Thursday, February 03, 2005

one night in bangkok

and the tough guys tumble.

well, 5 nights actually while we wait for laos, cambodian and vietnamese visas to be processed.

first day in the hotel and in behaviour that my youngest sibling would be proud of, i managed to break a window in our room. owned up to reception straight away and all seemed hunky dory. but come the next morning, events took a turn for the worse.

being a classy establishment the hotel was demanding we paid for each night as we went along. except now they wanted payment for the window. this we accepted, being as it had been my fault (however bad the design of the room - i contented myself with boring ms love about this). however the dragon on reception now wanted twice as much as she had asked for the night before, and about 30 times the price of a pane of glass in thailand. upon pointing out the former (but accepting that the latter was inevitable), the dragon immediately ended all further negotiation, strutted over behind the desk and called the police. sure enough, 10 minutes later 2 policemen arrive, clearly under the impression that we were the modern incarnation of liam gallagher and courtney love and no doubt expecting to find the streets beneath our balcony littered with broken glass, televisions and the bathroom sink.

the dragon had now scapered from the scene of her heinous overreaction, leaving her bemused footsoldiers to handle the police. 6 of us went to inspect the room. yes the window was indeed broken. sadly the policemens total lack of english meant it was difficult to explain that we had been happy to pay all along and had merely wanted a bill or some confirmation that the price was what it was. anyway, much as i'm loathed to admit it, we paid the asking price and avoided a lengthy stay in the bangkok hilton.

only other event of newsworthiness has been ms love's (the make believe one, not the real one) first ever visit to a strip bar.

being one of 'the sights' of bangkok, we decided on a visit to patpong. the arsenal v united game didn't start till 3am so we got suitably oiled and then took a tuk tuk over to the red light district. tout after tout tried to thrust a piece of paper offering various 'pussy' acts at their clubs to which i amused myself by telling them we were sorry but nothing they offered sounded dirty enough for ms love.

anyway, finally we made the plunge. safe to say this club was nothing to impress the landlord. the only depraved thing on site were the fat western blokes around the edge. on stage 10 or so thai ladies, dressed in far more than a northern english lass on a night out, lent onto poles and chatted with each other. the only saving grace was that they were so ugly as to verify the fact they were actually birds - none of the infamous 'thai lady boys' would ever be that ugly...

on the way back to backpackerville (khao san road) we came across out best example yet of backpacker spend thrift. a couple, despite it being 2am, were hanging around on the street looking for suitable people to share the $1 (yes, $1 for 20 minutes) tuk tuk ride with. as i was in the process of telling them to get a life and take their own, ms love was agreeing that the 4 of us could all squeeze into a vehicle designed for 2. every cloud has a silver lining though. it turned out the girl was australian and her boyfriend (they'd only met 3 weeks before - a backpacker romance!) german. i spent the entire 20 minute ride back asking the girl if she really couldn't do better than a german for a boyfriend. and he had a beard.

and, finally, courtney even made it to half time in the football before deciding that bedtime called.

no photos - literally haven't taken any so that'll have to wait to the weekend.


Sunday, January 30, 2005

70 for 0 (10 overs) innings closed

and so, another phase of the epic adventure over. kathmandu to madras. nepal to india in 70 days via buses, taxis, planes, trains, boats and our own 2 feet.

in essence, 3 very distinct parts. the mountains of nepal, deserts of rajhastan and the lush tropics of kerala. all fantastic in their own way.

at the time, 4000m above sea level and suffering from the cold, altitude, exhaustion, a cough and 100 other excuses, it seemed inconceivable that we'd have look back fondly on nepal. yet once back in the comfort of the hotel and BBC World, all the pain fades away and only the memory of the best views in the world remain.

and india. the first 12 hours - as an experience - will probably live with us for a long long time (see posting below, written in the style of an entry for Daily Telegraph under-15 essay writing competition). a combination of arriving at the wrong time of day and in Varanasi - all the most challenging parts of India writ large - nearly overwhelmed us and sent us on the first bus back to Nepal.

but India got much, much better. you never really tire of telling people what your good name is. and, 2 months after the first time, i'm still finding it amusing to explain that Courtney's good name is because her parents were big fans of West Indian bowler Courtney Walsh. nor is the food half as bad as people make out - sainsbury's chicken korma has got more spice than most 'tourist' curries.

in the northern parts, fort and paneer fatigue can set in. but once down south even these annoyances disappeared. if ever a place fully deserves the oft used moniker 'gods own country', then it is kerala. a truly beautiful combination of lush tropical forests, hills covered with tea plantations and welcoming fishing communities. a place to keep on coming back and back to. as is the rest of india. coming over all sentimental it is with very heavy hearts that we say goodbye tonight.

and now we turn the corner onto the final homeward straight. we fly to bangkok, to the backpacker mecca that is kho san road. from there laos, vietnam, cambodia and indonesia before thunder bay comes calling.

stay tuned.

watch out for jesus Posted by Hello

rewind 50 days

It started with 12 people crammed into a jeep.

With the pink sun vanishing fast over the horizon, the vehicle accelerated away from Sonali, a shack lined frontier town, and into a vast hinterland. India had arrived.

Customs men, dubious officialdom, emerge from behind roadside trees to check papers. Commission is always welcome; welcome to commission. Out the window small towns fly by, streets constricted by roadside food stalls selling dinner by hurricane lanterns to a seemingly infinite audience.

Soon the small towns become a bigger town and the jeep dumps its cargo at a railway station. Inside the platforms, waiting rooms, staircases and booking halls, every inch is covered with people. Sleeping souls. Stationary in a place whose purpose is movement. Here yesterday. Here today. Here tomorrow. Anonymous people matched with anonymous luggage. Trains pull in and then depart, but still the boxes, tires and bales remain platform side, going nowhere it seems and owned by no one. Not even the cow, wandering carefree among the sleeping station dwellers.

Finally, a wink to familiarity. Kit Kats. Five rupees. And Polos. Still with the hole in the middle.

The ticket booth seems to sell just blank faces and directions to window 43. Somehow the system works: an inspector appears, ready for battle with arms full of computer printouts. Passenger names, date of births, inside shoe measurements. Eventually an onward ticket. Sleeper bunks. Middle and lower.

But why does the train stand, full of expectant passengers in complete darkness? People waiting patiently for departure, or maybe just for someone to turn the lights on. Still in darkness the opposite bunk is filled with a kind university professor on his way home from a week's lectures.

"Your stop will come at 4.45am. This train isn't usually late. You do have a chain to lock your bags with?"

Sleep, then Varanasi. Someone took all the people in London and squeezed them tightly into somewhere smaller than Brighton. And then told them all to stand on the street at the same time.

But not yet, not at 5am. Arrival brings the same anonymous souls sleeping under buzzing lights in the railway station, this time in a different city and on a different platform. In town, everywhere else is quiet. The only greeting provided by battalions of rickshaw wallahs and 2 huge bulbous rats, encircling the queue for a telephone kiosk.

Daylight arrives. The curtains drawn back and the stage lights switched to full. India showing at a theatre right here. For 2 months only. Take your seats and sit back.

Cause here it is, hurtling towards you at full pace. Cows, samosas, taxis, monkeys, your good name, so many people, so much more. Bigger, brasher and more bestial than Bollywood.

We take breakfast, sidelined on the rooftop terrace. Tired and weary we watch a pigeon wallah beginning his morning rituals. Standing on top of an adjacent roof, he lets out a long piercing shriek, waking his flock of birds from their sleep. swirling a long rope round and round he screams as they encircle him. "Coo-coo, coo-coo, coo-coo." Over and over again.

We are aliens in an alien world. The greatest show on earth has begun.

prawn madras

well, on our final leg across the indian sub-continent pete and I made a quick stop back in cochin and then took the night train across the country to chennai (aka madras) from where we will fly to bangkok this evening.

the name of the game in cochin was administration - shop for souvenirs, post parcels home and catch up on the internet. pete and i (ok, i must admit, mostly me) were keen to find some trendy antique piece of indian treasure that we could take home and flaunt for a fiver.

unfortunately it was not to be.

those savvy kashmiri businesses men had long ago cottoned on to the tourist market and were pushing over priced (well, more like uk priced) reproductions. pete asked about something that was obviously a new cd rack, and was reassured that it was no less than 100 years old. we didn't buy anything (except for 9 parcels worth of bits and pieces... how did that happen?!). the parcels took roughly 4 hours to wrap, stich, seal and send - I hope all who receive them will be suitably impressed.

we're in chennai/madras for 12 hours, and to be honest, we almost couldn't make ourselves leave the cool comfort of our bbc equipped hotel room. we had a walk on the beach and tried to tackle one last item in the highlights of our guidebook: 'go see a bollywood film'.

unfortunately it was not to be either!

after loitering in the lobby, eating an ice cream, admiring the admittedly huge crowds, commenting on the incredible cheapness of the tickets (10p), we chickened out. afterall could we really be bothered to sit through 2 hours of tamil singing, dancing, shooting and smooching? not when there was bbc world back at ours! in the end we ate at the cinema restaurant. close enough we reckoned, to cross off the highlight, bringing us to 14 out of 35 - not that we're obsessed or anything.

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