Maya Swell Press

Train from Bordeaux pulls into Paris late afternoon on a Friday, montparnasse station a grey ugly concrete shell. I’m a bit on guard … I’ve heard stories about Paris, edgy dangerous and full of thieves. Cautious, I double check the station map before I get off the platform. A young African guy just off the […]

Last train to Hentai from San Seb … I’d been running around town all evening making excuses not to leave my last safe haven in espana. 20 minute train ride and a whole new country. Carriage is full of French revellers who’d been partying the night in spain. Too late for a train elsewhere, and […]

Train from Bilbao to San Seb is less scenic, and I sleep for a large part of it. But the rain has stopped, the day is warming, and it’s going to be a beautiful weekend. Grab a cafe at the first oasis of calm I see. Cafe Iguna. Slightly stylish, but probably in the wrong […]

Train from Llanes to Bilbao, from Asturia to Basque country, is well worth the 7 euros. Beautiful country, lucsious green greymajestic cliffs jutting out. Relaxed warm and dry and enjoying the view. Arrival … Bilbao station, an interesting old building, and Bilbao … seems to be in absolute fucking chaos … there are about 10 […]

Very difficult to leave Granada … it’s a beautiful day when the bus from the old centre of the town pulls into the estazione de autobus. Plan A is to bus to Barcelona to take in a bit of Gaudi, and try my horn in the streets there. Plan A is shot to pieces quickly. […]

Further back in the journey, someone had pointed out that you couldn’t really have experienced everything that Indian trains had to offer unless you had at least one trip in general class. The sleeper class that I had used up till now had reserved seats, and allocated bunk beds. General is chaotic, allocated only in […]

Used to be that GOA stood for Good On Acid. Now it seems like it’s back to simply “good on a humid sunny day by the beach”. Not quite the party zone that it once was. Government regulations, a few very dried up conservatives, and a music and alcohol curfew. There is still a bit […]

Back in Bangalore for the second stint of lessons in Hindustani raga, and Saturday turns out to be one horrendous bad hair day. An afternoon of getting increasingly pent up, and I think the only way of straightening my head out is a decent night of dance … it’s about time to explore the rich […]

Back in Bangalore, motivated by another batch of lessons in Hindustani raga. Not looking forward to Bangalore, but the arrival is much less chaotic, and I avoid the accomodation touts altogether. This time, I find a decent cheap place, 150Rs. After a few nights, I find that the airier doubles are only an extra 20Rs. […]

I had read in that infamous guidebook about a style of ritual dance-performance, Theyam… it seemed like something worth exploring … a full night of trancy beats had eluded me so far, and this seemed to be about as close as I was going to get. Theyyam is centred around Kannur in northern Kerala … […]