There Are Other Rivers

Alastair Humphreys walked across India, from the Coromandel Coast to the Malabar Coast, following the course of a holy river. Walking alone and spending the nights sleeping under the stars, in the homes of welcoming strangers or in small towns and villages, he experienced the dusty enchantment of ordinary, real India on the smallest of budgets.There Are Other Rivers tells the story of the walk through an account of a single day as well as reflecting on the allure of difficult journeys and the eternal appeal of the open road.

“For I have discovered that there are other rivers. And this my boys will not know for a long time nor can they be told. A great many never come to know that there are other rivers.” ~ John Steinbeck “Maatraan thottathu malligaikku manam irukkum.” “The far-off jasmine flower smells sweeter.” Author’s Note First of all, here’s what this book is not: • A book about India.• A chronological account of a coast-to-coast walk across southern India.• An epic adventure tale. So what is it? Primarily this book is an attempt to articulate my fascination with the open road and the magnetism of the next horizon. I hope it will strike a chord with anyone restless and yearning for a long journey. I wrote it because I spend much of my time on big trips asking myself why on Earth I am doing it. And the answer is often not particularly clear. The days are hot, hard and repetitive. I am often lonely, thirsty and tired. Yet I keep coming back for more. What is the enduring appeal of these days that have forged my adult life? They have made me who I am, both the bad and the good. These days have created most of my strongest memories and all my best anecdotes. These are the days of clarity that I turn to when I’m looking for answers and direction in my life. And I think to myself, “one day, on the road...” I also wanted to try to share what a day on the road is actually like. So this is a tale about a single day on my walk through India, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. I wanted to describe any day on the road, from any journey like this. It could have taken place anywhere, at any time since people began taking on these questing adventures. This is why I have removed all dates, time frames and names. Everything in this book is true. I have only re-ordered the incidents to build up my “day”. It’s a bit like Morecambe and Wise. They defended their terrible piano playing by saying they had “all the right notes, although not necessarily in the right order.” Most travel and adventure writing focuses on the occasional extraordinary stuff that happens amongst all the humdrum ordinariness. By definition, these incidents are not how most of the time on the journey is spent. The greatest expeditions in history are nothing more than a string of single days, most of them pretty uncomfortable and mundane. Perhaps long adventures are about nothing more than mining for the extraordinary? I don’t think so. The average day on the road, the hundreds and thousands of normal days that make up the majority of my adventures, has a magnetism that draws me back time and time again. The terrible food, the sore feet, the repetitive conversations, the fungal rashes and the pummelling heat. The happiest days of my life. Any day, any journey. One day on the road. There are many reasons why I chose to self-publish There Are Other Rivers. It may be interesting to share some of them here. I self-published my first book. I didn’t do it through choice. I did it because no agents or publishers were interested in my story about cycling round the world. Trying to get my self-published book stocked in bookshops on a meaningful scale was futile and frustrating. Eventually though I found a publisher and began selling books in the traditional way. I will continue to do this where I deem it appropriate. Fast-forward five years and five books and I am choosing to return to self-publishing. Why? I love bookshops but they account for a tiny percentage of my book sales. Almost all my sales are online or at my talks. This book will not be for sale in any bookshops. What I lose by that I make up with the freedom I gain. Self-publishing gives me total control. I can share the story however I want. This is a linear, chronological journey but I wanted to share it in a non- linear way. That might not be sensible. It probably won’t appeal to a mainstream audience. It may not even be a good idea. But it was my idea and I am willing to stand by it. I have produced this book as a Foldedsheet “mappazine” (which I really like), as a book of photography, a Kindle version, a PDF download, an audio book and even as a good old fashioned “normal” book. The schedule for getting all of this work done was determined solely by how hard I chose to work, how much coffee I drank and how little sleep I could survive on. I wrote this book myself. I edited it and proof red it two. I will do all of the sales and marketing on my own. I acknowledge that the book would definitely have been better with the help of an editor, a proofreader and well-chosen test readers. But my walk through India was alone. I accepted that out there I would stand or fall by myself. This project is the same. It is risky. It is a bit stupid. But there are no excuses to hide behind and I like that. Self-publishing is an opportunity for simplicity, hard work and personal responsibility. Exactly like the journey I am writing about. Another important aspect of self-publishing is that it can provide value for money, cutting out all sorts of middle men. I have priced all the versions of There Are Other Rivers as reasonably as possible. I am aware that this is only a short story and that I am not Shakespeare. But I hope that you feel it is value for money. Get in touch if you don’t and I will send you a refund. The internet makes self-publishing so simple. This returns a degree of power to normal people. I can never compete for the publishers’ penny against celebrity travel authors or people who have had their trips on the telly and then dashed off a hasty book. Self-publishing gives a voice to people who have an interesting story, though perhaps one that will only appeal to a small niche. I am not a famous author hidden away behind PA’s and PR teams. Send me an email or get in touch on Twitter. Tell me what you think of the book. I’ll reply in person. On the subject of the internet and social media, one of the hardest parts of self-publishing is informing a wide audience about the book. I would be extremely grateful if you could help spread the word about There Are Other Rivers: tell your friends or mention it online. Most helpful of all would be if you were willing to leave a quick rating and review on Amazon for this or any of my other books. I’m not looking for fake feedback – leave your honest opinion! If you already have an Amazon account this will take you less than a minute. I hope you enjoy There Are Other Rivers. Thank you! Alastair Humphreys England, November 2011 

Introduction “Beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes.” “Beep... beepbeepbeepbeep... BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP.” The alarm clock has just taken me on a journey. A journey that passed in an instant but which took me from one world to another. A journey from the magical world of dreams to a completely different one. A new world. A new day. India. Why am I in India? It does not matter that I am in India. This could be anywhere. Anywhere new to me. The story would be the same. What matters to me is why I am here. As soon as I hear the alarm I know where I am. I did not sleep well. I woke often, wondering if it was nearly morning, nearly time to begin. The coarse mesh of the mosquito net flopped against my skin, disturbing me. Mosquitoes whined and probed for my blood. I had been living in England, stationary, since my return from four years roaming the globe. I had crossed continents by bicycle and sailed across oceans. Now I had a home and I had a wife. I had settled down. Life was good. But perhaps that was the problem. It began on the flight to our honeymoon. By the vagaries of the Great Circle, we flew over the colossal white emptiness of the Arctic. Far beneath us were huge sheets of ice, shattered like glass with thin leads of black water between them. I ate my peanuts and stared down. Guiltily I realised that, as much as sharing beaches and piña coladas with little umbrellas and my radiant bride, what I craved was the pain and hardship of a difficulty journey. I wanted insecurity, strife and what others want nothing to do with1. This had been missing since I settled down to my lovely life.  Outside is dark. The sky presses black against the window. The street clamour that continued late into the night has now quietened. A brief pause before the melee of India wakes and begins all over again. I lie sweating on top of my sleeping bag liner, spread over the dirty bed. My head rests on a thin pillow. Untold numbers of bus drivers, pilgrims, travelling salesmen and minor bureaucrats have lain their heads here since its last clean. For a few seconds I absorb the last traces of sleep and steel myself for the day to come. Then I reach out and silence the alarm. I was in thoughtful mood as the plane landed. A friend of mine is a polar explorer. He was planning an expedition to the South Pole. I sent him a text message from the sunshine. I asked whether there might be room for two. (Did this count as marital infidelity, I wondered?) I untangle myself from the mosquito net and stand on the concrete floor. I feel for the light switch. A pretty burst of blue sparks flash, the light flickers a few times then pings into life. Cockroaches speed to dark corners. The walls are covered with smears, stains and scuffs. I don’t care. It’s just the usual squalid, cheap room. I slide my feet into flip-flops and shuffle to the toilet. Years of experience mean that instinctively I breathe only through my mouth as a precaution against the stink of Developing World toilets. I pee into a hole in the ground, scoop a jug of water from the bucket on the floor and pour it down the hole. Ben replied to my text message. “Yes.” I quit the second sensible job I had held in a year and, happily, abandoned my attempt at Real Life. I was back doing what I loved and what I was good at. That is a good place to be. Arduous expeditions in the world’s wild places. But now I was going to do it seriously. I was going to attempt to make a career from it. I began to earn enough money to get by, speaking and writing about my experiences. Ben and I worked hard. We had the capabilities to succeed. But financial meltdown had burst across the world. Unable to secure a sponsor we were forced to postpone the expedition for a year. With the postponement came a window in the calendar for Ben to scratch an itch: an attempt on the solo North Pole speed record. I didn’t begrudge that. But it meant that work stopped on our joint expedition whilst Ben’s attention turned north. I decided to do something interesting too. I dump a scoop of water over my head. Its coolness jolts me. I pour a few more jugfuls, savouring the day’s one moment of fresh cleanliness. I’m bracing myself for the day ahead. Where should I go? And what should I do once I got there? India was a glaring omission on my Travelling CV. So India it was. For all the reasons vagabonds and wanderers have always gone to India. And because I had never been. It never occurred to me to do anything other than a tough, cheap journey. Push myself hard. Try to achieve something that surprised me. These fundamental principles of my wanderlust have worn into my psyche since my first travels, like chariot wheels on a cobbled road, until I have come to accept them as permanent features of who I am. I had enjoyed the freedom of travelling by bike, the minimalism, the outdoor life and the difficulty of it. I liked the way its slowness encouraged me to use all my senses. I loved the spontaneous adventures, opportunities and encounters it threw up. Anything less from this trip would be like looking out at the world through a thick dusty window, a trip round the harbour in a glass-bottomed boat after swimming with dolphins. Having cycled round the world I knew that another bike trip would be a step down, a feeble attempt to recreate a memory. So cycling was out. I considered some of the things I enjoyed about cycling: the slowness, the simplicity, the physically arduous rhythm of the days. I extrapolated these on to their logical conclusion. How could I do something even slower, simpler and more miserable than cycling? Slow. Simple. Miserable... I would walk. The last piece of the jigsaw was where to walk. I liked the simple idea of walking from one coast to the other. I appreciate clear expeditions that can be explained fully in a sentence or two. Better still if they can actually be planned in a sentence or two2. I also fancied following a river, preferably a river with history and mystery and colour. Every river is taking a journey, one it has been on day and night for thousands and thousands of years. I find that fascinating. Pick any river on the planet and you will find an interesting journey. I didn’t have enough time to walk right across the top of India. So I guessed how far I could walk in the time available then worked south on a map until I found the latitude that corresponded with that distance. And then I went and did it. My trip was not far removed from grabbing a map, closing my eyes, jabbing my finger and going wherever it decreed. That’s the way to have an adventure. Better still: grab a globe, spin, point, go!  It mattered little where I went. The important thing was just to go. The downside of this approach was that I did not see the Taj Mahal, nor all the other metaphorical Taj Mahals that India is blessed with. I’d love to see them one day. But on this trip I just wanted to experience normal India. Normal people, doing their normal things in normal landscapes. Normal people with dignity and self-respect. I didn’t want guidebooks telling me what to see, what to think and how many coins to hand down from my air-conditioned tour coach to the grubby hands of cute little poor kids. I wanted to get deeper than that. 

The Walk “You can boast about anything if it’s all you have. Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast.” This book is not a chronological narrative about walking across India. I did that as I went, sharing my experiences through Twitter. It’s like adventure haiku and a few excerpts should suffice to recount the walk. >  I’ve arrived in the glorious madhouse of India. Excited and daunted about beginning the walk. >  Munched by mosquitoes, sweating a lot and a bit overwhelmed. Tomorrow morning I begin. >  Ridiculously hot. Dreaming of lovely fresh mornings on my way to the South Pole. >  Played village cricket. Maintained England’s reputation: caught in the deep for 0. >  Passed an elephant on the road today! >  I now have a stick for whacking evil dogs. >  Think I was guilty of underestimating this trip... >  Sleeping in a rice field tonight. Rice for dinner. >  A moon shadow, bats and the stars: a peaceful side to India at last. >  300km down and no blisters – yet. >  BEEP! BEEP! Indian drivers driving me mad. >  Slept in a temple. Coracle fishermen at dawn. >  Hand washed my clothes. How long after returning home before loading the washing machine becomes a hassle again..? >  Policeman told me I was beautiful. I replied, “No, Sir, it is you who is beautiful.” He liked that! Different to conversations with UK police... >  First blister. >  Filling a popped blister with iodine hurts a disproportional amount. >  Water crisis until teenagers drove 20km to fetch some for me. >  In an internet cafe using Google Maps to plot a route into the mountains: easily the best map of India I have found. >  Spent last night with a lovely family. Best curry yet. Thank you for your kindness! >  Watching policeman try to control traffic. Chaos! Too many chiefs..? >  I’m getting old and soft: the weight saving gained by cutting my toothbrush in half is now outweighed by its irritation factor. >  Enjoyed watching cricket on TV at the tea stand this evening: Pietersen (Bangalore) v Flintoff (Chennai). >  Beautiful hiking today, climbing up through coffee plantations. On foot beautiful usually = hard though. Tired. >  The road is behind me. The beach is empty and white past the palm trees. Ahead, only the sea. I can walk no further. The sun sets. The End. @al_humphreys #ThereAreOtherRivers 

Dawn “It was a morning like other mornings and yet perfect among mornings.” I walk quietly past the night watchman, bundled in blankets and snoring on the floor. I step out of the lodge. I’m out into the world. I have begun. Dawn will come quickly. But not yet. My pack feels comfortable. It’s as small as I could manage, but we can’t travel without baggage. We carry it wherever we go, even when we’re trying to leave it all behind. I glance up at the dark sky. I find Venus and use the bright star to check my bearings. I turn my back on it and begin walking west. I now know which direction I am going. That is virtually all I know about today. One of the few certainties is the blazing heat and the noisiest country on Earth. So I breathe in the cool air and savour the silence while it lasts. Dawn smells different far from home. The air is full of possibilities. That’s rubbish, of course. Air is air. Nothing more. But I’m excited to be on my way and am sniffing possibility all around me. My legs are strong. My feet are comfortable. I have a sense of purpose. I’m here to learn and think and experience. And also to walk well and cover distance. To test myself. I feel good. I love it out here. The day has not yet knocked that out of me. The street sweepers are already working. Bent double with one arm behind their backs, they sweep the street with short broomsticks made of twigs. They sweep, sweep, sweep at the dust, coconut husks, scraps of newspapers, cigarette ends and plastic bags. Sweeping India clean. Oxymoron, impossibility. Sweep, sweep, sweep. Sisyphus meets Escher. Sweep, sweep, sweep. Repeat day after day. Year after year. With rhythmical arcs they sweep yesterday’s unwanted remains into small piles. Perhaps an ox cart will collect them. Perhaps they will be rifled through by the stray dogs with sores and lame legs. Or perhaps their human rivals will beat them to it: India’s unloved, nameless and destitute (who each, of course, have names and were, once at least, loved). They lie in doorways, their lungis (sarongs) wrapped tightly round their frail bodies like shrouds. They sleep the sweet hours of blessed escape when, if their dreams are kind, their lives are limited only by their imaginations. I wish them long sleeps. Is this the only kindness I can offer? Is this the best I can do? I continue down the dark street. At dawn towns are quieter than villages. There are no cockerels, no bleating goats being led to pasture. I pass a small temple. The gate is still shut. On the outside wall is a small deity in a niche. A candle flame casts a tiny glow over the god. The wall above the statue is black with years of smoke. Rippling downwards is a red waterfall of solidified candle wax. Dawn never arrives gradually. It comes in little leaps each time I notice that it has grown lighter since I last paid attention. The sky is greying. I can see further. I am past the shops and bus stand. There are homes beside the road now. Most are still dark but a few are beginning to stir. Through an open door I see smoky orange flames wrapping up around a cooking pot. A fat woman in a green sari stands sleepily in the doorway. She doesn’t notice me. The ground outside another home has already been swept and splashed with cow dung and water to keep the dust down. The fronts of India’s rural homes are always pristine, even if just yards away a stinking pile of rubbish has been dumped. An elderly woman is marking out her kolam for the day. These elaborate, symmetrical patterns of white rice flour are redrawn each morning. They welcome guests to the home as well as Lakshmi, the beautiful four-armed goddess of prosperity. The old woman, bent double and concentrating on her kolam, does not notice either as I pad past. She pours white flour from her dark fingers in a thin, neat line, like sand rushing through an egg timer. Thousands of days have begun like this for her. I wonder how many remain. Ahead of me a circle of light illuminates a cluster of men at a small tea stand. Two are sitting on a homemade bench. They are discussing the morning’s newspaper, a broadsheet of few pages, inky photographs and swirling Indian script. The other men are standing, quietly sipping steaming glasses of milky tea. They hold them delicately at the rim as the glass is too hot to hold. Moths swirl round the bright bulb that hangs above the busy proprietor. In a reminder to myself that this journey is about more than merely pushing through miles and pain, I stop. I enter the pool of light. I unclip my rucksack, roll it from my back and dump it on the floor. All eyes are on me. I stoop under the low thatched roof and sit on the end of the wooden bench. I look around, smile and blow out dramatically, suggesting that I am tired. It’s not true: I’ve only walked a few miles. It’s just a role I play. The road has taught me that this is an approach that works. It starts a conversation. “Chai?” someone asks. “Chai,” I agree. It’s time for a cup of tea. 

Flabbiness “You know how advice is: you only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyways.” There are three stages of flabbiness in life. Each is more restricting and stifling than the one before. They creep insidiously over me like vines until it takes one hell of a struggle to escape their clutches. If ever I feel the saggy symptoms snuffling up on my life then I know it is time to hit the road. The first stage of flabbiness, and the easiest to fix, is physical flabbiness. It begins when busy schedules, dark winter days and eating too much win the devil’s footrace against the part of me that knows that exercise isn’t a waste of time but actually makes me more efficient, alert and happy. Despite knowing this I am still at times sufficiently idle to let my standards slip and my fitness slide away. Fitness is like chasing a shoal of fish: difficult to master and get on top of, easy to lose. If I don’t go running for a few days, I feel cooped up and ratty. Leave it a few more and the habit is broken. I know I need to run. I want to run. But I just can’t be bothered. Flabbiness has begun to set in, slowly, invasively, like cataracts. Before I know it I am easing out my belt buckle and blaming my sloth on the effects of age. The second stage is mental flabbiness. Give up exercising, stop forcing myself out the front door for a run and inevitably my mind starts to sag too. I used to feel alert and inquisitive. I read lots of books. But one evening I came home tired. Flopping down onto the sofa I reached for the television remote instead. Suddenly I am gripped by light entertainment. I realise how pleasant life can be if I stop thinking about it. It is much simpler to exist than to live. I’ve got a dishwasher and a coffee percolator and I drink at home most nights with the TV on. I sit slumped in front of the telly flicking round the channels until I have frittered away enough of my life that it’s time to go to bed. Finally, if I start forgetting any of these things, then I know I am on a slippery slope towards the third, terminal, stage of flabbiness: moral flabbiness!  Each day I am one day closer to my death. No matter how aware I am of this, it is still sometimes difficult to believe in my own death. I don’t know when I will die, so putting things off to an indeterminate date in an un-guaranteed future is pretty daft. I am happiest when I have a sense of purpose.  There are so many places I would still like to see, so many interesting people to meet, so much to do. And there is so little time. Before I know it I’ll be dead and what a bloody waste that will be if I’ve just been arsing around. By the time I have succumbed to the debilitating onslaught of physical and mental flabbiness I am already well on the primrose path to moral flabbiness. Not only have I conceded my physical health and settled for candyfloss in place of a brain, I have accepted that this is good enough for my life. I have become comfortably numb. I have decided that Friends repeats and a Chinese takeaway are sufficient return for the privilege of being born, healthy and intelligent enough, in one of the richest, most free countries on the planet. I have a passport to explore the world. I will always be able to find some sort of work. I will never starve to death. It’s hard really for me to come up with any decent excuses. The choice is all mine. Life is too brief and too rich to tiptoe through half-heartedly, rather than galloping at it with whooping excitement and ambition. And so I explode in rage just in time. It’s time to go prowling in the wilderness. It is time to live violently again. It is time to sort my life out. This can be done in two ways. I either jump in the nearest cold river for a bracing swim, or I plan a trip, set a start date and, come what may, begin. 

Go “The virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayward man, and the road away from here seems broad and straight and sweet.” An urge builds in me, a voice in one everlasting whisper, day and night repeated until I just have to go. It doesn’t really matter where I go. All that matters is that I go. Somewhere different. Somewhere new. Maybe I get bored with where I am. Maybe the restless dissatisfaction rises from everything being too familiar, too easy. Whatever the cause, being in motion feels good. It can be as simple as driving through the night, music playing, windows down, headlights picking out road signs and counting down the miles to new places. The moon sways back and forth overhead, mirroring the twists and turns of the road as I roll on under the stars. Turnings I don’t take and pass with a pinprick of regret and curiosity. What would I discover down that road? Who would I meet? How would my life change? Places I will never see again, but it does not matter because I am on the way to even more that is new. It is the gleam of the untravelled world that drives me on. Go, go, go. Before I begin a big trip nerves and excitement brew in my belly. I’m diffident by nature so the nerves generally outweigh the excitement. I worry about all that might go wrong and have to cajole myself instead to imagine the good things that might happen. I stir scenarios round and round inside my skull until they begin to drive me mad. I feel as though I am on a runaway train. But worse than that: it’s a runaway train that I have set in motion myself. I can’t jump off. My lazy streak gets to work, busily concocting reasons not to begin at all. Things are just fine here... Don’t rock the boat... It does not help when everyone I tell about my plans tries to persuade me to take a bus to the Taj Mahal instead. “No, no, no,” said a man on the beach at the very beginning of the walk. His face was serious, his head wobbling from side to side. “It is a Very Big River. You must enquire about the bus facilities instead. It is very barren. You won’t even get a cup of water. Indian food is very spicy for you people. There is a very big valley. There are snakes. There is bamboo...” Thankfully there is a tiny sliver of my brain that fights back. Without it I would never do anything interesting. It is a still, small voice that simply maintains that I must begin. I thank the man for his concern, assure him that I will definitely heed his advice and then do no such thing. It is like a kayaker approaching a rapid. Once he reaches the point of no return he just has to go for it and trust himself to cope with whatever may be thrown at him. I am on my way. There is no point worrying anymore. I feel a surge of release and remember why I put myself through all these agonies. I love the thrill of beginning new projects. It is a feeling that makes me sing out loud and feel like the luckiest man alive. 

River “Don’t you dare take the lazy way... Whatever you do, it will be you who do.” I push through a bamboo grove to the river and sit beneath a teak tree. I write my diary and study my map, a computer print out of a survey from 1912. It’s the best map I managed to find for this area. Having a river to follow provides a tangible, constant thread to the route. It automatically gives purpose and direction to the walk. My river is small and boisterous now. The contours are tight and curling. Earlier I passed a magnificent waterfall, the noisy blast an invigorating change from the usually sedate flow. Upstream from this wide, gentle bend is a red and white striped temple and a deep gorge jumbled with gigantic boulders. Cormorants dry their wings on the bank. Tucked amongst the tangled tree roots are small shrines to Shiva and flame-blackened statues of cobras. There is a low babble of chatter from people bathing and washing clothes. A girl is singing. Old, paunched men with worn bodies are praying. They bathe then bow their heads. They lift their arms to the sky, muttering all the while. A beautiful young woman stoops to collect water. She strains to lift the full container. Shaped like an amphora it fits snugly into the curve of her hip and I watch the bones in her back ripple as she walks away. This scene has played out, virtually unchanged, for centuries. It has taken place every day of my life without me ever being aware of it. India’s enormity reminds me how small the sphere I live my normal life in is. It alters perspective. The ageless river reminds me that my own time is fleeting. This tableau will take place again tomorrow when I have walked out of it and on thousands of rivers that I will never see, right across India, on every day of my life. I find myself wondering whether any other tourist has ever sat here before. I doubt it. I ask not as a member of the Lonely Planet generation boastfully ticking off experiences and trumping others’ tales. I ask because I had wanted a journey far from the picture postcard views and picture postcard sellers. I wanted to feel that I was discovering places for myself rather than following a prescribed path. And I am delighted how easy that was to achieve. I am really enjoying my own slice of India. It is fresh, exotic and unfailingly fascinating. My river has changed so much since I began walking. The meandering delta near the coast, its agricultural irrigation canals and religious bathing ponds (kalyani) feel a long way away now. I’m getting there. I look down at the water flowing in the direction I have come from and imagine how long it will take to flow all the way to the sea. “Take your time,” I urge the river. “Enjoy it. I did.” 

Routine “It’s a hard thing to leave any deeply routine life, even if you hate it.” People looking at me walking through India might envisage my daily routine to be something like: Get up, walk. Lunch, walk. Eat, sleep. There is more to it than that. Every day on the road includes many more tiny routines: Pack away everything I own each morning. There is a place for everything and everything goes in its place (unlike the messy chaos I live in at home). Find someone who seems intelligent to ask for directions. Check with someone else to make sure. Work out, across language barriers, from people who never walk, how far it is to the next source of drinking water.Establish, with no menus and no common language, what food is available. Eat food completely unlike what I was expecting.Study my map and calculate how far I have to go. Repeat at every rest break.Ask people if they will fill my water bottles. Think of new songs to sing. Wave/swear at beeping trucks and buses. Daydream about home or future trips. Answer the same questions for everyone I meet. “What is your good name? What is your native place? How many children do you have? What is your profession? How much do you earn? Why are you walking? Do you want a lift?”Dream of what I will eat when I get home (clue: it will not be curry). Routine is comforting and reassuring. It is the backbone of any long journey or expedition. There is a point to everything I do. Do things well and the day and the journey improve. Do things shoddily and I pay the price. Routine can be a curse as well as a crutch. After all, boring routine is what I ran from in the first place. And the grinding repetitiveness of the road’s routine does wear me down on a long journey. I often ask myself how I managed four years of it on my bike. Chapeau, my young friend, chapeau. At times then I need something different, a break from the routine. Something that makes all the grunt work worthwhile. I crest a hill and across the rain-freshened plain see a gleaming pavilion of shining gold. It is a monastery for exiled Tibetan monks. I stare in astonishment, having had no idea I would find this. My wild surmise is my reward for choosing to learn nothing about what lay along my route. The Tibetans are mesmerising, dressed in their distinctive scarlet robes. They feel like fellow foreigners after hundreds of miles of Indians. A gong sounds and young monks scuttle past, like schoolboys late for class, splashing through puddles. An elderly monk smiles at me from the broad double doors of the spectacular temple and beckons me inside. I leave my gigantic shoes amongst piles of small ones and walk barefoot into the temple. Instantly I have to recompose my list of the highlights of this walk. The interior is a vast space. The walls are painted with myths and legend. Thick red pillars support the roof. Two birds fly through the cavernous space, their smallness helping me grasp how mighty the temple is. The crowning glories are three colossal, golden Buddhas that tower above us all. They shine even on this drab morning. Many hundreds of novice monks sit cross-legged on the floor, facing a huge central gong. Rows of candles burn and incense sweetens the air. Not all the young monks are as awestruck as me. Some chat to their friends or fiddle with their long, rectangular boxes of holy texts. If they had mobile phones they wd hv bn txting. After about ten minutes a tall monk crashes the gong. Hundreds of voices begin to chant. The sound is low and ragged at first. But the chorus grows stronger and stronger until it reverberates round the temple. I tingle with the power of simultaneous prayer from so many. I sit back and close my eyes. I try to imprint the sound deep into my brain so that I never forget this journey. I give thanks for the never-ending surprises of travel, the rewards earned by persistently climbing the grinding ladder of routine. 

Sunrise “And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid anymore.” It is the chai stall’s busiest hour of the day. The chai man is bustling slickly through his well-practiced movements. The cup of tea is a small part of his customers’ day, but to him it is the most important. The care he devotes to his task reflects that. It seems a good strategy for a successful business. Start small, do what you do with enthusiasm and do it very well. Stick to that and growth will come. He presides proudly over his small stall, dressed in a blue lungi and yellow vest. His slender hands work gracefully, methodically and quickly. He mixes the tea, sugar and boiled milk flamboyantly, pouring it from one jug to another at arms’ length. With a smile he hands a glass of tea to each customer. I do not linger long. There is a compromise between walking far enough to finish the journey, balanced against slowing down and savouring it all. My natural inclination is always to push out more miles and make things harder on myself. As I thank the owner and the customers who have made me welcome (“nandri, nandri, nandri”), I notice that the sky is already growing lighter behind me. I walk on. These first hours of the day are my favourite. Coursing through me is the drug that fuels my journeys, the feeling that keeps me coming back for more, despite my long-held feeling that I am not ideal material for this life (too soft, too hasty, too introspective). It’s a fresh morning. I am someplace new on the far side of the planet. I am lean and very fit. The road stretches enticingly ahead of me. My legs ask to be tested and I lengthen my stride, accelerating with the glow of well-being. I’m eager to tackle the miles ahead and intrigued by what the day will offer. I follow a meandering little road through green sugarcane fields. The broad river, my river, is on the right, flowing slowly in the opposite direction to me. Enormous cotton wool clouds glow pink, lit from beneath the horizon by the sun. Men are already working in the fields, wielding sickles as their grandfathers’ grandfathers would have done. Will their grandchildren do the same, I wonder? A temple on the far bank looks fabulous in the honeyed light. Its pyramidal gopura stands twenty metres tall, every inch carved with gods and legend. It is a scenic view, very National Geographic, until I look closely and notice people squatting and shitting alongside those brushing their teeth or collecting water. The world is awake now, though the day is still quiet. People who are up early move with a quiet purpose. I love this time of day. Before the crowds swell there is more world to go round, more magic to share amongst those of us who are awake. On the river a fisherman casts his net from a coracle, as his grandfather’s grandfathers would have done. The net lands gently and the reflections of those extraordinary clouds ripple across the smooth water. It is a mesmerising scene, unchanged in hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. The fisherman’s mobile phone rings. I hear him jabbering away as he hauls in his net. Will his grandchildren also fish like him? Though it is early, young boys are already playing in the river. They shout and splash around the washing ghats4. When the boys see me, they start showing off, spinning and twisting as they leap into the water. I take some photos then show the boys my shots. Showing people the image on the back of my digital camera causes amazement on this walk. For most, it is a complete surprise. They are wet and noisy as they jostle round me for a better view of the camera. A man wearing a red lungi and a vest passes as he returns from his morning wash. He is holding a piece of soap and a chewing twig. He invites me, shyly, to photograph the flowers in his garden. We walk away from the road towards a cluster of small homes set back amongst trees. The orange earth is packed hard and smooth. The homes are painted baby blue. There is a small hayrick outside each one. Many have a buffalo too, tied through the nose and chewing methodically. Fishing nets are draped to dry alongside swathes of colourful saris. A young girl in a blue school uniform is washing shiny metal trays at a water pump. Next to her is a mound of yellow bananas. Her face is smeared all over with green paste and a bright scarlet bindi dot beams from her forehead. Kids dash forward to see me, curious, excited and a little scared. My new friend (like many in South India his name is a multi-syllabic tongue twister that I do not catch) is the centre of attention with me at his side. He went out to brush his teeth and returned with a pink Englishman. Everyone is calling to him, laughing and questioning. He enjoys the fun and I don’t mind it either. It is good-humoured. But this reaction to me plays out many times every day. It is an aspect I do not miss when I return home and become part of an anonymous majority once again. The man is proud of his garden. He has planted a couple of rows of flowers, about ten in each row, in front of his home. He waters them from an old plastic bottle and then gestures for me to come, look, enjoy. It is humbling and inspiring to see something planted, purely for pleasure, by someone with little spare time or money. The sun is rising now. It’s not a spectacular one today, but all sunrises are good to see, if only for the smug feeling of knowing that nearly everyone else is asleep and missing this moment. I think how rarely I watch the sunrise since I settled down to life in England. I resolve to start rising early again when I return home. I make many resolutions when I’m on the road and dreaming of home. I think how I’ll make a better fist of it next time and make plans for a better-lived future, but already I know that I will never stick to this one. “Here comes the sun, little darling,” I sing loudly, every day, at the moment the sunlight first strikes my face. “It’s alright, it’s alright...” It’s a road tradition begun thousands of mornings ago, thousands of miles from here, in the cold, oxygen-starved heights of the Andes. There the faintest hit of warmth was welcomed. This morning the sunrise is thick and warm, rich with oxygen and the sweet reeks of India. Of dust and petrol fumes, of curry and cows (of rice and men?), festering drains, flowers and a thousand kerosene cookers. There is no place I’d rather be. Bliss is it in this dawn to be alive, but to be on the road is very heaven. 

Escape “For it is said that humans are never satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more. And this is said in disparagement, whereas it is one of the greatest talents the species has and one that makes it superior to animals that are satisfied with what they have.” Head thumping heat shimmering sun beating. Loneliness in crowds of foreign tongues staring at one foreign face. Bruised feet dragging spirit bruised shoulders slumped. Can’t think. Can’t speak. Just walk. The monotony of the open road. These are common complaints on a difficult journey. I often get them all in a single day, and know there will be more of the same tomorrow. Most days involve very little except for this carousel of discomfort. It doesn’t sound like much of an escape. Yet escape is a key part of the appeal of the road. All my adult life I have felt the need to get away. Its intensity and frequency ebbs and flows but it has never gone altogether. Perhaps it is immaturity, perhaps a low tolerance threshold. But there is something about rush hour on the London underground, tax return forms and the spirit-sapping averageness of normal life that weighs on my soul like a damp, drizzly November. It makes me want to scream. Life is so much easier out on the road. And so I run away for a while. I’m not proud of that. But the rush of freedom I feel each time I escape keeps me coming back for more. Trading it all in for Simplicity, Adventure, Endurance, Curiosity and Perspective. For my complicated love affair with the open road. Escaping to the open road is not a solution to life’s difficulties. It’s not going to win the beautiful girl or stop the debt letters piling up on the doormat. (It will probably do the opposite.) It’s just an escape. A pause button for real life. An escape portal to a life that feels real. Life is so much simpler out there. But it is not only about running away. I am also escaping to attempt difficult things, to see what I am capable of. I don’t see it as opting out of life. I’m opting in. On this walk my feet and shoulders are the vital parts of my body. My face, my looks and my hairstyle are irrelevant. Out here nobody knows who I am. Nobody knows what I have done well in my life. Nobody knows what I have failed at. I’m just a guy on a walk. I take a photograph of myself resting in a bus shelter. Only since returning have I figured out why I like it. It’s a photo that captures my youth. The days and years alone on the road. The thousands of miles, defining my life. Thousands of brief rests in shaded bus shelters like this one. I know that I will never live days quite like those again. I am tired but smiling. My pack is by my side. I have had that pack for almost 20 years now. I’m wearing an old hat, a veteran of scores of countries, unrecognisable now as the cricket hat it began life as. I must be somewhere remote for it’s rare to take a photo without a curious Indian face peering into the frame. It’s a self-portrait: I am alone. Nobody else sees this moment. It’s just me and my thoughts out on the road, where every new horizon is filled with promise. 

Simplicity “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! We are happy in proportion to the things we can do without.” A couple of years ago I was out on the crumpled ice of the frozen Arctic Ocean. It was bitterly cold. And I was deliriously happy. It was the stark simplicity of life out on the ice that I enjoyed so much. I had very few things to focus on each day, but I had to do each one to the best of my ability. If I did not then the consequences in those conditions could be severe. I decided, as my hands and nose thawed out back in the tent, that when I become King of the World this would be a good decree to run the world by: • Concentrate only on the stuff that really matters. Cut everything else. • Do what you do to the very best of your ability. Do this every single day. Otherwise you die! Walking across India was not a case of life or death. But it was a similarly refreshing draft of straightforwardness away from the noise and clutter of the 21st Century. As I walk upstream towards my goal the river becomes smaller and smaller. There are fewer diluting, polluting branches or confusing tributaries. Slowly I am moving away from the broad, stagnant channels of the delta towards the single holy well at the source. I wanted simplicity. Simplicity of purpose and to travel as light as possible. I wanted to pare life down to the basics again. India was a crash diet for me after the creeping lassitude of easy living. Simplicity of possessions felt difficult to achieve, accustomed as I had become to life, liberty and the pursuit of stuff. Yet it is liberating and enriching. Carrying all my possessions through a hot Indian day is a sweaty penance for materialism. It helps me focus on what I need. What I really need. The clothes I stand up in, plus a spare pair of socks, a lungi, flip-flops and a clean shirt now feels ample. A wise man once said that the things you own end up owning you. On the road you have few owners. Thoreau got it right, wanting to “live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life.” As I remove myself from needless material stuff, my mind also begins to unwind and I enjoy a lighter mental load too. I cleared my diary, turned off my phone and computer, and cleared off. I have de-cluttered my mind. I am wandering across a country, chatting to people, taking photos, making notes and drinking tea. By the standards of the real world, I am bumming around. I am not earning money, for heaven’s sake! Isn’t it time you got a real job, young man? “Adventurer and Writer?” comments a bright woman with a sparkle in her eye as she reads my business card. “Some may say, Alastair, that you are actually a wastrel. A vagabond.” I disagree with her poetic description. I am filling my days with purpose, even if it is only a very simple purpose. That is not a waste.Each day I have to walk as far as I can, as near to my river as possible. And I must find food and water and shelter. That is all. If I do just those few things then I have not wasted my day. Far from it. I have used my day fully. A day working hard on a project I care about is a day well spent. Find something you love. Do it well. Do it a lot. It feels good to carry my world on my back. I smile in the sunlight. I could travel and live this lightly forever, I remember as I get into my stride. 

Alone “All great and precious things are lonely.” Odd choice, India, if I wanted to be alone. But being alone is an important part of my journeys. Alone time. A lonely time. Alone with all of India. I feel more alone when I’m jostled by a billion strangers than somewhere wild and empty. But what is alone? Alone might be out in the hot scrub, watched by nervous deer. The only sound inside my head is my heart thumping. Everything is motionless except for the crunch of a family of wild elephants walking slowly past. I stare, awestruck, as small as a world and as large as alone. Or alone might be on the roof of a cheap guesthouse at sunset, having walked for hours through the crowds and chaos – like a murmuration of starlings – to reach the centre of the city and this brief moment of sanctuary. I watch the busy streets as parakeets dash madly for home, whooshing past in clusters. The call to prayer drifts lyrically across the city on the hot breeze. I feel a sense of exhilaration swelling inside me that howls, “Woohoo! I can’t believe I am here, in India, doing this. This is special. I am lucky.” I love this kick, the rush and buzz of joy and freedom. Just being in motion for the sheer heck of it. This is the unbeatable intensity of solitude that keeps me hooked on travelling alone. I love the continual exposure to new people, new faces and new ideas. And I appreciate being forced to make my own decisions and accept their consequences. I have to trust myself, encourage myself and boss myself all at the same time. The effort, the responsibility and the opportunity are all mine. Being alone forces me to be resilient and flexible. There can be no coasting, letting somebody else make the decisions, work out the route and find somewhere safe to sleep. And there are no ties, constraints or compromises. I can do what I want, go where I want, be who I want. It is an undeniably selfish pleasure. I miss those I left behind. Being alone adds a lick of lonely melancholy to the lovely moments. I can never share these memories with anybody. But being alone also adds a sheen of silence to each sunset and moonrise; the greedy pleasure of having it all to myself. Nobody within thousands of miles knows who I am. Nobody knows my name. I can be intimidated by that or relish the freedom it offers. 

Snapshot “The Earth teaches us more about ourselves than all the books in the world.” All the clichés about India are true. Clichés always are. But there is so much more. There always is. India: so vivid and loud. Energetic and mad. Charming, ingenious, squalid and callous. In my head I see all this. I suspect that anyone who has been to India and not just stayed in an International hotel will do too. But I fear that if you haven’t been to India then I am going to fail you. I don’t have the capacity to bottle the extraordinary essence of India. This is a pity as India is among my favourite of all countries, even though I have seen little of it. My first impressions of India, like generations of travellers before me, were intense and conformed to stereotypes. The filth, the chaos, the poverty, the stupid driving. The bright saris, the delicious food, the instinctive, gentle civility. After a few weeks on the road I’m settling in to India a little and getting used to how things work. I sit in the shade at a street stall drinking chai. The day feels oppressive. Heat. Dust. Noise. Glare. Stares. Music. Engines. Cell phones. Car horns. I need to hide from it all for a few minutes. A lorry beeps Silent Night loudly as it reverses. Oh, the irony. There are grubby finger marks round doors and half-removed bill posters and election flyers on half-painted walls. There are crates of empty glass bottles awaiting collection and strips of shampoo sachets hanging above shop counters. Bicycles squeak by, daring to compete with the lunatic drivers. They all have old sprung saddles, rod brakes and a bell. I flick through a newspaper, mostly reading the small articles and adverts. In the same way that I chose to walk an unglamorous slice of India, I prefer the small oddments of news rather than the main, attention-grabbing, Taj Mahal-esque headlines. There have been surprise checks at various government offices to improve punctuality and attendance of staff. All officials were found to be absent from the Chemmedu Agriculture Extension Centre and Sericulture Department Office. Health officials have been directed to take steps to appoint a driver for their ambulance. An unknown, destitute old woman was mauled to death by stray dogs inside the grounds of the City Hospital. Polling has been peaceful bar stray incidents of violence, rigging attempts and group clashes. A district general secretary was hacked to death. A politician campaigns with the promise of free colour televisions for all. Asking a rally if they thought this was a good idea, he received “thunderous applause instantly.” I buy a glossy magazine, my curiosity piqued by the first hint of laddish culture I have seen in India. The magazine is expensive, £1.50, almost as much as I pay for a night’s lodging. I don’t think I’ve yet met anyone who would spend so much on a magazine. It is simplistic and aspirational. Its wealthy, urbanite readers are playing at being Western. On the front cover is a pouting babe in bodice, knickers and suspenders. Articles in the magazine include “10 things we bet you didn’t know about porn!” and “Drink smart: we tell you how.” I turn to the advice pages. Question: “Should western commodes be kept open or shut when not in use? I’ve read stuff about women wanting the toilet seat down while men want it up or something like that? What’s the right funda [sic]?” Answer: “Western toilets should be kept shut. There is a lid, right? Use it!!” Meanwhile an old television is playing in the shop behind me. It’s showing a glamorous horse racing event heaving with beautiful, rich Indians trying to look European. This too is so far removed – several generations removed, I imagine – from what I have experienced in my narrow slice of India. I really hope that, as more and more people rise out of poverty, India does not just copy Western fads and trends. Move just a few streets away from the centre and a town quickly feels more like a large village. Cowpat discs, to be used as fuel, dry outside homes painted with brand logos like Vodafone. Cows amble the streets, munching on rubbish. People gently and reverently touch the animals’ flanks as they pass. Children play with homemade kites. This is a different world to the town centre and the television. They do things differently there. I accept the folly of trying to make generalisations about a billion people, from billionaires to beggars, scattered across thousands of miles. 

Morning “And again there are mornings when ecstasy bubbles in the blood, and the stomach and chest are tight and electric with joy.” The water in the emerald paddy fields glints as I walk. A confetti of butterflies flutters in the air. The roadside palms are painted in black and white checks. I enter a village with music blaring from speakers rigged on bamboo poles. I always like places that play music out loud (it’s quite common in parts of Eastern Europe, China and Latin America), even in the countries where it’s done with Orwellian undertones. This feels like a happy town, a happy morning, except, I guess, for the goat who is about to be butchered on the roadside. I stop to watch. The knife is sharp and swift and one elegant slice ends the goat. How fragile, life! So very easy to die. So final. Is this a beautiful, musical morning to die? Or so beautiful and musical that the thought of death feels too sad to bear? The goat is dead. It lies in the dust. There is very little blood. The butcher works swiftly, turning the animal into joints of meat. His customers wait patiently. I am fascinated by the neat and tidy compartments of organs inside the goat that had, until moments before, been working magically well. Morning on the road is about the satisfaction of committing to action. Of being in motion and not yet demoralised or tired. The nerves have passed. It’s a positive time of day. Everything is still fresh. It is up to me to fill this day. I picture what I would be doing back home and what my friends might be doing right now. I’m glad to be out here (as opposed to later in the day when I’m longing for home and an easy life). I am rarely without company. People always want to talk to me, to find out about this strange Englishman walking briefly through their lives. I walk from one identical conversation to the next. Why don’t you take a bus? Do you know Freddy Flintoff? Every day I see children playing cricket in the fields, the pitch scratched out on a patch of flat earth. They are always delighted if I stop to join their game. “England against India!” I declare as the boys squabble over who will bowl at me first. I am still cheerful and energetic enough to greet everyone I pass. I always say “good morning” to children in English, as I know they have learned at least this much in school. They might as well put it into practise for the first, and perhaps only, time in their life. A conversation usually follows that is identical across the non-English-speaking world. Me: “Good morning.” Child: “Good morning.” Me: “How are you?” Child: “I am fine.” Me: “I am fine too. Goodbye.”Child: “Goodbye.”I walk on, followed by giggles and incredulous gasps. I walk through a village where outside every home small piles of mangos are for sale. So many places in the world operate this way. One product per season. Harvest it, eat it, enjoy it, sell it. When it’s gone, it’s gone. Each town and region has their own speciality. These are places not yet homogenised (or diversified) by the efficient distribution networks we are accustomed to. At home I can eat strawberries all winter with no real feeling of appreciation or surprise. We have everything, all the time, which means also that we have nothing special. But here, now, walking into mango season, or mango region (I’m not sure which), I slurp with sticky satisfaction at this unexpected bonus to my day, munching mangos as I walk. I do not know how many villages I will walk through before I leave the mango behind. It’s an ephemeral pleasure and all the sweeter for that. I pause at a water pump and wash my hands and face. I clank the long metal handle and dunk my head beneath the gushing burst of water. The day’s heat is beginning to build and I shiver at the delicious coldness of the water. The water runs down my face and neck, wetting my clothes. The sun will bake them dry again only too soon. I fill my broad-brimmed hat with water and up-end it on my head. I fill my bottles with enough water to get me to the next village and walk on. Rooks caw and swirl above me. A funeral is taking place. The whole road from the home to the burial site, shaded beneath three gnarled trees, is strewn with yellow, orange and pink flowers. “Funeral processions clatter Down streets with drums and rose-petals, Dancing death into deafness.” The task now is simple: blast out as many miles as I can manage before it gets too hot. I am earning my lunch break. The river teases me, tempting me to swim. But a combination of crocodiles, pollution and my impatient obsession with ticking off miles dissuades me. I snatch occasional respite in scraps of shade. After a few more hours I am beginning to suffer. The first negative thoughts creep in. I miss home. I feel a hint of annoyance that every vehicle or moped beeps at me, even on these rural lanes. That every time I pause a cluster gathers to stare and snigger and ask the same questions I’ve been asked a million times before. I ask why I’m putting myself through this, a question I’ve asked myself a million times before. It feels like a taking up of the strain, a satisfying stiffening of the challenge, like cranking up the treadmill pace a notch or two. The exercise in masochistic suffering has begun. 

Curiosity “I’ve never been content to pass a stone without looking under it. And it is a black disappointment to me that I can never see the far side of the moon.” Go somewhere new, try something different and life fizzes with questions. What will happen? How will my life change? How will I change my life? No imagination has ever conjured up anything so unique, vivid and complex as any view on this planet. I am fascinated by what lies around the next corner. Like the lucky dip at a fairground, I was eager to delve into India, a country I had not been to, and rummage around in the sawdust with no idea what prizes I would pull out. The Explorer, by Rudyard Kipling, tells of the lure of the unknown. The mountain ranges called to the explorer until he was drawn to find out what lay beyond them, even when people told him not to bother, that it was not possible. Curiosity took him “along the hostile mountains, where the hair-poised snowslide shivers” and through “the big fat marshes.” The hero, paradoxically, is content not to be a hero. He lets others take the plaudits and the spoils from his accomplishments. What then was his reward, if we assume rewards to be necessary? Primarily, it was a satiation of his curiosity. It never made him rich but the explorer ends his journey with a sense of satisfaction. I am also drawn by the randomness and unpredictability of horizon chasing. I like having to respond to new situations. Out here I do not just have the opportunity for spontaneity; I am compelled into living spontaneously. I often fear this in anticipation, but love it in hindsight. I know that these are the fun times, the mad times, the exciting times. Living by my wits. Trusting them to keep me alive. Standing on a hilltop and singing at the sky with no idea where I will sleep tonight but with enough chutzpah to be confident that it will all work out and enough positivity and humour to accept that the worst thing likely to happen is a long uncomfortable night. Morning will come. The sun will rise. And I will sleep extra well tomorrow because of tonight’s travails. There is enough in this world for many lifetimes. But if the flavour of the ocean is contained in a droplet why can I not just be satisfied with all that is around me right now? Why am I constantly probing for something else? Is this the trait of an optimist or a pessimist? Am I always hoping for even better round the next corner? Am I just dissatisfied with the present, with my ‘now’? Or am I somewhere in between? In purgatory, searing away the bad, the weak and the superfluous in the hope that I’ll find a solution at last. The road rolls on and on. On towards the next horizon. It’s the most enticing page-turner I’ve ever known.And all I have to do is walk on to try to find out if the far-off jasmine flower really does smell sweeter. 

Food “What does a man need, really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment.” A boy asks me about English food. I find it hard to describe, particularly without mentioning the delicate subject of roast beef. “Is it burger? Pizza?” And because it is hot I just agree with him. Indian food is even harder to summarise. It is certainly very different to the Great British Indian Takeaway. It is rarely fluorescent orange. However, although there is undoubtedly a vast variety of food across the whole of India, in any one place, at any one time of the year, the poor people will eat a very limited repertoire. Most places serve the same one or two dishes. I eat them every day until a hundred miles or so later a new option emerges. The general theme, however, is always “curry”. I eat curry for breakfast. I eat curry in the mid-day heat. I eat it three times every day. And I eat a lot of rice. I eat rice served on broad green banana leaves. I eat it in compartmentalised tin thali trays. I even pour water over it, mush it up with my hand and eat it that way. I eat idli (steamed rice cakes) and dosa (crispy rice pancakes) and rice served with various sauces (sambar) and curd. I eat in places where the rice keeps coming until you are full. I eat in places where I am presented with a banana and a smile at the end. The charm is that I never know what I will get next. Everything surprises and amuses me. After eating curry every day for weeks I am sick of it. So one day, when I smell a different aroma, my taste buds explode. In greedy excitement I follow my nose to a stand where a boy is stirring a sizzling pan. The smell of the spices is so different to what I am accustomed to. Chilli, garlic, onions... I am drooling and excited. It smells new and delicious. Excited, I call out to the cook, “What region is this food from?” “China.” 

Learning “And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world.” My life really got going the day I finished formal education. I began enjoying learning at about the same time, when I began wandering the world. Knowledge became gold dust. No longer was I learning stuff merely to regurgitate it in hot exam halls. I do appreciate the benefits of the little bits of paper I earned, but school on the road is different. Geography, culture, history, politics, religion: the way of the world begins to fit together. And the more I learn the more I learn how little I know. Travel far from home and even mundane, ordinary events become out of the ordinary and fascinating. Knowledge and exciting fresh perspectives are thrown at me all the time. This doesn’t happen when life’s normal routine is ticking over. But I do have to caution myself to travel slowly. If I rush my journeys, one eye on the clock, eager only to tick off miles, countries or sights, then I’ll accumulate lists, but I won’t learn much. Truman Capote would dismiss it out of hand: “that’s not travelling, that’s moving.” But backpackers and other holiday makers will learn at least as much about India as I will on my walk. And I hadn’t even particularly cared whether I did this walk in India or any other place on the planet. So I am not really doing this to learn specifically about India. What I want to learn from this experience, spending time amongst lives very different to mine, is about myself and the direction of my life. The slowness of a walk is a good chance to reflect on the past and contemplate the future, two things I never get round to doing at home. I am yet to find a better recipe for really learning about myself than a physically difficult, uncomfortable adventure thousands of miles from home. 

Landscape “And then – the glory – so that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man’s importance in the world can be measured by the quality and number of his glories.” Most adventures revolve around beautiful landscapes and impressive wildness. But not this trip. This project was about normal-ness. I was not seeking the Top Ten Tourist Views of India. I did not see the Taj Mahal. I was looking for ordinary India (what an oxymoron!). I didn’t want the tourist highlights because I didn’t want the hassle, expense, disappointment and tedium that accompany them. And I wanted to see things I had never seen before, not even in a photograph. I wanted to see what real India was like, in the same way that a visitor to Britain will learn little from taking a photograph of Big Ben. At walking pace, there are always interesting landscapes. Being outside all day and often all night as well, I tune in to the rhythms of nature. I wake at dawn and sleep at nightfall. I know where and when the moon will rise. I notice if the wind changes direction or if clouds begin to build in the sky. There are places of beauty, such as the beach where I begin the journey. I walk along the hot white sand, followed by dark-skinned children with huge white eyes and smiles. Pulled up to the high tide line is a row of narrow wooden fishing boats, pirogues. It feels wonderfully far from London. Waves roll gently up the sand and the air smells of sea salt. It is a fine place to begin a journey. Unusually for me, I do not stare out at the ocean and want to cross it to see what is on the other side. All my thoughts are inland, along the route of the river I am about to follow. I run my hands through the warm river water as it mingles with the sea. This is a pilgrimage site for Hindus. A father mutters prayers and dunks his shining, surprised-looking baby several times beneath the water. A dozen men sit cross-legged in prayer round a small fire. Each has a coconut, broken open as an offering, puja. I breathe in the sea air, look forward to the next time I smell it, and begin to walk.  Hundreds of miles later, after walking towards the sunset each day, I have left the hot plains behind. The riverbank is tangled with trees and boulders and the tiny road struggles to hug the river valley. It climbs high and drops down, twisting round the compass, through forested hills. Coffee estates are dotted on hilltops, the coffee planted in amongst the tall forests. Birds screech and cicadas click feverishly. They fall silent until I have passed. I love the aroma of fresh cardamom, the hum of beehives and the creeper-hung trees dripping with moisture. Not a bad landscape to walk through, I think happily. Not bad for a haphazardly chosen strip of India unheralded in the Sunday papers’ Best of India pullouts. 

Joy “Every man has a retirement picture in which he does those things he never had time to do – makes the journeys, reads the neglected books he always pretended to have read.” I like doing exciting, unusual things, particularly if they are thousands of miles from home and laced with an element of risk. The call to adventure is hard to ignore. And life is not all work. It’s not all Nietzsche and granola, penance and planning for retirement. “I won’t have it,” declared Annie Dillard. “The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee.” I want fun and joy and laughter in my life. Many people dream of travelling the world when they retire or win the lottery. My trip is inspired by similar motives to people who sign up for the retirement cruise of a lifetime. It is just a lot cheaper than a cruise. Walking across India cost £500, of which £300 was the plane ticket. I want good food and the warm glow of the sun on my face. I want to visit beautiful places, see shooting stars on warm evenings and forget about life for a while. These are the joyful times. The good times. There is nothing complicated to this: travelling the world and living adventurously is a lot of fun. When people ask, “why do you do this?” there is no simpler or more honest answer.