Every single day while running I felt harassed by traffic ,hooters, people and just the mega cities enveloping and swallowing me up eating every last ounce of energy from me. India is beautiful, it feel that I have travelled 10 countries in one, but India is demanding and takes every ounce on energy and mental strength to keep going. It is manic, far beyond what anyone can dream. I lived the real India, not in some styled Ashram build for the western market that shields you from India. One is lured into a false sense of peace, calm and serenity. In the real India, I spent 3 and a half months “Running in a pair of Indian shoes” living local.

Mentally I crawled to the southern tip and physically I limped there. There was many a days that India nearly got the better of me. I honestly feel that if I did not have the experience of the other journeys to draw on I doubt that I would of made it to the end of this journey. There was one day during the journey that I felt that it was just a hill too steep to climb, inside I felt myself splutter, there was that little pain of doubt, I think that was the turning point that actually gave me the strength to lift my game. I was furious within that I could even contemplate the thought.

Bent and buckled I lifted myself out of that hole drew on every ounce of inner strength that I had and lurched forward. From this came a massive lesson, the realisation that no matter how bad things are going, how down you feel one has the ability to take every negative situation and turn it around into a positive one. From here on, I looked at every negative situation with the realisation that I knew that I can turn it around. Noting is too bad or too difficult, out of the hardship will come reward. With this in mind I looked at the India around me and the realisation struck home as to how many people around me were in desperate situations, but had come to terms with it, accepting it and were out there making the best of it, getting on with life.

Don’t sit back and moan, stand up and take a positive look at your situation ,turn it around, only you can .

As with our entire journey, we camp every evening as close to my 50 km run end spot as possible. Once we find a suitable site we always ask local permission, set up camp and in the morning when its still dark we are gone. Here it’s been a nightmare, firstly to find a spot, which takes the crew sometimes up to 3 hours. Finally we find a spot, get all the necessary permission from people in the area and then settle down. Cook our meal, set the tents and as soon as we have eaten, we settle down to sleep. This is now when the real fun starts.

No sooner have we gone to sleep and the first group on night walkers arrive, shining cell-phones into your tent, and the normal questions. Who are you, what is your name where are you from. On and on it goes, until eventually our answer gets short and abrupt, “Piss off I am trying to sleep”.

Things go quiet for a while and then the things go really skew. Out of nowhere the Police arrive, and lots of them. There is always a few bikes, one or 2 vans. The foot guys will hall you out of the tent, ask hundreds of questions and then disappear to the van. Here sits the main dude, he never gets out the van. All the info is reported back to him. On and on it goes questions and answers back and forth until it finally comes, you have to move.

You wonder to yourself why the hell we have to pack up everything at midnight and move 2-3 km down the beach front what reason. (Beware don’t try reason as there is no reason). Then you are summoned to the big dude in the jeep and its begins in earnest now. Passports, Visas address phone numbers. Finally you are escorted to a new spot in the dark and told you can sleep here its safe from the poor marauding villagers who will rob you in the evening while you sleep.

Due to the size a of the crossings i normally try to find a bridge or if it’s too far away I will have to look for a local to ferry me across or maybe borrow an unattended dugout. Unfortunately I can’t always return it to its original mooring. Normally I find a new berth for it on the opposite bank (to the villagers, my apologies)

For the past week I have been trying to get off the road, the running is getting to me I need to change the scenery and escape the traffic, but I am learning the hard way very quickly, in this area its stupid, best you stick to the roads as the estuaries and swamps are massive tidal rivers, some a km across. I had reached the edge of the river, there was a swampy island in the middle and a large mud flat on either side as the tide was going out. It was still too deep to wade; I would need some sort of craft. I walked around for a while looking into the little side streams if there were any fishermen, but the area was deserted. I did see a few dug outs, most had nets in, but there was one empty one, but with quite a bit of water in it. I felt that was going to be the least missed craft.

I bailed out the water, found a long pushing pole and off I went, standing up in the dugout, I slowly pushed myself over the mud flat and into the river heading to the mangrove, my next target. I had just cleared the mud and into a bit of open water and suddenly the nose of the boat twisted around and that was it, the current of the outgoing tide had sucked me in and I was heading out to sea at a big rate, the little feeling of panic started the crunch in my stomach. I jammed the pole into the mud trying to turn the boat, but nearly broke the pole; I had to work out something. The only option was that I had to use the current instead of fight it, but things were happening quickly. I tried different manoeuvres with the pole to see the reaction of the craft; twice I nearly flipped myself by placing the pole too far forward and hooking it under the nose. Finally I got the correct response and could turn the nose across the current; at least I was not heading out of control out to sea now, but going across the channel and down. Finally I broke free of the rip and glided into some still water. I was exhorsted. I dropped the pole into the boat and just sat there, staring at the water racing past me and out to sea as I slowly glided into the safety of the Mangrove trees.

It had been the usual harassment by the police and eventually settled with our new spot we camped right next to a fisherman’s village. It was about 5 this morning we were awoken by the first boats returning after the nights fishing. On and on it continued as the boats returned, it must have been about 50 in total. Now awake we decided to get up and see what they had caught the past evening.

These boats were a lot different to what we had seen , and quite primitive. They consisted of a whole lot of palm trees strapped together and powered by a diesel motor with a long shaft and a prop on the end, much like the long tails that one gets in the east. What a cool bunch of people, we eventually ended up helping the fishermen pulling their boats out, off loading nets and basically also getting in their way. But on top of this we seemed to build a good relationship with them. The nets now up, they began to untangle the catch. Lots of small fish, crabs and to our surprise Lobster. I think the guys saw our excitement about the great catch and surprised us with a gift of a lobster and 6 fish.

It didn’t take us long to head off behind a rock and out of the wind to start cooking our haul. Nick cleaned the fish; I started to work out what we had to scrape a dish together while Andy made the coffee. It wasn’t long and I had the menu sorted.
I fried up some onions, garlic and a chilli with ghee. Then added lots of chopped tomato, a dash of turmeric, curry powder and masala and let it cook down into a smoor. I then took the fish, browned it in the pan and added it to the smoor. Lastly I added the lobster meat, legs and crab and let this all stew for 10 minutes.

We sat down on the edge of the beach and tucked into this pot. The best meal we had in India.

We were well into our dinner preparations, Nick on the tomato and onions, Andy on the garlic and chicken portioning. Ramveer and I were busy with the potatoes. Preparing for our now famous pot stewed chicken. All the ingredients were lined up on the table; we had even bent the rule and put in 2 chillies. We were just waiting for the last few locals to head off, Ramweer had poured us each a cool drink and we were all engrossed in our phones looking at the maps for the next days run, trying to work out if I could cut over the bay on the railway bridge or if it would be better to head back inland. Each of us in our own worlds, trying to work this next days rout out out.

The next moment there was this massive explosion, the whole table seemed to have blown up. There were ingredients flying everywhere. Cold drink spraying all over, Ramveer had in the calamity fallen out of his chair. Plates had flown of the table. As quick as the chaos had arisen, so it passed? There we sat totally bewildered, basically wiping food from our faces, looking at each other trying to piece together what had just happened. I starred at the table and there the evidence lay amongst the chaos, a massive green coconut.

It was strange how suddenly with out any prompting every one looked up at the trees and started to rearrange their seating into lets say more open air

The morning traffic was building, bikes everywhere, buzzing through the traffic, causing chaos as usual. But the jetliners,(the state buses) were taking nothing of this, hooters blaring they were just blasting a whole through the traffic, like meteorites entering the atmosphere, leaving a trail of destruction behind them. The blaring suddenly caught my attention it just seemed more frantic, this hooter was going crazy. It was now instinct, I jumped out of the road in mid stride, twisting my neck and head backwards I just managed to catch the devastation.

There was a bike flying through the traffic 3 up on it, smoke bellowing from every join in the engine as it strained under the load of revving at full taps heading up the hill, swerving from left to right through the mayhem, legs arms and bags flapping around. These guys were in a serious rush. But behind them was this big jetliner with no wings in even a bigger rush, full of people on the way to work and it was building up a serious head of steam. Some how the bike had swerved in from nowhere, across the front of the bus and aimed for the edge of the road, but there was nowhere to go. There was a wall, lamp post, a few people and the bus. The bus could go nowhere either. There was a wall of oncoming traffic and the chaos next to it. There was only one option, blow the hooter and keep the accelerator flat down and hope that he could blast past the problem.
No not this time. As I jumped out of the way, I could see it unfolding, at the last moment the bus tried to open a bit of a gap, too small too late. He clipped the back of the bike as he shot past. The bike swung out and into the wall, half clipping it as the bus shot past, just missing hitting it a second time. The bike somersaulted, dismounting its passengers who miraculously seemed to bounce once and roll up against the wall; the bike wedged itself against a pole and the wall. For the rest, the big bag that they guys were transporting hit the road and burst open spewing fresh fish every where, which were very soon turned into flat road Sole as the traffic passed.

The strangest thing to me was that there was no commotion about the accident. It was as if ok, I messed up lets get and up carry on with life.

During our short stay we met a few characters, the first being Albert. What a cool guy. I had just finished the run and we were sitting on this point just looking out to see, contemplating where to go and what to do and where to go. Albert and his wife had a small store, cooking deep-fried chillies, brinjals and bananas, he walked up to us and said, “Welcome to Kovollan this is for you”. He continued to feed us the whole evening and did we have a battle to pay in the end.

It was dark by now so we decided to pitch our tents on the point and collapse, we were just too tired to go and search for a spot. Tents up we set in for the evening listening to the quiet lapping of the waves on the Indian shore, sleeping under the watchful eye of a massive statue of mother Mary.

5-30 in the morning I was awoken to a light tapping on my tent. I did the tortoise number as I slowly stuck my head out looking from left to right in the dawn light to see what was going on. Then I hear this voice ahead of me. “Morning Sir good morning- coffee for you”

I was a bit confused at first as I looked into the sun, then I heard, “It’s me, me Albert, I have coffee for you”

Good old Albert had walked about 2 km to serve us each a cup of coffee that he had made at home and carried over to us.
Now up, we went down to the waters edge and met up with some more of the local folk, the fishermen. They had just returned from their all night fishing trip and were now sorting out the nets and repacking them. Much to our delight we were handed about 6 fresh fish for our breakfast?

While preparing our breakfast, the whole area was suddenly awash with women, all dressed with veils, but frantically working on a big patch of sand, digging and carrying the soil away in big dishes and dumping it across the road. We later found out that they were all helping in digging the foundations for a new church, later on Nick and I went over and helped them in the excavations, this seemed to put the whole exercise into total array as the women ended laughing at our attempt to carry the dishes of sand on our heads.

Tomorrow, our last day here we have been invited top go out fishing on a palm tree boat a few km out to see, should be interesting heading out to see on a log with an engine strapped to it.

Suddenly my quiet transformation into the dream world was shattered. A little van had pulled into the cove about 50 meters from where we were camped. There was a wave of voices that floated over followed by the noise of wood and planking being unloaded. The intensity of the noise grew, then a few motor cycles arrived and there was a hive of activity going on next to us, all of this seemed to be around the packing of the wood into a large stack, as the last few rays of sunlight disappeared. Finally another small van arrived with more wood as well as a distorted bundle that was taken over to the stack of wood. The bustle now reached a climax as the stack of wood seemed to be completed.

A faint red glow began to claw its way out of the darkness next to us, slowly beginning to grow into massive flames leaping and clawing at the night, growing up out of the darkness throwing huge baskets of sparks into the night sky as the fire cracked away, planks bursting under the intense heat and spewing more sparks into the endless night. The fire raged on growing with intensity, but with this a silence had fallen on the group now sitting on their haunches just staring into the flames. The glow had now driven back the darkness around us, dosing us with bursts of light, heat and wafts of choking smoke.
The strange happening was just too much for us, so we walked over to the group to find out what was going on, maybe get some sort of answer. On arriving at the group there was a strange calm as fisher folk quietly looked up at us, said nothing, turning their heads they carried on starring at the flames.

Some times one really does not need an explanation or and answer. I turned and walked away, a bit shocked at first, but then thinking to myself, what better place can one find to send off a friend and say farewell as he travels to the next life.

With all is faults, this city has a vibe and culture of its own. There is no real demarcation between rich and poor areas, residential and office parks. This city is an intertwined web of everything all in one. There is a 30 story villa, the most expensive private residence in the world, build over a semi slum, derelict crumbling buildings and windy streets filed with kids playing cricket. That’s Mumbai.

The city has some of the most beautiful ancient architecture. Some in pristine condition, other falling down and overgrown with strangler figs. Mass accommodation apartment blocks that look like concrete washing lines touching the sky. Other buildings with a patchwork of massive security bars on each floor going up 40 stories, you wonder if there are some bandits in the sky that will swoop out at any time and rob them. They years of rust from the bars weeps down the sides of the buildings and to the street below.

There is such a vibe on the street, the manic traffic dominated by black and yellow cabs just seems to be able to cope as it slowly snakes forward , powered by hooters that are a constant sound that envelops everything. Brightly coloured street vendors populate the side walks sending pedestrians into the traffic to add to the chaos with no where else to go. Things just seem to happen, everything works, moves and eventually gets where it’s meant to.

There is the constant waft of incense in the air as one passes small shrines or temples, in this manic environment, no one harasses you, or bumps you of the road. Somehow everyone just glides past each other. As easy as you step out into the madness, you can take 2 steps off the street and into a different world. One can step into a small local shop, little eatery or restaurant of world class standard.

So why cant the city sleep? Is it the night life, or just the hyperactive bustle of life, what is it. In order for Mumbai just to maintain functuality the city needs every second of the day to keep it going. As soon as the day traffic stops so the evening services kick into shape, trucking in fresh water to the millions, removing the waste that piles up on the streets. Then there is the catch-up of infrastructure that will never end building and upgrading roads, trying to do something with the raw sewerage that leaves this distinct smell over the city, trucking in building material and replenishing the massive markets that feed the city.

Bombay Is a crazy city but I love it; it’s got a heart and soul

Goa also is rich in the high tech medical and electronic manufacturing industry as only low emission manufacturing is allowed in this area, trying to maintain clean air for the massive tourist industry. But like the rest of India, Goa still needs to sort out the scourge of littering and dumping that seems to be the one thing the will eventually consume India.

Pristine beaches in the day are rounded off with a vibrant bar culture that has evolved in every little village with the friendliest of people running them. Then there is the food. This unique combination of cultures has evolved into a unique food style, a Goan/ Portuguese fusion of flavours, rich, yet light, spicy but tasty and aromatic. I had a dish of smoked pork, black beans and chilli with Goan bread roll that will go down as one of my best meals in India. Then there are the clams done with coconut milk, the light prawn curry. I had the privilege of being invited to eat at the best restaurant in the region where I experienced this unique coming together of cultures portrayed in a simple plate of food.