Ola,
well, it's reached that time I'm afraid. The Undercover Hippy is going to do some work. I know I know, it's wrong, but sometimes we have to break the rules a little! Starting monday I will be working for my dad a few days a week in his carpentry/window making business, and earning my keep like all the other normal people out there. I'm still not really sure why I'm still here at all.... I keep telling myself I'm waiting for the summer.... well it better hurry the fuck up!!! Ok, enough moaning, I will attempt to be my normal witty self....
Did you know that lemon juice, when mixed with equal parts of sugar and water, makes a very powerful explosive? Or maybe it was lemonade. It defintely makes something cool anyway. Try it....
I'm feeling fairly explosive myself these days. It's probably just as well I'm gonna start doing a bit of work on monday, otherwise I may well have gone mad. It's all very well having all this time on my hands to make music, but to make music I have to be in the right mood, and quite frankly this place puts me in exactly the wrong mood. I need my hammock in Indonesia.... ahhhh, memories! I've got shit loads of amazing photos to show you by the way. I'm just too lazy to put them up. Maybe later....
Sorry guys, but the verbal diorreah (which I still cant be bothered to learn how to spell) is a bit constipated at the moment. I'll go and eat some fibre and get back to you later....
Saturday, March 27, 2004
Monday, March 22, 2004
Ok, here's the other one:
A Slight Delay: Crossing Cambodia in a Day.
"You wait 5 minutes", said the driver of our van, motioning for us to get out and stretch our legs. "But we've only just started driving?!", we muttered to one another as we carefully extracted ourselves from our sardine can on wheels. We were twenty minutes into our journey, not even at the edge of town yet, and our two teenage drivers had pulled us into a small Auto-Repair shop at the side of the road. As we stretched our legs, a man in overalls proceeded to remove various parts of the engine and hit them with a hammer and a scewdriver while all of the other local men squatted around and watched, smoking cigarettes and offering the occasional piece of technical wisdom. We asked what was going on and how long this was going to take, but the driver just shrugged us off before going back to watching the "mechanic" attacking the engine parts with a drill. I started to get the feeling this was going to be a rather long journey...
We had set off early that morning from the town of Sihanoukville on the south coast of Cambodia, deciding, after much deliberation, to take the overland bus option instead of the boat. We chose this option mainly because it set off two hours earlier and claimed to arrive at the thai border one hour before the boat. I was travelling in Cambodia with my (now ex) girlfriend, Selene, and two of her friends, Teresa and Ben. After nearly two weeks of exploring Ankor Wat and Pnom Phen, we had finally ended up at the beaches on the south coast, and left it rather late to get back to catch our flight home from Bangkok. We had to get to the thai border before 5pm, when it closed for the day, in order to get the night bus to Bangkok, and catch our flight the following day. We had studied the map, and it really didn't seem that far, so we were feeling fairly confident. Well, for the first 20 mins of the journey anyway...
After an hour of "stretching our legs" we went back to our drivers in the auto-repair shop, who were still busy dismantling our vehicle, and asked them once again when we would be leaving. One of them managed to tear himself away from the hammering and drilling long enough to say, "Maybe one hour more". Another hour?? This was ridiculous! We weren't even outside of the town limits yet and we had already wasted potentially 2 hours "fixing" a vehicle which they obviously already knew was broken when they'd picked us up! But what could we do? Well, nothing, obviously, so we went and had some suspicious looking fried rice from a dusty little food stall and waited...
After three hours, the drivers had decided that the van couldn't be fixed by hitting the various engine parts, and replaced them all back under the bonnet. So, the van was still broken (it kept jumping from 4th to 3rd gear whenever we picked up any speed), but at least we were moving again! For a while. We countinued driving into the middle of nowhere and gradually the "dust road" became a "mud track", which eventually became just "mud with tracks in it". Then we came to our first river crossing. Four fishing boats had been tied together and covered in planks to create a makeshift car-ferry, and after another long wait we boarded along with a few other vehicles. The other vehicles were all pick up trucks and apperared to belong to a wealthy family (in Cambodian terms this means someone who can afford new trainers for their children), who had filled the backs of the trucks with security guards wielding AK 47's. We all felt rather uncomfortable with all those guns around, and were glad when the ferry finally started to move.
Upon reaching the other side, we jumped ashore and waited for our van. All the other cars drove off up the dusty road, but our van remained unmoved. We had a flat battery! A few men started to gather round the van and attempted to "squat start" it. This involves getting a group of men to squat around the van and argue about the problem until it solves itself, and is not dissimilar to the method used in the auto-repair shop, although it involves less hammering and drilling. After thirty minutes of failed squat start attempts, a rather sizable queue of cars had built up trying to get back across the river in the opposite direction. Horns were being liberally applied to the situation in an attempt to get it moving, and eventually our group of squatting men decided to push the van out of the way. After another half an hour, to everyones surprise, the squat starting was actually sucessful and we were moving once more.
We managed two more boat ferry crossings without too much fuss, and apart from the usual 'sliding through mud next to thousand foot drops', the journey seemed to have taken a turn for the better. We were 30 mins from the border town of Ko Kong, and we had 1 hour until the border closed. It was starting to seem like we might make it after all! As we reached the bottom of yet another winding mountain mud-slide, we were amazed to see stretching out before us the biggest, widest, flattest stretch of "road" we had seen in Cambodia so far! We were saved! Finally the gods had smiled on us, and we all sat back to relax as the van enthusiastically took advantage of the level terrain in front of it and picked up speed. Then, without any warning, the van turned off the main road at high speed, careering onto a tiny mud track, and drove, or more to the point "dove", straight into a muddy puddle about 2 feet deep. The wheels spun, water sprayed, but the van wasn't going anywhere. The rear wheels weren't even touching the ground. We were screwed. The driver, who was about 19 and not exactly the brightest of men, continued to rev the engine and spin the wheels in the hope that this approach might suddenly work. I dont know, perhaps he thought if he spun the wheels for long enough he'd actually empty the puddle and we could drive away. Anyhow, we all got out and the squatting technique was employed once more. The local village, obviously very amused by the whole affair, came and joined the squatting. You'd think with this much squatting power it would be easy to move the van, but for some reason it just wasn't working. I tried suggesting we convert all the "squatting power" into "pushing power", but my suggestion was greeted with laughs and cries of "It cant be done!", so I shut my mouth.
Then our drivers came up with the wonderfully bad idea of trying to jack the van up by placing a small, hydraulic jack, underwater, in the soft mud. I tried to explain why this wouldn't work, but they continued anyway, convinced that by holding the jack under the opaque brown water and pumping vigourously, eventually something would happen. In fact, nothing happened. The jack didn't even extend, let alone lift the van! After about half an hour of watching the drivers try the jack in every angle concievable, it became apparant that the reason the villagers weren't helping us push the van was that we weren't paying them, and that the reason we weren't paying them was because the drivers were trying to save money. A little gentle persuasion was used and they finally relented, and after a bit of baragaining between our drivers and the villagers, finally the squatting men stood.
With everyone lifting and pushing, it didn't take long to get the van back on the road once more. This time we managed to move for about 2 minutes before coming to the next ferry crossing.
The ferry was undergoing repairs, and a guy wearing a welder's mask seemed to be trying to cut it in two. We asked him when the ferry would leave. "When I’ve finished this", he replied. "When will that be?", we asked. He answered with a shrug, flicked down his mask, and dissapeared behind a fountain of blue sparks. Accepting that we had missed the border, I bought a beer and a banana from a sweet old lady with a toothy grin, and sat down at the side of the road with all the other waiting people. After all, this was Cambodia, not Camden. Who was I to say things should run faster or smoother? Was I about to make a difference? No. So, having resigned ourselves to missing the border, and subsequently our flight home, we were finally able to relax and just enjoy the situation for what it was: a fantastic chance to experience a pace of life that was still dictated, not by timetables and deadlines, but by the number of delays you encountered.
A Slight Delay: Crossing Cambodia in a Day.
"You wait 5 minutes", said the driver of our van, motioning for us to get out and stretch our legs. "But we've only just started driving?!", we muttered to one another as we carefully extracted ourselves from our sardine can on wheels. We were twenty minutes into our journey, not even at the edge of town yet, and our two teenage drivers had pulled us into a small Auto-Repair shop at the side of the road. As we stretched our legs, a man in overalls proceeded to remove various parts of the engine and hit them with a hammer and a scewdriver while all of the other local men squatted around and watched, smoking cigarettes and offering the occasional piece of technical wisdom. We asked what was going on and how long this was going to take, but the driver just shrugged us off before going back to watching the "mechanic" attacking the engine parts with a drill. I started to get the feeling this was going to be a rather long journey...
We had set off early that morning from the town of Sihanoukville on the south coast of Cambodia, deciding, after much deliberation, to take the overland bus option instead of the boat. We chose this option mainly because it set off two hours earlier and claimed to arrive at the thai border one hour before the boat. I was travelling in Cambodia with my (now ex) girlfriend, Selene, and two of her friends, Teresa and Ben. After nearly two weeks of exploring Ankor Wat and Pnom Phen, we had finally ended up at the beaches on the south coast, and left it rather late to get back to catch our flight home from Bangkok. We had to get to the thai border before 5pm, when it closed for the day, in order to get the night bus to Bangkok, and catch our flight the following day. We had studied the map, and it really didn't seem that far, so we were feeling fairly confident. Well, for the first 20 mins of the journey anyway...
After an hour of "stretching our legs" we went back to our drivers in the auto-repair shop, who were still busy dismantling our vehicle, and asked them once again when we would be leaving. One of them managed to tear himself away from the hammering and drilling long enough to say, "Maybe one hour more". Another hour?? This was ridiculous! We weren't even outside of the town limits yet and we had already wasted potentially 2 hours "fixing" a vehicle which they obviously already knew was broken when they'd picked us up! But what could we do? Well, nothing, obviously, so we went and had some suspicious looking fried rice from a dusty little food stall and waited...
After three hours, the drivers had decided that the van couldn't be fixed by hitting the various engine parts, and replaced them all back under the bonnet. So, the van was still broken (it kept jumping from 4th to 3rd gear whenever we picked up any speed), but at least we were moving again! For a while. We countinued driving into the middle of nowhere and gradually the "dust road" became a "mud track", which eventually became just "mud with tracks in it". Then we came to our first river crossing. Four fishing boats had been tied together and covered in planks to create a makeshift car-ferry, and after another long wait we boarded along with a few other vehicles. The other vehicles were all pick up trucks and apperared to belong to a wealthy family (in Cambodian terms this means someone who can afford new trainers for their children), who had filled the backs of the trucks with security guards wielding AK 47's. We all felt rather uncomfortable with all those guns around, and were glad when the ferry finally started to move.
Upon reaching the other side, we jumped ashore and waited for our van. All the other cars drove off up the dusty road, but our van remained unmoved. We had a flat battery! A few men started to gather round the van and attempted to "squat start" it. This involves getting a group of men to squat around the van and argue about the problem until it solves itself, and is not dissimilar to the method used in the auto-repair shop, although it involves less hammering and drilling. After thirty minutes of failed squat start attempts, a rather sizable queue of cars had built up trying to get back across the river in the opposite direction. Horns were being liberally applied to the situation in an attempt to get it moving, and eventually our group of squatting men decided to push the van out of the way. After another half an hour, to everyones surprise, the squat starting was actually sucessful and we were moving once more.
We managed two more boat ferry crossings without too much fuss, and apart from the usual 'sliding through mud next to thousand foot drops', the journey seemed to have taken a turn for the better. We were 30 mins from the border town of Ko Kong, and we had 1 hour until the border closed. It was starting to seem like we might make it after all! As we reached the bottom of yet another winding mountain mud-slide, we were amazed to see stretching out before us the biggest, widest, flattest stretch of "road" we had seen in Cambodia so far! We were saved! Finally the gods had smiled on us, and we all sat back to relax as the van enthusiastically took advantage of the level terrain in front of it and picked up speed. Then, without any warning, the van turned off the main road at high speed, careering onto a tiny mud track, and drove, or more to the point "dove", straight into a muddy puddle about 2 feet deep. The wheels spun, water sprayed, but the van wasn't going anywhere. The rear wheels weren't even touching the ground. We were screwed. The driver, who was about 19 and not exactly the brightest of men, continued to rev the engine and spin the wheels in the hope that this approach might suddenly work. I dont know, perhaps he thought if he spun the wheels for long enough he'd actually empty the puddle and we could drive away. Anyhow, we all got out and the squatting technique was employed once more. The local village, obviously very amused by the whole affair, came and joined the squatting. You'd think with this much squatting power it would be easy to move the van, but for some reason it just wasn't working. I tried suggesting we convert all the "squatting power" into "pushing power", but my suggestion was greeted with laughs and cries of "It cant be done!", so I shut my mouth.
Then our drivers came up with the wonderfully bad idea of trying to jack the van up by placing a small, hydraulic jack, underwater, in the soft mud. I tried to explain why this wouldn't work, but they continued anyway, convinced that by holding the jack under the opaque brown water and pumping vigourously, eventually something would happen. In fact, nothing happened. The jack didn't even extend, let alone lift the van! After about half an hour of watching the drivers try the jack in every angle concievable, it became apparant that the reason the villagers weren't helping us push the van was that we weren't paying them, and that the reason we weren't paying them was because the drivers were trying to save money. A little gentle persuasion was used and they finally relented, and after a bit of baragaining between our drivers and the villagers, finally the squatting men stood.
With everyone lifting and pushing, it didn't take long to get the van back on the road once more. This time we managed to move for about 2 minutes before coming to the next ferry crossing.
The ferry was undergoing repairs, and a guy wearing a welder's mask seemed to be trying to cut it in two. We asked him when the ferry would leave. "When I’ve finished this", he replied. "When will that be?", we asked. He answered with a shrug, flicked down his mask, and dissapeared behind a fountain of blue sparks. Accepting that we had missed the border, I bought a beer and a banana from a sweet old lady with a toothy grin, and sat down at the side of the road with all the other waiting people. After all, this was Cambodia, not Camden. Who was I to say things should run faster or smoother? Was I about to make a difference? No. So, having resigned ourselves to missing the border, and subsequently our flight home, we were finally able to relax and just enjoy the situation for what it was: a fantastic chance to experience a pace of life that was still dictated, not by timetables and deadlines, but by the number of delays you encountered.
Friday, March 19, 2004
I have just spent bloody ages manually changing every hyphen and quotation mark in this piece so I can post it up. If anyone can explain to me why "slanted" quotation marks as produced my MS word are not acceptable for putting on the web, please tell me how I can avoid them in future!!! Anyway, here's one of my attempts to re-write my travel tales to send off to magazines for publishing... pleae let me know what you think and offer critisism...
Mountain Man Billy:
The skies were truly awe-inspiring. I felt like a Greek god, standing up in the clouds and unleashing rain and lightning on the tiny villages in the valleys below. Then a fresh flurry of rain hit me in the face and I was reminded of my real place in the scheme of things: I was a tiny, soft, defenceless mammal, stranded on the top of an unforgiving mountain with only a sleeping bag, a Swiss Army Knife, a box of matches and an overhanging rock for protection.
We had set off early that morning from the village of Daramkot, in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas. My travelling companions were Shevach, an Israeli guy who stayed in the room next to me, and Sunil, the owner of the guesthouse we were staying in. Shevach had never been trekking before, and was a little nervous about whether he was fit enough to make it to the top. Sunil, on the other hand, was the fittest man I had ever met. He was incredibly skinny, but every ounce of him was constructed from hard, wiry muscle. His dream was to join the army, and he would run miles every day and practice "nun-chucks" in the front yard for hours. He told us that he used to be a mountain guide, so when he offered to take us on a trek for free we were happy to accept his offer. The plan was to head to Triund, at the top of the first pass, camp the night in a cave there, then head to the snowline and the main cave the following day, before returning on the third day. We headed off after a quick breakfast, despite Shevach and I having serious reservations about the state of the weather. It was completely overcast, and in my rather experienced english opinion, looked like rain. Sunil, however, assured us that it definitely, 100 percent, would not rain, and seeing as he was local and had grown up in this area, we took his word for it. After about 4 hours we reached Triund. The view is incredible. Behind you is the valley stretching down towards Dharamkot, McLeod Ganj, and Dharamasala, and in front of you tower the Himalayas, snow capped peaks reaching up into the clouds.
Almost as soon as we reached Triund, the sun came out. Feeling foolish for not having trusted Sunil's mountain wisdom, we lay in the sun eating instant noodles and marvelled at the panorama before us. Then, in the space of about five minutes, the sky turned black and the first drops of rain began to fall. Shevach and I forced our strained legs to propel us full speed up a very steep and rocky slope to the cave in which we were to spend the night. By the time we got up there the rain was coming in strong and we only just got our bags into the shelter of the cave in time. I say 'cave', but really it was just a rocky overhang, at the side of which some shepherds had built a simple dry-stone wall to keep some of the wind out. It was starting to get really quite cold and I was very glad to have my thermal long johns with me! The storm continued to get worse and the wind was becoming gale force, but the view from the cave was so epic that we didn't really mind. You could see the mountains behind, the valley in front, and directly below us, a small group of ancient looking trees, their branches festooned with buddhist prayer flags. Buddhist prayer flags are strings of flags in all different colours, like you might see at a village fete but square instead of triangular. Each flag has a prayer or mantra printed on it, and Buddhists believe that when the wind blows, it carries the positive prayers with it. As I watched from my cave, the flags looked as though they were going to tear free as they fought with the wind to cling onto their string, and I thought to myself that there must be a sizable ocean of good vibes streaming off of those flags at that moment. As we sat in the relative shelter of our cave, I thanked the many gods for making the wind blow across our cave rather than into it. We may have been missing out on a shower of positive prayers, but we were also being spared from a pelting of freezing water! Shevach had decided to bring everything he didn't need and nothing he did need. He had, for example, a CD Player and portable speakers, but no coat. I have to admit though, having "ambient ethnic chill out" music playing in the background as we watched the storm through the wide rectangular entrance of our "cave" did give the whole experience a very movie-like feel!
Then the rain turned to hail. The sky was so dark by now that we had to use a torch in order to see enough to light a fire. The temperature was dropping faster than the price of a sarong on an empty beach. We really were incredibly exposed up there, but thankfully the wind kept it's course, and the 45 degree rain continued to hurl itself past our cave rather than into it. At one point the storm eased up slightly and we were able to venture out of the cave in search of nourishment. Finding food wasn't hard, as the only structure on the mountaintop was a small wooden shack run by a young Indian guy that sold chai (indian tea), chocolate, biscuits etc. When we arrived, he was busy preparing rice and dahl for a small group of bedraggled looking foreigners who were huddled around a small fire in front of the stall. Once I got closer I realised I knew them from Dharamkot, the village where I was staying. After hearing their story I started to see my sleeping arrangement in a totally different light: there were seven of them squeezed into a tiny cave with no bedding at all!
I slept fairly well despite the intense cold, but was awoken just before dawn by Shevach snoring. After a few failed attempts to silence him with my elbow, I gave in and decided to get up. Sunil had been telling us the day before that it definitely wouldn't rain, then that it would stop after 20 minutes, then that it would stop after a few hours, then that it would be clear tomorrow... Well, it was tomorrow now, and although the rain had stopped, the sky was still looking ominous. We lit the fire and thawed ourselves for a while before heading to the small chai shop further down the mountain. The wind was still very strong, and it was miserably cold. We looked over towards the snow-covered mountains that were supposed to be our destination. Sunil assured us that it was no problem, we could continue to the snowline, and that the rain would not return. I was starting to have doubts about Sunil's ability to accurately predict the weather, and after about fifteen minutes of trekking thru the gales and biting cold, Shevach was the first to stop and say he was going back. Sunil asked me if I wanted to continue. I looked up at the snow-covered peak and saw the thick white clouds of snow and hail moving purposefully across it.... "Not into that!" I said, and we decided to head back before the worst weather returned.
As we walked away from probable death and towards hot cups of chai and cold bars of Cadbury's chocolate, Sunil began to make a rather sudden about turn in his attitude to the weather as well. "Billy, you're a very clever man!" he said, "You're a real mountain man! To continue into that would have been very stupid I think, no?". "To be honest", I said, "I don't know anything about mountains really, because where I come from there are no real mountains. But one thing we do have is rain. Lots of it. I am something of a rain expert, and that...", I pointed back at the monstrous grey cloud that had been blocking our path, "looks like rain to me". Sunil looked back at the cloud and then stared at me with something approaching awe. "Mountain man Billy...", he muttered. Feeling a little uncomfortable with all this undeserved praise, I hurried ahead to check on Shevach.
As soon as we started to descend into the valley, the weather made a complete U-turn. The clouds disappeared and the sun blazed down from a clear blue sky. Fleeces and windbreakers were lashed onto packs and sunglasses dug out from beneath dirty bedding. But instead of being uplifted by the sun, we were actually feeling a bit depressed. Maybe we should have continued... Maybe my english rain predicting powers weren't so powerful after all... We trekked most of the remainder of the way in silence, trying to pretend we weren't disappointed to be going home. When we finally reached our guesthouse in Dharamkot and pulled off our dirty boots and socks however, we were so excited to be back in civilisation (a hot bucket of water to shower with and no toilet!) that we forgot all about wanting to sleep in caves and climb mountains and settled back to eat unhealthy amounts of chocolate. Then, only five minutes after arriving back, the sky suddenly went black and unleashed the most torrential rain I had seen since arriving in India! Two days of it! Feeling thoroughly pleased with ourselves, we sat back and watched the paths become rivers from the dryness of our front porch. Perhaps "Mountain Man Billy" wasn't such a bad name after all...
Mountain Man Billy:
The skies were truly awe-inspiring. I felt like a Greek god, standing up in the clouds and unleashing rain and lightning on the tiny villages in the valleys below. Then a fresh flurry of rain hit me in the face and I was reminded of my real place in the scheme of things: I was a tiny, soft, defenceless mammal, stranded on the top of an unforgiving mountain with only a sleeping bag, a Swiss Army Knife, a box of matches and an overhanging rock for protection.
We had set off early that morning from the village of Daramkot, in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas. My travelling companions were Shevach, an Israeli guy who stayed in the room next to me, and Sunil, the owner of the guesthouse we were staying in. Shevach had never been trekking before, and was a little nervous about whether he was fit enough to make it to the top. Sunil, on the other hand, was the fittest man I had ever met. He was incredibly skinny, but every ounce of him was constructed from hard, wiry muscle. His dream was to join the army, and he would run miles every day and practice "nun-chucks" in the front yard for hours. He told us that he used to be a mountain guide, so when he offered to take us on a trek for free we were happy to accept his offer. The plan was to head to Triund, at the top of the first pass, camp the night in a cave there, then head to the snowline and the main cave the following day, before returning on the third day. We headed off after a quick breakfast, despite Shevach and I having serious reservations about the state of the weather. It was completely overcast, and in my rather experienced english opinion, looked like rain. Sunil, however, assured us that it definitely, 100 percent, would not rain, and seeing as he was local and had grown up in this area, we took his word for it. After about 4 hours we reached Triund. The view is incredible. Behind you is the valley stretching down towards Dharamkot, McLeod Ganj, and Dharamasala, and in front of you tower the Himalayas, snow capped peaks reaching up into the clouds.
Almost as soon as we reached Triund, the sun came out. Feeling foolish for not having trusted Sunil's mountain wisdom, we lay in the sun eating instant noodles and marvelled at the panorama before us. Then, in the space of about five minutes, the sky turned black and the first drops of rain began to fall. Shevach and I forced our strained legs to propel us full speed up a very steep and rocky slope to the cave in which we were to spend the night. By the time we got up there the rain was coming in strong and we only just got our bags into the shelter of the cave in time. I say 'cave', but really it was just a rocky overhang, at the side of which some shepherds had built a simple dry-stone wall to keep some of the wind out. It was starting to get really quite cold and I was very glad to have my thermal long johns with me! The storm continued to get worse and the wind was becoming gale force, but the view from the cave was so epic that we didn't really mind. You could see the mountains behind, the valley in front, and directly below us, a small group of ancient looking trees, their branches festooned with buddhist prayer flags. Buddhist prayer flags are strings of flags in all different colours, like you might see at a village fete but square instead of triangular. Each flag has a prayer or mantra printed on it, and Buddhists believe that when the wind blows, it carries the positive prayers with it. As I watched from my cave, the flags looked as though they were going to tear free as they fought with the wind to cling onto their string, and I thought to myself that there must be a sizable ocean of good vibes streaming off of those flags at that moment. As we sat in the relative shelter of our cave, I thanked the many gods for making the wind blow across our cave rather than into it. We may have been missing out on a shower of positive prayers, but we were also being spared from a pelting of freezing water! Shevach had decided to bring everything he didn't need and nothing he did need. He had, for example, a CD Player and portable speakers, but no coat. I have to admit though, having "ambient ethnic chill out" music playing in the background as we watched the storm through the wide rectangular entrance of our "cave" did give the whole experience a very movie-like feel!
Then the rain turned to hail. The sky was so dark by now that we had to use a torch in order to see enough to light a fire. The temperature was dropping faster than the price of a sarong on an empty beach. We really were incredibly exposed up there, but thankfully the wind kept it's course, and the 45 degree rain continued to hurl itself past our cave rather than into it. At one point the storm eased up slightly and we were able to venture out of the cave in search of nourishment. Finding food wasn't hard, as the only structure on the mountaintop was a small wooden shack run by a young Indian guy that sold chai (indian tea), chocolate, biscuits etc. When we arrived, he was busy preparing rice and dahl for a small group of bedraggled looking foreigners who were huddled around a small fire in front of the stall. Once I got closer I realised I knew them from Dharamkot, the village where I was staying. After hearing their story I started to see my sleeping arrangement in a totally different light: there were seven of them squeezed into a tiny cave with no bedding at all!
I slept fairly well despite the intense cold, but was awoken just before dawn by Shevach snoring. After a few failed attempts to silence him with my elbow, I gave in and decided to get up. Sunil had been telling us the day before that it definitely wouldn't rain, then that it would stop after 20 minutes, then that it would stop after a few hours, then that it would be clear tomorrow... Well, it was tomorrow now, and although the rain had stopped, the sky was still looking ominous. We lit the fire and thawed ourselves for a while before heading to the small chai shop further down the mountain. The wind was still very strong, and it was miserably cold. We looked over towards the snow-covered mountains that were supposed to be our destination. Sunil assured us that it was no problem, we could continue to the snowline, and that the rain would not return. I was starting to have doubts about Sunil's ability to accurately predict the weather, and after about fifteen minutes of trekking thru the gales and biting cold, Shevach was the first to stop and say he was going back. Sunil asked me if I wanted to continue. I looked up at the snow-covered peak and saw the thick white clouds of snow and hail moving purposefully across it.... "Not into that!" I said, and we decided to head back before the worst weather returned.
As we walked away from probable death and towards hot cups of chai and cold bars of Cadbury's chocolate, Sunil began to make a rather sudden about turn in his attitude to the weather as well. "Billy, you're a very clever man!" he said, "You're a real mountain man! To continue into that would have been very stupid I think, no?". "To be honest", I said, "I don't know anything about mountains really, because where I come from there are no real mountains. But one thing we do have is rain. Lots of it. I am something of a rain expert, and that...", I pointed back at the monstrous grey cloud that had been blocking our path, "looks like rain to me". Sunil looked back at the cloud and then stared at me with something approaching awe. "Mountain man Billy...", he muttered. Feeling a little uncomfortable with all this undeserved praise, I hurried ahead to check on Shevach.
As soon as we started to descend into the valley, the weather made a complete U-turn. The clouds disappeared and the sun blazed down from a clear blue sky. Fleeces and windbreakers were lashed onto packs and sunglasses dug out from beneath dirty bedding. But instead of being uplifted by the sun, we were actually feeling a bit depressed. Maybe we should have continued... Maybe my english rain predicting powers weren't so powerful after all... We trekked most of the remainder of the way in silence, trying to pretend we weren't disappointed to be going home. When we finally reached our guesthouse in Dharamkot and pulled off our dirty boots and socks however, we were so excited to be back in civilisation (a hot bucket of water to shower with and no toilet!) that we forgot all about wanting to sleep in caves and climb mountains and settled back to eat unhealthy amounts of chocolate. Then, only five minutes after arriving back, the sky suddenly went black and unleashed the most torrential rain I had seen since arriving in India! Two days of it! Feeling thoroughly pleased with ourselves, we sat back and watched the paths become rivers from the dryness of our front porch. Perhaps "Mountain Man Billy" wasn't such a bad name after all...
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Wow, this is so bizarre! I've just been checking out the stats for my site, and there's something on there called "search strings", which I can only guess means people who've done a search for something and been given my site in their results. (If you know exactly what it means please tell me). Anyway, check out the results:
2 5.06% wanking old men
3 3.80% money
2 2.53% 12 principles of animation
2 2.53% bugs life skeletal animation
2 2.53% camelpac
2 2.53% florianopolis travel hostel journal photos
2 2.53% objects that move
2 2.53% phote fuck ladies
2 2.53% skin modifier tutorial
2 2.53% wanking record
1 1.27% a photo of a gorrilas hand
1 1.27% action poses tutorials
1 1.27% animation principle staging demo
1 1.27% autoque examples
1 1.27% bolivian costume
1 1.27% bolivian mochila
1 1.27% british wanking customs
1 1.27% chalten travel
1 1.27% classic tabloid newspaper covers london bus found on moon
1 1.27% disney 2d animation walk cycle
1 1.27% double take
1 1.27% drawing action pose tutorials
1 1.27% ebb and flow hostel
1 1.27% everything is grey
1 1.27% fast-in fast-out computer animation
1 1.27% ffd skin
1 1.27% florianopolis topless
1 1.27% funny thengs
1 1.27% guesthouse terminolgy
1 1.27% hemaphrodite photos
1 1.27% i am rich potosi the mountain that ate men
1 1.27% kampung lifestyle singapore
1 1.27% littlest hobo in
1 1.27% massage girl in calcutta
1 1.27% mendoza aregentina
1 1.27% moving hold animation
1 1.27% ms mpg4
1 1.27% nepals famous rivers
1 1.27% north face goretex jacket korea
1 1.27% overlapping action animation tutorial
1 1.27% perito moreno; patagonia; march 2004; tourists
1 1.27% peruvian torch trip
1 1.27% photos of llama butts
1 1.27% pictures of mission trips in foriegn countries
1 1.27% ppl looking for trip to peru
1 1.27% principles of animation frame
1 1.27% read stories about people getting naked then getting in a pool
1 1.27% salomon walking boots
1 1.27% sarah and louise travel australia
1 1.27% saunas in telaviv
1 1.27% scratch and stretch animation
1 1.27% skin modifier
1 1.27% skin modifier max
1 1.27% squash tutorial
1 1.27% story staring with as soon as he had the knock on the door he k
1 1.27% toy story and the 12 basic principles of animation
1 1.27% toy story scenario1
1 1.27% tutorials skin modifier
1 1.27% vomiting because off upset tummys
1 1.27% walk
1 1.27% walk cycle quicktime
1 1.27% what kind of acceleration happens when and object is moving and
1 1.27% where to buy gringo billy's
1 1.27% where to find magic muchrooms
1 1.27% which european explorer dicovered new zealand
LOL!! I love it! "a photo of a gorillas hand"!!! How the hell did that get in there?? and "british wanking customs"!! I mean who was searching for that??! Oh well, I hope they found my site useful!.... How funny is it that the best match was "wanking old men"!! LOL!
I actually had to delete one of the entries because it involved dodgy paedophilia references! I mean WTF?! Why has someone's search for child porn routed them to my site!!!!???? Please, any techies out there explain for me!! You can see all my site stats at www.billysalisbury.com/stats
2 5.06% wanking old men
3 3.80% money
2 2.53% 12 principles of animation
2 2.53% bugs life skeletal animation
2 2.53% camelpac
2 2.53% florianopolis travel hostel journal photos
2 2.53% objects that move
2 2.53% phote fuck ladies
2 2.53% skin modifier tutorial
2 2.53% wanking record
1 1.27% a photo of a gorrilas hand
1 1.27% action poses tutorials
1 1.27% animation principle staging demo
1 1.27% autoque examples
1 1.27% bolivian costume
1 1.27% bolivian mochila
1 1.27% british wanking customs
1 1.27% chalten travel
1 1.27% classic tabloid newspaper covers london bus found on moon
1 1.27% disney 2d animation walk cycle
1 1.27% double take
1 1.27% drawing action pose tutorials
1 1.27% ebb and flow hostel
1 1.27% everything is grey
1 1.27% fast-in fast-out computer animation
1 1.27% ffd skin
1 1.27% florianopolis topless
1 1.27% funny thengs
1 1.27% guesthouse terminolgy
1 1.27% hemaphrodite photos
1 1.27% i am rich potosi the mountain that ate men
1 1.27% kampung lifestyle singapore
1 1.27% littlest hobo in
1 1.27% massage girl in calcutta
1 1.27% mendoza aregentina
1 1.27% moving hold animation
1 1.27% ms mpg4
1 1.27% nepals famous rivers
1 1.27% north face goretex jacket korea
1 1.27% overlapping action animation tutorial
1 1.27% perito moreno; patagonia; march 2004; tourists
1 1.27% peruvian torch trip
1 1.27% photos of llama butts
1 1.27% pictures of mission trips in foriegn countries
1 1.27% ppl looking for trip to peru
1 1.27% principles of animation frame
1 1.27% read stories about people getting naked then getting in a pool
1 1.27% salomon walking boots
1 1.27% sarah and louise travel australia
1 1.27% saunas in telaviv
1 1.27% scratch and stretch animation
1 1.27% skin modifier
1 1.27% skin modifier max
1 1.27% squash tutorial
1 1.27% story staring with as soon as he had the knock on the door he k
1 1.27% toy story and the 12 basic principles of animation
1 1.27% toy story scenario1
1 1.27% tutorials skin modifier
1 1.27% vomiting because off upset tummys
1 1.27% walk
1 1.27% walk cycle quicktime
1 1.27% what kind of acceleration happens when and object is moving and
1 1.27% where to buy gringo billy's
1 1.27% where to find magic muchrooms
1 1.27% which european explorer dicovered new zealand
LOL!! I love it! "a photo of a gorillas hand"!!! How the hell did that get in there?? and "british wanking customs"!! I mean who was searching for that??! Oh well, I hope they found my site useful!.... How funny is it that the best match was "wanking old men"!! LOL!
I actually had to delete one of the entries because it involved dodgy paedophilia references! I mean WTF?! Why has someone's search for child porn routed them to my site!!!!???? Please, any techies out there explain for me!! You can see all my site stats at www.billysalisbury.com/stats
Hi all,
I've recently started trying to learn some meditation/relaxation techniques to help me with a problem I have with chronic muscle tension (and maybe help me discover the meaning of life in the process). The problem is, I'm crap at it. The general idea behind most forms of meditation is to focus the mind, quieting all those random thoughts that keep flying aimlessly around inside your bonce. By doing this, you can find inner peace apparantly. Sounds great huh? But damn it's difficult! Some people chant a mantra to themselves to focus their mind, for example Ommmmm. I find this too confusing. How long is an Om supposed to be? So I've opted for "1,2" instead. Simple but effective. Well maybe not effective, but definitely simple. So, here's how a typical attempt to meditate goes:
I am lying on the floor (sitting cross legged is too damn uncomfortable, and as for the lotus position... HA!) with my eyes closed, taking long deep belly breaths and focusing on my mantra... 1....2....1....2.... then it all starts to go wrong:
"1...2...1....2....ok, just gotta stop thinking... damn! that was a thought! ok...1...2...argh! my nose itches! oh well, I've only just started, maybe I should just scratch it and start afresh... *scratches*...ahh, that's better....actually, no it's not! Now my whole face itches! Ok, come on Billy, just ignore it! Just focus your mind, it's just a sensation...ok...1....2....1.....2....Why can't that bird shut up??!! bloody bastard bird!! No, stop! This is negative thinking... I've got to stop thinking and just 'be'. Ok...just 'be'......1....2.... I wonder how long I've been doing this now?.... maybe I've already done my half hour..... No! Got to carry on until I manage to stop thinking!....1...2.... hang on.... how will I know I've stopped thinking if i'm not thinking? mmmmm...ok, ok, just go with it billy!....ok....1....2....1....2.....1.....2....1. .2....1....2.....1.....2......1......2......Ok...... if team blue manage to secure the spagetti post then it'll be all clear for us to capture the runner beans. If I could just get ....a ....little...closer.............Hang on, this is a bit bizzare..... which means I must be falling asleep.... shit! I've stopped counting!!!! Ok... come on billy! 1....2...1....2....1......2... Mmmmm, maybe I should count to 4 instead of 2 like it says in the book.... maybe that's why it's not working? Or maybe it's cause I'm still thinking about it. Right, that's it, I give up! I'll do it tomorrow!"
You get the idea. It's not easy being an enlightened being! How these monks spend their whole lives in meditation I shall never know! Ok, time to try again.....
I've recently started trying to learn some meditation/relaxation techniques to help me with a problem I have with chronic muscle tension (and maybe help me discover the meaning of life in the process). The problem is, I'm crap at it. The general idea behind most forms of meditation is to focus the mind, quieting all those random thoughts that keep flying aimlessly around inside your bonce. By doing this, you can find inner peace apparantly. Sounds great huh? But damn it's difficult! Some people chant a mantra to themselves to focus their mind, for example Ommmmm. I find this too confusing. How long is an Om supposed to be? So I've opted for "1,2" instead. Simple but effective. Well maybe not effective, but definitely simple. So, here's how a typical attempt to meditate goes:
I am lying on the floor (sitting cross legged is too damn uncomfortable, and as for the lotus position... HA!) with my eyes closed, taking long deep belly breaths and focusing on my mantra... 1....2....1....2.... then it all starts to go wrong:
"1...2...1....2....ok, just gotta stop thinking... damn! that was a thought! ok...1...2...argh! my nose itches! oh well, I've only just started, maybe I should just scratch it and start afresh... *scratches*...ahh, that's better....actually, no it's not! Now my whole face itches! Ok, come on Billy, just ignore it! Just focus your mind, it's just a sensation...ok...1....2....1.....2....Why can't that bird shut up??!! bloody bastard bird!! No, stop! This is negative thinking... I've got to stop thinking and just 'be'. Ok...just 'be'......1....2.... I wonder how long I've been doing this now?.... maybe I've already done my half hour..... No! Got to carry on until I manage to stop thinking!....1...2.... hang on.... how will I know I've stopped thinking if i'm not thinking? mmmmm...ok, ok, just go with it billy!....ok....1....2....1....2.....1.....2....1. .2....1....2.....1.....2......1......2......Ok...... if team blue manage to secure the spagetti post then it'll be all clear for us to capture the runner beans. If I could just get ....a ....little...closer.............Hang on, this is a bit bizzare..... which means I must be falling asleep.... shit! I've stopped counting!!!! Ok... come on billy! 1....2...1....2....1......2... Mmmmm, maybe I should count to 4 instead of 2 like it says in the book.... maybe that's why it's not working? Or maybe it's cause I'm still thinking about it. Right, that's it, I give up! I'll do it tomorrow!"
You get the idea. It's not easy being an enlightened being! How these monks spend their whole lives in meditation I shall never know! Ok, time to try again.....
Friday, March 12, 2004
"Yo. Hey what's happenin' dude? I'm a guy with a rep for bein crude. Sodomising people, wherever I go, it's not intentional, just pimpin the ho. Fixin wet sores to get the best whores, dripping bacteria, all over the floor, I'm the kid who made it cool to pee and fart, last name simpson, first name bart."
For those who never heard the original "Do the Bart Man", I apologise for that strange and offensive little ditty. It didn't come out of my mind. Unless you liked it, in which case it's entirely my own work.
Anyway, moving swiftly on. Today is a very special day, for today is the festival of "fri", when people of all races colours and creeds, join together for the traditional english celebration of drug abuse, casual sex, mindless violence and kebabs. Yes people, it is "Fri" day. And today is rather a special "fri" day, because today is my sister's birthday, and we are going into the "Big City" to celebrate. I have donned my least countrified clothes to try and blend in with the sophisticated town folk. Gone is my berghaus fleece and walking boots. Gone are my big wooly socks. Gone are my Panda slippers (only cos they wouldn't fit in the bag mind you). On comes the calvin klein jumper (8 quid in the sale in singaore). On comes the 3 sizes to big "av a crumpet and bitch" combat trousers (6 quid in the rejects shop in Kuala Lumpur). Yes ladies and gentlemen, it is time for the Undercover Hippy to do as his namesake suggests and go undercover. Rooting out conformism and narrow mindedness wherever his annoyingly common long haired indie cut takes him.
It's a funny old world isn't it? Actualy, no it's not. I sat and looked out of the window for six hours and the funniest thing to happen was that the bus had to reverse out twice because he misjudged the width of the road. As I'm sure you can imagine, I didn't laugh. Well not for long anyway. It snowed last night. Quite a lot actually. Enough that my mum is panicking about my brother getting to his flight tommorow morning to fly away to sunny India. Lucky bastard. This is the first time ever that I've been the one staying home while he goes off to do something fun. It's just SO UNFAIIIIR! :)
You will be pleased to know that my songwriting is moving slowly along. You can have a little listen to one of my "works in progress" if you like. Right click on the following link and choose "save taget as" from the drop down menu.
http://billysalisbury.com/other_files/a_solution.mp3
this is quite an old version, but i'm on a dialup here so it's takes an hour just to upload one song. Anyway, it'll give you a rough idea of what i'm up to....
right, nearly time to go!
byeeee!
For those who never heard the original "Do the Bart Man", I apologise for that strange and offensive little ditty. It didn't come out of my mind. Unless you liked it, in which case it's entirely my own work.
Anyway, moving swiftly on. Today is a very special day, for today is the festival of "fri", when people of all races colours and creeds, join together for the traditional english celebration of drug abuse, casual sex, mindless violence and kebabs. Yes people, it is "Fri" day. And today is rather a special "fri" day, because today is my sister's birthday, and we are going into the "Big City" to celebrate. I have donned my least countrified clothes to try and blend in with the sophisticated town folk. Gone is my berghaus fleece and walking boots. Gone are my big wooly socks. Gone are my Panda slippers (only cos they wouldn't fit in the bag mind you). On comes the calvin klein jumper (8 quid in the sale in singaore). On comes the 3 sizes to big "av a crumpet and bitch" combat trousers (6 quid in the rejects shop in Kuala Lumpur). Yes ladies and gentlemen, it is time for the Undercover Hippy to do as his namesake suggests and go undercover. Rooting out conformism and narrow mindedness wherever his annoyingly common long haired indie cut takes him.
It's a funny old world isn't it? Actualy, no it's not. I sat and looked out of the window for six hours and the funniest thing to happen was that the bus had to reverse out twice because he misjudged the width of the road. As I'm sure you can imagine, I didn't laugh. Well not for long anyway. It snowed last night. Quite a lot actually. Enough that my mum is panicking about my brother getting to his flight tommorow morning to fly away to sunny India. Lucky bastard. This is the first time ever that I've been the one staying home while he goes off to do something fun. It's just SO UNFAIIIIR! :)
You will be pleased to know that my songwriting is moving slowly along. You can have a little listen to one of my "works in progress" if you like. Right click on the following link and choose "save taget as" from the drop down menu.
http://billysalisbury.com/other_files/a_solution.mp3
this is quite an old version, but i'm on a dialup here so it's takes an hour just to upload one song. Anyway, it'll give you a rough idea of what i'm up to....
right, nearly time to go!
byeeee!
Thursday, March 04, 2004
Evenin' all.
well, it's been a riproaringly eventful day in the bustling metropolis of hereford. I got up, read a chapter of "Harry potter: the order of the phoenix" (Harry just got detention for mentioning that Lord Voldemort has returned), tried unsucessfully to record a couple of songs, went to the cinema with my sister Laura and saw "Along came Polly" (predictable but amusing cringe movie with ben stiller and jen aniston), then went to see a singer at the Barrels pub (didn't actually "see" him mind you). I'm exhausted!
So what can I say today. It's hard to think of interesting things to witter on about these days. I tend to want to just moan a bit, which is all very well if your writing a blog for yourself, and probably quite theraputic really, but as i have an audience out there i feel i have something of a responsibility to write something entertaining.... so...
did you know that men who ejaculate 5 times or more a week are a third less likely to develop prostate cancer than men who don't? It's true. Some medical researchers in australia did a survey of a few thousand men over a certain age, half with prostate cancer and half without, and discovered that the men who had been wanking or having sex more than 5 times a week were over 30% less likely to develop the disease. They think that this is because semen, when it is left to sit around in the reproductive tubes, can turn carconagenic due to it's highly concentrated state. With this in mind, i think it's about time that wanking shed it's status as a taboo subject, and was embraced by society as a sign of a healthy lifestyle. Five times a week, well, that's pretty much every day, so I think it's important that we can feel unembaressed if for example, we are staying at a friend's parents' house, to get up from the dinner table and say "Excuse me, can I use your bathroom, I'm just gonna have a quick wank..". Or maybe to make it more socially acceptable, we could create some healthy sounding euphemisms, like "excuse me for a few minutes, I'm just gonna go and clean out the old tubes", or "back in 5, just gonna do a quick pipe cleaner".... Or maybe we could jst stick with the many that we have already, like "spank the monkey", or "choke the chicken".
I think there may even be a case for wanking to be made available on the NHS to those who are unable to perform the life saving procedure themselves; like people with no arms for example.....
Of course there is the other option, of having sex five times a week. The problem with that is that you need either a girlfriend, or a huge amount of sexual magnetism and enthusiasm. I however, have niether. Now where's that bog roll?........
well, it's been a riproaringly eventful day in the bustling metropolis of hereford. I got up, read a chapter of "Harry potter: the order of the phoenix" (Harry just got detention for mentioning that Lord Voldemort has returned), tried unsucessfully to record a couple of songs, went to the cinema with my sister Laura and saw "Along came Polly" (predictable but amusing cringe movie with ben stiller and jen aniston), then went to see a singer at the Barrels pub (didn't actually "see" him mind you). I'm exhausted!
So what can I say today. It's hard to think of interesting things to witter on about these days. I tend to want to just moan a bit, which is all very well if your writing a blog for yourself, and probably quite theraputic really, but as i have an audience out there i feel i have something of a responsibility to write something entertaining.... so...
did you know that men who ejaculate 5 times or more a week are a third less likely to develop prostate cancer than men who don't? It's true. Some medical researchers in australia did a survey of a few thousand men over a certain age, half with prostate cancer and half without, and discovered that the men who had been wanking or having sex more than 5 times a week were over 30% less likely to develop the disease. They think that this is because semen, when it is left to sit around in the reproductive tubes, can turn carconagenic due to it's highly concentrated state. With this in mind, i think it's about time that wanking shed it's status as a taboo subject, and was embraced by society as a sign of a healthy lifestyle. Five times a week, well, that's pretty much every day, so I think it's important that we can feel unembaressed if for example, we are staying at a friend's parents' house, to get up from the dinner table and say "Excuse me, can I use your bathroom, I'm just gonna have a quick wank..". Or maybe to make it more socially acceptable, we could create some healthy sounding euphemisms, like "excuse me for a few minutes, I'm just gonna go and clean out the old tubes", or "back in 5, just gonna do a quick pipe cleaner".... Or maybe we could jst stick with the many that we have already, like "spank the monkey", or "choke the chicken".
I think there may even be a case for wanking to be made available on the NHS to those who are unable to perform the life saving procedure themselves; like people with no arms for example.....
Of course there is the other option, of having sex five times a week. The problem with that is that you need either a girlfriend, or a huge amount of sexual magnetism and enthusiasm. I however, have niether. Now where's that bog roll?........
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