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Showing posts from 2012

You don't have to mentally unstable to live here, but it helps...

Day 380 - Margaret River It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. It was a Tuesday, it was like any other. Me and the Cornish lads had slogged through another day on the vineyard and were driving home. I switched on my phone to check messages, my housemate Emily had text "All our stuff's on the street. Martina showdown." It had been building to this but with 3 days left before we left Margaret River she'd actually done it. Perhaps I should recap? The housing situation at Tunbridge Street had been deteriorating since, well, since I moved in really. I'd have to say that this was in spite of rather than because of my presence. I hadn't met the landlady before I took the room so my first contact with Martin

365+88=?

Day 365 - Margaret River A couple of notable milestones had passed. The first was the completion of my 88 days of regional work. This was a cause for relief and elation given the slender margins of time I had to get it done. Despite the sheer monotony of each working day the weeks had zipped by at an acceptable pace. Despite the specified 3 months seeming to stretch endlessly into the distance on that frigid first morning in the vineyard I could now thumb my nose at Labour Solution's exploitative employ and return to the cosmopolitan splendor of Sydney. Except I couldn't. Whilst I would consider it an appropriate gesture for the Australian government to buy you a plane ticket back to civilisation at the completion of your regional work this doesn't appear to be official policy. So, though I calculated that I had pruned, wrapped, pulled, thinned, constrained and otherwise manhandled in excess of 21,000 vines up to this point I would need a few more to return east. The other

Why so blue?

Day 333 - Margaret River Despite the inestimable pleasure of sleeping in a bunk bed, sharing your toilet cubicle with wildlife, bare concrete floors and Gwendal, it was time to leave the hostel. And yet I did so with an amount of reluctance. I'd become used to the place, a part of the worn furniture, institutionalised you could say. So when the offer of a room in a house came I clung fiercely to what I knew and shied away from a new place and new people. I'm not sure that fear will ever entirely desert me, my nature is my nature, but at least in my age and my wisdom I can push through it with a modicum of sense. The house was familiar, I'd been there before after a night in the pub. As had most of the other patrons once word got around of a party at 46 Tunbridge Street. The 100 or so unexpected guests were soon surreptitiously pointed in the direction of another, 'better' house party at an unsuspecting and unfortunate address down the road. Poor Frodo didn't k

I love blue sofa

Day 282 - Margaret River 'Saturday night tears at the thin fabric of human culture, exposing the beast beneath.' -- Margaret River Lodge motto The hostel was quite unlike any I had stayed in before. Monday to Friday its residents dutifully rose early to toil in the vineyards surrounding the little town. To endure biting wind and stinging rain while working on grape vines that produced wines that they couldn't afford. Come the weekend though there was full-scale rebellion against this government-ordained monotony. A cauldron brought out and placed in the centre of the kitchen, goon and evil spirits cast into it for unholy concoction and ungodly intoxication. We whooped, we caroused. We painted our faces and shaved our heads. We steeped ourselves in wine, (lack of) women and song. We played topical drinking games like 'wine waterboarding' (not me) and entered the swimming pool via the shopping trolley delivery method (me). In short we were frothing. I had swiftly (

Pitted road and darkened dreams

Day 257 - a black hole To put it in the common parlance 'shit just got real.' If that phrase has a flippant air then it is unintended and unwelcome, I just don't know how else to put it. Likewise what do you say to your best friend, your constant travelling partner of the past 6 months, when they call to tell you they are being deported? Do you say "It'll be alright.", 'cause it won't, certainly not now, maybe not ever. What words soften the blow of accusing eyes delivering a fast-track conviction, how do you comfort a person become a...criminal in the blink of an eye? You only need have an immigration official cast an eye over your passport to know they are not from an organisation to be crossed, be you on the border of Australia or Zambia. A sullen, unflinching seriousness must either be rigorously instilled in them or else the recruitment process heavily selects against individuals displaying more than a ounce of levity. Withering stares are their

River of golden dreams

Day 237 - Margaret River The train cut through an orange land so sparse that not even clouds bloomed in its yawning blue sky. It passed stations so small that the platforms could hold 3 or 4 people at most. I saw dwellings here and there, each a battle against nature won though the ongoing war still inevitably lost. From the eastern hubbub to this western desolation I wondered, as I would many times over the coming months, how on earth I ended up here. I carried a knot in my stomach, whether from fear or food deprivation I couldn't be sure. This was new, this was different. Barring a few days in Brazil I had never so boldly struck out on my own. Leaving behind a pleasant Sydney existence, friends, a well paid job, the comfort of familiarity, to start again on the other side, to create a life over again. Yeah it was probably fear. I changed from train to bus at the end of the line and the landscape softened as we continued south. Wetter and greener, life returned in the form of new

Low winter sun

Day 201 - Sydney A solitude wraps me as I walk, the ferries blow their funereal horns as if through some foggy dock on the eve of war. I turn up the collar on my favourite (only) winter coat and press on over the swing bridge and past destroyer, submarine and magnificent 3-masted sail ship. Wooden boards give a resonant thud as my smart-shod feet strike them and ibis stalk the grassy swath to my left. The sun traces its shallow arc in the sky as I arrive at the office and day two hundred and one stirs to life. The transience had paused and routine replaced it. Faces and places became familiar and relationships lasted past a day or two of crossed paths. Heck, such was the order of my life I had even taken to eating muesli for breakfast (with soy milk, natch). My job was going well, I worked with Kim and Lorraine auditing the company's Australian contractors and daily impressed my colleagues with technical wizardry and savoir faire. On the home front myself and Michael had moved in

Bullet points

Day 181 - Sydney 13 days into this unexpected tangent in the trip and some notable achievements could be listed. We were now regulars at the Coogee Bay Hotel (henceforth CBH), a bar known (to locals at least) as 'the animal pen'. We had taken in the famed Bondi Beach. I had swum on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. I had a job. Once more I had plunged into the masked ball of interviews where every interviewer pretends that they are offering the world's greatest job and every interviewee maintains the fantasy and professes to have dreamed of one day having such a position. I could now add 'Senior Administrator' to my garlanded résumé. The company? Accenture Plc., a multinational management consultancy firm with 250,000 employees worldwide. Well to be accurate 250,001. Not bad in less than a week. with a view from my desk of Sydney CBD 'fallen on my feet' would be an apt phrase to use. Before I started though myself and Mike found the time to catch up with our

Continental drift

Day 168 - Sydney Surprising fact about Australia #1: It has seasons. Surprising fact about Australia #2: Some of those seasons are cold. Surprising fact about Australia #3: I was in it. And cold. Everybody likes surprises don't they? Unexpectedly finding two men in your flat when you return from work qualifies as a surprise right? The alarmed screams seemed to indicate so. Scaring Amy and Jayne has proved to be one of life's simple pleasures but traveling nearly 5000 miles to do it could be deemed excessive. Myself and Michael would have to find something else to do in the land of Oz. That something else was the perpetuation of travel by way of the accumulation of capital. Gainful employment in short. Like a bombshell we had exploded back into the girl's ordered existence and with the shrapnel flung wide we settled into catching up over a couple of boxes of goon. Bangkok's sweltering temperatures and dollar beers lay far behind us though we were as culturally, econo

Sparks

Year - 0 We all, no matter the person, find ourselves at a point. The moment I started writing this - a point. The moment I finish - a point. The moment you start reading this - a point. The moment you finish - you get the idea. And a myriad of events but moreso decisions lead us to these variad points. Our decisions but, again, moreso other people's decisions brought us to this crossroads. A crossroads unlike any we've seen before and, with apologies for being obtuse, unlike any we'll see again. And this laboured point springs to my mind as I walk outside everyday, as I walk out onto the streets of Bangkok and look across to the Khao San Road. It forces me to question my own imagination, I read 'The Beach', I dreamed of the viscerality of this place, I dreamed of the real world no matter how fake it actually was. In a previous life I dreamed of another thing, a world that lay beyond my own that I promised myself I would see, that I would drown in, in the utter bli

Never mind the bollocks

Day 155 - Bangkok If there is 1 place synonymous or perhaps infamous with the backpacker circuit then surely this is it. If there is 1 place whose reality so precisely matched my expectation of it, whose sights, sounds and smells mirrored those of an imagination fed by popular media then surely it was here. I woke after the first proper sleep in days and walked out onto the balcony of the Romruen Resort. Beyond the sliding glass door was a wall of heat, thick air enveloped me and mocked sweat glands sprung desperately into action. We had arrived in the world's hottest city or its outskirts at least. Eschewing originality the bags were repacked and the two of us headed for the traveller's rite of passage that is the Khao San Road. It isn't Thailand, it isn't really Bangkok, it is something else. A road constructed from dreams of escape and the unquenchable thirst for the exotic. You could write it off as a parody of travel, a hollow shell of culture that ceased long ago

The best bits of the Americas

In no particular order other than chronologically. McSorley's Irish Bar “...36 beers stagger us but not as much as the $90 bill...” Our first night on our first day in our first country of many to come found us in this Irish bar whose history dates back well over a hundred years. Presidents, poets and paupers drank here and now so had we two peripatetic Englishmen. Conversation was struck up with locals on the timeless and ever novel subject of differing nationalities and backgrounds, a scene to be repeated again and again on this trip. We staggered home happy, drunk and with empty wallets, a scene to be repeated again and again on this trip. Snorkeling in Belize “...I felt as if part of the ocean.” I must confess to an apprehension of the water borne of watching a particular film as a child, I believe the medical condition is known as 'Spielbergian scarring'. I didn't realise though that Mike's watery inhibitions put mine to shame. But he did it and he loved

Adios/Sawatdee

Day 153 - Beijing Our next journey was longer than average. 14,000 miles separated its beginning and end, or rather its end and its beginning for we were leaving this new world and returning to the old. From Rio to São Paulo and a couple of days in Bogota of table-tennis (82-0 Michael, eighty two - nil) and quinoa education before another flight north to Los Angeles via Miami. 24 hours in the city of angels gave enough time for a stroll along Santa Monica Boulevard with its parade of entertainers, freaks and pot peddlers. Tanned, athletic bodies pumped volleyballs back and forth on Venice Beach. Clean streets, straight lines, faintly familiar conventions. Even my fingernails, usually blackened with transit, were a pristine white through no doing of my own. Skateboarders looped and leapt along the promenade, sharks fought over morsels at the aquarium and the Hollywood sign remained elusive. After a wholesome dawdle there were two happy travellers when a pub was found stocking both cide

<insert rio-lly bad pun here>

Day 143 - Rio de Janeiro It was early morning in Rio and Christ peered through the mist. Text messages flew back and forth. "I'm here" "At the hostel?" "Yeah" "Are you? Which room?" "6" "The girl at reception says you haven't checked in and they don't even have a room 6" "Oh. Where am I then?" Not at the right hostel as it turned out. Still, I had a welcome little sleep in one of their beds before sheepishly leaving. Little else of blog-worthy note occurred for the rest of the day. Mike and I watched Barcelona cede the La Liga title to some awful team from Madrid and got drunk with a pair of English girls whilst espousing the joys of our jungle tour (moreso me than Mike) as they were headed to Bolivia next. We did manage to find diversions other than football and intoxication (important though they are) in the rest of our time in Rio and spent a peaceful few hours striking around a tropical rainf

Sampa, oww, low

Day 140 - São Paulo Tears of frustration and pain lurked threateningly at the corners of my eyes. An overnight bus journey to South America's largest city had turned into a trip of torment. Whether it was my hours of walking the previous day or another, unknown cause I was in a bit of a sorry state. My right leg, from top to bottom, was a barely functional mass of discomfort. The muscles howled with indignation at every attempted movement. I shivered uncontrollably for several hours as the bus bisected São Paulo's vast suburbs and now I struggled to stand at the terminal as I waited for my bag. Porters descended on the bus, jostling in their hurry and running over my foot with their trollies. Eventually the crowds dispersed and I managed to retrieve my luggage. Doing my best to swallow self-pity I hobbled to a taxi and headed for a hostel Mike had recommended having arrived there the day before. Several hours of sleep proved somewhat restorative despite loud jazz music outside

10 things I hate about this bus

Day 139 - Automotive hell 1, lights off from the off. 2, no movies. 3, people are playing music off their phones 4, no food provided, I want my packed lunch. 5, aircon is set to stun. 6, the decor is shit. 7, I want to go somewhere snowy and it's taking me to Sao Paulo. 8, the woman that has just spent 20 minutes in the driver's cabin may have been administering executive relief, this service is not available to passengers. 9, not enough stops. 10, the conductor is forced to wear claret trousers with a salmon pink shirt and a claret tie, that is cruel. 11, the seat next to me isn't occupied by a pretty Brazilian girl with tight clothes and loose morals. 12, too many stops. 13, it cost eighty dollars. 14, it's trying to kill me.

Goosed

Day 136 - Foz do Iguazu I wouldn't have thought it odd had a church bell struck a single, sonorous note right at that point. For I was alone, frighteningly literally. The Argentinian-Brazilian border was at my back, the bus I crossed on at my front, going at 40mph and not turning around. "What are we going to do now?" I could only ask myself. I had just set foot in a country whose language might as well have been Sanskrit for all I knew. Looking about for a clue, the merest hint of what I should do next having discounted my initial idea of getting into the foetal position. I noticed a fellow former passenger had also been deserted and approached with my best 'help the poor gringo' look. Rudimentary Spanish gleaned the information that more buses were imminent. He also informed that should I need a hostel his friend was picking him up shortly and they could take me to such a place. I had to question the merits of my decision as I sat in the back of the car heading

Na Trioblóidí

Day 131 - Buenos Aires I think I finally put my finger on it in Buenos Aires. An explanation for a malaise grown over recent weeks that niggled and pricked my waking hours. I thought I could shake it, I just needed a bit more sleep. But it was emotional lethargy that saw days pass in this coolest of capitals without the slightest endeavour to sample its 'je ne sais quoi'. There were broad boulevards, architecture redolent of Paris and beautiful public spaces but somehow the city lacked something. It was I that lacked something though I realised. It suddenly struck me that we all form a connection to the place in which we live. We invest something in our home and it in turn invests something in us. The wandering alien severs his connection and loses a certain sense of belonging. I had no door to shut the world behind, no space to claim as my own. I was caught in a river whose course was unknown but whose current was insistent. Despite the new-found clarity and understanding I s

Fissures

Day 127 - Mendoza I'm desperately searching for an emotion, be it sadness or gladness, regret or disdain. There is no clarity only a vague nagging feeling that something is not right, the world is never as it should be but even less so right now. It tickles the back of my neck, it sours the beer in my glass, it stymies all action and makes every notion impotent. Do I attribute it to events still in motion? To dark days of high consequence? Is it the slow breaking of my heart or a great brittle chunk cleaving from the glacier of my being? My hand picks furiously, uncontrollably at my nails, discomfort in all but words. And words, words, how they fail me. Not with pen in hand but in situation out of hand. Do I lack emotion or do others have too much? No matter the rights and wrongs of that preposition logic always loses to emotion, the needle of ration crushed by the sledgehammer of feeling...

Drink! Feck! Spoons! Potatoes! Maggie Thatcher! Simultaneously!

Day 123 - Santiago "No" was the answer to my request. It was hard to pinpoint exactly what the 4 of us had done the previous evening to warrant the Hotel manager's curt response but it could be any one of a number of things. "This is not the way people behave." His English was impressive. I had been sent down to the lobby to ask humbly, futilely if we could stay another night. I was beginning to get the impression we could not. The seeds of this behavioural nadir were sown several days earlier when, having come to the end of our Bolivian tour, we found that Darren, Dee, Teresa and Sofia were also heading down into Chile. Our collective first stop was San Pedro de Atacama, a little tourist town on the edge of the world's driest desert. After washing the dirt of the road from ourselves myself and Michael decided a spot of lunch was in order. Having located a pleasant venue on the main plaza we were joined before long by, as chance would have it, a couple o

Red, white and blue

Day 117 - Salar de Uyuni Traditional Bolivian recipe - Take 1 large, flat plain (about 4000 square miles) Add a few pinches of salt (about 1 trillion) Leave to bake under a hot sun for a few years (about 10 thousand) You're done, tourists will eat it up. The salt flats south of Uyuni are a remorseless sheet of crystalline white formed by the drying of a lake. Perpetually clear skies mean the sun bounces blindingly off the highly reflective surface and wearing sunglasses is a near necessity in this sterile emptiness. We stood outside the office where we had booked our 3 day tour awaiting our fellow tourees, people came and people went though two parents and their 3 boisterous children seemed to be lingering, how I prayed it it wouldn't be them. When our 4x4 did arrive it was preloaded with 3 girls and a boy of similar ages to ourselves, no guarantee of good times but a welcome start nonetheless. Darren and Dee were a couple from Ireland, Teresa and Sofia sisters from Germa

Dark Heart

Day 112 - Somewhere in the jungle A beast as elusive as the jaguar was our quarry. As rare too as the spotted cat in these modern times; we hunted for it in the rainforest. Three days and two nights we would spend on its trail, a search to test the body and mind to their limits. We chased the real, we sought a prize no less than ´The Authentic Experience™´. Not for us the comforts of a jungle lodge. Nor either the luxuries of meals thrice daily or bottled water in our bag. There was no bag in fact, only a mosquito net and a guide named Pedro. Everything we needed, food and drink and shelter would come from the forest. A casual, curious click on the ´Extreme´ section of the Mogli Jungle Tours website was all it was. Alcohol is a substance of many abilities but I am ever astounded at the way it turns bad ideas into good ones, questionable into compelling. As another glass of red wine slipped down in a restaurant in La Paz far from the jungle my life suddenly became incomplete having nev

This trip sponsored by Clos

Day 103 - La Paz After a morning of syringe shopping and staring at baby llama fetuses in the witches market we relaxed over a pint in the self-appointed ´5th best bar in La Paz´. Notwithstanding the use of Comic Sans for signage and its Lonely Planet declared infamy as the worst cultural experience in the city ´Oliver´s Travels´ was an agreeable watering hole. Staffed by a Brummie named Kass we managed to find our way there on each of the 8 days we spent in the capital. It certainly merited several more visits than a nearby curry house who, close to closing time and after the promise of a sizeable tip, served us some of the most unpleasant Indian cuisine I have ever tasted. Convinced the bill we were given included the aforementioned tip we calculated our debt sans an unworthy tribute and made a hasty exit. Two waiters dashing out into the street after us insisted that was not the case and we reluctantly coughed up the money (I would have happily coughed up the food). Our efforts to

Cuphut

Day 101 - Copacabana It may have fallen short of outright murder but manslaughter might have been on the charge sheet if we hadn't released the old man from his duties. An impromptu, rudimentary and seemingly insurmountable roadblock had seen us halted in a little tumbleweed town on the Peruvian-Bolivian border. Around 50 people stood in the road a quarter of a mile ahead of the ever-growing convoy of lorries and minibuses. I strolled under the dry sun to their fleshy barricade. Debate calmly and unhurriedly continued as the reassuring sight of a police car formed in the distance. The crowd calmly and unhurriedly parted as if Moses himself was driving and reformed again behind the unfussed and departing officers. Eventually some maverick among our fellow passengers suggested taking the road around the unfathomable hindrance. And so it was we were deposited next to an wisened old Bolivian a kilometre or so from the border. How bad I felt as he struggled up the hill having had his f