January 2007
→ Lag
(31st January 2007)
I thought jet lag had passed me by, after two days of normal bedtimes and normal up-times. Until today. Wide awake at 4am. Doing the shopping at Tesco's at 7am. At the chemist's for an antidote to Immodium at 9am. And now I'm knackered. The last time I was in Tesco's at an ungodly hour, there was a policeman standing in ...
→ Crime
(29th January 2007)
Date: 28 January 2007
Time: 20.30
Location: Immigration (UK Passports), Terminal 3, Heathrow Airport
Crime: Attempting to enter one's own country
Report for submission:
Subject, half-dead from exhaustion, valium and Immodium, hands passport to immigration official.
Immigration official swipes the passport. Immigration official looks puzzled. Immigration official swipes passport again.
Immigration official to half-dead British subject - Has your passport got wet, madam?
Subject - I don't know.
Immigration official - ...
→ Karma
(28th January 2007)
What does one do on one's last day of a two and a half month trip to wonderful places, all of which was accomplished in pretty much perfect health? One gets the runs.
I blame Sonu. The adorable smiley-faced Sonu who is the cook at the beach camp I was staying in. He took a shine to me. We played beachball. Then he served me dodgy ...
→ Consett
(25th January 2007)
An example of the kind of conversation that can be heard over breakfast in a beachside cafe. Cast: One Cockney couple. One Geordie couple. One eavesdropping Yorkshirewoman trying to read John Le Carre. Cockney man: Do you know what time it is?Geordie couple (man), in Geordie accent: 11.30Cockney man: Are you from Newcastle?Geordie couple: Aye not far. ...
→ Exotica
(24th January 2007)
There is, I repeat, little of interest to be written about beach idylls, delightful though they are to experience in reality. But today some surprising things happened. Namely:I went to a beach that was even more of an idyll - more sand, fewer people, fewer shacks - and in the morning, emerging from the toilet block, nearly got brained by a coconut. I've never been ...
→ Goan
(22nd January 2007)
On the way to Delhi domestic airport to catch a much-longed for flight back to Goa, my taxi for a while drove alongside an elephant.
An elephant. In Delhi traffic, along with horns and scooters and three-wheelers and taxis and trucks and beggars and cows.
About twenty minutes later, my taxi for a while drove alongside a camel battalion. The camels were being ridden/driven by Indian soldiers who ...
(18th January 2007)
I have been in the mountains. The Himalayas are very beautiful and very bloody cold. Like the Japanese, the mountain-dwelling Indians do not to associate the concept of "freezing" with the concept of "heating." I arrived at my weirdly named Hunted Hill Hotel in Mcleod Ganj, just up the very steep road from the Dalai Lama's place, dumped my stuff and went off to a ...