Goodbye India
We'll be back
It is very easy to slip into the pace of life in this wonderful country which is a poor excuse for not writing a missive for nearly two months! Waiting is a pastime here. The answer to everything is, “yes coming sir, yes coming madam,” and you can’t be sure that it is because they don’t seem to be able to say no! But it always does…eventually.
We spent our first month in India in Tiruvannamalai on a retreat where we were reminded constantly that there is only now. No past, no future, just now. Very liberating when you have the time to sit and contemplate that under the shadow of the holy mountain Arunachala. The reality is you can be in the now anywhere which brings a quiet, calm sense of peace, which is what we all need right now.
Tiru is a holy city, and a reasonable description would be bedlam. The traffic is very India. I hired a scooter while I was there – there are almost more scooters than people and the preferred form of transport; cars are in the minority – and I learned a completely new driving style of which the Institute of Advanced Motorists would not have approved. In essence you drive on whichever side of the road gets you to your destination the quickest. In India they drive on the left, like in the UK, or on the right! The only rules that are obeyed in India are the rules of cricket.
All day long and most of the night there is drumming, firecrackers, dogs barking, chanting and the call to prayer. India is not a quiet country. And then there is the food. We both love spicy food so we felt right at home. A masala dosa with sambar and coconut chutney for breakfast is a great start to the day if you are not irrevocably conditioned to eat bacon and eggs! When in Rome… Then of course there is the climate to get used to. We had a rather extreme transition coming from minus 6C in Bulgaria to plus 36C in Chennai in the course of two days. Two months in India and we have not seen one drop of rain!
From Tiru we travelled to Kerala…by train. Booking a ticket was the first obstacle; we taught the Indians all about bureaucracy. Getting on the train was the second. Remember we are in the middle of India, and the train is coming from New Delhi having set off two days earlier. The Indian Railways app said the train was on time, which it was, and would be arriving on platform 3, which it wasn’t! We were at Katpadi Junction which made Clapham look like a branch line station that Dr Beeching shut down. We were told the Kerala Express was arriving on Platform 5 which turned out to be correct but the coach we were booked on to was at the back of the train and not the front which it was supposed to be according to the announcement. Not a problem ex the fact that these trains are incredibly long and don’t hang about long enough for two Brits with all their worldly possessions in four suitcases and two back packs to get from one end of the train to the other.
The train started to move, slowly thank goodness, and we just jumped in where we were. They don’t shut the doors on trains in India in fact they just don’t do health and safety at all! Nine hours later we arrived in Cochin on the Keralan coast after copious tea from the chai wallah, samosas from stalls on the stations we stopped at along the way and the most amazing biriyani ordered via an Indian Railways app from a restaurant two stops down the line, which was delivered to our seat! South West trains suck on that!
Kerala was so different from Tiru. It was green, as in lots of tropical trees, and by Indian standards, clean. It also has a coastline with a long series of palm fringed beaches. We were supposed to move into a secluded beachfront villa which turned out to be a much photo shopped bungalow on a stretch of beach covered in huge concrete blocks, part of a system of erosion prevention that made no appearance in the website pictures. Bambaji who is probably the best negotiator on the planet texted the host and said we had been sold under false pretenses, and could we have our money back? Within minutes he was on our doorstep offering accommodation at a proper beach resort called “Seclude” which lived up to its name. It was however twice as expensive as the “villa”, but to Bambaji, he said, we could have it for the same price!
A few days into our stay here I lost all hearing in my left ear, and they organized a trip to the local hospital. Our taxi driver came into the hospital with us and dealt with the bureaucracy, which for India was blessedly quick. I then waited 10 minutes to see a consultant who diagnosed wax in the ear, which took him all of a minute to flush out. Hearing restored and out of the hospital inside 30 minutes. All of which cost 750 rupees; £6.12! That is what I would call a health service. If only we had one like it…
We had another two weeks in Kerala, in the back waters, and a final week on another beach further down the coast. We then took an internal flight back to Chennai which wasn’t a lot different from flying to Edinburgh from London apart from the baggage scanning routine which is great in that you can take water through; how sensible. And then the 10-hour flight to Blighty with a check in at 2.30 in the morning. Ouch!
We are back here for 6 weeks cat sitting and then a month in Austria before heading back to the States. We will be manifesting diesel and jet fuel along the way! I have long been of the opinion that the world is going mad and I’m beginning to wonder just how mad it can get.
The markets seem to be taking the current bout of mayhem relatively calmly and the buy the dip brigade are still a thing. Just keep an eye on volatility. In all the major markets including gold, silver and oil, vol is at levels that say this is not the time to BTFDs. It will surprise some of you that I started selling gold after the GVZ nearly made it to 50 at the back end of January when the price briefly hit its all time high at nearly $5600. Gold vol (GVZ) is back down to the high 30s and needs to be sub 26 to signal the next opportunity. By comparison the vol on “black” gold is just under 100! If you can call this market consistently you must have a direct line to the Oval office. Mind your eye out there and go gently.