Angels and demons: Part 2

Note: I have changed the names of places and people in this post for reasons that will become clear.

If John was bewildered by my sudden, inexplicable collapse of emotions he didn't show it. He took me into the deserted restaurant, sat me down and asked, 'What happened? What's the matter?'
'Nothing happened,' I replied. 'I just want to get out of here.'
'But why are you so upset?'
I had to think a little. Why was I upset? What terrible thing had happened to leave me so distraught?
'I don't know. Just everything went wrong and I'm disappointed, that's all.' It sounded so stupid, so childish. Things hadn't gone to my vague and ill-thought-out plans, so now I was preparing to storm off in a tantrum. I told him about the disastrous day's journey yesterday and he was textbook sympathetic.
'That's terrible. That's not good. No wonder you were tired and upset.' I could  have hugged him for being so understanding, for just being the sounding-board on which I could vent my indignation and frustration.

He went on, 'I saw you come in last night and I saw that you were angry and tired, so I didn't want to come over and talk to you and upset you more. I thought, "Just let her eat and relax." Then I saw you sitting on your own with a book and I thought you didn't want to talk and wanted to be on your own, so I didn't want to bother you.'
'I wish you had talked to me,' I said sorrowfully, through a fresh bout of tears. John had read my mood perfectly and he didn't even know me. Just the knowledge of his hidden kindness, consideration and thoughtfulness had set me off again.

He was right. I was exhausted - but not angry - and I didn't want to burden a table of Americans sitting nearby with my bad mood and horror tale of transport woes, nor was I in the mood to make small-talk, so I hid in my book.

'I wish you had talked to me then, because I wouldn't have been in this state now.' John's felt guilty.
'I'm sorry I wasn't there for you,' he said with sincerity in his big brown eyes. 'When you arrived I had just had a very bad day and I didn't make time to talk to you. I had just had to fire some of my men for driving my vehicles without my permission and there was some money missing from the day's takings, so I was very angry and everything was a mess.' Now it was me who felt guilty.

He was so open and honest that I found myself being equally honest, more so than I might normally be with someone I didn't know.
'So why are you disappointed?' he asked. I couldn't really explain but I tried.
'There is nothing here in Shivapuram, except your tours and I can't afford those on my own. It just wasn't what I was expecting.'
'So what were you expecting?' Just then John's phone rang and he excused himself to answer it. When he came back be said, 'I have to do something quickly, but I'll be back in 15 minutes, then I'll take you out in my car and show you around. OK?'
'Ok,' I said, feeling better already, as he'd had taken the immediate decision about what to do off my hands. Having a plan of action made all the difference.

As I waited I wondered to myself, what had I been expecting from this place? I knew there weren't going to be beaches or lots of activities, so why did I go there? The best answer I could come up with is that I thought I should. I was in the islands for three weeks and didn't think I should waste them lying on a beach. But part of me wanted to do just that and nothing else. But this made me feel guilty and wasteful and that it would be a missed opportunity not to see some of the other islands.

Another reason was that I did it because I wanted people to think I was adventurous and brave, by going to those less-visited places, even though  it was plain from this episode that I was far from brave. Whenever a little thing went wrong, I folded and took the easy route out, by leaving and going somewhere else. But equally I was right to leave: Why should I force myself to stay in a place where I was not happy for the sake of some spurious brownie points I might get, either from other travellers or the folks back home. Probably neither group would care which specific towns and places I'd been to. Any anyway, at 37, wasn't I too old to care what other people think? All these thought turned slowly in my mind and I didn't know what to think. And I still don't know what I was expecting...

Once John was back from his errand, we got into his car and set off. The town now seemed to look brighter and more cheerful (though not cleaner!) and even the colour of the ocean seemed to have changed, getting more turquoise, more clear, more beautiful thanks to my lightened mood. There weren't really any sights to see in Shivapuram but John took me to see what there was: the jetty and a viewpoint which looked out westwards to some of the outlying islands, marooned like dark green sponges on the pale blue sea. Some were inhabited, some not, but all were covered in dark, brooding mysterious, heavy-damp rainforest. It was a beautiful sight and to see those remote islands made me feel as though I was both in the middle of civilization, looking out into the wilderness, but also miles away from civilization. The paradox of remote archipelagos is that, when you can see the other islands close by you feel surrounded by civilization, yet the sheer distance to the mainland invokes a certain lonely island melancholy, that is both delicious in its sense of distance from reality and frightening for the very same reason.

As we drove, we talked and John proved to be very good company. He was a  good, attentive listener, genuinely interested in me and my life, about which he asked many questions. But he was generous with his own information too and gave me himself and his life too - holding very little back, although I sensed some of my questions made him feel awkward.

John was 39 and one of a certain breed of Indian man, one who believes he can do anything - and succeeds. He studied Hospitality & Hotel Management at college and worked in several hotels before realising he wanted to be his own boss. To save money to set up his own business he trained in the Indian Merchant Navy and sailed Indian seas for several years before giving this up to set up his own guest house.

'I didn't want to answer to anyone else,' he admitted. 'I wanted to do things my way.' So he did. But John didn't have the mentality of limiting himself to just one area. With the money he made from the guest house, he began to run tours of the local area for tourists and also started up a construction business, tendering for many local government building projects. I was very impressed by his self-belief, dedication, optimism and, above all, confidence. He didn't believe he needed to have the right experience or qualifications to try different business ideas and he had proved he was right with his evident success.

I have met many Indian businessmen who fit this mould and nearly all of them run more than one business - often multiple strands - and think nothing of it. Here, business is business whatever the sector and there is a belief - probably not even consciously-held - that anyone can make money in any way they see fit, whatever their background, just by working hard. It seems to work. Due to sheer hard graft, John now owns his own guest house, tour operator with its fleet of vehicles, construction company and had recently bought another plot of land near the local beach which he planned to do something with, he wasn't sure what.

I was flattered when he showed it to me and asked me what I thought he should do with it. We drove there in his plush air-conditioned car, through thick walls of jungle, banana leaves drooping seductively, like green wings, as we swooped through their shade. It wasn't much to look at, just a large area of fenced-off scrubby jungle but with the key feature of a path leading directly to the beach, about 100m away.

'I might build another guest house here,' he explained slowly, as if giving voice to his ideas for the first time, 'or maybe a house for myself. What do you think? Should I clear the jungle so it has a sea view, or leave the path down to the beach, so people can walk through the forest in its natural state?' He'd obviously given things a lot of thought, right down to details like this. He wasn't likely to throw the building together quickly and cheaply and badly, as seemed to be the norm, judging by much of the accommodation designed for tourists that I'd stayed in.

But John was much more than an entrepreneur, always seeking his next project. He was a deep thinker and ponderer on life and he wasn't embarrassed to state his thoughts. Maybe my flood of tears and open vulnerability had struck a chord with him and he felt safe to share his more personal insights with me. He was frank, honest and open and in his company I soon felt relaxed, comfortable and as though I'd known him for a long time.

When he talked he always made eye contact and smiled. He used my name often too, swinging - to my amusement - between calling me a super-formal 'Madam' and 'Bridget', often within the same sentence. He was trying to keep a professional distance but my crying openly in front of him had somehow unravelled the fabric of etiquette and left him tangled in its tattered fibres, so he wasn't quite sure how to treat me.

He told me he was also a locally elected official for Shivapuram and two other local villages.
'I have a conscience too,' he said, looking directly at me, as if searching for the challenge I might make to the idea that a businessman could be socially responsible too. I didn't need to challenge him. So far, all I'd seen and heard from John was kindness and understanding. I knew he had a conscience from the way he had berated himself for not talking to me the night before. It was almost as if he had been voicing his thought that he should have been a better person. I think he was a better person. And good people usually have good people behind them, supporting them, so I was  interested to know about this family.

He was half Burmese, half-Indian, his father having been brought up on the Andamans. His parents had net at university in Chennai and when his father's parents disowned their son for wanting to marry a girl who was too low-caste, they married anyway and came to live in the Andamans. It was a love marriage, rather than an arranged one. So what about John himself? Had he done the same?

'Are you married?' I asked. He looked very uncomfortable, paused for a second then said, 'Sort of.'
'Come on, either you are or you aren't. Which is it?'
'I'm married.'
'So why did you say 'sort of'?' He looked even more uncomfortable and I felt guilty for prying.
'You don't have to talk about it,' I said, although I was dying to know. Could he be the first divorcee I'd met in India? Or did he have several wives or mistresses who didn't know about each other? Or was he gay but married anyway? The answer was not at all what I expected to hear, but it was just what I should have expected of a caring man like John.

John was married and his wife, Mary, was a local widow whose husband had died young, leaving her to care for her two sons. As she had no income and couldn't go out to work and leave her sons, John had made the decision to marry her out of charity, because he felt it was the right thing to do. I was surprised and saddened at the same time. Surprised that he should go through with something so big, so life-changing on a sentimental whim; impressed that he should be so selfless; and saddened that someone so loving and caring had not married for love or even had a loving marriage arranged for him.

I got the impression that maybe he didn't really love her and was possibly regretting his decision, although I couldn't be sure and didn't feel I could ask such a personal question. I felt sad that a man as good as him should have sacrificed his own potential happiness in marriage in order to provide safety and security for someone else.

'Why did you do it?' I asked. He paused and didn't answer the question directly.
'My friends always say, "John, you're too sentimental, too emotional." I think they're right. I am a very sentimental person.' I could see that the subject was making him uncomfortable, so I dropped it, after reassuring him: 'That's not a bad thing to be, you know.'
'I know,' he said with a sigh, 'but it can make life difficult.'

I changed the subject back to his work and asked him about his construction projects.
'What kind of buildings do you build?'
'Well, it's mainly Government projects,' he said, 'but sometimes it's hard to make money because of the stealing and bribery.'
'What do you mean?'
'Well, workers often steal my steel and concrete so it's difficult to cost things accurately.' He said this so matter-of-factly, as if it were a normal, everyday part of doing business.
'That's terrible! What do they do with it?'
'They usually sell it to other less-honest building contractors, so they can offer a cheaper price.'
I was appalled, not so much by the stealing and selling on, as that happens the world over, but by John's apparent calm acceptance of this situation as an immutable fact of business life. How could he do business in such a climate of distrust?
'Well, what can I do?' he shrugged. 'I could hire one man to watch the workers, but I'd have to hire another to watch him and another to watch him. It would be pointless.' I could see what he meant. If everyone was untrustworthy, as he seemed to be suggesting, there was no sense in putting someone in a position of trust.

And then there was the bribery. 'Do you pay bribes?' I asked. I think I already knew the answer but I wanted to hear it - and not hear it.
'Yes, I pay bribes,' he said. I noted the slight challenging tone in his voice. I wasn't judging him, I just wanted to know.
'Why?' He thought about it for a few seconds, maybe figuring out the reasons himself for the first time.
'I pay certain people to make things happen more quickly, to make life run smoothly,' was his final considered answer. Of course I don't approve of bribery but that wasn't the point really. I wanted to know what made it a necessary part of business for John.

'What kind of people do you pay?
'Managers of the docks or quarries, that kind of thing. If I don't pay them my building materials get tied up for days and if I give them something they are released much more quickly. It just makes life smoother,' he repeated. 'And I can put it down as a business expenditure.' I was even more shocked now.
'Hold on. You calculate bribes as part of your expenditure?'
'Yes, I deduct about 10% from the profits to put aside for bribes.'
'Are you serious!?' I was stunned but I could see from his face that he was totally serious. The ugly reality of bribery was that is was such a pervasive menance, such a fact of life that John even built it into his costings, as just another item to be calculated and accounted for. I felt a bitter anger, both for him personally, and that honest men such as him, were more-or-less forced to buy into this ruinous corruption racket that was making India limp towards progress.

'But the whole government is corrupt,' he said bluntly. He said it not sadly but with resignation and acceptance. 'Even the anti-corruption bureau is corrupt.' I have no way of knowing if this is true or not, or  whether it was just John's personal opinion but if it is true, it is unbearably sad and totally frustrating.
'But what can you do if everyone is corrupt?' I asked helplessly.
'I don't know. If I don't pay bribes it's impossible to do business,' he said with finality. And he explained why.

Apparently he had once been accused of and charged with opening the bar of his guest house 15 minutes before the legally allowed opening time. He alleges that the charge was fabricated. He could have pursued it through the courts to try to clear his name, but this would have taken months, cost money and he couldn't be sure of being found innocent in any case. Or he could just pay the protection money the police allegedly wanted and the charge would quietly go away and they would leave him alone in future. He paid the money. The charge went away and he carried on with business as usual. This, it seems, is the reality of being a successful businessman in India. If you have made money through hard graft, you cannot hide the fact and there are always others who are keen to relieve you of it through devious means.

I didn't know what to feel about this. Of course John shouldn't have paid the bribe: to do so only feeds the voracious monster of corruption and keeps it alive and hungry for longer. But to not pay could have resulted in John losing his licence, a profitable line of business, his income and his ability to look after his family. Standing up to bribery is all very noble, but if you and your family stand to suffer as a result and you are only one drop of honesty in a dark sea of corruption, it would take a strong man to consider it a price worth (not) paying. And who am I to understand and judge the actions of one man?

But of course it isn't just one man. John alleged that the police are also heavily involved in bribery and corruption. He told me about the local chief of police who he claims has to wine and dine and entertain his superior officer when he visits the area. He is expected to offer him the best food, whiskey, accommodation and entertainment, all from his own personal salary. As he apparently doesn't earn anywhere near enough to provide all this luxury, allegedly he himself calls in favours and protection money from local businesses to furnish the needs of his boss. And so the wheels of commerce, protection and bribery turn. When those people who are supposed to protect others from such lawlessness themselves turn lawbreaker, what can be done?

John didn't know and appeared to have no faith in politicians to change things either. He made some shocking claims in support of his belief.

'There is a lot of illiteracy in India, so many people don't know who they are voting for. Some politicians pay poor people just 150Rs (about 1.80 in pounds) to vote for them. These poor people desperately need the money for food for their families and have no interest in the politicians themselves or their policies, so they take the money and vote for that man or woman.'

I was sad that John had no faith in the system and that he was also party to the apparent corruption. He, of all people, as an elected official, should have been in a position to do something about it and challenge the culture of bribery, but equally he had more to lose than most so, loathe as I was to admit it of such a lovely man, maybe for John is was in his best interests to keep the status quo...

As we sat, cool and protected in John's car, looking at the beach I began to feel so much better about myself and my insignificant woes. Despite the heavy turn our discussions had taken, I felt lighter and more positive in myself as I'd been able to forget myself for a while. John could sense it too.
'Do you feel better now?' he asked, looking slightly anxious, in case the answer was not positive.
'Yes, I do,' I smiled. 'You know, it's strange, but after I met you, and you were so kind to me, everything here looked better. The sea looked bluer, the sky was brighter and the trees were greener,' I said with a smile. He looked very pleased and touched.

'Thank you,' he said. 'That's such a nice thing to say.'
'I mean it,' I said. Maybe it was just a trick of the light or maybe it was the unexpected gentleness and kindness of a stranger who I felt was now a friend that had filled me with the ability to see again and appreciate what my frustration and expectations had prevented me from seeing before. I told him this.

'We all have expectations, said John, 'but if you do it can sometimes lead to disappointment. I always try not to have any expectations of anything, then I can't be disappointed. If you hope that a thing will happen to you or that someone will love you back, you can be disappointed, so it's better not to expect anything.'

I sensed there may have been another potentially sad love story behind this last comment but decided not to pry this time. I could at least take that little piece of wisdom with me and try to apply it in future: No expectations; no disappointment.

When we got back to the guest house John had to go off and sort out some business because he'd given up his whole afternoon to spend it with me. I felt guilty about wasting his precious time and told him so.
'No, it was not wasted at all. I enjoyed every minute of it and talking to friends is never wasted.' He turned his big brown eyes on me and smiled such a sincere smile. I ended up staying in Shivapuram that night after all. When I left the next day, I may not have done anything much but I'd learned a lot and gained a friend.

Angels and demons: Part 1

Note: I have changed the names of people and places in this post to protect their identity, for reasons that will become clear in the second part.

I was on the point of leaving Shivapuram as angry as I'd been when I arrived when I was saved by a guardian angel. I had hefted my backpack onto my back, for some reason its usual weight inexplicably enraging me today. Then, as I turned to go down the guest house steps to leave it forever, and wait for the bus by the road outside a male voice behind me asked, 'Are you leaving already? Where are you going to?' I couldn't keep the choke of anger and frustration out of my voice or stop the wobbling of my chin that told the world that I was on the verge of tears, so I didn't turn round but looked out to the horizon, hoping my emotions were hidde behind my sunglasses.

'I'm going back to Port Blair,' I replied. Then, under my breath, 'Anything to get out of this place.'
'Is everything OK?' Asked the voice, gently and kindly. 'You seem upset.' That was it. A tiny kindness, a caring tone of voice, a note of concern from a stranger was all it took. I hung my head and burst into silent tears.

'No,' I replied, choked with emotion. 'It's not OK. I just want to get out of here and go anywhere else.'
'What happened?' Then in a voice like a father soothing a child. 'Come with me. Sit down and rest. Don't leave while you're upset.'

I looked up at the voice finally and was met by a tall, chubby, cuddly-looking Indian man with a wide, open, friendly face, topped with a mop of curly black hair. He looked both deeply concerned and terrified at my emotional state.

'I'm John. I own this guest house.'

Let me explain why I was upset in the first place. I'd left Havelock Island in a state of doubt about whether I was doing the right thing. It was such a beautiful place and there were plenty of other travellers there to talk to and hang out with, not to mention lots of good restaurants. The fact that there was little to do there except lie on the beach and do the occasional bit of snorkelling only added to the imperative to stay. But I'd already told myself it was a waste of time to stay on just one island for three weeks when there were so many others to explore.

So with half-reluctance, half-excitement I'd dragged myself off  Havelock. By the time I arrived in Shivapuram at John's guest house, where I'd involuntarily ended up, the experience so far had in no way merited the effort I had gone to.

The ferry to Rangat had given me a false sense of impending good times. The guide book, (which I was beginning to find more of a useless albatross than a helpful travelling tool as far as the Andamans were concerned) had told me that the ferry would take six hours, but we docked after just two. I'd settled down on the top deck in the blowing, salty breeze to write my journal. I had food for the journey and was actually quite looking forward to passing my time in this way. As I sat there, the Second Officer, sharp in a crisp white shirt and black and gold epaulettes came over and squatted down next to me. After the usual questions about where I was from, seeing my journal and pen in my hand, he asked if I was a writer. I thought it was just easier to say yes, so I did. He didn't think it necessary to ask what kind of writer I was and launched into conversation on the assumption that I was a journalist here to write about India.

'Don't write anything bad about India,' he warned. 'India is a good place.'
'I know. I like it very much.'
Ignoring my agreement, he continued, 'Because if you say bad things about India, tourists won't come.'
'I know. The Andamans are very beautiful,' I continued, trying to reassure him. 'The people are very friendly too. I like it here.' I gave a big smile to underline my complete happiness with the Andamans' package.
'Yes, Andamans are very good. You must write good things in your country when you go back home.'
'I will.' I couldn't resist the urge to share my woes at the ticket office though. 'But one bad thing is the tickets. It's very complicated to buy one.' And so he wouldn't take it as too great a criticism I elaborated: 'I feel sorry for the islanders, as it's hard for them too, especially when there are lots of tourists there too.'

'Yes, it is true. So you should write to the India Tourism Office and tell them this, otherwise no-one will listen and nothing will change. If you don't do this - and all other foreigners too - it will stay the same.' I don't think he meant it to, but his words sounded like a threat.

'Of course,' I said, 'that's a good idea.' I don't think he cared about my answers, he just wanted to say his piece, especially as he now said again, 'And don't say anything bad about India.'
'I won't,' I repeated, again adding what I hoped was a broad and honest smile.
'We are in Rangat in 10 minutes,' he said and was gone. I was delighted; I'd just gained four hours! A six-hour trip was turning out to be just two hours.

In Rangat my good fortune continued. Nose in tattered (and useless) guidebook, I wandered away from the jetty, checking the details of where I had to catch the bus from to continue my journey to Cuthbert Bay where I hoped to see turtles nesting. Passing some stalls and a group of men sitting around, one of them called out, 'What are you looking for?'
'The bus to Cuthbert Bay.'
'It leaves from here,' the man said, pointing to exactly where they were sitting.
'I don't have to go into the town to the bus station?' I checked.
'No, no. After town it comes here in one hour and half.'
'Great,' I beamed. 'I'll wait here.' More good luck! No walking with a heavy pack in the dense, humid air. I was beginning to be glad I'd left the joys of Havelock behind after all. I should not have been so quick to dismiss chance, probability, fate and karma...

I sat chatting with the men while I waited, taking photos of them posing in my sunglasses, joking and generally having a good time. They were friendly and fun and pleased that a tourist had bothered to come to scruffy Rangat, even if just to go on somewhere else.

When the tatty old bus pulled up there was even a free seat. The trip to the guest house I had planned to stay at was only 15 minutes away, so I'd be there by lunchtime. The bus dropped me off right outside it and I walked in. This was where my good luck came crashing to a halt. They had no rooms for the night and they were the only guest house in Cuthbert Bay. The guidebook (apparently not so useless after all) had said you should reserve in advance via the Port Blair tourist office but I hadn't read this detail until I'd already left Port Blair, so I thought I'd risk it that they'd have a spare room.

The manager was not very friendly or helpful but under pain of questioning I managed to extract from him that a bus for Shivapuram, the next big town further north would pass in front of the guest house at 3pm, in one-and-a-half hours' time. What with waiting for the bus in Rangat and another long wait here, I would have used up most of the four hours I'd gained from the ferry, but as there was zero to see in Rangat if I went back there, I decided that going on to Shivapuram was the best option.

The manager had said the bus was at 3pm so, after waiting most of the time in the cool, shady lobby, I went outside at 2.45pm to wait in the hot sun by the roadside, just in case it came early. While I was there, a young lad who worked for the guest house came out and started to chat to me. I asked him what time the bus was coming too, employing the necessary Three-Person Indian Time Check Rule. He said 3.15pm, so I was glad I'd come out earlier, as this did not correspond with the manager's opinion. Indians are generally helpful, but not always accurate. So whenever you want to check a time it is best to ask three different people. If they all say the same thing, you can be more-or-less sure that it is correct and if they don't, you can take the earliest option and arrive half an hour before that, just to be on the safe side.

We chatted away, me keeping and eye on the road from time to time. At 3pm bang-on, a white bus appeared round the corner.

'Is this it?' I asked.
'No, no. 3.15, 3.15,' he insisted. I wasn't sure and looked as it approached, speeding along in a cloud of dust. It didn't look like it was going to stop and I couldn't see its destination board anywhere. It wasn't until it was almost in front of us that I spotted the tiny sign for 'Shivapuram' in the front window, but by then, it was too late. It sped past us in a ball of grit and fumes. I ran out into the road and shouted and waved to flag it down but the driver didn't see me.

Red-faced with frustration and rage, I turned on the boy. 'Was that it?! WAS THAT IT?!' My voice was tight with anger.
'Yes, Shivapuram bus,' he replied, 'Another come 5.30pm.' He wasn't in the slightest bit bothered, embarrassed or guilty that I'd missed my bus, in part thanks to his misinformation.
'5.30!? 5.30!? I'm not fucking waiting till 5 fucking 30!!' I was livid. I raged, I shouted, I swore, I kicked stones. I blamed him, I blamed the manager, I blamed everyone apart from myself. My face must have been a hideous contortion of rage and frustration. It was an embarrassing, appallingly childish tantrum but I couldn't help myself. He just looked away, awkward and uncomfortable before such a disproportionate display of fury.

After a few minutes I calmed down slightly, but my heart was still pounding with impotent rage. It was such a waste of time! But really, although I had heaped the blame on the poor uncomprehending boy, crushing him with the weight of my fury, it was my own fault and I knew it. I should have trusted my own judgement and booked a room ahead, or I should have flagged the speeding bus down anyway to ask the driver himself where he was going. All this had been within my control but I didn't take control and I was now reaping the results of my own laxity.

Going back inside I asked the manager if he could help. Was there another way to get to Shivapuram sooner without having to wait for the 5.30pm bus? The only thing he could suggest was to hire a Jeep. He rang someone and came back with a price. I knew it would be expensive - it was at least 3 hours away - but I didn't know how expensive. The Jeep would cost 1500 Rs, while the bus would be just 50 Rs. There was no contest. I couldn't afford the Jeep; the high price was only rubbing salt into the wound left by the missed bus. And I couldn't face wasting money on top of all the time I'd already squandered today.

In the end, at the suggestion of the manager, I got a local bus back to Rangat to wait at the bus station for the 5pm bus to Shivapuram, so I would be sure not to miss it. So, as the light of the afternoon faded and began to turn golden, I found myself back in Rangat, six hours after first arriving there. I sat on the bus, waiting for it to load up, staring miserably out of the window and glaring at the frank stares of a curious child sitting in the seat in front of me.

My ordeal was not over yet. The journey was fours hours over lumpy, bumpy rubbish roads, through the rapidly cooling jungle evening. As the driver turned the ignition, a blast of deafening Hindi music assaulted me. The speaker was just above my head. I couldn't even use my earplugs as they were packed in a box somewhere in another box, somewhere in the middle of my backpack which was wedged inaccessibly under my seat.

The next four hours were torture of various kinds. The Hindi chanteuse trilled, wailed, shrieked and yelped in my ear while the road drummed a complicated and painful tattoo with my bony backside on the hard seat. As night fell the wind coming into the open-sided bus chilled me to the bone with a penetrating damp cold that I did not believe could exist anywhere other than the English winter I thought I'd left behind. When I arrived deadbeat at 9pm at the guest house in Shivapuram (I had, for once, wisely phoned ahead to book my room), I had been travelling  - or trying to - for the last 12 hours.

The mood John found me is was the remnants of this terrible day, plus further indignations I had suffered since arriving in the Shivapuram. I knew there was not a great deal to do in the town, but that morning I'd asked the lady at the guest house, who seemed to be the manager (and who I later discovered was John's wife, Mary) about what trips - mentioned in the Lonely Planet - she could organise to various outlying islands. She had not been particularly helpful and it seemed that the only trip it would be possible for me to do was a boat trip to a deserted beach on an uninhabited island nearby. I decided not to do this for two reasons: firstly it was too expensive to hire the boat on my own and secondly I didn't feel much like being alone on a beach with no-one else to share it with and given my present low mood.

I decided to go into the town centre to see if any other tour operators had anything else to offer. I hadn't realised it was Sunday and everything was closed. There was absolutely nothing going on and I felt totally dejected. I returned to the guest house and checked out, with the intention of going back south to Port Blair that day and then further south to Little Andaman, which I knew had good beaches. There I intended to waste the rest of my time as, I grimly thought, I should have done in the first place on Havelock. I was totally pissed off with everything, myself and my bad decisions included, and just wanted to get out of Shivapuram and start again.

If John had arrived just five minutes later, I would have been gone, but his life-saving force of kindness and generosity of spirit arrived just in the nick of time and changed the course of my next few days on the islands - and for the better.

To be continued...

Travelling without moving

The Andaman Islands may well be paradise on earth but travelling around them is like going through the seven circles of hell. The gateway to this hell is the ferry ticket office. If you can pass through it portals and exit with a ticket you will gain - and will have deserved to do so - a place on one of the inter-island ferries that are the only means of travel between some of the islands. To buy such a ticket is like getting blood out of a stone, but yet so much harder and more complicated: it is knowing when the stone will be open and the precise time and location from which these drops of blood will fall, so you can cup your sorrowful, pleading hands beneath them.

Having made the painful decision not to idle away my entire three weeks on the islands on a palm-fringed stretch of sand, I needed to buy a ticket to get off Havelock Island and onward to the town of Rangat on Middle Andaman Island. This is a route less-travelled by travellers - many of whom do stay glued to Havelock by some unseen force - as Rangat offers no beaches, bars or restaurants at the other end. This does not mean it is a simple ticket to buy. On the contrary.

I set off around 8.30am for the ticket office to get there in time for the 9am opening. It is the only place at which tickets for the only ferry can be bought. The Bible told me the office opens at 9am, so I had plenty of time to enjoy the sweeping jungled hills and fields as I pedalled slowly through them on my bike. At the time, I didn't know that this would be the first of many utterly futile trips I would make over the coming days. When I got to the ticket office, initially just to find out times and dates, the sales counter was a catastrophe of humanity. People piled up and around a single window the size of a CD case, ramming scrunched up reservation slips, money and hands through the opening at the ticket officer. He sat, like a little king, oblivious to the suffering of his subjects, glasses perched on the end of his nose, very calmly, deliberately and s-l-o-w-l-y issuing tickets. There was theoretically one queue, but line discipline - never an Indian commodity in great supply - had fled the instant the window opened and now a bedlam of elbows, arms and bodies pushed and prised themselves in to the throng, to get their order in before anyone else.

There was no earthly way I was going to get any information there. The only ferry schedules pinned up nearby weren't for my destination, so I was at a loss. Wandering round in a daze, trying to decide what to do I spotted a shed that claimed grandly to be the place to provide tourists with information - a Tourist Information Centre, in fact. Inside a bored-looking man was playing with his mobile phone. After much careful and slow explanation on my part I managed to get the poor man to understand what I wanted and he kindly wrote out the times and destinations of all the ferries departing from Havelock, including those to Rangat. He also gave me the helpful advice that I should try to book my ticket three days in advance. At the time I didn't realise this would mean three days' time actually spent trying to book a ticket for a departure in three days' time! Had I known, I would have plunged a stake of sharp coral into my heart then and there as the pain would have been less than that which I subsequently endured trying to obtain a ticket. Either that or I might have jumped in the drink immediately to either swim the distance to the other island myself or to kill myself and put an end to the Sisyphean misery I would have to endure. However, for the moment, ignorance was bliss.

Having studied the handwritten schedule, I worked out that I should book my ticket today and now, as ferries didn't leave for Rangat every day. With a deep breath and deeper trepidation I approached the ticket office again - only to remember that I'd forgotten to bring my permit that gave me permission to be on the Andamans and which I would need to show to book any ticket. There was still time before the ticket office closed, so I leapt back on my bike to re-do the 20-minute ride I'd just covered to go and fetch my permit. Pedalling like fury, I scattered scraggy chickens and loose pebbles before and aft. Grabbing permit and passport (just in case) I jumped back on and returned to the ticket office as fast as I could. The humidity was already sticking my clothes damply to my skin and the breeze created by my frantic speed was a welcome cool respite.

The ticket counter scrum had miraculously disappeared. I was delighted. I should not have been. The office had closed an hour early as today was Republic Day, a national holiday. I was surprisingly calm as I went back to the Tourist Information Shed to check what time the ticket office would re-open tomorrow (perish the thought that such useful things should be displayed anywhere for people to see). The man restored my good cheer by telling me it would open again at 1.45pm today and I could book a ticket then. Excellent! All was not lost. All it meant was a third journey back to the jetty and the job would be done.

Back at the jetty at 1.45pm I found I'd been misinformed by the service there to inform me. The counter was open, sure, but not for the ticket I wanted. 'One ticket for Rangat on the 28th, please,' I asked.
'Only tickets for 3pm ferry today. Come back tomorrow 8.30am.'
'I can't book a ticket today for the 28th?' I asked, as if blind repetition would change the answer I did not want to hear.
'Come back tomorrow, 8.30am.' No, repetition had changed nothing. I didn't have time to pedal back again, pack, check out, return my hired bike and return in time for the 3pm ferry, so it would have to be tomorrow. I was still calm. I don't know why or how. I was worried that I was not yelling and screeching as this new setback, as I might normally be. Maybe the island mentality was seeping into me, its warmth and slow pace strangely chilling my usually hot blood.

On my fourth attempt to buy my passage from paradise, I got the the ticket office at 8am, just to be on the safe side and get in the queue for 8.30am opening. Indian office hours are as arbitrarily changeable as the wind and prone to total disappearance on occasion. A queue of about eight men was actually queuing up properly and in an orderly fashion and, hurrah!, the window was already open. I'd been right to come early. Pushing in to the front of the queue, I thrust my reservation slip into the window. Surprisingly, one of the men, usually oblivious and nonchalant about queue-jumping, wasn't happy.

'You have to join the queue,' he pointed out politely. And then I said something that would only ever work in India and never, ever in the UK. 'Ladies' queue,' I said with a tight smile. He grunted and mumbled something but I'd got away with it. This wasn't just an inspired creation on my part. In many public places there are separate channels for ladies and my quick thinking had created a new ladies' queue on one - me. But karma had other ideas for me.

'Only selling tickets for today ferry at 9am. Come back 9am for other tickets.' What!? I couldn't believe it. I was there before the time they had said and they still wouldn't sell me the ticket. But I was beginning to comprehend the incomprehensible: last-minute tickets for the next departing ferry were sold roughly an hour-and-a-half before that ferry left, after which you could buy advance tickets. I wandered off to find some breakfast while I waited till 9am. As I chewed my omlette, I mused over how the islanders knew about this bonkers system when there were clearly no signs or information to tell them and certainly nothing of the kind for tourists. In fact, bonkers systems are common in the arena of Indian travel and there is never an explanation of how the incalculable idiocy functions, yet Indians somehow know, without asking anyone or being told. How? Is it a genetic predisposition to make sense of the senseless? Are they born with fore-knowledge of complicated ticketing arrangements and counter-intuitive opening hours? Or does it come to them through their mother's milk? Does her weary experience of such things flow through her and into their blood, drop by drop, until their systems develop an immunity to and an understanding of the ridiculous? Or was it really pretty straightforward and I just hadn't grasped the thing?

At 8.30, my fifth attempt saw me back in position, forming my orderly queue of one lady, alongside a handful of Indian gentlemen and a young Argentinian couple I'd chatted to on the beach the day before and advised to get there early. The window had closed again but I resolved to stay welded to my spot, come what may, until it re-opened and not leave without that ticket.

Slowly the queue thickened, deepened and broadened till it was about six wide and several deep and could no longer be officially defined as a queue. All were imperceptibly trying to push in with a jut of the elbow, a nudge of the knee or a shuffle of the feet. I held firm, placing a hand on the wall next to the ticket window to prevent encroachment by any determined ladies trying to attack from the right flank.

Suddenly, blatantly, a young man in a rather too-tight-fitting pale yellow T-shirt squirmed into place in front of me. I had not expected dirty tactics from the left-flanking so-called gentlemen's queue. This was no gentleman.

'Er, excuse me,' I piped up in indignant-foreigner-abroad tones, 'I was in front of you. You have to join the queue at the back.' I'm surprised I didn't add, 'that's just not on, what,' I sounded so English, so uptight.

'Change places,' Yellow T-shirt answered, as the man in front of him wriggled and ducked out of the press of bodies, handing over a fistful of reservation slips and money. That really wasn't on, what! Place-holding for each other, while I - with no deputy to stand in for me - had to wait in line for as long as it took. But now he was there, there wasn't much I could do about it, but I was on my guard now...

9am came and went and the ticket window remained obstinately closed. Looking behind me I saw that the crowd had swelled with bright, hopeful latecomers, including quite a few foreigners. They were clearly not familiar with the system. "Ha, fools!" I thought, "You have no chance against my staying power and their pushing in. Losers!"

At 9.15, the window opened and a murmur of excitement ran through the throng, accompanied by a surge of shoving. The man behind the window handed through sheet after sheet of reservation slips that quickly dispersed into the crowd, then promptly closed the window again. "Temporary closure," I thought. "They'll open it again in a minute." They didn't. After another 15 minutes waiting, an announcement in Hindi came over the loudspeakers. The Indians in the crowd groaned. I asked Yellow T-shirt what was happening. 'Internet not working,' he said. 'Tickets no possible.' I felt empty. I felt numb with disappointment, but I still felt calm. I was there, I was at the front and I was sure it would be working again soon. I knew that the internet in The Andamans is, at best, patchy, so this was not unheard of. I waited. And waited. Then I waited a little bit more. Just a bit more.

An hour had passed. It was beginning to get hot now and I could feel my skin getting sticky. Smells began to intensify. Yellow T-shirt periodically raised his arm and placed his hand above the ticket window to alter his position. Every time he did so, an acrid blast of his BO assaulted me. I could smell whatever it is that Indian ladies put in their hair. Its thick, cloying, distinctive odour - not unpleasant, but not Pantene either - rose from their hot scalps and filled my airspace.

Now I found myself taking in the small personal details at my fellow sufferers, so close were they to me. One lady had a single long, dark loose hair lying down her back and I itched to remove it but didn't dare. I stared at it for a long time, mind empty. I watched in mild disgust, again unable to move, as a mosquito landed on another lady's bare shoulder and fed greedily from her. She didn't notice and eventually it flew off, bloated with its blood soup.

Yet another lady was wearing elaborate gold earrings with a chain that looped over the top of each ear and back down to the stud in the lobe. I noticed that the fixing of one of them had fallen off and the earring was in danger of falling out. I wanted to tell her but wasn't sure she'd understand the English and I didn't think I was up to miming 'Er, I think your earring is falling out' without provoking significant confusion. While she chatted away and head-wobbled with the other ladies, it seemed to remain in place.

Suddenly there was a commotion at the front of the gents' queue. A fat, pale, elderly foreign gentleman with thick black-framed, milk-bottle glasses was pushing into the front of their queue. Indignation bristled all round. But he had back-up, official back-up. He was accompanied by an equally fat policeman, his sand-coloured trousers straining at the belt and bulging unattractively either side of the seam at the groin. The policeman wore black wraparound sunglasses, which gave him a menacing air. He also hefted a truncheon in one hand. He said something in Hindi to the effect of ,'Get out of the way for this gentleman.' The Indians protested loudly but eventually moved approximately one millimetre. The Argentinian was not so happy. 'You have to join the line, my friend,' he said in stern English, clearly not having understood the policemen or the actions of the Indians. The fat man replied in Italian-accented English, 'I am over 65 and 'handicappata'. I can go to the front of the queue.'

Annoyingly and amazingly he was right. And the policeman was there to see his right enacted. In India, when booing tickets, there are many categories of people whose situation in life gives them the right to queue-jump with impunity or to have special queues just for them. Elderly men and women and disabled people (often still referred to here as cripples) are among these. Decorated war heroes of particular wars and specific battles (I have seen exhaustive signs listing these) are also duly honoured, as are the widows of same. While this is undoubtedly noble and just, it did not feel like it today. Milk Bottle Eyes looked nervous and tried not to catch anybody's gaze as they all adjusted to accept this mild injustice. Eventually the policeman moved away, satisfied that no harm would come to his protectee.

We waited and continued to wait. The trouble with enforced inactivity is that it gives you time to think, and re-think and change your mind. I began to review my options. Should I carry on waiting and hope that I could get my ticket, or should I give up and come back tomorrow? Should I just buy whatever the hell ticket I could to any other island and get the hell out of beautiful Havelock from which I could so far apparently never leave? I already had a significant investment of time and emotion in that wait and if I left now - two hours in - it would have been another colossal waste of time and I would forever wonder what might have been... No, I had to wait it out.

Milk Bottle Eyes, apparently now forgiven for his queue-jumping was in conversation with the Argentinian to pass the time. He switched to Spanish, having apparently lived some time in Buenos Aires and they began to discuss the unifying topic of men the world over - football. They listed and sorted their respective country's best players, by club, ability and flair, chatting away like old friends, any antagonism now buried in a shared joy of goals, stats and opinions. Yellow T-shirt was less relaxed. Fidgeting and tutting nervously his patience eventually gave out and he sent his replacement back into the queue while he went off somewhere else.

Finally, after another hour, the window opened again. But my soaring hopes were dashed once more. The internet now seemed to be working although at a stone-age speed, but now the ticket printing machine, which looked as old as time itself, was malfunctioning. Men came and went, talked and fiddled and at one point one ticket officer even put his feet up and opened the newspaper. I was bereft of hope, choked with indecision again. Was it stupid to wait anymore? Or a shameful waste of an entire morning to abandon my apparently unending vigil? I just couldn't decide.

Yellow T-shirt was now asking the ticket officer something.
'What did he say?' I asked.
'No internet, so no advance tickets, only for today.' This was a new outrage - if it was true. I was beginning to have my suspicions about Yellow T-shirt. He had a clutch of slips for at least four separate people - all apparently foreigners. I'd sneaked a look at his reservation slips. He was on a mission (poor sod!) for someone else and it was in his interests to get rid of any gullible tourists who would reduce the likelihood  of his getting his hands on the tickets he needed. I didn't trust him. I needed to hear this devastating piece of news from the ticket man himself. I squeezed in next to Milk Bottle Eyes and put my head as close to the window as possible:

'Is it possible to buy a ticket for Rangat for tomorrow?' I shouted slowly and carefully, so there would be no confusion.
'No possible today. No internet. Come back tomorrow 7am.' No apology for the delay or magnificent inconvenience caused, just the bald and devastating facts. I was numb with shock, so I asked the same question again, to be sure I'd not misheard the answer. It was the same.

'If I come back tomorrow - again - (I couldn't resist a heavy emphasis on the last word to make sure he knew of my suffering - he didn't notice it) I can definitely get a ticket for the same day?'
'Yes 100% sure, you can get a ticket for 9am ferry.'
'100% sure?'
'Yes,' irritation now, '100% sure.'

What else could I do? I had to accept the awful truth. I left the waiting crowds, now considerably thinned out as those with more sense than me had long abandoned all hope, and sat on a nearby step, head in hands. Including the first attempt today, I had waited a total of four hours - for nothing. NOTHING! I was too exhausted, too broken to even be angry. All I could think about was the poor islanders who weren't on holiday with all the time in the world. They'd also had to wait for nothing and most of them were still there as I got back on my bike and pedalled off. How the blazing hell did they keep sane?

I hardly slept that night, tense with anxiety about the impending repeat battle. I didn't know what I'd do if I didn't get a ticket this time. Short of abandoning the idea of visiting any of the other islands until I had to leave to get the ferry back to Port Blair to catch my flight out, I didn't see any other option. And even then, how could I be sure I'd get a ticket? I resolved to get off that bloody island tomorrow, wherever I ended up.

I was at the ticket office, backpack all packed and ready to go, at 6.30am and staggeringly, there were already a handful of Indians there waiting, but not in a queue. A couple of bags were on the floor in front of the ticket window. Place-savers! The cheek! Well, they could just fuck off! If they weren't physically in the queue they weren't going to get in front of me. I sat down on the floor with my backpack nearby. I wasn't moving an inch. At 6.55am the owner of the place-saving bags returned. By then a few people had formed a queue behind me. He gestured to his bag.

'My place,' he said. I looked him squarely in the eye, picked up his bags and handed them to him, saying, 'No, if you are not in the queue you have to join the end.'
'But this my place,' he wheedled.
'I don't care. I've been waiting in the queue since 6.30am and you were not waiting, so you have to go to the back.'

He wasn't happy and started appealing to the other men, to try to explain. I just looked at him again and said, louder this time, 'NO! You have to wait in the queue all the time.' He looked bewildered. This was not how it worked. Well, it was how it was working today! Every man, woman, waif and stray for themselves. Muttering darkly he moved off, not to the back of the queue, but at least behind me. Wow! I couldn't believe my own audacity and even more, that I'd got away with it.

At 7am, prompt the ticket window was flung open. The only man in front of me thrust his form and money through, lightening fast. Calmly the man wrote out his ticket by hand in a little ticket book. I didn't dare to breathe. I was seconds away from getting that ticket but I wouldn't believe it until I had the piece of paper in my hand. The man had his ticket and pushed his way out. I rammed my documents through the hole, stretching my whole arm inside, as if a greater proximity to the ticket officer would get me what I wanted any sooner. My heart was pounding and I was having difficulty breathing with the anxiety and tension of the moment. Without saying a word, the officer slowly, oh-so-slowly, filled in my ticket, my ticket! and handed it to me. It was small, flimsy and printed on rose pink paper but I wanted to yell and leap with joy, as if I'd found buried treasure. I finally had my ticket out of paradise. I had passed through the portals of hell. It had taken a mastery of the sport of extreme patience and six attempts over a period of three days. It could not be more difficult to gain admittance into real Heaven. 'Thank fuck for that!' I said, swearing out loud to no-one in particular. Then again, maybe Heaven wouldn't be so easy for me after all...

Life and depths

When the land on a paradise island above water is so beautiful, you'd be forgiven for not wanting to have a look at what's beneath the waves. When the green tassels of palm leaves bent to touch the translucent teal of the sea and the warm breeze whipped up a fine mist of sugar-white sand that stuck to my hot, damp skin and wouldn't rub off, for me there was little temptation to move from my lazy spot under the puffs of cloud and go snorkelling. But the Andamans are known for their beautiful underwater life, so I overcame the strong urge to continue busily achieving nothing.

I lifted my sleep-dazed body voluntarily out of bed at 7am and hopped onto the rattling, stubborn bicycle I'd hired and pedalled drowsily through the still-quiet, thick green air to meet my companions for the day. They were an English couple Louise and James and a Canadian lady, Ellen, all of whom I'd met the day before.

We were heading to a nearby beach - Elephant Beach - to have a go at snorkelling. The others had all done it before, and James is also a diver, so I was the only novice. We took a Jeep to the start of the elephant logging track we had to follow for half an hour to get to the beach. My hard-working flip-flops were not the most helpful footwear and I slipped and stumbled on the rutted, ragged track. Here and there elephant tracks like dinner plate indentations in the soft mud marked the route we should take. The walk was a trek through the primeval; through ancient jungle that was every shade of green. Leaves big enough to wrap a small child in unfurled to the hot air their stiff, nodding stems that sprouted alongside the path. Foliage draped foliage, which in turn draped other foliage, until the trees, vines and creepers were knitted together into a blanket of moist greenery. Skyscraping trees rose, dead straight and neck-crickingly high, their bleached trunks thrusting up into the top canopy of the forest and fanning out into an umbrella of leaves. Below these, another layer of lower growth sprouted and pushed, searching always for the hot, white sunlight. Lower still bushes exploded in clouds of rattling, hard green leaves, rolling like clouds between the taller trees. The spaces left between all of these were garlanded with thick fat vines and creepers, aerial roots and floating invisible webs of spiders. The air, already warm and thick with the smell of vegetation, seemed to stick itself to our skin, coating it with a glisten, a sheen of sweat.

I was amazed by the thickness, the tumble, the multitudes, the density, the solidity of plant life. Where the land rose up, the foliage rose with it, climbing, growing, stretching and foaming at the top with a crest of greenery, a solid wall, a silent, softly shifting tsunami of vegetation.

Nearing the beach we had to pass through a tidal mangrove swamp which was now, at low tide, a flat grey mud, patterned with the scuttling, hurrying activity of mud skippers and hermit crabs. The area had been badly damaged by the 2004 tsunami and was, even now, a hot, silent accusation of the disaster, a now-still crash of torn and shredded roots and upturned trees. Bleached silver grey, their tangled, hard outlines stretched up to the soft blue sky overhead, in a strange, ugly, grasping, shocking beauty. The ripped-up roots had long since been washed of their clinging mud and the ragged broken limbs of snapped-off branches and trunks had been softened and blurred by the years, the sun and the sea. But it was still an eerie and unnerving sight.

In front of us, the mangrove widened out into a tiny strip of tidal beach that curved round into a sweet little bay. Somewhere out there was the reef we'd come to snorkel. The sea was its ever-perfect aquamarine clarity, melting and blurring into petrol blue and beyond.

I had been told many times by many people on the island that much of the coral reefs around the Andamans were dead and bleached, due to a heatwave a couple of years back when the seawater had reached 32 degrees, killing off the top layer of coral. It still supported some fish life and though it was beginning to re-generate, much of it was still damaged. So I knew not to expect much from the coral itself, but that the fishes were still worth seeing.

Nervously I put on my snorkel mask: I am not a fan of enclosed spaces, especially ones that force your body to behave in ways it naturally resists. The paradox of snorkelling apparatus is that one part - the mask - prevents you from doing the one thing that will drown you, namely breathing in underwater, while the other part - the mouthpiece - makes sure you are doing the one thing that will keep you alive: also breathing in underwater.

Enclosing my eyes and nose in airtight security, I couldn't breathe through my nostrils and was forced to mouth-breathe, an unnatural action that I fought momentarily with an adrenalin burst of anxiety. Once my brain understood the necessity, the panic subsided. I slipped in the mouthpiece, bit down on the rubber teeth clamps and began to breathe carefully, concentratedly through the tube. A jet of nerves, sharp and cold, rushed through me, raising goosebumps all over me. But somewhere behind the fear, I felt a calmness that told me I could overcome this terror, I could master its clammy grip on me. It was that, or pride that wouldn't allow me to fail before even putting my head in the sea. Gently, slowly I lowered my face into the water. Its cool touch soothed and calmed me. Through the smudgy hired mask, the white sand seabed shone back at me, blank and empty for the moment. It encouraged me with its purity and benign appearance. I watched with interest as my hair fanned out around me, waving softly, becoming its own form of seaweed, drifting, undulating. The sound of my breath in my water-silenced ears was loud, scratchy and eerie.

I knew I would have to swim a little way out to the coral reef to have a chance of seeing anything, as there would be no fish close to the beach, so I struck out. The water was choppy and wthin a few strokes, a swell washed over the top of the tube, leaking into my mouth. This was a moment I'd dreaded.

'If you get water in the pipe, just blow it out,' James had explained breezily on the beach, and then he was gone. Now panic lurched at my guts and I fought the overwhelming instinct to wrench my head out of the water, pull out the tube and spit out the salty water. Again my little voice of calm behind my fear spoke to me from somewhere beyond my understanding and, not really knowing what I was doing, I snorted out the water in a sharp whoosh of breath from the bottom of my lungs. I carefully breathed in again, my heart pounding. It worked! The pipe was clear and I was able to breathe normally again. Elated that I'd not drowned within minutes, my confidence soared.

I swam on. The sand was still flat and empty, the water, still clear and glassy. As waves occasionally broke over my tube I snorted them away contemptuously, like an impatient aquatic elephant. I began to relax and feel comfortable. My body bobbed and swung back and forth with the movement of the waves. And I started to become aware of other sensations: such as discovering that when I stretched my arms out with each stroke, my bikini bottoms were looser than I'd realised. They were holding up, though... just.

Now I began to wonder when the reef would appear, when suddenly I was in the middle of a cloud of bright fish. I gasped in water-muffled delight. They were the most elegant creatures I'd ever seen. They were large and flat and the most elegant mother-of-pearl grey and painted, as if with a feather-soft brush, along top and bottom fins with a band of primrose yellow. As they moved, flexing sinuously in the currents, their flat bodies seemed to disappear against the pale sand, leaving only their stripes visible, swirling and tumbling, like yellow petals through blue air. I reached out to touch these angel-beings, so near did they seem, I thought I could brush them with my fingertips. But they were further away than they looked and danced shyly away from my white outstretched fingers. I felt a strange sense of profound loss that I couldn't touch these other-worldly nymphs but had to watch from a distance, as a child with her nose pressed against the cold outside of a twinkling window at a party she cannot join. I stopped and hovered, not wanting to scare them, watching delighted as they glided back and forth in front of me, a parade, a display that seemed to be for me alone. Slowly they drifted off and I followed.

Suddenly there was the coral reef, not a vivid jumble and pile of colour and texture, but a brooding grey-brown mass. Great pillowy domes were heavy, grey and rippled as brains, while truncated fingers of branched coral stood stark and stunted like trees without leaves or life. They seemed to stretch dead fingers towards the very sun that had killed them. As I floated in horror over this dead landscape the slow, rasp of my breath resounding in my head, was the only thing I could hear. It was like the soundtrack to the end of the world. Everything seemed to be covered with a fine, slimy browny-green algae that made what should have been a place of life look like a mouldering, mossed graveyard. This expanse of death and decay seemed to spread out as far as I could see in the clear water.

A terrible, choking fear suddenly gripped me. I'm not sure why that first sight of the desolate coral scared me, but it did. Maybe it was because it looked like a deserted city after a terrible apocalypse. Its few angel-bright fish were like survivors of some suffocating, creeping disaster, gliding between the dead domes looking, searching, haunted, like refugees.

Or maybe it was the shock of the unknown. I have never seen coral in its natural state before and certainly not in such dark, horrfyinh shades of death. The scab browns, pus greens and rotting greys spoke of disease, illness and grim survival, rather than the vivid paintbox shades of bright life and vibrant health. Though such post-apocalyptic horror was not caused by man but by nature itself, it was no less shocking.

But there was life - as the pearl and yellow fish disappeared (I don't know the name), they were replaced by parrot fish: black and yellow striped beauties, they buzzed around happily like underwater bees.

But my unspecified dread remained, tamed and distracted but not removed by the colourful fish. The coral felt like an unknown landscape, where dark corners held a dark fear I didn't understand. Was it the threat, ingrained from childhood, of monsters lurking in dark, dank places in mythical fairytale lands? Of beasts and demons hidden from view, waiting to pounce, of things that go bump in the night - or the sea? It wasn't a fear of specific threats such as sharks or crocodiles (although it maybe should have been of the latter, as an American tourist was killed in 2010 by a croc very near where we were swimming!), it was more a fear of the unseen, making itself seen suddenly and unexpectedly. Although I have watched many of the Blue Planet-type documentaries and been in wonder and awe at the sheer incomprehensible diversity of species, form, texture and function of the sea's creatures, even via a TV small screen, some of the deep-sea dwellers have still provoked horror and disgust in me. I find myself appalled by their ugly, alien faces, their slimy pallid skin, pale from lack of light. Pretty, 'vacuous', colourful fish of the type that I saw now, held no fear, with their blinking eyes and synchronised moves, a ballet below the waves that makes me smile.

This fear is the possibility, the maybe, the perhaps of monsters. In reality I know the ugly ones are hidden, buried in deep, dark ocean trenches I would never venture into, but the knowledge of them, even though they are not - and will not be - visible here below me in these shallow, harmless waters makes me fear the contents of these bright, placid open waters.

But the coral is starting to regenerate and here and there a 'brain' flushes with a pale yellow or a lilac shade that may or may not hint at the brightness of its former beauty. Some clusters seemed to be shedding their scarred, dead brown tissue, the organism beneath, fresh and tender like a newly-healed wound. Every so often a wiggly line among the grey showed up bright, electric blue. This, I later found out was probably the edge of the lip of a giant scallop shell and not new coral, but the luminosity of its colour cheered me and gave me hope that life was returning.

Now, below me, I could make out the shape of other, murkier citizens of of this once-bright underwater world. A large dirty brown fish, its body almost indistinguishable against the sea floor, pecked lightly at the slimy coral and, as he turned and his side caught the sun, he glowed with an irridescent rainbow sheen, like petrol spilled on water, his fins shimmering with tiny rainbows. He was a sorry, lumpy, heavy-looking creature, but his gentle, subtle brilliance made me love him as much as the other louder inhabitants. He was perfect for this place: his dingy, drab first impression was lit up with sparks of brilliance, just like the regenerating coral.

Nearby, a shoal of smaller matt black fish with little white flecks milled around, like a crowd of Goths on a street corner, waiting for something to happen. Then, as quickly as they'd appeared, the fish melted away, leaving me with nothing more than the dead coral again. I swam on, feeling again the twinges of fear. I lifted my head out of the water to get my bearings and as I did, nearby James' head broke the surface too.

'There seems to be more fish at the margins rather than at the centre of the reef,' he called. 'OK,' I called back, "I'll have a look.' I ducked my head back in and headed towards him, the tendrils of my hair partially obscuring my vision. I was heading further out towards the open sea and the deeper water was getting colder against my skin. There was still no sign of more fish, only the sinister mounds and shadowy bumps of the reef, when suddenly that too disappeared. Below me the coral dropped away abruptly and beyond it were the vast blue depths. Now I really felt the Fear. I couldn't see anything but this underwater cliff, plunging off into nothingness, deep unfathomable, unseeable, cold blue water. It terrified me. This absence of life, of light, of anything. Its void made my stomach flip and my throat constrict. Even as I turned my back on it and quickly swam back to the shallower, paler waters, I found myself asking what it was that scared me so much?

On land, life is always with us: on the surface, above, below, together with us, it exists without us always being aware of its presence. But this under-sea emptiness was a lack of life (although of course I know it's there), an absence of presence, like some before-now unrealised premonition of death, an absence of life, of being. Its nothingness filled me with dread.

I bit down harder on my mouthpiece as if to reassure myself of my own physical presence and with horrible fascination, I turned slowly back and went to look at the Edge of Nothing again. I looked but I couldn't bring myself to swim out over the margin of the reef and look, suspended above, into the empty deep. I couldn't take my place over the void without the fear returning. I hadn't the courage or the desire to know the unknown, to hang, untethered to life and reality, over that vast blue death.

I headed back to the beach. I decided, if any of the others asked, that my excuse for getting out would be that I had got cold in the deeper water. They didn't ask. I had definitely been chilled though not by the low temperature. Back on the white sand, the shining water looked inviting again, the curl of its foaming waves beckoning to me to come back in. But I was not fooled. I knew my fear would always be out there waiting to meet me at the Edge of Nothing. I think my underwater explorations began and ended there.

Imperfections in perfection

Coming to a island, a paradise of an island that I'd thought and dreamed about coming to and finding it as beautiful and perfect as I'd heard unfurled in me a sense of relief in the most overwhelming, tear-inducing way. Id just arrived on Havelock Island, one of the Andaman Islands, it was just perfect, in a prefectly perfect way.

The sea was a pale, glass-clear delicate turquoise, the colour of innocence, of a baby's eyes. This lead into a deep, intense teal that melted into a smooth, liquid navy blue. The coral sand was the shade of purity itself, a softly burning white. Shards and fragments, like bleached bones among the grains, pricked sharp on my bare feet, a gentle reminder that this visible beauty on land was formed, shaped, built on the death of underwater beauty. Below the soft blue waves, the sea guarded it hidden reefs and bright fish. The palm trees curled drunkenly towards the sea, dipping and swaying their beckoning leaves, calling me, urging me to sit beneath their shade. The quiet fuzz of the white waves, whispered a song of tranquility as it wriggled up the sand, before sinking again into its pillow softness. The dying sunlight washed the sky rose pink and an egg-yolk yellow boat moored just offshore rolled languidly on the waves. The breeze nudged my warm skin, freckling my glasses with spray. Opposite the beach a mile or so away, was another island. On it, mossy puffs of dense jungle covered the horizon, underlined with a fine strip of white, the beach twin of this one.

I couldn't believe I was in a place of such perfection, that such a place of perfection even existed and that I should he allowed to see it in reality, not in a dream or a photo that I didn't trust, its flat surface reducing it to a poverty of printing, incapable of capturing the feel, the now, the depth of its perfection. You had to be there, actually, physically there to understand and know its moving, quivering, evanescent beauty.

Yet this luminous, wonderous place filled me with an unbearable sadness: I had come here alone and alone I marvelled at it. To make my reality complete, to make me be sure I wasn't imagining this vision, one vital element was missing - someone to share it with. It was so unbearably romantic, so laden with the essence of being in love in a lovely place. To sit surrounded by it and by the arms of the man I love, both of us silent in admiration and contemplation, would have been a bliss; a shining, complete, totality of perfection.

I called him, the crackling line, like nails in my heart, spiking me with the knowledge of just how far away he was. 'It's so beautiful, so perfect,' I choked. 'I wish you were with me now.'
'I know Baby, I wish I was there too.But,' - ever-practical, ever positive - 'you enjoy it and make the most of it.' In that moment I didn't think I could. 'It's wasted without you. It's wasted on me on my own.' Tears choked me. My gruff, rational mind knew how silly, how uncaring, how unfair it was to find the one thing that was wrong with an otherwise perfect situation, but I couldn't help myself. I felt dislocated from this beauty, out-of-place and so terribly alone. Foolish, in fact, to be in this languid turquoise heaven without having an Other to share it with.

Of course I appreciated it, how could I not? But I wanted, I needed, to have someone to turn my open-mouthed face to; to show my smile of delirious delight to; to see my expression of wonder reflecting back at me from his own shining happiness.

I blame tiredness, as I always do. It had taken a five-hour ferry trip to get here and the thick, weighing humidity leached my energy to leave me dull and slow - and emotional. When I'm tired my senses are heightened - sounds are louder and brighter; colours more vivid, smells more powerful, sensations deeper - so a place of such beauty is rendered all the more so. Fatigue is the drug that opens up and folds out my reality, leaving its tender inner recesses exposed to the cruel weight and scratch of what's missing, the pain of the non-present. And my emotions were fragile and brittle too. The gentle, healing touch of paradise crumbled them to a fine dust, as fine as the sand on which I sat. They ran through my fingers uncontrollably, falling to rest on the ground beneath me, and so becoming part of the bright beauty itself.

But sleep will restore and reconstruct me from the inside out. It will quietly in the small, black hours, fold back the raw nerves of heightened reality and close the wound revealed, protecting me from the pain of wanting what I cannot have. The dark jungle will hold and soothe me, its soft chattering creatures, mysterious bird calls and clicking insects will lull me and when I wake to the breeze-ruffled palms I will fall in love with this island again, on my own, in my own way.

A load of rubbish

India has its flaws. Some I find charming, some irritating, some funny, some forgivable, but there is one flaw I cannot forgive however much I accept the rest: litter. From single scraps of paper to mountain ranges of plastic bottles, it is always, always present, always, always heartbreaking. It heaps up in ditches or under trees, trying to hide its bulk among the shadows, or flaps lazily, openly, slovenly in the street, inviting dogs, cats, cows, goats, rats and mice to inspect it and ingest it. It spreads itself over everything from the dirtiest, grimiest back alleys to the prettiest countryside scenes. You can't avoid it, escape it or quite believe it.

And unlike some of India's other flaws it is not even picturesque. A ramshackle bus, held together by hope and string, is a picturesque because it defies logic, never mind death, and it makes you smile. An ancient Babu swathed in flaming orange cloth, with draggled grey beard and smeared with sandalwood paste is picturesque (even though he demands 10Rs for you to take his picture), because he is one of the faces of India's life. Even the poverty is, dare I say it, picturesque. The suffering of a beggar girl grinds sorrowful character into her young face and her pitiful gaze demands you to hold it and acknowledge it or else look away entirely.

But litter is never, ever, ever picturesque. Everything it touches is soiled and diseased by its contact. The beautiful Brindavan Gardens, near Mysore - a favourite Bollywood backdrop - become a sickening mockery when its ponds bob, not with vital, vibrant plant life, but with discarded bottles and cans. Its bushes bloom with thrown-away packets and plastics.

Litter, and those who drop it, has the capacity to disappoint and disrespect like nothing else. I arrive in a new place full of hope and expectation. 'This one will be cleaner,' I think. But, as usual expectation vanquishes hope: the rubbish is there waiting for me, clumped in side streets where it thinks I won't look or sprawled in the bright streets, like a mangy stray cat sleeping in a patch of sun, not even caring what I see of think. It desecrates the most lovely beaches, marking the tide line like a rim of scum on nature's immense bathtub.

And my heart is instantly a little bit broken. My hopes are dashed like a dropped beer bottle and smash into a thousand glittering pieces. Even if the pieces can be gathered up and put back together, the whole still bears the scars.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I challenge anyone to find beauty in a greasy crisp packet flapping in a flower-thick bush, a smeared tissue crumpled near an ancient temple gate, or a broken flip-flop washed up on a sugar-white Andaman beach. I have seen all these things and I have wept for them.

Yet it happens again and again. The hill station of Ooty, was said to be a little piece of old England in the misty green Indian hills: it was a living rubbish dump of open, foetid drains, with a litter-flecked lake where even a graveyard of broken pedalos lolled insolent in the sun, in full view of tourists and locals alike.

Pondicherry's rubbish at least attempted irony, so I almost forgave it. A huge sign on the seafront pronounced mournfully: 'Pondicherry's not the same when you litter'. Below its hopeful plea had been dumped a large and deliberate heap of garbage.

Even the precious Andaman paradise island of Havelock was infected. At its star beach, simply known as Beach No 7, my heart leapt to see big green recycling bins for the mountains of plastic water bottles the tourists consume. Could someone finally be taking notice and caring? The bins were brimful, so people were definitely using them and the area seemed to be clear of litter. But when I took a short cut down a little track that lead to the beach, there under the bushes, the contents of numerous recycling bins had just been dumped there. The sea of litter was there all along, mirroring in a grotesque parody, the real translucent, heavenly sea just a few meters from it. It was hidden away like a dirty, guilty secret, but like all such secrets it had been found out.

And I refuse to add to this refuse. I absolutely cannot leave my own litter behind, however tiny its drop in this ocean of ordure. Instead I will fold and hold my wrappings and packings, stowing them neatly in my bag until I spot the rare creature that is a litter bin and will carefully place my 'treasure' there. Or if a bin does not show its face, I will take it back to my room and bin it there.

I don't do this to be smug and teach a lesson - after all, no-one notices - I do it because I believe it to be right. And does this make me a better person than the Indians whose drops create this flood of litter? Of course not. It is simply a question of education. I have been taught to leave no litter behind so that is what I do. In India it would appear that litter is at the bottom of the educational heap. Indians have been born in it, grow up in it and die in it, and so they just don't notice it. And no-one had told them not to do it. I have seen a child drop an ice-cream wrapper the moment her treat in unwrapped, and I have also seen on a train a middle-aged, middle-class lady, throw the remains of her meal, paper plate, cup, spoon and all out of the window. She leaned over me to do this, dripping cold sauce on my leg, and I watched in disgust as it traced it's greasy arc and landed on the ground - next to a hundred other plates. No-one cares because no-one has been taught to care.

But it can be done, it has been done. The Taj Mahal is a serene oasis of litter-free loveliness, the Golden Temple is always spotless and Delhi's Lotus Temple is not full of rubbish. So what's the problem with the other places? No-one lives in these monuments: they live in the streets and houses; they travel on the trains and buses; and they use the parks and public toilets. And all of these are drowning in a filthy tide of garbage.

So what's the problem? To me, it seems that the Government doesn't care. It wants to impress the tourists (Indian ones as well) so its sights are scrubbed and polished, while its cities and scenery are squalid and unkempt. Apart from in Pondicherry (ironic mound aside), I have not noticed seem a litter bin in the streets or in the countryside and I have never seen a rubbish lorry. How can people store their rubbish indefinitely if no-one comes to collect it? Sometimes they burn it. At dusk in towns and villages the smell of smoke drifts across the air, weaving its threads between the houses. This is not the evocative scent of woodsmoke or charcoal that we smell, but the acrid stench of smouldering or flaming rubbish; plastics, paper, food waste and all. It is from necessity on two counts. One, it repels mosquitoes at their most likely strike time and two, it is the only means of getting rid of their rubbish that some people have. What else can they do?

But it feels as if the Government is willfully closing its eyes to this. There are armies of beggars and unemployed in every town, village, hovel and shack. Could India not take advantage of - and equally give advantage to - these poor souls? Get them to clean up their towns and cities in return for a basic wage, then they would dignify themselves and their town at the same time.

Unskilled labours

When I arrive in a new location, particularly a new town - which are never my favourite places - I'm always a bit apprehensive about whether I will like the place or not. Mysore stole my heart pretty quickly. On the bus before I even got there, an Indian gentleman asked my neighbour to swap seats with him so he could sit next to me. Having seen me poring over my Loney Planet guide, he sat down, leaned over and pointed out all the places in India I simply had to visit, in his opinion. Sadly they were all in the north and that part of my journey is long over. I tried to explain this and, undeterred, he asked for my mobile number and insisted I took his, so that next time I was in India (he had no question that I would return to see these places) I could ring him up and he'd take me to there himself. His spoken English was pretty poor, so I wasn't confident that we'd get any sense out of each other if I did ever find myself in a position to ring him, but I hadn't the heart to turn him down, so I took his details anyway to make him happy. He got off before Mysore, having wanted nothing other that to be of asistance. How lovely this was, when all too often those involved in the tourist industry are 'helpful' for ulterior motives.

When I got to my hotel in Mysore, the good feeling continued: the bellboy who came to show me to my room was as chirpy as a little sparrow. He was probably more of a bell-grandpa really, being around 70 I would guess, with sprightly darting eyes an a big gap-toothed smile. He whisked my leaden backpack onto one shoulder as if it contained no more than clouds, and skipped off so quickly that I had to trot to keep up with him. All the way there sang happily away to himself, leaving me free of my burden to admire the mouldering glory of what had once been a lovely, stylish 1930s Art Deco-ish building.

Still singing, he showed me my room and bathroom. The plumbing looked as if it also dated from the 1930s, along with layers of dirt and stains of the same vintage. I don't think the bathroom had been redecorated or even cleaned since that decade!

Not a word of English or any other language passed Bell-grandpa's lips, just cheery humming. He didn't even seem to be aware of my presence, so much was he in a happy little world of his own. I wanted him to be my grandpa, he was so sweet!

Dodgy bathroom and all, I took the room (it was actually pretty comfy, quiet and had hot water! in the morning). How could I not after such unselfconscious happiness? As I followed Bell-grandpa back down to reception to fill in the miles of forms toursits in India have to endure, he grabbed hold of the shiny, dark wooden bannisters and slid all the way down two flights of stairs, with child-like joy. This sealed the deal!

The next morning I set out for Mysore's famous Devaraja Market refreshed, but for the haunting call to prayer from a nearby mosque that woke me a little earlier than my drowsy body believed to be strictly necessary. The guidebook promised great photo opportunities and I soon found out they were telling the truth. The fruit and veg section was a buzz of early morning activity, with men, women and children coming and going, loading and unloading, shouting and laughing, spitting and peeing.

One man sat already in place in his stall, totally and I mean totally, surrounded to left, right, above and below by onions. Just onions, not a single other vegetable! They were mostly red ones with a small section of white onions too. He seemed to be sitting literally on top of row upon row of neatly arranged veg, all the same size, all facing the same way, creating a vegetable rampart that it would have taken a fearless customer to disturb. Who could dare to remove and handle one of his precision-placed onions?

Behind him lay more onions, this time lying loose, heaped against the side of his little space. These must be the ones he would actually sell, so as not to breach his vegetable castle. He himself sat exactly in the middle, a simple, stripe-shirted king on his throne of root vegetables. The only two other objects present in the scene that were not an onion, were a set of battered weighing scales and the newspaper he was reading. The 8am sun slanted into the narrow alleyway, making the red onions shine like polished pink pebbles.

Elsewhere another man sat cross-legged among mounds and mounds of bunches of fresh coriander. Tied with twine, these fistfuls of herb filled the air with their sharp pungent aroma coating the less pleasant smell of rotting fruit and vegtables and drains that formed the base notes of this market fragrance.

Everywhere I looked, colour and form and texture and light and setting burst into my vision. There were photos everywhere I looked, but taking them almost meant not seeing them in reality. This was, after all, an everyday market, not there for the sole purpose of curious travellers such as me to photograph it and lock it in a box. It was there to be experienced without a lense in front of my eye.

After taking photo after photo until my camera was red-hot, I reluctantly forced myself to put it in my bag and see, feel, smell, taste and touch the place instead. I wandered into the flower section. Garlands of flowers hung down from every high point, stirring slightly in the breeze and curtaining the alleys. The scent of a million flowers swirled through the air. The thick heavy scent of sensual jasmine, delicate tuberose, sweet soft rose and sharp acid marigold all blended together into a rich, fresh perfume that hummed and vibrated with a thousand bees and insects, drawn to and drunk on this heaven of blossoms.

There were enormous temple garlands, metres long, made thick with several slender chains of thousands of tiny white tuberose flowers bound togther, groups of roses or marigolds in between. At the base of each garland, was a brightly coloured foil-covered ball - gold, Cadbury purple, turquoise, or hot pink - gleaming like an outrageous jewel, above a delicate tassel of individually-threaded tuberose strands, each finished with a pompom of orange or gold marigolds. The florists had splashed the finished garlands liberally with water and in the warming air, this scented dew filled my nostrils with fragrance. Some garlands were encased in a delicate web of silver strands that caught the light and glittered like dancing white fireflies.

I spoke to a florist whose name was Khan, and watched as he deftly threaded the fragile individual tuberose flowers onto a cotton thread. He told me that some of the longer garlands took several hours to make, as every single flower, leaf and petal was hand-strung. He worked with quick, expert fingers, slipping the fleshy blooms onto the long thread at lightening speed.

I asked if I could have a go. The results were predictably useless. I tore petals, broke the heads and threaded a wonky line that wouldn't lie straight. Khan gently took the needle and thread from me with an indulgent smile and carried on, barely looking at what he was doing.

His assistant was making the foil balls for the garlands, so I turned my attention to how this was done. He took a small plastic bag filled with dried grain and tied the open end by whipping a soaked cotton thread around it several times. Next he pierced the bag to let a little air out and, with flying movements, quickly bound the ball with more thread, adjusting the shape into a perfectly round ball with his hands. Now it was a tight solid ball, and he encased it in a strip of coloured foil and whipped the thread around this too, folding it neatly round the curved sides as he went. A little twist of the thread at the end and it was done - a shiny fat jewel of a ball produced. The whole process took no more than 30 seconds.

Yes you're right: I wanted to have a go too! And yes, the same car crash results as before ensued. My grain ball was a squashed satsuma, with great lumps bulging out between the strands of thread, like a too-fat lady in tight jeans.Grimacing, I passed it to Khan for inspection before starting the foil wrapping. With a small Indian head wobble he generously OK'd it, after reshaping it in his hands and securing it with a few more rounds of cotton.

The foil-wrapping was also, of course, harder than it looked. Trying to get an even layer, while turning and winding seemed to need several more than 10 fingers, especially after I managed to bind a few of them onto the ball by mistake. My finished globe was unevenly covered, with patches of silver backing where I'd managed to fold the foil the wrong way. It looked like a dog had got into a Terry's Chocolate Orange. Again Khan kindly wobbled his acceptance of my substandard manufacture. I put it in a pile next to his other ones, where my shortcomings were instantly highlighted on top of his heap of uniform spheres. I was sure that its woeful, crippled form would probably be quietly discarded once I'd left.

To cement our budding friendship, I also told Khan I was a florist back home, and showed him some photos of my work on my mobile. He was delighted and a cup of chai appeared from nowhere into my hand while he took a few minutes off to compare and contrast. He seemed impressed, but I couldn't help thinking how much more skillful his creations were. He showed me his own album and my impressions were confirmed: it was full of images of impossibly elaborate garlands, archway decorations, flower netting, headdresses and even a complete bridal dress made of tuberose heads. There were marriage bed canopies, made entirely of jasmine 'lace' that had taken three days to make and install. There was a wedding bus entirely covered with a netting of tuberose and marigolds. It was breathtakingly skillful. Khan was only 23, but he said he'd been working with flowers since he was eight years old. I could well believe it. It seemed that for me, starting as a florist at 31, I'd probably missed the boat...

Being taken for a ride: The final chapter

The last day of the ride. A feeling of sadness was in the air as we packed the tents and bags for the final time. Tonight we would be staying in another plantation house, so the camping ordeal was over for me, without me having spent a single night under canvas. A good result, I think! I said goodbye to the yellow sad-eyed dog, whom we'd named Ramprasad. He'd become an unofficial camp mascot during our time there, feasting on our scraps and leftovers. When not putting on heart-breakingly cowering displays of animal submission - bowing down with front legs outstretched and yawning, or tail and ears lowered when anyone came near - he was a quiet, affectionate dog who sat or lay quietly among us, letting us stroke, pet or even play with him. I'd got a bit attached to his sad face and hoped he'd survive without our food and our company. He'd survived this far, I suppose, so I'm sure he'll be fine. His natural animal whiles being of more use to him than our affection and pampering.

I rode with Dipsi again, having decided his bike's seat was the most comfortasble of all the ones I'd tried. This didn't count for much on the rough roads but it was better than nothing. Riding hairpins and curves through the forest, I was still struck by the beauty of it all. We passed huge, tall stands of giant bamboo, their slender stems spreading like the black spokes of a green umbrella above us. The light through the trees was like poetry. Branches of delicate leaves hung down over the road like drapes of green lace and the sunlight that reached the ground left splatters of pale yellow colour. The air was pure and cool on my skin, the jungle was poetic and the sensation of sweeping round the curves, as low as possible - I have a suspicion Dipsi was showing off ever so slightly, or just enjoying it - was just magical.

After some time we stopped at a viewpoint with a pier built on stilts that jutted out into the air high above the forest. Tall hills rose and fell on all sides, wooded thickly green. The heat of the day dulled them to an olive drab and the ever-present haze softened their lines. I felt lost and small in this benign green world, despite the presence of my noisy biker friends. They were in cheerful mood, snapping silly poses against the backdrop of the forest as the breeze tweaked at our hair and pulled at our 60kph T-shirts. I took photos of them and, in a moment that made me realise I'd been accepted, they took photos of me with them. We were one big happy family, enjoying the last day of the holidays.

Back on the bikes, the road was the worst it had ever been. It became a lunar landscape of yawning craters, boulders, pebbles and dust. In places all pretense at Tarmac was gone. I just clung on and tried to concentrate on the beauty around me. But Dipsi's bike was struggling. It was pulling slower and slower as we went up the hills. The harder he revved it, the less power it seemed to have. Maybe it was my extra weight causing the strain? He assured me it wasn't that and we carried on. Then on a particularly steep section, even though it was a patch of mercifully smooth, newly-laid road, the bike just couldn't make it. It growled and roared but moved not a bit. We got off and Dipsi had a look. He already knew what it was: the clutch cable, which he'd had problems with before, had finally gone.

The others came and stopped as normal and I resigned myself to testing out my new skills of patience - not the game! The problem seemed to be one that would take a while to fix, so Dipsi and a few others would stay behind.

'You're coming with me,' said Vishu. My heart sank. Back on his rock-hard saddle I could be guaranteed an uncomfortable ride. 'Ok,' I replied, raising my eyebrows as if questioning the necessity of this. Vishu read my expression instantly. 'You don't have a choice,' he said with a tight smile. He didn't want me causing any more problems than they already had and his expression put an end to all thought I might have had of argument. 'Ok,' I said, more meekly than I felt.

But Dipsi's clutch was to be only the start of the problems. Later, at a chai break, Vishu and I had already pulled into a little tea stall and were just watching the chaos that was a road crew laying new Tarmac - sadly too late for us. A mess of yellow steamrollers, trucks loaded with smoking, steaming bitumen and men in tar-hardened clothes, was half-blocking the road, just behind a blind bend. I didn't see it happen but suddenly everyone was shouting. Jaan had skidded off his bike coming round the corner and was lying half-trapped underneath it. Everybody rushed over to see if he was ok. Quickly they pulled the bike off him and he scrambled out, shaken but unhurt. All his protective gear and leg-guards had padded him successfully and he was fine. He brushed off people's concern, preferring to head for a cup of chai instead.

After that, we'd only been been going another half-hour when we stopped again at another roadside shop. I was surprised that it was time for another break already and thought grimly that, although getting off the bike was a butt-blessed relief, if we went on at this rate we'd take another week to get to our final destination. But we had not stopped for a tea break after all. It seemed we'd had another fall. This time it was Kaushik and Anu. They pulled up a few minutes later, looking shaken. Kasushik had scuff marks and littel tears all up the arm of his jacket. Anu, her hair in disarray and looking grey with fright, had holes in her jeans and had grazed her leg but was otherwise ok. She looked tight-faced and angry. She blamed herself, saying she had moved as Kaushik was cornering and had unbalanced the bike. Everyone tried to convince her that it was not her fault - or anyone's - that sometimes these things happen and you just can't control it. I could see from her eyes that she wasn't sure. When things had quietened down a bit I asked her, 'Are you sure you're ok?'
'No, I hurt my hand but I don't want them to see,' she said quietly. She took off the thick leather and fur-lined glove and I gasped to see a deep, painful-looking graze on the heel of her hand. A flap of skin was hanging off and it was full of grit. She onviously hadn't been wearing gloves at the time and had put her hand out to save herself.

'That looks bad. You need to clean it,' I said. 'No, it's alright,' she said bravely, 'I don't want them to worry about me.' Seeing her injured and shaken like that sent uneasy thoughts rushing through my mind. Riding was risky and so far, I'd been unaware of and shielded from these risks, as nothing had happened. But now I saw that anything could happen, and all in a tiny, impossibly small instant. Riding wasn't all about pretty countryside and freedom, it was also dangerous - wasn't that part of the appeal? - and danger meant that you needed to be prepared. And being prepared meant wearing protective clothing, however hot and uncomfortable. In the hot wind that day, I'd gradually taken off my layers until I had on just a T-shirt, jeans and my helmet. It felt great to feel the wind over my bare skin, but I now realised it would not feel half as great if I came off dressedlike that. It could have been me and I wouldn't have come off so lightly. Feeling guilty, I put my thick hoodie back on. It was sweltering but it it had padded arms and body, so if I fell, I would be less likely to suffer the terrible grazes Anu had.

But the thrill of that danger is what makes riding so addictive. The pleasure of it is somehow heightened by the knowledge that it could seriously injure or kill you. Knowing you are not immortal and not immune to its perils builds a heightened appreciation of the moment as you live it. The tight curve is thrilling as you bank into it, but even more so as you come out of it, intact, safe and enriched by having experienced its terrifying hazard. Similarly the dead straight, smooth, flat road: it is an urge, an invitation too irresistible to refuse, to go fast, faster, faster that you should. You know (in India at least) that a cow, a rickshaw, an ox-cart, car, bus or lorry could amble out at any moment and a second's inattention would leave you swerving, braking, skidding, falling... The tempation of fear is the invitation to find the joy on the other side. You have to pass through its clenching, heart-stopping gateway to reach the nirvana of pleasure on the other side. Fear taunts and tempts you with the promise of riches to be gained if you can overcome it.

The afternoon and the miles rolled by, uneventful and unscathed. In the afternoon we stopped again for a break, this time at a tiny shack deep in a river gorge. The stall-holder didn't seem to register any emotion - surpirse or anything else - at the sudden appearance of a large group of bikers in the midst of their quiet forest village. It could have been a normal day as far as his outward apprearance showed. He gave nothing away and no glimmer of internal stress was visible in his face.

Indians in general seem to have an extraordinarily large capacity to take things in their stride in this way. A train or bus delayed for 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 1 hour, 5 hours, rarely leads to anger and frustration as it would back home. Instead it is simply an excuse to extend the opportunity to talk to fellow passengers and sufferers. To an outsider, Indians in the suspended state of waiting all seem to already know each other. This isn;t true, but they chat away with perfect strangers about what my lack of Hindi prevents me from knowing, as if they have known each other for years. In this way, they pass the time in companionable company, rather than in the silent, boiling, seething anger that would characterise such an occurence in England.

Where does this quality come from? Primarily, I suppose, it is habit, formed by repeated exposure to such trials on a regular basis. Now the stall-holder showed the same acceptance of an unexpected situation. He simply carried on serving at his normal speed (slow), because he knew that we would be used to the wait and because he knew he'd get to us all in the end, so what was the rush? That he probably took a week's worth of takings in chai and snacks from us in half an hour he also took equally placidly.

I sat down next to Jaan. 'Bridget,' he started, 'what do you think of this?' I listened, expecting a joke, a witty comment about one of the others, something lightly conversational. But Jaan was in pensive mood. 'Don't you think,' he said, 'that the more civilised we become, the more we become like slaves?'
'How do you mean?' I asked, surprised that the consumption of a humble omlette in a bun should provoke the philosopical. 'Well, the more civilised we are, the more we are tied to home, relationships, family and work.' I thought about it for a second, not having expected to employ my philosophical intellect in the late afternoon in a jungle cafe. 'Well,' I said, 'when civilisation means we can do this' - I waved my hand about, meaning to encompass 60kph and the ride we were on - 'I don't feel like a slave.'
'But we still have to work to be able to earn the money and take the holiday to do this, so we are still slaves.'
'I don't think so,' I replied. 'Slavery is the absence of choice. All of us here have the choice whether to be part of all these things or not. Someone who is enslaved doesn't have that.' Jaan was silent, pondering this. I'm not sure he agreed but in a way it didn't matter. Conversations like this are why I wanted to join 60kph on their ride. They are why I love to meet people and get to know them and get under their skin to their deeper thoughts that don't often surface in everyday life. They are why I thrive on travel and new encounters.

That Jaan, who I didn't know too much about - other than that he was a biker, worked in a bank, had a girlfriend, supported Chelsea and was a frelance tattoo artist - should feel comfortable enough with me to share this idea was a great moment. He showed me that he - and all people - are more than the mundane sum of their parts: job, background, family, friends, culture. The beauty of such an exchange was its unexpectedness, both in content and location. I didn't expect Jaan to talk like that about that subject - and it was all the more pleasing for exactly that reason.

We had to get a move on now, as it was beginning to get dark. The sun was going down behind the hills and another beautiful sunset was in preparation.The cloudless sky was a pure, flat excpanse of pale buttermilk yellow, a colour I have never seen the sky before. In front of it the hills were the perfect complementary dove grey. The cool clarity of the grey perfectly set off by the warm yet subtle buttermilk. I couldn't take my eyes off it - the most beautiful and unusual sunset I'd seen so far on this ride. Gradually the buttermilk air deepened to apricot and the dove grey mountains to wet stone. Soon the night was upon us and still we rode on through the dark. My relief was unimaginable when we finally reached the plantaion, having taken a wrong turn and got lost somewhere along the way.

Bone-tired and aching, I forced myself to take a blissful hot shower - the first one for a week - before I was too exhausted to move. The hot water purged me and my filthy fingernails of a week's dust, grime and fatigue in muddy brown streams.

Gathered round in the chill air, wrapped in blankets snug as winter cottage open fires, conversation turned to the ride we'd just completed. Gauruv asked everyone what they thought about it, good and bad. People were very complimentary about the Bang Gang's organisation of the ride and thrilled with the scenery we'd passed through, as well as Aradhana and co's cooking. I had to agree with that. There were cheers and applaud for a god hob well done.

But then the bad had to be discussed as well... Gauruv pointed out the lack of group discipline - gaps in the line of riders were too long and weren't filled up, creating the risk that the group would split up. There were too many breaks with everyone stopping and taking off helmets, gloves, scarves etc. immediately, so everyone got delayed and quick stops turned into long ones. He was also frustrated that no-one seemed to have a map or to know the ride plan. It had all been organised for them so they knew what was going on, but everyone kept asking the organisers what was going on when they should have known. Criticisms and accusations were passed back and forth and, as usual, it was always easier to criticise that to praise. Everyone wanted to say their bit wanted everyone else to listen to it. It all threatened to get a little awkward. It was inevitable really. The 60kph family had their moments of bickering and discord, just like any other family. But this was good, as it gave everyone leave to air petty or serious concerns in the safety of the group, as there was sure to be someon there who agreed with your point of view. Thankfully no-one was at odds for long.

Then they wanted to know my point of view. Gauruv was the one to ask: 'As a non-member, what did you think of the ride? And what was your opinion of bikers before 60kph and what is it now?' I was well and truly on the spot!

So what did I think? I'd had all week to come up with my opinions and impressions and now I had to give them, however unsure or unformed they might be. I told them I was incredibly grateful to them for letting me join their anniversary ride and thanked them all, especially CP for asking me to go with him. I still couldn't believe what I would have missed out on if I'd said no! But I didn't and thanks to them, I'd had a truly amazing, eye-opening, thought-provoking week and one I would never forget.

Now came the question of my impression of bikers: "Well, I didn't really know any bikers before, so I didn't have anyone to compare you to, but I suppose I did have an opinion of what bikers were like. I thought they were all hard-drinking, hard-smoking,' and I paused, as if in thought, 'and that bit certainly hasn't changed!' I finished with a grin. They roared in appreciation. They never drank while riding, but at the end of the day they knew how to relax with a drink (or several!), and not to take themselves too seriously (low-budget Bollywood movies and all!) and that is always a characteristic I can identify with.

'Beyond the drinking and the smoking,' I said, 'I've realised that bikers are all just genuine, ordinary guys from all sorts of walks of life who leave their bakgrounds, beliefs and prejudices aside and just join together in a shared passion for riding.'

I wanted to end on a good and positive note, a calculated effect to ingratiate myself (Well, why not? You never know when I might need help or a lift in India in the future...). 'Of all my experiences in India so far, this had definitely been the best of them all.' The cheers told me I'd said the right thing. And I'd said a true thing too, one I truly believed. Riding with and getting to know the 60kph family had been the ride of my life and I wanted to be sure they knew it.