Trip Up On The Last Leg

This is the story of how an Ashram led to me having to effectively bribe Indian Rail and how I ended my train journey signing a fraudulent police document.

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I find myself in Delhi once again - but this time it's on the eve of my return home. So this will be my last blog from overseas - for now. There will be plenty backblog to come once I return home...

So I finished at the school last week. The last day ended with the performance of the school song I wrote followed by a giant simultaneous group hug from all the students of the school to thank me for all I'd done at the school [perhaps they were mobbing me?]. It was all quite emotional - but a great experience.

On a parallel thread, some staff [or faculty if you're a yank] from the school introduced me to a local Guru. I won't say much about him here - as I'm not sure I've digested everything yet - but suffice to say he was an extrodianary person who made quite an impression on me.

His home had become an Ashram of sorts and I'd stayed there a couple of nights. One morning I was going through my escape plan from Gangtok and trying to decide whether to fly out to Delhi or get the train. The website 'makemytrip.com' [which should be called 'ripmeoffandfuckupmytrip.com'] put flights at about 5000RP [50 GBP] and the train at about 1600 [20 GBP]. After some thought I decided I'd go for the cheap option and see a bit more of India, not wanting to be a hypocritical flash-packer.

Well, I waved goodbye to Gangtok and got a jeep to Siligury. Jeeps [or 4WDs] are the only way in and out of Gangtok unless you're the proud owner of a helicopter. It was a bumpy ride through landslide terrain but I made it to Siliguri just after sundown.

That night I felt the most unwell I have done for all of my trip. Mild fever, stomach cramps [no orangey BJ thankfully...] but mad mad dreams - all night. I woke up in a sweat in the morning and dragged myself under the shower to make my way on the next leg of my journey home.

I got to the station with an hour to spare and had a small vegetable chowmein [a great breakfast in my books] but still felt very dizzy. I had a ThumbsUp which didn't help much. I searched for an ibuprofen in my bag - didn't have one. I haven't taken an aspirin or Ibuprofen in 5 months it seems! Never mind - onward.

So I get to the platform and the train pulls in bang on time. My 'ticket' says third class AC [there was no second class sleeper on this train before you call me a gapper-slapper]. The strange system of Indian trains sees 1980s era computer print-outs [with the perforated hole-punched tear-off edges]stuck to the outside of the trains with long lists of everyone who is on that carriage. My name was nowhere. In desperation I took my ticket to various uniformed [or uninformed...] people who looked like they might give a shit [always a gamble in India] and after much rustling of paper it was generally agreed that the piece of paper I held in my hand was not a ticket, but a twenty pound waiting list voucher. I'd been had by the most official looking website.

"Sorry sir, you can't get on this train" the mustached grumpy railway inspector said.
"Can't I buy a ticket?" I asked optimistically. I knew this was a stupid question - trains sell out days before - esp AC ones.

"Go to the station master - he will help you" said the man.

Well I knew this was a lie. After queuing for 20 mins I'd have been told exactly what I knew already, and missed the train. My carefully planned journey home was stumbling at an early stage [- I am hoping to get back for my Dad's 60th]. So, I did what any sane person would do.

I ran down the platform, out of his field of vision, got on the train and hid in the toilet until it pulled away.

Now this might seem bonkers - and slightly sadomasochistic [anytime in an Indian train toilet is time you'd rather spend in a festival toilet] - but I was on a mission - and I was a stowaway - like James Bond, but a bit sweatier and with a backpack - and not in the MI6...

I knew that this was the only train out of here for days and I also knew the guy who told me that had one motivation for telling me that which seems to be shared by so many officials in India - genuine apathy. He simply couldn't be bothered to help me. So - it seemed I was to become his problem and make him help me - in a kind of karmic way.

So once we were rolling I needed to construct a plan. 20 hours in a toilet didn't seem realistic - yet I hadn't moved far beyond that in my planning. I thought to myself - "if I'm going to stowaway I should do it in the last place they'd expect".

Within 5 min I'd found a berth in first class and had settled down on my bed, listening to Ravi Shankar [remember at this point I'm highly fevered and had been dreaming of just lying down all the way to Delhi...]

Suddenly there's a tap on my leg. 'Excuse me'. 'oh well - here comes the hassle' I thought...

'What would you like for dinner? Veg or non-Veg?'

Aghhhh the life of a stowaway.

Well - I'd just settled back to sleep when another tap came. This time it was a ticket inspector - low and behold the same one who had told me not to board the train. He did not look happy - I'd become his problem.

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I was subsequently paraded up and down the train [with a mild fever and a back-pack] and made anyone's problem but the person who I happened to be with at the time.

After much discourse it was established I COULD buy a ticket for 4000 RP or 5000 for first class. At this point - it officially cost more than flying. I was joyous as I'm sure you can guess. I paid up - using the stipend the school had given me for my work and bedded down to get some rest.

Soon, a strange, ghastly music permeated my brain. Earplugs [my first line of defense] seemed strangely ineffective to this dreadful music - which seemed to be on a 7 min loop. I ferociously prowled the carriarge for the puropotrator - but it remained constant throughout - even into the next carriage. This was an all pervasive evil. This was lift music on midi instruments - the only thing comparable would be 14 year old girls playing their mobile phone ringtones directly into your brain. This would not do.

After asking up and down the carriage I found the source. The guardian of the music was a guy who'd helped mediate before when buying my 'ticket' to replace my 'ticket' [more on that later]. I mentioned the dreadful music. He asked me did I not like it? I flipped the question right back at him. 'No one does' he cackled - and all around laughed like maniacal lost souls on the last train to hell. I said "Indian music is amazing, why are you playing this shite, don't you have any Ravi Shankar?". He shook his head and opened a metal cabinet door to reveal a bust up tape player with the door missing. Scattered around were other gems such as 'Jazz hits' and 'Classics' - which I'm quite sure no tape contained. "Why do you play this music?" I asked, genuinely. "Indian people are stupid - they will put up with it". I frowned. "They are not stupid" I said - "they are just obedient - but I'm English and I complain if I don't like something".

They turned the music off - seeming happy to do so and loving each insult I threw at it.

Suddenly, the same grumpy inspector appeared. Yet again he saw me at the centre of a crowd and undoubtedly wondered how I was to become his problem this time.

"Where has the music gone" he barked "don't you like it?" he bullyingly asked me, testing my mettle. I hadn't the energy to take him head on and referred the question to my accomplice who'd turned off the music. My accomplice laughed and said 'No'. At this the inspector chuckled and waddled off back into his own world of lethargy, speckled with petit bureaucracy. The music stayed off.

On my way back to my seat I got a cheer and was thanked by each of the people I'd asked on the way down about where the music was. I guess if you see something changeable as unchangeable, then it becomes so.

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Let me just say - I slept well and was given about 5 meals and endless free tea - all of a quality better than any flight and we arrived an amazing 15 min early on our 1,470 KM journey. Ok - compliments for Indian Rail end here.

I slept quite well, sweating out most of the fever in the AC. I had eaten some eggs [egg white], which as some friends will know this has interesting effects. Let's just say that at one point on my carriage a baby had its nappy changed. The man with air-freshener walked past the baby and sprayed my berth. Despite this - I was relatively unhassled until we arrived.

When the train did pull into Delhi - all chaos erupted. It seems people want to get their huge trunks full of godknowswhat off of the train before women and children. I couldn't deal with it - I hadn't the energy. I stayed out the way on my top bunk.

Without going into meticulous detail about what was where and when, someone stole something from me. It was just up on the bed and it's the first time I've let anything out of my sight on a train - and the last.

It was my small pouch of electrics - containing [amongst other things] the harddrive of ALL my photos from the entire trip [which I have not been able to upload either...]. Before you gnash your teeth and wail in empathy - I had the foresight to back everything up [mostly] in Gangtok onto one of the school computers [in case of such an eventuality]. So assuming it's still there I should be able to upload some photos after airmail delivers DVDs...

So - not only had my pouch been stolen - now had my afternoon. I'd planned to go to the Indian National Museum - feeling guilty having not made the effort before.

After telling various disinterested men with mustaches, uniforms and big sticks - it was a young student who helped me and walked me to the right place. "Why didn't you fly?" he asked. I smiled through gritted teeth.

I spent the next 4 hours in Police offices. Here again I was met with that apathetic attitude - stopping at nothing to save themselves more work. First I was accused of making it all up. Then when they asked to see my ticket, apparently I only showed them a 'fine form' [I was later told by a fellow passenger I'd been fined about 2000RP too much - I wasn't surprised - they were all grinning too much and speaking Hindi when I paid]. This 'fine ticket' seemed good enough thankfully. I was taken to the CCTV room so they could prove nothing was stolen [!?] but stangely the 7 cameras covering the 18 platforms didn't really clarify anything. I sat eating chocolate and playing chess on my phone to kill time between their faffs as they'd send for someone else to decide a new way of not dealing with my problem.

I was taken back to Delhi Railway Police. I was very frank with them from the start. I said "I don't expect you to get it back, but I just need you to sign a document saying I've reported it stolen so I can claim it on my insurance". This seemed all too much again. First I was accused of letting it be stolen [!?] because I knew it was insured [who needs Sherlock Holmes...]. I said, very cooly, "can I just confirm that you are accusing me of lying?". This is a strong word to say out-loud in an Indian Police station and it changed the dynamic. Lying goes on on paper all the time here, but to utter it out loud - well...

I went on to explain that the HD had little value, only that it contained all my photos. Then they rejected the word stolen and tried to use misplaced - I rejected this - not believing in dematerialisation. Next they tried to convince me it had happened back in Siliguri - or somewhere else. They listed fictional place names that it could have happened at - places I'd never been - anywhere that would have to fill out the paper work but New Delhi Railway police. I stood my ground and restated my terms. "I just want a signed document from here saying I have reported something stolen". It really didn't seem much - I wasn't asking for money.

Eventually the Cheif Faffer was called, the most creative of the Uniformed Legthargics. "Look" he pitched "if we say that it was stolen here it becomes a judicial matter and you have to go to court". "My hairy arse" I thought, loudly. I said [with a friendly smile] "if the Indian Gov wants to fly me back to testify, I'd be more than happy".

I realised there was a game here and I wasn't playing by the rules. He wanted, or should I say WAS going to bend the truth - and I just wanted my police report and to be out of there. I imagine the real truth was their crime statistics might be badly affected and thus affect tourism [god-forbid statistics should reflect the truth]. So he told me a place name I'd never heard of and asked if I could report it missing there. "I've never been there!" I said. He frowned as if he'd have to explain I'd need to got to court again. After some deliberation the official place of stealing was named as the stop before Delhi, not that it really matters I suppose. Eventually
I was given my report and signed it. It only took 4 hours.

Anyway - after all that I still intended to go the the museum. My fever had other plans and Dr Jack stepped in and I put myself to bed. I stirred for a vegetable Chowmein and watched the sunset over Delhi on the last night of my travels.

I've had a wondeful trip and I've been so lucky in so many ways.

Thank you for everyone who's read along or been in touch while I've been away. I hope that my backlog will prove just as interesting.

Look out for:

'Why I Fish' - an explanation of the perversion of fisting. Sorry, fishing.
'So Where Am I?' - an examination of the surreal borders for modern travelers
'Final Ponderings on Japan' and lots of others I've probably forgotten about.

I might even try recording some as podcasts for naughty people at work to listen to so it looks like they are working [I was told my blogs sound better than they read, but that's probably because of my terribly sexy voice]

So this is it! Good bye from Delhi - who knows when I'll travel next - but I promise not to blog if people pay me enough...

Right - enough guff,

Peace and love from Delhi,

Jack

A Marathon Entry

Dear readers [all three of you]

I'd just like to use this channel to draw you attention to a worthy cause.

My good friend Tom is running the Berlin marathon this weekend with his friend and they are both raising money for the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young.

Cardiac Risk in the Young is a charity supported by the British Heart Foundation. As well as raising awareness, CRY campaigns for national heart screening, sponsors medical research and offers ECG testing. CRY also offers support to those who have suffered a bereavement. If you'd like to read more about the charity and possibly donate, please go to this link:

http://www.justgiving.com/helandtomrunberlin/

It's a great cause and I wish Tom and Helen all the best!

As for my blog - you may have noticed it's been in a bit of a lull at the moment.

Well, rest assured it's still being written, just not 'published'. I've taught in schools, met gurus and have too much to write about - far too much in fact - so I'm coming home so I can catch up with myself. It looks like I'll be back in the UK around the 23rd September - so I intend to carry on publishing things I've written [and uploading photos] once I'm back in a place where the internet doesn't just work on the second Tuesday of each month of Sundays.

So thank you to all who have read so far [and especially those who have taken the time to write to me or comment]. I'll hopefully be writing a bit more from India before I leave....

So - for now, please go and visit http://www.justgiving.com/helandtomrunberlin/

And see if you can beat this:

Red Pandas are found here in Sikkim

They eat bamboo leaves and do strip ‘em

Off fast from the trees as,

Alas, it’s not long ‘fore the Chinese will nick ‘em

Jack

There once was a man from Gangtok

So I find myself in Sikkim.

I've been volunteering in a school in Gangtok for over a week now. Last week I was asked if I could help the Hindi teacher write limericks in Hindi. He asked me to give an example of a limerick - I didn't know one clean one [who does!?]. The cleanest one I knew was:

'There once was a girl from Devises,
Who had breasts of varying sizes
The left one was small
And did nothing at all
But the right one was large and won prizes'

He looked confused. I quickly looked up a few clean ones on the Internet and we successfully managed to create a limerick in Hindi.

Well - it was a rainy lunch time today and, to be honest, Gangtok is a bit of a gift to limerick writers. Sikkim is more of a challenge...

Anyway, I thought I would share the fruits of a bored rainy lunch time in Gangtok with the world...

I'll get the cock one out the way first....

There once was a man from Gangtok
Who had the most glorious cock
But he hadn't a chicken
To lay eggs for his tiffin
For they’d flown with the rest of the flock

There once was a man from Gangtok
Who had knitted an excellent sock
He had made only one
It was thin and not long
So it put it instead on his foot

A dirty old git from Gangtok
Drank whiskey and piss as a shot
He said that it aids
In digesting decayed
Fecal matter, when served in a stock

An innocent girl from Gangtok
Was washing her clothes on a rock
While she bathed in the river
She started to shiver,
For she wore only shoes and a smock

A smutty old maid from Gangtok
Was fixated on picking the lock
To a cupboard which held
Lots of things, which to tell
Would bring shame and would probably shock

A knackered old donkey in Sikkim
Was accustomed to small children sitting
On his back while he rode
Up the road to the school
Which taught languages, weather permitting.

Three women who lived in Gangtok
Grew tired of their lives and forgot
That their duty in life
Was first mother then wife
Not as ping-pong girls paid in Bangkok

A young Buddhist monk from Gangtok
Was a Star Trek fan first, then a mock
Buddhist monk in the day
To get lunch – then not pray
But watch repeats of Spok

A nubile young pair from Gangtok
Had their orgasms set by a clock
Every tick of the spring
They would play with his thing
And remain locked in tantra ‘til tock

Well that’s more than enough for now. I welcome any suggestions or improvements. I’d like to see someone beat my Sikkim one…that nearly killed me.

Oh, I’m off to Darjeeling at the weekend and my Dad reminded me of this gem…

There was a young girl from Darjeeling
Who had a most curious feeling
She lay on her back
And opened her crack
And pissed all over the ceiling

Ta ta for now

Delhi: The Hard Way [Day one in Delhi]

I wrote this after my first day in Delhi. Much more to come on India...

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So I'm definitely in Delhi - and I think I like it. That said I'm starting to feel as if the only way I'm going to get around this country is the hard way. See what you think....

As a white European tourist, I'm starting to get the feeling there are three ways of doing things in a country like India [or any place in the world where travellers can encounter a genuine spectrum in the way people live]. There's the 'deluxe' [a word that is liked very much here] way...that is to say 'well bugger me sideways if I've not got more money than sense of adventure - let's see if I can go this whole trip without leaving an Air-conditioned area and hopefully I'll avoid having to actually interact with anyone from India who doesn't have three PhDs and maybe there'll be a slight chance I won't be splurting out orangey bum juice for the next week or hosting an intestinal buddy with a head of hooks.

Second there's the 'medium' type which is basically saying "I'm going to pretend not to be doing the 'deluxe' by going on a tour with other young gapper-slappers and feeling like we did it ourselves because we had to use public transport to get to our non-airconditioned mini-bus which will drive us around and let us take photos of endangered tigers and Tibetans". The third type can either be described as 'budget', 'endurance', 'hippie', 'the hard way' or 'no money'. It can either be out of an inverted snobbery, a kind of Orwellian "I'm going to live in poverty to find myself when quite frankly I'm really rather comparatively minted and can 'deluxe it up' at any time I like" [Read 'Down and Out in Paris and London' by George Orwell to see the kind of self-serving poverty seeking path of misery borne from a guilt at an upper-lower middle class upbringing which is wonderfully and I think quite unintentionally laid bare by him]. In this bracket you also meet the family travellers, who are couples usually dragging their poor kids around with them and putting them through all kinds of hell for 10 months. I met a woman who was doing this - she described being in a train carriage for 10 people with 18 in it [and her family] as being a 'really special moment'. What bloody nonsense. If 'semi-traumatic testing moments' can be described as special I can think of plenty of 'special moments' I've had travelling. And all those family holidays peppered with arguments were actually our very own 'special moments'. I must have a whole catalog of 'special' memories of me and my sister driving my poor parents insane with an unending stream of nonsensical petty arguments. Maybe I can convince my family they were so special we should have another go at creating some more some time?

Anyway, back to my simplified 3-tier way of travelling. In India, I admit I originally considered the 'medium' route, with a hint of budget and a dash of gapper-slapper for good measure. I'm already very glad I didn't [I met some objectionable gapper slappers today on an organised trip which confirmed this]. As I'm relatively near the end of my trip I'm naturally near the end of my savings. Owing to a few extensions and a bit of denial, I'm actually about two hundred pounds away from the end of my savings - so like it or not - I'm budget.

Saying that, I seem to be choosing 'the hard way' even when I don't have to - it's just more preferable after a while as it's often much more interesting. Maybe I should let Orwell off a bit. [He really does start to fuck you off if you read 'Homage to Catalonia' though. It's like 'George, don't go in the trenches, you're really tall and will probably be shot. Oh, you've been shot, well done - idiot'].

When I say I am choosing the hard way, it's often by accident - it's little things like I didn't realise my hostel did free airport pickups and so managed to walk right past my name on a board at the aiport. To be fair it was amongst literally hundreds of others...it's not like I was arriving at the Arctic research base and walked past a trained Polar bear pissing my name into the snow - it's Delhi - 16 million people live here. So right from the start I seemed to be taking the hard route. My taxi driver gave me a crash course introduction to Indian driving [thankfully not literally]. Watching Sanjay, my driver, swerve between lanes was quite an education in human reflexes. It was like no one was able to chose a lane, or I was like the 6th sense kid, except 'I see road lines' and no one else would believe me. There also seemed to be a strange and secret code of honking and flashing that eluded me and seemed to be equally mysterious to other drivers too.

People in India drive like each one of them has read a different Highway code, each written by a different child with an overactive imagination, not yet curbed by Ritalin. For good measure these codes are then printed in Braille and handed to the drivers to make sense of for the first time whilst being given their first driving lesson/ test and being asked to solve long division problems in some crazy moon language, like Welsh.

It seems the only common code of communication that all drivers share is honking and one other thing. Honking seems to mean 'look out' or 'look at me' or 'I'm bored of this red light, why isn't it green' or 'look, there's a cloud' or 'just testing if my horn works in case I see a cloud'. The other thing is called 'BANG'. Let me say that I felt quite brave sat on the back of a motorbike in Bangkok. Seeing Delhi I feel like I've left 'Primary school for shit driving' and graduated up to big school where all the real fuckwits come to drive before being set free across the world and let loose in places such as Birmingham and Coventry. If you think I'm exaggerating read on.

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I sat down to read the paper this morning over my breakfast of tea and toast with jam and felt like an old English gent. One of the many fascinating headlines was 'traffic kills more in Delhi than cancer'. Especially buses called 'blueliners' apparently. I made a mental note to avoid big blue busses, and cancer. As I sat eating my breakfast I was watched impatiently by a member of hotel staff. 'You ready yet? we go to free information centre - we take you there for free'. I enjoyed the last warm dregs of my tea and unenthusiastically walked into what was most certainly something that was too good to be true. You don't get a free transfer to an office when there's not a big commission about to be earned. Once in their office I was, in fairness, given a lot of good information by the guys. I learned of fly-fishing in the Himalayas near a place called Shrinagar. I got that fluttery feeling I write about in 'Why I fish' [which no one has read as I've not uploaded it yet]. It's a dangerous fluttery feeling which is usually followed by the spending of much cash on fish-related fun. Whether I can afford to let this become an idee fixe remains to be seen.

After being given this information I was almost bundled into a car which would take me around 5 sites in Delhi I'd never heard of. This was, might I add, entirely against my will. It was such a rehearsed rip off that so many tourists had fallen for that I just went with the flow until I was in the car. The first stop was a temple. 'where are we?' I asked. This question failed to stumble over the language barrier, 'you look for ten minutes' he replied. We finish in 5 hours, you pay XXX rupees". I walked out the car and began to hatch an escape plan, until someone shouted 'hey mister mister, cobra in a box'.

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I got back in the taxi, armed with my firm and fair plan. I said slowly and clearly 'Take me to the nearest tourist information centre please - there I will get out and pay you, as I don't have XXX rupees'. He seemed to pick up the drift of me not having money and said ' ok, I take you to tourist information - but first we go to a special shop'. I was getting serious De Ja vu [see Tuk Off]. As I stood in the shop staring into the middle distance some lost looking English girls walked in saying 'why are we here?' to each other. I almost literally pounced on them - the first English people I'd seen since landing. We got chatting and I explained the reason we were in the shop. We agreed to all meet at the nearest Tourist Information and told our respective drivers of our intention. 'See you soon' I said, 'or maybe I'll never see you again ha ha'. I never saw them again - that's Delhi I guess. [[Interestingly, by some astronomical odds - I did see them again the next day - they walked right past my hostel and we chatted away -so that's Delhi, I guess!]]

Finally I arrived at a Government tourist information where a couple of overworked and disinterested people vaguely agreed my itinerary was do-able but expensive. They could do it cheaper. I suddenly realised this wasn't an official Tourist Information, but just a Government licenced information outlet. I'm still not sure if I've been in the real one yet. I don't think one exists. In this way India is frustrating. It is the rule rather than the exception that most people are trying to make money out of you. I'd had enough guff - my blood sugar was low and I needed food. My friend had given me some advice on travelling India and said 'be flexible'. There's just no point fine planning in India for so many reasons - such as unpredictable delays or meeting new friends. Instead of freaking out about what and where I'd do in India and when, I decided there and then I'd make it up as I went -starting with lunch. 'Know any good places for lunch?' I asked. 'KFC that way - McDonalds that way' he said patronisingly. I scornfully replied 'I mean Indian food' with a smug smile. How dare he assume that because I'm European I'll leap in front of a bluebus to get to some chips. Five minutes later I was ordering a dirty Ronald, where the menu was: Veggie, Veggie, Chicken, Chicken or Fish. It was relatively quite pricey. 20 meals could get you a plane ticket up north to the fly-fishing place...

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Afterwards, I walked to a grassy area [kept on the brink of brown extinction by a sprinkler]. I passed a book shop and bought a copy of 'The Old Man and the Sea' which I'd been seeking for weeks. On the way to finding somewhere to read it I was called to and approached several times by what I assumed were peddlers [they weren't on bikes, but they were definitely peddling something]. I began to learn to ignore these approaches and calls. After ignoring one guy he said 'ear cleaning?'. I turned and smiled at his funny joke - implying I was deaf. Nope. Turns out street peddlers actually clean your ears [I saw them do it to someone]. While reading, I was approached 5 times by these cotton-bud carrying nut cases. They all carry small leather bound books of handwritten multilingual reviews of ear cleanings such as, 'wow, who knew I had such crap in my ears? Thank you so much, now I can hear street peddlers harassing me - John 1987'. The languages he flicked through before reaching English were strange and many. For example, one I'm sure was Sanskrit - one of the most ancient languages on earth, which is apparently still flourishing in the Indian ear-cleaning community. If an archaeologist ever found one of these books it would be like the Rosetta stone.

After an hour of reading in the sun I headed off in a random direction. I was shouted at by a group of school boys and called over. They were wearing matching ties of various length and were about 17 - they seemed to just want to test if the English they learned in school actually worked on a real life subject. We chatted and they took turns trying on my [quite normal] hat. If I was wearing a fruit bowl I'd have understood - oh well. The simple act of them trying on my hat drew a crowd of ten. I was surrounded by semi-curious grinning locals and did what I always do when faced with many strangers - I asked for travel advice. Ask a group of strangers from the same place for advice and they'll argue for hours. It was great fun and I gained valuable advice. One guy called Ricky, who was 21 and had a violent scar under his left eye, said he'd walk me to a temple. 'I don't want money - just to practise English'. We got talking about this and that. 'My 5 brothers are dead' he said right before walking in front of a car. It dodged him, just, and I felt no need to ask how his brothers had died. I've seen so many near misses in India - only ever near misses though.

Ricky took me to his temple and explained all the baffling figures. Turns out I actually knew a few of them! We sat down in the temple and some prayer started. A man sat on the floor with a book on a cushion and a microphone by his mouth and he began to sing the prayer. It was only old woman in the temple congregation of about ten and they tunelessly joined in at random it seemed. I was just about to get bored when suddenly an old woman [of about, well, really old]suddenly started playing this massive drum with a hand on each end. She must have played for twenty minutes. I've been present at recording sessions where session drummers have missed more beats. She was ace. Suddenly prayer was a bit more fun, with people randomly hitting bell sticks and clapping. Maybe the Church of England should release a Drum N Base remix of the Lord's Prayer to get people a bit more exited about the concept of an afterlife? Though the next logical step might be spiking the communion wine, which could send out the wrong message...?

Me and Ricky went for some Chi and we sat and unpretentiously exchanged philosophies. 'In India, anything is possible' he said 'live life and love life - that's the Indian way'. Then he offered to get me some hash - turns out this was his preamble. I politely decline. I enjoyed out cup of tea though. I think a cup of tea is something very culturally at the heart of both England and India [and many other cultures] - if only the whole world spoke English and drank tea. Maybe India is bringing out the colonialist in me...

We talked a little more and just before parting he asked me for some money for his school books. I'm pretty sure the money wouldn't have ended up on school books but I'd love to be wrong. I gave him none, of course, giving various patronising reasons about not being able to help everyone even if I wanted to. I couldn't help but feel the entire afternoon had led up to this question. I had half expected it though. I guess he was just a very eloquent beggar. Begging is something that most people like to ignore quite enthusiastically in Europe - not needing to pay much attention to it. In India, it pays attention to you. When ordering an icecream from a stand, three or four children might come up to you and ask for money and make a hand gesture which means food. You can't help but feel like an utter bastard not giving them money. Having worked for a charity though, I know you can't help everyone. And it's never the most needy actually begging - the most needy wouldn't have enough energy to hassle you. None the less, with all my semi-Daily Mail intellectual arguments against giving to beggars and in favor of supporting charities this doesn't help when you're tucking into a delicious icecream Feast with begging children at your feet. You can hardly say 'boo hoo to you' or 'sucks to be you'. I know there's so much suffering in the world - when it's in your face though it's hard to stay strong. When someone fakes a friendship in order to ask money, you start to find it hard to trust anyone you meet in Delhi. And that's a sad state of affairs, but let me explain.

Trust is a problem in India it seems. On the Delhi metro today was an announcement: 'Do no befriend any unknown person'. That was it, word for word. Rather takes the wind out of the idea of making new friends - but false and loaded behavior with a view to extracting money is a big issue in this culture it seems. Similarly, Ricky had earlier told me very earnestly that you couldn't trust a Muslim, 'they are the most dishonest people in India and that they never smile back when you smile at them' at which I expressed some doubt but mostly just listened. This was what he believed though and the ingrained ideas and divisions in all Indian society which manifest in poverty and religious segregation seem to have persisted for Milena so far and show little sign of ending in this one. The girls I re-bumped into today said they felt they couldn't trust anyone in India, which was why they were going on the tour. I can't say I entirely agree with the girls'opinions and I think they may have over-reacted by going on an all-pre-booked tour. Saying that I can certainly see the appeal after all my false leads and misinformation. I always think if you can trust your own judgement you can trust anyone - you can trust them to act how you expect them to - however that may be. And Ricky I guess is just another example of where that line blurs. He was very nice and interesting, but a whole afternoon of conversation was engineered to extract money. It's a very strange state to explore a city in - always expecting the sting in the tail of kindness. And the most strange thing of all is that mistrustful con artists and tauts will try to put you off other mistrustful people, dismissing them as dishonest for trying to con you. In the next breath they will try to con you. From a detached view it's funny, but face to face every day it's quite exhausting.

This is emblematic of an aspect of Indian culture. Each man for himself. Whether it's fellow tauts besmirching the others, tuk tuk drivers fighting fellow drivers to get your bags out your hand for your fare [in the absence of a taxi rank], the endless honking in stationary traffic or the rugby scrum of the Delhi metro - everyone seems to assume that they are in a hurry and you're not. That their personal mission is priority. For example - it isn't rare to find 5 jeeps offering the same trip to the same place, with all of them semi-full and refusing to leave until they are full - while still trying to fill them, rather than just put everyone into two jeeps and leave.

These are just my impressions of India and Delhi, and mostly I'm describing people in business. It almost goes without saying this country is also brimful of amazing, kind and lovely people - just like everywhere in the world. It just seems that India's ratio of people who are out only for themselves is a little higher in the cities than anywhere else I've been. Saying that, I've not been to China.


Right I better stop writing guff and actually decide what on earth I'm going to do here...thanks for reading if you made it this far! I'm in Mcleodganj at the moment and heading out for some food. Bye!

Delhi: Cobraload

Yesterday was my first day in India.

So I step out of the taxi at my first tourist destination in Delhi. 'Look mister, mister look - a cobra in a box'. 'Bull-shit' I thought - I wasn't going to fall for that one and look...it's probably code for something lude. But I did look, and it was a cobra in a basket with a guy playing a flute. It was like I'd accidentally walked into a cliche of what Delhi is supposed to be like, rather than the wonderful modern mersloperlis that it is. I was instinctively sure that looking impressed would probably cost me somehow so I tried hard not to. My trusty dark glasses saved me from giving away too much, but this was a cobra, in a basket! I tried to look like I'd seen a cobra in a basket three times already that morning and, frankly, I wasn't in the mood. By the end of the morning, I literally had seen three. Welcome to Delhi.

The snake 'charmers' [I don't see them as charmers, more botherers] seem to spot white skinned people and follow them, unfurling a cobra as they go and sitting resolutely in your path as if, at the sight of a cobra, you'll say something like "well lay me down and spank me with a wet glove if that isn't a snake in a freakin' basket - here are my life savings Dr Dofukall". Surely if you want to see a man sat down in skimpy shorts playing the flute at a snake in a basket there are places you can go, with curtained booths - like Amsterdam or Bangkok - do you know what I mean?

More to come.
____

If you liked this post please text 'rip me off' to 6969 and have the next installment sent to your phone directly [texts cost 300 Rupees and the service can only be stopped by visiting our headquarters on a remote Himalayan mountain where you can use a satellite phone to call our Customer Indifference centre in Ipswich where we'll gladly ignore you in a virtual que and play you "Wagner's Greatest Hits" reinterpreted by Rolf Harris on a 1980s Casio keyboards while your precious life trickles down the drain of time into a pool of despair.]

Cultural Karma in Mong Kok

This is the story of why I sacrificed my daily diet of dirty Ronald McDonald for pig intestine.

________

Before I launch into this story, let me just clear something up. For most of my life I've said I'm a vegetarian. Generally speaking I just don't really enjoy eating meat. The taste, texture...all that. It's not an animal welfare thing - I kill fish for sport. But I eat those fish. So technically I'm a pescetarian. But no one says they're a pescetarian. If I'd have said that at my primary school I'd have got a punch - and rightly so. As it was, in 1989 my school's vegetarian option was a plate of grated cheese - every day - just a plate of grated cheese - in 1989. Then as I got older people were like 'I can't believe you don't eat bacon - you're missing out'. I tried bacon. I was missing out. So I'm a pescetarian who eats bacon. So what does that make me? The answer is fussy. But at a dinner party or an airline menu list there isn't a fussy option so I just say vegetarian and most people seem happy and move on. The truth is though- I'll try anything once. I've eaten steak, sausages [even kangaroo sausages called Kanga Bangers - which sounds like the Australian equivalent of a sheep shagger]. I've had crocodile, emu, a venison burger in NZ [called a bambi burger]. I've had scores of fish species and seafoods - I once ate a pizza with something from 5 different phylums on it. After all this experimentation - I can safely say I don't really enjoy eating meat, but I like bacon and love seafood. So there. Right.

______

At the time of writing I'm staying in Mong Kok. Mong Kok is not Hong Kong. Well, Mong Kok is technically in Hong Kong - but Mong Kok is mainland - Hong Kong island isn't. Ask anyone who lives on Hong Kong island [whether they are Asian or not] and they will describe the people who live in Mong Kok as locals. This basically implies all of the below. By being 'local' you are more tradionally Chinese. Hong Kong is almost actively not traditionally Chinese, or at the very least likes to maintain a distinct cultural identity. Hong Kong is, and has been for some time, a very international place. Many Europeans, North Americans, Japanese and Australasians call it home as well as many multi-nationals...all with their own towering sky scrapers marking their patch. The result of this mix is a city culture similar to London, Sydney, San Francisco or Vancouver. There are areas which are very Asian/Oriental but there is always that over-riding feel of 'Western' commercialism. Adverts and slogans are almost all in English and a majority of people working there will be able to give you directions if you're lost. The comparison between the other cities I mentioned really does seem to mostly end where the malls do. For example, a senior politician recently publically referred to homosexuality as a disease. They love Malls, but it might be fair say that on the surface the culture can seem very 'western' - but often only on the surface. In the malls though there will be lots of 'Western' outlets- Body Shop is huge here, as is Lush. [Boots was a giant in Thailand..!?]. Then there are the food outlets; McDonalds, Prêt a Manger and Ben and Jerry’s. There will also be, of course, the 711. Anyone who has never ventured outside of the EU will probably be quite unaware of 711 - perhaps they've seen it in American TV. Anyone else in the world will have noticed it's gradual march as it slowly takes over the world. It makes Tesco look like France [in a WWII simile] and Starbucks look like Belgium, McDonalds perhaps Britain while 711 is Mother Russia. Ok I need some help with this simile - who can do better...? The point is 711 are everywhere. If you've ever been to Leicester Square in London there's a point I like to stand at where you can see 5 Pizza Huts all at the same time. I've found places in Japan, Sydney, Bangkok and Hong Kong where you can count five 711s on a 5 minute walk. Last night I was walking home with a friend and fancied a chocolate milk. I popped into a 711, whipped out my magic Octopus card and *doot* it was mine. Five minutes later I'd finished and fancied another one. I'd passed three 711s in that time and I went into the fourth one and *doot*, with a waving gesture against the octopus reader it was mine. I try to support local business where ever I go in the world, but in Hong Kong especially I've found that hard. Which leads me very uneatly back to Mong Kok.

Mong Kok was full of anything but 'Western' commercial food outlets. There were restaurants, street vendors and stalls - all selling things which I could only guess at what they were, unless it was clearly a dead chicken/fish/squid/dog*. Every place was baffling and entirely void of any English [language]. [*Ok I didn't see any dogs but I have it on good authority that although it's not on the menu in some places, it very much is - if that makes sense. I don't know if it's 'bring your own and we'll cook it' - like a seafood restaurant but it certainly would be a good send off for Fido.] Now, as I said at the start - I like to try new things and be adventurous with my food. Who doesn't, right? That's how you find your favorite foods in life...[I'm thinking Udon noodles and soft-shell crab here people...who's with me?] But I think everyone will agree that once in a while you just want nourishment - something quick, cheap and tasty. Or fruit. Fruit is a different story.

Now, the first time I ever visit a new country I make a habit of going to a McDonalds as soon as possible. Don't gasp. It's never to buy food, but always to see how much they charge for a meal. It's pretty much the best way that I know of getting a feel for a strange currency. I did this in Hong Kong though and got very confused. I hadn't made a good start with the currency though. When I first arrived in HK I went to a cash machine for the first time I tried to get out 20,000 Hong Kong Dollars.- it refused. The maximum you could withdraw was 4000. Evidently, I'd got a decimal point wrong by two places place. [Thai baht is about 20,000 to twenty quid...I was jetlagged]. 500 Dollars is about 40 quid so I just tried to withdraw my non-existent life savings....

So I went into McDonalds in Mong Kok, just to work out what was going on with the currency. I did a double check - McDonalds in Hong Kong is almost exactly half the price of eating ANYWHERE else, that's including street food. For a semi-decent restaurant it's a quarter of the price. For a good one you're getting nearer to small fractions. Not only that, you could pay for it with a magic swipey octopus card. Suddenly Ronald had a new appeal about him, his luscious red locks blowing in the wind of my dreams and calling to me....

No.

I snapped out of it and went to an amazing Vietnamese with a friend instead.

The next day however, I wondered out of my hostel and decided to try some street food next to my right outside it. This included something that smelt like a ham sandwich that had been left in a plastic bag on a hot coach all day [which later turned out to be stinky tofu] and tentacles on a stick [I never found out if they were squid/octopus]. It tasted bloody lovely. Just as I was finishing it some English people from my hostel appeared next to me with disgusted looks. After selling them the idea of squid on a stick I convinced them all to try it. They liked it - victory! I wasn't a freak! Then I thought they were about to invite me for a drink and they said something strange. 'Do you want to come and do the happy meal challenge?'. I didn't know - did I? The happy meal challenge, if you haven't guessed or didn't know involves stuffing an entire McDonalds happy meal into your face in under 3 minutes. You only win once you've assembled the toy. The whole group was so lairy in the McDonalds that they drew a crowd. I'd gone for a Fillet-o-Fish double - just because I could. It had been a while since my last McDonalds - and after all my recent cultural food experimentation...I will admit it tasted bloody lovely. The next day I was hungry and needed food - fast. You could say, I needed fast-food. I looked around Mong Kok. Everywhere was this impenetrable Cantonese and strange foods and 711s.

Then - in the middle of all this confusion shone the Golden Arches of Ronald's open legs. 'Come on in' he whispered, his red wig playfully brushing my shoulder, 'I'm dirty but I'm cheap...and you LOVE it'. I surrendered to Ronald. I'd have been less ashamed if I'd accidently gotten a happy ending than a happy meal.

Afterwards I walked out, head down low - licking the salty grease of Ronald off of my lips. I did it again the next day, for breakfast. The day after I went in for more delicious punishment. And again the next day for lunch. I went 5 or 6 days in a row just eating dirty Rondalds in Mong Kok, either as breakfast or super. My guilt was such that I've written this blog. I just couldn't face crawling through markets for 'local' street food. However, all this time - the Fates were watching. Cultural karma was about to come round full circle...

I'd met a girl called Mary through my friend Kim from University. Mary was raised in the States but lived in Hong Kong and spoke fluent Cantonese. We found out we both had a day spare and she said 'I'll take you on a food tour of Mong Kok'. I gratefully accepted. The main reason I'd not eaten anything from Mong Kok other than McDonalds was because every time I asked for anything at the stalls it escalated into me repeating myself loudly in English and them doing the same in Cantonese until I either gave up or handed them money in the vague hope of not ordering a dog testicle. Having Mary with me would be great...yeah! Well... We met up and instantly headed for the stinky tofu. It was quite nice. A bit like cheesy greasy grilled tofu. Not half as bad as it smelled [which was horrendous]. Next - spicy fish balls. That's balls of fish meat....ok. It was VERY hot but I kept my cool and rushed off to get some fruit juice. Then came an interesting one.

'We'll go to a noodle place next' she said. Noodles....'I can do noodles' I thought to myself. We went to the noodle place, but she didn't order any noodles. We had a delicious soup with a kind of potato thingy [she couldn't translate into English so I'm doing my best] with a kind of giant radish and a sort of asparagussy thing and chopped shitake mushrooms, except that they weren't shitake. Then there was boiled octopus - surprisingly crunchy...must say I prefer it grilled or swimming around. Then there was a kind of jelly thing. 'oh that's pig's blood jelly' she said - 'try it, it's my favorite'. I did. I must say it was nice. Or I would have thought so if I didn't know what it was. Because I did know - I’d have to describe it as a kind of really creamy delicious version of that blood clot you get after a nosebleed that slips down the back of your throat. 'mmm' I said - 'it's like a soft black pudding'. Then there were squid rings. Oh wait, no. Having a small interest in biology I identified both circular and longitudinal muscle. 'This is intestine isn't it?' I asked. She nodded, 'pig intestine - try it'. So, with all the bravery and detachment I could muster, I ate it. I didn't like it and I told her. 'I don't like it either - I just wanted you to try it'. Thanks Mary...next time you're in England I'll introduce you to haggis - or maybe a dog turd sandwich - I don't like eating it but I like watching other people tuck in....

After that the tour was uphill. Fruit, cold tofu [a bit like crème caramel in texture] but really quite flavorless. The Chinese don't really do pudding [Look at the desert menu next time you go for a Chinese...]. We had some lovely sesame paste which was served in a huge bowl - a bit like runny peanut butter but sesame flavored. I finished that. Then we had a waffle with peanut butter and condensed milk. Delicious and filling. Finally we went for a 24 flavor tea. The main things I could smell were aniseed and black treacle, with a hint of marmite and gin seng. Mary had no idea what was in it - and I can only guess 4 so I'll leave the other 20 to your imagination. It was vile. My sister had told me to try it. On my blog/facebook there should be two photos [soon] - one before I try it and one after. I think the after photo face I pull has about 24 different expressions on it to match the taste of the tea - the overriding one being uncertainty. Mary made me finish it all as it was 'good for me'. Just as I finished the last drop, Kim texted us and said did we want to go out for dinner in about an hour? I was so full....

An hour later I'd finished my plate of Udon noodles and was tucking into Kim's. For now I was free of Ronald's spell and I'd beaten the karma...for now. India is my next stop and I have a feeling that Ronald might take on a whole new appeal....

[I am uploading this from Delhi. I had a dirty Ronald today. I'm sorry India]

Tuk Off

This is the story of why I broke into a Buddhist temple which contains one of the most precious objects on planet earth....

___________

I'm generally not a list-ticking traveller. I have a vague idea of a
few things I'd like to do in a certain place and meander around cities
and transport systems in a kind of dream. Sometimes I get to see
something, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I'm really glad I've made the
effort, other times I want to punch who ever wrote the Lonely Planet/
Wikitravel guide. More often than not though, the things I remember
most when travelling [after the people...] tend to be the things I
don't get to see. For example, when I was 10 we went on a family
  coachtrip to Italy [about 26 hours by coach each way from Loughborough
if that sounds appealing]. We went to Rome on Easter day and all I
wanted to see was the Colosseum. I had little interest in the opulent
grandiose architecture of Catholic cathedrals at the age of 10
[and I have even less now]. Easter day is the only day of the year
that the Colosseum is closed. I remember pinning my nose against the
railings and promising myself that one day I would return. I have
since been twice. If there was a smug emoticon I would insert it here
  [smug smug smug]. My point is that if I get an 'idée fixe' it takes
quite a lot for me to give up on it.

Now, as I said - I'm not usually a list ticking traveller. There was
however one thing in Thailand I really wanted to see.

In the 1950s a rather boring and unremarkable Buddhist temple decided
to move a rather large and dull concrete statue of the Buddha.
I imagine that the process of moving it involved a rather large and
unremarkable crane - probably operated by someone so underwhelmed by
the whole unremarkable task that they forgot to tie the lifting straps
up properly. The statue was accidentally dropped from a height.

There are varios scenarios I imagine for this happening. However it did happen, and how ever much 'incense' was being burned at the time, the fact of the matter is that someone, no names mentioned
Mong, someone dropped the statue. Whoops.

I can picture the whole dialogue right now:

Superviser: 'Mong you idiot' [Mong is the crane operator]
  Mong: 'Oh dear, this is probably quite bad'
Superviser: 'You dropped the statue - let me go and have a look'
Mong: 'Er, if it helps, I'm pretty sorry'
Superviser: 'You're lucky Mong, it seems to be mostly in one
piece...except for this bit that's fallen off here...I'll just get
some pollyfiller and no one will notice once I've patched up over this
solid gold bit where the plaster has fallen off.....wait a minute...'
  Mong: 'huh'
Superviser: 'Mong you're a bloody legend - I owe you a [insert
culturally stereotypical foodstuff] the next time we go for a [insert
culturally stereotypical Thai activity enjoyed between two
heterosexual crane operators]
Mong: 'huh?'

I think it went something like that. Mong's second 'huh' was when he
discovered that by dropping the statue and basically breaking it, it
in fact revealed that the statue was covered by a thin concrete shell - intended to conceal what
  was beneath [which it had quite successfully done so until Mong]. What was
beneath was the concrete shell was the largest solid gold object on planet earth - which
happened to be a Buddha - which people now worship extra hard as it's
not so unremarkable anymore [alright, put your ten commandments
away....]. You could say it's one of the most not so unremarkable
things on planet earth, if you like convoluted grammatical structures,
of which I could be accurately accused of mostly trying to, at all
costs, avoid.

As soon as I learned about this not so unremarkable statue - it was
something I wanted to see. This became an 'idée fixe'.

_____

So, you may remember my deep suspicion and dislike of the Tuk Tuk road
pirates of Bangkok. I never quite shook this off - that is until one
afternoon...

I'd had a bad morning [yes, a morning!]. Everything I wanted to do
was either shut, closed or non-existent according to the patchy
tourist information. The national museum was inexplicably closed from
Sunday until Wednesday every week and I'd missed the floating market
thanks to some bad advice. Then it started to rain. I was a soggy and
grumpy traveller. I went to tourist information and asked about the
giant golden Buddha. I'd been told by someone else that it was closed
for renovation - but after my experience with the man outside the Grand
Palace my own eyes were all I trusted. 'It's definitely open' said
tourist information. I was buoyed.  I decided to go in search of it,
but firstly I'd go for some Thai street food. This was the best thing
that happened all morning.

I was sat down at a long plastic table with
complete strangers and handed a plate of Godkno Wswhat in a sauce of
Donta Skme. It was delicious. Thai street food is pretty much the best
food in the world. The meal cheered me up and I felt ready for an
afternoon of adventure. Opposite the street food place there was a
building with a load of canons outside and it looked quite
interesting. I started walking up the path and realised quite quickly
that everyone else around me was in uniform. And had big guns. I
didn't have a big gun or shiny boots but I did have a camera. I took a
photo and before being 'asked' to leave, I walked back onto the road.
  'oi you mister'. I tried to ignore it but when I looked it was a
friendly old man on the public path. 'Don't go in there, that's the
national military headquarters' he informed me. I decided not to go
back for more photos.

We got talking and I told him my plans for the day and how I really
wanted to see the giant Golden Buddha but that  I'd been told by some
that it was open and others that it was closed.

He informed me that it was open and began a speech about Tuk Tuks and
how they were all pirates. All of them, except for the Government ones
with white number plates. At this point let me say there is no such
  thing as a Government Tuk Tuk. The Government hates Tuk Tuks. At the
time however, I was drawn in. I quickly realised I was hearing a sales
pitch and he listed not only the Golden Buddha but 5 other things a
driver could also show me, all for a fraction of any fare I'd be
offered by anyone. With alarming swiftness he flagged a white plated
tuk tuk and I began negotiating with the driver about the price. The
most important thing I said was to see the Golden Buddha. The other
attractions were the kind you see on a map and are told to see. I
won't even recount them here - I saw them and you will too if you go
to Bangkok, but that's all there is to say about them. I was
interested in the big golden Buddha - it had become an idee fixe.

The offer of the cheap tuk tuk quickly made sense. On the way I'd have
to visit a tailor shop for ten min and then I would be taken around
Bangkok. I wasn't having any of it. I did deals, made offers all to
little avail. The best I could wangle was seeing two sites, then a
tailor shop, then the golden buddha. I got in the tuk tuk and we were
  off on our farty engined piece of crap across bangkok.

So I saw this and he waited for me, then I saw that and he waited for
me. Then we went to the tailor shop. A pack of Indian salesmen
descended on me and asked me in depth questions about the kind of
fabric I'd want and when I was leaving. I asked where the toilet was
and hid there for ten minutes before emerging and finding my Tuk Tuk
driver. He seemed please and he took me to the stop before the Golden
Buddha. It was the golden mountain - a temple which, as the name
implies, involves some climbing. By the time I got back down [I rushed
so as not to keep him waiting] I couldn't see him anywhere. A Chinese
Tuk Tuk driver saw my bemusement and informed me he'd driven off. 'But
I hadn't paid him' I said quite innocently. At this he laughed 'he got
his gas token from the tailor shop - he doesn't need your money and
now he's gone'. I'd been ever so slightly had. 'Will you take me to
  the golden Buddha' I asked, as time was ticking - as it usually does.
'I'll take you' he said 'but I want gas token too - first we go to
tailor shop'. I suppressed my anger, took a deep breath and realised he
wouldn't budge, nor would any other drivers around. I agreed. This
time I was shipped in to a tailors shop and the tailor said 'you don't want a
suit do you?' . I was honest and said no. 'Here's your gas token - so
let's not waste each other's time'. Ah - a man after my own heart - a
human being, not someone leeching off me. I went back out after 30
seconds and the driver was furious 'I said look for ten min'. I
proudly presented the gas token to him at exactly the same moment I
realised it was just a business card. I'd been had by someone who was
trying not to be had by someone having me. 'THIS NOT GAS TOKEN'  he
shouted 'I take you to another tailor before Buddha'. It was at this
point, I'd had it. 'No. I don't want a suit, they know I don't. I want
to see the Buddha, why can't I just pay you to take me to the Buddha
and exchange money for a service like what happens in civilisations
across the globe!?' I ranted all this furiously at him, in a polite
manner. He understood exactly 3% but he'd got this gist. I wasn't
going to go to another tailor without a fight. 'Ok we go to Buddha
then I take you to a Tailor after'. I sighed a sigh of defeat and
agreed. At least I was going to see the Golden Buddha. I HAD to see it
now.

So we pulled up in front of the temple and I walked in. It wasn't how
I imagined it. In fact, it looked shit. It looked like a giant wooden
statue painted in fake gold leaf. 'Ah this is a copy' said a worker,
'the real one is in the new temple which is under construction'. He
pointed to a huge new temple being built next door. 'It is not open to
the public for another 3 months - you can't see it today - sorry'.

I think it's fair to say that this is where most travellers/tourists
would have snapped or given up. I however, had an idee fixe and I
wasn't giving up.

After quickly deciding Bangkok wasn't Rome and it was unlikely I could
nip back here any time soon - it was time to bring out plan B.

Plan B: 1.Somehow enter a high security temple with the world's
largest golden statue undetected.
2.See large Golden Buddha and take a photo
3. leave temple without being arrested and preferably undetected.

I cased the joint like a pro. After hanging around a worker entrance
on my phone for a couple of minutes I became part of the scenery to
them. Something was dropped and everyone looked round. When they
looked back I was inside. My sandals were off and my footsteps were
silent. I had no idea where in this huge temple the statue was  so I
just ran up the stairs and kept going. 7 flights in bare feet on a
construction site and I didn't cut anything or break anything, except
a sweat. I was doing well - I was at the top. I'm Indiana Jones and
Lara Croft rolled into one unsightly pasty English guy in his
twenties.

Suddenly there were no more stairs to climb. I was at the summit and
ahead I knew was the giant Buddha. I calmly walked past construction
workers and up to the place where it must be seated. I turned the
corner.

There is was, the largest golden object in the world in a wonderfully
sculpted form of the sitting Buddha. It was breathtaking. I took
pictures and stood in awe. I'd done it. More than the memory of seeing
it, I'd defeated the memory of not seeing it.

I snapped out of my daze and realised I was probably doing something
quite stupid. I didn't really care and meandered back down the stairs.
As a general rule in life, if you act like you should be somewhere,
then people tolerate you - sometimes they even start paying you.

I got to the exit after a couple of bemused stairs and my tuk tuk
driver flagged me down. I had no intention of welshing on my deal and
he keenly drove me to a tailor shop while I was in a bit of a dream. I
wondered into the tailor shop and I saw  him sigh when he saw me. 'How
many of these shops have you been in today' he asked. Honestly, I
couldn't remember. Quite frankly I didn't care. After seeing the
statue, the whole day had transformed from a battle I was losing into
a victory, I'd won, I'd seen the statue and I hadn't bought a suit.

I'm writing this from Hong Kong where I have quite deliberately banned
myself from any Idee fixe and it's wonderfully liberating. The closest
thing I get to an idee fixe here is a hankering for some squid on a
stick....but that's another story....

What Did You Just Phucking Say?

When you are in a country where you don't speak the language at all, your subconscious mind is constantly scanning for meaning in the language and picking out the bits you might know in English or French from the million threads of speech you hear a day. It's remarkable how often you can pick English out in a crowd - but sometimes the brain gets it all wrong. The most common way I have experienced this is with song lyrics. Whole phrases will suddenly stand out - proudly propelled up from the subconscious by my brain after some swift decoding. At first it is English! Well done brain. Then your more rational analytical mind scans over what you think you've just heard sung in a song and points out it's gibberish, often filthy filthy gibberish.

Here are some of the real ones I've heard so far - I've noted them in order as I heard them.

"dirty tam tam"

"Dispenser out of marmite"

"Runny camel toe". This is one i keep hearing over and over in one popular refrain. I think it must mean 'I love you' in Thai.

"I got taken by a combine harvester"

"The sudden gagging to rule St Peter"

"Milky Cobra teeth"

"Take your virgina macaroni with you [this was a duet]
The whole thing is a bit like aural ink blot tests - which maybe says quite a bit about me?

Please tell me it's not just me that hears filth abroad....

Welcome to the Land of Smiles

[Written 11th July]

I flew out of Melbourne with a heavy heart for many reasons. It had a great music scene and the most 'european' vibe I've experienced outside of Europe [and inside in some cases...]. I'd only planned to spend 3 days there and extended that to 5 but I could happily have stayed another 4 months - I felt very at home there. Alas - yet another place I'll have to add to my 'Places to revisit' list - which basically includes everywhere I've ever been with the exception of LA.

But whether or not I felt ready to leave- I was on a flight to Bangkok, and so I started to get exited.

The first time I heard about Bangkok was when I was about 8. My best friend Sam at school had a Dad who was a civil engineer. He got a job building Thailand some sewers or [something big and important] and so the whole family moved out there. I was very sad to see them go but me and Sam kept in touch by airmail. It already seems like a different age as I type this on my laser keyboard and beem it wirelessly to anyone who cares to read it. But Sam's letters from Bangkok used to be really exiting and tell of all the strange things and customs. Mostly they talked about crossing roads and how that, generally, that was not advised...

I know many people since who've been and loved it - so I was keen to see the place for myself.

I arrived on my first night quite late so headed straight to my couchsurfer's pad. Now, I actually heard about this couchsurfer [called Wiwat] when I was in Sydney. I was staying with my lovely host Dawn, who broke me in very gently to the world of Couchsurfing. The day I left a French guy called Konrad arrived. [So I wasn't Dawn's one and only...I felt used and hurt...]
Anyway Konrad [who by freak chance I bumped into another 3 separate times in Sydney - slim frog odds] told me of a guy in Bangkok called Wiwat who 'just gives you the keys to his luxury appartment' and that's that. Konrad was right, that's exactly what happened when I arrived and I can honestly say it's nicer than any hotel I've seen. I won't go on too much about it as it would border on bragging - suffice to say I am now a dyed in the wool Couchsurfer fan.

When I actually touched down in Thailand it was a full moon and once again, I managed to time my trip perfectly to just miss something [I'm thinking missing cherry blossoms in Japan and most of the fishing season in NZ and not to mention the annual migration of magic marsupial hippos in Australia which is a state secret. whoops]. So I missed a chance of a genuine Thai Full moon party this time, but apparently they have half-moon and no moon parties. Basically, lots of parties. So I didn't mind too much. I bedded down in my penthouse and planned the next day in my head. Step one of plan, up early.

First Day in Bangkok

If you have only one day in Bangkok, you go to the Grand Palace. So this is where I started. I got on the very futuristic and mercifully air conditioned 'Skytrain' [a train track on stilts through the city]. I then got bus 47 with all the locals to the Grand Palace. I always prefer to use public transport if I can - it's much more interesting and keeps more money in the beer fund.

It wasn't as clear as I'd thought it would be when I arrived at the palace. Every time I saw a big golden spire I asked the conductor if this was it...but Bangkok is a beautiful city, full of golden towers and unique and stylish modern architecture so seeing a golden spire is not rare. The conductor cheerfully told me when to get off and I headed to the Palace, right after my first spot of delicious Thai street food [egg fried rwice, prawns and fish]. The entrance wasn't well signed so I asked a man helping some other foreign girls if he knew where it was. He was well dressed and constantly read your face when talking to you. He told me that Palace was shut for 2 hours for prayer but that he knew somewhere I should go in the mean time - a giant buddha statue - it wasn't far. 'Oh' I said - 'maybe I should walk there?'. This was too far he said, and I'd need a Tuk Tuk [trans:shit taxi] to get me there. With that, and timed perfectly, a driver stepped up. So naturally I got on, was toured around a number of shite shops and surprisingly, ripped off. at the end. NOT.

That's what I'd have done if I was a little less experienced in spotting a bullshitter. Clue number one - he was wearing a nicer shirt than me. Never buy something from someone who can afford to dress better than most other people - he'll be wearing your money next week. Clue two: the whole thing was all too rehearsed - the Tuk Tuk driver just a bit to soon off the mark. So I said 'Kabunka' [thankyou] and marched off to the Palace entrance where there was a sign saying 'Beware of wiley strangers' [sic]. The Palace was open - and this guy had annoyed me. It was hot, and a small walk back to where he was but I wasn't letting him off easily. I marched back to his pitch spot and interrupted a pitch to 3 girls he was telling that the Palace was shut. 'Why did you tell me the Palace was shut?' I asked. 'Who told you it was open?' he snapped with annoyance and a glimmer of fear that he just lost more money. 'It was the people who sold me a ticket and who let me in who told me it was open'. His calm salesmanesque reserve buckled - I expect he didn't have a rehearsed routine for this scenario.He looked very pissed off and talked in Thai and said I should go and talk to them then.I gave him a meaningful 'you're an arsehole' scowl [which I'm really quite good at] and walked off back to the Palace. So indeed - a good motto 'beware of wiley strangers'.

After spending time in front of the jade buddha and exploring the palace I was keen to try my first Thai massage. I'd learned from my research that the Palace was next to the international headquarters of Thai massage teaching - and it was also cheap [about a 50th of the price in Japan]. My sister had an experience in Hong Kong of accidentally seeing a prostitute when going for a massage and being offered a 'happy ending'. I was quite keen not to replicate this experience, as that's not really my cup of chi. It was a friendly place and full of families. Good sign. I got changed into special massage pants and was told to lay down. I won't lie, at times the massage was quite painful and not at all dodgy. Saying that, at one point she did have her foot in my crotch and rocked me back and forth and said I was handsome. Not at the same time, in a kind of creepy way - I'm sure she puts her foot in everyones crotch and Asian people use the word handsome often - it probably translates to them as 'looks like a dog's bottom'. So that was just one position amongst other ones that I couldn't recreate meaningfully in words without listing body parts. The climax was a huge spinal crack that left me in a daze for ten minutes, much to the amusement of the other ladies.

Afterwards I got the ferry up the river and admired Bangkok on the river at sunset. Then it was time to go to Koa San road. It was rush hour though and everything was gridlocked. After giving it some thought I decided tuk tuks are for pussies and got on the back of a motorbike taxi. I asked the driver 'do you have a helmet?' - he thought about it and said 'oh yeh, no problem' and swiftly put one on himself and told me to get on. Oh well, I did try Mum....

These bike riders are so naughty though. Bangkok has lots of those lanes which switch direction for traffic flow, like in Brum. These bikes swerve not just into the lane of oncoming traffic, that's what the tuk tuks do - these bikes overtake the tuk tuks by going two lanes into the opposite traffic flow. The problem is that similar parties in the opposite direction have the same idea. I let out some silent screams and prepared on two occasions to lose my kneecaps. All said though, I enjoyed the whole experience very much.

Once in Koa San it was very touristy and just what you'd expect. Drunk tourists, peddlers and bad cover bands playing the same pop hits. I met an Israeli couple who invited me to a 'ping pong' show. If you don't know what it is, it involves woman getting ping pong balls into pint glasses without using her hands - or mouth. I politely declined and went for a haircut. I noticed they did massages too, so for the price of a pint of beer I had another hour long massage, just to recover from the first one you see...

Then it was home time. Into a Tuk Tuk to get tuk'd up in bed after my long first day. After declining several 'lady-stops' I was back at my penthouse and ready for a swim with a big smile on my face. This is the land of them I'm told.

Arigatō and Sayōnara Japan, ponderings and "Paris syndrome"

Ok - bit of a backblog I know. I'm currently in Sydney and couchsurfing. I have many blogs brewing, but to satiate those who can't wait - I'll publish the last trickles of Japan in a rather unpolished form. Hopefully by the time I leave Auz, I'll be out of New Zealand - so to speak....

[Written 15th May 2009]


Well, I'm sat on a Quantas plane bound for Sydney, where I'm transferring to New Zealand.

As I'm sat here for 10 hours or so, I thought it would be a good time to write and reflect about my time in Japan while the taste of soy sauce and wasabi are fresh on my palate.

[The plane hasn't taken off yet but it is playing terrible covers of bad songs you'd hoped had rotted in the vaults - so it's hard to get a thought straight.] That's certainly one thing I won't miss about Japan - the terrible all-pervasive piped music. The more expensive the meal, the 'classier' the music gets. It starts with musac covers of 90s love songs and 'peaks' at saxophone interpretations of Classical music, complete with synthesized Casio keyboard beats circa 1983. Maybe I'm just more sensitive to it than some people - but it can literally put me off my food if there's bad music. That said, one of the cheapest Sushi chains I often ate at [where I routinely ordered by pointing at the posters on the wall - and once had to displace a business lunch of men in order to point at a poster of a plate of tuna like some caveman] played some of the best Japanese Jazz I'd heard - Japanese Jazz, like Japanese whiskey, is something they've imported from Europe and made very much their own. [I wonder if there is a Japanese person somewhere blogging about how impressed they are by the Pot Noodles and Ninja Turtles in a semi-patronising and paternalistic manor.]]

Don't worry dear, it's just "Paris syndrome"

So apart from the excruciating music - I'll miss Japan very much. Most of all I'll miss the endless courtesy and efficiency. Before I comment further about how utterly pleasurable travelling in Japan is - I'd like any reader who's been to Paris to think back to when they were last there, and in particular try and remember what kind of experience you might have had using the Paris Metro. Right. I shall return to this in a moment.

I was treated wonderfully in Japan as a tourist. People were patient and polite and even if I'd done something wrong, they were at pains to explain it was probably their fault. As a European, I can't but help feel guilty at how I, and many others under the EU [and possibly US] flag have treated Japanese tourists. It's a standard cultural cliche - the Japanese tour bus [most Japanese people travel around Japan in the same way!]. I've often giggled from a distance at the huge groups as they pour off buses, flashes of glasses and camera lenses in the sun all being led by flags or umbrellas through what appears to be a giant photo opportunity. This is not how I'd ever chose to travel. Although I like to think I'm not guilty of silting up historical sites in this way - there were moments while travelling in Japan where I did feel I needed someone explaining what on earth was going on. And when I've been in London, I have often given vague directions to lost Japanese people or pretended to ignore the lost and frightened expressions on their faces. This said I think London is quite tolerant of "the tourist" - most people in London speak English and most tourists speak some in return. Now, let's get back to talking about Paris.

Who's tried asking a question in French, in Paris, and been given a wry, patronising smile before being replied to in a smarmy tone in English? Me. Who's tried asking a question in English and been practically ignored until initiating the conversation in French, looping back to the first question - by which point your knuckles are turning white and begging to taste some fresh frog. Me me and me. Me is someone who speaks English and studied French for 5 years at school.

Now - imagine you're a Japanese tourist, you might have studied English for a couple of years and you find yourself lost on the Paris Metro. Step in "Paris Sydrome". A friend told me about Paris Sydrome and I didn't believe it until I looked it up. Wikipedia describes it as "manifesting from an individual's inability to reconcile a disparity between the Japanese popular image and the reality of Paris". The phrase "reality of Paris" here can be taken as a euphemism for "the cultural gutter of Europe, full of a proud, patriotic and francaphillic love of French, which fills its people with a linguistic fervor which renders them unable to communicate with any foreigners except by shrugging or pointing to a rusty radio mast, in the style of an oil rig, which serves as the focal point of the city". Japan is so efficient and polite and Paris so frustrating and Parisians almost innately unhelpful that Japanese visitors are often so overwhelmed that they are admitted to hospital and diagnosed with "Paris syndrome". This is all true.

The problem for me is, once I left Japan, everything seemed pretty, well, shit. So what is it when you leave Japan? "Rest of the world is pretty shitty syndrome"? Suggestions welcome. The first place I found myself was Sydney airport, then Auckland. To be fair, after Tokyo even London would seem a dull and confusing mass of disappointment - so how do you get exited about Auckland? You don't I'm afraid.

That said - thanks to Japan's hyperdrive culture I hit the ground running in Auckland and headed straight for the "tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere"....

A steep, ice covered learning curve

Well, I'm in Queenstown, New Zealand at the moment and it's snowing. Everyone here is here for the snow. "Are you here for the snow?" everyone kept asking and I had to keep saying no. Eventually I thought I might as well just say yes and see what happened.

I've always viewed people who went skiing and snowboarding with some suspicion. Who in their right minds looks at a mountain and thinks "Hey, yeah, I think I'll hurtle down that with some wood attached to my feet and just see what happens.." ? Well, the day before yesterday I went skiing for the first time in my life and I must admit, I really enjoyed it. Once you get over the fear of flying over the edge of a mountain and being eaten by a yeti, it's actually really fun. I'd had two 2 hour lessons and at the end felt quite confident - so I decided to leave the nursery slopes and head up on the ski lift to a 'proper slope'.

I'd chosen skiing on the advice that you can get quite good at skiing faster - less falling on your arse at the start, whereas snowboarding is two weeks of falling on your arse before you master it. Well, I was about to do plenty of falling on my arse.

I'd got talking to some girls who were quite experienced and asked if they mind just guiding me down the slope a little. So the lift gets to the top of the slope and I see the girls waiting. I hurtle off the lift and tried to turn and stop before I got going - I became a tangle of legs and skis. Once I'd managed to correct myself and plug back into my skis I saw how steep the slope was. I hadn't seen this bit from round the corner. Oh dear. I got quite nervous. The girls were still waiting and smiling sympathetically as i reset my skis and skidded on my arse over towards them. They were kindly and I was apologetic. We began to go down the slope. At this point I was very glad of the guidance - if it wasn't for them I'd have headed off down the middle of the piste in a straight direction. They quickly pointed out that you hair-pin down zig-zagging across it. So we set off round a bend which cornered a 40m high rocky cliff which was cordoned off by a flimsy wood and rope fence. I picked up speed at an alarming rate. I was heading for the fence. Oh dear - here comes that fear again. Something innate took over and I put my brain in my hips - so to speak - and started skiing. I swerved round the corner faster than I've ever gone without the aid of fossil fuels and cornered neatly into the down slope. "wow" one of the girls said "you just did parallel skiing". I didn't know what that meant, but felt pleased anyway. "what's parallel skiing" I asked, before falling on my arse. Apparently it's an advanced high-speed cornering method. So somewhere deep inside me it seems is an innate skier waiting to come out.

When I got to the bottom of the slope the lifts were closing and I was happy to leave my innate skier tucked up away where he was before. In my mind, I'd got away with it and I can tick "skiing and not breaking a leg" off my list.

If only I could tick off "getting out the computer chair without making old man noises".

A Long Day in Osaka

Written on 11th May 2009 - [estimated reading time 7 min]

I meant to get up early and leave Hiroshima by 10am, but the whole hostel went out drinking the night before in a traditional Japanese "pub" and I didn't want to miss out. So a little later than planned I got my stuff together and went to the Hiroshima station and the Shinkansen to Himeji to visit the famous castle there. It was really very impressive. You had to climb a hill, upon which an enormous stone pedestal had been built - and on this sat a 6 floor wooden castle. It was over 600 years old and the whole thing reminded me a bit of a giant old-fashioned windmill from the outside. Inside it was more like an oak battle ship - like HMS Victory or something similar. I climbed to the top in my socks - no shoes allowed. Once at the top there was a traditional Shinto shrine with a bottle of Sake and a gong - which most visitors delighted in ringing. It felt very old and traditional - then I noticed in the corner was a small but very obvious defibrillator. The Westerners had arrived.

A couple of girls [USA and Canadian] asked me to take their photo. We got talking and arranged to meet in Tokyo a few days later. They also invited me to "Disney Sea" the next day - "what is it?" I asked, "oh it's like a regular Disney land but with loads more little mermaid stuff and the over the top insane Japanese taste - it'll be like Disney land but whacked out on crack!". I declined, explaining that I didn't have plans, but intended to make some about 1000 times more tolerable than that sounded. When I did meet them again in Tokyo - they said "it was great - I totally like regressed to when I was 6". I told them it sounded like I missed a great day - and for the first time in my experience an American college girl detected irony in my voice.

Anyway, once we'd had our fill of Himeji castle that day we parted ways and I got a bullet train onto Osaka and proceeded to have a very strange evening...

***************

When I arrived in Osaka I had trouble finding my hostel. Osaka is a huge city. Unlike England where our second and third cities are really like giant sprawling towns - Kyoto and Osaka and other cities are massive - with complex transport systems to match. Historically, when Japanese Emperor died, the capitol would move to another city, usually Kyoto, Hiroshima, Osaka or Tokyo. For hundreds of years Japan had a "floating" capital city - the result being 4 or 5 cities of huge scale. After making phone calls and giving up on finding the hostel myself I asked for directions in a local restaurant. A small crowd of Japanese patrons gathered outside, helpfully arguing about where it was. After discovering no one knew except for one individual, the crowd dispersed leaving a man in his 30s.

Now - something that often happens in Japan is if you ask for directions - they won't tell you where it is. They'll walk there - either because their English isn't very good [or rather - because my Japanese isn't] or because they are just very polite. This is very common and it took some getting used to. I most certainly can't imagine walking with a lost Japanese tourist for 15 min in central London, simply because my Japanese isn't up to scratch.

Anyway, it's for this reason I often ask people who are working for directions as they're less likely to mind taking the time or will simply tell you rather than walking with you - which I can't say I really like. On a couple of occasions I was walked around until I realised that the person didn't know where it was we were going either - they were just pretending to know so as not to seem rude. Japan is strange like that.

So I found myself being walked to my hostel by "Ken". "My Japanese name is too hard" he said. I asked if I could hear it - he was right - so Ken it was. So Ken left his mother at the restaurant [which seemed fine by her] and he walked me to the hostel. On the way he explained that he had traveled lots - especially in England to see famous football grounds - and people had always been kind to him and he wanted to do the same now. We got to the hostel and I thanked him - expecting him to fade into the crowd. But he just stood there and didn't leave. I was unsure what to do. I spoke barely no Japanese and his English was scattered. " I wait" he said. I was confused.

I said I was going to check in and he looked very disappointed. "I wait" he said again. He'd had to ring the hostel and he wanted to come in and speak to the staff and thank them. He spoke Japanese with the woman and he said "we go for drink?". Now, anywhere else in the world - a strange 37 year old single man asking you to go for a drink after following you to your hostel would have caused alarm. And it did in Japan too. The Japanese hostel worker could clearly see my apprehension. She explained he had been treated kindly as a traveler and he wanted to pass it on. At this point I remembered something my friend Dave had told me about the Japanese and Japanese hospitality and how it was highly offensive to refuse - so I accepted and dropped my bag off before we headed out.

We went to his favourite bar - a European themed one - but thankfully without Irish music. It was however complete with the terrible sort of music which haunts all of Japan - wafting from each speaker like an aural disease. It's the kind of music you'd get if you were put on hold by Satan's insurance company - but it's everywhere in Japan and I have no idea why. It's truly horrific. Even signs for barber shops or boutiques play a kind of 1980s greeting's card melodies 24/7. And it seems the more expensive the place, the worse the music gets.

The bar was mostly empty, but the 4 or five staff seemed to know Ken and the atmosphere brightened upon our arrival. We drank beer, Japanese whiskey [which I must say is pretty good] then Sake and Shoju [both wheat and potato] and ordered some spaghetti carbonara - which I made a point of eating with chopsticks. We got talking as best as possible. Ken turned out to be a very nice and normal guy - he was a keen amateur sax player and recently divorced [I was never sure if these two facts were linked....] so he seemed normal in most ways - except it turned out that he worked 3 jobs - not normal. He'd started work at 9am today and worked until 6pm. It was now 8pm and he'd start a shift at the post office at 11:30pm until 8am. So he'd be awake for 25 hours - work 19 of them - spending his 5 hours off drinking with me. His third job he did mostly over the phone, which was always by him 24/7. The most amazing thing was that he was still smiling and looked pretty fresh. "I like working - I enjoy it - I like using my brain and meeting new people - it's exiting" he said. I frowned - "and the post office?" I asked, "it's fun" he beemed. Seeing I was not convinced he added he was not typical in Japan - "good!" I replied.

At about 10pm he said it was time to stop drinking. The total tab was over 6000 yen and he wouldn't let me pay a yenny - he worked 3 jobs to earn that money. Dave had warned me not to insist on paying as it causes great embarrassment - so I insisted on paying for a taxi. I thanked him and we swapped details and parted.

***************

I went up to my room in the hostel to make my bed. To my surprise there was an elderly man in the room. He turned out to be a 72 year old retired teacher from Belgium who was travelling the world - he'd been everywhere it seemed. "Better to be here and living rather than rotting in front of a TV" he laughed, Flemishly. I couldn't have agreed more and we chatted away. I left the room to let him get some sleep with the intention of going out and finding food. All that drinking had given me a violent udon craving.

I took two steps out of the hostel and two Japanese girls who were roughly my age said 'Hi' and giggled. I smiled politely and said 'Hi' back. By this point they were in stitches. This never happens in Japan - girls are so shy [or faux shy] that it's very rare for a couple to just say 'hi'. We all stopped walking and stood on the spot and we started talking [them in very broken English]. I asked if they'd been drinking and they thought I said did they want to go drinking. They said "yes - we go". More drinking was very much not at the top of my to do list after Ken had topped me up nicely. They started walking and indicated for me to follow - "why not?" I thought to myself - "this is travelling after all".

To my surprise I was led up to their flat. And it's not what you're thinking - they were refined Japanese young women and I'm a perfect gentleman. I was told to wait outside while they both frantically "tidied". I dread to think what it looked like before they'd tidied. When I stepped over the threshold it was a mess of fluffy pink, clothes, magazines - all wafted over with a sickly scent from a plastic battery operated oil burner to mask the smell of rancid pots and pans. This said, it was a lovely flat -underneath the girly sediment. We sat on the floor around a small table and diligently worked our way through a bottle of Shoju. We talked as best as possible with the help of a bi-lingual phrase book. Amongst the standard set of questions, I was asked my blood type. A deep fear of waking up in a bath of ice with a kidney missing might have flashed before me, had I not been forewarned. Some Japanese believe blood types indicate personality traits [and other things] and give hints at compatibility in relationships. I might not know it, but somewhere out there is an O type waiting to fall in love with me. I rather disappointed them when I said I didn't know. I suppose I should really but it's not the sort of thing you guess at when pushed in England. We were snapped out of our cosy evening by a series of loud sirens. I went to the balcony and observed that a building across the street was on fire. People were being evacuated from the roof - crowds gathered on the streets. We sat and watched the scene unfold- what else is there to do? "did I want a top up"...."ok"

Things settled down and they hit the hay at 3am and offered me a makeshift bed on the floor, which I accepted.

********

I woke up confused an early. I sat quietly until they awoke and said my goodbyes. We arranged to meet for a meal that night. I walked into the hostel - unmade my fresh bed and checked out after a shower. On my way out I met two Canadian guys - we compared plans for the day and decided to all visit Osaka castle. It was a recreation of one destroyed by fire - built in the 1920s complete with lifts inside to the top - a world away from Himeji. Himeji had a temple and defibrillator at the top, Osaka had a gift shop and icecream. The grounds and huge stone walls were impressive though - especially the humongous 130 ton Octopus stone which made up part of the wall. Truly humongous.

That evening I organised a meal with my new Japanese friends [not an easy thing to do]. I invited the two girls and Ken. I also invited the Canadian guys - after they let slip that they spoke Japanese. I intended to engineer an evening where we could all talk in English, assisted by Japanese. That evening Japanese was the tongue of choice. In Japanese I could count to ten and use 5 other scattered words [not bad for a week...]. I've never been so quiet at a meal.

It was a lovely evening though and we all parted ways swapping email addresses as we went.

So the evening was over and it was time to check into a capsule hotel for the first, and last time.

A Night in a Capsule

[Written 13th May 2009]

I just spent my first night in a capsule hotel. I crawled out blinking at 9am with a dry throat from the recycled air and was confused after a night of heavy dreaming. I could have slept another few hours but after 10am the capsule hotel charges 500 yen an hour - I didn't want a lie-in that badly.

The night before I'd had a nice meal with some friends I'd made during my stay in Osaka [see blog entry " A Long Day in Osaka"] and it was a very late evening when we'd finished so I was forced to stay in a capsule - the hostel being shut up.

When I'd heard capsule hotels being described, I'd always imagined them to be quite futuristic - but my lofty dreams of an automated utopia were promptly grounded as soon as I walked into the building. From outside it did look quite modern, but inside - more like a greasy spoons in the style of Fawlty Towers with smoke yellowed walls. It was grotty, stank of stale cigarette smoke and was full of the kind of men you'd see in betting shops all hours of the day - smoking, unshaven and in their own small private worlds. The reception looked like it had been the same since early 1982, and that when it was built in 1982 it had been going for 'that 70s look'.

Everyone smokes everywhere in Japan, and though McDonald's will occasionally offer glass partitioned smoking rooms that's the exception to the rule. This hotel was a positive fug of cheap tobacco wafting through stale recycled air - each breath drained my energy. I checked in at 2am and was quite tired and just wanted to sleep. I was not prepared for the strange customs that you're expected to follow at a capsule hotel.

After filling in a form, totally illegibly, I was told what to do and given two keys. Neither of the keys was for a room in which to lock either yourself or your things. The first key was for a shoe locker - inside was a pair of well worn slippers with your 'capsule' number scribbled on them in black marker pen. You are to leave your shoes in this locker. Wearing my wonderful smelling slippers, I took the lift to the 4th floor to discover my second key was for a locker to lock my things in. I felt like I was about to go swimming, not to bed. The locker was no way big enough for a back-pack so I had no choice but to spoon my bag the entire night.

Once I'd rejected using a locker I went from the locker room into the capsule room. The capsule room itself was about 40ft long and 2 beds high on each side and resembled giant beehive honey cells. Half were empty - I could tell because the bamboo curtain was not drawn across the end. From other capsules came thin sodium light and others hearty drunken snores. I located my capsule and explored.

In a way it was futuristic - or at least it would have been if you were from 1973. I'm sure in the 1980s [when it seemed to have been built] a capsule with an all in one TV, FM radio and alarm clock control panel would have made the Space Shuttle program seem archaic. But now, the whole thing felt like a plastic coffin with an inch thick foam mattress. It was constructed from what was like two plastic baths facing each other to form a capsule in the middle. At the end there was no door - just a bamboo curtain which could be rolled down and hooked under a metal peg. This was not the ultra-modern Japanese capsule I had expected.

At any rate, I was somewhere warm where I could sleep - "Ok" I thought, "what's on TV?". Channel One: Sumo. Pretty cool...then it finished. Ok, "let's see what's on the next channel...". I stopped and starred in horrified silence for a good minute. It was, what I can only describe as 'Hard Core Kissing'. There were pornographic close ups of a woman sucking a man's tongue and plenty of chin-dribble licking. As if this wasn't enough, additional slurping noises had been dubbed over the top, supposedly to enhance the visual feast. It was so weird. I'm sure I'll never truly understand why anyone would watch that - or even guess why it would be broadcast. The people who made it were supposedly filling a niche in the market - but how or why anyone would find that an erotic site I hope I never know. I suppose I can forgive the people who made it - just making a living I guess. But I'd love to meet the person who's job it was to create and dub slurping sounds over the top, just to look them in the eye and slowly shake my head.

So I turned off the TV, set my alarm and stretched out [as best as I could with a back-pack at my feet] and spent my first, and hopefully my last night sleeping in a plastic tube in the company of drunken snoring Japanese men.