Eyes Full of Tinsel and Fire

I'm festive as this year. I did the full Chris Rea and travelled home for Christmas belting out Christmas classics. So far I've spent the time back in the UK catching up on things that I've missed. Here are some of those things:

Culture
And by culture I really mean London theatre. Anyone who has read this blog knows I go to the theatre more than anyone should.  That's not been a habit that's easy to maintain out in that India. I've managed to sneak in two plays whilst I've been back - Love's Labour's Lost (I can see why that's a play that's not put on much - about half of the story is filler - it's like the anti-Winter's Tale) and The Children (this didn't make me less jealous of Lucy Kirkwood). A couple of days in the most exciting city in the world is just a pleasant by-product.

Cheese
My cheese intake over the last few months has been almost entirely paneer, which is about as much a cheese as tofu is a meat. As in, it isn't. I had been absolutely gagging for a bit of stinky, stinky stilton, probably more even than beef - and I had missed beef a lot. Fortunately cheese owns Christmas. I don't understand why it's not mentioned in all the Christmas songs. Scrap that, I don't see why they don't just re-name it Cheesemas to make it clear what the real aim of the season is. None of that nativity bobbins - let's eat cheese.

In the last week I have eaten all the cheese. I have also eaten an above average amount of beef. And pork.

Walking
Here's a simple pleasure that I've missed.  Walking isn't really a thing in India (a mix of the places to walk being unpleasant and taxis being crazy cheap, since you ask) so I've used my time to do some strolling - Bunny Walk, Blake's Wood, that London - all way more pleasant than anywhere I've wandered in the last three months. No one has tried to sell me anything whilst sauntering for a start. 

Full Horn. Full Throttle.

So, three months in this crazy, congested, colourful place with its smog and its cows and its demonetisation. I think that's the longest I've spent in one country since this blog began. 

What's that you want a list of all the things that I think are odd? Seems a bit divisive. Oh go on then...

Everyone drives at you. I think they do it for giggles. You shouldn't worry about it unduly, they rarely hit you.

Crowds of people deviate towards gridlock. Noone will step back to let anyone pass, even if it makes their own journey quicker (nowhere is this more true than trying to leave a local train - you have to jump out knees first). But don't you be tempted to step back to let the person coming the other way through - even if this is clearly the most sensible resolution to the problem - without fail the person behind you will walk into the space that you just left, perpetuating the gridlock.

Everywhere is your litterbin. You get very strange looks if you take your rubbish away with you.

If you're a man, everywhere is your toilet. (What, everywhere? Even a street that's so narrow two-way traffic can't pass if you're there? Yep.)

Taxi drivers get offended if you put a seatbelt on. They say "not compulsory" and look angry. It's like they haven't seen the roads.

It's twenty six degrees. Everyone is wearing their winter clothes. 

They love a marigold here. No really they are everywhere. There must be fields the size of Wales just growing marigolds.

All cups are tiny. No one has more than a shot of tea. Oh and a "pint" is actually a half pint, if you want a pint ask for a "mug".

Wing mirrors are for wimps.

Don't walk on the footways. They're there for people to sleep on. I hope they are sleeping.

Personal space isn't a thing. If you're queuing and not pressed against the person in front then expect someone to overtake.

Everyone is in an awful hurry to get there but once they do they just stand in the way.

You need a luggage label on your bag if you're getting a flight. The main job of security at airports is to stamp the luggage label.

Eyeliner on babies is a thing. It's supposed to protect them from negative people but it makes them look like tiny goths.

If you're going to drink like a local you hold the bottle above your mouth and pour. You will end up waterboarding yourself.

Uturning, double parking and going the wrong way down dual carriageways are all to be expected. Note earlier deviation towards gridlock comment.

Chocolate is triple wrapped but milk comes in a bag. 

Throat clearing is a thing. So is talking on your phone in the toilet.

When you buy anything you have to give your phone number. Consequently the number of spam text messages is phenomenal. I reckon my spam text to wanted text ratio is more than fifty to one. The vast majority are written in Hinglish and mean nothing.

And most importantly of all, if you're driving a motorbike: full horn, full throttle.

Bombay Mix

Passed a disembarking coach party down in South Mumbai and got some serious stares. It was like they couldn't believe they'd been so lucky. Hadn't even made it the Gateway and already they'd managed to tick white boys off their tourist checklist.

Mumbai isn't so much a city for box ticking as a city for hanging out: a city to live in rather than a city to visit. So my weekend seemed to revolve around eating. And eating a lot. I feel like a mobility system for my stomach.

Unfortunately sitting around eating doesn't make for an especially interesting read so I'll just give you a piece of bona fide travel advice. If you ever find yourself in Mumbai airport needing a taxi, make sure you are not in the Tab Cabs queue. There's a reason it's the shortest queue. I've used them so you don't have to.

Traveller Cliche of the weekend: drink in Leopold's. Maybe I did do some box ticking after all.

Expat Bubble

One thing I've not talked about so far is everyday life. Must be difficult adapting to a whole new way of life, right? *Shuffles feet, mumbles, looks at the floor.

My name's Pete and I'm an expat cliché.

Weeknights (when I read that back I read it as "wee knights" which is a reality TV show that will be with you by the time 2018 is out). Week nights I leave work and retreat to my little compound. That makes it sound like I have a far more active role in that process than I do. Week nights my driver ferries me from the door of work to the door of my apartment, making sure that my pretty, little Western sensibilities don't get damaged by the honking anarchy that is the Indian road network.

I retreat to my fitness prison where the gates keep any non-first world problems at bay, so rather than having to worry about where the next 100 rupee note is coming from (yep, still a problem), I have the rather less problematic problems of lift politics and the maid being rubbish.

Yes, that wasn't a typo, I have a maid. Not something I've needed before, but apparently it's the done thing here. I always assumed that having a maid would be sort of glamorous. It's not. It's marginally more hassle than not having a maid. You know how if you cook someone a meal, they might help clear up, and then you have a week-long period where you can't find the chopping board? Having a maid is like that every day.

And the lift. I'm not a fan of the lift, generally, but I live quite up in the sky and if I try and walk it it makes me pooped. My lofty status has made me a bit of a lift Nazi. I tend to glare at people from the lower floors if they stop me on my way down (the lazy so-and-sos) and then I remember that eight flights of stairs is actually quite a climb (but don't stop glaring, obviously).

So what do expat cliche do for a social life (apart from gym and Netflix)? Why they hang out at the foreign embassies of course. This weekend it was the turn of the German Embassy. Christmas markets. Turns out drinking glühwein when the temperature is in the mid-twenties doesn't actually feel that Christmassy.

Dry as Ghandi's Ashram

I had pretty low expectations for Ahmedabad. All I knew about it was that it was massive (biggest A city in the world, don't you know? A bit bigger than Athens and Amsterdam combined) and whatbthe guidebook said. And the guide book I had, absolutely slated it. And guide books normally paint a fairly positive picture of things, so I feared the worst.

Ahmedabad is ace. I'm staying right in the middle of the rickety streets in the old city and it's just about the first urban environment where I've not been able to hear motorbike horns. I'm staying in French Haveli, It's completely Best Exotic Marigold.

When I was asking people what to do I was told to visit Ghandi's Ashram (tick - saw his flipflops and everything) and the step well. I fear I may have visited the wrong step well. People have been telling me how busy the step well is, rather than how difficult it was to find behind the charcoal factory.

So what do people do of an evening in a city with no bars? Turns out they go to night markets. They are insane. I didn't really understand them. I can eat as much as the next man, but there's only a finite time I can stuff my face with streetfood.

City of Life

I can see why you might not like Varanasi. You're sitting in Blue Lassi (Lonely Planet's Number one lassi in all Varanasi, this means that it has wifi and has priced itself out of the market with the locals. As a tangential aside, this is the first place I've been where lassis are served in a bowl with garnish and a spoon - so pretty much a dessert rather than a drink. For the record, whilst it was a pretty good lassi, I think the Lassiwala lassi in Jaipur was probably better. Look at me being all traditional liking the drinking lassi. These brackets have gone on a while, haven't they? Should probably get to the main narrative rather than chatting about yoghurt. Where were we? Sitting in Blue Lassi) when a dead body goes past. I can see how that might be disconcerting.

I had it on pretty good authority that I was going to hate it. That the whole city was spectacularly dirty, the Ganges was a grey colour, that you would get hounded by touts and that all of it - the city, the river and the touts - smelt real bad. And yeah, the city was smelly and dirty, but not noticably smellier or dirtier than any other city I've been to.

Old Varanasi centres itself on Mother Ganges. So you have a series of ghats linked by a promenade which is only accessible by steps (the water level varies a fair bit between wet and dry season, as the metre-thick mud in some places showed). So whilst you did get a bit touted - "boatride, boatride, hashish" - this was comparatively pleasant compared to the full-horn full-throttle motorbikes of every other pedestrian area I've been to in the last two months. The whole river front had the feel of a British seaside resort, albeit with more cows and burning bodies. Insert your own joke with your preferred British seaside resort as the punchline.

Honourable mention goes to Kashi Chaat Bhandhar which may have served me up the tastiest thing I've eaten since I've been in India. If it isn't hands down the tastiest, it smashes the tastiness to cost ratio.

Tuktuk, Sir?

Udaipur is the prettiest city I've been to so far in India. The lakeside setting with the hilly backdrop makes for a pretty good base and the ramshackle new builds haven't yet completely drowned out the much more attractive, nineteenth century buildings. So it seems a shame that the trip revolved so fundamentally around money.

To update from two posts ago. There is still almost no money in the system. Cash machines are open again, but generally have no money. If they do have money they also have an hour wait.

Bureau de changes are only open to tell you that they have no money, so changing foreign currency isn't an option either.

No one has money.

This means that even if you do manage to get to a bank and get one of the new 2000 Rupee notes, noone will be able to change it. So you may as well not have bothered.

This meant that most of the conversations I had whilst in Udaipur went something like this:
Tuktuk, sir?
- do you take old 500s?
No Sir
- do you take US dollars?
No Sir
- I don't suppose you have a card reader in your tuktuk?
No Sir
- In that case, not to worry. I'll walk.

I racked up some serious miles around the lakes and hills of Udaipur.

So Long...

I'm Your Man was the only album I remember being in the house when I was a kid and it seemed very different from Sounds of the Sixties on Radio 2. Like it had substance. I listened to it a lot. Partly for thesubstance thing but mainly because First We Take Manhatten and Jazz Police were brilliant soundtracks for goodies versus baddies battle games.

When I first heard it I didn't know what a waltz was. I figured it was a bit like a wolf. Only an unkempt one, what with its freshly cut breath of brandy and death and all. Maybe it was the beast that won't go to sleep in I'm Your Man, I was fairly sure that was lupine too.

It wasn't until much, much later that I realised what the songs were about. "Everybody knows that you live forever when you've done a line or two." That was a very different message to the one they were putting out on Grange Hill.

Leonard Cohen taught me about depth in songs, taught me poetry, taught me language.

Thank you.

Politics, Hey... (pt. 2)

Let's talk politics again. We both enjoyed it last time. To be fair last time the politics extended to about seven words before I apologised and changed the subject. This time though, I'm going to risk saying something misinformed (/ obvious / trite / regrettable or looking like a sixth former who has just read his first broadsheet or sounding like an over-privileged member of the middle-class elite), and talk about actual politics. Because this affects all of us. By which I mean all of us in this room. By which I mean me (and 1.2 billion others)

And no, I'm not talking about THAT politics:
a. I've been expecting that since June. Go on, admit it, you have to. Once you saw that people could be completely self-destructive just to make a point, you knew that sense and fact and competence and experience didn't stand a chance. We've all had enough of experts.
b. There's enough bureaucracy in the US to stop any really stupid ideas growing legs (I think - there must be some halfway sane Republicans in the Senate, right?).
c. It's pretty much a footnote to the news here. One of those kitten stories to amuse you away from the real issues at hand. "Look at what those funny Americans have done now."

I suspect that the news here has been somewhat overshadowed by the news elsewhere (that news involved English speaking, white people after all), but they have demonetised some of the banknotes.

You've read that sentence and you haven't understood it. You've maybe got distracted by the "demon" and assumed some voodoo ritual. Or else you have completely understood it but ruled it out as ridiculous. But no, you're right. And no it doesn't make sense. The logic behind it is sort of sound, but the implications...

India is largely cash-based. Two thirds of the population are rural and don't have access to a bank (that's approximately the population of Europe). To say that the cash is worthless without giving any real provision for people to prepare is ridiculous. Seven o'clock Tuesday night you could go to a cash machine and get cash out, the cash would be given to you in either 500 or 1000 notes. At 8pm it was announced that in four hours time 500 and 1000 notes would be "worthless bits of paper".

Obviously you can change old notes up at banks over the next month or so. But all banks were closed yesterday and were understandably bonkers today.

What's that? Go to the cash machine and get more cash out. No problem, except cash machines have been closed since the announcement too. Presumably because the current largest note in circulation is worth £1.20 which even here doesn't buy you that much - stocking cash machines is going to be a big old job.

And the cash machine thing is fine for us over-privileged idiots. I can gad about bouncing between shopping malls and putting everything on a card (maybe they are using the fees for expats using foreign bank cards to fund the gap in the economy). Not so good if you are any of the working class service industry - tuktuk drivers for example - relying on other people being able to access cash. Days without cash for a cash based society are going to be hitting the bottom end of society pretty hard.

And I understand the aim and intentions. I applaud the Prime Minister for taking drastic action to fight terrorism and corruption. I understand the need for the surprise tactic to try and make black money worthless. I just can't help but think there must have been a way of doing it without pulling the bottom out of the economy.

So yeah, that shinyhaired game show host with the new job, not really that important.

Follow the Monkeys

So a lot of people had told me how nice Jaipur is and how it doesn't feel like one of the big Indian cities. I can confirm that this is largely nonsense. The hustle and bustle are still there. And added to that the people come across as slightly less helpful. It seems that everything is designed just to make it that little bit more difficult for you.

Lassiwala is a case in point. It's possibly the most famous lassi stand in India. It's surrounded by four other shops all also called Lassiwala. For reference you can tell the original by the catchphrase "Kishan Lal Govind Narian Agarwal" written just above the awning so you can't see it from the street. Easy.

So yeah, Jaipur. The Pink City. I figured that's the most famous bit so I started there. Some bits of it are pink, more than you'd like are a murky orange colour. And it is a bit of a smelly city. And not in a good way. Didn't add to the charm. The Jantar Mantar is a big thing in Jaipur, rather than the minor curiosity that it is in Delhi. And don't get me started on Hawa Mahal. The most overrated Major Tourist Attraction (TM) I've seen since Manneken Pis [Insert your own joke about the previously mentioned smell].

Sightseeing highlight of Day 1 was probably the Pigeon Watching Area. Yes it was marked on the map.

Day 2 was outside of the city proper, box ticking forts Amber, Tiger, Jal Mahal. Ticked. And then the tuktuk driver casually mentioned The Monkey Temple. To say it was an assault on the senses would be an understatement.

It started innocuously enough. I say innocuously, I saw a monkey riding a pig. If that's not a good omen, nothing is. So there was a temple and some monkeys and that might have been it, but there seemed to be a steady stream of people heading into the mountains. And there were more monkeys that way.

And then it all got weird. I saw some freak cows. And I think a man put a curse on me for not giving his freak cow any money. And there were more monkeys. And people. And colours. And firecrackers. And a snake charmer. And more monkeys. And then I was in a festival where a queue of people were prostrating themselves before bathing whilst an MC was commentating and I really didn't know what was going on but it was brilliant.

That kind of nonsense is the reason I travel.

Foke

I know I mentioned that the sky was ridiculous when I posted yesterday. I suspect that you didn't believe me. I suspect you thought I was being deliberately hyperbolic, just to make it funnier.

It's not been all that funny today. It's about the worst sky I've ever seen. Corroborative evidence? Here's the Beeb.

Rangolis

I had been really excited about Diwali. I was accidentally in Kathmandu for Diwali five years back and it was a ridiculously fun atmosphere, slightly scary, but ridiculously fun. And I figured if tiny, tiny Kathmandu was that good then Delhi would be immense.

Now when I was in Kathmandu I was staying in the middle of a tourist area, so everything was a. Accessible and b. Open. Turns out when you live with nothing in walking distance it's a bit less exciting.

That said the sky was kinda different. So many fireworks. And when I say fireworks I don't mean an orchestrated firework display. Nor do I mean the kind of fireworks you get at home for the garden. These were fireworks whose main aim was to make noise. Consequently all the nights this weekend have had a bit of a warzone vibe. Bangs. Flashes. Smoke.

I say smoke, it's pollution. The sky is ridiculous. And that's from a baseline where the sky is too thick for the sun to set.

So yeah, turns out just about everyone leaves the NCR for Diwali so that they can breathe marginally fresher air. Consequently, not as exciting a weekend as I had hoped.

On the plus side I did tick off a few more of the Delhi sites. Humayun's tomb was ace, for my money the wow factor was better than the Taj. But that was probably just because I wasn't expecting it. So forget I said it was good. Ditto Jama Masjid. Massive. Less impressed by the National Museum - it always irks me when museums charge full price when they are under renovation. Still did create the nice juxtaposition of a "Silence Please" sign and a pneumatic drill being anything but silent.

I went into hibernation for the main Diwali day. I read The Call by Peadar O'Guilin in one sitting. You should too (not necessarily in one sitting). But don't read the blurb first, it will make you cringe a bit, or maybe just not read it. You're just gonna have to trust me.

Golden Wonder

I'm in Amritsar and I have a new favourite place of worship. Given the location (and the title) you'd be forgiven for thinking that it was that there Golden Temple that had lit my fire. You're wrong though. That's number three on my Fave Amritsar Place of Worship list. Sri Durgiana, the Golden Temple's scruffy cousin takes second spot - way more peaceful and with bigger koi. And I felt a bit sorry for it.

Number one is Mandir Mata Lal Devi temple. It was bloomin marvellous. A temple for the limited attention span generation. I say Temple, it was more like something you would find at a funfair. Like an anti-ghost house. If all places of worship were like that...

Anyway Amritsar, the Golden Temple hey? That's a thing. Well technically it's not a thing, technically Sri Harmandir Sahib is a thing and that there pretty temple is a part of a thing. And Sri Harmandir is a thing with rules. I had to cover my head, which is fair enough, but wasn't allowed to use a hat. Which is odd; if there's one thing I think hats are good at it's head covering. I had to use a dayglo orange bandana, which is nowhere near as good at head covering as a hat is.

There are also a lot of people which makes the whole thing a bit more like a queue than an experience and this being an Indian queue there is a heap of jostling. And once you've been jostled you get the opportunity to drink holy water. Which is from the pool that people are dipping in. The pool that is so murky you can't see the fish.

This is the holiest place in the Sikh faith. This means that some people are having the most spiritual experience of their lives, drinking dubious liquids, surrounded by idiots in stupid headwear and with slightly stinky strangers so close they may as well be sharing pants. Thinking about it, I've pretty much described Super Furry Animals at Glastonbury '99.

This might be the most I've written about a building. There's still another paragraph to go though.

I can't not mention the canteen. It was immense. You got given a tray, sat on the floor and then a slick team walk the line dropping curry and rice on your tray. Not seen anything like it and all kinds of awesome.

I made it to the Wagah crossing to the Pakistan in time for the flag ceremony. It was weird. Some kind of patriotic war pantomime which the peeps both sides of the border were cheering like buffoons. Scary that a crowd could be frenzied up by some crotch-splitting marching and angry stamping.

Given how choreographed the whole shebang was, I can't help but think that the two sets of border guards must rehearse together. Bet there's a shared gym of happiness somewhere where they all practice there macho posturing together. Whilst holding hands.

Got my hit of post colonial guilt from the Jallianwala Bagh Memorial. They have hedges topiaried into British people killing peacefully protesting Indians. I always find that a point is best made with topiary. I've added a photo to prove it, the other photo? Well that's a tiny joke for my own benefit that not that many people who read this will get.

KLL LL HPPS

Go to Rishikesh, they said. Good for hiking, they said, maybe extreme sports if you fancy....

It's the self-styled yoga capital of the world. And where there's yoga there's hippies - the first person I spoke to said they were "here for the healing" without any level of irony. Now this makes for a bit of a weird mix, it's clearly a stop in the backpacker trail - there's heaps of places selling ethnic tat and cheap massages - but there's nowhere selling alcohol or meat. It confuses me. I'm not aware of big signs saying "fresh grains" ever being used to get people to go into a cafe.

I blame the Beatles. They started all this nonsense. I went to the ashram that they made famous. It's deserted now. Weird to see something that was brand new fifty years ago completely derelict with jungle growing through it.

Still heaps of other ashrams about. Although most of them do look like a cross between a cheap motel and a prison, and are more oppressive than either due to chants being played through a speaker system at an inhuman volume. They seem to like it loud here. There's a festival going on at the moment which I don't understand. It appears to be an old man (a sudha? Although I think that may just mean day-glo beggar) shouting into an amplifier ratcheted up to just above breaking point.

Rishikesh's main landmark is a suspension bridge across the Ganges. Do you know how annoying it is crossing the Millennium Bridge with all the people stopping for view selfies, so you can't get past. Take that as your starting point. Third the width, add a liberal dollop of motorbikes (full throttle, full horn, obviously) and maybe a cow, just because. Then you have some idea of what its like. Forgot to mention the monkeys that patrol the bridge ensuring that no food passes from one side to the other.

I went to Aarti, that's the Ganges fire festival. Not sure I understood it but it looked pretty amazing. Lots of people waving fire and sending burning boats full of sins and flowers down the river.

I did a yoga. I think it's fair to say I was rubbish at it. I knew I wasn't that flexible, it's been years since I could touch my toes, but I didn't think that there would be poses that I just wasn't strong enough to hold. I'd say I should practice some more but I didn't especially enjoy it.

And I did make it into the Himalayan foothills for a bit of a walk. Good waterfalls, good butterflies and a good break from the bustle and the horns and the hippies.

Jantar Mantar

How fun is that to say? Let's say it again. Jantar Mantar. It's a three hundred year old sundial for loss of a better description. Incidentally it's also the first "sight" I've ever been to that looks more impressive depicted on a fridge magnet than it does in real life.

So yeah, I've been exploring Delhi: Connaught Place, Lodi Gardens, Janpath markets all places that I felt I should have been by now. For what it's worth, Lodi Gardens was my fave of the bunch. I wasn't expecting it. I figured that it would be something, erm, how to explain? I was basically expecting Fletcher Moss and what I got was pretty far from Fletcher Moss.

________

Have you heard Let Them Eat Chaos yet? Why not? What's your excuse? It's massive in Delhi. All the kidz are listening to South London performance poetry.

They're not.

But you should.

Return to Pig City

Erm, I appear to be Indian now.

That's pretty far from the truth. I've been living in India for a week but I'm not very Indian at all. I'm back in Gurgaon (or Gurugram as it now might be called, yep, confuses me too), a city of glass and pigs and appear to be living very much the expat life of speakeasies and over-priced beer.

I have been able to explore a bit more of Delhi. Managed to get up to Delhi proper. Old Delhi. With its kites and its car horns  With its Red Fort and its walls and its tiny, winding, bustling streets. Now I've said bustling and you're probably thinking maybe Oxford Street. Oxford Street is not bustling, there are not enough handcarts, cows or people shouting to make Oxford Street bustle.

I'm guessing in time the traffic and filth and pollution might drag me down - it's so smoggy here that the sun doesn't set - but so far so good.

YYC

Calgary refers to itself as YYC a lot. It is also ridiculously friendly. I don't know if those two things are related but I'd chatted to more people in the first hour in Calgary than I had in the previous eight days of Out East. It was almost disconcerting, I assumed people were trying to mug me. They weren't, they were being nice.

The city is surprisingly pretty. In my head it was going to be a sprawling mess of a place. Which it is, but they have kept the two rivers undeveloped which means you can always seem to find some green space. Or, given the time of year, some Autumnal gold.

Dirty food since the last entry:
Deep fried gherkins. Dirty. 

As an aside I tried to be respectable and have Alberta-raised Wagyu beef. That's about the best beef in the world, right? They only went and fried that as well, the rotters. Why would you do that? That's like shooting a decent whisky. Which they also do. The rotters.

So the end of the trip, what have I learnt?

That Canadia is not only more expensive than I thought it would be it adds tax to everything so it's more expensive than it says it is.
-How much is this?
-$1.95.
-great, can I have that then?
-that'll be $2.23.

That Canadia loves a Christmas shop. At least one in every town I went to.

I'm confused by tips, taps and traffic lights. All have been explained to me more than once. But let's make this clear, you don't have to wait at a redlight but you can't necessarily go at a green, that right there blows my simple British mind a little bit.

The food is really, really dirty. I ate a cricket taco, and that doesn't make my top 5 filthy feeds. Scrap that: macncheese burger, croburger, maple meatballs, pulled pork fingers - the cricket taco was a contender for the healthiest thing I've eaten in the last two weeks. Hmm spicy crickets.

The Rockies

Apparently Canadia is full of this wildlife stuff, so I figured I should head up into the mountains to try and find some.

As soon as you enter the Rockies the warnings start - Don't dress as a pickernick basket, you will be eaten by a bear - so I was pretty hopeful that I would see at least something. Took the Icefield Parkway from Banff to Jasper and back and didn't see anything more wildlifey than a raven. Boo. Only saw ludicrously pretty scenery. Oh well.

Back in Banff after the enormo-drive I did get my wildlife fix from an elk. At least I think it was an elk. I'm pretty confused about these big deer things. Growing up I always thought elk was just another word for moose but it appears to be a species in its own right, albeit one that looks mighty deery.

So what of the ridiculous Canadian food I hear you ask. Two things stick out.

This conversation:
"I'm after something a bit snacky what can you recommend."
"Erm, people seem to like the meatballs."
"That doesn't sound Canadian."
"They're wrapped in bacon and covered in maple syrup."
"They probably need to be in my life."

Pulled pork fingers. Yeah, that's what you think it is. Pulled pork mushed back into a lump, covered in crumbs and then fried. Dirty.

Royal Mountain

So here's a curveball. You know how I was expecting to feel about Toronto? Well that's how I feel about Montreal.

Initially I feared it would be terrible. The old town where the "sights" are is so touristy it almost hits resort levels. Once you're free from that, the city is immense, with its islands and its "mountain" and irs underground passageways and its neighbourhoods and its idiosyncrasies.

That's possibly doing the Old City a bit of a disservice. Its idiosyncratic enough. There's:
- a museum with an inflatable octopus outside.
- a view of Habitat 67. I first became aware of Habitat 67 about the same time as the Donkey Riding song in a kids' book of strabge buildings. I knew nothing about it (what it was called or where it was) and hadn't thought about it in over two decades, so it was a bit discombobulating seeing it loom large in front of me.
- a fire fountain. I feel like that should be in block capitals. A FIRE FOUNTAIN. An actual fountain of actual fire.
- a statue on the main square of a French person and an English person not speaking.
- an interactive art display that projects Montreal history onto the walls of buildings
- a man dressed as Jesus feeding seagulls from his hand. Not sure if he's there all the time. Let's assume he's an art installation.

But the neighbourhoods. I felt like I was making some of the places less cool just by being there. Particularly the Spectacles Quarter where I stumbled across Studio 16, which is the freshest art gallery I've possibly ever been in. It made peak era White Cube seem like the RA. My visit to the Quarter (and, well Montreal) clashed with a three day bloc party there. They had Jazzy Jeff DJ their street party. Ridiculous.

And we've not even talked about food yet. Food is a thing. I ate smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz, which was epic. Poutine covered three different shades of beige - not sure that that's three of your five a day. I ate tourtiere, which apparently is proper Quebecois home cooking at its finest. I had to work for it though, I could only find one place in town that served it (La Binerie if you are using this blog for anything useful - you shouldn't by the way, I've just told you that one of my highlights was watching a crazy man throw things at seagulls).

I ate a cheesecake Beavertail in Ottawa. I had assumed that that would be the dirtiest thing I ate whilst I was away. It wasn't. I've just eaten a croburger. That's a beefburger in a cronut. Utter filth.

Donkey Riding, Donkey Riding

It must be twenty-five years since I last heard that song, yet every time I hear the name Quebec the first verse plays itself out in my head, then the chorus loops in like some kind of ghastly, never-ending earworm.

Anyway, I finally made it to Quebec City and it turns out that the song isn't instructional. There isn't a King with a golden crown riding on a donkey. Or if there is I didn't see him. Presumably because the Quebec Grand Prix was on so getting around the city was a bit of a nightmare, on donkeyback or otherwise.

...where there's a man with a spandex shirt, riding on a pushbike.

Not sure who won the bike race. The last lap I saw the guy on the motorbike was in the lead so I reckon he won. Seems unfair but hey...

Justin Trudeau's Pet Rabbit

My introduction to Ottawa was inauspicious to say the least. First off, what kind of city has a station that isn't walking distance from the centre? If that wasn't bad enough the bus link runs hourly. And, due to its remote, disconnectedness, the station ranks amongst the most soulless places I've ever been. And I've been to Frankfurt.

I was staying in a converted jail - I'm all over a gimmick - but the atmospheric novelty quickly wore off when I found I was in a three foot by nine foot cell. For the record, there's not much space in a three foot by nine foot cell.

I was directed to Byward Market for dinner. Now in my head that sounded like a decent place to get a tasty snack from a tasty snack stall. Turns out all the stalls were closed which left a load of oversized Irish pubs full of frat boys getting LabourDay loaded. Wholly unpleasant. Guess I'm getting old.

Anyway, the next day (when I'd eaten and I'd got my sense of humour back) I found that Ottawa was actually alright. A lot of the buildings are suitably impressive and the riverside walks are ace.

One tiny criticism, on my first day of walkinh there seemed to be charity muggers on every intersection like some insidious YOLO cult. It was almost threatening. Not sure what they were mugging for, I'm gonna assume it was for their experiments in eugenic cloning and ultimate world domination. I didn't give them money. Not certain why anyone would. Maybe Canadans are less cynical.

Speaking of which, I went to the light show on Parliament Hill. It starts with a history of Canadia and then halfway through morphs into something resembling an announcement from the Capitol. The crowd lapped it up. If they had done anything that blatantly patriotic back in Blighty they would be apologising for weeks.

Tea Dot

I've been wanting to go to Toronto since I first heard Abdominal's T Ode almost a decade ago. He just made the city sound like somewhere I wanted to visit (which is more than I can say for any London song that I can think of off the top of my head).

And so I finally made it. I had friends to show me around, this meant I avoided the bulk of the more touristy things to do (CN Tower, p'uh) in favour of doing things that Torontonians actually do (Escape rooms, drinking ale, eating at English pubs - all things that I definitely couldn't do at home). I think that that's what Abdominal would have wanted.

We went to the Ex - Canadia's National Exhibition - which was a Village Fair that had been supersized. So much stuff. So much food I couldn't find the fabled pulled pork eclair in the food court so had to settle for chilli-cricket, steak taco.

Obviously I've been trying to consume all the new things (standard), so far I've tried ice wine (about 80 percent sweeter than wine needs to be) and a Caesar, which tasted like a Bloody Mary.

I stayed in The Beaches. Now in my head Toronto is thoroughly in land so I had always figured that The Beaches was either The Beeches or some other corruption. But no, Toronto has a legit beach. A beach on a lake hey? What will they think of next?

Splishy Sploshy

I'm in St Catharine's, which I think is the point where everyone should start their Canadan adventure. Apparently it's the Canadan town that eats the most doughnuts per capita. Which by my reckoning makes it the doughnut capital if the world.

More prosaically, it also reminds me a lot of the kind of city you see in all American (yes, I know, I'm sorry) movies ever. All decking and driveways and strip malls and drivethrus. And doughnuts. Although it's Tim Horton's in this Canadia place. My first two meals both involved Tim Horton's. Dirty.

I went to Niagara Falls yesterday. That's one of the main ones, right? I'd been warned that it was going to be horribly commercial, but it was nowhere near as bad as I feared. There was just a nearby street full of ways to part tourists from money - why have one wax museum when you can gave two? Why have two minigolfs when you can have three?

The Falls themselves were big and wet and, due to the bank holiday weekend, somewhat queuey. Cobes had been recommended "Niagara's Fury" as a handy and fun introduction to the history of the Falls, so we started there. It was very bad. If you are in Niagara Falls fo not go. It is a waste of time and money which, in a town designed to waste your time and money is saying something. The other Falls based attractions like (TAFKA) The Maid of the Mist and the Journey Behind The Falls were a whole heap better. Almost worth the brutal queues...

Drum n Bass and Toilet Queues

How did it take me so long to get to the Notting Hill Carnival? I've been meaning to go for well over a decade, how has it taken so very, very long. A cocktail of apathy, busy-ness and the need to coerce friends to join me, I guess.

Glad I've been now though. I feel obliged to sneer at the over priced drinks and the enormous queues for the toilet (mighty glad I wasn't a lady - one hour. ONE HOUR.) but in reality I had a fab time, it always feels naughtily anarchic to be walking down the middle of a road, let alone with a drink in your hand.

Other things I've liked:
The Crystal Maze
It was ace. I felt just like I was on TV in the early nineties. In that I shouted into a room at the same time as everyone else, just like the guys you found really annoying when it was n for real.

Escape Rooms
You know something has gone mainstream when you have several options in Essex. Recently I have escaped both EscapeLive in Southend and the pop-up at Asylum in Chelmsford. Two very different styles.  Go on, jump on a bandwagon.

You know when you get those tingles...

Previous years I've been to the theatre a whole heap and generally enjoyed it quite a lot. This year I've checked out most of the big name shows and been continually less than whelmed.

And then Yerma happened.
Best thing I've seen since Chimerica? Definitely.
Best thing I've seen since Macbeth? Possibly.
Best thing I've seen?  Erm...
Just go see it.

Where's Big Jeff

It's that time of year where I tell you about all the exciting new bands that I saw at Standon.  In reality my Standon experience reached a new nadir. I seemed to spend far too long doing a music quiz and nowhere near enough time riding the cutting edge of the music scene.

Festival highlight: The guy from Rockaoke singing "Where's Big Jeff" to the tune of Purple Rain.  Easily pleased doesn't come close.

Politics, Hey...

I'm really enjoying politics at the moment, but feel that if I talk about it I'll say something obvious and / or trite and / or sounds like sixth form nonsense and / or I disagree with and / or regret before the rolling news cycle is out. So I'll talk about the things that happen in urban parks instead.

Castle Park, Colchester: Food and Drink Festival
In my head this was going to be sitting in the park in the sun eating and drinking all day.  In the real world that didn't happen. It was way too muddy to do any sitting; just muddy enough to do some sinking. I did manage to forcefeed weird foods into randoms though - who doesn't love shooting oysters?

Queens Square, Bristol: Comedy Garden
I chose badly.
Bad choice 1. I should have gone to Grillstock - meat and music, hmmmm.
Bad choice 2. I should have seen the Pajama Men. Instead I saw Arthur Smith and John Shuttleworth.

Arthur Smith I mainly know from panel shows, in my head I expected him to be miserable but doing fairly intelligent jokes. In reality he was just doing lowest common denominator bobbins - "ooh, I done a swear, how risque?" An utter waste of twenty minutes.

I knew nothing of John Shuttleworth.  Just had a vague knowledge of the name. Turns out he's completely cult.  Everyone else in the audience knew every word to every song and found every facial malformation cassock wettingly hilarious. Whereas I just didn't understand why a middle aged man was pretending to be a middle aged man.

Admirals Park, Chelmsford: Beer Festival
It's the premier event in Chelmsford's social calendar. The one time of the year that I can still guarantee bumping into people that I've known for all of the time yet not seen in ages. Plus there's beer. And a park. And sun.

Chalkwell Park, Southend: Village Green
The Stereo MCs look a lot like a "Just Say No, Kids" advert but at the same time haven't really changed since they were getting themselves connected twenty odd years ago. They were a lot of fun. Billy Bragg, not so much.  

Grand Torino

Once again, I've come away from a big Italian city absolutely buzzing. Turin is ace. And to think, I nearly didn't come. I checked the weather and the forecast looked somewhat apocalyptic, so I very nearly bailed - wandering aimlessly round an industrial city when you're soaked hardly ever leaves a positive memory. Still, the weather was alright - a few sunny showers - and even if it hadn't been there were more than enough museums to fill a weekend and enough porticos to get between the museums without ruining your hair.

Turin was a hotchpotch of a city. It reminded me variously of Hamburg, Antwerp, Valencia, Buenos Aires, Lisbon, Seville and just about every other city I've been to. Except, strangely, other Italian cities. It seemed more French than Italian. But then I guess that's what happens when that Napoleon replaces your walls with leafy Boulevards.

Visited the Duomo to not see the Turin shroud. Slightly disappointed that the supporting information didn't point out that it's a medieval fake. Still, never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn / faith / pilgrim exploitation opportunity.

I felt morally obliged to go to the Egyptian Museum, given its reputation. For my money it's better than the Cairo one. What it's lacking in Tutankhamun trinkets it more than makes up for by better information, a more coherent narrative and, erm, well, just being in Italy.

Ate local food at an authentic looking trattoria in a pretty street. Was a bit dissapointed. It was over rich and under flavoured. I may as well have just eaten a block of butter. Is that what all Piemonte food is like, or was I just unlucky?

Last night I had another coincidental right place / right time thing. It was Turin's Fiesta of Music: twenty odd stages around Quadrilatero showcasing music in all its forms. I saw jazz, bebop, choral, beat poetry, rock, Bjork-esque experimentation and an Italian lady singing Teddy Picker (without resorting to patriotic clichés, I reckon you'd be hard pushed to find a more English song than Teddy Picker). Great night, great city.

Bauhaus (in the Middle of our Street)

Turns out that my gut reaction to Tel Aviv - that it's just a tatty Abu Dhabi - was a little bit harsh. That said, the promenade backed by chain hotels was a whole heap more resorty than I was expecting. Not certain why, a city that claims some of the best city beaches in the world is bound to feel resorty, right?

Spent a little bit more time exploring away from the beaches today, went to the Bauhaus districts to check out the White City architecture. Some of the trees lining the boulevards are incredible - there's so many of them and they all look like their insides are falling out. Stunning.

And most amazing of all is that all these leafy boulevards lead to a central square that makes Coventry look pretty. City Hall is truly monstrous.

Anyway, heading home now. Made it through the interrogation and swabbing at border control, so have just about completed this Middle Eastern adventure.  Any surprises? Yep. If there's one thing that Indiana Jones taught me it's that they don't have Js in the Middle East - how comes just about every city I went to began with J? Jerusalem, Jaffa, Jericho, Jarash, J-tastic.

Low Points

Today I've been doing a survey of public toilets in Ramallah and Jericho and have to say, I'm relatively impressed. Generally all western style, with locking doors, soap and toilet paper. All told, this made the day a lot nicer than it could have been. That said, my preoccupation with toilets may have meant that I didn't fully appreciate, say, the oldest city on earth.

Shabbat pretty much forced me to West Bank. I hadn't fully appreciated how comprehensive Shabbat would be - it stops everything. No public transport tastic. So the nearest open pharmacy was basically Ramallah.

Went to the Dead Sea yesterday. That's pretty low. And pretty weird. My skin now feels super soft, but the Sea's healing powers have to be called into question...

The Hidden City

I think I have a new favourite wonder. Petra is way better than I thought it would be. Admittedly I had reasonably low expectations, in my head it was going to be that pink sandstone tomb that you always see and not much else.

Turns out there's quite a lot more. It is enormous. It starts off with the Siq, a kilometre long canyon - and who doesn't love a canyon - which serves as an entrance to the hidden city before opening out into a sandstone capsule hotel of a settlement.

One slight downer, the narrow path up to the monastery was made a whole heap more treacherous by antisocial, faux-Bedouin donkey jockeys (does that sound like an insult? Good) thrashing donkeys down the stone steps through anyone coming up. You'd have thought that the rumoured most expensive tourist attraction in the world (more than six times as much as the Taj Mahal, since you ask) could have done something about that.

Stayed in a "Bedouin camp" whilst in Jordan. I guess that sounds better for tourists than canvas guesthouse, which is exactly what it was.

I also took a trip to Wadi Rum. That's the desert in the South of Jordan, you know? The one with all the rock formations? The landscape was obviously spectacular but you're at the mercy of the 4x4 drivers there, which meant that about a quarter of the desert experience was spent in a gift shop, I mean Bedouin tea tent.

And that pretty much sums up my Jordan experience. Everything is set to take tourist money. You have to tip for everything. And as the currency is so ridiculous you're tipping a pound a time, which makes toilet visits expensive.

Yes, I feel sorry for a large population working in a tourist economy where noone is visiting due to the next door neighbours being a bit warry. But still, it did feel a lot like I was just a transportation device for my wallet.

To summarise. Jordan: nice scenery; bit of an attitude problem.

Desert Rain

I'm in Jordan. I got rained on. That wasn't in my plans. Plus it was unpleasant cold rain, like you get back home, rather than warm-bath rain like you normally get in hot countries. I'm going to have strong words with the sky.

Jordan staryed with a visit to Jarash, a town which two days ago I hadn't heard of. It was chock full of Roman ruins. Pillars everywhere.

Then spent the afternoon in Amman. That makes it sound a bit more grand than it was. It was a smash and grab even by my standards. In. Flag. View. Citadel. Amphitheatre. Mosque. Cheesey-sugar thing. Out.

The Holy Land

There are some real famous things in Jerusalem. Quite a lot of them are names that are so familiar, I didn't really think they were real. Calvary, Mount of Olives, Garden of Gethsemanee all places that I probably knew more about as an eight year old. Like Tatooine or Third Earth.

Visited the three biggest sites already.
The Western Wall really wasn't what I was expecting, the large amount of patio furniture meant that this hugely spiritual place felt a bit like an empty cafe, which I guess isn't the feel it was going for.

The Dome of the Rock is impressively shiny. Far and away the prettiest building in the city.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is surprisingly dingy. Plus it had that sombre pilgrim feel that makes you feel as though you're awkwardly intruding on somewhere that you really shouldn't be.

Contrarily my favourite Jerusalem sight so far is not any of those. The City of David, the oldest part of town, is built on a spring, which you can wade through. In a mighty dark tunnel. It was an odd tourist experience, but a nicely cooling one on a forty degree day.

I've been to West Bank today. Did the slightly unusual double bill of Bethlehem and Hebron.

I  didn't love Bethlehem, for a place that pretty much serves as a symbol of peace it is a mighty noisy place. Everyone just seems to like shouting. And tooting their horn. Nowhere more so than in the souk. Angryshoutingtastic.

Hebron on the other hand was like nowhere I've ever been. The whole of the city centre is a dystopian ghost town. Nearly all the shops are closed and the only people you see in the streets are soldiers. You could eat the tension. And in the midst of that you have the Tombs of the Patriarchs, one of the most important - and impressive - religious sites in the world. Weird.

Acting Up

I don't like writing negatively about things that people have invested passion and heart into, it seems unfairly harsh. Equally, I don't like paying West End prices to see things that are a little bit rubbish. Bring on the negativity:

Romeo and Juliet
Meera Syal is brilliant as the nurse in the Branagh R+J. It's a shame that everyone else is fairly mediocre.  Romeo and Juliet look like Danny and Sandy and sound like they are reading autocues, leaving the whole thing sounding decidedly un-romantic.  And as for casting Derek Jacobi as Mercutio... (imagine me shaking my head and looking forlorn).

And here's a word of warning: when the Garrick Theatre says the view is restricted it is not lying. Sitting back in my seat I couldn't see the stage. I may as well have been outside.

The Maids
I was lured in by the combination of Benedict Andrews and CrazyEyes. I was disappointed by the way all emotions had been replaced by over-acted shouting.  Once you'd got over that, it was just a fairly boring evening of watching three ladies in a box.

A Comedy about a Bank Robbery
To be fair, nothing bad to say about this one. It was laugh out loud funny and had possibly the best staging I've ever seen.  The issue here is my ridiculously high expectations.  It's the new Mischief Theatre production and, if you've been following for a while you might remember that Mischief Theatre have been responsible for the most I've laughed in each of the last three years. On each occasion I laughed my organs out my mouth. This time it only left me with an aching jaw. No permanent laughter-based injuries.  How perverse that I'm counting the play I've enjoyed most this year as a disappointment.

Devon is a Place on Earth

And another weekend where I visit somewhere that I used to think was ace and remember exactly why I thought it was ace. Britain is brilliant.

I'm in North Devon. There's a coastline. I don't feel I need to say any more.

By Water Cool

I'd forgotten how much I like Liverpool.

That sentence in no way does justice to anything. I've been a blancmange of nostalgia over the weekend, spending all my time pointing at things that aren't there any more.

So what's changed? First off the whole city centre has moved a couple of blocks south: something called Liverpool 1 has plonked itself on Quiggins and the Superlambanana (Quiggins rest in peace; the Superlambanana appears to have been multiplied like the Borg - which is a good thing. The more Superlambananas the better, I say). Le Bateau and Zanzibar have both moved, The Nation is being demolished and Probe Records has closed. Rapid is no longer on Rapid Road, the trees aren't growing through the church and they've finally sorted out the docks - the waterfront is looking super shiny.

But it's still Liverpool. Concert Square still sounds hellish, there's still vomit outside the Krazyhouse, the Raz is still terrible. Baa bar, Magnet, La Go and the Blob shop are all still there. Smithdown Road still hasn't been gentrified (although the Ten has become Five). Mathew Street is still full of Beatles tat. Albert dock is still full of lost hen dos. Chinatown is still weirdly anticlimatic. And most of all the city's still got more soul than any other city I can think of.

So thank you, so called Pool of Life, I'll try not to leave it so long next time.

Bringing Elizabethan Theatre to the Masses

So I've not been to a Christopher Marlowe play before. Bit of an oversight. He's one of the main ones, right? I figured I'd put that right and head to Doctor Faustus, you know the one up town with Jon Snow in. No, not Jon Snow from the news, the "You know nothing, Jon Snow" Jon Snow.

Turns out it wasn't a traditional version. It had been updated to the 1830s. Sorry, if that's conjuring images of Charles Dickens and stovepipe hats. I shall clarify, it had been updated for the 18-30s. I can't remember the time I last saw something so dumbed down (sex jokes, in jokes, slapstick - to be fair probably how Marlowe wrote it). But equally I think that this is the first time I upped the average age of an audience for an Elizabethan play.

Maybe getting people out the sleb mags is the way to get people into the more obscure fringes of theatre. Maybe get Joey Essex to do Ionesco, you may have to imply that it's a Greek Island with a banging club scene...

History Repeating

Have you been blogging with me from the start? Do you remember those early ones from travellercliche? If so you may notice a bit of a pattern: Buenos Aires, a flight to the south of Argentina to see some ice, back to BA. Well to keep that trend alive I'm in Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay...

Urug-why? Erm.

Anyway, where were we? Ushaia, with its hotchpotch planning laws and volatile weather. Turns out Ushaia is crazy expensive: the trip to Tierra del Fuego national park just about bankrupted us. Added to that we weren't made to feel especially welcome, partly due to absolutely nothing being open on a Sunday and partly because it was a celebration of Las Malvinas in the self-declared Capital of Las Malvinas. Which possibly isn't the best place to be British.

So yeah, back to BA and then straight on to Colonia. Seven years ago I found Colonia a bit boring, but pleasant enough to wander about in the summer sun, witg its palm trees and hummingbirds, so when it was suggested this time I didn't straight up refuse. Turns out the summer sun is fairly key to that enjoyment. Wandering around in the Autumn rain made for a bit less successful a visit. Ho hum. Hopefully my feet will dry on the boat to Argentina.

Number 7

I'm in Antarctica. Or at least I was when I wrote this. Strangely internet access doesn't seem great in this enormous desolate continent.

Getting here took a bit longer than it should. The Drake Passage was full of weather as we left, so we spent best part of a day hanging in the entrance to the Beagle Channel with sporadic dolphin activity providing the only real diversion.

We spent the first proper day in the South Shetland Islands. Half Moon Island provided the first penguin fix, with chinstraps rockhopping all over the place. For birds with no facial expressions, the amount of concentration on their face when rockhopping is impressive.

The afternoon was spent on Deception Island. Yes, that sounds like a Bond villain lair. Yes, it is in an active volcano. No, it is nowhere near as exciting as it sounds. It was a handful of ramshackle huts on a cold and rainy beach. It reminded me of Dungeness.

Day 2 saw the first continental landing, on Neko Harbour. Day 2 also saw the first snow. And the second snow. And third. Snow wasn't in any danger of not being part of the authentic Antarctic experience. Neither were dead penguins. The weather went pretty, erm, aggressive which meant the rest of the day was somewhat ship bound. Although we did manage to get the first whale sighting.

The weather was a whole heap better the next morning, which meant wildlife was out in force: double figures of humpback whales before breakfast. A trip to (the ridiculously scenic and penguin filled) Petermann Island followed before getting up close and personal with a family of whales.

Within twenty four hours whales had gone from never-seen phenomenon to curious backdrop to a barbecue.

That afternoon was spent cruising the so-called Iceberg Alley. Unsurprisingly saw a host of icebergs and a fair few seals, including a leopard seal and its teeth.

Melchior Island delivered more penguins, ice, rocks and seals. Paradise Bay delivered the exit through the gift shop moment - an enterprising Chilean ice station has set up a tiny museum cum post office cum souvenir shop. They seemed pretty pleased to see us, but then I guess that a boat full of idiots have more disposable income than the local religious penguins.

So yeah, two Drake Passage crossings under my belt, I feel like I've earned by sea legs. Been precipitated on on three different days on the self-styled driest continent, which almost earns me a weather badge. I've seen two different types of penguin, three types of seal, two flavours of whale and a host of icebergs.

Antarctica, the Big White Wilderness, the Last Continent: box ticked.

Tierra Del Fuego

I'm at the End of the World, in the Land of Fire. It sort of reminds me of Scotland, in that there are mountains, trees and some bleak looking views of the sea.

Ushaia itself is kinda how you expect it to be: a tourist outpost packed with trendy bars, restaurants selling king crab and shops selling high-end trekking gear. Although a general strike gave it a soupcon of je ne sais quoi, everyone loves it when there are things burning in the streets, right?

So this is where the adventure really gets going. In a handful of hours, I shall be leaving my third continent of the week. Bring it...

Good Wind? Again?

And so another adventure starts in the City of Fresh Air, the so-called Paris of the South. Last time I came here I spent my first day trying to find a water park, and as fun as that was I couldn't help but feel that I didn't see he most of Buenos Aires.

This time I spent the day smashing the sights: La Boca, Rosa Casada, Recoleta cemetry, Belgrano: I saw more in one afternoon than I did in the whole time, last time.

In other news:
"That's the biggest steak I've ever seen."
It got devoured: nice to know that I haven't completely lost my edge.

A Sleepy Hilltown

I hadn't really heard of Pune and people kept telling me it was a sleepy hilltown. It was only a week or so back that I really paid any attention to it. It's enormous. It's  the biggest city in Asia beginning with P, which is a prime pub quiz question if ever I heard one. If it was in UK only London would be bigger.

My assessment, which is based on almost no empirical evidence, is that this perception of sleepiness is based on two things:

1. Everything seems to shut at 5.
2. The trees. They entirely dominate the city. And I don't mean saplings in planters at the side of the road, I mean big, gnarled, haunted-house beasties growing through everything. It creates an atmosphere completely unlike anywhere I've ever been, and I don't say that very often.