"I am alone and unhappy; worse is not possible". So said a friend. And it's pretty much how I have been feeling. If I was at home, I could talk to someone. I am India and so have to write it in my journals. Suffice to say that, for future trips, I shall endeavour to have a travelling companion. In two months, though, I shall be midway through my voyage of discovery; at the start of the home-straight. Five weeks after that will be the anniversary of my arrival in Santiago, the completion of the St Jakob pilgrimage route - a very special time. Up 'til now, I have been on a cycle trip; but now I really think of myself as being on a pilgrimage. The point of a pilgrimage is: 1) to become the person you are, rather than being the person you think you should be; 2) to perceive one's purpose in life, thence to pursue it. Paradoxically, despite being on a pilgrimage, I feel in a state of limbo; maybe in a few months I shall feel less so! ;-)
On a lighter note :-) I arrived in Delhi this afternoon. It was noisy and busy and not as bad as I thought it would be, mainly cos I am more used to the traffic now than when I arrived in Bombay; but also there was not the dirty squalor that was so blatantly on view in Bombay. I am staying in the Tibetan colony, away from the hustle and bustle of the centre. I went past the Red Fort; I'd forgotten how huge it was (I visited it about 25 years ago whilst in transit between Kathmandu and the Middle East).
In the past 10 days I have hurt my left ankle (laying me up (in the very nice, quiet hotel, Natural View) in Pushkar for 6 nights); I have a tender left thumb joint which refuses to improve; I was head-butted on my right thigh by a cow!; I strained my right sacro-iliac joint whilst replacing the back wheel after my (?4th) puncture. How decrepit a figure I am. My ankle is still painful, but need to press on as I am falling behind with my schedule, which up 'til now has been fairly loose, but I have to bear in mind the need to be in Alaska for July and August.
Pushkar was one big shopping bazaar and displayed a commercial spirituality: some tourists being charged ridiculous sums if they wanted to go down to the holy lake. I used my recuperation (3 days bed rest) to read: finishing Slumdog, managing to read all of Midnight's Children (Salman Rushdie) and starting on one of many Paulo Coelho books I am acquiring and dashing through.
Tomorrow I should be visiting a centre of The Leprosy Mission (one of my charities) here in Delhi; and I should be being interviewed by TimeOut (India).
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