The Omen

I set out to swim along the coastline, my destination being a private beach a mile odd way. The sandy coloured cliffs along the coast appeared half crumbled into the turquoise sea with rocks jutting out sporadically from the water, forming private lagoons shaded somewhat by overhanging shrubbery. Shoals of small black fish swam underneath me as I observed the seabed through the clear water. I occasionally breathed in at the wrong time whilst doing overarm stroke and a renegade undulation splashed into my mouth, causing me to swallow some tasty water thick with salt. I’d stop, wretch it out and continue my pleasant swim.

Just before I reached the beach I came across a small cave in the sandy cliffs, which I’d explored the previous day. I slowly swam inside careful not to bash against the rugged edges. The cooing of pigeons echoed off the damp dark walls, slick with plankton. At the far end a white dove sat on the dimly lit shore amid a pile of decomposing driftwood. I felt for a half decent footing on the greasy rocks underfoot and stood up.

 Suddenly something big hit me on the shoulder and let out an eerie shriek!!!

I shit myself and jumped backwards, crashing under the murky water. I splashed to the surface and swam back a little, turning around to see what had attacked me in the dark.

A rather large pigeon chick was splashing around, screeching but steadily heading towards the shore. I stood up shocked, not knowing if I should help it or not. Would it’s parent disown it once I’d fingered the little fella? It floated out of view whilst I procrastinated and, even thought I felt I should help, I just sort of stood there numb. Less than a minute later the fledgling floated back into view….dead.

I swam off to the private beach and lay in the sun for an hour feeling rather ashamed of myself. The gentle waves splashed against my feet and I jumped whenever a loose pebble hit my foot, thinking it to be the cadaver of the unfortunate pigeon I’d let drown.

The long swim back home, as the sun slowly sank toward the Cyprus strewn hills in the west, was peaceful; yet still I wondered at my part in the creatures demise. Did my presence in the cave cause it to want to leap onto my head? Did the sight of my miserable personage cause the innocent little thing to give up all hope and jump to its doom, or ( more likely) did the curious baby slip whilst trying to peep over the nest at me. Was I just in the wrong place at the wrong time; and if I had try to save it and placed it lovingly on the shore would it have suffered an immeasurably crueller death and slowly starved.

A good while later my swim brought me back to Ipsos beach. I headed towards the partly dismantled pier which was situated outside of my apartment. When the sea became shallower I stood up and waded towards the shore. As I stepped out of the water, Rachael (who had accompanied me for the swim back) stood pointing at something washed up on the beach. I walked over and noticed two little legs sticking up from underneath the foaming water.

No! It cannot be!!

The dead bird!!

It had followed me home, travelling all this way in such a short space of time. It had washed up at the  exact spot I’d exited the sea, just opposite my house. Why here when it had a hundred miles of coastline to choose from? Was it coincidence or an omen of some sort? My tiny brain found it difficult to take it all in. What did it all mean? Was I being punished for not saving it? Should I feel slightly more remorseful? Am I to dedicate the remainder of my days, like the ‘Birdman of Alcatraz’, devoting my time to the study and care of our Avian brethren.

I was freaked out and watched it bobbing up and down for another minute before deciding to head back home where I had a nice bowl of pasta and a cup of tea.

Summers over…

The summer finally starts to wane, and that means it’s only 30 degrees and rains once a week. Gotta love this Greek weather. The majority of the tourists have fucked off home, so I have the nice pebble beach back to myself again and the clear blue water no longer has kebab wrappers and tampons floating in it. My bank account is emptier than a peados nut sack in a Cambodian kindergarten and I’m starting to wonder whether I should have taken the job in the seedy cocktail bar downstairs after all. I know that, more likely than not, I would have been a fat piss head again within a few month so my new slim figure regrets that decision not a jot. I’ve earned a few bob here and there. I was a yacht maintenance man for three days, Gardener for a fortnight, waiter for in some posh old English gentry’s villa once or twice. I even tried my hand as a white van man’s side kick for a day or two, so it isn’t like I’ve been a beach bum the entire time I’ve been living here (although the blonde sun streaks in my hair would appear to argue the opposite).

Well, my travelling funds have well and truly fucked off and my credit card has received more than a couple of harsh rapings. Am I to go back to the UK without a solitary bean to my miserable name? It appears so as I check my on-line bank account and a small tear starts to form in he corner of my eye. When LO and be- bloody well-hold I notice an inconspicuous email in my Hotmail junk from my old friends at the medical testing unit in Wythenshawe, Manchester. They offer me a ridiculous amount of money to be a guinea pig for the duration of November. I obviously jump at the chance as the cash will pay off all my debts and set me up for another nice adventure, possibly snowboarding in the Swiss Alps this winter. Jeezus! I should really get a proper job……..

Sleeping rough in Corfu

 

It was two in the morning and I was pretty fucking tired as I plodded along the coastal road to Corfu town. The backpack straps had been digging into my shoulders for ages and were starting to sting . It’d taken me over three hours to walk here from Ipsos and I was finding the lack of beaches to sleep on along the coast depressing. An odd rickety boat would catch my eye, strung up to a makeshift jetty, jutting out into the still night water. Should I attempt to crash out in one? I rambled through an overgrown hedge to take a quick peek. The damp floor, mouldy nets and rusty pile of chains aboard told me I’d be better off trying to sneak into one of the more luxurious yachts moored in the posh harbour (but that was way back up the road and I’d happily marched past it confident there would be a sandy beach I could pass out on). I had past the last beach at Dassia a good ten Kilometres back and from here on in the coast seemed to be all jagged rocks and undergrowth. My last three cans of Mythos lager had gone warm. I dumped my stuff in a bus shelter, sat down on the rusty bench and started to neck one. “I should have stayed in the doorway of that abandoned church an hour back up the road,” I thought to myself, recalling the uncomfortable mossy step I’d reclined upon with its panoramic view of the sea. My virgin homeless arse had figured there’d be an abundance of places I could get my head down, peacefully sleeping in one of a million idyllic spots, underneath the starry blanket whilst the salt air filled my lungs. There were plenty of roadside bushes but, despite the inviting dense shrubbery, I’d already seen too many snakes to make that a viable option.  I slowly plodded past a yard full of speedboats in storage. The guard dog went mental when  I attempted to have a look in one for a bed so, unwanted even by that mangy creature, I slowly walked on.

Dramatic arguments with psychotic women can have dire consequences, as if I didn’t know this already.

As the night progressed the breeze became sharp and chilly. I walked on, stopping every half an hour or so to dump my heavy load, take a breather and rub my shoulders. I’d about worn a hole in the sole of my battered Indian Addidas when a glimmer of hope appeared, softly casting an oblique ray down upon me from the starry heavens above.  A huge billboard sign attached to the back of a truck, parked up in a lay-by, caught my miserable eye. It was advertising a cruise and had a huge picture of a tanned Greek guy kissing a seal upon it. Behind the sign was a raised metallic platform. Result! I climbed upon it and attempted to sleep using my laptop case as a pillow . A stagnant pool of water nearby supplied the mosquitoes, which conveniently buzzed loudly in my ear every time I was about to drift off. When it got too cold I quickly necked the last two cans of beer in the hope the alcohol would internally warm me and perhaps numb my tiny mind. It sort of worked. The cold metal platform chilled me to the bone as I rolled around trying to get comfortable, and I sporadically drifted in and out of a troubled sleep.

Living rough had its charms I’d supposed; olive trees, lemon groves, vineyards, peach trees, vegetable gardens, wild mulberry bushes, Grecian nature in all it’s abundance meant I wouldn’t have to starve. I could bathe in the Ionion sea, spend my days soaking up the sun and at nights sleep behind a sign next to the noisy coastal road freezing my bollocks off. Hmm…I think not.  As dawn approached the sky became blue and purple . The vivid orange outline of the sun could be seen slowly rising from behind a dark cloud that spanned the eastern sky. A couple of swallows happily drank from the muddy puddle I’d been pissing into. They chirped merrily and flew off towards the sunrise.  The walk back to Ipsos the next morning, on blistered feet, exhausted, with my tail between my legs and the hot sun beating on my back seemed to take forever and took everything I had left. I could only hope that the annoying  woman would be waiting for me with open arms…..

The Long Road Home

Somewhere over Eastern Europe

I said my goodbyes to Rachael at the Phnom Penhs central station and boarded a rickety bus to the Thai border at around six thirty in the morning. Eight long hours later the shifty looking bus driver (who suddenly decided he couldn’t speak English anymore) stopped a good mile short of the border checkpoint and tried to palm us all off onto some eager moto drivers who were already fighting over our luggage.

Pink bus to Thailand, I wouldn’t travel any other way.

I was tired but somehow managed to get my backpack back on-board the bus and dropped off next to immigration control. I got my two-week visa on arrival with little fuss (1 month when you arrive by air) and mooched off across the border into Thailand. A minibus driver collared me on the other side (the bus company had stuck some blue tape on my shirt so he’d recognize me?!?) and I got crammed onto a tiny, sweaty bus for a six-hour journey to Bangkok.

I was fucked by the time I stepped out into the neon-lit chaos of Khao San Road. It was as soulless and expensive as ever so I got one of the street venders to rustle me up some Pad Thai for a dollar and went to get my head down in my unimpressive $15 room (trying my best to sleep through the badly blasted out Bob Marley covers). I got the shuttle bus to Suvarnabhumi airport early the next day and went to pay my respects one final time to my mate Jim, who died at the airport hotel over a year ago.

Bangkok/Mumbai (Notice the curry on the floor and the Bollywood film on the TV to the right…mint)

The five odd hour Bangkok/Mumbai flight was entertaining and gave me a much-needed taste of chaotic India. I’ve never been on a plane rammed full of drunken troublesome Indians before, who paid little attention to the seat belt signs during take-off and even less at the screaming air-hostesses. They proceeded to happily down Grants whiskey whilst passing around

Air Asia’s snazzy looking departure lounge

the in-flight meals and generally stood around in the aisle chatting. I watched ‘The Don’ (an Amitabh Bachchan classic) and soaked up the madness, it being by far my most entertaining flight to date. I got some grief off the pretty mean customs officials in Mumbai who seemed determined to find something untoward in my luggage but my winning smile melted their stony heats. I eventually found my way to Air India’s departures lounge where I slept for a while curled up on a couch. I had to get up after a few brief hours for my early morning flight back home to the UK. The ten-hour flight was turbulence all the way but I consoled myself with white wine and ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ on the chair TV. It seemed like a really long flight but we eventually landed at Heathrow just before dinnertime. After standing around baggage collection for over an hour I finally spotted my backpack and yoga mat and, grabbing said items, made a dash downstairs to jump aboard the airport underground to Victoria station. I was very tired at this point, in need of a wash and it felt like I’d been on the road for days.

London was sunny, which I was very happy about as I’d lost my Burton’s hoodie in a Cambodian guest-house a few months back and only had a couple of dirty T-shirts to my name. I ate a quick bag of proper chips in a park next to the coach station and was just in time to jump on the four-thirty bus to Middlesbrough, the last leg of my long journey. Six and a half hours later I rocked up at Boro bus station, stinking and totally nackered but satisfied that I’d finally made it home.

 

 

The End….

The End

The temples of Angkor

The days cycling around the ancient temples of Angkor didn’t really help the sweaty fungal infection that had started to spread across my inner thigh; being the hero that I am though I applied some cream and persisted to pedal along through the heat. Angkor Wat was undergoing renovations so the iconic structure was blighted and slightly un-photogenic due to scaffolding and too many fat Americans in sun-hats asking me to “please get out of their shot.”

“Are you fucking serious….this is Asia’s premier tourist attraction and you want all your photos not to contain any other tourists….good luck with that one you fuckers,” I think as I casually stand in shot and stare blankly into the lush jungle surrounding Angkor Wat.

“Seriously,” one of the fat Americans shouts from the bottom of the stairs. Her arse is big enough for her camera and the massive lens attached to be comfortably shoved up it but I resist the temptation and stroll down the stairs as a sea of eager fat Americans stand, cameras in hand,waiting for that money shot without little old me in it. As soon as I’m out of said shot some more tourists appear at the top of the stairs and they begin to bitch all over again.”Hey guy, can you, like,

Angkor Wat

get out of my shot?” ……….Cunts!

I jump on my bike and try to find somewhere a bit more remote…….and fail. These ancient temples are so swamped in tourists that today I do not feel like Indiana Jones, Tomb raider or even that slightly adventurous dog out of that shit old TV series. I have to give in and join the hordes of snap happy westerners as I cycle through the jungle from temple to temple, avoiding the strategically situated stalls and the ubiquitous shouts of, “Hey, you buy coconut?” “You wan food friend?” “Hey friend, you like buy book?” As I park my cycle and wander up the well-worn path to my sixth temple I notice the sixth musical band made up from former landmine victims, who learnt to love music, sitting by the path hawking their CD’s at tourists. The music is OK but these guys are no Creedence so I bow my head and ignore them as  I walk on by.

Bitching aside these temples are amazing and it’s understandable that so many people flock here each year. As I only have one day here (I couldn’t afford the $60 three day ticket) I furiously cycle from temple to temple, each one becoming a little more deserted and more to my taste. “I wish I had longer to explore here,” I think as I sip a coconut and get hassled by the venders daughter to buy a bracelet. “C’mon, I bought a coconut.”

One of the giant stone faces at Banyon

“No, you buy bracelet.”

“I don’t want a bracelet.

“Book.”

“Go away.”

“Magnet.” I suppose I’ll have to buy some souvenirs at some point. We settle for three fridge magnets for a dollar and I jump back on my bike to try to nail the remainder of the temples before sunset.

I’m fucking knackered by the time I get back to Siem Riep. A pupil from a local school cycles back with me and we shoot the shit until I arrive at my hotel. I have some good photo’s but think my next epic adventure is going to be way off the touristy/lonely planet radar. I contemplate this as I eat Loc Lak and sip Angkor beer in one of Siem Rieps many restaurants or bars or somewhere.

As I write this back in Phnom Penh, in a bar next to the Mekong river, a local kid comes up and tries to sell me a book. A kindly tourist has drawn some pretty stars on his face in pen followed by the words “Fuck You.” He is oblivious. It makes me laugh and a bit of beer comes out of my nose.

Doorway with some tree-type shit growing forth from it's very bones....AAAAEEEEEIIIII!!!

kampot

Imminent employment loomed like a dark cloud over my quickly dissipating free time. Nine months off work had left me feeling a little lazy.

What to do?

To escape from the horrors of reality for a little longer Rach and I decided to fit in one last mini trip in the form of a

Kampot riverside

weekend away to Kampot.

Five painless hours later we found ourselves stationed in a humble guesthouse with hammocks and a nice wooden restaurant on stilts (a nice spot from which to watch the tropical thunderstorm which hit us a couple of hours after arrival). A quick wander around the riverside town revealed some old colonial French buildings, most of which seem abandoned and were moulding and crumbling away. Dotted around the town, which sort of feels a little bit like a forgotten, once loved, town in the wild west, are spotless coffee shops selling carrot cakes and cheap filter coffee.

In Kampot there seems to be little else to do but laze, sit around, be lazy, talk shit, stare into space, eat cup cakes……..

An energetic bike ride to a quaint waterfall spot the following day yielded little waterfall action (the river being low because it’s dry season), but we did find a rather idyllic little bank to wile away the day by the side of the river. Rural Cambodia displayed itself in all it’s simple glory; basic wooden houses on stilts, bananas growing fresh in people’s back yards, chickens and roosters wandering around by the roadside, shoeless children laughing and joking in the red soil whilst their kind eyed parents relax from the baking sun under halve-collapsed wooden shelters (as well as the odd local playing on his i-phone). From the road lush greenery abounded in all directions, with the odd moss-green hill jutting high up into the skyline.

Time flew past no matter how much I attempted to drag the diminishing hours out. I read slowly and thoughtfully, started annoying philosophical discussions with Rachael and went to bed really late. Nothing worked and before I knew it I was back in Phnom Penh, nervously waiting for the six O’clock start the following morning, where I would be required to put on my teaching hat and blag my way through FIVE forty-five minute to an hour and a half long English classes….

Reality sucks!

local on iphone

Time to come home :(

Cambodia independence monument

I went back to my tiny box-room, disheartened after another day of fruitless job hunting. My one shirt was soaked in sweat after manically tramping around in the 35 degree heat all day, going from school to school. Over one month in the city and not a single offer of work. The recent floods in Thailand (and the recession in Europe) caused a lot of teachers to head over to their less developed neighbour, Cambodia,  looking for work . There was once a time when all you needed was a basic grasp of the English language and whitish skin and, no matter how much of a clown you were, you’d waltz into a high paid teaching job. I was beginning to question if I’d made the right decision coming here.

“Tuk-Tuk?”

Phnom Penhs charm is at first not so noticeable. It is a strange city full of ex-pat rejects and seedy looking old perverts here for the cheap women and readily available, over the counter Valium prescriptions. The roads are chock-a-block full of insane ‘moto’ drivers who will happily run you over, offer a quick apology and proceed to floor it through a red light. It’s a city where people can get shot in the arse for kicking a rich young Khmers souped-up 4×4 (this actually happened to someone the other night who was told if he didn’t leave the city within 48 hours he would be killed); where on every corner five Tuk-Tuk drivers will all ask in unison “where you go?” “you wan’ Tuk-Tuk?” If you head down the local shopping mall you will find limbless beggars sitting outside whilst rich couples eat $5 ice cream sundaes in air-conditioned café’s.

I guess if you spend enough time anywhere it starts to feel like home, and Phnom Penh did after a while. The local market became a sanctuary where I would escape the hassle and baking heat to scran down with the locals on cheap spring rolls and offal soup. As my funds were about done in I got myself into a rather pathetic routine of sitting in my room watching wanky American reality TV whilst tucking into my meagre fare of gherkins and crusty bread. I began to resent the frivolous backpackers who would splash their dollars around, unaware that I could eat for a day on what they were spending on smoothies….bastards.

I would wake and wander the streets of Phnom Penh. I would read poetry on the banks of the Mekong river whilst being

Child beggar collecting rubbish by the river

hassled by child beggars. I would drink unlimited black coffee in the ‘all-you-can eat-breakfast-buffet’ and fill my bag full of Bananas to eat for my tea later on. I would hand out CV after CV to schools in a futile, last-ditch, attempt at continuing my travels.

Just when I’d resigned myself to life on the dole in Boro a glimmer of hope presented itself. The school in town widely regarded as the equal opportunity institution (in the sense that it will equally employ any old paedophile or glue sniffer) gave me a call. I had an interview the following Monday. The ‘director general’ (as he liked to call himself) sat behind his huge desk in military attire and insisted in being called ‘your excellency’ throughout the interview. The prick offered me the job though. One week later my friend Rachael put her Sri Lanka plans on hold and flew over to join me after hearing my overly excitable plans for life together in the city. Little was she to know that I would not even turn up for work the first day after deciding the school was shite and more than a little bit Orwellian (with cameras and microphones in the classrooms monitoring my every move and the required purchase of a different coloured shirt for everyday of the week….not to mention that I would have to pay $7 a piece for my own textbooks).

Now there were two of us.

The stuffy room we stay in has regular power cuts and we are woken up at 6.30 every morning by some drill happy pack of fuckers on a nearby building site. The hotel dog shits outside of our door most days. Veggie Rachael doesn’t quite appreciate the pieces of lung and brain that she keeps finding floating in her vegetable soup.

My $4 a night box room

Over one month later we are both depressed, out of cash and I’m just about to book a flight home. I don’t want to go home but as we have both heard nothing else on the job front I see little other option. I sit looking at cheap Air-Asia flights and Rachael tells me to wait just one more day before I book anything……… Just one more day.

The next morning we are woke up by the phone ringing. On the other end is a lady offering us both an interview for two full-time English teacher positions in the same school. Sounds a bit like fate huh?

Weird!

We get the job.

‘Holiday in Cambodia’

 

And so it is Christmas (or boxing day at least), and I sit on the soft sandy beach of Sihanoukville, on the Cambodian coast, watching the crystal blue waters lap up against my feet, feeling, surprisingly, a little sorry for myself. I can’t blame the Khmers for turning this picturesque coast into a cash cow; milking the idyllic spot for as many dollars as it’s worth. Endless rows of obvious cheap bar after bar (with the same old repetitive drivel blasting out of every speaker), prostitutes smiling coquettishly at every drunken white face and overly priced hotels ( I wasn’t impressed with my Buddhist host hiking the price up for Christmas…..fuckers). The limbless beggars (Cambodia is the landmine capital of the world) are everywhere, warm smiles attempting to melt the stony/skinflint backpackers hearts, and failing miserably it seems.

The Khmers have had a tough time of it. In the seventies the ruling Khmer rouge, led by the infamous Pol Pot, killed in cold blood a third of the population as he put into play his masterplan for a communist utopia of farm workers. Intellectuals were the first to bite the bullet, literally, whilst babies had the pleasure of having their tiny skulls bashed in against trees to save ammunition. So I say again, I don’t blame the impoverished Khmers for making a quick buck when they can, but I resent spending the festive season surrounded by western meat-heads with little in their heads, except maybe Mekong whiskey; or fat, balding men with faded tattoos, beer bellies and dubiously aged wenches in hot pants hanging on their lecherous arms. After all the soul and beauty of India and Nepal this seedy destination does little for my spirit. My prison cell of a room is like an oven due to the fact the powers been off for two days and the air-con is, thus, disabled.

Christmas day I’ve had enough and board a bus to Phnom Penh (the Cambodian capital). If I don’t find a job here, in this hotbed of ex-pat debauchery, my options don’t look good. I must say though that the ‘if you cant beat them join them’ approach is looking grim.

Shit……I’ll think of something

Merry Christmas!

Bangkok baby

I stepped off the plane at Bangkok airport and was greeted by the heat wave as it hit me in the face. A bald-headed monk barged past me, shouting into his touch phone whilst two others lingered on-board to have their photos taken with the Thai air hostesses. After acquiring a free thirty-day visa at the arrivals desk I grabbed my luggage and, deciding against the extortionate taxis, hopped upon the cheap underground metro, heading towards the city centre. I sat on my backpack and watched the neon lights of the city at night whizz past my eyes through the window, casting the occasional glance at the two police officers stood by my side, each carrying a revolver and a belt full of bullets (very wild west).

I got off at Makkasan station and was immediately shocked. “Fuck me, this is clean,” I thought; not a single crisp packet, no wild cows, not a sleeping family or vagrant in sight.

Scott-Dog ain’t in India no more.

The same level of cleanliness continued as I strolled down the street, where I was eventually accosted by a taxi driver.

“Where you go sir?” He asked me with a big grin on his face.

“Khao San road,” I told him (The neon lit backpacker haven).

The Thais are a very passive Buddhist race and his attempts at haggling with me fell short as I put my hardcore Indian bartering skills to practice. I got the price I wanted with little effort.

The night-time streets were lined with fairy lights as we drove down the immaculately kept Bangkok roads, around landscaped roundabouts and neatly trimmed bushes.

“Shit, it’s clean,” I kept on thinking.

Khao San Road

Fifteen minutes later I was wondering down Khao San road, feeling a little uncomfortable. The bright, noisy street was crammed full; with more ‘farangs’ (foreigners) than I’d spotted on my entire Indian odyssey put together; lots of them with a token Thai girl hanging on their tattooed arms. The bars were rowdy; full of people smoking, shouting, drinking, dancing, showing more flesh than my newly adopted Indian sensibilities could handle. This was going to be a culture shock all over again. I found a cheap flop house for about a 180 Bhat (£3), dumped my stuff and wandered out to find somewhere to have my first authentic Thai curry (It was gooooood man). The first night I didn’t drink and felt very out-of-place (is there anything else to do here??). The next night I hit the bars.

After five Chang beers and I found myself chatting to a large, tattooed Norwegian biker called Gaia and his Thai girlfriend Nong. We hit it off and arranged a day trip for the following morning to Kanchanaburi, western Thailand, to visit the legendary ‘Bridge over the river Kwai’. I turned down a couple offers for a ‘massage’ on the way back to the guest house and hit the sack.

One of Bangkok's mint roundabouts

Gaia and Nong knocked me out of bed the next morning and I dragged my groggy arse along with them to the nearby minibus stop.

“Where you go?” the slightly annoyed ticket agent asked us, sat on a very official looking plastic desk in the middle of the busy street.

“Err….the bridge over the river Kwai.”

“Where about?”

“I don’t know, it’s in Kanchanaburi. It’s quite famous.”

Nong ratted at him in Thai and I was soon fast asleep on the comfortable bus (and with not a pothole in sight actually slept quite soundly). Five hours later we arrived. I woke up and wiped the saliva off my chin and T-shirt.

Sad to say but I was unmoved by death railway bridge (which ends in Burma and was used to move supplies by the Japanese during World War 2), not because I felt no empathy for the hundreds prisoners of war who died constructing it (the working conditions were horrendous), more due to the fact, like everything of interest, it has become a touristy strip of the same old restaurants and bars with little soul. After lunch and a speedboat trip down the river my new friends and I returned to Bangkok.

The bridge over the river Kwai at sunset

My four short days in Thailand’s capital city flew by and I said my goodbyes (promising to catch up with the couple in Nong’s village near the Thai/Cambodian border at some point) and jumped on a bus to Suvarnabhumi airport. The last thing I needed to do before leaving the city was pay my respects to my dear departed friend Jim Smith who died at the Novotel Airport Hotel a little over a year ago. The staff there planted a bush for him in the spot where he died which has become a place of pilgrimage for family and friends alike.

I boarded the plane for Phnom Penh, Cambodia, a short while later.

My dear friend. Thanks for the inspiration.x x x

Where my mate Jim passed on. Check out his inspiring blog at jimislost.wordpress.com

Bangkok pink taxi

Last stop Calcutta

Typical Calcutta street scene

On your marks......

Howrah train station with its twentyplus platforms was awash with people curled up on the floor, all trying to get some sleep in before their train turns up. It is three O’clock in the morning. A man pushing a water tank on wheels detaches the hose and starts to spray the floor; furious commuters jump up and scream at him. He tells them to move on. Every inch of floor space that isn’t soaked is taken though and they have nowhere else to go. I’ve bagged a chair and, although my arse is dead, refuse to move. Rachael is turning up in three hours. I don’t know on which train, what platform or even where she’s heading from. The twenty odd platforms stretch as far as the eye can see (half of them being housed in a separate building to my left).

Good luck mate, pick the right one

…….I don’t

I walk home tired and frustrated at seven in the morning quite confident that I missed Rachael somewhere in the manic station. I cross the bridge spanning the Hoogly river and pull my hoodie over my head, stepping over sleeping families and dogs. People wake early and wash in the streets and gutters. The sleeping city explodes into colour and noise. I hit the sack at some time after seven. She turns up at my guest house an hour later. I feel relieved. The room has bed bugs and we have an uncomfortable nights sleep. Calcutta budget accommodation is the worst I’ve yet seen; big city prices attached to miserable hovels. The next day we find something better and set off to visit Mother Theresa’s mission for the first mass I’ve had to sit through since I renounced Catholicism. It wasn’t very interesting and the holy water left a little burn mark on my forehead.

Mother Theresa tomb. "You did it to me" written in marigolds. Who did it to ya Theresa? I'll fucking kill him

It’s damn hot and the streets are busy but somehow maintain some sort of order. I conjecture this (as well as the crumbling colonial architecture) is a remnant of the English empire.

We eat Bengali food (think Indian Tapas) in a restaurant where the walls were dotted with drawings by the father of West Bengals famous film director Santajit Ray. I’m a big fan of his and the food turns out to be delicious. Later on we watch the new mission impossible flic at the cinema munching on cheese popcorn and drinking strong black coffee.

We wander the streets taking in the sights, eating in local restaurants and getting hassled by urchins, beggars, rickshaw drivers and the fruit venders. We both agree that Calcutta is our favourite of the Indian cities we’ve visited thus far.

Three comfortable days vanish and I find myself saying goodbye to Rachael AGAIN?!?! I board my flight to Bangkok and say a sorrowful goodbye to India, the love of my life. She jumps on a train to Goa.

Santajit Rays pops artwork