New blogging...
Will update all you other loyal readers shortly, I promise.
To be honest, there are no real stories to tell, just that everyone had such a good time. The guys over here really love get-togethers, everyone gets on and there is no bad blood! Upon the request, EVERYONE storms onto the dancelfoor and dances like no-one else is looking. The only people who didnt charge for the floor were, you guessed it, the english lot...
I thought it would just be best to post a load of pics from the night, and there will be more to follow once neil comes back from his holiday...
So rather than explain myself what and where ponmudi is, I'm just going to blatently copy and paste the next paragraph from neils blog - thanks mate in advance:
"Ponmudi is a hill station at an altitude of 1000m above sea level on the Western Ghats mountain range. Surrounded by tea plantations its name (apparently) means Golden Crown in Malayalam - i'm not sure why i expected it to have a yellow peak.....because it didn't."
The views were stunning. No matter how many pics you take its one of those places that you just have to see it with your eyes to get the full effect. After checking in to our really expensive hut (3 quid each), flashing our passports (bureaucracy), and dropping our gear off we headed up the hill/mountain. We met many happy smiling people on the way up who either wanted us to take their pictures or just wanted to say hi. The most random of encounters at the summit - a bunch of nuns showed up, and a good laugh they were too. They loved having their picture taken and they asked me what I was going to do with the pictures that I had taken. I told them I was going to print them out and put them on my wall due to the fact that they were all so gorgeous. This was met with raptuous laughter from the randy old sisters! Even funnier was later when we were on our way back down. We heard a bus approaching behind us with music blaring out and as it zoomed past us it was only the nuns bus! They were all hanging out the windows and waving/screaming/laughing - I really dont think that is a sight I will ever have the pleasure of viewing ever again.
Although beautiful, ponmudi had been 'done' in 3 hours. As we had only paid a few quid to stay the night we thought we may as well just head home and get an early start for tommorrow. We went to find our driver to no avail, although his/our car was there. Interesting. Through confusion, sign language, head bobbing and broken english, we established from a few of the lads hanging around that our driver had gone to hospital, on the bus, because he had hurt his leg. He would be back at 10..(am or pm?) - I asked why the hell hadnt he taken his car. My question was given the answer - "Yes. Bus." I asked if he had hurt his leg, how was he going to drive us home. My question was given the answer - "Yes." We gave up, looked like we were staying in our hut after all. And what fun that turned out to be. It can be summed up thusly:
"Cockraoches/bacardi/coke/mozzies/ipod/poker/bacardi/powerout/worrying scuttling sound in every corner of room/hide under covers fully clothed to prevent being eaten alive"
Dont ask me how, but I managed to stay in that room despite the fact that it was home to approximately 95% of india's entire population of insect life. There was a sign on the wall which read:
"NO ROOM SERVICE PLEASE"
Were they asking us or telling?
Anyway, we awoke early, saw the sun rise, took plenty of pics and began our trek in the car down the 22 hairpins (each one signposted) that lead to the main "road" home. A lovely place but if you ever go, just do the day trip and dont stay the night.
I learnt alot more about my camera again on this trip so am just going to post the pick of the bunch. High 5 to neil for taking the ones of me (performing the trademark allsworth 'point' of course). As ever, clicked for enlarged.
The best of it is, I'd been in my room 10 minutes before I noticed the bastard. Just getting into bed and it caught the corner of my eye. A mixture of terror and relief rushed through me. Terror, cause I bloody hate 'normal' spiders let alone big hairy legged motherf*##%$ like this, and relief that I'd seen it before getting into bed and going to sleep.
Right - what do I do now....Smash it against the wall and kill it! No - I cant bare the 'crunch'. Get the guard to catch it like neil did last time then! No cant do that as we only have one key to the house, and the guard now has it as he locked me in. He needs it to let neil in from work in a few hours...we really should get some more keys cut....well its too bloody late now you have an eff off spider in your room what are you going to do about it? Trap it in a glass. Good thinking sherlock but it wont fit in a glass and you'll probably spaz it anyway and end up smashing the glass all over the floor. Ok good point - I'll get a big plastic cup, and a pad of paper and trap it so it cant run off, after capture I can think about what to do with it then. Good idea - go get a cup then....
So I get the cup. And the pad of paper. Return to my room....No spider. Panic. Knowing that I will never sleep in this room ever again unless I find it, I jump up on my bed and scan my room like some sort of security robot.
Finally - There you are! You are hiding in one of my shoes...I can see one of your hairy legs! Now what? You dont want to stomp on your shoes to kill it do you? If you did that and it didnt die then you would have to shake out your shoes and that would cause all kinds of panic wouldnt it you big wimp? Yes. Ok then we'll just wait.
So I waited. I stood on my bed (shoes still on) and waited for it to come out so I could kill it. I didnt have to wait long and jumping down from my bed I took a deep breath as it edged its way out of my shoe. I know its looking at me. It walks a bit to the left, a bit to the right, then it sort of flatterns out like its stretching it legs, warming up. It doesnt know whether to try and hide, leg it or.....
Dear god its bloody charging at me!!!! I knew it sodding would they always do! Right well here it is then, showdown, stamp on it! Ok...Missed! - Now its making a B line to hide under your bed - no way...! Stamp! Missed again! But wait whats it doing now? It has flipped over and its...its...ITS CLIMBING UP MY FUCKING LEG!
I kicked myself about 3 times (looking like a little girl) and the injured beast lay half dead on the floor, twitching. I quickly put it out of its misery and felt exhausted and foolish for being such a pansy. After taking another half an hour to calm down, flush him down the loo and check my shoes for 'eggs' I shakily get into bed. I'd forgotton to brush my teeth so went over to the sink, grabbed my toothbrush and...hmm there are loads of ants in my toothpaste. Lovely. Just about sums it up.
A hilariously funny side effect of this encounter is that I'm now incredibly jumpy. Bit of fluff brush past my leg? I almost hit the ceiling.
It was big though. That picture really doesnt do it justice.
Almost forgot to mention, we had a really good week before we went as well. The whether was really good so we had pretty much every day down at the beach and up on the roof sunbathing. We made the most of the roof terrace in the evenings as well, something we dont use as much as we should. The ball got booted off the roof far too many times but I employed my expert climbing skills and looked like the prince of persia climbing down into nextdoors garden with a torch in hand to find the ball. The stars look amazing as well when all the lights are off, can lay and look at them for ages. You can see lots of shooting stars as well which is cool, I think I'd only ever seen one before coming out here.
Within the week we managed to polish off a bottle of Jim Beam, a bottle of vodka and a crate of sandpiper beer - not bad going. Me and nick were actually drunk for 12 solid nights in a row including the trip away so it might be time for a detox. Maybe. Although the roof is calling, along with the iPod and beer....
Here is a newsflash - Jadugar anand is not a very good magician. He is however, absolutely hilairous. Just look at him on that billboard. That face....he keeps staring at the audience and pulling that face and it constantly made me laugh throughout the 2 hour show.
The indian audience was a strange one, they are not big clappers for example. I was expecting anand's entrance to be greated with a big cheer and raptuous applause - what he got was the odd clap and a cough from someone sitting at the back. Shamelessly though, anand simply stares at the audience in silience, pulling a stupid face until a few more of us clap. A little bit.
He had a fairly big audience in the bloody old theatre, a fair few hundred I would say, and a few of the tricks were pretty good I suppose. Birds appearing out of nowhere and people dissappearing pretty quickly were all quite good, and even though I know how the elephant vanish trick works, it was still pretty good. However, there were too many people coming out of boxes and far too many times when we worked out how he'd done it. Although anand has been touring his show for over 40 years, I dont think any of his tricks would take any real skill or practice. For example, I think I could perform his whole show within a week of practice. All I would need to know is how to work his "Magic" props - Job done.
I did thoroghly enjoy myself though and for comedy moments, the value was through the roof. At the start of each new trick he would give a little speech, and on the last word of each introduction he would pull that face and the sound guy would make the last word echo. So he would say something like, *slow mysterious voice* "Haaaave youuuu evverrrrr, seeeen a mummy appeeaaaar then vaaanniisssh? - Weeeelll my friends, leeet usss goooo tooo......EGYPT, EGYPT, egypt....egypt..." Then he'd pull the face, walk off, curtain would raise and there we were. In egypt. Or, there we were. In an old theatre. With someone wrapped up in bandages on stage.
Bizarrely, the chief of police and some government official came on stage half way through the show to thank anand for the delightful wonderment that we had been shown. Anand magicked them some flowers out of a box in return.
Anand claims to be the holder of three world records - doubtful. The records themselves are a bit hazy though. First off he claims to hold the record for making an elephant vanish the quickest. Hmmm. Then he claims to have driven 300kms blindfolded on a motorbike - a stunt he perfromed to promote road safety. And last but certainly not least he claims to hold the record for longest transmission of a telepathic message, stating that he has sent someone a message using telepathy over 200 kms away, ok anand - we'll take your word for it. But this is what I love about the bloke, these rediculous claims and funny faces! Pure entertainment for sure.
I dont want to be seen as taking the piss out of the guy too much though. I think he really does love his profession and he's keen to keep the magic industry alive. He also makes the best of the limited resources he has and it was quite humbling to watch him and his team perform with equipment and props which must have been 20 years old or more. Also, I'm convinced anand is in on the joke, sometimes I saw him nearly burst out laughing whilst pulling one of his trademark silly faces and at one point I almost thought he was being ironic in his delivery. According to the event programme, his shows are "very rare" yet in the same programme, it states he holds the record for the most amount of shows, 26,000 in all apparently!
Anyway, despite my cynicism and mick taking, it was great and obiviously I bought a T shirt with his face on it. To give you an idea of how seriously the guy takes his magic, click here for a link to a recent news article about the great one.
If he ever does come to a town near you - check him out! Seeing is believing...