Non-Fiction: La Paz Collective

I have 14 tattoos now. Sorry, mum. The last one I did last night with my brother and skilled artist Aaron Walsh. This was the third piece of art I’ve been fortunate enough to receive from this true friend after we did two earlier beautiful pieces at the Sai Baba Hotel in Pushkar when we were both staying there in December.

Just two days before working with Aaron last night, I’d spent the best part of the last two weeks working with another friend on a purely organic and unique 25 hour arm piece. I laid out on the porch of my room at Kudle Beach beside the ocean and Oliver poked every single piece of ink individually onto my arm forever.

With Aaron the work was spontaneous and simple but incredibly important for me in terms of the significance of the symbols and the word they represent.

It was something I had wanted to do for years and now all of that is infinitely more special because he was the one who inked it in. In spite of the importance of what was being set into my skin, we couldn’t help but laugh our way through most of the whole session because that’s what happens when two really good friends just hang out. In his small hot room, with me lying under the pink mosquito net, my hand stretched out to be held by his, Aaron rocking the head light, and us both wearing very little clothing, there was definitely a strong Village People vibe being given off; at least until a pair of angels turned up with a couple of cold beers. It was fun and later we all went out together and got pissed.

With Oliver it was an almost mythical experience.

Oliver doesn’t have a single tattoo on his body, but he is a pure artist and was trained by some serious tattoo masters at the time we both met in the Himalayas six summers ago. When our paths finally crossed again here, we talked a little about what we wanted to get out of the experience then I let him draw free hand onto my skin in white paint the design that we would later turn into the tattoo. I told him nothing about what I needed in terms of philosophy or style and just let him get on with it. I put pure trust in his ability to create and to connect with me as a friend.

The result is an incredible monument to the effort he put into it and the time we spent together just going with the flow while under the shade of the coconut trees we worked away as the waves crashed against the rock less than ten metres away. Friends came and went at various points of the day to drink and smoke with us. People we didn’t even know properly would offer to bring us cushions, or food and drink from the restaurant. It was an incredible experience and on at least four almost other worldly occasions time literally stopped for us both. It was amazing and before he headed off up the road again, on a 36 hour train journey to Orissa, we hugged it all out.

Every one of my tattoos tells its own tale.

For my first piece I blacked out onto the floor mid-session after smoking a joint in the car before we went up to the studio. The magnificent cover job over that same piece was done by the hand of the best and most beautiful of all Barcelona tattoo artists, Soledad Aznar. The Goa pieces. My Sisyphus. Buddha facing down one of the Hungry Ghosts. My ripped off heart from Andy Warhol to mark the most intense and insane relationship I ever had in Rio de Janeiro one summer. They warned us to stay far apart but I flew to her anyway and It was worth every second. The same eternal seconds that tell my grandmother who brought me up, and who I could not get back in time to touch and talk to one last time before she passed, that the words written in her native Irish tongue on my wrist lift me up and carry me on her strength and love every single day.

My tattoos are a road map that remind where I came from, where i’ve been, who I was with, what I did, and where I need to keep heading towards. These feelings are heavy for me right now because I wear coconut oil as I write this and the ink on my arms is still to dry out, but it is also equally true that I believe tattoos can be random, fun, and sometimes just plain silly.

A crazy French friend of mine here told me about how one night he had to sleep in a car. He was bored, had a tattoo gun, some ink, and decided to randomly hook up the machine to the cigarette lighter and drunkenly etch Made In France to the bottom of his foot, just because he felt like it. A beautiful Israeli angel I know has a weird little space ship tattooed onto the base of her spine. She did it in El Borne in Barcelona and doesn’t even remember where exactly she went to get it done, or even why she did it.

And that is the thing about tattoos.

You get them impulsively on the road when travelling and realising that you are in the midst of an incredibly special moment that needs etching onto your skin forever. Or it can be a piece painstakingly designed and doubted over for years by your own hand until on the exact right moment when the stars align it is finally and uniquely delivered to your body. Or they are words or symbols, irrelevant to others, that you know need to resonate on your outside because you feel the same thing a hundred times as strong in the depth of your soul. And then there is simply happenstance. The heart-stopping beauty of an image you see in a temple or a gallery. Or the flower blossom you watched fall from a tree and land at your feet in Japan. Six simple words from a song you hear sung in a language not your own on a beach in Paradise. The best, magical moments, thoughts, or ideals of your life you know you must be reminded of daily for the rest of it.

It’s no coincidence that 13 of my 14 tattoos have been made on the road. There is something about the transient nature of travelling or living in a place not of your birth that reminds us that our days are forever passing too quickly and that one way or another we should always be looking to leave our mark. A tattoo announces that sentiment to the world for the rest of your life, but the journey never ends. 

Non-fiction: La Paz Collective

The Royal Enfield Experience

The Royal Enfield should be familiar to those who have ever spent a prolonged period of time in the parts of India that ebb and flow with the movements of her long-term travellers, artisans, pirates, digital-nomads, and hordes of Israelis. These beautiful old-school motorcycles are as much a part of the territory as chai, chillum, charas, and chapatti.

If you were in India and don’t remember seeing one, you didn’t stay long enough. Even if you don’t remember seeing one, I guarantee that you heard one of these little beauties tearing its way out of town, or ticking over sweetly as it awaited a passenger outside a restaurant or guesthouse.

I first tried to learn how to ride a Royal Enfield with my good friend Dante on the side of a mountain as the sun set somewhere near the top of the world in Upper Changspa, Leh. It was a wholly futile first effort at taming the beast and the next day I awoke at 5AM to take the weekly local bus to our planned destination. 12 bumpy hours later, a Spanish girl and I stood in dazed silence at the side of the magnificent Pangong Lake; a place that was to change my life forever.

Two years later I was back. I went to see Mukesh (a great man and hero of many stories) at his shop in Pushkar and bought a Royal Enfield Bullet for myself. I had a bike but didn’t know how to ride it, so a Palestinian girl, travelling with Mukesh and some other bikers, drove it down to Goa for me with her little dog nestled on the petrol tank. I took the train and then once they caught up with me in Arambol I learnt on the job exactly what it takes to become an Enfield rider.

Three mad months later I needed to escape Goa. Somehow I had learnt how to ride and with my Russian princess singing soothing lullabies in my ear on the back, we first fled south through the jungle to Karnataka and Kudle Beach for a 10 day rehab in paradise, and then flew like two loved up angels all the way back to Pushkar. It was a magical, unforgettable trip of a lifetime.

A Royal Enfield allows you to see this amazing country in ways that a quick flight or a 36 hour train journey never will. You can take off into parts where foreign skin is rarely seen and you are turned into a travelling circus upon arrival. The bike opens the door to another, realer India, and quite possibly a whole new you.

The trips below are for those who want to find out what the noise is all about and really discover something deeper about the country, the bike, and themselves. These are scenic routes designed for those adventurers who have the luxury of time on their hands, want to savour that great entity to its fullest, and have the capacity to process the great downloads of wonder that will surely come along their way on the road.

I have simplified the trips into stages which won’t all necessarily get done in one day. Sometimes you’ll just have to find the way for yourself because getting lost and making it back to where you were going, or ending up in a completely different destination all together is a large part of what doing something like this is all about in the first place- enjoy!

Arambol- Mahalabeshwar- Ellora Caves- Mandu- Udaipur- Pushkar: Arambol to Kudle Beach is a beautiful little starter ride that can be done in a long day, but this one is only for the fully initiated. The ride up the coast, once you’ve negotiated the weird little ferry north of Arambol that connects you to the mainland, is stunning and forever rising until you turn inland and head up even further for the strawberries of Mahalabeshwar and the amazing scenery in all directions around this quite bizarre hilltop town. You’ll then give the big cities of Mumbai and Pune as wide a berth as possible as you seek out the Ellora Caves and step back into a world long lost in fables and story books for children. You keep going because you have to get to Mandu and the most beautiful middle of nowhere that ever existed. Then, a little tired, you push on further north where the desert of Rajasthan and gypsies older than time itself await to welcome you home.

Pushkar- Bundi - Agra (Taj Mahal) - Orchha -Khajuraho - Varanasi:

This is a trip for serious culture vultures with a lot of stamina. Pushkar is the perfect jumping off point for any trip to India and the half-day ride down to Bundi is a good way to ease yourself into this marathon journey. After a couple of shanti days around the lake and old Maharaja palace in Bundi you’ll have a long cross-country slog to encounter quite possibly the world’s most beautiful building. There is little else to see in Agra other than this incredible piece of architecture and monument to love, but what more do you want? The ride down to Orchha is a gentle one and this old temple town on the banks of the Betwa River is ideal for a few days R&R. Rested up you’ll head to Khajuraho and its exquisite collection of Hindu and Jain temples, 10% of which are covered in the erotic art of the Karma Sutra. The excitement of this stop-over will power you through towards the mad heart of India and Varanasi, where for over 3000 years the fires of the burning ghats have not ceased sending the dead directly to paradise via the portal of the great Ganga River.

Vashist - Rohtang La - Baralacha La - Pang - Leh:

This is a ride into heaven so it’s fitting that you’ll start from Vashist which sits serenely in what is known as the Valley of the Gods. One last dip in the hot spring before you head out and the snow of the Himalayan mountain tops will quickly come into view as you reach Rohtang La. Rohtang literally translates to pile of corpses as this pass was part of the old Silk Road and people would always attempt to cross too late every year meaning that they were stranded up here with no route out in any direction. You will have no such problems as the road is now only open in the spring and summer months and you will be exposed to nothing more than scenery and views unlike anything you’ve ever seen before as you drive through Spiti Valley in the direction of Ladakh. There is only one way to follow at these heights and while the going is undoubtedly tough the sheer beauty of it all will keep you thirsting for more even though you are mentally and physically drained by the demands placed on you by the road. Beyond Pang you will make one final push over the world’s second highest road pass at Taglang La and then it will be relatively plain sailing as you drop down into the Indus Valley and follow the river to Leh, with perhaps a quick pit-stop at the incredible Thikse Monastery and a prayer of thanks before you roll up into Upper Changspa for a very well deserved rest.

 Unplanned Footnote: Last Saturday I was blind-sided off my bike and bounced across the floor on my face. I lost half a tooth, got a weird circular hole in the top of my head, bruised ribs, and numerous cuts and bruises on my arms, legs and hands. My passenger got a nice collection of bruises to accompany the fright of her life and messed up her foot pretty badly too. We were very lucky.

A life cannot be lived without risks, but your own and that of any passenger is massively rocketed up towards the limits of peril when you come to India and choose to explore it on a Royal Enfield.

Always be aware and never forget that you are riding a very pretty but not always reliable lump of metal around roads full of many people who genuinely have no consideration for the sanctity of your life.

I’m thankful just to still be here and my smile is bigger than ever, even if it is a little bit crooked at the moment.

Love the ride, but please be careful.