The Brunch Bunch
I got up at 7am (my parking expired) and drove north for a while until I found an empty street to crash in and then got a couple more hours sleep. The camping mat was a god send! :p Then I thought I better find some breakfast but all my GPS could find was a closed Jamacian Cafe. Pity, looked pretty interesting to eat in. I sat around a lot in the nearby car park, tried to get my GPS track off my little logger (unsuccessfully) and then went wifi hunting which was better. I had a bit of mail and some ebay related task for my folks.e so good to me 
Even though my requests to couch surf on with someone in Toronto had been mostly regected (thanks anyway Dan, shame you had your move this weekend) there was a sunday brunch organised so I thought I would check it out and make some friends. I was kinda late, nearly had a head on crash while looking for the place but 8 people were already there, most hosts but a couple of guests. We went to Murphys Law and sat outside under the trees. Was nice, despite the bird shitting in my hair Everyone was cool and pleased to see me even though I didn;t say I was going. Maria, Mark, Carlos, Judy, Britni, Megan, Ian and Ians host…. I can’t find her name !! :p
We sat arround chatting, had a bit of food before heading over to the circus festival in the nearby park Was quite a nice day, I even caught some sun, we watched some slightly annoying australian entertainer torture small children for our amusement while Britni and Megan beat up Carlos (that damn Brazilian Machismo!). Britni also described how to kill a man by popping his testicles, which she wouldn;t demonstrate :p Judy had to run off to a wake of all things, Megan dissapeared to her vegan pot luck dinner and Maria was busy too but we were joined by Barnado, a gay model from Uragua, who was an interesting guy.
I volunteered my transport so we could go over to Church street whch is the gay center for a look arround, we sat in a bar out the back and missed the drag show but I think the conversation was much more fun. Anything an everything was up for discussion, which is always fun. Its nice to have a conversation where you can just talk and listen and everyone is cool. Barnardo had to run off but we went back downtown to meet Megan for Karaoke. That was bound to be fun, I murdered the Doors LA woman, Bohemian Rhapsody and then we all got up to do Love Shack. I wan’t even tipsy :p
I drove Britni back to Judys who was hosting her and when we eventually got there she pleaded my case and I got to sleep on the floor. Yay, no car jacking potential and my couch surfing cherry was popped!
Tags: mail, birds, cars, camping, sun, Travel, sleep, karaoke, huntingLiving the dream, stealing bandwidth and sleeping in my car.
Its going to be 6 degrees tonight apparently, not the best time to be homeless in Toronto, although the forcast is mid twenties for next week so things are looking up for the time I move into the hostel. After brunch my mission was to get a sim card and a sleeping mat, I typed camp into my tomtom and drove the 8 miles it told me to. Luckily it wasn’t a gay store, but what I hoped, along with a lot more shops in a plaza. I spent about 4 hours there going in all the shops. First I tried a news agents and the woman who was working looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language when I asked for a pay as you go sim card. I also found who to call to replace the ancient canadian sales tax refund I still had. $193 will come in handy, pity I dont have the intrest from 7 years on it.
I found a electronics type store and yes they did sim cards. My eperience in the UK on tueday spoiled me as it took about 45 minutes (with the assistant on the phone to the company) just to get me sorted out. They wanted loads of details and the stupid thing cost me 30 quid! With only $10 credit. Simply insane! Still I now have a local phone number although Im not convinced it wouldn’t be cheaper to continue using my o2 sim since I will only be here for a month or so. I will have the same nightmare in the US too no doubt.
I bought a power inverter too so I could charge my laptop in the mini van. I also spent some time discovering I could put all the seats into the floor so I can really stretch out, should be handy for the freeze fest tonight.
I got my sleep mat, tried to use the internet in a coffee shop but failed and then went for a sponge wash in the supermarket :p Loving life on the road, but I was staring to stink. I drove back into town and by chance parked up near an open wifi spot so I could send a quick mail and update my blog. I can see this being a perenial problem as I move about but Im sure I’ll get by.
I also got the address of a hostel and went down to book myself in for when my mobile room goes back to the rental company. The girl on the desk was shocked when I said I was sleeping in my car and said I could take a shower, which was very nice Compared to my week in the Gobi Desert I was doing fine, but she looked at me like I was scum
I’m just chatting to Tim at home and Kaydi who I met in Ireland last year. Shes a torontonian and I’ll be meeting up in a while for a drink. I’ve paid my parking all night and need to move at 7am so better not get too wasted. I think I better stash my stuff in a locker at the hostel too, getting robbed will not be a good move.
Tags: nightmare, camping, sponge, mail, girls, blog, laptop, locals, supermarket, cars, Travel, sleep, hostelLongest Friday
What a hectic couple of days, lots to do, things to sort out, post, put up lofts, computers to fix, relatives to see… felt like it would never end. And then I go to sleep at 4am, get up at 9am, run around madly for the last few hours, make it to the Airport 3 hours before my flight, walk through customs in 5 minutes and then sit and wait for my flight. Ane wait. And wait…. still no gate assigned but it says there will be one in 25 minutes. They have been saying that for the last 2 hours.
I checked my insurance I bought this morning and it doesn’t have delay cover. Damn! Im sure there is someting about a flight being delayed by a certain time in the EU travelling outside the EU means you can et something. Maybe I should go and ask because its going to be at least 3 hours delayed. A cancellation and days delay would be good, I can get a last crack at the post office and burn some more DVDs.
My main concern now is somewhere to stay, as couchsurfing turned up nothing, I didn’t bother with Hospitality Club and all the hostels are either very expensive or full. Well, very expensive being £30 for a room, which considering I spent £50 in Dublin isn’t too bad. I need a different mindset now though, I have to cut costs as much as possible to stay on the road for as long as possible. How long I can manage this in the first world will be interesting to see, but camping, sleeping in Walmart car parks and hopefully getting some hosts will help. If Im haerroraging money I will be out of the country quick smart and GW can find some other sucker to prop up his ecomomy.
I cant believe the Euro and US cash machines in the airport have the gall to say they are commision free. The rate is shocking, 1.34 and 1.86 respectively. I will be getting $2 for my pound in the States Im sure, which is a nice 8% better rate. Its a good job too as I have things to buy. I need a laptop which will last me and let me blog, surf, organise my site (as well as a couple more) and post process all the photos Im duty bound to take. That itself is a rather scary idea, nice camera and a itchy finger means I could well be having to deal with hundreds of photos everyday. I will have to get myself organised and work out a good workflow for them otherwise I will be stuck with an impossible task.
That is a good idea for an outsourcing business that I may have to investigate, send your photos off to India and let them label them, crop, rotate, correct the colour, delete the dross and generally tart them up before mailing them back or putting them on your website. Just a place to upload the stuff I take onto my site will be another challenge I will have to overcome. Im sure the US is chock full of free wifi spots but what happens when I get further south? This is why I shouldn’t be so lazy about maintaining my contacts in Sweden where super fast internet connections for *uploading* files are mega cheap.
I will also be pricing up a couple more lens’ which are a bargain in the Stateas compared to the UK. The advantage is though that when my money runs out I will/should be so good I can come back to the UK and earn a mint as a wedding photographer. Nothing like a couple of years taking photographs of anything that moves to get you proficient with a camera. I even have my old SLR which cost me an absolute fortune in Autralia and is now essentially worthless as a backup body. I would rather that gets snatched in the ghetto than my beautiful digital body. I have to pick up a compact camera too, probably one of those groovy Pentax waterproof ones. With my phone and video camera I will be overdoing it a bit! :p
And then there is the issue of a car….
The flight was fairly uneventful, I spent half of it trying, unsuccessfully to get my GPS to reconnect but I think we were going too fast. It seemed to work fine until at least Ireland and then it lost the connection and never got it back. I hardly think its a huge problem, Im not intending to take any flights for a very long time.
So glad I hit the toilets before I got on the plane, after a 3 1/2 hour delay we enventually got under way about 5.30 and the reason was that they had been having problems with the toilets. I sat by the window, occasionally chatting to the middle aged scouse couple who say next to me (she constantly gave me gum, Im sure I brushed that morning… :p), watched Oceans 13, 90% of Shrek The third, the last bit of that ice skating comedy and wild hogs on a terrible TV in the ceiling. Not sure if I slept, it certainly didn;t feel like it. Im not sure if I should write to zoom and complain, I dont really think it was too bad, but by western standards it wasn;t good. If you’ve ever spent any time on Chinese trains your standard tend to slip a bit.
When we eventually got into Toronto 4 1/2 hours late (head wind for an extra hour) I sailed through customs and after a longer than average wait for my bag was in Canada. It was a bit damp but as I sat waiting for it I was imagining it was covered with bits of broken toilet and god knows what else.
Now I faced the dilema that I had force myself into, I had no guide book, no hostel booking, no map and had never been here before. The hotels looked pretty expensive and if I booked in would I even be able to get something cheap the next day? After 20 minutes wandering and looking for a working ATM I asked how much the Hertz rentals were. Well, no compacts but I could get a mustang for $47 a day… hmmm. Would be nice but not great for sleeping in, although would it mean I could go to a bar and pull with a cool car….? Theoretically…
I opted for a mini van, figuring I could just find somewhere quiet and stretch out. Only after I had paid did the guy tell me 90% of the company was on strike and there was a picket line for the cars. Great! but I thought it was simultaniously kinda cool, I would have to break through the rioting workers, getting hit by placards and getting spit on. Not quite as cool, I collected my keys and sat in a queue of cars waiting for the barrier to be lifted. After 20 minutes (which let me get changed in the back, get my GPS working on my phone and find a cool radio station (“the edge” is really good)) I was at the front of the line chatting to the Indian Security guard until my 5 minutes were up.
So now where? Hotel? Camping spot? Jail? I hit the gas and repeated my mantra about driving on the right choosing a random direction by following the majority of the cars. It kinda reminded me of a nighttime xbox driving game in my sleepy state, without the cops or crashes. I drove for 1/2 or so, bought some random groceries and drove a bit more to find a big car park and got my head down. You can see all this on the GPS map! Cool eh??? /zzzzzzzzz :p
Tags: photos, maps, cars, laptops, toilet, blog, queues, ghetto, Travel, customsMortgage and pension, the death of hope.
So, earlier in the year they announced we would be abandoning our current shift pattern and moving to 12 hour shifts. It was official, starting 1st June. My immediate thoughts during the presentation were ‘how much money do I have saved’ and ‘how many months do I need to work before I can quit’. Actually the prime consideration was to get anything possible out of the company before taking an extended leave, ie quitting. The new holiday period would start on the 29th of September, so that was my deadline. No holidays abroad while saving every penny; use my holiday at the end to cushion the awfulness of leaving all your work colleagues in the lurch. I booked 3 weeks holiday until the 29th of September, using up all my holiday left for this year bar 5 days I can carry over.
I had managed to build up a considerable amount of time in lieu at the beginning of the year. The company is loath to pay overtime, unless they’re really desperate, but you can work a day and have a days holiday. Its not like I was screwing them over this, I was covering people when they were off and working my shift recovery week and weekends. I was doing them a favour, overtime would have been infinitely preferable but impossible to get. When the new shift started I had 140 hours owed to me, of which my line manager was barely aware. He was barely aware of my second name most of the time, just someone to say hello to and hope I don’t ask him a question in ear shot of his manager so he actually had to do something about it. I swear the filters on his email account diverted all my mail directly to the trashcan because he would not answer any emails. Seriously. You only got a response if you CC’d his boss. It wasn’t just my problem either.
So when I point out all this time I’m owed there is mass panic, ‘we owe you 140 hours??’,'How is this possible?’. First there is the careful checking of the figures, they pull out old outdated lists of what they think I should have worked and it obviously doesn’t match. I’m not stupid, I entered all my time in the rota when I did it, its all backed up and untamperable by me, I filled in my time reported card and another manager approved it, most importantly I actually came to work so if they were really checking they could see logs of me doing stuff on the servers. When the rotas changed I was working my seven day shift, Monday to Sunday, 62 hours of fun. Come the 1st of June my rota had me down as working the very first shift, directly after my night shift. Um, 24 hours…. I don’t think so. And this was the start of the worst week in the new pattern, 6 x 12 hours over 7 days.
If I ever needed proof that the manager who thought up the rota really didn’t like me it was the fact I was expected to work 134 hours over a fortnight. He told one of my colleagues ‘there would be winners and losers’ in the changeover (with a smirk), well I wasn’t going to be his loser and said I would be having the beginning of the week off as my shift recovery week. When we’re going through the 140 hours owed they could only get it to 92, they put my shift recovery down ‘I thought you took that as a holiday’. So I have to book a holiday to get out of working a 24 hour day…
I did all this extra work between Februay and May and after they finally agreed that ‘yes, we owe you all this time’ the discussion turned to when I was supposed to take it. It was now around the beginning of July and both of my colleagues had the majority of July and August booked as holiday. So of course they say ‘you have to take it before September’…. um how? There is no way I can leave one ex-shift leaver and a new starter while I have August off. Besides, it needs to go higher for approval, they can’t just give someone a month off. I point out I have three one month holidays the year before and no one minded and they dont even seem to be aware I had been away.
‘Send me a proposal’ says my manager, so I of course I propose all of October. I get no reply after a few days, must mean he approves right? I mail him again saying my colleagues don’t mind. A few more days we’re on days and he calls me over to say that he has checked and no one else is off that month so I can have it. Sweet, 7 weeks holiday. I start changing the rota and one of my colleagues has a few days booked at the end of the month. What happened to ‘no one is off’. Oh well, I add my annual leave name next to his and say nothing. He’s a manager, he checked, he obviously knows more that me…
I have seven weeks booked, and had to give eight weeks notice. I think you can see the simple sum I needed to do. I was due back on the first of November, healthy, fit, tanned, after some great adventure… to go back to a windowless room working 12 hour shifts with no toaster*. It wasn’t all bad, my salary now was pretty good, I was spending little on rent, my car was a junker but good on fuel. It was easy to save money, the people I worked with were nice enough, lots of character but mostly cynical as hell. You throw enough money at people, get them on a good pension and they start paying a mortgage, you will probably have to wheel them out of the door. Mortgage, pension, pension, mortgage…. That’s the mantra under everyone’s breath when you’re trying to get through a 12 hour night shift on 2 hours sleep and the phones are ringing and servers are down. ‘We know!! (get off the phone so we can fix the bloody thing!)’.
I didn’t want to come back to this, the stage was set, I hadn’t breathed a word to anyone at work about my plan, all I had to do was make the decision and resign….
* Ok, I did set the fire alarm off doing muffins but who the hell puts a smoke detector in a kitchen? You need a heat detector.
Tags: ears, cards, wheels, stupidity, money, mail, cars, sleep, Travel, wheelI can’t believe it
I’m in shock… Someone left me a negative feedback on ebay! I was on 232 and doing so well! And for what? He bought some LCD shutter glasses and ‘Actually, I needed to buy a special converter for these to be effective at all!’. Yeah, the ‘special converter’ is a video card here in a box.
How annoying, but Im still on 99.6% positive and he has -1 :p I sent him a mail, I also have his address and I have a good mind to go around to his hick USA town and give him his £5 back (in 10p peices ). He’s on the map now….
Here is the mail I sent him, with luck he will close his account and the negatives are then wiped out.
Just a few pointers.
You shouldn’t leave someone negative feedback if you’re slightly unhappy. Did I misdescribe the item? Did it not turn up? Was it damaged? Did I really rip you off on the postage?
The answer to all these questions is ‘no’.
You bought something you thought would plug into your video card and would magically make all your games into 3D. Try doing some reading and research, it will only work on certain ASUS cards, which is what I wrote in the description.
I suggest you close your account and start again, people are wary of buyers who will leave negative feedback for no reason. You got exactly what you paid for but because you have no idea what you’re buying that somehow becomes my fault.
Welcome to ebay, I really hate having to give someone negative feedback, it just makes me so cruel, but its all I can do to keep unreasonable idiots like yourself away from everyone else.
Have a nice day!!
Mark
Tags: cards, maps, USA, Travel, map, mailDry and Dusty
The next stop was Tamale, but we had quite a journey ahead of us to get there. For starters we were on the wrong side of the lake, and our choices were a car ferry at 9pm, or a people boat at 7am. We were strongly advised to get the earlier one, and I guess that was the best choice. Earlier start = sooner to town. Most of the germans had come to the hotel too, but they all had an early night, not like us party animals! But we saw them all at breakfast, which was a greasy omlette on half a baguette with tea, coffee or milo. What, no rice crispies!?! There were a few unhappy faces on the guests, but, what you gonna do? This might also have been due to failed attempts at having a shower in the morning too, but there were buckets and scoops, stop moaning!
The owner ferried us all to the ferry in his car, 4 people at a time, getting us all there far too early, but then early enough to shove us all up to the front so we could watch everyone else arrive and get on. It was a pretty
large open top wooden boat, about 40′ by 6′, and they packed a lot of people on it, along with god knows what else, bikes and chickens…. At least we all got seats, they put all the kids on the floor under the seats. Poor little buggers. After an eternity of loading, they fired up the engine and we were off! Or… not. We went about 10 meters out, they cut the engine, drifted over to another part of the shore and loaded up some more people. The sun was getting hot now, lets go! Another 10 minutes of faffing around and we left, the other side was about an hour or so away, the lake was pretty calm so it was a pleasant enough trip across. Not much to see apart from groups of dead tree trunks from the flooding to make the worlds largest artifical lake, but I now know these can be very dangerous, run over one just below the surface in a crowded boat and you can capsize.
Happily there was bus waiting for us on the other side, get your wooden chit giving you a seat, pile your bags on the roof and get
on board. I got in, realised I was missing 2 inches for my knees and got out again. Thinking I’d snagged the best seat in the front I was quite happy, until I realised I had to share it with another guy and the kid who helps the driver, Still, I had some leg room, and I even had the chance to hop out whenever the bus stopped. The extra guy got off soon enough anyway so I was sitting pretty…. right next to the engine! Couldn’t sit next to the window, I had leg room but my leg were being baked! Oh well, I just grinned and bore it for the couple of hours it took to get there, the roads being dirt tracks we didn’t make the best of time, but it wasn’t too bad. At least we didn’t break down, or crash, which is always nice.
Tamale is a city, but you wouldn’t guess it from walking around the place, more like a largish town. The American girls had recommended the Catholic Guesthouse as the place to stay, however the girls wanted to go Muslim so we walked the short distance to the Alhassan hotel. Even after viewing the rooms I dont know why we stayed there. Maybe we were tired, but it stands out as one of the worst places I had stayed, ever. The guidebooks give it a real pasting in the reviews and even mention the ‘hot box rooms on the ground floor’, guess where we were staying…. Still, location, location, locations eh! I had a shower in the bath from the pipe sticking out of the wall triying to avoid being slimed from the rampant fungi growing up the wall, the toilet flush was a wire sticking out of the top with a chipboard wooden seat. No mirror or sink. I had to swap out the lightbulb in the bathroom so I could see in my room. The beds sunk in the middle, with bed sheets that didn’t fit (always a favourite to find yourself sleeping on a filthy matress in the morning), there was lino on the floor but full of large holes and really dirty. I wasn’t even cheap!! It was like one of the worse rooms from the Paper Street house in Fight Club. What a shithole….
I asked the girls why were were staying there, and didn’t get a good answer, but still, it was only for one night. We went out to explore the town, find some food and sort out our bus for the morning. After checking in at the STC bus station we were given some vague instrustions for finding the other bus station to Mole, then we wandered around there for 10 minutes trying to work out where the bus departed from. We had some vague idea about it at the end, we had to come back the next day atfer 8am to buy a ticket from someone in the station, and then the bus would leave at 2.30pm. Clear as mud. We walked around the market and found an internet cafe which was pretty fast, just a quick check on the mail and then off to a little restaraunt for some food. We had the usual fun with the lack of service, I asked the waiter what time it was and he said ‘oh yes!’ and ran off! huh? Seems like his watch was broken so he had to go check a clock. The place also had the usual stupidity of having the bar seperate from the food, so ordering drinks means they have to pass the information on…. but the food was ok, which is good after waiting so long since the greasy omlette in the morning.
Anna had to call her brother back home on his birthday, she didn’t get long for her money, but at least she go through. We bought a few things and went back on the internet for another hour before heading back to the shitty hotel for a nap. There wasn’t much else to do in town, I had a wander around and saw a few people from the boat/bus. I was still looking for a charger as my mp3 player wasn’t being charged by the one I bought in Accra. I also managed to do some laundry which was long overdue while I had the chance. Later on when the girls woke up we went back to the same restaraunt we had lunch and sat on the roof drinking beer, shooting the shit and trying in vain to get some food from the chef, there was no water so this was a problem, and he kept coming up to us to as since the waiters were so totally useless. We eventually got some food and inevitably attracted the attention of the local male population, two guys came over to talk to us, but they were ok. One left after a while and despite stealing all of the girls cigarettes we agreed to let him show us one of the local bars.
Ah, what a silly night, we sat outside one of the bars by the Cultural Exchange Center on plastic chairs getting drunk, salsa dancing, refusing to talk about our broken hearts, finishing off all the beer in the place, racing each other around the CEC (sprinting when drunk is not a good idea), talking about music, thinking but never managing to get up to dance to the cool African music playing, finding the only non-homophobic man in Africa, drinking baileys and eventually completely emptying the chest fridge of all liquid. The bar wasn’t even that busy, but popular with the expats, of which Tamale has its fair share and more so in the case of the Dutch. We staggered off to find some water, which is a challenge when drunk in a tiny town in west africa at 1am, but we managed it in the end and got back to the hotel. I was really looking forward to a night in that scrotty bed!
Tags: journey, brother, mirror, lunch, Travel, animals, beds, nap, cars, guesthouse, stupidity, mail, toilet, beersBongos, Be-Bop and Strawberries
As drunk as I was I still had something to remember, the place to meet for the following night. I got Jo to shout it into my camera as a video so I would remember. But first I needed some food to recover so I heading back to Osu for a bad coffee, terrible sandwich and dodgy cake. For about £4, but thats hangovers for you. I didn’t get up until about 2pm so it was already late. I just hung out reading in the food court, watching the kids have birthday parties reading on the phone. I went to use the net for a while too and send a few mails. Haven’t been using it much as its so damn slow and the PCs are horrendous too. Welcome back to the ninties in some cases….
At about 7pm I needed to be making a move to meet up with the people from last night so I walked down the street and there are Jo (and Pam, the aussie woman she has been temporarily travelling with) talking to a taxi driver so we all hoped in together. He didn’t know where it was (neither did we) but we knew the
Tua is your biggest fan!
general area and headed over there, asking another taxi driver on the way for directions. It was a concert at the ‘Alliance Francias’, some franco institution that loves to promote French culture (or language) wherever the poms have too much influence. I ran into Renet from the taxi the day before sans Peter who was at the airport about to go home then went and sat with Anna and Tua for the concert.
Talk about numb bum! I thought it was supposed to be a gig, but they got the french consul and the mali ambassador up to give a speech (in french) and boy could those guys talk. Half an hour we all sat there listening to god knows what! Speak a language we all know…. Anyway, eventually Habib Koite came on and I must say they were pretty good. African band from Mali, guitars and drums, and they looked happy to be there, unlike the miserable bastards at Ryans. I got up for a boogie, but by the end of the night there was no room at the front and they were pulling people onto the (rather low) stage. Jo had a great time as HK are
Finger clicking good! :p
Me, Jeff and Anna show our appreciate of Jazz. Nice! :p
one of her favourite bands, dont think she got to meet them though, but I snagged her a band poster off a noticec board and got extra brownie points. We sat around in the bar area afterwards as people slowly left, there was no cold beer left and they let you order sandwiches only to come and tell you you wouldn’t be getting them after all….
Time for more music! We got 2 taxis and headed off to ‘Jazztone’…. oh dear! Yeah, the band was in full swing, the be-bop was coming out and people were scatting all over the place. Expensive as hell (like 60p for a *small* beer!?!?) but at least they were cold and they still served food. I dont really appreciate jazz, but it was ok. The band was from all over, with several members Americans only here for a while. Some guy got up and sang ‘when the saints go marching in’ and I chatted to him at the end, he was a ghanian living in LA and playing Jazz in the states. Nice guy, couldn’t find the CD he showed me on Amazon though. I got up and played some ‘Jazz’ too at
Country *and* Western!
the end, I mean, how hard can it be, just hit some random keys right? :p
2am and it was still to early to go home so we headed back to Osu in 2 Taxis, me with Anna/Jo/Tua. Seems the right choice as the place we wanted to go was closed and we assumed (falsely) everyone else was going to bed. (They hunted for us all over Accra for 2 hours, oops!). We had no idea where to go, but the Taxi driver (who was a country loving cowboy) stuck on his Parton tape and took us over to the Strawberry spot across from the Orangery Restaurant. There was the English Anna I met in the pub the night before along with Paul (dressed like a knob, it was his birthday) and a half dozen other young volunteers. We all grabbed some beers and introduced ourselves and got down to a good chin wag. We were soon up dancing to the music they were playing and by now I was recognising more and more songs they were playing. There are some great local bands in Ghana and I resolved to track some of them down when I went home.
Strawberry Dance
Of course the sight of half a dozen white girls dancing drew in all the local blokes, but they weren’t too aggressive and we all had a good laugh. Where else would you get your Taxi driver hanging around to dance and chat at 4am?
It started getting light and there was some talk of the beach going on when running up the street past the spot came about 30 people in shorts and trainers out for their morning run, before the heat got too much. I was quite drunk and when a few people joined in with the run I had to go along as well. Damn steep hill though and after 2 mins and a failed attempt at taking some photos I gave up and walked back down. I think Anna and Paul kept going for a mile as they didn’t come back for 20 minutes! I would have gone further, but…. what was the point? :p
I then had my first 2 bad encounters in the country. I was walking back down the deserted road to the bar and I hear a car beeping behind me. Nothing unusual in that, I’m white, I love it
when Taxis beep at me because I’m too rich and lazy to walk anywhere. My first assumption was correct, it was a taxi, but sitting inside it was a policeman that then proceeded to shout at me, asking if I owned the road and what I was doing. I wanted to say ‘listen pal, make a f**king pavement by the road that isn’t strewn with rubble, open sewers and plastic bags and I’ll walk on it. Until then get you stupid beeping croney to move the taxi to the other side of the *empty* road and just go around me. Wanker!’. But he had the gun so I stayed quiet and apologised. Arsehole.
Then I got chatting to a guy called ‘Lyrics’…. heh, right, who was as camp as christmas. He started going on and on about Jazztone and didn’t quite believe me when I said I was in there earlier. We started chatting with the gold ‘ol taxi driver and a black girl that was dancing with us earlier when I saw 3 local guys walking down the road. I knew they were trouble as soon as I saw them, but they didn’t head towards me or the girls so I wasn’t that worried. You could see the one with the brown shirt on had a bad attitude, like a guy in the pub that just wants a fight. He started talking to Paul and pulled him of the side of the road to talk to him, he was acting all friendly but you could see him holding Pauls arms and I knew there would be trouble. Then he puts his hand in Pauls pocket and Paul’s pushing him away, telling him to fek off. Paul goes back over to the main group but then this arsehole starts trying to pull the same trick on the Canadian lad who hasn’t seen this. I go over and tell the lad to leave, go join his friends, meanwhile Anna is down the road walking to some bloke and Im worrying about her. The arsehole comes up to me to shake my hand, which he does but Im not getting into this bullshit and I get over to the main group.
The spot is closed now and they’re tidying up, but the arsehole kicks a big beer bottle at the bar. The guys cleaning up go mad and start shouting at him, his mates come up and back him up, Im thinking its all going to kick off, but they go off down the street. Phew. Then 2 minutes later its decided we’re not going the beach, we’re not taking a taxi (the poor taxi driver waited for us for about 3 hours) and we were all going for breakfast. Most of the volunteers had left by this point (they had to get a bus at 9am :p) so there was only 6 of us, but we’re going in the same direction as the arsehole and since everyone walks so damn slowly in this country we soon catch him up and he’s trying to shake everyones hand again. He gets mine and when I force him to let go he says ‘Dont touch me, I’ll F**k you up!!’. Muppet. Eventually everyone realises we need to get away frorm him and backtrack and go down a different street looking for food.
All we could find was the ‘fan man’, which is pretty good. Everybig city in Ghana have guys on bikes with big ice cream boxes attached to the front selling ice cream. They do a great frozen strawberry yogurt one for 3.000 cedis. Very nice when you’re stuck on a stationary bus! I got the round in and we carried on looking for breakfast, and who do we run into again? Mr Arsehole :p Thankfully that was the last we saw of him. We found a little stall and had omlette sandwichs and milo before jumping in taxis for home. It was 7am and already heating up, not that I cared because I had holy AC! I got back to the Guesthouse in time for breakfast, I hope they assumed I had been out for a morning walk, but I doubt it. I ate my brown rolls with jam and jumped into bed as the choir played sweet music in the halls below. They had given the drummer a day off.
Tags: cars, ghana, guesthouse, locals, hunting, stupidity, girls, wanker, Travel, franco, mail, beers, mate, guitars, camping, photos, taxiThe Gorillaz – kids with guns
My taxi driver warned me several times to be ready at 5am, he would be knocking on my door! I was up at 4.50, brushed my teeth, grabbed my gear and waited! typical, had he ran off with the deposit I had paid him or was he just useless? I called his number, nice waste of £2.40 to hear him say he would be there in 1 minute. Bleh! My mobile provider had also finally mailed me to say they wouldn’t unlock my phone as agreed theh day before I left as it was second hand. C**nts! He showed up and off went down some very poor roads. Very slow and no chance for any extra sleep on this leg, there were potholes and rocks galore. 5 am was a pretty stupid time to leave since we were there a good hour before time, I got him to play me some African music on the way up and he didn’t seem to mind the same 6 songs repeating about 10 times. At least it wasn’t Michael Bolton!
I bought him some breakfast, it was about a quid each and we waited for the other 7 people to arrive. Eventually a Australian Couple, Darren and Amanda from Brisbane showed up with their driver. Dressed in nice new jungle gear too! :p They took a lot of holidays too since they both owned their own businesses, and were usually independant travellers but this time they had opted for a tour. Fair enough, not many backpackers would be splurging £200 on an hour with some gorillas anyway! However I got the impression this wouldn’t be the kind of trip my mother would find easy, and the group we would be visiting were the newest and potentially most challenging to get to. The other 5 people never showed up and after a quick pep talk hired a couple of porters to carry our stuff and drove about 4km to the path. I guess I could have asked for my $25 park entrance fee back as I never actually went into the park because the gorillas had recently moved just out of it. They weren’t sure why, possibly because of competition with another nearby group but they were still pretty close.
We began the hike down the rather steep trail to the bottom of the valley passing through fields and past a few houses along the way. The gorillas are all guarded to protect them from bush meat poachers, and also keep them away from the locals who, as you can imagine, woud rather not have to deal with huge 200 pound apes eating their bananas and terrorising them all the time. We were also protected by a couple of guards carrying AK-47s, which was reassuring since we were only a few kilometers from the Congo, and a few years ago several tourists were killed in the same park by Congolese guerillas. Lots of dangerous types then! With straining knees we reached the steam on the valley floor in about half an hour or so, crossed over and walked for another 10 minutes to where the rest of the guards and guides were waiting. We could see their camp nearby and passed through a few old gorilla nests where they slept before. They were waing in a recently slashed and burned area on the hill side and we dropped our coats, staffs and non essential items, got hydrated and went gorilla hunting!
Well, it didn’t take long, about 30 seconds and there was a gorilla sitting next to the clearing munching away on leaves! He didn’t seem at all bothered by us, quite happy to sit and eat, posing for photos. Darren had a nice digital SLR with a good zoom, and I reckon he got some great shots. I blasted away on my little canon. 2 minutes of playing model was enough and he rolled into the bush in search of better food and less attention. We crossed over a rather tiny plank over a small gully into the uncleared jungle and found another gorilla under a bush also eating. I guess thats what they do best :p We got pretty close, about 3 meters and the guide hacked us a better path so we could see him better. There were other babies in the tree that we could also see, not too clearly but making a lot of movement. We moved back down the valley in search of the boss. We saw him briefly along with a baby, but he disappeared quite quickly and we carried on to the stream below. It was great fun, the jungle is no barrier if you’ve got a big machette and dont mind getting dirty. We were slipping down near vertical slopes and pulling ourselves through thick bush, sploshing in bogs and trying to avoid big holes as we clambered over big fallen trees. There was another gorilla up the other side over the river and we could see the bushes move as he pulled leaves from the branches but we couldn’t see him. It was ‘too steep’ to get up and have a look, but it wasn’t that bad. We set off back the way we came looking for the dominant silverback we lost just earlier. The babies were still swinging away, but you couldn’t get a good photograph.
We hacked a new path and found a way to the boss, Nkuringo, you could just see him through the trees. Our guide from the office, the little guy with the machette and Darren up in front about 5 meters away from us while I was gallantly helping Amanda through the brush when there was a mighty roar and Nkuringo stood up and confronted the 3 guys in front! I was glad I wasn’t in front as a fully grown male gorilla showing his teeth and lungs to you is probably not the most pleasant experience! Darren aparently got quite a shock (but no photos :{). The video was going and although I didn’t capture it I certainly got the sound! The guides were not too bothered though and just roared back at him, I guess they knew not to take any shit :p After we changed our underwear we sneaked up a bit more and found him happily eating away again in the clearing and you could see more movement in a nearby bush. We snapped away as the hour was nearly up and boy had it gone fast! We edged closer and Nkuringos son came out and started to play in front of us! Tiny little fella was rolling around and beating his cheat just a few feet away with his father watching patiently in the bush nearby. Cool!
We snapped away like mad until Amanda and my memory card ran out. Thank goodness for the video, which was better in the low light anyway. I had stupidly forgotten my tripod. At least I had spare batteries though! Eventually we had to go and left them in peace. Those gorillas are raking it in at £200 an hour, but what a great job! :p We hiked back up the hill, and I regretted hiring a porter but they made out it was miles and really difficult, which it wasn’t. Still Amanda had a hard time of it and they both had quite a trek to go as they had optioned a 2 hour walk through the NP rather than drive 5 hours around it. I was kicking myself for not being prepared for a lift north as they were heading my way. I had thought it possible but with my stuff everywhere and laundry being done it was not possible. Oh well. We got to the top and I went with them to the start of the trail in their 4WD, sending my taxi driver back to the office to wait for me. We had swapped emails and I promised to send them a DVD of the gorillas in exchange for their photos. Which is good because I suspect my photos were rubbish! They set off with their armed guards and since i haven’t heard about any tourists being kidnapped assume they arrived safe and well.
The cheeky s.o.b. of a taxi driver had accepted my suggestion I buy him lunch to the tune of 7,500 schilling, and told me there was nothing left to eat. I can believe it, the lying git would have cleared them out *if* he had eaten anything. It was impossible to spend 7,500 on lunch so my intention of tipping him went right out the window. Pity, I intended to give him more than he swindled out of me, pity for him anyway. And he cost me about 9,000 since i rang him when he was late! And he sealed his fate when we arrived back at the hotel and I struggled my bags, coat, sandals and various stuff off the back seat while he just sat there. When I managed to get it all in my hands he offered to help, nice one, goodbye….muppet! Back at the hotel, after i got over my heart attack over how much they had charged me for doing a few items of laundry I was soon tracked down by Joseph and we hammered out a deal for the following day. Local pygmy village, climb up a old volcano and off to see the fish otters in the nearby lake. We’d have a motorbike, I could drive if I wanted to.
Tags: sandals, peace, Travel, tourists, bleh, job, sleepI can’t wait for the weekend to begin….
Cos then I leave this god forsaken wet country! I went into town to get a guidebook (10% off, thanks fake student card ) and some boots. I think I managed to put myself off spending £100 for boots I might only wear one day. My old ones will have to do I guess, but they are 12 years old and kinda heavy. But I need something closed where Im going, at least for a while.
I came home and found my new hat waiting on the step. Stupid post office makes me collect an old t-shirt Chris sent me that would go through the hole with some encouragement, but a brand new £50 hat is left for someone to steal. Glad we’re in a cul-de-sac!
Had fun at work, Jude is always sending dodgy mails to people when I leave my PC unlocked so he gave me a chance on his and I took it. Nothing too bad, but he was livid. It will be fun and games tomorrow as he attempts to exact his revenge. But he who lives by the sword, dies by it, and I can give as good as I get…
Tags: cards, mail, stupidity, TravelSawadee
may as well start this mail as I wait for Bandy to get back from buying
his guitar, I think I’ll be regretting not getting one in about an hour. He’s
bought exactly the same one that Qatar Airways broke on my last trip to
Bangkok so he really knows how to annoy me!
Well I’m here, I think I’m not jet lagged, after getting up at 2pm and
working all night Sunday and then getting 2 hours sleep on the plane I didn’t sleep
last night until 2am, and I had to practically drag Bandy back out when we
somehow ended up back at the hotel at 11pm. The guy has no stamina! so
Sunday 2pm to Wednesday 2am on 2 hours sleep is pretty good :p
Yesterday was mad, got in at 7am and took a nice convoluted tour to Khoa
San Road. I was planning on ambushing bandy as I said I would be there at 11pm,
as it was he had booked the room in the place I wanted, but put it in his
name! SO the very helpful receptionist wouldn’t let me have it. Probably
just as well as I would only sleep and i needed to stay up and beat the jet
lag. After 1/2 of checking other hostels for my missing travel companion I
stagger back to the ‘New Siam’ and he turns up 10 minutes later just as I
persuade her to give me the key. Its 9am by then and the earliest he’s been
up!
Khao san hasn’t changed much since June, we have a wander, get some food at
the best Thai veggie place I know then set off looking for guitars. I knew
vaguely where it was and its nice to get away from all the tourists and
hassle of backpacker central. Of course, as soon as I told Bandy this ‘no
one speaks English round here’, the words had barely left my lips before
someone asked where we were going and what country we came from :p bloody
touts! Somehow bandy just attracts them like flies, I’m surprised he managed
to make it to the city. He got an unmarked ‘taxi‘ with 1 guy, who was
joined by 2 others. They wanted 3,000 Baht, thats 45 quid!! I got my taxi on the
meter and it was 200B and I felt ripped off cos its usually 150! He got
away with paying 1000, I would have ran to the tourist police….. scratch that,
I wouldn’t have gotten in the car!!
Still, its nice to have a friend in a strange city, or it would be if he
wanted to go out. He stayed out a bit longer than me last night and now
he’s sworn off beer….. we’ll see.
We checked out the guitar shops and carried on through Chinatown, wandering
randomly, working up a sweat, but not too much as its rather mild. About 25
degrees or so. I might have to buy some long trousers! Eventually it was a
bit too tiring and we jumped in a taxi to legendary MBK shopping mall. We
even spent some money!! 8 nice new shirts, since i deliberately came with
one t-shirt so I would have to buy some. They have glass booths up on the 6th
floor, which are supposedly sound proof, you put it your money, grab a mic
and karaoke to your hearts content. I insisted we get the outer one, and
some western guys were killing themselves walking past as I was doing my best
wacko jacko impression while singing thriller. All the locals enjoyed the
show too.
Then we went bowling, and its not exaggeration to say I kicked bandy‘s arse.
Strike on the first ball, and it was all over from then, I rattled him too
much We looked great in those white socks and blue shoes, while sipping
strawberry daquaris from martini glassed. Super!
More food at a great Tappanyaki bar up in the food court, god knows what
bandy ordered, ‘aki steak’ but I think it was squid… could have been
tripe…. oops! This trip should be much more interesting since i stopped
being vegetarian, I can stop being quite so afraid to experiment. Bit more
shopping, got sucked into the fourth floor which is a mistake, its
completely devoted to mobile phones, but I’ll be down there selling mine so
we needed to do some research.
Back on khao san its more of the same, cocktails, curry, pineapple off the
street and avoiding the lady boys. Wasn’t the best idea to try to make it a
big night after so little sleep but I had to try. Gulliver’s just didn’t
seem the same after my adventures last June, we found a nice bar with cute staff
to entertain us and hung out there until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. When
I say bar I mean a load of tables and chairs on the street, the toilet is
down an alley and go right, left, left, right, left and left, you can’t
miss it :p Come twelve o’clock because of Bangkok‘s crack down on late night
drinking they remove the tables and get the mats out, but you still keep
drinking. I had a banana daquiri and a pink pussy, it was quite good!! God
knows what Bandy was drinking, I think he was trying to impress the cute
owner with his constitution (and wallet :p).
No reason not to drink tonight though. Wtf is he?? I leave him for 10 mins
and I’ll never see him again! Surely he’s still not testing his guitar!
I’ll have to get up early and get one tomorrow. Looks like we’re flying down to
trat so we can get the ferry to the Island of Ko Chang. Should be good,
I’ve never been. Then back to BKK on Sunday and off to Cambodia, I guess, who
knows….
So much for just starting this mail, I’ve finished it!! I better go look
for him, plonker sold his mobile, looks like I might have to give him a spare
so I don’t lose him all the time.