Far Too Good For Ordinary People

When I was in Kolkata last week I was asked if I noticed the differences between the different states and, like the oblivious Western Princess that I am I said "no". I can confirm that Darjeeling is different. I'd go as far as to say that the differences between Darjeeling and Kolkata (at the bottom end of the same state), are far more pronounced than the differences between Kolkata and Mumbai, on the opposite coast.

Gone is the traditional dress, in favour of ripped jeans and hoodies. Curry isn't ubiquitous, it's all chowmein and thukpa. I saw more churches than temples. People use bins. There's no endless noise: the town shuts down at 9. Cows are off the road and on the menu. Motorcyclists don't use the pedestrian area - full horn, full throttle is not a thing here. It is so very different to everywhere else I've been - the local people don't even look Indian.

I liked it though. It was full of tea and undulations. Where to start? Undulations, just because it's a word I don't use enough.

Darjeeling's undulations were spectacular - and I don't just mean Khangchendjunga (which stayed resolutely behind a cloud when we made the trip to Tiger Hill, the big, teasing diva). The local, tea-covered foothills were a pretty good backdrop to everything. We fobbed off the toy train and wobbled over them on a shonky cable car. Don't worry, the sign says it's ISO9001 compliant - I found that about as reassuring as if they'd shown me a food hygiene certificate; very nice but completely irrelevant.

Here's a confession, I don't care that much for tea. It's one of those things that I know other people like but has very little relevance to my life. Like graphic novels, Bake Off and cricket. I learnt more about tea this weekend than I have all other weekends combined. I now know my black from my white, my Second Flush from my Autumn and my SFTGFOP from my fannings. And I know that if you put milk and sugar in a Darjeeling tea, you're a heathen who doesn't deserve to be drinking good tea - the Happy Valley man was very clear about that. I had probably the highest-quality cup of tea I'll ever have. It was alright.

Christmas in Calcutta

Kolkata is a weird one. It's sort of like a Eurpoean city but one that's been dusted with Indian craziness: trees with their roots out and people sleeping in bags and dead dogs and chickens on a lead and Christmas decorations everywhere. I'm not sure that I wholly understood it.

The area around Kalighat was the most understandable. That seemed like proper India with its noise and its colour and its hibiscuseseseses (hibisci?) all in tribute to a three eyed goddess with a severed head. I could understand that.

I had only just made it to the Bengali mask room in Indian Museum - which appeared to be the best room in there - when the whistle-blowing Gestapo came and kettled us out of the museum. Most abrupt interruption to peaceful contemplation in a place of learning I can remember.

So yeah. Victoria Memorial. That bridge people rave about that is actuallu just a bridge. Heaps of Christmas decorations. A beggar with a monkey. Peter Cat. Austin Ambassadors. Lady boys. Bengali sweets. Mocambo. Loads of unnecessary noise. Kolkata - box ticked.

Fitness Prison

I've been going to the gymnasium.

As you may have suspected, this is the first time I've been a regular at a gymnasium. I've always been a bit intimidated by all the guys with mutant arms that lift the big weights and stare at you with their steroid eyes as you walk past them on the way to the places where you don't have to lift things.

But not the cross-trainer. I don't understand cross-trainers. It's not quite a run. It's not quite a bike. Is it supposed to synthesise Nordic skiing? Why is that a thing? Whenever I try and use it I feel too much like I'm trying to stop a poo coming out. And that's just not something I want to recreate.

I'm not a massive fan of treadmills either (I'd much rather be outside - between the traffic and the smog it's not really an option here) but that is very much my exercise of choice; so much so that I get proper gymsnob if I can't get one. "What!? You're walking at 6kph with a zero incline!? Are you recovering from a spinal injury!? Well then, how about you just walk around me whilst I do proper exercise!? No, I don't care that you're 76!" (Ooh, I used exclamtion marks. I feel dirty.)

Fave thing about the treadmills is that they have the mirror view of the gym. Turns out that there's a whole heap of people-watching that you can do in a gym. I've got some faves. Well two faves to be precise.

I like sinister Harry Potter. Imagine if Daniel Radcliffe had played the young Snape. This guy has his looks and all his mannerisms. He skulks around in the darkest corners, wearing jeans and sandals (which is a look). Every five minutes or so he will emerge from under a rock and do a thirty-second burst of reps before vanishing again, like an inappropriately-attired gym-ninja. Or, more accurately, a creature from a rockpool.

I also like one of the mutant arm men. He has the biggest arms of anyone in the gym. They're about the size of my waist. He's pretty much always there; lifting too-heavy weights and taking pictures of his arms in the mirror (nope, not a joke). But always his arms. Never his legs. He wore shorts last week, his legs are the size of my arms. It's like he's got his body on upside down. How does he not topple over? I don't understand that and I don't understand gyms.

Ooh, I talked about weights for most of a blog post. What happened? Quick get some dystopian fiction. It's the only way you'll know you're in the right place.

What's that? You quite liked The Handmaid's Tale but thought there wasn't enough focus on the black market chili trade? Well then, you should probably read The Core of the Sun. Best opening scene of a book that I can remember. By best I mean weirdest,  but you knew that, right?

Smack My Beach Up

I think I may have been to the best beach I've ever been to today. I'm aware that that's a pretty grand statement. But it was a pretty good beach. It was pinned between the sea and a lagoon. Backed by palm-coated hills. Uncommercialised and largely empty. You had to work to get there mind, a quarter of an hour down a perilous, unmade road, which probably goes some way towards explaining the emptiness.

I'm in Goa. At the Palolem Beach end, which is a lot more like Thailand than anywhere else I've seen in India. Palolem wasn't the beach by the way. Palolem is far from uncommercial. It's still a pretty good beach though.

As I'm in a tourist, area I've been doing the tourist thing: sea kayaking; a boat trip; drinking beer. We should probably linger on the boat trip. I was promised dolphin-monkey-butterfly (which is an animal I was looking forward to seeing - I wanted to see how it would swing through trees using fins) but got nothing. Butterfly Bay is the biggest misnomer of the lot, I was expecting to be swamped by butterflies. Have them pecking at my soft bits with their butterfly toungues. But no. There are no butterflies there. It's shaped like a butterfly. What a con?

Me Me Me Me Me

So judging by all other end of year synopses, it looks like I should be saying how terrible a year 2016 was. But I had a pretty good year. So there 2016.

I moved to India, that's a pretty big, exciting thing, right? Being exposed to a whole new way of life. Being based a quarter of the way round the world with access to a raft of new weekend breaks. And even ignoring the last three months of India living, I went to ten countries across five continents. Five. Who goes to five continents in a year? That's a whole heap of travel. Plus I chalked up some major league sights including two of those Modern Wonder things. Travelling highlights? Fave city was Montreal (and the croburger I ate there gets a shout for dirtiest food) - although Seville and Turin both get mentions. Place that took me furthest from my comfort zone? Hebron, easily. Nowhere else comes close. And that includes being soaked by horizontal sleet on an Antarctic beach and crossing the road in India.

Finally made it to Notting Hill Carnival (only a lot of years too late) which was maybe representative of a year when my live music highlights all tended to be DJs rather than bands. As for fave album, in the spirit of 2016 I feel I ought to go for a "You Want It Darker", or a "Black Star", or a "We've Got It From Here" but I've enjoyed "Let Them Eat Chaos" a whole heap more than any of them.

Read a fair few classic books this year (including a re-read of Catch 22 which I have occasionally said is my favourite book - turns out it's not as good as eighteen year old me thought it was - maybe I have grown up after all), none of them win my much coveted Book of the Year prize, instead it's The Call by Paedar O'Guilin which gave me a good sized dystopian YA hit.

What else? Theatre: Yerma was the best thing I'd seen in ages. Comedy: Daniel Kitson was ace (and the Noize Next Door weren't too shabby either). Immersive experience (it just about gets it's own category): The Crystal Maze.

I'll leave you to read about 2016 gloom somewhere else, I've had a pretty good year. Hashtag Smug.