Hampi was the centre of a 14th centure empire and was comparable in size to Delhi at the time. Within cycling distance of the village are myriad temples and a the ruins of a huge palace complex, complete with aquaduct, pools, gardens and elephant stables.

But better than all that is the landscape. As far as you can see there are mountains covered with rounded boulders, and hillocks comprised of them. Climbing one hill, I was amazed how these huge boulders were just placed carelessly atop one another, with cavernous gaps between them, and no soil. You can see how some of the rocks split, perhaps from the sun, but I could not imagine what force of nature could have piled them up thus. The serious looking river running alongside the village might have had something to do with it. Apparently, in the monsoon, the river rises by an incredible five meters! I looked over the landscape and tried to imagine how it would look with an extra five metres of water. It would be one great river swirling around these gargantuan ridges and mounds of boulders. Amazing!

We only stayed about 5 days in Hampi, and on the second, were fortunate enough to team up with Georgie who had just arrived from Brighton.

We hired some bikes and went in a corracle accross the river and on the Hannuman temple which is so high that we drank a bottle of water each on the way up. There was a temple at the top, but to be honest Hindu temples don't strike me as very interesting, whereas having a fag in high place and watching monkeys sounds much better.

From the Mango Tree restaurant (complete with swing!) high on the river bank (see panorama above), we clambered down through paddy fields to float on gigantic inner tubes in the slow river. Georgie, Bjorn and I took spent a final afternoon sharing massages, then she and I left for sun, sand and sex at Om Beach

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Om beach! Its an idyllic beach shaped like the '3' part of an OM symbol. Its also really quiet. We wondered along the neighbouring beaches via cliffside paths and got to know each other better. Georgie is so practical! She could hang a mosquito net from anything! She wasn't so interested in my kind of thoughts so we just hung out in the sun together a lot of the time. We Tried the opium I had bought for my birthday. It did nothing special, except to make me hiccup for much of the following 48 hours

Since she had no concrete plans I thought it would be appropriate to show Georgie Goa, so off we went to Anjuna. We a got a room behind Munchies cafe, and hired a TVS - a bike so small, that it wouldn't even carry the two of us uphill, and whizzed round Baga and had dinner with Damian, sat on the beach and so forth. When it was time to go, there were two baby baby puppies that had been sitting under a tree for the whole 24 hours of our stay. Georgie had been talking about adopting a dog, but she couldn't take one and leave one, nor adopt two; so though I had left Arumbol alone and never to return, I returned two weeks later with a woman and babies! We took turns the first few nights getting up to milk them and piss them and shit them, then we got seperate rooms and got alternate night's sleep, spending less time together as the week went on.

My final week in Arambol, I sat in my fave cheap cheap cafe with the dogs in a box next to me, reading, swimming, milking pissing shitting. I read many books and re-established relations with Rami, who started to teach me some guitar. This is very timely because I've been too shy to participate in any of the bi-weekly jams, or in any of the more random strumming and vocalising that goes on late at night in the pool place. Rami had tried to make something happen between Ephrat and me, but she was even shyer than I was, and I wasn't going to wait around and see.

Since I was running short of money, and my conscience was pricking regarding volunteer work, long term commitment etc, I made contact with a new organisation based in Bangalore helping exiled Tibetans into careers and arranged to go and meet them to consider their 6 month voluntary post. At the same time Rami made me a proposal:

"Matthew, my man," he said, "lets you and me go to the mountains and I will teach you to play guitar." I agreed, but on condition that he wait until I'd met these people in Bangalore. I packed up my puppy and left Rami to arrange our tickets to Delhi for 3 days time.

On the outskirts of Bangalore, past the ultra lush business park with green grass and yuppy shops, down a bumpy road, the rickshaw finally stopped, and Munchie and I were welcomed by Claudia from Switzerland, and seven Tibetan youths in their twenties, who make up ESTibet. They live in four houses around a courtyard, built for programmers and their families, but perfect for their needs. One section for Claudia, one for computing, one for the boys, and one for the classroom. Claudia's hopes to expand will soon change all this though. I learned that each of these boys had dangerously trekked accross the mountains out of Tibetan occupied China to Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama's exiled Tibetan government enjoys Indian hospitality. Its like a refugee camp but with lots of children, whose parents left them there and returned. After three years in this camp, receiving a basic education, the Dalai Lama asks them to go back home and try to prosper with what they have gained. Claudia's concern was that there was no vocational training for them, so she has set up this new charity using money from trustees in Switzerland, initially, to try to address that, and to concentrate on computing skills.

Rami mailed me to say he had booked tickets for one week after I had left Goa. So far so good. All I had to do was lobby travel agents and scour timetables to catch a train that would get me to meet his train with the minimum inconvenience for Munchie

Claudia's charity project, though going well, it seemed was nonetheless a mammoth undertaking logistically and beaurocratically. As a foreigner she couldn't rent phone lines directly, so she had to borrow them off the landlord, then they would be cut off for days on end while the man at the exchange contemplated his backsheesh. They had four machines networked and were accessing the internet with a mobile phone for the duration of my stay. Computers had been lost in the post for months and Claudia even went to Delhi to chase them up. The rules for posting changed with every official she talked to. There are rules for sending cash and hardware into India (because of the terrorist threat), rules for registering the charity, rules for moving Tibetans out of Dharamsala when they only have refugee cards, and many more besides. She plans to employ an Indian especially to cope with all this, and a westerner to deal more specifically with education. In all this she was also teaching English, and leading half an hour's P.E. every day. She wasn't sleeping and I wish her all the best, and I wish that one day I shall produce such phenomenal energy.

The day I arrived I got a cold, which developed into a cough, and I wasn't much good for more than an English lesson or two and a talk on Yugoslavia, Oh and an acrobalance session!

I said my fare wells and was handed a lovely Tibetan prayer scarf for luck but owing to an unfortunate misjudgement, Munchie and I missed the train by over half an hour. Bugger! Then we had a real Indian rail adventure, riding any train we could to try to meet Rami going north with my ticket. Eventually I met Rami twelve hours before the appointed place and time.

We spent a further 36 hours in the sleeper compartment going to Delhi. In addition to the family working in the catering carriage who wondered the length of the train taking food orders, the train would flood with hawkers selling crisps, tomato soup or chai at every stop or signal. Beggars would supplicate through the window and little boys would sweep the floor and hold up their hands for a rupee (about 1.5p). This was the first time I had travelled by daylight, and was able to see a dry landscape, sometimes mountainous, sometimes almost a desert, largely uncultivated, but there were many wonderful shapes and forms.

At Delhi Rami had so much luggage, that he couldn't get on the local train, and by the time I got to the meeting point, he had found a friend from Jerusalem and was having a joint. We were exhausted and decided to stay a couple of nights in Delhi, to buy a guitar, and recouperate.I also got another camera - bargain at $7. Or so I thought. Many of the following pictures have been doctored for focus and a red stripe.

The travelling scene in Delhi revolves around a small section of one street where there are two main youth hostels mostly inhabited by Israelis, and some others, and some cafes. You could sit there for 3 months and see maybe half the backpackers in India. Rami was not so idle though, for every time I saw him, he was chatting to a different crowd of Israeli girls, such that I couldn't keep up. He started to take advantage of Munchie to meet girls too, unlike me, who tires of having the same conversation more than once. Munchie meanwhile, was becoming mobile and less containable consequently and having more accidents than ever: being dropped and trodden on and shut in doors etc. Are baby's bones more pliable? After a yelp she always turned out okay thank goodness. None of the pictures of Munchie at this stage came out, unfortunately.

The surface of the mountain smouldered in a random fire like the paper burning down on a cigarette. [photo failed]

Couldn't help noticing though, that however quiet this village seemed, the chillum smoking Israelis were never far away. I decided, I think, that I wasn't going to make any effort to meet such people here, but to concentrate on the guitar and the dog.

The next day Rami [photo failed ]seemed to think it too quiet and went back to Ksol for the night. A couple of days later he went again, for lunch. Next day I took Munchie on a two hour walk up and up a stony path. As I got higher snow capped peaks rose into view all around. The young charas plants were growing wild at the side of the path. The village I eventually reached was so isolatated that anything from the outside world - building materials, grain but also things like TVs - had to be carried up this path on horseback. The next day and the day after it rained. The clouds roamed over and around features of the hills, and I must have drunk some bad water. I became ill and weak after breakfast, hardly rising from my bed. The clouds descended and draped and daubed themselves over the mountains. [photo failed]. I decided it was time to move on. I squeezed my guitar into my rucksack, gathered my strength and my Munchie and took a night bus to Dharamsala.

Matthew