TIME AND THE ISSUE

I'm aware that I'm slowly slipping further and further behind with the maintenance of my blog. The last genuine entry was Hampi, and all that stuff happened two weeks ago. There's no real reason for that aside from the fact I've been lazy and at some points along the way a little ill.

I'm in Delhi at the moment. I arrived last night from Chennai on a flight which was delayed by four hours for no apparent reason. I didn't enjoy the flight. I wasn't in the mood.

I'd spent the previous night sweating feverishly through the ragged sheets on the bed in the featureless room of the crumby, overpriced hotel I'd consented to be taken to in a moment of weakness when I arrived from Sri Lanka, tired, ill and beyond caring. At around four in the morning the fever broke and I spent a delirious hour in a half wakeful state wondering how I could attach a red light to the tea I'd purchased in Sri Lanka to ensure Australian customs would know that it was safe and untainted by any quaranteenable disease. My brain had obviously closed down for re-tooling.

I'm still suffering a head-cold which has since settled on my chest and I spent last night coughing up some unpleasant things. In my guide book it says that 25 percent of travelers in India will catch a chest infection at some point during their journey. Eachway odds if you ask me and it looks like I've came in among the places.

In Delhi the sun doesn't rise or set, it contents itself with the possible which, over a city covered by an almost chewable sludge of dull grey smog, simply means illuminating the dirty streets and baking the town whole. Actually I'm only guessing at the source of the heat and light. I've yet to see any direct evidence the sun exists at all in this part of the world. In much the same way a stranger could visit London for a week in January and conclude that the sky over England's capital is permanently grey, I'm beginning to think you could live a lifetime in Delhi and never know the true colour of the sky is blue.

I slept badly again last night, kept awake by the unceasing horns on the auto rickshaws, which sound like the last pleading cries of strangled geese. In India the horn is a safety device, indicator, warning signal and attention grabber all in one. All drivers are obliged to sound it no fewer than 12 times a minute. This takes some getting used to.

The fatigue and illness are undermining my sense of humor and touts are starting to piss me off. I've enjoyed India hugely but right now Wednesday and the prompt departure UL flight 123 can't come soon enough. I think the oppressive heat, the unrelenting filth and the ceaseless human turbulence of Delhi are contributing to it all too.

I want to write about all the good stuff now, like swimming in the Arabian Sea at sunset or drinking sly-grog and playing cards with some people I met in an opium-den-like rooftop restaurant at Hampi - beating them more often than not on account of them both being stoned out of their heads - and meeting the kids at Belinda's tiny village school and being so generously and warmly welcomed into the homes of the village people with whom she has become friendly. I'd tell you about Belinda almost poisoning me by telling me it was okay to drink the local water too.

And from Sri Lanka I'd like to write about the fact I saw Iain Bell and Ryan Sidebottom in the Cricket Club Cafe and that Sidebottom's hair looks even more ridiculous in person. I'd like to write about climbing Adam's Peak and our tour guide Manju, who taught himself English and German and frequently came out with the most uniquely apt little phrases for all sorts of situations and things.

And the surf at Hikkaduwa would get a mention and Ffion too, who is Belinda's colleague and insists she be referred to in this blog as the "flame-haired Welsh sexpot".

But to be honest I'm in a bit of a shitty mood so I'm not going to go into that stuff now. I'll scribble it up when I get to Singapore or back home.

Right now I'm going to leave this internet cafe, not because I'm finished, but because every five minutes a giant German man with short cropped hair and denim shorts hangs his head through the door and shouts "CAN I DO PRINTING NOW?"

It's wearing me down. The answer has been no the last twenty times the question has been asked. I'm not sure why he thinks repeatedly asking the question is going to change the outcome buy his Teutonic persistence seems to be limitless. If I stay any longer I'm going to start an international incident that will probably end with him being called Fritz and me suffering a broken nose. Prudence is the better course of action.

That is all for now. I'll be less grumpy tomorrow.

Dale Atkinson