Returning is as pleasurable as leaving.

Three weeks have passed. More than, in fact. And, oh, what a more-than-three-weeks they have been. We have done our fair share of sweating, bus riding, tea tasting, toilet sitting, photo taking, tout ignoring, curry consuming and rhino spotting. But admittedly less than our fair share of sleeping, washing, shaving and blog updating.

The love/hate relationship with India has deepened. Never was there a moment that we just sat down and concluded that what we were spectating was 'O.K'. Spectacular and rancid. Stunning and feral. Magical and repulsive. Wow and bleurgh. If anybody claims to have left India with only sunny memories of their experience, then they are UNTRUSTWORTHY, and probably insane. You can have your heart blindly set on finding your spiritual epicentral whotsit all you want, but even with your third eye closed, you can't help but see filthy things, be repulsed at hearing a fully grown man ram sticks down his throat to clear his stomach of a morning, or feel helpless after witnessing the scale of the heart wrenching poverty, or get livid when rammed 3 to a seat for 18 hours in 45 degrees driving past mountains of raaancid rubbish at 10 mph on dusty, carbon engulfed roads that are as flat as our lovable Jordans chest. Yes, yes, it is all part of the experience, and it couldn't be any other way. It is addictive. It is traveling at its best. But it's still, sometimes, bloody horrible.

And i really mean addictive. In the way gambling is addictive. You love it for the highs. And you can only have a huge high after a massive low. The lower the low, the higher the following high. It is worth the massive bumpy bus ride, and the sweaty back breaking hike just to find yourself on the back of an elephant as the sun rises, staring at one of the few wild rhinos left in the world. If you can call protected in a national park, wild. Which i dont think you can. But let's, just so we can feel a little better about ourselves. As it's scary how much space we humanoids are taking up. There's alot of people in India, to be sure. 1.2+ Billionish. 30 million in Mumbai alone, with some people saying an extra 20 million havent been counted as they are address-less. Every day nearly 19 million people travel on trains (thankyou India Rail for that stat). That appears to be a sickening amount of people. And it is shocking how over populated it feels. But it's 20ish times the population of England, and 25ish times the area of England. Meaning density per km sq in England is higher than that of India. Unbelievably enough. I have a theorem or 3 as to why this appears so though -

Theorem 1. Maybe it is the fact that here life is neat. Trim little gardens, neatly parked cars, buildings efficiently housing many a considerate person, quiet polite activities, well behaved queues, strict rubbish collecting, silent unassuming logistics, all encompassing super markets, all working hard to hide human acitivity. In india, there it is. In your face. Big piles of rubbish, beds and settlements on the street, hundreds of people waiting on the train stations for hours and hours to board a train you have to squeeeeeze on to, big fuel guzzling noisy horn beeping traffic, ear piercing distorted music, weddings by the side of the road, people buying stuff from the shops upon shops upon shops upon shops. -You see human life everywhere you look. Even riding through miles of paddy fields, there'll be a man taking a shit nonchalantly next to the busy train track as if there's no other place on the planet to go, or a happy fella selling whotnots by the side of the dirt track as if he has discovered a new business hot spot, or a group of guys joyfully washing their buffalo herd in one of the last remaining water holes of the summer. I guess there's no difference between that and happening across an intrepid rambler in the Yorkshire dales, or passing a lonesome Tractor being piloted by a beardy farmer in the depths of the West Country. But, in India, it just seems more real, more human.

Theorem 2. Roads, and rail tracks attract people in India. In England, when selecting a route, one generally chooses the big, zippy motor ways, which are hidden away as much as possible. This allows us to go fast and make lots of engine noises and smells without pissing anyone off. No body wants to live next to a main road. So when on a journey, you will pass fields and little else 'til you hit the city. But traveling through India, there are no choices in which roads to take. You take the road to somewhere. And that road brings possible business opportunities, cheap, easy deliveries from other towns and cheap, easy links to other towns. So all along that bumpy road there will be shops and eateries and houses and people and animals and biff baff bosh

Theorem 3. Perhaps the last Indian census missed out a fair few people.


Now 3 weeks isn't a long time to be away. But boy, by the end, did we miss the home comforts. This can be waved off by the more hard core travelers as just plain pathetic. But 'Mega Bus Syndrome' is REAL. It is the concept of how ever long the journey, the last chunk of it will be fraught with impatience and the desire to be where you are going, NOW. 18 hour train journeys. The first 15 hours are fine, but the last three seem to take longer than the previous 15. The 7 hour Newcastle London MegaBus Slog. First 5-6 hours, not a problem, but the last hour - aarrrrgghhhhh. The same with long trips. 5 month super trips. The first 4 months + go by in a mostly joyful blissful whistle, but the last couple of weeks are just painnnful. The first 2 and a half weeks of this trip was simply fantastic. Nothing really pissed us off, made us miss home. But the final days, i could not wait to be in my big fluffy bed, eating warburtons toast and marmalade whilst watching Bargain Hunt with a big jumper on in relative silence.

Feeling uncomfortable in an unfamiliar environment is an essential, wonderful part of anyones life education. It changes you, and the way you look at everybody and indeed everything. But to appreciate the effect it has on you, you have to come home. And that feeling of coming home, is unbeatable. Just make sure you dont forget what you felt whilst away. 'Who never knew the price of happiness will not be happy.' Wiffle Wiffle.

Night Night Chaps. Tomorrow will follow tea house and general Quilliam Brothers news, and the beginning of the long task of blogging the trip. With a focus on Tea. After all, Tea is why we are here, why we were there, and was only mentioned once in this installment.

P.S. Try saying 'blog' as if you're Harold Bishop in a tiz, it makes the use of the disgusting word a little less repulsive.