Red Wine Express

This is our fourth Azamara cruise and I think I’ve finally worked out why the crew : clientele ratio is so high. Not many of the people on these cruises would be capable of climbing into a lifeboat (or out of a bath) unassisted if the Poseidon Adventure shit hits the tidal wave fan, so the more help the better. It is what it is. What can I say. Anyway, this ship won’t stray far from the coast although most of it would be rather inhospitable coast and I’m almost certain wading onto a remote beach isn’t one of the planned shore excursions.

Parodying our cruise-mates would be too easy and too cruel and the CB and I actually fall into a number of the categories I could highlight although I still reckon we are in the youngest 20 or so on the boat, not counting the staff. We’re not quite the Walking Dead but sailing on Saggy Elbows Cruises is definitely us. Paul Keating used to say don’t get between a premier and a bucket of money. He could have said don’t get between a pensioner and a free buffet with equal alacrity. When that great American stand-up Bill Burr said the best way to conserve the earth’s resources and reduce the planet’s population was to systematically take out cruise ships, I think I know which ones he was talking about.

We’re 40 or so miles from shore so it’s 360 degrees of horizon at present as we sail up the South African (or Namibian) coast. It’s also our first ocean cruise for a while so the wobbly boots are well and truly on and we find ourselves walking like shopping trolleys – facing the direction you want to go but veering off at a 30 degree angle. Better off sitting down and letting perfectly balanced waiters bring liquid refreshments at regular intervals.

It’s now day 3 and we are approaching Walvis Bay in Namibia. We have seen more dolphins in the last half hour than we ever saw at Seaworld and you don’t have to pay to see them  leap (is that what dolphins do?) out of the water apart from the cost of the cruise and airfares – cheap at twice the price.

The immigration people are getting on board right now and everyone who wants to get off (the boat) has to have a face-to-face meeting with an immigration officer. Very officious and official. Must be the German in them although at the end of the day it’s about dollars. I have never, apart from here, had to write on an immigration form how much money I expect to spend while I’m in their country. If you say none, does your visa application get rejected? I guess so. Not sure where we’ll spend it however because from here, where the Azamara Journey is tied up, it looks like Gilligan’s Island with a container terminal.

Two full days doesn’t do Cape Town and surrounds justice. But we gave it a go. The first day was mostly about geography. That got the walking and climbing out of the way as well as the almost vertical cable car trip up Table Mountain. The view from the bottom of the cable car was sensational and it just got better as we went up. Walking and climbing dispensed with, day two was all about wine. But first, a digression followed by day 1.

The first time we got in a lift in our hotel the power was cut. Their wind-mill must have stopped turning. The lift stopped abruptly and the lights went off. 20 or so seconds later the lights came on and we proceeded to our floor. It’s a bit of a shock but nothing like the shock of travelling up a mine shift at 30 mph. When the power cuts out here, momentum keeps the lift going up until gravity wins and it drops until the tension in the cables catapults the lift back up and so on, up and down in ever decreasing iterations until physics wins and you eventually stop. Unclenching then proceeds. When this happens, don’t be in the lower level of a two level lift with 90 people above you. Who says it doesn’t shower underground?

Back to geography. The Cape of Good Hope (nee Cape of Storms) is the point everyone knows about, well anyone who can read and occasionally exercises that skill. It’s the most south-west point on the African continent and there’s a sign to prove it. In other words it’s not the furthest south and it’s not the furthest west which doesn’t seem like anything to be particularly proud of. And Cape Point, a few kilometres from the Cape of Good Hope is not the place where the Atlantic Ocean officially meets the Indian Ocean. That’s a hundred or so kilometres away. But it is the place where the Atlantic Ocean current meets the Indian Ocean current. I know, I was confused too. But I was able to exhibit my encyclopaedic knowledge of primary school social studies when the guide quizzed us. Bartholomew Diaz, Vasco da Gama (explorer and bastard extrordinairre) and Emmanual the 1st anyone? And that last one isn’t the first movie in a soft porn series. Actually, maybe it is.

The wine areas are spectacular, even through the bottom of a glass and after four wineries, the eyes were getting somewhat glassy, like peeholes in the snow as my Mum used to say. But only if you swallow rather than spit. Unfortunately only one made port and it was the first so at the end we only had one bottle for balcony night-caps. The booze is free on these boats so no real damage.

We only had a handful of tour companions both days. In the short time we’re BFF’s only to never see each other again, some put themselves forward as worth writing about. Two American gay guys, one a genetics academic, the other a human rights lawyer with the ACLU were an interesting pair. I could have got into so much trouble just by asking a few questions so confined myself to asking the genetics guy how he reconciled X and Y chromosomes with numerous genders. He politely said it was a problem.

It’s been hard to reconcile the murder capital of Africa reputation Cape Town apparently has with what we saw and did. I guess we stuck to the well-worn tourist trails and CapeTown is a tourist magnet. To be sure we got off to a molestation-free start I booked a car from the airport to our hotel with an outfit that operates in many international airports. The driver warned us about checking child-locks in Ubers. That settled that. No Ubers.

We’re now underway on the cruise and what’s the first thing I read when we got to our “state room” (Azamara doesn’t have “cabins”)? Visa’s will be arranged at every stop provided you don’t have yellow fever and can prove it. FFS! After all of the aggravation I went through trying to do the right thing, the lazy pricks who did nothing expecting it would be done for them, were right. I better not give out this web address to any of our fellow cruisers while on board. We wouldn’t want them to think I’m putting them in that category. And I’ll be politely enquiring of Azamara why they ignored my two emails on the subject.

Most people who’ve flown with Singapore Airlines would agree it’s one of the better airlines if not the best. Their people know the difference between offering a service and being a servant (take note various western airlines, too many to mention), their planes are comfortable and clean, although like all airlines, if you travel up the back it helps if you’ve spent time as a battery hen. And the experience is only as good as the people around you. On the leg from Singapore to Cape Town the CB and I were in premium economy so there’s a bit more space and a bit more attention. But can someone tell me why, in the middle of the night, half way across the Indian Ocean, when half the people in our small three row cabin are trying to sleep (me included) and the other half are binge watching White Lotus (minus the naughty bits), the crew hands out bags of potato chips. It would have been quieter if they’d put bubble-wrap carpet down in the aisles.

It was a late start out of Singers because of the weather. I’m good with that. I’ve flown through typhoons and cyclones (same thing, just depends which part of the world you’re in) so if the captain thinks it’s worse than that, delay away.

Speaking of typhoons, it was grand final day in 1993 and I was on my way to Hong Kong. I got upgraded to first class so the trip was off to a flyer in more ways than one. I asked the cabin boss to ask the captain to keep us updated on the score which he duly did and the Broncos won, of course. I was sitting next to a St George supporter and by the time we got to Honkers I must have had two bottles of champagne in the bag so when we had to land (after a few attempts) in a typhoon, I was feeling no pain. Flying through, then over a cyclone in India between Vishakhapatnam and Madras in a rickety old Indian Airlines plane was an entirely different experience however.

Safety is also a rather significant item in the holiday’s strategic plan if travelling to South Africa. Our son helpfully advised us not to get car-jacked and our daughter also read about the country’s imminent collapse into chaos. I was somewhat heartened when waiting for our bags in the baggage hall. There were the usual lost luggage counters and foreign exchange rip-off booths. But there was also a booth I had never seen before, anywhere in an airport. It was simply called “Fire Arms”. I should have asked if they were checking those being brought in like Wyatt Earp did in Dodge City, or giving them back to the good burghers of SA who had inadvertently left them in their carry-on bags or selling them to nervous first-visitors.

I was reminded of the the airport’s Fire Arms shop or whatever it was, when driving round the more salubrious parts of town. Security signs are on private houses everywhere with some provided by professional security firms and others home-made but all are dazzlingly clear. Of all of the words written on these signs, as a would be miscreant you only needed to be cogniscent of two words which are ubiquitous vis-a-vis the signs and these are ” Armed Response”. Every other word is superfluous.

It’s now three days into the trip and we’ve been rather busy so the next entry will cover what we’ve been up to in fantastic (there’s a clue) Cape Town

I can’t remember where I heard this. Just a bit of trivia I hoovered up under society’s sofa I guess but it seems the pineapple we have on one of our suitcases has rather a salacious significance when used in a certain way. Apparently a pineapple shape outside your door means there’s shenanigans of a swinger variety occurring on the other side of said door. Our pineapple is so we can identify our bag on a carousel loaded with similar bags. Remind me not to leave this bag outside our door on the cruise because cruises are supposedly rampant with this behaviour. Who knew? It’s rather perplexing when I think the CB and I have been amongst the youngest passengers on our cruises. Most of our cruise-mates have struggled to stay upright let alone impress a stranger with their horizontal tango expertise.

This could  be the least of our problems however. I just read a news article that suggests South Africa is about to become a failed state. Not a good state of affairs if you’re landing there tomorrow, as we are. Now before we get too excited about this it has to be said I read this on news.com.au which is where Rupert sends his work experience kids to pretend they are journalists. It’s hard to take their dross with anything more than a grain of salt when usually 6 of the first 8 articles are about The Block or Married at First Sight. These worldly hard-bitten cynical journos think Josh giving Bree a good sorting-out when we were all hoping against hope that he’d play hide the sausage with Summer, is breaking news to them.

I’ve been a South Africa watcher for decades. They are a major producer, exporter and consumer of coal which is my thing (let the debate or abuse begin). Their state-owned power producer Eskom is about to precipitate a collapse of the electricity grid causing even more mayhem than usual. Fortunately I’ve also been watching The Last of Us so know how to survive in a dystopian shit-storm and as previously mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I can run faster than the CB if the shit-storm shit hits the fan (just joking, yuk yuk). It’s not unexpected though. Mandela stepping onto the mainland in 1990 was the high point and it’s been more or less downhill ever since. As long as we get up Table Mountain on Thursday without a power-cut stranding us half-way and get to sample what I am reliably informed are excellent wines on Friday, all will be well. We escape on Saturday.

When I worked full-time for a living and spent a large proportion of that time on the road (or in the air to be more accurate) we used to say that the countries you least wanted to go to were the ones that made it hardest for you to get there. For me that was Iran, Pakistan and at least the first few times, India. The child bride and I are about to embark on a cruise up the West African coast from Cape Town to Lisbon and obtaining visas for the various stops is proving somewhat problematic. But first let me recount a story in a similar vein.

Back in the day I spent an awful lot of time in India. It wasn’t always awful, in fact it rarely was except when a severe bout of the inevitable descended. Descended right through me in fact. But that’s a different and not really worth revisiting, story. So on this particular trip I was looking forward to coming home in a day or so when I got a call from my boss. I know he’s going to read this so I’ll keep the abuse to a minimum. If you are a regular reader of this blog you will have read the story about when he asked me, on a Sunday night, to go to India on Monday during the 1989 pilot’s strike and I didn’t have a visa. This was a bit different – he wanted me to go to Pakistan.

Not such a big deal you would think because it’s next door. It is though, when your passport’s almost full. Going back a step, I was pretty pally with the Austrade Senior Trade Commissioner who worked out of the Australian High Commission which is next door to the Pakistan High Commission as luck would have it. He gave me the name of the Pakistani senior visa guy so I walked next door, told the security guys who I needed to see and one of them escorted me to his office. That’s when I was told I needed a full blank page in my passport (which I didn’t have) for the visa stamp (no sharing it seemed) and the inside back cover, the bit stuck to the cardboard, wasn’t good enough.

Back to the Aus High Commission I went and an hour later after rushing off to find somewhere that did passport photos I had a brand new passport in my hot little hand. It was hot because the passport has hot – straight off the presses. So back next door I went.

On arriving back at the Pakistan HC it seemed all of the security guys had gone to lunch and not only had they left the gate unlocked, it was wide open. In India! So I walked in completely unmolested. I knew where the visa guy’s office was so I walked across the courtyard and into the building like the invisible man and knocked on the visa guy’s door. He didn’t seem too perturbed to see me and proceeded to get my visa stamped. Somewhat bemused I was thinking to myself that a James Bond gig would be pretty easy if all you had to do to break into a foreign embassy was wait until lunch-time. This was some time ago and there has been a bit of ugliness between the two countries since then so I am sure they have beefed up security by introducing staggered meal times.

That was that although as an epilogue to the process, when my Pakistan Airlines flight took off it felt like we had been fired out of an almost vertical cannon. I have only experienced similar prolonged steepness, like sitting in the space shuttle, when flying over the Andes from Santiago in Chile where the ground seems to be only a few hundred feet below you for about half an hour. The relationship being what it is between India and Pakistan I guess they wanted to get out of missile range as quickly as possible.

I can’t remember whether all of that aggravation was worth it. I never managed to sell a tonne of coal into Pakistan (with that company – I did later with another) so I guess ultimately, it wasn’t.

Back to our trip. We are visiting South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Gambia, the Canary Islands, Madeira and Portugal. As with most e-applications these days you are presented with drop down menus and limited choices. Interestingly most of these guys are not with the multiple gender program yet because you only get two choices in their genetically based application process. Not even three let alone the 74 listed on most university application forms! Guess they’ve got more pressing issues. The menu for port of entry for one country provided for three land based and two airports. Problem. Problem has not gone away and their embassy with responsibility for Australia which is not in Australia is, like Joe Biden, not taking questions. And I was getting as much sense out of one of the others as journalists get from Joe Biden’s press secretary (but she is the first black, immigrant, lesbian press secretary, so it’s alright). I actually completed this application before an administrator asked for our flight itinerary. After explaining three times that we would arrive by boat so we didn’t have flight itineraries, they eventually explained they only issued visas for entry by air. Now I’m politely explaining to them why they need to reimburse the visa fees I paid to complete the process (or so I thought). I could be the victim of a very elaborate scam here.

Anyway, we’ll see what happens. We spent three days in Russia off a cruise a while back and it was the only place in Europe that wanted us to buy (the operative word) a visa. We got off and on the boat numerous times without an immigration officer in sight. Maybe this trip will be the same. Stay posted to find out.

I bought tickets for Guns N’ Roses for myself, son, daughter and son-in-law on February 10^th 2021. We finally got to use them last night, November 22^nd 2022, after a covid inspired year-long delay. And I’m pleased to say there wasn’t a mask in sight. That doesn’t mean there weren’t any of course, because the concert was at the local football stadium so it was somewhat difficult to tell whether the amorphous mass on the other side of the field actually comprised people, let alone people with bandannas on their faces.

Congratulations Brisbane! The Gunners managed to get more people into the stadium than most of our sporting teams although, to be fair, you can’t actually take a chair out into the middle of the field during a game. I’ve had enough of sitting (or mostly standing) in front of the stage so we go for seats on the side, looking down on the stage from a 30-45 degree angle. The promoters don’t miss you when it comes to the cost of these seats and I paid top dollar to be able to see not much on the stage to be honest. But the big screens either side of the stage were BIG so my initial reluctance to go to a stadium concert (this was my first) and my disquiet when I saw how far away we were (despite, as I may have just mentioned, the price of the tickets) was assuaged when the gig got underway and the visual and sound and fury hit us full-on.

I just read a review of the concert and the reviewer made the point that there aren’t many stadium fillers in the music world these days including the Gunners – there were a lot of empty seats. If you’d asked my opinion on this when the music started I’d have agreed but a couple of songs in, when the lights scanned the arena it was clear that many people in the stadium bars were not throwing that last beer down for anyone. Twenty minutes in, the only areas not filled were those behind light towers and other impediments. So the reviewer obviously didn’t turn round after the first few songs. And I can tell you this for nothing, this little black duck won’t be attending concerts by those remaining few noted stadium fillers like Cold Play and Ed Sheeran.

Actually the people who finished their beers rather than catch the first couple of songs did themselves a favour because it took that long for Axl to get his mojo. Initially he looked and sounded like me doing “It’s So Easy” in a Ginza karaoke bar. By the time we got to “Welcome to the Jungle” he was sweating and snarling and looking mildly deranged and it was game-on. Speaking of how he looked, minus the bandanna, long hair and beard I couldn’t decide whether he was morphing into Kiefer Sutherland, impersonating Shane Warne or auditioning for Derek Jakobi’s “I Claudius” (you have to be able to remember back to 1976/77 for that one).

Axl’s always had a reputation for being somewhat unreliable. The sound curfew may have had something to do with them kicking off a 7.00pm scheduled start at a respectable 7.10pm but he also seemed to be making an extra effort to stay onside (that’s two football references in one sentence) by having Aussie badges sewn into the parts of his jeans that weren’t holes. And he must have spent the afternoon in a souvenir shop because he changed his t-shirt about eight times and each one had something antipodean on it except the one that said “Satan is a Lesbian”. Alright!

Much as the sound i.e. the actual music, is vital to the whole, if the singer isn’t on song, so to speak, the performance lacks something. The concert went for bang-on three hours and the time flew by, I have to admit. But it could have been shortened and improved (IMHO) by cutting a few songs that Axl struggled with. His once incredible range came out to play occasionally but sometimes he seemed uncertain as to whether to bang it up an octave to banshee or remain in the safe baritone range. Sometimes that decision was taken mid-sentence and occasionally mid-word. But let’s not quibble – to churn out that volume for that long is seriously impressive.

The musicians and musicianship were as you would expect. Duff’s base is still making my organs vibrate and did anyone ever tell him he looks like a dishevelled David Bowie. They have a Ronnie Wood lookalike guitarist (while we’re doing appearance comparisons) called Richard Fortus and there’s not much of him which is emphasised by his playing a huge Gretsch White Falcon guitar. And he can really play it. They let him off the leash a few times and his lead work was very good even if the weight of the guitar seemed to be dragging him closer and closer to the floor. But no matter how good he is, he or anyone for that matter, playing in a band that has Slash in it, will always be the rhythm guitarist. The songs are always the stars of these shows but Slash’s playing was not far behind. We got the full range from finger picking acoustic to rip-roaring, fire-breathing electric 12 string on a twin necked Gibson and everything in between.

There were three other musicians who were stuck up the back – the drummer and two keyboardists – who rarely figured on the big screen. One of them is a rather attractive young blonde lady who we saw about three times on the big screen and not at all on the stage because there was a light tower right in front of her from where we were sitting. My unmarried son was most disappointed.

And here’s the set list:

It’s So Easy
Mr. Brownstone
Chinese Democracy
Slither (Velvet Revolver cover)
Welcome to the Jungle (Link Wray’s ‘Rumble’ intro)
Reckless Life
Double Talkin’ Jive
Live and Let Die (Wings cover)
Shadow of Your Love
Estranged
Rocket Queen
You’re Crazy
You Could Be Mine
I Wanna Be Your Dog (The Stooges cover) (Duff on lead vocals)
Absurd
Hard Skool
Better
Civil War (Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine Gun” outro)
Sorry
(followed by band introductions)
Slash Guitar Solo
Sweet Child o’ Mine
November Rain
Wichita Lineman (Jimmy Webb cover)
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (Bob Dylan cover)
Nightrain
Encore:
Coma
Patience (The Beatles’ “Blackbird” intro)
Don’t Cry
Paradise City

I know, I know. Witchita Lineman?? I guess if they can have a Paul McCartney song they can have a Glen Campbell song.

We said goodbye to beautiful Pokhara yesterday and girded our loins for the 5 hour drive back to Kathmandu. 8 1/2 hours later we were able to pop back various dislocated joints as we returned to our original hotels.

To try to take my mind off any travel inconveniences (and I may have mentioned this previously) I never go anywhere without my music. It’s all in the head of course but do you think I could remember Bob Seeger’s song “Kathmandu”? It kept morphing into “Old Time Rock and Roll” and I could only take that for a limited time. So it was a case of hang on for dear life and be distracted by the scenery (which was rather easy) and the traffic. I still don’t know how the mini-bus’s side mirror survived that drive, or the others.

After reaching the hotel some serious repacking was required as we had purchased two Tibetan rugs which are small enough to roll up and fit diagonally across a suitcase, a healing bowl (or singing bowl – I didn’ know what they were either until we were subjected to the inevitable bout of economic tourism), numerous t-shirts, a shawl and two goat bells for a friend (because everyone needs a goat bell). That done, we headed down to the bar where the barman recognised us from a week ago and remembered our order – God I love this country. It’s not that we spent a lot of time in the bar (no…really) although after many hours of exploring each day it was a welcome respite, I will admit.

As the ten days we’ve been here have progressed, the weather has got progressively better. There was only one false start before the chopper flight to Annapurna Base Camp. On our first full day we’d missed out on the Mountain flight, as they call the flight to Everest and back because of the weather. Our delightful travel companions had missed out two days in a row so were particularly disappointed. Our last day, today has been the best we’ve had weather-wise so the flight was back on. So it was up at sparrow-fart, out to the domestic airport, do the flight (I’ll get back to this), back to the hotel for breakfast, finish packing then back to the airport to leave.

It was a hectic morning but gadzooks, was it worth it. The sky was clear apart from a few clouds which were keeping a respectful distance from the mountains which we flew past at 25000 feet. The plane was a 70 seater with 35 passengers – everyone gets a window seat. We flew east along what I can only describe as the Himalaya wall. It’s hard to believe that 80,000 Tibetans walked through those mountains  back in the late 1950’s and I don’t think there were too many North Face stores in Llasa back then.

I was on the left side (or should that be port-side) of the plane so got the killer view on the way to Everest. When we reached Everest, we turned left towards the mountains and commenced the return journey considerably closer to the view – you could wave to the Yeti. Those on the right side of the plane now, including the CB, had the (even better) panorama so naturally everyone on the left side moved to the right and we flew back to Kathmandu on a 30 degree angle.

This flight was a highlight to top all highlights – the world cup (pick any) trophy of tourism, the academy award (without the sanctimony and stupid dresses), the dope-free gold medal. If there was a Nobel Prize for the best view, this would win every year. I’ll be sanguine if I never get to fly to the moon because I’ve done this.

Himalaya Hijinx #8 – The End

It’s not often that thing’s happen for the first time in your life at my age but something just did and I have rather mixed feelings about it. The child bride and I got on the bus at Kathmandu’s international airport to go to our flight and a young Asian lady offered me her seat. Either l look older than I think I do or she was being respectful to people older than her in the delightful Asian way. I’ll go with the latter because I still consider myself to be a fully paid up member of the offerer rather than the offeree class.

So it’s another one of those bitter-sweet times when a kick-arse holiday finishes and the homeward journey begins. It’s one of those times you feel rather pleased with yourself for not going to Bali but doing something a bit different and loving it. The vindication for looking outside the box, and smugness only grows when I think of our next two trips – a cruise up the west coast of Africa from Cape Town to Lisbon then a trip round the Middle East which, if this trip’s anything to go by, will require a considerably more athletic level of fitness. Our occasional morning walks will need to be more frequent and incorporate a gym session, I’m thinking. Lugging extra avoirdupois up those 52 bloody flights of steps didn’t help either. I’ll have to have an arm amputated to reduce my mass.

So only two more early mornings (praise the Lord). We have an overnighter in Bangkok (and reaquaintence with the Touch Down bar) and a very early start in Sydney, such are the vagueries of airline schedules when you can’t afford or couldn’t be bothered constructing a more convenient flight sequence. So one thing we are looking forward to is our own bed and a lie-in if only to allow our legs to adjust to flat, sea-level.

IPhones record your steps and somehow or other your flights of stairs climbed. I have no idea how they do that but you can use these tools for comparison purposes if you’re into finess which I think I was once, some decades ago. So yesterday I walked 15277 steps and climbed 38 flights of stairs. I was stuffed royally. Today I walked 15680 steps and climbed 52 floors and my legs have called the jam off. My physio will be pleased to see my buns of steel which should go some way towards sorting out my bad back but my calves are liquid and my thighs are still quivering. No amount of alcohol will fix this situation in the short term it seems. But I’ll give it a red-hot go.

This situation has caused me to conclude that there are no downward slopes in Nepal. You may think you are looking at a downward slope but it isn’t. It’s an optical illusion. All roads, all pathways, all walking tracks, all stairways, all exclusively head upwards. And I have the legs to prove it. Now I know what Frodo and Sam felt like when they were climbing into Mordor.

The 52 floors up didn’t include a chopper fight up to Annapurna Base Camp at 11600 feet. It’s a breathtaking flight and a breathtaking destination. I guess that’s to be expected when you’re in the shadow of the roof of the world. We were surrounded by some of the highest peaks on the planet and I’m guessing no amount of first class photography will do it justice. We were supposed to land further down, at 11,000 feet at a small camp on the edge of a huge ridge but the weather was closing in so the pilot asked us if we wanted to go further and higher to ABC, as those in the know call it. A resounding “fuck yeah” or words to that effect settled that.

We subsequently found out we were charged 50% more than the pre-covid price for our chopper ride but from our perspective the opportunity was a no-brainer. From Prabhu Helicopter’s perspective, you can understand why they are trying to claw back lost revenue due to stupid lock downs which they went through here also. Our chopper pilot trained at the Sunshine Coast airport in Queensland. Maybe their health bureaucrats trained under Dan Andrews and his minions.

Pokhara is one of the prettiest places we’ve been to. It’s on a lake, surrounded by forested hills (mountains by Australian standards) with the real deal a few kilometres away. When the clouds cleared and we saw the Annapurna massif for the first time you could almost hear the celestial choir.

The population appears to be about 50% locals, 45% the beard and bun brigade with their Kathmandu gear (obviously), BO and walking sticks (and mostly German accents) and 5% us. And all demographics and ethnicities are catered for. The CB and I actually found a bar on the lake in a prime position called either the Kangaroo Bar or the Boomerang Bar, or just Australia. I don’t think they knew but they pretty much made the point they were trying to make so we went in. Now when I travel I try to sample the local brews. They didn’t have any so Carlsberg it was. The CB ordered a white wine (Bordeaux). It was the same colour as my beer and to continue the simile, smelled more like my beer than the wine it was supposed to be. If we had one complaint about this place it’s that they don’t do wine. They make their own but just try ordering a dry white and see how far you get.

Sorry to keep harping on about the roads because I’m apportioning no blame….but the conditions….and……and…..We thought the road between Kathmandu and Chitwan was bad. It was just an appetiser for the main course – the “road” between Chitwan and Pokhara. First of all there are more buses per square kilometre of this road than a Greyhound car park. And the potholes are big enough for a Yorkshire family (you need to be a Monty Python fan). Again, it’s rain, landslides, washouts and traffic, lots of traffic. But why, over about 75km where the road was non-existant for 100m out of every 500m, did I only see one maintenance machine operating…on a Monday. I have a theory so bear with me.

Something that is ubiquitous in all of the towns and villages we pass through is beautifully ornate and colourful houses with arches and pillars and pattern tiled walls with strawberry stripes and peppermint swirls. Obviously they were designed by the Willy Wonka of architects. They are big too and many have unfinished columns poking out of the flat roof, no doubt in preparation for construction of the next floor. The connection with the roads? I am convinced that these terrific houses are owned by those who also own the tyre franchises across the country.

And why aren’t the roads being repaired when there are dozens of idle machines parked up everywhere? Did the operators all call in sick? Did they drink too much of the home-made rice wine we sampled a couple of days ago? The one that tastes like watered down kerosene? Are the authorities proud of the roads the way they are because let’s face it, it takes diligent neglect to allow them to deteriorate to this extent. No, they are being paid to stay at home by the tyre franchisees.

Despite the conditions, somehow or other, our admirably skilled and requisitely aggressive driver Mukhand, got us here to Pokhara yesterday, thoroughly shaken up but in one slightly dishevelled piece. And as a bonus cultural experience the ladies got to experience the road-side squat conveniences. The trip wouldn’t have been legit if they hadn’t.

The CB and I are now sitting on our balcony watching the fluffies drifting around the nearby hills. We can’t see the snow-capped mountains and apart from a brief glimpse in Kathmandu a few days ago, we are yet to see what Nepal is most famous for. But maybe it’ll be today because we have booked a chopper flight to Annapurna base camp this morning and we just need those last few clouds to scud off.

You’ve got to feel sorry for the Nepalese in some respects. They live in a spectacular country but lots of mountains means lots of water flowing really fast. The consequences of this are felt mostly by the roads. Landslides and washouts make the roads seem like they’ve been built upside down. Imagine under the jagged rocks and potholes are progressively finer layers of gravel underlain by a smooth layer or bitumen. I’ve only encountered rougher driving terrain underground and in the bush back-blocks of North Queensland and neither of those were designated national highways like the road between Kathmandu and Chitwan. In fact neither of those examples were designated as roads. Notwithstanding the conditions, the driving is like a demolition derby going in both directions round the track but miraculously, in five hours of driving we didn’t see one accident.

The number of buses was inversely proportional to the state of the road and scooters carrying whole families were everywhere. It must be quite daunting to be riding down a steep hill on a wet potholed road with the wife and two kids hanging on for dear life to you and each other and be confronted by two buses next to each other coming straight at you. To make matters worse, there are grand canyon like escarpments feet away on both sides – one going straight up and one going straight down. But the rider’s thinking it’s nothing I haven’t handled before and at least I’m wearing the family helmet.

An entirely smoother mode of transport was experienced later in the afternoon on the East Rapti River as the CB and I and our two travel companions, a guide and two oarsmen crossed to the National Park on the other side for a bit of a safari. The guide helpfully pointed out a crocodile sliding into the river just before he and the oarsmen and the safari Jeep driver who was waiting 50 metres away, on the bank, had to jump into the water to push our grounded boat the remaining way to the shore. Local knowledge I guess.

Rhinos, monkeys,  crocodiles and deer were the extent of our safari viewing if you don’t count the army. I think their reason for being there was more to do with poaching and less to do with the proximity of the Indian border. The tigers and elephants remained in hiding although we did see their recent footprints.

Occasionally on our travels the CB and I have encountered hidden gems where you least expect them. One was the Sultana Royal Golf Hotel outside Ouarzazate in Morocco. Incidentally, I am yet to locate the golf course. However it is home away from home for celebrities filming at the movie studios nearby (think Game of Thrones and Gladiator). When we were there, there were only two other guests. The Barahi Jungle Lodge is another of these, here adjacent to the Chitwan National Park in southern Nepal. It’s the feel, the vibe, the je ne sait quoi (that’s French, for the uninitiated). I felt like Richard the Lionhart returning from the crusades, such was our welcome and treatment thereafter. Another keeper.