What a Palava or when in Oz Pavlova

How many phonecalls to UK......now really if I was stranded with nobody to know...how would I manage....my friend Lorraine says it is a karmic debt...I think she is right...I probably stole someone's cow when I was a bedouin in the Sudan...I shouldn't have done it but I've been paid back so leave it out!!!!

Not so safe!

Well pissed off is not the word!  Talk about inconvenience! I watched everything in India, and I was moving around, trains, busses....nothing went missing.  Go to a fancy restaurant in Double Bay, Sydney and my bag gets nicked with everything...I mean all of it....glasses, money, all my cards, keys, mobile phone....I feel really angry.  A replacement card will take about 10 days and cost me $50, I have paid that in phone calls to London.....the insurance doesn't cover glasses, camera, without a receipt and the mobile phone.....what is it that they say about small print..IT IS ALL A CON!  Until then what do I do nick someone else's bag.....Just too trusting I was....my friends were shocked and surprised, seems it is an uncommon thing...I should have known you don't hang your bag over the chair...but we were sitting round the table, none of us saw a thing...but then these dudes are professional, they only do it when you are not watching.

Happy Australia Day

...Head down to the Rocks...where the Sydney bridge and Opera House are in view....listen to some good music and join in the spirit of Australia Day. But hello! It is pissing down.....so my sister decides it is not for her..one ice cream and she splits and I wonder around in my plastic poncho like a giant condom waiting to meet friends to see the movie 'Australia" at Mrs Macquaries Chair...and outdoor cinema where the screen comes out of the sea.  I take shelter and land up talking to this drunk Aboriginal  gentleman... the real Oz...." So mate you are talking to one of the notorious Australian robbers" "not a murderer I enquire" "No never killed anyone, and what's more I don't swear..I'm a Christian you know, and most of my people don't believe in Jesus..'cos he was a white bloke...so picture the scene..I rob a bank and don't use the F word, I just say give us your frigging money! Only shit is I got caught but I done my time!" I checked I still had my bag under my poncho, bid him farewell and went to meet my friends.  We walked round the bay, beautiful, steamy and wet...the outdoor cinema is spectacular the city skyline as the back drop. Everyone dressed in Plastique so CHic!.....Nicole Kidman comes up on the screen ...Hugh Jackman follows her....and the water follows them.....NO! I was really getting into it....although within an hour I was dripping wet and the group that I was with were ready to leave....Oz you are a washout! 

Life is a Beach

LIFE is a BEACH

From the South to far North Shore

Even when you're REACH

Talking Views can be a bore

But it takes up all your time

And life is full of Outsy Doors

Just some surf and a drink

You'll be happy on all fours

Trying to work it out!

Ok so I am trying to work out the culture....and it spells BEACH....so you get yourself a body board...or you work on that body. Today we went on a trip out of the city to Terrigal....it took two hours on the train from Bondi, changed at Central and then on to Terrigal. The trains are great for $2.50 per person you could catch a train and then a bus and then come back on one ticket!  In London you can drink half a coffee.  We passed Queens Park (I felt at home) then Hornby and out at Gostford....how English can you get. When we caught the bus....and we enquired whether this was the right bus to Terrigal, he replied "Yes no disasters here!" and we hopped on.  It was another great beach....in a bay..with a road of v. nice shops, interspersed with a surfboard shop, a seafood shop and a few ice cream shops....and we used all of them. Dylan hired the body board, not me....I tried out the ice cream shop.  It was make your own...so I had an Eskimo special ( the one from my Bulawayo days) and had coffee icecream mixed with crunchie.  I then had six oysters and a seafood salad...and was too tired to swim, so bought some trousers.  It didn't take me long to emerge into the West from Poor India....or simple ashram!

You ain't nothing but a SLUMDOG

Can't live without it.....still need a bit of Hindia....so we go to see Slumdog Millionaire..... After the film my sister's comment was "I don't care one bit I'm not going to India to find myself or anyone else! " It really isn't like that I plead...ok some bits but......"But look at you, you've been ill ever since you got here!" "It's from all that Bottley Water" Hilton pipes up....."Yes did you see how he glued the top on"........Australia is wonderful,  with my British passport I register for medicare and then when I go to the doctor I have to ask for  a BULK BILL....so I don't have to pay....I keep on wanting to say duck billed platypus....why ?........because I can!!!!! a BULK BILL...can you imagine going to your English GP and asking for a bulk bill.....50 bills all at the same time!!..Anyway I see a Chinese Doctor with an Australian Mandarin twang...and he talks to me like he is giving karate commands..."Move your neck to za right...now to zee left...come on furza....now down, now up"  What is wrong with me.  He reckons I have a virus but if I can't move my neck tomorrow I must go to the hospital because then I have meningitis....thanks you sure it is not too late.! 

Yesterday I saw a bit of SYdney

We started  off at Camp Cove and walked to South Head....had lemon sorbet on the beach....headed off to Watson's Bay to the beer garden....true Australian style...they arrive looking gorgeous and after 10 beers they look like crocodile Dundee without a croc....then a dozen oysters at Doyles.....not bad mate...I leave with Naomi to see a bit of culture..art exhibition in  a huge warehouse..she says 'hilarious' a lot in a very Oz accent....maybe it is like our 'wicked' and then tea, yes chai at Gertrude and Alice in Bondi. Naomi tells me you watch the world go by and it does big time! I see my ex fiancee who now looks like Rasputin.... how small is this world....this is all too much for a white woman !

Sisters

So      how do you assess this one.....the first thing you do is look for strong physical signs...are our

 eyes the same....well definitely the same colour, our noses...not really....lips,  mine are bigger....the hands....now we talking...oh my god the feet.....unfortunately their is no doubt that we are truly linked....we both have horrible bunions and are both struggling with our supports.

Then we have to hang out....we both find each other funny....she's as neurotic as I am about tidyness....although this isn't my house so it doesn't bother me....her kids are fantastic and very musical...so in the car it is very much the Von Trapp family.....I can see my Dad in her..but her daughter Demi said that Edana is my Dad mouth down and I am him mouth up...so alf and alf really......anyway it is all been easy and lovely....I am still sick from India and she keeps feeding me pills which I don't want but take.....Sisters I guess!!!

Hold me Kangaroo down boy

What a hideously long journey....I arrived in Sydney last night at 12am....the whole shebang took 2 days. I am totally exhausted...but I slept on a bed with no back pain, and I sat on a toilet never squat again.....I am not sure what Australia will bring but I know it is playing a big part in closing the circle. I don't really want to go into my past but a year and a half ago I remet my step brother Ziggy after 22 years...there was a lot of forgiving and acceptance. Now today I will meet my sister after....I think also about 20 years. I don't know her children at all and have met her husband twice briefly. I am staying with them but they haven't returned from Brisbane, and will come back approx mid-day. I am looking forward to being part of the family but when time is so short is is difficult to let things happen naturally, you want instant relationships. My Dad I am sure is watching this whole connection unfold and I think would be very happy that we are both making an effort to know each other.

The city of Learning

Sports day was just too HOT, we only lasted in the stadium for 2 hours....and then headed towards the German Bakery for breakfast. Since we had got up at 5am to get a a good seat for Sport's Day we all felt we need to take a morning nap, so by 11am. Jean, Theresa, Tristen and myself had gone to sleep. When I woke up I stood on the balcony and got talking to the Indian women who had moved into Hernan's flat. They asked me how long I had been a devotee, and I told them I was very new to this...they invited me to their flat for a chat. As I came in I commented that they had moved the furniture around...."How do you know this they enquired" ....how could I tell them of my nights of passion in the single bed that the mother was now sleeping in....I avoided answering. She looked at me and told me of the wonderful singing she had heard the previous day and how her daughter wouldn't let her go next door to find out who was singing. "It was me and a man called Dove" I replied. "Ah Swami is talking to me, Dove is a great friend of ours and my son in New York...tomorrow before you leave for Australia you must come with him and sing Bajans (Indian Hymns) it is a great blessing and important for you......from Bonking to Bajans......from Passion to Transformation......it is all too freaky....how did this woman know Dove?
Last night I went with Dove and his brother to a wonderful Tibetan restaurant for dinner...told him about my meeting....of course we know her and we will be there tomorrow night. She was married to an amazing musician who played with Ravi Shankar and she is very close to Sai Baba.
Today is my last day here and tomorrow I am travelling all day to get my flight from Mumbai to Sydney.....goodbye India, goodbye Puttaparthi, thankyou life, thankyou love ...SAIRAM

Put your Party

Had a mad ride on the sleeper...Fran waved me goodbye, thought I was very brave but I just find it all so easy. Arrived in Bangalore at the wrong bus station at 5.45.am and took a tuk tuk to the right one. It is seriously disgusting...the garbage and urine smell...but I met a divine Mexican lady called Carmen, and together we supported each other, bought our tickets for Puttaparthi, some fruit and some chai, and talked and talked. It felt like I was coming home...Jean was there to meet me, Hernan was moving house. Also everyone looked very designer, always the Italians look fashionable...their whites are whiter than Colgate....the Russians in their opulent saris....we went to 'The Mayflower' for a tofu burger, it is the first time I have noticed on the wall...there is a photo of Sai Baba with a tallis, and a yamulka...like Sai Rabbi....he is everywhere and everything... There are decorations all over town, tomorrow is sports day and his students will perform acrobactics and the whole city will decend on the sports grounds including G-d himself. In the middle of all of this I get an sms from Fran saying Mumbai is a disaster....thank goodness I decided to do my own thing for my last few days in India, I have been saved. Last night we were invited to a new restaurant for coffee, and met some cool American Jewish musicians, devotees of course. The one guy is an Musical Director called Dove really Dov..but hey! and worked on Jesus Chirist Superstar in Germany for years, and Les Mis. Anyway I am meeting him at noon to jam with him..he is buying some India drums today and we are going to try and work something with my Indian rapp.....Sai Ram

Just came back from the jam...he bought some amazing drums to take back to the States, people find it difficult to sing about anything that doesn't have a 'SAI' association...so even a Beatles song had a chorus that went Shiva shiva sai ram sai ram....when in doubt drop in a shiva! We had a great afternoon and I was dropping in bits of my rap in ' shanti shanti when you have the runs, you must change your panty!!'...we can't take ourselve too seriously. Tomorrow is sports day, it is a huge event we all have to be seated in the sports grounds by 8am....some say it will be a display of wonderful gymnastics...if there is an egg and spoon race do you think Sai will manifest the eggs, he has been known to produce golden balls from his mouth, why not an egg? The town has bunting everywhere and Sai is doing CARSHAMS....that is driving a car and giving darshan at the same time...when in India anything goes...VOW...we don't say WOW anymore, Indian style is VOW!!!!!

Cochin

It is delightful. I wake up early and help the fisherman with their morning catch...check me pulling at the ropes...then breakfast at the famous Tea Shop....then Jew Town..walk down Bazaar Road, passing spice traders with exotic smells of aniseed, ginger, garlic, cinnamon whatever the heart desires..stop at the perfume shop...my left arm smells of lotus, the second finger amber, the right elbow- rose, and my left wrist jasmine....the driver of the rickshaw says the smell is delicious! I guess that means I have to pay him more! I meet Mrs Cohen at the embroidery shop..I love her she's like my Granny...then walk down to the synagogue....the poor girl showing people in tells us there are 10 Jews left in Fort Cochin and 30 more in Ernakulum...so for the big festivals they get together...but the chances of her finding a husband are slim...and breeding seems almost impossible. The shopping is like Jewish orgasims, charge it charge it!.....If only I had a huge house would I import? who wouldn't you could die so many things to shop! This afternoon we are having massages...tomorrow Fran leaves for Mumbai and I leave Fran....I needed some spiritual support (AGAIN?) before I left India, so back to Hernan and Jean in Puttaparthi, Sai Babba....and hopefully it sets me up for Oz. I have got the bloody sleeper back to Bangalore....(am I sure I didn't want to go to Mumbai? )...I need to be me and not think of my fellow traveller...too old and too hard, I look exhausted from the strain.....Namaste

'GanJini' lets go movies in Kerala

Let's go to the movies....we meet Jennifer my friend from Varkala at the Malabar for a designer drink..last night at the Boathouse our two vodka's came to $30...at the Malabar the beers were not that much cheaper...but luverly surroundings. Then we caught the ferry to Ernakulum...and that was 2Rups per person...shows what the locals are paying...to go and see the new Bollywood film GANJINI with Ahmer Kahn....who was in 'Lagaan' with Howard Lee. Jennifer had prebooked...which means WHAT!!!.....you get your ticket but it is not numbered, the only advantage you have is that you are first in the queue. There are 3 tiers of prices, R20 to R50..(which we bought) this means you are on the top floor with A/C..... So we go in and Fran ( who shouldn't have come with, cos she was moaning from the ferry ride!) says it is too cold and she wants to go home.....errrrrrrrrr..f..k...bollocks.....Jennifer also feels cold so takes Fran out, tells me to keep their seats and off the go shopping to buy sweat shirts!! Certainly the most expensive ticket anyone has bought in India. They return dressed for the Baltic...Jennifer looking like a Kurdish refugee...with a scarf wrapped around her head...Fran with a face from hell curls up in her seat ready for bed...and I sit comfortably till a large Indian Gent..parks himself virtually on my lap....COME ON!!!! He takes off his shoes, crosses his legs...takes out a bottle of water, which he offers me and every so often his hand sort of drops over the arm rest and touches me and I push it back and grunt!!! This is not easy! The film is pop promo meets the Incredible Hulk....but I loved it. It is modern Bollywood and the archetypes are all there...the goody, the baddie, the love interest...the crowd responds and cheers..there is an interval, because it is so long, apparently this is normal! We buy delicious peppery popcorn and people come up and ask us "which country...do you like the film?". Since South Africa won the cricket I say I am South African, and they respond with "yes yes cricket!". We leave the film early, it started at 9 we leave at 11.30. Afraid in case we wouldn't get a tuk tuk home...on the way we speculate how it ended, did he fall in love with the doctor, after his brain had been removed, and she helped him with his amnesia?......we will never know. Fort Cochin is a ghost town...I don't think people stay up past 9pm.....the odd foreigner is seen wandering...I am glad I know I will sleep the night, it is the first time I have been to bed this late!

Allepy

Everyone is so friendly here.....there is not much to see in Allepy...but I am back in India...chai shops, interesting conversations. This morning I work up early had a conversation about gurus with the manager...who is not religious...he then played me his tape about meditation on the computer...and while I was watching, the French woman from 103 joined me...the Russians were checking out, and people were arriving for work. We had a great English breakfast and now I am off to town to get money and top up my phone. The French woman says be careful they really push in town they see you as an ATM machine. The taxi will pick us up at 12 and take us to Cochin. Namaskara.

Western woman we see her coming

Trying to be local it's om she's humming

They look at her like she's an ATM bank

When you don't shop, they lose interest- Be Frank!

SHANTI SHANTI

Our final night in Varkala "My boyfriend" took Fran and I and his business partner Shara for a food fest!!! What a treat, a whole tandoori fish...and lots of bits and pieces...He was declaring undying love, and saying he was fine about not having children...he was in love with me not what I can give him....VOT....where were we going to live Orissa...wit the whole family?? He wanted me to spend the night with him, he would come with me to Cochin....Fran was getting drunk on King Fisher and 'Sunny' was getting depressed about my departure and joining her in the drinking.... I woke up at the Oceana...I had slept the night on my own under the mosquito net....I went to the internet...was having huge money problems, my bank had blocked my card, my lodger had not paid the rent...and the waiter at breakfast was also now telling me that he had fallen in love with me.....what goes on in this bloody place? Then Sonny and Shara arrived, and I couldn't give them my attention cos I was freaking out about the money situation...the taxi arrived to take us to the Boat in Kollam so we could do our backwater tour. Sonny was now crying, telling me that he would phone me everyday...in the middle of this Hernan phoned from Puttaparthi, to ask me whether I was coming back....I am actualy about to have a breakdown....everyone is driving me MAD!!!!! We got to Kollam just in time to make our cruise...I thought I would never be able to calm down, and had sent Jayne an sms to call me to try and sort things out. The boat set off......OH MY GOD this is absolutely stunning ....house boats go by, the houses on the side of the backwaters, the scenes of life going on...boys playing cricket in the most orgasmic green lush setting....my worries melt away....we pick up people on the way and drop people off...even a stop at Amma's ashram.....Jayne phones...it all seems ridiculous me talking about money problems sunbathing on the side of the boat...but I explain the situation and she says she will look into it. The 6 hours on the boat are heaven...we arrive at Allepy at 6.30 just after the magical huge red sun sets....we decide it is too late to go to Cochin, and the driver suggests Ashtamudi not far away.....so we are here. It is mad..there are quite a lot of travellers, really funny Indians...and we are getting a lot advice where to stay in Cochin. One Indian guy sorts a place out for us....I am trying to phone the bank in London...but they have removed the wire from the phone to connect it to the heating, so that Fran can have a hot shower....In India anything is possible but Shanti Shanti......you have to have patience...damned hard!!!

Few more images from Kerala

Last days in Varkala

I am more than ready to leave this place...The Oceana was beautiful, but a big mistake to stay there if you are not doing treatments. The Australians were great because they were funny and complained a lot, which made up for the dry serious Germans! They rearranged their room when they arrived, and the rearranged the scooters that they hired....Miriam driving straight into the wall when she turned the key on. Fran has been under the weather since she arrive and I have been irritated...TIME TO LEAVE....my Indian boyfriend...( and I haven't done anything I shouldn't have!) has been wonderful and my bit of time to hang out with the locals. I am having a final dinner with him and his assistant Shara...and then tomorrow morning we leave for a backwater tour and on to Cochin....leaving 2 Jews in a room bitching to the last 10 Jews in India! I bought a ring..and I wasn't going to indulge in any jewels...but the Jeweller then gave me this amazing healing session with a tibetan bowl placed on my belly button..while he used the stick to create the musical vibrations . It was an amazing sensation...I'm sure I only came into buy a ring!  Sonny said, "wot to do he woz only interesed in von thing"....who knows he said he cleared  out my blockages...sold me a ring and asked me to come back for the final treatment...pity I am off in the morning....I might have cleared more blockages and bought a necklace!