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PART 4:
A TOSSPOT IN ASIA
Non-fiction by Keith Skellern
BALI
We arrived at Denpassar Airport and went straight to Kuta Beach, which
was the place to go. In those days Bali was relatively unspoilt, there
were a couple of big hotels, but most of the accommodation consisted
of small beachside hotels. This suited us fine; we quickly found a
place near the beach and headed off down there after checking in. The
beach was beautifully white and the sea turquoise, with waving palm
trees in the background, paradise!
It was also infested with sales people, selling cold drinks, carvings,
jewelry, sarongs and gemstones etc. These people were not aggressive
back then and if you said no, they would walk away. Amongst them were
school kids after classes, most of them selling drinks (including
Bintang Beer) from little round eskies filled with ice.
This of course was irresistible to a tosspot; I bought a drink from
one little kid and soon had his brothers and sisters around me. I got
used to them and would only buy drinks from them. They sort of adopted
me and every morning when I went down to the beach, I’d lay out my
towel and before I could sit down they would be there, offering me a
beer.
I’d refuse at first, (8:00am is a tad on the early side) until I’d
been for a bit of a dog paddle and backstroke with a touch of
breaststroke (swimming that is). After this ‘strenuous’ exercise I
would return to my towel, as dry as a butcher’s dog internally, mostly
because I had swallowed a half gallon of seawater (I’m still not the
world’s greatest dog-paddler).
This was when my little buddies came to the fore, not only had they
watched over my towel, shorts, wallet and watch and jealously guarded
them from other sellers. They were there with an ice cold Bintang and
as soon as that was finished, another was thrust into my fist at a
ridiculously low price. The only proviso was that they got the
empties, as they were paid a few Rupiah if they returned them.
I learned a lot from these kids even though we didn’t speak the same
lingo. Apparently there are/were only four names for kids in Bali,
Wayan (No 1), Made (No2), Nuoman (No3) and Nengah, from memory. They
then go back to Wayan. The kids were usually dressed in shorts or
dresses on the beach, but would leave before 10am and get into their
school clothes, which were immaculately white blouses/shirts and blue
skirts/shorts. Who knows how their mothers managed this, as they were
washed in roadside drains and hung up to dry on bushes?
After school, the kids would get changed into their ‘beach clothes’
and head back down to the beach to ‘fleece’ the foreigners. My mob
were very loyal and stayed close, mainly because I was ‘over generous’
and always gave them a few extra Rupiah, but also because I liked them
and made them laugh. What really used to bug me, were ‘foreigners’
complaining about the sellers harassing them and then haggling them
down to a few Rupiah (hundredths of a cent) for their little holiday
keepsakes?
There’s nothing wrong with haggling, the locals like it and treat it
as a bit of a game, if you agreed to the first price they offered,
they’d look at you as if you were mad. But some of the tourists got
carried away and were coming back to their hotels saying how they had
got a bargain, and comparing their prices a hundred Rupiah or so. They
wouldn’t even have bent down to pick up the equivalent off the street
back home.
When we weren’t on the beach, we’d be doing the usual touristy things,
the Bat Caves, Monkey Forest, Rocky Temple and rice terraces. We also
visited the artists colony in Ubud, specially for Stalz, but he was a
bit disappointed as their art was very stylised and looked a lot like
the stuff you could buy on the beach, unless you were a connoisseur.
Vince picked up a rather delectable young, topless French girl on the
beach and I settled for a ‘local’ wench, the locals claimed she wasn’t
a Balinese, but must have been a Javanese, to behave like that. This
didn’t quite gel as the Javanese are mainly Moslem.
SINGAPORE
We had a week in Bali and then flew to Singapore, in 1976 it was a bit
of a seedy place, although Pres. Lee was trying to clean it up.
Longhaired hippies (which didn’t apply to us, we’d all been shorn
before leaving Aus) had to stand at the end of the queue in PO’s etc
and anybody could go in front of them. Subtle eh!
There was quite a lot to see there, so we visited most of the popular
places, back in the days before it became too commercialised. Tiger
Balm Gardens was quite neat. Tiger Balm is an ointment used widely in
Asia to cure every ailment under the sun, you name it, it cures it.
The gardens had been built by the owner of the Balm and consisted
mainly of miniature, plaster cast figurines being tortured in various
ingenious ways. These were set in a beautiful botanical garden.
Other attractions were the various food markets, some floating and
others not. The famous Raffles Hotel from the old Colonial Days, very
picturesque; and also Sentosa Island. This had been the site of the
infamous gaol, where some of the Allied troops had been incarcerated
during WWII. Even back then, there was also the cheap shopping
available. We weren’t really interested in this, as we were traveling
light and still had a long way to go.
We stayed at a place just off Bugis Street, which was infamous for
it’s nightly parade of transvestites. Gorgeous looking creatures, one
of whom I almost got into a fight with, after making a, none too
subtle, remark. The hotel was a real fleapit. When we signed out after
two nights, we signed the guest register; there was page after page,
where the guests had put down their occupation as ‘Seaman’. Wanting to
add a little variety, we wrote ‘Captain of Industry’, ‘Brain Surgeon’,
‘Gynecologist’ and ‘Proctologist’. Ah! The joys of immature stupidity.
MALAYSIA
We then headed for Malaysia on Singapore Airlines. Such hedonism! A
choice of Orange Juice or champagne on boarding, served by the sexiest
hostesses in the world. A delicious snack and as much alcohol as you
could guzzle, which wasn’t much, as it was less than an hours flight
to Kuala Lumpur (KL) Airport.
In KL we stayed at the Railway Station Hotel, if you stayed in a place
with a name like that in England or Aus, it would be a real dive. In
KL it is and was a magnificent Raj style edifice, almost on a par with
the Taj Mahal. It would have to be the most magnificent railway
station in the world.
In those days the interior was as palatial as the façade. My ‘suite’
consisted of a bedroom with a four poster bed, a lounge room with
armchairs and coffee table, and a bathroom with a bath with claw feet.
There were overhead fans in the main rooms and the whole thing was not
expensive, as the rooms were used by overnight rail travelers, I
guess.
After a night in KL, which was basically a large Asian City, we flew
to Georgetown in Penang on Malaysian Air Services (MAS), did I say
Singapore Airlines was the best? I’m not too sure about that. We went
immediately up the coast to Batu Ferringhi which means foreigner’s
beach in Malay, from what I remember.
When we got there we booked into a likely looking hotel run by a
couple of young blokes one of them Chinese and the other Indian. It
turned out that the hotel was a local ‘knocking shop’. At all hours of
the day, blokes would turn up with their secretaries/girl-friends and
spend an hour or so there and then head off back to work, or whatever.
Vijay and Han would then go into the room and replace the sheets and
wait for the next couple.
We stayed in the background during the evenings (there wasn’t a great
nightlife going on), playing cards and imbibing the local brew, not
wanting to embarrass the ladies any more than absolutely necessary.
We stayed in Penang for a few days and did the touristy bit during the
day visiting a few temples and spending a fair bit of time on the
beach. The owner of the hotel was an old Chinese guy called Uncle Ho
and he owned a couple of other hotels, he was about to open a new one
and tried to pick our brains for a name. He did this by supplying
copious quantities of beer. The best I could come up with was ‘Ho! Ho!
Ho’s Cheap Inn’ (This was 1975? remember) and Crom came up with ‘Dew
Drop Inn’. I think Uncle Ho wasted his beer.
THAILAND
On to Bangkok on Thai Airlines (If these airlines keep getting any
better, I thought, I’m going to spend the rest of my life flying
around the world!). Bangkok, a very large, polluted city with some
wonderful sights and some of the most beautiful women in the world,
not necessarily in that order.
We stayed at the ‘Malaysia Hotel’ which was ‘The’ place to stay for
back-packers in those days, not too many questions asked about female
guests and the smell of marijuana. It was also very close to Patpong
Road, which was the site of one of the ‘Red Light’ districts in
Bangkok. It consisted of a block of a couple of roads and adjoining
lane-ways with dozens of bars and strip joints.
Most of the places had a great selection of young ‘ladies’, who
between performances would sit with the clientele (if you could
dignify such a mob of drunken, perverted, ne’er do wells with such an
honorific), drinking ‘Champagne’. During their performances which as
well as ‘Pole Dancing’ included such ‘props’ as Ping-Pong balls,
bananas, razor blades and cigarettes. If you expect me to elaborate,
forget it, go and see for yourself. It was interesting to say the
least.
Apart from the nightlife we did at least visit a few ‘Wats’ (temples)
and took a boat-trip up the Chao Phraya (?) to have a look at the
Royal Temples. If this was a for real travelogue, I would wax poetic
about the beauties of the Wat Po and Buddhist monks and reclining
Buddhas, but it isn’t so I won’t!
The pollution in Bangkok got to us after a couple of days, so we
caught a bus down to Pattaya Beach, a few hours south on the coast.
Pattaya was similar to Patpong with a few thousand bars and not so
much of the raunchiness. The beach was a fairly narrow sort of a thing
and the sea wasn’t the cleanest, but at least you could breathe and
the women were definitely up to scratch. Not in the way you are
thinking (the not so nice way!) although I must admit that I have
never seen so many VD Clinics in such a small area.
We spent about a week there and thoroughly enjoyed it’s nefarious
attractions. From there we went back to Bangkok and said goodbye to
Stalz on his way to Kenya and then up to Egypt and arranged to see him
again, at a prearranged date and place in Athens. Vince, Crom and me
bought the stuff we needed for a week in Burma.
In those days you could only get a visa valid for seven days. The
Lonely Planet Guide recommended buying a bottle of Johnny Walker Red
and a carton of State Express 555 cigarettes, which me and Vince
promptly did. Crom being a smart arse Yank bought a bottle of Johnny
Walker Black and a carton of Benson and Hedges Gold. We then caught a
flight to Rangoon, I’m not sure what airline it was, maybe Burma Air,
but it was a definite come down from Thai. My dreams of flying around
the world in unashamed luxury were dashed to the ground. (Luckily,
metaphorically not literally.)
We had no sooner left the plane at a sort of run-down hangar than we
were surrounded by drivers of WW II vintage cars wanting to give us a
good rate for the trip to the ‘Y’ downtown and a better rate for the
whisky and smokes. Vince and I off-loaded ours at the going rate and
Crom had to accept a worse rate for his better quality goodies. This
offended his capitalist sensibilities somewhat; the number of Kyats we
got, should have been enough to pay for the week we there.
When we got to the YMCA hostel we discovered that our sleeping
accomodation consisted of four rows of wooden, interconnected beds
along the walls and down the middle of the room. This would have slept
a planeful of backpackers and seeing as nobody else would have been
insane enough to even contemplate a holiday in Burma, we were the only
tourists.
We had a ‘meal’ in the dining room, looking out through plate-glass
windows (these must have been a throwback to the times of the British
Raj, as was the whole country come to think of it) at a rubbish strewn
courtyard with rats as big as emaciated greyhounds. If the food wasn’t
bad enough to send you on a crash diet, the ambience certainly was
After that little debacle, we decided to have a look around downtown
Rangoon. There was no traffic on the roads, the taxi drivers having
got their stickies on the contraband must have absconded to divvy up
their loot and conserve petrol, until the next plane arrived in a
week’s time. We spent a bit of time admiring the dilapidated buildings
but as far as cities go, I’ve seen more interesting hamlets.
That night we went out to a faded, old colonial hotel. There were a
couple of waiters and a Maitre D’ dressed in their old fashioned
original uniforms and we were the only customers. I drank half a dozen
bottles of beer and tried to talk to them, but they were a bit
reticent, very friendly but not inclined to talk too much.
After we left them there were a few streetlights on and dozens of kids
trying to catch the grasshoppers that were attracted to the light. The
three of us joined in and were decidedly unwelcome, until we gave our
catches to the kids. After that everybody was yelling and laughing at
the stupid foreigners. We found out later that ‘roast, crunchy
grasshoppers’ were considered a delicacy and an important source of
protein
.
That night in the dormitory was an interesting one for Crom and Vince
because it was unisex, with nothing to hide behind. That pair of
bastards got a good eyeful, but being a myopic sod, and not being able
to see beyond the end of my snotbox without my glasses, I went to
sleep.
The following day, we caught a train to Mandalay, I can’t really
recommend traveling first class, on hard wooden slatted seats for 14
–15 hours. God knows what second class was like. Every station we got
to, the train was boarded by food sellers peddling ‘Crunchy
grasshoppers’ (what more could you ask for after capturing their
cousins), cold rice on banana leaves and a sort of vegetable samosa
(at least they were edible, and I’ve never been partial to rice). They
also sold mangoes and icy fruit juice and as it was bloody hot, these
disguised the purifier tablets and were most welcome.
I can’t remember where we stayed in Mandalay; it must have been some
sort of hotel in its heyday. I do remember drinking beer at ten
o’clock the next morning with a few old locals with a smattering of
English. It turned out that the hotel got a ration of a 9-gallon keg
of beer for the day and once that was gone there was no more. They
very kindly didn’t mind sharing with me and we had a good, if
difficult, conversation.
We were lucky enough to acquire the services of a well-educated
English-speaking guide. Having decided that we were sympathetic,
ordinary tourists he gave us a very good tour of a city, which had not
seen a coat of paint or any other improvements in the last quarter of
a century. He also described the deprivations of the ordinary people
under the military junta headed by Ne Win and showed us around some of
the cottage industries that had sprung up, including a ‘factory’
producing cast iron statues in a thatched lean-to.
Some of the temples were impressive, especially the ‘Golden Pagoda’
which as its name suggests had a solid gold? Gold-plated? Pagoda and
reclining Buddha. We left our newfound friend with a generous tip and
went back to the hotel.
The next day he took us to see ‘The World’s Largest Book’ this is just
outside Mandalay and consists of over 600 temples spread over a large
area, with each temple containing one page of scripture. As each
temple is different and stands about 20+ feet high it is very
difficult to describe and impossible to photograph. He also showed us
what was left of the wooden palace, which had been used by the Burmese
Royal Family. This was burned down in WWII by either the Brits or the
Japs, vandalism on an epic scale.
We were going to go on to Pagan and then travel by boat down the
Irrawaddy to Rangoon, but we were running out of time so we flew to
Rangoon. We stayed at the ‘Y’ again and I made a big mistake, thinking
that we were going back to the old hotel, I changed a few too many
dollars for Kyats at the official rate.
We went back to the old hotel and I was suffering from beer
deprivation, unfortunately they had sold out. There was I, with a
fistful of Kyats, not worth the paper they were printed on, outside
Burma. One of the old retainers suggested a ‘Singapore Sling’ this
turned out to be a mixture of an alcoholic spirit called ‘Tin Le Boo’
(or so I was told) with an orangey mixture masquerading as juice.
After the ‘Singapore Sling’ I was offered a ‘Bloody Mary’, same thing
with reddish stuff. After that, I started drinking quadruple ‘Tin Le
Boo’s’ straight, in an attempt to get value for money for my excess
Kyats. This resulted in the whole staff of the hotel (all four of
them) coming out to witness this insanity.
Insanity it was, that night I must have shouted ‘Ralph’ in the toilet
and lost my specs somewhere in the filth. I did manage to make the
plane the next day and strangely enough, I have spoken to travellers
since and nobody has ever heard of a spirit called ‘Tin Le Boo’,
perhaps it’s a figment of my imagination!
INDIA
Another not so memorable flight to Calcutta, where if the cows were
not exactly sitting on the landing strip, they were chewing cud
contentedly, close to the edge. Calcutta was and very probably still
is the bum hole of the world, it was indescribably polluted, crowded,
filthy, stinky and poverty ridden. Between the airport and the centre
we made a unanimous decision to turn around and fly out to Delhi.
This may seem to have been a trifle hasty and unfair to the Calcuttans,
but seen through my eyes befogged behind a ‘Tin Le Boo’ haze, seemed
like an eminently sensible decision at the time.
We arrived in Delhi on the same day and either the haze had receded
somewhat, or it is a much more civilised city to visit. I’m not sure
about the rest of it, but New Delhi seemed to be full of white
government buildings in concentric circles and was reasonably clean.
We found a hotel fairly close to the centre and went out for a stroll.
One of my first encounters with a local, apart from the curbside
barbers, doctors and other assorted stallholders, was with a shoeshine
‘boy’. This charming individual asked me if I would like my shoes
shined ‘Sahib?’ As I was wearing ‘desert boots’ at the time, I
politely declined. Not to be put off, he sprayed one of my boots with
some sort of slime and repeated his original question. This time I
politely informed him that if he didn’t ferk off, quick smart, I would
stick his shoeshine box up his rectum sideways. He appeared to get the
message.
In this frame of mind, I entered a bank to get a traveler's cheque
changed and was confronted by the most pig ignorant, bank teller ever
to have told bank tales. After half an hour of arguing with this
jumped up shit, I was ready to vault (pardon the pun) the counter and
punch his lights out. Despite what you may think, I am not a normally
aggressive person. India had that effect on me, the majority of
Indians are ‘Ever so ‘umble’ Uriah Heap types, or so arrogant, if they
have a little power, that they make the French look modest.
In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, the Indian nobility have
built some magnificent monuments and forts etc. The Taj Mahal in Agra
is one of the very few man made buildings, that is even better to view
personally, than even the best photographer could possibly capture on
film. Even by itself as a mausoleum to Shah Jahan’s wife it is superb.
If the Shah had lived to complete his dream he would have had an
identical version on the other side of the river built in black marble
as a mausoleum to himself.
There is also the ‘Red Fort’ in Agra, which is also intertwined with
Shah Jahan’s story. Apparently his son imprisoned him in a room there
and he could see the reflection of the Taj through a small mirror on
the ceiling, so his son had his eyes put out. Not a great example of
filial devotion!
We also stopped at some ruins somewhere between Agra and Delhi that
had been a bigger city than London or Paris at the time. I seem to
recall that it was built there, because one of the rulers conceived a
son there and decided it was a lucky place. There was however no water
immediately available, as it was built in the middle of an arid plain
and was eventually abandoned. I haven’t a clue what it was called or
what it’s relevance is to history.
Well that’s about it for India, the second most populous country on
Earth reduced to a few paragraphs. It only rated a similar number of
photographs in my album as well, but I never promised a comprehensive
travelogue.
I must digress for a moment here (it’s about time for a bit of a
digress, which is relevant for a change). Photography; during my
travels at this particular time I was carrying a cheap 125mm camera
that, being a congenital cheapskate, I had purchased in an op-shop in
Perth. When the few photos that I took were developed, they turned out
to be rather pathetic looking specimens, measuring about three and a
half inches square.
The colour of these (If it ever existed), has now deteriorated and
they resemble the sepia photographs, that were taken of your Great
Aunty Maud at the turn of the century, before the last century. (My,
these centuries really whizz on past when you’re getting old, don’t
they?).
Anyway, to get to the point, if you’re setting out on one of the trips
of a lifetime, make sure you take a decent camera and take lots of
photos, you can always throw them away afterwards. Even better, you
can lose a lot of friends by boring them witless every time they visit
you, by showing them hundreds of crappy photos (Slides are even better
for this purpose, although it gives them the chance to slip away in
the dark).
There is one problem with this approach, you should never, ever take
photos of people you are likely to see again. This is because people
can’t resist looking at photos of themselves, or people they know in
embarrassing and compromising positions. Although this can be a nice
little money earner, if you’re capable of staying sober, when everyone
else is losing his or hers. (Sobriety, virginity, clothes, dinner or
whatever).
After purchasing yet another second hand camera, this time a Minolta.
I became a bit of a dab hand at the old photography game and some of
my better efforts have been blown-up and used to have pride of place
in my home. This didn’t last long, because the better half, decided to
replace them with familial photos, as is her wont.
My photos never made the Guggenheim in NY and neither did I. However,
since those glory days, I am now reduced to being a snapper again and
with the new technology, I can barely understand how the camera works,
let alone get a decent photo.
Back to India, one other thing of note, personal if not historical,
was the night of Thanksgiving (whenever that is). Crom could not let
it go by without a celebration, unfortunately it fell on a ‘no
alcohol’ day in India, these happened once a week to keep the tosspots
in line. I’m not really sure which tosspots the laws were designed to
keep in line, if it was the tourists it didn’t work too well and I’m
sure the locals had a few ‘Sly Grog’ shops around.
The place we found in Delhi that served alcohol was a five-star hotel,
which served alcohol with a meal. We went there and had a couple of
cheese sandwiches each and proceeded to get pissed on beer. This was
frowned upon and we were eventually thrown out for being a little
raucous. A fitting end to our Indian sojourn really.
NEPAL
From Delhi we flew to Kathmandu, after India we were used to the
conditions on the Sub-Continent and Nepal is reasonably clean and was
pollution free, as you would expect of a Himalayan capital. We stayed
in one of the many back-packers hotels. A delightful little hotel
called ‘The Snug Hotel’ which was very close to the old centre of
Kathmandu, Durbar Square.
Durbar Square was a fantastic jumble of old wooden temples (Stupas),
with cows wandering around, throngs of pedestrians, rickshaws and the
very occasional motorbike. Right next to the square was the bazaar,
full of stuff for the locals and the tourists, all at very cheap
prices.
Plenty of hand wringing and pleading poverty, nothing like a good old
haggle, to get them even cheaper, the locals as usual, thought you
were a complete idiot if you didn’t haggle, to them it was the best
part of the sale. You still paid through the nose, compared to the
locals but ended up with bloody good bargains, a bit like Bali on
steroids.
On the spur of the moment we decided to go trekking, partly because
most other tourists seemed to be doing it and partly because it seemed
like a good idea at the time. We picked out a trekking place at random
and advised the guy of our intentions of going for a two-week trek.
The owner advised us against going to the Everest Base Camp as it was
pretty boring until you reached Lukla after walking for a week and
every man and his three-legged dachshund went that way.
He advised us to go the other way to the Annapurna Himal, which was a
lot, more scenic and contained half a dozen of the next highest peaks.
We thought that this was sound advice and he kitted us out with boots,
down jackets and sleeping bags, waterproof pants and a couple of
tents. He also set us up with a young Nepali guide called Dupsang.
We met up with Dupsang early the next morning and caught a taxi to the
bus station. We gave Dupsang the money and he bought four tickets for
Pokhara, the start of our trek. As well as us, there was also half the
population of Kathmandu and their livestock traveling on the same bus,
or so it seemed. To say it was a tad crowded was an understatement, we
got there early and had managed to get seats (which were too small for
westerners anyway). Before we set off, half an hour later, I had three
old ladies, five kids, a piglet and a basket full of chickens sharing
the seat with me.
This claustrophobic state of affairs lasted for about another
half-hour until we had climbed out of the Kathmandu Valley. Once we
were over the ridge, the bus stopped and Dupsang indicated for us to
get out and climb onto the roof, which we did, (apparently it’s
illegal to travel on the roof, but nobody cares outside Kathmandu).
The three of us and a dozen or so local guys made ourselves as
comfortable as possible on the packs and bundles and proceeded on our
merry way. The road down was a bit tortuous and precipitous and the
driver took the turns with his horn blaring, at top speed and Buddha
help anybody on the way up.
We eventually got onto some sort of high plain and passed through
small towns and villages where we stopped to pick up and drop off
locals and bought food and drinks from the stallholders. Being a food
philistine, I stuck to samosas and beer (which were not real bad).
We arrived in Pokhara after four or five hours and booked into a
hotel. We were paying Dupsang by the day and although we told him we
would pay for his accomodation on top of that, he preferred to get us
settled first and then look after himself second.
We had a look around Pokhara, which didn’t take very long, as it’s a
fairly small town. It’s quite a picturesque sort of a place with a
beautiful lake and the snow-capped peak of Machupachare in the
background. The town itself is also very presentable with a lot of two
storey, Nepali style buildings of stone and wood and there were quite
a few tourist hotels. The Annapurna trek is second only to the Everest
trek in terms of popularity.
Early next morning Dupsang woke us with a glass of hot lemon and a
‘Namaste Mr Tom, Namaste Mr Viness and Namaste Mr Kipper’. Namaste is
Nepali for G’day, as we were soon to discover and Kipper was the
closest he could get to Keith (Even with speech coaching over a few
days, it never got past Kipper. So Kipper I became to one and all for
the next two weeks).
We had a breakfast of fried eggs and a sort of millet hot cake washed
down with a cup of black unsweetened tea. Then the trek started
properly, the three of us were used to carrying our packs, but Dupsang
as well as being hired as a guide was also used to being a porter.
I think it offended his sensibilities to have three white men carrying
packs while he only had his own personal small bundle. We came to a
sort of compromise and he carried the tent, sleeping bags, jackets and
boots, needless to say, when we weren’t wearing them. This was bulky,
but far lighter than he was used to and went some way to satisfying
his pride and ours.
The porters in Nepal carry incredible loads, they do this using a
‘tump rope’ which is a woven strip of cloth attached to a rope. The
cloth goes round the forehead and the load is attached to the rope,
this means that the weight is supported straight down the spine. I’ve
even seen one guy carrying an old lady (probably his mother) in a
wooden chair to the nearest hospital, about a four or five day walk.
To see them carrying three wooden crates full of glass coke bottles or
sheets of corrugated iron for roofing was not uncommon.
Once you get away from the sealed roads, which are few and far
between, there are no cars, motorbikes, buses or any forms of
transport, including mountain bikes (for you mad bastards who may be
thinking of trying it, don’t!) You either walk or if you’re silly
enough, run. You could also hitch a ride on a passing mini-donkey, yak
or zopche (a cross between a yak and a cow and not nearly so bad
tempered as the yak).
We chose to walk on account of the fact the fact that we didn’t have
any bloody choice. The first part of the day was alongside a dry
riverbed, which was a piece of cake. It then turned into a walk in a
dry riverbed (there is a subtle difference there), suffice it to say
that all beds can be rocky, but riverbeds are rockier than most. After
that it was almost a pleasure to contemplate a 2,000-ft ascent up a
winding pathway. (All heights in this narrative are subject to poetic
licence.) This was a roughly paved zigzag path to the top, as are most
paths up and down the lower reaches of the Himalayas.
The reason for this is pretty obvious, as the paths are the equivalent
of roads and carry all the local and through traffic. It stands to
reason that the locals are going to make a difficult climb as easy as
possible for their own convenience. Over the centuries, most of the
hills have been converted to fields for growing rice and other cereal
crops and are tilled using water buffalo and human power. To a
westerner this is very picturesque and quaint, to a local, I would
imagine that it’s a real bummer and bloody hard work.
Anyway, after climbing up the side of this hill for a couple of hours
we got to the top and had a rest at a Bhatti, a local tea house where
you could get a meal and a drink. The other two and me settled for a
cup of hot chai and a snack. To Dupsang it was a meal stop, to consume
a couple of buckets of rice, flavoured with dahl. I’d never seen
anyone consume so much rice in one go and the dahl (or daal) was
lentil soup. Dupsang was from the Everest region where they can’t grow
much rice and usually eat potatoes, which could have explained his
appetite for rice, which was bit of a luxury for him, as well as the
fact that we were happy to pay.
We walked for another couple of hours and got to a place called
Dhampus where Dupsang arranged a place for us to stay for the night
and then took off to find a place for himself. This was what happened
for the rest of the trek, we used to tease him saying that he had a
girlfriend in every village and he’d just put his hands in front of
his face in an attitude of prayer and say “Namaste”. He was a great
little bloke and very good looking, so he may well have.
He woke us early next morning with the usual glass of hot lemon,
before the crack of dawn, I’ve read a lot about this, but have never
heard it. This was to be no exception. As I had over indulged in
‘Chang’, a millet beer tasting similar to cider’ although looking more
like a milkshake and ‘Rakshi’, a fiery spirit made of millet, tasting
like ‘Tin Le Boo’ and resembling horse piss, for want of a better
phrase.
After a couple of miles we descended into the valley of the Modi Kola
River. The descent was a hell of a lot steeper than the previous days’
ascent and had me a tad worried about the journey on the way back.
What the hell! At the bottom we arrived at a place called Birethanti.
A beautiful place next to the river, we stopped at a bhatti for a meal
and then crossed a rather rickety suspension bridge over the river.
The three of us indulged in a bath in the glacial waters, which was
refreshing to say the least. I’ve never really suffered from
hangovers, but I can highly recommend a brisk stroll down a ‘mountain’
and a dousing in water, cold enough to freeze your nutsicles off, as a
cure for those who do. We then walked for another couple of hours to a
place called Tirkhedunga, where we stopped for the night. I seem to
recall another meal of fried eggs and potatoes washed down with a few
bottles of a very reasonable Nepalese Beer and sleeping like a baby.
The next morning we were woken by Dupsang with glasses of hot fresh
lemon juice and a couple of bowls of hot water to wash with (good old
Pommy showers!). After another breakfast of eggs, chappattis and black
tea, we set off again, for Ghorepani.
After a fairly easy early morning stroll we reached a climb, which is,
I’m reliably informed by the internet, ‘although paved the whole way
rises 300m in a horizontal distance of 450m’. That may not sound a
lot, if you’re young, fit and healthy, but to a tobacco ridden, (at
that time), tosspot it’s a fair ask. Especially when you are told that
we are climbing up another 1,500 metres to Ghorepani.
Needless to say, I fell a fair bit behind the other three and
although two of the bastards were also feeling the pace. I thought it
a tad unfair for them to have ten-minute breaks while I caught up and
then (to my mind) sprinting away as soon as I caught up.
Dupsang wasn’t a great deal of help, although his sympathies may have
rested with me, he felt responsible for making sure that the other
mothers didn’t get lost. Not that there was any chance of that as
there was only one path to follow. After a while I decided to enjoy
the walk rather than keep up with them. This was a good idea, as the
path went through a rhododendron forest, which even to my
alcohol-soused soul was like an enchanted place.
As I lingered there, feeling a little like Hansel, unfortunately
without Gretel and looking around for Sleeping Beauty with or without
a dwarf or two. I suddenly came to the conclusions that a) I was
knackered, b) I was bloody starving and c) I was as dry as a butcher’s
dog and badly needed a beer. I arrived in the village of Ghorepani
about twenty minutes after the others.
Ghorepani is another great Nepalese village, which is on the tourist
trail and should never be really ruined by tourism, it’s too bloody
hard to get there for your average lazy, shit-kicker. It does attract
quite a lot of reasonably adventurous tourists, but the whole of the
Annapurna Circuit doesn’t have the cachet of Everest and will never
become a Bali. After that little philosophical thought, I loved
Ghorepani.
We settled into one of the ‘many’ lodges there, with a sort of
communal bedroom with about 15-20 wooden beds. The ‘landlady’ was a
young woman who managed to cook an amazing range of different dishes
on a wood fire, by moving pans and woks around to cooler and hotter
parts of the fire. A virtuoso performance with delectable results
(although I must admit that a sun-dried, dead, dingoes donger would
have been acceptably palatable after a walk like that). I washed it
down with a fair few Nepalese Beers and a Rakshi or two and slept like
the aforementioned dingo.
Very early next morning i.e. well before the cracka, Dupsang woke us
in his usual inimitable fashion. Unsurprisingly, I was in no mood to
witness the world-renowned sunrise from Poon Hill. Tom and Vince did
witness it, but I can’t remember their reactions for obvious reasons.
After they returned we packed up and had a ‘hearty’ breakfast, or at
least they did, I settled for another couple of glasses of hot lemon
juice, which suited everyone concerned, especially the ‘Landlady’, for
whom, I professed an undying love, which remained unrequited.
From Ghorepani we walked mainly downhill (in Nepal you always go down
a bit before going up a bit more and then back down a bit more than
you just walked up or vice versa.) and eventually arrived at the
village of Tatopani.
Tatopani was, and as far as I know still is, the end of the trail for
the ‘Hippy’ trekkers. It had a few very reasonable lodges for staying
in and some good eating-places. Best of all, there is a hot spring
that flows from underground, through a series of pools into the
freezing cold river. Tatopani actually means ‘Hot water’ in Nepali
(but don’t quote me on that). It was sheer luxury to wallow in the hot
pools, before masochistically leaping into the river and back again
quick smart. The food and accomodation was also very good and we were
a bit sad to leave.
However, we still had a fair bit to go and set off the next morning,
leaving the Hippies to their toking and bathing. We set off for
Kalopani (Don’t ask me what Kalo means!) which was a few hours walk to
the north and although nowhere near as commercialised as Ghorepani or
Tatopani has some great views of Dhauligiri, (a mountain, if I haven’t
mentioned it before).
After an overnight stop there we traveled on to Tukuche and witnessed
a fascinating Buddhist Festival, with a couple of cute American girls.
I think that was the place where Dupsang found us lodgings in rather
unusual circumstances. In that area most of the houses are two storeys
and flat roofed. The bottom storey houses the animals, donkeys, cows,
dogs and suchlike. The next one is for the family quarters and the
flat roof is for storing cords of wood.
This is practical, because the animals are safe and protected from the
wind and any heat they generate goes up to the living quarters, the
valley is in a rain shadow and the wood dries out and acts as an
insulator. Any animal shit is collected and dried on the outside walls
of the house and is used for fuel. And thus ends my sermon on the
ecology of Nepal. Do not attempt to do this in downtown Des Moines,
Cricklewood or Moonee Ponds, the neighbours could possibly object.
Dupsang arranged for us to stay in a private house and the only space
they had was on the ground floor, sharing a space with the animals. To
be honest, they were kept in a separate pen and after getting a share
of the families rice daal and sinking a few changs and rakshis, we
settled down for the night in our sleeping bags.
It was only later on, after our eyes became used to the dark, that we
realised that we weren’t alone. In one corner was an old lady,
obviously on her last legs, sleeping and snoring in and on a pile of
blankets, she was still breathing when we left, so I presume she had a
couple more days left.
I think it was also there, that I discovered the fact that cows are
very partial to human shit. In the morning I had a chappatti and lemon
juice as usual and went to find a secluded place to have a crap (as
you doo). I hopped over a wall and dropped my strides (jeans) and
commenced the business at hand, so to speak.
When I was interrupted by a rather large bovine, intent on consuming
that which I was attempting to deposit. It is not an easy task to leap
backwards over a wall with your strides round your ankles (unless, of
course, you’re an adherent of the Fosbury Flop) but that morning I
accomplished it.
From there we walked on to Marpha, this would have to be the nicest
village in Nepal, it’s amazingly neat and well set out, with paved
streets and under street sewers, flushed by a stream. The houses are
all the same colour, white and ochre with the usual cords of wood on
top. Best of all they have orchards of apricots and make the most
beautiful apricot brandy you could ever hope to taste.
We stayed there for one night and I would have been happy to let the
others go on and leave me there, supping on the nectar of the gods.
Alas and alack, I had to leave my vision of Nirvana and head off up
the valley of the Kali Gandaki. This is an absolutely amazing place,
the deepest ‘valley’ in the world, with the Annapurna Himal on one
side and Dhauligiri on the other? In effect, you have two mountain
ranges on either side rising up about 18,500ft above the valley floor,
and the valley itself is about half a mile across.
Truly mind blowing; what was even more amazing, was the fact that I
was approached by a couple of enterprising young kids who sold me an
ammonite for a rupee or two. For you ignorant sods who don’t know what
an ammonite is (and I counted myself amongst you). It’s a fossil of a
shell-like doodad, which millions of years ago housed a snail like
critter in the ocean.
If you’re a Creationist, I’m perfectly happy to let you believe that
God in His Wisdom created the Himalayas and these little doodads eight
thousand years ago. You may also believe in Scientific Design, which
I’m sure has a plausible explanation. Personally, I must admit to
having a nagging doubt and think that evolution and plate tectonics
may perhaps explain this miraculous phenomenon.
Anyway, ammonite’s aside, this valley is phenomenal, in the morning
the wind rushes down from Mustang and China and in the afternoon zips
back the other way. The river, the Kali Gandaki meanders across the
bottom and the whole place is in a rain-shadow and bare of vegetation,
but judging by the heights of the paths, on either side, the thing
must really rage in the monsoon season.
After battling the head wind for a few hours, we arrived at Jomosom,
which is the administrative centre for that part of the world and even
has an airstrip. We didn’t actually see any planes landing but we did
see a windsock, so it must have been there.
Jomosom is not exactly the most exotic place in the universe, apart
from the airport and a police station and a few other buildings, there
isn’t a great deal to interest the discerning back-packer. Almost the
whole of the valley is devoid of vegetation, partly because of the
wind and lack of water, but also because anything that burns has been
burnt.
We didn’t stay there very long before heading on towards Kagbeni.
Kagbeni is on a fork in the trails between Mustang and China to the
North and possibly Tibet (don’t quote me on that) and around the
Annapurna Himal via the Torong La Pass to the Northeast.
It must have been an important staging post in the past with salt
coming from the north and god or who knows what was going up from the
south. In 1967 it looked more like a medieval fortress than a village.
It was/is enclosed by high brick walls and only had one narrow
entrance. The streets were equally as narrow and went around in a maze
between three storey buildings. I don’t know if it was built like that
to keep out marauders, or the wind, probably both
.
Dupsang got us a place for the night with a family. The kids seemed a
little strange and inbred to me, but they were all friendly enough and
the lady of the house cooked us a decent meal and I bought a few jugs
of chang and had a few rakshis with them. We slept on the middle floor
in our sleeping bags and I for one got a good night's sleep (The
soporific power of alcohol and exercise beats sleeping pills any
time).
The next day we set out for Muktinath, this was a fairly heavy slog
uphill all the way, up to about 13,00 ft (give an inch or two). That’s
about 4,000 ft in about 4 or 5 hours, after a while, your breath
starts coming in short pants which is lucky, because you’d wearing
jeans, if you had any brains and after 10,000ft they start going
astray too.
We booked in at a place in Muktinath and went for a quick look around
before dark, we were a bit too knackered to do too much, so we went
back to the lodge and settled down for the night after a light dinner.
There was no heating in the place, so everybody ‘slept’ in down
jackets and down sleeping bags on cots.
The next morning we did a tour of the temples, which were all ancient
looking and very probably are, ancient, that is. One of them has a
spring and a natural gas flame in a very small grotto; photography is
verboten, as it has a very deep significance for Buddhists and Hindus.
Combining, as it does the elements of fire, earth and water. Back in
1976, an ancient monk revealed this treasure by drawing back an old
piece of hessian sacking and we were allowed to crawl forward and gasp
in amazement.
That is a very unfair description, but not being a Buddhist or any
other ‘ist’ for that matter, I was more impressed by the frozen
spigots outside. There the faithful are supposed to bathe themselves,
although I have to admit that, I personally didn’t see any devout
souls breaking off icicles and rubbing themselves. Maybe we were there
at the wrong time of year.
Seriously though, it is an impressive place with about five temples
dedicated to various saints and well worth a visit, if you happen to
be in the neighbourhood. We started out from Muktinath in the early
afternoon and went back in an easy walk to Kagbeni and then back the
way we had come to Pokhara, over the next week or so.
We had a very relaxing day and night in Pokhara, paddling in dugout
canoes on the lake and eating and drinking in one of the excellent
restaurants on the shore, before retiring, well pissed (in my case).
The next day we returned to Kathmandu by bus and arranged to meet
Dupsang, to give him a slap up meal and other sorts of stuff, to show
our appreciation of his efforts on our behalf.
The next evening we met up with him; unfortunately Crom had devoured
three hash cookies (He reckoned the first one had no effect). The end
result was that me and Vince, who had only consumed one each, were
reasonably compos mentis. The Crom could best be described as a basket
case and spent the whole time with a shit-eating grin on his face and
was totally incapable of speech.
I think he may even have been incapable of eating, but that seems
highly improbable and may be yet another figment of my imagination.
Dupsang was monumentally unimpressed with the food and drink and would
have been far happier with a bucket of rice daal and a couple of pints
of water. All in all it wasn’t a very fitting end to an enjoyable
holiday in Nepal. Nepal was and still remains, my favourite overseas
destination and I visited again ten years later.
AFGHANISTAN
From Kathmandu we caught a plane to Kabul, I can’t remember whether it
was with Air Nepal or Afghan Air, but it certainly wasn’t on a par
with Singapore Airlines
Even in those years, Afghanistan was in a bit of a mess; parts of
Kabul were still in ruins and showed signs of shelling and the like.
We stayed in a hotel, which was on a street that was famous in the
backpacking, hippie days. It wasn’t bad but a bit rundown. That night
we went to café and had a reasonable sort of a meal, which I washed
down with a bottle of wine, there being no beer available. I think the
wine may have come from the Shah’s Iran, pre Khomeini. I do know that
it cost me an arm and a leg.
After a couple of uneventful days in Kabul, we decided to go down to
Bamiyan. This was the place where the two Giant Buddhas had been
carved out of the side of an escarpment. These were very impressive
and apparently had been even more impressive when they were first
built, with marble cladding. When we saw them they had been desecrated
and the faces carved off, possibly by Genghis and his horde, or maybe
the Moslems.
Years later, after the Taliban achieved power, they tried
unsuccessfully to blow them up using conventional explosives.
Eventually they resorted to ‘surface to air’ missiles and obliterated
them, leaving gaping holes in the cliff. 2 to the Taliban, 0 to
civilised society.
We stayed the night at Bamiyan in a sort of hostel, there were no
beds, just plenty of carpets and cushions. There was also plenty of
dope available, but nothing to tipple, apart from coffee. Not the
greatest country for a Tosspot!
My only other memory of Afghanistan is of the three of us hiring
horses and ambling through a park somewhere. When I say ambling, these
horses were made of skin and bone and my mount had the worst case of
equine hemorrhoids ever seen. While we were ambling thus, none of us
was prepared to attempt to make them trot, in case one or all of them
suddenly expired. If that had happened, we would have been charged
with multiple equinicide and we would still be in a Kabul jail to this
day.
IRAN/IRAQ
After leaving Afghanistan, we took yet another fourth rate plane
journey to Teheran, by this time, my dreams of spending the rest of my
life traveling around the globe had crumbled into dust. When we
arrived in Teheran not only could we not get an alcoholic drink, we
couldn’t even get a glass of water and a stale samosa (or whatever it
is Iranians eat). We had unwittingly landed in the middle of Ramadan.
After an extremely short conference, we unanimously decided to give
Iran a big miss and although we had visas for Iraq, we also thought it
wise, to look at it from 35,000 ft, rather than actually land there.
So we booked on the next available flight for Istanbul.
TURKEY
When I say Turkey, I actually mean Istanbul, which is on the Bosphorus,
a waterway connecting the Aegean Sea to the Black Sea, and effectively
dividing Europe and Asia. This was the only place we visited in
Turkey, but what a place!
My predominant memory is of sitting at an open-air bar close to the
Bosphorus, watching the ferries and the ships passing by, drinking an
icy cold beer, with droplets on the surface of the glass. After two or
three of these, I decided to have my first and best ever, lamb kebab.
I don’t remember where the other two were and I couldn’t have cared
less, I was in my own personal heaven.
All good things have to come to an end, as they say in the classics.
We found a very nice hotel, close to the centre and went out for a
feed, which was excellent and I had a ‘few’ more beers. The next day
we went for a wander and ended up, as most tourists do, at the Blue
Mosque, which would have to be one of the best Mosques in the world,
but not being a Moslem, I am not really qualified to say that.
Very close by is the Cathedral of St. Sophia, which is also
spectacular and is considered to be one of the great Cathedrals in the
world, again I am not qualified to say, but to me it seemed a bit
tatty, especially the carpets.
One thing I am qualified to comment on, is the bear tamer outside the
Cathedral. He was standing outside with his bear, a sort of mid-sized
brown bear. Waiting for idiots like me to have their photo taken with
him and the bear. Being stupid I agreed and stood next to them, while
Vince took a photo. He was taking his time and the bear, which had not
been de-clawed, had its paw between my thighs and uncomfortably close
to my family jewels. Fortunately, it must have liked me, in a bearish
sort of way.
Two other things stand out in my memory, one being the Istanbul Zoo,
which had, as well as the usual fauna, cows and Persian pussycats in
cages, not the same cages I hasten to add, but it did strike me as
rather odd.
The other event was at a nearby Turkish bath; after all, you can’t
really go to Turkey and not experience a bath can you? The three of us
repaired to this place and paid our entry fee. We were given a small
towel each and ushered into the main part of the establishment. This
consisted of an extremely hot and steamy room, as you would expect.
On the edges were open changing rooms, to which an attendant directed
us, where you could divest yourself of your street clothing and then
enter the main part. This consisted of a larger, hotter, steamier room
with a raised, marble, octagonal centrepiece and marble benches around
this.
We sat around there for a while, with our loins clad in skimpy towels,
watching a couple of locals wrestling on the centre, marble bit. After
a while a couple of them came to talk to us, probably being a bit
intrigued by Tom and Vince’s blonde hair.
They wanted to wrestle us; Vince and I declined for obvious reasons.
Me being a seven stone weakling and him being a bit too good looking
and slender, to want to be mauled by a sweaty, hairy, Turkish
gentleman. Crom however was made of sterner stuff, and being an
alumnus of UCLA, including Graeco-Roman wrestling in his CV, decided
to take up the offer.
Crom and a hairy, Turkish gentleman squared off and started trying to
toss each other to the ground. Everything else stopped and all eyes
turned to this unusual spectacle. Vince and I were rooting for the
Crom (in the American sense, I hasten to add, not the Aussie sense
which means something entirely different). The rest of the spectators
were split about fifty/fifty, some wanting the Turk to smash the Yank
from a nationalistic viewpoint; the others wanted the Crom to grind
his opponent into the marble, for whatever reason.
I’m not actually sure who was the victor, not being an aficionado of
wrestling of any variety. I do know that we made a lot of friends, as
a result of the Crom’s efforts and I think the management would have
signed him up as a regular performer, had he been so inclined.
We left Istanbul, probably a little earlier than we would have liked.
Especially on my part, I was becoming excessively fond of the beer and
kebabs. We had, however, arranged to meet Tom S. in Greece on a
certain date and didn’t want to keep him waiting.
ATHENS
This is going to be a very short account of my visit to Athens, on
account of the fact that it was a very short visit. We met Tom S. at
the allotted place, date and time to the best of my knowledge,
although Tom S. will probably dispute this.
I think we booked into a hotel/taverna that Tom had already
discovered. I remember having a pleasant Greek meal, some sort of
meatballs and mousaka I think, washed down with copious quantities of
retsina or perhaps arretsina, and to be honest, I still don’t know the
difference.
The following day we went to the Parthenon and a few other touristy
destinations, which deserved a lot more attention, than we four
plebeians gave them. Sorry, Tom S. that should have been, we three
plebeians. I don’t know why? It must have been ESP, but I decided to
fly back home to England. The others decided to go down to the Greek
Islands and we agreed to meet up in London, under Big Ben on the 29th
of December.
PART FIVE: BACK IN THE UK AND AUS
I caught a flight from Athens to Manchester, if I’d used my brains, I
would have booked that as part of the original ticket in Aus. And it
would have cost me practically nothing, but I hadn’t and it cost me
heaps.
After arriving back in Manchester, I was back in home territory and
caught a train to New Mills. I knocked on the door of my parent’s new
home, after all the kid’s left they were given a new, smaller Council
House to rent.
I wasn’t expected, they knew I was somewhere in Europe, but they
weren’t sure where. I wasn’t really expecting a welcome, fit for a
prodigal son returning after five years away. When Mum answered the
door, she said “Oh! You’re back”. As if I’d just been to the corner
shop, dad was equally as enthusiastic. They’re a very stoical,
phlegmatic race the British.
After I dumped my backpack, they gave me something to eat and then
told me that they were flying over to Australia for Christmas. I said
“Oh that’s nice! When are you leaving?” ”Tomorrow”, they said, “Here’s
a key, leave it in the letterbox when you leave”.
I should add here, that this had all been planned for some time. My
younger sister had won a fair bit of money in a lottery in WA and
after paying for a house, had decided to pay for Mum and Dad to have a
holiday. Obviously they couldn’t let me know, as I had been
incommunicado for about seven months.
If I hadn’t left the boys in Athens, I wouldn’t have seen them for
another two years. I helped them finish their packing, not that they
needed a great deal of help, Mum had probably been fussing over it for
months.
I caught up with a few of my old friends from school and the pub I
used to frequent and after a couple more days, I headed off myself, to
meet the boys in London. We had arranged to meet under Big Ben at
midday on the 29th of December. Instead of hitching rides down, I
caught the train; I changed to the ‘Underground’ when I got down
there.
I took a train to where I thought would be the closest place to Big
Ben. I emerged from the station and approached a newspaper seller and
asked him where Big Ben was. He gave me a quizzical look and said
“Listen mite, if the bleeder falls down, you’re in bleedin trouble”. I
looked over my shoulder and sure enough the ‘bleeder’ was towering
over me.
It was only 11:00am so I had an hour to wait. What do you do in
London? or anywhere else for that matter if you have an hour to spare
and the pubs open at 10:30. You repair to the nearest tavern for a
couple of quick pints of ale, which I promptly did.
The hostelry that I chose had several bars and being a cheapskate, I
chose the Public Bar, which is always the cheapest. Just before noon,
I set off the hundred yards to Big Ben and there was Tom S. and the
other two. I think that I may have stated that we met Tom S. in
Athens, which I now believe was incorrect.
What do you do when you meet up with old friends? You repair to the
nearest hostelry for a few ales. It turned out that we had all been
drinking in the same pub, in different bars ever since they opened
their doors
We discussed what we were going to do and as they had already spent a
few days in London already and I had been there a couple of times
before. We decided that the place to be for the New Year was obviously
Scotland, where else?
We hired a car and set out straight away, we stopped in at my parent’s
place for the night, being on the way and with me having the key and
saving on hotel bills. It was the logical thing to do under the
circumstances. The lads were not particularly impressed with my place
of birth. Coming from LA, Cleveland and Melbourne, this was hardly
surprising.
From there we drove straight up to Edinburgh, with a stopover in
Newcastle for refreshments. The inhabitants of Newcastle (Novocastrians),
loved the Yanks and Vince, I think they were a bit dubious about me.
We left there reluctantly, when the boozer closed and arrived in
Edinburgh a couple of hours later.
We booked into a hotel on the main drag, called Princess Street from
memory and had a few more ales. We asked the barman where would be the
best place to celebrate ‘Hogmanay’ and he told us to get a supply of
grog and head up to the ‘Troth’. At least I think that’s what he said,
but him being Scottish and me being three parts pissed, it could
conceivably have been something entirely different.
Whatever, the others managed to understand that he meant we should go
to the square, outside Edinburgh Castle. At about 11:30pm we headed
for the square with the three of them armed with bottles of Scotch
(appropriately) and me with a dozen cans of McEwans Export Lager (also
appropriately, but mainly because I haven’t been able to stand Whisky,
since I got legless on the stuff at the tender age of sixteen).
When we got to the ‘Troth’ it was a seething mass of drunken humanity,
all sucking on various libations and waiting for the clock to strike
twelve (not a place to take your favourite maiden aunt). Upon the
stroke of midnight, everybody started singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and
then started kissing each other.
Most of this was fine by me, I’m all in favour of being kissed by a
comely Scottish Wench, but I’m not real sure about getting into a
passionate embrace with a big, hairy, bearded Scottish Highlander.
However, you have to take the rough with the smooth, so to speak.
While this was all going on, I lost contact with the other three. I
think they all ended up at different parties. I do know that I ended
up in a shop doorway, with an equally sozzled Scot. Every time a
couple of the aforementioned comely Scottish Wenches came past, we
leapt out and kissed and caressed them enthusiastically. For some
reason we didn’t get invited to any parties, strange really.
We did all end up at the same hotel, conveniently enough the one we
had paid for. Some with more pleasant memories than others, but I
can’t recall them and neither could they.
We left Edinburgh that morning, with nobody offering to drive for a
change. I was in a much better state than the others were, having
stuck to beer, but being a non-driver from way back, that wasn’t an
option.
I wanted to go back through the Lake District, to introduce them to
the beauties therein. They however, were more interested in getting
back to the friendly folks of Newcastle and sucking on a few bottles
of Newcastle Brown Ale (Hairs of the dog). You can’t argue with logic,
so I didn’t try.
From there we drove back to New Mills, where they dropped me off. We
parted company there, and they drove back to London. Tom C. went back
to LA and married his Aussie Fiancée. Tom S. went back to Cleveland.
Both of them came back to Aus. The C. permanently and the S.
temporarily. Vince went to live on a Kibbutz for a while, but I have
no idea what happened to him after that.
I stayed in New Mills for a couple more days and then went to the
Airport in Manchester and flew back to Australia.
BACK IN MELBOURNE
I arrived back in Melbourne and took the Airport Bus into the CBD. I
had about $10 in my pocket and no real plans about where I was going.
I had a vague plan of going to Aspendale, but most of the Yanks had
returned home to the States after completing their two year contracts,
so it wasn’t much of a plan.
I had a befuddled idea; partly jet-lagged and partly half-pissed that
Stewart would still be at the HWT as it was mid-afternoon. So I
decided to give him a ring and arranged to meet him at a pub. We had a
few beers together and I explained that I didn’t have a brass razoo
let alone two to rub together.
He’d been there and done that, so he suggested that as he had a spare
bedroom at the place he was renting, I could doss there for a while. I
took him up on the offer and for the next couple of weeks, he lent me
enough out of his wage to pay for my grog, smokes and food.
After about three weeks I managed to get a job as a cost accountant
with Turbans Paints in Sunshine. I can’t honestly say that I remember
very much about the interview except that it was with Jim, the finance
manager. I must have managed to impress him, with my B.Sc. and work
experience and references from Lysta Zips.
I started there as soon as was humanly possible and found out that I
was in charge of a couple of cost clerks and a section of
comptometrists. This was in 1975 and the computer was yet to become
universally available, there was a large mainframe computer that used
humungous tapes and was housed in an air-conditioned room.
The vast majority of calculations were done by the comp operators on
manual calculators, with pull down handles. Very quaint, but with a
lot of practice the girls (inevitably female staff) could use them
quicker than your average electronic calculator user today and produce
a hard copy tape.
As the cost accountant, my main job was to supervise the clerks
keeping raw material costs up to date (on index cards) as they were
ordered and also updates of any changes in formulas for the different
paints. The chief clerk was a couple of years younger than me and was
far more efficient and didn’t need much in the way of supervision.
The comps were supervised by a middle aged, super competent woman, who
would have ripped my arms off if I’d ever had the temerity to
interfere, should I ever have been stupid enough to stick my nose into
her domain.
I was responsible to the finance manager and acted as a buffer between
my staff and him. I liked all my staff and they appreciated me keeping
him and the other managers off their backs, so we got along well. I
was also responsible for hiring and firing; I never did any of the
latter but did hire a clerk and two comps, after close co-operation
with my two supervisors.
Really, a trained monkey could have done my job just as well. Apart
from one thing, twice a year I was in charge of the stocktake. This
entailed shutting the factory down over a weekend and physically
counting all the stock on hand, raw materials, work in progress,
finished products and any thing that should be written off.
The actual stocktake was a bit of a bastard, because I was the head
honcho over the whole of the factory and any problems were directed to
me. This was not my idea of heaven, as I have never sought to be a
leader amongst men, still it had to be done and who knows? After a few
more years, I could have found my forte in life!
After the stocktake was finalised I had to provide management with a
valuation. In the four stocktakes in my time the figure never once
satisfied them, regardless of whether it was accurate or not, I was
told to come up with a lower or higher value to fit in with their
profit projections. I would go back and fudge figures until I came up
with one that satisfied them. Honesty in accounting? Yeah, believe
that and hang around for Sleeping Beauty to kiss you on the Willy and
turn you into a handsome toad.
Another thing about the paint business and probably most other
manufacturers, is the blatant dishonesty of the marketing and
advertising. With paint for the retail section, you mix up a huge
amount of base paint in a bloody big container, swish around all the
ingredients and end up with a few thousand litres of the finished
product. You then pour it into cans with four/five different labels.
One can is labeled ‘Beaut’ another ‘Super’ then ‘Trade’ for the
tradesmen, ‘No Name’ for the supermarkets and ‘Economy’ for discount
stores. It’s all the same bloody stuff, just go out and compare the
prices it’s a real big con.
My social life at this time was in a bit of turmoil, I was still
living with Stewart and had a girlfriend called Belinda. She had a bad
attack of good taste and decided that she could find someone far more
suitable. She was a very good-looking girl and no doubt did, leaving
me heart-broken and sobbing into my beer.
Stewart had found himself a live in girlfriend and we didn’t
particularly get along very well, so I decided to move out. My friends
from Beaumaris were looking for a flatmate and as I had proved myself
to be reasonably well house-trained, they offered me a place to stay
with them.
They were staying in a house at #1 Park Lane (Nice address, check your
Monopoly Board) in South Yarra, a very desirable suburb even in those
days. I think there were only about three houses in the Lane but it
was a superb location. I didn’t actually have a room. I slept on a
mattress in a sort of loft/attic, which overlooked the living room it
was only accessible by a wooden ladder, I loved it.
It was a few minutes walk to the station to get to work and an even
shorter walk to Chapel Street, which is one of the best, if trendy,
shopping places in Melbourne and even better, it was close to a swag
of ‘in’ pubs and more traditional watering holes. Probably the best
place I’ve ever lived.
There was also another female teacher sharing the house and the three
of them were into dinner parties and the rest of the trendy things to
do at the time, such as fondue parties and smoking dope and getting
pissed on cask wine. So it was a very convivial atmosphere. One happy
couple, two singles living together under the same roof, mixed with
ample supplies of grog, I’ll just leave it at that.
After I had been at Turbans Paints for twenty months or so, the
Managing Director must have read an article about businesses in the
USA and how they were using IQ tests and Personality tests, to decide
whether the right people were in the right jobs. He decided that all
the management, supervisory staff, salesmen and anybody else who wore
a tie or a dress should go for a test with a recruiting agency.
They consisted of multiple answer tests in English (Comprehension and
spelling), Logic (problem solving), Maths (the usual), Engineering
Concepts and a bog-standard Personality test. I’d been doing this sort
of rubbish most of my life and found them a breeze.
I generally spend the first twenty minutes answering the obvious ones,
which usually covers about 40% of them, then progress to the less
obvious ones which covers another 40% and takes 40 minutes.
That gives you a full hour to answer the rest, plenty of time to work
most of them out and if you can’t, make an educated guess (one answer
is obviously bullshit, so you’ve got one chance in three of getting it
right). Never waste your time looking back over them, there’s no
point, you either knew the answers or you guessed.
With the personality ones you decide what persona you wish to adopt
and answer accordingly, never truthfully, you want to give the
impression that you’re a dynamic, ambitious, capable go-getter not the
indecisive, useless git you are actually are.
The only thing you have to be aware of, are the imbedded ‘trick’
questions that the testers concentrate on to make sure you’re telling
the truth. These usually stand out like the proverbial dog’s balls and
Blind Freddy could pick them.
The upshot of all this was that three people ended up with scores in
the top two percentile of the population of Australia, the Managing
Director, the IT Manager both graduates of Duntroon (the army’s
officer training college) and yours truly. I somehow managed to get in
the top 10 percentile for engineering and I wouldn’t make an
engineer’s bootlaces, but with a result like that, the other two
buggers were not prepared to discount it as bullshit.
The Finance Manager (poor sod, only just managed to scrape into the
top 20%) called me in to give me my result and told me that the
testers had written that I was good at cutting corners, but this was
not necessarily a bad thing. The good news was that the Three Amigos
had decided that I would make an excellent Production Controller.
This was not good news to me, as the PC was the meat in the sandwich
between the Sales Department and the Production Department. Both of
them full of very egotistic, belligerent old bastards. With one lot
demanding that their customers orders (especially the automotive and
other ‘crucial’ industries) had to be filled yesterday and the other
mob saying that they would have to wait until the most recent
production run was completed, before they could start again.
This was a position for a young, ambitious, dynamic go-getter not an
indecisive, useless, pisspotical git. Let this be a warning to you,
always pick the correct persona when you are taking a personality
test.
To make matters worse, they had already chosen an assistant for me.
She turned out to be a rather large Russian Lady with a penchant for
wearing fur coats (to my fevered imagination she resembled a large
black, Siberian Bear) and seemed to want to get into a rather more
amorous relationship with me, than a professional one.
To say that I was starting to get apprehensive would be an
understatement; I was shit scared of these recent developments.
Luckily for me there was a serendipitous event which saved me from
these potential depredations.
Some months earlier I had filled out a novel length application form
(even in those days the Yanks were loath to let casual visitors in) to
visit the good old USA. Lo and behold, I had been accepted and as soon
as I received this confirmation I resigned and made plans to travel to
the US of A.
Keith Skellern
Kskel5@hotmail.com
Reviews and comments requested
Posted 03/01/2008
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