served on broad green banana leaves. I eat it in compartmentalised tin thali trays. I even pour water over it, mush it up with my hand and eat it that way. I eat idli (steamed rice cakes) and dosa (crispy rice pancakes) and rice served with various sauces (sambar) and curd. I eat in places where the rice keeps coming until you are full. I eat in places where I am presented with a banana and a smile at the end. The charm is that I never know what I will get next. Everything surprises and amuses me.
After eating curry every day for weeks I am sick of it. So one day, when I smell a different aroma, my taste buds explode. In greedy excitement I follow my nose to a stand where a boy is stirring a sizzling pan.
The smell of the spices is so different to what I am accustomed to.
Chilli, garlic, onions...
I am drooling and excited. It smells new and delicious. Excited, I call out to the cook,
“What region is this food from?”
“China.” -
Curiosity
“I’ve never been content to pass a stone without looking under it. And it is a black disappointment to me that I can never see the far side of the moon.”
Go somewhere new, try something different and life fizzes with questions. What will happen? How will my life change? How will I change my life?
No imagination has ever conjured up anything so unique, vivid and complex as any view on this planet. I am fascinated by what lies around the next corner. Like the lucky dip at a fairground, I was eager to delve into India, a country I had not been to, and rummage around in the sawdust with no idea what prizes I would pull out.
The Explorer, by Rudyard Kipling, tells of the lure of the unknown. The mountain ranges called to the explorer until he was drawn to find out what lay beyond them, even when people told him not to bother, that it was not possible. Curiosity took him “along the hostile mountains, where the hair-poised snowslide shivers” and through “the big fat marshes.” The hero, paradoxically, is content not to be a hero. He lets others take the plaudits and the spoils from his accomplishments. What then was his reward, if we assume rewards to be necessary? Primarily, it was a satiation of his curiosity. It never made him rich but the explorer ends his journey with a sense of satisfaction.
I am also drawn by the randomness and unpredictability of horizon chasing. I like having to respond to new situations. Out here I do not just have the opportunity for spontaneity; I am compelled into living spontaneously. I often fear this in anticipation, but love it in hindsight.
I know that these are the fun times, the mad times, the exciting times. Living by my wits. Trusting them to keep me alive. Standing on a hilltop and singing at the sky with no idea where I will sleep tonight but with enough chutzpah to be confident that it will all work out and enough positivity and humour to accept that the worst thing likely to happen is a long uncomfortable night. Morning will come. The sun will rise. And I will sleep extra well tomorrow because of tonight’s travails.
There is enough in this world for many lifetimes. But if the flavour of the ocean is contained in a droplet why can I not just be satisfied with all that is around me right now? Why am I constantly probing for something else? Is this the trait of an optimist or a pessimist? Am I always hoping for even better round the next corner? Am I just dissatisfied with the present, with my ‘now’? Or am I somewhere in between? In purgatory, searing away the bad, the weak and the superfluous in the hope that I’ll find a solution at last. The road rolls on and on. On towards the next horizon. It’s the most enticing page-turner I’ve ever known.And all I have to do is walk on to try to find out if the far-off jasmine flower really does smell sweeter.
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Morning
“And again there are mornings when ecstasy bubbles in the blood, and the stomach and chest are tight and electric with joy.”
The water in the emerald paddy fields glints as I walk. A confetti of butterflies flutters in the air. The roadside palms are painted in black and white checks. I enter a village with music blaring from speakers rigged on bamboo poles. I always like places that play music out loud (it’s quite common in parts of Eastern Europe, China and Latin America), even in the countries where it’s done with Orwellian undertones.
This feels like a happy town, a happy morning, except, I guess, for the goat who is about to be butchered on the roadside. I stop to watch. The knife is sharp and swift and one elegant slice ends the goat. How fragile, life! So very easy to die. So final. Is this a beautiful, musical morning to die? Or so beautiful and musical that the thought of death feels too sad to bear?
The goat is dead. It lies in the dust. There is very little blood. The butcher works swiftly, turning the animal into joints of meat. His customers wait patiently. I am fascinated by the neat and tidy compartments of organs inside the goat that had, until moments before, been working magically well.
Morning on the road is about the satisfaction of committing to action. Of being in motion and not yet demoralised or tired. The nerves have passed. It’s a positive time of day. Everything is still fresh. It is up to me to fill this day. I picture what I would be doing back home and what my friends might be doing right now. I’m glad to be out here (as opposed to later in the day when I’m longing for home and an easy life).
I am rarely without company. People always want to talk to me, to find out about this strange Englishman walking briefly through their lives. I walk from one identical conversation to the next. Why don’t you take a bus? Do you know Freddy Flintoff? Every day I see children playing cricket in the fields, the pitch scratched out on a patch of flat earth. They are always delighted if I stop to join their game.
“England against India!” I declare as the boys squabble over who will bowl at me first.
I am still cheerful and energetic enough to greet everyone I pass. I always say “good morning” to children in English, as I know they have learned at least this much in school. They might as well put it into practise for the first, and perhaps only, time in their life. A conversation usually follows that is identical across the non-English-speaking world.
Me: “Good morning.” Child: “Good morning.” Me: “How are you?” Child: “I am fine.”
Me: “I am fine too. Goodbye.”
Child: “Goodbye.”I walk on, followed by giggles and incredulous gasps.
I walk through a village where outside every home small piles of mangos are for sale. So many places in the world operate this way. One product per season. Harvest it, eat it, enjoy it, sell it. When it’s gone, it’s gone. Each town and region has their own speciality. These are places not yet homogenised (or diversified) by the efficient distribution networks we are accustomed to. At home I can eat strawberries all winter with no real feeling of appreciation or surprise. We have everything, all the time, which means also that we have nothing special. But here, now, walking into mango season, or mango region (I’m not sure which), I slurp with sticky satisfaction at this unexpected bonus to my day, munching mangos as I walk. I do not know how many villages I will walk through before I leave the mango behind. It’s an ephemeral pleasure and all the sweeter for that.
I pause at a water pump and wash my hands and face. I clank the long metal handle and dunk my head beneath the gushing burst of water. The day’s heat is beginning to build and I shiver at the delicious coldness of the water. The water runs down my face and neck, wetting my clothes. The sun will bake them dry again only too soon. I fill my broad-brimmed hat with water and up-end it on my head. I fill my bottles with enough water to get me to the next village and walk on.
Rooks caw and swirl above me. A funeral is taking place. The whole road from the home to the burial site, shaded beneath three gnarled trees, is strewn with yellow, orange and pink flowers.
“Funeral processions clatter
Down streets with drums and rose-petals, Dancing death into deafness.”The task now is simple: blast out as many miles as I can manage before it gets too hot. I am earning my lunch break. The river teases me, tempting me to swim. But a combination of crocodiles, pollution and my impatient obsession with ticking off miles dissuades me. I snatch occasional respite in scraps of shade. After a few more hours I am beginning to suffer.
The first negative thoughts creep in. I miss home. I feel a hint of annoyance that every vehicle or moped beeps at me, even on these rural lanes. That every time I pause a cluster gathers to stare and snigger and ask the same questions I’ve been asked a million times before. I ask why I’m putting myself through this, a question I’ve asked myself a million times before.
It feels like a taking up of the strain, a satisfying stiffening of the challenge, like cranking up the treadmill pace a notch or two. The exercise in masochistic suffering has begun.
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