Monday 31st December

Monday 31^st December

It is the last day of 2012 and I think it has been a very good year and that 2013 will be even better.

For one thing, the world did not end.  In fact, I read a tweet recently which said, succinctly:

Worst apocalypse ever

Indeed…

I am hoping to have a quiet and peaceful New Years Eve but…the best laid plans…So I will see what the evening brings, and I will wish everyone, far and wide, a very VERY happy new year.

India #57

There was an elderly woman staying at the Buddha Hotel, very eccentric, dressed entirely as an Indian woman would.  By elderly I mean older than us… But probably much more sprightly than us; I think she was acclimatised and not in as much need as rests from the frenzy of Varanasi.  She, Usha, is an American woman, originally from Poland/Germany, still with a strong accent.  In her past life she had been an airhostess, and then an academic and teacher of Linguistics at US universities.  Now she is studying Sanskrit at the University of Varanasi.  There is a lot of work available to people fluent in Sanskrit, translating into German and English, but her main reason for her studies is religious.  She was a fascinating woman, with a very strong message to impart, about God, the unity of the world, the oneness of all religions.  We (mostly) found her extremely interesting, but at mealtimes Pete would show the whites of his eyes and say, “Oh God!  Please don’t encourage her and don’t invite her to sit at our table!  She does NOT stop talking and I have got the message already!  Enough is enough!”  He was actually right; she was a nice woman, intelligent, articulate, and interesting, but rather too forceful and didactic to make a relaxing companion, and we needed to relax; we all found Varanasi very challenging without having to listen to long lectures, with 5-page A4 handouts, closely printed – on the meaning of Om while we were eating our aloo gobi.

Usha invited us to a kirtan from 8-10.30.  I knew what was in store; I quite like this sort of thing.  Pete and Vish were a bit suspicious; Mary was happy, she too likes this sort of thing.  After dinner we all gathered in a spare room with a smattering of people, mostly intelligent, serious young Indian women, and a few workmen fresh from the construction site (the Buddha Hotel was being extended around our ears.)  Usha gave us an impassioned talk about God and Om and the oneness of all beings, then she handed out little musical instruments and put on some tapes.  Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Hare Hare.  That sort of thing.  We sat around and banged our little bells on our knees, or rattled them in the air; it was all very pleasant.  Pete sat there very thoughtfully tinkling his little bells.  I could see a faraway look in his eyes and I knew it would not be long before he made his escape.  Vish was sitting – tinkle tinkle – looking very spiritual, and I thought, hmmm, he’s enjoying this, he will stay with Mary and me.  But no…about thirty seconds after the defection of Pete Headlam, off sloped Vish Sharma.  They more than likely went up to drink the last of the Kingfisher in our room, warm though it would have been by then.  Mary and I stayed till the end, chanting and singing and banging our bells companionably on our knees until there was only Usha, me, and an ardent young builder’s labourer left in the room.  A very nice evening.

I forgot to mention the weirdo Germans.  There was a whole tableful of them at the Buddha, all men, on some sort of religious mission, with a guru.  They wore beads, and different coloured costumes – some days robes, other days trousers and tunics.  They were not friendly types so we never managed to find out exactly what they were doing in Varanasi.  Usha had invited them to the kirtan and they came clomping in about half an hour into the proceedings.  They were an uneasy presence; something about them was discordant, we were all very happy when they clomped out – they were very noisy people, in spite of their ostensible spirituality.  Vish and Pete, although they really weren’t enjoying anything about the kirtan, were a much more benign and easy presence in the room.

Sunday 30th December

Sunday 30^th December

So what is it like, aboard fabled Wild Oats XI?? 

Very high-tech, very schmick.  The shrouds and dagger boards are made of carbon fibre and they seem so very light and flimsy… However carbon fibre is much stronger than any other heavier substance so it all works well.  The door to the forward bulkhead is as light as a domestic cupboard door, and yet it can resist the might of the sea.  All quite amazing!

 Below decks it is like a space ship.  And not in the least comfy or cosy… I have been on racing yachts before – this is not the first time Chris has stormed into Hobart on a large winning boat – and so I know how empty these below-deck spaces are.  Usually it is like being inside an empty tin can; Wild Oats was much more salubrious.  But…not cosy or comfy.  Chris showed us the bunks right in the back of the boat, in the deep dark hold.  There are spartan bunks in the main below-deck area, but right up the back, in a hell-hole of darkness and noise, there are eight extra bunks.  He said being in there is wilder than any fairground ride you can imagine.  Nobody goes in there by choice but sometimes it is necessary to get as much weight as possible in the very back, so eight people have to get in there, lie on the bunks and – suffer!!

India #56

All drivers, whether of rickshaw, limousine, taxi, or bus, want to take you to a shop or two.  They all get a small amount of kickback if their passengers spend a few rupees.  We didn’t usually fight against this; we allowed ourselves to be led like little lambs to send a few dollars here and there – everyone has to make a living, and drivers hardly earn anything at all.  Raj took us to a silk factory in the heart of the old city.  It was just fascinating.   2,000 Muslims work here, busily producing gorgeous silk and silk products.  The first place we went to was sunk in gloom.  A power failure, apparently, but maybe these poor kids always work in the dark…. We peered through the narrow doorway and saw about 8 little boys beavering away at their looms.  Raj told us that these boys are very lucky.  They go to school in the morning and then work in the afternoon, providing much-needed income for their families.  How nice, we trilled.  When we were out of Raj’s hearing, cynical Pete muttered, “Bet you anything those boys never see the inside of a school!”         

In a large corner room of another ancient building we saw men dyeing and softening huge skeins of silk.  This got added to my ever-increasing list of Nightmare Jobs.  It was all very hot and steamy, and smelly, in the room, and the silk was so very heavy.  The men had to lower it, draped over thick wooden sticks, into cauldrons of bubbling dye, and dip and swirl it around till it acquired enough colour.  Then they had to HEAVE it out and start all over again with another huge skein.  Pete said he saw even worse dyeing tasks in Morocco.  In the leather tanneries men would be INSIDE the vats of dye, trampling the leather with their bare feet.  It wasn’t hot water, but the dye smelt absolutely toxic.  Imagine spending your day trampling poisonous substances into dye with your poor bare feet… We didn’t think any of these workers would have a very long life expectancy.       

A better, more creative and less taxing job was punching patterns into cards, for the looms.  It takes five years to get skilled enough to do this.  We were mightily impressed with the young men who sat there tap tapping away with little hammers and pointed things (awls??), reading complex patterns off a master plan and transferring each line by way of dots to a pattern card, which would then be fed into loom for the little weaver boys.

Our next stop – ofcourse – was The Shop.  We were ushered into the inner sanctum where we were invited to sit on thick mattresses covering the entire floor area.  We were offered drinks – chai, inevitably (how I longed at moments like this for a cup of weak black tea…I never did get to love chai.)  Our “host” sat back, all comfortable, plump and urbane, and commanded his minions to spread gorgeous silken things about us.  Doona covers, bedspreads, shawls, scarves, clothes, layer after layer.  I felt a bit anxious about the poor folding-wallahs who would have to put everything away, but Pete very sensibly pointed out that this is A JOB, and that the folding-wallahs are probably very grateful for every item they get to fold and put back on the shelves – a few more rupees for their families.  And everyone gets a bit of a kickback from the money people like us spend in this sort of establishment… I actually froze up a bit and couldn’t manage to buy anything at all.  (Well only three small items for my girls for Christmas…)  When I say “froze up” this is actually inaccurate – I had to spend quite a lot of time in a not very nice toilet down a murky hallway.  But no details re this!!  Vish, Mary and Pete had no such buying inhibitions.  They flung visacards about and bought some very beautiful things which should delight all and sundry.

Raj took us back to the Buddha hotel after our action-packed day with him.  He had been very helpful and courteous, and had started the day picking us up at 5.00.  He charged us the princely sum of 500 rupees ($15 approx.) for this, and I think we paid a lot more than he would usually expect to receive – people haggle very fiercely over rates for drivers.

Saturday 29th December

Saturday 29^th December

This morning I had textmessages from kind (and impressed!) friends and relations.

Hero Sailor Brother Chris was on the front page of the Mercury as well as in the back (sports) section.  And Fundraising Hero Nicole Headlam Darcey was featured, with beautiful photos, in the magazine section.

So a haiku for Pete would read:

proud proud proud proud proud

proud proud proud proud proud proud proud

proud proud proud proud proud

while a haiku for me would also read…

proud proud proud proud proud

proud proud proud proud proud proud proud

proud proud proud proud proud

We had a guided tour of Wild Oats XI at 9.00- thank you Chris.  Pete was mightily impressed and interested.  Leo now has a new ambition – to be a Sydney Hobart sailor on a record-breaking handicap-winning line-honours-winning racing supermaxi yacht…

Pete and I wandered around the (crowded) market and the (crowded) Taste of Tasmania for an hour or so and found ourselves watching the Pier-to-Pier swimming race.  Who are these swimmers, we wondered idly… And then a few minutes later we came across a small group of my family members – we were, apparently, watching Chris, one of the few swimming, very powerfully, without a wetsuit.  Well yes he might have been just a bit bored and in need of exercise after his record-breaking handicap-winning line-honours-winning yacht race…

Yesterday we had a swimmer off... 2XS.

You may know my theme of some things float, some don’t…

Well, oh deary me, yesterday we got back to the marina from various exhausting activities – some of them involved lots of Jif and gallons of Spray ‘n’ Wipe, others involved a delicious meal at Shippies – and started to settle into 2XS life.  I went inside and played with my new pride and joy; Pete did something or another on the floating pontoon involving a noisy splashy tap.  He was a bit startled at the noisy splashiness and bent over the water and then suddenly thought, OH NO!!  WHERE IS MY PHONE????  Had he heard an ominous splash???  He was very deeply distressed and many many sad bad words were uttered into the wind on Prince of Wales Bay.  I came out and made soothing humming sounds, to no avail.  I tried to ring his phone but…no answer… We both assumed it was at the bottom of the sea - some things float, some don’t… I did say, without much hope, Do you think you might have left it in your house?  Or in Unit One?  (Both of these paces had been the recipients of the Jif and the gallons of Spray ‘n’ Wipe that morning.)  No, he said, tersely.

Yet again oh deary me… Pete struggled sadly into his wetsuit while I found flippers, mask, snorkel, and soon Pete was very unhappily diving deep down into Prince of Wales Bay, which tasted horribly, he told me, in bitter tones, of diesel and other noxious substances.  The bottom of the bay is deep mud and… some things float, some don’t – and some things sink deep into the primordial ooze….

He finally clambered out, sad and spluttering, and had a nice hot shower, where he spent a lot of time contemplating how complicated and difficult this loss of phone was going to be.

I elected – with much good sense, I think – to stay on board while he drove back to his house to tell his short-term tenants that they would have to ring me on my phone because his was – gone gone gone. 

And guess what – yes this is a happy happy story – his lovely house tenant, gorgeous Kate Thomas from Sydney said, OH hello, have  you come to get your phone?  Because there it was, on the kitchen bench.  (Which was, might I add, very beautifully Spray 'n' Wiped and Jiffed...)

Calloo callay o frabjous day!!!!

India #55

We went to a restaurant where many mosquitoes came rushing out, just delighted to find Yummy Pete Headlam.   I hardly ever even needed to get out my stick of repellent, I just had to stick close to Pete because he was the cynosure of all mosquito eyes.  I don’t think I got bitten at all; good thing I didn’t bother taking that yucky old anti-malarial medication… Poor Pete, they particularly loved his elbows – yum YUM!!  He had neat lines of equi-distant bites from one side of his elbow to the other, as well as neatly wending their way up his sides and knees.  I can’t actually remember much about his restaurant, except that the electricity kept going off so we had to wobble our way down very dodgy stairs in the dark. 

We had asked a driver, Raj, to come and pick us up for our boat trip on the Ganges at 5.  This meant setting our alarms for 4.30… Somehow Vish and Mary did this; Pete and I – oops - set ours for 6.30.  So we were fairly bleary when they knocked on our door but we were clean, dressed and out and about within five minutes.  Raj got us to our little rowing boat and we went upstream first – south, against a strong current.  This took quite a long time, over an hour.  It was absolutely beautiful, with the sun rising over the water, and people bathing and washing and generally abluting in the ghats (best not to think too much about the e coli count…) When we got to the end of the allotted course, our boatman swung the boat round and we whizzed back down on the current in about ten minutes. 

After the boat trip, Raj took us to some temples.  The monkey temple was swarming with monkeys, which, close up, were not as enticing or gorgeous as I had expected.  They looked as if they would bite very nastily and infectiously so I didn’t hold out my hand and coo at them at all.  There was very high security at this temple; we were all patted down extremely thoroughly – it was almost like my ayurvedic massage in Goa, except not as pleasant; my security guard was a grim, tough chick with a big gun.  There is a horrible reason for all of this security; in March this year this temple was bombed, and over 200 people were killed.

Friday 28th December

Friday 28^th December

BIG accolades yet again.

This time, so well deserved, the accolades are for Wild Oats XI and my brother Chris Harmsen.  I think this was his fifth time on this amazing boat.  They steamed down from Sydney, getting line honours, and breaking the record which they had set in 2005.

We had moved onto 2XS the night before and the plan was to get up early and go up the river to welcome the winner across the line.  However it seemed all a bit impossible – they were breaking the records by MILES!!  This meant they would be in Constitution Dock at a ghastly dark hour of the night.  Not a family friendly time…  Fortunately they slowed down a bit – not enough to miss breaking the record, let me hasten to add.

Eagle-eyed Leo, nearly 7, was on the job.  He insisted on checking the race tracker again at 5.30 and soon phones were ringing and messages pinging through the ether from South Hobart to Blackmans Bay to Cremorne to Prince of Wales Bay.

By 7.10 am we were away with Nicky, Gavin, Hamish, Angus, Claire, Jemima, Felix, Katy, Jeff, Leo, Eva, Zoe and Rose all VERY happily aboard.

We were just too late to catch speedy Wild Oats XI cross the finish line, but we were there for the cheers and the presentations.  Wee hee and whey hey…

Zoe (2½) had never been on 2XS and she loved every minute.  She sat right up on the bow with her father, in her small life jacket, making sure all was well.  I went up to chat and she said, “Bardy!  Tell Pete we’re going to CRASH!!”  She was pointing very firmly at…the Tasman Bridge.  (Yes Pete had seen it…)

India #54

We didn’t actually love our Varanasi guide (Tout No.#2).  He had attached himself to us more or less against our will, and was slightly lacking in charm.  But he did trudge us up and down steps and took us to see very interesting things.  I loved the Ganges, so peaceful, but so very polluted, and brown.  People were happily dunking themselves in and out of the water, swimming around, brushing their teeth – yucko!  The buildings around the ghats are very old, but they are building new ones all the time further down the river.  Behind the burning ghats there are lots of hospices, full of people waiting to die and be processed in the river, all a bit macabre, really.  Depending on your point of view…        

Vish and Mary declined the offer to go up to a viewing platform in an ancient building to watch bodies being burnt.  I think this was a mistake; we were fascinated, and it wasn’t gruesome at all, it was all wonderful.  The bodies were wrapped, different colours for men and women, and then put on pyres of banyan wood, where it takes five hours for them to burn.  The holy fire which lights the pyres has been burning for over 3,000 years.   There is no smell at all because of the type of wood.  The families perform rituals around the bodies, involving earth, air, fire, water and spirit, all very calm and loving.  They walk five times around the pyre and then throw designated bones into the river – the man’s ribs and the woman’s pelvis.  Certain people can’t be cremated on the pyres; they have to be thrown holus-bolus into the river.  They include:

Lepers

Children

People who have been bitten by cobras

Pregnant women

Sadhus (holy men)

Smallpox victims

So a good many dead bodies are floating around in the already polluted river… Also animals, which just get chucked in.  We didn’t see any dead lepers, thank goodness, but we did see a very yucky dead cow with three legs, floating slowly past.  Oh dear am I making this sound ghastly?  I can assure you it wasn’t, it was all very peaceful.  The man who showed us around on the viewing platform was lovely, and explained everything to us in spiritual, soothing tones.  Pete offered him some money, and he recoiled, NO, no, he wouldn’t take our money, but maybe we would like to make a donation to the old ladies sitting at the doorway – they are about to die and need money for banyan wood.

So…Pete strode through the doorway and gave the old ladies 10 rupees each.  They smiled beatifically but could I get through the door with such a small donation?  No way in the world!  The guide got hold of me, and the lovely, spiritual man from upstairs joined him.  They said, very angrily, that I could NOT walk away without giving them at least 500 rupees, which was only just enough money to burn one poor corpse – had I NO compassion, or sense of spiritual obligation.  Banyan wood is VERY expensive!  So…muggins opened her moneybag… I was actually quite happy about all of this, but just thought I would keep it to myself and not share any of this story with my friends… When Pete said we had given 10 rupees, and how lovely it had all been, I just made humming sounds of assent.  But later that day we had dinner with Tout No. #3, a young bloke, who was loud in his condemnation of Tout No. #2 – the one who had taken us to the burning ghat.  “I hope none of you gave the old ladies money!” he said, “because you know what happens?  Tout No. #2 goes and takes it all away from them and just leaves them with a few rupees!”  I think I still didn’t admit to my folly, not until we met some young French travellers on the train who had given 600 rupees each to the old ladies, and who had later found out how they had been duped.  I could then say, well I only gave them 500…