Bidar

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The friendliest place i've ever been?

As friendly as, well Turkey, 25 years ago

And hopefully still

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6 days of dust coats bitter on the tongue and mouth

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Scrawny puppies with old eyes

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Cashflow problems, as traveler’s cheques not accepted here… should have gone to Gulbargar… which we should have anyhow, seeing as it would have been a bigger version of this, and this is great… so we have to hotfoot it to Aurangabad for Ellora, Ajanta and cash…

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We hire a bike to dawdle round the foot and get there to find its so big a bike is a necessity… biggest fort in Southern India… great for tea and ice cream… a huge gun on one of the 27 bastions… part designed by Turkish mercenaries who had seen European Forts

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Grit forms in the eye

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last stop in Karnataka, which has been great for us

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And I find myself saying, It’s a granary, is it a granary?... I’ll go see if it’s a granary… when ... when... who cares if its a granary?… and this is a clear symptom I’ve been touristing too long and have persuaded myself these things are important

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Poor streets of waving running kids

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When of course if it was an armoury then, wow… that would be exciting… the exboy in me would love that cos like, something might have been made in there which was like used to kill someone, like… and that’s like wow…

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Another ex-empire, another Ozymandia, another how-are-the-mighty-fallen

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what am I saying?

…You can’t tickle yourself, they say… well I just did?

I remember my old and much missed mate Gin Murphy telling her about going round the Alhambra and it was all Brits and Yanks and the Yanks were all middle-aged women with gigolos and they were well into the secrets of the Harem and as the guide talked they were all Woooo, and saucier wooohooooh … while the Brits were all superstraitlaced and disapproving and O look at this its a classic example of 10^th Century Babylonian…

o blimey, i've turned into them…

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The Entire History Of The United States Told As A Shane-Style Western In Just 4 Words… THE BAD GUYS WON

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In Badami… a zillion monkeys… a plague a plethora a lot... tugging at your water-bottle in cheeky monkey, thieving monkey style ... and I climb alone up the fort for sunset and there’s monkeys all around me looking at me on the bastion ... and I feel like… like… like Lawrence Of Arabia in the bar in Cairo where all the very English Officers are just looking at him, thinking what does he think he looks like?

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next stop maharaashtra

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