ESP

Gigging, I used to love it. I needed my weekly fix. I hated to miss anything, and staying in the know, in the loop, it was vital to me.

Nowadays it's a rarity to find myself at a concert. Tonight I'm doing it – I'm reliving that familiar feeling of standing around drink in hand, waiting for a band to come on, shifting my weight from foot to foot; ever so slightly impatient. The name of the support due onstage doesn't ring any bells. Tim Ten Yen. Nothing. No bells. I've been on the brink of it all for years now, and missing it in many ways, but not enough to get back involved. I've lost interest in investigating new bands, and I like a lot of things but not enough any more to really care. I'm into different sounds now. I no longer respect this genre in the way I used to. It's something I started getting into when I was what, 16? I’m 24. People grow up and tastes change. Those cringing photos of that ever so rebellious phase are proof enough. I believe a dog collar made a guest appearance a few times.

Tim Ten Yen is a cockney one-man band, a try-hard Londonner, a geezer in a suit. He performs some fairly hard hitting solid tracks which he happily bops along to. I consider looking him up on MySpace. But then I forget. Next is Eugene McGuinness, an acoustic guitarist whose floaty lullaby Bold Street sends me off on a drifting trail of thought which I get lost in for most of the set. When I come to, they are still playing similarly floaty tunes and I am bored.

But next is big for me. Really big.

When I was in my last years of school, still unsure of things, of where I stood in the world, and still a little bit angry about everything, then I liked Electric Soft Parade. More than that: I was almost a groupie. I wasn't under any misconceptions about their music - it was above average indie pop but nothing technically or musically groundbreaking, it just clicked all the right buttons inside me when I heard it. They were poor live performers, and I knew that too. They'd screw up and argue and be all over the place and basically not very likeable but I still followed them. But when it was good and it worked, I'd watch, listen and feel all at once satisfied and content.

My loyal gigging friend Edd sent me their new album but I haven't listened to it. I regret it now that I'm here and I will know hardly any of their songs. It'll be fresh though, or that's how I console myself. They come onstage and I look back at Edd, grinning excitedly. I am genuinely very excited. They look older, in a strangely comforting way. They're my sort of age, which means they've had about as much growing up as I've had in the past few years and I know what that means. They look so much more comfortable in their skins, and between each other. There's no arguing any more. They don't care they're in a shoddy student union and it is only half full, instead of a sold-out Shepherd's Bush Empire - they are just making music. They look a bit like... like a real band. Geppetto would be proud. Before, it felt like they were my band. Mine and Edd's and the other inherently geeky fans who loved them, and they didn't have to be impressive because whatever they did we knew we'd still be there to watch and listen and adore and secretly not mind if they got a bad review because they'd still be ours and not everybody else's.

They begin with ‘Empty At The End’, the first track I ever heard of theirs and it's just how it used to be but tighter, slicker, more altogether complete. I can't stop smiling and unabashedly love this moment. I stop myself from getting carried away: nostalgia has a lot to do with this euphoria. However, the band still appear pretty watertight. My excuse to myself about them sounding fresh, as it turns out, is true. I'm absorbed in the sounds and I listen to them with delight. They play two more old songs, a haunting ‘Silent To The Dark’ from the first album and the innocent sounding ‘Lose Yr Frown’ from ‘The American Adventure’. These bring back the same pleasantness in me that they use to, and I can't help but turn around yet again to Edd and make a stupid happy face at him, because it's a bit like the old days.

I may be acting like some middle aged bore about this, but it is a while ago now and I do feel like I've grown up, weirdly, "with" these guys who don't know me at all, and who I don't have a clue about really either. But looking at them fills me with all this stuff and all these memories of me becoming, well, me, and I can't help but fall under the illusion that I do know them.

I'm not going to obsess about the Electric Soft Parade, but as crass as it may be to say, I still think they are really good and for some reason every tune they create still strikes a big gratifying chord with me, and I'm helpless, I have to love them for it. Again.

Oh, and I still fancy Alex.

Looking In

There's money in this business. There's definitely that. Is that it? Is it enough?
Not for some. It's obvious who's there for the drive, the excitement, the risks, the buzz of the deals. Their eyes are sharp, quick to focus. There's passion in their movements. They stand out like a sore thumb. Life is work, work is life, things are fast and quick and busybusybusy and meeting people goingplaces doingthings keepingfit goingout makingmoney spendingmoney keepitgoing don'tstopnow or you'll.. you'll burn out.

Then there's the slower, stressed ones. They're getting the good money, they can't leave at that age, but are snowed under, given too much, taken on too much, they are too responsible and they're looking at the clock and for them it can't go slow enough. While the others are wishing the hands round, they're wishing Time would wash itself away and they wouldn't have to keep one eye on the ever bursting Inbox because they'd finally get it all done, have a clean slate, be back on top, on track, no backlog, no stress.

They don't look happy. They have a good job though, and they're good at what they do, and at the end of the day they have a nice home to go to. There's no turning back now, too old, too much work done already, a mortgage, a family.. no going back now.

The rest, the most, nearly all: for them it's a trudge. A daily slog through facts, figures, bills, envelopes, phonecalls, politeness, smalltalk, clock watching, time passing.

Everyone jokes about it; the running dullness, the eternal wait for the weekend, holidays, alcohol, weekends, the next paycheque, alcohol, holidays. In the day there's the constant tea and coffee and chit chat. The evenings hold home and tv, food, partners, perhaps a warm summer's evening, a glass of wine, a pint or two, yet more tv.

They've got used to it. It's normal, so it's OK, it's not so bad - the ease of settling into it. It isn't actively offensive as a way of life. The jokes about things being miserable are just jokes, and there's no decision to be made as to whether to keep this life, because it doesn't appear as a choice. That's.. that's life. And with a shrug they move on. On to the latest gossip, and so often it's not even their gossip, it's celebrity gossip. Or the office bitching. What he's been up to with who, what she had for lunch, what she wore that day, how hard he hasn't been working.
Content. Are they content? I daren't ask. I think so, in a way.

So where am I? On the outside looking in?

For now. But I can see it, I can see how it becomes normal, how we sacrifice what we want for what will do. I'm not lazy, I'm not stupid, but it's still a risk. And I don't want to be one of the excited work-obsessed ones. I want to create something and make it successful, something I'm passionate about, not just the money, not just the thrill of business, but passion in something that gives me something back.

A dreamer - maybe, but don't take that away from me just yet.

La Fin

I stopped writing for a while. I realised that the impact of the things I was seeing and doing was not something I felt I could sit down and express in the freshest way possible any more. I was with people nearly the whole of my trip, so my experiences were often shared ones, but in South America it was somehow different. I mean I was almost never on my own. It's difficult to explain. There's a hosteling culture which allows for travellers to jump from town to town, city to city, following the same path as each other, ending up in the same big mass well organised hostels, going to the same bars, the same sites, on the same tours; it's a tight circle. It's extremely irritating at times. The problem is, it's also seriously good fun. In any case, it meant I often got caught up in the swirls of the hostel hopping and my experiences felt completely normal and in a way, unexciting, because everyone who I was with was going through the same things too.

And now I look back on it, I'm amazed at some of the things I did and saw. One of the best I feel compelled to mention was a three day motorbike tour to Machu Pichu in Peru. Without consciously realising it, I put my life fully into someone else's hands without a smidgen of doubt of my trust in him, as we drove the most dangerous and exhilarating ride of my life, through some of the most dramatic, romantic and beautiful scenery I have ever been witness to. Ever.

I didn't have enough time. I didn't plan much time because for some idiotic reason I thought I wouldn't want it – I thought 7 months would be plenty. In fact, I was still under this misguided impression when I landed in Chile, as my heart was very much still in the madness of Asia, and with the people I'd left behind there and in New Zealand, and I began to feel vaguely ready for home. South America stood apart from any of this sentimentality for a good while. But in the end it won me over, and to my surprise I found all of a sudden, on reflection, it had begun to take over the previous places, and I longed to stay and do more, see more, to stop and take the time to explore properly. I didn't even see any jungle. I have to go back and see the jungle. I didn't see any exotic wildlife (in the wild, anyway). I didn't get to any tropical beaches. I have to go back and get to know some of those.

The end of my trip was a week spent in Brazil. The Iguazu Falls were mesmerizing. Mesmerizing! I found myself utterly captivated by the masses upon masses upon masses of unfolding sheaths of pounding water. It was truly Mother Nature at her most awesome (in the actual sense of the word) and fascinating to see. For a short time anyway, and not particularly all that enjoyable while freezing cold and soaking wet. Then Rio, with the most astoundingly beautiful city views I've ever seen and I'm pretty sure that have ever existed, where the vast Christ statue stands as a new Wonder of the World and looks out on the twinkling sea and rolling hills with open arms. Actually, the Christ is a dull, grey, simple and in my opinion pretty unattractive statue, certainly not worth even a nomination into being a Wonder of the World. But the views are enchanting; the city is vast, all ups and downs and greens and blues, and the buildings are so varied – around the stunning beaches lie the wealthy apartments, sidled right up against the tumbling slums run by drug gangs and dotted haphazardly all over the place. By all standards it's perfectly unique.

When I had just arrived in Brazil, alone for the first time in months, I wrote some pretty miserable thoughts down:

"I'm lying on the top of a bunk bed in an empty dorm listening to Coldplay, wallowing in the emotional melodies, embracing the loneliness of my surroundings. It doesn't get much more feeble than this. I'm not ready to go back. I thought I would be – I thought I'd tire of this travelling business, the endless nothingness, the routine of no routine. At times I did, and there were days when I just wanted to go home. But these always rapidly faded, replaced by amazing places, good people, fond memories.
It's the same old story: I've just left behind people I've let myself become attached to, and feel an emptiness in my stomach which won't go away."

I wrote once before that it was possible to isolate the effect a place has on me from the effect of the people there, and while I still believe this is true, it's also true that a place can't evoke nearly as much positive emotion as people. I suppose that's obvious, it's just strange to experience, and to have the maturity to observe yourself experiencing. So while looking at something amazing can still have a poignantly powerful impact on the brain, if there's something holding you back, a worry or a loneliness there, in that moment that you're seeing it the enjoyment is withdrawn and it can just become another ticked box on the List of Things to See.

So the things I saw in Brazil, I regret to say, had an element of that throughout. The feeling of being left behind combined with the impending doom of returning to England grew overhead like a dark rain cloud I couldn't shake off. And yet everything was still beautiful, amazing and all the rest. So many things were. God knows how many times I've said those words - beautiful, amazing, incredible.. ever in my whole life..

I suppose the point is, it has been great.

And now I'm back. And it really isn't so bad. I'm having strange vivid dreams about being back travelling, and wake up depressed that I'm not, but these will fade with time. And my friends are here, and Mum and Dad and 2 of my brothers, and I can't value that enough. And a wonderful new house for me to live in and a new job with great prospects, and I simply haven't a spec of justification for complaint. The more I say I'm miserable to be back, the more I know it hurts those who have been waiting for me to return, but I can't have it both ways, and while I'm young, I want to explore as much as is humanely possible. Or is it just that I want to run away again?

I think the latter. For now though, I'm going to try to be here, all here.

Horsing Around

The music is good, it fills my head and I concentrate on watching the decks, wondering how the DJ matches one track´s beat with the next. I look up at him, he´s larger than life, and I´m standing too near, right by the decks. He has tattoos covering his arms and his chest. I stare. Suddenly I´m turning around and the scene has changed; I´m lending something to someone I don´t know very well and everything feels wrong, something is happening out of my control. A group of people nearby start to run out of sight and throw something towards us and it lands right behind me. As it lands the small green object comes into focus. It´s a grenade. Everyone panics and runs, and I run and run and then I´m looking for cover and then I´m floating through the air, before I even hear the explosion, floating in slow motion like in the films.

I wake up sweating.

My mind is in a jumble, my body tense, racing with adrenalin. Already the details of the dream are trickling away in my memory, and I´m annoyed. Not that I want to analyse it or anything, I just want the memory back. It´s dark outside and the wind is howling violently, rattling the window - that must have been what woke me up. That or the mad bunch of dogs who howl wildly, nightly, all night. Or it´s the heat. It´s freezing cold outside but the hostel is overheated and stuffy. I´m tempted to open the window, but check myself as the wind is so loud I´m fairly certain it´ll blow the roof off in any case, which would allow for plenty of ventilation without me having to get out of bed.

It´s 4am. I can´t get back to sleep. The wind is too loud, too violent sounding, and in the strangeness of being awake in a room of sleeping people in the middle of the night, I imagine it´s worse than it is. I squint out the window and stare at the lights of the town flickering in the darkness, waiting to see one of them illuminate something terrible. A house coming crashing down, a tree falling on telephone wires - something dramatic to justify my concern. That would make me feel a whole lot better, and the town is a dump anyway. We´re in El Calafate in southern Argentina, a town which survives solely on the income from tourists who flock to see the nearby glacier, which is undoubtedly hugely impressive. The town is not. Apart from the main high street, it´s made up of a jumble of dirt tracks leading to nowhere in particular, with the odd house or hostel here and there. The land is arid, a dull beige, dirty and unkempt. The northern towns in Argentina had pretty plazas, quaint cafes and impressive churches, but here there´s just nothingness. No flowers, no trees, no grass, no plaza, no big church, just dust and more nothingness. In a couple of months it will, no doubt, look gorgeous, covered in thick layers of snow to hide the land, leaving only the pretty newly built lodge style buildings to make the place look nice for the ski season.

As it is, none of these houses get blown down. Much to my disappointment, nothing happens at all, except that the wind keeps howling and I stay awake for hours, listening to it raging. Finally unconsciousness hits, and the next thing I know my alarm is pounding through my head, hurting my brain. We´re going horse riding for the day, and I´m in a foul sleep-deprived mood for it. Our complimentary breakfast of tiny corn flakes in toddler-sized colourful plastic bowls with tepid UHT milk along with a side serving of stale french bread, unsurprisingly does not lift my mood. We set off to find the horses and I´m feeling somewhat claustrophobic, having put on as many clothes as possible and wrapped myself up in practically all my belongings in preparation for the cold. I feel like one of those babies who you see being pushed along in their prams by overprotective mothers who have smothered the child in so many layers of puffy clothing that it has to lie with arms and legs outstretched, head perfectly still, the bending of the limbs or the turning of the head being an impossibility. It´s not very comfortable.

The wind is still howling. It´s so loud we can´t hear each other speak, so we set off in silence. It´s Lil, Will, our guide and me, and tagging along are at least a dozen dogs, scampering along like mad things at the heels of the horses. I wonder if perhaps it´s the dogs who make all that noise at night, and scowl as I remember the sleeplessness. Rain is hurtling into my face, and there´s dust in my eyes. I´m thoroughly depressed and cannot quite believe I´m going to be sitting on a horse all day in this mind-numbing wind and paying for the privilege. Soon we´re out in the open land overlooking the town, by a crystal clear turquoise lake and looking up at snow-capped mountains covering the horizon. I should love it but I can´t. It´s pathetic. It´s not just the tiredness. There´s something looming over me that I can´t stop thinking about. I think they call it the Real World, and in not too long I´m going to have to face it. Actually, I´ve chosen to, so I don´t even have the right to be unhappy about it, but I still want to run from it. However, it´s not now, not yet, so I have to stop dwelling on it. I turn to see Lilly bob up beside me on her horse, and she´s saying something to me but it´s lost in the wind.

What? I yell.
This is hell on earth! she shouts back.

I am not alone. I feel better.

Eventually we stop for some lunch. The wind has dropped, the rainclouds have gone, and the hole in my stomach is being filled with cold meats and cheese and bread and several cups of local wine. By the time we´re back on the horses everything seems a whole lot better. To top it off, our guide comes galloping up cowboy style, donning a ridiculous poncho, looking as if he´s trying to re-enact a Marlborough cigarette advert, which makes me smile.

I´ve loved Argentina. I´ve loved being with Lilly and Will. It´s like being on a really long holiday in Europe. But that´s also why I can´t wait to leave - it just isn´t how I imagined South America at all. It´s so ordered and civilised, so in touch and, well, to repeat myself, so European. So before I do face the Real World I´m desperate to see something different, something as different as possible, something which impresses itself onto my mind and makes me feel I´m on an adventure to stay with me and not drift away into nothingness like my confused dreams. So I´m going up to Bolivia. It probably won´t do that, but it still sounds like fun.

Feathers and glitter

Buenos Aires, 2am, and it's raining hard. I'm with my old school friend Lilly and her brother Will. We're in a hostel renowned for its party atmosphere and recommended by backpackers all over the place. The nightlife doesn't start here till ridiculously late so we've only just had dinner and now are sitting in a corner of the hostel bar drinking sugary cocktails and being antisocial. The hostel have put on a "crazy hat" theme, an effort with, no doubt, good intentions, but frankly it stinks of the organised fun of university freshers weeks, and since I'm not travelling on my own any more I no longer need to continually make the effort to be social. It's a relief to fall back on the laziness of having an old friend for company. We we can just be, without the trying.

Everyone is leaving, heading out to various clubs, but the main one is a transvestite club, and much against my will I am persuaded by Lilly that this is the place to go. I am not amused. Neither is Lil's brother, but we succumb, for novelty value and all that.

Firstly we're dumped by the cab driver at the wrong club. This seems to be a running theme in this city - cabbies taking us around the world and back again as we're clearly stupid clueless English tourists who have no idea where we're going, and haven't the language skills to effectively debate our route. A second cab ride and another half hour later, we arrive at the right place. I know this because the first thing I see as I step out the cab is a huge, grossly fat man dressed in a glittery skintight Lycra leotard (of sorts), smothered in bright pink make-up and with large purple feathers somehow sprouting from his head. He smiles at us in the queue. My eyes widen.

Inside, the place is buzzing with people, several of whom we recognise from the hostel, and there are surprisingly few transvestites running around. Most people seem to have also come for the novelty value, which makes me feel much better. The curtain on stage is hauled up and a show begins, full of breasts and fake breasts and fishnets and thigh-high boots and gaudy colours and feathers and leathers and hats and lipstick, and far, far too much skin oozing out of outfits several sizes too small. The music is awful, it's like Moulan Rouge gone Eurodisco gone Regaton. But hey, it's all part of the show. I suppose.

Will has had enough and makes a swift exit, leaving Lilly and I gaping at the stage trying to pretend its a perfectly normal evening. I quickly decide to scrap this way of thinking, as clearly this is not just any normal place, there's plenty more clubs in this city which I know will be to my liking, so for now I decide to drop the snob act and enjoy myself. Obviously I still complain at regular intervals to anyone who'll listen about how bad the music is, which quickly gets boring for everyone except me, but it's pretty much vital to my existence to remind myself that I have good taste in music. This probably makes me appear to others as someone who believes that for this reason I am better than they. There may be some truth in that, but one shouldn't admit these things out loud.

It's getting late. The place is emptying out, and the curtain opens again, for one last show. This time, there's no scary looking women pretending to act out disgusting sex acts on men dressed as women. This time its a gorgeous, tall semi-naked page 3 style blond girl doing what by all accounts appears to be a strip club act. Lilly and I are right in front of the stage. We exchange concerned glances. We turn around to the crowd and are met with a sea of male faces, eyes glued to the stage. It has become apparent that, unsurprisingly, we are some of the only girls left. We can't watch for very long and convincingly pretend we are deeply insulted by such a cheap grotesque display, while finding the whole thing highly amusing.

The act finishes, and I look up to see my good friend surrounded, trapped in a circle of 6 or 7 Argentinian men. She makes a face of disgust. It is time to leave. A spotlight bursts onto the centre of the stage, the transvestite I had seen outside grabs the closed velvet curtains, and in a dramatic gesture flings them open, arms outstretched, holds a pose for a second or two, and then hurls them shut, bowing as he does so. The light goes out. It's over.

Free Willy

My alarm goes off but I'm already half awake. It's 4.30am and dark outside, and I've been half conscious for what feels like hours, worried that I'll sleep in. As quietly as possible I get up and scramble my things together, trying not to wake the three girls asleep in the dorm. I'm about ready to leave when one of them rolls over and mumbles a slurry, 'What time is it?'

'Nearly five', I whisper.

'5 in the morning?'

'Yeah, dolphin swimming, remember? Sorry!'

She looks pissed off. I hurriedly leave. I walk down to the dolphin centre and we are all given wetsuits, masks, goggles and flippers, and my particular favourite, a wetsuit mask which makes everyone's faces look like squashed up plums. A lady gives us an enthusiastic welcome and shows us a video about how to behave with the dolphins. She makes some relatively witty remarks but at this time of the morning I stubbornly refuse find anything funny. We are divided into groups and sent out to get a bus down to the boat pick up point. I haphazardly bundle up all my gear and wander outside, where it's getting light already. The centre is on the coast, in the town of Kaikura on the east of New Zealand's South Island. It's pretty much as far east as you can get, and its one of the first places in the world that the sun rises. Well, obviously the sun is continually rising everywhere but it's one of the first points on land that the day starts on our date system in any case.

I'm distracted by something colourful in the corner of my eye. I turn to see what it is and I let out a gasp, nearly dropping all my stuff in amazement. The sky is a burning, brilliant red. It's not just any red, not just any pretty sunrise, it's the deepest blood red and the entire horizon is flooded with it. I've honestly never seen such colour in nature before in my life, and I can't tear my eyes away from it. My hand has already instinctively reached for my camera, and I scrabble about trying to get it out without turning my attention away from the skyline ahead. I have this odd and very childish idea which though totally irrational, still pops up again and again: that colours like these are too modern to be natural, as if in the old days colour as bold as this never existed. Everything in the distant past to me seems as if it should have been a mixture of dull shades - greens, greys, browns, some mustard yellow perhaps - nothing like this vast expanse of technicolour in front of me. I snap a couple of shots but it's a pathetic attempt at capturing the magic of the light. It does it no justice whatsoever, and I am tempted to delete the image as its almost an embarrassment to the power of the sun. We are hurried onto the bus by our guide and I gather myself together and jump on. I'm already completely bowled over.

Within half an hour we're on the boat cruising out over the Pacific. The view back to land is picture perfect as the sunlight spills over the hills and over onto the flat water where it bobs around, so bright you can't look at it. I keep snapping shots, but eventually force myself to put the camera away to stop myself from taking yet another picture of almost exactly the same thing. A killer whale, an Orka, is nearby, so we divert from the dolphin chase to see it. The one whale turns out to be at least 5, a family of them and more, hunting stingray for breakfast. The previous day I had seen sperm whales, which were great to watch but you can only see up to 10% of their bodies from above the water, whereas these orka are a lot smaller and their black and white gleaming bodies slip past the boat again and again, in an impressively sleek display which I will never forget. That said, I've never forgotten seeing a killer whale at Sea World in Orlando, Florida, but somehow this beats it in my list of things to never forget.

We have to tear ourselves away from the whales to find the dolphins, which doesn't take long. They are completely wild, but enjoy the intrigue of having humans around them to play with. The boat is surrounded by dolphins jumping and wheeling and somersaulting in the early morning light. We get in the icy cold water and have to make noises to attract them, and they love it. You can make eye contact with them and they'll swim around you in circles, so long as you keep eye contact and swim in quick little circles yourself. I keep laughing which stuffs up my breathing system, letting water in. I can't believe what's going on around me. There's up to 600 of them playing with and around us, darting about with such speed and agility, without touching a single other body. They are such fine swimmers I feel a little envious.

Afterwards I feel rotten and want to puke. I weakly hang my head over a bucket for the journey back (where we find more orkas, but I'm not in the mood so much any more) and curse my human stomach for being so pathetic. I can't even enjoy the cups of hot chocolate being passed around by our guides.

Once off the boat I'm elated. The beauty of New Zealand doesn't cease to amaze me. I'm left speechless almost every day at some new wonder, and it's almost too perfect to believe. What's most striking is how untouched it is, how unspoiled. If there were a section of Britain with any of the natural wonders there are here, it'd be absolutely chaotic on sunny days, and overrun with shops clustered with tack. It seems it should be the world's best kept secret, and yet it's no secret. I keep having strange moments where I'm not quite sure where I am, and what on earth I'm doing. I'm not in Asia any more, and I think I'm still in shock. It's quite unsettling, and I'm pretty sure by the time I'm used to it I'll have left the continent to enter yet another world.

Vietnam. Mostly the bad things.

I've been in Vietnam 2 weeks. That's too long; longer than planned or wished, but I just sort of seem to get stuck in fairly unexciting towns for several days on end, without really managing to see or do very much.

Over the Chinese New Year ("Tet") everything shuts down - shops, transport, restaurants, bars – the whole lot. Officially it lasts only a few days but unofficially it lasts however long anyone wants, which is pretty handy if tourists are involved. Prices are hugely inflated and getting anywhere is a guaranteed ordeal. I haven't heard anyone say "Chuc Mung Nam Moi!" (Happy New Year) for at least the last week, and yet to all intents and purposes it still seems to be a good enough reason for everything to take twice as long and cost twice as much. I think there's a bitter element coming through here. If not, there should be, and I have plenty of reasons why.
I joined up with Tom and Danielle, who I kept bumping into in Laos and eventually decided to stick around with for most of Vietnam. Tom is 19, carefree, 6 months into forgetting about waiting tables in Bristol and also happens to be the tallest, whitest blondest boy that the general public of Vietnam have ever seen. One child literally jumped into her mother’s arms when she saw him. Danielle is from Melbourne, and has that awful braided hair you see so many travellers succumb to in South East Asia. She is eight years older than Tom and they make an odd pair, but are a good laugh and, more importantly, rooms are cheaper in groups.

On our first evening in Hanoi, the craziness of the place is a bit overawing but I am loving it; it’s as if Delhi and Bangkok had been merged in an explosion of light, colour and noise. There is excitement in the air with the oncoming of Tet and fresh beer at street stalls for under 7 pence a glass. Naturally, after a good 21 pence splurge I feel the need to find a toilet. I am guided by a friendly local lady down a dirty alleyway, where a man stops me and asks me to pay first. I am happy to do so but only have a large denomination bill, as I only just took out some currency and haven't paid for anything yet. He gives me back half of what he owes me in change, so I ask for the rest.

And then again.

"The rest, please." He gives me a few scraps more, then nothing. I nod encouragingly. “The rest?” Silence. “Erm, the rest? Please?"

Finally we’re almost there; I look at him expectantly, a hint of impatience seeping into my expression.

Without warning he jumps up, grabs the change, gives me back my original bill and puts his hand up as if to say, "talk to the hand honey". Naively I take this to mean he’s had enough and I might as well just go to the toilet for free. Unfortunately I only got the first part right – he gets aggressive and shouts at me while barring the way to the bathroom with his body.

We have to go through this facade almost every time we make any kind of monetary exchange in Hanoi, and have quickly come to expect it. Tom is thrown out of a corner shop full of Tet orientated gifts because he is white and would, no doubt, cause too much hassle. And if the price you name for something isn't what a seller wants, their expressions turn to disgust and you are ignored, without even a chance to barter.

"But hey", Tom chirps up, "We still have our wonderful hotel". It was true. We'd walked into a place where it was $12 a night for all three of us. It’s the best place I've stayed in my 4 months away. Best that I've ever paid for myself in fact. Spacious, spotless, complete with TV, air-con, mini-bar, massive bathroom, and a hearty breakfast included in the measly price. It seems too good to be true, and it is.

The tremendously friendly manager tries to sell us a tour to Halong Bay, on the north coast of Vietnam, famous for its beautiful limestone mountains and clear blue water, where almost every visitor to the country takes one kind of tour or another. We cautiously tell her we will have to think about it, which is a lie as there are places all over town for a third of the price. She quickly clocks on. Her manner declines rapidly and she swiftly turns into a cold, snappy cow. Tom is particularly hurt by this sudden transition as he is now bereft of repeated compliments on how charming he is, and how lucky to have two “boooootiful laaaydeeez” to keep him company.

The manager peaks full bitchiness at 7am on our second morning when we rise early to head off to Halong Bay – unsurprisingly - with a different tour company. She kindly informs us (after previously telling us that there was plenty of space over Tet) that there are no rooms for us that night. We are kicked out there and then, finding ourselves at 7.07am with our hastily packed luggage, standing on the street bewildered, tired and angry. At least we can laugh amongst ourselves about it; were I on my own I would have had to punch the wall or something similarly futile.

Anyone who deals with tourists wherever we go seems to have a natural disregard for helping us in any way, and people try to rip us off left, right and centre. For no apparent reason, I was going to be charged an extra $10 dollars to get a bus to a different town, when I had already bought my ticket. At that point, I lost the battle with my own anger and was left little choice but to go outside and punch the wall.

Nothing is ever explained; there are no smiles, no courtesy, just looks of repulsion or you're simply ignored. I've never been anywhere with such an attitude problem.

Tom and I are attempted mugged, twice, in a popular beachside town of Nha Trang. The muggers have a regular pattern: a small group of women jump off motorbikes where the men stay with engines running, while the girls run up to you pretending to be drunk and friendly. They hug me and grope Tom (asking him to "play" with them) as they quietly slipped their hands into pockets and bags. They don't take anything from us because we are just about sober enough to work out what they were trying to do and make a fast exit without any trouble. The second time we see them coming and make an immediate run for it, me pen-knife in hand; probably not the wisest thing I've ever done.

Before I get accused of blatant bigotry, it's obviously not the entire population of Vietnam who behave like this, and to generalise would be wholly unfair. But the tourist industry is riddled with an attitude of give me your money or get out, and unfortunately it’s people with this approach who I have come across on a daily basis. Yes, given the history, I can understand the resentment, to an extent. Sadly that doesn’t make it much easier to deal with in every day transactions. It’s not as if I can say to the nasty travel agent, “I’m British, not American, I was born in the 1980’s, and it’s not my fault.” That, perhaps, would be crossing the line.

Refreshingly, I am now in a town which I genuinely like. I've met some lovely Vietnamese people, which I was beginning to doubt was possible. It's another coastal town, further south than Nha Trang, called Mui Ne, where kite surfing and beautiful hotels are both rapidly expanding businesses. When I arrived I planned on spending one day here, having spent too much time getting stuck in other towns and hoping to head off to Cambodia and getthehelloutofhere as soon as possible. Finally, however, I have been charmed; Vietnam will have to host me, and I will have to deal with Vietnam, for another few days.

Men with Guns and a Monkey in the Jungle

I've had enough of goodbyes. I think I'm having a wonderful time on my own, I meet up with people from home, the inevitable goodbye comes and the loneliness creeps up on me, pouncing the moment they have left. I’m in Bangkok and suddenly stranded, isolated in a strange place, unsure of myself where before I was so collected, so confident.

Three days on, I'm in the small town of Vang Vien in Laos, about ten hours drive north of the border with Thailand, and I've hardly spoken to a soul. I’m still feeling fully sorry for myself. I know, however, that this is totally unjustifiable as I'm on my Big Trip, my Once-In-A-Lifetime-Adventure, and have wanted for as long as I can remember to do this on my own, so that's that.
This town is crazy. Bars blare out Friends repeats, episodes of the Simpsons and American blockbusters non-stop to keep the backpackers happy. Menus have “special” options (marijuana, mushrooms, opium) leaving most of the tourists in states of semi-awareness for the majority of the days (or weeks, depending on their weakness for the specials) they spend there. There's no culture to speak of, but there are waterfalls to visit in the craggy mountains and lush green jungle around the Mekong River, which you can kayak on or bob down in a rubber ring (“tubing”). I book a day of kayaking and caving and decide to come out of my feeble shell at last.

And it's better than I could have ever hoped: I find the swing. The swing is a zip wire set up over the river, where you climb high (about 25 feet) up a rickety ladder and then drop from the top, hanging onto a crossbar and zzzzZZIIPP over the water. The rush is unbelievable; you freefall for a few seconds then grip the bar tight over your head as the pressure lifts you up and weeeeeeee you're flying and then ping you release, yelp and wave your arms for a few seconds until you land slap bang into the water crying, ‘again! Again!’ That's how my first try goes anyway, and then I can't stop. I feel like a monkey let loose from its cage. I'm tempted to make monkey noises as I swing but resist. The joy of the whole thing grabs me immediately and I know I have no choice but to return the following day and hurl myself from it as much as possible.

The kayaking and caving trip itself isn’t bad, and I meet some grand Irish girls who make it a lot more fun. The fact that every 50 metres or so we come across yet another makeshift bar serving tremendously cheap Beer Lao and complimentary shots of ‘Lao Lao’ (a horrible spirit made from sticky rice, usually about 70% alcohol), helps lighten my mood, though somewhat hinders our journey back down the river. As the town finally bobs into sight, my miserable (and sober) self is fizzing away; I look around me at the incredibly beautiful scenery and for the first time in days let myself sink into contentment.

Walking dripping wet and exhausted back through the town, we notice all the internet shops are closed. They were closed when we left that morning as the internet was down, which isn't unusual around here, but never all day. We ask when it’ll be back up and are ushered away, our questions met with shrugs and blank looks. Rumours are beginning to unfold that there's a terrorist threat on internet cafes in this very town as it's a backpacker haven, a mini Bali, a prime target. I am dubious, and frankly, at this particularly moment more concerned with getting showered and dry so we can get some food in our bellies.

Four hours later I’m fed and comfortable, sitting in a bar enjoying a few drinks, when men appear at the door with frighteningly large guns. We are all told in broken English to leave. This is more than a little unexpected. “It’s them again”, cries Leanne, the loudest of the Irish girls. Again? She divulges what little she can remember of the previous night, when they and several other tourists were marched home by gunned men after attending an after-hours party. Something worth mentioning earlier perhaps, I silently consider. The gunmen aren't uniformed and most of them look younger than me; they are just boys. We are reminded by the bar owner that (believe it or not) we are in Laos, a Communist state, and it is time to leave.

The next day I go tubing with the Irish girls. I know I should leave, but I ignore my conscience. It's an unexciting thing to be doing in the dry season, as we float along at a snail’s pace, desperately paddling with flip-flops on hands in order to move another inch along. I get reacquainted with the swing and spend a good few hours repeatedly jumping off the big marvellous contraption. The force of the falls from my failed acrobatic attempts leaves one side of my body glowing red, half a toenail almost ripped off, two contact lenses popped out (but one recovered!), several mishaps with my bikini top, bruised eyelids in three places (a thing I had previously believed impossible) and a very sore coccyx.

As the afternoon passes I conclude swing romance and take a step back. I see dozens of drunk, lairy foreigners showing off mindlessly and I feel the guilt creep in. I’m out to get my high from this toy on the river and it has nothing to do with the country I'm in.

That night it happens again. The men come to escort us from a bar and it’s only 10.30pm. Each night it has moved earlier, and none of the tourists knows why. Lao people are not permitted to discuss politics and they abide by this rule. So no Westerner gets a straight answer out of anyone, and all we know is that the country is politically unstable; something is going on. It's possible some Lao men were killed in a political uprising near Vang Vien but its all just rumours and they spread like wildfire, exaggerated along the way. An excitable Australian called David is convinced a few days ago a Canadian was “burned alive” somewhere nearby. I’m sceptical.

For the first time since I left the UK I feel the need to be walked home, not to be alone in the dark. It’s clear there is no terrorist threat, but someone wants communication lines cut and no news to escape. There are things going on that we can't know about and that they, whoever ‘they’ are - the militia? The police? - don't want the rest of the world or us to know about. The rest of Laos is more stable; the towns have their own life aside from the tourism, and it seems the activity in Vang Vien is an isolated event, which is a relief. I've never felt so unwelcome anywhere, or seen and been a part of such invasive hedonism. I am glad to leave. I am also, however, eternally grateful to the zip wire Swing of Joy that brought me back to being myself. The feeling of missing someone is still there, but this is a journey I do want to be on and these experiences are unforgettable, amazing, and I'm ready as I'll ever be for more.

3rd time lucky

I just bought new headphones, because my old ones had gotten all crackly and rubbish, and today I listened to my MP3 player for the first time with this brand new sound, proper sound. There's this magical moment sometimes which happens when I have my music on and I'm watching the world go by. On a train or a bus or something in motion and you create your own world, a space which is completely, totally you and it's private and comfortable and the scenes around you suddenly have a soundtrack. They were some of the best moments in India, when you could gaze out of a train window at the life going on outside and you feel like you're - for once in that country - peaceful and able to absorb your environment without you affecting it. You could be a fly on the wall... a rare moment captured in which the focus of attention is not drawn your way, and you are capable of just, well, witnessing.

Today on this long bus journey a song popped up (oh the shuffle mode, it's illuminating!) which brought me back quite sharply to sitting on a bus 4 years ago in Thailand, in the middle of the night. There were no other foreigners on it and I cocooned myself in the glow of a new album I'd bought. In a way I suppose you could call it escaping, which is a little ironic as I was going to Thailand, in many ways, to escape. Escaping from escaping. But it's not really escaping, it's just a way of connecting with something while you're in an alien world.

So four years ago it was Different. I was different. Leaving school was the most liberating thing that had happened to me, and I paid a stupid amount of money to run away to Thailand and teach kids English. I'd like to say it was for them, for the good of mankind and helping those who need it most and blah blah but it was for me. To grow, develop, learn more about myself, all the cliches.

My first day in the school was awful. I was miserable anyway - I missed my boyfriend and it had a pretty negative result on my stay there - I was reclusive, not meshing with the other volunteers as I'd have liked to. Then I was thrown into a classroom with 50 hyperactive children looking at me with wide eyes, waiting for me to enlighten them. All together there were 250 9-10 year old children under my direction for one term. I hadn't a clue what to do. I was bricking it. To hold their attention was a constant effort, physically and mentally; you had to make huge gestures with your body and face and keep talking, keeptalkingTALKING and changing your tone of voice up and down and loud and louder to have a hope of them even looking your way. I practically had to dance my way through lessons, always on the move, always alert. And, as the kids loved to point out, always sweating my face off.

Basically, it was usually chaos. And they didn't learn a lot. The textbook I had to get them through was terrible, and mostly in the past it seemed they'd just learned how to get the answers right, rather than understanding the language. It was a struggle, not helped by the fact that out of the 250 of them I could barely put a few names to the right faces. I quickly came to the conclusion that fun would have to be the main focus, so we sang English nursery rhymes and made up songs with mimes for the words. And in the end, finally, I got what I wanted: it was rewarding. Because sometimes, just sometimes you saw a spark in a kid and you knew they knew what they were doing, and that was magical. Those were pretty rare though.

After my first year of university I went back to the town where I'd been teaching and it was great, the kids in the school still went mental when they saw a foreigner, a farang. They'd yelp "faRANG faRANG!" and then rush at you with faces of pure excitement, pleasure and fascination, shouting "Halloo! Halloo!" and trying to shake your hand, before running off, delighted, to tell all their friends. I think that's pretty rare here now, especially on the tourist trails, farangs are so common place they aren't exciting any more. I don't think I'll go back this time, as the kids will have all gone to different schools and there will be nobody there to make the memories real again. But that first time stays in my memory as a serious time, a challenge to my still developing 19-year-old mind and a development in my ability to be independent. I hope somewhere along the line the kids got something out of it too.

The second time I came here it was something else entirely, and I simply learned How To Have A Good Time. And Party. It was just one big mess, and we got wrecked, my friendship with the girl I went with also got utterly wrecked. I learned about the limits of my own generosity, the power of the mind to turn against itself, and also, to my surprise, the strength of my own mental stability.

This time it's different again, of course. My boyfriend Dave is out here for two weeks and we've ridden elephants, which I did that first time but how can you not want to see elephants again? They are just so majestic and wonderful and the way they walk... it's a

plod plod plod plod plod plod plod plod

We saw hill tribes and our guide just continued to explain things almost non-stop throughout the day. The comparison to the desert trek in India is laughable - we just rode camels and saw poor desert families with no explanation whatsoever to their lifestyle or environment. I tried asking a guide what a fruit was that we saw, and he didn't even understand my question. Anyway, this Thai guide told us something I had always wondered about the hill tribe women who have black teeth which look all rotten to the gum and are a shiny, pure smooth black. Apparently they chew a combination of leaves and weird stuff stuff like crushed beetle nuts, and it turns their teeth black but means they never get tooth ache and never need a dentist. It's amazing really, this different concept of health and vanity. I still think I'd rather 3 fillings and a white set of teeth.

So the first and second time were completely different, and I'm already learning this time that I can be a right grumpy cow when I'm not here on my own, and much to my dismay I find myself itching to get to other parts of South East Asia too, because there everything will be new to my perception. But it's not over yet, and soon our friends Beth and Byron are coming to join us in Bang Cock (guffaw) and I have a feeling it'll be messy.

Reflection

Thalaind, again. Kho Pangan, again. I can't help it, I know it's utterly unoriginal, I know it's like every middle class gap year student has done it and practically every university student has done it and even mums and dads come here on their package holidays, I know I know I know but I just can't resist it, I love it here. I even found myself, much to my own shame, enjoying the ridiculous Kho San Road in Bangkok, which is becoming more and more of a joke. There's practically nothing left that's actually Thai about it any more, but the billions of beautiful clothes and funny CD stalls and pancake sellers and posers sitting in cafes all day people watching, it's fun for a while. Only a short time though.. I can't hack Bangkok for long.

But now, now the sea is perfect blue, the beaches are long and winding and the sand seems to melt underfoot. I know it's not "real" Thailand, but I've done my stint there and it's not as poverty stricken as the world makes out. The Thais are easy going, up for a good time. Here on this island they're part of the party, not just doing it for the silly white people. Some of them are even all dreadlocks and long hair and tattoos just like the crustified hippies and I no longer feel like I'm forcing my culture on a place which doesn't want it. And the girls wear trousers and skirts above the ankle and have real jobs and smile at you and talk to you like they talk to each other. And the men do stare a little and some try to talk to you in the wrong way but only a little bit and you can put them off the scent with an easy smile and a 'no thank you'. I've been here before but this is the first time I've really had the culture shock - I used to think Thailand was backward, but coming from India, it feels like I'm in modernville. That's bad in many ways, losing culture and what-not, but I'm all for it, the people are happier that way. They have good food and good shops and there are plenty of jobs out there. And in India, for the poor, culture and religion is everything they have and they can't aspire to anything else. The cast system still has effect and it keeps people in their place. India India Indiaaaaa! All I can think about is bloody India. The thoughts come flooding in. Cows in the streets, whole families balanced on one motorbike, litter litter litter piled up high in the slums, beggars and more beggars and the guilt of it all the time, and a bunch of kids throwing stones, actually throwing big stones at two Israeli girls for no reason whatsoever.

Did I like it? I don't know, but I find myself missing it; it constantly feeds and winds its way back into my thoughts, twisting and turning my mind in an odd way I find difficult to understand. I guess I'm just still in shock at how different it is. Thailand isn't different really, you can be you and nobody bats an eyelid any more, the way of life is (oh please don't do it... oh but I've got to.. here goes...) same same, but different. I can't believe I just said that.

But India is another world, I'm going to go on about it because it really really REALLY is ANOTHER WORLD and earth is a bigger place than I had thought and you just have to see it to believe it.

Go. Go and see.

Ode To Food

In restaurants, I'm the kind of person who always wants what everyone else has ordered. I want to try it all and taste all the different things on the menu. On the rare occasions where I know my food is a damn good choice, I feel smug about it for days, and will keep slipping into conversation how wonderful it was.

Before I left for my travels I was making sandwiches every day for work (saving the pennies,, oh yes), which were always soggy and I would watch, drooling a little, as others bought Chinese takeaways and chips while I tackled the wholemeal bread with odd vegetarian insides. To give my lunches credit they were always tasty - as a general rule I grabbed everything mushy in the fridge and slopped it in bread or into a pot, so it was, if nothing else, inventive.

Now that I'm paying for every meal I eat, though I do miss home cooking, each meal is an excitement. Actually that's always true at home too, because I find any food exciting, but in India when there's an affordable extensive menu with several different cuisines to choose from each time it's like being in Helen Heaven. More so when I was with a big group and could try maybe 5 or 6 other dishes every dinner. Naturally putting that into action involves not trying to sound too desperate each time you ask. It can't be straight away, give it a while and then it still should be a subtle display of greediness:

"Is it good?"
"Yeah"
pause
"Yeah? Really?"
pause

and then they have to let you try it, that's the rule.

We were right fatties in Goa. No meat though, as it's a risky business in India. Justin had tandoori chicken and was dramatically sick the next day so that's proof enough for me. Meat = bad. I thought I was dealing with the absence of it just fine, until I found myself sat opposite a couple sharing some kind of beautiful looking meat feast, and found that I could not stop staring at it, and was on the verge of asking them if I could have a bite.

For my last proper meal in India I took the advice from my Bible, the severely outdated Rough Guide to India. At times this Bible has led me to buildings that no longer exist, hotels that had moved places or been renamed, and led me to expect prices that are long, long gone. In any case, this time they had it right; I sampled their recommended onion masala dosa at this place and it was d e l e c t a b l e - its a kind of crispy rice pancake which you have with several different curried dishes and ohhh it was one of the best things I've ever tasted.

Also, who told all the Indian chefs how to cook pizzas? Seriously, it baffles me. Because most of them were brilliant. And yet some of the things they got so wrong, like tortilla, which arrived as a pile of boiled potatoes, and a chocolate pancake in which "chocolate" meant a tiny sprinkling of drinking chocolate powder, comparable to what you get on top of cappuccino froth.

A dessert that sticks with me and I think of daily (is that unhealthy?) is the banoffee pie in one of the restaurants in Goa: a mush of all things good, and we couldn't get enough of it. It wasn't really banoffee pie per se, just a collection of yumminess and squidgy goodness all piled up in a massive helping. Unfortunately, the restaurant where this heavenly sweet stuff was made, was also the place where we ate our total disaster of a Christmas lunch. We thought we'd be special and get a couple of lobsters to share, and me being a lobster virgin was deeply excited. It turned out to taste a bit like dry chicken. It was overcooked and probably not fresh. Then this enormous fish turned up looking fabulous, but the moment each of us dipped a fork in, we all simultaneously spat it out eeeEUUurghhh it was off. Definitely off. Even the prawns were bad, and I'd give an arm and possibly several toes of each foot to be able to afford to eat prawns all the time in England. The waiter took the news of the off fish so badly he nearly cried, and said he wanted to quit his job. His heart seemed to snap in two as we sat there awkwardly, our efforts to reassure him that it wasn't his fault having no effect whatsoever. One broken man and several unsatisfied tummies meant no more banoffee pie for me, as I couldn't face returning to the restaurant and having to converse with the poor waiter again.

I'm famished! Goodbye.

Push to Pushkar

It's New Year's Day morning and Josh, Sarah and I have to leave Arambol in Goa and take a bus to Bombay. I've had a couple of hours sleep, and my world is still very wobbly. My mind feels like a pile of plado. Shakily I pack my bags, drink chai and eat as much breakfast as I can. With desperateness seeping out of our voices, we ask the sellers to leave us be, just this one last time so that we can enjoy the last few moments in this wonderful place in peace. I give Lakshmi, the oldest eight year old I've ever met, my over sized sunglasses as a leaving present and she dons them, as with everything she wears, with a cool ease that consistently amazes me. It's obvious to anyone who talks to her for more than a minute that she won't be selling blankets for the rest of her life.

I'm feeling very worse for wear but we have to leave. I have to say goodbye to Dan, and I well up inside. It'll be at least 6 months till I see him again. In my fragile mood I'm all emotional, he's my rock, what will I do without him? Holding back the tears, I trudge along with the others to town.

It's back to Bombay: I must mentally prepare myself, as it'll be hot, sticky, busy, smelly, and exhausting. After a surprisingly pleasant bus journey, we get a spacious room for the day in the main train station. That evening we need to catch a local train out of the centre. It's rush hour. It's madness. We have houses on our backs and there are thousands of people trying to get home. We pile onto our train, and I manage to slip my backpack off, but the other two don't. I quickly realise my mistake - without the protection of the rucksack, I'm open to being jabbed and squeezed and pressed till I feel I'm going to explode. The carriage is 100% male, and there are cocks digging in to my back and my midriff and my front and my legs and I think I'm going to scream. There are no doors on these trains, just spaces, so at each station at the last minute there's a rush as more and more people try to jump on, and the squashing just gets worse. I try and think unrelated thoughts, rise above the discomfort, but I fail. I have to shut my eyes and bite my tongue and let out the odd expletive to marginally ease my anger.

25 minutes later and it's over. With great difficulty, we shove our way onto the platform. Sarah has to get back on to get to the airport and runs for the women's carriage which looks far more humane, but she and Josh have to have a fleeting goodbye and the train is already moving as she jumps back on.

My little brother and I are now on course for our 10 day trip to the north. We walk the kilometre or so to the mainline station, where the road is lined with slums. People living in filth, hanging around making fires on the street, some sleeping on the street, everything dirty. I'm overwhelmed by it - I can't begin to imagine the mindset in which all these people live from day to day, and it scares me how much I'm a product of my environment. It's simply impossible for me to imagine what it would be like to live here. What family life is like, always scrabbling for money. We pass a body on the floor outside the station which I assume is somebody sleeping, but a guard tells us it's a dead body. He's dead, and nobody is batting an eyelid. Again, I can't put this into perspective in my head. It's unfathomable to me that a person's whole life can be so meaningless that they are left alone, dead on the street and ignored.

I have to put these thoughts aside or I get trapped in a spiralling mental mess, and, well, out of sight.. you know the rest. It's easy to forget and get on. And we do, and now we're in the beautiful town of Pushkar, where there's a lake where Hindus come to purify themselves, and we just saw a beautiful sunset from the top of a hill overlooking the town and the mountains surrounding it. My warmth for India comes and goes, it's so in your face sometimes it can be too much. But something is always happening; it's an adventure.

Christmare

It's Christmas Eve and we're off to find a party. It's a jungle rave on a hill top. I’m in Goa. I'm excited. We bundle into a taxi, cowering under the deafening early '90s pop the driver kindly blares out for us, and wait for the journey to end so the dreadful music will stop. We approach a police blockade on the road ahead. A quick torchlight into the car, a few skipped heartbeats and we're back on track, apparently safe because the taxi driver has paid him off, though we see no money change hands. Relief washes over everyone.

A month in India on my own and now I have company. Out here on holiday are my brothers Dan and Josh, friends Sam and Justin, and Josh's girlfriend Sarah. Tonight is going to be big.

We arrive, and look at the entrance fee sign, jaws dropping. 1000 rupees! I do the calculations. Twelve English pounds. That’s four nights’ accommodation for two people. Or ten expensive dinners, 100 beaded bracelets, 3 journeys from Mumbai to Goa. Enough. I look around - we aren't the only shocked ones. Bedraggled hippies are revving their engines and jumping back on their motorbikes to leave. We feel cheated, tricked. We send Josh and Sarah off to the nearest town to get cash.

The police have reigned in most of the parties in Goa, supposedly because of the terrorist threat here. The Israelis, for the most part, have given up and gone elsewhere. This hilltop party is one of very few which still continues, and it's certainly not what I had in mind. In my head the same phrase ticks over and over: for all that money, it better be good it better be good.

Eventually we pay, get through security and we're almost in. There are panicky shouts in Hindu and a herd of people rush past us as a man is thrown out, a bundle of limbs and long hair as he kicks and shouts while being beaten by several security men. It's not a pretty sight, and my heart sinks. Sam smiles one of his desperate, fake smiles. “What are we going in to?” he asks nobody in particular through gritted teeth.

Thankfully, it’s beautiful inside. It's a jungle clearing where the trees have been painted with luminous psychedelic swirls, and a complex arrangement of colourful lights dangle overhead, behind which you can see the open sky and the bright stars. Around the central clearing hang rich paintings of images of gods and women and Indian landscapes, and the DJ is raised up in a bright white egg shaped dome. They've certainly put the effort in. Bizarrely, around the outskirts of the dance area rows upon rows of women in full saris are selling food and ‘chai’ (tea) at little stalls all with identical items, and there are eggs everywhere. Omelettes: evidently a popular party food here. The DJ obviously took note.

We have a dance for a while, taking in this strange place. It isn’t long before a scuffle breaks out and again someone is violently herded outside, followed by several men in full rage. This is the last place I'd expect to see fights. ‘But this is Goa’, Josh whines, stating the obvious. He has a point though. Goa used to be home of hippies and LSD, psychedelic trance and parties parties parties and... Well, not any more. We definitely missed the boat on this one. It's a hard concept to swallow.

The cold welcome and the ensuing fights leave Sarah in a vulnerable, uptight state. A couple of loutish Brits park themselves next to us; they are out of control, they don't see that we'd rather stab ourselves in the eye than have to humour their mindless chit-chat. “Twelve quid to get in, that’s just nuffin’! The people here, it’s amazing!” That doesn’t even make sense. Sam is worried about Justin, who we haven't seen for ages. We've given up on dancing for the moment. The chai lady forces us to buy chai or leave the mat where we are sitting. But there's nobody else around – we aren't in her way and we aren’t stealing her chai business. I can smell omelette. This is not my idea of fun.

But we find Justin, happily dancing away by the stage, and Sarah emerges smiling and comfortable again; there are no more fights and the Brits have gone and there are different substances at work inside us and things have changed.

At dawn we go outside to watch a spectacular sun rise. Dan looks at me, grinning. “How long has it been since you chased someone as fast as you can?” he asks. He gives me a split second and we’re off, playing tag and stuck in the mud while the dawn light spills out over the hills. It is exhilarating, if ridiculous. A little man with bandy legs cycles up to us and offers water, just what we need. We give him a vastly inflated price for it and he cycles off.

Off down the hill, round a corner and out of site. We realise our stupidity. What a con! Get a bunch of wasted tourists to believe you'll get them water for some silly price, take the money and you're laughing.

Five minutes later, much to our surprise and delight, a dot appears at the bottom of the hill. Slowly the little man toddles back, a bottle of water balanced in the basket of his rickety bike. We are overwhelmed with love for humanity, possibly slightly more than necessary, and wish him a merry Christmas a hundred times. He looks happy.

We trundle home Christmas Day morning, slowly making our way back round the cliff side of the town of Arambol to our secluded beach huts. We pass the girls who daily try and try and try again to sell us shawls, blankets and jewellery; they welcome us home while laughing at Dan as he attempts to climb the rocks with Sarah on his back, failing miserably. The sellers don't try and sell me anything, for the first (and last) time. The beach is deserted, the sun is shining and our friendly foolish waiters greet us warmly. It feels good to be home.

My Eyes!

After 23 hours on a train from Delhi, I arrive in hectic Mumbai in a state of irritation. I am hot, sticky, and smelly, and have picked up an Israeli tramp-like man who decided he would tag along. Once he realises that I the hotel I’m staying in is relatively pricey, he makes a swift exit, much to the relief of the staff who have been peering at him much in the same way they might a rabies infested dog. In fairness to them, he had been living in a remote village in northern India for a year, and smelt as if he hadn't opted for washing particularly regularly in that time.

My brothers Dan and Josh, and their friend Sam, arrive in the middle of the night, which is a little surreal after ten days or so on my own and we make ourselves at home in our strange, overpriced, somewhat unfriendly lodgings. The following morning we brave the streets and wander around the local area. It isn’t central Mumbai, but is absolutely mobbed, things going on everywhere and people all over the streets battling to get places. The station is chaos with hundreds upon hundreds of people scrambling to get tickets and clamber on trains, which thoroughly puts me off actually venturing into the city itself. The experience of being inside one of the carriages does not look far off from that of cattle being relocated in boiling hot overcrowded trucks.

We find a decent enough restaurant where the food is surprisingly delightful (except Sam's, which appears to be a white cheese flavoured disaster) and head back to the hotel. We order some tea, “chai”, up on a balcony, and I sit on a low wall ready to digest our feast and enjoy the tea. It is stiflingly hot. Move to the shade, I tell myself, and cool down a bit. Once shaded, I lean against the balcony wall, and think to myself how hot it still is.

Christ, I think I might faint... but I don't faint! I'm not a fainter. Stay standing… there we go, I'm still conscious. But something's wrong, very wrong.

It takes a second or two to register.Everything is black. The blackness is so all encompassing it's as if it’s a noise. I can't see.

Panic. I can't see!

Then aloud, quite calmly: “I think I'd better go back to the room. I can't see.”

Dan helps me walk slowly back inside and puts me to bed. No doubt he is quite shocked to hear of the sudden onset of my new disability, but manages to maintain a very composed manner. Gradually my vision returns and the cloud of blackness dissipates. After a little sleep, I feel a whole lot better and my normal colouring replaces a previously (apparently) sheet white appearance. It must have been the dehydration and the severe heat, and I played fainting as a game of mind over body. An odd result by any account, but I categorically did not faint.I went blind for, well, at least a minute. Something dramatic has happened to me and now I've shown off about it.

Injaaa begins

Delhi, city of beeping cars, constant hassle, and cows. Riding in the taxi on the way here was much like being on a dodgem ride: quite fun but a bit more dangerous than at a fairground. More like a lot more. There aren't any lanes, just massive wide roads where cars squeeze in and out past each other and use the hooter constantly so that you are drowned in a chorus of hooting and blaring.

On the flight from Bangkok I sat next to a man who burped frequently, not nice little burps but foody deep ones, it was gross and made me feel quite ill. As a burper myself, I know I shouldn't judge, but I don't do it in public. Or I try not to anyway.

It's nice to get out of the heat of Bangkok, where sweat seemed to erupt from every part of my body, almost all of the time. It's pleasantly cool here.

After my first meal last night, I felt my stomach go upside down and begin to churn. However, it seems to have held out, just. I have been told i "will" get ill. No question in most people's minds, so i'm ready for it. I've had a lingering cold and caugh for the past week so i might as well get all the illness out of the way now. A couple I was talking to earlier refused to drink their lassies as they were worried about what would be in it, and a man next to them looked in horror at it and said, "I'd never drink that". C'mon, that's just silly. India would be much less fun if you didn't drink a lassi.

Next is Bombay, and in the meantime I'm continuing more tour with my new personal tour guide whose name I couldn't begin to pronounce at the time, let alone now remember. Today he taxi'd me round New Delhi and tomorrow it's Old Delhi. Unfortunately, he took me to one of the scammy tourist shops where they try and sell you vastly overpriced goods and taxi drivers get commission by taking you there. He was honest enough, and explained he'd get a fuel voucher if I went in for a few minutes and pretended to look at stuff, so I did it willingly - this time.

Earlier a man said to me "You want snake dance for you?", which for some reason made me laugh a lot, and I felt like I was in Aladdin.

Soon it's going to be Goaaaaaaa oh joy I can hardly wait.

Bong! Hong Kong

I am on Hong Kong island, staying in a quaint little flat overlooking the green hills behind the city and the South China Sea. The views are amazing, steep hills scattered with apartment blocks stacked up higgledy-piggledy. There is a big dog here called Blue, and the live-in Filipino housekeeper, Elvie, who makes me green tea and cooks me dinner. I am becoming a dog person, I kid myself, and I decide that I would like to keep Blue. It dawns on me, however, that perhaps it’s because he is so big he seems like a pretend dog, and he has this amazing fur that is curly and neat and doesn't come off, so the house isn't full of annoying dog hair.

My 12 hour flight was fairly terrible, as for some reason I was placed right in the middle of all the babies and young children, and barely a moment went by when I wasn't being kicked in the back by the child behind me, a baby was not crying and a toddler was not yelping at its parent.

I am met at the airport by Elvie and force myself to stay awake until the evening, which is difficult as I've now missed two nights sleep (the night before I left my nerves got the better of me). So after dinner Elvie drops me off into town, and I jump on the Star Ferry which crosses from the north of Hong Kong Island up to the mainland, giving a great view of the famous city shoreline. The incredible buildings of the city appear garish at night, and make me feel a little nauseous after looking at them for some time. Then again, I am on a boat. Yet each building seems to be in competition with the others as to which can be brightest and most colourful and/or tacky. The waste of energy makes them appear grotesque.

After catching the boat back, I plan to get on a bus, as instructed by Elvie, which will take me near to the flat. Naturally I get the wrong bus, realise after about 5 minutes and jump off, by which point I have gone some distance in the wrong direction. Me, a young Londoner, frequent user of public transport - I am determined not to be beaten. A cab is out of the question. I decide to try and find my way back to where I started, using where I imagine the sea is as a guide, and soon discover that there are parts of Hong Kong not meant for pedestrians, where its all fenced off or there are no pavements. Eventually, I find the right bus stop. Sweaty and exhausted I take the correct bus and immediately fall asleep, beaten by the jetlag. I awake to find myself in familiar territory, and decide I had better get off, going on the basis that if I recognise it, I must be pretty near the flat. Another half an hour's walk up a winding hill road proves me very wrong. Two solid hours to get home... I'll get a taxi next time.