Seoulscapade

While staying in Arles in January ‘08, my wife and I took day trips around the countryside. The longest one was to go and see the highest bridge in the world, the Millau Viaduc, once I discovered it was in the region. I just couldn’t miss the opportunity.

Unlike our previous day trips, everyone in the house we were staying in (all my family members who were there) decided to come with us on this one. We consulted timetables the night before and saw that our choices were limited. There were certain trains we’d have to catch without fail, or things would go awry.

Although this gargantuan bridge is supposedly one of France’s top tourist destinations, train times were certainly not convenient, at least not in the off season.

An early start the next morning was called for to get the Arles to Beziers train at 6.38 am. It to arrive in Beziers at 8.19. Then we had to catch the Beziers to Millau train at 9.10 am, which would arrive in Millau at 10.58. Here are the first leg details:

Arles to Beziers     6.38 – 8.19
Beziers to Millau    9.10 – 10.58

Total Time: 4h 20m
Total Cost : 72.00 Euro for 2 adults

However, the day began, as it often did, with a delayed train—a problem that cursed us the whole time we were in the south of France. I got pretty nervous on the platform, thinking that we’d have to call everything off. Fortunately, the Arles to Beziers turned up in time for us to continue, and we got to Beziers on time for our train to Millau.

As we drew into Millau, the bridge loomed up ahead but we only got glimpses of it—awesome nonetheless. In Millau, we had little time before the only viable afternoon train back at 13.50 pm. It was around 11 am, and we still had no way of knowing how to see the bridge.

It was a good thing that we got to Millau before the all important lunchtime, as the information desk at the train station was still open. At this point, I want to stress something for anyone who wants to do something similar: book the train home, if you have not done so, as soon as you arrive.

Now, for our next glitch. The woman at the desk informed us in passable English that tours of the bridge were off for the off season! That meant we had to arrange a taxi tour, which thankfully was not difficult.

The information desk contacted a driver and he soon arrived to go over the details, mainly with my father. It was agreed that we’d be picked up at midday from the station. At this point, I felt secure that we really were going to get to that bridge. I had fears something would go wrong.

That driver did not end up taking us, since I suspect he preferred to partake of the all-important lunch, or else he was booked. Another driver showed up instead, at the agreed time. He could only spare a certain amount of time because he was booked for 1.30 pm, and we had to get back to the station around then, so we were all of the same mind in regard to time. Everyone set off with a sense of urgency, with our first stop being the visitor’s centre underneath the bridge.

Great views and photo ops are offered at the visitor’s centre. However, car park fencing is in the way of the best spots for taking photos, and you can only get to them through the visitor’s centre. I asked a lady at a desk about going through for some quick pictures. But apparently I needed to be guided. I was directed to another room where tour guides awaited the every whim of visitors—well, it wasn’t quite like that.

A man and a woman were in there, chatting animatedly. In typical French counter-service style, I was looked up and down with petulance for interrupting the conversation. They said I’d have to wait for a guided tour. I certainly had no time for that with the taxi driver waiting. So, I went back to the first lady. She said that I would assuredly get through, if I simply asked the guides. For anyone who is interested in the technical name for this maneuver, it is called “being given the run around.”

I went back to the guides, who this time demonstrated some impatience. Upon a further explanation of what I wanted, I was told everything was off or canceled, or something to that effect. The message was simple: why don’t you just piss off? I got the message and left those champions of French tourism to their self-absorption. I went outside to enjoy the bridge without time to waste.

Soon we set off for a tour around the base of the bridge, stopping occasionally for photo ops. The driver, I am sure, had done this many times before. He knew just where to stop. Then we went up to the top, where there is a large car park and a viewing area. The viewing area is reached by a steep walkway. Time was limited, and the driver gave us maybe 15 minutes here, so we had to make haste up to the viewing area. But what a magnificent view greeted us. From this spot, I could better picture how they put the thing together, and I couldn’t help but marvel at the heights at which workers toiled, out over the valley.

I was the first one to that spot and the last to leave. In the end, I had to make a dash down a hill so as not to delay the driver. Then we set off for a trip over the bridge. This was a marvel, speeding high up across a valley as if in an airplane, an effect enhanced by the see through barriers on the bridge. It was over much too fast.

After that, we had to get back to Millau from the other side, which was a longer, more winding trip. At one point we parked at a corner on the way down a hill and were able to take in all of Millau as well as a side view of the whole expanse of the bridge. But as with other stops, we had to hurry along to get back to the station in time.

Here are the taxi tour details:

Time Taken: 12:00 – 1:30
Driver charged 55 Euros and we added a good tip. He got 80.

That bridge was one of the vacation highlights of my whole time in the south of France for me, so huge and yet appearing so light to the eye, and in seeing it the day after we’d seen Pont du Gard, I was privileged to a juxtaposition of mighty bridges nearly 2000 years apart in history. As a friend of my remarked when I told him of this, it would be interesting to see which is still standing in the next 2000 years.

Our tour finished at the station with little time to spare until boarding the train for Beziers. With satisfaction, I reflected that the goal of the day had been accomplished. Now we could relax. Well, not quite. Unfortunately, the small two carriage train was full to capacity with teenagers, of all things. They seemed to be from some camp or other. This turned out to be a real blight on the day. But before I get to that, here are the details of the trains:

Millau to Beziers    13.50 – 15.40
Beziers – Arles       16.05 – 17.34

Total Time: 3h 44m
Total Cost : 72.00 Euro for 2 adults

This is why I mentioned earlier that it is mandatory to book seats for that home train. Otherwise, you might have to wait until around 4 pm sometime.

We got on the train and walked from one end to the other looking for a seat. But there were teenagers lounging over everything, doing all they could not to give up any spare seats. Some were laying down across side lounge seats, which would have been ideal for the family. There were bags and clothes over every empty seat, perhaps put there by the teens out on the platform, so everything appeared to be occupied. I just pressed on through the train searching for somewhere with everyone following behind me.

I heard later that when my mother and father, who are over 70, sought seats, they were met with shrugs and teens refusing to move their feet from seats in front of them. I didn’t see this because I was up ahead. But had I witnessed such insolence, I think I would have lost all composure. My mother had even showed her ticket to some lout to try to indicate that she had a right to a seat as much as anyone, and in fact, hers was a first class Euro pass ticket. Eventually some teens did make room for my parents and my sister.

I’d gotten the end of the train and was by the luggage racks and toilet near the exists. It was separated from the seating by thick glass. This is when I looked back to see that others were getting seats. I thought I’d prefer to stay where I was. Although there was nowhere to sit, there was space to move around and stretch, I could take pictures easily out of the window, and I would not have to deal with the brats. Apparently, the conductor, who had a room on the other side of this area, did not want to deal with them either. He did nothing about making sure people who paid for a seat had a seat.

Sunah was with me, but my mother motioned her in to a extra seat they’d managed to secure—presumably not without rolling eyes and sneers from the brats. So that left me with my nephew. That’s where we stayed for the whole trip.

During that journey, I occasionally looked back through the thick glass at the carriage, only to see the teenagers carrying on, with one guy in particular talking, laughing, and shouting every time I looked around. He was one of the three people opposite to where Sunah was sitting. At least everyone’s got a seat, I thought, but I couldn’t put up with all the teenage carry on. I had not realized, though, just how bad everything was in there.

I couldn’t hear anything really, except for the train, but Sunah told me later that the loud noise and carrying on in the carriage didn’t stop the whole time, especially not the merde coming from that guy. Also, it seemed he and others might have been poking fun and talking badly about my family in French.

When I met her getting off the carriage, I knew something was wrong. She looked so tense and stressed. By this time, she was suffering a terrible headache, brought on by the teen noise and behavior. She wished she had stayed with me. My parents and sister confirmed how bad it was, too. I had no idea. Again, had I been in there, somehow stuck with them, I don’t think I would have handled it like a gentleman.

The insolence and arrogance shown on that train was perhaps the worse I’ve ever come across of teenagers anywhere in my life. Sunah was certainly shocked, since something like that defies the order of the universe for someone brought up in Confucian Korea, where it would absolutely never happen. Even for me, when I think back to when I was a teen in Australia, I know I was an idiot, but I would never have behaved like that.

The incident was an indictment of the pampered “millennial” generation, many of whom seem to understand little beyond narcissistic gratification, and clearly demonstrated the failure of the liberal parenting experiment. The sad thing about it, too, is that those morons won’t understand what merde-heads they were until perhaps 10 years from now, or later, when they think back to their youth. Although most probably won’t remember that train trip, anyway.

But I will. I’ll always remember that on this day we saw the best of French technology and the worst of French breeding. I guess you can’t have everything. C’est la vie.

Near Les Invalides, close to the Ecole Militaire Metro station, at 54 Avenue Bosquet to be precise, is where I had my worst ever restaurant experience in Paris. The restaurant in question goes by the name of La Fontaine De Jade, although it has Restaurant Chinois Thailandais emblazoned above its windows. It’s a Thai restaurant that I will never return to, and I urge everyone to avoid it.

My wife and I had passed it the day before we went there, and we had agreed that it would be a good place for a meal after a hard day’s sightseeing around Paris. As we walked passed, I had imagined I would order large bowls of saffron colored jasmine rice and a sumptuous vegetarian green curry dish. That would be just the thing!

We hadn’t properly noted where it was, and were not familiar with the area, so after our hard day’s sightseeing the next day, it took some trouble to find the place again. That extra traipsing about added to our weariness, yet gave us even more of an appetite. Unfortunate, really . . . for the weariness and the appetite only sharpened the bitterness of the experience.

The place was empty when we walked in, and all staff were at a back table having dinner. The waiter seated us and delivered our first disappointment: the menu. The expectation that a Thai restaurant would offer up a range of vegetarian choices was not to be. We could find only two besides rice, a vegetable chop suey dish and a fried noodle side dish. Would those be enough for two to share? I inquired. The waiter former a small oval with the hands, indicating that it was not likely to be enough. To be fair, he was kindly and honest.

I resort to seafood in situations like this, where vegetarian eating is not catered for, so along with the chop suey and noodles, we ordered a prawn soup each at over 8 Euros a serve. Surely, they would practically constitute a full meal. Guess again. The soups came in decorated bowls, each of which would best be described as about the size of a coffee cup, though not as deep. The waiter seemed almost apologetic when serving them.

The soup was good, but anything would have been given how hungry we were. It could easily have been made from a packet. In my soup was the end of a baby corn, a sliver of mushroom, remnants of the kind of peeled tomato you find in a can, and prawns. The soups were downed pretty quickly. When the chop suey and noodles came, we apportioned them out and we got about a handful each from each dish.

The main ingredient in the chop suey was aged bean sprouts. I spotted amongst it what looked like another section of my baby corn—perhaps the other part to the baby corn piece in my soup—and there was another sliver of mushroom. A sliver of carrot was also in evidence. The noodles had bean sprouts as well. Yes, we had more than enough bean sprouts to go round. It was woeful.

Maybe we were even getting the left overs of what the staff had been eating when we walked in

After we ate that few cents worth, which cost us many Euros, I was still hungry, but I wasn’t going to order any more to eat from this place. However, I had been craving a coffee all afternoon, and so I ordered us one each.

After the coffees, we asked for the bill and it was delivered not by the kindly waiter but by a Thai gentleman who slithered up with it. Yes, human beings can slither. You don’t see it often but when you do, it is unmistakable and cannot really be described in any other way.

He had a really serious look, too, this guy, a look I’d seen before in Thailand. It is a look borne of a mix of aggression, impatience, fear, insecurity and envy, and it is at its most intense when its bearer is on the verge of clasping money, and when the only thing in the way of that money is you, the customer. You could swear guys like this are trying their best to stifle screams of exasperation at such a critical juncture. All they want is for you to disappear.

The bill came to 45 Euros, believe it or not. He bought back the tray with the change in a hunched but swift manner, after I’d already indicated no change was necessary, since a tip is customary. I said “That’s for you.” But he just kept muttering, “merci, au revior,” or something of the sort, repeatedly, in a dismissive way, as he slunk around behind me.

Then we were farewelled at the door by a waitress with a forced smile. I was getting the impression that they had been prepared for trouble.

I’m not the type, and instead simply vote with my feet, or put the word out. So here I am, putting the word out that, for me, out of everywhere I’ve ever eaten in Paris on my several visits there, La Fontaine De Jade, has the distinction of being the worst.

OK, here’s some explanation to the following. I’ve traveled a bit and have put up with what most have to while traveling without a fuss. But everyone has their limits and when you stand back and take a cold hard look at it, some things about traveling really suck.

Why I became so annoyed about what people commonly put up with is perhaps because I’ve been spoiled by the Korea’s excellent transport systems–far superior to those of Europe. This discrepancy, and the fact that I’m less tolerant than I used to be, has compelled to write of the following ordeal.

To start our 2 week vacation to the south of France in January, 2008, we had to endure a 10-12 hour flight to Paris, then transfer to a 1.3 hour flight to Nice, which was delayed for another couple of hours. It was wearying as you can imagine.

Livestock Conditions

I was dreading Flight AF 267 from Incheon to Paris because I knew it’d be grueling. As it turn out, it was, with additional unforeseen trials adding to the hardship.

The Boeing 777 used for this flight had a seating arrangement installed for economy that borders on the inhuman. I mean, I’m strongly against the appalling confinements livestock suffer, and in all fairness I also object to such conditions being applied to humans.  It was like a kind of torture and patently not suitable for 10-12 hour flights. I really think flight seating measurements should be looked into because I swear the airlines, or Air France at least, are shrinking them centimetre by centimetre each year, on the sly.

I am not a large person at just 77 kgs and I’m under 6 feet tall, but what I was expected to fit into gave me practically no moving space at all. It was similar, I guess, to what sows sufferer in factory farm gestation crates, which is torture. I find it hard to believe that anyone else could find this restricted space acceptable after paying so much for an airline ticket. Why do people put up with it?

I had to get out to stretch at one point and upon my return, while standing in the aisle, I was taken aback by the space I was expected to fit in. Just seeing it from that angle, I just couldn’t believe it. I stood there kind of stunned. I actually went and inspected other rows to check that my seating was not worse then everyone else’s.

The Three Little Pigs

As if the cramped quarters weren’t bad enough, we had what can only be described as inconsiderate arseholes sitting in front of us, who henceforth shall be known as the three little pigs. The pigs were French, by the way, not Korean. As soon as they sat down they inclined their seats as far back as they would go, and that’s how they stayed for the duration of the flight. That reduced my space considerably. Sometimes the guy in front of my was bouncing hard on his seat as if to try and force it back further. Unbelievable. It took a lot of restraint to keep my cool.

To be fair, the monk was not as bad, he actually raised his seat to eat meals. However, that was no help to us, since a fat lady was in front of my wife and the bouncer, a pompous prick with a nose like something on a gargoyle was in front me. Both of them were oblivious to any consideration towards us. As the flight began to drain our energies, we began to hate them.

It was also aggravating that the three little pigs had the seats by the exit door, so they had all the leg room they could want. And so, they spread themselves out in that direction as well by leaving items lying around their feet. They had to be asked several times by airline staff to pick up their things. But they pretty much ignored these directives.

In situations like this, I often give up because I don’t want to lower my standards to their level with petulant retaliations, and because I am sometimes benumbed by the sheer enormity of human stupidity and ignorance—so insurmountable that it is foolish to even bother to protest. It’s like when you a dealing with children, or even pigs, you indulge their lack of insight. It does not always do much to lessen the anger.

Double Standards by Air France

Does Air France use such a torturous seating arrangement because it’s a Korean flight and because there is a mistaken belief that Koreans are smaller than Caucasians? It is true that the Japanese are smaller on average than Caucasians, and it might have once been true of Koreans, but it is not true of the average Korean anymore. Air France needs to adjust its policy, not just for Caucasians like me flying out of Korea, but for Koreans, too.

On top of everything an incident occurred that could only be described as discrimination. My wife, who is Korean, was like me finding the confinement of the seating hard to cope with. By the way, she is somewhat smaller than me, and even she found it torturous. The woman in front of her ignored any protest. At one point, it got too much for my wife and she asked one of the stewards to get the person in front to put her seat up. The steward simply shrugged and did nothing. However, later, my wife noticed a steward asking a Korean passenger to put their seat up at the request of someone seated behind them.

Is there a special rule for French passengers and another rule for everyone else? It would seem so because, to add insult to injury, the rude people in front of us were not even made to put their seats up during meal service. Putting seats upright is usually a standard requirement on all airlines at meal times. Why does Air France not practice this policy? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to eat a meal when the person in front of you has the seat back as far as it will go?

The only advantage of nearly having my chest crush by the seat in front of me was that the video screen was now closer. This was useful because my video screen was tiny. As I later discovered, the screen sizes on seats were completely random as to who got a good screen and who didn’t. Some people had new larger screens while others like me, who presumably paid the same price for a ticket, got a tiny old fashion screen that was like watching an iPod. This only added to the resentment of the conditions I was expected to endure.

Why didn’t I put my seat back to give myself a few more inches? Because I hate to inconvenience the person behind me.

Vegetarian? Rabbit Food Will Do.

I was the subject of reverse discrimination, however, because I had pre-ordered a vegetarian meal. That meant I was served before everyone else. That part was fine. But what could the nation renowned for its rich cuisine deliver? For my main course, I was given salad. For my side dish, I was given yet another salad—the same kind of salad! One was big, the other was small. So, my meal mostly consisted of lettuce and and cherry tomatoes.

But I will give them credit where it was due. My meal was not delayed.

Delay After Delay

It was a great relief to get off that flight, but then we had to contend with Charles De Gaulle, which is a dump compared to Korea’s Inchean. We couldn’t see any signs for transfer to a domestic flight and had to face French information desk staff to get help. We were encouraged by not getting as much disdain as I expected. There was even a smile. I suspected something was wrong—or perhaps she was new.

We rushed to another terminal and got to the security check a couple of minutes before the close of boarding. We needn’t have worried about the time because the fight was delayed. And then as we were boarding, boarding was delayed because they wouldn’t open the plane door. Then on board the flight was delayed further while they moved cargo around for balance. I doubt such a delay would even happen in Korea—people wouldn’t stand for it.

By this time weariness was setting in, and so was body odor from stewing in one’s own juices for something like 14 hours. This plane wasn’t full, though. It was so empty, the first 10 rows had to move to the back to provide ballast for take off!

The aircraft was an Airbus A320, and this actually had leg room, by which I mean room for a pair of average legs plus some extra space for leg movement. This kind of aircraft would have been much better for the Seoul to Paris flight.

The flight to Nice was pretty quick and the airport wasn’t busy. Fortunately I had researched about getting into town, but I asked at the information desk anyway, who told me less than what I already knew. It’s funny, they’ll tell you to catch a bus at platform 5 but they will not tell you where platform 5 is. They will help you but only with the  minimum they can get away with. We couldn’t see any signs to direct us the the platform, and it was only be chance we eventually found it.

Getting Into Nice

To get into Nice from the airport’s Terminal 2 take bus 98. Pay the jaded driver around 4 Euros per person. Don’t bother to ask him for any help unless you can interpret grunts. He’ll give you a one day pass that is good for all bus routes.

Bus 98 does not have a map of its route anywhere. You don’t know where it will stop, and when it stops, you don’t know the name of the stop. This would never happen in Korea, not with such a pressing need for efficient mass movement. In France, if it’s only bedraggled tourists that will be faced with confusion, who gives a shit?

I had a map I’d printed off and an idea of where we were going in my head. Still, it was dark because of the delayed flight, which I hadn’t planned on, and I could not read any signs of significance. The scale threw me as well. Distances were smaller than expected. So, I didn’t have my bearings and wasn’t ready for our stop.

That was another bit of bad luck, as the bus got stuck in a main drag traffic jam before the next stop. Fortunately, our walk to the hotel didn’t take long because, as mentioned, distances were not great.

Salvation at the Roosevelt

At the Hotel Roosevelt, at the very doorstep of our destination, the whole dynamics of the journey changed. Here we were treated like humans. We were greeted in a most pleasant and helpful way by the desk clerk. The hotel foyer was simple, clean and neat and this was also reflected in the room. A kettle was even supplied, so we could have a welcome coffee, which you don’t often get these days.

What a relief it was to finally collapse on the bed, after what ended up being around 18 hours of uncomfortable travel. We were thoroughly exhausted.

Air France and Institutionalized Merde

My last word on this jaunt is that because Air France has a monopoly on direct flights to Paris from Korea, it possibly believes it can get away with anything. However, I suggest that Air France rethink their seating policies and upgrade their fleet. I certainly won’t be taking the direct route to Paris again on Air France until I hear that conditions are better.

To learn how to improve, Air France need only look and learn from the Koreans. The flight back from Paris was magical with Korean Air compared to the torture of getting there with Air France. With Korean Air, people in economy have more space. The video screens were the largest I had ever seen and the viewing selections the widest range I have ever seen. There must have been about 20 to 30 movies to watch. The staff ensures seats are upright at meal times and were courteous at all times.

I won’t go on because, quite frankly, what the French could learn from Koreans, in terms of customer service, transport and consideration of others, would fill an entire book.

The memory of a Qantas flight on my way back to Australia from Korea won’t go away so I thought I’d record it now, late as it is. It was April 29, 2005, when I took the night flight in question from Hong Kong to Perth, arriving early in the morning. The flight name may have been QF68, as it is now called.

I was seated across and back a few seats from a family man, who might have been immigrating. He was Middle Eastern in appearance, perhaps Turkish or Lebanese, I don’t know. His English was not at a native level. He had an aisle seat facing the paneling in the middle of the aircraft. It was the kind of seat I would have liked because of the extra leg room.

For some reason, this guy attracted all the attention of the Qantas flight staff—attention of the wrong kind. Right from the start, they were harassing him. Do this, do that, don’t leave that there. You can’t do this, you can’t do that. He wasn’t really doing much wrong, as far as I could see, no more than anyone else. He just had an exposed kind of seat, I suppose, on the corner.

Now, I’ll leave this passenger for a moment to describe the staff to give an idea of the flight experience for me. Gone are the days when you will see attractive hostesses on a Qantas flight. It’s not the done thing to discriminate anymore, and Australia is big on equality issues, or tries to be. So, the air-hostesses (air-hostpersons?) were all, well, let’s say past their prime. But that didn’t bothered me so much as their manner. They were gruff, showed signs of impatience and called people “Love.” If I closed my eyes, I could have sworn I was in a country pub listening to coarse tones of a old-time barmaid.

As an Australian, I found this brash manner and country-bumpkin informality not just far from the air-hostess ideal, it was also far from being internationally chic. I couldn’t help but feel seriously embarrassed. I wondered what people from other nations on the flight were thinking. It made me sink down further into my seat and hope that others didn’t think I was Australian. In effect, I cringed.

When we got a meal, these women were almost throwing heated foil containers onto our trays. I watched as my meal left the hostesses hands a few inches above my tray. It actually flew. It was something you would see in a comedy movie. “There ya go, Love,” she said.

But back to the poor gentleman on the aisle. Things came to a head with him after we had landed in Perth. There was some confusion about fumigation, the spraying of the inside of the aircraft. I can’t remember the exact details, but I think at first it was going to be done, so we had to remain seated, and then it wasn’t going to be, so we were told we could all leave. Everyone got up and started getting down their baggage. Then, suddenly, it was decided that spraying was going to be done after all, so we all had to sit down again. It was a debacle.

The foreign gentleman, however, was not quick enough in sitting down. I doubt he even knew what was going on, and who could blame him? At that point, a burly hostesses arrived on the scene and started badgered him to sit, hastily and roughly. There might have been some man handling. That was when he finally snapped. He loudly spoke back, saying something like, “Stop your pushing me!” or “Stop treating me like that!”

I was thinking, good on him. But then he become the focus of attention for a steward as well and there was a stand off, with more commands for him to sit down with authoritarian menace. And with that, this guy was transformed into the bad guy, the one holding things up.

I was thinking that if it escalates, I’m going to intervene on that guy’s behalf. But it didn’t progress, and the guy sat down, looking really dejected. I saw him later in the terminal, still looking stressed and angry. I thought about going up and apologizing to him. I didn’t, though, because I thought it might not go well, or he might take things out on me, or it just wasn’t appropriate.

I really wish now that I had done something, not just then in the terminal, but back in the plane when the guy was being picked on. Perhaps that’s why I remember this flight with bitterness, partly because I didn’t act when I should have. No one else did anything, either.

One thing is certain, when I stepped off that flight to set foot again in my own country, I was never more ashamed and embarrassed to be an Australian. So, so ashamed and embarrassed.

I have not flown with Qantas since.

My honeymoon was my second European trip, but this time it was to Paris, Dublin, London and back to Paris. The last time I went, the Internet did not exist for the general public, but this time I was able to book hotels and flights online. There were no problems. October was a good time to be there, with mostly decent weather and fewer tourists.

I should confess, the trip was designed to follow a kind of literary trail. In Paris, I made a point of visiting some Samuel Beckett landmarks, such as the one featured below. It’s Beckett’s long term home in Paris, 38 Boulevard St. Jacques, after he moved from Rue des Favorites (which I also visited); he lived on the 7th floor. Don’t worry, I ensured that my new wife, Sunah, didn’t miss out on seeing all of the standard tourist spots as well. We got everything done without too much rushing around, too. We were organized and kept busy enough not to have the energy for newly wed arguments.

Europe seemed much the same as it was 20 years ago, except more expensive, of course. One difference I noticed in Paris, however, was that the French were more inclined to speak English and seemed more tolerant of tourists. You have to admire that, what with the huge volume of tourists they have to put up with. I suspect things are different in peak season, when the tension between desiring to please to make money and loathing to accommodate petulant and demanding foreigners is at its zenith. I also noticed that more immigrants were working in service jobs or else running businesses.

Paris has always been multicultural, but multiculturalism in Dublin was something I didn’t expected. I had not been to Dublin before, and I guess I was anticipating something like a modern version of the city described in famous Irish literature from the last century. Sure, some of the landmarks were still there, but I didn’t hear much of the Irish accent walking down the streets. From what I gathered while there, the influx of immigrants is changing the face of Ireland; that seemed pretty evident. Poles especially are swelling the population, though they are not as readily accepted as harder working Asians, going on what a taxi driver said.

As for Dublin itself, I was somewhat underwelmed, although this impression is probably tainted by the literary focus I had. It is a bit touristy, nonetheless. A good example of this is the misleadingly named Guinness Brewery Tour. On the ‘tour,’ a self-guided affair, you will not see anything of the real Guinness brewing and bottling process. You just get funnelled to a merchandise shop, up various floors of memorabilia, panels, lights and noises, and end up at bar with a view of Dublin and a free pint of Guinness. The view and the pint are good, you can skip the rest.

They flog their literary heritage even though so many of their dead writers were ostracized while alive. Yet there is just not that much literary ‘stuff’ to see. There are house addresses you can visit, although I didn’t bother—I’d seen the main addresses I wanted to see in Paris. In any case, the most well known address would be Joyce’s 7 Eccle’s Street but there’s a hospital where it once stood. Actually, we stayed in a hotel that had been converted from a residence where George Bernard Shaw once lived, the Harcourt.

I enjoyed seeing a few other literary landmarks like Trinity College and Swift’s St. Patrick’s and venturing to Joyce’s Martello Tower in Sandycove, Dun Laoghaire. We also went on the convenient city bus tour—the best way to see things fast, walked along streets I’d heard of, and strolled through Stephen’s Green. There wasn’t time to do the literary pub tour, which might have been fun. I suspect, however, that we might have just seen a lot of other tourists. Since they banned smoking in pubs, business has dropped off. We did get to the writer’s museum, but it was a waste of time; you can read about the lives of Irish writers off a wall and view some old editions in glass cases—I mean, so what; you’d be just as enlightened surfing the Internet.

Had we the time, it would have been nice to tour more of the coast and inland country, like the Wicklow region, and see the rural side of Ireland. That might have given me the feeling that I would like to go back. As a last word, the friendliness of the Irish could not be faulted.

The next leg of the journey was from Dublin to London. In London, we took a city tour bus and then a Thames river cruise on the day we arrived. On the next day we headed off to meet my brother on the outskirts of London, and he drove us to Reading University, where I looked over some Beckett archives. Then it was on to Oxford to spend the afternoon with his family and have a quick look around before taking a train back to London. The next morning we took a flight back to Paris and returned to the hotel we’d initially stayed in, the Hotel Ares Eiffel. If anyone wants a basic, decently priced, well located hotel in Paris, this is it.

The return to Paris was purely for relax time, with the majority of the sightseeing out of the way. As the end approached, I didn’t really want to come back; I was starting to feel quite comfortable in Europe, or perhaps it was that I didn’t want the traveling to end so soon.

But I won’t miss the European cost of living, that’s for sure; and I won’t miss the transport systems, either: whoever designed the knee space for strangers opposite each other on Dublin’s trains should be sacked; Charles de Gaule was a dump compared to Korea’s Incheon International; London’s subway is clunky and Paris’ is quaint and petite compared to Seoul’s efficient, clean, heavy duty system. Seoul traffic, however, is another matter entirely.

In many respects, people who haven’t lived in Seoul don’t know what their missing; and getting away from Seoul showed me why I still like living here. Now I’m back, life is back to normal, well, except that I’m married.

Japan was like a bigger, brighter and cleaner version of Korea. That’s not to say I found it any more interesting than Korea. In fact, some things just weren’t worth seeing, like the Imperial Palace’s surroundings, which are all you’re allowed to see of the Palace, anyway. It was also annoying to have to pay to get into just about everything—that is, except the surroundings of the Imperial Palace.

I felt that some of Japan was starting to look tired and old, from once famous buildings to subway stations to tourist spots. The touristy stuff didn’t interest me all that much. No, the things that interested me most were the stuff of modern Japan—the architecture, surprising references to the rape of Nanking on television, the obsession with cuteness, the highly sexualized status of school girls, and the ubiquitous cartoon imagery, often of, well, cute sexy school girls.

Japan’s fast trains made it a pretty easy country to travel. I arranged my hotels over the net, choosing the cheapest I could find. I downloaded maps and worked out an itinerary. Basically, I did everything myself using the Internet and just followed a travel plan that was adaptable and flexible. And I walked a lot, as I was prepared to do. However, I wasn’t prepared for the blisters from cheap sneakers made soggy from thy typhoon rains that swept in for a couple of days. If my foot didn’t hurt so much I could have kicked myself for not taking my hiking boots. Nonetheless, I didn’t let it stop me from seeing all I wanted to see.

Interestingly, the book I took for nighttime reading was Doug Stanton’s In Harms Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors, which gave an extra historical dimension to my trip. Before it was torpedoed, the Indianapolis had delivered to the island of Tinian the parts of “Little Boy,” the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. These parts were assembled and the bomb was dropped a few days after the Indianapolis’s survivors were finally rescued. The book was well worth the read, and I visited Hiroshima the day after finishing it.

Sometimes the little things are what you remember best. I remember delivery men and garbage men actually jogging from place to place with what appeared to be a high level of enthusiasm. Perhaps that explains the clean streets. The bikini clad doll figure seen in game parlours and on ads was another point of interest; she has the cartoon face of an 8 year old and the body of a large breasted 18 year old nympho. I saw a life size model of her at one game parlor in a typically provocative pose. It’s one of those things you feel somewhat uneasy about but can’t look away. I wanted to take a photo but felt somewhat conflicted.

Walking through the Shibuya and Shinjuku areas of Tokyo at night, with their myriad of often bizarre sights, was great. It was too much to take in sometimes. In the end, however, it’s all pretty superficial, from the tan parlour beach girls with their blond hair to the J-pop music and it’s inane tunes. The high quotient of cute girls was always a delight, however.

Curiously, I saw a lot of groups of girls at Shibuya and elsewhere—like the tanned Barbarella dolls or just your everyday office worker—sitting around together, not really doing much. Perhaps they were just absorbed in their own little cliques. But many of them looked really bored to me. There were no guys around, and none paying much attention except for foreign tourists like me. I thought some of them were absolutely stunning (unlike the ones below).

Another thing I wasn’t expecting was the amount of homeless. They congregate in parks and live there in blue tarpaulin tents, set up in clumped groups under park trees. They were practically ‘blue tent towns’ and were for the most part always neat and tidy, their compacted earth surrounds well swept. These residents gave the impression that they were there for the long term. Many of these ‘towns’ were located at exclusive addresses, choice parkland in each city.

Did I mention that the Japanese were polite? Everyone hears about that, and it’s true. I think the best way to describe it is to say that they are very aware of when to be considerate. Even teenagers think of those around them. It’s the same in Korea, but in Japan it just seemed more noticeable or perhaps it was just more deliberately expressed.

There’s an old saying that you will only begin to like Thailand upon your second visit. I now have a better idea of what was meant by that. But I suspect that they were not referring to a return to Bangkok or much of anywhere else on the Thai mainland. I certainly wouldn’t bother going back in a hurry.

However, the islands are another story, as I recount below. The big question in my mind is: what happened to the famous Thai smile? You know, the only time I got genuine friendliness and a genuine smile was from young women or girls, often those working in shops or restaurants. Otherwise, these were generally absent unless there was money on offer. I guess money can get you anything you want in Thailand, even a smile.

Bangkok is one of those places you just have to get used to. I don’t think I could handle the weather and pollution for long. Things might be better out of tourist mode, that is, if I was actually living and working there. By my second day in this city I had not formed a great impression of the Thai people, or rather any of them connected with the tourist industry. They were a jaded lot and occasionally openly rude without cause. And I wasn’t even a fat American!

I even got involved in one of those famous scams! It was at the end of a tiring day and I guess they caught me off guard. I was first sucked in because where I wanted to go was exactly where the ‘hooker’ was saying he could get me to cheaply. Then a real taxi was involved, which further caused me to let my guard down.

In the end, they got nothing out of me except a taxi fare but I figured that it was well worth it for the experience and to see how the whole thing was played out. To my knowledge, there were 4 ‘actors’ involved not counting staff at the shop (the final destination of the scam scenario); I call these the ‘hooker,’ the ‘driver,’ the ‘funneler’ and the ‘primer.’ It was very elaborate in terms of settings and plot; they had all the angles and details figured out, such as ways to ensure I didn’t end up sitting in the front next the taxi driver where I could hurt him. I felt pretty stupid at being duped but once I realize I went along with it to see what would happen. Click here if you want a full run down of the scam.

Starving Buddha and Gay Buddha

Often touted as the jewel of the North, Chiang Mai was less than I had expected. Upon our arrival we hit the temple trail and saw a lot of the main temples on foot and by tuk-tuk. At one stage, the tuk-tuk driver suggested we see a temple outside of town and took us to a worthwhile spot. He was one of the good guys and we hoped he would take us on a tour the following day. Unfortunately, his tuk-tuk couldn’t cope with the hilly terrain. Nonetheless, late that night we did secure a driver who had a taxi. I didn’t like the look of him that much, too shifty. But it was late, and tiredness overrode instinct.

Now, this guy we ended up being crooked. The first day went alright. But I had to arrange pricing for the second day all over again. I arranged a price for a tour all inclusive, but at the end of the day he insisted it was per person. I wasn’t going to sit in the car arguing with him; I just said, look, I’ll give you 400 baht, which was 100 more than the price I’d set the day before, and he said OK. And he did this after I’d helped him out by allowing him to take us to some of those tourist shopping traps ‘just to look’ and thereby no doubt assisting him to get a small commission. I’d done this as a kind of act of good will and because we had some time to spare. In addition, while I was out of the car getting change for his 400 baht, he was mocking my girlfriend and a piece of jewellery we bought because it was not white gold. Unfortunately, there are some people in countries like who, because of poverty or lack of education, whatever, are always going to be ignorant peasants.

Anyway, we saw the touristy things. I mainly felt sorry for the Elephants and couldn’t help thinking about their history of slavery. Of course, they’re probably looked after well as they’re a major tourist draw card. I paid money to see a show, but I figure the elephants are probably happier being in a kind of jungle circus than hauling logs all day in the middle of nowhere. There was also a snake farm we were kind of conned into going to that had a small zoo full of animals in way too small cages. This annoyed me, not only because of the life the animals had but because it was just so typical of the kind of tourist operation you get in backward countries.

My idea of going to Ko Samui last on the trip was to relax after some arduous journeying. It worked, and this place made up for earlier everything else. Our small resort, the Samui Paradise, was situation at the cleaner end of Chaweng Beach. It had quaint bungalows, and the one we were in came with a view and was about 10 metres from the beach. If you book early enough, you can get a beachside bungalow. I’d never had a holiday where you sit at a beach all day and just do nothing. I couldn’t see the sense in it, that is, until I did it. I’d would have no hesitation about going back there.

My conclusion is to be careful with who you trust in Thailand if you’re at a tourist hotspot. Everything in the country seems geared to extract your cash, and everyone is in on it. I’d advise you do everything you can in Bangkok in one day then get out as fast as you can the next; for Chiang Mai, two days, but only because you have to travel into the countryside (and more days if you want to find drugs, trekking, jungles, handicrafts, or some kind of hippie awakening). I might get to Pattaya to have a look one of these days, but, personally, I wouldn’t bother with the rest of the mainland unless I hear different. I’m definitely going back, but my efforts will be focused on the islands only.

Here’s how a Thai scam I got caught up in was played out. First the “hooker” stops you in the street with small talk—myfirst mistake was to pay attention to him; then he suggests a good temple or something to visit. He also tells you about an “expo” that many tourists visit that has good deals on. He pretends to be just helping you out, a kind of local sharing his knowledge.

What hooked me was that everything was coincidentally within reach of where I want to go anyway. It was all too easy. If you agree—my second mistake—he says he’ll explain everything to the driver and directly flags down a taxi. This taxi is, in fact, driven by someone he knows, although it doesn’t seem that way. The front door is opened but the car is parked so that the door hits the curb. Some fuss is made of this, and it presents an excuse to make sure you are seated in the back. Now you are in the hands of the “driver,” who takes you to the recommended temple.

Somewhere near the alleged temple, the driver parks and waves you in its supposed direction. As you walk in the direction he has waved, another guy will be there, another kind of friendly stranger, to point you on if you seem lost. This guy is what I call the “funneler,” who directs you down a path leading to a clearing where another “scene” is set to take place.

You came to a clearing and, naturally, do not see a temple. So you are left looking around, at which point the ‘primer’ appears. The primer will engage you in more small talk–”where are you from,” etc., the standard opener. His job is to lead the conversation around to the “expo” that the “hooker” had mentioned earlier, to prime you for when you go there. He’ll speak of the great deals and how he shops there. He’ll also throw in some familiar expressions and place names to give you the impression that he’s well travelled.

I threw a few questions at this guy and he wasn’t too smart at thinking outside of his script. He tripped up and awkwardly recovered, but I was already aware that things didn’t add up anyway.

I nodded at his sales pitch until I got a chance to ask directions to the temple. “It’s closed,” he said. Now I was getting pissed. Of course, the idea is not to give you a tour, it’s to get you to where they want you to be. After returning to the driver, he took me to the so-called “expo,” which turned out to be an ordinary backstreet shop. The windows were blackened, and I asked the driver whether or not it was actually open. This is when he really nervy, insisting that I go inside. That may or may not have been part of the script. At this point I really felt like smacking him a few times.

However, I decided to follow through. I got out and went to see what was inside. It was empty except for the shop attendants hanging around, and there were women inside who immediately scurried off with guilty looks. All I could see was standard tourist junk jewelry and clothing. I strolled about quickly brushing off staff attempts to engaged me in conversation. There was an atmosphere of intimidation but I think they could sense I wasn’t going to take much more shit from anyone. I’d had enough of the game. I left pretty quick.

So this was where the drama was designed to lead me in the hope I would part with some cash. I wondered if they ever made any money out of this; if they’re still doing it then I guess there are tourists out there who don’t know when they’re being shafted. What they got out of me, split up between all of the “players” amounted to very little even by Thai standards. The driver would have made more had he actual been doing an honest day’s work.

Outside I noticed that a mini bus was blocking in the taxi driver. It’s driver saw me and moved to let the taxi out. How this fits into the plot I don’t know. What was going on there? Was the taxi driver under some obligation?

I walk over to the taxi, seeing the driver vigorously and elaborate pick his nose hair. I’d seen this disgusting and childish behaviour in China when someone is unhappy with a tourist. If you’re lucky enough to be treated to one of these spectacles, just be aware that it’s all about trying to insult you, not about personal hygiene.

I got in the taxi and told the driver to take me further into China town. On the way, he continued to nose-hair pick and I continue to ignore it. I was soon in the main part of China town a couple of blocks away and suggested that he drop me there and then, offering probably more than the fair would have added up to but not much more.

He agreed and suddenly became concerned with my welfare in getting out of the taxi. I got out and treated him with politeness, saying thanks with as much sincerity as I could muster, in the hope that it would make him feel like crap.

If there is one word that comes to mind when I think about China it is ‘dirt.’ I don’t think anyone bothers to clean anything because it would be impossible to keep it clean anyway. The dirt didn’t really bother me—what did was the throat clearing and spitting in the streets. It’s a national pass-time. Now, you’d think the sidewalks would be cleaner as a result; however, saliva and dirt only gives you mud. The streets are dirty, the buildings are dirty, the cars are dirty, the toilets are dirty, the pet dogs are dirty, the women are… well, they were good on the eye; like flowers in a bog.

For the Beijing leg of the tour I opted for a package that included hotel accommodation a return flight from Seoul. It was the cheapest option, and eased me into travelling in China without the need to do too much research. As it turned out, it was just me and the guy I went with on the tour, in a mini bus with a driver and a guide.

(Click for a larger view)

That was fine, but as with most tours you get taken to destinations that are not on the itinerary in the hope you will spend money, like a pearl farm outlet and a Chinese medicine institute, etc. Me and the other guy were not impressed with this and had no intention of buying anything; both the driver and the guide were not impressed with this because it meant they didn’t get a commission. So an underlying tension was there, but they weren’t too bad about it; I’ve heard of some tour guides who are outspoken and demonstrably pissed off with tourists who have the gall not to part with their cash.

Anyway, we got to see the major sites, things I’d heard about when growing up. Although the part of the Great Wall we saw just outside Beijing was narrower than what you generally see in photos, the surrounding scenery was spectacular. And I really wish I’d seen more of the old backstreet, dirt poor side of China. It was the first communist country I’d ever been to, but it didn’t seem like it–it seemed just as capitalist as anywhere else. Surprisingly, the Starbucks in the photo above was located in the heart of the Forbidden City.

Some nights were our own for us to do our own thing, like getting one of those famed foot massages. Now this was one of the highlights. I’d recommend it to anyone. We were shown to a room and seated in a very comfy lounge chair. Our feet were then soaked in a wooden bucket full of warm herb-fused water. After that a gentleman came in with toe cutting and cleaning implements. Before I knew it he had a scalpel and with one slice per toe was expertly removing my toe nails. I was a little concerned at this, but needn’t have been. When he was done the massage girls came in. Mine was young and pretty. Sitting on a stool, she spread her legs and with my feet between them lent over and started work on them. It was, as you can imagine, somewhat pleasant. Her hands were powerful, like a man’s. The whole process took around ninety minutes, after which my feet were in heaven.

After the Beijing tour was over, I departed on my own for the solo portion of my trip, taking a flight to Xian. Xian at night, around the market areas, was pretty amazing, especially over Chinese New Year. It was a sensory overload for me, with bizarre sights and sounds at every turn. I loved it.

One night, when walking back to the main part of town, a surreal incident occurred. In a dimly lit area off a main road, a small elderly, leather faced woman with a baby wrapped to her back approached me for money and, as usual with beggars, I attempted to avoid her. She kept countering my moves with sidesteps of surprising agility. So I quickened my pace to get away and with that she began to get physical, pushing against me and grabbing me. On cue, as probably trained, the grubby fat-faced kid behind her flung his head back and started singing out some children’s song. So there we were doing a kind of macabre dance: me trying to get away, the woman clinging to and blocking me, and the rosy cheeked kid on the woman’s back twirling with her in the struggle and loudly singing skyward.

Of course, I was in no danger, but it was kind of nightmarish nonetheless. Eventually, we ended up on the footpath of a main street. She still had a steel grip on my coat and was muttering things and nodding her head to motion at the kid behind her. Things were well beyond tugging at my heartstrings. I raised my arm and fist and hit her arm as hard as I dared away from my coat. It was the only thing left to do. She gave me a hurt look but I was beyond caring.

You’ve got to expect beggars in China. But with them you also get touters who are equally annoying. I expect it’s worse for those, like me at the time, who are on their own. One good thing about my next stop, Nanjing, was the admonishment locals gave to beggars who hassled tourists like me. That didn’t really happen elsewhere to the same extent.

I flew on to Nanjing inspired by Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanjing. There was little left of old Nanjing; and there is little to indicate a legacy of atrocities on a massive scale, except for my first stop as soon as I got there, the massacre memorial museum. It is showing its age and is perhaps not well funded. Here you can see the actual bones of some victims, where they were buried together.

What stuck in my mind were the bones of a woman whose pelvis had a nail hole through it. Nails that had been used by the Japanese were also on display–they’re about the circumference of a finger and twice as long. The Japanese would nail their victims to death with them, perhaps to save bullets. But a nail in the pelvis suggests acts of perversion and torture took place in the process of killing, which concurs with some of the stuff I’ve read. The Japanese still haven’t apologized for or even really recognized as fact what they did in Nanjing and throughout China.

Next I travelled to Shanghai by bus. It stopped at a well-known hotel and my idea was to get a taxi from here to my hotel. That was my first mistake, for I encountered who is quite possibly the dumbest taxi driver in the world. When I got in the taxi, I announced to him my hotel name explicitly, a name which had the word hotel in it (this is important to note), and showed him details about it that I’d printed from the Internet. He immediately recognized the name and we took off.

I had a bit of an idea of the layout of Shanghai from maps I’d seen and when we passed certain landmarks and headed across the river, I became concerned. My hotel, I knew, was in the other direction. I debating what to do, seeing that we were soon in a less built up area on the outskirts of Shanghai. I couldn’t quite figure out what kind of scam was being pulled. It didn’t add up. The driver then stopped on a wide four lane road, motioning to me as if to ask, where to now? At this point, there was some confusion, as I thought he know where he was actually going. He then pulled off into a more deserted street, and I resolved that there was no way I was getting out of that cab.

What transpired next was a long interlude of communication failure. I gathered that the hotel I’d mentioned had the same name as the suburb I was now in. So this taxi driver, of all people, had no idea what the word “hotel” meant. It got worse, because the hotel number I printed from the Internet was out of date or wrong. I then showed him several maps I’d also printed. No luck there. He didn’t seem to understand maps, especially if they had English on them. He just shook his head and looked at me.

Keep in mind that all of this went on for quite some time. So I was beginning to get quite annoyed, but I kept things cool and started with the basics. I got him to understand that the map I was showing him was a map of Shanghai, the city we were in. I had some success with this first step. Then I finally got him to understand that the large picture on the map I was pointing to was of Shanghai’s Pearl Tower. This also succeeded. Then I indicated for him to go there. At least around there, I thought, there’d be someone who spoke English.

Despite his IQ, he managed to get me there. After being dropped off, he probably headed off to create chaos elsewhere; I headed directly for the Hilton and approached a door man who was able to get me a taxi directly to my hotel. In the end, I wasn’t really upset about the time and money wasted because I considered it a privilge to have met and experienced the dumbest taxi driver in the world.

(Click for a larger view

Speaking of the Pearl Tower, I warn everyone not to buy a ticket to go up to it’s observation decks unless you are there early. Sure, it looks pretty on the outside, but the building is simply not equipped to handle many people and there are pathetic security measures which slow everything down further. I had a horrendous wait of over two hours, which I couldn’t easily escape from after a certain point. Once finally at the top, I had an extra wait to go to the toilet, to relieve some most uncomfortable gas and diarrhea that had been bursting to get out an hour back. The guy in there just wouldn’t come out, even when I kicked on the door—he was talking on his mobile. When he came out I saw it was one of the staff. I let him have a stream of expletives. I recommend avoiding the Pearl Tower altogether and going instead to the observation deck atop the Jin Mao Building where the Hilton is located.

I also recommend being in Shanghai for the last day of the Chinese New Year as I was. Make sure you’re in a hotel with a good view of the city. Of course, there are fireworks going off all over the place throughout the week at this time of year. However, on the last night the intensity increases leading up the midnight. At midnight the whole city erupts with fireworks in every direction and as far as you can see. It was a truly amazing site, as if all Shanghai were under bombardment. I’ll be going back one day to see that again.

My first European adventure began early in December, 1985, after a brief stopover in Bombay. I stayed in Paris for 2 months during the winter, when the tourist quota was low, and which I recommend if you can take the cold. The picture above and below were taken on New Year’s Eve.

For me, the cliches about the French didn’t apply; I encountered none of the rudeness they have been noted for. But perhaps that is reserved for peak tourist season. I also felt completely safe walking around the streets of Paris late at night. The only issue I had was with the price of beer! It was made up for by how trim, taut and terrific the Parisian women were. I guessed that this was due to the wine and light meals. There was a shock awaiting in London, land of ale, lard and fish and chips, as far as women were concerned. I’d say that eighty percent of women in Paris were slim and shapely while the converse statistic was true for London.

With money running out, I flew to London to become yet another Australian in London, feeling like a walking cliche. If Paris was electric, London was dull. I mean this in terms of atmosphere or the kind of gut feeling I had. Don’t get me wrong, though, London really was an adventurous time.

I found work when I was down to my last 20 pounds, not behind a bar like many do but as a labourer, and stayed for around 3.5 months. The labouring job was hellish, mostly in bitter cold and often outdoors. It was so cold that there were times I had to use a blow torch to thaw and prise bricks apart from stacks. The nights made up for the days. A couple of guys I met—one of them the bosses step son (the boss lived across the road)—would come over and we would sit around the pot belly drinking and smoking. Meeting these guys and their friends made it all worth while.

Where I stayed, in a disused basement, was a complete dive, and I mean derelict. Some furniture was scrounged for me, like a lounge suite, and I ended up slowly taking it apart and burning it for warmth until there was nothing left. Eventually I took to collecting other items and what wood I could find to feed the potbelly. I threw butts on a floor I rarely swept; covered with wood chips and dirt, it just didn’t matter. I cooked elaborate meals in a single frying pan on a camping gas cooker. I slept in a sleeping bag. Of a night, I had to go over the road for a shower, and if I had to go to the toilet, I needed to go outside and upstairs into my buildings communal toilet. I learned one night, after noting soundless ablutions, that people should never leave toilet windows open during London winters.

Another tip for unwary travellers . . . There we were, me and the guys, trudging up the peaks of the Cumbrian Lake District; I was traipsing about wearing some old gloves, Levis, a beanie, various pullovers, an armless jacket, and a pair of running shoes—plus, I had a Marlboro hanging out of my mouth. We passed seasoned hikers heading down the slopes, decked out in survivalist gear. I thought they were over doing it, but they glanced at us perhaps wondering if we would live. They knew what I only discovered later: how quickly the weather changed at these heights.

I got separated from the others in a white haze at one stage and found myself alone, unable to see in front of me. I followed a narrow path for a while and eventually came upon the other guys resting by some rocks. Eventually, the haze cleared, and I looked back down the trail I’d followed. It was then I saw that no more than a few feet from the little track I just taken was a cliff face and a sheer drop from a great height. Had I strayed left a few feet in the fog, I would have been dead.

With the arrival of summer, I set off from London for mainland Europe. I travelled very light and didn’t even have a proper backpack (it was more like a canvas school kid’s backpack) or the funds to make things reasonably comfortable. I travelled for a few more months, taking in more of France—the Cote d’Azur and Mt. Blanc, Spain, including a visit to Pamplona, and Italy, doing the standard Venice, Florence, Rome run.

My first stop was to see summer in Paris before heading off to Barcelona, where I stayed at a backpackers full of wastrels, with a view overlooking a small square and its prostitutes and drug dealers. In Barcelona, I heard word of the running of the bulls and so I caught an overnight train to Pamplona, getting there at 6 in the morning, which from the drunks, crowds and noise, seemed more like 11 in the evening. That little adventure lasted 3 days.

It was extremely uncomfortable in Pamplona, and I saw very little of running bulls due to the crowds. I did, however, see someone dying in the street, fights in the streets, plenty of punks, drug heads and thieves, all of which made things interesting but difficult to tolerate over an extended period. It was as if all of Europe’s riff-raff had descended on the town to party. Nor was there any so-called romance about the place, which you might think existed after reading Hemingway. Put it this way, I didn’t detect it, and if you ever plan to go there, make sure you book a hotel room well in advance.

From here I went to San Sebastian then toured the Cote d’Azur before heading up to Mt Blanc. This stage, the south of France, was probably the most enjoyable part of the journey, and I met some great people along the way at youth hostels. After this I went to Italy and, as mentioned, visited Venice, Florence, and Rome. I was running out of money at this stage. Rome was not allot of fun because of this and because it was too hot. I was down to one meal of bread and cheese a day and spent my last night out on the street. I flew home without a cent to my name.

But once I did get home, it took some time to adjust to the humdrum routines of life off the road and to get the travel bug out of my system. One thing is for sure, I’ll never travel again without sufficient funds to do it properly.