Ders no plash like home

I regret to inform you that Sarah The Volunteer has come to sticky end after suffocating in one of her trademark ethnic shawls, and drowning in a cloying marsala of acute smugness and self importance. This is why I'm now writing to you from my new apartment, lying on my new silk bed covers in front of a new plasma screen TV watching Desperate Housewives. Roughing it is well overrated.
Since being here I have come to realise that acute self importance is a common condition among the international volunteers, who come to the refuge determined to 'help' in their droves, armed with a multi-coloured ammunition of felt tips, flip charts, stickers and timetables. The latest are Bridgitte and Henrika, two social work students from Holland who have come here to write their dissertation about sex trafficking in India. They are robust and milky in the way that only Dutch girls can be, with arms like rolling pins and big doughy bosoms, trussed up neatly in sensible shirts, quick-dry cargo pants, money belts, camera cases and hiking sandals. They have never been to India before and are keen not to eat any Indian food, squat over Indian toilets and want to teach the girls at the refuge European standards of cleanliness, how to fold their ragged salwar kamize in neat hospital corners, and cleanse every surface with boiling disinfectant solution. Having been here for almost a month, I know this will never work. Personally I have found that teaching them how to fold both their lips inside their mouths, cross their eyes and raise one eyebrow, paint their toenails - far ore productive. But Bridgitte and Hernrika are optimistic, and believe they can bend India and Indians to their will, simply by virtue of being WESTERN VOLUNTEERS.
But I think their first visit into the city changed all that. Yesterday they both came trotting towards me all sweaty and traumatised from a morning of 'Shite sheeing', clearly in the throws of the first phase of culture shock (terror). This is what happened:
Bridgitte: 'Oh my got Sharah you would not belief dish. Me and Henrika wash going to der maharajah palash and we shee dey haff dose childresn wish no armsh and no legsh begging for coinsh – isht terrible!
Henrika: 'And den Bridgitte nearly got run ober by a big bush, and den der was dish guy shleeping in der road wid all der cars going pashed it was terrible, and stinking of urine!
Bridgitte 'And sho many people and sho we try to find der Mc Donalds, but we didn't find sho we find der coffee and haff some ice cream and den we come home.
Henrika nod like de Holland'
Bridgitte: ‘No ish nodding like dat in de Holland. I wand to go to der home.'
Henrika: 'Me alsho'.
I ruthlessly take the piss out of Bridgitte and Henrika, but I can totally understand how they felt. You arrive in an Indian city, all pale and full of enthusiasm, schedules, guidebooks, and a crisp wad of rupees in your money belt, only to find yourself in the middle of a busy intersection with an 80 year old amputee clutching one leg of your jeans, a couple of stray dogs casually sniffing at your crotch and a circle of Indian men shoving flowers in your hair, demanding “which country madam? Rickshaw? You come to my shop? Beautiful madam? You like India? Where you from?” The trick is just to go with it. Hang out on a street corner and drink a coconut with them, tell them you're from Abu Dhabi, Mexico, Mecca, or Morocco and let them stare at your ankles/ neck/ tits if they really want to. Only then do you actually start to enjoy yourself.
After the initial terror, I'm starting to enjoy myself so much now that I'm on the lookout for a handsome Indian rickshaw driver to whisk me off on his bejeweled three wheeled love wagon so I can stay here, wake up every morning to palm trees, eat papaya and drink chai as the sun comes up, and go to bed in the evenings when the sun looks like an enormous glowing Strepsil in the sky.

The age of the volunteer

Last week I deserted the Bangalore yuppies, my bikinis, short skirts, hygiene, vanity and love of booze, sofas, TV, toast, makeup and hair straighteners behind me, to begin a new life as Sarah The Volunteer. Sarah The Volunteer is a kind, selfless, girl who is more at home in Indian salwar kameez and sandals, prefers early morning starts, lentils, rice, needy children and chanting to hangover Sundays, telly, boys and sushi. She wants to change the world. She is great, better than most other people in fact. The other thing you need to know abouther is that she loves telling people about her Good Works. The old Sarah arrived in Mysore, the city of maharajah's palaces, palmtrees and sandalwood dressed in something inappropriate by AmericanApparel. She had rudely shunned the Indian clothes offered to her by a friend in Bangalore ('err, no thanks' – if you think I'm wearing that ugly bit of ethnic table cloth you've got another thing coming), and was bearing shoulders, chest and knee, much to the amusement of just about everyone on the train platform (about 400 people). After 24 hours of humiliation, heat and enforced modesty Sarah The Volunteer was born, grudgingly eating, squatting, getting up at 5am for yoga, having acupuncture, Tai Chi, wearing table cloths and working with disadvantaged children, along with the rest of the foreign inhabitants of Mysore. Of course Sarah The Volunteer (who loves to rough it), shunned thehotels, with their high tech wifi connections, air conditioning, western toilets, swimming pools and beauty salons, and is staying withan authentic Indian family. Nothing is more thrilling to her than washing in a cold bucket at sunrise, and speeding off on her moped toyoga for a couple hours of earnestly chanting and stretching before God: "JEEVAMAN BHARAJATH PHANA, SAHASRA VIRUTH VISHWAMBARA..." etc. At home she eats curry and chapati by the fistful and spends days working with the disadvantaged girls at the refuge. Some might say that teaching teaching sex trafficked teenage girls to ride mopeds, painting their nails bright red, practising head stands and drinking tea with them does not constitute 'work', but it is avery important kind of therapy. Sarah's Good Work also includes daily acupuncture sessions where she lies in a room with the girls having
needles stuck into her feet and then having a nap. It's tough, of course, but it is important to the girls that she participate in every area of their rehabilitation. Mostly the girls take Sarah The Volunteer very seriously. At other times they laugh at her moles ("sister, what are these? ha ha ha") and her hair("sister, why short hair? Long hair very nice") and steal her moped. But Sarah The Volunteer is charitable enough not to mind.

The other thing to mention about being in Mysore in February, is that it is currently yoga season and every corner is bursting with toned sinewy types eating mung beans and earnestly discussing their PRACTICE with just about anyone that will listen. The old Sarah would probably laugh at these people behind their backs and call them wankers, but Sarah The Volunteer would never be so shallow, or judgemental. In fact she is now so kind and tolerant, that an incident last night withan American "yoga health therapist" (what?) called TRACEY (caps to emphasise volume) failed to provoke even the tiniest shred of bitchiness. Over dinner at a friend's apartment, Sarah was explaining about the problem of sex trafficking in India, where thousands of women and children are kidnapped, raped, exploited and abused every single year. So TRACEY said: "Did you know that Indian people do NOT have ORAL SEX?" everyone shook their heads, wondering whether to shove her into inverted lotus, stick her feet into her mouth or shove her face in the squat toilet. "Well that must mean that these girls arehaving vaginal intercourse at LEAST 40 times a day!" That was uncomfortable. But it didn't stop there. On the subject of poverty:"Did you know I that I dieted so much once that my period stopped fora whole year?" No we did not know that. "You know what I always say?"No. "Don't trust anything that bleeds for 7 days and doesn't die! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!" Or: "don't trust anything that doesn't eat for seven days, releases 25 tonnes of poo every time it opens its mouth and doesn't die? HA HA HA HA HA!"

Of course after so much social work and stretching before God, every volunteer needs some rest and relaxation, so Sarah The Volunteer tries to make time in between her Good Works to have the occasional (twice weekly) pedicure, tea and cucumber sandwiches on the veranda at the local five star hotel and leisurely swims at the converted maharajah'spalace in the shade of palm trees...

Clear like curry

I have been in India for two weeks now, so you could say I'm somethingof an expert. It is long enough to know that passing the papadums withyour left (poo) hand is not OK. But if you are eating rice with your right (eating) hand, you may not help yourself to some papadums withyour right (eating) hand – for that you must use your left (poo) hand. So you see, it is a country full of contradictions. One minute you arewatching the sun set over an ancient Hindu temple, feeling cool marble under foot, soul swooping into the stratosphere - and the next moment two stray dogs will begin furiously buggering each other on one of the shrines. You might be sitting in a five star maharajah's palace sipping cocktails on the veranda, but then a raw sewage pipe leaks and the smell of human turd ruins your pinacolada. Nowhere are these contradictions more apparent than in Bangalore,where I spent three nights after Mumbai with local boys Sam, Nimesh and Model Sam (who is a model). It is the yuppie capital of India, the fastest growing city in Asia, the kind of place where it ispossible to have a "rinsin" time in discos, (their word, not mine), wear mini skirts, smoke, drink, take coke and worship at the alters of Nike, McDonalds and Tommy Hilfieger – but if you choose to dance inthe discos you may get arrested, wear mini skirts you may be disowned, and shag and you will never get married. Clear as chicken tikka marsala?

Keen to impress on me Bangalore's reputation as the Party Capital of India, one night the boys took me to 'Sutras' – the best club in the city. They said, 'wait till you get there, Friday nights it's Kerrazy, you're gonna love it!' I said 'Yes, sounds great', (thinking 'actuallyI want to be spiritual and sit around fires in poor tribal villages drinking chai, not stand by the bar of a shit Indian club with a UV light, some watery drinks and a creepy old Indian guy in the corner perving at my tits – after all I can do that at home'). But keen to impress on them the British reputation for Getting Drunk Abroad UnderAny Circumstances – I went anyway.

As we arrived in the floodlit forecourt of an enormous five star hotel, clacked across the deserted marble lobby, past a bouncer(concierge) and into the club (function room), I wondered whether I had accidentally turned up to a posh Indian bar mitzvah, fully expecting to see room full of chubby 13 year olds in suits skull caps skidding around on their knees and dancing to the Macarena and eating matzah balls. To my relief, instead there was around 12 Indian guys and girls hovering around the bar clutching '2 free shooters' tokens, and several fat middle aged British and German business men somberly drinking cocktails out of coconuts with umberellas and sparklers. Sean Kingston was playing, 'beauuuudiful girls' on the sound system, but strangely no one dancing. I took one look at the empty dance floorand figured 'seize the moment' and was just about to cut some serious shapes, when Sam quickly ushered me into a corner and explained that since New Year 2008 dancing has been banned in all clubs in Bangalore under new laws to curb prostitution. 'What?' I said, 'no dancing, noteven to Sean Kingston?' No, not even Sean Kingston, he said. 'But what about other places?' I asked, 'can they stop you from dancing in the streets, at a wedding, in the shower?' He explained that apparently there was a huge outcry last year after women were banned from dancingfor money in dance bars (Indian style titty-clubs) and in the end, the government was pressured to impose a blanket ban on dancing in every club in the city. Dance floors are cordoned off with yellow tape - a bit like a crime scene - and if you try to covertly shake your stuff, undercover policeman will come and chuck you out of the club and fine you. Well that does make sense, I thought, given half the chance mostwomen will turn to prostitution given a couple of drinks and a dancefloor, right? Sure enough, no sooner had a finished my Cosmopolitan, six policeman turned up, so it was time to take the party elsewhere. This time the venue was the chic roof terrace of one of the boys' apartments. We drank warm rum and coke out of plastic beakers, danced without fear of arrest to MTV India, while 12 floors below us a traditional Indian funeral took place. As me, Sam, Nims, Model-Sam and a few others gyrated to bangin Bollywood and Hindi R n' B, a corpse was laid out in the street, covered with garlands of orange and white flowers, while friends and family wailed, got pissed and danced in the street until dawn.

Welcome to the worst city in either hemisphere

I'd love to begin with how wonderful it felt to be finallyarriving in the exotic, spiritually uplifting city of Bombay, but that would be a huge lie. As the plane cruised into the airport, the six middle aged Australian women (here for The Yoga) sitting in frontof me yelped with glee and swathed themselves with ethnic fabrics, hefty bum-bags and cargo trousers, and talked loudly about 'the magic of India' and 'Mr Iyengar' and 'The Practice'. This is a terrible mistake, I thought and began furiously plotting escape routes back toAustralia. I could stage fake India photos with Indian kids in curry houses and in front of palm trees, and no one would be any the wiser,I thought. I was shitting myself – and I hadn't even eaten a dodgy curry yet. So I looked to my guidebook for solace. The introduction quotes Aldous Huxley who called Mumbai "the worst city in either hemisphere"and travel writer Robert Byron who called it "that architectural sodom" and warns tourists that it is a city to be "endured rather thansavoured" due to overcrowding, heat, pollution and lack of decent hotels in the buget price range. Maybe I could hide under one of the airplane seats and wait for it to fly back to civilisation and airconditioning?Thankfully the Indian gods (Shiva, Ganesh etc) were smiling down on meand I managed to find my hotel taxi driver at the arrivals gate wavinga sign 'Miss Harriss' in amongst a 500-strong swathe of Muslimpilgrims pushing trolleys and shouting at each other. Walking through the carpark I was careful to avoid swarms of vicious looking mosquitos ('A malarial blackspot' said the guidebook) and we began the drive through the chaotic outskirts of the city, past vegetable streetmarkets lit with the fluorescent glow from small shops, buzzing television screens, billboards and garish Hindu shrines strung with fairy lights – and the occasional anorexic cow, loping grandly by theside of the road. Opening the window, I inhaled deeply and rememberedthe familiar stench of human crap and rotting vegetables stewing onwarm tarmac, traffic fumes mingling with spicy woodsmoke and someother more fragrant smell, like cardamon and cloves. Suddenly inflated with a sense of my own importance at being in India all by myself, I leant my head further out of the window to look out at the street andtake in a bit of street life. No sooner did I venture out of the taxiwindow, another car pulled up along side us, rolled down the passenger window and an old woman began explosively vomiting her dinner into thetraffic, about 3 inches from my nose. Ah! There it is, I thought, the Real India.

Reassuringly, the guesthouse was called "Bentley's" and was allcrumbling colonial grandeur with wrought iron spiral staircases, heavy antique wardrobes and threadbare sheets, with balconies where you can eat your morning tray of toast and neon Indian marmalade. There were even flocks of crows that squarked you awake and sang you to sleepevery night. One evening there was a loud flapping/dying sound comingfrom the air conditioning vent outside my bedroom, which went on forabout 5 minutes and then went very quiet. I would like to say I stopped watching MTV India and did something about it, but I didn't.

In spite of my worst fears, life was pretty sweet in Mumbai, hanging around with my new best friend Angus from Australia who I shared the first couple of days of dodging death-by-rickshaw, walkingbarefoot around temples, avoiding paraplegic street children andeating Sikh barbeques by the side of the road. In fact I liked it somuch that I decided to stay an extra night. When I asked the man behind the reception desk if that was OK, he conferred for 5 minutes with a couple of other men in a back room, looked earnestly at hisbook, made a few notes and said 'OK madam I tell you tomorrow, OK?'. I said, 'Can you just tell me now?' and he rested his elbows on the desk, scratched his head some more and said, 'OK, stay' - so i did.

'Roo balls and other stories

G'day everyone,
As expected I'm writing my very first blog on my very last day in Australia. In fact I'm so close to leaving I can practically smell runway tarmac and cabin food from the departure lounge. After writing is far safer than spontaneous duty free shopping for pink Ugg boots, when Im supposed to be going to be in India for the next four months. But as I keep telling people, the Australian leg of my trip has been all about readying myself for my spiritual journey in India. Preparations have included over three weeks of drinking champagne, sunbathing on Bondi beach, Champagne, seafood lunches, dinners, Champagne on boats, fireworks over the harbour, Champagne, swimming, coastal walks and Champagne. But it hasn't all been fun and games. I have also been learning a lot about Australian culture - for instance the Australian love of sports.
Two weeks ago I was lucky enough to attend a barbeque in Byron Bay, along with three members of the Australian Olympic rowing team. Not only were they great guys but they had biceps the size of Christmas turkeys and we hung out all afternoon eating meat and drinking beers. After we finished eating, we persuaded the guys to take their tops off and have a 'pull up competition' on the porch and I discovered that I really quite like finding out about Australian sports – and also geography. I learned a lot about geography from a South African lady I met on New Year's Eve, who was also on the boat in Sydney Harbour watching the fireworks – let's call her 'Linda'. When i told Linda that I was going to India she was terribly helpful and gave me some very good travel advice. She said: 'Sarah if you go to India Do NOT go to Mecca, I had a friend who went on a pilgimage to Mecca, somewhere in India once and she WAS NEVER THE SAME AGAIN.'
I was confused, because I'm not very good on geography. 'But I didn't think Mecca was in India,' I said, 'I thought it was somewhere in the middle east like Saudi Arabia?' Thank goodness Linda was able to correct me. 'No sweetheart, Mecca is the holy place in India where the Hindus go, you know to worship – but make sure you DON'T go there, because you will get very sick and you might never be the same – like my friend. She went there and she HAS NEVER BEEN THE SAME.' Thank goodness for Linda, or I could have ended up in Mecca. Mecca, India. I have also learned a bit about Australian men from a girl who I met in Sydney. She has been in Australia for 11 years and has an Australian boyfriend who she calls 'the pig'. She told me a nice story about him which really encapsulates her relationship with her Aussie amour. Their relationship really hit rock bottom a couple of weeks ago, when (let's> call him 'Brett') turned up on her doorstep at 2am with a kebab in one hand and a beer in the other. The charming Brett came in and sat down, dribbling kebab all over her laptop keyboard and down the sides of her sofa and proclaimed, 'Darlin' once I've finished this kebab I'm going to fuck you'. And then fell asleep. You might get the impression that I haven't been terribly active during my trip to Australia, but you'd be wrong. I've got quite into extreme sports. A couple of days ago I climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge, a leaving present from my colleagues at the Independent, which was incredible. It was seven in the morning and although it was grey you could see right across the city to the Blue Mountains – which, I am told, are blue because they are covered in gum trees, and the koalas eat the leaves and when they fart blue gas comes out which is why they look blue from a distance. That's what Denise the tour guide told me. Denise, my stout lesbian tour guide, told me lots of interesting facts about the bridge as we climbed up in our overalls, across steel girders and gang planks, like how many people died during the building of the bridge (18) and the stone used (blue granite) – but it wasn't all serious. She was also a bit of a comedian. At one point she asked us to look down and guess how many steel rivets were used in the making of the bridge. I couldn't possibly guess, and she said, 'well there were 3 million rivets used in the building of the Eiffel Tower, and 6 million rivets used in the building of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. That makes us twice as riveting!' She was a real joker. There is one area where I feel I really could have made more of an effort – Australian wildlife. I saw a couple of dogs, a possum, heard a symphony of cane toads and crickets, saw a few birds and one cockrach on our bedroom wall – but not a single kangaroo. I was pretty disappointed about that, until yesterday I had an unexpected stroke of luck. Stolling through the Rocks market in the oldest part of Sydney I came across a strange furry object, swinging from a rack of tourist paraphinalia. In amoungst the bottle openers and starfish pendents and sharks teeth necklaces, was a perfect pair of Kangaroo bollocks hanging on a silver key ring. Perfect, I thought. Nothing says Australia like a pair of 'roo balls.