There Are Other Rivers

Religion

“I have no bent towards gods. But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul.”

Religion is an integral part of India. Even my river is a goddess, revered at shrines along her course. Pilgrims come from all over to bathe in her sacred waters.

Every day I walk past temples, churches and mosques. I share the road with sadhus, wandering holy men. We walk side by side in amiable silence. I pass men dressed as gods (perhaps gods dressed as men too). Buses and cars are decorated with favoured deities, often the elephant-headed Ganesh. Roadside shrines depict lurid scenes from the Vedas.

I encounter so many festivals, ceremonies and wedding parades. There are celebrations of gods and goddesses and boisterous village trumpet bands practising for their celebrations of gods and goddesses. Flowers are scattered, garlands of marigolds draped round necks and girls tie fragrant white jasmine into their shining black hair. There is music, always music, with men thumping drums enthusiastically to the excited skirling of pipes.

Market stalls often cluster at the entrance to the village temple complex, the hub of community life. I pause to buy bananas. There is an enormous trench fire outside the temple, its pulsating heat stronger even than the sun. The air shimmers. Music blasts from crackling speakers. Suddenly about fifty singing and dancing children appear down the street. They are wet and muddy and are holding leafy branches in each hand. On the command of chaperoning adults, who pretend to beat them with sticks, the children stop, prostrate themselves, then stand again and continue dancing forward. They dance past me, into the temple, and are gone. The music stops. As so often happens I have no idea what I just saw. Nobody speaks enough English to be able to enlighten me. If I travel completely unprepared, I must accept that the price of surprised delight is occasional bemusement.

I stop at a mosque. The imam is rocking back and forth in the doorway, quietly reciting the Koran with three young pupils. He breaks off the class to chat and asks me to take his photo. Then, to my surprise, he whips out an iPhone and takes my photo. He enjoys having the modern gadget whilst the foreigner just has a clunky, old-fashioned camera. Even his beard is more impressive than mine. The imam gestures at the mosque and explains that it is very old,

“The mosque is 200 years old; three generations. My phone is 3G and my mosque is 3G!”

I happen across a Christian ashram and am invited to a service. The chapel is in a wood beside the river. It is plainly furnished. The congregation of about twenty people are squashed together on wooden benches. On the altar is a wooden cross and a bronze dish of fire. The priest sits cross-legged on the floor. His orange robes are vivid in the narrow strip of sunlight from the door, left ajar to allow a slight breeze.

I listen to the birds singing outside. The ashram is a good place for sedately, serenely looking for yourself whilst at peace. I am sun-fried, half asleep and half entranced as the chants, candle light, incense and gentle goodness wash over me. But I will be on my way shortly. I look for myself by hurtling, hurting and sweating.

I understand snatches of the service as the priest jumps around between languages. He intones words I recall from my childhood church visits,

“...through ignorance, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault...
He raises a chapatti scarred in baking with the sign of the cross. It is comforting and familiar, even if I dislike the dogma.

...hear our prayer...
I think of all the tiny chapels across the world where this ritual takes place. The world is so vast. Instead of chasing to touch it all, perhaps I should just try to find the essence of it in one place, like the tiny space at the heart of the lotus flower in which, they say, lies all the universe: the moons, the stars, everything.
...he broke bread and gave it to his disciples, saying: take, eat...
Maybe I should try to make the most of my life by remaining at the centre, where I am right now, and living well here. Perhaps I don’t need to be always yearning for the open road.

...for ever and ever, Amen.”

Though I am not allowed in the inner sanctuary, I am welcome to visit the small Hindu temples in each village. I leave my shoes at the temple entrance with a shrivelled old lady and enter. The only sound is the pad of my bare feet. The central courtyard, its flagstone floor cool in the shade, is an oasis of calm, a break from the noise and bustle outside. Inside the temple is an elephant. Worshippers put coins in its trunk. In response, the elephant pats them gently on the head, then drops the coin into its master’s hand.

Chipmunks race, tails up,...

“Maatraan thottathu malligaikku manam irukkum.”
“The far-off jasmine flower smells sweeter.”

Author’s Note

First of all, here’s what this book is not:
• A book about India.
• A chronological account of a coast-to-coast walk across southern India.
• An epic adventure tale.

So what is it? Primarily this book is an attempt to articulate my fascination with the open road and the magnetism of the next horizon. I hope it will strike a chord with anyone restless and yearning for a long journey. I wrote it because I spend much of my time on big trips asking myself why on Earth I am doing it. And the answer is often not particularly clear.

The days are hot, hard and repetitive. I am often lonely, thirsty and tired. Yet I keep coming back for more. What is the enduring appeal of these days that have forged my adult life? They have made me who I am, both the bad and the good. These days have created most of my strongest memories and all my best anecdotes. These are the days of clarity that I turn to when I’m looking for answers and direction in my life. And I think to myself, “one day, on the road...”

I also wanted to try to share what a day on the road is actually like. So this is a tale about a single day on my walk through India, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. I wanted to describe any day on the road, from any journey like this. It could have taken place anywhere, at any time since people began taking on these questing adventures. This is why I have removed all dates, time frames and names. Everything in this book is true. I have only re-ordered the incidents to build up my “day”. It’s a bit like Morecambe and Wise. They defended their terrible piano playing by saying they had “all the right notes, although not necessarily in the right order.”

Most travel and adventure writing focuses on the occasional extraordinary stuff that happens amongst all the humdrum ordinariness. By definition, these incidents are not how most of the time on the journey is spent. The greatest expeditions in history are nothing more than a string of single days, most of them pretty uncomfortable and mundane. Perhaps long adventures are about nothing more than mining for the extraordinary? I don’t think so. The average day on the road, the hundreds and thousands of normal days that make up the majority of my adventures, has a magnetism that draws me back time and time again. The terrible food, the sore feet, the repetitive conversations, the fungal rashes and the pummelling heat. The happiest days of my life. Any day, any journey. One day on the road.

There are many reasons why I chose to self-publish There Are Other Rivers. It may be interesting to share some of them here. I self-published my first book. I didn’t do it through choice. I did it because no agents or publishers were interested in my story about cycling round the world. Trying to get my self-published book stocked in bookshops on a meaningful scale was futile and frustrating. Eventually though I found a publisher and began selling books in the traditional way. I will continue to do this where I deem it appropriate.
Fast-forward five years and five books and I am choosing to return to self-publishing. Why?
I love bookshops but they account for a tiny percentage of my book sales. Almost all my sales are online or at my talks. This book will not be for sale in any bookshops. What I lose by that I make up with the freedom I gain. Self-publishing gives me total control. I can share the story however I want. This is a linear, chronological journey but I wanted to share it in a non- linear way. That might not be sensible. It probably won’t appeal to a mainstream audience. It may not even be a good idea. But it was my idea and I am willing to stand by it. I have produced this book as a Foldedsheet “mappazine” (which I really like), as a book of photography, a Kindle version, a PDF download, an audio book and even as a good old fashioned “normal” book. The schedule for getting all of this work done was determined solely by how hard I chose to work, how much coffee I drank and how little sleep I could survive on.

I wrote this book myself. I edited it and proof red it two. I will do all of the sales and marketing on my own. I acknowledge that the book would definitely have been better with the help of an editor, a proofreader and well-chosen test readers. But my walk through India was alone. I accepted that out there I would stand or fall by myself. This project is the same. It is risky. It is a bit stupid. But there are no excuses to hide behind and I like that. Self-publishing is an opportunity for simplicity, hard work and pe...

Introduction

“Beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes.”

“Beep... beepbeepbeepbeep... BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP.”

The alarm clock has just taken me on a journey. A journey that passed in an instant but which took me from one world to another. A journey from the magical world of dreams to a completely different one. A new world. A new day. India.

Why am I in India?

It does not matter that I am in India. This could be anywhere. Anywhere new to me. The story would be the same. What matters to me is why I am here.

As soon as I hear the alarm I know where I am. I did not sleep well. I woke often, wondering if it was nearly morning, nearly time to begin. The coarse mesh of the mosquito net flopped against my skin, disturbing me. Mosquitoes whined and probed for my blood.

I had been living in England, stationary, since my return from four years roaming the globe. I had crossed continents by bicycle and sailed across oceans. Now I had a home and I had a wife. I had settled down. Life was good. But perhaps that was the problem.

It began on the flight to our honeymoon. By the vagaries of the Great Circle, we flew over the colossal white emptiness of the Arctic. Far beneath us were huge sheets of ice, shattered like glass with thin leads of black water between them. I ate my peanuts and stared down. Guiltily I realised that, as much as sharing beaches and piña coladas with little umbrellas and my radiant bride, what I craved was the pain and hardship of a difficulty journey. I wanted insecurity, strife and what others want nothing to do with1. This had been missing since I settled down to my lovely life.

Outside is dark. The sky presses black against the window. The street clamour that continued late into the night has now quietened. A brief pause before the melee of India wakes and begins all over again. I lie sweating on top of my sleeping bag liner, spread over the dirty bed. My head rests on a thin pillow. Untold numbers of bus drivers, pilgrims, travelling salesmen and minor bureaucrats have lain their heads here since its last clean. For a few seconds I absorb the last traces of sleep and steel myself for the day to come. Then I reach out and silence the alarm.

I was in thoughtful mood as the plane landed. A friend of mine is a polar explorer. He was planning an expedition to the South Pole. I sent him a text message from the sunshine. I asked whether there might be room for two. (Did this count as marital infidelity, I wondered?)

I untangle myself from the mosquito net and stand on the concrete floor. I feel for the light switch. A pretty burst of blue sparks flash, the light flickers a few times then pings into life. Cockroaches speed to dark corners.

The walls are covered with smears, stains and scuffs. I don’t care. It’s just the usual squalid, cheap room. I slide my feet into flip-flops and shuffle to the toilet. Years of experience mean that instinctively I breathe only through my mouth as a precaution against the stink of Developing World toilets. I pee into a hole in the ground, scoop a jug of water from the bucket on the floor and pour it down the hole.

Ben replied to my text message. “Yes.” I quit the second sensible job I had held in a year and, happily, abandoned my attempt at Real Life.

I was back doing what I loved and what I was good at. That is a good place to be. Arduous expeditions in the world’s wild places. But now I was going to do it seriously. I was going to attempt to make a career from it. I began to earn enough money to get by, speaking and writing about my experiences.

Ben and I worked hard. We had the capabilities to succeed. But financial meltdown had burst across the world. Unable to secure a sponsor we were forced to postpone the expedition for a year.

With the postponement came a window in the calendar for Ben to scratch an itch: an attempt on the solo North Pole speed record. I didn’t begrudge that. But it meant that work stopped on our joint expedition whilst Ben’s attention turned north.

I decided to do something interesting too.

I dump a scoop of water over my head. Its coolness jolts me. I pour a few more jugfuls, savouring the day’s one moment of fresh cleanliness. I’m bracing myself for the day ahead.

Where should I go? And what should I do once I got there? India was a glaring omission on my Travelling CV. So India it was. For all the reasons vagabonds and wanderers have always gone to India. And because I had never been.

It never occurred to me to do anything other than a tough, cheap journey. Push myself hard. Try to achieve something that surprised me. These fundamental principles of my wanderlust have worn into my psyche since my first travels, like chariot wheels on a cobbled road, until I have come to accept them as...

The Walk

“You can boast about anything if it’s all you have. Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast.”

This book is not a chronological narrative about walking across India. I did that as I went, sharing my experiences through Twitter. It’s like adventure haiku and a few excerpts should suffice to recount the walk.

• > I’ve arrived in the glorious madhouse of India. Excited and daunted about beginning the walk.
• > Munched by mosquitoes, sweating a lot and a bit overwhelmed. Tomorrow morning I begin.
• > Ridiculously hot. Dreaming of lovely fresh mornings on my way to the South Pole.
• > Played village cricket. Maintained England’s reputation: caught in the deep for 0.
• > Passed an elephant on the road today!
• > I now have a stick for whacking evil dogs.
• > Think I was guilty of underestimating this trip...
• > Sleeping in a rice field tonight. Rice for dinner.
• > A moon shadow, bats and the stars: a peaceful side to India at last.
• > 300km down and no blisters – yet.
• > BEEP! BEEP! Indian drivers driving me mad.
• > Slept in a temple. Coracle fishermen at dawn.
• > Hand washed my clothes. How long after returning home before loading the washing machine becomes a hassle again..?
• > Policeman told me I was beautiful. I replied, “No, Sir, it is you who is beautiful.” He liked that! Different to conversations with UK police...
• > First blister.
• > Filling a popped blister with iodine hurts a disproportional amount.
• > Water crisis until teenagers drove 20km to fetch some for me.
• > In an internet cafe using Google Maps to plot a route into the mountains: easily the best map of India I have found.
• > Spent last night with a lovely family. Best curry yet. Thank you for your kindness!
• > Watching policeman try to control traffic. Chaos! Too many chiefs..?
• > I’m getting old and soft: the weight saving gained by cutting my toothbrush in half is now outweighed by its irritation factor.
• > Enjoyed watching cricket on TV at the tea stand this evening: Pietersen (Bangalore) v Flintoff (Chennai).
• > Beautiful hiking today, climbing up through coffee plantations. On foot beautiful usually = hard though. Tired.
• > The road is behind me. The beach is empty and white past the palm trees. Ahead, only the sea. I can walk no further. The sun sets. The End.
• @al_humphreys #ThereAreOtherRivers

River

“Don’t you dare take the lazy way... Whatever you do, it will be you who do.”

I push through a bamboo grove to the river and sit beneath a teak tree. I write my diary and study my map, a computer print out of a survey from 1912. It’s the best map I managed to find for this area. Having a river to follow provides a tangible, constant thread to the route. It automatically gives purpose and direction to the walk. My river is small and boisterous now. The contours are tight and curling. Earlier I passed a magnificent waterfall, the noisy blast an invigorating change from the usually sedate flow. Upstream from this wide, gentle bend is a red and white striped temple and a deep gorge jumbled with gigantic boulders. Cormorants dry their wings on the bank. Tucked amongst the tangled tree roots are small shrines to Shiva and flame-blackened statues of cobras.

There is a low babble of chatter from people bathing and washing clothes. A girl is singing. Old, paunched men with worn bodies are praying. They bathe then bow their heads. They lift their arms to the sky, muttering all the while. A beautiful young woman stoops to collect water. She strains to lift the full container. Shaped like an amphora it fits snugly into the curve of her hip and I watch the bones in her back ripple as she walks away.

This scene has played out, virtually unchanged, for centuries. It has taken place every day of my life without me ever being aware of it. India’s enormity reminds me how small the sphere I live my normal life in is. It alters perspective. The ageless river reminds me that my own time is fleeting. This tableau will take place again tomorrow when I have walked out of it and on thousands of rivers that I will never see, right across India, on every day of my life.

I find myself wondering whether any other tourist has ever sat here before. I doubt it. I ask not as a member of the Lonely Planet generation boastfully ticking off experiences and trumping others’ tales. I ask because I had wanted a journey far from the picture postcard views and picture postcard sellers. I wanted to feel that I was discovering places for myself rather than following a prescribed path. And I am delighted how easy that was to achieve. I am really enjoying my own slice of India. It is fresh, exotic and unfailingly fascinating.

My river has changed so much since I began walking. The meandering delta near the coast, its agricultural irrigation canals and religious bathing ponds (kalyani) feel a long way away now. I’m getting there. I look down at the water flowing in the direction I have come from and imagine how long it will take to flow all the way to the sea.

“Take your time,” I urge the river. “Enjoy it. I did.”