India stinks, little would refute anything otherwise, however it's a case of extremes in a country of extremes. At the one end of the scale you have the hunger inducing wafts from the roadside food sellers and the smoke from incense sticks filling the streets, to the horrible concoction of rotting urine, poo, and rubbish. It's a pity the former doesn't prevail but this to me seems to be a result of a lack of pigs. As the Indian's don't eat pork the pigs in the country are only there to scoff the rubbish and human excrement. The problem seems to be that there simply aren't enough of them. If anyone would like to help India out in any way I'd suggest organising some sort mass pig breeding scheme.

It was sewage that for me spoilt the nice beachside town of Mamallapuram the scene of my last blog entry. This was the final call on the first leg of my India tour in the Dragoman truck. The beach was gorgeous but the sea (as is common right up the east coast of India) was full of turds and sharks - not the most enticing. I did brave the beach one morning for a jog but with constant dodging of crabs, and the lingering danger of hidden poos, it didn't prove to be overly enjoyable.

We stopped here for three nights which was a nice respite from the constant moving around. The hotel even had a pool I also got a cracking seafood platter one evening in the restaurant. Being a fan of big things by far the most interesting thing about this town was a massive boulder perched precariously on a rock face immediately behind the village. Apparently the Brits upon arrival in the town were particularly paranoid about the rock dislodging and rolling down through the town destroying everything in its path. Before building too much stuff they decided to try and shift the rock using 7 elephants but were unsuccessful (clearly 8 were needed).

After Mamallapuram we drove north to Chennai (Madras) - India's fourth biggest city. Chennai was rubbish and even the guidebook seemed to be struggling to suggest potential activities. The main thing to marvel at for me was the traffic which was unbelievable, and the colour the city's air made my bogies go (black). Short of any sights I went to the cinema with a couple of the others to see an Indian film. It was predictably atrocious, especially as it was a local film from south India and not one of the bigger budget Bollywood flicks. I spent the first half before the interval looking forward to a snack at the break, and the second half looking forward to dinner.

The one evening in Chennai was spent meeting the new members of the tour group that joined for the next leg up to Kathmandu in Nepal. It was a disappointing old injection but there were a few my age which was good. There's an old dutch couple that smoke a lot and have gravelly funny voices. There's a fat German called Till who's in his late 20's and uses the word 'amazing' far too much. Being German you expect something eccentric and Till delivers by never being seen not wearing an old red paramedics jacket complete with reflective stripes across the bottom and a load of badges he's sown on. Highly strange. A snobbish old English couple have also joined who I find utterly repulsive, especially after they have had a few drinks and there's a non descript Norwegian woman in her 40's. There's a young South African couple who are nice and an American guy traveling with them who seems ok. Finally there are 3 middle aged women from England.


Leaving Chennai in a much fuller truck we headed north and slightly inland to the town of Tirupati. It was a short drive from here that we visited the significant religious site (for Hindus) of Tirumala. This was a strange place who's centrepiece was an unspectacular temple that draws more pilgrims per year than Rome or Mecca. As you might suspect this does mean one or two people do visit and therefore the whole site is extremely organised, built up, and commercial. Not the usual crumbling old building on a hill you expect from a temple visit, more Blackpool for worshippers.

We left Tirupati without one of the tour leaders who had to travel back to Chennai to pick up a spare part for the truck that was being couriered there from the UK. This meant I was able to commandeer the passenger seat up front in the cab for the next few days and assume co-driver responsibilities like navigating (no spectacular errors made) and restaurant spotting (I was very good at this). While the front seat offered great views it was not the most relaxing as you see every oncoming vehicle and anticipate very pothole, I didn't get much sleep. It also came with hidden dangers. A couple of days back I was sitting minding my own business when suddenly a huge bat flew through my open window straight into my face. Rather than deflecting off before I knew it, it got stuck under the peak of my cap and was flapping in my face for a couple of seconds - not the most pleasant!

The following couple of days were spent driving through the least visit Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It's the least visited for a reason of course, there's absolutely nothing of any interest whatsoever. However it did allow me to observe the wildlife on the road. By on the road I mean literally on the road and often walking straight at the truck and only getting out the way at the last second. Indian roads seemed to be the exclusive preserve of cows, goats, buffalo, chickens, dogs, and the odd pig. I also saw not only my first, but also my second, live dead human (possible poor english there?). Not suprisingly a result of a road accident.

We managed our first night camping of the trip and experienced at first hand the trouble in finding suitable bushcamp sites in India (bushcamp meaning pull off the road and set up camp) before reaching the town of Jeypore in the tribal state of Orissa. Luckily our night there coincided with a huge festival that was going on in the town and it was interesting just to wander the main street and look at what was going on. Unluckily I sustained my first injury of the trip when I stubbed my toe badly on a rock whilst waving at a pretty Indian girl in the street. To add insult to the bloodied mess of a toe I found myself with she found the incident highly amusing.

From Jeypore we picked up a local Indian guide to take us in to the tribal region and chase after the tribal lot in order to gawp and take photos. We found a few and I managed to finally get a few pictures (they are extremely camera shy) and we also got out the tribal market alive after we cunningly went in the early morning and therefore before the guys got drunk and got spear happy. During this tribal tour we got some good camping under our belt which made a nice change from hotels. Luckily I was made responsible for only the menial manual tasks like peeling and lifting boxes when it came to cooking but did pick up a few good tips. Scrambled egg with thyme (good), tomatoes fried with sugar (good), and cucumbers smothered in salt and lime (very good).

The tribal tour ended with a big drive north up the coast to the town of Puri where we currently reside. Apart from a couple of temples there's not much here apart from numerous traveller restaurants and the standard turd filled beach. It looks as though I'm going to temporarily leave the tour group to catch an overnight train to Calcutta in a couple of days time, rather than travel there in the truck. This will give us more time in Calcutta and mean we can take in the Indian train experience.

Hopefully Calcutta will mean I can take in some cricket and make further progress on my moustache after I joined in with a couple of the other guys on a tache growing contest. Further work is indeed needed as I currently look like a cross between Gary Neville and Hitler (not a look worth persevering with).