Tristram Zedex Eighty One

Chatt went home on Wednesday, so India has now become my fortress of solitude. It’s quite cramped, and not very solitary, because there are a billion other people in it, two and a half million of whom are also tourists. So I should have it quite easy. Upset by the imprint on Chatt’s side of […]

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Almost three weeks into my India jaunt, I’ve noticed my attitude towards money shifting from a first world perspective to a third world one. In the first week of being here, I wouldn’t mind getting ripped off for a rickshaw ride or other service, because when I weighed it up I’d only lost out on […]

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There are two kinds of bad auto rickshaw drivers in the world. There’s the kind that takes you to your destination but with an apparent disregard for road safety and your own life, and there’s the kind that doesn’t even know where your destination is, but takes you for a ride anyway. I much prefer […]

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Despite having left university, it will take me time, perhaps years, to graduate from some of my lazier student habits, such as not ironing any of my clothes. Only such a person would come to third world country, get his laundry done, and consider it a luxury that all his clothes came back without creases. […]

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I’ve been eating lots of bananas this weekend because when I’m ill it’s one of the easiest things to get down my neck. Plus, it’s full of good, energy giving sugar. Sadly, it’s also one of the first things my stomach says no to; I’m usually reunited with the remnants of said banana three hours later as it […]

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I thought, or should I say hoped, my avoidance of meat products would spare me from the horrors of getting ill in India. Sadly, this has not been the case. The last three days have been a stomach emptying nightmare. Fortunately I’ve got ill while Chatt is still with me, so I have been getting him […]

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We celebrated our last night in Shimla with a real taste of India. Afterwards, remembering the food starved horrors of our 13 hour train journey from Delhi, we decided to stock up on snacks from the local convenience store for tomorrow’s nine hour bus trip to Manali. And so we set off the next day armed […]

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After an amusing but vivid update on the state of Chatt’s bowels (”I’ve rejoined So Solid Crew”) we decided to head up to Jammu Temple, otherwise known as the monkey temple. At sunrise it’s supposed to be amazing; they bang a gong and all the monkeys run up to it as sunlight floods the surrounding […]

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After the best sleep I’ve had this side of the continent, Chatt and I admired the view from our window before having breakfast in bed (like true honeymooners) while watching the most heavily truncated version of East is East imaginable. The Indian Sky TV network has turned this delightfully funny and often grim 96 minute […]

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I thought it was pretty funny on the way from the airport to the hostel in Delhi when the taxi broke down and the driver asked us to wait for ten minutes while he hitched a ride to a working taxi. It was nothing compared to more or less the exact same thing happening on […]

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