Tour Diary

For the first time in the series there was a seriously energetic vibe from the supporters on a practice day. People lined up, neatly and excitedly, outside the old Vidarbha Cricket Association Ground, and there was a large crowd sitting in one of stands watching the teams train. This was the experience I’d expected at every venue, and it was fabulous to see everyone expectant about the deciding game of the series.

Outside the ground a small boy was lifted up, probably by his brother, so he could peer over a fence and spot one of the Indian players entering the team bus. Happy children were everywhere, knowing their heroes were so close. But they weren’t just interested in the big names. As I walked out of the stadium people shouted “Australia” and little boys ran up to shake my hand. It was fun seeing their cheerfulness and the love of cricket in their eyes. With one week to go on the tour, it was a satisfying surprise.

My favourite section of the weekend papers is the matrimonial advertisements. The crisp descriptions sell the person's best attributes and outline their perfect-partner demands. It must take hours to work out what to put in to make you most attractive.

They range from the factually exaggerated (“Sweet natured veg, caring, soft spoken, 51 yrs [looks 42], perfect health) to the detailed (“Sober, slim, beautiful Manglik bride for Punjabi Saraswat Brahim chief office in the merchant navy) to the grand (Posh S.Delhi b’ness family seeks a b’ful convent edu girl).

I got married four years ago; fortunately without the need for advertising. That way I wouldn’t have had to embarrass myself with something like: “26 yr old going grey [looks 22 but feels 45], questionable sense of humour, capable of offending people without trying, arts degree. Age, height, religion no barrier.”

I used to think being a cricket writer would be the best job in the world. Watch the game all day, speak to the players whenever you want, and get paid for your thoughts. I’m told the job isn’t always quite that romantic. Anyway, after meeting up with my travel agent on the second day at Delhi I’m starting to change my mind.

Dean Tuckwell, a prolific former first-grade batsman in Brisbane, works for The Adventure Traveller and his venture is appropriately named. For the past two months he has been guiding a tour group around South America, starting in Brazil and taking in Argentina, the Galapagos Islands, Machu Picchu, the Caribbean, Colombia and other places that I forgot in my haze of envy.

To relax from his months of hard work, Dean is on a week of heavy sightseeing. He spent a day in Madrid and some time in Oman before landing in Delhi at 5am Thursday. A few hours later he was at the Feroz Shah Kotla watching Australia’s bowlers struggle and is back again on Friday before heading to Hong Kong for the Bledisloe Cup rugby union match between Australia and New Zealand. He’ll be home early next week, just in time for the Melbourne Cup horse race. I’m jealous.

It’s Diwali! Boom, crash. Like Christmas, I’m told, only the crackers come with fire and there’s much more noise. Pop, plink. It’s taken two days to get used to the sudden blasts throughout the streets, but now it’s the main event and new and old Delhi is pounding. Slap, smack.

Looking outside to see the streams of colour burst over the city creates childlike fun. Everyone I meet is cheerful and Happy Diwali messages have come throughout the day. Bang, bang. The shops are full of specials and the mood is light and free. Thud, thud.

It’s nice to watch the sparkle in people’s eyes as they talk about what they’re going to be doing for the festival of lights. Bubble, crash. An all-night party here, time at home there. Thump, splat. I’d like to say for certain the fireworks went on all night, as promised, but I don’t know. Rat-a-tat-tat. The background noise helped send me to sleep.

Some of the buildings in Delhi are magical. The route usually starts at the Qutub Minar in south Delhi, winds around to the Lotus Temple then up towards Old Delhi, ending at the magnificent, sprawling Red Fort.

The minar (tower) stands at 72 metres and was built around the 12th century as a means of protection. How anyone could construct something so tall and, at the top, so narrow is a mystery to me. It is so beautifully crafted, with different coloured materials and seemingly perfectly round columns heading to the sky. I still can’t use a protractor, and they did it without one.

The thing I find the biggest shame is that, as with many of these grand structures, the people who started the work died before it was finished. And it’s not like they were painters who could deliver many masterpieces. They got one go, and didn’t make it to the end. They would be happy to know their sweat was not wasted and the structure, which is closed to climbing, is on the world heritage list.

Over at the Lotus Temple, a domed building that is similar on the outside walls to parts of the Sydney Opera House, is a home to the Bahai faith, a small religion when compared to Hindu and Islam which came from believers who were pushed from Iran. Sitting inside the temple it is hard not to feel something spiritual. People are told to enter and exit in single file without their shoes, and when inside I considered my tiny place in the world.

Mahatma Gandhi remains a hero for India’s masses for his tolerant approach and violence-free revolution. So it was upside-down that my treasured local friend, who had taken me to Gandhi’s memorial, Raj Ghat, had his shoes stolen while paying homage. One of Gandhi’s seven social sins is wealth without work, but someone at the memorial ignored the signs of the outlook, which are available in most languages around the tranquil garden. My friend took the theft well and we tried not to laugh as he shuffled out of the tomb in bare feet, in the same way Gandhi walked before his death in 1948.

The other friend in my group then said his motorcycle had been lifted while he was visiting the site another day. He’d left it in a no-parking zone, but there were 20 other bikes there and he was surprised not to find it when he went back. After speaking to a police officer and learning it had been impounded he said: “There were 21 bikes there, why did you take mine and none of the others?” The officer replied: “Because 20 of them were police bikes.” It cost him 200 rupees to get his machine back, which I soon learned was much less than the price of a new pair of shoes.

Hugging the stomach of a motorcyclist with the intensity of a lover is not something I’ve done before. Don’t worry, the details are clean, and there’s no need to think of Police Academy’s Blue Oyster Bar. It’s just that I ended up in another of those situations where I question whether I’ve ever travelled before.

It was time to pay the hotel bill, they didn’t take Visa and I needed to go to a bank. Despite seeing a couple of ATMs coming home at night, they were apparently too far to walk to. Enter the hotel’s motorcyclist with the cuddly tummy. He said he’d take me and I agreed when I still thought we were walking. As he picked up his helmet I said “no, no, no” and shook my head like someone who has just been framed for murder.

And this is where things started to go really wrong. He put down the helmet, thinking I was too tough for the protection, instead of seeing the fear and loathing of being the second man on a bike. Too late. Even at the street, when he’s wheeling the bike in the right direction, I’m still hugging the kerb. Then his safe eyes invite me up and soon I’m gripping him like he’s saved my life.

Since reading a diary of an Englishman’s travels around India I’ve always wanted to have a haircut and a shave here. The head massage always sounded great and it’s the kind of pampering that I’m not so comfortable with back home. Only one lady and two children are allowed to touch my face in Australia, but after my first haircut-shave experience I’m happy to extend the field to Indian hairdressers.

I’m not quite ready for a trim by the side of the street, so one of my local mates takes me to a special place called Madonna’s, where they play music by … you guessed it. Strangely, there were no pictures of Guy Ritchie.

We don’t have an appointment and for a while it feels like my stylist was hoping to be at the gym instead. He pulls my head back at forth, taking it to unusual limits. He knows the English of "shorter" and "longer", which is a good start, and he begins cutting. I now have sideburns that would get me a place in the New Zealand squad, but the rest is fine. At least I don’t have the same style as one of the hairdressers in my local town. It’s easy to spot the men who go to him; they all own the look of an evangelical American.

It reminds me of one of my favourite dad’s jokes. A man walks into a hairdresser and asks for a Brett Lee (or Prince Charles or John Lennon or anybody you can think of) haircut, but when it’s finished he looks like a schoolboy. “But I asked for Brett Lee’s style,” the man complains. The hairdresser replies: “If Brett Lee came here that’s what I’d give him.”

To prepare for two weeks in Delhi I read William Dalrymple’s City of Djinns, a book about his year in one of the world’s great historical cities. Early on he introduces International Backside Taxis, his charming, unpredictable, but usually tardy, couriers for the duration of his stay. My welcome to Delhi felt like it came through International Sh**head Taxis. For the second time in a week there was no driver waiting to take me to the hotel, as promised. Which is not such a big deal, except it leaves you vulnerable to the demands of whichever hawker/helper/tout offers assistance first. I’ve been caught like this a few times so know some of the tricks, but at 10pm the options are limited.

So I was relieved when this short, young guy with a heavy growth said he was from “tourist information” and took me to an office of the same name. Except it wasn’t the type of helpful, often free, service offered in other countries. This one seemed to specialise in overpriced taxis, foul-mouthed employees and phones that didn’t work.

After waiting for about 15 minutes while they tried to convince me that my hotel didn’t exist, the original guy took me to a taxi where a homeless man was sleeping in the back. Like a WWE wrestler, the driver wrenched the guy out of the car and threw him to the footpath. “My brother,” the driver said, stepping over the person on the ground.

I watched the Champions League Twenty20 draw last night. A perfect example of how to take an hour or more to do something that could be over in three minutes. When it’s a football draw, Sepp Blatter somehow makes ping pong balls look exciting, but this was dreary and tacky. At least watching the Da Vinci Code later lifted the pace of my evening.

Poor Steve Waugh had flown in from Australia and his job was to pull a bat from a barrel. Duty performed, he stepped off stage awkwardly without a word. There were plenty of others who spoke, but not one of the modern game’s greats. There were some funny moments, like Lalit Modi referring to the eight states and provinces involved as “clubs”. In Australia the club is where you start out, working for years in the hope you’re good enough for your state. Sledging someone as “just a club cricketer” is usually pretty effective.

It looked like a night when India’s most influential sports administrators were showing off a rock and telling everyone it was a diamond. “This is for the champions of club cricket,” Modi said, “and we hope it is the biggest tournament of all.” Shane Watson confused the Champions Twenty20 with the Indian Premier League, which is understandable considering the number of acronyms in the game at the moment.

At least Watson remained on-message, saying “amazing” a lot. Shoaib Malik, of Pakistan and Sialkot Stallions fame, said it was great to qualify for the competition for the first time – with all the signs and manufactured hype, how could he not know this was the inaugural tournament? – and then told how hard it would be for his team after seven of his men signed with the Indian Cricket League. The rebels must have been pleased.