Are You Experienced?

it did temporarily seem like a bit of a shame to be leaving Kovalam behind. In fact, if I’m honest, I was so excited about going back to England that I could hardly get to sleep that night.

On the morning of my train, Ranj got up early and waved me off from the hotel door. We exchanged addresses and phone numbers, but the whole thing was a bit of a sham, and it was obvious that we’d never really see each other again. If we ever met up in London, it would probably spoil things. I didn’t want to meet the Putney Ranj. He’d probably be just another ordinary Asian bloke, and he’d spoil my memories of India Ranj, the priceless nutter.

On the train to Delhi, I felt that I was already on my way home, and had the strange sensation that more than anything else this was exactly what I wanted to be doing. I didn’t want to

be

at home, I wanted to be going home. All the difficult stuff was behind me, and the long train journey back to the capital felt like a lap of honour. Staring out of the window while I returned to my starting point, I began to feel all colonial about things - as if I was surveying territory that I had conquered. The longer the journey lasted, the more impressed with myself I became. Such a huge distance, and it was all mine - I’d done it all. I couldn’t believe that I’d actually covered so much ground on my own – and without getting killed, robbed or eaten.

For the entire forty-eight-hour journey, I stared out of the window in a state of serene calm, or slept the dreamless sleep of a freshly crowned Olympic champion.

Back in Delhi, I returned to Mrs Colaco’s guest-house and even managed to get the same dormitory bed as last time. I sat on the hard mattress for a while, cross-legged, and contemplated how cool I was. I had actually done it. I was back where I started, and I was still alive. I felt years older and infinitely wiser than when I’d last been in the same place. I had lasted the entire three months without giving up and going home. The trip was a success.

I still didn’t really know what travellers were supposed to do all day, but that didn’t seem to matter. I

was

a traveller. I’d been to places and done things that most people avoid out of fear. I had suffered, and confronted dark sides of myself. I had experienced the world.

After a while, two nervous guys in clean-looking jeans walked in, claimed a pair of beds, then sat there in silence, looking as if a bomb had just exploded inside their heads. I noticed that they still had airline tags on their backpacks.

‘Hi,’ said one of them.

‘Peace – er, I mean hi,’ I said. ‘You just arrived?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You feeling a bit out of it?’

‘Jeeeesus,’ groaned the other one. ‘It’s so

hot

. I can’t believe this. How are you supposed to do anything here?’

‘You’re not, really. Do nothing. Whatever.’

‘Right.’ He looked at me as if I was talking nonsense.

‘How long have you been here?’ said his friend.

‘Oh, long enough. I’m off home in a couple of days.’

‘Starting uni?’

‘Err… yeah. I suppose so.’

‘What are you reading?’

‘A John Grisham thing. I can’t remember the title.’

‘No – I mean, at university. What subject?’

‘Oh, right. Urn… English.’

‘Really? Where?’

‘York. You on a year off ?’ I asked, trying to change the subject. I wasn’t ready to think about home yet.

‘Yeah.’

‘Just starting?’

‘Yeah. We’re doing a couple of months here, then hopefully a month in Pakistan, then Thailand, Indonesia and Australia.’

‘Cool.’

‘Bit daunting, actually.’

‘You’ll be fine,’ I said, thinking that they were certain to get cripplingly ill at some point, not to mention depression, loneliness, despair, robbery, homesickness, and the fact that they’d probably end up hating each other’s guts. ‘You should have a laugh.’

Seeing these fresh-faced scared little bunnies about to head off around India reminded me how pleased I was that I’d got the whole thing over with. In the end, I was glad I’d done it, but I had to admit that the having done it was more fun than the doing it. Crapping your pants, for example, is a dire and miserable experience; but having crapped your pants – I mean, that’s a pretty good conversational party-piece. I’d get a lot a mileage out of my dog-burger story. In fact, ten years on it would probably end up being the only thing I remembered, regardless of the fact that in all likelihood it wasn’t even dog meat in the burger. I could already feel that the dog-burger story was taking pride of place among my India anecdotes. Based on what I’d heard from other travellers, this story had just the right combination of silly-little-me-I-shouldn’t-have-done-it-ness and I’m-so-hard-I-dealt-with-it-anyway- ness.

It was obvious that no one would ever ask me what the mountains looked like, or how the climate changed around the country – they’d just want to know if I shagged anyone, and how ill I’d got. Luckily for me I’d done both (sort of), so I’d always have something to show for my trip. And whatever happened to me for the whole rest of my life, however boring I became, I would always be able to say that I had gone round India for three months on my own. I mean, I hadn’t done the

whole

thing on my own, but what the hell – I could say what I wanted.

A completely different person

My take-off time was six-thirty in the morning, and it said on my ticket that I had to check in three hours early, so there was hardly any point in going to bed. I managed to get the hotel to arrange a rickshaw for two in the morning, and I spent the evening reading, then went to the meeting place that I had agreed with the driver.

He was fast asleep in the driver’s cabin, and I tapped him on the arm a few times without any luck. Only when I gave him a pinch did he actually wake up. His head sprang from his folded arms, and he looked at me with startled and panicked eyes, until he remembered who I was. He then grunted and stumbled to a tap in a nearby wall. After having doused his face, he staggered back to the rickshaw, started it up, and we drove off.

All over the city, we passed rickshaw drivers asleep in their little cabins. I hadn’t realized that they didn’t go home at the end of the day. I felt suddenly guilty, as it occurred to me that maybe I’d been a bit meaner than was strictly necessary – haggling over every rupee on every journey. This emotion was instantly swamped, however, by a surge of relief. I realized that for the entire three months, nagging little moments of guilt like this had been gnawing away at me, and in only a few hours I’d be free of it all, for ever.

It was hard to tell from behind, but my driver’s lolling head and wobbly steering gave the distinct impression that he was asleep for a significant portion of the journey. Despite a few close calls, I was still alive when we arrived at the airport, so I gave him a generous tip. A cynic would say that I was just offloading a load of useless currency on the first person I could think of, but I genuinely did want to tip him. If I’d known how little money rickshaw drivers made, I would have tipped all of them.

At first sight the airport was utterly deserted, but after a brief wander I spotted a small group of people in one distant corner of the huge check-in hall. It turned out that this group consisted of five other travellers, all of whom were getting the same flight as me. There was Brian, a BT phone engineer who’d just finished his trip-of-a- lifetime and was worried that he wouldn’t get his job back; his nameless sulking girlfriend with her nose in a Jilly