From My Notebooks In 1977: At the Kaziranga Animal Reserve in Assam 12 Apr 2025, 2:46 pm

Monday January 24th

We planned to leave and had breakfast (duck egg omelette). Then Carol began to feel really sick. She notes that several times, when it’s time to move on, she’s got ill and she suggests it’s her homing instinct.

We decide to stay another day. People are most solicitous. Vijay Vikram Singh in particular. He also remembers my suggestion of the previous night that a museum with information about the animals would help the park. Other remarks of mine have less success. However!!!

C in bed most of the day. We assume it has to do with the tetracycline course and wait for it to right itself. Evening I go back to the bar. This time to drink rum with the DFO [District Forestry Officer] a Kachari, and three Bengali auditors working with him. They ask me many questions about the journey.

The Bengalis volunteer to go to out of the way places, and have spent much time among the hill tribes in Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, etc. Their long absences from home bring the conversation round to the “joint family system” – in which all sons retain a financial interest in supporting the home, according to their incomes, and the wives remain to look after parents, etc.

One of them asks, very seriously, whether I prefer their system or the Western unit of two. I explain my feelings about the need to reestablish contact between our generations, and lead on to the demands of a technological society, specialisation, sacrifice of emotional interdependence and feeling, and suggest that these deficiencies are reflected in national policies and lead to such disasters as Viet Nam. It seemed like a stirring speech at the time – and included an apologia for drop-outs in Western universities.

A fourth Indian, an engineer attached to ITDC was there briefly. He was a foppish insecure young man. Revealed that his father had sent him to boarding school at the age of four. He strove to say something significant and always failed. I appreciate, in retrospect, his bewilderment. He knows he’s quite bright, but he always misses the mark because his own experience is too distorting. Echo of myself in the Express pub. [The Daily Express, in London, as a young man.]

People dealt more charitably with me then than I did with him!!!

An open cast coal mine near Dibrughar. Women seemed to do most of the work. They brought the coal to the train in baskets on their heads.

You wouldn’t think coal and saris go well together.

Tuesday 25th

Leave for Gologhat. On the way, stop for tea with DFO and Bengalis. Carol enjoys them, especially the DFO, who talks about census-taking in the park. They count animal droppings over a sample area. Also try to estimate what population the park can hold. Grazing habits. Snakes. Shows real affection for animals. Spent 11 months at Michigan State. Tells story of American Indian who asks him where he was from.

“I’m Indian.”

“Yes, but what part of the US are you from?”

Says their appearances were very similar.

On to Gologhat.

At Gologhat College: Dr M.K. Saika.

“There is a man in hospital now who fought with a tiger. He saw the tiger attacking a woman and he went to help. He had the long knife that the people carry. He struggled with it and killed it. He was badly mauled. The woman was already dead. He attacked the tiger without hesitation. Our people are like that. They are very warlike.”

Thursday 27th, to Dibrugarh

Changed razor blade. This one has lasted 4 months. i.e. 16 weeks of daily use.

Notes at random: [Watching women working in paddy fields]

Must be unpleasant to stand in mud, cold, bug ridden, all day. The colourful saris make the paddy scene seem cheerful. But then people laugh and smile even in prison.

History of advertising/promotion contests, etc. Like Ovaltineys. And the part they played in perverting society.

What raises a village beyond the sum of its parts?

Recollections of Chowdrey, the geologist:

Lead to the notion that all those experts who advise governments of developing nations on vital policy decisions may in a sense have “gone underground.” If they were to reveal their strategies they would become political targets of the first order, since their tasks usually involve sacrificing the prospects, if not the lives, of large sections of the community. (i.e. Health, Housing, slum rehab. location of Industry, exploitation of resources, fiscal policies, etc.)

In Tezpur:

Indian hospitality requires the guest to be an exhausted and starving cretin.

You may ask for anything, but God help you if you ask for nothing.

Everybody in India assumes that as long as you’ve got a chair to sit in, all other ambitions can be postponed indefinitely.

“Please sit,” is the most common phrase, after “You are from?”

Sunday 30th

Visiting Syam and Ahom villages with Dr. Barua and wife. 35 miles or so into the country.

Syam or Thai-speaking people from Shān province of Burma came to Nagaland in 1600 to follow the Ahom kings (who had come 200 years previously.) They called their new settlement “The Golden Place.” Later they drifted further into Assam.

This village was only three and a half miles from the border with Nagaland. It felt quite definitely more remote and rural than other villages and we’d left traffic a long way behind. We went first to the doctor’s house – a retired surgeon, old Thai face with a few black and crooked teeth, a son who seemed a shade wrong, and family.

Doctor is head man – has mementoes of visits to various Buddhist conferences. Also literature. Then we strolled through the village, gathering a few more people as we went.

Saw looms under houses, between stilts, and rice mills. Admired the spatial proportions of interiors, gardens, and relationships between plots. Also abundance of vegetables, banana, betel palms – sat in a teacher’s house for a while and asked questions about village. They claim there is never violence, undue drunkenness, quarrels between families. All is peaceful.

Why? They don’t know. Later, after lunch at doctor’s asked him the same question. He doesn’t know either. Welcomes education, considers the people backward, yet cannot say how education can help village life, but supposes instead that the recipients will be dissatisfied and move to town. Yet he says he has no fears for the future of the village.

Ahom village: Two elderly brothers and younger family. Spinning in yard, drying out rice, pictures of mulga silk on spindles. The “Danger” notice to frighten evil spirits from the sacred coconut tree.

Even more immaculate house and yard. Lovely sweets and tea in brass goblets. Kitchen is up a ladder, on first floor. Smoky place, says C, and dark. Daughter, who took away the tea things, has a B.A [University degree] Two brothers very neat, light bodies, with nut-like heads, button eyes. Both tied up in the red & white cotton cloths round their waists but with a plain dhoti below. They look strong, monkey-like agility. They go to market once a week, would not like people to come and sell in the village, let alone see permanent bazaar. They value the quiet.

Vice-chancellor, later, on return: Great expansive chuckles. “So now you see how backward our people are.”

We protest that on the contrary we were most impressed. He didn’t even give us a chance to finish the sentence, before assuming we must be joking, and burst into laughter again, repeating the same idiotic clichés.

By now I was gazing into his blue-pebble lenses with the first tender shoots of loathing springing up in my heart. Happily, Barua now put in a diplomatic word, in Assamese.

“Well,” said the VC “even if our people are poor, they are at any rate quite jolly.”

He waved at the untidy expanse of fallow ground all about us, with the weather-stained embryo of the physics building poking its rusty reinforcing iron into the sunset.

“We are growing fast now, and soon this will all be buildings. This chemistry building is coming up. It may all be empty now but . . . . “ He struggled a moment, and I added “Master plan is there.”

‘Yes, yes,” he said. It made a perfect epilogue to a perfect day.

Vinegar Joe’s famous World War II road to Burma

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From My Notebooks In 1977: Brahmaputra by Elephant 6 Apr 2025, 10:05 am

Still stuck in Gauhati doing battle with the police and the bureaucracy.

An Ahom temple in Assam. The Ahom, a Thai tribe, established a late mediaeval kingdom in the Brahmaputra valley which lasted six hundred years until 1826

January 18th

On Tuesday morning we sought out the District Commissioner. who expressed impatience with red tape and authorised us to make an application which I wrote out in his office, very comprehensively. So far so good. All he needed he said was a note from the police that they had no objection – but soon we were back with Das, and Goswamy (his sidekick) and they felt unable to make a decision. Nor could their boss be found. At last, after lunch, I returned to the Special Branch office where they said once again that the District Commissioner could not issue these permits, and we would have to go to Dispur. More in interest than expectation I pursued the DC. again, found him at his bungalow about to have lunch. 45 minutes later we were both back there with our application and the Supt.’s notes. The DC was evidently bewildered to find his path blocked but had the sense to tell us to go to Dispur after all. He would telephone there on our behalf. Finally then, after further persuasion we were seen by the secretary of the passport office.

Here was a most polished young man behind a large desk.

“This is a restricted area,” he explained, “and the words do, after all, have a meaning. They mean that foreigners are not allowed here, with certain exceptions. You may be the exceptions,” and he beamed at us.

“We have to consider each case on its merits. We may have reasons for refusing permission to some individuals and not to others. And of course we will not tell you what our reasons are.”

Two Germans were there, seeking permits for Derange only.

With his fingertips together before a conspiratorial smile, he said “Now this I’m afraid, may be rather difficult.“

In exasperation the German woman said, ”I’m sorry, I can’t deal with this ‘Maybe -Perhaps – It will be difficult.’ Just tell us please whether it will be possible . . . or impossible.”

His smile became even more egregious.

“Let me put it then, that in the case of Derange it will prove actually to be . . . impossible.”

He could hardly utter the word ¬ but seemed pleased to have got it out. Nevertheless, behind the extreme unctuousness, he delivered a plain message. All our complaints and inconveniences were nothing to him. They would deal with us as they pleased, regardless of PR considerations, or the tourist trade.

It was a breath of fresh air, though a depressing prospect. Assam had become most desirable to us both, and with the difficulties grew our ambitions. He invited us to call him next morning for news about our applications.

On our way back to town we stopped at the Lucas office and fell on our feet. Happily received by the resident manager, Sanithanan, a Tamil Brahmin, we also met shortly afterwards Raj Pande, the Calcutta boss on a tour of Assam. He was most friendly. Flattered us both with his attention. Invited us to eat with him at the Bellevue (we had just thought of going there for a beer.)

We went back to the lodge first to let Carol change. Snow White hovered there anxiously. He knew that our permits had expired. I dealt with it in an offhand manner, but I knew that if the Passport Office didn’t approve at least our stay in Gauhati, we’d be in more trouble next day.

The evening with Pande went very well. He is charming, intelligent and capable of listening. Spent seven years in Birmingham, where he took an external degree. Then Amritsar, Delhi and Calcutta (also Jaipur I think). Gave a spirited description of four levels of Indian business. He says they are efficient at the lowest and highest levels. Not in between. (The man who employs apprentices and pays only in roti and dahl, can produce accurate facsimiles of auto parts at a fraction of the price. If an armature breaks down, say, he will say give it back and take another, and he can be relied on to do this. NOT fly-by-night.)

Next day, Wednesday, I’m told our permits will be ready in the afternoon for some of the places we wanted. Jubilation. At two thirty we get them. Stop for chat with Sanithanan. Then very late go to university on spec and find Dr. B.M.Das just leaving. He invites us to visit his home at 6.30. We visit Karmak (?) temple on hill overlooking the river. Good view. A Hindu protests that we should be allowed into the temple. Apologises for the custodians of his faith. “God is the same everywhere.”

The visit to Das is an overwhelming success. [He gave us introductions and advice on places to visit and what to look for.]

Back at the Lodge – Snow White is satisfied. We are ready to penetrate Assam.

Thursday, 20th January

A slow and cumbersome start of packing, marketing, post office, bank. Tried to draw a bank-draft but the queue defeated me.

We get to the park after dark, having stopped earlier at an Inspection Bungalow which seemed inhospitable. Decided to continue to next place and as soon as darkness fell the road entered a winding hill area where it rapidly deteriorated. I joked that it would soon turn to dirt. Almost immediately, it did, and we travelled through several miles of road building. The predictability of this kind of coincidence is astonishing. Worst conditions of light, weather, road, coincide towards end of ride, particularly when a choice has been made to continue,

Overwhelmed by impact of bureaucracy on our otherwise simple lifestyle.

A curse – but mixed with some blessings. What is the price of a streamlined bureaucracy? Is it a consumer society? Probably – because only the demands of commerce can defeat the sloth of the bureaucrat. Meanwhile we have the remarkable testimony of Chaudry, the head of Geological Survey, met in Kaziranga, who tells how he and his sea-green incorruptible colleagues stand in the way of corruption and pollution. The British Tradition he calls it. His story concerns the use of high Sulphur coal in Rajasthan. The SO2 will kill saplings that ensure regeneration of forest. But it was on quite different grounds that he stopped the danger – an Act of Parliament to do with conservation of Silver, Indium and Mercury.

Transferred to Assam to thwart him, but he continued his campaign by mail.

Friday, January 21st

The elephant ride is off because of fog. At Tourist Lodge we are seduced into 20-rupee room and are very pleased by it. Book an elephant ride for following afternoon. The only disappointment here is food. The four Yankees are also here, but we see little of them.

Saturday, 22nd

Lovely morning and lunch. Then to Baguri. Walked across river with the elephant, where she knelt down and a short ladder was given us to mount by.

We plodded softly down the road and very soon after discovered a wild elephant among bushes and trees just off the road. Then through tracts of very high thatching grass and out into a swampy area with a lake in it. Beyond the lake were several rhino, like light grey boulders in the grass. We got round to them eventually and the Mahout brought us face to face with one that wanted to charge us.

He made an attempt to approach but the elephant advanced on him, and he backed down and fled. This, it turns out, is fairly predictable, but not knowing it I felt distinctly nervous of the outcome. The rhino was scarred and bleeding from a fight – (it’s the mating season) – and actually ran off to one of the big rhino dung heaps to have a shit. So it couldn’t have been all that worried.

[I was told later that the rhino is the only animal that can hope to defeat an elephant, by getting under it and thrusting it horn up into the elephant’s belly]

The white rhino came close to attacking us

There were other small animals and the ride was very pleasant. But expensive, and we didn’t much like being asked for a tip at the end. But took several pics.

In the evening I got slightly euphoric and continued a silly attempt to familiarise Carol with Saint Privat – which turned out very badly as Jo figured ever larger in the story, until the thing finished in sterile abstractions, tears, incriminations, and remorse.

Sunday, 23rd

Walked to shops on main road patching up the previous night’s damage. Bought duck eggs and walking back up saw the helicopters which had disturbed us the night before. Walked across grass where they were parked, as a young Indian pilot in overalls was about to warm up for a journey. We talked to him – Capt. Vijay Trehan – and within minutes we were in the machine and up for the first time. Magic. He invited us to stay with him in Gauhati.

Breakfast splendid. Then I played with ideas about the book, trying to isolate some view of the world that had simple relevance. Tried to make something of custom and prejudice but didn’t get it.

Carol went to Ag-research station and Miki village. Lunch was fairly boring. The jeep ride we had booked for the afternoon did not thrill me in anticipation. I thought it would be a waste of money. We were to share with others, and there was a silly scene over Carol’s student card reduction. But the other passengers turned out to be the grandparents of the barman – 80 & 65 years old – and their first time in the sanctuary. That felt much better.

We saw the usual things – going to the Brahmaputra – rhino, buffalo, deer, boar – and admired the sandy desolation of the river bed. And its bubbling water. Then stopped by the forest rest house, where a beautiful marshy pond lay among rushes, with fish jumping, kingfishers, and a gull-type bird diving. Heron, egret, ducks, hawks and waterfowl played. A plump bird with speckled brown outer plumage and white underneath sat ornamentally on a bush. The sun set on the grasses, reflected in the water and it was altogether beautiful. By then I was well-satisfied, so what came soon after was as electrifying as it was unexpected.

The jeep slammed to a halt amid shouts, and I shot up from my seat through the roof frame to see a tiger – a big bright Royal Bengal tiger shining in its magnificent colours in the grass 100 feet way. The reality of it was breath-taking and it stayed long enough to fill me with awe. Not even the lion can compete with it. A sight of a lifetime. The quarry too could be heard in the grass, and we probably came just too soon for the kill – but what a bonus. All of us were very happy. And a sort of intimacy grew up just around the event.

Not much later a black leopard also made an appearance, and monkeys scattered in high branches. The skyline was a splendid black on red, and stars began to appear in a sky that was African in its grandeur. In the lodge everyone congratulated us on our good fortune. We went to the bar and, after a gloomy start, got deliciously drunk with three bottles of beer.

A conversation with the manager of ITDC Travellers’ Lodges, and then the Geological Survey Director who was loquaciously tipsy.

Afterwards in the dining room, the geologist Chaudrey, talked on about how scientists formed a fraternal conspiracy to maintain a balance of power in the world, ignoring national and political pressures to do so.

Not since the late forties have I heard such a roseately optimistic version of scientific idealism. He was full of stuff about the British tradition of doing one’s duty regardless of personal gain – and spoke highly of the British geologists who had turned over every page of their observations and results to India. He had seen the reports.

[The only useful map of India I had been able to find since my arrival six months earlier was a map with some detail of roads and cities produced by the Geological Survey. It was printed as I recall on two sheets of plain paper, and difficult to keep intact.]

See you next week – and be sure to pay your tariffs. Trump needs the money.

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From My Notebooks In 1977: Gauhati, Assam 30 Mar 2025, 9:27 am

The morning after a night of frenzied dancing outside the Barpeta Road police station.

A Girl in Gauhati, Assam

Friday January 14th

Morning, uneasiness persisted. It seemed even less likely that we would get our passports back so easily – although there was no real fear of anything unpleasant happening. Deb Roy came in and heard our account. We went to market, bought eggs, tomatoes. I ate two eggs. A crow ate the rest. We also got a tin of dried milk and had to sign our names in a register. Deb Roy said that after the Bangladesh war, refugees brought about a wave of shortages which lasted up to the Emergency, which was greatly exacerbated by sharks who bought up basic commodities and cornered them, making great profits. Many of them were later punished, and shopkeepers protect themselves by keeping a record of such purchases. Deb Roy continues to impress as a man with a good heart and a real curiosity for life. His bookcase too includes The Pentagon Papers.

So off to the police again. The Sober SI was there at his table on the verandah. He said he had not yet had instructions, though it was now 10.30. Shortly after, however, the phone ins his office rang. He sprang up, leaped off the verandah behind him, ran round the flower bed and up the verandah steps into the building and to his office. I saw him do this several times.

It was obviously much more pleasant to do business outside, and almost certainly he would have had difficulty getting an extension cord for the phone. But there were always minions floating about who could at least have picked up the receiver and called him. In the West he would have done it that way even if he was sitting next to the phone, for the status value.

But he preferred to propel his bulky body and arrive at the phone breathless. Why? Probably the only people who could call him would be superiors, so a hint of breathlessness would be a good thing. Servility is valued above efficiency. In 1957, Chaudhury Nirad C said, “People who are endowed with the power to provide employment in India are incapable of seeing any merit in a man without having it dinned into their ears.” Probably he would say the same twenty years later, and it goes without saying the sweeter the din the better, nothing being sweeter to the undiscerning than flattery and conspicuous awe.

Where the phone itself is concerned, in Assam it is still clearly an instrument of the Gods. I would not be surprised one day to see a calendar depicting Shiva on the telephone to – who? When, some days later I was in hot pursuit of a further set of permits, I was walked about in Gauhati preceded by a khaki clad messenger to no avail, when a simple call should have established that it was unnecessary. People like to send people on errands. It gives them a Caesarean glow to know that legions of messengers and supplicants are marching all about their empires on their business. They have not yet learned, as we have, that the territorial imperative can be asserted by telephone.

While the SSI was shouting “Yes Sir,” in his office, the DSI, now sober, sat behind and between us, still in his jacket and long red scarf. He had the slightly mournful look of a bloodhound which had lost the scent, but was otherwise of a quite sweet disposition. I had feared that on the morning after, memories of the night before might embarrass him and make him irascible but not so. I was glad for him that the uninhibition of the previous night could be so integral a part of his life that they required no explanation or compensation.

Above the SSI’s desk was a poster with thirty portraits of Wanted Men. Later, looking again I was startled to see that one of them closely resembled Nixon. And then I spotted Willy Brandt, et alia. They were the political leaders of the world in 1970. I remarked on it and the SSI laughed, but whether in recognition of the joke I couldn’t be sure.

The SSI returned. I can’t say he looked crestfallen. He simply said that his superior also felt incompetent to decide this issue, and that he advised that we be “produced” in Gauhati before the Special Branch for interrogation. His man would carry our passports, and we would accompany him on the train. The bike would stay at Barpeta Road.

I objected strongly to such a waste of our time and soon he agreed that if the DSI could get the use of the jeep he could convey us to Gauhati. So, resigned, we prepared for the journey, said “Fairwell” to Deb Roy, and then learned that the DSI’s jeep had been taken home by its driver, the passports had already gone by train, and we were free to make our own way.

Halfway there we stopped to photograph a stork, and were invited to a Bihu meal by a very gentle villager by the roadside, where two men were scooping water from one tank to another to catch fish – (water chestnuts). Food was rice cake with seed fillings. Rice & cardamon & sugar, in small enamel bowls. Very gentle ceremony.

In Gauhati just after dark, after crossing the immense and impressive Brahmaputra by the splendid double-decker road and rail bridge. To tourist lodge. Nice room.

Next day, phase two of the ordeal began. At the Special Branch office, I had to tell the story twice, each time in the face of resistance– to Dutta and then Das. Both seemed to have been won over, but it was holiday until Monday, so the “regularisation of Manas” had to wait till then.

Meanwhile our application enabled us to visit Sualkuchi [Centre of textile/silk handlooms] the following day.

Silk weaving under the houses of Sualkuchi

[I listed the various deficiencies of the Indian bureaucracy. Normally I just took these things for granted and didn’t waste time complaining. Too easy to look like the pompous white man instructing the natives. I must have felt unusually frustrated.]

The 1st Secy at Nepal:” This permit is also valid for Manas.” Untrue

“You can go to Gauhati.” Untrue

Immigration officials: “You can go to Manas.” Untrue

Barpeta Road: No signs to indicate the correct road, or presence of a police post.

No understanding by police or SIB at Barpeta Road of correct procedure.

No machinery to assist tourists with correct information at Gauhati. In particular the officer at the Tourist Office in direct contradiction with the police on where permits are to be had.

Result: Six days at least spent in various police stations with no knowledge of what, if anything, can be achieved. And four days in which our passports were taken from us with no receipt.

Finally on Monday we get the retroactive permit and, planning to go to Dispur, we called at the Tourist Office. The officer was enthusiastic and insisted that we should not go to Dispur but to the Deputy Commissioner for Gauhati, Mr Misrah.

I found him that evening just as he was leaving his office, and he said come back next morning. He seemed competent to do it, a small man, quiet spoken, carefully controlled. At the Lodge itself police were also present – in the shape of a stocky man with white hair whom we came to know as “Snow White.” He asked us apparently aimless questions, cautioned us against visiting Sualkuchi, although Das had authorised it, and was anxious about our permits.

“Mr. Simon,” he said. “You seem much reduced.”

We also received Dutta in our room, who brought a copy of his poems and asked me to write some comment on them. His manner was always awkward, veering between expansive authority and stiff incomprehension – the contradiction between his roles being perfectly manifested in his behaviour, and his dress which was alternately dapper and down-at-heel. On a further visit he brought his wife, a lovely child-like lady in a beautifully embroidered shawl. He seemed embarrassed by her and apologised for her lack of English. He said she had insisted that a group photograph of us should be taken (but I wondered afterwards if it wasn’t his idea) and rushed out to find a photographer with a flash.

Thanks again, everyone, for letting me know you’re there.

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Travel Far and Learn About Living (from The Sunday Times in 1978) 23 Mar 2025, 11:27 am

I just came across an article I wrote for The Sunday Times after I had returned from my first long journey, in 1978. I think it makes for an interesting read today. They gave it a rather corny title, but I can’t think of a better one.

TRAVEL FAR AND LEARN ABOUT LIVING

The twin track of molten tyre rubber began halfway round the bend, a steeply descending right-hander on a Turkish mountain. I kept to the right side near the rock face, and watched the tracks veer away to the left and across the far edge of the road where they disappeared. Beyond the edge there were several hundred feet of nothing. Some policemen in rough khaki with red insignia stood nonchalantly looking down. I stopped the bike and joined them. Far below, the rear end of a lorry was visible. I rode on contemplating those fresh black tracks, imagining myself in the lorry driver’s seat as he was launched into space. It made me shudder.

I thought of the various ways it could have happened. One lorry overtaking another on the way up? Steering failure? Terminal fatigue? Some drivers on this Eastern run use opium to keep going. I went on to imagine how I would react if a lorry like that came hurtling round a corner towards me, and paid homage to the dead man by using his example to stay alive. It was one of the methods I employed to survive a 65,000-mile journey on a motorcycle.

On the road from India to England there were endless chances to learn from other men’s’ tragedies. At times one could imagine there was a war on. Seven thousand miles strewn with wrecks. A TIR juggernaut sliced in two, the cab here by the roadside, the container in a river 200 feet away. How could that happen? A new white Peugeot rammed down to chest height under the rear axle of a trailer. Tankers ripped open. Innumerable vehicles upside down. All the way through Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey the carnage mounts up as the traffic concentrates. On the Iran-Turkey border (a wonderful old-style frontier where you have to pass through a stone gateway) the biggest TIR trucks queue up, two abreast, in a two-mile-long line.

At the Pakistani end I was, in a sense, lucky. Newly proclaimed curfews and martial law had reduced the traffic to a trickle. I was privileged to see a great city, Lahore, apparently deserted by all life except for the cows moving majestically in herds along the broad thoroughfares, quite independent of man.

Worst of all was the notorious Yugoslav Autoput from Skopje to Zagreb. Juggernauts and impatient German tourists bound for Greece pack these 800 miles of two lane monotony as tightly as the meat in a sausage skin. The skin of course bursts in frequent and bloody accidents.

Nowhere on the 7000 miles from Delhi to London is it a difficult ride, unless one chooses to cross the high passes in winter. (In Africa and along the South American Cordillera I had a much tougher time with rocks, sand, mud, flood, and corrugation). After four years of traveling I was glad to have this relatively easy – and often tarred – surface rolled out for me all the way home but, thank heaven, I had also acquired the road sense to survive on it.

Many people who took an interest in my journey consider that my greatest accomplishment was to come back alive. With my mind full of more positive benefits this seems like the least important achievement, though it was done with great effort. But at least it proves that the odds, however bad they may seem statistically, can be defeated. The only serious injury I suffered –to an eye – was due to a fishing accident.

I found the best aid to survival was the old truckie’s motto, “drive the next mile.” to which I would add my own corollary for motorcyclists “and don’t let the other fellow get you.” Most people believe that situations can arise on the road which make them helpless victims of chance. I think you stand a much better chance if you believe that everything that happens to you on the road is your own fault. Everything.

The truly astonishing volume of traffic that now surges up and down the Great Orient Expressway has rather overshadowed what used to be called the Hippy Trail. but the Hippies still flourish. The “freak buses” still plough between Munich and Goa, Amsterdam and Khatmandu, advertising stereo sound, free tea and fully collapsible seats. In little rooms in Kandahar, Europeans wearing odd combinations of ethnic dress, from Turkish Depression gear to Gujarati mirror clothes, still fondle polished slabs of compressed hashish and dream about the price on the streets of Paris and Hamburg. And dope-hunting Iranian police still make tourists turn their camper vans inside out at the Afghan border where cornflake packets and supplies of Tampax blow away in the high wind. So it is all the more bizarre to find oneself riding in central Turkey among bountiful acres of white and purple opium poppies, their fat pods ripening for another harvest of morphine base.

The anti-Hippy crusades pursued with gusto by some Asian authorities may have been justified but seem designed mainly to clear the way for the big spenders of tourism.

What is a Hippy?

“If you are found dressed in shabby, dirty, or indecent clothing, or living in temporary or makeshift shelters you will be deemed to be a Hippy. Your visit pass will be cancelled and you will be ordered to leave Malaysia within 24 hours . . . . Furthermore you will not be permitted to enter Malaysia again.”

Signed: Mohd. Khalil bin Hj. Hussein

Dir Gen of Immigration

The above definition would have included me with my tent and jeans as well as a high proportion of the native population.

In Nepal “every guest who is in Immigration for their problames (sic) should be polite and noble behaved, any misbehaved activities and discussion by the guest shall be proved a crime”.

Difficult advice to follow in view of the impolite and ignoble behaviour of the officials there.

However Mother India remains mercifully benign to all comers. A few more people in shabby clothes and makeshift shelters are not going to make much of a dent on several hundred millions in the same state. As long as India is India the Trail will live on.

These have been four crucial and violent years to travel in the world. Of the 45 countries I visited, 18 have been through war or revolution. Many of the rest have faced economic depression or internal violence. Yet my own experience has been overwhelmingly peaceful, marked by kindness and hospitality everywhere.

I have returned to find prices double, the European pecking order changed, and the political complexion of Europe much pinker than it was. Britain seems a bit chastened but otherwise unchanged. People are as oblivious as ever of their relatively great material wealth. I suppose they are right to be, since what we have here is not really important to the quality of life; indeed most of it, to my mind, is a burden. My mother’s garden, about half an acre of lawn, flowers and fruit trees, could accommodate an Indian slum of a thousand inhabitants (not that I suggest it should). I watch her move about in it alone, pruning and trimming, and I imagine she wishes there were less to do.

I used the word slum, but for me that denotes people who have abandoned hope in their squalor. The Indian slums that I saw were not like that. They were scrupulously maintained in the village tradition. Given just a few amenities (a source of clean water within reach, drainage, a supply of roof tiles, they would reach an acceptable minimum standard. Direct comparisons between European and Indian lifestyles are as fraudulent as ever.

I have spent a lot of time wondering how “they” could arrive at some sort of parity with “us”. During these four years “they” have acquired much more power to press their demands. I see no alternative: we shall have to sacrifice some of our abnormal privileges. If we did it gracefully and imaginatively we could benefit a great deal from the sacrifice, but I expect it will be a bitter and bloody business in the end. Around the world I have been asked to defend Britain in her “decline” and have tried to conjure up some notion of a British “genius” at work. Under the stresses of these last years I thought maybe new directions would be found, new social forms experimented with. I see now that this was foolish. We still carry so much fat. There is no sense of change, just an occasional whiff of decay.

But things will change. Having been among the two billions who will demand it I know they are not just images on a screen or on posters for Oxfam. They are real. We will have to accommodate them.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“How will you ever be able to settle down?” people ask. “Will you want to do it again?” I used to laugh. The prospect of stopping in one place, of doing some real work and living among familiar faces was all I could dream of. The book I have to write has been on my mind too long, but now I realise that until the book is written the journey will still not be over. And already I know what makes the tramp go back on the road. There’s a tingling vista of freedom that is as elusive as it is intoxicating, and it is peculiar I think to those who travel widely alone. There is a wild pleasure in being able to vary one’s behaviour at will, with nobody around to remind you of what you said or did yesterday.

For example, I used to take it for granted that I preferred to sleep on a bed. In these four years I have slept on all kinds of surfaces, wet or dry, hot or cold, in a prison and in a Maharaja’s palace, still or moving, in pin-drop silence or in railway platform bedlam. I now find that I would choose, whenever possible, to sleep on a rug on the ground in the open air.

Why does it matter? To me, enormously. The habits of sleeping, eating, drinking, washing, dressing that I learned in youth had great influence on my state of mind and body. But they are not habits I would have chosen and in these four years they have all changed. In many ways I find that the old ways of doing things were unnecessarily complicated and expensive. Today what I do is much closer to what I am.

It does not take much imagination to see that the same process applies to less tangible but even more potent habits of behaviour. I think I used to make great efforts when meeting people for the first time to impress them. This kind of thing obviously demands a lot of energy and creates a good deal of anxiety as well. If I had tried to sustain it through four years during which I met, practically every day, new people from whom I wanted help, often with no common language to fall back on, it would have made me a quivering wreck. Relax or crack were the only possible alternatives. I managed to relax by abandoning expectations.

“Whatever it is you want” I told myself, “you don’t need.” Whether it was a visa or a pound of rice, or permission to sleep on somebody’s land, I prepared myself in advance to be content with refusal. The result was a revolutionary illumination. I was almost always given what I wanted and at the same time I found I wanted much less.

These personal discoveries once begun, became the foundation for a philosophy which, while in no way startling, is intensely real to me, having arisen out of my own personal experiments.

Towards the end of the journey the power I had built up in this way began to fail. There is obviously a limit to a learning process like this; in my case about three years. After many months in India I began to wish I was home. I knew the wish was dangerous and debilitating. To hurry now would invite the accident I had avoided for almost 60,000 miles.

In Delhi I became absurdly frustrated by a delay of two weeks in getting some spare parts. When I finally climbed out of Old India through the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan, I experienced a psychological dizziness that astonished me and kept me in Kabul days longer than I intended. It had a lot to do with the way I had adapted to the pressure of Indian life, the permanent exposure to people, their curiosity, hunger and clamour. Coming out of that was perhaps like decompression for a diver, but earlier in the journey I would have taken the transition in my stride.

On the long route home, I made mistakes attributable only to apathy. For the first time I looked for companions to ride with and used them to support my faltering spirits. And finally, in Istanbul, I lost all restraint, and I rode for home almost non-stop, getting to Munich in three days although I dared not take the bike over 50mph.

Somewhere along the way I wrenched my back and so, having spent four years in almost perfect health I managed to arrive home a physical wreck. And my imagination having worked overtime for so long went into a coma. For many days I could hardly recall, with any conviction anything that had happened to me “out there.”

For a while I felt as though those four years had never happened at all.

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From My Notebooks In 1977: In Assam At The Manas Tiger Project 16 Mar 2025, 9:32 am

Bengal Tiger at a reserve in India. Photo by Soumyajit Nandy.

Thursday January 13th

After morning ride with Debroy, back to tent, a meagre breakfast (one egg and a chapati between us) and packing. To see the Beat Officer, a curiously evanescent character whose ornate English phrases are unequal to the thoughts he tries to capture.

“I will be performing my utmost to render your visit…” and so on. But his answer to all questions an enthusiastic but uncomprehending, “Yes.”

We talk a little. He says his superior has decided to waive the camping charge, and we get off with 30 rupees each for three days. He presses me to take the boat ride, but I demur. I ask him about himself. He is 27.

“You cannot say I have many years. Still there is the main part to come.” And, “loneliness is my companion.” He repeats this several times. Wistful, and more endearing than before.

So we ride away, much faster and surer than before over the loose surface. Carol has the beginnings of a toothache. We are both hungry and looking forward to a meal. Then the plot suddenly takes a strange twist. At the point where, on the way in, we did our mistaken loop off the main road, we keep on the road and are unexpectedly stopped by a painted barrier held down by a padlocked cable.

A man asks us to show passports. I’m so surprised, I react a bit uppish, but we follow him in as it dawns on me that this is a police post of some sort which we inadvertently avoided on our way in. The two men who take our passports go through a very similar routine as the two at the frontier of Assam, but this time roles reversed.

The writer is an unusually sophisticated young man with a cultivated understanding of our feelings. The other is a ponderous, bull-headed man. He and I start with a foolish argument about how we came to take the wrong road coming in. He says there’s a sign. I protest that there is none. The suave one cuts in saying very pleasantly, “Please sit down. Did you enjoy Manas?” Then they read through the passports and Carol has to tell them that she’s a history teacher. We too smile and joke about the misunderstandings.

“You do not have a permit for Manas.”

“This is the permit here, given in Katmandu.”

“But it does not mention Manas.”

“But we were told it was valid for Manas.”

“You should have a special permit.”

“How were we to know. We have told everyone we were coming here. No-one mentioned that a special permit was need, etc., etc.”

After consultations and phone calls they say our passports must be sent to Tezpur.

“How far away is that?”

400 kilometres.

“And what do we do meanwhile? Stay here?”

The writer smiles apologetically.

In a heated fashion I ask whether the First Secretary in Katmandu will be put to the same inconvenience for misleading us. After another pause, he says our passports will be sent instead to Barpeta Road to save us inconvenience. A man will take them on a bus and we should report there to the police station.

We leave, and I lose an opportunity to convey to the civilized one that I respect him.

At Barpeta we go to the Sikh truck stop to eat paratha, rice and curry. Then to the IB [Inspection Bungalow]. Where we meet Debroy and tell him our story. He ponders the matter, but it seems he can do nothing to affect the issue. The IB is very pleasant and homely – nice beds, clean carpet, a dining room, new mosquito nets, and bright lighting – a real pleasure.

So we leave for the Police station. The duty policeman already has our passports. He seats us and asks what it’s all about. My explanation runs through three quarters of its length before he interrupts. (I am never able, really, to explain the whole thing to anyone. It’s as though they are listening for another kind of meaning behind my words}.

He is increasingly polite and friendly – a good-looking, athletic – warlike – man. He was in Kashmir for the Pakistani war. He apologises that his superior is at the market and will return in half an hour. Then we will get our passports back. While waiting, observe the office. A door behind us opens onto the Super’s office. On my left two barred metal doors labelled Male and Female lockup. On the facing wall another such door labelled Malkhana – which means House of Evidence where case exhibits (like our passports) are kept. The floor is eroded cement. A dusty box has a collection of empty bottles standing on it. Some standing shelves between the lockups have old files, all very dusty.

We ask leave to go and return in half an hour. At the IB is a medical officer travelling around heath centres to eradicate smallpox. He has studied the map on the bike, explains that he has understood exactly where I come from and what I have done.

“This is the Union Jack,” he says jovially. “We were saluting this flag for a long time.” Then he tells me immediately who he is and what he does.

“We have succeeded in almost eradicating it.”

We go back to the station. Now we are received by the Superintendent. (Actually, a sub-Inspector) a precisely efficient (if humourless) man in khaki.

“What is your problem?” he asks. How can he fail to know? He claims to be principally concerned that our passports were taken and no receipt given.

“This should be penalised,” he says. “I shall take action. Meanwhile if there is anything I can do . . .” and he offered immense but unspecified services. Then the extraordinary man in the orange scarf and the jacket from Chicago, already quite drunk, came in and added to the profusion of wishes, compliments, promises of immediate restitution, justice and unlimited aid. Then he started singing ‘Clementine’ followed by ‘Yippy-yippy-yay’ and an unknown song about Seven Lonely Days and Seven Lonely Nights. As he sang the superintendent held his hands before his face in mute embarrassment. But then I began to sing with the drunk and perhaps that helped. Anyway we were brought tea and rasgulis (delicious) and told that next morning, as soon as the Supt. had his instructions, we would receive our passports. Meanwhile we were to be the guests of the drunk, and we followed him to his cramped quarters where the duty policeman and some others were already helping themselves to brandy and water.

The drunk sang and talked and quoted proverbs. “If this drink is intoxicating, why is not this bottle dancing?” and so on. And the others also warmed up. One was a nice but sober Brahmin landlord – owns a lot of the land of Barpeta. The other was, astonishingly, introduced as India’s foremost actor of stage and screen, a Mr, D……… Pal who smiled shyly. And so we all trooped out to the lawn in front of the polices station where some constables had lit a wood fire.

Then came another dramatic transformation. This ragged band of PCs, some with bare feet, some with cloths round their heads, some in civilian clothes, became an eloquent tribal group of dancers and drummers. The drunken sub-inspector had kept up a continuous level of song and nonsense, but so far there was no sign that anyone else’s spirits were raised at all.

Occasionally to the tune of Clementine he danced a strange little jig, with one leg bent and the other sandalled foot raised and jabbing at the air under his tubby body which also twisted about. Sometimes he took the ends of his endless scarf and held them out from his body like some ceremonial dress, in a rather feminine gesture, while sweet expressions suffused his face. Though of course from one point of view he was just a drunk making a fool of himself, in this context he was a catalyst for all of us to lose our senses.

He had promised songs and dances. The drummer came across from the other side of the fire, a lean man with a fine grin, hooded by a scarf. His drum was of the truncated egg variety with string longitudinally stretched on the body. He tapped the rhythm on the side with a stick – double hand clap to four-time, then finished each sequence with a great flourish of beats in quite subtle combinations. “This is the bull” says the Inspector.

The first dance took us quite by surprise. The DSI (Drunken sub-inspector) was declaiming something to the houses but this time his remarks are greeted by a chorus of responses and animal growls. Then the Duty Constable (DC) raised his arms and went into a sinuous dance while the others with one sustained howling first note broke into a song of simple, powerful forms supported by drum and hands. The group in the firelight became as solid and intense as the Turkana were at Lodwar, and it was all the more extraordinary because these were policemen in uniform and the trappings of their trade were all around, while we, sitting there as honoured guests, had our passports locked up in their Malkhana.

The dancing continued with even greater effect. The DC’s hands moved with great eloquence over his forehead and behind his back. Another young man joined in and danced a completely different movement that may have been from another area. The DSI continued his jig, weaving among them and occasionally confirming that they were all in heavenly ecstasy due to our presence. The DC also kept telling us not to mind.

“Don’t mind.” We danced ourselves. Carol wore the DSI’s shawl, made by his mother, and then the scarf too. I wore his funny leather peaked hat. He called us brother and sister.

While my enjoyment and appreciation were undiluted, I still recognised a small voice murmuring “tomorrow maybe they’ll throw you in the lock-up.” Not pure paranoia, though I recognised the South American influence. But the emotional ties that bound us to them tonight were fireworks, and would be dead sticks in the morning. Meanwhile we were there under their supervision and they had our passports.

[By this time I had discovered that we happened to have arrived on a day of state-wide celebration called Bihu.]

Eventually the dinner was ready. The Supt. and the Brahmin came over saying “Yes please,” in that strangely abrupt way they have which leaves you wondering whether you’ve been invited or ordered to come. In the circumstances one wondered whether the sober ones were quite as friendly towards us as the drunks. But the landlord was very friendly to Carol at the feast, and the Supt. continued offering his services vociferously into the night. Although his persistent idea of giving us a constable to guard over us had a sinister side.

We did our best with the food, served on segments of banana trunk. It was delicious but far too much. Then we were whisked off with extraordinary speed and violence. The DC who was now smelling heavily of liquor seemed determined to walk us (or march us) back to the IB and was pushing and prodding us toward the exit. Then the Supt. took over and we were bundled into the jeep instead. There was scarcely time to say goodbye to anyone, enhancing the feeling that we were mere cyphers, or symbols, or ghosts at the feast.

Contemplating it all afterwards I felt as uncertain about the next day as if the celebration had never taken place. One other thing occurred to me. The Superintendent’s emphasis on the business of receipts for passports echoed loudly Debroy’s own remarks when we first told him of our troubles. Had Debroy quietly called a friend and suggested this line of defence against the SIB. Perhaps we’ll never know.

[The SIB, or simply IB, was India’s Intelligence branch, supposedly capable of making life very unpleasant, or worse.]

The moment I sit down to write this memoir, a knock on the door. Our hero, the DC, had come out on foot. Why? “Are you all right?” he demanded, as though he had just relieved us from a siege. He seemed to swell up and fill the door frame, beaming down on us with drunken eyes and breath. “Anything you want, you may call for me,” and then astonishingly he advanced on me, seized both my biceps in his hands and kissed me firmly on each cheek. And in the same mood of heroic resolution, he did the same for Carol, though there was a brief moment when his mouth seemed to be aimed at hers and only a mighty effort deflected it at the last moment. Then he stumbled off into the fog, nursing his Punjabi passions.

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From My Notebooks In 1977: Nepal to India 10 Mar 2025, 1:18 pm

Still in Nepal, we’re moving across the lower reaches of the Himalaya to the Indian border. First, I wanted to visit Darjeeling, famous as an outpost of Empire and for the tea that bears its name. After that we intended to enter the state of Assam, and visit two tiger sanctuaries, Manas and Kazirenga. Assam was politically sensitive, and tightly controlled. It has a tribal population, and borders with China, but I believed we had been given the necessary permits from the Indian consulate in Kathmandu.

January 6th. Dahran to Siliguri

Indian road continues. People are unusually indifferent to traffic. To border with 4 rupees (Nepali) left. Tea and puri. Border crossing easy, tho’ much to-ing and fro-ing with carnet. On the Indian side a single individual in a tent observes a calm ritual, with good humour. Marked contrast, but carnet has to be done in next town. Both given cups of tea. I walk away and am called back. “Have you any small arms? Have you nothing to declare?” Then smiles, and we’re on our way.

January 7th. To Darjeeling

Oberoi hotel built 1914-16, by Armenian. Bought by Oberoi [a hotel chain] in 1957. Grey stone fortress. Cosy English bedroom. Coal fire. Cast iron grate and moulding straight from Edwardian England. Hot bath. Old-fashioned bed. Very comforting. Even fog begins to acquire some charm, and even if the water doesn’t run hot in our bathroom there are hundreds of other bathrooms to choose from. Otherwise, the Youth Hostel and the old English Tea house called Glenary’s. Then Campbell Cottage and Primrose Villas. Painted roof with fretted wood, and wood frames painted liberally with white paint, like a war-widow’s lipstick. Toy train’s whistle through the fog. Tibetan boys touting horse rides. (Three rupees an hour).

Oberoi manager (Mr. Mattol) very pleasant. Took picture and promised to send print with caption for his travel magazine. Hotel virtually empty. (I’m sure the six other guests were enjoying special favours.) The town seems to be all road, with vertical drops between on which houses, hotels, shops teeter precariously. Remember the Buddhist home for children, listen to voices chanting from inside. A sound that evoked a complete life. like Trench Hall perhaps, so foreign yet so familiar.

The problem of how far we travel together has many faces. As I confront any one of them I feel the others staring at me from behind. The Saluga hotel in Siliguri is scene of a decision. The bike is too heavy with everything on it. I suggest that Carol find something to do with her stuff, or take train to Gauhati. [Capital of Assam.] C. says, most equably, that it’s entirely up to me (and for the first time I can believe her). But if I leave my own gear at Siliguri that might save enough space to leave one bag behind. Reluctantly I try it and find she’s right. She leaves a few things for me to take as far as Delhi [We planned to meet again briefly in Delhi.] and the leather bag and a few bits go into the storeroom. For once the whole thing is managed without a crisis and I’m very grateful.

When confronted with the choice of saving weight or saving a relationship, how can any decision have value. Of course, I could theoretically surrender control of everything and see whether it is returned to me as a gift. But I could not be so free with my life (and it seems to me that nothing less is at stake.) Between Katmandu and Siliguri we had two difficult moments. One was outright anger by Carol at my “supervision” of the packing.

“You must think I’m totally stupid. I don’t know why you would want to be with such a total moron.” I came back in the same vein.

Sunday January 9th, East from Siliguri

21,018 miles. Tightened chain. Noticed that oiler had dried up and opened it an eighth of a turn. Reset tappets. Rt exh. very loose. Pt setting right, but pts should be levelled and polished. Cleaned air filter. Oil is now down to “full” marker, i.e.used a lot in last 100 miles as against almost none from Katmandhu. [Oil consumption had become a mystery.] This oil was changed at 21,050. [Obviously a mistaken reading.] Plugs now a good colour. Petrol consumption seems to have been high but will see how much tank now takes. Since Hetauda 398 miles. 20 litres plus 10.

Manas

[Tiger population in Manas down from 2000 in 1964 to 2 or 3 hundred now. 3000 in Kazirenga. Meanwhile I had gathered more information about Manas, where we were now headed.]

Assam trees – Sahl, hardwood. Teak will grow, and plantations are starting.

Tigers move in triangles – in one spot for a week or so, then 15 miles to the next spot, and so on, to return to original site.

SW monsoon comes up from the Bay of Bengal to hit the Khasi hills, where it divides into two streams. Half follows the Brahmaputra. Other half stays south. Each carries hundred inches of rainfall. They meet and the rainfall doubles, but on top of hills it is dry in places.

In Orissa, see Chauderi (SB) Field Director, Simlipur, rearing a tigress.

S.Debroy, Field Director, Manas Tiger Project

Mr Das, Conservator (Forestry) – previously Finance.

[The road to Manas left the main highway at a village called Barpeta Road. I followed it to a fork where I could see no signs, and took the left fork which passed through another village and came out to rejoin what I realised must have been the other fork. We continued to Manas where we were well received by Das and Debroy.]

Village houses in Assam.

Debroy is of medium height, medium colour, good physical shape. Square head and face, straight mouth, level brows and close-trimmed mustache just above the lip. At first last night he seemed a bit sullen, reluctant to talk, but this may have been resentment at being towed along in the wake of the other dignitaries. At any rate, when I began to ask about tigers, mentioning that Das had told me they move in triangles he became more animated. Made it clear without saying so, that Das didn’t know what he was talking about, and began to pour out tiger lore. Latest census shows 54 tigers at Manas. They are a solitary animal, being together only for mating (there is no strict season) and for the first 18 months of the cub’s life. They are very shy, always move in heavy cover, are not nocturnal like leopards but hunt very early or late in the day, eating as much of their kill as they can, and hiding the remains from vultures and other smaller cats. Then they find water before lying up nearby to sleep. If there’s plenty of game they don’t move far. When the game is gone, they move on. From the pug marks you can tell sex and age of tiger.

Debroy said he had noticed that the deer had disappeared from a place near the road and went out in the jeep that morning to see whether a tiger had been moving through. Sure enough, he found the print on the road where he would have expected it if the tiger had made a kill and then gone for water.

I began to get interested in what could be read or imagined into game tracks. Debroy has been round the main reserves of East Africa. He says he got “fed up” with seeing so much game. Now I begin to understand his tastes, when it becomes a matter of constructing the presence and behaviour of an animal you can rarely if ever see, when all your information is based on the disturbances on the environment, like studying magnetism, or God. (NB it might be interesting to postulate a novel in which for some reason a person must be investigated without ever being seen [Harry Lime?]

I asked if I could accompany him on such a trip in the sanctuary. He thought about it and said he might be doing it again the following morning but, gesturing with his thumb at the upstairs room where Das could be heard enthusiastically lecturing Carol, you never knew what might happen. But if he went, I could come.

I asked what the light was, suffusing an area on the horizon. It was whitish like the lights of a distant town. He said it was probably controlled burning of grass. (Thatching grass). They did this to prevent the grass from catching fire accidentally in later months. There was some controversy over whether it was ecologically sounder to burn or not. In the first case you destroyed many micro habitats, perhaps driving some small species out altogether, in the second case you risked wholesale destruction. Debroy thought that since burning off land had been practiced in India for thousands of years the ecology was probably in balance with it by now. But the balance was delicate, particularly where tigers are concerned. Their numbers were so reduced now, that theirs was first priority.

Mrs Ghandi wanted all tourism banned in Manas until the numbers had grown. They were now investigating and reporting to establish whether this could be a useful step. Das earlier talked about the same thing but seemed to think that Mrs.G should not get her way. “We are a democratic country,” he said. “We can’t stop people from coming here.” A non-sequitur, but the feeling of resistance to imposition from Delhi was there. My own prejudice, however, suggested that Mr. Das was more concerned to project his own authority than the rights of the people.

Next morning Debroy sent a man to the tent to wake us. It was just after dawn. Grey light. He came soon afterwards with a jeep. He had a woolen hat over sleekly groomed hair and a green army jacket. The shoelaces of his half boots were undone. A man crouched in the back. We set off down the road we’d come in by. He showed the tiger print he’d seen yesterday. There were no fresher prints. He thought he must have been wrong about the kill. If she’s made a kill she would have come back for it. We saw deer tracks, elephant (wild because they won’t cross culverts or bridges) wild buffalo, with the widely separated segments of hoof spanning 7 or 8 inches, and the wild ox, or Gauer, with closed hoof. Wild buffalo grow to nine feet at the shoulder, the sturdiest animal in the jungle, and very strong. From the dirt road we went onto a grassy road and into a marshy area of shrubs covered with creepers and all ground choked with vegetation. Here a lot of elephant grass grew and at last I found out what it was. A stalk 3 to 4 feet high with substantial leaves growing from it. Man can eat the tender portions too. More tiger tracks on the road when we turned back.

This experience with Debroy transformed for us, the nature of the Jangel [The Indian word for Jungle. Strictly speaking for a forest to be called Jungle there should be tigers] and it became possible to visualise the life that went on inside it.

More exciting adventures to come. Watch this space!

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From My Notebooks In 1976 and 1977: Nepal 2 Mar 2025, 12:28 pm

I feel the need to emphasise that these notes, taken directly from my notebooks, were intended simply to remind me of thoughts, events, impressions which I might otherwise have forgotten. They were never intended to be seen by anyone, and much of what I wrote would make little sense to a third party. Nor was I particularly concerned with my choice of words. This is simply the raw material from which Jupiter’s Travels and Riding High were later constructed. I have done my best, in italics, to explain and fill in where it seems necessary.

My four-year journey was essentially a solitary one, and this was extremely important to me, but had I made an exception for Carol, and agreed to take her with me through Nepal and Assam. The prospect of my having to leave her created a sad undertone, because I knew she could not really be expected to understand my motivation. In this installment Carol and I are on day three of our trek up the Annapurna trail. I have never been happy carrying a rucksack. My shoulders are just not adapted.

December 15th 1976

To Ghorepani (9,300ft) from Tirkedanga (4,900ft)

We’re on the north side (right bank going upstream) of the Burunghok Kola. The river runs into the valley up which we travel at a point about halfway to Ghorepani and then joins the Madi Kola at Ghorepani. Soon after T. the trail descends and crosses the Burunghok Khola to climb up to Vilari – a steep climb. We breakfasted there. Woman with filthy hands. Then rest of the 4,400 ft climb to G. We arrived just after sunset when the cold really begins to bite. Were delighted to find that hotel has huge fire in the centre of the room. The chimney, a sculpture of flattened cans was purely ornamental, and smoke was a problem, but the evening was undeniably cosy. A lot of people were gathered there. And double bed at night kept us very warm. Sunrise on Poon Hill, after a struggle.

Bina’s famous Bar & Grill. (A joke, of course. Lentils, rice and cabbage is what you get.)

Hot Water. 4000 ft. First up another 200 then down 5,500. But this side of the ridge is more open and gentle, with terraces everywhere on all faces of the valley and even on a most inhospitable rocky face in distance. Many houses, villages. Tea at Bina’s Bar and Grill where I posted my letter to Pat. The stamp was cancelled by hand. [Pat Kavanagh was my agent in London. She had written to tell me that The Sunday Times were complaining that I was costing them too much. I was angry and depressed because I had struggled to survive on a shoe-string, and most of the money they had spent was on entirely avoidable things, like communications and bank stuff.]

While walking, my preoccupations are: 1 Discomfort and strain. Thoughts about enduring it, overcoming it, wishing I hadn’t started. Wondering if I’ll get used to it. Experiments with breathing. Trouble with right knee which I trace to childhood accident and, later, Macchu Pichu. 2 Attempts to divine atmosphere of Europe in Middle Ages. 3 Thoughts about my present bad relations with the Sunday Times. 4 Saint Privat, my commitments to Carol, how to reconcile two future lifestyles.

Hand-weaving silk by the roadside.

Arrive Tato Pani. Talk to quiet tourist outside first hotel, run by Japanese married to Nepali woman. He says they were at the Dalaigiri Hotel but pulled out when they found a hepatitis case was staying there. We go to Namaste Lodge and get a double bed at back. Two Australian girls.

[From this point I made no further entries until we were back in Khatmandu and ready to leave again. We had intended to continue the trek to the edge of Tibet and were infuriated to discover that we had been given the wrong permits. I can’t remember now how these permits were policed, but evidently we felt we couldn’t ignore them.]

[On our way back we got lost in a rhododendron forest in the dark and spent a night out, very worried that we might freeze, but a double sleeping bag and a space blanket saw us through the night. In the morning we saw that we were only 200 yards from the hotel.]

[In Kathmandu we spent a week getting permission to go to Assam, a politically sensitive area, where Carol was particularly keen to visit a tiger sanctuary called Manas. We planned to ride East across the Terai, which is the lower part of Nepal, to Siliguri.]

January 3rd 1977

From Kathmandu to Hetauda. Such a lazy start packing the bike with most imposing pile of baggage. Then round the shops and we leave with no map and only the sketchiest idea of the route, so the climb to Daman takes me by surprise. Endless rough climb in first gear. 50 miles in five hours to freezing summit.[Looking at the map now, I obviously took the wrong road out of Kathmandu.] No desire to spend another night below zero, and over the top we go, to find cloud hanging all around. Exciting but very uncomfortable. Memorable scene of mountain top floating on cloud, and patches of red light as sun sets.

Downhill not much better than climbing but a lot faster. Heavy pressure on shoulders and wrists and palms of hands. Thumbs frozen. But as we descend in dark, air is warmer, no more ice and frost on the road and surface improves. At Hedauda there’s the hotel Rapti. Though there’s an argument next day about the 15/25 rupee room.

January 4th Hetauda to Lahan

Mostly on the Russian road – built in 1972. Indians say price was four times the cost of theirs. Stop to make breakfast at junction with small track, where buses bring local people, who gather round our amazing breakfast spectacle. We discuss problems of spectator crowds. First was Western Reserve dam, and a huge multitude of people gathered for a Kumba Mela, to dip in the waters and celebrate. Ox carts packed with families; grinning children packed in like melons. Brilliant colours. Noise. Confusion. People streaming in and out along the skyline.

Russian road good and uneventful. Then big roundabout where Janakpur road joins. Now on Indian built road and soon come to vast riverbed where bridge is still unfinished. Road disappears in mounds of rock and sand, and leads to a broad water crossing over rocks where I’m nearly swallowed by dips in the riverbed. My boots are full of water. Carol crosses after me carrying bedding (bare foot). Drop bike once in sand. Then back on the road.

Lahan. Mr. Ombrugah (who has spent three months in Canada and saved 13,000 rupees, and missed getting an immigration permit by one week). The crowd in the guesthouse grounds, and my antics in getting them to go away. Walk to the grog shop. Mr. O. asks at shop for old magazines, says any book you haven’t read is a new book. Breakfast at his home. Little boy comes over. “Uncle, please come for tea.” Mr. O offers my cigarettes to his colleague – the general accountant. After this, long process of getting petrol.

January 5th, to Dharan

Difference in quality of road versus Russian built is very marked. This one sags, pitches and rolls. Every culvert is a bump. Lots of patching already.

(N.B. Col. Scott says Chinese road which runs north from hwy between Dahran and frontier has best reputation.)

[In Lahan we were surprised to find an army base for Gurkhas, with British officers. When I explained that I was with the Sunday Times, I was received by the officers and we were invited to drink gin and tonic with the Colonel, who wore a uniform made rather dashing with a coloured sash of the Gurkhas. He explained what the Gurkhas do.]

Brigade of Ghurkas: Capt. R.A.L Anderson, Lt. Col Scott, and Ringit Roy M.B.E

75 bed hospital, 30,000 patients annually. X-rays, Path lab, Maternity, General.

Camp has a golf course, two pools, tennis courts, etc. Some three dozen British. Staff of Nepalis. Brigade strength now down to 6000. (From 16,000 in 1968). Recruit a few hundred each year. Trained in Hong Kong. Distribute pensions to retired soldiers & widows. 130 Gurkan welfare centres. Ex-army men offer advice and assistance to resettled Gurkhan communities. Water supplies, medical care, co-operative management. Set useful example to surrounding communities. Benign infiltration, channeling of private funds (i.e. Canadian government matches charity funds, all for use of Gurkhas. Also help with building, farming, etc.)

Thanks for following along, Hope to see you next week.

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From My Notebooks In 1976: India to Nepal 22 Feb 2025, 3:41 pm

This might be a good time to imagine yourself in Kathmandu, with no TV.

Friday, 31st, to Pokhara

Into Nepal towards Pokhara. First flat road then mountains rise up steeply before me, a rich red-brown village, houses of adobe, top half white, lower half terra cotta. Frames painted in almost black brown, and intricately fretted wooden shutters. Echoes of Ecuador, Colombia. Poor Nepalis wear shawl or cloth, muddy white, and tight trousers that often look more like ragged bandages. Bare feet, toes splayed, calloused, creviced. Rich Nepalis wear conical hat with design in pink ice cream colours, a suit jacket over long-tailed shirt and tight legged trousers with baggy tops. Jackets always of very dull material. The tops of old-fashioned English suits. (The jackets come to Nepal. The bowler hats and trilbys go to Bolivia). Someone told me that in Afghanistan the secondhand clothes business is literally so.

Road to Pokhara has many broken patches and rises quite high, but weather is perfect. Arrive in mid-afternoon though the town itself escapes me. A local directs me to the lake where I find a colony of small restaurants. “Lakeside, Lake View, Greenlake, Baba, Snowland, Hidden View,” each with rooms attached for about five rupees. Food is served outside on tables under canopies – variations on basic Chinese meals, with buffalo meat (Buff). Many dishes, even the tea, have a vaguely unpleasant taste, which I called Tibetan Aftertaste (TAT). Never diagnosed.

[Here I have to confess to a quite extraordinary lapse on my part. I have since diagnosed the taste. It was cilantro (or the coriander leaf as some call it), which I had eaten happily in South America, but not since. Now, in Pokhara, I didn’t recognise it, and so I didn’t like it. It shows me just how subjective taste can be.]

The population consists mainly of slightly blissful Westerners, and sharp, dedicated Nepali boys who seem to run the whole show. The latter are multi-lingual, gifted calculators, and shrewd conversationalists, but their most impressive feature is that they never solicit to the point of hustling. They DO take No for an answer, unlike their Indian counterparts.

Behind the front row of best places overlooking the lake are other cheaper huts for tourists.

I met Collin, the Australian maths teacher on his BMW. He is designing a raft to float down the Murray River. With him is a Kansas Peace Corps guy, newly commissioned, full of his coming project (a water system) with an amazing vocabulary of Mid-American expressions that sound close to blasphemy out here. I learn from him that there are five stages in the realisation of the individual, culminating in the person who has formed his own value system and is able to apply his intelligence to realise his objectives.

On a later visit we meet a couple in Snowland. He has ginger beard, morose expression, glasses and little woolly hat. She looks like an off-duty nurse. She conducts both sides of their conversation, telling him what his likes and dislikes are, discussing the merits of various dishes in the light of his tastes and physical needs, and then orders for them both. He said: “I’ve had enough grease for one day.”

Saturday, December 1st, to Kathmandu

Lovely ride. Much of it along a river. 120 miles. 5 hours. Good road except for the last section climbing up to pass into Kathmandu Valley. Visit British Embassy to find Dudley Spain. He’s not there. I’m recommended Kathmandu Guest House. Then go to Freak Street and Durbar Square, to see if Carol spots me.

[Somewhere along the way – probably in Delhi –I made contact with Carol, who had been travelling independently, and we’d arranged to meet in Kathmandu. I was expecting to find her there.]

Met Gavin Fox, and we meet again at 7pm at Swiss Restaurant for dinner. Just after eating Carol sees me through window and comes in looking like a Russian princess. We are so delighted with each other that poor Gavin is embarrassingly de trop.

We go to Carol’s hotel where Lorenzo is staying – also Australian – whose partner was knifed when they were camped out on a trek. Then we go back to the K.G.H

Sunday, 5th December

Leave K.G.H. to go to Lalibala Guest House.

[The Lalibala had a large, gated yard where bikes and other vehicles were safe, and we met an exotic mixture of travelers there, including a young English couple on a bike, Meg and Eliot, whom I visit to this day, almost fifty years later.]

The Lalibala Guest House, 1976. John Murray surrounded by BMWs. But where’s my Triumph?

There it is, with me doing my Grouch Marx impression

Follows: A week of hunting for permits, visas, boots, etc. [We decided to do the Annapurna trek.]

Visit Swayambu Temple – where monkeys slide down the handrails.

Starting the trek, December 13th

10am from Shining Hospital along valley of strewn pebbles and boulders through villages and Tibetan camp, slowly uphill.

Some confusion at first crossing. Dave comes, and goes to Dhanpur, and we climb steeply for 1200 feet, to Nandanda. I have a really hard time climbing with the pack, but no lasting pain. Arrive 5.30. Great views. Marriage ceremony greets us at last step, led by two men with vast alpine horns, and bride covered in a litter. B&W pix. Passed women in shoulder litter, carried like backpack, in the valley.

Marriage procession in Nepal

Words fail me

14th, Nandanda

Long night. Before dawn a small dog outside does barking exercises non-stop. Up at first light to catch Annapurna and Machapuchare. And the sunrise. Dark stooping figures of women with a child between, barefooted, shawled and loaded with baskets and head straps. They are chattering loudly. Who wants to change their lives? Think of Cudlipp and his “Poverty of Aspiration.” Pompous phrase. Who gives a fig for his opinions and beliefs? It’s his power they listen to. How could he know what they need? {God often speaks through crooked mouths} [Cudlipp was a famous and on the whole admirable editor of the Labour-orientated Daily Mirror. Can’t think why I took him on this way.]

Later a band of pack donkeys passes below lodge window which overlooks square dalle roof and stone street. Ponies have cockades and strips of carpet to protect flanks from harness. They all wear bells of many different tones and pitches, and the combined sound makes a wonderful river of sound flowing ––––––.

Mahendra lodge. ‘Peanut tea’. Saw sunset from rise. Slept in loft. Sewed up Carol’s pouch on stoop. Carol took pack on to Kare, Lamle, Chandrakot, then down steeply to Birethanti.

Long suspension bridge. Checkpoint. Lorries. Because Ghorepani tomorrow is high and distant we go on to Tirkedange – a tiring last haul up about 1500 ft. Map is wrong here, and first village which ought to be Hille is in fact Sudami. At T there are already several people – two Japs and a young Aussie with a very hearty manner.

We sleep on the floor here. Just after we arrive a vigorous young man comes in with a lightish pack on his back – tennis shoes, neatly pressed trousers – an almost theatrically athletic entrance. He almost immediately starts playing with the children, and has a very familiar manner, but because I take him to be a Japanese trekker it’s not until he changes into shorts and a T-shirt and busies himself about the place, I realise he’s the father. He has walked from Pokhara that day, while we are tired after taking two days. [In fact, Pokhara is much closer than Kathmandhu]

Sleep on mats, but the Aussie has spilled Raxi on one, and I breathe it in. [Raxi is a local liquor]

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From My Notebooks In 1976: New Delhi to Kanpur and Gorakhpur 16 Feb 2025, 11:41 am

I’ve come up the West coast to the capital where, as usual, I look to Lucas for help and shelter. Here, word for word, is what I put in my notes.

Often, In India, it seems impossible to get away from people, and yet . . . . . . . .!

New Delhi, Monday 27th November

Swiss couple very flattering outside American Express. Give me address in Geneva and invite me there. Lucas friendly (after funny business with wrong number} and I’m installed in a dusty dancehall on 3rd floor. Itch at night and I make another discovery. It’s lack of loving. Self-induced need for caresses and sensual feeling. And I tie it up with my feelings for Carol versus Jo. Painful but fascinating.

My correspondence always leaves melancholy shadow. Pat’s letter needs answering, but how? I start, then give up in disgust. It’s all ego – what I think, and feel, and want, etc. Why should anyone be interested in my researches into myself – or how I want to run my world. How can I deal with this if I’m to continue to value myself.

Tuesday

Morning motorcycle maintenance. No clearance on inlet valves. Too much on one exhaust (right side, and blackening in rocker box.) Points OK. One pint oil used since Bombay (900 miles) Clean air filter, top up gear box and batteries.

Rush to bank. $714 there.

Afternoon meet Gaekwad. Interesting figure. Talks about his plans for cultural centre at Baroda. Slow to thaw, but affable and invites me back. Later visit. Opulent clothing I rich, dark hues. Baby mouth. Talks about politics as a theatre, the need of rapport with audience, understands needs of artists, etc.

Wednesday

To Kanpur. Long, hard ride. Trouble with lorries, and pick up stones again but the one time I was ready to throw one, couldn’t brake in time to get hand free. Fantasise a whole series of events involving encounters with lorry drivers and Law. Also melancholic about Pat’s letter. Feel misunderstood. Last night when I tried writing to her found my letter overloaded with ego and wondered if I am obsessed by my own precious reactions to everything.

Kanpur an unwelcoming town. Very busy and big. The Orient Hotel. English-speaking son of owner. The British always used to be in here. Place as run down as can be, but two splendid billiard tables, splendidly placed at the heart of it. Indian swells playing. One like ‘Roland’ without monocle – he never bends – glides across the floor, shoulders set in check tweed jacket with cardigan below. Other in classic white Indian– long jacket and tight trousers baggy round the crutch, with camel hair jacket over the top and big shawl for going out – lock of hair fixed over forehead and long narrow sideburns – very full of himself – the Prince of Kanpur – lots of whispering and conspiracies, and pairing off for intense conversations – tense scene round the telephone – illegal drinks half-concealed (it was ‘dry day’ in the bar) – cries of “Well” at a good shot. Little bursts of English with the degree of affectation that we once applied to French phrases – a fascinating scene and right in line with my fancies about turn of century Europe being relived in India.

Out for walk to watch (a) a train of buffalo carts creeping silently through the night, to shouts (more like barks) of swathed drivers, and the half-loving thwack of stick on hide. Dormant figures lie in heaps of sacking. Must be returning to villages after selling goods (b) pathetic man in threadbare cotton shivering and praying to a demonic red god lurking the shadow of a tiny stone temple by garage. (c) Rickshaw driver curled in seat, wracked by continuous coughing (d) jobless teacher begging – “you have one recourse – to give me something for food – I haven’t eaten all day. For humanity’s sake” – that last harsh appeal still echoing with my own dismal response, “You’ll have to sort yourselves out.”

The Mall, past Queen’s Park, then canal, then railway crossing. Big advertisement shows couple in swimming things, framed by huge message: STOMACH GAS AND SEX PROBLEMS Consult Dr. etc.

HIND’S Tailoring College, and the tiny door leading up to it.

To Gorakhpur, Thursday November 30th

Over the Ganges, and it’s really got something, this river.

Much later, astonished to see passing me in the opposite direction some men looking harassed and carrying a man in a litter at a slow jogging pace along a long road past sugar cane. The man is dressed in full Western suit, tie, etc. – young.

Bearers have pale blue cotton headdress. Another empty litter follows. They are travelling down a long, tree-lined road, and I’m too rushed (and surprised) to take a picture – which would have meant riding back a way and waiting.

This must have been after Faizabad where I stopped for the breakfast I’d promised myself in Lucknow. Lucknow seemed very grand, huge empire buildings, parks, but somehow I got through to the other side without seeing a place.

Faizabad much tighter, more crowded, bazaar town with old arches. Stopped in square and had eggs. Young Sikh comes to introduce himself, talks about the importance of his family in the town. Father came from Punjab at partition time. First made living as a photographer, then became cinema owner. Have two cinemas and was planning a third big one, but borrowed too heavily and was forced to sell his interest in order to repay. Now is trying again. Son took me to his house up a side street, gave me tea and sweets made for a recent wedding ceremony. Wanted to interest me in old coins. Says he has to sell them because Govt might find them and accuse him of hoarding. “Black wealth”. Exaggerated, I thought.

In Gorakhpur stayed in probably the best hotel in town. Had good meal, although the first seat I sat in collapsed under me, and I fell over backwards. First a drug salesman introduced himself, recommended A & D vitamins. Then the cable company engineer came over, thinking I was his age. Astonished by my real age. [He was 28. I was 45.]

We talked about reasons for growing old. Constant concern with money, he thought. Trying to keep the same level of living. We walk to the chemist’s shop. Boy brings out a tin of vitamins, half full. Expiry date 1975. [It is now 1976] Brings out another tin. 1978. 4 paise a pill. As we walk away talking about difficulty of finding people to take management decisions, it occurs to me that the boy is probably taking his own decision now – to transfer pills from one box to another. The man invites me to stay at his home in Delhi.

In Gorakhpur I discover there is a direct route to Nepal. Not marked at all on my map. Goes to Natawawa – Sonauli, very close. Beautiful weather, hot sun, cool air. On way see two more litters, both completely covered by crimson canopies. Bearers in same pale blue headcloth.

Border in morning. Then first problem. Have no visa. Why? All my visa info is from my journey’s outset, but of course had no plan to visit Nepal. However, can get visa at police post in Barawa, 4 kilometers away. And pay sixty-odd rupees. Which means changing dollars at bank.

First stage in story of frustration.

More to come. See you next week.

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From My Notebooks In 1976: From Baroda to Ahmedabad to Udaipur 9 Feb 2025, 9:55 am

Friday

More lorries, front wheels collapsed, nose-dived into ditches and culverts.

Tribals with three camels, each with upturned bed on top of their belongings. Women leading them had each breast separately wrapped in pink muslin slung over top of sari at midriff. Cows with horns [pointing] in every direction, like the printed characters in Hindi writing. In Ahmedabad a sudden outbreak of handcarts – everything gets pulled or pushed by people instead of animals. Two women heaving one towards me, wore the same-coloured clothing of reds and yellows, and both had their heads and faces completely wrapped in saffron muslin. These wildly energetic but faceless creatures make a very strange impression. And the tribal women really are energetic – they fling every part of their bodies into what they’re doing.

Two enormous elephants coming towards Baroda – the rider is level with those on top of a truck’s cab. Biggest I’ve ever seen. After Ahmedabad leave Gujarat for Rajasthan. Clothing styles change immediately. No longer a single sari but a voluminous skirt, and a cloak which billows out behind and is caught up at the bottom. Usually bright, plain colours, mustard yellow, blue, burgundy, etc. The state line comes just before a range of desolate, stony hills, and road winds amongst them. Here for the first time boys make threatening gestures (memory of Ethiopia). Mountain people, life here looks barren. Herds of goats, sheep and some camels. First camel carts take me by surprise – brown, wooly animals.

Also I begin to see dead dogs by the roadside for the first time in India. Bunches of cactus live roadside – narrow green fingers. Many fortresses on hilltops – the roughest, least valuable land is always most protected. Havens for the proud, rebellious, and I suppose least ingenious and adaptable. Stone walls run like seams up the mountain sides.

20 kilometers from Udaipur on impulse decide to try a bungalow. Man in jacket and dhoti, with gold earrings like old sailor, attends me. No food. I walk 100 yards to village. One row of small shops. Brahmin sits cross-legged behind ––––– tins of grains, –––––, potatoes, with scales. No eggs, no vegetables.

“This is very small village, near big city. Eggs are not available.”

Cigarettes. Packet of biscuits. Get out stove and boil some rice. Mix with soya. Not very successful. Herb tea. Then another walk in dark. Group of men conversing. Children chattering. Further along some figures squatting close together in road, shrouded in robes, almost invisible. When trucks pass get up and move. Then return. Radios playing in various houses. Batteries waning. No electricity.

Agonising night, skin pricking all over my body. Again and again I get up. Is it insects, or me? See nothing, hear nothing. A kind of hell, and I’m fearful of it continuing.

Have a strange dream in which I’m reconciled with Connor Walsh. [My business partner in a magazine which I edited in 1967 who eventually accused me, unjustly, of undermining his authority and made my job impossible.] In the morning have a vague sense of these residual bitternesses being connected to this skin condition.

However, I feel OK. Eat a couple of biscuits and continue to Udaipur.

Saturday

The picture summed up the extremes of India: The mother with two infants preparing food in a filthy street under one sign promising “modern amenities,” and another all the delights of Bollywood, and all outside the walls of the city, Udaipur.

Udaipur has an extensive city wall with parapet and bastions. Take one picture.

The fortress above Udaipur.

Mountains are slowly sinking into a flat sea of soil, and only peaks protrude now, with more workable land between. Corn, pulses, and other vegetables.

The Rajasthan man is very distinguishable, smooth brown warrior faces with down-curving moustaches (as in Mughal paintings) Richly coloured head-dresses, tightly wrapped trousers, woolen jackets and sweaters, sandals tip-tilted. All carrying short sticks.

Land flattens further towards Ajmer.

Camels everywhere. Wonderful to watch. Great padded feet swinging over the road. Heads swaying – how do they support their heads? The design seems structurally unsound. And the shafts and harness shooting up at a giddy angle to bed down on the hump – one expects the carts to become airborne. Who told me camels can tow four time the weight of an ox? What attracts me so much to camel country? That’s where I feel a special excitement – not the tropics. I love the hot sun striking through cool air.

Temperate climates give peace – tropics torpor or discomfort and a sense of being permanently immersed. Which of my ancestors lived in the Middle East?

Ajmer. Open town. Tourist bungalow. Pleasant meeting with Germans, Brazilian, Australian, Chilena, Heather Matthews and the two Swiss jewelry collectors. Mike, black clothes and beard, happiest running down Nepal or Ceylon. She, self-conscious about the tirades. The other two girls revived all my pleasure of South America – listening to Spanish and Portuguese, talking about Chile – and “Hio.” And later about Australia. Dinner at Honeydew. And a too quick beer at back of Wine Shop {Why Wine?) Take a “tonga” ride. Go to bed in trepidation – fear of the itch – but it’s not too bad this time.

––––––––––––––––

Men in suits should be purposefully employed. When they hang about vaguely they leave a sinister impression, as of Mafia. This accounts for my uneasiness when several suited Indians hung about at the Lucas backyard in Delhi. Yet they were only Indians doing their nothing – in suits.

Sunday

Morning conversation outside the camper van. Exchange addresses with Brasilleira. Off to Jaipur. Swiss promise me a good road, and it’s medium. Now, however, the houses show signs of Government patronage. Water pumps, clinics and stuff. Fields bordered by tall rushes. Camels ploughing. Three men on elephant. Make a real effort to photograph people. Jaipur at midday. Find the Rajdhane hotel. Cubicle room for 12 rupees, but hotel is sweet, prettily kept outside, with a merry staff.

Jaipur Palace

After a nap, walk three hours to the stunning terra cotta centre of this “rose city.” 17th century town planning. Is this the most impressive main street I’ve seen? Wonderful palace façade. Cheeky people. Public urinals yet! Dine at Nero’s, at same table as Nigerian ‘clinical psychologist’ and colleagues. Back to Hindi, and bed.

Monday

Morning ride to Delhi, and this time the road is really good (except where it runs into a small mountain). Make astonishing discovery that speedometer doesn’t work over 40mph. 42 = 45, 45 = 50. No wonder I was hammering out of Bombay. Bad news for new pistons. Was I lucky?

Stopped halfway for biscuit and cigarette, sitting on a stone looking out over fields, sun very hot on my back. Two lads stop and chatter round the bike. I avoid them, but they can’t resist seeking me out.

“Where you dwell?” asks one.

“England” I say, and “Where do you dwell?”

“Diarrhoea” he says, or something similar.

“Have you come to look at me?” I ask, smiling faintly. To my surprise he is embarrassed and turns quickly away. First time in India I find a respect for privacy, and I’m almost sad to let him go.

PS: To Bill Shanklin, wherever you may be, thank you for your surprise gift. I did as you suggested and bought a wonderful bottle of St Emilion Grand Cru. We savoured it almost down to the dregs. Merci beaucoup.

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