india – Because You Can

Beyond Sunset

I’ve been living in South Goa for nearly four months now and yet again, I’m following my old routine of early morning walk on the beach, masala chai, yoga, breakfast then work.

I don’t emerge from my room (or wherever I’m working) until the hottest part of the day is over, which is after 3pm (and usually 4.30pm for me). I’ll then go somewhere on the bike or go for another beach walk before dinner. It’s very similar to my routine in the UK, minus the bike rides.

Two women in the house where I’m renting rooms were shocked to discover that my daily routine doesn’t include swimming in the sea or sunbathing, and it doesn’t even include sunset. They asked me why I come to Goa at all if I don’t do those things.

I am equally shocked that someone might think that Goa is ‘only’ those things. For me, sunrise is the best time of day here – cool enough to walk in layers, quiet on the beach, fishing activities to meditate on, eagles circling overhead, dolphins offshore, incense wafting down the sands, dogs stretching and then trotting over to say hello. At sunset, the beach is noisy and busy, it’s much hotter and humid, mosquitos are starting to come out and the fishermen are long gone. And let’s be honest, Indian sunsets outside monsoon aren’t as dazzling as some I’ve seen in the UK. The hour after sunset is when the magic happens – when the orange-pink glow blushes in the sky.

Despite attempts to force it to be a part of my routine, swimming just isn’t. The waves are hard to swim against here and I find the whole salty hair/sandy body thing a faff. I like doing it now and again when my hair needs washing, but that’s it. I much prefer being on the water in a boat than in it. I don’t like lying in direct sunlight, so sunbathing isn’t for me either – the sun I get is only during my walks or on the back of the Enfield. In a country where pale skin is prized, I’m happy to hang on to mine. I can’t help thinking that a tan is basically just skin damage that fades within weeks, so no, I don’t do that either.

So what do I do in the paradise beach location? Why do I come to South Goa if I am avoiding its so-called main pleasures? Because it’s so much more than that. It’s winding roads through forested ghats, green rice fields bordered with bright saris tied to bamboo poles, villages where puja creates smoky light in the late afternoon, monkeys playing in tamarind trees, blue chai carts next to bridges, temples filled with laughing women, hilltop views over hills and down to the sea, children shouting and waving as they walk home from school. I’d trade a day of this for ‘sun-worshipping’ every day of my existence.

A Beach of One’s Own

I’ve just had my very first chat with a woman I see every morning and evening, walking on the beach. We’ve passed each other for two or three months now, nodding and smiling and silently acknowledging the need for our alone time. It turns out we’re both Piscean introverts, so that explains a lot.

Her husband is here, she said, but he can’t stop talking. She remarked on two women we’ve both seen walking up and down, who can’t stop talking either. It was so nice to have a brief chat with someone who feels the same about non-stop talking – I actually find it stressful even to hear it (worse if it’s on the phone) and if people are walking behind me doing it, I stop to let them pass so I can’t hear them.

While I’ve been here, I’ve had around six attempts by people to join me on my morning walks, all of which I’ve declined, saying I want to walk alone. Mostly people take it well, but I can see a few, “Well, that’s rude” expressions. It’s just a boundary I have and I have no problem stating it.

The same goes for my trips to different places in India. The minute I say I’m going anywhere alone I get the incredulous, “On your own?” response and then later, “I’m thinking of going to the same place!” I then have to find a way of extracting myself from their plan of joining me. I know they think I’d love some company but solo travel is a joy to me. Ironically I meet more people when I’m on my own, but the difference is I’m not attached to them for the whole trip. (This scenario has literally just happened to me on the beach when I mentioned my forthcoming trip to Nepal – “I will get the same flight!”.)

On International Women’s Day, I want to celebrate the right of all women to travel solo without fixed companionship. I want to celebrate the right of introverts to not speak, and to not need a wingperson. I want to celebrate the right of Pisceans to walk by water every day because they need it to survive.

A beach of one’s own.

A note to my newsletter subscribers: I have closed my Revue newsletter and added your details to the subscription to my blog. All my news will be posted here from now on. If you wish to unsubscribe you can do so on WordPress.

The Great Railway Bazaar

Full disclosure: I stole my title from one of my favourite travel books by Paul Theroux. I thought of him when I boarded the 7am Vasco-Shalimar Express at Margao (Madgaon) to Hosapete Junction, from where I’d be taking a tuk-tuk to World Heritage site, Hampi.

I’ve ridden Indian trains before in Rajasthan, but never a sleeper like this one, that travels a total of 2,000 km across India. (I forgave it for being an hour late on the way there and three hours late on the way back). I always book 2A class (second-class, air-conditioned) which is a decent standard class on any Indian train. The journey each way cost me around £8. People always tell horror stories about Indian trains but I haven’t seen any of it because I book this class. I was nervous about the loo situation but it turned out to be close to my berth and relatively clean, with handsoap next to the sink! It was a squat toilet but it didn’t open onto the tracks as people had warned me – they’ve fitted new ‘bio’ ones.

The real theatre of Indian railways begins almost as soon as you board (before, even) as the mad scramble for seats takes place and everyone sizes up their neighbours. I was ‘of interest’ to the family opposite me who did their best to work out where I stood in the social order. Where was my family, my husband? Was I travelling alone? (shock) Why wasn’t I ordering lunch? (greater shock).

My head is still ringing with the sound of ‘chai-eee, chai-eee’ as the seller goes back and forth, pouring hot chai into tiny cups for 10p each. The same with ‘samosa, samosayyy’ which is also living rent-free in my head. Because they’re so busy and so long, everything comes to you on Indian trains. No walking to a buffet car – someone takes your order for lunch and it gets delivered onto the train at the next big station (Londa, in our case). Water, chai, samosas, batata vada (spicy potato patty) – everything you need comes past at some point.

Every seat has a charging point so I worked for part of each journey on my laptop. Cue more questions from people around me.

The most amazing element of these journeys for me was the seating arrangement. Both times, my sleeping berth was on the lower of the two tiers. I want to lie down for the whole journey and watch India go by out of the window, but if the person above me wants to sit down, then I have to give that up and let him (or her) sit next to me. I kept thinking about how this would never work in the UK. Can you imagine two strangers coming to an agreement on sleeping and sitting?

The journey back, even though three hours late in the end, culminated in a reminder of the boundless joy of Indian families as we passed the spectacular Dudhsagar Falls near the end. The whole family opposite me squished into my berth to get a view, then asked for a pic with me afterwards.

One thing’s for sure, it’s hard to be an introvert when you’re on an Indian train.

Good vibes only

Yesterday I took a roadtrip to Murdeshwara temple with Shubham and his friends’ family. It gave me time to observe lots of people at a major Hindu pilgrimage site, busy with Republic weekend holidaymakers. There is a beach at Murdeshwar, where people wade into the water to cool off after visiting the huge silver Shiva statue and temple.

The joy in our group was evident enough but seeing the crowds at Murdeshwar made me realise that this is the key difference between my culture and Indian culture: the willingness to experience and express joy, from splashing around in the water in a gorgeous silk sari, to taking a refreshing fresh lime soda or clicking a selfie in front of a golden statue of Nandi the bull. It’s something I’m used to seeing on the faces of children at the beach or at a funfair, but here it’s on the faces of so many people of every generation. The joy of being with loved ones, the joy of being at a beloved temple, the joy of buying everyone an ice cream, the joy of faith in a philosophy that maintains that our essential state actually IS joy.

I see it in Shubham (pictures) all the time – he is always telling me to just ‘enjoy the vibes’ whenever I’m worried or fearful about something. He is playful and happy (mostly). This is why I think Westerners are drawn to this incredible place – unbridled joy is unfettered, socially condoned and not sneered at.

We think we can only find joy in a glass (or six) of alcohol but the only unhappy Indians I’ve met or heard about are the ones that drink a lot.

Ever since I came here I’ve been seeing the joy in the small things – Coco the cat that comes to visit my room and nibble my toes, the chai with Sweetpea at my feet in Simrose, the sound of the poder (bread boy) at 6.30am as he blows his horn, saying ‘good morning’ to all my neighbours as they sweep their section of the road, throwing water over it to keep the dust down.

The Six Enemies of Peace

Sometimes I learn something that blows my mind and I just have to share it. I am learning such a lot from the Sthira Yoga School course on Emotional Empowerment with Sudhir Rishi.

The ancient Indian text, the Bhagavad Gita, is our guide and today I learned about ‘The Six Enemies’ of peace – the six things that rob us of our inner joy. Here they are in Sanskrit:

Kaama – an intense craving for something. “I want it at any cost.”
Krodha – anger. “I can’t have it because something is stopping me!”
Lobha – greed. “I’ve got it but now I need more.”
Moha – delusion born out of attachment. “I refuse to acknowledge that this thing is bad for me.”
Mada – arrogance. “I’ve got lots of this thing and I’m better than you because of it.”
Matsarya – jealousy. “You’ve got the thing I want and it’s eating me up inside.”

I can apply some of this to my drinking past, especially the first four. I know I’d get annoyed if friends wanted to leave the pub early and I was in a state of denial about how bad alcohol was for me.

When I first heard my teacher say the names and meanings of the Six Enemies, I cried. Because I’ve felt like the moment I pressed ‘publish’ on my book in August last year, my peace of mind was robbed and I’ve been using those words ever since. Many of the elements of this checklist have been responsible, both in myself and other people. I’ve only just regained my inner peace and I’m back on the yoga mat after months of not being able to face it.

The only ‘sin’ (there isn’t an exact translation for that word in Sanskrit) in Indian philosophy is hurting others, including yourself. That is the root of all suffering, along with ignorance of the true nature of the self: which is uninterrupted, unconditional joy.

Maybe this is something someone needs to hear this Easter weekend so I’m putting it out there.

Be kind to yourselves as well as others.

🙏🏻

The Plan

Last week I went for my one and only Christmas meal out with a group of friends and they were asking me about my relationship with Shubham, The Most Handsome Man in Goa, who is currently on a ship sailing around Madeira and the Canary Islands.

“So, what’s the plan?” one of the ladies asked. I scrambled around for an answer, remembering that my original plan was six months in Goa and six months here. Then Covid got in the way.

The following day I thought about that conversation and remembered something else: I do not like plans. I don’t even like the word ‘plan’. When someone tells me they ‘have plans’ for the weekend I baulk internally. The word triggers something in me.

You can listen to me reading this blog post here

I have realised that I have weathered the Covid storm (which continues to rage) principally because I have no plans to scupper. I haven’t booked anything that could have been scuppered, only recently having bought flights to India when the pre-omicron world appeared to be opening up. Those have been cancelled and I’ve got a refund. I will not rebook until I know I can definitely go.

People say to me, “Oh you must be DEVASTATED not to be going to India or seeing your man,” and for a while I think, “Why aren’t I?” But he’s the same as me – of course we miss each other, but our love doesn’t diminish because we’re not in each other’s presence. One could say it gets keener because we continually tell each other stories in our videocalls – how we met, how we split up and got back together, and what will happen when we see each other again. The latter is never a defined plan – we both have a ‘what will be will be’ approach to it. Anything else is just stressful and pointless. We can’t control it, so why attempt it?

I’ve realised that this plan-less existence serves me very well as a freelancer. Yes, I have a set of things that I must work on week to week, but I decide which ones get done when on the day, depending on how I feel. I often work from 11am to 7pm (or even 12pm to 8pm) because that’s when I feel most motivated and creative and I can make the most of the hours of winter light. I never like the fixed-hours culture of corporate life and made mine as late as they could be, avoiding those ‘first-thing’ morning-stealer meetings as much as I could.

I’ve never enjoyed planning too much of my time ahead and love to leave weekends open to chance and spontaneity. I like to book a cinema ticket on the spur of the moment or get up and go on a hike. Mid-hike, I’ll change the plan because of how I feel in the moment. I go with my gut.

I’ve found that the more I plan in to my life, the more open it is to change, and the more open all of it is to commentary from other people. I prefer to keep my ideas fluid and silent like an underground stream. I don’t want to have to explain why I’ve changed my mind about something so I don’t mention it in the first place. As a chronic sharer of things, this new strategy has taken some doing.

So my answer to “What’s the plan?” with me and my boyfriend is, “Why do you think we need one?” Why does every aspect of life need a plan? If this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we’re mice when it comes to best-laid plans.

I plan to let life unfold just the way it’s meant to be.

Sober curious? Preview and pre-order my new guide on how to live without alcohol – only £1.99 – below:

Many Rivers to Cross

I’ve got this mantra in life. It’s about always sharing information if I think it’s going to help people. In more recent years I discovered that not everyone does this.

I have walked into toxic work environments that have been known to others and they haven’t said anything, choosing to let me find out for myself. I have also walked up mountains at altitude not knowing that my phone will immediately lose all its charge in the cold (keep it in your sleeping bag overnight) or that my period could start at a certain height, even if it’s not due. These are all items of information I now share with people, because I want them to have the benefit of that knowledge.

I mean, why wouldn’t you? In many ways, it’s the whole point of this blog. I want people to know about some of the things I’ve learned so that they can avoid the same pitfalls if they can, such as the hugely damaging effects of drinking, working in a toxic environment or of marrying the wrong man.

I recently thought about this mantra again when I was walking the Cumbria Way with The Man Who Hiked the World for his latest journalistic endeavour. For one thing, no one had ever told me that there even was a Cumbria Way – even though I’m from the north west, I only knew the Lake District through its sets of mountains and lakes. I didn’t know there was a trail linking them all together. Until now. And TMWHTW is going to tell the world about it in his next article.

One of the best stretches of this 70+-mile path is the section taking you through Stake Pass, in the Langdale/Borrowdale area. What we didn’t know, as we left the wonderfully cosy and comfortable Langstrath Inn, was that we’d be walking through a series of streams and rivers all along the way. Recent heavy rainfall had made small tributaries gush into the main river and we would both become adept at hopping across stones and boggy land to reach our destination.

That morning, an elderly hiker stopped us to say that he’d encountered ‘a huge amount of falling water’ that would likely obstruct our onward journey. He’d had to turn back, and he looked seasoned in the hazards of walking in the Lake District. He did say that there was a broken fence sitting across the water that we could perhaps hold on to as we crossed. “If we were feeling agile,” he said.

We’ve often been told about upcoming hazards on hikes, only to find them easily surmountable. This time, we found a family of three staring at the falling water, wondering how they were going to get through it. Completely out of character for me, I found it easy. I saw the fence the old hiker had talked about, I saw a series of stones I could step across, and I went for it without thinking too much about it. I was over in seconds.

A stream just outside Keswick in the shadow of Skiddaw

Later on, in the ensuing days, my journey across bogs and streams wasn’t as surefooted. I found that if I spent too much time thinking about the crossing, I was more likely to stumble. When I just walked up to it and made the leap I was fine. More often than not, we employed teamwork – TMWHTW would go across first, and then extend a supporting hand to me. I know that first journey across the river was made easier by the information handed on to me by the old man.

TMWHTW tried to pass on the information about the water hazard to another hiker going the other way. “We’ve already seen it,” he said gruffly, clearly not enjoying being told about it. It made me realise that not everyone wants key information to be shared – they do want to encounter challenges for themselves. I think it’s a bit like my aversion to ‘looking for recommendations’ when I’m visiting a place. I don’t want to be told to repeat someone else’s experience, I want to tackle and discover it myself. I get it. Still, I was very thankful to that elderly hiker that day.

The same theme of sharing information came up in a more amusing way when we started our two-night stay in Keswick at the amazing Sunnyside B&B. At breakfast on our rest day, I noticed a tiny pair of scissors nestled perfectly in the centre of a pot containing sachets of sauces. “They’ve literally thought of everything!” I exclaimed, in awe of their attention to detail. Later the landlady said it had come about when she spotted that a customer had brought her own tiny pair of scissors for this very purpose. She could never open the damn packets. “Why didn’t she tell me??” the landlady demanded. “I know…” I said. We are both people who tell everyone everything, clearly.

We barely saw anyone during our time on the less-popular stretches of the Cumbria Way, but we did spend a day with Harrison Ward, aka Fell Foodie, who cooked us a Moroccan Chickpea Stew on a Wainwright – Castle Crag. This is someone who shares his love of the outdoors through the medium of cooking in it. Why rely on a butty, he says, when you can bake a loaf of bread while you’re swimming in a tarn? Well, indeed. If I was still a publishing director, I’d be offering him a book deal. Now.

Harrison Ward aka Fell Foodie on top of Castle Crag

I was so impressed by people like Harrison who run about on the ‘fells’ (you’re not allowed to say ‘mountains’ or ‘hills’ in the Lake District) being all clear-eyed and flushed with exercise. Fell runners were all around Keswick, heading up into the foothills (probably ‘footfells’) of Skiddaw, which I was told is ‘Skidder’, not pronounced like ‘jackdaw’ as I’d previously thought. I used to run a lot in my thirties – I later realised it was a subconscious bid for freedom from my marital home, but I suddenly missed it terribly and vowed to start again once I returned home. I’ve been out twice – for some reason my hamstrings really hurt, so I’m not going crazy with it. Baby steps…

I’d describe as half ‘Type 1 fun’ and half ‘Type 2 fun’. Type 1 is fun at the time while Type 2 is only fun after you’ve completed it. There were many sun-drenched Type 1 moments, notably on the way into Keswick from Skiddaw, walking out of Keswick towards Castle Crag and along the banks of Coniston Water. But there were also long stretches of boggy stumbling in between. As always, for me, I might not enjoy every moment at the time, but I look back with so much pleasure on what I’ve done when it’s complete. All I can remember now is hopping over stepping stones in Langdale, being followed by flocks of smiling Herdwick sheep in Coniston and devouring sandwiches in a storm-tossed bothy near Caldwick.

We managed to complete the path just before Lockdown 2.0 hit our shores and I’m so glad we did it. I’ve been so lucky this year to have done so much. Not only did I spend the first three months of 2020 in India, visiting the Jaipur Literature Festival plus a stay in Udaipur, but I managed to fit in the Northumbrian Coastal Path, the South West Coast Path, the Cumbria Way and the Isle of Wight into my summer and autumn hiking schedule. In many ways, this has been one of my best years. I’ve even found joy during lockdown, on the sun-filled shoreline in Worthing.

I’ve had a slight wobble, in that the plan was for me to return to India for the winter season again. I was supposed to shuttle back and forth and had plans to live in different parts of the country for a while, now I’ve ventured outside Goa. That plan has obviously had to change and I’m now staying in Worthing, and the UK, for the foreseeable. But, I can’t help thinking that this is meant to be, and universe is doing its thing again. I love where I’ve chosen to live and I like what’s happening in my life here. It’s Type 1 fun.

Westward Ho!

I’ve realised that I’ve got a thing about the west. Not ‘the west’ as in globally, but I appear to gravitate west in all things.

I live in West Worthing in West Sussex and I walk in a westerly direction every morning. To go east doesn’t feel quite right, although I walk back in an easterly direction. I walk east in the evenings in order to walk back west and enjoy the sunset.

I’ve noticed that on the way out in the mornings, going west, I feel creative, imaginative, hopeful and dreamlike. Coming back in an easterly direction I am facing the reality of the day. I start to rush knowing I need to get back to ‘my desk’ (aka the kitchen table) and my brain starts to fill with my ‘to-do’ list.

It’s happened with holiday destinations over the years. I favour west coasts – often battered, dramatic, elemental – over east-facing ones: smooth, calm, unremarkable (I know – not all east coasts…). I’ve visited New Zealand and pretty much stayed only on the west coast, I’ve been to the west coast of Ireland many many times but never Dublin. I’ve visited the west coast of Costa Rica twice, driven the west-facing Skeleton Coast in Namibia and have lived on the west coast of India.

When I’m going west, I feel like I could just keep travelling, keep moving over the horizon, but when I’m travelling back in an easterly direction it feels like I’m on a return journey. I wonder what it is that drives me west so much. Is it something to do with me being left-handed, and therefore my brain veers left when faced with its internal north? Is it because I grew up on the north-west Wales coast? I’ve no idea, I just know it’s a thing that I do. It’s my internal compass. Even when I moved to London I went to university in the south west, later lived in the north west, and in between forayed into Buckinghamshire, to the west of London. When I moved to Brighton in the ’90s, I quickly moved west into Hove.

It simply feels ‘off’ to me in the east of anywhere. I can’t really put my finger on why. I can only stay for about an hour in East London before I want to go back west. Once, I was on a date watching a really bad comedian in an East End hipster bar and he starting making fun of me in the audience because I ‘looked posh’ (I was wearing a fake-fur jacket). Really, he didn’t like it because I wasn’t laughing. When I got up to leave, he said, “Are you going back west to the poshos?” “Yep,” I said in front of everyone. “Get me out of here.”

This week in West Sussex has seen some high winds buffeting the coast. They’re southwesterlies and they create, it seems, the biggest waves here. I’ve been watching the kite surfers out west – and out in force since lockdown rules allowed them out – and it’s a real delight to watch grown men (and some women) whoop with joy as the wind carries them high above the waves. I’ve seen videos of people jumping over the pier so it’s a thing here. God I wish I could join them. As I watch, I imagine myself skimming the waves, lit by the bright spring sunshine, grinning as the wind takes me. Having not long learned to swim, it’s probably not something I should leap into but I confess I’m tempted.

Every morning that I walk west, I dream of just carrying on going on the coastal path, all the way to Cornwall. I thing of Raynor Winn’s Salt Path and the epic journey she and her husband did around the south-west coastal path and wonder if I could just do that. Me and a tent. Maybe a small dog in tow. I dream of owning a small white cottage in a west Wales coastal village, where I can see the sea from my desk and walk in the wind every day. I dream of hearing curlews at dawn, just like Dylan Thomas did.

For the first time, some of these dreams seem attainable. Maybe not right now, but they’re within reach.

One thing I do know, I belong in the west.

Love in the Time of Corona

It’s been a while since I last wrote a blog post. Truth be told, I lost the urge to write about my time in Agonda. It was a blur of beach walks, dogs, work, Enfield-bike trips and lovely meals and I wanted to be as present as I could be, and not waste time retrospectively writing about them.

My last post was on 9 February, and my, how the world has changed since then. I’m back in the UK, having rushed back before India shut borders and stopped all flights. I’m living on England’s south coast, another beach, but one bathed in bright but cold sunshine. I’m only allowed out once a day for a walk and now that walk has become so so precious. I’m living in a new home with a new family, including a dog and a cat. I am near a very good friend but I can’t see her at close quarters because she’s ashmatic, and a high-risk for coronavirus.

It’s all happened so fast my head is spinning. I’m jetlagged and confused and unable to concentrate on work. I’m worried about work being cancelled.

Thank goodness I made myself focus on every step I took on Agonda beach because now I can feel the sand pressing into my toes, the hot breath of the sea on my legs, the press of Sanjo’s head into my thigh as he came in for a hug in the morning and the smile of The Most Handsome Man in Goa as he heard me say something in Konkani (the Goan language).

I can hear the sound of the bread boy’s horn blowing at 5.30pm, the cows mooing outside my door and the boys shouting at each other behind the bar at Kopi Desa.

I can hear Gita shouting, “How are you, darling?” and the sound of her laughing at me as I walk down the road towards the red house where I lived.

I can feel the Enfield roaring underneath me as we flew up to the Red Crab restaurant on it and the sound of us shouting the signs out as we passed them on the way to Cabo de Rama: “Harsh shop! Flat to rent! Rise up, nation army! Laxminarayan temple! Babu shop!”

I can feel The Most Handsome Man in Goa’s stomach (named Chicken Biryani by me) as I held on for dear life as we banked around corners, and the pat of his warm hand on my leg as he told me not to be scared.

I can transport myself back to him bringing a chocolate cake into Love Bites for my birthday, having carefully balanced it on the bike from Chaudi, and him taking pictures of me as I cut into it. I think that might have been the happiest day of my life.

My goodness, it was so hard to leave him and Agonda. I said goodbye to all of the dogs one by one and their little faces broke my heart. They didn’t know I was going. I hugged the boys at Simrose and said goodbye to Gita and Charlie, knowing I’ll be back as soon as I can. But when will that be?

I left Agonda because three friends staged an intervention. Two of them pressed me to see the reality of the situation while I was still caught up in the wonder of Agonda. To me Goa seemed to be a better option than coming home to virus-infested UK but they didn’t agree. I argued that India seemed to have the situation so much more under control than the British government, and it is true that they are widely acknowledged as making the right moves to contain the epidemic.

Agonda IS a good place to stay if you don’t want to catch the virus. Goa is currently virus-free, so why wouldn’t you want to stay in a paradise Almost all the foreigners in Agonda were vacillating between staying and going and I was one of them, until my friend’s husband sent me an email entitled GET OUT OF INDIA NOW. He said that of course everything was fine now, but I was to think about what it would be like later, when foreigners might not be so welcome in India, especially if the locals are fighting for their own families’ lives. And I’d be the last person to get any sort of healthcare if I needed it.

What I hadn’t asked myself is if Agonda would be a good place to stay in a nationwide lockdown, and in the event of the virus going wild there, a good place to find healthcare. With the help of my friends I projected forward a week or so and realised I’d be stuck in my room, not allowed to go out at all and reliant on my landlord and landlady for food and water. I decided I couldn’t bear to witness my beloved Agonda in this way. I knew I’d be lonely and miserable even if there were other people I knew around.

I knew foreigners (and locals) would break the curfews, but I am not someone who does that. The rule is the rule for a reason and it should be respected, especially in a foreign country. In my view, by breaking curfews we are risking people’s lives and making foreigners a target for anger. I’m not prepared to do that.

India is good at fighting epidemics because it knows how to force people to lockdown. As we’ve seen, the UK has a far less dictatorial approach, but that relies on people observing rules. So far we’ve seen that they haven’t. However, I decided I’d rather take my chances with the virus in the UK than be beaten with a bamboo stick for daring to go outside in Agonda. The sticks aren’t happening there yet, it seems, but I wasn’t prepared to wait to see them appear.

So far I have walked every day along the seafront in Worthing and I have practised the kind of mindful walking I did in Agonda, noticing every brilliant detail. The sound of a seagull’s call, the crash of the waves on the pebbled beach, the coloured glass on the (now closed) pier, the silence of no cars, no crowds. The spring flowers pushing through and dogs looking happy to be with their owners, unaware of the crisis unfolding around them. Children on scooters with their parents all to themselves.

And then there’s the British people, shyly smiling at each other from two metres away, making jokes at the till point, thanking the staff for working, saying, “If we don’t laugh, we’ll cry, eh?” The Blitz spirit.

I think when it came down to it, there were two things that brought me home early from India. Firstly, I wanted to fight this war on my home turf, and there is no doubt that it is a war with an unseen enemy. Secondly, I wanted someone to tell me to come home.

And they did. I have very good friends.

Thank you Kay, Woody, Paula and The Most Handsome Man in Goa.

You have made me feel loved.

Agonda Diaries – week 14

This has been a week of reconnecting with friends after my Rajasthan week, and looking back on the whole experience. I fell in love with Udaipur so much that I’m going to stay there for a while next season. I need to not be in Agonda for the Christmas drinking season and will arrive here mid-January, when things have calmed down a bit.

Udaipur has little or no ‘ex-pat’ (aka immigrant) British population because it’s not easy to come by booze there, so people tend to pass through to look at the palaces, forts and temples and move on. Of course, I loved it, the chai-drinking culture, white people being in a minority, and I’m not done.

This started a chain of decision-making about my plans to return to the UK this summer and the inevitable question of what I’ll do next. I’ve decided to do a short-ish visit to Shimla-Spiti Valley-Manali before I return so I can suss out the Himalayas as a potential place to stay for a few months next summer. I like the idea of breaking up the year into two- or three-month chunks.

This also started a chain of people insisting on telling me about their own Indian odysseys and either insisting I do what they did, insisting I’ll love the places they loved, or refusing to dwell on the fact that they haven’t been to Spiti Valley, meaning they can’t tell me how much they loved it and how much I’ll love it. As someone who likes her own experience of self-discovery I wonder what compels people to follow in another’s path. I just need my Lonely Planet, not a trail of other people’s favourite restaurants. After Pushkar, which I disliked when most of my friends loved it, I’m going to blaze my own trail (and burn the evidence behind me).

I came back to Agonda to find the sand shelf on the beach had reformed, after apparently being flattened and then created again after a couple of stormy days. It hasn’t stopped the turtles coming on to the beach to lay their eggs, though – we have seven nests now, and the first lot is due to hatch next week. Watch this space!

We’ve also had a spate of high-tides in which pairs of dolphins have appeared just offshore in the early mornings. I’ve had the pleasure of accompanying one or two along the beach as they surf through what must be shoals of tiny fish.

I also had the pleasure of a day trip with The Most Handsome Man in Goa, who remains in my life in a different way, discovering the tiny Mashem beach near Galgibaga, and going back to Talpona and the little gem Tejas restaurant for vegetable biryani and Hello to the Queen dessert. TMHMIG is brilliant at these days out – the thrill of the bike ride there on coastal roads, playing in the waves, choosing the right food for lunch, and getting me back somewhere lovely to watch the sunset. I always feel the happiest I’ve been in years during and after one of these ‘dates’.

He also had to deal with the bothersome regular occurrence of Indian Boys With Cameras, who inevitably turn up right behind us whenever we find a deserted beach. Two of them popped up as we were in the water, putting their stuff right next to ours on the beach. I was fuming. They must have seen the steam coming out of my ears and one of them waded in to ask us if there was a problem? Yes, I said. You’ve got this whole massive empty beach, and you’ve chosen to put your stuff right next to ours. Plus I’m sick of being trailed by Indian Boys With Cameras. We’re on a roadtrip from Hyderabad, he said. We’re just taking pictures of the location. He probably did get a couple of pictures of us but I liked that he came to check everything was ok. The one thing that is a certainty in India is a gang of boys with phones, drones and cameras. That is the biggest problem I face in India. Maybe people just like to herd. I prefer to leave the pack behind…

Talking of packs, I got bluff-attacked by a pack of dogs by the river in Agonda last night. I didn’t take my stick because I wasn’t expecting a flat, wide beach to run on, and simply took my chance. To all those people who make fun of me for carrying a stick – you try being surrounded by ten dogs barking and snarling at you, while all the humans stand around not doing anything to help. They seem to get more feral when the weather is cooler for some reason. Even Sanjo is leaping up and scratching my arms with his claws.

This weather is reminding me of British summer – cool mornings and evenings and warm days… I can’t wait to experience the real thing in May…