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#18  From Manatee to Yucatan, Every Woman, Every Man.  Swimming with Dugongs: Adventures in Central America.

24 Saturday Nov 2018

Posted by thewritingimp in fiction, Mexico, Pindar, thewritingIMP, travel, Uncategorized

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We could have spent longer on Caye Caulker, but we have sampled all it has to offer except Zika virus, the accommodation owners have both had it a few weeks back and we are keen to avoid it. The fast boat to Chetumal in Mexico leaves at 7am, stopping at San Pedro (last night I dreamt of San Pedro – there’s your earworm), so we can pay our tourist tax to Belizean government – B$38. A Dutch guy in the queue discovers he has left his passport back in Caulker, that’s a bad start to any day.

The same tourist taxation occurs in Mexico at the port – US$20, not Mexican pesos, but painfully slow, we are glad there are only 20 on the boat and not 200! We decide to get the bus to Tulum, along with bunch of insular young Israelis and a friendlier older travel companion in his thirties. All except him are very aggressive to the driver, whose job is to get us to Tulum asap, but says he will stop somewhere so they can eat. When he passes several potential eateries, they become even more aggressive. The older traveller has lived in San Francisco for the last seven years, working in IT, he has a more placid personality, until the driver stops at a roadside restaurant, probably taking commission on the passing trade. The older Israeli guy is now not happy with the menu and he’s now stomping his feet and threatening to cancel his bank payment. It is interesting to observe them, they should be happy-go-lucky laid-back travellers, but they are a far cry from that, all bar him have just finished their national service, before that, uni, maybe this is a factor? I honestly don’t know is the truth, but as a bunch they are unpleasant and bullying, and I know that may make me sound anti-sematic, which I’m not, but I am ant-Zionist, but they are two separate issues, even if the right-wing media melds them together, as a young female Israeli once told my wife years ago whilst fleeing her national service, ‘We Israelis have a siege mentality, it is part of our DNA, can you imagine not being able to go on holiday to any of the countries surrounding you because they hate us, welcome to the Israeli psyche!’ Luckily the driver is an ‘unpopular’ Mexican and not Palestinian!

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We jump out in Tulum, none of the Israelis say goodbye except the older guy. Hey, maybe they don’t want to chat to a middle-aged English couple, maybe they have each other for that, but I know if I was in in my mid-twenties and a middle-aged English couple that had just been on the road for two months in Central America, I would want to know more! Also sounding like an old fart, travel is so much easier these days, I have browsed a couple of sites and booked our low budget hotel literally on the road. Tulum has a fantastic coastal Mayan site which you can get around in over an hour without a guide, Iguanas abound, worth a night to see.

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After two nights we travel onwards to Valladolid, travel is easy in Mexico. Saying ‘Valladolid’ isn’t. The trick is to say it fast like you have a speech impediment and throw a cheerful ‘yeah’ in middle somewhere. We stay at a small boutique hotel with a plunge pool. Like most central and South American towns and cities, it is a variation on a theme, large church or cathedral, unless you are devoutly religious, there is only so many houses of God you can look at, and even if you are, there can only be so many times you can observe Jesus in excruciating pain nailed to a cross. Then there’s the square, surrounded by the restaurants and top end hotels. But Valladolid has something special, it has a cenote, a what?, I hear you say, a cenote is a beautiful deep sink hole fashioned within the sedimentary rock, and there are many in Mexico, but this one could not be more convenient. The morning we have a dip there, we only come across two other people using it, I’m told not many locals can swim, as they are not taught in school. Whenever there is a drowning, it is normally a local. Not sure the sign in English ‘If you cannot swim, avoid accidents’ helps? These ‘plunge holes’ are also a great place to escape the heat of summer.

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We are staying here so we can visit the best-preserved UNESCO protected Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza. Go early, as early as you can, this place gets rammed, and we are there out of season. It’s difficult not to overstate the tackiness the huge number of vendors within the complex detracts from the magnificence of the place. We are there quite early, we catch the public bus, and by the time we leave there must be over a hundred pitches trying to sell you tat. You can accept the people, after all they are coming for the same reason you are, but the tackiness of the place -Tacksville, with a capital, bold and underlined ‘T’! Saying that, you should see it, it is magnificent, the main temple is enormous and restored. The most interesting building is the ball court, two teams would complete to get a rubber ball through their opponents’ hoop, and the captain of the winning team would have their heart pulled out of their body and sacrificed to the Gods! This is the winner!! This was an honour, you got to dwell with the Gods. This is what Paul Pogba probably feared at Manchester United, this would explain why he played so badly when he was captain. Hire a guide, ours, Irvin, is incredibly knowledgeable and interesting.

 

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I get my haircut in Yeahadod by an old hand, Michello, confident in my Spanish and his experience. I think I have asked for cross between a Bowie 80’s cut and a Rupert Everett 90’s. A female hairdresser comes to my aid, “He thinks you want a long back and front.” I’m interested to find out what that might look like, but I suspect I might look like the lead singer of Kasabian after a heavy night out. When I was a student in the 80’s you could model for designer saloons, and I visited a posh one on King’s Street, Manchester, and after a wait, a man that was dressed like Roy Chubby Brown on a stag do appeared, he even had the goggles on his head (honestly), camper than a row of illuminated taffeta Christmas trees, he uninvitedly ran his fingers through my hair and exclaimed in a camp vibrato, “I’ll shave it aaalll offf, and leave a single thin whisp to flick across. That’s all I can offer you!” “No, you fucking won’t.” With that my hair modelling days were gone in the caress of an effete hairdresser’s moisturised fingers. I would have looked like I was emphasising with cancer patients. About this time, I had a number 3 all over, and thought it looked quite suave, picture a cross between Brad Pitt and Jude Law, my girlfriend at the time took one look and said, “You look like you’ve just come out a concentration camp!” – unkind, to say the least, apologies Brad and Jude.

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We go a day trip to Rio Lagratos, – Alligator River, there are no alligators, only crocodiles. It is a great place to see flamingos, eat fresh fish, and just to prove you are a proper tourist cover yourself in think grey mineral mud, which supposedly exfoliates the skin and makes you live for a thousand years, and also give you an opportunity to look (more) ridiculous on social media.

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We fully access all areas of another interesting Mayan ruin on the journey back, Ek Balam, our Guide, Roberto, knows everyone, this proves useful as an Archaeologist from the Anthropological Museum in Mexico City is working on preserving, an already well-preserved freeze, because this particular chamber has been completely hermetically sealed for 1,000 years, not seen by another human eye. We are invited in like VIPs. I try to think what I was doing a 1,000 years ago? Catching the plague and dying.

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The roads on the Yucatan are straight, Romanesque, there are no meanders or deviations to keep you awake, you can see the vanishing distant point, clearly, like when you had to draw railway lines in junior school. The worry now is Roberta’s head is lightly lilting to the ‘eyes closed’ position, I offer to drive several times when I think he is going to give us a closer look at the adjacent roadside ditches – spoiler alert, we don’t crash, but our chances would have been greatly increased if I had fallen asleep as well.

 

Next time: This is the end, my beautiful friends.

@thewritingIMP  www.ianmpindar.com

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Ian M Pindar writes books, and also about himself in the third person sometimes, so it looks as though he has a large team of dedicated professionals working around him. His latest book is in fact a novella and has the strange title of: ‘Foot-sex of the Mind’. It is not a Mills and Boon, but about finding out what is important in life far too late.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=ian+m+pindar

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#5: The revolution starts here. Swimming with Dugongs: Adventures in Central America

07 Saturday Oct 2017

Posted by thewritingimp in Cuba, hobbits, holidays, humour, Pindar, politics, thewritingIMP, travel, Uncategorized

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Bar El Cambio, Camagüey, Cuba, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, Hobbit, Hunter S Thompson, revolution, Santa Clara, toilets, trains

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Santa Clara slap bang in the middle of Cuba was liberated by Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara and his bandoleros in 1958 when he derailed a military train carrying 350 government troops and munitions, it sounded the death knell for Batista and Guevara is such a hero in these parts that a massive statue is located 2km from the city centre on the outskirts of town. It is the statue, and the museum that marks the spot of the derailing we have mainly come to see, although the museum was shut the day we tried to visit. Santa Clara is supposed to be an artsy edgy cultural centre, it was lovely, but no great shakes if you are on a tight schedule.

Carlo, the casa owner in Trinidad has arranged the next three accommodation places, this is a massive relief for us. I’m not sure if it is because of this, but Maria the owner of the Casa welcomes us like we are her children returning from a bloody war. The bon hommie is smothering, she speaks no English, so we are reliant on my pigeon Spanish, which is fun, but very tiring after a while.

We hired taxi from Trinidad, that we have paid 60CUC (*StCP! – see last week’s blog for average wages in Cuba – $25/month!) and takes an hour and a half, to drop us at the Che memorial first before Maria’s. The imposing Che is keeping watch on the very outskirts of town and fields – in case the local farmers rise up! Unsurprisingly it’s a very impressive memorial to the cigar smoker of the year 1959.

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Fidel Castro won it the year before in my completely made up poll to save time, Winston Churchill had a good run before, J F Kennedy did well just after, if George Burns is still alive(?) I should put him somewhere! Che smoking cigars was quite bad idea as he was a severe asthmatic! Dipping them in honey would have helped very little, but it gives you something to do when your waiting for another guerrilla battle to fight or a train to derail!

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With no internet we cannot book a bus at the station for the next day, but like the way of the world, Maria knows someone and we are sorted. If you can get a local to book your bus it saves a lot of hassle and queuing. The bus station toilet is up to public Cuban standards, they don’t do minus-star ratings in Cuba for obvious reasons. There is a cubicle designed for a pit pony and men at urinals nonchalantly ignore me, like I’m a naughty dwarf that has been sent out of class for tampering with himself! Until one fella looks in, not hard to achieve, and I reply a belligerent, pitiful ‘hola’, to which, thankfully he does not reply or strike up a conversation! Surprise, surprise, the toilet does not flush and I take the cistern lid off as experience of two previous casas gives me a good idea how to fix plumbing in Cuba, it is half full of water and disintegrating toilet paper! I maybe misguided, but I’m public spirited! Other urinators look on at the gringo on holiday trying to the fix plumbing! My Spanish isn’t good enough to do dismissive Spanish swearing, but I have a GCSE in International Body Language, so I know it is not something the casual toilet visitor would be prepared to undertake! I tell the attendant that the toilet is ‘se rompe’ it is broken, and begrudgingly he brings a bucket in to flush my embarrassment away in what appears to be a pilot episode of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm!’ I make a quick(ish) exit. The toilet opens into a café and the there’s one door with inadequate plantation shutters, health and safety would be apoplectic!

The bus takes 7 hours instead of 4, not helped by stopping at a Bali Hai type service station for nearly an hour and a half while the tourists held captive are fleeced or go hungry. We eventually reach Camagüey, everyone’s preferred destination except the drivers – there’s always two drivers on a bus in Cuba, the unions would not have it any other way!

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This looks like an extensive, efficient rail system  – don’t be fooled! The reality is below.

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There’s a train system in Cuba, honestly, it is mainly a single track between major towns and cities and here the station is literally crumbling to such an extent that it has a metal fence around it for fear of falling debris, although you’re chances of suing someone is about the same as a train arriving on time. I suspect when a train eventually passes through the town people throw a party! I eventually hope to catch the train back from Santigo de Cuba all the way back to Havana, when I suggest this to the casa owner she just belly-laughs at me with contempt. When I eventually see the ‘tourist train’ it has broken windows and looks like it has not moved for months. Avoid the trains, when they run, they usually breakdown, not surprising as they are mainly from the 1960s.

We like Camagüey, Cuba’s third biggest city, it has a real buzzy soul to it, although it takes us all our time there to learn to pronounce it right!

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My sandals that I have had for nearly ten years have flopped, unbound and become a severe tripping hazard. I bought them in Australia ten years ago, I have become attached to them on the occasions when it’s warm enough to wear them. So, I have to buy some new ones, we traipse around shoe shops losing the will to live until I settle on a pair of leather Adidas slip-ons, that would not be my first choice, but needs must, when otherwise you look like a homeless nomadic sadho! With them being new, cheap and hard to keep on, my feet turn tide-mark brown. I walk around like an oversized Hobbit, and the locals think it’s some form of British holiday ritual. If you want them they are size 9 UK, and would not fit the wide feet of a hobbit.

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The happy looking fella on the right must have been on holiday we I visited!

We love this city, my favourite place is Bar El Cambio in the corner of Parque Ignacio Agramonte, graffiti splattered walls, a few tables, very surely waiters (even when you order in Spanish!) I have visited this bar before through the writing of Hunter S Thompson, The Great Gozo himself used to drink in here. This for me is better than the tourist trap of the Hemmingway Bar in Havana, this still feels fresh, like he might wander in and join the surely bar staff in misanthropic banter. I could quite easy get pissed in here and be carried home as homage to the great man, wake up with a festival hangover and still smile. Instead of that we have booked a ticket to see some authentic Cuban music on the back of the great music we have sampled in Trinidad. When we get there, it is empty apart from three tables of tourist. It’s Cuba and eventually I have to visit a sit-down toilet, never expect to find a toilet seat and you won’t be disappointed! This toilet, for a mid-range venue does not surprise me and when I return to the table and report on the state of the toilet –The Wife says, “Image what the men’s is like?” I’ve been in the women’s pity pony cubicle, auditioning for yet another episode of ‘Curb your Enthusiasm’. The answer is pretty much the same – where are all the toilet seats? Are there endless gurning competitions occurring in Cuba?

Then the venue starts to fill up, the band start a two-hour sound check/tune up. It’s student night, there must be some promotion at the university as everyone is under the age of twenty-five and knows everyone else. They all do the Cuban drinking thing; two-litre bottle of cola and a full bottle of Havana Club per table. It is a surreal evening, the band cannot be heard above the chatter of completely uninterested students, it is like a Venereal Disease waiting room! We feel like middle aged tourists (full disclosure – we are!!) at one of our children’s twenty-firsts. It is absolutely fascinating, I get chatting to a few of the students about Cuba from their young educated viewpoint. They want little of the ‘Old Cuba’, they are looking far beyond the shores for change. They love their country, but as is the prerogative of the young they want so much more than their parents and grandparents had. They become disinterested in me when I tell them I have no sexually transmitted contagions to share, not since 1987 – it was dark, a lot of alcohol was involved and I think it was another human, the clinic told me it was definitely mammalian! They are not sure if I’m being serious, and neither am I after so much Havana Club and an afternoon in Bar El Cambio!

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Next time: When it’s gone, it’s gone: Santigo de Cuba.

* StCP! = Supporting the Cuban People

@thewritingIMP  www.ianmpindar.com

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Ian M Pindar writes books, and also about himself in the third person sometimes, so it looks as though he has a large team of dedicated professionals working around him. His latest book is in fact a novella and has the strange title of: ‘Foot-sex of the Mind’. It is not a Mills and Boon, but about finding out what is important in life far too late.

BookCoverImage

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=ian+m+pindar

#71: Evolving biodiversity. The Curious Incident of the Gap in the Year. Travails through life; sometimes avoiding the pointing fingers and arrows of outrageous fortune.

06 Monday Feb 2017

Posted by thewritingimp in children, family, fiction, gap year, holidays, humour, south America, thewritingIMP, travel, Uncategorized, wildlife, writing

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Brexit, Galapagos, iguanas, land tortoises, Lonesome George, penguins, photographs, xenophobia

 

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Guayaquil in Ecuador is a pleasant enough place next to the Pacific; some have said it has an edge to it. You can’t take your gun into a restaurant (or roller skates – Have you ever been threatened with a roller skate?) – That may suggest a slight edginess, (or an American High School disco!), but it seems fine to us. It has a nice coastal frontage, and the large numbers of land iguanas in Bolivar Park are well worth a visit, nothing says South America like feeding an iguana fruit, snorting cocaine, reading a Marquez book, toting your gun on roller skates during your main course and shouting random lines from Speedy Gonzales – I may have made the last parts up, or read them in a Hunter S Thompson book!

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Before we have come away, we have all written down one ‘dream’ thing we want to do, think of an achievable bucket list with one item on – tick, where’s the number for Dignitas! Everyone’s done his or hers now apart from me. I remember like yesterday getting a new Parker pen for Christmas in the sixth form and then setting about my A level Biology evolution assignment. I fell into it like you might fall into a fiction book, lost. Only momentarily being distracted by the young neighbourhood kids singing up at me “Pindus, success on a plate for you” This was a slight derivation on an advert at the time for Findus fish fingers – funny, the storage unit of the mind! I remember thinking then of all the places in the world I’d like to go, this is A number one, top of the pile (kick your legs in the air)… The Galapagos Isles – So good they named it after the old Spanish word for saddle, due to the shape of the giant tortoises backs’. So I told The Boy he was in charge on the mainland and left them behind, ‘Hideous Kinky’ as that maybe.

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The Galapagos lie 1000km west of the Ecuadorian coast and is part of the nation of the earth’s belt. This is where I have to check myself a little, have some measure, and not write a novella on the home of evolution. On landing we get shown to the 20-birth cruiser that will be home for the week ahead. We are all introduced to one another and the crew, Diago, the guide for the week is very charming and knowledgeable. I’m sharing a birth with a bohemian Italian, Fernando, he can speak four languages fluently. He shares a story about Heathrow Airport when I tell him I’m English. He has passed through there a few weeks previous. “I went up to the international help desk and asked them, “Do you speak Italian?” “No” the young woman replied, “French?”. “No”. “German?”. “No”. Exasperated he asks, “What languages can you speak?” “Oh, I can speak English!”She says like it’s a major achievement for her. “But it says this is an international help desk, what happens if people can’t speak any English?” “I can’t  help them then!” “Ok, let’s talk in English.”This is only one reason why Brexit was such a bad idea.

We take small boats around from the main town port of Santa Cruz to a natural mangrove nursery. The amount of biodiversity is enormous, I will avoid mentioning all the animals, but just on that first brief trip we observed; blue-footed boobies, land and marine iguanas, fire lizards, sea lions, Sally-Lightfoot crabs, bottlenose dolphins, manta rays, frigate birds, baby sharks, Galapagos hawk, lava herons, oyster catchers, storm petrol, green and hawksbill turtles. It is, bloody amazing!

The next morning we are up early to go and see the giant land tortoises, this is a mini bus ride and I sit next to Diago and naively  and slightly pleadingly ask, “We will see them, won’t we.” “If we don’t, it will be the first time ever we haven’t.”As we pull away from the small town (village), he casually points without speaking, to three we pass by the side of the road. Then as we pull off the tarmacked road and bump down the track, we have a comedic moment were a giant tortoise, this is four foot high, refuses to leave the track when the driver bibs the horn, and four of us have to alight to lift a 200kg turtle out of the way! We are heading to a watering hole and there are another fifteen there, several even bigger than lazy one we have met.

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You can never tire of seeing a giant tortoise, it’s like a cross between ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ and ‘Around the world in 80 Days’. Their tastiness was almost their downfall, somewhere near 200, 000 were eaten; even Darwin ate them! But how did such enormous tortoises get from the mainland? Have a think about that for a second (?), they can weigh up to 400 kg! [Have you finished thinking – you’re only cheating yourselves!] One possible explanation – a now defunct land bridge from the mainland, but that is incredibly unlikely. The accepted theory is they swam!! Hey up, I hear you say in a Yorkshire accent. You would, and I did, think they would do the opposite of swimming, sinking without grace, so in 1923 William Beebe, a naturalist, threw an enormous one in the sea and watched as it “floated buoyantly!” He was astonished apparently, and so am I. So the most popular theory goes like this; turtles can float, pregnant turtle falls into the sea on the mainland, floats/swims/gets carried by strong easterly ocean currents and when she climbs out she has an island archipelago named after a body.

There are many great aspects to the boat, but falling asleep after lovely food and beer/wine and waking up at another new island in the Galapagos is the best. It was on the first Island – Bartolome, this is where my stills camera plopped into the sea, just after we had been to spot white-tipped sharks over the headland, on the opposite bay. On the sandy beach that also had the largest male sea lions I have ever seen. I excitedly spotted Galapagos penguins in the surf, so in my excitement to film tropical penguins and get my video camera out, the other camera, plopped out of the camera bag, and failed to work ever again, even the memory card followed suit, this is why there are no photos of The Fat Peruvian of Peru! Then to top it all, by the time I get the video camera cranked up, the penguins have gone. Out of the bad comes the good (positive peace), this meant I could only record everything with the video camera, and consequently have lots of better footage.

Some on board are not bothered about snorkelling around the iconic Pinnacle Rock, but I’m not missing out. So I set off on my own, the penguins are shooting and speeding around me in the warm water. I have no one to share it with, and amazingly none of the others see them, it was after the triumph of this I spot a very large murky figure in the water ahead, it is enormous, and the shape shouts one thing: shark! Fucking BIG shark!! And it appears to be getting bigger as it leaves the murk twenty metres away. ‘Cling to other people’, ‘make yourself bigger’, there is no one, just me. A twelve stone bloke, how big can I make myself? – it is not a great white nasty, it’s a male sea lion, weighing in at about a ton, we have been told not to approach them as they can be very dangerous. It fixes me in its eye-line, transfixes me, and moves towards me, whilst never taking its eyes from mine, it nudges me deliberately on the left shoulder and carries on. I’d rather it be a sea lion than an enormous hungry shark, but not much can scare me, I’ve been to prehistoric island of Komodo!

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On our next excursion we come across a group of German photographers taking pictures, pretty much of everything, one appears to be snapping rocks. Diago tells me of one trip he ran for photographers, again German, they took 2,000 photos a day! 14,000 by the end, spent all nighty editing them down to just thousands, can you imagine, “Here’s a photo of an iguana, here’s another photo of an iguana, and another, just another 700 to go.”

Lonesome George, the last giant Galapagos turtle (died June 2012).

We visit the Darwin Research Conservation Centre on our last day, I’m keen to meet the legendary Gorgeous George, originally when he was discovered, the last of a sub-species from Pinta Island, each island has their own sub-species, not much swimming had appeared to be going on, why risk it? He’s gorgeous mainly because of alliteration only, originally he was Lonesome George. He’s a legend in his own lunchtime, he’s up there with Harriot, the female Giant Tortoise Darwin brought back on HMS Beagle in 1836 (died 2005) that ended up in Australia, and also metaphorically in an upward direction in heaven that are connected now. They have been throwing ‘sexy’females of other subspecies in with him since 1971, he died in 2012, but I can only conclude two possibilities; firstly, GG is xenophobic and will only make the beast with two-saddles with a Pinta female, or, he’s a homosexual. He took the genes with him, it was a lot of pressure to bear, he was well over a hundred years old. I hope the Anglo-Saxon race doesn’t depend on me to bring forth the fruit of my loins at that (un)ripe age with lots of tourists ‘doggedly’ exalting words of encouragement! Donald Trump appears to be in charge of that now! (I did read on the internet that he is thinking of banning anyone without a spray tan from all public places, as that’s where his random thought generator stopped whilst he lost interest on Twitter the night before! It must be true as its unreal news: unreal is the new real!)

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I buy a lovely photograph of three iguanas on the beach at Bartolome the night before I fly out, it is just three iguanas among the hundreds I saw, but every time I stop to look at it I can see beyond it to the white-tipped sharks, tropical penguins like arrows in the water, Pinnacle Rock and a massive belligerent sea lion giving me a territorial nudge.

 

All Galapagos iguanas eat vegetation, the marine iguana consumes only algae – this is very unusual in the animal world, a vegetarian lizard. They are amazing animals, to regulate their salt intake from the sea water they sneeze concentrated brine out of their nostrils, it is worth going there just to see this. And after the amazing ‘BBC Planet Earth’: iguanas vs snakes, that maybe another reason, the most amazing piece of documentary making ever (although some of it is staged!), watch it if you have never seen it, you will remember it for the rest of your lives. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3OjfK0t1XM

I see everything and more in the Galapagos, the only ones missing from my Eye-Spy book of Galapagos animals is the hammerhead shark and the flightless cormorant.

The Galapagos Islands are amazing. It is not only me with a degree in Ecology that feels this way, everyone agrees it’s been amazing. The only two other experiences people on board say gazump this is walking to Everest Base Camp and the Amazon Rain Forest in Brazil.

On my return to England I am in the NHS system to get my left dislocating shoulder sorted out, and on my first visit I tell the consultant about how I dislocated it in Australia and how an aggressive sea lion also had a go. The next time I visit him he has scheduled me to be his last appointment before lunch, and he explains, “Tell more about the Galapagos Islands, I want to go.” I explain and advise him further that if you’re going that far, you have to go to the Amazon Rain Forest as well, that will also blow you away. The next time I see him after my shoulder has been operated on (not by him), he tells me he has booked both… he will not have regretted it, I’m absolutely certain of that.

Next time: Swimming with the Piranhas.

All the missing travel blogs can be found on https://www.goodreads.com/author/dashboard

@thewritingIMP  www.ianmpindar.com

My latest book: Hull, Hell & Homecomings, is out later this year to coincide with Kingston upon Hull being the 2017 UK City of Culture.hull-hell-and-homecomings-8

I write books. You can buy any of them at very reasonable prices here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=ian+m+pindar

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#63 Kangaroos on the Lawn, Satin Bowerbird in the garden. The Curious Incident of the Gap in the Year. Travails through life; sometimes avoiding the pointing fingers and arrows of outrageous fortune.

11 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by thewritingimp in Australia, children, family, food, gap year, holidays, humour, thewritingIMP, travel

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kangeroos, satin bowerbird, Canberra, Australian parliament, hospitals, Old Tom, utopia, siblicide, Peter Carey, Bill Bryson,

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Sydney seemed to sprawl indefinitely but eventually we are out and on the country roads again – it feels good, through Wollongong – which means ‘Whiteman piss off’ in the local Aboriginal language, or just ‘The Gong’ to local interlopers.

We are heading to Batemans Bay to see a friend of close friends, Peter (real name), just to say hello as we have strict orders from them that we must visit him. He lives in the same house they used to live in just outside Batemans Bay in a lovely spot called Malloneys Beach. A beautiful house virtually on the beach, only a large kangaroo occupied municipal fifty-metre verdant lawn separates the two. When we eventually arrive there is a Mob – this is the correct collective noun for kangeroos – and it sort of sums them up. kangeroos have a strange expression; half startled: half belligerent! I half expect them to say, ‘Listen carefully, this is how it works Pommy, you don’t hassle us, we don’t hassle you. Oh, and that counts for your excitable kids as well!’They remind me of the story of the Italian tourists travelling through the outback in a jeep that hits a large male, take your pick from buck, boomer, jack or old man. The kangaroo looks dead, so they start dressing it with designer goods; Armani jacket, Rolex watch, a gold necklace, etc… but this old man was not dead, only stunned and as they are doing their photoshoot Jack comes round and bounces off into the night wearing all their lavish trinkets… this buck was definitely a boomer!

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You know you will always love the friends of your own best friends, and Peter is no different. After all the introductions (Peter is an enthusiastic History Teacher in the local High school), he sorts beds out for us all, we protest and say we’ll find somewhere in town, he is genuinely offended. He leaves us the run of the house and goes out.

It is a great spot in The Marramarang National Park with its abundant Gum trees,  we try hard to spot Koalas, but fail. It affords the amenities of Batemans Bay alongside the beauty of the forest and the coast, Pebbly Beach is the next beach down, another beautiful spot, where mobbing Rosellas are plentiful. In the garden is a Satin Bowerbird, like most creatures in Australia it is unusual, this particular animal’s unusualness is not its appearance. What this miscreant does is collet blue things, (I’m not making this up!) to attract a mate, blue plastic, blue bottle lids, blue movies, Picasso paintings, ballpoint pens, blue clothes pegs and blue flowers – it is the last two that especially pisses the locals off, the guy next door is a high-ranking ex-government official; the sort if he were American or British would be surrounded by men wearing sunglasses, black suits and earpieces, carrying concealed weaponry and looking nervous. He has taken a particular dislike to the Bird of satinness. Like Peter, he appears to know very little about the avian annoyance. He tells me its mating call grates on him, which having heard it, must sound like the call of a gathering of small children that have assembled to mock his decades of power, my interpretation! I can tell you no more as I have signed a confidentiality contract, and they would make it look like an accident.

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I know about the Satin Bowerbird, as I have taught it, I’m much more excited to see it than the locals. I think my enthusiasm annoys him as much as the blue collector!

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Batemans Bay is the nearest coastline to Canberra. Canberra is a bizarre place, it is so spread out that you have to drive virtually everywhere within the city, and no one appears to live there, well, when the government aren’t sitting. It is equidistant between Melbourne and Sydney, and when two cities that both think they are the capital can’t agree where to position parliament, it only leaves one location. We stumble across an oil painting of our neighbour; it is just missing a faint bowerbird in a tree in the background. I think Canberra is based on every 1960’s Sci-fi utopia, it is soulless, it shouldn’t be, it is actually quite beautiful, but it has no soul, not even the main camp chamber of the parliament can lift it – it has to be a gay architect’s idea of revenge!

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We visit the Science Museum and The War Museum (on the orders of Peter), but someone has kidnapped the people, maybe this is why making utopias is a bad idea, no one wants to live in them, too prescriptive and dictatorial? Either that or a plutonium bomb has leaked out.

We have our first taste of what we think is the outback at Braidwood, it feels like the outback at this stage of our travels – a pretty Wild West town, again with very few people in it. I wonder if they think we are the aliens?

One night Peter takes the kids fishing from the beach and catches a decent sized mullet for our tea. The Girl thinks this is brilliant, the fruits of the sea onto the plate in an hour. It is good for the kids to see the real connection between food and the platter.

We say our goodbyes; we have stayed 6 nights, reluctant to move on as we are having such a great time. The Wife and I discuss the fact that someone as lovely as Peter should have a decent woman in his life, as he has made no secret he is looking, but the only free females of breeding age are Kangeroos, and you can only marry those in mining towns! Soon after we leave he meets a lovely woman, they come over to stay with us in England and they believe they have conceived in our house, the rest as they say, is history, a lot of time, money, effort and sleepless nights.

I always read at least one book about the country I am going to visit as well as the guidebooks. I have read Peter Carey’s True History of the Ned Kelly Gang and Bill Bryson’s Down Under and it is through reading the latter I know where we are bound next: Eden

Old Tom was a mercenary misanthropic Killer whale whose skeletal remains are the basis for the towns imaginatively named: Eden Killer Whale Museum. The onshore whaling station, the countries once longest running, was founded by a carpenter Alexander Davidson and his grandson ‘Fearless’ George Davidson – fearless is another way of saying certifiably cracked, his mates called him ‘Crazy Fish’ but not to his face. Old Tom (and his pod) would help herd passing Baleen Whales into the bay. Old Tom would thrash around in the bay as the migrating Baleens passed pretending to be in distress to attract them from their migratory course. The Davidsons would kill them, then leave the whales anchored in the bay so that scallywag Tom et al could eat the tongue and lips, that’s all they wanted! I know it sounds like I’m making this up (again), but it’s true – honest! Here check it out http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/the-legend-of-old-tom-and-the-gruesome-law-of-the-tongue/ I did my own research into ‘Crazy Fish’ Davidson, deceased. Old Tom was classed as the leader, and he kept his epicurean verve for lips and tongues for four decades.

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Old Tom still looking quite pleased with himself!

Although I was engrossed by the museum, the children have found an old record player with a stash of 70’s disco and pop, The Boy is holding up an ABBA LP like it is the voice box recorder from an unadvanced spacecraft. “How does it work?” It looks a hundred years old now; they are amazed, they are laughing at it like a couple of bullies from the future. But I remind the boy, feeling slightly affronted and the protector of times past that I once took him to the Science Museum in Manchester and pointing at a 1950s cylinder Hoover and asked him what it was for, for him to reply: ‘Is it the first mobile phone!’’How mobile would that be?’ ‘Two of you could carry it!’I have to be dragged away by The Wife feigning hunger, it could be a double bluff, but at times like this I recall the beautiful elephants of Kuala Lumpur Zoo ( https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/6946206-28-a-woman-in-bloom-travails-through-life-sometimes-avoiding-the-p ), and cannot risk it, the kids have become bored with the singing discs.

We set off later than planned for Melbourne, The Wife is impatient because of this we don’t have a proper breakfast – this is never a good idea. Everyone is ratty and I suggest we stop somewhere and get a bite to eat. There will be more choice in Melbourne, let’s keep going – The Wife is driving, The Wife is in charge (I may wear the trousers, but she picks them out and I iron them!) I have given the kids a large apple each in the back. The Boy has eaten his and then stolen his little sisters, he doesn’t want it, he just wants to torment her. She is maybe pinching him or using cruelty as a revenge weapon, I cannot detect from the front. She is very skilled at pushing his buttons, her favourite is to puff her cheeks out and rub an imaginary large belly – he’s not fat, but it annoys him, fuelled by his hormones, she will do this from behind the safety of her father! He threatens even greater levels of punishment in ever increasing threatening gangster tones. “I’m going to slap you up,” “just wait until this car stops; I’m going to kill you.” The Wife has already snapped, then he threatens her with siblicide again and I snap.  “Give me the bloody apple,” I demand as I shot my arm into the back at just the right angle for the side of the heavily cushioned seat to spring the ball form the socket of my shoulder. “SHIT!” “What, what is it?” Demands The Wife. “My arm’s dislocated.” She knows I’m being serious, I’ve done them so many times. The one that has decided to limp with gravity was due to be operated on before we came away after a dislocation during a football game, but I have put it off due to our travails.61596251d4dd7bed650fc35174cde4

I’m beside the busy road trying with all my might, fighting the pain to snap it back in against a tree like Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon. If I can get it back in before the muscles go into spasm, I have a chance, it is a stubborn bastard, it pops out easy, but is always reluctant to pop back in. A guy walking his dog is watching the pantomime from a bridge and ambles down to assist. He points us in the direction of the nearest hospital in very nearby Traralgon. The Latrobe Regional Hospital is deserted when we get there, they ask me for insurance, which I tell them I have, but then never again ask to see it. There appears to be a lot of bored medical staff glad to have something to do, I’m surrounded by so many looking at me like I’m a member of the royal family. They can’t get it back with Nitrous Oxide, so have to knock me out. When I awake it is at least back where it should be, and should hopefully endeavour to stay there.

I’m annoyed with myself both physically, psychologically and parentally. I hardly ever lose my temper; I’m like a laissez faire Dalai Lama on holiday. This injury messes things up and I know I have to be even more careful with it for the next three months. I was lucky we were literally ten minutes from a state of the art hospital; it will not be the same in South America. The family rally around, The Boy is feeling particularly guilty: someone has to have the blame, we live in a blame culture, but annoyingly the blame ultimately lies with me, and that never sits easy, even when all your sockets are in their correct positions and you are being fed chocolate and pizza!

 

Next time: Don’t scratch below the surface.

@thewritingIMP  www.ianmpindar.com

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62 The Sydney Ducks are after me! The Curious Incident of the Gap in the Year. Travails through life; sometimes avoiding the pointing fingers and arrows of outrageous fortune.

21 Saturday May 2016

Posted by thewritingimp in Australia, family, gap year, holidays, humour, thewritingIMP, travel

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Sydney, biscuits, zoo, Opera House, Bondi, Australia, swimming, classical music, ducks

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We have done NZ, twice, that’s what it feels like, so the time is right to move on after three months. We get stopped at Sydney Airport – we are illegal food smugglers, unwitting pirates against the privateers – we have a few dried biscuits; and we only have them as they are, as the name suggests dried carbohydrate that no one wanted on the plane and we forgot to leave them behind. A man who has a double charisma bypass, one of only a small number on an island of ‘no worries’ – except when it comes to biscuits! He holds them between us like he’s the parent that has found our teenage stash. “Dried carbohydrate, commonly called biscuits, from the French bis meaning twice and cuit to bake til well done,” I think, but know it’s never best to aggravate a man in authority in an ill-fitting starched fancy dress. The wife is about to add something acerbic to his sarcastic inquisition, so I think it best to be jump in and be contrite, even though I’m thinking tourism is your biggest earning sector, so the customer is always right, but I bite my visiting lip, avoid any remarks about convicts and bread, and we are in Australia.

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Make sure you get the biscuits.

We have a middle-eastern taxi driver and judging by the way he is peering at the Sydney A-Z in his lap, and flitting occasionally at the busy roads, he has been in the country just marginally longer than we have. The wife is concerned, but we have travelled in India, where we had more accidents in three months than the combined forty-five years of driving between us. Eventually we arrive at the YHA at the end of Bondi Beach on Fletcher St. The Girl is a little stressed, leaving the bedroom she has shared with Don and Lauren’s two girls.

We are up very early as Australia is two hours behind NZ and we are down on Circular Quay with the commuters to buy a weekly family travel pass. The invigoration of a city we have only ever seen on the tele many times keeps us excited all day. We wander around The Opera House, watch the people climbing to the top of The Harbour Bridge, watch the ferries on their errands at Circular Quay, wander through The Botanic Gardens, marvel at the large fruit bats and over to Andrew Boy Charlton Pool and the views across the Harbour.

Tiredness catches up with us all. The kids are moaning, The Boy has damaged his foot a few days before, but it’s almost mended. The Girl is annoyed she has left her friends over two-thousand kilometres behind. The Wife hates it when the kids moan, but I tell her it could be worse, we could be home in England and they could be moaning! It culminates in a big barny between the mother and eldest offspring, they both ignore the blue hat I put on, so I pretend to be Dutch and withdraw to somewhere where I cannot see or hear the carnage.

I suggest we catch the Manly ferry and get something cool to becalm everyone. It works momentarily. We have bought cheap tickets for a classical concert at The Opera House for later that day – it seemed a good idea first thing in the morning, bright eyed and bushy tailed, Volker Hartung is conducting The Cologne Philharmonic Orchestra through Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and a bit of Mozart and Tchaikovsky. The young female sales assistant is so enthusiastic, she thinks I’m a connoisseur! I just nod and repeat, “Volker, hey, what an absolute bonus!’ I tell the family unit that: ‘We are in luck, Volker Hartung is playing this very night!’ ‘Who’s this Volker guy?’ The wife asks. ‘You’re an intellectual pigmy sometimes, Wife, you really are!’ But come the night and after a day of guerrilla sightseeing, we all just want some R&R.

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The concert has barely started and the children are fighting to stay awake and we are up in a box, overlooking the plebs, but not dressed right to pass any judgement. The Girl is asleep almost immediately before the end of the Ides of March in the spring movement. The Girl sleeps throughout the whole performance. The Boy manages a good fifteen minutes before he is lullabied to sleep by Volker, his Orchestra, and Vivaldi. The Boy wakes during a lull in the music: something has shaken him from his dream to shout out across the quiet auditorium:

“The ducks are after me, help me, stop the ducks, stop them!”

Then as soon as he as awoken, he is off again to leave his embarrassed parents being starred at by hundreds of high-brow Australians! The Boy has no idea about the aggressive ducks, why he has dreamed it, and why he would embarrass his parents so publically. It becomes a family in-joke, and remains the event I return to whenever I see The Opera House on the tv. The moral of the story is: Don’t try and do too much in one day… or the ducks will come after you for no apparent reason in public.

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The next day we visit Taronga Zoo, the kids have looked forward to going for months, and it does not disappoint. It is a great zoo, the animals sing Disney tunes, I know the arguments for and against zoos (I have degree in Ecology), it is a great zoo. I sit and watch the Duck-billed Platypus’s, they are my most favourite animals in the world. The Girl has her picture taken with a Koala, which may look cute on the photo (when not sleeping!), but have very sharp claws. We have learnt our lesson about doing too much in one day: duck and cover is in order.

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On several occasions (we are in Bondi for a week) we walk down into central Bondi Beach to eat and body board. We also mosey in the opposite direction on a few occasions: through Mark’s Park-Mackenzies’ Beach-Tamamara Beach to Bronte Beach, where we eat several times at La Plage, on the recommendation of a friend. It serves as focal point to a lovely walk.

One night the wife and I leave the kids in the hostel to watch a film with their new backpacking friends and go for a meal at the iconic Iceberg salt-water lido. It feels like we are on an exotic date as we watch the swimmers ploughing up and down, the waves crash against the side of the pool, but they plough on like human ice-breakers.

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I tell a friend’s brother about eating there when we get back to England, he is model, and he tells us a story of when he did a photo shoot there for a hair gel advert. In the advert they are to swim against two ex-Olympic swimmers, both well into their sixties. The week before the two early twenty something young bucks that are living the surfer lifestyle down in Bondi muse whether they should have a few warm up swims.

“Naa,’ they conclude, ‘we’re only swimming against a couple of old-timers.’

On the day of the shoot they are supposed to be keeping alongside the two bald ‘old-timers’, finishing together and immerging from the pool hair meticulous due to said hair product. The two ‘old-timers’ are gliding effortlessly through the brine like greased dolphins and the two ‘young-uns’ are competitively trying very desperately to keep up, the old timers are waiting for them at the end of the pool, as they both emerge together exhausted and wheezing to hear the director shouting, ‘Bloody hell no, cut-cut-cut, bloody hell.’ The advert was edited so they were not being humiliated by pensioners; but looking composed and gorgeous with immaculate hair.

We buy a video camera, our phones are too crap to record decent images. The one we brought away has died and it was a mistake not to get one in New Zealand, memories have been lost to the mists of time. The DVDs are Magical to look back on, but check that you are recording right; we have one full hours tape with no sound on!

The Girl and I go into Kings Cross to pick up a hired saloon car we will eventually drop off in Adelaide. The Girl feels like she is a grown up on an adventurous road trip, (still at the age where she would go with her dad!) I tell her it’s up to her what vehicle we rent. She is mainly making her decision on colour and cup-holder numbers. “You haven’t got anything in shocking pink with sweet and crisp holders, have you?” The helpful assistant plays along. I am making informed decisions on comfort and luggage/body board roomage, air conditioning, quality of radio. She is the ying to my yang. The assistant and I engineer it that she has made all the decisions and she is now leaving her new best friends back in the hills outside Auckland.

“Where shall we go first?” I ask her as the smell of interior polish hits me.

“The Zoo.” She replies enthused.

“We went there two days ago.”

“So, let’s go again. The zoo”

“It’s difficult to get to the Zoo from here,” I lie convincingly.

“Ice-cream then.” She knows how this parent/child-spoiling-thing works as she reels me in.

I read the guidebook the night before we set off and decide we should nip over to Broken Hill to buy some art as a keepsake of the trip away, the light is supposed to be spectacular for painting. It is west of Sydney. The Wife asks how far out of our way it is, as we are heading southwards down the coast. I check the small print 1,200km! – which is a slight deviation! We never visit Broken Hill.

At one point we are down walking around the Circular Quay area and I say to The Wife. “I might just nip across the harbour and get my hair cut.” I look out across the shimmering water as I utter it.

She is puzzled, “Where?”

I think for a moment. I am confused, I think I’m looking out across Auckland Harbour, where one day The Boy and I nipped across and got our haircut – we both have hair.

“Oh, I got disorientated. I thought we were in Auckland for a minute. I find Australasia a little confusing at times.” Her look of bewilderment is joined by an admonishing shake of the head.

“I worry about you sometimes; this is what you’ll be like when you have Alzheimer’s.”

“Well… at least I’ll have nice hair.”

 

Next time: Kangaroos on the Lawn, Satin Bowerbird in the garden.

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@thewritingIMP  www.ianmpindar.com

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#61: Drinking in the Morning Sun. The Curious Incident of the Gap in the Year. Travails through life; sometimes avoiding the pointing fingers and arrows of outrageous fortune.

30 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by thewritingimp in family, fiction, gap year, holidays, humour, New Zealand, thewritingIMP, travel, Uncategorized, writing

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New Zealand, Sharm el Sheikh, Ethiopia, Oyster Bay, Sauvignon Blanc, sperm whales, water, Terry Gilliam

sperm whale

It is good to have a few days back with Don and Lauren in the Waitakere Hills before my mum and dad arrive. When they do we basically go on an abridged whistle-stop rerun of the trip we have just completed. The day before they arrive we are sat up late, the warm glow of alcohol within and we move on from the time we all learnt to dive in Sharm el Sheikh. Lauren tells us of her crazy journey through East Africa back in the 90’s, a few of them buying a lorry to hopefully sell on at the end, fighting locals off trying to loot them, lost in Africa. An ex-boyfriend and her were the first tourists to visit Ethiopia after the civil war and they kept going back to the Consulate to try and get a visa to get in. The officials thought they were certifiably mad! But when they would not desist the consulate waivered with the reassuring words. “We are strongly recommending you don’t go, very strongly”, the austere man in an incongruous suit stopped short of saying ‘unless you have a large band of psychopathic mercenaries to protect you.’ If you are not the enemy in this world you are invariably ‘a friend’ and they had a wonderful time visiting historical monuments and staying with locals. It is a story I often turn to when I think my travels have been arduous in the past. There is only the scary night I spent on Komodo with prehistoric dragons that comes anywhere near, but that was only one night, and the rats were marginally scarier than the dinosaurs.

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My mother is flustered as I wait for over an hour at Auckland airport at one in the morning. Walking boots have to be cleaned in an autoclave if you want to get into NZ – my father has cleaned their boots so thoroughly they look brand new. Unfortunately my mother is carrying a small explosive device, well, a yoghurt from the plane, and is told off like she is back at school, she is flustered, I laugh at her, and she tells me it is not funny, but we all know it will be. Now is not the time to tell them I want them to take my acoustic guitar in a hard case back with them.

We stay in a hotel in Auckland opposite The Whitehouse brothel; it is an exact replica of its bigger brother – wonder if they have a Clinton/Lewinsky suite? My dad offers The Boy one of his T-shirts, which would have been moderately fashionable in the mid-eighties and the look on The Boy’s face is priceless, we take a clandestine photo later, it becomes a running joke between the two of us. The one on offer is a long way from ‘The live Fast Die Young’ garment that nearly spilled over to family violence in Goa, watched over by teenage hormones.

The other family in-joke is my father’s ability to sleep in the most unexpected locations. The one that makes the kids chuckle was a few days into their jaunt, he dozed off while throwing some dice (no one says ‘die’) out his hand, to be fair he may have been jet-lagged, but this does not stop the kids laughing uncontrollably and waking him up with their laughter. Another time after going to visit the Sperm Whales off the cost of Kaikoura he fell asleep while the boat was jumping like a bucking bronco. He is having the time of his life, this after being coerced into coming away. He is a friendly verbose Yorkshireman – in the Youth Hostel we stay in in Wellington, he knows everyone’s life stories within ten minutes of meeting them. We leave him alone for a few minutes and we hear a blow-by-blow account of every traveller’s life – he’s like a travelling counsellor. At this stage the Boy is baffled: “Does granddad know them?” Even though he is usually forty years older than the people he is talking to, I will reply dryly “Yeah, they bowl together.”

Glow Worm caves

Some of the new highlights are; the aforementioned Sperm Whales, the magical twinkling glow-worms at Waitomo Caves. The Girl especially loved it and it reminded her of her pet ever-multiplying Glowy back in Kerala. Kayaking past Split Rock in Abel Tasman National Park in fantastic weather, often I see the severed rock on the label of a Marlborough wine and it transports me back. Which in turn transports me a few miles up the coast to the time my dad, The Wife and myself went on an organised wine tasting tour, which was more like a sophisticated pub-crawl. The minibus was full of Brits and my dad to the untrained ear was a connoisseur!, expounding the qualities of his oenological skills. Spitting out would have been plain rude! By the end of the guided tour a little merry to say the least, one of the party says to my dad holding up a glass of Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc – my dad having just spoken to the bus driver/guide/retired police officer and armed with new information unknown to us, expounds further, “The Oyster Bay Wine Company don’t have to try particularly hard as every bottle they make is already pre-ordered or can be sold easily.””Wow,” says the impressed drunk as he looks on at the seasoned sommelier, “You really are an expert, Brian, where did you gather all your expertise?” My dad gives him a pre-emptive stare, “We went on a wine tasting in Germany once on holiday!” Brain’s latest book ‘Bullshit your way through Wine,’is only available to alcoholics! It still makes the Wife and I laugh to this day.

The other incident that makes me chuckle is Don’s hair brained idea to clean his large fresh water tank out in his garden. They have no mains water up in The Hills and all necessary water is captured from the guttering – this can lead to rationing of showers. I tell him no good will come from trying to clear the small amount of gunk that has collected in the huge sealed subterranean receptacle, and anyway, you have a filter system that removes gunk. I’m having none of it as he brings forth trunks, snorkels, face-masks, head-torches and swimming goggles and woeful scrapping kitchen implements. The Boy is willingly roped in. I quickly lose interest as I watch them through the hatch as they stir up the white-gunk and what appears to be a blind-cave fish, but turns out to be a small anaemic twig. I wander off to help in the vegetable patch, an hour later they emerge from their aquatic oubliette, Don Looks crestfallen, “Nupe, we’ve just made it worse, it’s no good.” The boy is still enthusiastic as his head appears from below life a human-mole, “I think we can still do it, if we just–“ Don cuts in, “I’m giving up, the tank’s contents are victorious.” “You’re like a couple of retarded Terry Gilliam characters,” I add with all honesty. Don lets out a laugh in agreement.

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Another nod to eco living, they have is a long drop toilet, as the name suggests the contents of the toilet drop a long way into the what looks like a cupboard in the garage below. It is not as bad as it first sounds, it doesn’t smell, and as you sit on the toilet you have an incredible view over the low hills to Bethells Beach. I ring him from England, it’s Father’s Day there and ask him what he has been up to. “Oh, today, I shovelled all the human waste of my family and occasional visitors out of the bottom of the long drop and spread it on the garden.” “Some of that waste is some of my best work, I’ll have you know, Shit-shoveller!”He goes on to tell me with the home-improvements they are going to carry out, the long-drop will have to go. “What about the planet? What will you do on Father’s Day next year night-soil engineer?” “I can’t fucking wait.” He concludes.

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If my dad has had a great time, it is easily matched by my mum’s experience. This has been the holiday of a lifetime; it will never ever be equalled. We have our final meal up the Sky Tower; I insist we do, so every time they see Auckland on the tele, they are reminded of their time away. We have also insisted they stop off at Sydney on the way home; we have tried to get them to stop at other places, such as Singapore, which my father last visited in the late 50’s! – but they are not having it. They love Sydney – why wouldn’t you. I ask my mum what Bondi Beach was like? And she replies, “It’s not as good as Bridlington Beach!”

No sooner have we dropped my parents at the airport, but a friend has popped over from Sydney to see us. She is in two minds whether to move from England to Sydney or Auckland, so we try and give her a feel for the city, by the end she has decided it will be Sydney.

Our time in NZ is coming to an end, it has been fantastic, the scenery, the coffee, the hospitality, the history, the walking, the driving, the list is endless. The only low point is the death of Lauren’s dad, Alan Bell; that reminded me so much of my own granddad. We will be back at some point; lots of friends appear to be fleeing to the other side of the world for some reason.

Recently New Zealand had a competition to design a new flag and then a referendum about changing it, which had to be a good idea, because most people outside of Australasia have no idea which flag belongs to Australia and which belongs to New Zealand. And for me as an outsider, the Union Jack in the corner just says: ‘Remember we still own you, and you like it!’ So why this entrant didn’t win, and they stayed with the empire Southern Cross traditional version, is again, beyond me! After you have read the caption underneath this entry from the ‘artist’James Gray, it could not fail to make you laugh every single time you saw it a fluttering.

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I have spent time with one of my best mates that lives on the other side of the planet. Technology now brings us closer; but never close enough, it is an emotional time at the airport after we have all killed time at The Butterfly Creek animal farm nearby. Two grown men trying to keep a lid on their emotions, a son realising it is ok to shed a tear when you are leaving someone you love behind, regardless of your gender, regardless who is watching… regardless.

Next time: The Sydney Ducks are after me.

@thewritingIMP  www.ianmpindar.com

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I write books. You can buy any of them at very reasonable prices here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=ian+m+pindar

 

#59: Careful of the Wraiths. The Curious Incident of the Gap in the Year. Travails through life; sometimes avoiding the pointing fingers and arrows of outrageous fortune.

19 Saturday Mar 2016

Posted by thewritingimp in family, fiction, gap year, hobbits, humour, Lord of the Rings, New Zealand, thewritingIMP, travel, Uncategorized, writing

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Lord of the Rings, Hobbits, Wraiths, glaciers, Gandalf, Bilbo Baggins, Samwise, Gollum, Orcs, Jane Campion, Mordor,

Fellowship-of-the-Ring-horse-tidal-wave

For the next few days we stay in and around Glenorchy, at the top of Lake Wakatipu. We have past and visited, the Dart Valley and Queenstown – the latter we would be partying in if we were younger and not with two kids. The boy has a new journal, but it is no ordinary/bog-standard journal, it is a: Lord of the Rings Travel Diary Location Guide Book. It is a thing of beauty, I have shied away from LotR, but nothing says NZ like Lord of the Rings film locations – forget sheep and rugby.

LoR di9ary

The boy has read it from cover to cover and held it aloft a few times to compare and contrast the photo with the scenery juxtaposed behind it. It was here I experienced two ‘precious’ Déjà vu Rings out of body experiences. Before any train spotters contact me, I started doing the research and I got bored – please don’t send me the exact gird references, I won’t thank you, no one will! We stay in Glenorcy in a bothy behind the pub, we look directly up at Mount Aspiring and it is quite spooky, on the snow-capped top we expect to see Frodo and Samwise climbing.

Mount-Aspiring-lake-wanaka-e1363776387102-940x561

I know it is overused and rarely apt, but, it is surreal, we are in a film. It is this sleepy place that Jane Campion’s dark TV series Top of the Lake is partly filmed, and as that series may suggest, it’s quiet, too quiet, and is best not to break the surface.

gollum

It is with the excitement of Mount Aspiring as our backdrop we set of in the enema to find Mordor. The boy has his book for reference, but after about 20km the road has long since turned into a track and the track is fast about to turn into a path only accessible by Gollum. The Eye of Mordor is nowhere to be seen, both the boy and I are disappointed. On the drive back I stop and ask a young women with a horse where she’s hidden a bloody big place like Mordor. “There’s none of the set left now, it was mainly computer generated,” and she points in the near distance to a pine forest, “It was over there.” We have every right to be disappointed, I engage her in greater discussion about the film, until The Wife saves her, leaning forward and informing we have to get on. “You should be a tour guide for the Film,”I suggest. She points to lots of horses in two nearby fields. “All the horses here were in the film.”

horses

From what I can see everyone in New Zealand had some involvement in the films. At the start of our time in NZ, sat outside a café in Auckland I got chatting to a couple in their twenties. I informed them the boy is obsessed with the films, “We were both Orcs,”they casually tell me. I convey this to The Boy, but he knows better than to encourage me in conversations with strangers.

orc

When I used to teach the function of the eye in High School we used to have a model eye on a white column. I would start off by saying, “The Eye of Mordor is watching you,” in my best deep creepy Sauron voice. The kids loved this, and if they were messing I would look the other way and The Eye of Mordor would turn to watch them!

Mordor

 

The second surreal moment came when we decided to make a dam. Dam building is probably my childrens’ favourite outdoor activity. On this occasion we made the dam at the exact location where the Wraiths are chasing Arwen and Frodo in The Fellowship of the Rings, when the wave burst down the river in the form of galloping white-horses and washes the Wraiths away. I found this quite spooky, when I looked over to the tree line, I half expected the Wraiths to come crashing through the forest. It shows how powerful the mind can be and how it can conjure up the unreal, like believing in the ghosts or Donald Trump!

don T

We’re on the road again after a few days to see enormous slow-moving lumps of ice, through the Haast Pass; then we stop at a café with a fish farm. Tourists like us pay for fish food and feed it to the ravenous salmon – it appears to be a Win/Won relationship for the owners – and the fish – for now! We arrive late afternoon at the Fox Glacier National Park and stay nearby, we observe tinkling glow-worms in a cave guarded by an ‘Artful Dodger’ Kia parrot, any place with a Kia parrot can never ever be dull – all that surprises me is they don’t swear!

SetWidth1200-Fox-Glacier-Hike-New-Zealand

I have never walked on a glacier before, and after an over the top safety talk that would suggest we are taking on the north face of the Eiger without any safety equipment. We are lead to believe there is one quite treacherous edge we have to negotiate, where there is only a metal chain railing to hold on to, unless you fall precipitously into the depths of hell, as we pass the tame path, the wife turns to the young male guide and exalts, “Is that it? Bloody hell.” To which he meekly replies, “Yeah, that was it, we have to point out any potential hazards to guests.” “Bloody hell” is her repeated mantra, and he knows her well enough to just keep quiet and slip is magical ring onto his finger. It’s exhilarating to be on a glacier in the sun, the kids absolutely love it, exploring the well-beaten crevices, they cannot contain their enthusiasm and eagerness to explore. I suppose in the scheme of things it is not particularly cheap, you can’t do it for much under $NZ 200 for a family of four, but somethings are worth forking out for – somethings money can buy.

The Wife turns to me as the offspring disappear into an ice-cave, “This is why we came away.”

I smile and reply, “All we have to do,” I pretend to smoke an imaginary long pipe and stroke a very lengthy beard, “is to decide what we have to do with the time that is left to us.”

She gives me an obtuse look, and then adds, “I’d like a nice glass of wine.”

Next time:   Rocks with your pancakes?

@thewritingIMP  www.ianmpindar.com

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I write books. You can buy any of them at very reasonable prices here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=ian+m+pindar

For a free chance of a signed copy of my latest book: Foot-sex of the Mind https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/175088-foot-sex-of-the-mind

 

#57: I’ll be bach. The Curious Incident of the Gap in the Year. Travails through life; sometimes avoiding the pointing fingers and arrows of outrageous fortune.

30 Saturday Jan 2016

Posted by thewritingimp in family, gap year, humour, thewritingIMP, travel, writing

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holiday home, fossils, beards, Edward Norton, Wes Anderson, Scouts, penguins, humanity, hope, League of Gentlemen, memories, Curio Bay

T brail gorge

There is something about railway journeys, something magical and when that journey involves spectacular scenery on the Taieri Gorge Railway it only intensifies that feeling. At one point after crossing a large metallic curved viaduct the train grinds to a halt and we all get off and drink in the views across the valley; it is amazing; even the kids are impressed. An American tourist loudly exhorts to everyone it’s not the Rockies, which, he is right, it is not, but it is reassuring to know we will not be getting attacked by bears, and be able to get back to our campsite tonight!

Tired after dinner, we head out to Sandfly Beach. We won’t have time in the morning and reluctantly the parents enthuse the kids along. We meet Sea Lions and blue penguins on an almost deserted stretch of sand. In the morning we are all a little sad to be leaving Dunedin, we have had a fantastic time. It is now a significant town (New Zealanders would call it a city, but with a population of 125,000, I’m not sure it is), filled with only great memories, albatrosses, penguins, Sea Lions, magnificent train journeys and a gothic Scottish train station, chocolate… and a welcoming S&M sports arena (past tense now)!

We lunch overlooking Owaka and the sea. Then walk up to the beautiful McLean Falls.

Mc lean Falls

There are days that stay in the mind, have a glowing after burn; that you return to, warm you, make you smile. This day is such a day. I oft return here and it does warm me. Aptly it was a warm day and we promised the kids ice-creams at the next stop, so we alighted at a hamlet outside Waikawa – ‘a local shop, for local people,’like a scene from the TV comedy series, League of Gentlemen. I had pulled over as it promised tourist information, which transpired to be a rack of leaflets like you get in a seaside guesthouse, the shop was deserted, and the kids excitedly riffled through the chest freezer looking for sweet frozen produce in bright packaging. The female shopkeeper appeared, more League of Gentlemen. Gracious and eager to offer any assistance. I explain our need for accommodation for the night and she disappears in the back and returns with a set of keys. There is a free bach five miles down the coast in Curio Bay, why don’t you have a look at it, might suit you just fine for a night or two.” A Bach, pronounced batch is a holiday home – probably from the Welch for small – probably? Then she handed me the keys informing me how to get there and the fact I couldn’t miss it. I’m confused at the handing over of the keys and the high level of trust – I come from a busy city and handing over your keys to a complete stranger automatically flashes a red light an insurance head office and alerts the self-elected leader of the Neighbourhood Watch to get out of bed, get their mobile, a flash-light and a fully-charged Tazer.

LoG shop

“If you don’t come back in the next hour, I’ll assume you are staying and you can drop the keys off when you leave, pay then.” She said pay then, like that was another flexible option.

I go and explain the situation to the wife; that has decided to stretch her legs outside, she is confused, the boy backs me up. So we are up the road, until we spot the bach behind the dunes of the bay. We are all excited, it is a full house, the kids eagerly run around the house opening doors, cupboards, washing machines, drawers, etc. It has obviously belonged to an elderly couple that have now vacated it, but this adds to the charm. There are three bedrooms, so this is another added bonus.

hecs dolp

After the unloading of the enema, we walk over the dunes to the bay, a big Sea Lion is adorning the highest dune and we creep by him onto the sand, in the distance a group of people are surfing and behind the breakwater are Hector’s Dolphins breaking the briny. The small dolphins, that only grows 1.5m is also the world’s rarest dolphin species – who doesn’t like to see a dolphin, add to this the rarity factor, and you are forced to get excited, it’s obligatory.

sea lions

I tell the family unit that we have to now go and see the Petrified Forest around the headland, so we navigate back around the laconic Sea Lion and jump in the people carrier. There are a total of eight people at the attraction if you include us and the Ranger that is dressed like Edward Norton in Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, he is adorning the most bushular ginger beard I have ever seen, it’s like a copper mine on Mars, or is the beard adorning him? I explain as much as I know to the children, knowing to summarise the key facts upfront and then moving onto the more esoteric if I can hold their attention long enough. It’s bloody amazing, ok I know not everyone gets animated by a forest that started fossilising next to a sea 180 million years ago, that is so well preserved you have to feel it as it could easily pass as living dark ebony type wood, it is cold to the touch. We are all amazed, even the wife – and she likes mountains mainly. The kids trail blaze off to try and find something exciting to show me. I take the opportunity to go and chat with the man-sized Boy Scout. As I approach him I spot a Yellow Eyed Penguin (the world’s rarest penguin) on mud cliff behind him.

ed nort

“Hi, you do know there’s a Yellow Eyed Penguin on the cliff behind you?”

Without moving his head, as not to alert the other distant six people on the rock shore, he replies, his mouth is in there somewhere, as his copper facial hair moves slightly, like an auburn talking Christmas tree.

“I know. I’m trying to keep people away from them!”

y e panguins

 

How he is achieving this baffles me, he appears to holds the custodianship and the greatest source of information about this unique location, one of only two pristine coastal petrified forests in the world (the other is in Argentina), if anything he is attracting people nearer the penguins, due to his perceived knowledge and his incongruous fancy dress outfit. We move on from penguins to fossilised plants. I offer up that if this was anywhere populous in the world it would be inundated with visitors.

“Oh, this is very popular – we had 50,000 visitors last year!”

He seems very proud of the ‘high’ number of attractants; I don’t want to burst his bubble. I can’t help thinking someone’s made him dress like that for a bet. I point out several other penguins before we leave.

The kids go out for a last forage on the beach before the night closes in, while we cook, the girl is worried the Sea Lion might eat her, it has moved on and her brother is there to protect her. We play cards for quite a while, three of us want to stay another night, but the wife wisely says we should move on as we have seen everything of note in the area, and there will be more bounteous beauty elsewhere – it is a tactful way of saying, she has seen the rare dolphins, yellow mascaraed penguins and enough coastal fossilised plants – thank you! We know she is right, so reluctantly we agree. In the morning we return the keys back to Cecelia ‘a local key, but not just for local people,’ along with the $95NZ for our stay. Glimpse Hector’s Dolphins in the bay for the last time, go back to the Petrified Forest to take a few photos, the Boy Scout has gone, numbers have dropped to below eight.

It is a day that stays with me, even though there is not a great deal chronicled in my journal. It was a day when we were all free, nothing to do, and all day to do it, the sea and the light crash and suck of waves in the background, the wind in the dunes, with the bonus of rare animals and even rarer natural phenomena. It was a day when we were in equilibrium, as a family, and with the planet; all healthy, happy, jobs and school another lifetime away, it was a day, not just a day, that even now makes me smile inwards and warms me, a hug from an invisible friend from the past. A memory that welds lovers, family, childhoods, and parenthoods together closer… and of course it will erode like the Petrified Forest of Curio Bay, but it will take a long, long, time to do so.

 

Next time: Pissing on Lime Trees.

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@thewritingIMP  www.ianmpindar.com

I write books. You can buy any of them at very reasonable prices here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=ian+m+pindar

You can enter for a chance to win a free signed copy of my latest book: ‘Foot-sex of the Mind’ a novella about finding out too late in life what is really important. https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/167005-foot-sex-of-the-mind

 

 

 

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#36 The Curious Incident of the Gap in the Year. The bimonthly travails through life; sometimes avoiding the pointing fingers and arrows of outrageous fortune.

24 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by thewritingimp in thewritingIMP, travel, writing

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Just a few years ago we gave up our jobs, seized the kids out of school, and exited left around the world for a year.

Manali– Dharamsala– McCleod Ganj

manali to McL

I have thought long and hard about what I will write next, because it still troubles me, even now. We decided to take the night bus through the mountains from Manali to Dharamsala, en route to hopefully visit the Dalai Lama in McCleod Ganj: seven hours. Knowing The Girl suffers terribly from travel sickness we pre-booked our seats on the night-coach in the middle, as far away from the wheels as possible. After waiting around all day to move onwards, the taxi was late and the bus had moved its departure time forward 30 minutes. The bus was already full of Israelis, I could not swear all the passengers were Israelis, but all the ones I listened to spoke Hebrew. There were only four seats available, not in the middle. So we located our seats and informed the four travellers, all in their late twenties/early thirties they were in our pre-booked seats and why we wanted to sit there. The male I directed my request to looked up at me and said quite bluntly, “We are not moving.” So I explained calmly again to be interrupted towards the very end by The Wife’s more direct request and a thrust of tickets with the allotted seats on, when it was becoming obvious they would not accommodate us. The people in the adjacent ‘our’ seats just ignored us, did not even reply when we asked them to move. At this point as The Wife is getting stroppy and I’m explaining we have two children, by now, the both of them are getting agitated by the mother’s directness – the only children on the bus that night. I looked around for moral support from those around that might know them, nothing, complete silence and bystander apathy. Now The Wife is raising her voice and the young Indian attendant; that smelt of alcohol (not cheap aftershave); wanders over and informs us, “There are no set seats.” I tell him this is not true and he knows it, but he is trying to avoid a scene. The bus has been overbooked, but it’s only a mere seven hour journey! A group of four other young Israelis get on and are about to sit in the only two sets of seats now available. To be fair the attendant says they are for us, heaven knows where the new four arrivees are going to be located?

It now becomes apparent why the people sat in our seats don’t want to relocate, one of the sets of double seats is completely saturated with rain that has dripped through a crack in the roof. We have waterproofs and plastic bags with us, and spread them out on the wet seat and I sit nearest the window, the worst affected area, initially with the yet becalmed Wife next to me. The seat directly behind is damp, but not as badly effected as mine (women and children first). The four new arrivals seem to have disappeared. Once the bus sets off I go and have chat with the alcohol breathing attendant and he offers me a place in the cabin, he walks me over to a door and opens it, I peer in to find eight people and the driver squashed like that scene from Monty Python’s ‘every sperm is sacred’ Meaning of Life. There is no room to stand up, never mind sit down I discover as I peer into the dim to see many sets of eyes peering back at me, as if they would like me to adopt them.

I go back to the ‘wet seat’ resigned not to get any sleep as four separate discordant drips fall on my anorak in the form of Chinese water torture. The three of them move around taking it in turns to sit next to me and I stay in the marshy area. The Wife and I discuss the State of Israel. She has travelled with Israeli women on two separate occasions, both trying to avoid being ‘women soldiers’ in a feminist army. We are both still a little perplexed that someone, especially the people that are sat in our seats would not give up, at least for the children, if not us. We find the concept of not forgoing some hardship for the sake of children hard to fathom, but a lot of the passengers are young and maybe have no concept of childcare yet? Eventually my son is keen to have a squeeze into the black cab of The Himalayan bus and disappears into the front behind a closing door. We decide we are definitely not going to get any sleep and put The Girl on my knee, next to The Wife, in the one relatively dry set of seats. We are tired now, it is three in the morning, but now we have resigned ourselves to no sleep; it cannot get any worse. Just then The Boy returns after about an hour of watching the ‘Wacky races’ and perilous meandering vanishing voids, that are always best to evert your gaze from. We are debating what musical chairs arrangement to adopt. It just cannot get any worse – then my daughter throws up all over her lap and my thighs, and her mother’s legs!

The passengers watched us struggle throughout the night, but not one person offered any assistance. This journey still, as I say, troubles me, even now. This would not have happened in England, Europe, America, Japan, Australia, etc, people help others in need, less fortunate. What also troubled me was this was my son’s first contact with Israelis, and something that has not been helpful in his views of The Middle-East.

I know I am wandering into the area of what could be considered anti-Semitism, and none of the people on the bus were orthodox Jews; they were dressed in jeans, T-shirts, etc. I concede that it may only be my perception – this was by far the worst journey of our entire gap year by a long, long way, but the selfishness and insularity was obvious. Can you image being on a bus and watching a family struggle with children, and for no one to offer help? – I can’t. I also concede it maybe cultural, but all the Jewish people I know in England would never behave like this. I worry if it is part of a psyche of the siege mental state of Israel? Living in a country where you cannot go on holiday to any of the neighbouring countries, or even the ones beyond those, that has to affect your perception of your world –the gift the world, or at least, the victorious developed part of the world gave. Any community or country that separates itself from those around leads to mistrust and misconceptions; which then leads onto resentment and prejudice. I don’t want to suggest that the people on the coach that night are fully representative of Israel as a whole, I certainly hope not, because it is a drift towards Anti-Semitism, and there is enough of that as Police have to guard Jewish children going to school in France (and Islamaphobia) about. In one school I worked in I organised a ‘Holocaust Day’ several years in a row, mainly because the pupils were predominantly Muslim. On two occasions we arranged for ‘survivors’ to come and talk to the pupils, while we, the teachers stood at the back and all tried hard not to cry. Not easy when Benny Goodman is putting his wife and daughter on a truck bound for Auschwitz under Nazi orders, while he was naively herded onto another one bound for Birkenau. When he took strength, steadied himself, and managed to push the words out, ‘I never saw them again.’ He can never ever forget; we certainly won’t. All I can tell you is, the ‘survivors’ through the pain found love and hope, focused on the good in humanity–these are some of the Jewish people I had met and taken inspiration from, taken strength from–How dare you equate the Holocaust to a bus journey in North India… well… All I can tell you with any certainty is no one was helpful, and I always take great joy in meeting people from other cultures. It was the worst journey of the eleven months we were away. Maybe it’s I, maybe I, we, missed something, and at least we didn’t go over the edge!

I was starting to agree with Paul Theroux: “travel is only glorious in retrospect.”

download (9)

Then there was one ray of hope in this meandering drip, sorry trip, at one point we got caught up in a traffic jam, not other vehicles, water buffalo. My mind shot off back to what I would have been doing if the time zones aligned, getting up for work having spent half the weekend preparing for it. The Water Buffalos made my smile, even if it was only inwardly.

We eventually arrived in McLeod Ganj at seven in the morning; Orange and red clad Tibetan monks awaking from their slumber. Us, having to trail around in a taxi for nearly two hours; unable to find any accommodation until midday. Content monks everywhere, quietly on the road to enlightenment, us about to try hitchhike along, not enlightened, but a little more resilient, but not until we had all had a power-sleep.

Next week: McLeod Ganj: The Lama’s home, naughty monks and the end of the rain brings puberty.

@thewritingIMP  www.ianmpindar.com

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 Ian M Pindar writes books, and about himself in the third person sometimes, so it looks as though he has a huge team of dedicated professionals working around him. His latest book is in fact a novella and has the strange title of: ‘Foot-sex of the Mind’. It is not a Mills and Boon, but about finding out what is important in life far too late. It will take you four hours to read, or half the distance between Manali and McLoed Ganj by bus. http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=ian+m+pindar

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