Wanderlust

How does one assimilate with ordinary life after living in such a fashion? Do you long for dusty roads, foreign foods you cannot pronounce and faces unfamiliar? Does life seem a little lacklustre, a little too comfortable after going from technicolor electrocution of culture to having somewhere real to rest your head?

Iddly

You learn the hard way - racing toward dappled shade in a state of emergency - you should have stayed indoors! The daylight hours become slow, peeling back upon one another until the heat has worn even itself out. With signs of human life slowed to an all but imperceptible pulse, only vital signs remain. Time wears on below the unrelenting sky as wilted vegetation and sunbleached buildings beg for mercy until at last, Finally! shadows begin to lengthen. You greedily gulp deep breaths before the air stills and humidity casts its sticky oppression over nightfall.

Congratulations! You have survived another day in a tropical heat that takes no prisoners. Welcome to South India.

Bus Terminal

Sometimes you can cross the boundaries of communication - conversations that are broken down into nods and smiles, appreciation for street-side omelettes, comparing of biceps. It's moments like these that make you wonder how it all went wrong. This Us and Them; this big, bad world? On this humid Keralan night, we have done away with language. We have fresh chai and head waggles. Humanity prevails.

Satsang

"The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves!"

- Swami Sivananda

Fleetwood

Well guess what. I still shower daily, wash my hair more frequently than I did back home and yes, I have shaved my legs every week since I have been on the road. I brought my favourite jeans and my hair straightener along for the ride and I did not purchase any ridiculous zip-off pants or succumb to tie-died Ali Babas! It's challenging living out of a backpack, when it is cold I get to layer everything I own which is novel but somewhat unstylish. A lukewarm shower is an amazing feat of Indian modernity, however I bemoan the constantly wet floor more than the shivering scrub-downs squatting under a tap. The beds are persistently hard and the pillows offer no relief, strangely slumber comes best from the clickety-clack of a sleeper train. When food tastes this good, brace yourself - you are liable to shed the extra pounds as quickly as you gained them.

As you might deduce, travel is an exciting, though not particularly glamorous affair. This does not mean that one has to give in to "backpacker fashion" and follow all those silly rules. Minimalist pack if you wish, but remember that you might like to live a little. Go your own way.

Bells

There is no need to fear those clouds; they'll bring the rain to wash it all away. Once the air is cool you will notice that everything is shiny and new again. Always welcome a change in the weather.

Learning to Live Without a Sink

He lives in a mud hut, next to the plot he toils. A simple farmer happy just to wake up to a rural outlook and freshly baked chapatti. Electricity and running water are for those flashy city types, after all. With our Western vision we have this displaced notion that the have-nots need access to all the things that we cannot live without; yet something disarming in his broad smile - like many I have encountered across the countryside - tells me otherwise.