Another Irrelevant Blog
To full the internet with useless information and so slow it down so that it spends so much time processing information that it doesn’t have time to evolve it’s own independant intelligence and kill us all. That’s what this site is all about. Saving the world.

The alarm goes off in the ultimate blackness. Our alarm clock is a cacophony of random arrhythmic annoying sounds and so is particularly grating at 4:50 in the morning.

“Steeeeeve,” complains Sam.

I assume it’s because she wants me to deal with the alarm, which to my dream befuddled mind seems both unjust and unfair as the alarm lies closest to her.

“Hit snooze! Hit snooze,” I yell, I plead, anything to stop that damnable noise.

She turns it off and when I complain, I realise she was not asking me to deal with the alarm, but was rather ensuring that I was awake as I have a tendency to sleep through the evil and distressing high pitched ringing, whizzing and beeping cries emitting from our electronic time piece.

I have no idea how I have slept though it before, but at this accursed hour Sam is not going to wake up if I’m not, and fair play to her. We briefly discuss going back to sleep but as we have both been suffering from tempestuous dreams, we decide to stick to our original plan and arise.

We brush our teeth, don my head torch and leave our hostel, unshowered and unclean to enter the pitch black stone paved roads of Hampi Bazaar Village, a barely 900 m X 900 m town grown out of the carcass of the ancient remains of the capital of the last medieval Hindi Empire. (I think it’s Hindi.)

The megalithic stone temple that rises 15 stories above the town cannot be seen in the dark, but as we walk past it and away from it down the dust road past closed restaurants and curio shops, music is playing from it for early morning prayers, and people are setting up stores and moving about in this unfortunate and ungodly hour, just the time of day they typically arise.

A dog howls and barks in the darkness and Sam clutches my arm in fear. We swiftly move down the dust road, passing the bus station and another menacing dog, which together mark the end of the village, which lasted just a few hundred metres of dust road in its length.

A lone richshaw driver tries to convince us to blow off our plans and take his rickshaw for a 7km drive to catch the sunrise, but we’re determined to stay our course, which is to take the 20 minutes to scale a small hill to catch the sunrise over Hampi Bazaar, an experience considered to be one of the top twenty five experiences one can have according to the the Rough Guide’s Top 25 Experiences One Can Have in India.

We push on past the rickshaw driver, guided by my headtorch, a device as ridiculously nerdy as it is useful, into the darkness, into what we hope is the right direction.

We have two options with the headtorch. The first is to shine it downwards to ensure we do not step in the continuous, yet randomly placed animal manure, or to shine it upwards to ensure we do not miss our turn off from the road.

Jesus! Another howling barking dog in the blackness! My torch illuminates the menacing brute barking from the roadside. It looks vicious and hungry.

Sam grabs my arm and we pick up our speed to get away from the barking in the dark.

Another from the other side of the road!

Faster!

Faster into the dark!

Sam has 72 hours of grace if bit by a rabid animal, whereas I have 24, seeing as I opted out of paying over 90 quid for the shot. (Sorry Mom.) Frequently in India we have seen gangs of roving dogs, but unlike the ill-bred mutts of Thailand, these arew sleek and sandy and move together more like packs of wolves then domesticated hounds and can be heard howling the night away.

The growling of another in the darkness. It’s eyes glint in the reflection of the torch and it howls to the stars, causing a string of howls from which direction I cannot tell.

How many of these carnivorous hell-hounds are out there, those descendants of dark eyed and glinty teethed Cerebus? And why the f–k did the guidebooks never mention this?!

Then an anomaly occurs as a yellow beast bounds out of the dark towards us, non-stopping, right up to us, but without bark, and without bite, and one with one lame leg and one stripe of mange, it playfully bounds about us, tail wagging, which is fine, and far preferablle to being snarled and growled at, at least it was until the point it began to leap up on us.

Sam nearly stifles a shriek of terror as it jumps up, it’s paws almost as high as her neck and I am hard pressed to do the same when it bounds at me. On the bright side the dog isn’t trying to eat us, on the dark side, we can’t get rid of it.

We stoically continue on our odyssey through the darkness with our new best friend running between our legs, nearly knocking us off our feet, bounding onto our bodies and playfully nipping at our hands.

Suddenly it stops, sits down, and dissapears. We look at where it was sitting and then look up and forward to behold a terrifying sight.

At least 7 glinting torch reflected pin pricks of lights stare at us from the isolated darkness of this isolated dust road. A triangulated pack of growling menacing beasts face us, standing in an almost equididstant ‘V’, reminding me of experiences with hunting packs of Wild Dogs in the Kruger National Park, except wihtout the protective armouring of a car, and with a larger amount of baleful glares and snarls and with us as a focal point of that undomesticated dastardly pack of carnivorous curs.

“They can smell our fear! They can smell our fear!” whisper-wails Sam.

“Do you want to go back,” I gulp, staring in consternation at those menacing creatures blocking our path.

But the terror has struck and Sam is rooted in the dusty soil unable to move, trapped tree-like in her terror.

I firmly grasp her arm and propell us back along the road, hoping we aren’t eaten alive, and our friendly companion joins us limply loping alongside as the danger has passed, and as we speed back to the safety of stone-built Hampi Bazaar.

Finally back in the stony streets amongst the hustle bustle of pre-dawn Hindi community we stop.

Stupid rough guide.

A rickshaw driver approaches us and our dog and convinces us to go watch sunrise at a temple about 7 km’s away, and because there’s no way we’re waking up again this early tomorrow, and there’s no way we’re going to die the ignoble death of being devoured by those damned dogs and because we want to see the damn sun rise over this damn beautiful land we agree and so we’re off.

It was the best sunrise I have ever seen. From the top of an ancient temple we survey Hampi’s boulder strewn landscape, there are no hills exactly, just massive boulders laid on top of each other, somehow stacked together to reach gigantic heights, sporadically separated by ancient remains rising in the foreground and distance and with stretches of verdant palm trees standing in valleys between the giant boulder hill mountain things.

The boulders have been weathered by the wind and all the peaks of the boulder hill mountain things appear to be man-made, in that massive stones of different sizes seem to precariously balance one on top of each other in the most improbable, unnatural and beautifully crazy formations I have ever seen.

The sun rose, literally red as a rose, and seemed more like the rising moon then the sun, as we could stare straight at it.

A monkey appeared and our rickshaw driver said: “Good morning, Hannumon” the name of the Monkey God who’s territory we’re in. The monkey looked at us and almost seemed to nod, as behind it the red sun slowly topped the horizon, a perfect blood-red coin, the landscape illuminated to create the most intensely, inexpressibly, indubitably sublime sunrise I have ever had the pleasure to witness.

After leaving the sad remains of the once industrious shanty party beach village, we headed inland towards the capital of Goa. The name temporarily escapes my beleaguered mind, but I think it’s Punjabi. No that’s wrong. Something with a P.

It’s another smallish weird town with a strong Porteugeuse influence, and a river running through it or along it. We went on a river cruise expecting it to be a cruise along a river with maybe 30 or 60 people. There were also going to be traditional dances.

The boat was massive and had three decks. On the bottom deck was a disco deck which was free for women, and 50 rupees for men, which seemed a bit steep considering that the boat ride was an hour.

The second deck contained a series of snack counters, where anything from popcorn to beer could be bought.

The top deck was had tons of red and blue plastic seating and a stage at the far end covered in lights. From there an MC attempted to encourage the crowd to have fun, because apparently that’s what you do in Goa.

Before the first dance, a traditional welcoming Goan dance apparently, all the children were called up onto stage, where pumping house music was played and they were pressured to dance and actually did.

Next up was the worst dance I’ve ever seen. The 6 16 year olds (or so) couldn’t care less. They talked to each other, got all the moves wrong and then sort of wandered off stage to dubious applause.

The pattern was repeated with all the couples being called up on stage, followed by an extremely laczedacial harvest dance, followed by all the men (who really gave it a serious go) followed by an even more laclustre Portuguese dance, followed by all the women (who gave it a go, but not quite so much as the men.)

Afterwards Sam and I got off the boat, laughed ourselves silly and went off to find something to eat.

We met a Turkish girl, who’s name is tricky to pronounce and almost impossible to spell, who is travelling on her own, and the next morning we all went missioning to old Goa, which is where the capital of Goa used to be many years ago.

That morning I was feeling quite rough, extremely bloated, and whenever I congested anything I suspected I might be a willing accomplice to making myself vomit.

Fortunately through the gradual sipping of water and serious mind control I kept the issue under control as we caught the local bus to Old Goa.

Old Goa is full of massive Catholic Churches and it’s quite impressive if you’re keen on that sort of thing. I liked the museum dedicated to a St Xavier I think who’s body refused to rot after he died. He didn’t rot for many years, and then some crazy priests began to cut up his body and pass it around. I don’t think the remains of the remains are there anymore but apparently they’re displayed every certain amount of years. The museum showed a series of horrific and dark painting showing his exploits.

After arriving back to Panaji, which might be the name I’m searching for, we began a walk towards a small restaurant the Planet had made sound interesting.

Suddenly and out of the blue Sam got the most massive urge to vomit, so we rushed into the completely incongruous air conditioned coffee shop that happened to be standing shiny and new in western in the dusty third world streets, where Sam proceeded to wait outside the toilet as some small fat kid had a poo.

We sat there for a while, while Sam intermittently vomited and then caught a taxi back to our place. My father’s insistence that I take some valoid’s along before leaving South Africa so many months ago might have saved Sam’s life. They certainly made her woozy enough to brave getting on the ten hour bus ride to Hampi. Our Turkish friend provided some Reiki and some mint leaves to fight off the nausea, and then Sam stopped vomiting which was good, and become a little drugged out.

We said goodbye to Turkish Girl (who was massively into astrology and had a program on her cell phone that you could enter your birth date, birth time, and birth location and it draws your star chart,) and swapped e-mail addresses.

Onto the bus where Sam passed out and I didn’t, and then we arrived into Hampi this morning.

Hampi is strange in that it’s a series of ancient, massive ruins, that bring Mayan culture to mind, and there’s a small village/bazaar that’s set up store right in the middle of them.

We both slept most of the day and then cautiously ate some dinner.

Everything’s okay now, and I’m excited to explore Hampi tomorrow, and Sam’s excited to laze about tomorrow.

We’ll probably be here a few days.

My ankles have de-swelled, so far neither of us have gotten the dreaded Deil Belly and the food is totally outstanding.

After a day of wandering through ancient and impressive caves on the island of Elephanta off the coast of Mumbai, we caught our 14 (ultimately 16) hour bus from Mumbai to Mapusa (pronounced Map-sai) in Goa.

We arrived in Mapusa to discover that my ankles had swollen to the point where calling them ankles was a bold-faced lie. My ankles had literally dissapeared and had a straight line from foot to thigh. Disturbing and weird. Sam was happy that I was the first to be struck with a silly ailment because she was sure it was going to be her.

We caught the local bus from Mapusa, think small ramshackle open-air parking lot with quite a few small ramshackle buses surrounded by rickety stalls. It cost 15 rupees, which is a pretty good deal, especially compared to the 350 taxi fare which gets hawked at you as you come off the long-haul bus.

The problem with the local transport, of course, was that it didn’t go all the way to Ashvem, leaving us a 3km hike along a poorly tarred road, intermittently dotted with small ramshackle restaraunts and hostels and the occasional wandering cow.

Bikes tore up and down the street with a mixture of locals and backpackers all hooting away happily. We wondered why they hoot so incessantly here, came up with a theory that it was to warn people coming around corners, and then later discovered that it was in fact a far more self-motivated reason then that.

If you ride into someone without hooting you can be sued.

The hike was hot and humid and sweaty, but the background of tall palm trees and browning grass was quite beautiful, and even though we couldn’t see the sea we were sure it was there somewhere. We stopped for a milkshake to give us strength and learnt the local Goan way of saying “Thank you,” which is “Deo borrow ga’rew.” I doubt that’s how you spell it. I think it actually means may God bless you or something like that, but the locals would smile when you said it and that was cool. Except when I mumbled and then they gave me confused looks.

Sam and I finally had enough of walking and sweating and when we saw a side road leading down to the beach and a collection of beach shacks we stumbled down there dripping all over the road.

Sam and I threw our backpacks down in the accompanying restaraunt shanty and I left her there drinking cokes and I rushed up and down the beach in just my shorts looking for a)Ashvem Beach and (b) the South Africans that I thought were there.

We didn’t know if they were there or not because their cell phone number wasn’t working, and ultimately after a slight sun burn, several hours of missioning, we found a place another km down the road for a fair price and in the middle of the action.

By action I mean largely young families and old fat distressingly topless and extremely pink British people.

We stopped at an Internet Cafe just before booking in which was lucky, because we got a message telling us to come to one beach further down the road which was Arambol.

Arambol was much more our scene and we ended up crashing there for a few days and left this morning to Anjuna.

Arambol was full of younging hippy types with a few other sorts thrown in for the mix and a slight flavouring of locals. A weird phenomemon that’s resulted in all the backpackers arriving on the Indian beaches, well more particularly the bikini clad members of the backpacker’s community, is that small groups of young Indian locals arrive with cameras to take pictures.

Also cattle roamed the beach freely and on one day when I was lying in the sand, I urgently heard Sam exclaim: “Steve! Steve! Steve!” and I looked up to find a calf standing next to me giving me a loving look. It stood in a little closer and rubbed it’s head against mine, and then ambled off happily.

That’s lucky right?

Later when I was happily playing in a drum circle a dog weed on my leg.

That’s not lucky right?

Sam, Alex and I had a good chuckle about the drum circle cause there’re a lot of weirdos in Arambol, and when the drumming moved onto the beach and around a fire people began to dance like total nutters around the burning flames.

I suspect they might have been on the drugs.

We then made a mission this morning to Anjuna, which once was the ultimate Goan party beach, but is now rather sad and sorry. There’re very few people here, and the majority are middle aged familes with one or two of their kids following along. They have a regular Wednesday market which apparently was the thing to see, but even though it’s retained it’s grandeur in size, it’s matched it’s grandeur in desperation.

The market feels weird and empty, and the sellers seem desperate and edgy hoping to make a deal, any deal, clinging onto you to buy things. The restaraunts along the beach stand almost empty, and you get the feeling it’s a place that’s too large to support the smaller amount of tourists arriving.

According to a merchant in Arambol last year was massive compared to this year, and he blames the 10 o’clock curfew. The few people I’ve spoken to here also complain about the drop of tourists this year.

Anjuna feels like it’s on it’s way to becoming a ghost beach, and it’s a bit sad, although on the plus side, Arambol will probably never turn into a disgusting heaving pit of drunken losers like many of the Southern Thailand beaches.

Will the rules kill the scene or save the scene? Who knows; but certainly there’s some kind of transition going on here, and it’s not good for the locals.

It took me about thirty minutes of being in India before I got ripped off. I can’t say I wasn’t expecting it, but I can say I wasn’t expecting it to happen that swiftly.

Sam and I left London, leaving the bitter cold and rain behind us, at 10 pm in the evening and arrived in Bahrain at about 9 am in the morning, their time.

Bahrain has strange arabic houses, desert, and palm trees surrounding it’s airport and looks like an interesting place to visit. After buying and eating some nuts that made us feel a bit sick, we got on the plane that was going to take us to Mumbai.

We were the only white skins on the plane; the rest belonged to Indian looking humans and a few Arabic looking ones. A seat away and a row lower then us was a large Indian man who coughed and spat and nearly vomited. His hacking was offensive and wild and he looked as though he was suffering from some kind of plauge, and might infect the whole plane with and subsequently launch a series of misfortunate contagious events resulting in a made for TV movie about a plauge.

The poor man sitting next to him had bulging eyes and a desperate look as he leaned as far into the person next to him as he could, as the sickened plauge carrier hacked and coughed and made deep and disturbing sounds from the inside of his throat, sounds almost inhuman as he dry-retched into his paper bag.

Saved by the airline staff, the two other people sitting in the same row as the hacking man were moved away from him, and the man was able to lie down in his misery.

The plane was then delayed for two hours and so we sat there falling in and out of sleep.

The plane ultimately took off although it required three air stewards to hassle the ill fat man into sitting upright and tying his seatbelt, which launched another series of dry-retching moments.

It was only until the airhost refused to give him any alcohol did Sam and I realise he was not sick, but instead blind drunk, and our pity quickly changed to digust, although his repulsive antics did keep us entertained for the several hour flight, and when, him being unable to read English, asked us to fill in his landing form we reluctantly did so.

He was gross.

When we arrived at the airport we slowly made our way through passport control and baggage collection and stepped outside the airport in the humid night air.

We met a French guy who had decided to public transport it to Colaba, which is essentially the area most backpackers head to, and we decided against that mission considering our tired and weakened state, and instead, after consulting the guide, decided to get a pre-paid taxi ticket to the area, which can be bought from a small counter at the airport.

The guide said it was 350 rupees, but when I went to go and buy it the man said it was 380.

“Not 350?”
“380″
“350?”
“380″
“You sure?”
“Yes.”

So I paid him the money and he filled in a receipt which he quickly handed over to another man before I could grab it; the other man rushed off indicating I should follow him and I did, going: “Um, can I – will you give me the -” as he swiftly rushed away.

Sam rushed after me rushing after him and he led us to a road full of taxis calling out a number, a number that I assumed was on the receipt, although I couldn’t tell because he wouldn’t give it to me.

We stop at the taxi that I assume matches the number, and the taxi driver is passed the receipt, who I try to grab it from, but he’s already passed it to someone else, who passes it to someone else while another man wrests our luggage from us and starts sticking it into the back of the taxi. It doesn’t fit, and the taxi driver ties his boot shut with string.

The other man ushers us into the car, opening the door for Sam, and trying to open mine for me. We get in and the taxi takes off, after I refuse to tip the guy who wrested our baggage and opened the doors, especially not in pound coins which is what he asks for in bad English.

As the taxi takes off someone sticks his hand into the car to give me my receipt. As I’m about to look at it, we stop at a security exit to the airport about 100 metres down the road, and a security guard looks at the receipt, rips it to prevent it from further use and we take off.

Finally on the road I look at the ticket and see it cost 350. Fine 30 rupees work out to about 30/800 pounds or 30/50 rand but that’s not the point. Bastards. Curses be upon his small stand.

A two hour taxi drive later we arrive at Bentley’s hotel. Mumbai is vast. Vast. Huge. It looks like a post-apocalpytic city, which has survived some kind of fearsome war. Broken down shanty towns abound, every so often overlooked by huge towering buildings that stand alone in the night sky. The vegetation is massive and overgrown, tropical trees that look like they belong in swamps hold sway over the roads. The roads are insane completely full of cars, and every single one hoots, and the streets are equally full of people.

Today we wondered around for several hours and it was nice. We got a sim card for the phone and booked our ticket from Culcutta to Vietnam on the 6th March, so that’s where I’ll be for my birthday.

We got hassled by locals, sweated in the warmth, saw some amazing architecture side by side seemingly abandoned and ramshackle buildings all surrounded by the occasional swamp-like trees and non-stop mass of moving surging people.

The train station was an experience and we managed to get ripped off booking an overnight bus for Goa, where we’re going to tomorrow night, to arrive the following morning.

In the day tomorrow we’re going to Elephanta Island, if I’ve got that right, to see some ancient caves or somesuch. Sure it’ll be cool.

I resolve to get ripped off only once tomorrow.

(Yes this contains both spelling and grammatical errors, I can see that because my computer is underlining them in red. Judge me if you want, but I’ll be in India.)

After writing, and probably passing, my first law exam, dealing with the external history of South African law, which is about eight times as boring as the title sounds, I went for a walk with my friend Sam to look at a hotel that she had to examine before placing a Nigerian museum guy into, and then we went to find out about flights to India, which I am looking far more forward to then my next exam, which is tomorrow and is also choc-a-bloc full of fantastically boring information.

After that I decided to begin studying for the exam, which was a bright idea, considering I had not really looked at this subject in quite some time, due to my not entirely successful method of attempted study on the Isle of Aaran.

I went to West Hampstead, because Sam said there are some nice coffee shops there, and I walked along the road after getting off the bus trying to determine which was the one I would sit in and drink coffee and do my best not to fall asleep at whilst reading my law books.

I was unable to determine which of my options was the best one, and so decided on it by simply evaluating which coffee shop had the most attractive waitress, and so I ended up sitting in a place could Romeos.

The waitress was Italian, as was her dad, the owner, who sat oustide reading the newspaper, compulsively smoking with either his wife, girlfriend, or possible daughter.

During the several hours that I sat there doing my best not to pass out, the only other clientele aside from me were Italians. When they arrived there was a lot of hand shaking and kissing between the father, the wife/lover/daughter and the waitress daughter, and frequently there was some hushed discussion and the newly arrived person would leave without having bought anything.

The father/owner then came over to me and said: “Woulda you like another cup of coffee? Ona me?” and rather then using the oppurtunity to make a wonderful joke based on his phrasing, I decided to keep it cool and simply say: “Wow, yes, thanks.”

Then I went home and missed my stop and had to change busses and go home again.

Does anyone want to write my exams for me? You just need a face ID and my student card and the ability to not fall asleep when studying law.

Or I need to re-read my blog at least once before publishing it. These aren’t matric exams. It’s not a race.

I think there’s a dead guy in my dorm room. His bed is the bottom of his bunk and it has been shrouded by hanging cirongs.

Every time I’ve been in the room he’s been in his bed, (which might remind Tracy and Jonx, or in fact almost anyone who came past the Cape Town flat of me in Winter time, except the difference is I know that I got out of it now and then, if only to shower and eat.) When I arrived here on Tuesday at roughly 3 pm after traverssing from the Isle of Aaran through Glasgow to Edinburgh and making my way up the steep, yet scenic hills towards the Castle to find my backpackers, and after I subsequently dumped my backpack full to the brim with UNISA text books in my dorm room, he was there sleeping.

When I returned from walking the length of the Royal Mile up and down occasionally peaking at the mountains, sea, or other ancient buildings, through the sudden and surprising views down the alleyways between the 18th Century Georgian (I think) architecture, at about 6:30 ish, he was still in his bed sleeping.

After missioning about to find something to do or somewhere to go at night time, and ultimately finding a free live music venue where the worst band I had ever heard played and returning amazed that anyone would allow that travesty to occur, at roughly 11:30 pm, he was still sleeping.

He was sleeping when I left the next morning and still sleeping when I returned at five after spending several satisfying hours wandering through old Edinburgh Castle, which sits upon it’s craggy seat at the top of an extinct volcanoe, solemnly surveying the surrounding cityscape, listening to my audio tour guide, happily hearing tales of Medieval war and death and destruction, of battles lost and won, of prisoners of daring raids and even more daring escapes, and about how the well they built inside was crap and how it was pretty useless in a siege, after leaving and getting ridiculously lost in the beautiful city, this city that is a perfect haven for vampires, with it’s Gothic architecture, it’s tall old buildings, it’s long, narrow, high walled-alleys, complete with random lone figures shifitily smoking sneaky cigarettes whilst leaning on the walls leading through those close and dark pathways, with it’s lone stragglers and small groups of walkers, with it’s well eerie haunted history, it’s Batman like city-night-lights and it’s cobbled and stoned streets, although at this juncture in time and space it was not night, but rather day, and rather rainy and I was rather lost and throughly enjoying it, and after a few hours of wet confusion I spied the castle sitting high above the city in an unexpected direction, well unexpected by me, and began the long walk back towards it, as my backpackers lies just under it and to the left a little, and so I returned and went down to my dorm room to find him still sleeping in his bed.

At this point I wondered if he was sleeping or possibly, and more macabrely, was not sleeping but rather dead.

I don’t know what he looks like, and assume it is a he – as everyone else in the dorm is a male – because of the shrouded nature of his bed, but I can see glimpses of his one leg and one arm.

I suppose I am also assuming there is indeed a full body behind that wall of cirongs.

He was still sleeping later that night when I returned, and the next morning when I got up at 6:30 am to take a one day tour to the Highlands and to Loch Ness, where despite waiting patiently for almost 45 minutes, I did not see the monster, which I thought was very rude of it, after all I like monsters, and heard really well told tales by the guide about the dashing daring brave bravado of the Scottish and how quite frequently they got their asses kicked, but also how they frequently kicked asses, and finally I returned home this evening to find the possibly dead guy still in his bed.

I’m thinking about finding him a stick and prodding him with it.

Although surely if he were dead there would be some kind of telltale odour, the pungent stench of rotting meat, some small scented sign that this sad soul had ceased surviving in this Scottish backpackers, but no, the room smells okay.

Well it smells a little of feet, but I’ve endured worse.

Although how long does it take a corpse to decay?

Longer in the cold, Roxanne said wisely.

Hmm.

Oh well, it’s not my problem.

Aaran had a population closer to 150 and I was a dish pig there, but met cool people and could hear the sounds of deer rutting in the night and had a loch on my doorstep.

Okay, so Bath, tick.

Hit the spa yesterday as a farewall gift to the place, and if anyone ever gets lost in Bath just give me a call.
Hot thermal waters, saunas, rooftop swimming, nice.
Now about to get on a train to Cardiff – wonder what that’ll be like? You tell anyone you’re going to Wales and they just sort of snigger at you, which doesn’t seem like the best thing in the world, although, it looks like I’m only going to spend the one night inWales.

Got offered a job as a general assistant on the Isle of Aaren off the coast of Scotland until the end of September, so got to get there in 4 or 5 days. Not that much money, but room and food as part of the deal and the place looks beautiful and tranquil and stuff. Going through London to grab my lawbooks so that I can study and stuff at the same time.

Maybe write a novel, wee – although it ticks off one of the things on my life list: live on isolated island. Hopefully I won’t go mad without human company – well there will be some human company, but not much, I think the hotel is in a village with a 500 person population, and it’s not really a hotel, something like only 35 people can stay there.

Near a golf course though, maybe I can learn to play golf.

Then the plan’s to return to London, after seeing a bit of Scotland, and find something to employ myself with for October and November, write exams, a couple days in France, Amsterdam and maybe somewhere else and then India for 3 months and South America for 3 months (assuming I got the cash.)

Oh, if anyone knows how to hock a return only ticket to SA will they let me know?