Kerala Backwater tour

Whilst enjoying a lull from the monsoon in Kochi we signed up for a day trip through the famous backwaters, where rivers merge with the sea through a labyrinth of channels framed by dense jungle and small villages.

In peak season there are luxurious houseboats decked out with double beds, hot tubs, chefs and every other conceivable trimming. As it wasn’t, there was just the option of a smallish boat filled with wicker chairs pushed through the channels by two men wielding long bamboo punts.

It was an early start – we left at 7.30am. There was an hour’s drive to the start point of the boat trip, most of which was taken up circling around town picking up more tourists. An Indian family got on at the second stop and immediately busied themselves with a carrier bag holding their day’s snacks. The bag was solely filled with crisps of every description. The grandmother dutifully tore open packets of what looked like Nic-Nacs and funnelled them into her grandchildren’s open mouths until their little faces were shaking for her to stop. Not satisfied with stuffing her little angels’ faces to bursting point, grandma finished the packet off by shovelling the leftovers into son-in-law’s mouth without asking if he wanted them.

The bus came to a stop causing a brief interlude in the crisp munching and we all filed off along a muddy lane past dwellings by the side of the river and onto the boat. The boat was much prettier than I had been expecting, with intricate latticed windows, a roof of platted palm leaves and miles of coir rope holding the whole thing together. Two thin looking men expertly pushed the boat away from the river bank with the bamboo poles, guiding the boat effortlessly toward an impossibly narrow looking channel bursting with reeds, huge lily pads and coconut palms.

Crashing through the foliage on either side of the channel, everything was close enough to touch. The man punting from the front of the boat stopped and pointed, sitting completely still: on a low branch was a kingfisher, a flash of electric blue near its eye making it stand out from the greens and browns of its surroundings. There was a stunned silence as people snapped away with their mobile phones, finally interrupted by the tearing noise of mum opening an enormous bag of crisps.

A short while later we came to a stop where a team of loincloth clad men were busy at work shifting large piles of minute clam shells around. The clams had been caught in a nearby lake and the meat sold at the local fish market. Once cleared of flesh the shells were baked with petroleum coal for 8 hours until they turn white. This turns the shells into pure calcium carbonate which they also sell. It was an impressive and sight and seemed an excellent way to make money out of a clam twice. Happily there was no pressure to buy any of the calcium carbonate or fresh clams and we moved on.

We were next taken to a small village and shown the art of Coir making. An old man and his wife stood by a pile of dried out coconut husks and pulled the fibres off into balls. Then, using a contraption very similar to an upturned bicycle, spun the fibres into a thin rope. The way the rope was appearing out of the ball of fibres looked unreal, as if it was a magic trick, but it was definitely happening. It was incredible how quickly the rope was being produced. And just like the tiny clams it would appear that coconuts can be sold twice. Once for the nut and once for the fibre. Very impressive.

Back on the boat we slid away from the village and into a wide waterway. The man at the front asked if anyone would like to try punting so I shot my hand into the air, kicked off my flip-flops and made my way to the front. At the start of the day I had thought it looked pretty easy and not particularly strenuous. Eagerly I grabbed the bamboo and began pulling it up out of the water, but the thing didn’t seem to end. Eventually the pole burst free and I lobbed it hard into the water in front of the boat, yet the pole rapidly slipped away from me. Running back down the boat to catch it from falling into the channel my feet were on fire. The uncovered deck was scorching hot and from the sun adding to the difficulty of the task. Determined to not look like a complete berk, I persisted for a good 5 minutes to prove that I had it all under control. By which point my shirt was dripping with sweat and I was knackered. Happily giving the pole back to the professional, it made me realise my initial theory wasn’t bang on and punting for 7 hours is not easy and is very strenuous.

I made my way back down the boat through an applause of lip smacking potato snack annihilation, closed my eyes and began to drift off. The chips supplies must have run out as the boat fell completely silent, save for the light thud of the bamboo punts hitting the river bed. A minute or so of quiet passed which was clearly too much for a group of English medical students, who began discussing if tuna was the a type of fish or a brand name and if it was a brand name, what fish did tuna come from? Not essential knowledge for a doctor to know, but if it was up to me none of those students should be allowed to practise medicine.

Thali on a banana leaf

Sights of Hampi

Stunning temple, nearby there is an enourmous elephant (no pictures allowed) who will pat you on the head if you cross his trunk with silver.

Laura had just told a pant-wettingly funny joke.


This is where bananas come from.

Aloo Gobi and chapatti on a banana leaf.

The train to Goa; or, how to spend 35 hours not being at your destination

The main lesson of this blog is that you really shouldn’t ever take a train in India if you are in a rush.

We decided to get the train from Kerela to Goa, an 18 hour journey. There weren’t any first class carriages available, and none left with air conditioning either, so we opted for the cheap and cheerful 6-berth sleeper carriage with a fan. The train was due to depart at 10am, but arriving at the station nice and early we saw a new departure time had been written on a whiteboard. ‘Delay. 6346 will now depart at 22.00h’. A 12 hour delay seemed an awful lot, but we sucked it up and did the sensible thing – checked into a 4 star hotel and prepared to sit out the wait in relative luxury.

Mindful that a 12 hour delay could well have turned into a cancellation, we asked the hotel to ring the station at 9pm, to check everything was on time. They assured us all was well so back we went, heading straight to the platform with confidence. Needless to say, 10’o’clock came and went. We asked at the front desk. ‘Definitely after 11’ they said. The train actually arrived at 2am, by which time I was asleep on the floor, probably in one of the platform’s many puddles of wee, and Joe had nearly finished the book which was supposed to have lasted him the whole trip.

The carriage was filled with about 70 bunk beds, with no dividing walls or curtains. The beds were sheathed in blue vinyl and we weren’t offered any pillows or blankets. Against the odds I was straight out and only woke up 8 hours later. The next day was an extremely long one. We sat opposite a well-heeled young couple who threw all their litter out of the window and invited their little girl to join in. It was frustrating to sit back and watch, but no doubt they found our habits equally offensive.

This act of disposing of one’s rubbish through the nearest window is a rather popular pass time here. Regardless of wealth and social status, when it comes to abandoning litter, everyone is equal. It’s the same on the streets and in the towns, there doesn’t seem to be any bins or a collection system. As a result, large piles of colourful plastic line the streets and countryside alike. Despite all the litter, as the train whizzed along we passed a wind farm of well over 200 turbines, it could have been the view from a train cruising through European countryside. I am not aware of the costs of 200 wind turbines and the positive impact they have on cutting carbon emissions, but I can’t help but feel that the money spent on the turbines could employ an army of bin men for years.

After 1 taxi ride, a rickshaw, 12 hours in a hotel, another rickshaw, sleeping on the platform for 4 hours, 22 hours on the train interrupted by a landslide – bus diversion, and one final taxi, we arrived in Goa. Tired and fragile, the hotel beckoned and a deep sleep ensued.

Waka Waka World Cup 2010 Review

India is in full world cup swing and there is no escaping it, especially if you are not at work and have plenty of spare time (like us) . Although not fielding a team this tournament, India’s enthusiasm for football is very much in evidence. Driving along even small country roads we’ve seen huge billbords and posters, proudly showing support for the teams local business are supporting (Argentina and Brazil mostly). Since being here we’ve watched virtually every game, scoring us enough taxi chat points to last a lifetime.

Despite my lack of football knowledge I have a few points I’d like to raise.

England’s poor performances – Thankfully we missed England’s or rather: ‘Team Capello’s’ first game as it was on at 2am and there was some kind of alarm clock malfunction. However for England’s second game we were less fortunate. England are the most miserable team I’ve seen, lead by sour faced captain Steven Gerrard. The Algerian team on the other hand looked genuinely pleased to be there, being paid to play a game no less!

Apparently England have some really good players, but fail to ‘gel as a team’, hence the poor results. I think I know what the problem is. And there are a few. Firstly there is no one on the team with the X-Factor. Beckham had it, Shearer had it, but Rooney, hasn’t got it. No amount of Hello photo shoots will change this either. It’s clear Wayne is having trouble scoring goals because he’s up all night with his and Coleen’s new baby. I know this because its plastered all over some magazine. Less photo shoots more kicking practise needed.

Secondly they got the wrong guy out of retirement. I can’t remember if Carrick kicked the ball once the whole game, but I’m sure if they had got Gazza on the pitch, even if England had still lost, he would have got into a fight that we could all have been proud of.

And finally the team don’t like each other – something to do with them all sleeping with each other’s wives (Official term: WAG swap) . That’s why they couldn’t link a pass together all match. I’ve seen wheel chair rugby with more fluidity.

One ball to rule them all - FIFA don’t seem content with using inflated pigs bladders and stitched leather any more. Instead they’ve employed someone from the Italian Space Agency to come up with the ‘Jabulani ball’, capable of bending through time and space to trick the opponent. Yet, as far as I can tell this million Euro ball is much like kicking a balloon inflated with helium making scoring a goal as likely as wining the Euro millions draw. Jabulani should stick to making Roman candles.

Shakira – I have mixed feelings about Shakira and her world cup anthem ‘Waka Waka’. The tune is undeniably catchy, and there is something slightly more visually appealing about her than Baddiel and Skinner ever were. But I keep getting a re-occurring dream that in three months time I’ll be sitting on a bus going to work, when a bratty school child pulls out his phone blearing out ‘Waka Waka’, I garrotte the child and throw his phone under the wheels of the bus. Bad Shakira.

Crap attempts to win free kicks – It would appear that the most highly regarded footballers are, as the commentators put it the ones who ‘earn free kicks’ from being fouled. Christiano Ronaldo - The most expensive player in the world happens to be the best at this. He can trip over thin air quite beautifully which the referees can’t help but fall for every time. If he’s going to win all these free kicks the opposing team should at least make the most of ‘injuring’ him with a team pile-on him until he really is injured.

Kerala India

This is the final part of our journey through Asia. We’ve left Bali and now face the monsoons of Southern India. Naively, I assumed the rainy season in Kerala would consist of a short burst of rain once a day with glorious sunshine and blue skies the rest of the time. In fact we were both counting on good weather, as we’ve only just started to get tans after 3 months of travelling, and lugging a year’s supply of aloe vera gel doesn’t feel worth it if its constantly raining.

We considered taking the surfboard with us over from Bali when we found out there was good surf during the monsoon season, but out of laziness, decided to leave it behind thinking we could always rent a board if it looks good (real reason is we’re both crap). Looks like it was the right decision as the sea here is like nothing I’ve seen before: gargantuan waves break haphazardly, some far out at sea and others smashing into the sand churning the water and making it murky and green. The sound of the waves crashing into the cliffs can be heard a mile off and I’ve not seen a single person go in. On the way to the beach, a girl gutting a bucket of small Pomfret told us her dad was a fisherman, but that it was a very dangerous job and they made no money.

I am now on to my third pair of flip-flops, which works out at one pair per month. It’s a mystery as to what happened to the last pair. As normal I left them outside the door of our hotel room to keep the sand in the bed to a minimum – a sandy Laura is not a happy Laura. The next day I woke to find one of them was missing. A wave of sadness swept over me as it became apparent that someone or something had stolen it. I felt genuine anger that I would have to buy another pair of flip-flops and wanted to lash out. A kid must have run off with one of them as a dare. There were no kids around to strangle, probably for the best, as I’m no warrior and would have come away worse off. The hotel manager thought it was most likely that a dog had gone off with it, which is probably true, as there are at least 10 dogs for every person here. If this is the case in the rest of India, that makes approximately 10 billion dogs on the subcontinent.

Anyway I have some new flip-flips now, they rub and my feet feel like they are slowly being grated away with each step. I reckon they’ll be perfectly broken in, in a month’s time.

Travellers tash

In the maul-like queue for the flight to Trivandrum I noticed that every man had a moustache. I’d forgotten that virtually all men and quite a few boys in India have moustaches, and if I was to be taken seriously and not appear like a boy on a school trip I would need one too. So far I have shaved my chops and am now the proud owner of a faint shadow on my upper lip. According to Laura, my micro-tash looks a bit ‘Mexican’, but once I nip the ends off and it gets a bit thicker I might just have the makings of a young Edwardian gentleman. Bravo I say!

(Pre-tash photo)

DIY dudes

Despite our best efforts to look the part, as soon as we get in the sea Joe and I immediately betray something of the all-the-gear-no-idea persuasion of surfer dude. To combat this, we continue to practice, aka play the long game. In the short term, we take steps to give the impression to our fellow surfers that we are, in fact, as gnarly as they. By ‘take steps’ what I of course mean is make props.

A key accessory if you’re a surfer dude is to wear a horrible necklace of some kind: sometimes a shark’s tooth, but more often an incomprehensible symbol made from shell, rock or coral. These are sold everywhere by earnest salesmen who will give you a boring monologue their items’ symbolism if you so much as blink in his direction.

Or you can make your own, which is what we did. For the benefit of fellow wannabe beach posers, here’s how:

1. Go to a beach
2. Find an enormous piece of dead coral, the bigger the better
3. Attach it to a piece of weathered leather string
4. Spend a few seconds coming up with some meaningful statements about its background/magical powers/the fantastic surfing trick you were engaging in when you found it

Once you’ve completed these 4 steps, all you need to do is let it dangle casually across your naked chest and wait for other dudes to approach and give you respect. Here’s the one Joe made:

Finding Hansel

After a short spell on the Gili islands, and a failed attempt at enjoying Lombok, we’re back in Bali where the food is cheap and the people are cheerful. We toyed with the idea of sailing or flying to Borneo or Sumatra to track down wild orang-utans, but it all seemed like too much effort as we’d have to take at least two extra flights and endure bus rides... far too much like hard work. I’ve promised Laura I’ll dye every hair on my body orange and only eat bananas from now on to compensate for not seeing the real thing.

With two weeks to kill in Bali, we’d left ourselves no choice but to buy a surfboard and become proper surf bums. With a meagre budget I went out with strict instructions not to come back without a surfboard, preferably one over 8ft tall – a good size for learning. I was keen for Laura to come along as chief negotiator as I was wary of falling in love with the first (and most probably unsuitable) board I saw and agreeing to pay whatever the shop was asking for it, yet I couldn’t raise her interest in the dealings so went along solo.

The process of buying a surfboard is much the same as buying a snowboard, pair of skis, any sort of sporting equipment in fact. In other words, it helps enormously if you know what you are talking about. If you don’t, the sales person usually picks up on it quickly and goes for the hard sell on the most expensive and ridiculous thing in the shop. This may have happened, but I am not completely sure as I know virtually nothing about surfboards.

I walked away from the shop positive I’d struck gold and sure that Laura would be most impressed. It was only 2ft shorter than requested and 50 percent more than we had agreed to spend. It must have been the canary yellow that distracted Laura from these pitfalls as she appeared genuinely impressed with my purchase. Unfortunately this only lasted until we took it out for a spin and discovered it’s virtually impossible to catch a wave or stand up on the thing. Perhaps it will grow on us...

Adding to Laura’s Introduction to surfing, here are a few new-found afflictions that accompany the activity:

1. On top of having to wear a rash vest I’ve splashed out on a pair of Speedos. I stress these are purely for medical reasons, I wouldn’t want my nether regions grated off by the board. Watch out London fields lido...

2. My nose has become a storage tank for a large percentage of the Indian ocean. Hours after leaving the sea my nose will leak salt water like a broken tap onto anything and everything in front of it.

Bali's Got Talent

This is a picture of a German traveller we first encountered on the slow boat to Lombok, a week or so ago. Let’s call him Klaus. My first impression of Klaus was not favourable: a traveller of indeterminate age, he sat on the seat next to mine and for the next 4 hours repelled me with his frowsty, unwashed aroma. Then we got off the boat, went our separate ways and I rejoiced. It wasn’t to last. A week later we were reunited with Klaus, somewhat predictably, on the boat back to Bali. His long blonde hair was tied back in a lank pony tail and he was decked out in staple traveller garments: free flowing, ‘ethnic’ print shorts, a mysterious pendant made of stone or shell and work and dusty sandals. We were sat on deck, upwind from him thankfully, but this time he made a far more serious sensory assault. Klaus had a recorder, of the type usually favoured by 10 year old girls, and for 4 hours he sat broodingly on the side of the boat and played such classics as Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On.

As the hours rolled by, my distress grew. To Joe’s embarrassment (sorry Joe), I ostentatiously put my hands over my ears and glared at him, but my passive aggression was blithely ignored by Klaus, who was no doubt experiencing recorder-music induced euphoria. Towards the end of the voyage he instigated a duet with a Balinese guy with a guitar, but even Klaus could see that a recorder/guitar rendition of Hotel California was never going to work and the session fizzled to a halt as the boat finally groaned into port.

I bring your attention to Klaus because in many ways he embodies everything that is embarrassing and awful about travellers and travelling. In his native Germany, Klaus no doubt conducts his life in a moderate and Celine-Dion-free sort of way; it’s only when a few thousand miles separates him from his native shores that he becomes a grotty, recorder-playing berk. People like Klaus irritate me, and there are plenty of them.

Joe tentatively suggests that I should try to be more tolerant, but I can’t help but be incensed. And anyway, I think that not pushing Klaus overboard and throwing his recorder in after him was extremely tolerant of me.

Turtle Soup

After loitering for 8 days around Bali’s surfer hangout Kuta, we were in need of a change of scene. We purchased cheap tickets for a slow boat to the Gili islands, famous for crystal clear water, accommodating reef sharks, manta rays and turtles. Turns out the cheap option wasn’t the best idea as we were repeatedly dropped off at cafes so the driver could get his commission and desperate salesmen tried to sell us return boat tickets, saying there was no way to get off the islands unless we bought tickets off them right away. We kindly declined their offers, as did everyone else we were travelling with, enraging the salesmen.

It was a long and indirect journey over 12 hours, consisting of an overcrowded bus, a very slow ferry to Lombok, another bus trip up the coast followed by a final trip in a smaller boat to Gili Trawangan. Exhausted from irate salesmen and the painfully slow transport we finally arrived as the sun was setting behind the island, turning the sea a dark bluish gold. In contrast to our budget travel option, had we taken the more expensive fast boat, we would have got to the Gili islands in 2 hours. Next time...

The following day we woke up and ate our obligatory breakfast banana pancakes washed down with a glass of gritty coffee and tripped over about 3 cats (The island happens to be overrun with beach cats, mostly without tails). We had showers but failed to feel any cleaner, quickly realising the water coming out of the shower was probably pumped directly from the sea. Feeling a bit grotty from the previous day’s journey and a dismal breakfast we were in need of some relaxation so headed for a nice spot to unwind by the sea.

We found a beautiful spot under a tree by a small beach bar, hammocks hanging from the branches and to Laura’s annoyance the sounds of James Blunt crooning in the air. I would have been annoyed too but had managed to zone out into a book. I don’t mind James Blunt, but we’ve heard little else but Blunt, Bob Marley, and Jack Johnson on a loop for the past 2 months and eventually it begins to grate.

We found an excellent way to avoid the endearing but tedious holiday drivel by sticking our heads underwater. Using snorkels and masks drowning was avoided and the water cleared as we paddled away from the crashing waves on the shore and floated over the corals below.

The friendly man who gave us the snorkelling gear was positive we’d see turtles if we headed out away from the boats ferrying tourists to and from the island. Feeling scarred from failing to see tigers on a tiger safari where there was a 100% chance of seeing one, I was unconvinced we would see a turtle even if it was right in front of us.

Feeling highly dubious about seeing anything remotely interesting we swam out over the corals to the edge of the reef where it drops steeply down and the sea turns a darker blue. To my delight the sea was teaming with wildlife, thousands of tiny silver fish swam in schools darting from one place to another in unison. Larger brightly coloured fish pecked at the sand and corals spitting leftovers out of their gills. It seemed like the whole cast from Finding Nemo was on display apart from one, the turtles.

After lunch we decided to have another stab at seeing the elusive turtles so hiked further away from the boats by foot till we were on a deserted part of the beach and donned our masks and fins. We paddled out further than before, past some fish patrolling an enormous coral growing from the seabed like a mushroom. A fat puffer fish glided along close to the sand looking for smaller fish to pick off with its sharp beak mouth. A patch of aneomes protected a pair of clown fish that were keen to show who was boss and snapped at my fins.

Feeling tired we began heading back along the reef to where we had left our bags. I was drifting near the edge of the reef by a steep shelf when I saw a huge brightly coloured fish that would have been an excellent dinner for a family of 6. The fish had incredible patterned scales and was in no hurry so I called Laura over to see it. We both began swimming after the big fish closer to the edge of the reef shelf when out of the blue a large sea turtle came into view. We were very close to it and it did a few turns right in front of us before swimming off into the deep blue. We had both resigned ourselves to looking at some pictures of turtles on Wikipedia that evening, but there was no need. As we swam closer into shore we came across another, smaller, turtle and swam around with it in circles before running out of enough water to swim in leaving us beached on the wet sand.

A good day's snorkelling - followed by an incredible dinner where we both ate coral trout. A delicate and tasty fish, probably one of the pretty things we had seen swimming about earlier.

Here is a lobster that was on offer at the restaurant we ate at. Apparently it is 1.5Kg, but the waiter assured us that we could get a 3kg lobster if we wanted.


The picture of the turtles above are from a turtle sanctuary where they are kept for a year after birth before being returned to the wild.

Surfing: an Introduction

The first morning after our arrival in Bali, we ran to the beach in a frenzy of excitement, quickly hiring boards and slapping on a cursory layer of suncream. The minute that followed revealed a number of unwelcome truths:

1. The board they give you to learn on is approximately twice your height and three times your weight. You are leashed to this monolith with a piece of cable and some Velcro.

2. Getting this board to the water’s edge requires Herculean strength.

3. I’m scared of the sea, specifically:
a. The waves (enormous)
b. The undertow (vicious)
c. Good surfers (might blast past, impaling me on the point of their boards)
d. Bad surfers (might lose control and lose their boards in the vicinity of my face)
e. Water getting into my goggles and stinging my eyes

The weight of these truths caused me to exit the sea approximately 60 seconds after first entering it. With a quivering lip and goggles beginning to fill with the hot tears of shame, I stayed on the sand while Joe hastily found me a boogie-board. Clinging tightly to my piece of foam I managed to catch a few waves without drowning. Meanwhile, Joe leapt fearlessly into the surf and found his sea legs almost immediately and cut a fine figure as he blasted towards the shore .

4 days later...

Since writing the above, some progress has been made. I have been upgraded to a proper surfboard and have on about 2 occasions stood up on it for a bit. One of the reasons surfing is so tricky is that it makes several different bits of you hurt. Here is a summary of the body parts which are currently causing me grief:

1. Thumbs. These get blistered. Or at least mine do, Joe’s are fine. No idea why, possibly it’s from gripping the board too tightly as a result of paralytic fear.

2. Torso. After the first day, we both found our torsos had been scratched raw in some places from rubbing continually against the roughly waxed boards. Further damage has been prevented by the acquisition of rash vests, but it still hurts.

3. Knees. These are scratched and sore, again from the board rubbing.

4. Arms. These ache royally as a result of hours spent trying to hoist my body from a lying-down-on-your-front-being-scratched-position to a surfer-dude-upright-standing-position.

5. Front of body. In order to get far enough out to sea to surf, you must first walk/swim/drag yourself and your board through about 18 waves of increasing size and strength. This is akin to being ambushed constantly by an enraged gorilla and the constant pummelling is very tiring.

6. Head. The bigger waves make it harder to keep a firm grip on your board. Sometimes it slips out of your hands, rises up with the wave then bonks you squarely on the head.

In spite of this catalogue of aches and pains, surfing is, annoyingly, rather fun. So I expect we’ll be putting ourselves through the mill for as long as it takes to stop being rubbish (in my case) and start being offered sponsorship deals (in Joes).

Sights of Bali

Hard to see from the picture, but my budget shorts are actually rusting.

This is the memorial site that lists people who died from the terrorist bombings in 2002 and 2005.

Handmade street decorations just outside our hotel.

Oi Cromarty, your mums a baggage handler

Plymouth to Inverness Ryan Air Flight 836

A short time after take off...

BING BONG! “Attention cabin crew, this is first officer Johnson speaking, please could hostess Cromarty report to the cockpit immediately.” What he doesn’t mention is that Captain Blueboulles head’s gone purple (again).

Moments later...

An automated warning sounds out: “Please remain seated.” The seat belt sign comes on and the plane jerks through the sky awkwardly. Women are crying and men are being sick in their beards. But just as quickly as it all began the plane levels out and the shrieking dies down.

BING BONG! “Attention passengers, this is the captain speaking. Apologies for the disturbance, the tip of the plane entered an area of low resistance for a brief moment, but I’ve managed to withdraw us from the body of the problem for now. Please sit back, relax and enjoy the rest of the flight.”

Hostess Cromarty leaves the cockpit exhausted and freewheels down the aisle on her trolley. Like a pro she gets all the way to the back of the plane on one push but forgets to put the brake on and is sent flying head first into the disabled toilet and is knocked out cold. The door slams shut behind her.

Literally minutes go by without the business class passengers being given extra peanuts and heated towels due to hostess Cromarty’s disappearance. The suit-wearing, peanut-starved business men are beginning to grumble but this is nothing compared to the chaos consuming the back rows of the plane. The bearded men, panicking, shake their heads from left to right, flicking puke into the eyes of children beneath them. A small boy gets out of his seat to go for a wee but is blinded as a thick wad of partially digested chicken chasseur gets him in the eyes. Still desperate for a wee, the young boy feels his way to the first toilet he finds and unleashes a torrent of warm yellow heaven.

As the little boy wrings out the very last drop, he clears the chewed strands of chicken from his eyes and meets the gaze of another pair: one eye staring right back up at him, the other drifting round the cubicle as if in a daydream.

Meanwhile, on the floor, Hostess Cromarty feels relaxed, enjoying the final touches of a facial at Sollies, her favourite Portsmouth beauty spa. The seaweed wrap is warmer and saltier than usual, and then she thinks it strange to be tasting the seaweed wrap at all.

“Where is Miss Mahoon, who usually does my facials?” she whispers to the small boy washing his hands next to her. The boy ignores her studiously and scampers back to his seat.

Confused hostess Cromarty rises to her feet, her hands pushing against the sides of the cubicle to balance. It becomes clear she is not at Sollies after all. Pulling the toilet door ajar reveals a battleground of leaking sick bags and her ransacked drinks trolley, leaning to one side and bleeding tomato juice. Empty packets of peanuts are strewn along the aisle.

BING BONG! “Attention cabin crew, this is first officer Johnson speaking. Can hostess Cromarty report to the cockpit.” The captain is refusing to land the plane until hostess Cromarty make his usual ‘going down’ drink.

Hostess Cromarty promptly slams the toilet door shut and slumps over the basin, waiting for this nightmare to end. As if giving him the hind lick manoeuvre wasn’t enough for one day.

Later...

Back on the ground, hostess Cromarty is in no rush to go anywhere and remains locked in the toilet cubicle until all the nut-scoffing suits and sick-stained economy passengers disembark. She stays where she is until the cleaning team go in, break open the door and drag her by her elbows the length of the plane. Her heels dig into the carpet, cutting through the lakes of tomato juice and assorted trolley snacks. They leave her propped up against the outside wall of the terminal building.

Still, it’s not all bad. In the back of her mind she knows she’ll be with Barry soon, her Inverness infatuation. Barry the baggage handler, who’d recently been promoted to managing an entire carousel at the Inverness arrivals lounge. Barry, proud of his new job title and not-too-shabby pay rise (£8.50 per hour) was keen to treat hostess Cromarty to a slap up meal. The two are reunited in the short stay car park by the designated smokers area, where Scotland’s flagship Little Chef rises from the grey paving like a beacon of hope for foodies in a land where Iron Bru and battered Mars bars are considered 2 of your 5-a-day.

Hostess Cromarty doesn’t speak much during their meal, but Barry can’t help himself. “I’m sure you’ve done something new with your hair?... Your skin is positively glowing...”
And then begins making outlandish promises: “Next time you’re here it will dinner to two at the Toby Carvery!” Cromarty isn’t listening to a word Barry says as she slowly falls into a grease induced coma. She also neglects to notice Barry’s new Ben Sherman shirt. In Barry’s mind, this can only mean one thing: tonight is the night.

He desperately wants to express how he feels about hostess Cromarty physically, but it’s not clear from Cromarty’s slurs what she’s trying to say.
“Take mez toilez? OK!”
“I thought you’d never ask! Here let me wipe the peas off your chin”.

THE END

By Joe Weitz

The Magnificent Sapa Valley

The view from our hotel balcony:

A whiteout without the snow...

Hanoi Town

We’ve just spent the past couple of days in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. We arrived early in the morning on an overnight sleeper bus. The first sights as we pulled through the suburbs of Hanoi were rows of roasted dog hanging by their front legs with their stiff tails dangling in the wind. It was a grey morning and unpainted concrete buildings soared into the sky on each side of the bus. The greyness and hammer and sickle flags along the roadside threw up images of how I imagine communist Russia to have looked.

Despite the initial murky vista, the sun broke through the clouds as we entered the old quarter and the city was transformed into a cocktail of colour. Bikes zipped down narrow alleys and tradespeople displayed their wares in shops and on bikes: from handmade cake tins to flip-flop factory outlets.

I donned my tour guide hat and dragged Laura through the streets of the old city at a swift pace. It might have been pleasanter to take our time, but I needed the loo and wanted to get back to the hotel as soon as we set off. Regardless of the danger of soiling myself we soldiered on, taking in sites such as the old city gates, a restored Chinese merchant’s house and the less intriguing road of blacksmiths which filled our ears with screeching, drilling and banging noises. Aside from this the only mishap occurred when Laura was bitten by a cat early on in the tour.

Post midday snooze, we picked up train tickets for our next destination (Sapa Valley) and then followed our map to an area that looked like a big green park. It turned out that the map had just colour coded that part of the map green to indicate a separate district, not a grassy park, it was just more built up Hanoi streets bustling with market vendors and motorbikes. By this point we’d gone too far to care so we picked up a huge mango and ate it on the curb side mulling over our options. More eating seemed like a good idea so we set our sights on a restaurant called KOTO. It turns out that KOTO is the Hanoi equivalent of Jamie Oliver’s 15 restaurant, serving top notch grub, cooked by under privileged kids from the city. An extravagant evening out, what with the mango appetiser, but having lived on white rice for the past 2 months it was time for some proper food.

The following day we’d planned to visit Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum complex, where visitors can enjoy looking at his 120 year old body in a glass sarcophagus – rather like a grisly Snow White. Uncle Ho is unfortunately only on display until 11.30am each day, which we think is in case his face collapses and needs touching up. Every year he is shipped off to Russia where his embalming fluids are topped up and he’s given a once over by the commie dictator preserving experts. Despite our good intentions, we slept in so weren’t able to give Ho our best, but I reckon he’ll still be there next time.

Day two in Hanoi was beginning to wear us out. The relentless motorbikes and car horns on every street were deafening and it was time to leave. Our train out of Hanoi left at 9pm so we made our way to the train station and hopped into our bunks for the night. My ears were still ringing when we arrived in Sapa the following day and was distraught to find that Sapa is undergoing some serious tourism development. This means spiteful people with power tools, keen to use them for as much of the day as possible grinding and banging them on hard surfaces until my ears feel like they are bleeding. On the plus side, once you get out the small town, the countryside is stunning and the presence of power tools decreases.



Next stop boogie boarding in Bali!

Carry on up the Coast

Having had our fill of adventure and sore feet in Da Lat we decided that a shot of beach action was needed to facilitate our recovery. The drive from Da Lat to Nha Trang, on the Eastern Coast of Vietnam, was punctuated with breathtaking scenery as we cut through jungle swathed mountains and swept round corners with perilous, watery views far below. It rained the whole way, and while this added to the drama of the drive, by the time we arrived 5 hours later and were dragging our bags through the drizzly, dark streets it was (predictably) fairly annoying.

Nha Trang is brash, gaudy, brightly lit and absolutely crammed to the hilt with Vietnamese and Western tourists. The beach is long, white and crunchy and we noted with interest that Vietnamese holidaymakers don’t bring any of the seaside gear which the average Brit wouldn’t bother leaving home without: no windbreakers, rugs, scatch, towels, cool boxes...it was disconcerting to say the least.



We spent most of our time in Nha Trang plotting our escape to the much quieter Quy Nhon, about 5 hours further up the coast. No tourist buses go there so we went for the local bus option, gleefully praising ourselves for saving a few dong.

The glee did not last long: local buses are awful. We turned up to find a battered old Ford Transit manned by a weedy driver and a short, gruff man whose job seemed to consist of hanging out of the window for the duration of the trip, dragging people off the side of the road into the van and pushing people out. The first stop we made was 10 minutes after we set off, so the two officials could get out and have a relaxing breakfast while we sweated small puddles onto our tiny, beige, faux leather seats. The smell of burning coming from somewhere inside the engine was offset by our fellow passengers who chain smoked for most of the way and in a further abuse of our senses, the driver insisted on pressing his insanely loud, souped-up horn once every 3 seconds for no apparent reason. We made one comfort break, where Joe observed that one of the rear tyres had a hunk of rubber flapping off it. He attempted to point out that at any second the tyre could blow, causing the van to flip – most likely into the path of a truck – but the driver seemed optimistic we’d make it in one piece.

Luckily, he was right – we did. Quy Nhon is Nah Trang’s poor country cousin: much quieter, a lot less neon (less electricity in general actually – the 2 halves of the town take it turns to have a day of electricity during the hot months) and basically a much nicer place to be. Joe took slightly more convincing, commenting that it made him think of Bournemouth. Joe has never been to Bournemouth, but he decided it’s probably a lot like Quy Nhon nonetheless.



The town snakes alongside the beach, which is about 3 miles long. On the whole, we had the entire beach to ourselves until about 4, when packs of boys appeared from nowhere to play vigorous games of football and locals did a bit of DIY on their nets. Squid boats line the coast and from the look of the bits and pieces left on the beach (as well as restaurant menus) it looked like every kind of crab, prawn and whelk going is fished there. Apart from some ancient towers we forgot to go and look at, Quy Nhon’s main attraction is the leper hospital. We hired bikes to go and look for it, but failed miserably - mainly because of my refusal to cycle uphill. I pushed for a bit while Joe sailed up, but he couldn’t find it so we retreated to the flat promenade of the beach and had a picnic instead.

Tropic Drizzle

To avoid turning into dim sum we decided to embark on an adventure of the physical variety. Being in Vietnam – the home of dense jungle, forests crawling with tigers, spiders and previously trigger happy invading forces, we decided to go trekking, just outside of Da Lat. According to the guide book Da Lat ‘combines the French Alps with plenty of bohemian cool’, not exactly a line from Apocalypse Now, but we remained positive about our first dose of jungle action Nam style.

Armed to the hilt with 6 litres of water, sun screen and straw hats we were ready for anything. We met our guide, Tin, who looked like he should be at school revising for his GCSE’s, yet turned out to be studying for a tourism degree at the local University. It was tough getting much information out of Tin except that he wanted to become a dive instructor once he graduated. Being deep beneath the waves with a mask and regulator strapped to his face seemed the ideal job for a man of such few words. Unfortunately we weren’t on a dive trip so talking was unavoidable.

Day one of the trek was tough, Tin’s pace was fast and tree canopy failed to shade us from the glare of the sun. At first we rambled through pine forests, making me feel that we could have been in the Forest of Dean, but the pines opened up as we got into the bottom of the valley where there was a sea of dark green coffee plantations and a muddy brown river snaking through the landscape.. Narrow wire bridges with rotting wooden planks were the only means of crossing the river. High up above the water we crossed one at a time so as not to overload the fragile construction. Wires suspended over the river were tied to a tree at either side, and the weight of the bridge cut into the trunks like a constricting snake around its prey.

The second bridge we had to cross was in a terrible state, listing to one side with half the wooden planks missing. Laura went across first, skipping over the battered planks and posing for the camera. I put down the camera and turned to speak to Tin but just as Tin began to open his mouth there was a crash and the sound of Laura squealing ‘I’m ok, just don’t step here!’ Still holding on to the hand railings Laura’s right leg was dangling though a large gap in the bridge where one of the planks had fallen away. With a scraped and bruised shin Laura soldiered on like it was nothing, but I couldn’t help feeling it was just like the chase scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom minus the snapping crocodiles.

After successfully dodging imaginary crocodiles we headed up a hill generously called a mountain by Tin where we had a traditional Vietnamese picnic consisting of small baguettes, laughing cow cheese, cucumber, tomato, pork pate and some juicy pineapple. Army rations consumed, we were energised and ready to continue our patrol into the unknown. We approached a terraced field being tended by farmers watering coffee plants and digging the soil. The people living in the forests are known as ‘minority people’ and this particular group are known as the ‘Chew People’. Past the field we came to their village, a small circle of wooden shacks built on the dusty red earth. The village was completely abandoned as all the adults were in the fields working and the children were all at school in Da Lat, where they stay all week and only return home to their families for the weekends. There was no electricity, running water, satellite dishes, internet, nothing it was truly like walking into a time warp.

The first day of trekking came to an end after 20km of hauling ass whilst fighting the agony of crippling blisters. We arrived at a lakeside encampment, dotted with dwellings with high pitched thatched roofs and hammocks suspended from the beams and enough animals to fill a medium size zoo. We dumped our kit and immediately fell into a deep sleep. The next thing we knew, Tin was yanking our cabin door open and rushing us off to dinner. Wearily we staggered to the dining area to find a banquet of food laid on just for the three of us. There was enough food to feed at least 8 people, yet we didn’t want to be rude so gave it our best shot. Tin manned a small charcoal barbeque in the middle of the table cooking fragrant slithers of venison whilst we tucked into soup, rice, ‘minority pork curry’, chips and salad. All this food had the instant affect of making me want to pass out so shortly after the last piece of venison was devoured we headed back to bed.

Day two of the trek was planned to be easier than the first, but the skin on my feet had already decided to give up on me so I wasn’t looking forward to putting the boots back on. We headed up a track and into a small area of rainforest and were immediately lost. Tin managed to get stung by an insect so headed off to find a magical leaf to sooth the pain and left me and Laura to the mercy of the jungle. By the time Tin returned, he reckoned he knew where he was going so we duly followed him to a clearing. Tin suggested we check for leeches and then immediately found one sucking on his foot. He flicked it off and began patching up the hole that had started to bleed. We were both fine, not an insect bite or a leech in site. Perhaps Tin was trying extra hard to get bitten to illustrate how dangerous the rain forest can be?

After another very similar Vietnamese packed lunch to the day before (although with the addition of tasty mangoes) we came out of the forest and on to a road. I wasn’t expecting to be trekking on tarmac, but in Nam anything goes. Tin was looking distinctly bored as he led the expedition kicking stones across the road and successfully avoiding conversation. After another hours walk we arrived at the meeting point to find the driver hanging out with his son both in a far friendlier mood than talkative Tin. A brief tour round a Pagoda and we were finished. No more hiking until this trip has faded into rose tinted memories.

First steps in Nam

The crossing from Cambodia into Vietnam was as smooth and drama-free as eating a sandwich: worlds away from our Thailand/Cambodia crossing which was, frankly, horrendous.

As we drove off from border control, Khmer script changed to the English alphabet (though admittedly in Vietnamese so still just as incomprehensible) and signs promoting Cambodia’s several political parties were replaced by flapping red banners proudly displaying yellow stars or the hammer and sickle.

It took about an hour to drive through Ho Chi Minh, which is an absolutely enormous city and not inaccurately described by many to have a distinctly European feel. We were dropped in the backpacker area of Pham Ngu Lao . It was dusk as we arrived: the district was lit up like a Christmas tree and alive with sounds, smells and the chatter of beer-swilling Westerners. We had a drink at a make-shift pavement bar, sat on children’s plastic chairs. Up above a crowd of swallows whooped and dived.

Next day we continued our pedestrian campaign, shunning the usual method of transport which is jumping on the back of some man’s motorbike. It’s much easier to get around on foot here than in many of the cities we’ve visited so far. The pavements are wide and shady, the streets are clearly marked and even with our crappy leaflet map (according to which the only thing in HCMC is the water puppet show it was promoting) we were able to find our way around with no problems.

First stop was the War Remnants Museum, formally known as the War Atrocities Committed by China and the US Museum. Mostly it’s dedicated to the war with America, with harrowing displays of victims of massacres, chemical warfare and napalm. It makes for pretty compelling, if grisly, viewing, but the museum would have been more interesting if it had made an effort to give more background into the politics and timeline of the war. Outside was given to the display of some serious US Army hardware including spent bombs, planes, tanks and guns – fairly dull things to look at really, but Joe was engrossed and spent a long time examining (and posing in front of) each thing.

A short walk from the museum is one of HCMC’s most iconic buildings, the Reunification Palace, where 30 years ago North Vietnamese tanks were famously photographed smashing through the gates to take power from Ho Chi Minh. With its concrete facade and uninspiring design the building looks distinctly more like a leisure centre than a palace, but like good tourists we gawped and took snaps for a respectful 5 minutes before moving on. A mere stone’s throw from the Palace is Ho Chi Min’s very own Notre Dame Cathedral, this one a vision in red brick.

Despite its various attractions (alas, we never made it to the water puppet show – sorry Joe) and historical importance, a few nights proved enough. Next stop: Da Lat.

A very dark place

When staying in Phnom Pehn there are two places almost every tourist visits: the S21 detention centre, where thousands of Cambodians were detained and tortured during the reign of the Khmer Rouge until they gave acceptable confessions. Inmates would eventually be transported in a truck 15km south west to the infamous killing fields (the second tourist destination) where they would be brutally murdered and thrown into mass graves. Both are popular tourist destinations, perhaps due to how recently the atrocities occurred and also because of people’s morbid curiosity with war and death.

We decided to risk using our legs and walk to S21 from our guest house along scorching boulevards and congested side streets intercepting heckles from moto drivers wanting to help us get out of the heat and make a quick dollar. Walking seems to go against Phnom Pehn’s religious use of motorbikes and tuk-tuks and the disappointed drivers looked at us like we were crazy.

S21 was a school prior to being turned into a prison and if you ignore the barbed-wire topped walls surrounding the grounds from a distance it could still pass for a Cambodian school, minus the children. The paint on the walls has now faded grey and stained with rust and there are no sounds of laughter from the playground. In the main courtyard of the school is a large wooden frame, formally a chin-up bar for the pupils, that was used to suspend torture victims from with their hands and feet bound behind them whilst their heads were dunked into filthy water.

The first of the school buildings we entered had large classrooms each empty apart from a single metal bed frame used for torturing important political prisoners. Box cases for bullets were left on the floor: to keep scorpions and spiders in to administer poison to inmates. Spilt blood had left dark stains on many of the floor tiles. On the top floor of the building the plaster on the ceiling was peeling away from the roof as if the building was trying to tear itself down.

The second building had its rooms partitioned into tiny cells barely big enough for a person to lie down in. At the end of the corridor a bat infested stairwell spiralled up to the next floor, hundreds of winged rodents swooped and cackled peering down at visitors. Some of the rooms were filled with photographs of Khmer Rouge soldiers, most in their early teens, while others housed pictures of inmates of all ages, most looking scared and some near death.

After a couple of hours we were done with S21, it is such a sad place it is difficult to do it justice in writing. We headed out for some lunch when it began to spit with rain. Within 5 minutes the spiting rain had become a monsoon so we dived into the nearest restaurant. The heavy rain went on for over an hour and managed to flood most of Phnom Phen creating deep puddles in some places. The following day the government were accusing the rubbish collectors for not doing their jobs and that the drains were blocked with rubbish (true) and the rubbish removal company were blaming everyone but themselves.

Once the rains eased off we took a tuk-tuk through the deep puddles to the Killing Fields. The place is out if town in a leafy suburb of Phnom Phen next door to a bustling junior school. A large concrete pagoda has been erected in the centre of the site housing hundreds of the victims’ bones and fragments of their clothes that have been excavated from some of the mass graves. We walked round the site past graves that had held up to 450 bodies. Bones and clothing were coming up through the soil as rain waters were eroding the earth the bodies had been buried in. The clothing fragments were still vivid with colour making it feel very recent. A large tree stood before one of the mass graves where it is said that executioners would smash babies heads against it and then throw them into the pit. This is typical of the killing that went on at this place, all extremely brutal most adults were beaten over the head with a stick and many were buried alive. It is a very dark place.

Mini Jungle Trek

After going around the Hill Station, we ventured on a jungle trek. It was excellent.



We saw a particularly good wild animal, sitting on a branch: a chameleon...

Boknor-regis, a resort like no other...

We were dumped rather unceremoniously in the outskirts of Kampot, the driver of the minibus perhaps fed up with my increasingly unsubtle references to how awful his CD of Khmer synth ballads was. Despite the inauspicious arrival, we found Kampot a quiet, friendly sort of place and easy to navigate once you know the landmarks: a Total garage and several conspicuous roundabouts with strange plaster-cast effigies in their centres. Kampot’s claim to fame initially was for production of the world’s finest black pepper. These days pepper does not seem to be such a big deal. The biggest draw for tourists is a visit to Bokor National Park. At the summit of its highest peak is an abandoned settlement: Bokor Hill Station. It was built as a holiday resort by the French at the beginning of the 20th Century, allowing sweaty colonialists to cool down for a few days. The small town had everything they needed: a post office, police station, church and an enormous casino. After independence in 1953, the King added a nightclub and a hospital, but once the civil war and ensuing troubles started, Bokor’s purpose changed dramatically. Holiday makers were swiftly replaced by first the Vietnamese army and then the Khmer Rouge, who used the station as a place to torture and kill tens of thousands of people.

It was cold and overcast as we arrived, and very quiet. The shells of the buildings are still mostly intact and we pushed our way through overgrown paths to explore dark passageways and decaying rooms. It was an oddly eerie experience, and jolly French ex-pats felt very far away, as the buildings’ more recent history cast an oppressive atmosphere.

The most complete building is the casino, later the Bokor Palace Hotel. We tramped into its cellars, ballroom and many other rooms, each one filthy with every window smashed in, every door missing and every wall smeared with stains and scarred with bullet holes. Horror movie chic at its finest. At its rear side is a 1km vertical drop straight into the jungle below...

It was a fascinating place to visit, but it looks like its future looks uncertain. Plans are afoot to create a 5 star resort and golf course on or very near the site, a not hugely appropriate memorial to all the people who died there, we thought.