From Arambol 2011

I am barefoot again and my feet are sore from the hot tarmac in the midday Goan sun. I walk from my house past the three sections that make up the way to Arambol. Each section takes about 10 minutes or so. From my house you pass the sawmill and Dadu, the carpenter, who was so kind when I arrived, sharing his lunch with me. He waves and waggles his head cheerfully. That day his wife had made something so deliciously subtle that I ate in ecstatic disbelief, before looking for a motorbike to hire. He still waves at me when I ride past on my Hero Honda Super Splendor+ and I wave back.

But today I am walking, listening to music, looking back through time almost seven months to the time in Chania when I took the bus and a small boat to the island of Gavdos and stayed six weeks in the juniper forest before going back to London. Its a long way and a long time, and I reflect on the the month in London and two weeks in Istanbul that preceded our return to Goa. Here the season is over, everyone has left to the north of India or Nepal, or Thailand to wait it out for a new visa. And I am here most days alone. I pass a jackfruit tree, its bulbous knobbly fruit hanging, impossibly heavy but not even near ripeness.

The second section of the walk passes a big holy tree and a temple and the third section, the row of shops, a bike mechanic next to a hair salon, a stationer and small restaurant. Then its the bus stand but just before I get there I meet Durga, the dog without a tail that belongs to the small restaurant. He sees me and becomes instantly animated wagging his stump with enthusiasm before walking over to me to be stroked. Seeing him reminds me of a night some two months ago that I can't forget easily. I passed along the same road that night and since then every day twice, and so the memory just won't go away. That night he was asleep in sphinx-like repose, his snout pointing to the ground. I didn't even really know him. He had chased the bike once but I didn't pay any attention on my way back in the December night. It was cool and I would arrive shivering at my small white house, the jungle behind it dripping with moisture as the water vapour condensed on the palm leaves in the cool air.

Then in February as the weather began to warm, I passed Durga and rode onwards to the temple. I turned around to check the pannier, turned back, and then with only a fraction of a second to react I realised I was about to drive off the road into the dry river. Millions of years of instinct kick in and I leap off the bike and fly through the air, headfirst. And then, the moment expands, and I am transported back into the past.

I watch myself walk through age-old fields of juniper, treading over thousands of years of shattered pottery that lies where it fell from the hands of Romans, Cretans and maybe pirates, landed from a voyage to enjoy some warmth in this small village. There is a heaviness, the gravity of ages that leaves no visible trace. We can't see the past, they say, but I see the erosion of centuries, the fields corner where local people gathered beneath a large juniper tree that is still there hundreds of years later. As I pass I can imagine what was there. I descend into a riverbed, reading the ground as I walk in silence, my footprints will vanish from Gavdos and I will be no more. The chapel of Ai Yorgios looks after me as I disappear from view, its old cracked wooden doors admitting just a tiny shaft of light into the dark vestibule. Almost none of the light reaches the simple altar and the golden Christ is silent.

From Gavdos

I see myself sitting in the pub at the end of my road in London. 'No dumping', reads a sign on the gentlemans toilets. A girl fishes two slices of lime out of her whiskey and coke, and someone turns up the volume at the bar. People seem to be having fun, while the bar staff pour out drinks with straight faces. The experience seems to me a thin veneer covering nothing, that everyone will forget before they wake to go to work on Monday morning. I try to feel like a local, even though I spent hardly a month in this city in four years, but it doesn't work. I can drive around and sit in the tube, but it just doesn't feel right.

'District Line.

Your District Line Service Yesterday.

I apologise for the disruption to your District Line service yesterday. This was caused by a number of unrelated incidents that included signalling problems, a trespasser incident and a person under a train at Southfields.

I appreciate that this made many journeys longer than usual.

Mike Shalley District Line General Manager 18/11/10.'

I read the sign and laugh at its perfunctory callousness. The other people reading it do not.

From İstanbul çok güzel

The Blue Mosque in Istanbul hums like a massive bubble of static. Soft vermillion carpets caress the socked feet of worshippers. They kneel and stand and mutter their prayers. And I take a couple of photos before returning to my bag to fetch a long sleeved shirt. I'm in a vest and suddenly it is inappropriate. Tourists go in and out to look at the inside of the building. A light and cold rain falls outside and the sun splits into a golden glow through the cloud above the big city. It's massive, so many people mostly Turkish. Almost all the Jews, Greeks and Armenians are gone. In a couple of days I leave to go to Goa. To the warmth, the coconuts, a different world.

I hit the ground hard, my hand breaking my fall and saving my jaw from a serious dislocation. I land on my belly, and slide before rolling over. I sit up in the ditch and look in disbelief around me. My mind tries to undo what just happened, but it can't. I curse hard and clutch my wrist. Fuck it hurts. Suddenly pain has leapt out of its resting place and bitten me as hard as it can, with hatred for my absent-mindedness. My arm moves, the violin on my back is fine, I think. My lower back seems OK. But my wrist hurts. A scooter pulls up and the driver helps me up and then single-handedly drags the bike out of the ditch. I thank him profusely, then I call Oshan, no answer. I call Serhan and in five minutes he races out of the distance from the first section, comes to an abrupt halt. At home I inspect my elbow, then I sleep. In the morning I wake to some more concise pain, it is serious. My elbow feels broken.

I walked home then, for a week, and at first Durga barked and seemed to threaten to chase me each night. Maybe he sensed my injury. A weak dog in the stray world in Goa is often ripped to pieces in the night, outside all the locked doors. I am wounded badly, arm in a sling, but I pick up a rock with my left arm and pretend to ready a shot. He backs off. And then one day I sit at the restaurant for some fried rice and the owner brings Durga to me. I stroke him. And from then on we were basically friends.