3 months in India and Nepal followed by 6 months from Hong Kong to Glasgow along the Silk Road and route of the Orient Express. Passing through China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

It’s the first day of approximately 270 days or more… It still doesn’t feel real. 6 years of work, stress, long hours, deadlines and responsibility begin to fall away leaving me slightly numb and confused. I am suffering from culture shock, not from being in India, but from not being in Hong Kong, from not having a job or any thing to plan or do for the next month or so…

After a spectacular lie in we are drunk on sleep. In a daze we stumble through the streets of Fort Cochin to the Kashi Art Cafe, a peaceful haven of strong coffee and smokey Parisienne Jazz. With blood sugar and caffeine levels back to normal we are ready to take on the challenge of finding a flat to live in.

For the bargain price of 10000 Rupees (2000HKD or 150 pounds) per month we secure our pad. Central location, fully furnished, all mod cons, bed, kitchen, lounge, and clean toilet. Kovil Home-stay will indeed be our home rather than just a place to crash.






With all the chores done we go in search of some culture and follow the street side posters to a Sitar Tabla evening at the Kerala Kathakali Centre. The Sitar Guru wears his required beard with suitable panache. He is playing a 20 string Sitar and is accompanied by a young Tabla protege with the fastest fingers in the East keeping time on two small and simple drums from which he is able to extract an amazing variety of sounds.

Along with perhaps the scent of incense nothing is more evocative of the spirit of India as the transcendental sound of the Sitar. It is not difficult to imagine why George Harrison became so enraptured by it.

The intensity and spiritual connection with the music is evident in the posture and faces of the performers. The Sitar player’s eyes roll back to white in his skull and he lifts his head to the ceiling as if he is entering a meditative state. Perhaps it is the spiritual side of Indian music like this that separates it from the decidedly material and capitalist roots of modern western music. This is music of the past, historical and yet also contemporary, timeless, eternal.

The concentration of the Tabla player is belied by his closed eyes. It is an act of muscle memory; his hands feeling their way around the skins as he is caught in a frenzy of rhythm and ever increasing pace as the session hurtles to its beguiling climax. As the advert claims, so it is true, “Incredible India”.