The second-last tango in Paris

Howdy all

Just a very quick update on my travels so far. No pics, no precis.

Be aware that I am writing this on an AZERTY keyboard that actually responds to QWERTY, so forgive me if these sentences are a even more garbled than usual.

Said goodbye to mates over the weekend and to the house on Monday night, before leaving London early on Tues morning. I had planned to get the 5.22 train to St Pancras for the Eurostar, but the London transport system had one more surprise for me - the train was cancelled at the last minute, leaving me out of bed half an hour earlier than I needed to be. I still made the Eurostar easily with the 5.52.

So since getting in to Paris I have knocked off a Fat Tyre Bike Tour (run by some sort of Texan Mafia - in a tourist outlet in Paris they had postcards and stickers proudly proclaiming Texas as larger than France - you get the idea). The tour itself was well worth it - a good introduction to the city and orientation, and for me a re-introduction to riding a bike. It had been about 12 years I think. But you know how it is, its like riding a bike. Sorry.

Also taken care of the Arc de Triomphe, which sits above the world's largest roundabout apparently. Either way its pretty chaotic. Walked the Champs Elysee through the Jardin de Tuileries to the Louvre (havent visited the Musee de Louvre itself yet though), toured the catacombes, following a loud female Aussie voice as I decended the stairs. She was being quite vulgar actually, but when I got to the bottom I found out why: I knew her! It was Lauren Brunovs, a total coincidence! Great to see her.

Then headed to the Jardin Du Luxemborg, which is a lovely old school master-planned garden, then to Notre Dame which to my surprise was free entry (and not being Catholic its not like they can condemn me for not donating to them).

On Saturday I walked to La Defence and back, with a few other detours, which totalled about 21km for the day (and 38km in two), This is the area where some of the more modern and decidedly un-Paris buildings can be found. But the Parisians even do this well! Their public art in general is really superb.

Sunday I headed to Versailles for the day after Sacre Coeur for dawn, thanks to the expert guidance and local knowledge (and somewhat sleepy driving) of Ines, who was over for the weekend. It was a real highlight. She'll be back on Sunday and having not driven I'll have to pull my weight this time. I won't drive, but I might give her a piggy-back or something.

Yesterday I went to the Pompidou which was another real highlight. Some incredible art, but what stood out was the huge number of school kids in there, all lead by expert guides. And today was the Sewer Tour, which I had been looking forward to maybe a bit too much, as it didint lead up to the hype really.

I moved today from the 3 Ducks hostel in the 15th Arrondissement to Friends Hostel near Monmartre. The former was in a brilliant location with a fantastic village atmosphere (near Rue Commerce if anyone knows the area, an easy walk to the Eiffel Tower), but was a RUBBISH hostel. Cheap but they treat you like absolute rubbish (unlike the vast majority of Parisians I've met). I'll save that rant for later.

So still to do in Paris is (at least) the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Musee d'Orsay, Les Invalides, Musee Rodin, and whatever else I can fit in! Then it's off to Bern to catch up with Greg and Silvia before heading for Italy!

While here I've taken an opportunity to try to learn a bit of French. I bought books and stuff. I've always wanted to learn a new language and thought this would be a good opportunity. It's coming along, albeit slowly! I'll continue when back in Australia though.

For the last 18 months I've been telling anyone who'd listen, and plenty who wouldn't, that Berlin is my favourite city to visit in the world. But I gotta say that Paris has impressed me, I'm really loving it.

Heaps of pics already (about 350) and will be glad to share them with you soon.

Miss you all heaps, see you soon

The Perfect Storm of Frustration

This week has been totally mad already. Yes I'm getting ready to leave the UK but before that the long weekend for me was dominated by shopping, which left me totally exhausted.

I realise I bring a lot of this on myself - I am a very picky shopper, so it takes a long time to get what I want. Take Monday for example - I walked half the length of Kilburn High Road (i.e. from the Jubilee to Bakerloo line stations on that road) to get the right coloured pair of shoelaces for some shoes I'd bought the day before.

On the Saturday before that I was on Oxford Street. I've put a bit of thought into it and I can't think of a busier shopping street in the world. It was a long weekend so there were plenty of tourists in town, and it was fantastic weather, so they were all out and about enjoying the sunshine (or, as it's called in London, I Can't Believe It's Not Miserable).

Knowing I was picky, that I had dinner plans, and that I had a few different things to buy, I was in a hurry. The shopping list included: walking shoes that were dark brown adidas with light brown stripes and light brown shoelaces; a dark green hoodie - not khaki or bottle but a rich forest green, plain with no lettering or pattern; possibly a v-neck jumper that goes well with my jeans; new jeans, quite dark in colour and reasonably priced; a cotton shirt with natural colours and a repetitive pattern that had a high and firm collar [not quite 70's style], and that I could get away with wearing with either shorts or jeans; a book that had kakuro, sudoku and killer sudoku in it, just killer and kakuro might do at a pinch if they were hard enough; a good basic-to-intermediate French workbook that had a bit on sentence construction, not just pictures and nouns; sunglasses that were cheap but not cheap-looking, would be durable and suited my face; cricket whites from Lilywhites, not quite as cheap-and-nasty as last years', some toiletries and a few other bits and pieces.

Queer-eye, anyone?

Anyways, then add to that my intense dislike - OK, let's call it hatred - of people who are either slow, walk in groups six or seven across thereby blocking overtaking, don't know where they're going, don't care, don't walk in straight lines, stop bang in the middle of footpaths to read maps or try and pick up a dropped penny, or all of the above. Honestly if I was in a car it'd be road rage, but like all road rage, it'd be entirely justified. Violence and all.

Tourists (myself included) are the worst of these offenders. So it was obviously great to see them all out on Saturday.

So I was in a rush, had heaps to buy, I'm a picky shopper, and hate slow and inconsiderate pedestrians, and was on the busiest shopping street in the world. Oh yeah, also it was a bit humid on Saturday arvo - definitely enough to be uncomfortable.

Now add to that the fact that I'm a ranga. Nuff said?

No, as it turns out.

I went from shop to shop looking for things, rarely satisfied. For example I started at the Adidas store near Bond St. They had a few styles I liked but nothing in my colour. They had another store near Covent Garden (nearer to Cambridge Circus it turns out, but whatever). So I tubed it there, but decided to walk back to Tottenham Court Road to see if there was anything along there. No there wasn't. I walked the length of Oxford Street to Bond Street, checking out most stores on the way. By then I'd forgot some of the earlier stores so I went back there to be reminded that they didn't have anything that met my fairly specific tastes.

There was one thing I liked in this trip - a shirt I got in Debenham's. I went to purchase the shirt and found my card declined. Tried it again. Declined. I paid in cash in the end, but that sorta ruined my budgeting system which relies on me taking out a week's expenditure at once and touching my bank account as little as possible. This was all to come out of my bank account though.

By now furious, I called the bank. Seems they've noticed I use internet banking and have sent me a new card, immediately cancelling this one. Thing is, they didn't f*cking well tell me. So I was stuck without access to my main account for the entire bank holiday weekend (anyone spot the irony there?). I sorted this out eventually, on the phone, but I'm still awaiting my promised apology. To be fair the bloke who spoke with me was very nice. But at the time it did very little to quell my rage.

So, having walked the route twice, for good measure I did it again. Three times along Oxford Street.

I found some jeans. Big whoop. By then I was running late for dinner with a mate and pretty stressed out. Infact with all the stress over bank accounts, high-but-not-70's-high collars, kakuro, irresponsible pedestrians and adidas, it won't surprise you to hear that I was totally exhausted by the end of the day - mentally and physically.

I think you'll agree that we're all lucky there was no mass killing spree on Oxford Street last weekend.

I got to dinner eventually (luckily we had a few drinks first to loosen me up a bit - they always seem to help).

Of course, being a glutton for punishment I did it all again on Sunday, only adding Lilywhites into the deal (where I got shoes - Nike not Adidas, which are too narrow for my feet; and the shoelaces were the wrong colour). For the uninitiated, Lilywhites is rivalled only by Macao in population density, except the vast majority of customers are Chavs.

Even then, I wasn't done though. I ended up walking a fair way to get the right pair of laces, as mentioned above. Even then I'm not totally happy with the laces. They're a bit too long. That's actually been niggling me a bit since I got them.

Ah well. You can't win 'em all I guess. What was it Tyler Durden said in Fight Club? "I say: 'Let me never be complete'"

The pair I need to pay thanks to - eulogise if you will - are my wonderful Asics shoes.

I brought them over to the UK with me, and had them for a couple of years in Australia before then.

A simple design, mainly white with modest navy blue and grey trim and logos, and for some reason the word AHAR is on their sole. I guess the shoes, like me, are fans of Alan Partridge. No wonder we're such a good match.

To say they've served me well is to do them a gross injustice. They've put up with my abortive attempts to convince many cricket captains I'm a viable bowler. They've stuck with me through thick and thin. Literally. I wore them every time I went to the gym, and lost a bit of weight in them through 2006 and 2007.

They hold especially fond memories as I wore them when I scored my first, and so far only, century in December.

If that's not enough, they have not uttered a word of disappointment about me putting on eight kilos when back in Oz, and has helped me lose six kilos (again) on my return to Blighty.

But now their magnificent service has come to an end. Falling apart, they've had to go. I'd like to give them a Viking funeral if I can manage it.

But, as the cliché goes, one door closes and another one opens. A new beginning with a new pair of shoes: my very trendy personalised Nike shoes, ordered four weeks ago and picked up from Nike Town last weekend. They're in my cricket club colours (light blue, dark blue and maroon), and have my nickname on the tongue of the shoes. All at no extra cost.

This week I wore them to the gym for the first time, and ran home, as usual. I'll be surprised if they wear out before me.

But every time I wear them, or watch Alan Partridge, I'll think of my Asics. 2004-2008. May they Rest in Peace (once I've torched them).

But change is inevitable, and all good things must come to an end. As they say, out with the old and in with the shoe.

Sorry.

The Blog is back!

I've been meaning to do something on this blog for some time. It's been dormant for a while. I've still got heaps of stories from India I could share with you, and I haven't even talked about my wonderful time back in Australia. I also planned to keep you updated on my attempt to shed some kilos again (I gained eight kilos while at home thanks to an overly festive season, I've lost six of them now). And I've got plenty to rant about over here in the UK (and I don't rule out doing so in the future - let's face it, I love a good rant).

I'm also gonna focus on making the entries a bit shorter.But to start with, I have a little ode to dedicate to a pair that have given me so much support over the years, and have now departed.

The Language Barrier: a Great Name for a Wrestler

Bish's Precis

- yes, I'm still milking my trip to India in November for stores

- travelling by train in India is a brilliant experience

- the food they give you is generally excellent

- in my experience, 75% of people who work for Indian Rail are Olympic standard athletes

- in my experience, 75% of people who work for Indian Rail are complete p!ssheads

- either way, they have excellent bed etiquette

- I leave Perth on 4 March

No trip to India is complete without a train journey. The biggest employer in the world, with more than a million employees, and a long history.

We took a trip to Chandigarh and back by train, then had a night in Delhi before we prepared for the big one, a trip to Mumbai. It would take 18-20 hours, so we got a second class sleeper. There are three classes of travel on trains, and third class has bars on the windows. We weren't that keen on slumming.

The train was scheduled to leave at 7pm. At 9pm we moved off. We found our beds – which weren't together – and settled in. Chopper had a spare bed in his booth so I shifted there temporarily. The train wasn't express – it was picking people up along the way. During dinner I asked our attendant if we could make the move permanent, and he agreed to ask the arriving passenger if he's agree to a swap.

Each booth had six beds, in three sets of bunks in a U shape: two facing each other, and one more running parallel with the passageway along the opposite side of the train. In addition to the two of us, three other young blokes were in our booth. One of them, Sanjiv, spoke English very well. And, it turned out, very often. He was a gymnast, on his way home having just attended a training camp.

The other two blokes in our booth were wrestlers, one of them (who we called the Nugget) was clearly in a heavier weight class than the other bloke. They didn't speak much English at all (especially the Nugget, but I suspect he didn't speak much at all: he didn't need to).

Soon we saw why they were sitting with us. They were all employees of Indian Railways, and as such had free trips to wherever they wanted to go, but didn't have a seat or bed. Sanjiv's stop was at about 3:30am, so he decided to get some sleep early (behind a curtain in one of the bunks ... at least I think he was getting some sleep), while the other blokes decided it was time for dinner.

They were well prepared. A neat little segmented thermos contained rice, dahl, curry, and pickle. They also had some excellent naan bread, and a few date cakes for desert, which they very kindly offered to us. After they ate, Sanjiv awoke, and started talking to us. In the meantime, the wrestlers had opened the crowning glory of their dinner, a bottle of whisky. Pointedly, they didn't worry about offering us any of the hooch.

We didn't mind - we were talking with Sanjiv, mainly about his sport and his hopes of appearing in front of his home crowd in the 2010 Commonwealth Games (in Delhi). But the wrestlers were quietly getting quite legless. They weren't being rowdy or annoying. Just as well: if they had been there wasn't much we could've done about it.

During this time we were served an excellent meal courtesy of Indian Rail. Another one. The meals to and from Chandigarh had also been superb: dahl, curry, rice, naan bread, pickle, fresh chilli, cucumber, a mini samosa, fairy-floss-like sugar cake or some sort, and to top it off, natural yoghurt served in a clay pot. Brilliant.

This time, while the food was good, the bloke that served us was hilarious. He was utterly off-his-face drunk. He was swaying all over the place, and wasn't making any sense to any of us. He took a swig of the wrestlers' whisky. With the inside knowledge of Sanjiv, we found out that these blokes work about 18-20 hours a day for about Rs400 (A$13). When they get a rest between serving food, chai, and anything else, they nip down the back to their quarters and drink themselves stupid. This bloke had obviously had a lot of time off during the day.

After dinner and chai we stopped at a town somewhere along the way and, much to the despair of the wrestlers, the real occupants of the beds in our booth showed up. They were clearly very tired and quickly set up their beds and headed off to sleep. I have to admit that both Chop and I had a little giggle about that.

It didn't seem to worry our nuggety friend and his smiling, not-so-nuggety-but-still-quite-intimidating mate. They had finished their bottle of whisky and tucked in to a second bottle. Still not offering us any (to be fair there was barely a litre and a half between the two of them), they kept swigging their hooch. They were settling in for the night, even though they had nowhere to sleep.

It was getting late – about 11:00 – but it was quite hot still in the train, so Sanjiv, Chop and I decided to head to the end of the carriage, where the side doors were open and there was a good circulation of air. Sanjiv, after no more than 30 minutes sleep, had decided he's had enough until he needed to catch his connection in a few hours, so we chatted to each other for a while.

A couple of times while we were sitting there talking to Sanjiv, the wrestlers came up to him and spoke in Hindi. They were certainly feeling the effects of the alcohol. We didn't really know what they were saying, but whatever it was, Sanjiv wasn't agreeing to it.

A few other characters also stopped to chat to us. Again, we were the only white people I saw on the train, and there mustn't have been much else to do. Along with friendly passengers, our drunken waiter came by again to give us some more chai. Handling hot liquids is difficult at the best of times, but doing it on a rickety old train while totally legless is quite an achievement.

So, it turned out, was getting him to nick off. He was hanging around with a drunken grin all over his face. He chatted to Sanjiv for a while, and then came back to me and was calling me his brother, with generous Indian hospitality. Too generous it seemed. He was getting rather familiar, placing his hand on my leg. This has to be put into context though: we often saw Indian blokes walking down the street hand-in-hand in completely platonic affection. Nonetheless, my first reaction was not unlike an electric shock. But I managed to control myself enough to say "you look tired – I'll let you get on with your work. I'll see you later."

No movement (except some involuntary swaying).

"See you on your next round mate. Namaste"

In slow motion, his droopy, drunken eyes opened with joy.

"You speak Hindi!?!"

He was so smashed that his eyes didn't seem to open in unison. But he proceeded to reel off about a thousand syllables of Hindi before Sanjiv could stop him and say that, no, I didn't infact understand a f*cking word he'd just said. I was just being nice.

With that, he returned to his massive drunken grin, which seemed larger than his face, gave me a huge hug, and finally moved off to dispense chai and platonic affection elsewhere.

The wrestlers joined us again. This time they wanted to talk to us. Their English was pretty broken, but through their language barrier and the not-insignificant obstacle of two bottles of booze, they managed to beg us to give them our beds for a while. Sanjiv was translating a little bit for us. We said fine, no problems, and they swayed off to our booth for some drunken shuteye in "their" beds.

Then it dawned on us. How much is "a while" in Indian etiquette – have we just abandoned our beds for the night? Do they figure that we'll be able to sleep during the day while we finish our trip to Mumbai? What's the polite thing to do here? What options do we have against two world-class wrestlers?

We figured the very least we had to give them was an hour. That was fine – we could chat with Sanjiv, who had no plans to sleep until he got his connection. All the time we were chatting with Sanjiv, I think Chop and I were both thinking how the heck we were going to get these drunken, Olympic standard wrestlers out of our beds.

Tension grew, and I think it's fair to say that some of the sweat on Chop's brow was not entirely attributable to the temperature on the train. After an hour, still uncertain about the conditions under which we surrendered our beds, we looked at each other and with a sense of foreboding decided to try to wake them.

Tentatively we shook them awake from their sleep.

The bloke on my bed, Nugget, got up immediately and acquiesced and politely got up and thanked me for the precious hour of drunken sleep he'd had. His smiling friend was not so easy to rouse. He resisted at first, but soon Nugget sorted him out, reminding him that they'd only borrowed the beds. He awoke, very drowsy and very drunk, but was polite enough to thank Chop.

So finally we got some sleep. Without my watch on or an alarm being set, I wasn't sure what time it was in the morning as I was rolling over and going back to sleep. By the time I woke up I saw a family of six on the bench facing me in silence as I was stretching out on the bench all to myself. It was 9:15am. They'd probably been like that for at least three hours.

I think it's fair to say that the Indians have the wood over me when it comes to bed etiquette on trains.