Although I use Dopplr to keep track of where I’m travelling to next, I thought I’d steal a leaf from Kottke’s book and record cities I’ve been to each year. Here’s 2009:

Adelaide *
Agra
Amritsar
Auckland *
Aurangabad
Brisbane *
Bundi
Canberra *
Christchurch *
Dandenong
Delhi
Hobart
Indore
Jaipur
Jalgaon
Launceston
Mandu
Melbourne *
Mumbai
Omkareshwar
Parramatta
Perth *
Queenstown
Sydney *
Udaipur

26 in total. One or more days were spent in each place. Those cities marked with an * were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days.

Posted in Travel on Friday January 1, 2010. Shoutouts.

The station in Jalgaon is small in comparison to the Victorian grandeur of Chattrapati Shivaji in Mumbai. Three sleepy platforms, attendants sprawled head to toe against the dusty outbuildings, as the pakora vendors heat oil for the first batch of the day. Even the flies seem slow and disinterested. The clipped voice of a woman, the same as can be heard in every station across the country, repeats departure announcements over and over, first in Hindi, then English, until they lose meaning and become tone poems celebrating destinations unknown.

2621 Chatabadi Express to Bhopal 8 hour fifteen minute departing.
8601 Darjeeling Mail to Varanasi 8 hour twenty minute departing.

I’m still teetering from my bout of food poisoning the day before, and I blink in the harsh glare of the morning sun. The temperature is pushing thirty and it’s barely gone eight. On the far side of the tracks, behind the hodgepodge of crumbling station buildings comes the scattered honking of the swarming rickshaws at the main entrance, mingled with the sounds of the market beyond.

With a rumble that drowns out the rickshaws, a train draws into view and, in a second, the vendors are up and moving with purpose. They sweep up baskets of snacks, piles of tiffins, pots and mugs and swing themselves aboard before it has pulled to a stop, to ply their wares of chips and chai, locks and trinkets as they yell their slogans at the top of their voices. “Chai-wallah chai, ah, garam chai, masala chai, chai, chai, ah, chai-wallah chai.” Pakoras are dunked in sizzling oil and the smell of deep fried batter mingles with the stench of cow shit and human sweat. This train has the same number as the one I’m to catch, and what appears to be the same destination hand painted in light-blue letters on the side. It is on the opposite platform.

I stand, swing my backpack up, and ponder whether I need to hoof it across the footbridge. “You’re going to Chittaurgarh, sir? Not that train, sir. This platform. Two trains cross. The same number but one goes up and the other down,” says a bespectacled man who has appeared at my elbow. After barely two weeks in the country, I have developed a healthy sense of scepticism in regard to any directions, instructions, guidance, help or support given to me by anyone.

The Italians have elevated the robbery of tourists into an art form as revered as the works of Puccini or Rossini: a beautiful theatre of spilled drinks, swapped tables and waiters in collusion with the pickpockets. Even the most opportunistic of South East Asian scammer will attempt to fleece you with a grin, “the temple is closed, mister” and striking a bargain in China is similar, a transaction, hard fought, where both parties will swear at each other, curse and bicker, and then smile and nod after the deal is done. It’s just business. It’s very different here, where an edge, a real sense of desperation, underlies everything.

“Thank you,” I say, and turn my back on him as I try and decipher the platform information on the crumpled scrap of paper that is my ticket. He is right. I sit back down. “What country you are from, sir?” asks the man, and this is always the second question. I tell him Australia, and he smiles broadly, “I have just been there, to Sydney.” I am surprised, and it must show on my face, because he rushes to explain, “my bank had a conference there. World-wide. They sent a few people from India. My bank was chosen.” I ask him how he found Sydney, “it is a beautiful city, but empty. I would walk at night and see empty streets, empty shops. I felt alone.”

We stand and watch the hive of activity across the platform. “In India, connectivity is no problem,” he says, and he’s right, there is usually a train running from whatever part of the country you are in to wherever you need to get to. It’s capacity that is the issue. For a country teeming with people, any infrastructure built around moving them from one point to another must have capacity and flexibility that would make most Western transport planners go weak at the knees. The trains are full, the buses are full, the share jeeps weave delicate patterns around the cows milling in the street, as those unlucky enough not to have a seat inside the car cling to the running boards, the doors, or anywhere a hand hold can be found.

But connectivity is not a problem, and right on time the train to Chittaurgarh grinds to a halt. I bid the banker goodbye and pull myself aboard. The cabin is full, the odd bunk here and there still folded up and out of reach, but most are occupied by families sitting cross-legged, children on their laps. The floor is covered with food scraps and rubbish, and a child with a tangle of stumps, rather than legs, pulls himself along the floor of the carriage, sweeping a filthy cleaning cloth ineffectually with one arm. The other is used to reach for handholds, and to pull himself forward. Passengers push him aside with their feet as they shove luggage onto racks, before bending down to continue their negotiation with drink vendors through the windows of the carriage. There is a shudder, the train lurches into motion, and the boy grabs at my ankle.

We clear the platform and, as the last of the vendors swing themselves back down off the train and begin the walk back to the shade of the station, I notice that the walls of huts facing the tracks have been covered in hand-painted advertising slogans. Sandwiched between a freshly painted Tata Indicom logo and a whitewashed advertisement for locally manufactured bicycles, is a faded blue and gold slogan for what appears to be an energy drink: 2Tough – Strength is life, weakness is death.

The boy is still holding my leg, and he cups a hand and places it on my knee. There are Taj shaped haystacks in the fields, and it is hot.

Posted in Travel on Monday December 7, 2009. Shoutouts.

It’s not just desert out there in the middle. When I drove from Perth to Canberra last year, I stuck the camera out the window for the first minute on the road each morning. This is the result:

Posted in Oz on Sunday October 25, 2009. Shoutouts.

korean girls locked in embrace
in a rooftop pool whose
steam drifts between adjoining buildings
coiling into the clouds
and me
jetlagged and broken
staring at the moon

Posted in Travel on Friday September 11, 2009. Shoutouts.

There is lightning on the horizon as we begin our approach, and each flash lights the tumultuous clouds from within as they roll toward the harbour. It’s been a jumpy ride so far, the propellers on the tiny Dash-8 they use on Canberra to Sydney runs whining as we jostle and bump our way through the pre-storm turbulence. I watch the lights of boats below and wonder whether they’re heading out into the storm, or returning home.

I notice three boats in a row, lights blinking in sequence: red, white, red, white. It’s very hard to get a sense of perspective in the dark and I can’t tell which of the boats is closest. Then there’s another flash of lightning and the red light I’m watching reveals itself to be the tail section of another plane, silhouetted for a second against the ocean. We bank to the right and drop down over the headland, and it’s staggering how quickly we close the distance. What was a beating red light against the blackness is now a plane in full form. I can make out windows against the fuselage, and the shapes of people behind them. We can’t be more than a few hundred metres apart.

My heart jumps involuntarily into my throat and I look around at the other passengers to judge their reaction. It’s impossible to know if this is normal, but I fly a lot, and I’ve never seen anything like it before. People seem calm, engrossed with blackberries, piles of documents, disposable container of crackers and cheese, and I think I’m the only one looking out the window. Behind me, a business suited couple continue their conversation about digital radio.

Another shudder of turbulence jumps us to the right, and we’re closer still, mirror planes in reflection as gear unlock and lower in flawless synchronisation. Our wing and theirs signalling each other: red, white, red, white. I watch their wheels smoke and spin as they touch the tarmac and a second later am pressed backward into my seat as ours do the same.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Sydney, where the local time is 9:32 pm. While we are on the ground, we do want you to remain completely safe, so please do not move around the cabin until we have come to a complete stop at the terminal gate. Please also be careful when opening the overhead lockers because, as we all know, shift happens.”

Posted in Travel on Sunday August 2, 2009. Shoutouts.

“Biju looked at him and had to avert his gaze as if from an obscenity. In its own way it was like a prostitute – it showed too much. The book in his hand had a cover of Krishna on the battlefield in lurid colours, the same ones used in movie posters. What was India to these people? How many lived in the fake versions of their countries, in fake versions of other people’s countries. Did their lives feel as unreal to them as his own did to him?”

- Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

I read this passage while perched on the stairs of the Ganesh guest house, listening to the incessant rhythmless drumming of the three French backpackers who’d sprawled across the roof. They’d rolled joints and over the next forty minutes their drumming echoes over the town, as it gets louder and less in time, and drowns out sounds of worship from the temple next door.

That morning, a sixty-plus American draped in loose, coarse fabric had stormed out of the hostel, calling the owner a “blasted fishwife” after being told they had no fresh milk. The guy who clears the tables rolls his eyes and tells another story from his twenty years spent in hostels across India.

He explains that inflation is changing travel for both domestic and international tourists, but that raising prices at any hostel results in torrents of abuse from the granola crowd. “They come at the same time every year. Work five months over there then fly via Dubai. Five, six month a time. That fellow,” and he nods to one of the tangled-headed men on the roof, “Every year. This year four month only. Bad year in France.”

Over the past three years he says the price of a room has increased by 100 rupees. That’s about $2.30 Australian. And they argue, and argue.

Like Biju, I don’t understand what version of this country people are buying into. Where this idea of India came from. They act with complete disrespect toward locals, flaunt local customs and display a general lack of humanity which is shrugged off with a simple, “nah man, these are my people. I feel them” and a gesture toward the tilaka smeared across their forehead by a passing Sadhu looking for change.

I think a lot of travellers would do well to stop consulting these meticulously constructed mental maps as to what country stands for, and actually open their eyes to the people they’re interacting with every day.

I read Inheritance until the buzzing of mosquitoes sent me scurrying under the net and into bed. The next day, I was awoken at dawn by monkeys throwing themselves from the trees onto the electric wires that ran over the balcony outside my room. I stumbled out of bed and climbed to the roof and recorded this. I think it’s beautiful:

Posted in Travel on Monday May 25, 2009. Shoutouts.

India Highlights is a set on Flickr with some of the photos I took whilst winding my way through a month in India.

Posted in Travel on Sunday May 17, 2009. Shoutouts.

Such a palace as men build for themselves in uneasy dreams – the work of goblins rather than of men.

- Rudyard Kipling

Posted in Travel on Tuesday May 5, 2009. Shoutouts.

The sun creeps behind the swooping edifice of the Sanyo solar ark and creates an office-block sized silhouette of a banana on nearby rice paddies. The bespectacled man beside me is reading a translation of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” and katakana speckled motivation charts line the pages, urging readers to be the ideas man (アイディアマン) and to innovate, effectively. Unfortunately, his comb-over is not as effective as his reading material and he has to reach up and brush away the wisps that catch in his glasses every time we swing around a bend. The rest of the train is filled with high-school children, half from what appears to be a well to do girl’s prep school, and the other from the local special-ed school.

After careful observation, I’ve decided that Japan is unique in its treatment of young adults with down syndrome, primarily because its method of keeping them occupied is to issue them with a train-pass, put them on the first passing train with an “atta-boy” and leave them to their own devices. I’ve talked before about the curtain of invisibility that surrounds those doing anything out of the ordinary but I always find it fascinating to watch. In this instance you have a ten year-old shrieking with delight as he swings up and down the carriage on the provided hand rails, feet never touching the ground.

In the corner three other children, also with down syndrome, stand and plot loudly. They take it in turns to walk to the other end of the carriage where a fourth kid sits rocking back and forth, touch his nose until he looks up, then slap him in the face as hard as they can. They do this for about 15 minutes before the seated kid gets up and starts walking up and down the carriage ogling the girls, who respect the curtain of invisibility and don’t even spare him a glance, even when he hovers centimetres from their chests, zipping and unzipping his pockets.

The train creaks to a halt at a tiny rural station as we wait for the limited express to pass us and all the kids pile out onto the platform. The intrepid trio of bullies form a circle and investigate a rubbish bin on the platform, whilst the girls adjust their socks, and flip open jewelled ketai to begin texting. My man with the comb-over has given up being effective, has fallen asleep against the window, and is dribbling on his book.

I still find it hard to believe that every time I get on a train in this country, the occupants turn as one and stare at me.

Posted in Japan on Tuesday March 24, 2009. Shoutouts.

Listening to early Prodigy reminds of Montenegro; concrete-block pool in a bay overlooking the Russian submarine base, and the copper-bitter taste of blood in my mouth as I coughed and watched the stains turn brown on my towel. The pool had a shark-alarm, currents, and after we got out and old man in a worn orange beanie cast a line into the centre and settled against the stands to wait for a bite. We roamed the beach side stalls searching for pirate CDs and booze, and when I finally made it to the doctor he told me it was bronchitis and filled my hands with medicines I didn’t understand.

I listened to music for a jilted generation on loop as we rattled toward then Yugoslavia, the laser guns, whoops and radio chatter in stark contrast to the pockmarked and shattered countryside outside the windows. The legoland hotel we were staying at a gleaming white edifice in a sea of grey, scarred concrete.

Hard to believe that’s more than ten years ago, now. A different world, and one I’m not entirely sad I’ve escaped from.

Posted in Travel on Tuesday March 3, 2009. Shoutouts.