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traveled on. No Karaoke this time but sitting behind the driver (and too rough and
bumpy to read) I just couldn't stop myself counting his spitting, it never fails to amaze me where the mind goes if you let it free , or is it just my mind? - he spat about 2.5 times per minute - through the window, disregarding any poor bugger walking along the side of the road. That's 150 spits per hour and a grand total of 3150 for the 21 hours and he could still hawk up big gobs at the end of the journey - he must have had some sort of reservoir down there in his heels somewhere. A bit like when you take the dog for a walk; he'll leave his little messages (p-mails) all along the way and he'll always have a bit left for the last tree/post before reaching home, no matter how far you walk him.
That guy must have been going for the world record or something and his offsider may have been competing for the world farting record though mercifully the effects of this were covered to a degree by the chain-smokers around him, though I worried about the volatility of the air whenever anyone struck a match!
I often wonder if it's the religious up-bringing that makes some of us yearn for some sort of self deprivation, a kind of self-flagellation. It's easy to be thinking romantically about rough travel when you're sitting in the comfort of your own home with the cat purring on your knee and something good cooking in the oven. BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR!
Meanwhile the bus rattled on with a screeching of gears and we slid into holes on several occasions and had to get behind and push while a truck pulled us out. We took our turn pulling a bus and truck out too and we were all covered in mud. But what is mud to the stench inside the bus where the passengers sickened by the shuddering and shaking of the bus were vomiting into plastic bags and leaving them in the aisles among the baggage, produce and chickens where people trod on (and burst) them as they came and went!
The road was so bad in some places that if there was a bit of bitumen at the bottom of a washout we would get out and look under each side of it to see if the dirt hadn't been washed out and there would be support for the wheels. Above the tortuous sounds of the engine you could hear the Muslims and Christians beseeching their respective gods, and this little atheist often wondered if he was about to find out about the Baby Jesus as the bus slid off into a hole one side or a ravine on the other sending us all, Muslims, Christians, Atheists, world-record spitting
and farting contenders and all straight to ETERNITY!
Letter from Japan
Stranger than fiction in Japan - personal observations.
August 20 2002
Finally found a computer that would open my disk of addresses, so ....here's the letter I promised.
I've been here a few weeks now, Honshu and Shikoku Islands, and it's been wonderful. I've got a really good guide in Miyuki; a bit too good at times, she's running me ragged! It seems her Japanese side has taken over since her return home and everything has to be seen and now I'm beginning to long for a bit of freedom from all the fantasy stuff that the natives live for. @m " @"......"@"鏁@""...'@" Please excuse any Japanese characters that sneak in; I am having real trouble with this keyboard and I have spent ages typing only to lose it all again when the ol 'puter decides to 'turn Japanese' and I can do nothing to change it back.
Please understand that what I am about to write should not be taken as a criticism of the Japanese or their culture; it's just an observation during a short stay and meant to be taken lightly and in humour. You may go to Japan yourself and have a totally different experience. I will go back again and, I'm sure, see it in a different light as I intend to walk a lot and sleep outside under the stars on my next trip.
Since my first hitch-hiking trips away from Ireland many years ago I have travelled and walked the world over from Europe to North Africa and the Middle East, hiked the Americas north and south and roughed it thru Afghanistan, India, the Himalayas and the Far East. Avoiding the tourist traps and just travelling to 'look' (and delight) at the people/cultures. "Always a traveller - never a tourist" - that's me, and I was one of the first through the Berlin Wall after a couple of days waiting for someone to make a crack big enough for me to squeeze through. I wanted to be among the first to see the 'time warp' that was Eastern Europe before it was changed forever by the 'invasion' of the West (western tourists, that is!). I had squeezed thru the crack in the wall that day and as I made a across the no-mans-land I nearly froze when I heard the shout 'Halt' but kept running low and reached some parked cars where I squatted for a while with my head down and my pulse racing mostly for fear of my mother reading in the paper 'The last man to get shot crossing the Berlin wall' - 'An
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