101 Challenges:

Location: Neyerdam - Kerala, India

Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. So, this journal entry was started at 05:35 am on Thursday 17th. The train we hopped on yesterday in Margao was 2 hours and 5 minutes late. Always thinking ahead, we phoned our not-yet-met friend, Graham Bishop down in Kerala and organised our taxi to pick us up 2 hours and 5 minutes later than initially planned. Graham’s a good spud who left Scotland a while back to help other people around the world. A bit like us but less flashy.

The 16 hour journey somehow managed to time-warp itself in to a mere 13 hour journey and we’ve arrived in Trivandrum at 05:25 am. 2 hours and 5 minutes earlier than secondly expected and at the time we should have arrived in the first place. Never knew that India Railways can bend the space/time continuum.

Lindsay, through fear of losing more cash or catching anorexia from the horrible train toilet, has been holding in a poopy for 12 hours now and for the life of him, can not find a bog anywhere in this station.

And so, here we are. It’s now 06:00 am and we’re in an air-conditioned waiting room at Trivandrum Central Station. With only a mere 90 minutes of bum-clenching-hell until we meet Graham – Lee’s asleep and Lindsay’s killing time writing the journals (as always).

It’s now about 9am on Sunday 20th (time flies in these journals!) and this is to be our final day in Nayerdam. Needless to say, we got our taxi and Lindsay’s done a few jobbies since the above paragraph.

Kerala’s been a tricky one. The place is stunning – amazing jungles and villages, dams and ravines, gigantic heights of trees wherever you look, over shadowed by huge mountainous ranges and the people are simply amazing. Never in our lives have we ever said hello to as many people as we have over the past few days.

Our intention was to come here and meet with our now-met-friends – Graham “certainly not a Bishop” Marshall (it appears that Lindsay just made up his surname) and his wife, the gorgeous “Alchy” Allison*. These two Saints are the nicest people we could ever have the privilege of meeting. Amazing folk.

Graham is a walking Wikipedia. You can not say hello to the man without him resorting to a lesson on ancient Greek mythology, explaining where butter beans come from or defining the elements of quantum physics. 56 minutes later, he’ll say hi back and then give you a further education on why cotton is better than silk and the reasoning behind Mozart’s unfinished symphonies.

Allison (our Kerala Mum) is the sweetest and sexiest alcoholic you’ll ever meet. She made us breakfast and coffee. We like that. She did however, within 12 seconds of meeting us, say that Lindsay looked stressed. He didn’t like that and so, he retorted “you’re fat”. After the initial awkward silence – the two fell in love and plan to run away together to Iceland to start a cake shop enterprise. Here we all are in a Toddy shop. Note; Alison (is it one L or two?) is onto her 14th by the time this picture was taken;

Once acquainted, we were to meet with Wilson – the head of a local charity called BGM.

We were kindly invited to have dinner at his home – it was amazing. Proper Kerala food, eaten off banana tree leaves. Even with his fingers – Lindsay can’t reach his mouth;

Then, all very simple and straightforward, we were going to do some good and use some of the cash that you lot have given us and use it help some very, very needy poor folks.

TII. This Is India. A new saying that we’ve grown to love. Anything that takes 20 minutes to do back “home” takes about 4 days to organise, prepare, reorganise (because the preparation fecked up) and then re-prepare a further 12 times as anyone who was involved in the initial organising of whatever it was that needed doing, has simply buggered up somewhere along the line.

Two days ago, we went to a local school and gave out some shirts – it was beautiful. After the kids stopped crying at the presence of two hairy arsed, fat Scotsmen, wearing kilts and accompanied by an Orang-utan hanging from one of their necks – they warmed up to us and even gave us some songs.

It was like Red Nose Day – the serious bits. We tried, but none of us cried – would have made a great photo.

We decided that we should drop off the kitchen sink here as all the school had as a kitchen was an outdoor tap and a concrete slab. We gave £35 to the headmistress to allow everything to be plumbed in, and fitted. This will now provide extra sanitation for the kids. Mrs Head (we never got her name) was unbelievably humbled and so, thanks to the following people for that gesture;

Trish Waters, Amanda Lamb, Scott Lewellyn, Fiona Main, Emma-Claire Hall, and us two – we both put a fiver in the pot. Leading by example!

Sadly, we don’t have any pictures of the sink being handed over (perhaps, may we suggest, that you go to B&Q or Home Base and recreate the moment yourself with friends) as everything was filmed for the telly. Can’t wait – should be riveting!

Yesterday we spent some more of your cash (£155) on some goats. These were given to 3 separate women’s self-help groups. After buying the things – we had the joys of conveying them by tuc-tuc to their final destinations (22 kilometres away). Goats don’t like tuc-tucs and by means of protest, they show their discontent by peeing and crapping all over the legs of their fellow passengers – namely us. B*stards!

Lee gave away Chanoo and Baroo (we never asked them how they spell their names – mainly because we can’t speak “Goat”). Both were pregnant and so hopefully, their new-borns will create a self sustainable and generative future for these communities (as long as the goat-love isn’t kept in the family – maybe a niche in the webernet dating market here? www.goatlovecom)

Lindsay gave away Bethany and her two kids, Frank and George (obviously he renamed them) to an after-school community. All the goats we gave away are to be shared within each community and hopefully in 5 years time – these horny buggers will sprite a few more goats. Cheers for that;

Fiona Brown, Derek Brymer, Christian Carbines, Nicholas Catignani, Deirdre Clarkin, Cheryl Cuthbert, Yvonne Dalrymple, Margaret Drummond, Tracy English, John Foggarty, Sean Frew, Irene Fowle, Leyton Fowle, Christopher Gilmour, Deborah Greenlaw, Romana Grieve, Emma-Claire Hall, Vicki Harley, Kate Hawney, Gillian Hay, Grant Henderson, Ian Henderson, Jackie Henderson, Karen Holt, Brendan Hurley, George Johnston, Lesley McArthur, Jennifer McCandless, Marcus McDermot, Susan Mitchelson, Karen Murray, Eilidh Ness, Stuart Ness, Sofie Norgaard, Janne Norgaard, Michelle Norrie,  and Diane O’Donovan.

We know that £5 spent on goats is much more fluffier and cuter than plumbing a sink – but, the kids needed something clean and functional for their school kitchen. We’ve tried, but we can’t 1) spice up the giving away of a sink and 2) be arsed in trying to do part (1). Trust us – everyone was thankful and everyone needed the helping hand.

And so the time came for Indja to learn the Highland Games.

The games went absolutely brilliantly. A thousand times better then we could ever have imagined. The kids were fantastic and the smiles and laughter were overwhelming.

We “taught” (using that word in the loosest form) the little nippers how to Haggis Throw (with a coconut) and how to Hammer Throw (with some natural rubber which we made ourselves). We then progressed to tug-of-war and Lee, very masculingly, cut down a banana tree so, we began to toss. Naturally - us being competitive pr*cks – the kids never stood a chance of beating us at any of the games! Scotland 7 – Indja 0.

We then gave out the rest of the football tops. The kids were brilliant! More importantly though, we now have hardly any luggage – which is even brillianter!

And for some, the excitement was simply too much.

So, we’ve earned some good Karma by doing some Charidee work – which we don’t like to talk about. What we’ve learned is this;

If you want to do something out of the ordinary and decide to travel and dab a little in the world of charity – do it. There is no better feeling (well, sex is probably better but Lindsay can’t remember what that’s like so we’ll stick with this feeling of inner-well-being from giving to the poor).

If you come to a place like India or any other needy place then we’d strongly recommend that you offer your services as a volunteer. Don’t give money.

This may sound cruel, but one of the harsh truths is, the people who need the most help – want instant results. They would rather have 50 Rupees for a bag of rice today than be given the means to feed themselves for a lifetime tomorrow.

They’ll worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. Goats – great. Milk, Cheese, Herds, Meat etc… for generations and communities to come. Sink – grand. Helps keep the little kiddies from catching potentially harmful diseases and the likes. T-shirts – fun. Won’t put food in their bellies, but brings a smile to the wee-one’s faces!

So after emptying our sacks and lightening our loads – we left Nayerdam and the lovely Graham and Alison (who says she’s our number one fan – but so too does our real mum… FIGHT!) Here she is at about 9am in a little tea-shop, dissaprovingly looking at a waiter who's refused her some drink on the basis that she'd already had enough. Tut, tut;

On another nice note – should anyone who reads these journals ever venture to this beautiful place – please use the following taxi driver. He collected us from the train station and drove us around everywhere and anywhere throughout our stay in Nayerdam. He is amazingly polite, helpful, helps to communicate with the locals and will do absolutely anything (well almost) for you;

Saji Kumar
Thadathurikathu House
Pervrokulanutara
Neyyardam
Post Pin : 695572
Thiruvandduapuram District
Kerala
Mobile : 0091 (0) 9846330838

Nothing like helping fellow travellers and acknowledging a brilliant person.

So, to tie things up. Lindsay licked a goat and the two of us attempted to tickle a Tiger. Sadly, that Tiger turned out to be a bloody huge Lion and must have been ticklish – cos the bugger of a thing wouldn’t let us near it without a promising stare of “I’ll rip your heads off boys” given as a forewarning.

And now for a tangent;

Lindsay had a disturbing dream last night. The two of us were on a beach further North in Kerala. With us was a mate from back home. We met 3 girls who seemed pretty up for it but one (Lindsay’s one) wasn’t feeling too well and so, she had to go back to her pad to sleep for a while.

Lee went off with one girl and our friend went off with the other. Lindsay was left on his own and so, as dreams go, he went to fly in his hot air balloon. A short while later the 3rd girl came back and so, Lindsay landed down with amazing precision, right next to her. The two began chatting and it was looking like he was in there. But, somehow, Lindsay’s hot air balloon popped and he had to run away and fix it.

A few minutes later, he returned to the girl and was shocked to see that another mate from back home had inconveniently appeared in Kerala too – and the b*stard was chatting up Lindsay’s bird. Needless to say, the girl went off with the lad and Lindsay was left all alone with his deflated hot air balloon.

Even in his dreams – he can’t pull. And what the hell does the burst balloon mean? Is he impotent now?

* Allison says she’s not an alcoholic. She just drinks by Dublin standards (the whole of Dublin apparently). Oh, and she isn’t fat.