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it's time to say goodbye kids (sniff! sniff!)

anyone who knows i'm not much of a walker/fitness freak but me an lorraine went for a walk ... a long walk ... in the himilayas ... we left on the 7th may and came back 22 days, 2 sore knees and nearly 380kms later ... ye wanna see the little calf muscles on me ... bowling balls i tell ya ... the first 3 days were absolute hell ... but after that you get into a rhythm ... after 9 or 10 days all you think about is walking and altitude ... it's a brilliant way to totally clear your head ... you have all day ... every day ... there are villages along the way that they recommend you stay in to become acclimatised ... the more time we spent not walking the funnier it got ... we stopped in a beautiful medieval village called manang and climbed up into the mountain to meet a lama ... a real life one with his very own sect of buddhism ... he's been in this cave with his wife for 46 years meditating and he gave us a blessing to get us over the pass ... this sounds like a bit of a solemn affair but after a few minutes we were all pissing ourselves laughing ... i love buddhists ... they've got it sussed ... lots of people finish in 14 days or so but to be honest you see fuck all ... by the time you finish each day (anywhere from 5-10 hours) you're fucked ... a quick gobble and off to bed ... every morning up as soon as it gets light (i still wake up at 5.30am) you're off ... the mountains are amazing in the morning ... all soft light and no cloud and as the days wers on the clouds come so no views ... the whole trek follows one river up a mountain and another one back down ... there were landslides, rockfalls, suspension bridges, the lot ... my fear of heights is totally cured i think ... the pass you cross over (incidentally the highest mountain pass in the WORLD!) is called "thorung la" which translates as you will be totaly fucked by the time you get to the top!!! ... it's 5400m (18,000ft) above sea level and is surrounded by beautiful snowcaps on all sides ... pretty amazing ... we really pushed ourselves the night before and got to the second high camp which is at 4800m ... it's really hard to sleep/concentrate/eat and it was a bit scary for a few hours ... the route up to it was fucking steep and very windy and the thought of getting sick and having to go back down during the night scared the shit out of me ... we kept waking up not knowing where we were and needing to pee, having to put loads of clothes on and go out into the mad starry night and pee in the dark while trying not to wake up and then realising you were never asleep in the first place ... i won't forget it for a while .. i was sure lorraine was going to be alright (she's superwoman at altitude) but was a bit worried about how i felt ... anyway she calmed me down and in the morning we were fine and at 9.00am we crossed over ... wahey!!!!! we were so fucked after coming down we stayed 3 nights in the village at the bottom and had a mad time ... some guy was 85 so the village threw a party for him and invited all the oldies from all the other villages ... they came the whole day, singing up the street, playing drums, all dressed up ... the morning before me and lorraine came across a yak in a field and i thought it was sick or pregnant or something so i went to check ... the guy told me they were gonna kill it and would i like to help ... before you can say yak sizzler i'm sitting on it's head, holding it's horns down into the dirt while this guy's twisting a knife in under it's shoulder ... you may have seen photos of them but you cant believe how big they are until you see them in real life ... not like some dopey grass muching cow ... they're godzillavores ... like something out of star wars ... anyway we got dragged into the party and wined (local concoction from a big blue bucket called chang) and dined (yak brain soup and veg and chillies from various other buckets all served and eaten by hand) ... a year later i still can't eat a curry by hand ... all the way the views were amazing ... my first thought was that they were fake ... they're so postcard perfect looking they just look cheesy ... but there ya go ... nepal is just beautiful ... incredibly friendly people ... kathmandu is my favourite city in the whole year ... all this plus a state of emergency ... army on the streets ... smiles on their faces ... maoists in the hills ... going to dehli in a few days to fly home before the impending nuclear holocaust ... a funny end to a very funny year ...

as gary glitter's guitar player once said "goodbye cruel circus, i'm off to join the world" ...

keep it country boys and girls ... stevo and lorraine

daddy! daddy! can i push grandad off the boat???

right! ... it's not very hot ... it's too hot ... every day 42, 43, 44C (that's over 110F for fucksake!) and getting hotter all the time ... you could fry a chicken in your lap - if ye had lap!!!! ... we planned to spend some more time but most days are spent in your room from 12 til 5 ... gets boring after a while ... lorraine's 30 (ha!) on the 5th may so the plans were to be in nepal on the annapourna (?) trail ... it' minimum 14 day trek - 5,900m high passing through the deepest valley in the world ... 8,000m mountains on both sides ... oooohhh!!! ... after that we were supposed to go south to goa to get in some beaches before we go home but the weather's all wrong ... so instead we're off to nepal ... we're in a place called varanasi and it's india in a nutshell ... fucking mad place on the banks of the ganges river ... if you die here you aparently go straight to heaven, do not pass go, do get reincarnated ... the city is all on one side of the river, it's very bad karma to live on the other side ... 2 million plus stacked on top of one another on one bank and a few vultures on the other trying not to blink ... everyone comes down to the river in the morning to swim, pray, get a shave and they burn bodies on the steps every day ... unfortunately, some people can't afford the right amount of wood so whatever's left gets chucked into the river ... you can see arms, torsos, legs floating about, kids having a swim and yes, there's my teeshirt getting washed ... right fucking beside it ... we went for a walk last night and got totally lost ... think of the narrowest windiest smellliest street you can imagine and then multiply it by 10 ... the buildings just rise up all around and you can't see anything resembling a landmark ... cows, mopeds, gurus, beeping, hawking, smoking ... we crossed at a roundabout, a busy one last night and above the madness and fumes of diesel generators (power failures are about 5 a day - this computer is hooked up to a car battery!!) you can hear the hundreds of cycle rickshaws twinkling their bells in a chorus that washes over you and for a second leaves you clean as a shell (as you can tell i'm hanging for a beach) ... this place is nuts but it's effort with reward ... our hostel has a balcony looking down onto the river ... last night i was sitting out as the sun was coming down and this crowd of about 20 people came running out of one of the many streets that leads down onto the ghats (steps) ... one of them was banging a small gong and they seemed to be celebrating something ... after a few seconds i could see garndad sitting on a wicker chair at the back of the group being carried onto the banks ... dead ... as a fucking doornail ... with my gob hanging open i watched the grieving family take turns squashing in the chair beside him, in football poses in front, taking snaps, all smiles ... the youngest guy rowed the boat out ainto the middle and then after a few moments they turfed him over the side ... and rowed back ... he just floated off face down ... the way the current was he was probably going to come ashore about a mile downriver ... they were less smiley coming back but upbeat for a funeral ... it's just incredibly different ... to get here we've just come halfway across the country from pushkar (amazing place) to jaipur to agra in 2 days and we're fried ... agra is the home of the taj mahal and probably the dodgiest kip in all of india ... in 98 two irish backpackers died here from a local scam involving restuarants poisoning customers and arranging doctors for them (for a cut) ... there is a long list of them and it makes finding something to eat a bit of a hassle ... but seen the taj and i have to say it's lovely ... couldn't have survived without the help of a guy in our hostel (hotel kamal) though, raji, who steered us right every time ... so there ya go ... we got up this morning to catch a bus to katmandu, nepal only to find it's not going ... i don't know if it's in the news but it's kicking off a bit up there at the moment and they've put the buses off the roads for the next 5 days ... lovely ... everywhere we've been there's been strikes, riots, kidnappings, the lot ... i think it's following us ... we're going to darjeeling (15 hours train) where the tea comes from!!! ... gonna chill out there and cool down ... it's at 2000m above sea level and a welcome escape from the heat ... they think this will be the hottest summer in india for 30 years ... typical eh? ... we're not exactly on an aircon budget ... i reckon i could apply for a job as a jockey when i get back!!! i've been in the sweatbox for a month now!!!!! ... so a drop in temperature is just what the doctor ordered ... poor lorraine's just been sick for the past 2 days so she's hanging for cooler climes ... darjeeling sounds great - i'll let ye know ... 8000m mountains all around and a view of everest!!! can't wait ... but first, the train! good luck and i'll talk to ye soon ... the stevo

greeting from the friendliest open air asylum on earth

india ... 1 billion people and they won't leave you alone ... every time you stop to think about what you are doing somebody comes up and asks if they can do it for you ... lorraine is like a walking wet dream for these guys and the level of staring is intense to say the least ... we arrived im mumbai (formerly bombay, sorry) and spent about 4 days there ... the second day was called holi ... a festival which basically means throwing coloured tikka powder over anyone you see ... man, they love getting the gringos ... we walked into this market and the stareometer went off the dial ... lorraine asked a guy with a cart full of coloured powder if she could take a photo ... delighted ... he stood there with his friend on one side and his son on the other and wham! ... as soon as she took the photo, he slammed his son's head into the big pile of pink ... the whole fucking street cracked up ... i had heard some horror stories about india before i came but the citiesare not as dirty as i imagined ... as soon as you hit the countryside however, you really see it ... you just don't know what's around the corner ... camels, shit, goats, dogs, tuktuks, shit, people asleep everywhere ... we headed north to a town called jodhpur (where the name for the stupid riding trousers originated) and it's bedlam ... a 10 minute tuk ride from the station through the centre of the village into the old town and you pretty much see india in one mouthful ... what makes it so exciting is that you see it at full speed, beeping, bleating, shouting, spitting, hammering ... it's infectious ... you get out pretty much what you put in ... when some one shouts hello you just shout back a little louder and they're surprised and then they just laugh ... they like the madness ... it's what makes everything worthwhile ... we've been avoiding doing touristy things and just concentrating on looking and they're so much to look at ... the old guys are hilarious looking ... huge, really colourful turbans and it seems that there's a giant moustache growing competition going on but i haven't seen the posters ... the women wear amazingly bright colorful head-to-toe saris, loads of silver and gold on their feet, their arms, their face ... there are some big half moon earrings in the nose complete with a chain around to the ear ... a lot of the time they cover their faces to protect them from the sun (it's hot here .. 40+ everyday) and you can see them like a walking gang of colour, faces hidden, eyes darting around the dust and dirt and and noise ... it's chaos with character, a huge hairball rolling down a hill, the most beautiful thing you've ever seen ... you just can't fight it ... you'd punch yourself out in twenty minutes ... we're north, in jaisalmer now, near the border with pakistan and we've just come back from a camel safari in the desert ... it was pretty good, a bit touristy but we expected that ... very, very hot ... the army is on some heavy training schedule and there are fighters taking off and landing all the time ... it's a funny thing when you're sitting on the back of a camel, stoned off your mallet, in the middle of nowhere and this jet fighter breaks the sound barrier over your head ... a funny few days ... washing your hands in sand ... sleeping out on the dunes ... waking up with a scorpion a foot away from your face ... just normal stuff ... and on the second night the strangest thing happened ... it rained ... it had been screaming heat all day and then for about twenty minutes it was like camping in ireland ... and another thing, i know why people use camels to ge around india ... they are the best cover for a dodgy stomach ... they fart 24-7and when they're not farting they're chewing ... non-stop ... i woke up at 3am (to see an amazing moonrise) and they were still at it ... so we're heading east tomorrow by train to jaipur and probably more madness, more colour and more poo ... i'm bringing a cushion though cause my arse is in bits after the camels ...

as they sing in the great thar desert (adopt indian accent and the tune of 'barbie girl') ...

"i'm a camel man
in the bloody sand
nothing drastic
it's fantastic!

come on camel, let's go desert!"

all the best, stevo and de lovely lorraino

off to india tomorrow night ... had enough of the cities so i can't wait ... anything from this point sounding a bit mad can be put down to the heat, right! ... wish us luck ... stevo and lorraino xx

i've come back to the dark side ... that yahoo ting was doing my head in ... too many insurance offers, dental plans and free porn ... do i look like the kind of guy who needs this stuff (anyone who knows me don't answer) ... anyway, my new email address is ... awaywithdefairies@hotmail.com ... repeat after me ...

"don't mind that lad, he's AWAYWITHDEFAIRIES"!!!!!!!!!!!!

sorry

right this is all arseways so apologies ... i've been forgetting stuff and putting it in later so here is the running order so far ... adopt eurovisionary style voice ... bali, lombok, singapore, sumatra, malaysia, thailand and now cambodia ...


todays lesson ... motorbike + flipflops = very sore toes

ok ... sumatra ... after the hellish bus journey to bukkittingi we headed north to lake toba and got some well deserved rest ... a week of it in fact ... the lake is a huge volcanic crater - 285kms around, and about 800m deep in parts ... the cone of the volcano collapsed under it's own weight and the bits sticking up made the island in the middle ... it's a very chilled out place and the locals like a smoke ... there's magic mushroom signs up everywhere and the carvings are seriously different to the mainland ... very trippy, 6 eyelids and stuff ... we were going to buy one and the guy started to explain to us the story behind it ... can;t remember exactly but it involved the spirits building a lake around your house so that evil cannot get near you ... in the middle of this tale he just cracked up and had to tell us he was too stoned and was just making it up ... funny bastard ... the days here became a little routine of getting up in the morning and walking 10 paces and jumpiong into the lake for a swim ... order breakfast outside your hut and head off into the village for the day ... at our usual leisurely pace, this normally led right into lunchtime and more food ... basically that was it ... a week of pure nothingness ... no buses, nothing ... we hired a motorbike halfway through and when he brought it i was trying to look like i knew what i was doing but after giving it th once over i had to come clean ... "so, how do you start this thing" obviously not the first time this had happened as he went on to explain the gears and brakes and no insurance on the island ... we left at about 11 in the morning and rumours of how long it took to go the whole way around the island varied from 5 hours to 9 ... apparently you are meant to head anticlockwise around the lake but we went the other way ... the first half of the day was cool ... paved roads, lovely rice fields, people waving and kids running alongside the bike wanting you to give them five ... super chilled ... wind in the hair (not too much ... it was only a 100cc!) ...had lunch in this restuarant that looked like a building site (could have been) and continued on ... the road got continually worse but it was manageable ... 4 in the afternoon now and we started to climb up into the mountains ... the views got better, looking down onto the lake with huge drops blanketed with lush, green terraces in every available spot ... at the highest point the road was awful but the views were stunning ... we stopped a few times but it was obvious that we were gonna end up coming down in the dark ... gaping down the side at the people 200 feet below, them waving back, it was hard to imagine how they got to work ... did they have to climb that giant green staircase every day? ... as we descended, lorraine still waving like jackie onassis on teh back, the road, in an instant, turned to shit ... no more bumpy, potholes ... just rocks ... big rocks ... it wa a nightmare and it went on for 3 and a half hours ... full brakes on ... skidding, balancing, having to get off every ten minutes to lift the bike off a particularly big rock it was perched on ... why the fuck did i wear flipflops ... damn these prescription sunglasses (had to keep it in second a rev the shite out of it so i could see where we were going) ... but we did it ... 9 hours and a scabby big toe later and we were back outside the hut sucking the neck off a beer ... and i'll never worry about riding a bike anywhere again ... our next door neighbours went the following day but had to come back after about 3 hours because the road we came back on was closed ... nice ... so there you go ... lake toba ... beautiful place, lovely people, shite roads ... stevo