Thursday 3^rd January

Over the last few days we had a few very nice moments at the Taste of Tas.  It was, as always, heaving and humming with a large cheery crowd.  We watched a few buskers, ate a bit of food, drank a glass or two, and chatted to the odd friend and relations.  The five Tasmanian families were out in force as well as many MANY travellers, tourists, sailors.

All of the food stalls were busy but…the busiest of all, with a long, snakey queue, was, as always, Fish Frenzy.  I always find this so astonishing; the actual Fish Frenzy restaurant is not 100 metres from the Taste venue – it is NOT a novelty!

One of the buskers, called something like Abracadabra, aka the Human Knot, was very popular with the crowd, and with Pete.  Not so much with me… I never really enjoy witching contortionists – it is ALL WRONG.  He put his head through his legs backwards – WRONG, did weirdo push-ups inside out – WRONG, and, worst of all, passed his whole body through an unthreaded squash racket.  This involved dislocating his shoulders and squeezing his ribs in a ghastly manner – WRONG WRONG WRONG!!  Fortunately we got an emergency phone call and couldn’t see the end of this act – Pete had new tenants moving into his house a day earlier than he had thought and we had to rush off and scrub, wash, bustle about with Jif and Spray ‘n’ Wipe.  Much more soothing than watching The Human Knot.

India #59

On our last morning in Varanasi we decided we couldn’t face the ghats and the crowds in the old city, so we all squashed into an autorickshaw and took a 45 minute (13 kilometres) ride out to a Buddhist area, where we admired the Buddha Tree at Sarnath.  It was extremely hot so we could only move around s-l-o-w-l-y.  The deer park, where Buddha did several important things to do with enlightenment, was closed, but we had a small moment of Nature Study.  I found, in a small canal filled with huge waterlilies, a darling little olive green snake swimming through the leaves.  By the time I had gathered the others to look, it had caught a small silver fish and was proudly preparing to swim off through its watery world.

Pete and Vish were a bit more energetic than Mary and Me.  We sat happily in the shade of a huge ummm…monument…tomb…statue…and watched family parties having their photos taken.  All very grim, this process.  We noticed everywhere that Indian people don’t smile for the camera in posed group photos; this is serious work.  They would gather in a giggly group, rearrange themselves, pat down their hair, laughing merrily, and then – DO NOT SMILE until the camera has clicked.  A young girl detached herself from one of these sombre groups, and came up to us, saying, “Please can I take a photo with you?”  Her father proudly took several of Mary and me with a now beaming thirteen year old girl.  She then asked, “Where are you from coming?”  Once again we were left wondering why on earth anyone would want their photos taken with us.  It must have been for a school project this time.  “Here are some people from Australia with whom I practised my English.”  Good girl, go to the top of the class!

         

It was pouring with rain on the way back to the Buddha.  All very fumey, with all of the dirt and the pollution in the steamy hot wetness.  Autorickshaw is a very nice way to travel, because you are right there, in the traffic, on the street, with very little to protect or separate you from the unfolding scene.  We were fascinated on this trip to see cows sheltering from the rain, calmly wandering into shops, heaving themselves up onto verandas, generally making themselves at home and as dry as possible.

When we got back to the Buddha to collect our things there was a whole tribe of monkeys sitting on the building opposite.  They were eyeing us in a speculative fashion.  We strongly suspected that they were looking for an opportunity to break in and run up and down the corridors pooing and weeing – we had EVIDENCE outside our rooms.