Strange Days Turning 30..

Nothing ever seems normal about this town. Just when I think I've seen or experienced all that this place has to offer, something completely unexpected pops up and grabs me completely by surprise. Today was one of those days.

I turned 30 a couple of days ago and was wanting to do something to celebrate. Over a year ago I had heard whispers about a Golf Course somewhere outside of town but had never seen it myself, nor did I really give it much thought, nor did I really believe it could possibly exist here, but lets face it, what could be a more natural way to celebrate turning 30 than for a couple of dirty hippies to be hanging out on a golf course in Banaras!? 

Getting to the course turned out to be no trouble as Jeb, my one-eighty, gun lovin', Republican votin' buddy from south Florida (yes.. we really are good friends!!) had been there once before. Getting onto the course however, proved to be a whole different matter entirely.

The course manager was sitting drinking chai with 3 of his friends and refused to let us on the course because we were “improperly dressed.” Can you believe it? Me improperly dressed for a round of golf! Outrageous! But this was where ole Jeb truly shined. His Hindi is fantastic and so for 45 minutes he sat with them and buttered them up big time and slowly but surly they began to come around to the idea of us playing. At one point I made a lame joke about swapping shirts with one of the older gentlemen in an attempt to win some favour.. No word of a lie, 5 minutes later this guy stands up, announces to the world that “I simply cannot disappoint anyone!” and proceeds to take off his shirt! Bareing his gloriously hairy Indian paunch for all to enjoy. At that moment, I loved the insanity of this country.

Caddies were mandatory (as were their hardhats!) and so we had to choose from a bunch of little guys who should have been in school but were all out working and thus super eager to get picked. I chose the kid with the most disco looking shirt. His name was super difficult to pronounce and none of us guys could really catch it, but it sounded a lot like the hindi word for the number 27, thus, for the next 9 holes it was Haviwah and Twenty-Seven Vs. the world! 

They ended up being a lot of fun and every time we were out of sight of the club house they would grab a ball and a club out of the bag and give it a hit down the fairway. Every time we'd hit a less than ideal shot (which was often) they'd say "no, no, no" or "not like this" and shake their heads in disappointment. I won’t mention the fact that on the 6^th they out drove a bunch of guys who were 3 and 4 times their age..

I have to admit that even though I hadn't swung a golf club in the last 10 years, this was the probably the closest thing to a "normal" experience I think I've had since moving to Asia almost 2 years back. But before you go off thinking it was "normal normal," keep in mind that we had 10 year old caddies each wearing hard hats, indian families sitting on the side of some fairways watching on, an empty Olympic sized swimming pool sitting half way down the 5^th fairway, and when Oodbilav (photo below) hit his ball into the dam on the 6^th his caddy stripped off, butt naked, dived in and 10 minutes later returned victorious, golf ball in hand. Normal tends to be a rather subjective thing.

In terms of a good way to celebrate hitting the 30 mark, golfing with a couple of mates in Banaras served its purpose pretty darn well and I thought I'd leave you with the one of the 'inspiration' golf quotes from one of the many signs around the course that summed up our day perfectly!


'Golf can best be defined as an endless series of tragedies obscured by the occasional miracle.' - Unknown