GuerillaZ

Yunnan Province, The People’s Republic of China Supremely strange. That is how I characterise this country so far. Eels sit in tanks on the pavement waiting to be eaten. Alongside tanks of huge frogs, carp, freshwater lobsters, ribbon fish, bowls of maggots/leeches and fist-sized clams. None of this is cheap. I ate yarou fan last evening, that is Yunnanese aged ham and goats cheese fried with mushrooms and served on a bed of scallion fried rice. Research told me Yarou was duck. It was late and eight hour train journeys do that to you. By the way when you reserve a hard seat on the train that is exactly what you get. Everyone has to move around after an hour. There are no soft seats only soft sleepers and they are double the price. Still I may try one on the way back. You can ride a train all the way to Tibet from here but I’ll leave that. At immigration the security personnel already confiscated a book I had bought in Bodhgaya, India. By the Dalai Lama. Might have ant...

From the Jade Green Mountains Ni hao And so to China. The highlight of my trip. And deservedly so. It was so difficult to get there. Organising a visa from a third country. Very high cost. And the visit to the UK embassy for special letter of approval. (In New Delhi). 15 miles away from my south Delhi hotel. The letter I had to write to the Chinese embassy detailing every moment of my trip; am and pm.The 90 minute shakedown at Kunming airport at 5 in the morning before I gained entry. Shaven head, Caterpillar boots, army jacket. All their underemployed resources for the red-eye flight--devoted to Rob Roy. Still worth it. To see the place. How friendly the people can be when they are not being shy. Boy do I recognise shyness. To see the level of construction going on. The organisation. The speed of execution. In the first few days being staggered by the cleanliness. The beauty of some of the locations. The size and scale of the streets. The control of Beijing. High leve...

Uttar Pradesh Varanasi—one of the oldest cities on earth at 4000 years old. There is nothing older than two hundred here. The Ghats along the Ganges are a happening place - no question. The masseurs, the knick-knack sellers, the devotees, the ashes of people going up in smoke, the odd cow, the boats on the river, the incense, the marigolds, the shit,   An underwhelming city in my view. Visually the row of ghats are vaguely interesting. The spread of cattle ordure throughout the tiny alleys a bit nasty. Cows are kept in houses and let out to roam throughout the old city alleys.   Sarnath It was a relief to get a rickshaw to Sarnath a Buddhist town with a number of friendly and not so friendly monasteries. The Tibetan monastery so welcoming I stayed there. The Japanese the opposite. Closed and rather mean of spirit. Always the richest. They build the cleanest most impressive stupas and gompas. The general atmosphere the opposite of Varanasi. No one want...

The Pariah Dogs of India A new researcher has joined me here in Bodhgaya. As we walked back from a restaurant, the baking sun receding, night falling, Ana, a young Brazilian amateur dog researcher, observed that the Pariah dog had become almost completely a nocturnal animal. Disturbed by me in the darkness they barked and ran after us. In doing so they alerted dogs ahead of us that we were approaching. Immediately we were surrounded by ten howling hounds who still weren't quite sure what to do. As if they wanted to mete out some kind of revenge for their bleak existence but were still too docile  to step over the line. In Delhi Ana reported that she and some friends had been chased by a pack of howling pariahs for so long that they became afraid and it took a security guard on night shift to wave his night stick a la Sam Worthington in Avatar before they gave up and slunked off into the shadows of the city. The Mahabodhi Temple As I meditated briefly at the Mah...

Himalaya Darjeeling Has its own television station. Mostly it covers Ghorkha political rallies and speeches. There was much unrest here in the 1990s. Many properties were burnt or smashed as the ethnic Ghurkas tried for independence. It was not, is not, forthcoming. Businesses now write Ghorkhaland on their shopfronts to avoid similar attacks. Hindu temples are replaced by Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags. While radical politician Chavez has just died, outside my window is a rally of Ghorka radicals. A decade ago they were burning and looting shops here. The campaign is for the establishment of a separate Ghorkaland. Men and women and shout and chant with power, commitment. Easy to see how the Ghurka regiment was the most feared in WWII. Pretty awe-inspiring seen from just above them. Watching the flaming torches, listening. Got a coal fire going here. Not a sight I was anticipating in India. But out of season Darjeeling is numbingly cold. Last night the young wo...