The Rage of Adam

We've now arrived in Shimla, in the mountains. It's so different up here. We got a 'toy train' which wound up through the mountains, took 6 hours from Changigarh, and you could feel the air getting thinner and cooler as we went up and up, excellent respite after the sweltering heat down at the bottom of them there mountains.

Chandigarh was rrrrrubbish. It reminded me of Bill Bryson's description of Milton Keynes, it's a newly built town, structured around grids, and it has no soul. The roundabouts just have numbers on instead of places, making it seem robotic and characterless. The experience was tainted by the fact I am suffering on the inside and have been having to order cheese sandwiches whilst everyone else is tucking into lush exotic Indian food. We went to a reet posh Indian restaurant t'other night, and I ordered said substance and chips. I really wanted to ask for ketchup but it felt wrong, in India, in a posh Indian restaurant: " Oy, chips an cheese, mushy peas wiv ketchup, a cup o tea, and av you gorra copy of today's Sun for me to read? Fank-yoo garcon chop chop". Anyway, the waiter was the best I've ever come across, he must have seen the quandary in my eyes, and brought ketchup after everyone else's meals were served, without me having to ask! Must have known I'm English and ordering chips in an Indian restaurant, not the most discerning customer he's ever had. I want to go back now I've recovered and order the hottest most non English spicy Indian thing on the menu, just to show him I do appreciate delicious food and wouldn't ordinarily go out of my way to order the shittest blandest thing on the menu.

The coolest experience for me was leaving Chandigrah for the station. We got a taxi. Driven by a MENTALIST. Made worse by the fact we left our passports in the hotel and had to go back, and he wanted to get us there on time, and paid no heed to other drivers, withered old men on push bikes, or roads actually. We went up kerbs, through a herd of cows, and must have cut up at least 50 other drivers. It was ace. Though Adele pointed out in the back she couldn't really see how many times we nearly died, which was the main focus of my attention (actually had clenched fists and turned my body to the side ready for impact twice) so she was forced to focus on the music filling the car: a mantra CD of 'Hari Om', which is to say, a CD of a man and woman going "Hari Om, Haaaariiiii Ooooooommmmm, HAAARIIII OOOOOOOOM, Hari Om, Harriiiiiiii Ommmmm" over and over and over and over and over again, which she said felt like some sort of mental endurance test! Another nice thing about Chandigrah was Nek Chand's rock garden (bear with me, it's better than it sounds, I, at first was not into going to see a garden of rocks. Flowers? Maybe. Fountains? Definitely. Rocks? Bugger off.) A local man made some art work out of old porcelain bog seats and spent years on it, hidden, then the council found it in a forest and and thought it wor orite, so opened it to the public, added some waterfalls, and now it's the second most visited attraction in India. Pretty good. AND Troy and Adele were asked to pose for photographs on these massive swings and told they would feature in the biggest selling national paper in India. I can not wait. For the majority of them, Adele was sat on the swing, Troy standing behind her, hips thrust out, his crotch resting on her head, Adele looking quite uncomfortable and Troy looking smug. They moved to a more comfortable position, which I am sure the press will run with, but it did look funny. And I got given a baby. A real live one! We were sat relaxing and sweating on some rocks in the sun, when a man and his wife and baby came over. I could see he was going to ask for something, so prepared to take a nice picture of them in front of the rocks. But he just plonked the most gorjus baby on my lap! Not having been in India long, we pondered whether this was a present? 'Welcome to India, 'ere y'are". She had the biggest most beautiful eyes. Would have run off with her if he hadn't insisted on having a photo shoot with us each holding her. He said this was his proudest moment, and he would show her the photos when she was 18. I don't know how far he's been in his life, or what he's achieved, but the very fact he has a baby, surely, surely this was a far prouder moment, than when 4 people from Sheffield held his baby for a photo. Maybe not. Maybe he lived in a hermit round the corner and had never left his house or seen humans before.

But the toy train to Shimla was absolutely breath-taking. It was long and arduous at first (it says it takes 5 to 7 hours, ours took 6.5) and I was sat next to an Indian man who took up most of a seat for two, despite being quite skinny. I don't normally like close proximity to strangers, in fact I the opposite of like it, but he was well over on my side, for absolutely no reason, so I kept budging him over with my bum and elbow, and in the end it was a battle of wills between who could maintain full side body contact the longest. He kept winning cos he kept falling asleep on me. Cheat. I don't know how he managed to sleep either, because every time we went through a tunnel, every child on the train (there were a lot) went "Woooooooo! RRRaaaaaaaaah! Aaaaarrrrghhhh!" screaming at the top of their lungs, it was hysterical. Anyway, when we curled up to the top of the mountain, we kept going through clouds, you could see them coming, and the view below was just stunning. It looked like them floating mountains on Pandora, only they weren't suspended in the air, that's just stupid and impossible. There were lots of misty mountains and lush verdant hillsides and moss-covered trees and waterfalls. AND because the health and safety wank we have in England doesn't exist here (they usually do the opposite of what is healthy and safe, a much more interesting and rewarding approach to life if you ask me) the door of the train was open the whole time, and you could sit there, with your feet dangling over the side, as the train track got really thin and the door opened straight onto a steep and magnificent drop into a valley. Fanfuckingtastic. (It's done now mum and I didn't die, so no need to worry!)

Oooh, another fearful experience we've encountered in India is Adam's incandescent rage. It flares up at a moments notice and is a wonder to watch! It comes at tuk tuk drivers, pushy salesmen, basically anyone who pedals their wares at him and gets all up in his face. The angry beast within first emerged when we arrived in Chandigarh, it was late, we were deadly tired, and from the moment we stepped out of the station there was a relentless barrage of men coming at us (they mostly target Adam and Troy cos they think they're in charge. He he) offering cheap hotel, tuk tuk, etc etc. We were disorientated and didn't know what was going on, and after politely declining many offers for hotels Adam shouts "Just FUCK OFF will you?!" I don't think they were offended, well, they didn't stop anyway, I don't think they even noticed. They ushered us into a tuk tuk, and dropped us at our requested hotel, which was full, so we tramped round the grid city getting turned away from 3 hostels before we found a (gorjus but vastly over our budget) place to stay.