Round the World

For most of the last year, I have felt as though I have been writing a story. That my travels formed some kind of narrative and that today I would pen its final words.

Keeping this blog has made me so much more aware of my daily experiences. It's forced me to crystallise and articulate the thoughts and ideas that have occurred to me along the way. And all along, I've been wondering how the story would end - writing bits of it in my head, clutching at the themes and ideas that I've towed around with me and wondering how I could tie their loose ends together. I've amassed quotes from the things I've been reading, held onto them until the end.

The shape of the story was pretty obvious really - a round the world trip is only ever going to be circular. Back from whence I came, richer for all the experiences and back into the arms of the friends and family I left behind.

Round the world! There is much in that sound to inspire proud feelings; but whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct? Only through numberless perils to the very point whence we started, where those that we left behind secure, were all the time before us.

Moby Dick

It's a curious thought. That actually leaving and travelling is an act of regression - you just put yourself a year behind and then try and catch up. Which makes the culmination of the experience its object. Everything that happens serves only really to advance you to the end (which was also the beginning):

We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

T. S. Eliot

And then, back home, as the days and weeks advance, the journey, the adventure, would slip quietly beneath the waves of time; the memories and experiences would fade, the only question being which of them would stand the longest.

But no. Having assumed that I would have spent all of the last week feeling as though I were sliding into an abyss, I have actually felt pretty happy and excited about it all. And most of that joy comes from the realisation that this is not the end. Not any kind of end. Just another cusp, another line between two things. And I can quote myself on that one:

An understandable duality shrouds you when you stand on the brink of something. A border or cusp, real or figurative; leaving one thing behind, entering another. Reflection, anticipation. It might actually be the greatest thing about travelling, moving form one place to another, body and mind constantly charged and energised by these changes. And not just travelling but life, too, come to think of it.

It's not just this. A clock has been running alongside me for the whole trip. I knew roughly when I would make the big changes and swap continents. I rarely wanted to leave anyone or anywhere, but each time I had to, or chose to, I kind of knew that it was time. And that's exactly what it feels like now. Time.

And so I'm sat in the lounge at Sydney airport preparing (not that you ever can) for the monster 24 hour flight that awaits me, and soon I will be home. But I won't be leaving this year behind in my wake, forever glancing over my shoulder as it is slowly consumed by time. Quite the opposite in fact - the things I have seen and done, the places I have walked, the people I have met and loved, their faces, the landscapes; the dirt and sand I've trodden through, oceans I've swam in, mountains I've climbed; every single breath I've taken has filled my lungs with something new and special and lifted me way higher than I ever thought it possible to go, and I will carry them with me for the rest of my days.

Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

Leonardo Da Vinci

The world we inhabit is a place that is incredible way beyond our comprehension. I implore you to get out there and explore it. I know it's not going anywhere, but we are. We are dying, from the minute we arrive on the planet, we are sliding towards our inevitable end. Get out there now. Feel the earth between your toes. Scratch beneath the surface of all the things that surround us and they'll reward you every single day of your life.

If you're lucky, like me, you could get close enough to the Heart of this world that you might just feel it beat.

Blue Mountains

It's funny how our perceptions of the world ebb and flow with our surroundings. Things start out pretty simple in the womb. Through childhood your world is small - house, school, grandparents' house. As we grow up, the world we physically inhabit expands, as does our perception of it; country, continent, planet. Universe. The number of people we know or remember increases as we encounter them.

At some point it stops expanding and, as we get older still, it begins to contract. We start forgetting things as our memories fail us; people, places. The spaces we actually inhabit become our world again; second childishness. And when that last act is over, we're stuffed into a tightly fitting receptacle once more. Back, in a sense, from whence we came.

A similar thing happens with people from different places. Their perceptions of time, space, distance, culture and others are shaped by their environment. It's why people from little country towns are more likely to be rednecks. And it's why if you're English, you consider a journey of anything more than two hours to be an enormous expedition only to be undertaken in the most pressing and unavoidable of circumstances.

Big countries, like Australia and the States make you immune to lengthy overland travel. Small ones, like England make you lazy and complacent. My tolerance has slowly increased over the last year; cover enough long distances and they begin to diminish; every step you take seems to foreshorten the next. And you learn through experience that most of the things you travel to see are emphatically worthwhile, encouraging you to make the effort more often.

With time more precious and finite than ever, I can't resist "popping" out to the Blue Mountains for a night from Sydney. It's only two and a half hours on the train, and will be my last chance to get lost in a little nature before the long haul home. I was thinking how I never "popped" to the Yorkshire Dales or the Cotswolds from London, and wondering why. Then I paid $7.80 for my ticket and climbed aboard one of Sydney's awesome double decker trains.

Katoomba is the main hub town in the Blue Mountains, and it gets you very close to the Three Sisters, the park's most iconic sight. With the mercury hovering around 40ºC, it's probably a bit hot for walking, but I stride out anyway. A long walk along the cliff, down 900 steps into the valley behind the sisters, round to Katoomba Falls and back up the (slightly sinister sounding) Furber Steps, and I am well and truly knackered. I was out for about three hours, and it took another three to prise the sodden shirt off my back.

The Three Sisters

Blue Mountains National Park

In the morning, and similar heat, I spurned the chance to lie around in bed and walked off towards Leura Cascades. There were hardly any other people about, so I found myself sharing the trail with the locals instead, and many of them were strangely calm and unfazed by my presence.

A friendly lizard

At the falls, I had a choice of heading back along the cliff walk or dropping down into the valley and through Fern Bower before, inevitably, having to climb back out again. There were plenty of moments on the endless descent, perspiration flooding my eyes, when I regretted my choice, but reaching the bottom and standing underneath Bridal Veil Falls wasn't one of them.

Bridal Veil Falls

I boarded the train back to Sydney smelly, aching and knackered. But smiling contentedly, full of the simple joy that I get from being immersed in nature, and earning it through sweaty toil. I stared out of the window for a while before apparently dozing off, the perimeter of my tiny universe, which thankfully still seems to be expanding, nudged a little further forth.

I drove all night

Driving on your own can be bloody boring at times, and not even the scenery is enough to keep you awake. You need music, conversation. With no CDs or Aux port, I am at the mercy of Kiwi radio stations. When there's a signal they actually play decent tracks, but the problem is the talking. Lots of talking.

It took me a while to tune into the accent. Clessic Huts on Radio Inzid. And then you have to guess what they're selling in the endlessly shit commercials that clog the airwaves. Massive bid sale, they say. Bids for what? Something for the kuds presumably. Unless they're too busy eating fush 'n' chups or you can't drag them away from the ixbox in the bidroom.

One easy distraction is to pick up hitchhikers, and there are plenty of them to choose from. I seem to stop mainly for Germans, though I managed to bag a rare Chilean on one trip, and yesterday a Kiwi who had clearly been on the piss all day and spoke with an indecipherable accent anyway. I reckon I'm the kind of guy you want to pick you up when you're hitching - the Chilean and his German mate got dropped at their hostel in Kaikoura and I even picked them up again the next morning to take them on to Blenheim.

Covering the whole of New Zealand in three weeks entails a lot of driving. 3,045 miles of it in my case, and still nothing like enough to get me even close to everywhere I would have liked to have gone. Northland and the Bay of Islands? Nope. Milford Sound? Nope (though I did fly over it, hardly the same as sailing up the middle). Christchurch? Dunedin? Tour a few wineries? Whale watching? Swimming with dolphins? No, no, no, no, no.

Yesterday I woke up in Wanganui in the west coast of the North Island and drove across to Hugh and Indri's place in Waihi Beach. For the six hours it took me to cover just under 300 miles, it rained incessantly. I'm sure I passed through wonderful countryside (the roads were winding enough to suggest I had) but I just couldn't see it.

With the radio in a silent spell, and no hitchhikers in the mist, I got thinking again. Thinking about all the things that we come so close to but never see. Driving in these conditions is like walking by torchlight - you see where the beam shines, but nowhere else. It's not just the obvious things we miss, but people and places elude us by the tiniest margins, floating within our grasp but obscured on the edge of darkness. We don't even know they are there.

It probably doesn't bear dwelling on too much. We tread such a narrow path through life, that the multitude of alternatives will always be consigned to oblivion. Better make sure it's the right one then. Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.

Auckland: the view from the top

Everyone slags off Auckland. Get out as quick as you can, they say. Shithole. Dump. Worst place in New Zealand. I'm not in a position to judge that last bit just yet, but I really can't see what the place could have done to deserve this kind of vilification.

It's a city, so I'll apply the cake metaphor. It's probably a cupcake. Nice sponge, not a lot in it, no unexpected bursts of flavour, though neatly iced and fairly tasty. Won't make anyone's top ten cakes in the universe, but if you had to eat it every day, it wouldn't kill you.

It's not Auckland's fault but it feels like a sort of no-man's land to me. I've left Australia, but haven't begun the chronically under-planned Kiwi road trip that will fill up my final weeks. There's not a massive amount to distract the passing nomad, so I ride up the Sky Tower to take a look over the city.

The next day I received an email from my big sister. We'd been talking about travelling, the possibility of me continuing to do so, and the absence of structure and routine in my life. She remarked that from her experience of reading travel literature;

People were always climbing hills, searching for vantage points, as if somehow there would be a place from which to see life with greater clarity, as if perspective were the key

Happy New Year

Right, I'm back. Well, sort of. I was always going to go quiet when I hit Australia. If I've only learnt one thing, it's that I can't write when I stay in the same place and am surrounded by friends. Solitude and flux are prerequisites for my scribbling.

New Year's Eve lends itself to decision making. I've written before about standing on the cusp of things; borders, countries, continents. Decisions. Journeys. When the anticipation of something new mingles with reminiscence over things past, the mind can achieve moments of remarkable clarity.

Here's what I wrote a year or so ago in my first post on this blog:

I don't generally like New Year's Eves, but they do afford one the obvious opportunity, obligation perhaps, to reflect upon the previous twelve months. They also sharpen your focus upon the last one, and force you to join the dots. A year ago I had that moment standing on a balcony of a beautiful holiday home in Fairhaven, down the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia. I gave myself a year to sort things out.

This year, feeling bloated and suffering from a massive sugar crash, I strolled outside for a breath of fresh air. Leaning on the gate and staring out into a beautiful, cold night's sky, I decided I was probably only halfway to being where I want to be. If it took me a year to get halfway, I'd better have one more to take care of the rest. So that's what I did. I deferred the great decision for twelve months, and resolved to hit the road.

This time round it was different. It's been a long year, and I've managed to fit a lot in. How much of it will stand the test of time? What have I really learnt or discovered? How many pillars will remain standing when the tides of time have washed all the other memories away?

The first thing I realised was that there is no halfway. There will never be a New Year's Eve when you can sit and tell yourself that you are there; nothing left to achieve. So it's not a question of apportioning time, or the years, to some great quest or journey of discovery. That journey is your life, and you'll know when you're finished, because you'll be dead. Between now and then, it's simply a question of how you're going to get there.

So I didn't make any grand decisions this time, rather succumbed willingly to the reality that this is life. But at the same time I gave thanks for all the incredible things I have seen and experienced this year. I thought about what I had learned, about the world, about how old, beautiful and incredible it really is, and how I would carry that knowledge with me into the next year, and use it to guide me. And I guess, if I'm honest, that made me think that I would probably not stop travelling just yet.

But being on the other side of the world from your home is tough. I'm lucky enough to be made welcome into other people's homes and families in Australia. But the warmth and love that they extend reminds me of what sits waiting when I get home, and what doesn't too. So maybe next time it won't be a whole year.

A ball started rolling in 2010, and I don't think I'll ever want, or be able, to stop it.

Joe Cocozza is on holiday

No doubt this will sound ridiculous, and is borderline inflammatory to those of you as deep in snow as you are in work, but I need a holiday.

Galavanting around the world is exhausting. Physically, because you sleep in different places, are constantly moving, and busying yourself, because with so few days in each place you feel obliged to squeeze every last drop out of them. Mentally, because you are always thinking and planning - where to go next, how to get there, where to sleep, what to do. And emotionally, because you are miles away from home, alone, fatigued by those other considerations, and wondering how and why you can transcribe what happens every day into some form of meaningful narrative. And that's before you even begin to think about the future; about what happens when a certain plane lands at Heathrow airport one chilly Saturday morning in February.

It's okay, I'm not after sympathy, and I certainly wouldn't deserve or expect it. Not because I am extremely privileged to be in a position to enjoy these experiences at such negligible cost, but because I am in fact already on holiday. I flew up to Brisbane on Thursday, and spent my birthday with two extremely dear friends, Colin and Margot, and their seven month old daughter, Frankie, who is ridiculously beautiful, smiley and friendly.

On Friday we drove up to Sunshine Beach, Noosa, and for the last few days we've been eating great food and swimming in the sea, joined by more friends, for more good times. It rained all day today, but that didn't stop us - Colin, Lofty and I swimming in the sea anyway, the only ones out there, then standing in the street as it lashed down, playing spoof in our swimmers to work out who would go and get the key for the hot tub.

Right now I'm sat on the balcony sipping a nicely mixed Tanqueray and tonic, listening to the roar of the Pacific Ocean barely metres away. I've been circumnavigating it one way or another for most of the last ten months, never really that far away, and to hear those big waves rolling in when I wake takes me back to all those days and nights I hugged its shores. Holidays are great, but travelling will always be greater.

Hong Kong Revisited

There have been plenty of times in the past year when I've outrun the blog. When the time, will or ability to write were lacking. Take this week for example - last Friday morning I left Phnom Penh and arrived, via Bangkok, back in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong doesn't really count as travelling any more. I've been there more times than any other place outside England, and reintroduced myself on this occasion in the same fashion as all the previous ones; hitting the ground running and getting phenomenally shitfaced. I somehow managed to string a 4am and a 5am finish together, in defiance of my advancing years, and at 11am on Sunday morning was reluctantly boarding a junk from Central pier as my body fought the onset of a brutal hangover. Half an hour later I had turned pale green as the waves shook my insides. Only by finally jumping into an icy sea did I trick myself into a brief recovery, soon side swiped by a premature Tsing Tao and the inevitable remorse.

In between all of this nonsense, I managed to eat a few fantastic meals, catch up with some old friends, meet some new ones and have a generally great time. I've always wrestled with my feelings for Hong Kong, or rather they've wrestled with each other. I love it, hate it, fear it and am in awe of it. Last time I was here, I realised I loved it. I loved it but could never live in it. This time, I'm thinking maybe I'd fancy that challenge one day.

By Tuesday morning I'd shaken off the various hangovers and headed back to the world's greatest cookery teacher, Martha Sherpa, for another day of Chinese food. By the time we'd knocked up spare ribs, poached chicken, beef chow mein, fish in chilli garlic sauce and stir fry pork chop, it was time for me to board the Airport Express once more.

I was hot and tired from the kitchen, but a shower and champagne with a beer chaser straightened me out just in time for the Final Call. For the fourth time since I left last February, and the last before I board the plane home the one coming, a change of continent; at the end of nine long hours, Australia awaits.

Moving on

I left Laos last Thursday, in perfect Laotian style, on a propellor plane that took off half an hour early when it became apparent that all passengers were present and correct. I could easily have stayed a lot longer; no doubt now that it is my favourite country in this part of, if not all, the world.

When I look back on the last month, I might find it hard to fish out memories of the two weeks I spent in Vietnam. Instead I will think of the country I first glimpsed from the bank of the Mekong in Chiang Khong, Thailand, wondering if it could really be so different. It began then, with a moonrise, and ended with a sunset. In between just seemed like one long, glorious day.

Since then, I have been in Siem Reap, Cambodia. There's only one reason it's on the map; Angkor Wat. Over two million punters pour through this little town every year, and it struggles to retain its spirit in the face of the onslaught. Time is short now, and sadly I will only see here and Phnom Penh in Cambodia, which is a bit like not really seeing Cambodia at all.

I've been feeling a little disjointed these past few days. It could be Laos withdrawal, it could be the intense tourist overload, the heat, temple fatigue. Or it could be that another part of the trip is drawing to a close, another continent looming. Or more than that, it could be the fact that in the distance, so small I can hardly see it, but big enough for me to know it's there, I think I can make out a tiny speck of tunnel at the end of the light.

Small World

Well that didn't take long. I rocked up at Savannakhet bus station just before 8am to discover the 8am is actually at 9am. Oh well, je ne regrette rien. I ended up sat next to an incredibly beautiful Laotian girl for my troubles, one of a group of trainee midwives heading to Pakse for some exams. Their teacher was sitting in front of me and immediately set about trying to marry us off to one another, which made for an entertaining five and a half hour journey.

As if that wasn't enough, every time we stopped (and we stopped many times) we were boarded by marauding women and children waving bottles of water, barbecued chicken, boiled eggs, bags of sticky rice and beef jerky. Hilarious scenes ensued as they clambered over the plastic stools in the aisle whenever we took off with them still on board. The toilet stops were no less amusing, men and women filing neatly into the bushes to splash their boots.

After wandering around Pakse, busier than other towns along the way but with Laotian charm surviving intact, I took myself down to the confluence of the Mekong and the Se Don to watch the sunset. Another English guy turned up a few minutes later, and we drank our Beerlaos together. It took about ten seconds to establish that we had been to the same Sixth Form, at the same time, and though we didn't exactly know each other, we shared plenty of friends in common and had both been at one of them's wedding last year. It had to happen sooner or later in a world this big.

Language barrier

Hmmm, let's see now: shall I get the express bus at 8.30 in the morning, or the local bus at 10.30? Shortly after 7.30 I was regretting my decision, as I was rudely awoken by everyone less lazy than me clattering down the stairs with their suitcases and shouting unnecessarily at one another.

The boot was on the other foot at 10.15 though when, replenished by the extra sleep after their hostile interruption, I arrived at Tha Khaek bus station to find them all slumped miserably on uncomfortable wooden benches where they had spent the last two hours or so since the express bus had been cancelled. I try not to be smug for too long, since doing so has a habit of returning to kick me in the ass, but I'll indulge myself on this one: Ha-ha. Suckers.

I've just finished reading a brilliant book called Iron and Silk by an American named Mark Salzman. It's a wonderful collection of observations and recollections from his time in China in the early 80s, none of which would have been possible had he not actually spoken the language. Swapping seats during the ride to Savannakhet when I lost the feeling in both my legs, I found myself next to a Laotian guy who spoke a bit of English and was keen to chat. "I teach you Lao", he unwittingly offered, as I reluctantly unplucked the headphones.

Within a couple of hours he had managed to teach me how to say "Good Luck" and "Help!" in addition to "Hello" and "Thank you very much" which I already proudly boasted among my armoury. But I now have some interesting phonetic pronunciation notes scrawled across the back of my Lonely Planet, and a printed e-ticket decorated with various scribblings, including an enormous "I love you" in Lao that could make check-in interesting.

As soon as I got to my guest house in Savannakhet I took a stroll around town, and within five minutes I'd been accosted by a guy from the local Eco-Tourism unit. He was trying to respond to a series of lengthy questions from a Dutch company that is providing funding for them, and was struggling with the English. An hour or so later, and I can't help thinking that the recipient of his lyrical reply might not wonder if he'd had a bit of passing help, but somehow it seemed the right thing to do.

All of which led me to reflect that speaking a native language does far more than make life easier for you. It creates the opportunity to engage with locals and gain their trust, respect and understanding. It gives you the confidence to approach people and make allowances for the offence you dread causing them. It makes every second of the time you invest there rewarding and enriching.

I think back to conversations with taxi drivers and strangers in South America, where my fledgling Spanish was pathetic, but still enough, and dearly wish I could speak Lao.

Providence

I've done some pretty stupid things over the last few months. Things like asking for Loperamide instead of Loratadine in the pharmacy, and constipating myself for three days instead of mitigating an allergic reaction to some particularly fierce mosquito bites. Or turning up to board a flight to Vietnam and discovering you actually need a visa before they let you in.

'Plan' might be stretching it a bit, so let's say my 'intention', having arrived in Hanoi two weeks ago, was to spend a month travelling south to Saigon before crossing over into Cambodia. The visa I hurriedly mustered in Luang Prabang gave me 14 days instead of 30, scuppering any hopes of reaching Saigon.

One thing you get better at on the road is reading the signals; understanding your own instincts and how you react to things. Knowing where to eat, drink, sleep. When to keep driving, when to stop. How, when you make mistakes, wrong turns, to accept and incorporate them, and see where they lead. When you don't really know where you're going anyway, you've got nothing to lose.

I could have got a visa extension for Vietnam. I'd have had to stick around in Hanoi for an extra four days, right when I was loving it least. As the days tick by and the unmentionable looms ever larger, time is a more precious resource than ever. My own stupidity might have ripped up the plan and chucked it out the window, but you roll with your own punches. So I decided that there was more than a smattering of Providence in all this and booked a flight to Vientiane instead. Vientiane, the capital of Laos, the country that two weeks ago, I'd wished I didn't have to leave.

Flying back to Laos from Hanoi, we hovered in our little propeller plane above a sea of meringue towards the setting sun, orange and pink in the distance. It was almost dark when we stooped down to land. I got my visa on arrival from some cheerful immigration staff, and from the moment I stepped off the plane, right up until the seconds in which I type these words, the smile has barely left my face.

I just need to find a pharmacy, that's all.

This renewed a contemplation, which had often come to my thoughts in former time....how, when we were in a quandary (as we call it), a doubt or hesitation whether to go this way or that way, a secret hint shall direct us this way, when we intend to go another way - nay, when sense, our own inclination, and perhaps business, has called to go the other way, yet a strange impression upon the mind, from we know not what springs, and by we know not what power, shall overrule us to go this way; and it shall afterwards appear, that had we gone that way which we would have gone, and even to our imagination ought to have gone, we should have been ruined and lost. Upon these, and many like reflections, I afterwards made it a certain rule with me, that whenever I found those secret hints, or pressings of my mind, to doing or not doing anything that presented, or to going this way or that way, I never failed to obey the secret dictate; though I knew no other reason for it, than that such a pressure or such a hint hung upon my mind.

- Robinson Crusoe

Hanoi: a tale of two cities

I won't lie. I didn't lie. It must have been obvious. I don't like Hanoi. I'll live - dust myself on, keep going. It doesn't matter.

Except it does matter. And for one reason; someone I've only met a few times, a subversive hard-smoking chain-drinking German philosopher poet journo, who I instinctively like and respect, told me it's his favourite city in the world. And that's been bothering me, because I must have missed something. So I came back.

Every city has a skin. Some are easier to puncture than others, but you can't understand the place until you're through. You need to be in the right frame of mind, and have the right approach. If you're in London and New York and you don't talk to anyone, you won't get through. If you're in Hanoi and you don't look beyond the mopeds, you won't either.

The first thing I do in a new city is go for a walk. I'll walk for hours, trying to get my bearings; not just the geography, but the soul of a place too. I walked for two days in Hanoi trying to get a grip, but to no avail. On Saturday night I pulled up a small plastic chair outside a Bia Hoi joint, and realised where I'd been going wrong. I'd never thought to stand still.

There are two cities in Hanoi; the one that's moving and the one that's not. The former washes in and around the latter. It is manic but magical. When you are moving with it, you're just another molecule being flushed through the pipes. You don't really see the other city; it passes by in a blur. So I sat and drank my beer and watched in wonder and realised what a great place Hanoi really is. How unlikely yet perfect is its harmony; the order resurrected daily from the chaos, unchoreographed, unfeasible and so irrefutably human in all its joyous complexity. Mopeds and all.

I'm glad I came back. Thanks Frank.

The Long Hue Round

GCSE MATHEMATICS

30 minutes

Answer ALL questions

Write your answers in the spaces provided

Do NOT use a calculator




PART I

1. Hue is 540 kilometres from Hanoi, but by rail the distance is 688 kilometres.

a) How much further is it by rail than as the crow flies?

 ............................................................

b) How long do you think it should take by train?

 ............................................................

2. A train leaves Hanoi at 23:00 and is due to arrive in Hue at 10:44 the next morning.

a) What is the total scheduled journey time?

 ............................................................

b) What is the scheduled average speed of the train, not allowing for any stops?

 ............................................................

3. The train arrives at Hue Station at 13:28 the following afternoon.

a) What was the total actual journey time?

 ............................................................

b) How much longer than the scheduled journey time is this?

 ............................................................

c) What is the additional time expressed as a fraction of the scheduled journey time?

 ............................................................

d) What is the actual average speed for this journey, not allowing for stops?

 ............................................................

PART II

1. The train has 8 sleeper cars, each with 6 cabins. 7 of these are 4-berth, 1 is 6.

a) What is the capacity of the train?

 ............................................................

b) Express the number of bottom berths as a fraction of the total berths.

 ............................................................

2. 60% of the passengers are Vietnamese and 40% are foreigners. An Englishman buys a single ticket for himself, travelling alone. Express as a percentage the probability of the following:

a) He gets shafted with a top bunk

 ............................................................

b) He is the only foreigner in his cabin

 ............................................................

c) A family of 4 Vietnamese people are sharing the other 3 berths

 ............................................................

d) The dad snores

 ............................................................

3. Each bed measures 180cm x 40cm. The Englishman is 185cm tall and weighs 90kg.

a) What is the area of the bed?

 ............................................................

b) How much sleep do you think he got?

 ............................................................

c) Are you sure? What time do you think the Vietnamese people woke up at?

 ............................................................

PART III

1. Next time the Englishman travels in Vietnam, which of the following modes of transport might he employ?

a) Train

b) Unicycle

c) Crawl on hands and knees through broken glass

d) Aeroplane

End of Test

Apocalypse Then

The Mekong River, the aorta of Indochina, meanders through the Laotian jungle like a long brown snake.

It takes two days by boat from Huoy Xai to Luang Prabang. You can go by speedboat in seven hours, but this is only really a viable option if you regard your life and luggage as frivolous luxuries worth squandering for the sake of a few hours and some rigorous spine compression. The only remaining question is whether to take the public slowboat, with its wooden benches and couple of hundred Thais and Laotians drinking, gambling and squabbling over the solitary lavatory, or a private one, bedecked with old bus seats, picnic chairs and a table for lunching and playing leisurely games of backgammon as the lush green scenery rolls effortlessly by. The drinking and gambling might entertain me for an hour or so, but two days? Relative comfort triumphs in a swift, bloodless tussle.

I imagined the Slow Boat's slowness would make the greatest impression upon me, but it was quickly usurped by the extraordinarily sense of complete remoteness. The great river runs through barbaric wilderness, tamed in just a few choice spots by a cluster of houses where hill tribes meet the water, and with it the fragments of civilisation that traverse its length. We stop at a couple of them (next post) and spend the night in Pak Beng, a halfway house of a place if ever there were one.

All that time on the boat affords you plenty of opportunities to reflect. And despite my best efforts, though probably understandably, I can't stop thinking about Apocalypse Now. Of the prospect of being subjected to a brutal attack by stick firing tribesmen or the face of a dead black guy being silently consumed by the murky water. But moreover, by the notion that I am actually playing out that drama in reverse. Not for me an irresistible journey into the magnetic Darkness of the soul, rather the slow but steady draw of a revelatory gravity, and a gradual stumbling from darkness into Light.

Moon River

"The best Mexican food this side of the border" read the sign. Which would be fine, except they're talking about the border between Thailand and Laos, otherwise known as the Mekong River. I resist the temptation, and spend my last night in Thailand eating barbecue with the Chiang Khong locals instead.

Natural borders make so much more sense than man made ones. Rivers, mountains, seas; these are the things that should divide people, not lines drawn on maps by distant men. Slumped in my hammock looking out across the river to Houy Xia and listening to the faint music drifting across the river, I wondered how different it could really be.

An understandable duality shrouds you when you stand on the brink of something. A border or cusp, real or figurative; leaving one thing behind, entering another. Reflection, anticipation. It might actually be the greatest thing about travelling, moving form one place to another, body and mind constantly charged and energised by these changes. And not just travelling but life, too, come to think of it.

As I mused over these things, an apparition began to materialise above the opposite bank of the river. A warm yellow glow climbed reticently from behind the landscape, winched into the sky by an invisible hand. It took me so long to realise that it was the moon, as I sat transfixed by it, that by the time I reached for the camera, it had risen quite quickly and the sun's distant glare was shimmering off its dimpled skin, suffusing the dark night.

Welcome to the Jungle

I'm a bit of a pussy when it comes down to it. I like to be comfortable. I don't like strange creatures nibbling away at me; mosquitoes, snakes, beetles, hirsute caterpillars. So when I woke up yesterday morning, I was really thinking about ducking out of my two day jungle trek and hanging out in Chiang Rai instead. Thankfully, something deeper than all that won the day.

After an hour or so in a boat up the Mae Kok river, twenty minutes on the back of an elephant and a couple of hours of uphill struggle through Thai jungle, myself and Woot, my guide, finally arrived at Akha village, saturated with sweat, exhausted and smelling like Robin Hood's armpits. Just another ten minute walk (in our flip flops) and we were showering underneath a mercifully cold waterfall and I was trying to remember when I last felt this happy.

Akha Hill Village

I helped Woot and Apha, our guide for the next day, cook dinner, and in true hilltribe style, we cracked open a few beers. When the sun had shrunk from the valley, Woot asked if I wanted to walk back to the waterfall. He wouldn't go because, he said, Thai people believe in ghosts. I told him I wouldn't go because I was afraid of the living things out there, not the dead ones. As if to prove my point, a massive beetle landed between us, scaring the crap out of me. They obviously thought this was hilarious, picking it up and throwing it at one another whilst relishing my discomfort. We turned in for the night when the excitement was over, at a saintly 8pm, and fell asleep listening to the gentle sounds of the jungle, woken only by an owl perched on the roof of our hut, hooting knowingly.

When I was a lot younger and fractionally more stupid than I am now, I would often watch the sun coming up. It's not a habit I carried with me into my thirties but this morning, urged on by a crowing cockerel, I clambered out from under the mosquito net and strolled into the village in my underpants to watch day emerge from night.

A few hours later, replenished by my twelve hours kip and four slices of toast thickly spread with crunchy Sun Pat, we're off again, back in yesterdays crusty clothes, a new "That's not a knife" knife swinging from my hip and just the jungle ahead of us. We walk, talk a little, every now and then, and sweat. Along the way we harvest lemongrass, banana leaves, shoots and tea. In a small clearing we begin on the bamboo. We make fishing rods, cups, chopsticks, plates and cooking tubes. "Jungle is like 7 Eleven", says Woot.

We stop for lunch, and try to fish but apparently another tribe upstream are using nets, so we're having pork. It's the only thing we've not picked up along the way, though in theory we could have raided a neighbouring village for a pig or two. Apha cooks lunch on the fire while I stroll around unhelpfully looking for things to do with my knife.

Bear Grylls? Taught him everything he knows

Apha and Woot

After lunch we head our separate ways; Apha back to the village, Woot and I to the Hot Springs where he left the car, twelve kilometres away. It's a long old walk, through rice fields, tea plantations, but we get there in the end. By the time I'm back in Chiang Rai, aching all over, with a fascinating array of new insect bites despite the 33% deet, I feel somehow different. I always look to explain things through comparison with others; best this, best that. Finest whatever since whenever. It's all bollocks.

Experiences like this neither need to be, nor prosper from being, measured against others. Rather they are the things that make you realise you are alive, that the world you live in is inherently wonderful, and that each genuinely new experience, regardless of its nature, is irrefutably greater than the last.

鬼佬 Gwei Lo

I was on the subway in Hong Kong the other day. Across from me, a woman was clutching a cloth shopping bag with "The Outsider" written on it. On her left, a Chinese man was gabbling ferociously into his cellphone. He made me think how different Hong Kong is from Japan. She made me think of Camus. The Outsider. L'etranger. The stranger. The foreigner.

Asia can make you feel alien unlike anywhere else on earth. In Japan we are Gai Jin, which literally means foreigner or outsider. In Hong Kong though, we become Gwei Lo, or, literally, ghost men, and there is something wonderfully poetic about that moniker. You can imagine, as the first ships pulled up in Hong Kong harbour and these cadaverous alien sailors emerged from their hulls, how the Cantonese must have mistaken them for something even more sinister than that which they actually were.

Now it's gone from being a racial slur to a casual slang term used by ex-pats to describe themselves, with not a hint of irony. But in those moments travelling in strange countries when you are most acutely aware of how alien you are, when the differences between people seem to overpower the similarities, the feeling of being a ghost, floating unseen in their midst, comes closer to describing the sensation than anything else.

I had forgotten about all this until that evening, sipping a gin and tonic when I caught sight of the ashtray on the bar, and the word CAMUS stamped upon it. And I smiled inside at how marvellous it is that little clues and prompts for our thoughts are scattered all about the furniture of our lives so cleverly, and that every now and then we are actually lucky enough to notice them.

Doors to manual

I like to leave boarding a plane as late as possible. I stowed my hand luggage in the overhead compartment, fastened my seat belt and pretended to pay attention to the safety briefing. My neighbour and I exchanged courteous nods, but little else.

I declined the complimentary champagne on account of the hour (11am), opting for a Perrier instead. A little later, we were served a passable three course meal by our impeccably dressed, and quite beautiful stewardesses. After lunch, and a couple of glasses of surprisingly good wine, I think I may have dozed for a short while, before flicking through the on board entertainment system and finding something to amuse me briefly before returning to my book. Occasionally I'd get up to stretch my legs and use the bathroom.

Little else of any real consequence happened until, at 3.25pm, twenty-five minutes ahead of schedule, we disembarked the aircraft and shuffled up to the gate. All of which would have been perfectly acceptable were it not for the fact that, save for a brief sortie to the end of the runway and back, for four and a half brain-punishing hours, we had been rooted to the same fucking spot.

Kamikochi

Kamikochi is neither a town, nor a village. It's a scattering of hotels and onsens, a bus stop, a few buildings, and a lot of trails that carry countless happy hikers around the Japan Alps. As I strode away from the bus terminal, I noticed a Japanese man, the only other person on his own in a sea of groups and couples, turn and look back at me. He hesitated long enough, and smiled, for me to recognise the polite invitation to join him, and smile back.

Kamikochi

We talked as we walked, his English slightly broken but evidently once proficient. He wanted to know where I'd been, where I was going and where I'd walked. We talked about the parks in America, about Arizona and Utah, which he knew well. He'd been up Kilimanjaro and to Everest Base Camp, can see Mount Fuji from his window and decides in the morning whether to climb it or not, something he's done more times than he can remember. He tells me about Kamikochi; the peaks, the river, hesitating only to slap his forehead as he occasionally searches for a word.

Like all people who are great company, he doesn't talk too much, and we probably spend three quarters of our short time together saying nothing; sharing an experience rather than thoughts or words, rendered superfluous by the unmistakable, unutterable glory of that walk. After forty minutes or so we reached a bridge. I was crossing it, he was not, so with another smile, and a handshake, we relinquished one another's company as quickly and easily as we had taken it up. "See you again," he proffered with a cheery wave, and I waved back, sure in the knowledge that, sadly, he would not.

I march over the bridge, pace quickening now and the arms swinging, the peculiar ennui rendered upon me for the past few days vaporised by the fresh alpine air as I resume my solitude once again.

A question of perspective

I seem to suffer these strange lulls when I stay in the same place for more than a few days. It happened in Buenos Aires, again in Texas and it's happening now in Tokyo.

Maybe it's staying in an apartment. Having a set of keys, going shopping, knowing your way home. Whenever I have stayed still for too long, I've got the feeling that I am somehow wasting time. That something, maybe me, is suffering.

Today I experienced a strange kind of nausea, at the train station. When you're travelling, everything new you have to try to make sense of, makes sense to someone. Not knowing where you are going, being unable to communicate, you just take your time and don't mind looking stupid as you attempt to work it out. Emerging from the underground into Shinjuku station is like being blindfolded, spun around in darkness and thrust into the centre of, well, Shinjuku station.

I'm looking for a particular bus terminal. I've got a guide book telling me where it is, and maps and signs everywhere. I think I know where I'm going, but a few twists and turns later and I'm losing my bearings along with my patience. I spend ten minutes trying to reconcile the map on the wall with the one in my hand, before I notice it is oriented east-west as opposed to north-south. I turn my head on its side, and things begin to make sense.

There was no sign of where I was meant to go, though there were signs for just about everything else. I resigned myself to the futility of my situation and, desperate for a new aspect, wandered north, or was it west, to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office, which has an observation deck on the 45th floor.

There's nothing like looking down on a city from a great height to put things in perspective, and I quickly begin to see through to the heart of my malaise. From each window I see the same thing: 35 million people in the largest metropolitan area in the world, stretching far beyond the horizon in every direction.

You can't take taxis in Tokyo; they're too expensive. You can't walk; it's too hot. You take the train or the subway. Which means traipsing through vast underground networks of tunnels, staircases and corridors. Fathoming exits and platforms, under the constant watch of endless vending machines and bizarre posters. And everywhere there are people. Millions and millions of them, all being squeezed through the same tiny aperture.

Rejuvenated and refreshed, I take the elevator back to the first floor and find the tourist information. With much smiling, they furnish me with a map, and I realise my guide book was wrong. I walk, happily now, to where I need to be, buy my tickets and ride the subway home, where I fall into a deep, tired sleep. When I wake up the bus tickets are next to me. In the morning they'll carry us out of here, to the countryside. I think not a day too soon.