it isn't, of course, but I'm a sucker for literary titles.
Day before yesterday I think I actually made it to the southernmost tip of India. But cannot be certain. And since I'd had this geographical end-of-the-subcontinent in my sights for some time, (Why? Because it's there!) I feel in a sense the physical journey is done...
For want of other words I shall treat you to an extract from the daily private diary I'm keeping during this trip, alongside this 'ere blog.
Some photos first:
From Saturday 7th March:
...then the usual throw of temples, til the soles of my feet hurt and was gettin thoroughly brassed off with the catches. Rupee Pie time again. Temple scams, and a rather shocking Gandhi Shrine scam. After all this time still didn't see it coming... And a right rip off waxwork museum. What was Michael Fuckin Jackson doin here keeping company with Mother Theresa, The Pope and Charlie Chaplin?
The Cape. The southernmost tip. A mayhem of ferries, broken life jackets with no instructions (I decided to hold mine on my lap and hope for the best - no one was checking anyway,) gods, and ice cream sellers tang tanging on their bells. Roasted peanuts, garish overpriced clothes stalls, traders in seashells macraméed into lampshades, fixed onto wall clocks, glued into photo frames, and rides on horses, a cockade of plastic roses. For this was Blackpool, Margate, Tenby, without the fudge, the sticks of rock and kiss-me-quickery but every bit as wonderfully tasteless. The mingling and meeting of three oceans? The Indian far out and to the south, left The Bay of Bengal, to the west the Arabian Sea. Ghandi would have stirred in his ashes. And the Southernmost point? Like everything else in this land, it was not defined. It was everywhere, and nowhere. It was hereabouts.
Day before yesterday I think I actually made it to the southernmost tip of India. But cannot be certain. And since I'd had this geographical end-of-the-subcontinent in my sights for some time, (Why? Because it's there!) I feel in a sense the physical journey is done...
For want of other words I shall treat you to an extract from the daily private diary I'm keeping during this trip, alongside this 'ere blog.
Some photos first:
From Saturday 7th March:
...then the usual throw of temples, til the soles of my feet hurt and was gettin thoroughly brassed off with the catches. Rupee Pie time again. Temple scams, and a rather shocking Gandhi Shrine scam. After all this time still didn't see it coming... And a right rip off waxwork museum. What was Michael Fuckin Jackson doin here keeping company with Mother Theresa, The Pope and Charlie Chaplin?
The Cape. The southernmost tip. A mayhem of ferries, broken life jackets with no instructions (I decided to hold mine on my lap and hope for the best - no one was checking anyway,) gods, and ice cream sellers tang tanging on their bells. Roasted peanuts, garish overpriced clothes stalls, traders in seashells macraméed into lampshades, fixed onto wall clocks, glued into photo frames, and rides on horses, a cockade of plastic roses. For this was Blackpool, Margate, Tenby, without the fudge, the sticks of rock and kiss-me-quickery but every bit as wonderfully tasteless. The mingling and meeting of three oceans? The Indian far out and to the south, left The Bay of Bengal, to the west the Arabian Sea. Ghandi would have stirred in his ashes. And the Southernmost point? Like everything else in this land, it was not defined. It was everywhere, and nowhere. It was hereabouts.
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