Ambassadorial Scholar - Tobin Postma

Subject: hot water For the first time in two weeks I feel clean, this is not because I cannot afford rent and am living in the janitors closet (I expect that to happen next month), but rather because I have just returned home from two weeks in India. It started on a whim, my brother (steffen) was traveling around and I had three weeks off for Easter and a mountain of work to complete. Since I work best under pressure, I thought I could manage it all in a week (I'll let you know next week how that turns out). We booked our flights and we were off to India and proceeded to travel like typical males (no plans, no advance bookings, just sheer instinct). It almost ended horribly only two hours after landing. I managed to sick next to an Indian who kept making me promise to visit the hugging saint and even offered to show me a picture of her - the picture turned out to be a doll (voodoo stlye) that just sat and stared at me the whole flight. Steff arrived earlier that day and we had agreed to meet at a major landmark at 1230am. My plane was 2 hours late and I rolled up at 230 am just catching a glimpse of a tall white guy walking away. I yelled out of the taxi window, (whether it was actual taxi and whether it had windows were debatable) and our trip had officially begun. I walked back to the cockroach infested room that steffen had carefully selected. We were sharing it with a french guy named Nemo ('like the fish' he explained). He told us that he was traveling around Asia while his girlfriend was working - later that night as he unpacked his backpack a mountain of condoms fell out...maybe he was importing them. The next day steff and me met up with a friend from Nottingham and we stayed at his apartment for the next three days. It was a one bedroom, shared by two guys and they had a man-servant as well (I think he must have lived in the kitchen as there was no where else for him). What a life, 24 years old and they have a 24 hour servant (I only had one for 15 hours a day - my mum works for the other 9 hours). Bombay (or Mumbai) has 15 million ppl crammed into it, its littered with poverty, garbage, stray dogs and ppl sleeping on the streets, so like any conscience Western traveler we avoided it all. Actually, my friend's family was part of an exclusive Golf Club in the centre of the city (only 700 members and no new ones since 1970). So we spent our days in Bombay playing rounds of golf, swimming and eating at the clubhouse. We also attempted to sample the Bollywood scene, steffen was asked to be in two movies (I think only one was real). They needed white people and for a full days work they wanted to pay him 500 rupees - or $10. We also went to a movie theatre and watched the classic Hindi film 27 Dresses (his GF was dying to see it, honestly). Our next destination was Goa, home to India's beaches. We had three options - flight (too much $$), rail (we needed to book in advance), or bus. We chose the bus because it had beds on it. I figured a bus of only beds is the greatest thing I have ever heard and we paid our money and were off. It was like sleeping in an overhead compartment and then being forced to share it with your taller brother. Also, when you consider how bumpy the road to goa is and the fact that you are not strapped in, it makes for a pretty sleepless ride and you are continually rolling onto the person next to you (thank god it was my brother). We made it to Goa, found our spot on the beach and spent a week there. 40 degrees every day - cant ask for much more right? Well...... it seems that Goa is also a favourite spot for all the local Indians to visit. Let me tell you, there is nothing more relaxing than watching a beach full of grown Indian men frolick in the ocean wearing nothing but their underpants. After 4 days it was hard to say which was worse, those in white ones or those in skin-tone brown ones. We also decided to rent motorbikes for a day, while it is the law to wear helmets none of the rental places actually had any. So we cruised on our bikes, managed to avoid killing ourselves even though we returned home at night only after realizing that my bike's headlamp was broken. After a week at the beach, we grew restless and took a taxi two hours south to Palolem - another beach. Our hut by the water, complete with mosquito net, romantic decor and a stray dog that slept outside our door cost us $4 a night. This beach was far more secluded and beautiful than the other and was there was not a tighty whitey to be seen. We stayed there for 5 nights, we had plans to go further south but could not be bothered to leave our paradise. There we met two of my cousin's friends (very random and awkward conversation - mainly on steffen's part) and a white guy from Trinidad (full blown Caribbean accent) and his friend from Ecuador. This was our crew and we had a lot of fun doing nothing. Highlights included a wild 'Silent Party' which is an outdoor party where the music is pumped through headphones that you rent. The best part is taking of the headphones and hearing nothing but the drunken strained voices of people singing out loud but not realizing it (or so the guy who had is headphones off told me). We also went for full massages, when in India... And before I knew it I was back on the plane home, watching the elderly German couple next me stealing the glasses and cutlery from their inflight meals. I am back in Nottingham now, one month left of classes and two exams in May and then I have an internship for the summer (hopefully, perhaps I should start planning this one out) and then its a quick 20,000 words and I am done in September. Well, I had better get moving, I have two weeks on laundry to catch up on and need to wash two weeks worth of sand out of my hair (and various other places) See you in May Tobin