Peter Moore

From Swahili for the Broken-hearted by Peter Moore:

I've never been much good at getting injections since and have spent most of my adult life avoiding them. Unfortunately, if I wanted to lose myself in Africa I would have to. Africa is a kind of development academy for virulent infections. They practice wiping out entire communities there before venturing into the big wide world. Even old favourites like anthrax, eradicated everywhere else in the world, keep making more comebacks in Africa than old pub rock bands from the eighties do in Australia.
[...]
I didn't faint, but at the end of it all my yellow vaccination card had more stamps in it than a library copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover.
[...]
Crime was also a major concern. With so much poverty in Africa, a backpacker, even one as destitute as myself, was regarded as a walking ATM [Automatic Teller Machine].
[Prologue, p. 6,7,9]
I'd like to think that I was fixated on soap opera because I was still in a funk over the split with the GND [Girl Next Door]. I was finding consolation in the trials and tribulations of people with big hair and shiny teeth, convincing myself that in comparison my own problems were insignificant. Sure, I'd broken up with the GND, but at least I hadn't found her in bed with her half-brother who was secretly also my father.
[Chapter 1, Cape Town, South Africa, p. 13]
The minivan guys weren't that easily beaten. They had promised me that I would catch my train and, by George, I was going to catch it. They jumped onto the tracks in front of the train and waved crazily at the driver until he brought the train to a shuddering, wheezing stop. I clambered on board and they scrambled back onto the platform, whooping and hollering as they waved goodbye. The train had barely started moving again before they started slapping each other, accusing the other of nearly making me miss it.
[...] The scenery was suitably spectacular. [...]
I don't know why I expected it to be any different. I was on the Garden Route and a place doesn't get a name like that because it is a long stretch of bars and strip joints. It gets called the Garden Route because it has significant tracts of indigenous plants like proteas, gladioli and agapanthus as well as tea shops and craft fairs for the folk who like that sort of thing. Unfortunately I was still a couple of decades away from the uncontrollable urge to collect teaspoons.
[...]
I had fancifully thought that travelling in the off-season would see me benefit from all kinds of special deals. I imagined grateful hotel owners offering me luxurious hotel suites with Jacuzzis for a dollar or two. Or desperate restaurateurs feeding me magnificent meals for a pittance and then throwing in a complimentary jug of beer to reward me for my custom. I would have the golden beach to myself, undisturbed by the maddening crowds of gym-junkie Afrikaners in tiny Speedos. But by the look of things I'd be spending my time in Plettenberg Bay in my room playing Solitaire on my laptop.
[...] The [bungy] jump was from the apex of the concrete arch that supports the bridge.
[...] A group of four guys waited for me on the arch. There were a couple of Kiwis, an Aussie and a South African and they acted like they had been mainlining Pepsi Max. I don't think they'd been very impressed by the way I'd crawled rather than walked upright across the arch from the walkway.
They explained the whole process and the dangers involved with an enthusiasm that frightened me even more.
"Attaching bungy to nothing in particular," said one.
"Check," said another.
"Tie it around jumper's leg in exaggerated manner so he thinks we really give a shit about safety."
"Check."
"Roll a joint to smoke while we leave him just dangling there."
"Check."
They didn't really say that of course. They said lots of technical things to put my mind to rest. [...]
I had rather fancied that when I jumped my whole life would flash before my eyes. Or at the very least, the three months I dated a Spanish girl called Inez. But all I remembered - and too late, as it turned out - was that I left the key to the padlock on my backpack in my top pocket.
[Chapter 2, The Garden Route, South Africa, p. 39-45]
J. R. R. Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein. [...] I think the good folk of Bloemfontein are a little miffed that Tolkien left when he was four and never came back.
[...] my next stop, the tiny mountain kingdom of Lesotho, struck me as a very Tolkien kind of place. [...] I challenge anyone to look at those mountains from Bloemfontein and not think they are full of orcs and goblins.
[...] Maseru is the capital of Lesotho [...] Even the parliament building is unassuming and looks more like the sort of place a poultry farmer on the outskirts of Sydney might build after he subdivided his property and came into a bit of money.
[...]
Lesotho is known as "The Kingdom Without Fences", but perhaps a more accurate description would be "The Kingdom Where Cattle Are Allowed To Wander Freely Into The Path Of Oncoming Vehicles".
[Chapter 3, Lesotho, p. 47-49,52]
I had hoped to be in Swaziland for the Reed Dance. As many as 20,000 girls come from all over the country to collect reeds and do a bit of DIY on the queen's house. Then they jump into a traditional outfit and dance bare-breasted in front of the king. He checks them out and if he likes what he sees he'll choose one to be his bride that year. It's the kind of cultural event Sir Les Patterson might commission if he were ever put in charge of the Festival of Sydney.
I missed the Umhlanga at the Royal Kraal at Lombaba by one day [...] I had a vague idea when the festival was on, but [...] fate decided that I wasn't ready for the sight of 20,000 semi-naked women.
[...]
Before I could say anything more, Steven started explaining the taxi system within the township. "There are 38 suburbs in Soweto," he said. "And each of them has its own hand signal if you want to wave down a taxi as it goes past you. You make an 'o' for Orlando, and 'o' with a finger down for Orlando West, and crossed fingers for Crossroads. If you want to go to Orange, you pretend to pick an Orange."
[...] To be honest, I had been a little cynical about the whole Nelson Mandela deification thing. Don't get me wrong, Mandela is a great man. [...] But like the Dalai Lama, he seems to attract the devotion of people with scary smiles and a very tenuous grip on reality.
[Chapter 5, Johannesburg, South Africa, p. 87-88,93-94,96]
[...] I took a tour led by a South African guy called Paul who had a pathological dislike of (a) the Australian cricket team and (b) Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter.
I could understand his aversion to the Australian cricket team. [...] But diss the Crocodile Hunter? Crikey, the guy's a legend!
[...]
On my last morning in Kruger I decided to have a little bit of fun. "Look," I said, "There's a Jaguar."
Paul instinctively slammed on the brakes. When he was driving he'd rely on passengers to spot something he'd missed.
"Where?" asked Paul, still not thinking straight.
"Just there on the road," I said, pointing to a fine example of Coventry engineering. "It's an old XJS, I think."
I thought it was funny, and it got a laugh from a few of the other passengers. But Paul was furious. I'd made him look like an idiot - there aren't any jaguars in Africa, they're endemic to the jungles of South America - and at the end of the tour he didn't actually stop to drop me off at Nelspruit. I got more of a slow-down-a-little-open-the-door-and-kick-the-Aussie-out kind of farewell.
[...]
I was really looking forward to going to Mozambique. It's a country with a name that is laden with promise and excitement. Crossed by two legendary rivers, the Limpopo and the Zambezi, and the setting for many a Wilbur Smith novel, it's the kind of country you could mention you've been to at a dinner party and before you know it you're standing in the lounge with one foot on the coffee table, cradling a brandy balloon and thrilling a captivated audience with tales of your derring-do. Well, that's the effect it has on me, anyway.
[Chapter 6, Maputo, Mozambique, p. 100,102,103]
"You are visiting at a very interesting point in this country's history," said Milo. I got the feeling he was using "interesting" in the same manner people describe the way I dance. That is, in its derogative form.
[Chapter 7, Harare, Zimbabwe, p. 121]
[...] I woke up the next morning to what sounded like baboons jumping on the tin roof at Shoestrings and promptly discovered that there were baboons jumping on the tin roof.
[Chapter 8, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, p. 137
Despite being exhausted I had liked Dar es Salaam. [...] It is decaying and it is dank. But at least it's not Canberra.
[Chapter 11, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, p. 187
[...] I wandered down the hill to a small general store [...] There was a poster on the wall [...] it quoted Isaiah 38:1 - "Set thine house in order for thou shalt die!" It was just the sort of thing I needed to read before setting out to conquer the highest mountain in Africa.
An hour later I set off to conquer the highest mountain in Africa wearing a pink fleece that looked like it was a cast-off from a Sheena Easton film clip. The your company had supplied it [...] and the colour was bright enough to snap synapses [...]
[Chapter 13, Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, p. 207]
My stay in Dila was unremarkable except that it was the first place I experienced injera, Ethiopia's national dish. When the injera was laid before me in the dining room of the hotel I was staying in, I thought the woman had mistakenly left the dishcloth under my meal. As it turned out, the spongy grey thing under the bowl of diced, spicy lamb was the injera. A sour pancake, it had the unfortunate distinction of tasting as you'd imagine a dishcloth to taste.
I was the only person who ate that night [...] The next morning Eyasu sat next to me on the bus [...] I asked him why he hadn't warned me.
"Injera always tastes like that," he said. "Everyone else is fasting for Easter."
[...]
There was one final clunk before the sheep flew off the back of the bus in a manner that suggested it had jumped. It landed in the path of an oncoming van. The van didn't have time to swerve, but the sheep rolled out of the way like Jackie Chan in a Rush Hour 2 outtake.
[...]
I had chosen to stay at the Tropical Hotel because it was central and my guidebook described it as a "clean cheapie". What my guidebook didn't say was that it was Ethiopia's most heavily patronised brothel. [...]
[Chapter 16, Southern Ethiopia, p. 255,258,259]
I was particularly taken by the frescoes on the walls of the monasteries at Beta Giorgis and Beta Maryam. They adorn the outside walls of the Holy of Holies, a central enclosure within the monastery's church that only priests are allowed to enter, and they are colourful and vibrant like a comic book. Except here it isn't the exploits of Spiderman that are chronicled, but rather those of the mutant freaks of their day, the Ethiopian saints.
There was St Tekla Haimanot, a chap who prayed for seven years standing on one leg. Saint Gebre Kristos was a bloke who knocked back the perks of being a prince to take up a life of chastity and a dose of leprosy. Abuna Samuel was partial to riding about on a lion. And of course, the country's patron saint, St George, was out and about slaying dragons. I looked at the frescoes, tracing the stories and deeds of these good Christian saints and thought of my sister. She worries about the effect of Harry Potter on her kids' young minds. What would she make of this stuff?
[Chapter 18, Lalibela, Ethiopia, p. 281-282]
Once the ancient city of Thebes, Luxor has always been popular with the tourists, even before there was a McDonald's.
[...]
My favourite was the internet cafe just off Talaat Harb. There was a picture of a duck attacking a computer with an axe stuck above each terminal. "You usually nervous mee!" the duck screamed. "Too slowly computer!" I wasn't exactly sure what it meant. But after half an hour on the computers at this place I certainly knew how the duck felt.
[Chapter 21, Cairo, Egypt, p. 326,337]

From The Full Montezuma, by Peter Moore (Bantam, Australia, 2000):

There was one common factor between the Mexican organ grinders and others I have encountered elsewhere -- the music they churned out was excruciatingly bad. It wailed and moaned, fluctuating in speed according to how tired the organ grinder's grinding arm was. Most hadn't learned the art of the smooth grind, so their tunes floated along on a path that was neither in time nor in tune. The music would speed up on the downward grind and slow down on the back upward pull, as if the organ grinder was releasing pressure on a cat's throat and then reapplying it again.
[Chapter 2, Mexico City, p. 10]
On the outskirts of Palenque the bus was stopped by a military roadblock. When a soldier got on board, I got a little excited. [...] Unfortunately, the soldier just stood at the front of the bus and addressed us in Spanish. I couldn't make out what he was saying, but his tone and demeanour suggested that it was along the following lines:
"If there are any known terrorists on board, would they please make their way to the front of the bus."
An uneasy silence.
"No? There are no terrorists on board?"
Again, silence.
"No Zapatistas among you lot?"
Uneasy shifting in seats.
"Are you sure? I'm only going to ask once."
Silence.
"Okay. Well, have a nice day!"
I've never understood the purpose of these kinds of roadblocks. I'd come across them before in other troubled areas of the world - Colombia, Rwanda, Denmark - and exactly the same thing happened at all of them. A soldier got on board, stood up the front of the bus and made an announcement, and when nobody stepped forward, got off again.
Why don't the soldiers ask for identity papers or at least walk down the aisle eye-balling passengers in the hope that one will crack and make a run for it? But they don't. They rely on the honesty of the terrorist to own up and make their way in a quiet and orderly fashion to the front of the bus.
Of course, I couldn't understand a word of what the soldier had said, so I'm merely speculating. They guy could have simply been asking if anyone had a spare cigarette.
[Chapter 7, Palenque (Mexico), p. 94-95]
The bus we caught to Antigua was distinctly non-luxury and packed to the ceiling with people who had come to do a year's worth of shopping [...] Every passenger was loaded with enough canned food, plastic tubs and bags of washing powder to sit out any apocalypse.
The driver, on the other hand, thought he was playing Grand Turismo, and was making up for being assigned the worst-specced vehicle (Old American School Bus, Third World Edition) by driving at the peak of his abilities. He flew out of the city centre, past the Americanised outskirts with their drive-through McDonald's and shiny new malls and up the steep, windy road into the mountains as if he were on a time trial. He raced past other buses and hunted down smaller, nippier vehicles. With large trucks, he waited until a sharp bend would approach, and then took the corner with them, side by side, as if this dangerous manoeuvre would gain him extra bonus points. The GND [Girl Next Door] surmised he was on a suicide mission - his family had left him and he was spending Christmas alone. Now he had snapped and he was taking us all with him.
[Chapter 11, Copán (Honduras), p. 181]
My favourite part of Christmas, however, was the rapping Santa at the appliance shop across from our hotel. He played a tape of Christmas carols in a ghettoblaster at levels that could still be heard over the incessant fireworks and would dance them in an inappropriate hip hop manner. During the Spanish version of "Jingle Bells", he would lean back with his arms folded. When someone walked past he would point at them like he was Puffy Coombs. During "Santa Clause is Coming to Town" he would try and do that dance where your arms form a rubbery wave. My favourite, and a dance he only attempted rarely, was when he tried spinning on his head. His hat and his beard would end up tangled.
[Chapter 12, Feliz Navidad (Antigua Guatemala), p. 185-186]
"So let me get this straight," the GND said when I suggested it. "You want to climb a volcano that erupted only a few days ago and is a well-known haunt of thieves. [...]"
[Chapter 12, Feliz Navidad (Antigua Guatemala), p. 190]
[...] The bus had originated in Guatamala City, and in the fine tradition of third-world bus services had not left according to timetable, but only when it was physically impossible to squeeze any more people on. By the time we waved it over it had picked up a few more passengers, a pig or two and the entire output of a craft village. Somehow, somewhere, we were expected to get on.
[Chapter 12, Feliz Navidad (Antigua Guatemala), p. 194]
[...] The walls of the church were line with wooden statues of saints, all looking rather spiffy in clothes knocked up for them by the local women. One, in a spandex, spangley outfit and a quiff, looked uncannily like Elvis during his Vegas period. [...]
[Chapter 12, Feliz Navidad (Antigua Guatemala), p. 198-199]
[...] We wandered through the markets looking at tools made in China and cheap watches from Taiwan. There wasn't a carved mask or bright shirt in sight, just cheap shampoo and a handcream with the unfortunate name of "Outbreak". [...]
[Chapter 14, Guatamalan Highlands, p. 220]
The bus had started its journey in Sayaxché, over 100 kilometres away, but didn't have a single passenger on board. Every single seat was broken, most reclined fully, and many of the windows were missing or replaced by plastic sheeting that had since become tattered and torn. Any window that was left was cracked and the whole vehicle, including the driver and his conductor, was covered in dust.
It didn't take long to see why the bus was in the state it was. Just outside of Fray Bartolomé de las Casas the road deteriorated into the worst stretch we'd seen in our journey so far. It was corrugated, potholed and dusty and shook my fillings loose. When we came upon stretches where it had rained recently, it was muddy and boggy. By the time we finally hit tarmac at Modesto Méndez the GND and I were shaken, stirred and basted. [...]
[Chapter 14, Guatamalan Highlands, p. 229]
I waved [the bus] down and handed my pack to the conductor who had scampered up onto the roof to take it, and I let out a string of expletives as I lifted it up to his waiting arms.
"I wish you wouldn't do that," the GND said.
"What?" I asked, thinking that perhaps the careless way I had handled the bag offended her.
"You swear every time you pick up your bag," she said. "It's embarrassing."
To be honest, I hadn't even noticed I was doing it. I knew I was annoyed by the weight of my pack (it was currently coming in at just under 25 kilos).
[...]
"Well, I think it's unnecessary," she said. "It's like you've got Tourette's Syndrome, that swearing disease."
"But I only get it when I pick up my pack," I argued.
"Well, okay, it's baggage-related Tourette's Syndrome."
[Chapter 16, Honduras, p. 261]
[...] Our favourite souvenir was a poster of Jesus, sitting behind a desk, his hands clasped in front of him, with an earnest-looking face. The GND and I christened him Job Interview Jesus.
[Chapter 16, Honduras, p. 268]
Our first point of business the next morning was a visit to the Banco Salvadoreño. It smelled of floor wax and had the feel of a fifties bank, but for the security guard frisking customers at the door. We were clean, but other customers had to check their machetes, knives and small handguns in a small wooden cabinet to the left of the entrance. The guard pointed us towards a scrum of people I suspected was supposed to be a queue.
[Chapter 17, El Salvador, p. 272]
The best part of Cahuita, however, was its beach. Located at the southern end of the long dirt road, it was part of Cahuita National Park, a long stretch of white sand backed by thick jungle. It was like something out of a castaway fantasy - a totally untouched beach without a condo or architect-designed beach house in sight. It struck me that this was the way all beaches were before greedy developers came along, and the way beaches should be.
[...]
On our last night in Cahuita we ate at Miss Edith's [...] run by a West Indian woman with braids by the name, funnily enough, of Miss Edith. As a West Indian, she spoke English, but when we tried to order our meal, she wasn't sure that we could. "What?" she said, screwing up her nose. "What the hell are you saying?"
We repeated our order, this time more slowly.
She still couldn't understand us. "Where are you people from?" she asked. "England or something?"
In the end we made our orders in really over-the-top American accents and she got them first time. [...]
[Chapter 21, Costa Rica, Too, p. 356,357]
[...] The border was marked by a dirty brown river and crossed by negotiating an old iron Meccano-style bridge, barely wide enough for the empty semitrailers lining up along it to get back into Panama.
It was more an obstacle course than a border crossing. We were forced to shuffle along the narrow gap between the trucks and the side of the bridge, clinging to the rigging of the trucks like Spiderman so that the weight of our packs didn't send us tumbling into the shallow river below. To make matters worse, many of the planks were rotting or had fallen away, and while makeshift measures had been taken to patch the bridge for trucks to cross, there were still holes big enough for a pedestrian to fall through. The only thing missing was a pack of crocodiles circling in the water below, waiting for their next feed.
[Chapter 22, Panama, p. 364-365]
Choosing a boat for the twenty-minute ride to Bocas del Toro was like picking a queue at the supermarket. If you got it right, you zoomed straight through. But if you got it wrong you'd be waiting forever. Here, though, we had no cultural clues to pick up on. Back home, I knew that a line of sad, single males went faster at a supermarket than a mum loaded up with two screaming kids and a week's worth of Pampers [disposable nappies/diapers]. I could pick the kind of people who paid by EFTPOS and forget their PIN number. But what was it that made one of two seemingly identical speedboats leave first?
[Chapter 22, Panama, p. 366-367]
[...] It was stunning - seriously, you've never seen a beach like the beach at Playa del Carmen. The sand is white - incredibly white. And the water is blue - an unearthly shade of aqua. If you saw a picture of the beach in a brochure you'd swear it had been touched up. And because the sand on the beach is made up of microscopic plankton fossils rather than silica, it stays cool, even on the hottest days. The tourist board calls it airconditioned sand. And it is.
[Chapter 26, Yucatán (Mexico), p. 442]

From The Wrong Way Home, by Peter Moore (Bantam, Australia, 1999):

Ever since I drew moustaches on the pictures in Yvonne Vacslavik's project on Russia and then stuffed it up the manhole in the sports storeroom hoping no one would ever find out, people have been asking me "What did you do that for?"
[Introduction, p. ix]
"Do you know any Skoda jokes?" I asked Ivanhoe, trying to change the subject. "They're quite funny. Look there's a few in my guidebook. What's the difference between a Jehovah's Witness and a Skoda? You can close the door on a Jehovah's Witness! Ha, ha."
Ivanhoe smiled weakly. Taking this as a sign of encouragement, I continued.
"Why do they put rear window demisters on Skodas? To keep your hands warm while you're pushing them! Ha, ha. How do you double the value of your Skoda? Fill it up with petrol! Ha, ha. What do you call a convertible ..."
"Please," interrupted Ivanhoe. "I drive a Skoda. And really, they're not that bad. Now if you don't mind, I'd rather like to finish my book."
[Chapter 1, London, p. 14-15]
If there is one think I've discovered in all my travels, it's that you can't take Italians anywhere. [...] Up at the castle, a group of Italian tourists walked out of the gates and down a pathway between cordoned-off crowds to see the changing of the guard. They strolled through leisurely, smiling and waving, convinced that the crowd had gathered to see them. The really annoying thing is that they look so damn stylish doing it.
[Chapter 2, Prague, p. 22]
I spent a week in Prague trying to dodge American street performers and Italian tourists. I found a used car yard that also sold second-hand howitzers, slightly scratch tanks and even an L29 Delfon fighter jet with one genuine owner. [...]
There were others days when you'd find me just sitting on a platform on the Metro, staring at the LED clock at the end of each platform. Rather than tell commuters when the next train was due, these clocks taunted commuters by telling them how long ago the last train had left.
[Chapter 2, Prague, p. 23,25]
At Kolin, a small town an hour or so from Prague, the businessmen all stood up at once and retired to the dining cabin [of the train] to drink coffee and vodka. It was as if they had all received the same telepathic message that their bosses weren't watching any more, and that they could return to the old way of doing things by getting pissed. I celebrated having the cabin to myself by throwing open the window and hanging out like a Labrador in a station wagon. The cold air swept back my hair and snap froze my saliva, clearing the cabin of the stale warm air from the aging Soviet heating system and discouraging any of the newly boarded passengers from choosing my cabin. It was a reckless, selfish and invigorating thing to do. I almost felt Italian.
[Chapter 3, Budapest, p. 29]
The [Albanian] embassy [...] had turrets and shutters behind twisted leafless trees, just like the haunted houses in a Scooby Doo cartoon. From a flagpole, an Albanian flag hung tattered and limp - looking very much like it had been there ever since it had been first hoisted, 50 years earlier. The lawn was unmown. The garden was untended. And the pictures in the display cases were faded. By the look of it, I suspected that the ambassador had invested all the maintenance funds in an Albanian pyramid scheme and was now begging on the streets. [...]
I lingered at the entrance of the embassy, hoping that a guard would come along and challenge my right to be there and, after a meaningful game of charades, point me in the direction of the visa section. As it was, I wasn't challenged until I reached the ambassador's bedroom, and then only by a terrified maid brandishing a toilet brush. Thank heavens I had my passport handy -- I was able to wave it around frantically, pleading "Visa! Visa! Visa!" before she could land any serious blows. She frogmarched me to an even more remote corner of the embassy, where the ambassador was sitting at a desk in the dark. He stamped my passport immediately without question or cost, and the maid escorted me to the gate.
[Chapter 3, Budapest, p. 37-38]
Wandering bands of gypsies, handsomely accessorised with silver loop earrings and battered violins, patrolled the car park. It was their job to serenade the day-trippers from Budapest and lure them into the particular bar/tavern/brothel they were touting for. One couple had barely brought their Skoda to a standstill before half a dozen gypsies set upon them, fiddling madly and waving a plastic bag full of unlabelled bottles of red wine in their general direction. The terrified couple locked their doors and waited, rigid with fear, until the gypsies went away.
[Chapter 4, Budapest, Too, p. 43]
"Who needs sculptures when we'll have the real thing!" yelped Raz, unaware that the sculpture park had been set up to house old Soviet propaganda and not the Budapest government's private collection of erotic art. Unless I could convince Raz that he'd get some sort of illicit thrill, I knew I was fighting a losing battle.
[...] There were bronze boys waving flags. Metal people were punching the air defiantly. And there were more metalworkers than you could poke a stick at. [...]
The best piece, and the most famous, was a huge bronze man running, a coat draped over one arm and a flag held high in the other. It was at least 10 or 12 metres tall and had previously stood outside the Parliament buildings. [...] It had a poetry and a spirit that was undeniable.
[...] Apparently, in Hungary it is against the law to go putting up the symbols of oppression -- whether they be swastikas, hammers and sickles, red stars or the logo of the Australian Tax department [...]
[Chapter 4, Budapest, Too, p. 47-48]
The people on my train were happy too [...] They were families, mainly loaded up with fishing lines and hampers and rucksacks and whatever else it is that Hungarians take away when they go to the lake. They laughed and chatted and snacked on doorstep-sized sandwiches filled with dodgy-looking smallgoods. As we barreled along beside the lake, they pointed animatedly at conifers and ducks and men wearing funny plastic wading pants.
All the families got off at Siofok, a small town only an hour or two south of Budapest. As they got off they gave me half-quizzical glances, wondering, no doubt, what I was staying on the train. Some gestured towards the platform and said 'Siofok', thinking that perhaps I hadn't realised that I'd reached my destination. When I answered 'Zagreb', alarm swept across their faces and they hurried off, shielding their children from me as if my madness was contagious.
[...] At the border, a succession of grey-uniformed people from both Hungary and Croatia got onto the train with the sole purpose of staring at my passport. They only ever looked at one page, and with an intensity that suggested they were trying to turn the pages with the power of their minds alone. Exhausted, and seemingly defeated, they handed my passport back gruffly and got off the train. I amused myself through these lengthy psychic sessions by saying things like, "I think you'll find my papers are in order, officer" and "I'm here on business".
[Chapter 5, Croatia, p. 52-53]
I was a little annoyed that our bus driver seemed to give way to every other vehicle on the road. It had been my experience that bus drivers use the bulk of their vehicles - and their often misguided confidence in their own driving skills - to bully everything else on the road into lay-bys and ravines. But as most of the other vehicles were armoured cars or troop carriers, I soon understood his reluctance.
[Chapter 5, Croatia, p. 59]
When the waiter ignored me for the third time, choosing instead to serve a trestle-load of soldiers shamelessly waving about deutschmarks, I decided to spend the night annoying a gaggle of Canadians on the table next to me by asking them what part of the States they were from.
[Chapter 5, Croatia, p. 61]
I don't know why I bother buying phrasebooks. My language prowess is such that whenever I try to speak a foreign language, people beg me to speak English, even if they don't understand it. My friend Sean, who I've travelled with extensively, and who has a natural ability with languages and the young women who use them, has rather unkindly christened me the "Enemy of the Dialects".
[Chapter 5, Croatia, p. 63]
If a bus was going there, and there were people boarding the bus, it must be OK. If there really were a problem, they wouldn't sell me a ticket, right?
The bullet hole in the window next to my seat was perhaps the first indication that I had made a mistake.
[Chapter 6, Bosnia, p. 71]
There was a cramped, stale-smelling lounge just below the bridge where twenty or so truck drivers smoked, drank and watched TV. They all had tattoos and moustaches and wore denim jackets with the arms ripped out. A few wore leather caps. I felt I had stumbled on the planing committee for a sea shanty float in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
[Chapter 7, Albania, p. 92]
We caught a bus - or more precisely, the skeletal remains of a bus - to Mirindi's house, way out on the outskirts of town in the hills opposite an abandoned factory. The driver, to his eternal credit, was able to coax his dying bus most of the way, but a kilometre or so before our stop it belched, shuddered and then expired. Everyone got off and walked the rest of the way home without complaining, as if it were part of their daily routine.
[...]
The most interesting part of Mirindi's house was the toilet. Not only was it the first hole-in-the-ground variety of my trip, it was also the most extraordinarily innovative English-language laboratory I had ever seen.
Ever since I spent nine months in Japan teaching unsuspecting businessmen how to speak English with a broad Australian accent, I've taken an interest in the various methods employed by others to teach the language. But I had never seen anything like Mirindi's. In his determination to learn English, Mirindi had papered the walls of the toilet with pages from English magazines and books. Interestingly, the only publications he had been able to get his hands on were the Book of Mormon and Penthouse Forum. On one wall, Jehoshaphat was telling the Mormons to come out of the desert. On the other, J.L. from Ohio was relating a tale that involved a brunette, crotchless panties and a carrot. I christened it the Mirindi method, and firmly believe that soon English language classes all over the world will employ it.
[Chapter 7, Albania, p. 95]
[...] The mausoleum had cost $90 million to build and I guess was a pretty good approximation of what a country that had been isolated from the rest of the world for over forty years might regard as a modern building - that is, it looked like a space ship from a 1950s movie.
[Chapter 7, Albania, p. 96]
I sat on that corner for two and a half hours [...] before the first car went by. Luckily, for my sanity, it stopped.
The driver and his two passengers were Albanian [...] Although the highly incendiary nature of the jerrycans full of petrol concerned me [...] I eventually relaxed and let myself enjoy the ride. Just before Trpejca, however, the Albanians started arguing amongst themselves.
At first the argument was verbal. One of the passengers yelled at the other passenger, who then yelled back. After a few seconds of silence, the whole process started all over again. Periodically, they would turn around and smile at me from the front seat, just in case I thought they were yelling about me.
The yelling didn't bother me. I had my Walkman and the scenery to distract me. But when the aggressive gesticulations that accompanied the yelling deteriorated into crow pecks on the head and thumps on the arm, I became a little concerned. I was worried that an ill-directed blow would catch the driver on the chin and send us careering down a cliff to the lake below as a rolling ball of flame.
The rougher it got, the more often they turned around to assure me, with forced smiles and raised eyebrows, that although they were trying to kick the shit out of each other, I was not in any danger personally. Soon the fighting deteriorated into a wrestling match. By Ohrid, the two passengers had each other in a headlock.
The Albanians were stopping in Ohrid. [...] They dropped me off at the tourist office and drove off, each waving to me with his free hand as he hit the other with his other hand.
[Chapter 8, Sofia, p. 108-109]
I never ever found out what the 'Tache's real name was. Neither he nor his wife could speak any semblance of English. He was called "the 'Tache" by everyone staying at the Ilknur Pension simply because he had a moustache. For similar reasons, his wife was called "Mrs 'Tache". Both acted as if they were on day leave from an asylum, speaking in half-finished sentences and cackling dementedly for no apparent reason. If you were really unlucky, Mrs 'Tache would invite you into their bedroom and show you her unfinished needlepoint and offer you small fried fish.
[Chapter 9, Istanbul, p. 127]
[...] there was a loud boom from the bathroom. The door opened, smoke poured out and the South African guy who had been showering came out, looking like something from a Bugs Bunny cartoon. His face and body were blackened with soot and his hair stood on end. The instantaneous gas heater on the wall had instantaneously exploded while he was washing the conditioner from his hair.
[Chapter 9, Istanbul, p. 132]
[...] In what is probably my favourite passage ever written about Australian travellers, [Paul] Theroux describes [in his book The Great Railway Bazaar] being forced to share a second-class compartment with three Australians - "two boys and a pop-eyed girl".
"It was a situation I grew to recognise over the next three months," he wrote. "At my lowest point, when things were at their most desperate and uncomfortable, I always found myself in the company of Australians, who were like a reminder that I'd touched bottom."
[Chapter 9, Istanbul, p. 135]
I was pleased to note that the bus I caught to Esfahan with the Cooperative Bus Company No. 1-17 had attained the status of "beautiful bus". It meant we had lace curtains, a plastic floral arrangement in the centre of the front windscreen and as much hot tea as we could drink.
[Chapter 10, Esfahan, p. 147]
I can remember quite vividly seeing the news footage of Khomeini's body being brought to this place when he died in 1989. Ten million Iranians lined the streets, trying to catch a glimpse as his body passed. Some of them began grabbing inside the open coffin, trying to get a piece of clothing - or a piece of the Ayatollah, as it turned out - as some sort of memento or relic. I remember the coffin coming off the hearse and a helicopter coming in and firing on the crowd as soldiers attempted to retrieve what was left of the body. I had never seen anything like it. In Australia, we tend to prefer to rip our leaders apart while they are still alive.
[Chapter 10, Esfahan, p. 148]
The bus to Quetta arrived just after 6pm, and I'm here to tell you it was no beautiful bus. It was brightly coloured, but in a manner aimed to distract passengers from its more serious shortcomings rather than to please the eye. Inside the aisle was littered with food scraps, the seats were broken, and excruciatingly bad Pakistani pop music blared from the bus's totally inadequate sound system. [...]
The bus sat in the heat for an hour. [...] I wandered off to get a warm Coke [...] and returned to find a village of colourfully dressed gypsies, and all their worldly possessions, including pots and pans, blankets and a tricycle, in my seat.
[Chapter 12, Pakistan, p. 174-175]
The Quetta Express, bound for Rawalpindi, left Quetta only half an hour late. Although the sun had barely risen, the temperature in my cabin had already hit thirty. [...] The benches looked as though they had been ergonomically designed, but at a time when ergonomics was still a young and inexact science.
[Chapter 12, Pakistan, p. 179]
"You know, Sibi is the hottest place in Asia," said Aflab proudly. "In summer it reaches 60 degrees Celsius."
"Well, it can only get cooler from here, then," I said, perhaps a little to sharply. [...]
"Oh no!" he said. "This whole area is hot. Dambooli is the hottest place in Asia too!"
[Chapter 12, Pakistan, p. 181]
[...] In Baluchistan and the Sind, the vendors on the station platforms only sold the bare essentials - food and drink. Now, in the more affluent Punjab, I was offered souvenirs such as a plaster plaque that said "God Bless this House" and a game of snakes-and-ladders featuring Wasim Akram and other members of the Pakistani cricket team as the ladders, and cricketers from India as the snakes.
[Chapter 12, Pakistan, p. 183-184]
At 3 rupees a night it was the cheapest accommodation I had come across in my travels so far.
[...] The bungalow I was put in even came with its very own resident Iranian refugee.
You know the fellow who tried to shoot the Pope? Well, this gut looked just like him - a thin wiry bloke with close-cropped receding hair and a terminal dose of earnestness. He sat muttering in a corner of the bungalow, with a quilted blanket and a plastic bag filled with forms, books and various other scraps of paper. On my first night there I made the mistake of asking him why he'd left Iran.
"Political complex!" he snapped. "UN form! German! Good family! Problem!"
Sensing - correctly - that I didn't understand, he slowly repeated what he had said.
"Political ... complex. UN ... form ... German ... Good ... family ... problem!"
I tried to understand what he was saying, but I couldn't. I couldn't even understand what he was doing in Pakistan. Any self-respecting refugee looking for a better life or even a bit of political freedom would have headed to Europe, not Pakistan. I tried nodding my head sympathetically, but this only seemed to make him angrier.
"Political ... complex. UN ... form," he said through gritted teeth. "German ... Good ... family ... problem!"
I kept nodding, not altogether sure where all this was going or even if I would get out of it with my life. Seething with frustration, he fished around in his bag, found a form in a language that I didn't understand and thrust it in front of my face as if it would suddenly clear things up.
"Blessing on Boris Yeltsin!" he cried. "Blessing on Boris Yeltsin. Boris Yeltsin he my friend!"
[...] I suggested he go to the Russian embassy.
"No! No! No!" he yelled. "Political complex. Germany!"
To escape, I pretended I was going to have a shower [...]
[Chapter 12, Pakistan, p. 186-187]
In Islamabad, like Canberra in Australia, is a purpose-built capital. [...] Circles or squares, the effect is the same in both cities - ordered, neat, but ultimately soulless environments full of politicians and bureaucrats.
In contrast, the bus I caught to Islamabad was prepared to make some sort of statement. It looked like a giant Hawaiian shirt [...]
[Chapter 12, Pakistan, p. 185]
We travelled to Jalalabad in a Toyota Hiace covered in Kanji lettering that indicated it had spent its earlier life transporting kids to kindergarten in Japan. It was festooned with animal cartoon characters riding in a wooden carriage - a whole menagerie of them - each painted so that the head of a passenger became the head of an animal. [...] I was coming into one of the more dangerous countries in the world as a giraffe, with an armed guard looking like an elephant, albeit an elephant with an AK-47.
[Chapter 13, Afghanistan, p. 203-204]
Sitting on the steps of the Maju Devial was like watching a Nepalese soap opera - young lovers meeting beside the Garuda statue, slyly holding hands, hoping no one would see, a Nepalese Arthur Daley selling tourists "genuine" thirteenth-century tangkas that he kept in a cardboard box, and old guys in robes, outside Shiva Temple, debating politics, religion and the price of melons. It would have been idyllic if a little fellow hadn't kept bugging me - he wanted to clean my ears of wax.
The ear cleaners are an annoying feature of visiting Kathmandu. They haunt all the major tourist sites and are more difficult to shake off than a Mormon on a bike.
[Chapter 15, Kathmandu, p. 231]
I've long had a theory that the continued appeal of Kathmandu is based on food, and the time I spent in Thamel proved it. Travellers don't come to Kathmandu for spirituality. Not do they come here for the embroidered T-shirts saying "Free Tibet". They come to Kathmandu because it is the only place within 5,000 square kilometres where you can get a decent feed.
[Chapter 15, Kathmandu, p. 233]
[...] For the first time in Tibet, the road was smooth enough for the driver to put a cassette in the cassette player, confident that it wasn't going to be chewed up.
I don't know what it is about bus drivers, but they invariably have the worst taste in music. You'd think that if you were responsible for the entertainment of a large, captive audience, you'd take the time to choose something that would appeal to a wide range of people. It has been my experience, however, that bus drivers go to one of two extremes. They either play ear-piercingly bad heavy metal music or sickeningly bland ballads.
This guy chose the love ballads - soppy, sentimental sounding Chinese love ballads. Most of the passengers groaned when they heard the opening bars, and wrapped pieces of clothing around their heads to block out the noise. They guy sitting next to me, however, was so pleased with the driver's choice that he sang along. His voice was flat and off-key, but that didn't stop him giving it the full Celine Dion treatment. Periodically - for no apparent reason and in a manner in no way connected to the song that was being played - the twins would start yodelling. I spent the rest of the journey to Lhasa with the uneasy feeling that I was trapped in a lunatic asylum.
[Chapter 16, Lhasa, p. 247-248]
The storm soon passed, and the driver set off again. The road was slippery, which excited the boy racer instincts of the driver. He fishtailed the bus down the road, hooting and hollering and nearly wiping out the tractors and their rugged up drivers coming in the opposite direction.
[Chapter 17, Chengdu, p. 261]
With a combination of gestures, attempts at pronouncing Chinese and pointing to the appropriate Chinese characters in my Mandarin phrasebook, I asked for a ticket on the 2.45 pm train to Xining. The woman at the ticket office screwed her face up into the sourest expression possible and said [...] the Mandarin word for no.
Thinking that perhaps she had somehow misunderstood me - a reasonable conclusion, considering my Mandarin abilities - I went through the process more slowly and deliberately. Once again she shook her head and said no.
Andy had warned me about this on the bus. When faced with something out of the ordinary or something a bit too much like hard work, Chinese public servants will often say no. It's much easier than actually doing something, and if they get ticked off for it, they simply claim they couldn't understand you. It was obvious that this woman just didn't want to go the the trouble of, firstly, finding out the cost of a foreigner ticket to Xining, and secondly, filling out the various forms needed to issue it.
There was only one way around this problem, and that was to make refusing to sell me a ticket more difficult than selling me one was. Now, luckily, this is something I do have a God-given talent for. When she refused to sell me a ticket for the third time, I stood my ground at the window and in pathetic, poorly pronounced Mandarin said ,"Where is the ticket office? Where is the ticket office?" over and over again. Eventually, she covered her ears, screamed and then issued me a ticket. [...]
Before I could get on the train, though, I had to run the gauntlet of scowling Chinese women in brown uniforms with red stars on their epaulettes. The first stood at the doorway to the platform, looking closely at my ticket, checking that I had been sufficiently ripped off before. Then she let me proceed to the only train at the station. Another woman, dressed exactly the same, and with a sour countenance not unlike that on girls' faces moments after I ask them to dance with me at discos, blocked the door to the train. [...]
At first I thought the compartment was on fire, but once my eyes had adjusted to the haze I realised that it was smoke from the cigarettes of my fellow passengers. [...] The youngest member of the group, a boy of ten, sat in the luggage rack, his feet dangling over the edge, smoking a roll-your-own of impressive proportions. [...] I decided to put up with it, just as I had in Turkey and Indonesia and every other place where 99 per cent of the population seem to have a two-packs-a-minute habit.
[...] The next morning I made my way to the dining car to escape the smoke. Along the way I was introduced to another startling Chinese custom - spitting. As part of their morning ablutions, most of the passengers were dredging up phlegm from the furthermost corners of their body and depositing it with a lazy aplomb on the floor, walls, doorways and windows of the carriage. They dredged with such intensity that I thought they were about to bring up yesterday's lunch, dinner and breakfast and a major organ or two. [...] At first I picked my way tenuously through the carriage, trying carefully not to let my foot fall in a pool of Chinese spittle, but it proved impossible. Instead, I careered through the carriages, slipping and sliding as if I was walking on ice.
[Chapter 17, Chengdu, p. 262-265]
[...] the Naxi ethnic minority, descendants of Tibetan nomads who moved to these parts a few hundred years ago [...]
The Naxi are also famous for being one of the few matriarchal societies in the world. Women inherit all property, women run the judicial system [...] Even the Naxi language bears testimony to the fact that it is the women who wear the pants in this society. If the meaning of a word needs to be enlarged, the word for female is simply tacked onto the end. Hence a big night out in Naxi is a female night out. The Chinese have tried to change this of course, but [...] It's the women you'll see running all the businesses [...] And it's the women running the lucrative sidecar taxi services.
My first dealings with the female sidecar Mafia came when I wanted to go out to Baisha [...]
I clambered into the sidecar, obviously made to Chinese dimensions, and sat there uncomfortably for 10 minutes with my knees under my chin. At first I thought we were waiting for more passengers, but when a little old lady who had been sitting on the pavement all along clambered aboard I knew that I had been put in the sidecar for the amusement of all the other sidecar owners. The day's entertainment over, we set off down a bumpy dirt road, past rustic barns and into the Chinese countryside.
[...] When we finally reached Baisha, I watched what the little old lady paid and gave the driver exactly the same amount. She indicated for me to pay more, but I refused. She was furious, and started spitting and cursing. When I walked off, she followed me, trying to run me over. I ducked off down a laneway and hid behind a pile of mudbricks until she gave up and drove away.
[Chapter 18, Dali, p. 282-283]
A sleeper bus is a distinctly Chinese phenomenon and [...] sounds like a great idea. But [...] the practical application leaves a lot to be desired. The one I caught to Kunming was simply a bus with bunks, and had all the ambience of a mobile hospital. The only thing missing was the IV drip. To make matters worse, the bunks were only four feet long, and mine - a top bunk - was only centimetres from the roof. When I lay flat on my back, my nose was pressed against the roof. [...]
Luckily, there was an air vent above my nose. I pushed it open to give my nose an extra couple of centimetres and happily suffered the water that dripped in on my faced from the heavy rain outside.
[Chapter 18, Dali, p. 282-283]
The bus was ancient and decrepit - by far the worst bus I'd caught so far in China. The poor roads in Xishuangbanna had destroyed its suspension and rust had eaten away a fair amount of the body panels. [...]
[...] The bus journey was also one of my most eventful in China. One of the passengers spent the entire trip yelling at the driver. And when we hit a cow, a representative from every colourful ethnic minority within 50 kilometres, it seemed, popped up to survey the damage [...]
[Chapter 18, Dali, p. 283-294]
[...] a speedboat was leaving for Luang Prabang. [...] We weren't allowed to board until we had donned a life jacket and crash helmet, and soon I knew why. After letting the boat drift out to the middle of the river, the engine burbling like a senior citizen eating custard, our driver gunned the boat with such ferocity that my head snapped back and hit the guy sitting behind me.
It felt as though we had been sucked into a Nintendo 64 game called Mutant Mekong River Racers, and our driver was determined to get the highest score. [...] At one point he skidded over a mid river sandbank and we became airborne. I don't think it helped us to go any faster. I just think he liked hearing the engine go "rrrrreeeeeeee!"
[Chapter 19, Laos, p. 305]
I caught a tuk-tuk to Khao San Road, the traveller's ghetto in Banglamphu. Tuk-tuks are three-wheeled bug-shaped taxis that dart around Bangkok like evil little ladybirds, poisoning the city with their gases.
[Chapter 20, Ko Phangan, p. 316]
The Zen World Trade Centre on Ratchadamri Road captured the new mood of Thailand in a promotion that featured a Thai goddess with many arms, each holding a different shopping bag.
[Chapter 20, Ko Phangan, p. 317]
A bemo is a Japanese van used to convey people from one point to another in Indonesia for a fixed, and often negligible, price, but unlike most Japanese vans, bemos have the capacity to fit entire football crowds inside them, and are not considered to have reached their prime until they are rusted, dented and only firing on two cylinders.
[Chapter 21, Malaysia - Singapore - Indonesia, p. 337]
We stopped briefly [...] at the monument marking the point where the Tropic of Capricorn crossed the Stuart Highway. [...] I was keen to see how my country celebrated this cartographical oddity. I am pleased to say that it was done with dignity and style. Better still, the most interesting aspect of the monument, a goat symbolising the Capricorn astrological sign, had been desecrated in a peculiarly Australian manner. Some wag had painted Ronald McDonald with his clown pants around his ankles doing unnatural things to the poor creature. I was so impressed that I got Sylvia to take my photo next to it.
[Chapter 24, Uluru, p. 375-376]
My Lonely Planet guidebook on Australia reckoned that Australians hate Canberra because of school excursions. I disagree. I think Canberra is actually the perfect school excursion destination. You get to see the few interesting things in Canberra while you are young - the War Memorial, the National Art Gallery, Parliament House - and hence have no reason to ever go back there.
[Chapter 25, Sydney, p. 383]

From No Shitting in the Toilet by Peter Moore (Bantam, 1977):

[Reasons for going travelling:] I want to find myself
Mmmm. If you're having problems discovering yourself in a place where you can actually read the signs, what makes you think that it's going to be easier where they're all in a foreign language?
Seriously, though, if you're keen to find out that in reality you're a short-tempered, egotistical racist who can't handle the pressure of finding a room for the night without wanting to hit somebody, then this is a perfect reason. Travelling gives you plenty of opportunity for discovering those kinds of personality disorders.
[Chapter 1, Why?, p. 6]
A friend of mine would never leave a place until he'd had a good time there. Another friend would not leave a destination until he'd learnt something encouraging about the people and their culture. Both are currently stuck in Brisbane [Australia].
[Chapter 2, When?, p. 12]
What tells lies, indulges in scandalous exaggeration, constantly gets things wrong, is chronically unreliable, massively overweight and costs a small fortune to maintain?
No, it's not your new lover, it's a travel guidebook. [...]
[Chapter 5, Guidebooks, p. 37]
[...] It's always a good idea to take a small gift to give as a token of appreciation for the unexpected kindness while travelling [...] In some of the more primitive cultures, the Australian $1 coin also holds some novelty value. The locals are fascinated that a gold-coloured coin can be worth so little.
[Chapter 6, Packing, p. 52]
In some circles, wankier circles to be sure, visas are considered a badge of honour [...]
Sometimes it may be worthwhile getting an obscure visa, say for Afghanistan or Angola, even if you have no intention of going there. [...]
If you plan to play along with this misconception it may be wise to avoid any question about the country you were supposed to have visited. If questioned, just shrug your shoulders. If really pushed, indicate that it was such an ordeal that you would rather not talk about it. Any visible scar that you may have should be absent-mindedly rubbed at this point.
[Chapter 11, Visas, p. 98-99]
Cairo to Athens, Olympic Airways
Halfway through this flight the plane dipped sharply 90 degrees to the right and then 180 degrees just as sharply to the left. The incident would probably have gone relatively unnoticed except for the fact that the flight attendant abandoned the food trolley and ran screaming to the cockpit to see what had happened. I spent the rest of the flight clutching the armrests, realising just how much blind faith in your pilot contributes to a sound and peaceful flight.
[Chapter 12, Planes, p. 111-112]
Is railway food edible?
Is the pope a Hindu? In western countries you'll find it bland and expensive. In the Third World it is cheap and alarming. (It is alarming that you don't know exactly what it is you're getting, what it will taste like or whether it will kill you.)
The Budapest Metro, Hungary
[...] The train was empty except for three men scattered further down the carriage nonchalantly reading newspapers.
The instant the doors slid shut, however, the three men jumped up and surrounded me, pulling up their jacket sleeves to reveal the dreaded red armband of the plain-clothes ticket inspector. It had been such an elaborate and precise sting that I was genuinely sorry that I had a valid three-day pass in my pocket. The inspectors were pretty disappointed, too. They slunk off to another carriage, their spirits broken.
[Chapter 13, Trains, p. 121,126]
Should I eat boat food?
Not unless you have some kind of death wish. From the ferries that ply the English Channel to the boats popping between the islands of Indonesia, it is universally bad. On the channel ferries it is bland and expensive. In Indonesia, you'll be struggling to identify it and if you do, you'll rather wish you hadn't.
[Chapter 15, Boats, p. 143]
Although designed to service routes without enough passengers to justify using larger buses, a mini-van is unable to leave before it is carrying the equivalent of two busloads of passengers.
Mini-vans have two departure times: minutes before you arrive and a couple of hours after.
No matter how full a mini-van appears, it will wait at least an hour in the tropical sun before leaving. If you leave the van to sit in some shade or get a cold drink, its driver will demand that your get back into the van, insisting it is about to leave. Needless to say, it doesn't.
What are tuk-tuks?
Tuk-tuks are three-wheeled, bug-shaped conveyances driven by possessed demons intent on ending their own lives and taking you, and the whole planet, with them. They should be avoided at all costs.
The name "tuk-tuk" supposedly comes from the noise that emanates from these little two-stroke monsters. It makes them sound cute and cuddly and infers [sic] that riding in them is a soothing experience akin to an hour or so in a floatation tank. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's just that the Thai people had a hard time coming up with a name that encapsulated the tuk-tuk experience, although "those ugly, unroadworthy, fume-belching, life-threatening, limb-crunching, overpriced things with three wheels that sound like a jackhammer on speed" goes pretty close.
If you ever do have to use one, I hope for your sake that it doesn't crash. I once saw one in Thailand and it put me off them for life. As it sat spinning on its roof on one of Bangkok's busiest thoroughfares it reminded me of a turtle turned on its back. But then that could have just been the effect of the limbs of the passengers thrashing about wildly as they tried to get out of the wreckage.
[Chapter 16, Other Modes of Transport, p. 151-152,154]
Kenya / Somalia
The Kenyan army officers guarding the lonely border post at Kiunga wouldn't let me cross into Somalia unless I left all my valuables with them at the border. They claimed that the Somali Shifta bandits would kill me if they thought I had anything worth stealing. I suspected that they would sell it the moment I got beyond the first rise. Unfortunately, if I wanted to get into Somalia - and who doesn't? - I would have to trust them.
As it turned out, I returned a week later and found all my belongings intact. I must admit, however, that I was disturbed by the fact that they seemed genuinely surprised to see me.
[Chapter 17, Border Crossings, p. 174]
What about offending the locals?
Offending people abroad is pretty much the same as offending people at home. Topics like sex, politics and religion are a lightning rod for robust disputation the world over.
Thankfully, the world being the weird and wacky place that it is, there's any number of more colourful ways to upset local sensibilities. In Asia, using your left hand to eat the evening meal is enough to insult even the most gracious of hosts. In Iran, you can get into strife for looking at someone's wife. In some parts of Africa, you're in trouble if you don't. And in Paris, your mere presence is enough to upset most Parisians.
[Chapter 21, Trouble, p. 209]

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