Surfing the Subcontinent

This one is a real ramble! I took a Palm Pilot with me to India, and wrote this as I went along. It's a day by day account of whole trip to India, so it's bit long. A more succinct version of events from Barbie is at oceansurfs website.

This was part of a project by Oceansurf Publications making a surf film called 'Room To Breathe', by Stuart Butler. We also had a couple of Italian surfers with us, Emi Cataldi and Alessandro Madaleni, and sometimes surfing but more often taking photo's was the other Emi, Emi M. I've not named any spots, but there's plenty of clues here..

Day 1 Got into Madras, or Chennai as it's called now, at about 5.30am. We had a slight hitch getting through immigration, as they insisted on knowing where we were going to stay. As we had no idea where we going to stay, we'd left that part on the form they gave us blank. The immigration officer told us firmly that we going to be staying at The Meridien Hotel, and after putting that on the form, we sailed through. The usual anxious wait for our luggage followed, and predictably our stuff was the last to come out onto the creaky, constantly breaking down conveyor. Welcome to India.

PANORAMAS

We decided to get out of the mayhem of Chennai, and go straight down to a small town, about 60kms south down the coast, where we'd heard rumours of surf. We got into one of the generic Ambassador taxis and headed south. The taxi ride out of the city was a lot of fun. On getting into the taxi I instinctivley reached for the seat belt, and of course there wasn't one. Stuart, who'd been to India before, told me that we're in for a fun ride, and it was a bit of an eye opener. The indians aren't exactly bad drivers, in fact, I was quite impressed by the anticipation of them. The driver would be backing off the accelerator (though never braking), and I'd be wondering why, only to notice the developing traffic incident he'd was already reacting to about 10 seconds too late. They're good drivers but incredibly reckless. Overtaking on blind corners seems to be the favourite sport, and overtaking someone who is currently overtaking somebody else is normal. Everybody seems to prefer to drive in the middle of the road straddling the white line, presumably to give more room to manouvre, and the rule to drive on the left is more a rule to make sure that when you're in a head-on situation that both drivers are going to swerve the same way to avoid each other. Why India is yet to produce a world-class rally driver is a mystery.

The road we were hurtling along was about as busy as a western motorway would be, and of surprising good quality, probably better than a comparable road in the UK. We were overtaking entire families crammed onto a single motorbike, or a dozen people squashed into a rickshaw, with old men casually cycling through the mayhem. Everybody constantly uses their horns as they slalom through the cows that are nonchalantly wandering across the road. I was a little overwhelmed by everything I was seeing, the traffic, the mud and straw huts at the side of the road, with the owners brushing their teeth outside in the street, and the dark alleys snaking off into the city. The smell of the river was incredibly bad, and it was a bit troubling to see the feeble little huts over the stagnant water that people were living in. I was having trouble taking all this in, so I was a bit lost for words when I turned around in my seat to find Stuart filming me, and asking me what I thought of it all.

When we got to our destination, I wasn't looking at something that I'd normally recognise as a town. I was actually quite scared of the place, as it looked like some lawless mad-max style temporary town to me, and I was definitly a little concerned when I realised that this was the place we were going to stay. The streets are all dusty and dirty, with piles of rubbish at the side of the road and on the broken pavements, with the by-now-normal crush of traffic swerving all over the place. Of course, this was just a normal Indian town, in fact one of the cleaner places, but it was a bit of a culture shock. After a bit of wandering around, and trying to ditch the taxi driver who was trying to blag comissions off the guest house owners for taking us there, we found a clean little guest house, and unloaded all our stuff. We'd been travelling for 21 hours, so like surfers everywhere, the first thing we did was go down the beach and check out if there was any swell.

Before we went to India, we had heard from a number of people about an old hippy, who lived somewhere on the east coast of india, and who surfed. As we were making a film about the trip, we had a half-formed idea about making the 'story' of the film around a bit of a quest to try to find this hippy. We didn't expect to find him, but it would be a bit of a 'point' to the film to try. His name is Patrick, and he's French. We'd been in our new home for about 20 minutes, when we met a french surfer walking back up the beach.

'Are you Patrick, by any chance?'

'Yes'.

So much for our epic quest to find him, he was pretty much the first person we met in India. Patrick had been in the water, so we knew there were waves, and we ran down to check it out. The town is famous for it's rock carvings, and especially it's Shore Temple. The Shore Temple is a very impressive Dravidian temple on a small headland, carved out of the solid rock in the 6th century. Very spectacular and very pretty, but even better was the hollow, sucky, 3ft semi-point break peeling off that same little headland. We hadn't been sure if we were going to find any waves at all in India, and we'd scored some wonderful little waves on the very first day and in the very first place we'd checked. We suddenly weren't tired any more, and we broke out the boards, and headed into the 30degree water, pulling into 2 or even 3 seperate barrels on each wave. A very easy wave to ride, the offshore wind holding it up into a lovely fast peeling tube, that just sets up perfectly. The only catch was the big rock in the exact point you would expect to come out of the barrel, which added a little bit of excitement to the wave. Patrick came back out, and we all began talking.. Very interesting guy. He's lived in the commune further south at Auroville since 1973, and first surfed at this spot in the 60's, when he was actually living in the Shore Temple. He's travelled all over the place in his life, and mentioned about a story he'd read in a surfing magazine about a trip someone did to the Makran desert in Pakistan, which of course, was written by Stuart, who did the trip last year. Patrick doens't like work, and quite cheerfully admits that he now lives a life of complete lesuire, and it was a bit of a surpise to find out the although he looks like a weathered 30-something surfer, he was actually in his 60's. I guess there must be somehting in all that clean living and yoga after all. A fascinating bloke, and he invited us down to have a look around the ashram at Auroville when we head down that way. We got out of the water, had a bite to eat, and then headed back into the waves again. Such a fun spot, we forgot our jet lag and tiredness, and just kept surfing. Finally it got dark, and after a good 5 hours of surfing, 12000 miles of travelling, and pushing 36 hours without sleep, we finally crashed out at the guesthouse.

Day2:We seemed to have beat the jetlag by simply ignoring it, athough we didn't wake up until about 11. After breakfast, and my first expeirnece of the awesome pineapple juice they serve, we headed out into the waves again. Still perfect offshore funness, and we stayed in for a good few hours, with noone else out within hundreds, if not thousands, of miles of us. Lovely. We had a bite to eat in the afternoon, and chatted to the owner. They're were quite a few apparent '60s leftover hippies wandering around the place, and we asked the owner what ordinary Indians thought of them. He wasn't sure of our opinion on the subject, and obviously didn't want to offend us, but he couldn't stop a big grin spreading across his face. When he was sure we thought they were weird too, he chuckled that 'they're not like us' and that most Indians make fun of them. I wonder how many hippies who have convinced themsleves that 'they really connected' have the slightest idea how much of a joke they are to those they patronise. He also warned us not to go to Auroville, because we'll 'turn gay' if we do. All the French down there apparently.

As the day went on, the swell dropped off a bit and the wind swapped round. We had to go back into Chennai to pick up the other participants in the trip, the Italians. We rented a big land rover taxi thing, and headed up the coast. We mentioned to our driver that we had to be at the airport at a certain time, and he took this as a personal challenge to get us there. We were passing speed limit signs saying that we should be doing 40kph, at a casual 120kph. We passed a big lorry crammed full of people, who were cheering everything they overtook, and everyone who overtook them. Asking the driver what was going on revealed it was a wedding party, which led to a long conversation about marriage in India. Our driver told us about his arranged marriage, and how he and his wife were so shy, that they hadn't said a a single word to each other until after they were married. 'It was great comedy' he said. His sisters had chosen his bride for him, but not until after he had breifed them to make sure they chose a village girl, and not a girl from the city. When we asked why, he told us it was because the city girls 'have ideas' and 'are far too much trouble.' We agreed wholeheartedly.

When we arrived at the airport, we found the Italians; the two Emi's, Emi M and Emi C,and Alessandro. They were surrounded by taxi and rickshaw drivers pestering them to hire them, and they were looking a little panicked. They were utterly relieved to see us, and we pulled them off to our car and headed through the excitement of the Chennai traffic. Chennai has some of the biggest billboards I have ever seen, actually too big to see without sticking your head out the window of the car. They are something like 12 stroreys high.

We got back to our base, and we discovered that Emi C could be in trouble with the food. He had sweat pouring off him on a very mild curry, and here even the chips are spicy...

Day 3 sept 11: Next morning, 6.30, and the Italians are banging on our door, desperate to get into the sea. The italians, probably because of the lack of quality surf they get at home, are in a permanent state of grommethood, utterly keen to spend every second of daylight in the ocean regardless of the conditions. Us lazy englishmen on the other hand, needed coffee. When we finally dragged ourselves down to the beach, it was disapointing to see that it wasn't a patch on the previous days surf, but the Italians were beside themselves, jumping up and down, and spinting back to their rooms to get their boards. Because of the tide, the spot had gone very rippy, dragging you down the beach. It was a little crumbly compared to the previous day, and I wasn't really in the mood for paddling, and got bored after a couple of hours, and went for breakfast. At about 12, after nearly 6 hours nonstop surfing, the italians got out, and went for food. It was very hot at about 40C+ (110F), even the locals were commenting on the heat, So, like the song says, us Englishmen went out in the midday sun and, walking past the mad dogs, headed back out into the line up. The italians had all gone to sleep for a bit, but after a while they creeped back into the sea. The waves had impoved loads, and was back to quality of the previous few days, and Emi M and Stuart were filming the rest of us getting pitted. By the end of the day, Emi C and Ale had been surfing for 10 hours, and were still jumping up and down in their stokeness. Later, we had a walk around all the temples, carved out of the solid cliff faces behind the town. It must have taken years of patient work to produce the shrines carved out to produce rooms in the granite rock, which, storing the heat of the day, was eerily warm to the touch. By the evening, the inevitable happened, and was I was feeling very unwell. I forced down a little food at dinner, but felt sick and ill, and it was a releif to get to bed. Watching the italians shovelling down huge amounts of food didn't help either, and I was utterly knackered, my eyes closing at the table.

Day4 6.30am next morning, and banging on our door woke us up. It was Emi C, with board, about to go surfing again. Me and Stu groaned, told him we'd be down in a bit, and went back to sleep. The italians are super-fit, and I was feeling a bit crap. Finally wandering down to the restuaurant on the beach for breakfast, a parade of local teenagers went past with a big pink papier mache elephant. It was the last day of the festival of Ganesh, the elephant god, and on the last day each family parades down to the sea with their Ganesh, and chuck him in the sea. They launched him in, with lots of shouting and lauging, and then postrated themselves in front of him. Formalities over, they jumped in the water, smashed him up, and then threw bits of soggy pink elephant at each other. After the exuberance of the kids, it seemed bit sad to see a middle aged women quietly walking down to the beach on her own, with a tiny little Ganesh.

We planned to go up the coast in the afternoon to see if we could find some more surf spots, but I bailed out, feeling ill. An afternoon just dozing and chilling out sorted me right out.

Day5 Feeling better, we all went up the coast to another little fising village today, where the others had been yesterday. It's very quiet, with a huge beach stretching up and down the coast, with a few rocks scattered in the shorebreak, and dozens of the local 'ketamaran' fishing boats strewn on the shore. These ketamarans are just 5 logs lashed together, with a outboard motor strapped on the back. It was very hot, and the swell seemed to have gone, leaving a couple of foot breaking on the beach. There was a fishermans shrine on the beach, with a brightly painted verandah, under which the fisherman themselves were sleeping in the shade, after their nights work. The small surf was frustrating. The surfers were managing to get on the end of them, but i was struggling to get a wave on my sponge, it was just too small and weak to get me planing. We stayed in the water just to keep cool cos it was so hot. I got out and sat in the shade, chatting to our driver. He was sure that we must be famous because of all our camera equipment.

The little village was strangely full of anachronisms, in that all the houses were made of mud and straw, with a tiny shop selling everything under the sun. But when I walked over to get a drink, the little hut of a shop had a television and (thank god) a fridge, and telephones could be heard ringing in the little houses. It seemed all a little surreal..

That evening, we had decided to go back into Chennai. On the outskirts we passed a fish market, selling salted fish. The whole place was under a thick blanket of flies, swarming out of the way in amorphous clouds when the women tried to swat them away. The place smelt of old fish, and I can't imagine standing there, let alone shopping, and then eating!

We got to Chennai just in time for rush hour, which was just ridiculous. Traffic priority seems to be based on a strict heirarchy of vehicles, with trucks and buses at the top, followed by cars, rickshaws and then motorcyles and bicylcles. If you're at the bottom of this food chain, you effectivley don't exist for other road users, and we casually cut up and pulled in on motorbikes in all directions. The bikes have big steel bars attached to the frame, so they can push off other vehicles with out crashing. At one juncton we were turning right, while the two lanes of traffic next to us went straight. The lights changed, and we waited while the straight-on traffic stampeded past us in a roar of noise and dust and exhaust. It was like watching the start of a grand prix, with everyone weaving and jockying for position as they went past us, watching open mouthed. Later, we had a rickshaw driver with a backseat crammed with passengers hurtling along next to us and he was attempting to have a conversation with us while he veered through the traffic. We told him we were English, and he spent the next few minutes giving us the latest cricket scores, shouting over the carnage. England are 43 not out, apparently. We saw a bus at a silly angle, looking like it was going to tip over. When we drove around to the other side of it we could see why. There were people hanging on to the OUTSIDE of the bus, suspended from the bars on the windows. Their legs just were just dangling in space above the tarmac, oblivious to the traffic.

We went to Spencer Plaza, a big western style mall, and did some shopping. We could have been anywhere in Europe, and it made a bit of a joke of the 'travellers' who insist on finding the 'real' India. This was as real an example of modern India as any shrine or temple, crammed full of high tech electrical goods, and affluent young indians in western dress. After our shopping extravangaza, we found a sort of vegetarian food Indian answer to Macdonalds. This was a large food hall, in a reasonable copy of a western fast food restaurant, except with waiters, and a huge menu. When you go to an Indian resturant in the UK, you ineveitably order about 5 times more food than you could possibly eat, and we kept that tradition going here. The waiters were chuckling as we began to run out of space on our table, and whatever version of English they were speaking, it wasn't one that me or Stuart could understand. The italians, bizarrely, could understand perfectly. We finished our meal with Emi C trying to drown himself with Pepsi in an attempt to dilute the spices. He got through 7 cans of the stuff, as Indians just cannot get their heads around the concept of 'absolutely no spice at all.'

Day6 6.30am brought the usual banging on the door, and we headed out for a surf. Another lovely offshore barrel fest, though I was beginning to crave some left handers, being a DK goofy foot. We were planning to start a move down the coast today, but Emi C met a bloke in the street who asked him and a French girl to be in a Tamil movie, as extras. That sounded like fun, so he agreed, and we headed off in a taxi in the direction of Chennai to watch. We asked the chap, who claimed to be the director, if anyone famous was in the film, and he said that the cameraman was very famous, and had worked in Hollywood. We ended up in a mansion on the outskirts of Chennai, and got fed food and drink. We joked with Emi that he was gonna end up in a porn film, and we settled down to watch. In the event, Ale and Stuart also ended up in shot, hanging around a pool in the heat, while the action went on in the background. Me and Emi M took surreptitious photographs of what was happening, as we were obviously too ugly to be on camera. (Though it could have been with our dark hair,brown eyes and tans, we didn't look as obviously western as the other 3 blond surf nazis we were with.) While they were filming, I chatted with the real producer, (the chap who'd claimed to be the director was actually his brother), and talked about the film. He was very excited about us, and asked us if we were available for a 4 day shoot in the south, on a ship, all expenses paid. He also was keen to know if any of us knew how to fight for the action scenes. I told him Stuart could, (he can't.) but we couldn't really take him up on his offer, as we didn't have enough time to do that, and do our own filming as well. He gave us his mobile number, and begged us to ring him if we changed our minds. The mansion where we were filming seemed to be only used as a film set, as it looked amazing on the outside, but was strangle empty inside. I asked about the film, and it's called 'Bala', and it will be released on video in the UK for the Tamils living here. I'll be buying that then.

That evening, back at our guest house, we all went up to the rocks behind the town and filmed the sunset. It would have been very chilled and relaxing, if it hadn't been for the annoying Indian who followed us up there trying to sell us stuff, who just wouldn't shut up about how chilled and relaxing the sunset was, and would we like to see his carvings.

Day7 We left town today, and headed south to Pondicherry. On the way, we checked out the wave potential at a little fishing village, and became instant celebrities. They can't get a lot of visitors, because we were mobbed by what seemed the entire population, asking us questions and pulling at our clothes. They seemed very pleased to see us, and I had to turn down a fishermans insistent offer of going out on his boat with him. I asked about waves, and he said that sometimes they get 'very round'. But not that day, unfortunately. Everybody was desperate to have their photo taken by us, and the usual Indian lack of reserve led us to being bombarded with personal questions, like where are you from, are we married, why weren't we married, what was our jobs, how much did we earn, how much was that camera, and can I have your watch? The asking about how things cost was a little embarrassing, in that according to Stuarts guidebook, most Indians still earn less than 10rupees a day, about 13pence. Considering that, our camera equipment cost more than they were ever likely to earn in a lifetime. It made me feel a little awkward in our relative wealth, but perhaps that's just the communist in me. Dealing with the hordes and the heat was hard work, and it was a bit of a relief to leave, and we left with a crowd of kids chasing us up the road.

We stopped again on leaving the village to call Patrick, as he'd invited. He said he couldn't meet us that day, and he was in the middle of 3 days of intensive meditation. We hoped he was meditating on getting some new swell in, and he gave us an address of a guesthouse to stay in, run by the ashram. We got to Pondicherry, and found the guest house Patrick recommended. The place is big and very nice, but a little bit creepy. The ashram, who owns the guest house, was founded by a French woman back in the '30s, who was known as 'The Mother'. She seems to be treated as some sort of god now, and her framed writings were all over the walls. For someone with so much influence, her comments are incredibly trite, like 'Look at the fish to relax' on the aquariam. Well, duh. Her portrait is everywhere, and it's all a bit Big Brother. Every room in the guesthouse has a 'meaningful' name, like 'Charity' or 'Generosity.' Our room was 'Humility' and it was all a bit like staying in a self-help book. I found all the homilies somewhat irritating. There was also a big list of rules, like about when we had to be home, and that we weren't allowed drink or drugs in our room. Pondicherry itself is an old French colony, and it really shows, or at least I though so. Stuart, who actually lives in France, didn't think so at all, so maybe it's actually like some idealised French town, which thinking about it, is exactly what it is. The town reminded me quite a bit of Hendaye, with a long promenade over the beach, and shuttered houses looking over the sea. Even the police wear kepis, and where everywhere else we visited the people spoke English, here they seemed to speak French. The tides here seem to be permanently high, and although there was swell, the wind and the backwash made it unsurfable, though it had potential.

It was Pondicherry's turn for the Ganesh festival today, and the streets were packed with ox drawn carts with giant pink elephants on board. They took them down to the local jetty, and dropped them off the end, to fall 30ft into the sea. There was lots of cheering as the pink elephants sank. Seems a strange way to treat a God, but it looked a lot more fun than Holy Communion. It would be great if instead of that we made giant papier mache Jesus's, and then dropped him off a cliff.

In the evening, we visited the ashram, and saw the tomb with 'the mother' inside. I found it very creepy, with no talking and people postrate in front of the tomb. There seemed to be a low frequency hum in the air, which made me feel a little dreamy. I'm not sure if it was my imagination, but it gave the whole place a very strange air. My favourite thing though, was the bloke standing behind the grave with a big stick. He held the stick in the air, pointing into the tree overhanging the tomb. When we asked what he was doing, thinking it was some sort of ritual, we were told that his job was to prevent the crows from shitting on the mothers tomb! After a while, it started to rain, which really broke the spell of the place, and masked the sound of that mysterious humming. Everybody ran under cover next to the tomb, and the enforced silence was quickly forgotten, and everybody started chatting normally, and laughing and joking. We were struck by how many Indian people were there, as we expected the place to be rammed full of impressionable westerners. Heading back to the guest house was very exciting. We took a rickshaw, parked on the wrong side of the road. Just as we were about to get in, a moped hurtled out of the darkness and bounced off the front of it. The rickshaw driver checked there was no dents, and then, ignoring the shaken moped rider, gestured for us to get in. This driver obviously loves it when it's wet, and was throwing the 3 wheeler down the street, powersliding his way round the corners with full opposite lock. We hung on for grim death in the back.

Day8 We booked our train tickets for the next stage of our trip today, we're heading on the sleeper traing for Maduraii, which is inland. After that, we met up with Patrick, and interviewed him for the film. Very easy to do, as you ask him a simple question and he'll chat away for 30 minutes. He took us to show us around the commune at Auroville where he lives. A very difficult place to get your head around, as it's not really a commune at all, and Patrick himself said he prefers to call it an 'experiment in living.' The idea is, as far as we could gather, is it's a place to live well, and better yourself throught hard work. Cynics that we are, it looked to us as more of a place where westerners can take advantage of their reletive wealth to live well at the expense of the Indians they employ. We passed a contsruction site, where a new apartment block was being built. Despite the crowds of white Aurovillians we passed, not a single one seemed to be 'working hard' building this block: it was all Indians. Patrick wanted to show us the centrepiece of Auroville, which is a huge golden ball. It looks something like the EPCOT one at disney world, except golden. Personally, I was distinctly unimpressed. The ball is actually eliptical, which while that might be intentional, it makes it look as if the dome is sagging under it's own weight. The surface is covered with dishes of material which are made up of tiny glass blocks with gold leaf imbedded inside each one. It just looks like a very 1960's vision of the future, and to me it looked dated and tired, although Patrick obviously expected us to be very impressed, so we made all the right noises.

Patrick took us to his house, and introduced us to his wife, who he'd met on the Istanbul to Tehran train in the early 70's. His house was a beautiful two story building in an orchard of Banyan trees. He has a couple of cows, which he milks, even though he doesn't actually drink it, and he laughingly admitted it was just for effect. He also has a peacocks wandering about, who's calls gave a suitable Indian atmosphere to the place. It was difficult to understand how he supported himself, we could onlyl guess that Auroville looks after him. He is something of an anarchist, and jokes about he hates all the rules imposed on him, and how he tears up the official Auroville paperwork they expect him to fill in. Presuambly, he's been there long enough to get away with it. He obviously has beliefs in The Mother and had her picture on his walls, and her books on his tables, though he was certainly not evangelical in his convictions. He wouldn't talk about his beliefs unless we specifically asked him. He told us though, how much he loves to meet people, and he showed us his guestroom, and left us with an open invitation to return, or to pass his email on to anyone who wished to visit. We had to run, as we had to catch the sleeper train to Maduraii.....

Day9 The sleeper train to Maduraii was interesting. You get a berth consisting of a lightly padded bunk, and thats it. Three huge fans mounted on the ceiling are the air conditioning, and the windows are just cutouts in the steel of the carriage skin, with bars to prevent you falling out. We were hated by everybody else on the carriage, as they're isn't very much room for luggage, and certainly not enough room for 3 quivers of surfboards, and two bodyboards. Lucky for us, there was a spare berth in the carriage, and the guard told us to put our stuff there. The exciting part about the open windows is that when you're lying on your berth, your head is virtually out the window. I was paranoid about dropping something important out of my pocket and out of the window, like my passport or wallet, but the best part was when a train went the other way, at speed. You'd be half asleep, when you hear the air getting sucked out of the carriages further up from you, and then with a loud 'shunk' noise, you suddenly have a train doing 100mph or so about 8inches from your head. Exciting stuff.

We got into Maduraii in the morning at about 5am. We only intended to be there for a day, but we needed a room just to leave our stuff. We hung about at the train station for about an hour to give evgrything time to open and left our boards at the trains luggage office, after gently prodding the attendant, sprawled asleep over his counter. We found a hotel, and had a bit of a kip, none of us having slept particularly well on the sleeper.

Maduraii is famous for its huge hindu temple which is very impressive. It covers a huge area, and is dominated by 7 massive gopuras, which are pyramaid like structures, covered in carvings and mouldings, and then brightly painted. Everyone we'd spoken too before leaving told us how amazing and wonderful the place was, but all of us found the place noisy, polluted, dirty and incredibly hassly. It was simply impossible to walk down the street without being hassled non-stop for everything from cheap trinkets, to taxi rides, to rickshaws, to beggers, to restaurant and cafe owners. We got hassled in other places too, obviously, but Maduraii was another level. Added to that were the local people whos job was to talk to you, and then get you into some local shops, hopefully for you to buy things. These people have the thickest sking imaginable, and do not respond to being ignored, being shouted at, or being reasoned with. They are the Terminators of hassle. They do not leave you alone, and it really spoiled the place for us. We had one chap follow us around, incessantly talking for the whole 3 hours or so we wandered around the temple. The only time we had any quiet, was after paying 2rupees to enter an inner chamber in the temple, famous for it's 1000 columns. We were hoping there was another way out, so we could ditch the annoying bastard, but no, we had to go out the way we came in, and there he was waiting for us.

The temple itself was a strange combination of the incredibly impressive, and the neglected. Not being Hindu, a lot of it was closed of to us, but the centre piece was a big swimming pool affair, that was full of stagnant green water, and looked very out of place. The rest of the temple reminded me strongly of an Indiana Jones film. The roof is held up by thousands of carved columns, each showing a tiger or a dragon holding up the ceiling. Light is provided by holes in the ceiling, letting through dramatic shafts of light, which gave the whole place a film set appearance. In a quiet corner, we found a colony of bats hiding upside down in the dark, while sitting in a shaft of light next to them was an indian chap, chanting montonously from a prayer book. It would have been so nice to have a wander around, on your own, just drinking it in, but the non-stop hassle was getting to us, and we left. Alessandro, being such a nice chap, couldn't say no to anybody, and was rapidly getting laden down with tons of cheap metal bracelets. It probably didn't help him any that the rest of us just told the trinket sellers to talk to him, instead of us. Stuart had extra hassles in that he wasn't allowed to film anything with his video camera. Fair enough inside the temple, but even once we were outside, if he swung the lens to anywhere near the temple, he got shouted at. That, plus the heat, plus the pollution burning the back of your throat and your nose, meant we were all starting to get very stressed out. Stuart was doing his bit for international relations by telling the most insistent sales-people that Indians were horrible, and Pakistani's were far nicer people, and you're all going to get nuked soon.

Looking for something to film without getting shouted at, we found ourselves in a little local fruit and veg. market. Strangely, we didn't get any hassle here at all, though being the only westerners there, we got stared at a fair bit. The market was very cool, with stalls all selling the usual things you'd find in a market, and everybody shouting over everybody else. We got some great photos, especialy of one little boy standing next to a sack of onions. He looked a little scared being filmed, and when his mum came over we thought she'd tell us to stop. Actually, she just cleaned his face off with the corner of her sari, and grinned at us. When we'd finished, his grandfather asked us for some money, which is fairly normal when you've been taking someones picture. We expected it to go straight into his pocket, but he passed it to the little boy who nervously took it.

We were seriously fed up with Maduraii, and looked forward to heading off that evening to the south, on yet another sleeper train. We'd learnt our lesson this time, and booked an extra berth just to put our luggage on. The Italians booked it, and reserved the spare berth in the name of 'Kelly Slater.' Which meant that when we got on the train every time the guard came by, he kept asking us who's gear all this was in Mr. Kelly Slater's berth. We had no problem with mosquitoes that night either, as the Indian chap on the bottom bunk was letting out the most spectacular farts all night.

Day10 Today we got to Kanniyakumari, or Cape Comorin. This is the very southern most spot in India, and is a place where you can see the sun both rise and set over the ocean. There are two islands just offshore, one with what looks like a mosque on it, and the other with what looks like an ancient huge statue of a tamil hero. We couldn't understand why none of the guide books we had with us mentioned this statue, so we asked someone about it. Far from being centuries old, it was only put up 2 years ago! Between the islands and the cape was what looked a very big right hander, but it was a long way out, and there was so much wind on it and the sea looked so full of currents there that we skipped it. The wind here is very strange, it swirls around constantly and seems to be almost coming from every direction at once. There are three oceans meeting here, the Bengal sea, the Arabian sea and the Indian ocean, and the three weather systems connected with them also meet here, which presumably gives the strange winds.

We hired a big 4WD bus thing and headed up the east coast to see what we could find. We wandered down little dirt tracks to different beaches, but the further north we got, the smaller the waves. We ended up at a forgotten British fort, which looked like it hadn't been touched since they left, with a palm tree forest beside it, and a coral beach. And no waves. Me and Emi paid a bored looking security guard 5 rupees and had a wander around the fort, and then we headed back to Kanniyakumari.

When we got back, I had a walk down the very southern tip of India. This is a place where the Indians themselves go on holiday, and it was full of middle class families. That didn't stop the usual, 'Which country are you?' questions, but it seemed to have an effect on the shopkeepers in that I didn't get any hassle at all. Even walking through a bazaar, I was totally ignored. After the stress of Maduraii, it was great.

The very southern point has nothing to tell you where you are at all, though despite that it's quite a powerful place to stand. There isn't many places in the world where you can be so aware of exactly where on the globe you are standing. I was very concious of the immense triangle of India sweeping out behind me, into the massivness of Asia, while in front of me was nothing but ocean until you hit Antartica, more than halfway round the world. I think that was my favourite spot in India.

I came back to the guesthouse to tell Stu how nice it was, and how hassle free it was. Stu is obviously a hassle-magnet, and this time we got the usual amount of pestering when we walked down to check out the sunset.

Day11 Today, we headed up the west coast, into Kerala and into another little tourist town. This is a very pretty little place, and looks more like somewhere in the carribean than India, with palm tree forests full of coconuts and banana. Lots of swell there, but very windy too, and a lot of close outs. On the way up there our taxi driver, who drove as insanely as most, decided his car wasn't going fast enough. We didnt agree, but he insisted on putting a new fanbelt on, so we could go a bit quicker.

When we got to the beach, I realised I'd left my one and only pair of boardies in Pondicherry. Emi M lent me a pair of his, but he's about twice the size of me, and paddling with his boardies on felt like I was towing a parachute. Plus they ended up round my ankles everytime I ducked-dived, and I drifted 50 yards back to the beach every time I paused to pull them up. I gave up and got out, and wandered around the shops looking for a pair of swimming trunks. I was beginning to think I'd have to end up surfing in a pair of Speedo's, when I walked past a tailors. I asked him if he could make me a pair of boardshorts, and he said he could, so I'm now the proud owner of a custom made pair of boardies! Which also means that, as the only non-sponsered surfer on the trip, I'm displaying no logos at all, which is good. I should have got him to embroider 'Kutty Tex Tailors' up the side.

We met a guy here on holiday from home, with a old rented board. He said the wind drops in the mornings, so we've got the alarms set.

Day 12 Got up early, for once, and hit the beach. Much nicer than yesterday, but still a bit closey. I had about an hour of frustration, getting short rides, until I noticed a peak off the rocks at the north end. That was much better, and I just had fun pulling into long barrels, ending in a sudden closeout. Emi M, on the beach taking photos, said I was going over the falls on every wave, but I was having lots of fun. I was sick of rights though, I havn't had a left since I got here, and as I can't work out how to ride barrels on my backhand dropknee, (and I got lots of lips in the back of the head trying), I was having to prone most of these. I want a left! The waves are pretty powerful, and the big ones must come from a very long way away, as the wave period for the sets is about 10-15 minutes. There is a lot of grunt in them, and one wave blew my watch off. Tumbling around under water, I felt something go past my hand, and just reflexivly grabbed it. When I came up to see what I had, it was my watch! By some amazing feat, I'd caught it underwater.

I got out after really hurting my back. Deep in a barrel, I got sucked up and over the falls by my ankles as the wave broke. My ankles tried to force themselves somewhere to the left of my head, backwards, and I did a cool reverse-backflip-in-the-barrel thing as the rest of me followed. I had a horrible second when I was sure I'd just snapped my spine. It really hurt, but my legs still worked, so I kicked for the surface and came in in pain. Checking for body misalignment on the beach, I think I just really pulled a muscle. Bloody hurt though.

Allesandro is off home today, he has a flight from Chennai, and an 18hour train journey to get there. He paid the extra for first class, which means he gets real aircon, and a proper bed. It cost about 10pounds! My back was hurting, so I spent the rest of the day chilling out, and sipping lemon sodas.

Day13 Woke up feeling like someone had replaced my back with a steel rod, I was really stiff, and could barely lean over to pick up my board. A couple of ibuprofen, (the surfers friend) and it masked that right up, and I headed out for a repeat of yesterday. I knew I was probabaly going to pay the price of this later on, but I figured I could just dose up on ibu's until i got back to England, and worry about it then.

It was abit smaller today, but still lots of fun, and we set the tone for the next couple of days. Me and Emi C went out and rode the waves while Emi M and Stuart took pics and filmed from the beach. When we'd had enough, Emi M and Stuart would go out and I filmed them while I had breakfast. Knowing someone is filming you puts a strange pressure on you surfing, and I couldn't stop myself trying stupid moves in stupid places, so I'm probably going to look a complete gumby on film. As soon as the cameras went away, and I was surfing 'for myself' again, I was riding far better. How annoying. And thats pretty much all we did for the rest of the trip; surfing and filming in the morning, chilling out for the rest of the day. Me and Stu went for a walk up to the big lighthouse dominating the beach to get some pics. We walked int though the back entrance, and spent an hour or so wandering around taking pictures. We could see a dramatic clifftop mosque on the next headland, so we decided to walk over and take a look. As we walked out the main entrance of the lighthouse, we noticed the armed guard, and the big sign forbidding photography or filming. The guard glanced at us, and our cameras, but didn't say anything. I guess he figured if we were coming out, at some point we must have walked past him going in, and he hadn't seen us. Which meant he was in trouble. Much easier just to ignore us. It was an example of Indian military paranoia, and all the postcards showing pictures of the lighthouse made it all a bit of a joke anyway. All together, a good trip. We got some excellent surf in warm water. India as a place though left me a bit cold. There is a lot to see, but it all feels a little 'sold out'. It's virtually impossible to meet 'ordinary' Indians, because you just get bombarded by sales people all the time. Even the temples are turned into tourist resorts, and it feels tainted by it. It must have been a great place to visit 30 or 40 years ago, when the people would have been as curious about us as we were about them, and it would have seemed a more 'level' way to meet. As it is, it feels to me that we're seen as walking wallets, and are generally ignored by the regular people on the street. It's a place that gives the impression that you're somewhere very adventurous and unconventional, and maybe a little dangerous, when the reality is it's not a lot different from travelling around Europe. In fact, the place I was most reminded of in India, is Greece. Both are places with huge historys, and fascinating people that are screened off by the pressure of tourisim, and both are highly organised societies covered by a veneer of apparent anarchy. This isn't to say that I want the country to not change, I hate 'travellers' who moan about places changing from what they were. They want people to stay in their picturesque poverty so they can have some interesting photographs when they get home, forgetting that these are real people, who have as much right to get on as they do. I hate that patronising attidute about 'really connecting' with the people, when the reality is they don't, and can't, have a clue about the people. You meet people, and talk to them, but don't suppose to imagine that you know them. (I'd love someone from a little Indian village to visit London, and then claim how they 'connected' with all the suits...)But at the same time, it's a shame when the soul of a place is lost on the way, and thats how India felt to me. Surfwise, we got some of the best waves I've ever ridden, but it's not a place I'd plan on going just to go surfing. From what we could tell, it's just not consistent enough. That said, there are huge swells coming from somewhere, especially on the west coast, and given the enormity of the coastline, there just has to be some world class spots out there somewhere. They'd be mind bendingly difficult to get to, probably painfully rural, probably involving miles of hard walking to get to. But I'm sure that there there somewhere, you just have to spend a good year of exploring, and a lot of luck to find them. We all agreed, if you get the option of a couple of weeks there as a stop over to Indo or Aus, then it's definitly worth a look. You might get lucky like we did, or if you're going there anyway it might be worth taking a board, but it's never going to be a mainstream surfing destination. Which might be just what your looking for!

By Jon.

Links connected to this story:

www.oceansurfpublications.co.uk Surf films and travel writing.
www.surfnews.com Italian surfing magazine.
www.c-skins.com Stuarts sponser
www.saltrock.com Stu's other sponser
www.katineurope.com Ale and Emi's sponsor

Anyone wanna sponsor me? I'll plaster this site with your logo....and, um, thats about it.