Author: Paul

I woke up early and bagged up anything in my hotel room that wasn’t chained down. I didn’t know what the rest of my accommodation would be like so took two toothbrushes, body lotion, conditioner, shampoo, a shower cap, a comb and so many bars of soap that it looked like I was smuggling bullion.

I had a casual buffet breakfast and was told my driver had been waiting for me for over an hour. Again, I felt like an arsehole. The ride to Rishikesh made my time with Manish feel like The Dukes of Hazzard by comparison. His name was Pushpicker but he told me to call him Lucky. He asked why I wasn’t married. I put my sunglasses on to avoid eye contact and answering his questions. We struggled to chat, even when I asked what time he finished and if he had been busy, pages one and two of taxi driver small talk.

After four hours we pulled over and he had to lend me some rupees to buy a toasted sandwich and a coke – the most traditional of Indian lunches. Lucky and I were not going to be sending postcards to one another.

Just before 5pm we pulled into Rishikesh, having been stuck in a strike or protest or some other ridiculous thing where people were dancing in the streets like Bowie and Jagger.

As soon as I arrived at the yoga retreat in the base of the Himalayas, I realised I had very much arrived. They took my bag and gave me some beads and everyone bowed a lot. It was great. I was shown to my room and it dawned on me all at once that I was alone. It was all on me to have a good time. On the way across the lobby I noticed that everyone having dinner together. The noise was incredible. There was no way I could just walk in there. I felt anxious and awkward. I quickly changed and headed downstairs and outside. Across the road was a vegan cafe. Exactly the kind of ridiculous thing I needed. It was only there that I realised Rishikesh is a dry state and I wouldn’t have a beer for a week.

As I was in India it made sense to have a delicious spaghetti dish as my first in Rishikesh.
A wiffle ball rolled over to the cushion I was sat on. I looked up and a three-year-old kid from the next booth was staring at me. I passed the ball back to him.
“You’ll end up playing that game all night if you carry on” said his mum. She was attractive and American.
“That’s fine with me” I said.
“We will leave him with you then” said his dad who was also attractive and American.

I drank some sweet lime soda. I didn’t know what it was but I had heard it ordered in The Darjeeling Limited and decided that it was for me. It was a mix of soda water, fresh lime and sugar. The sugar sat at the bottom of the glass and I tried to stir it in with a paper straw.

Once I had finished my food, I paid up and headed up to my room. I started worrying about being completely alone and that I might have made something of a mistake in heading out to do this. I could hear everyone downstairs talking and laughing. How was I ever going to be able to connect with them? I turned the TV on and discovered that all the channels were static. I was going to go mad. I struggled to switch off and get some sleep.

I woke up early the next morning and got ready for my first yoga class. They were held twice a day on the top floor. I wandered up and discovered a few people waiting outside. I made vague attempts to say hello and then we went inside. We were taught every day by Yogi Bobby. He was hardcore. It was next level to any yoga I had done before. It’s hard to explain how breathing and stretching can be so intensive but you’ll just have to believe me. Yogi Bobby had no time for our soft western bodies. He forced us to hold poses for uncomfortably long amounts of time.

His instructions of “loooongeeeerrr, looooonggeeeeer” were a running joke among the group.

After an hour, I went back to my room to have a shower and get dressed for breakfast.
I realised I could do socialising.
I could do breakfast.
It would be alright.

In the restaurant they put on a buffet-style breakfast. One of the girls waiting at the toaster started up a conversation with me. She was American and attractive. Her name was Brittany or Britney (of course it was). She asked if I was on my own and then asked if I wanted to join them. I looked over and realised there were a table of twenty women.

I could do socialising.
I could do breakfast.
I can most certainly do women.

Remember that scene in Love Actually where Colin (played by Kris Marshall) goes to America and hooks up with Elisha Cuthbert, January Jones and Shannon Elizabeth. That was me at breakfast. I held court over that buffet like the goddamn King of England. I found myself becoming more British as I went. I spoke in Cockney Rhyming Slang and told them all I was from London, which is only a lie if you’re not from America and know other places exist. I drank a lot of tea and showed off my bad teeth and they fell for my act hook, line and sinker.
I spent the day with them, got taken out for an amazing mushroom curry and ran around this huge temple in the rain. The thing was fourteen floors high and looked like a shopping centre mixed with a car park stairwell – very religious stuff. The place had all these statues and alcoves with shops in them. There were bells all around the place to announce your arrival to the deities. One of the girls, Katie took me to her favourite chai stall in the market opposite the temple. We sat there watching the world go by. It was like a tiny Indian Starbucks, but with just one man with a moustache there, who I wanted to cuddle.

The Americans were only in Rishikesh for the day so I knew I would have to make some new friends from then on but it was nice to have the company and to adjust to this solo travel stuff.

I awoke the next morning to find I was alone (again). Nobody else was in the morning yoga class. Yogi Bobby was super tough on me as a result. I think he missed all those attractive Americans too. At the start and end of each class he made everyone recite a prayer. I had never done it before. I figured we would skip it when it was just us but he insisted on making me recite the prayer anyway. I fumbled my way through it. It reminded me of when I was at school and had to play the recorder in a class of 30. I just mimed it then and got moved into the advanced class because they said I was so good.
When I messed up the prayer Yogi Bobbi would slow down and make me repeat a line again – like I was in a remedial class. At the end, he made me put my feet up on the wall and press my back into a raised block until I was suspended in the air like a magician’s assistant.

“I’m going to leave you there for thirty minutes” he said. I hoped he had got his numbers mixed up. I could feel blood pooling in odd places around my body.

I went to the ashram where The Beatles had stayed in the winter of 1968 while studying Transcendental Meditation under the guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. They charged 150 rupees for locals and 600 for foreigners. The mark up still meant I was only paying £6 to visit somewhere I had dreamt about since I was a child.

I spent an hour and a half on my own, wandering around the various dilapidated buildings that make up the site. I don’ t know if I was supposed to duck inside and have a look around but I certainly did and nobody stopped me. I found the bungalow where the Beatles stayed at the top of a hill and took pictures of every single cracked wall and dead leaf-strewn floor. I could hear prayers being chanted from the Ganges as I strolled through the place pretending I could feel some kind of spiritual power in the air. 

That afternoon I ventured back to town and had some chai. Then I had afternoon yoga session – again Yogi Bobby pushed my body into weird positions and exaggerated his vowel sounds like they were stretched limbs.

My fourth day in Rishikesh allowed me to connect with another group – this time, Australian women who had checked into the rooms abandoned by the Americans. They were super friendly and possibly even louder. After breakfast I was taken on a tour of the villages in the mountains by my new best friend Anurag, who worked at the hotel. We talked about life in general and he asked why I wasn’t married. I was running out of excuses.

On the way back down the mountain he asked if I wanted to take a dip in one of the natural pools made by the ebbing river that headed down to become part of the Ganges. He then took the best photo of me that I’ve ever seen.

We swam about in our pants and I wondered if this was going to be the holiday romance I had been waiting for.

The rest of my day was mapped out for me. I went to get some chai and shared a cigarette with the stall guy who I had nicknamed Chai-man Mao. I then had lunch – another Indian classic – burger and chips. I followed up this heavy meal with an hour of head and body massage. It’s a good thing India recently legalised homosexuality because by the end of that hour I was ready to make my move on that man.

I then had another intense one to one session with Yogi Bobby before I was released to spend my evening out by the river.

The newest member of staff at the retreat, Aditya, had been offered the chance to take me down to Parnarth Niketan. There, on the banks of the Ganges, people were singing and putting little paper boats of candles and flowers into the water. The whole event was being filmed. There are 600-700 people that gather daily for this. It’s the same thing every night, like an episode of your favourite soap.

Aditya was so sweet and courteous, a real gentleman. He borrowed a motorbike from the hotel and I rode bitch as he instructed me on the various sights we saw along the way. He was a real gentleman.

That night I had dinner with the Australians and again had to hold court. They were really sweet and the conversation was a lot more spread down the table. They made sure I had plenty to eat, passing all the half-finished dishes of daal up to my end so I could get my eat on. I went to bed happy and full. It would be a long journey back to Delhi the following day.

I landed at around 10am, still dressed in the Canadian tuxedo I had worn to work the day before. I had one bag with me, hanging off one shoulder, full of what my friends call “Bastard shirts” – hideously glorious short sleeved Hawaiian-style tops. I also had toothpaste and some cotton buds so I was ready to party.

My driver (and yes, I feel like a total wanker saying that), Manish, was waiting for me in the arrivals hall. We went out to his car and started out on the worst buddy road trip movie of all time. He told me about his family and asked why I wasn’t married. I kept my sunglasses on to avoid eye contact and his questions. Driving around Delhi is like letting a toddler play Scaletrix.

In Agra, he left me with Naseem, my guide for the Taj Mahal. Naseem convinced me to jump the queue for tickets and then jump the queue for security. We approached the Taj and I was pleased that it was just as awe-inspiring as I had hoped it would be.

“Look at those arseholes” I said, pointing out a row of people with their hands outstretched like cranes, trying to get the shot that made them look like they were pinching the top of the tomb. Obviously, Naseem made me strike the same pose.

We then jumped that massive queue you can see in the background to go inside. People glared at me. The maddest thing about it is how balanced everything was. The place was perfect and white and the symmetry was too much for my eyes.

Inside, the rooms were hexagonal. Naseem mentioned something about milk and honey but I just thought of A A Milne so have no idea what he meant. He took a cool photo of me which has PPP (potential profile pic) written all over it.

I felt very white. To assist me in my whiteness, people queued up and asked to have photos with me. Understandably, my ego loved it. Look how much this small boy appreciates me. Do you appreciate me like this?

We took a series of awkward photos and then I headed off, telling them to make sure they told everyone they knew what a total rock star from Mars I am.

On the way out, Naseem made me stand in particular spots so I could see the Taj from a distance against the entry gate. There’s an optical illusion where it looks like it walks towards you as you walk away. I was reminded of a Magic Eye puzzle.

Manish picked me up and told me he wanted to show me some of the marble cutters who still worked with the same tools used on the Taj, 500 years later. I was taken into a workshop and this older guy with a moustache (there are a lot of great moustaches in India) took me through the process while two kids beside him handmade these intricate designs of precious stones cut on a lathe and set into flower shapes in slabs of marble. I was then taken into the back room where there were stacks of these beautiful marble plates and tables and elephants. They served me chai and the guy kept going on about how great marble is and how hard they work.

He is proper into this marble I thought to myself. Then he started trying to get me to commit to buying a £200 marble chopping board that he said they could Fedex to me when I said I didn’t have room and wasn’t carting that around. It had gone from a history lesson to a sales call. We debated it back and forth until instead of spending the cost of my return flight on a plate, I bought a wee wooden Ganesh for a fiver. Everyone was happy. I skipped back to the car and Manish drove me back to Delhi where I was staying at the Royal Plaza, a hotel so swanky that they locked the minibar before I arrived. I had to smash open a couple of off license Kingfishers on the bathroom unit. I slept like a corpse.

This week I have seen a number of posts from people celebrating their personal wins for the year so far. I know I have made similar highlight-type posts in time gone by about my personal achievements for a given period. Due to personal circumstances, it hit me this time around that it’s ok if you can’t pick out anything in particular to show for any given amount of time.
I have spent much of this year just trying to stay afloat. It’s hard in the like-frenzy social-media world of 2018 not to feel like you are constantly missing out on something, or failing to “live your best life”. I suffer from both FOMO (fear of missing out) and FOTP (fear of taking part).

To be honest, I’m just glad I am here. I’ve had a couple of real mental health dips this year.

I guess my point is that time is a construct of man, that you don’t have to compare yourself to anyone else and you have achieved enough just by being here and being yourself.
In the words of the world’s worst Prince cover band “Nothing else matters”.
In the words of vegetarian gammon, Morrissey, “it’s a miracle I even made it this far”.
In the words of the man I wish would be my best friend Matt Haig – “When anger trawls the internet, Looking for a hook; It’s time to disconnect, And go and read a book.”

I’m struggling to commit to editing at the moment. The whole thing feels like a lot of hard work, which is probably because it is. I know that I’ll get to it in my own good mystical time but for now I just need to get the words out of my head and onto the page about how I feel at this exact moment in time.

I asked a lot of people if they would be able to review the opening three chapters and the response was overwhelming. I’ve now had five different opinions and it’s all a bit overwhelming. I love writing . I hate editing. There’s so much more creativity and room when you initially put something down. It’s when you’re trying to make sense of it for anyone else that it suddenly becomes a lot harder to formulate and control. All the little asides and changes that you think make sense to you no longer make sense to anyone else and you find yourself justifying it and trying to capture what it is you thought was there in the first place.
In the cold light of day, they are right. They want what is best and they’re offering something whole and good in their opinion.

So thank you to you all, I am taking it all on board and trying to become a better writer and create the best novel possible as a result of your input. It is very much appreciated and we are all working towards this becoming something special.

I’m at an age where I go to a lot of weddings. It seems to me that everything is currently doing the wedding thing. My right arm is constantly hooked, ready for another glass of champagne, another toast to another happy couple.
That’s why it’s pretty impressive if a wedding goes above and beyond.

This week I was lucky enough to be invited to the wedding of two of my best friends. I knew them both separately before they became a couple and then I had the pleasure of knowing them when they were together.
Watching them read their vows to each other in a clearing in a woods brought me to tears. Hearing their heartfelt and brilliantly funny speeches bring the house down brought me to tears. I wasn’t even drinking but I spent a lot of time crying.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you have found someone that you care about and want to be with more of the time than not then you are fucking lucky and you should hold onto them in this storm.
I’m in a personal period of reflection and this is unusually sappy for me but love can be great.

Yesterday morning I was getting coffee. This is not news.

I turned from the counter and bumped into a girl. I had not seen her there and I had also not seen her in two years.
Let me take you back. Fathom this out.

Three years ago, I trekked the Grand Canyon for charity (don’t like to talk about it).
Of the new people that I met, it was clear that there were maybe three who I really hit it off with. One of them was this girl who I would bump into in Monmouth on a Tuesday morning in 2018.

For a year after the trek we were the best of friends. She would leave these brilliant, rambling voice notes on my phone and I would have to return them despite the fact it wasn’t my preference. Regardless of what you may think, I do not just like the sound of my own voice. At some point towards the end of that year of friendship we had a stupid falling out and I think she told me to fuck off and we hadn’t spoken since.

The point is, don’t let some stupid thing get in the way of being around the people who are good to you. Good people are hard to find.

Can we all just take a moment to appreciate George Harrison?

I’m sat watching Living in the Material World for the I-don’t-know-how-many-th time and I just adore him and everything that he was about. What an incredible talent and a great man.

Last weekend, in a move that can only be described as ‘trying to find material for a book’, I went to Amsterdam with my dad and two brothers. It was Father’s Day and he’s also due to get married in August so it was a joint stag/Father’s Day treat for him. The greatest joy was in the fact he had no idea what we were doing or where we were going.

Without his knowledge, I broke into his house and stole a series of polo shirts, his passport and a toothbrush. Then we arranged to pick him up at six in the morning and took him to the airport. Then I remembered that he hates flying and usually pops a couple of valium before take off.

We had a weekend. I can’t say if it was great or not but it was certainly a weekend. The bulletpoint highlights are the following:

• Dad ordering a cappuccino in every coffee shop we went to
• Getting turned away from the only cultural thing we had planned because we hadn’t booked tickets
• Watching my dad’s horrified face when I showed him our AirBnB (he slept fully clothed with his passport in his pants)
• Waiting forever for everyone to be ready to do anything
• Learning where “the line” was in my relationship with my father
• Spending some solid time with my dad and my brothers

We are all getting older. We are all doing our own things so it takes something special for the four of us to be together. It was great to see my old man out of his comfort zone and to treat him like the princess he is. Can’t wait for his second stag.

Here are the photo highlights: