The Million Rupee Question

Today I'm enjoying the steady rain in a resort on Panagsama Beach on the island of Cebu, Philippines.I've been thinking for a while now about starting a blog as a way to stay in touch and share all my exciting adventures. The problem I face now is knowing where to start. I have been traveling for two months and I have jam packed a romance, many illnesses, wild adventures, close calls with death and the law into this time. I've also been to some pretty cool places.

For the last two weeks I have been island hopping around the Philippines with a group of six people from Western Australia. I have jumped two hundred metres on a cable into a ravine, rappelled (abseiled) through a waterfall, been spelunking (caving), canyoning, snorkeling... and so much more. I'm so much fitter, stronger and more determined than I thought. I feel great!

The million rupee question is: What happened to India?

India for me was the promised land. I have been fantasising about India since I was in my mid teens. A land of gaps, hungry – starving, rich – poor, schooled – unschooled, cruelty – generosity, the rich colours in a bleak reality. I was expecting culture shock. I was expecting to be caught in the whirlwind that is India, to be dragged by an undertow through jeweled lands, slums, palaces and rice paddies. To be surprised and awe inspired, to be scammed and tricked and left in tears surrounded by saris and the smell of spices. Jangling bracelets and yellow golden nose rings.

The first thing that comes to mind now is the dirt, filth and phlegm. The horrible sense that with dirty water, dirty hands, and dirty surfaces, and with food handled and grown in dirtiness how can anything really ever be clean. The second thing I think of is sticky blankets that haven't been washed. Ever. The third thing is zooming in auto rickshaws – this I loved.

I went to India with the idea that I would somehow enter a heightened sense of reality. Instead I found that I was still me. Instead of learning Yoga and Mediation as planned I traveled around the country with Dan, the Australian guy that I met in Borneo in July last year. We traveled around the South East coast then through the industrial wild west centre before finishing in Varanasi and Calcutta.

So what happened to India? Instead of engaging with my self healing, self improving, and reconnecting with the source I fell in love and let my vision slide. This was a good and bad thing, a 'going with the flow thing'. The moment of Indian Truth came one day at an awful Indian tourist attraction called Marble Rocks, just outside of the god awful Jabalpur. This was the location of the epiphany.

To set the scene: I had a virus (not the first or the last before leaving) and I was exhausted. The blanket on our bed was grimy and sticky. The water was cold and I couldn't eat the food because my stomach flora was ruined by the antibiotics I had been taking for a UTI. I was miserable. Dan couldn't wake up, he was sick too. I was fuming with rage that I was stuck in another shit hole town in another shit hole state. I started thinking about Sean's adventure tour in the Philippines. I'd read about it, I'd been hearing about it for months. I imagined sunshine and mangoes, beaches and snorkeling, clean sheets and open spaces. A new promised land was born. Within ten minutes we decided to leave India as soon as we could.

On the 30^st December we flew from Calcutta to Kuala Lumpur. Due to a currency issue (we had none) we slept on the floor of the KL Discount International Airport. This was surprisingly easy to do, and an enormous amount of fun. We tipped out all our luggage onto the tiled floor and slept in a nest of clothes and sarongs. It was great! The next day we flew to Manilla, and on the first day of 2010 we flew to the lovely island of Cebu.

The Philippines is a funny place. There are so many vegetables and fruits available here, but getting vegetables on your plate is not an easy thing to do! Only poor people here eat vegetarian meals, and throughout my holiday I have faced not only shock and disbelief that I am turning down meat, but I also get the feeling that people think I am not grateful for my riches when I turn down meat.

Rather than the rickshaws and tuk-tuks I have traveled in in the rest of Asia in the Philippines there are tricycles. These can be either a motorcycle with sheltered side car or pushbike with a bench seat fit for two western bums. In addition to the regular bus network there are Jeepneys, the most fabulously decorated mode of public transport that I am yet to see. They bling up those Jeepneys with lamps, pumping music, amazing spray jobs, chrome, you name it, it's on a Jeepney.

The coolest things of all though is that the people are really nice, the natural wonders are relatively unspoiled, and there are magical spots to visit everywhere I go.