Stray 30Jan05 - Zen Vegetation.
Yeah, I'd say I believed in some form of
reincarnation.
[Every year I take my own life]
Leaving Vancouver was easy, practically speaking.
Those of you for a while with me now have heard all
about my theories on good-byes and their being the
single worst thing about travelling, I still don't
like them. Christian dropped me at the airport with
plenty of time to spare, the only potential hiccup
being my out of date ticket and the time it may take
to reissue it, which turned out to be about thirty
seconds.
The flight was average; nine hours, middle of the row,
ceiling hung tv set silently blaring flight
information and advertising at me the whole night, and
for some reason every single one of the six toddlers
around me kept throwing up for the entire flight.
Stewardess was concerned there was a bug going around.
Average.
It was on arriving at Heathrow the next day that
everything went completely spastically insane.
I flew in at noon. I had a flight booked from London
Stanstead to Glasgow at five pm. I would have given
myself another couple of hours leeway, knowing what
London is like, but the flight was much cheaper at
five, fifteen pounds. Anyway, surely five hours is
more than enough time to clear one airport and make my
way to another in the same city. I thought.
I innocently rock up to the passport checking man,
papers in hand, I'm only in the country for three
weeks so don't imagine they're going to hesitate in
letting me in.
He asks me if I've been to the UK before, I tell him
yes, I was here on and off for about eight months in
2003. Eigh' mumfs? Bu' the visa's only mean' be for
six...? I'll stop typing his accent now. Yeah, I say,
but I went out and came back in again, they gave me
another six month visa, I used about six weeks of it.
This is all true.
Yeah, we give you a six month visa, but we don't
expect you to use that much of it, you're sposed to be
a tourist, only stay for a couple of weeks.
I, (I imagine like every single other person who's
ever entered Britain), wasn't aware of this. I suspect
other customs agents aren't aware of this. It's
difficult to tactfully tell a man holding your
passport that he may well be talking out of his arse,
I just hmmmmd and looked concerned.
He asked me how I'd been supporting myself while in
the country, I told him I left New Zealand with twelve
thousand dollars and had also received support from my
mother. I hadn't worked.
This is slightly true.
He asked how much I'd spent the year I was in and
around Britain, I answered six thousand dollars, two
thousand pounds (true) and the bastard simply would
not believe me. I then had to list every single flight
I've caught in the last three years. Luckily he was
going through my passport checking the stamps because
the list is very long and I have no idea.
Asked how I'd earned the twelve thousand, told him it
was from animation contracts, we had a bit of a chat
(he dabbles) and then he went and told his superiors
up in the windowed observation room. I tried to look
nonchalant as they glared down at me and shook their
heads, came back and told me I had to be formally
interviewed.
I waited for about an hour. Me and half a dozen other
dodgy looking foreigners. Finally my name was called,
followed a guy to collect my pack, remove everything
and he keeps what he considers potentially
incriminating, like my cd wallet and an out of date
job application, and I wait for another hour. I'm
distracting myself reading a book about a guy stuck in
London, trying to get to Edinburgh, trapped by
bureaucracy.
Quick tangent on the subject of unexpectantly
pertinent reading material, when September eleventh
happened I was halfway through two comic books. In one
(The Dark Knight Returns) there's a plot to blow up
twin towers and later on a plane crashes into a
skyscraper. The other (The Watchmen) involves a war in
Afghanistan and ends with a huge explosion in New York
city that kills thousands of people for the purpose of
uniting the world behind the US in a global war.
Very weird.
Guy comes back and leads me to an interview room. He
warns me not to lean on the wall, as there's an alarm
strip running around it, in case I attack him.
Again, I go through every flight I've been on in the
last three years. Again I describe my comings and
goings through the UK and Europe, won't believe either
that I only spent two thousand pounds. I don't tell
him about the little bit of work I was doing. I gave
him some names of people I'd be staying with in
Edinburgh because they really like that. So I'm sorry
Raquel, Sarah and Ross, but you're all probably on
some terrorist watch list now.
He only asked me once how I was planning on supporting
myself for the next three weeks. Only once about where
I was staying. They didn't care about my being here
this time, they purely wanted to catch having worked
illegally a year ago, so they could punish me.
On the third hour wait I figured I'd missed my flight.
I didn't think they'd deport me, although they had the
option. A deportation onwards to Australia would've
been a pain in the arse, if they'd tried to put me on
a plane back to Canada they would've had to jab a
needle in my arm and have a guy with a gun sitting
with me the whole flight. If they'd done that I
would've been completely fucked, and they definitely
had the option.
I found out later that a friend of mine had tried to
come back into Scotland from Australia, just before
me. On arrival they told her the visa they'd given her
last year had been erroneously issued at the fault of
the office, they put her on the next plane back and
she now has to go through an official visa application
process.
Finally the guy calls me over, hands me my passport
and papers, and tells me to leave. I ask him if, since
I now have no way of getting to Scotland, nowhere to
stay in London and only fifteen pounds in my pocket
(error on my part) if I can get at least the cost of
my flight. No, we don't do that. Ring Ryanair and tell
them what happened, they might give you another
flight. I do, and they don't.
I try to sort out a bus to the north of London so I
can start hitching, world's least helpful counter
woman can't give me any information unless I tell her
where I want to go. But that's what I need her to tell
me. I retreat back into Heathrow, find a nice
information office where they take pity on me and ply
me with maps and directions. I take on the bus station
once more and manage to get myself to the point of
waiting for what I hope is going to be a bus to
Watford, two hours north, for four pounds.
Ask the guy next to me if this is the case and he's
not sure, but hopes it is. Bus comes, all good, go
north, off get. Guy says his wife is coming to pick
him up, they give me a ride to the motorway. Bless em.
My god it's cold. And pitch black. Onramps suck for
hitching and I'm pretty sure I'm breaking the law by
being here. It's about eight pm by this stage, I'm
pretty sure I won't be getting picked up. I stick my
thumb out anyway, I'll give it ten minutes before
finding somewhere discreet to pitch my tent.
Five minutes later two cars pull over simultaneously.
I get into the nearer and its a little old bloke on
his way home who takes me half an hour north.
Service bays on English motorways, where they have
petrol stations and burger kings, are the best places
to hitch.
I got four rides that night, never waited more than
five minutes. Last guy, Scottish, took me ninety
minutes north, ripping past trucks in the rain, the
spray from their wheels like thick fog. I fell asleep.
It'd been a very long day.
reincarnation.
[Every year I take my own life]
Leaving Vancouver was easy, practically speaking.
Those of you for a while with me now have heard all
about my theories on good-byes and their being the
single worst thing about travelling, I still don't
like them. Christian dropped me at the airport with
plenty of time to spare, the only potential hiccup
being my out of date ticket and the time it may take
to reissue it, which turned out to be about thirty
seconds.
The flight was average; nine hours, middle of the row,
ceiling hung tv set silently blaring flight
information and advertising at me the whole night, and
for some reason every single one of the six toddlers
around me kept throwing up for the entire flight.
Stewardess was concerned there was a bug going around.
Average.
It was on arriving at Heathrow the next day that
everything went completely spastically insane.
I flew in at noon. I had a flight booked from London
Stanstead to Glasgow at five pm. I would have given
myself another couple of hours leeway, knowing what
London is like, but the flight was much cheaper at
five, fifteen pounds. Anyway, surely five hours is
more than enough time to clear one airport and make my
way to another in the same city. I thought.
I innocently rock up to the passport checking man,
papers in hand, I'm only in the country for three
weeks so don't imagine they're going to hesitate in
letting me in.
He asks me if I've been to the UK before, I tell him
yes, I was here on and off for about eight months in
2003. Eigh' mumfs? Bu' the visa's only mean' be for
six...? I'll stop typing his accent now. Yeah, I say,
but I went out and came back in again, they gave me
another six month visa, I used about six weeks of it.
This is all true.
Yeah, we give you a six month visa, but we don't
expect you to use that much of it, you're sposed to be
a tourist, only stay for a couple of weeks.
I, (I imagine like every single other person who's
ever entered Britain), wasn't aware of this. I suspect
other customs agents aren't aware of this. It's
difficult to tactfully tell a man holding your
passport that he may well be talking out of his arse,
I just hmmmmd and looked concerned.
He asked me how I'd been supporting myself while in
the country, I told him I left New Zealand with twelve
thousand dollars and had also received support from my
mother. I hadn't worked.
This is slightly true.
He asked how much I'd spent the year I was in and
around Britain, I answered six thousand dollars, two
thousand pounds (true) and the bastard simply would
not believe me. I then had to list every single flight
I've caught in the last three years. Luckily he was
going through my passport checking the stamps because
the list is very long and I have no idea.
Asked how I'd earned the twelve thousand, told him it
was from animation contracts, we had a bit of a chat
(he dabbles) and then he went and told his superiors
up in the windowed observation room. I tried to look
nonchalant as they glared down at me and shook their
heads, came back and told me I had to be formally
interviewed.
I waited for about an hour. Me and half a dozen other
dodgy looking foreigners. Finally my name was called,
followed a guy to collect my pack, remove everything
and he keeps what he considers potentially
incriminating, like my cd wallet and an out of date
job application, and I wait for another hour. I'm
distracting myself reading a book about a guy stuck in
London, trying to get to Edinburgh, trapped by
bureaucracy.
Quick tangent on the subject of unexpectantly
pertinent reading material, when September eleventh
happened I was halfway through two comic books. In one
(The Dark Knight Returns) there's a plot to blow up
twin towers and later on a plane crashes into a
skyscraper. The other (The Watchmen) involves a war in
Afghanistan and ends with a huge explosion in New York
city that kills thousands of people for the purpose of
uniting the world behind the US in a global war.
Very weird.
Guy comes back and leads me to an interview room. He
warns me not to lean on the wall, as there's an alarm
strip running around it, in case I attack him.
Again, I go through every flight I've been on in the
last three years. Again I describe my comings and
goings through the UK and Europe, won't believe either
that I only spent two thousand pounds. I don't tell
him about the little bit of work I was doing. I gave
him some names of people I'd be staying with in
Edinburgh because they really like that. So I'm sorry
Raquel, Sarah and Ross, but you're all probably on
some terrorist watch list now.
He only asked me once how I was planning on supporting
myself for the next three weeks. Only once about where
I was staying. They didn't care about my being here
this time, they purely wanted to catch having worked
illegally a year ago, so they could punish me.
On the third hour wait I figured I'd missed my flight.
I didn't think they'd deport me, although they had the
option. A deportation onwards to Australia would've
been a pain in the arse, if they'd tried to put me on
a plane back to Canada they would've had to jab a
needle in my arm and have a guy with a gun sitting
with me the whole flight. If they'd done that I
would've been completely fucked, and they definitely
had the option.
I found out later that a friend of mine had tried to
come back into Scotland from Australia, just before
me. On arrival they told her the visa they'd given her
last year had been erroneously issued at the fault of
the office, they put her on the next plane back and
she now has to go through an official visa application
process.
Finally the guy calls me over, hands me my passport
and papers, and tells me to leave. I ask him if, since
I now have no way of getting to Scotland, nowhere to
stay in London and only fifteen pounds in my pocket
(error on my part) if I can get at least the cost of
my flight. No, we don't do that. Ring Ryanair and tell
them what happened, they might give you another
flight. I do, and they don't.
I try to sort out a bus to the north of London so I
can start hitching, world's least helpful counter
woman can't give me any information unless I tell her
where I want to go. But that's what I need her to tell
me. I retreat back into Heathrow, find a nice
information office where they take pity on me and ply
me with maps and directions. I take on the bus station
once more and manage to get myself to the point of
waiting for what I hope is going to be a bus to
Watford, two hours north, for four pounds.
Ask the guy next to me if this is the case and he's
not sure, but hopes it is. Bus comes, all good, go
north, off get. Guy says his wife is coming to pick
him up, they give me a ride to the motorway. Bless em.
My god it's cold. And pitch black. Onramps suck for
hitching and I'm pretty sure I'm breaking the law by
being here. It's about eight pm by this stage, I'm
pretty sure I won't be getting picked up. I stick my
thumb out anyway, I'll give it ten minutes before
finding somewhere discreet to pitch my tent.
Five minutes later two cars pull over simultaneously.
I get into the nearer and its a little old bloke on
his way home who takes me half an hour north.
Service bays on English motorways, where they have
petrol stations and burger kings, are the best places
to hitch.
I got four rides that night, never waited more than
five minutes. Last guy, Scottish, took me ninety
minutes north, ripping past trucks in the rain, the
spray from their wheels like thick fog. I fell asleep.
It'd been a very long day.
While we're sort of on the subject of cars, many of you
probably thought the little link for www.theaircar.com
at the end of the last mailer was an ad, but you should
check it out. Pneumatic car, runs off compressed air,
no petrochemicals, no pollution (it cleans the air it uses,
ever so slightly), 110 kmh top speed, 300 km range,
seven minutes to re(feul?) off the compressor at any
service station or plug it in at home, was commercially
released last month, retails for US$7,000 - 10,000 new.
FUCK YOU SHELL!!
Scotchman drops me just south of Carlyle and I pitch,
very indiscreetly, behind a billboard beside the road.
I'm woken by someone rattling on my tent and wanting
to know what I think I'm doing. Just spending the
night, I'm moving on. Well move on then, it's noon.
I'd slept for twelve hours.
Five minute wait, guy going to Glasgow. Half an hour
up the road we run into what must've been one of the
worst traffic jams in British history.
I found out later that a truck had jack-knifed on the
motorway just north of Carlyle. Another truck had
immediately plowed into it and they'd both started
pissing chemicals. The road was completely shut down
in both directions.
We barely move for an hour, I'm studying the map for
alternatives and eventually get us on a little country
road that should hopefully pop us out at the start of
the detour. We end up on completely the wrong little
country road, but it leads us to the right one and
soon we're merrily stuck in traffic, at the start of
the detour.
It takes us five more hours to get through it, fifty
miles of road. Speeding up out of the small town that
was the bottleneck and on our way back to the now
clear M6, we count twenty miles of stationary cars. By
now its tea time and they've got at least half the
night of waiting ahead of them.
I'm unable to get out at the first turnoff for
Edinburgh, and getting dropped off at what I thought
was the next, I find it's just a fork in the motorway
and I have pickup chance zero.
I walked for about two hours in the dark. Tried
hitching the only onramp I found, fruitlessly, carried
on to the next small town, pitched my tent in the
woods, got to a corner store just before closing and
bought a tinned meal.
The next morning a young woman travelling alone
illegally picks me up, she didn't even see my face,
very trusting, but can only take me a few miles before
turning off. I walk a mile more and am now on the home
stretch. Then the police van pulls over.
But I'm not worried, because I know how nice the
Scottish police are. He tells me it's illegal to hitch
here, so he drives me to where it's not.
Unfortunately, where he drops me might've been legal,
but it was also impossible. So I start walking. Three
miles later I'm in a smallish town, the last before
Ed. I'm on a train, and I've just locked myself in the
toilet. Five pounds fifty for two stops? No. I no
longer have the InterRail ticket, so I'm brute forcing
it.
Fifteen minutes later I hurriedly disembark at
Edinburgh's westernmost train station and am sailing
up the stairs to freedom.
Unfortunately, since I was there last they've
installed ticket gates, in case of just such an
emergency, and two security guards to watch them. I
try to get through, looking the most suspicious I've
ever looked ever doing anything (which is very, very
suspicious), fail, and am about to tell the guard I've
lost my ticket and see what happens when some other
guys yells out he's lost his and the guard says he'll
have to buy another.
Shit. So back down the stairs to the platform and on
to Waverly, the main station.
Now: when you arrive at Waverly on a train from the
west, as I was, you're supposed to get dropped at a
platform with newly installed gates. But I didn't. I
got dropped right at the exit and was inexplicably
free.
Back in the heart of my beloved Edinburgh and god it's
a sweet town. I headed straight for Raquel's place
where I spent the next two weeks eating, drinking,
making new friends, visiting old friends and generally
enjoying myself. Unfortunately I couldn't kick
Vancouver's time zone and most mornings for the whole
two weeks couldn't get to sleep until somewhere
between seven and ten a.m., when it was getting light,
waking at four when it was already dark. This wasn't
helped by a lifestyle that favored staying up late but
actually came in handy on nights like New Year's, not
needing to crash until dawn.
Had a good Christmas, huge feed with roast goose, had
a good New Year's eve, up on the crags with fireworks
coming up from seven different points throughout the
city and then on to the Forest cafe for dancing. Honed
my skills at darts, had my first decent Scotch
whiskey, which is like drinking perfume, there was
some other stuff but I'll not go into it right now.
A few days after I arrived two friends left for India,
it must have been the twenty seventh because it was
the day after the tsunami. Regarding that note I sent
round, if anyone had any info on India, yes I was
planning to be there myself but it was too late notice
and the flights couldn't be arranged in time. I
would've been there when it happened, though I wasn't
planning to be on the east coast.
I was talking to a German guy recently who reckoned
the only reason there's been such an international
response to the tsunami is because so many westerners
died. Sweden apparently lost four to five thousand. I
disagree. I haven't heard anyone talk about death
tolls of white people, just people. It's true that
recent events like the earthquake in Iran that killed
god knows how many thousands of people didn't get a
third the press this has, but I can't see any reason
to get cynical. It seems that people just genuinely,
this time and for whatever reason, give a shit.
Time came for me to head south and catch up with
Julian and Vanessa for a few days in Chatham, in the
shire of Kent, before flying out from Heathrow again.
The hitch down to London was a little trickier than
the one up, but I managed to do it in about eight
hours. I got picked up by a bank information security
manager, a robotic engineer, a construction worker and
a vacuum physicist.
The guy at the tube station where the construction
worker dropped me said getting to Chatham by rail
would cost twenty pounds (which I now don't think was
right) so I headed for Victoria bus station. Long wait
in line, screaming arguments around me.
I love the expressions of horror people get when I say
I'm going to spend the night in a tent. The ticket
vendor was a really nice eastern European woman; she
could get me to the town next to Chatham, but no
nearer, and not arriving until midnight. I said that
was no problem. She paled and asked couldn't I get a
train. Twenty pounds. Oh, but you'd spend that on a
taxi. I told her I could hitch, or at least walk it,
and I had a tent and a sleeping bag. I think she
nearly fainted. Started checking into deals and
alternative routs but there were none and I told her
it was ok. She was really concerned.
In my book he's left Scotland, is passing back through
London on his way to the murderous deserts of east
Africa. There's some small analogy between that and
Kent.
Three hour wait, one hour bus, dumped on the side of
the road, two hour walk to camp behind a small hedge
in the middle of some godforsaken little Kentish town,
up the next day and to Julian/Vanessa's.
I haven't spent much time in England, only on my way
through to Ireland or Scotland. It's not accidental.
It's said of the English with regards to their
constantly trying to spread out into the rest of the
world, well, who can blame them?
I'm being harsh. But Kent isn't very nice. It
reinforces a belief in karma; being southeast English
you're repaying someone for something. It was good
seeing Julian and Vanessa again.
Pleasant castle, chilling Korean horror film, quick
sneak onto an army base, slightly disappointing
cheesecake, I'm off to Singapore. Heading back into
London I'm taking no chances. I've got my ticket the
night before, I'm giving myself a two hour leeway,
though that means getting up at half past five a.m.
It proved a good idea; even given the extra half hour
I picked up through getting slightly creative with the
provided train changing itinerary, and minus it again
getting completely disoriented at Heathrow (it has
four terminals. Four!) I only had half an hour to
spare after all the queues and checks.
A little girl behind me at the gate suddenly yells
out, That man's got funny hair! I burst out laughing.
The mother gets very embarrassed.
If you haven't seen me recently, I've shaved off my
dreads except for a clump of eight at the back. I look
like some sort of dodgy hare krishna, but I like it
and I'm not keen on losing all my dreads just yet. I
was in a shop in China town in Vancouver, looking at
the dried snakes and seahorses, Chinese woman behind
the counter says, They're strange, yes? Very strange,
but then so is your hair.
Thanks lady.
Singapore Airlines 747 with the screens in the seats,
I watched a lot of movies that flight. I don't think
anything of interest happened the day I was in
Singapore, those who have been there will not find
this strange.
It was on arriving to Perth that everything went
completely spastically insane. Well, slightly. I got
intercepted on my way to the baggage claim and briefly
interrogated on why I was here and what I thought I
was doing. Then, after collecting my pack, got pulled
out of line for a 'random' search by the same woman. I
casually inquired as to why I'd been flagged and
whether I should've worn a hat, she assured me it was
purely random.
My arse. I could walk through an airport with long
hair and a machete and go unmolested, but every single
time I've tried to get through with a shaven head
someone jumps on me.
She runs a little swab over the contents of my pack
and wallet, then gives it to another guy to feed into
their latest high tech sniffer machine. The results
come back and she tells me my wallet tested positive
for cocaine.
It may have been a tactical error, but I laughed in
her face.
I assured her I'd never even seen cocaine, it was an
angry person drug, and I certainly didn't have any on
me. I can be relaxed at this point because all of this
is true. They tell me it doesn't matter if I use,
they're only concerned if I'm bringing in. No, I'm not
a crack mule. Another swab from my toothbrush and
razor comes back negative, so they believe me.
She then removes the necessity for having done all
this in the first place by x-raying my pack, thanks me
for my time and I leave.
[I return to Limbo]
There's a moment I'm dwelling on. An obscure highpoint
from a year ago.
I'm waiting six hours for a train near a tiny town on
the Greek-Turkish border; I'm going home. Try to find
something to eat but everything is completely
disserted, I haven't seen another person in hours. I
get by on bunches of grapes from peoples' gardens by
the road. It's late night, cold in the middle of
nowhere, and I am completely alone.
New Zealand Maori believe that a departing soul must
walk north to Cape Rainga, where the oceans meet, and
travel out under the earth to Hawaiiki. That's me at
this time, I soul in transit. Yes I love the company
of others, but there are those self-reliant moments,
when I'm lost in the world, at the mercy of life.
Australia now, where nothing ever changes and no one
has facial hair. I've been up to grand total nothing
in the last two weeks, other than eating and working
on my portfolio. My only goals for the next month or
two are that, and to get a film out of my head and
onto paper.
I've been having strange dreams.
[I begin life anew]
Funny year, this last one. The last four months in
Van, after and including Burning Man, were really
good. First six months: kinda blank. No money, no
work, until (and this was what the year was about) I
finally confronted my deep antipathy to shit work and
not wanting to do anything I don't want to do.
Didn't get to see nearly as much as I wanted, I'll
have to go back.
The next place. Melbourne, I think. Not completely
new, but a good town with film and animation
happening. Hopefully. One of the first things to come
out of the new free trade deal with the States is that
Australia has to stop producing as much of it's own
TV, films, and music. The government was elected
purely on the promise to keep out foreigners, then
immediately gave the country to America. To quote
Southpark, if irony were strawberries we'd all be
drinking a lot of smoothies right now.
O well, fuck it. If it turns out I can't handle living
in Australia I'll go somewhere else.
So. Another life. This fourth year of travel. Twenty
seventh incarnation, last in my third seven-year
cycle.
Everything is changing. Something is coming. Life is
opening up, I feel lost in the endless choices
available to me. To those people I've known. To the
people I have yet to meet, the things I have yet to
do. Something is coming.
Love,
Daniel.
I'm woken by someone rattling on my tent and wanting
to know what I think I'm doing. Just spending the
night, I'm moving on. Well move on then, it's noon.
I'd slept for twelve hours.
Five minute wait, guy going to Glasgow. Half an hour
up the road we run into what must've been one of the
worst traffic jams in British history.
I found out later that a truck had jack-knifed on the
motorway just north of Carlyle. Another truck had
immediately plowed into it and they'd both started
pissing chemicals. The road was completely shut down
in both directions.
We barely move for an hour, I'm studying the map for
alternatives and eventually get us on a little country
road that should hopefully pop us out at the start of
the detour. We end up on completely the wrong little
country road, but it leads us to the right one and
soon we're merrily stuck in traffic, at the start of
the detour.
It takes us five more hours to get through it, fifty
miles of road. Speeding up out of the small town that
was the bottleneck and on our way back to the now
clear M6, we count twenty miles of stationary cars. By
now its tea time and they've got at least half the
night of waiting ahead of them.
I'm unable to get out at the first turnoff for
Edinburgh, and getting dropped off at what I thought
was the next, I find it's just a fork in the motorway
and I have pickup chance zero.
I walked for about two hours in the dark. Tried
hitching the only onramp I found, fruitlessly, carried
on to the next small town, pitched my tent in the
woods, got to a corner store just before closing and
bought a tinned meal.
The next morning a young woman travelling alone
illegally picks me up, she didn't even see my face,
very trusting, but can only take me a few miles before
turning off. I walk a mile more and am now on the home
stretch. Then the police van pulls over.
But I'm not worried, because I know how nice the
Scottish police are. He tells me it's illegal to hitch
here, so he drives me to where it's not.
Unfortunately, where he drops me might've been legal,
but it was also impossible. So I start walking. Three
miles later I'm in a smallish town, the last before
Ed. I'm on a train, and I've just locked myself in the
toilet. Five pounds fifty for two stops? No. I no
longer have the InterRail ticket, so I'm brute forcing
it.
Fifteen minutes later I hurriedly disembark at
Edinburgh's westernmost train station and am sailing
up the stairs to freedom.
Unfortunately, since I was there last they've
installed ticket gates, in case of just such an
emergency, and two security guards to watch them. I
try to get through, looking the most suspicious I've
ever looked ever doing anything (which is very, very
suspicious), fail, and am about to tell the guard I've
lost my ticket and see what happens when some other
guys yells out he's lost his and the guard says he'll
have to buy another.
Shit. So back down the stairs to the platform and on
to Waverly, the main station.
Now: when you arrive at Waverly on a train from the
west, as I was, you're supposed to get dropped at a
platform with newly installed gates. But I didn't. I
got dropped right at the exit and was inexplicably
free.
Back in the heart of my beloved Edinburgh and god it's
a sweet town. I headed straight for Raquel's place
where I spent the next two weeks eating, drinking,
making new friends, visiting old friends and generally
enjoying myself. Unfortunately I couldn't kick
Vancouver's time zone and most mornings for the whole
two weeks couldn't get to sleep until somewhere
between seven and ten a.m., when it was getting light,
waking at four when it was already dark. This wasn't
helped by a lifestyle that favored staying up late but
actually came in handy on nights like New Year's, not
needing to crash until dawn.
Had a good Christmas, huge feed with roast goose, had
a good New Year's eve, up on the crags with fireworks
coming up from seven different points throughout the
city and then on to the Forest cafe for dancing. Honed
my skills at darts, had my first decent Scotch
whiskey, which is like drinking perfume, there was
some other stuff but I'll not go into it right now.
A few days after I arrived two friends left for India,
it must have been the twenty seventh because it was
the day after the tsunami. Regarding that note I sent
round, if anyone had any info on India, yes I was
planning to be there myself but it was too late notice
and the flights couldn't be arranged in time. I
would've been there when it happened, though I wasn't
planning to be on the east coast.
I was talking to a German guy recently who reckoned
the only reason there's been such an international
response to the tsunami is because so many westerners
died. Sweden apparently lost four to five thousand. I
disagree. I haven't heard anyone talk about death
tolls of white people, just people. It's true that
recent events like the earthquake in Iran that killed
god knows how many thousands of people didn't get a
third the press this has, but I can't see any reason
to get cynical. It seems that people just genuinely,
this time and for whatever reason, give a shit.
Time came for me to head south and catch up with
Julian and Vanessa for a few days in Chatham, in the
shire of Kent, before flying out from Heathrow again.
The hitch down to London was a little trickier than
the one up, but I managed to do it in about eight
hours. I got picked up by a bank information security
manager, a robotic engineer, a construction worker and
a vacuum physicist.
The guy at the tube station where the construction
worker dropped me said getting to Chatham by rail
would cost twenty pounds (which I now don't think was
right) so I headed for Victoria bus station. Long wait
in line, screaming arguments around me.
I love the expressions of horror people get when I say
I'm going to spend the night in a tent. The ticket
vendor was a really nice eastern European woman; she
could get me to the town next to Chatham, but no
nearer, and not arriving until midnight. I said that
was no problem. She paled and asked couldn't I get a
train. Twenty pounds. Oh, but you'd spend that on a
taxi. I told her I could hitch, or at least walk it,
and I had a tent and a sleeping bag. I think she
nearly fainted. Started checking into deals and
alternative routs but there were none and I told her
it was ok. She was really concerned.
In my book he's left Scotland, is passing back through
London on his way to the murderous deserts of east
Africa. There's some small analogy between that and
Kent.
Three hour wait, one hour bus, dumped on the side of
the road, two hour walk to camp behind a small hedge
in the middle of some godforsaken little Kentish town,
up the next day and to Julian/Vanessa's.
I haven't spent much time in England, only on my way
through to Ireland or Scotland. It's not accidental.
It's said of the English with regards to their
constantly trying to spread out into the rest of the
world, well, who can blame them?
I'm being harsh. But Kent isn't very nice. It
reinforces a belief in karma; being southeast English
you're repaying someone for something. It was good
seeing Julian and Vanessa again.
Pleasant castle, chilling Korean horror film, quick
sneak onto an army base, slightly disappointing
cheesecake, I'm off to Singapore. Heading back into
London I'm taking no chances. I've got my ticket the
night before, I'm giving myself a two hour leeway,
though that means getting up at half past five a.m.
It proved a good idea; even given the extra half hour
I picked up through getting slightly creative with the
provided train changing itinerary, and minus it again
getting completely disoriented at Heathrow (it has
four terminals. Four!) I only had half an hour to
spare after all the queues and checks.
A little girl behind me at the gate suddenly yells
out, That man's got funny hair! I burst out laughing.
The mother gets very embarrassed.
If you haven't seen me recently, I've shaved off my
dreads except for a clump of eight at the back. I look
like some sort of dodgy hare krishna, but I like it
and I'm not keen on losing all my dreads just yet. I
was in a shop in China town in Vancouver, looking at
the dried snakes and seahorses, Chinese woman behind
the counter says, They're strange, yes? Very strange,
but then so is your hair.
Thanks lady.
Singapore Airlines 747 with the screens in the seats,
I watched a lot of movies that flight. I don't think
anything of interest happened the day I was in
Singapore, those who have been there will not find
this strange.
It was on arriving to Perth that everything went
completely spastically insane. Well, slightly. I got
intercepted on my way to the baggage claim and briefly
interrogated on why I was here and what I thought I
was doing. Then, after collecting my pack, got pulled
out of line for a 'random' search by the same woman. I
casually inquired as to why I'd been flagged and
whether I should've worn a hat, she assured me it was
purely random.
My arse. I could walk through an airport with long
hair and a machete and go unmolested, but every single
time I've tried to get through with a shaven head
someone jumps on me.
She runs a little swab over the contents of my pack
and wallet, then gives it to another guy to feed into
their latest high tech sniffer machine. The results
come back and she tells me my wallet tested positive
for cocaine.
It may have been a tactical error, but I laughed in
her face.
I assured her I'd never even seen cocaine, it was an
angry person drug, and I certainly didn't have any on
me. I can be relaxed at this point because all of this
is true. They tell me it doesn't matter if I use,
they're only concerned if I'm bringing in. No, I'm not
a crack mule. Another swab from my toothbrush and
razor comes back negative, so they believe me.
She then removes the necessity for having done all
this in the first place by x-raying my pack, thanks me
for my time and I leave.
[I return to Limbo]
There's a moment I'm dwelling on. An obscure highpoint
from a year ago.
I'm waiting six hours for a train near a tiny town on
the Greek-Turkish border; I'm going home. Try to find
something to eat but everything is completely
disserted, I haven't seen another person in hours. I
get by on bunches of grapes from peoples' gardens by
the road. It's late night, cold in the middle of
nowhere, and I am completely alone.
New Zealand Maori believe that a departing soul must
walk north to Cape Rainga, where the oceans meet, and
travel out under the earth to Hawaiiki. That's me at
this time, I soul in transit. Yes I love the company
of others, but there are those self-reliant moments,
when I'm lost in the world, at the mercy of life.
Australia now, where nothing ever changes and no one
has facial hair. I've been up to grand total nothing
in the last two weeks, other than eating and working
on my portfolio. My only goals for the next month or
two are that, and to get a film out of my head and
onto paper.
I've been having strange dreams.
[I begin life anew]
Funny year, this last one. The last four months in
Van, after and including Burning Man, were really
good. First six months: kinda blank. No money, no
work, until (and this was what the year was about) I
finally confronted my deep antipathy to shit work and
not wanting to do anything I don't want to do.
Didn't get to see nearly as much as I wanted, I'll
have to go back.
The next place. Melbourne, I think. Not completely
new, but a good town with film and animation
happening. Hopefully. One of the first things to come
out of the new free trade deal with the States is that
Australia has to stop producing as much of it's own
TV, films, and music. The government was elected
purely on the promise to keep out foreigners, then
immediately gave the country to America. To quote
Southpark, if irony were strawberries we'd all be
drinking a lot of smoothies right now.
O well, fuck it. If it turns out I can't handle living
in Australia I'll go somewhere else.
So. Another life. This fourth year of travel. Twenty
seventh incarnation, last in my third seven-year
cycle.
Everything is changing. Something is coming. Life is
opening up, I feel lost in the endless choices
available to me. To those people I've known. To the
people I have yet to meet, the things I have yet to
do. Something is coming.
Love,
Daniel.
posted by Unknown @ 5:31 pm
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