Dear family,

I hope you are well, I am. Ironically the only health problem I have at the moment is a cold I caught from Natasha. I am really enjoying myself. India is strange: some of the time you love it, the noise, confusion, bullock carts, something interesting happening the whole time. Sometimes you hate it: the smells, the dirt, endless people coming up trying to sell you something - "rickshaw sahib", the difficulty in trying to get something done. I am sure they are not, but they seem very stupid and it gets very frustrating.

I am in a hotel in Madras at the moment. When I last wrote I was about to leave Goa, which is not really India - it seemed to have all the good aspects of India and Europe, and I can understand why people decide to live there. We took a coach from Goa (a "luxury" coach - I hate to think what a normal coach is like) to Bangalore, the fastest growing city in Asia. This was odd: it seemed like the West End, but with flies, dirt, beggars as well. I then split up from Andrew, who went to Madras, while I went south to Madurai.

The journey was dangerous. I see why they have so many crashes, in fact the way the driver drove was criminally insane - Indian Highways are like normal roads at home (except not as well made), and this man had to overtake everything, with coaches streaming from the other direction. At one point we overtook three coaches in a row, up a hill with a corner at the top. The landscape was red with dramatic rocky outcrops, and the heat increased dramatically. Tamil Nadu (the South) is the most Indian part of India, and getting off the bus was an assault on the senses. There is nothing but movement, cows, beggars, carts, endless rickshaws.

The sad thing is that I found the Shri Meenakshi Temple a great disappointment. It is meant to be the main attraction, but inside I just found it dirty, badly kept, the assault from the salesmen, beggars &c did not stop (you feel like hitting them). A lot of the temple was full of horrid little shops selling cheap plastic goods. To show you how different it is here all the advertisement for drinks say - "no fruit pulp - made entirely from artificial ingredients".

I went to see Natasha and Sophie where they are working, but found they were doing very little. I got friendly with the director, but even though he showed me the good work the institute was doing, they did not seem to be involved. It was as if they could not leave, and they had to do something so the institute was just giving them something to do. Women have a very raw deal here, Indian women are all very nervous and shy. Natasha and Sophie are always being hassled, they get laughed at for the oddest reasons, like only wearing one ankle bracelet, or a toe ring on their fingers.

Anyway, with them I have just been to a Westminster reunion on the coast at Mahabalipuram; very odd - me, Andrew, and five girls. This is a fishing village, full of rock carvings and "world famous" shore temples - very beautiful and simple. Seeing the sunset off one of the rocks here is, I think, one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen; impossible to describe, so I shan’t. The weird thing about India (mummy won’t like this) is that it destroys any sense of the value of money - the economy is so different that we really do feel rich, and coming to England will be a shock. Maybe you could ring Lindy Foord (727 4289) as I don’t think Andrew’s written. He is very well.

Love to you all,

Inigo


Dear family,

Hope you are all well and it is not too cold back there (it’s getting hotter every day here). I am back in Mahabalipuram (which is really our base at the moment) as it is really very nice, having both a beach with great waves and these very interesting ruins. I think I mentioned them before, but they are amazing as they are all carved rather than built. There is also a shore temple ravaged by wind and sea which has a very powerful effect on the imagination: I think Hugo would like it greatly.

I have been travelling on my own for a time (sadly Andrew is really not very interested, but then he has been ill), and that was very interesting. I myself seem to have been very lucky up to now, and don’t even seem to have stomach problems (though all the girls have). We are going to meet them here tomorrow (it’s a good arrangement - we are going to try and meet every three weeks, and though I enjoy going around on my own, this gets the balance just right. Andrew’s illness was just an attack of dysentery, severe, but he is fine now. We went to a very interesting Hindu festival one night where they were celebrating the return of Shiva’s wife with floats on a lake. This village was incredibly rural, no bricks even, all the houses seem to have been made out of mud, and we were told to be careful about snakes as there were a lot in the fields.

The first place I went was (I can’t possibly spell the name) an eagle temple. This temple, on a hill, is a place where two eagles are supposed to fly 2000 km everyday and are then fed by two priests. I then went overnight to Bangalore (the fastest growing city in Asia). On the way there was an incredible thunderstorm, you could not see more than two feet through the rain and here (and in Mysore) there was the most dramatic lightning, sheet and forked simultaneously.

I then went to Mysore, which was a very pleasant city, very un-Indian as it was clean, with wide streets, big buildings. I was not hassled by the people trying to sell me things all day (a constant annoyance - the problem I have found with beggars is that when you give them something, they immediately ask for more and won’t leave you alone, and follow you around). There was woodcarving in Mysore and spice. It is known as Spice City, there was one street Hugo would have liked, nobody sold anything apart from garlic, onions and ginger. There is an amazing Maharaja’s palace, almost archetypal, filled with echoes of the Raj, portraits of the king and queen and endless English colonels being presented to the Maharaja.

The nicest thing I have done yet was here, a climb up one thousand steps to a huge five metre high bull (carved from a single rock), a Hindu pilgrimage spot. For some reason I found this very beautiful. From Mysore I went to Ooty, a hill station from the English days. On the way I saw a lot of wild elephants in a wild life reserve, about eight walking through the forest. It was very pleasant to get out of the heat, it was so cold I caught a cold there. There are many English churches in Ooty and a very English botanical garden.

The journey up to Ooty was dramatic, through tea plantations and rock. From Ooty I went to the temple town of Trichy, but was forced back to Madras as there was no room available and I could only take an overnight journey from there. I am going to go to a place called Hampi, which is a ruined city from an old empire, in a barren valley. It is meant to be unspoilt. Write to Anjuna, Goa (P.O.), miss you all.

lots of love

Inigo


Dear Family,

I hope you are all well. I think you must all be skiing at the moment on the large family trip. I imagine that it must have a great success. I am sorry to have missed it. I am very well still - for some reason I don’t even have the normal stomach problems (everyone else has). I am still in south India. We really came at the wrong time since it is now the Indian summer, and what I did not realise originally is that the north is far hotter at this time of year, too hot to move (Delhi was 41 degrees yesterday in the shade). I was in Madurai a few weeks ago in 109 degrees Fahrenheit and I cannot tell you too greatly how hot it was. It is physically oppressive, you feel sick and at midday all you can do is sit under a fan. The worse bit is that you cannot sleep properly, so you become physically worn down.

Hence we have been forced to retreat to a hill station for a few weeks. I say retreat, but I think it may be one of the nicest places I have ever been. It is just above Madurai. It is at a height of 2000 metres, surrounded by 150 miles of completely unspoilt jungle (apparently there are tigers here, though no one has seen one for twenty years). There are elephants and monkeys in profusion, and leopards. I don’t know why I wrote that, I haven’t seen any, although I am going on a hike soon I hope. At the moment it is really misty here. The main town is located "among thickly wooded slopes, waterfalls and precipitous rocky outcrops". The houses are stone and wood cottages surrounded by flowers. The really nice thing is that it is so green and fresh, something that the plains of India just are not.

We have also met many interesting people and Andrew is very happy as there is a big "music" scene so he is playing a concert in about a week, and has thrown himself into making music (he is playing 4-5 hours a day and has got really good). Anyway we are going to stay here a month until there has been some rain and then run to the Himalayas across the plains (where all the roads are melting).

I have now got very used to India and so it does not feel odd now. It feels like I have entered a new stage of my journey and in a sense it is not as interesting. The strange thing is when I see India on the television in the news it looks very alien, but in everyday life it seems very normal. Coming back to England will seem more of a culture shock.

Sorry that I have not written for a long time. Thank you for the letter mummy which I got off Natasha. It was very nice to hear from home. What have I been doing? We spent some time looking around Bangalore: it was not as interesting for me as when I first went there. Then we went back to Madurai. This was very interesting for me because when I first came here it was overwhelming: noisy, dirty, smelly, totally intense; but this time it felt quite pleasant. The city cannot have changed, so I have become India adjusted and squalor feels normal. In the same way it feels normal to see cockroaches and rats (even if Rose did find five of them down a lavatory). In fact I am glad that I went back to the temple there (I think I mentioned it) as it was more interesting this time as we arrived during a Hindu ceremony. It was the birthday of the Goddess Meenakshi (her temple) and it involved carrying her around the temple with many drums and pipes (which is what they also did in Kodaikanal). We also saw the palace which looked very Italian, for the simple reason that it was designed by one.

From Madurai we went up to Kodaikanal for a very pleasant few days. I can’t tell you how amazing it is to leave the heat. It seems to affect the others more than me, my hyperactiveness carries me through, but they lie around very listless and tired. Also I can play chess better than them in the heat. After Kodai (which I have already described), Caroline, Rose Jessica and I set off to look at Kerala, the most Southern India state, parallel with Tamil Nadu. After the overnight bus journey to a town called Trivandurum, we went to a place called Kovelam.

These overnight bus journeys are really strange i.e. getting off at 1am for a "tiffin" stop. The appalling smells, the prone bodies asleep everywhere (Indians can sleep anywhere and any time), the filth, the life, the animals. Kovelam was very pleasant, a tropical (sort of) beach life, with palms, sunsets, more phosphorescence, a pink lagoon (due to rotting coconuts) and very dangerous surf (one had to swim with care). We met the others there (Natasha, Sophie, Harriet Custance and a friend of hers) and I ended up in the unique position of just me travelling with seven girls (Andrew stayed in Kodaikanal). I got some strange looks.

We stayed in an amazing hotel there, called the Hotel Blue Sea. It was run by two brothers who were obviously very rich and had the hotel as a hobby. It was a "period" mansion and had been the family home until then. Seven sisters had been married off leaving all the space. It had a Swiss cottage on the roof and a tombstone in the garden, lit by candles every night. We were the only guests (it was the end of the season there like everywhere else) so we had the run of the rooftop, and sat there in the night (a thing I still find peculiar is that the stars are upside down here, seeing the plough the wrong way up is very odd).

Otherwise it was a beach bum existence for five days. It was too hot to sunbathe (as Natasha found out when she burnt badly) and the sea was dangerous (fifteen people drowned there last year) so we sat in restaurants, eating and drinking and talking and playing chess (we are playing forfeits so Rose has to row me around Kodia lake, but I have to wear flowers in my hair for a day).

India is strange just for meeting people you have met before, people I have seen in one place I seem to meet elsewhere. Also I have met two other Westminster’s that I did not know were here and then completely by chance.

From Kovelam we went at 6:00am to do the "backwater" trip. As we missed the boat we had to hire rickshaws (sort of motorbike taxis) to chase it down the river. We had a huge argument with the drivers (they always try to overcharge) and then went on an incredible journey. Essentially it was eight hours on a very small ferry through water-lanes in the jungle. It is a genuine boat service, not just for tourists, so it was very crowded with peasants carrying things to and fro, so what we did was climb up and sit on the roof. All day we would pass these punting and sailing boats that looked like they had come from the Viking age. Some were huge with just two people punting them (they had to run down the side with huge poles) and I marvelled at the strength and endurance of the people (South Indians are all very small, about, on average, half a foot smaller than me). The backwaters consist of interconnecting rivers and lakes. By the time we arrived in Alleppey (got your Indian map?) it was completely dark, but we met a man from a five star hotel who was desperate to fill the hotel up (as it is off season) so we stayed for Easter in a five star air-conditioned hotel for £1.50 a night.

When we moved on to Cochin we found the heat really unbearable. Cochin was nice: it had an old quarter on an island built by the Portuguese originally that felt very European, but being India was filled with hundreds of chemists for no real reason (I saw at least ten in one street alone). It was connected with the mainland by an amusing ferry system. There were these huge extraordinary Chinese fishing nets that looked like they came out of a Heath Robinson book. But the heat was too much (nobody could sleep, and by the last day everybody was very irritable and really going mad) so Jessica, Rose, Caroline and I were forced to do another horrible overnight bus trip back to Kodaikanal.

At the moment I am now in Bangalore, renewing my visa and awaiting some money through Thomas Cook. Sorry about that, but it looks like I am going to need a little more to see the Himalayas which is what I really want to do. I promise to pay it back. At the moment I imagine I will be here for around two more months, but I could come back any time, short or long (if my visa application is refused, which I imagine it will not be, I could be home in two weeks). I am sorry about the wording of the telegram and hope it did not cause any alarm, but I had to rush to buy a bus ticket, so entrusted it to Rose (who I am in Bangalore with, we are going on an intensive sightseeing trip for a week). I am very well, hope you are all the same, say hello to Poppy from me.

Lots of love

Inigo

P.S. I am not going to Goa now, it is too hot, so if you wrote there I am sorry.
P.P.S. Write to the Post office Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, South India
P.P.P.S. You should have heard from Caroline, maybe you would like to invite her to supper.


Dear Andrew,

I hope you are well and enjoying Edinburgh. I am very well and having a very interesting time here, 5000 miles away in India. I am in a hill station called Kodaikanal in the extreme south of India. If you look on a map and find Madurai (I think it is even on world maps) I am just north of it. It is very hot on the plains (as cleverly I came when the appalling Indian summer was about to begin). When I got off the plane in Bombay, in February a huge wave of humid heat hit me, far hotter than England ever is, but it was the end of winter then (people we met in Bombay were huddling in blankets), so that gives an indication of how hot it is now. When I was in Madurai a few weeks ago it was 107 degrees, the worst thing is that it is difficult to sleep.

Kodaikanal is 2100 metres high, very green (unlike the plains, which are basically plains, very dusty). It looks like a mixture of many places (the Lake District, the Tuscan hills and a tropical forest to name a few). Behind it there is 150 miles of jungle (complete with elephants, monkeys and apparently tiger, though no one has seen one for thirty years). I especially like the monkeys, they leap from tree to tree very amusingly.

There are the most amazing thunderstorms: as we are above the cloud level they seem to occur around rather than above. There was one night when I woke up terrified by a thunderclap. All the windows were bright white and this incredible explosive noise rumbled on for about fifteen seconds shaking the whole house. It was as if the thunderclap happened in the house and in my half-awake state I thought that this was the end. Andrew thought so as well so I can’t have imagined it. In fact as I write I can hear more thunder in the distance.

I saw the most strange thing here a few days ago. The thing about India is that it always surprises you. I thought Kodaikanal was a pleasant quiet mountain retreat (it has got some amazing thousand-metre cliffs) but in fact there was this quaint little festival going on which involved carrying two naked fakirs (beloved of Tintin) around the town hanging by meat hooks in their backs. They also had skewers through their cheeks. It was fairly disgusting, as their skin stretched out like elastic, but for some reason they were not bleeding; they did not seem to be in pain either. Anyway it was really the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. Apparently the point of this (excuse the pun) was to show how involved they were in the spiritual world. They did not seem to be affected by their twenty-four hour ordeal and were actually swinging to make the hooks go deeper. Anyway, sorry to go into this in such graphic detail.

At the moment we have hired a bungalow here, and have it for around a week more. It is in a secluded valley on its own. Surrounded by tropical forest, flowers and plum trees, it is incredibly peaceful, very unlike plain India, which is an assault on the senses - noise, smells, dust, heat, endless beggars, and it wears you down after a bit. Actually I am afraid to say, after a bit, I stopped caring about the beggars: there are so many that if one did care about them you would get sucked under. There are people with hideous mutilations here that would seem very shocking in London, but here for some odd reason they seem normal. Anyway India may be a land of poverty but apparently nobody starves and they all seem happier than people in England who are on the "breadline".

It is, and this is an old Indian cliché, a land of contrasts. I spent a night in a maharaja’s palace which was amazing, and also some time in a "hovel" (the only explicable term) complete with an earth floor, hundreds of flies and an open fire to cook over. The contrasts are everywhere. In Bombay huge modern skyscrapers are built alongside filth, squalor, beggars (they all live on the streets here), mangy dogs, all very thin and pitiful. It can be incredibly beautiful (every night there are the most amazing skies and sunsets, purple pink and black).

One thing you would really like about India is the birds of prey - they are everywhere, huge majestic birds, whether the Sea Eagles (?) stealing bags in Goa or the Eagles here in the mountains.

Last week I went and saw the most amazing temple, in a place called Sravanbelo. It was a Jain pilgrimage site to a saint called Lord Gommatesavarra (this can’t really mean anything). Essentially it was this 17.5 metre high statue (the tallest carved statue in the World) on the top of this immense hill, with steps carved in it. The statue was ridiculously high, twice as high as the temple it was in, so when you approached the hill you could see this huge man leering over the top of the wall from miles away.

In a few days we are going to leave here, and as it is so hot down below we are going to head for the Himalayas very quickly. Kashmir is still snowed in so we are probably going to go to a place called Manali, which is supposed to have some very interesting tribes, and is meant to be very beautiful with good views of the mountains. I will probably be coming home in about five weeks so I will see you quite soon.

Lots of love

Inigo


28th May 1987

Dear family,

How are you all? (how is Poppy?). Today is the 28th, so to celebrate (I am feeling very old) we are going to the Taj for a buffet lunch (the equivalent of the Ritz except in price). I have come back to Bangalore again as there have been many problems with my air ticket. It think it was pickpocketed here three weeks ago, so it almost looked like you would never see me again, but there is a Pan Am office here who were very helpful (the only efficient place I have been to in India). The police refused to take my report, and anyway they have a reputation for simply taking your passport and making you pay 1000 rupees to get it back, even when you have done nothing (they are very corrupt like everything else out here).

I am now in the Taj, and Andrew and Jessica have just given me a Walkman which is very nice of them. I have been in Kodaikanal still for the last two weeks. As I mentioned the heat is unbearable in most of India at this time (forty-seven degrees in Delhi) so you really have to stay in a hill station. We went on a short trek to some huge caves called the devil’s kitchen filled with bats, next to some high cliffs, charmingly known as suicide point. In fact a lot of people do fall off cliffs here - about six days ago a man stepped back to photograph something and when the police went down to recover his body they in fact found four.

Did I tell you about the hovel (maybe Rose or Caroline did; I hope they have contacted you) anyway we lived an Indian Peasant lifestyle for two weeks, no water, an earth floor cooking on an open fire. We thought it was unhealthy at the time, but we moved into a really nice house set back in a plum orchard surrounded by flowers, and jungle type plants. Anyway a few days ago the next door neighbour to the hovel died of cholera (sorry this must all seem very morbid, but death is all around in India).

As the monsoon is approaching there are frequent storms, much more impressive than any I have seen before. In fact in Kodai I was taking a "rain bath" when the house was struck by lightning, a huge electrical ball about fifteen feet away. Really I guess we are quite lucky to be alive. The rains are impressive, very thick and heavy, but still everything is very dry, there are many forest fires, even on the plains you can see the dull orange glows from a great distance. I feel sorry for the wildlife.

I visited an amazing Jain temple with Rose (we went on an intensive week tourist trip; Andrew has no interest in these things, and hasn"t left Kodai for six weeks now) set on a huge hill, essentially a huge dry rock. It was the main Jain pilgrimage spot in the world. At the summit is a twenty metre high statue of a Jain saint, but his name is unpronounceable (Lord Gommata, the hill is called Sravana Belgola). This statue is awesome, the largest single stone statue in the world; you can see him staring out of the top from miles away. A huge man leering over the top. It’s all so dry, because of the heat, there were some incredible trees covered in orange blossoms (mummy will have to identify them from the photo). I also saw two temples at places called Belur and Halebid which have the reputation of having some of the best sculpture in India. They were very impressive, but again they were too hot (I will have to come back again at the right time of year). I will be coming home in about two/three weeks (don’t expect me, not definite).

All my love

Inigo

Am at Hampi ruined city in boulder strewn valley, too hot to be bearable, waiting for monsoon
(on outside of envelope)