Thursday, December 23, 2004
merry christmas
...to one and all.
(these are the christmas cards. some appear to have arrived but some are still stuck somewhere between china and uk/canada. i blame the idiot woman in the post office who assured us that surface mail would only take 3 weeks. anyway, these pictures were all taken on a great afternoon in yangshuo, china with the help of lots of bemused but willing local people. who says backpackers have too much time on there hands?!!)
(these are the christmas cards. some appear to have arrived but some are still stuck somewhere between china and uk/canada. i blame the idiot woman in the post office who assured us that surface mail would only take 3 weeks. anyway, these pictures were all taken on a great afternoon in yangshuo, china with the help of lots of bemused but willing local people. who says backpackers have too much time on there hands?!!)
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
the further pavillon
back in the eighties we were the last family on our street to get a video player. this was only to be expected. after all, when it came to computers we had an '
educational' bbc b rather than the 'games friendly' zx spectrum that everyone else (ie all your school mates you could swap games with) had.
still, eventually we did acquire one and some blank tapes with it. to my 14 year old mind, these tapes had one purpose - the recording, and subsequent replaying infinitely, of crystal palace football highlights. unfortunately other members of my family, crucially fairly influential members, had other ideas.
inexplicably several of the, rather limited, store of blank tapes had to be used to record every episode of some ridiculous period drama - the far pavillons. why anyone would want to watch some a thing in the first place was beyond me, let alone have it sat there by the tv for evermore. still, what mother wants, mother invariably gets.
so it is with a fairly heavy dose of irony that we found ourselves in Samode, scene of the filming of the very same raj drama - the far pavillons. the buildings has since been converted into a luxury 5 star hotel. the times apparently voted the it the 5th best hotel in the world a few years back and even the rough guide admitted it was worth forgetting the budget and staying there for a night. forget the budget? well, after consulting my little book of numbers the purse strings were relaxed. we even got ourselves a suite for the night. it must be christmas.
the times wasn't wrong and, to borrow a phrase, the whole place was 'knockout'. in 24 hours we managed to pack it all in - jaccuzis, saunas, swimming, tennis, badminton, puppet shows, culture shows, a whole hour long interview with lee sharpe and even the entire 90 minutes replay of birmingham v west brom. in the spirit of christmas compromise i even agreed to forsake charlton v fulham so we could sit on the balcony and 'be romantic'.
previous to that we had spent a day in the shekawati region. dismissed by yours truly as a likely '3 hour drive just to look at some painted walls', it turned out to be well worth the drive(in our chauffered driven car - it is christmas after all..). without boring the tears off everyone, many buildings in each town - havelis - have elaborate painted murals all over the outside. proper off the beaten track, we had to search out old caretakers to unlock many of them.
followed around in the villages by up to 30 children all anxious to discuss sachin tendulkar ('master blaster') and knowing far more about the english cricket team than either of us, we staged our very own version of the pied piper of hamlyn. when told we didn't have any pens, one unphased 10 year old even suggested we went to the shop and bought some to give him. another insisted on holding hands with courtney and would still be leading her off into the desert sunset if we hadn't persauded him otherwise.
educational' bbc b rather than the 'games friendly' zx spectrum that everyone else (ie all your school mates you could swap games with) had.
still, eventually we did acquire one and some blank tapes with it. to my 14 year old mind, these tapes had one purpose - the recording, and subsequent replaying infinitely, of crystal palace football highlights. unfortunately other members of my family, crucially fairly influential members, had other ideas.
inexplicably several of the, rather limited, store of blank tapes had to be used to record every episode of some ridiculous period drama - the far pavillons. why anyone would want to watch some a thing in the first place was beyond me, let alone have it sat there by the tv for evermore. still, what mother wants, mother invariably gets.
so it is with a fairly heavy dose of irony that we found ourselves in Samode, scene of the filming of the very same raj drama - the far pavillons. the buildings has since been converted into a luxury 5 star hotel. the times apparently voted the it the 5th best hotel in the world a few years back and even the rough guide admitted it was worth forgetting the budget and staying there for a night. forget the budget? well, after consulting my little book of numbers the purse strings were relaxed. we even got ourselves a suite for the night. it must be christmas.
the times wasn't wrong and, to borrow a phrase, the whole place was 'knockout'. in 24 hours we managed to pack it all in - jaccuzis, saunas, swimming, tennis, badminton, puppet shows, culture shows, a whole hour long interview with lee sharpe and even the entire 90 minutes replay of birmingham v west brom. in the spirit of christmas compromise i even agreed to forsake charlton v fulham so we could sit on the balcony and 'be romantic'.
previous to that we had spent a day in the shekawati region. dismissed by yours truly as a likely '3 hour drive just to look at some painted walls', it turned out to be well worth the drive(in our chauffered driven car - it is christmas after all..). without boring the tears off everyone, many buildings in each town - havelis - have elaborate painted murals all over the outside. proper off the beaten track, we had to search out old caretakers to unlock many of them.
followed around in the villages by up to 30 children all anxious to discuss sachin tendulkar ('master blaster') and knowing far more about the english cricket team than either of us, we staged our very own version of the pied piper of hamlyn. when told we didn't have any pens, one unphased 10 year old even suggested we went to the shop and bought some to give him. another insisted on holding hands with courtney and would still be leading her off into the desert sunset if we hadn't persauded him otherwise.
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
merry birthday wishes
birthday wishes are as follows...
belatedly to birdy, the pioneering new zealand art techno dj who we're not even sure if he looks at this...
to cinders, the new mrs etchell...
and melissa, beautiful brown eyed girl.
belatedly to birdy, the pioneering new zealand art techno dj who we're not even sure if he looks at this...
to cinders, the new mrs etchell...
and melissa, beautiful brown eyed girl.
Monday, December 20, 2004
no star sports
more of the backpack saga.
december 18th was always a red letter day. besides all else we had to find ourselves a tv. crystal palace visiting the mighty manchester united. live on tv. all of asia supports man utd. it couldn't be easier. the game must be showing.
we arrived in agra a few days before the big day. no tv in the hotel room but there was one in the restaurant. the staff assured me that, yes they did have star sports, yes it would be possible to watch it and no, they wouldn't mind me staying up till 1am to do so (despite most of the staff using the same room to sleep in).
saturday arrives and we take our pews at 8pm for an 11pm kickoff. the evening goes rapidly downhill from here. it takes nearly an hour to establish (hard to believe I know but then you weren't there) that, no, they didn't actually have the requisite channel.
cue extreme measures. rather than admit defeat and go to bed, we decide to check in at another hotel, hopefully this time with the required tv. agra is now eerily quiet(everyone in india goes to bed about 8pm)and for good measure covered in very thick fog. we comandeer a passing rickshaw driver and explain we need to find a new hotel quickly, one with star sports. he enlists the help of a friend and now there are 4 of us driving through thick fog on a small rickshaw in northern india desparately trying to find a hotel showing the palace game.
we try 5 hotels. the first 2 have no rooms. the next 3 all assure us that they definitely have star sports. only after actually standing in the room and going through the channels do we establish they don't. eventually the final hotel rings someone who tells me that nowhere in agra gets star sports.
at this even I recognise the time has come to throw the towel in. not however the rickshaw driver who (anxious to get the commission from whatever hotel he finally deposits us to) would probably still be driving round agra now if we hadn't politely declined.
so no football and we lost anyway. such is life.
what else. well, we went to the taj mahal. world's greatest building and all that. wouldn't disagree. most of the other indian tourists were more interested in getting their photos taken with us than looking at site itself. the evidence is below.
december 18th was always a red letter day. besides all else we had to find ourselves a tv. crystal palace visiting the mighty manchester united. live on tv. all of asia supports man utd. it couldn't be easier. the game must be showing.
we arrived in agra a few days before the big day. no tv in the hotel room but there was one in the restaurant. the staff assured me that, yes they did have star sports, yes it would be possible to watch it and no, they wouldn't mind me staying up till 1am to do so (despite most of the staff using the same room to sleep in).
saturday arrives and we take our pews at 8pm for an 11pm kickoff. the evening goes rapidly downhill from here. it takes nearly an hour to establish (hard to believe I know but then you weren't there) that, no, they didn't actually have the requisite channel.
cue extreme measures. rather than admit defeat and go to bed, we decide to check in at another hotel, hopefully this time with the required tv. agra is now eerily quiet(everyone in india goes to bed about 8pm)and for good measure covered in very thick fog. we comandeer a passing rickshaw driver and explain we need to find a new hotel quickly, one with star sports. he enlists the help of a friend and now there are 4 of us driving through thick fog on a small rickshaw in northern india desparately trying to find a hotel showing the palace game.
we try 5 hotels. the first 2 have no rooms. the next 3 all assure us that they definitely have star sports. only after actually standing in the room and going through the channels do we establish they don't. eventually the final hotel rings someone who tells me that nowhere in agra gets star sports.
at this even I recognise the time has come to throw the towel in. not however the rickshaw driver who (anxious to get the commission from whatever hotel he finally deposits us to) would probably still be driving round agra now if we hadn't politely declined.
so no football and we lost anyway. such is life.
what else. well, we went to the taj mahal. world's greatest building and all that. wouldn't disagree. most of the other indian tourists were more interested in getting their photos taken with us than looking at site itself. the evidence is below.
