Marianne Of The Taliban

I can only imagine what you must be thinking after reading the title of this blog, but I can honestly say that I have not changed my name and I have not joined the Taliban.

I also hope you don't think it is in bad taste but I had to write this blog because I met the most wonderful woman in Goa India and her story is so incredible that it just had to be told.
Her name is not actually Marianne but it does rhyme with Marianne but I had to change her name to protect the guilty if you get what I mean.
Also I did say in my last blog that I would write and tell you if anything exciting happened in my last couple of weeks here in India and  for me meeting Marianne has definitely been a highlight of my trip and brought me so so much happiness that I just wanted to tell you about her.

I met Marianne one morning on the beach in Patnem.
Patnem is about a 20 minute walk along the coastline from Palolem. It is a lovely walk through the fishing village of Collom, over the rocks and along the beach, it is a lovely walk early in the morning when the fishermen are pulling in their boats and picking their nets. Even though I am a vegetarian I can still appreciate how beautiful it is to see the fisherman working away happy with their catch so they are able to feed their families.

By the time I reached Patnem it was about 8.30am. I don't really know the village so I just sat on a sun lounger outside a restaurant that looked pretty. I couldn't even see the name of the place, there was no sign or anything but it was wonderfully decorated, it had huge white light shades and soft cushions and pretty purple seats and the waiter that came over and said good morning was friendly and cute and welcoming, so I decided to stay.
I ordered a coffee and started to put my sarong on my lounger, getting myself comfy and settled.
As I was applying my sun cream a lady who I thought to be in her 50's with a beautiful crop of white hair came over and smiled and sat a couple of beds down from me. I smiled back and said hello and we started talking. To be honest I never really talk to other tourists while on the beach and it's funny because she later told me that she doesn't either, but very soon we were chatting away and she was so funny ad chirpy.

We talked for hours that morning, she was telling me how she was staying with her daughter and son in law and their children further north in India in a place called Pune for 4 months. Marianne's daughter is married to n Indian man, well his father is Indian and his mother is English. Marianne is actually from Amsterdam but was invited by her daughter to spend some time in India over the Christmas Holiday and she jumped at the chance
There are so many parts of Marianne's life story that brought me to tears and others that made me howl with laughter but it is her story and I believe it should be told by her. I am actually trying my hardest to convince her to write a book  about her life because it really is such a beautiful, wild, adventurous, outrageous story, maybe one day she will allow me to write it with her....I will keep working on that.
I am only going to briefly touch on her story in this blog.

So Marianne actually came to India for the 1st time in the early 70's. I was completely envious when I heard this because I would have loved to have lived then and been one of those 1st hippie traveller's to hit the road without a map or a mobile phone or a laptop, just to hit the road with just your dreams and your excitement.
She told me how how her and her boyfriend who later became her husband travelled from Amsterdam, hitchhiking and busing and walking all the way across the Continent through Afghanistan, Nepal, Morocco and India.

She told me how her boyfriend was so confident and she felt so safe with him as they travelled together and I thought how lucky she had been to have a good man with her keeping her safe.

She told me about travelling through Afghanistan and all the people they had met all the different foods she tried and all the marijuana they smoked and how everyone would stare at her with her long legs and blond hair. I was fascinated by her tales of Nepal, she said it was so beautiful and they walked slowly up through the mountains with only tennis shoes and a small bag each. Marianne explained how they learnt to say 'Food please' & 'bed please' in Nepalese because if people didn't take them in for the night they would have frozen to death in the mountains.
Anyway the part of her story that I want you to tell you about is how her and her boyfriend ended up smuggling hashish through Afghanistan, Pakistan and then back to Amsterdam.

Before Marianne and her boyfriend left Amsterdam they were friends with an English man. Marianne's boyfriend would sell hashish  that this English guy  had smuggled into the country from Afghanistan.  They had no idea that this man was overseas but they actually bumped into him one day in the street in Afghanistan....can you believe it??? well I can because that kind of shit happens to me all the time.

The English guy was gutted when he saw them because he was actually leaving that day with a  load of hashish that was stashed in the roof of his brightly coloured double decker bus.  He was hoping to sell it in Amsterdam through Marianne's boyfriend. He knew he could trust them and he did not want to go through anyone else.
 Anyhow The English guy convinced Marianne and her boyfriend to go back to Amsterdam where he would be waiting for them with the hashish. They would make a hell of a lot of money out of the deal that would pay for another trip and a car so they decided to do it. Marianne's boyfriend decided that they too should smuggle some hashish back to Amsterdam with them been as they were going back anyway.

As I am sure you can imagine my jaw had dropped to the sand whilst listening to a 63 year old woman tell me this story but I was transfixed and urged her to go on. (She bloody didn't look anything like 63 years of age and she wasn't talking like your average woman in her sixties either)

She told me how they had gone to the market and bought 2 holdalls and then had taken them to a tailor and had the tailor make a deep base in each bag, like a hidden compartment. This is were they put the kilos of hashish hidden away in the base of the bags. They also had special shoes made so they could pack the sole with more hashish.

So off they went to the airport in Afghanistan, they didn't fly from Kabul as they were told security was too tight their so they booked flights from a quieter smaller airport. Once at security men and woman are separated and Marianne stood in line waiting for her bag to be searched.
At this point I spilt my coffee all down myself because I could only imagine how she must have been feeling standing there at the security check point in Afghanistan up to the tits with hashish.

 I was sat there on my sun lounger with my heart thundering in my chest thinking how bloody crazy this story was, I mean when I am standing at the security point in an airport I am panicking in case I have a nail scissors is in my hand luggage or I have a liquid that is over 100 ml  and there was Marianne In Afghanistan in the 1970's with the soles of her shoes and the  base of her holdall crammed to the rafters with Afghani grade 1 hashish....nightmare. She explained that she felt really calm which I was amazed at she said because her boyfriend was so calm it made her feel calm.

She was called over by a young hansom security guy and he opened her bag and began searching through it, all the time looking up into Marianne's pretty eyes and smiling at her (it was a good bloody job she was a good looking leggy blond because she would have probably been for the guillotine). He zipped her holdall shut and handed it to her but as she went to take it he held on to it and again looked her straight in the eye. With the other hand he tapped the 2 inch base of the bag and said  "and in here madame, anything you wish to declare"  to which she just calmly said "no sir" and he smiled at her and let her go.
 Can you bloody believe it, he knew that there was something in it, he knew and he let her go.
 Marianne then went on to tell me that she made her way straight through to were her boyfriend was waiting who had also been through security and allowed to pass. She said they were so pleased and excited but they played it cool and made their way to their flight. I can not really remember exactly how the story went but basically the flight had to make a diversion because of a technical fault so they had to land in Pakistan  they were seriously worried about this as they knew they would have to pass again through security and they knew that they had been so lucky so far and even though they had been allowed to pass through security the security staff had known what they were doing.

Marianne and her boyfriend had to stay over night in a hotel that the airline had provided. The entire passengers on the flight were escorted to a nearby hotel for the night.
Once in the hotel they decided that they had to get rid of the bags that it was far too risky to attempt to smuggle the hashish in them again so they cut the bags open removed the hashish and burnt the bags late that night. They then decided that the only way to carry it was on their bodies. They left what was in the soles of their shoes there as they hoped that would be ok.
So in the morning both feeling nervous about the checks that would be carried out in Pakistan they began the task of strapping the hashish to each others bodies. Marianne told me that they used crepe bandages from their first aid kit. They both had a package strapped to their chest and back and a package between both thighs.
Once at the airport,  again they had to wait in line to be searched, again they were separated.
Marianne was escorted by a female officer behind a screen were she was told to raise her arms. The female officer then passed a metal detector down the front of Marianne's body and then down her back. Of course  no alarm sounded  because she wasn't smuggling anything metal like guns,  she was smuggling Hashish.

What Marianne told me next almost floored me...I had to order another coffee because I had spilt most of the last one.
The female officer then began to search over Marianne's body with her hands. She started with her arms and then with her hands in the prayer position ran her hands down the front of Marianne's chest....then their eyes met, "what is this madame"......................
And then of all the things I thought Marianne would do or say she calmly said "Hashish"

The female officer did not continue with the body search as she would have found the packages between her thighs that due to the heat must have surly started to let off some aroma. The officer stood and looked at Marianne in the eyes "do you eat it" she said. "No I smoke it"  replied Marianne. "Oh us woman here like to eat it, it is better for the health" and with that it was done. She pushed Marianne out from behind the screen and as her hand touched Marianne's back it touched the other packet of Hashish that was strapped there. Marianne whispered  "thank you" and the woman nodded..."Don't stand with your male friend, stay away from him until you are on the flight".
Marianne did as she was told and hoped her boyfriend had been as fortunate. Just as the flight was boarding that female officer walked past Marianne and winked at her, and then Marianne was free and boarded the flight and flew home to Amsterdam.

Marianne also told me how when she had first saw the female officer she had judged her, she thought she looked like a bit of a bitch, like she was on a power trip, you see Marianne was a hippie and watching this woman in uniform strutting about and ordering people this way and that really pissed her off, but there you go you really should not judge anyone. I know we all do, and I know I am terrible sometimes judging others but if that officer had really been a bitch Marianne could have received  life in prison or even the death sentence.

I spent about five days with Marianne and as I waved goodbye to her as she left for the train station for her train back to Pune I thanked God that we had met. She had told me so many incredible things about her life which was touched with such heart ache and pain and also so much love,  real deep love. She is a wonderful woman and a real inspiration to me and I know we will have contact forever.
She has invited me to Amsterdam and we plan to see the city, taking in the sights, cycling around and sipping coffee and eating cakes by the canals and I can't wait.

Thank you Marianne of the Taliban
 ( a name given to her by one of her friends when she returned from Afghanistan and told her smuggling story to him)...
You are a wonderful soul, you gave me so much love and advice and you opened my eyes to so many things....your one hell of a special bird x




So I hope you all enjoy Marianne's wee story...I will let you know when she writes her book ; )

Drink Pray Love!!!!!!!

Well It has been so long since I have written, months in fact but my year trip ends in a couple of weeks so I knew I had to get my arse in gear and get writing before I have to return to England and I wake up from this beautiful dream.

The thing is so much has been going on in my life,  I feel I have lived many different lives in only one year.  I  was so busy working in the Rock bar that I just didn't find the time to write and then I was in a relationship for a while and was living with a man out in the sticks in Cambodia in the countryside in a little village were there was no internet access.
 Anyway here I am now,  I am single again and I'm not working and I am going to be bumming around on the beach  for a couple of weeks before I return home to the UK so I now have the time to fill you in on everything that has been going on in the world of Jacquelina.

At present I am back in Goa, Palolem India, the very place I began my trip almost a year ago. I didn't really plan it that way it just evolved that way but now I am here I know at this moment in time there is no other place in the universe I am supposed to be.
I was initially in India for 6 months but due to visa restrictions I had to leave the country after 6 months and was not able to return for 2 months. Those are the rules, if they were not then believe me I would have stayed in India because I had been so very very happy.

 In the end though I decided to go back to Cambodia, I had lived there for 10 months about 3 years previously so I have friends there and I wanted to see them again.
Cambodia has a funny way of wriggling into my heart though, I was only going to stay for a month or two but ended up staying for four. The Khmer people are lovely and so much fun and very quickly I had all these emotional ties with people and it was hard to say good bye.

So the last time I wrote I was telling you about working in the rock bar in Cambodia on Otres beach. That was a lot of fun most of the time but unfortunately of course it steered me off the sober and spiritual  path that I had been on in India.
I stopped doing my yoga which had been such a big part of my life for six months because I was working all the time and when I was't working I was too tired to do anything.  It was impossible to do the daily meditation I had got into the habit of doing with rock music blasting up through the wooden ceiling straight into my room above the bar so gradually I felt that all of the spiritual steps I had taken forward were beginning to turn around in reverse.

I sometimes would be working until 4am and I was drinking again too, I guess that is to be expected when you work in a bar, you have to drink with the customers to create that fun atmosphere, but while I was creating a fun atmosphere for them I was taking myself further and further away from were I really wanted to be and from the peace I had finally found within myself.

I was just worn out and I found myself feeling lost and tired and really down at times. The absence of my daily meditation and yoga made me feel like I was only there in body that my spirit was lost in limbo somewhere.  I missed India terribly and the spiritual life I had had there. It was during this time that I met many people that cared for me and to them I am so grateful for the love they gave me, but I felt like I was loosing myself and I knew I had to leave.
I did have some great great time's though, I met some wonderful people and laughed and danced and fell head over heels in love with the Cambodian staff that worked at the bar, they became my family. We would laugh so much together chasing each other around the kitchen and playing jokes on each other, they really were my family for those two months and I will love them forever, the Cambodian staff and Vonya were the reason I stayed there so long.

 Vonya is one of the sweetest ladies I have ever met but  unfortunately her business partner an American man did not turn out to be all that he had pretended and his nasty side was the main reason why I left in the end. He was cruel to the Cambodian staff at times and it was horrible to watch. He would shout at them in front of the customers and order them around like they were his slaves which I thought was disgusting as he is a guest in their country.  I was working without a salary and I was working hard and in the end even though I was grateful for a free room,  food and drinks I felt I deserved some kind of salary, I bloody worked my arse off day after day and wasn't given a penny.

Now that I have left that situation I know for sure that I was supposed to work there, there were lessons that I needed to learn and as always for me I only learn the hard way.
The man I worked for reminded me of my Father in so many ways, the way his mood and temper would effect the whole energy of the place and the people in it.  The way we were all scared of what mood he would wake up in and we would try to keep out of his way while he banged around, smashing things and shouting at people.
I had to face those old demons and I had to try to find a way of not letting him make me feel nervous and on edge all the time. I had to dig deep inside to realise that someone else's behavior can only hurt me if I allow it too and that if they are angry or horrible it does not mean that I have to take that on board, that is there shit. I learnt to surround myself with a protective light that he and his moods could not penetrate but it was exhausting and I just wanted to be as far away from him as possible.
 I know many people that will read this will know this man and I really am sorry if what I have said hurts your feelings but it is all the truth,  I lived there in that bar for two months and I saw it all.
I wish him no harm and from me there is no bad feeling but I know now I only want to surround myself with people that are good and make me happy and make other people happy . In fact  I'm grateful to him for making me face those old demons and making me realise the kind of people I want in my life and the kind of people I do not.

Otres beach in Cambodia is a beautiful place and I am so so glad that I spent so many months there.
I was not looking for love or a relationship but that is what I found. The special man I met is a very private person so I wont say his name but our time together was wonderful. I guess you are wondering why then I am in India and he is in Cambodia and we didn't live happily ever after,  but for both of us it is quite simple really, we met,  we  loved,  we had fun,  we helped each other, we healed each other in many ways and then we realised that we wanted different things from life. We wanted to have different lifestyles and we wanted to be in different countries.
Most westerners that live in Cambodia own or work in bars. Everyone drinks and most people are stoned all day every day and I am not judging anyone for how they choose to live their life because God knows I have partied for years but I learnt in India that I just don't want to do that anymore, it always just ends in tears for me. I have seen so many people pass through Cambodia and I have seen the place chew them up and spit them out and I was not going to allow that to happen to me.
 I was sad when the relationship ended and I know he was too, there was no big fight or nasty words we both just knew it had to end before we started resenting each other and hurting each other,  so one day we talked about it and I just stood up and packed my things and we hugged and I left.
I feel so very grateful to him for welcoming me into his home, a beautiful wooden house on stilts on a river. When he asked me to move in he knew how exhausted I was after working in the rock bar and he said he wanted me to have somewhere to feel safe and relaxed and his home became my home and for a short time I was happier than I had been in a very long time.
I used to wake early in the morning and do yoga on the balcony watching the sunrise over the mangroves. He would wake and make us breakfast and we would laugh and talk. I told him everything about my life and he said he wanted to help me and he did, more than he will ever know.
He made me realise that I can love someone again and I can let someone into my heart and relationships don't always have to be full of fights and lies. It is the first relationship I have had in years and it is one I will hold in my heart forever.
We still talk now and again on the phone and every time we do we laugh and laugh and that is what was so good about our relationship we laughed and laughed and laughed, we laughed until we cried. I believe laughter is one of the greatest healers and we were both a little sad when we met and I know we are happier now because of what we shared.

During this time I met a beautiful girl, young and blond and wild. We became very close and I think maybe that was hard for him to see, to be honest I think he was jealous. She was the only girly friend I had really on Otres to talk too and have drinkies with. We had a wonderful time together and we love each other dearly and we misbehaved terribly but it was all wonderful fun and I don't regret a thing.
She is wild like me, she smashed her front teeth out one night whilst dancing around a pole in a club drunk, but to me she was a breathe of fresh air, vibrant and gorgeous the kind of girl that people just want to be around, just fun loving and happy we were like two peas in a pod or rather two slappers in a hammock!!

We went off to a beautiful island together and slept in hammocks strung between the palm trees and swam naked in the ocean under the stars, sipped cocktails on our little private beach (thank God it was private) and giggled and laughed like only girls can do together. We were only supposed to go for one night but we were in paradise and we were having so much fun that we just didn't want to go back to the main land and face the music so we waved goodbye to the boat in the morning that we were supposed to be on and ordered two more G&T's from the bar. I know now that this was not fair on my boyfriend. I was in a relationship with a lovely man and I know I hurt him but I also know that my relationship with that man was not supposed to last forever. That doesn't make what I did right or fair but it is what it is.

When we broke up I went to stay with one of my best friends Roxy who also lives in Cambodia.  Roxy has always been there for me over the years, she has wiped more tears from my cheeks than a midwife has wiped babies bottoms.
She is younger than me but she has always been stronger and wiser. I don't think I have ever seen her cry. She is so together and confident and I know I am truly blessed that she has taken care of me so many times when I have ended up once again in the gutter.

We met years ago in Greece were we worked as holiday reps for Thomson for two years together. We had an amazing time in Greece. We used to dance on every bar in town, in fact we would walk in to a bar and the bar men knowing us so well would just pick us up and put us on the bar and then they would play Anna Vissi our favourite Greek singer while we danced and pranced to hopefully the delight and not disgust of the crowd.
Once we actually fell of the bar backwards in-to the bottle bin, thank God that it had just been emptied. I am sure to this day that it was Roxy that fell and then pulled me down with her but she insists it was me, we still laugh about that twelve years later.
 Then years later we met again in Egypt. I was working at the airport in Luxour,  I was meeting a flight from Manchester and in she walked with her Dad into the arrival hall, I could have fainted on the spot.
Then even more years later whilst travelling around South East Asia I walked into a restaurant in Cambodia with some friends and a scream came from a table in an unmistakable  Rochdalle accent..."Oh my God It's Queen Jacqueline" and there she was again.
We are just meant to be in each others lives I guess. We arranged to meet once in Manchester when we were both in England but all of our other meetings around the world have been orchestrated by the forces of the universe and you can't argue with that, can you?

I was down for a few days after I split up with my boyfriend and I did what I always used to do if I was down,  I drank myself into a stupor. I drank all of Roxy's Bombay Sapphire and half a bottle of  baileys and cried my self to sleep soaking poor Roland Rat for the millionth time in his life. In the morning I cried again in to my coffee with Roxy looking on. She is a proper no nonsense northern lass and she was having none of that behavior.  We talked things through and she put me back together again and sent me on my way happily to Phnom Penn.

Phnom Penn is the capital of Cambodia and I had to go there to apply for an Indian visa. To be honest if I had a pair of balls I know the whole saga would have given me a ball ache beyond repair because President Obama was in town on official human rights business and the King of Cambodia had just died RIP so trying to get across the city to the Indian Embassy was like pissing in the wind.

I ended up staying ten days in the city. Lots of things happened,  there were good days and bad. I got to see my old friends Brad, Laura and Alex who I had worked with on Bamboo Island just of the south coast of Cambodia Three years previously so that was a lot of fun. Brad, Laura and I drank lots of cheep beer and laughed our socks off and watched episode after episode of the Sopranos to the point were Brad started talking to me and Laura in a strange Italian mafioso accent.

I did meet some lovely people in Phnom Penn.  I met a  lovely Greek man one afternoon in my hotel, he had the most beautiful eyes the colour of the Aegean sea and it made me realise when I heard him talk English in his sexy Greek accent that my days with Greece are not over. We talked and laughed and it was so nice to talk in Greek again it had been so long since I had spoken any Greek words and I loved that afternoon just sat talking with him. I want to go back to Greece one day, I lived there for about four years and I loved it. maybe I will take my Momma on a holiday there in the summer she always loved it too, but there will be no dancing on the bars and falling off in-to bottle bins this time of course.

 Also I met a young man from Norway, I have never seen any one as beautiful in my life, he was like the most gorgeous creature on earth. He was tall and had a wonderful body all toned and muscular and he was golden brown with blonde hair and blue eyes, he had just the most beautiful face and really white perfect teeth, he was just completely gorgeous.We had a great time together, drank lots of beer and laughed and laughed.  He was only young about 23 I think but he was very mature and kind and sincere.
 I was telling him about the work my brother is doing in Ghana Africa, he is running a project for street children providing them with a safe place to live and go to school.  He said he wanted to do some volunteer work and was interested in what my brother was doing which impressed me because most young lads today just want to go out and get drunk and laid and especially the ones that look as good as he does, but he wanted to dedicate his time to helping others and that just made him even more beautiful in my eyes. .

 I did have a bit of a emotional melt down at one point whilst in Phnom Penn, I just started to think about how I was going to have to go back to England soon and I would have no money, no job and the relationship that I thought was the one I had been looking for all my life was over,  but my dear friends, Brad, Laura, Hana and Alex rallied round to take care of me and to them I am so so grateful.

A wonderful surprise came my way whilst I was in Phnom Penn.
My favorite travelling buddy ever who now  lives in Vietnam came to Phnom Penn on a stag do. It was a miracle really as I was due to leave the day before he was due to arrive and would have just missed him but he saw on face book that I was in Phnom Penn and called me at my hotel and told me to delay my plans for a day so we could meet up so I did. It meant I would be over staying my visa by 1 day but I just hoped it would  be ok.
 I went out for dinner with him and all the boys and we drank expensive wine and ate delicious French food and reminisced about our travels together through Laos and Cambodia 3 years previously.
He hadn't changed at all even though he is now married with two children. He is still full of life, vibrant and full of mischief and I adore him so much.
We only had about four hours together as I was catching the night bus to Thailand.  We hugged goodbye and the cheeky bugger gave me a slap on the arse as I walked away (just for old times sake I guess).
I watched him and his friends stumbling off towards the strip clubs of Phnom Penn and I was really tempted to sack the bus off and go with them but my sensible side told me that would not have been a good idea.
I boarded the bus to Bangkok plastered on expensive red wine and slept like a baby for the whole journey.

I woke up 15 hours later at the Thai border,  hung over, severely dehydrated with my face stuck to the window,  dying for the loo.
I nearly burst into tears when I was marched off by two serious looking military men in beige uniforms and hats with guns slung over their shoulders  to a dark musty smelling office with an angry looking man sat behind a huge desk covered in papers, overflowing ashtrays and dirty coffee cups.
I stood there shitting myself trembling like I was guilty of smuggling heroin into the country,  not knowing what on earth was going to happen to me,  but I knew one thing for certain I didn't want to end up face down on that desk covered in coffee and fag ash and Thai sweat.
They searched every page of my passport and waffled on in Thai for what seemed like forever and then one of them turned to me and said "You over stay your visa madame, $100 madame please".  I was horrified and petrified,  I had hardly any  money on me at all, just a few dollars until I got into Bangkok and went to the ATM.   Then he said "Only joking madame, only $5 today"  and then he laughed. I was stunned and relieved and fumbled around in my bag searching for $5. I paid them the $5 and got my ass out of their as fast as I could across the border.

Another wonderful surprise came my way when I arrived in Bangkok.
It always makes me smile how the universe conspires to bring people together just like it had for me and Roxy so many times and for me, Brad Laura, Alex and my friend from Vietnam.

My dear friend Tommy who I have always called Alexander super tramp from the movie Into The Wild due to the fact that he looks like the actor in the movie and he lives his life pretty much the same way,  was arriving into Bangkok from Jersey that very day.
It's incredible because if my friend from Vietnam had not asked me to stay another day in Cambodia to see him I would have left the day before and I would have arrived in Bangkok the day before Super Tramp and missed him by 24 hours.
Alexander Super Tramp had seen one of  my face book status's saying I was leaving Cambodia and was on my way to Thailand so he messaged me and told me to find him. To be honest it is easy to find someone in Bangkok you just head for Kho San Rd and scan the bars.

There I was walking down Kho San with my back pack on,  sweating like a water buffalo in the same clothes I had on for 24 hours when I spotted him running towards me from an Irish bar. It was so good to see him. I met Super Tramp on Otres beach in Cambodia and we were friends from the second we met. He is a lovely boy, very gorgeous but he has such a sweet heart. He left Cambodia suddenly because he was ill. He had been to the clinic and they told him he had yellow fever or something and pumped him full of drugs. They wanted to charge him hundreds of dollars for treatment which he couldn't afford so he decided to go home to Jersey. I was gutted when he left,  he came to see me at the rock bar to say good bye and he was shaking and pale and had tears in his eyes. I felt such a pain in my heart I really care for him so much, I just want to take care of him whenever I am with him.
Anyway he flew home and went to the hospital and had loads of tests done and there was nothing bloody wrong with him. To be honest I knew that and I told him as much when I saw him. I knew he had been partying hard, drinking lots and all that goes with that. I knew he was exhausted,  he had burnt himself out, I could see the signs,  I have seen them enough times in the mirror myself. He was emotionally wrecked and exhausted and he just needed to go home to his Mom for some TLC.
 I was so happy when he wrote to me telling me he was ok and we said that we hoped we would meet again some day and thanks to the universe and it's magic we did.

We only had 24 hours together but every moment was full of fun, laughter with a little debauchery thrown in.  Super tramp is a lot like me. He loves people. We were sat just the two of us one minute and then he was off talking to some guy who was sat alone inviting him to our table then I was off talking with a group of girls and before we knew it there was about 15 of us sat around a table drinking and laughing and taking crazy photos.
Super tramp is a very special soul, he lives his life like the littlest hobo, just moving from place to place, making friends,  people just fall hopelessly in love with him and then he moves on.  I see so much of my wandering ways in him and I think that is why we get along so well. We talk a lot about the places we have been and the places we still want to see and I have to say he has the loveliest  peachiest bottom I have ever seen in my life (I took a quick peek as he was getting out of the shower and gave it a cheeky slap, I just couldn't resist).

I was gutted saying goodbye to Super Tramp, but I know I will see him again. He hugged me so tight and I had to bite my lip to stop myself from crying and then he turned around and ran off back down Kho San Rd.  I watched him running through the crowds of back packers and street vendors and I thought how wonderful it is to be so young and free and I am so grateful that like Super Tramp I have been so blessed to have had such a wonderful life travelling around the world. I will always pray for him and care for him and help him if he ever needs me. I know we will be friends forever.

I was so excited to be going back to India even though it meant saying goodbye to some very wonderful friends. I just knew it was time for me to go. I knew the whole back packing South East Asia thing with all the beer and joints and bongs and what have you was over for me. I'm 38 years old for Christ sake I have been there and smashed the life out of  that lifestyle for years.

So I left Thailand  to make my way back to India. I flew to Chennai otherwise known as Madras, it is in south India. I decided that because I only had a few weeks left of my trip not to go north to Rajastan as I had planned,  but to go back to Goa were I had started my trip a year ago and chill on the beach. I know India will always be here. I know I will be coming back for the rest of my life, so all of the places I didn't see this time I can see some other time. India is in my blood now and I will return again and again.

Chennai by all accounts is a shit hole. Sorry to anyone that comes from there but as it says in The Rough Guide, Chennai is dirty, hectic, over populated by millions and most people just stay there long enough to buy a train or bus ticket to get the hell out of there.
 The hotel I was staying in was a dump. I hadn't pre-booked anything but I got talking to some American people on my flight who had booked rooms in a guest house so they said I could jump in a taxi with them so I did. We could not believe the state of the place when we arrived it was horrendous but it was midnight and we certainty were not about to go walking around the dark streets of that hideous town looking for alternative accommodation.

My room was like a prison cell in a torture camp, no windows, no pillow and no bed sheets. The paint was peeling off the walls and the floor was filthy. The bed was made of rotting wood, I could hear the termites biting away at it and the mattress was half an inch thick and covered with stains, white stains red stains and brown stains. It looked like some body had died of dysentery on it.  I just could not bring myself to go any where near it I was sure it would have bed bugs at the very least.
So I sat all night on a metal folding chair in the middle of the room fully dressed waiting for the sun to rise so I could get the hell out of there. It was the longest night of my life, I was eaten alive by mosquitoes and I felt really bloody sorry for myself.
I had planned to make my way across the country to Goa by train and bus which would have taken 2 days in all but to be honest after a night sat upright in a chair and travelling from Cambodia to Thailand on a 15 hour bus journey and then partying with Super tramp in Bangkok I was bloody exhausted. I had traveled through three country's in three days so I made my way back to the airport and bought a flight ticket to Goa for about 80 quid and saved myself a lot of bloody hassle and stress.

It was wonderful arriving in Goa again. The air was fresh and the sun was shinning  and it brought back all those great memories of touching down in India for the first time 11 months before.
The taxi driver lent me his mobile phone and I called Dinesh  the owner of the guest house I had stayed in when I had arrived in India in January. I told him I was in a taxi on my way and he was so shocked and surprised. Dinesh and his wife came to meet me and brought me to their guest house were I was given the same room as I had had on my last visit. It felt so magical to be back in the same place, I couldn't stop hugging them, I knew I had made the right decision not to go north  to Rajastan because I would have spent the last few weeks of my trip, trudging through the scorching dessert, travelling on trains and buses and carrying a heavy bag and just being stressed out.

I showered and changed as quickly as I could because I just couldn't wait to see everyone again. It was incredible to be back on Palolem beach it is the most beautiful beach in Goa and probably in all of India.
 All of the friends I had made in the restaurants and shops came out to say hello and greet me. It was so wonderful, I was so happy to see them all again and to see the complete surprise on their faces. When you love a place and love the people you always say you will go back but life takes you down so many different roads (well mine does anyway) and very often even though you always planned to go back you never actually do.
So for me I felt completely blessed and grateful to God that his will had taken me back again to the first friends I had made in India. It was incredible to smell the incense wafting out of the little shops and to see the beautiful Indian ladies in their colorful saris and I thought my heart would explode with happiness.

For the last few days I have been up at the crack of dawn, running on the beach, watching the sunrise over the coconut palms and doing Yoga. I feel so much better, I feel happier than I ever felt in Cambodia or Thailand. For me India is were I am the most at peace, the most settled within myself. I love the spirituality of the place, I just don't get that feeling in Cambodia. I don't think anywhere in the world will ever top India for me, it just makes me so happy every day. I know now that if I had of stayed with my boyfriend in Cambodia I would have ended up resenting our relationship because my heart is here in India. I don't drink alcohol in India either as I am always up early for Yoga so for me it is just a really healthy life style completely different to the kind of life I was living whilst working in that Rock bar.

I only have a couple of weeks left and I'm trying hard not to even think about England and how that place makes me feel because I just want to enjoy every moment of this paradise and live in the present.
I will be travelling to Mumbai on the 23rd Dec and then I fly to the UK on the 26th. I'm looking forward to having a few days in Mumbai, I stopped off there on a flight once but never saw the city so I'm looking forward to checking it out and watching a Bollywood movie and visiting the bizzar's.
It will be strange to spend Christmas day on my own in Mumbai eating Dahl and chapattis but my life has never been just the run of the mill normal and I'm grateful for that. I wouldn't know how to do normal if I tried. I'm really looking forward to it to be honest, there is an Ashram I really want to visit in Mumbai so I think my days there will be interesting. Christmas day with my family usually goes haywire anyway so I'm quite happy to spend it alone.

So,  I will let you know if any life changing events happen over the next couple of weeks that would mean I don't have to ever leave.  You never know I could be starring in a Bollywood movie or married off to a tuk tuk driver by this time next week.

That's what I love about India,  miracles happen every day.


Much Love & Merry Christmas

Jacqueline x