The Belated Wrapping-Up Of Things

After writing on this blog from internet cafes down twisty alleys, up rickety stairs, and in hotel lobbies, on sticky-keyed, decrepit computers, it seems almost farcically easy to stroll into the kitchen, sit down with a cup of tea, and type. And yet it's taken me almost a week. For this, I apologise.

There are a few reasons it's taken so long. I could allude to events in my personal life both happy and sad, but if you know me, you'll probably already know about them already. And if you don't know me, you probably aren't reading this blog. Okay; you definately aren't reading this blog...

It's more that after having been back for a week, I'm beginning to feel as though I've never been gone. The success of a travel blog, I think, depends on its immediacy - and back in Melbourne, without the jumbled-fragrant stench of India clinging to me like a film, without the compulsion of new things to do every day, and with friends and family at my fingertips, things are beginning to fade.

In fact, it's probably a good thing I've kept this blog, because it - and the good chunk missing from my bank balance - is all that's letting me know at the moment that I've really been gone. I went to get my photos developed in Mumbai and they all came out completely underexposed, so I don't have any photos to look back on. The negatives are possibly ruined, which would be disappointing... but Helen's photos turned out as well as expected and I might be able to get a few copies now, rather than having to buy them down the track for a fortune at some gallery.

So. From reading over this thing I see that I haven't written about our last weekend in India. Helen nearly became a Bollywood star, but pulled out at the last minute. We spent a lot of time walking around the street markets doing some last-minute present-shopping - our haggling skillz are superb, by the way. We finally discovered the perfect Indian meal, after a month of sharing everything in the hope of finding the perfect combination. (It's mutter paneer and chana masala with lots of rice and puri and raita, if you're interested. And I know you are.)

The last night we went to the cinema and watched an independent film called Mixed Doubles, which was pretty interesting. It was a Hinglish film, which meant that the characters would all say, "Now let me explain something to you..." and then break into a stream of Hindi - or else the joke was in Hindi but the punchline was in English. We didn't realise, but there's a whole stream of cinema in India called, appropriately enough, Parallel Cinema; small movies that break with Bollywood convention (and Indian conventional morality) and play basically like independant movies you'd see anywhere in the world.

This one was a sex farce about a man trying to convince his wife to become a swinger - not exactly something you'd expect in a country where kissing is forbidden in major movies. It would be fun to watch the movie with subtitles should it ever come out in Australia - though it didn't seem like a terribly good film, the audience loved it, and it would be nice to find out the punchlines to certain jokes, and vice-versa.

The flight back was fairly uneventful, though time-comsuming. Bangkok Airport is more entertaining with another person, especially when that person has a pack full of toys and is trying to attain the perfect spirograph. Qantas gave us truffle ice-cream to apologise for the lack of leg-room. Not to apologise exlicitly, but we all know what they were thinking... and then we were back, and home, and home has consumed us so thoroughly that it's begun to seem impossible that we were really away.

But we were, weren't we? I've not just made this whole thing up? (With no photos I could easily have written this from a darkened hideout in suburbia). We were gone, and now we're back - and I guess that pretty much wraps things up. Helen told me this afternoon that she has officially retired from Helen says, much to the dismay of her legions of fans. Instead, she is taking up a new career in photography, and the speaking of Japanese, possibly inspired by our Japanese photographer boyfriend Munenori.

As for me - I'm off to bed. I'm really bloody tired. I'm procrastinating a bit because I never know how to end things - so I think I'll go out with a whimper...