Final Blog: No. 10 – Australia

Blog 10 – Australia
(Darwin, Kakadu, Katherine, Daly Waters, Alice Springs, Kings Canyon, Ayers Rock/Uluru, Coober Pedy, Adelaide, Narrandera and Sydney).


Well, I have a few more days left Sydney and the time has come to sit down and to write this final blog. When I published my last post in Bali a few weeks ago, I had notions of squeezing in definitely two, if not three more blogs. What do they say about ‘best laid plans going awry?’ For what it’s worth, it would have been absolutely impossible as we have driven almost 6,500kms through Australia since we landed in Darwin and our free time has been both rare and invaluable.


It has not also been helped by the fact that we have spent a full week camping out in the bush in some of the most remote and isolated places that I have ever experienced. After the first few nights, I stopped myself going around the tent to find the electrical sockets to charge my laptop, phone and ipod. Can I clarify that the ‘going round’ took three quarters of a second and it’s more of a ‘swiveling’ of one’s head as opposed to wandering aimlessly from room to room and annex to annex searching for hidden plug sockets. Believe me when I say that the tents were VERY basic and consisted of two built-in platforms with slim plastic mattresses. Each tent was located a couple of feet apart from each other and during the night, when I’d turn over to face the ‘wall’, I could almost feel the breath of the person in the next tent on my face. Am I doing a good job in conveying how basic a set-up camping in Australia is?

I have found myself to be so excited whilst being in Australia. For many years, it is a country that I have longed to travel to and it has exceeded my expectations in many respects. Standing at Ayers Rock and watching the sun rise was a sight that I never thought that I’d be fortunate enough to witness, but I did and it was so memorable. I have been shocked at how sparsely populated it is and whilst driving on the Stuart Highway which is a 3,000 kms highway from Darwin to Adelaide, it is possible to travel for thirty or forty kms, (sometimes even longer) without meeting another vehicle. I have seen every type of wild animal, dingoes, kangaroos, lizards, camels, possums, snakes and lots and lots of very ugly spiders with big hairy legs. However, the dreaded Redback spider has eluded me – although I worry that he (or she) is nestled securely in the folds of my rucksack waiting to make an appearance when I’m innocently emptying my case in Renvyle. And what do you bet but on the day I’m bitten, the roads will be too frosty to travel to Galway A&E and I won’t get the antidote in enough time to stop the venom going through my blood system ….. and I’ll become a Redback Spider statistic in my little grey home in the west.


But in saying all that, it hasn’t stopped me LOOKING for the Redback Spider – especially after our tour leader’s comment on our very first night of camping. I had been very cool and collected about camping in the bush in Australia and although there was much talk about poisonous insects and wild animals devouring us during the night, I really was quite laid back about it all. As we were eating dinner in the campsite canteen (that night I think it was Kangaroo steaks and Camel sausages … and I’m NOT joking!), Lana informed us that when she was leading the same trip earlier in the year, on her first night camping, she discovered a Redback spider IN her camp bed. She then kindly showed us a video recording of the said spider … and ON closer inspection, (my contact lenses stuck to the laptop screen), the arachnid most definitely had a large red stripe running down his back … as well as fangs! From then on, I changed my strategy and became, shall we say ‘less laid back’ and each night prior to getting into my sleeping bag, with my little flashlight in hand and my can of Redback spider spray, I stood at the door and fumigated and decontaminated every corner and orifice of the tents interior. Whatever poor soul I happened to be sharing with – usually Christina from Germany, invariably needed resuscitation as the spray and odours from the aerosol can really take ones breath away. And more often than not, it did hers! But I didn’t care, I had my Mount Merapi volcano ash face mask on me and had became so competent in my murderous role that Rentokill would be head-hunting me if they knew how good I was at exterminating and eradicating Redbacks.


But in saying all of that, you know, I really didn’t mind camping too much and for the most part, I slept relatively well. Some nights it was freezing cold and other nights, the heat was unbearable. It simply shows how large a country Australia is when we could experience the different nightly temperatures over the space of days. The heat was probably more difficult to endure than the cold. I mentioned Christina earlier (she has all the gadgets – being from Germany, she is very organized and came prepared for every eventuality!). I entered the roasting hot tent one night, spent my customary fifteen minutes spraying ahead of me, undressed in the dark and got into the sleeping bag. Then I heard it – a whirring noise – like a food mixer noise, coming from the direction of my right ear. Do Redbacks ‘whirr’ was my first thought? Christina was sleeping and I didn’t want to wake her. So up I got, located my flashlight and went on the search of the ‘whirr’. I wandered around the tent like Sherlock Holmes with his magnifying glass – shining my beam in our rucksacks, walking boots, daypacks, and toiletry bags and still couldn’t locate the noise. I then shone the beam directly at Christina and she awoke with a start – full sure that she was being pillaged in the wilds of the Australian bush.” “The noise’, I said, ‘can you hear it - what is it?’’ She yawned and said “Oh, ignore it - that’s just the fan for my face” and she then produced this battery-operated windmill shaped yoke from the top of her pillow – with big silver propeller wings on it. I apologized for waking her, put in my earplugs and climbed back into bed. All through the night, I eyed the device nervously and slept with one eye open. I was convinced that one of the whirring stainless steel silver blades on the machine would detach itself, fly across the tent and embed itself in my right jaw. As we were so far from civilisation, I had visions of the tour leader being forced to make a call to The Flying Doctors to airlift me to hospital and have my jaw re-constructed with bone taken from my right hip. This would be after the medics had used a crowbar to dig the wing of the fan or the propeller out of my face. Anyway, it didn’t happen and I lived to tell the tale – meanwhile Christina emerged from the tent in the morning having experienced the best sleep of her life and I emerged like the Wreck of the Hesperus from not closing an eye ….. and the people in the two adjoining tents are still giving us funny and confused looks as to what the noise was!


Over the last few blogs, I have mentioned my poor sense of direction but I’m afraid that it hit an all time low since I arrived in Australia. Almost every night whilst camping, I found myself losing my bearings going from the tent to the bathroom during the night. Although I’d have my flashlight with me, I really struggled to make my way across paths and campground. Generally I’d be able to find the toilets but never able to find my way back to the tent. Whilst camping in Kings Canyon, we arrived in the evening time and having found myself lost on the previous two nights, I really made a conscientious effort to get my bearings – i.e. locate the tent and locate the toilet block and work out the route between them. I mean, how difficult could it be? A journey of about two minutes – seems easy enough! Well in daylight it was! That night I was fortunate enough to be allocated my own tent and after opening my bottle of bubbly in excitement at the prospect of not sharing, I went to bed. At 3.30 a.m. I awoke just bursting to go to the loo and confident that I had done my recce earlier that evening, I grabbed my torch and in my best sky blue pyjamas and flip flops, headed out to find the toilet block. Just as I had done earlier, I walked up the path, through the two bushes, down the hill, across the flat plateau bit and saw the lights of the building, entered, used the loo, washed my hands and wandered out. I walked across the flat plateau bit, did the hill bit and searched for the bushes to walk between … and they were GONE …. disappeared! I stood there in a state of confusion, turned north, south, east and west … and returned to the toilet block thinking ‘I’ve missed something - I’ll start again and re-trace my steps’. So back I went to the toilets, came out the door, walked down the flat bit, did the hill and shone my torch in every direction, including skywards, in case the bushes had elevated themselves into the sky from when I entered to when I exited. But there was still no sign of any foliage. I was so convinced that I had done nothing wrong but I just could not get my bearings or figure out where the bushes had gone, or more importantly how could I get back to my tent.


I decided that if I tried walking a few directions I might just stumble across the fifteen tents – in fact, considering they were only two minutes walk from the toilet block, one would thing that it was highly probable. Well, probability statistics doesn’t always work out because without doubt I did plenty of stumbling, but unfortunately not across any of the tents. If you could just imagine it – my little frame (!) clad in my little pyjamas (!) with my little flashlight wandering through the darkest campsite that I’ve ever seen at half three in the morning … for what seemed like ages. I felt that I couldn’t go too far from the lights of the toilet block as I would disappear out of the campsite and would never be seen again. The thought went through my mind of the Oz Bus group finding my bones scattered across Kings Canyons the following morning – mauled to my death and eaten by the starving dingoes. (and you think I might be joking!). And I wouldn’t mind but fresh in my head was the revelation that only that evening, someone had spotted a big black snake on the ground under the trees – and I figured that when the search party was looking for my body, when they sliced open Sid the Snake, his stomach would contain my full unchewed body …. and my still lighting torch! At one stage throughout the forty minutes of being lost in the wilds, I lost sight of the toilet block and found myself surrounded by trees and I honestly thought that I was well and truly fecked! You know those articles in the National Enquirer which read ‘LOCATED: Missing eleven year old boy found deep in jungle ….. raised by wolves’. Well, I’m not a boy and I’m not eleven but I thought when I lost sight of all lights that I really could be the headline in the Enquirer. When I’d be eventually discovered in the jungle in the year 2037, I’d be crawling around on all fours and would have forgotten how to speak except to communicate via ‘wolf’ or ‘dingo’ language. My first interview with Oprah would be via a series of growls and howls and every five minutes, her Production Assistant would have to wipe my saliva from my microphone – for fear that I’d electrocute myself – with the physics of water and electricity conduction being what it is.


Anyway, to make a long story short, I found my way back to the toilet block again and decided that I should just wait there until someone else came to use the loos. And that’s exactly what I did. Poor twenty two year old Norwegian Kenneth innocently made his way up the path with his flashlight and I saw him coming and hid inside the cubicle door of the women’s toilet. When I heard him exiting the toilet block, I launched myself – almost piggybacking on him down as far as the tent. He really said hardly anything – I wondered in fact if he was sleep walking or if I had just petrified him into being unable to utter a single and decipherable word. I have no doubt but he thinks that I’m a lecherous old woman who stalks young men, using the urinals as my hunting ground.. but you know what, I don’t care. I made it back to the tent and I swear, I was never so glad to see my bed in my life. I lay there for at least an hour unable to sleep and still could not figure out how I had found myself to be so lost. I discovered the next day that the women’s toilets had two exits and my problem was that I entered one way, come out the other door and not realized that I was heading in a completely different direction …. and it was no wonder that I couldn’t find the two bushes when they were the other side of the building. After that experience, I adopted a new strategy when camping and from midday onwards, I refused to put a drop of liquid of any description to my mouth and as a result, didn’t have to leave the confines of the tent to use the bathroom. I decided that regardless of how many recces’ I had performed, I’m simply not able to be left to my own directional devices in the dead of night. Perhaps if I had the contact lenses in I might have a better chance, but I’m afraid, without them, there’s a 50:50 chance that I’d fall to my death, be eaten to my death or starve to death ….and my flip flopped pyjama’d corpse would be a sorry sight to behold. So even at deaths door for several nights with dehydration, I decided that there was still a higher likelihood of survival rather than dying alone in the bush.

As the nights went on, I became more and more used to the lack of luxuries and when we eventually had a night in a hostel, in my mind, I may as well have been booked into a five star hotel, such was my excitement of upgrading from camping. I walked into the eight person dorm and thought ‘Oh my God … I have died and gone to heaven … pure luxury’. Did I care that the bathroom was shared with about ten other dorms and was about a three minute walk away up and down a series of corridors? Not one bit – I couldn’t believe my luck that we were indoors and had electricity and could put away our torches! This Oz Bus trip has really taught me to appreciate the little luxuries that I wouldn’t even have noticed prior to coming on the bus. In fact, at times over the last three months, I have found myself lying in bed at night in a six or eight person dorm, all my laundry has been washed, I have been washed, I’ve talked to the folks at home, I’m ready to drift off to sleep, and I just think .. ‘how could life be any better?’ Now, the alternative view is that ‘she’s sleeping in bunk beds with people she hardly knows, no bathroom on the same floor level, she’s wearing the same few clothes for months, queuing for and sharing pretty grimy cold showers … and how could she inflict that on herself at her age?’. But you know, at no point since I came on the bus have I felt that I had made a mistake in doing so, and with only two more days remaining, that in itself is a wonderful feeling to have.


Getting off the bus in Sydney for the last time was sad and emotional and saying goodbye to all the Oz Busers was difficult – obviously depending on how well we got on with each other. It was so strange for the first couple of days not being told what time to get up at, what time to be on the bus etc. etc and we all felt that we had become quiet ‘institutionalised’ over the preceding 92 days. We have laughed together about how it must compare to how hostages must feel when they are released from captivity after a long period of incarceration. For the first few days, we didn’t really know what to do with ourselves and tended to turn to the other Oz Busers who were still around and staying the hostels. Now we’re finding our wings and are all gradually separating and proceeding with our own personal plans. I have absolutely no doubt but I have made friends with certain people on the bus which will last a long time ….. and I’m told that we have the Oz Bus 20 Reunion taking place in Renvyle. My generosity when drinking pints knows no bounds! I reckon we’ll hire Michael Nee’s Bus for the event and drive up and down the length and breadth of Connemara for the duration of the party!


So to conclude this last and final blog, I want to thank you all for reading it and being part of my journey with me over the last fourteen weeks. The emails, the comments and the Facebook posts have mattered hugely and I can not stress to you how good I have felt when I have received feedback about how you may have enjoyed reading the blog and if a particular story made you laugh. Anyone who does any sort of writing will know that it takes quite a lot of self-discipline to put pen to paper (or in my case, fingers to laptop!) and I would be lying if I were to say that throughout this trip, sacrifices were not made in finding the time to write and update the blog. I frequently struggled with personal conflicts such as thinking, ‘Debbie, you’re only in this location for one day, you’ll never be back here again, and you’re spending your free time writing and seeing nothing of the place you’re in’. I am being honest when I say that whenever I questioned myself as to whether I was making a mistake in missing particular tours or forfeiting sight-seeing trips because of my opting to blog, it was most definitely, your positive feed-back that always made me choose to write and made me believe that I was making the right decision. I’m aware that it sounds so egotistical to admit that it was praise and encouragement that spurred me on but credit where it’s due – in so many respects, it is you and your enjoyment of this blog that has kept it going.


And with two more days left until I come home, I am experiencing such an array of emotions. I feel a wonderful sense of pride and satisfaction that I have completed the Oz Bus trip – it is a dream fulfilled. I also have a strong sense of nostalgia as it is the icing on the cake in relation to the changes I have made in my life over the last four and a half years, i.e. leaving work, returning to education, etc. Although I have absolutely no idea what I will be working at or where I will be in 2011, I’m experiencing a mixture of nervousness and excitement about what the future will hold. And, as I sign off on this final paragraph, I feel a genuine and heartfelt sadness that my communication with you all has come to an end. Again, I thank you sincerely for reading my blogs, for making me believe that what I was writing was worthwhile, and for accompanying me on my 26,000 kilometers Oz Bus journey.

My love to you all,
Debbie x

Ode to Oz Bus 20

To all the Oz Busers ..... publishing the poem as promised.
To anyone else who reads this, apologies for all the 'in-jokes' ..... its simply a wrap up to our Bus trip.

Final blog will be written from Sydney next week.


Ode to Oz Bus 20
The journey it started on the fifth of September,

It’s now thirteen long weeks, let’s reflect and remember.

When we reached the Embankment, each with rucksack or case,

Three months of possessions taking up every space.

Our life long belongings wrapped in plastic containers,

Each with two pairs of flip flops, and one pair of trainers.

The men had their pen knives, their torches and crampons,

The women, meanwhile, had their case filled with tampons.

‘Bring as much as you can’, it was Lana’s suggestion,

For they won’t be on sale, in the countries, in question.

And being keen to comply and obey all Oz Bus laws,

We’d all brought supplies ‘til we reached menopause.

On that very first day, there were visa inspections,

Also talk about jabs, and who got, what injections.

And what network for roaming you’d set for your phone,

And who had invested, in costly, Malerone.

We talked at the start, about each person’s plan,

We lamented the visa we’d bought for Pakistan.

As the journey progressed, with Danis at the wheel,

Through Europe we drove, it was all quite surreal.

Many hours on the bus, we learned all about patience,

The bus stopped by itself when we reached Service Stations.

Surviving on crisps, diet coke and white bread,

Meant teeth became loose and hair fell from our head.

And despite protestations and despite mounting pickets,

We succumbed to bow legs, and we contracted rickets.

When we’d reach a new city, we would all get quite tetchy,

As poor Danis’s directions, to hostels, were sketchy.

With Sat Nav on the blink – Oz Bus life, wasn’t dull.

We spent two days, on the bus, circling round Istanbul.

Streets being too narrow, made the atmosphere terse,

And half of that time, the bus drove in reverse.

But the good times were many, we moved into Iran,

And discovered that life there, was good for a man.

We all risked being stoned if revealing one’s body,

No alcohol served, just four types of Mi-Wadi.

And each night without gargle required sedation.

Wearing scarves round our heads causing asphyxiation.

But we survived the country, without getting killed,

People’s journeys have differed, diverse needs being fulfilled.

We’ve acquired new skills and through practice each week,

We’ve mastered the art of the squatting technique.

Many countries ago, there were shrieks all around,

When confronted in Turkey with the hole in the ground.

Despite best intentions, and regular strops,

Less pee hit the target than what hit our flip flops.

Water consumption – it became the solution,

The females adopted camel-like constitutions.

But when desperate to go and when forced to the loos,

Colostomy bags, were discussed in the queues.

And with time, we discovered that the squat had an art,

And this knowledge my friends, I now will impart.

Before you go in, there’s some steps you must follow,

You must practice your breathing, so the flies, you don’t swallow.

You must roll up the trousers, and stretch out all your muscles,

And loosen your buttons, so there’ll be, no mad tussles.

You retrieve your loo paper, say a prayer for your plight,

And to Allah you beg, that you don’t, get stage fright.

For whilst queuing for toilets, there’s no difference in classes,

As the women on Oz Bus all become braying asses.

And you know you’re in trouble, when you exceed your times,

Through dawdling, committing the most serious, of crimes.

As you exit, you see the queue checking clock watches,

Their faces like thunder – each one holding their crotches.

As you shame-facedly pass, you’re guaranteed a hard thump,

Best advice being to run - …. the Oz Bus, Forrest Gump.

Throughout the adventure, we’ve enjoyed different scenes,

We’ve acquired new friends, we know each ones routines.

We recognize clothes, we know each persons towels,

We know intimate workings of each passenger’s bowels.

There’s been laughter and gossip and we’ve shared many hugs,

We have learned the importance of a set of ear plugs.

And the fun we have had as we frolicked on beaches,

Has been matched by the horror of detaching black leeches.

Despite the precautions and a can filled with Deet,

Leeches just loved all the Oz Busers feet.

And whilst wandering the jungle, the Guides deep in a trance,

The Oz Busers behind, doing their own Riverdance.

With the shrieking and howling, the wild beasts didn’t wait,

They had adequate time to be in the next State.

With our trip almost ended, we have gained so much knowledge,

Surpassing all that which we could learn at College.

We now know that crutches result from a fall,

When starjumps are performed from a two foot high wall.

Penicillin we’ve learned just does not make the grade,

And it turns people’s legs a deep purple-type shade.

This trivia I stress, isn’t just to fill cracks,

It’s important to stress that they’re all Oz Bus Facts!

And now in Australia, we’ve been blessed with MacGyver,

We’ve discovered a gem in having Rick as our driver.

Even driving through rain, intense sun and sand blizzards,

He can spot from the bus, obscure species of lizards.

As they sit in his hand, and he highlights their features,

The girls, taking photos of Rick, and not of the creatures.

So to finish this ode, without doubt there’ll be sorrow,

When we won’t be hearing Lana tell the plans for tomorrrrooooow!

No more days on the bus twisted into the seats,

Drooling and snoring and toothache from the sweets.

Our bodies contorted, thirty bored and pained faces,

Our heads like a rag doll and our neck requiring braces.

Tonight as we sit here, we’ve memories plenty,

United by being, a part of, Oz Bus Twenty.

And on journeys in future, we can say ‘what’s the fuss?’,

Cos’ we’ve travelled from London to Sydney ….. on a bus!





Debbie Ruddy

1st December 2010

Blog 9 – Pangandaran, Solo, Cemorolawang, Mt. Bromo, Bali (Indonesia)

I thought that I’d fit one more blog in before I left Indonesia for Australia. As I touched on in the last blog, we’re all starting to realize that the end isn’t too far away and the conversations amongst the groups now tend to revolve around what each others plans are after we arrive in Sydney …. as opposed to how we found the particular days bus journey, who we’re sharing with or how many Imodium tablets were taken in the preceding twenty four hours. From speaking with the group, I would estimate that at least half of the passengers have opted to remain in Sydney and the other half will be returning to their respective homes. Lots of the younger passengers on the bus have organized work visas and will remain in Australia for a year or so – those people seem to be the most excited about the future as opposed to those of us who are returning to their home countries and back to their normal lives.



It’s interesting to think back to the very first day in London and seeing all the faces of the people who I would be sharing with over the thirteen weeks. I have learnt so much about the group members – some way more so than others obviously and have formed lovely friendships with certain people. Although it's quite understandable for people to veer towards people of their own age and expect to find more in common with them, I have also had the most wonderful conversations and laughs on bus days sitting beside people ten or fifteen years my junior. In truth, this doesn’t surprise me as I have spent the last four years in college with spent a lot of time with classmates who were years younger than I. Over this time, I have made some wonderful friends with several of those students. I suppose what interests me about every person is the individual stories that each has to tell and for that, I find that age is no barrier. I’m frequently teased amongst my Oz Busers that no matter what hotel I’m in, I’ll never be able to find my way to or from it, but yet I’ll remember how many brothers or sisters every person on the bus has and every single detail that they’ve divulged to me since they met me on the 5th of September. I frequently say during conversations ‘just don’t tell me if you don’t want me to remember it in the future’. All I know is that if I was half as proficient at finding my way around or getting my bearings in the place I’m staying, it would be far more beneficial to me. I sometimes feel like Hansel and Gretel who went into the woods and left a trail of breadcrumbs so that they could re-trace their steps and find their way home – and then the birds came and ate all the crumbs and they were well and truly lost. Well, I’m the reason that there are breadcrumbs covering the route from London to Bali. Good job the birds have played their part or the Oz Bus would have one spare seat!



Although I’ve only been here three days, Bali (and Kuta where we're staying) has been a bit of a mixed bag for me. On one hand, the beaches and water is lovely, as are the restaurants and bars and of course the weather is glorious with temperatures being close to 35 degrees since we arrived. However, it is absolutely impossible not to get extremely frustrated as you walk along the streets. I thought I had seen it all in India, especially with the constant pestering to buy plastic Taj Mahals, Golden Palaces, etc but Bali brings it to a completely different level. It’s absolutely relentless. Literally every five to eight seconds, you’re approached by hawkers and traders offering massages, sun glasses, handbags, pedicures, water, perfume …. I could go on and on. I went for a two hour walk yesterday and honestly, I couldn’t wait to get back into the hotel to get some relief from the harassment. Even when you refuse whatever wares you’re offered, the men frequently follow you down the road for several minutes shoving the same pair of fake sunglasses into your face. Now, I’m not a violent person (!), but a few times yesterday I really had to restrain myself from shoving the fake sunglasses down their throats. The only thing that stopped me is the fact that I’m not convinced that a Bali jail would be my cup of tea. I couldn’t imagine that WiFi would be too easy to come by in Cell 7D whilst I’d be awaiting trial for the permanent disfigurement of Mr. Sunglass trader. I mean how else could I start up my own Facebook campaign ‘Free Debbie Ruddy’ if I’m not able to get a good signal from my bunk? Anyway, I’d also imagine the air-conditioning could be too tempermental for me – so as a result of a bit of forward thinking, I decided not to embed the Calvin Klein glasses deep into his trachea. At the end of the day, I’m just all heart!


On our first night here, a few of us went for a dinner and ended up in several Bali Clubs. (T’would be more in my line to have gone home to my bed for myself but Bintang is a powerful beer!). In all of my life, I have never been offered as many drugs and have definitely never seen the various types being distributed so freely. Whilst walking to and from the venues, magic mushrooms and hash cigarettes were offered literally every three steps. In fact, if I had smoked all the hash I was offered in my 200 metre walk (or wobble), I’d now be in a respiratory ward awaiting a double lung transplant. But in hindsight, it probably would have done absolutely no harm to be in a semi-conscious state whilst within in the Clubs. My god, the volume of the music was UNBEARABLE! There were loads of extremely skinny, semi-clad young people dancing very energetically on top of extremely high tables. I’m still not sure if they were employed by the Nightclub or were they just party-goers who had imbibed lots of substances, who had a remarkable sense of balance and who felt confident enough to gyrate and thrust after scaling the heights of the table. There was one worse-for-wear bare-chested young Australian surfer who was about seventeen years old. He was wearing just his Y-fronts (not sure if that was by accident or design) but every time he let go of the pole in the middle, he swayed and staggered precariously to the edge of the eight feet high table. I have no doubt but he thought himself to be the coolest, most sexy and most sought-after dude on the dancing table, whereas, as I watched him, he kept reminding me of one of the The Skittles Family (for those who are old enough to remember Noddy and his friends!). In the course of Justin Bieber’s ‘Baby’ number, he lost the run of himself altogether and added a ‘swivel and pirouette’ into his dancing routine and it nearly was his undoing! It took all in my power not to grab the cushions from the sofas and locate them all around the base of the table. If he didn’t have his balancing techniques perfected from his seventeen years on the surfboard, there is no doubt but he would have come a cropper and it wouldn’t have been a pretty sight. Eventually one of his friends coaxed him down – probably with some pill or other, and with a shake of his golden blonde tresses and a final thrust of his hips, he made his descent. I decided there and then that I should make my exit, follow my breadcrumbs and make my way back to the hotel. Sometimes you just know that you’re out of you league and regardless of what volume of alcohol was in the bottles of Bintang, there wasn’t a beer in the world that was strong enough to make the Bali Nightclub experience any less painful.





It’s funny writing about Bali and the Nightclubs when only two or three days ago, I was looking down directly into the Mount Bromo volcano. I think that’s the really wonderful thing about this Oz Bus trip, it’s the fact that within the space of a few days, so many things change and the experience is completely different. It really is impossible to get bored anywhere simply because we’re never in one place long enough (and I realize that this too can be a definite disadvantage) but also because activities, terrain, landscape, accommodation, food, local attractions etc. are always so different every time we get off the bus. We stayed in a type of Country Lodge resort about 45 minutes walk from Mount Bromo. It was so rural and located at such a high altitude that the coach was unable to travel for the last hour on the roads and we transferred into mini-buses for the final leg of the journey to the Lodge. At one stage on our ascent up the barrier-free cliff-face narrow and flooded road, with the torrential rain pelting down, I looked out the window to the left and realized that if the bus went over the side, we were so high up that it was impossible to see the ground below. There must have been a drop of at least three or four hundred metres and my father’s words reverberated in my ears when I told him I was going on the Oz Bus, ‘them feckin’ bus drivers in those countries drive like lunatics and they always end up toppling down ravines’. All of a sudden the thought that went through my head (and I’m being genuine on this) is …. ‘would they ever bother retrieving the bodies if our bus went over?’ I asked the same question of Stuart who was sitting beside me and he put my mind at ease by convincing me that they definitely would. It’s strange how your mind works, isn’t it? It wasn’t the fact that I was going to snuff it that bothered me, but I really didn’t want to be left at the bottom of the ravine sprouting Indonesian rhododendrons in three years time. Anyway, the bus didn’t go over the side and all my worries were in vain.





But back to the volcano, it really was amazing and again, as I stood on its lip and breathed in the sulphur-filled air as it billowed smoke below me, I felt that same feeling I’ve experienced so many times on this trip, of being so fortunate to be where I am. Because Mount Merapi, which is the Indonesian volcano which has been in the news, is still constantly erupting, there is an exclusion zone within which no body can enter. Over 200 people have been killed in the last few months as a result of those eruptions; it is now regarded as being the most active volcano in the world (according to Andy, our local volcanologist). Anyway, as a result of this, although we saw and took photographs of Mount Merapi, we were absolutely miles away and I for one didn’t get that same rush of adrenaline as when we were able to come within about 100 metres of a smoking and magma filled Mount Bromo. When I talk in my blogs about those ‘special feelings’ I get, to experience them, I don’t have to be standing in front of some amazing building or structure or …looking down at an active volcano …. sometimes they hit at the most strangest times. Just that same night whilst walking back from the nearby village with Christina, I got that exact same feeling. We had enjoyed a few beers in the only hotel and it being off season, the area was practically empty of tourists – just the odd few restaurants and small shops were even open. There were no cars about as the roads were too narrow for anything other than bikes or animal transport. Darkness had just set in and as we climbed the hill towards our Lodge, something stopped me in my tracks, and I looked back. The village was nestled picturesquely at the foot of a large mountain, the lights in the houses were all twinkling but there were no street lights and absolutely no sounds of traffic. And, … I got that feeling! It was as close to a Christmas card scene that I have ever witnessed. It was so beautiful and silent and so unaffected and I tried desperately to capture the image in my head and to always remember what it looked like and how I felt at that exact moment in time. I know you’re probably thinking, if it meant that much to you, why didn’t you take a photograph of it ….. but as it was dark, it would have just come out as a black image with fuzzy lights. Instead, I have it ingrained in my memory and when I’m in a nursing home in forty years time and I don’t know the names of my family members when they come to visit me on Sunday afternoons (to get me to sign over my house and property portfolio!), I guarantee you that I will always remember the sight of the little village that evening and remember how the scene took my breath away.



Several weeks ago when I was writing a blog from Nepal, I mentioned that I had ran out of time and had not got around to telling you about my elephant bathing experience. I’ve gone through about four countries since that time and it hasn’t crossed my mind but several people have emailed me asking me to write about it. By god, ye lot keep me on my toes. So although it has absolutely nothing to do with Indonesia (but then, that has never stopped me before!), I’ll tell you about it.

We were staying in Chitwan, which to remind you, was where we had done our jungle walk and had spent out two hours fending off leeches as opposed to marveling at the flora and fauna of the jungle. When we came out of the jungle, we were absolutely soaking to the skin and had a choice of either waiting for a boat to bring us across to the other side of the river bank, or else to walk across it ourselves. The river was about 20 metres wide and it looked like it had a quite a strong current so the Guide went across first, and fully-clothed, we all followed him like sheep. The water was waist high so when we made it across, you can imagine what we looked like and how wet we were. I’m setting the scene for you because it really has a bearing on the elephant bathing. Stay with me, I promise it does.


For days before, loads of people had said that they would love to bathe with the elephants but I always said that it wasn’t something that interested me and I would skip it. I had seen them and that was enough for me. As we came out of the river and up onto the riverbank, the Guides told us that the elephant bathing session was cancelled as it was too wet - and as you can imagine, there was mass disappointment all around and talk of suing, refunds, small print, legal obligations etc. I was in the final jeep travelling back to the resort and was more interested in removing any stray leeches that had attached themselves to me as opposed to feeling sorry for the elephant bathing cancellations. As I was getting out of the jeep, two big elephants were being led out the entrance of the complex by three men and one whispered to us ‘come on, quick, elephants are going bathing’. Again I was overcome with ‘sure what harm would it be’ and before I knew it, I was traipsing down the road with the elephants and about three other passengers from the bus (those who happened to be in that final jeep). We arrived at a different and much wider river to the one we had walked across and Nellie and Jumbo (obviously improvising here!) waded out into the middle of it. One of the Oz Bus lads, Rick emptied his pockets and took off his watch and like Michelle Smith on performance enhancing drugs, with casual languid strokes, swam out after them and in one move, somersaulted his way up onto the elephant’s back. After about five minutes, one of the men beckoned me out into the middle of the river … and in my best Nepalese, I said ‘how deep is the river because I’m not a great swimmer?’. He smiled back at me and said ‘don’t worry, I not let you die’. Now that didn’t instill too much confidence in me and I had visions of not actually dying, but being in a hospital bed in a vegetative state from lack of oxygen for 40 minutes whilst being stuck in reeds at the base of the river. And would he have been true to his words, yes he would!



Anyway, I threw caution to the wind and fully clothed, walked out to my waist into the water, and with Rick still up on her back, Nellie good-naturedly came to meet me half way. She was absolutely huge and she went down on one knee so that I could climb up onto her back and behind Rick. Now that sounds easier than it actually is and even with her down on her knee, it was still like climbing from the ground onto the top of a double-decker bus … with jungle trousers, jacket, socks and shoes on – and all sopping wet. So in deep water, after a few desperate leaps onto Nellie, I wasn’t even getting close to climbing onto her back. In fact, in the sixty seconds of desperate leaping and lunging myself at her, I almost ruptured her liver with my knee cap, dislocated her shoulder with my shin, removed her five toenails from her hoof with my jungle boot and detached her tail from her body with my trailing foot. Before I could do any more damage to his prized elephant (who was squeezing her eyes together, clenching her teeth and physically wincing every time I made another assault on her body), Nellie’s minder came out to me in the river, cupped his hand and got me to stand into it. With his free hand, he placed it on my rump, and with a weightlifter’s grunt and a sniff of his smelling salts, he eventually hoisted me up. I got my right leg up and over, and although Rick who was sitting in front of me looked as comfortable as if he were at home on his own three piece suite, I felt that I was doing the splits and my hips were on the verge of coming out off their sockets. I put my arms around poor Rick’s waist … with a ‘dead man’s grip’ type of force and thought ‘no matter what happens mate, you’re coming with me’.



The four foot tall minder then Riverdanced his way up onto Nellie’s back and stood behind me on the seven inches of space remaining on the elephant. He roared some instruction at her and she walked slowly out to middle of the river. Then he shouted something else like ‘drown the feckers!’ and with that Nellie inhaled 700 gallons of dirty water through her trunk, put the same trunk back over her head and released the water behind her at a speed of 200 kms an hour. Not anticipating it, and not having time to duck, I honestly thought that she had blown the nose clean off my face. Until then, I thought that ‘bathing with the elephants’ might mean sponging their bodies with soft soapy water and tickling their underbellies with their favourite yellow rubber ducky. I never realized that it was Nellie and Jumbo that bathed us … bathing or permanently damaging our facial structures and re-locating our eye sockets back at the nape of our necks. I don’t think Rick got the full force of the water and unlike me, I definitely don’t think that his contact lenses landed in Jumbo’s eyes …. Jumbo’s eyes which were on Jumbo’s face …. which was a full fifteen metres from where Nellie was standing. I coughed and spluttered and spat out a concoction of river water and Nellie’s saliva – and Nellie was so impressed with herself, she continued to repeat the process, inhaling the water and directing it back at us. In fact Nellie thought that it was hilarious. After the second direct hit, I decided that War was War and even though we were on the same team, I proceeded to use Rick as a human shield – grabbing him by the waist and literally lifting him from side to side to deflect Nellie’s ammunition. I was like a woman possessed and with a previously undiscovered strength, I used him like a rag doll to ward off the deluge which was coming at a rate of a direct hit every thirty seconds.



With bath time over and the time up, the minder issued a shouted instruction again – which the elephant understood but I most definitely didn’t. Now bear in mind that we were still in the middle of the river and I still had the even wetter clothes on than before. Down with Nellie on her left knee. I watched her closely thinking ‘what is she going to do?’. Then down went Nellie on her right knee and I thought ‘what IS the bitch going to do?’ and then ….with a maneuver akin to a fainting actress on centre stage, she fell to the side and rolled over. Now, gravity being what it is, an upside down elephant in the middle of the river also means an upside down Debbie in the middle of the river. Under the water I went, deep under the water, and because I had no time to take a deep breath, I could see my own bubbles coming from my mouth – and whatever other orifice was submerged! With eyes tightly shut, I waited for her body to roll on top of me and wondered if being crushed to death was more favourable a departure from this world than being drowned. After five seconds, I realized that Nellie wasn’t going to land on me but had probably made coral sand out of Rick. But I decided that was Rick’s problem! Though still fathoms under the water, I decided that I wasn’t going to die without putting up a struggle. I proceeded to do the breast stroke, the backstroke, the front crawl, the doggy paddle and the butterfly ….all at the one time. Whilst clattering myself and almost knocking myself unconscious with my own flailing arms which were coming at me from every direction, there is no doubt but I was putting up a gallant effort at trying to survive … until I hit my foot on something hard. I tentatively put down the other foot and realized that instead of being twenty thousand leagues under the river as I had thought, the water was only up to my hips. Embarrassed I stopped the swimming strokes and gingerly stood up to a round of applause and to much laughter from Nellie’s minder and Nelly herself … and whoever else was in the river. Humiliated, I bowed my head in shame, and when no one was looking, gave Nelly a sly pinch and a kick in the back of her calf and walked out of the river. That my friends, was Debbie and the Elephant Bathing story – worth waiting for … I think not!


In a few hours, we take our final flight (other than the flight home) and travel from Bali to Darwin, Australia. Our first flight was between Tehran and Amritsar (India) and the second flight was between Calcutta and Bangkok …… other than that it has been bus all the way … apart from four of five ferries, mainly through Indonesia. Our hotel days have come to an end I’m afraid and throughout Australia, it will be a mixture of hostels and about a week camping. It’ll be interesting to see if I dislike the hostel experience as much as I did throughout Europe. I’m hoping that the fact that we now know each other so much better might make it more bearable but thinking back, it was the lack of space that I found most difficult as opposed to the sharing with seven or eight people. Anyway, time will tell and believe me, I will let you know. I know that the days in Australia consist of an awful lot of travelling, with us clocking from 600 – 800 kms on some of those days. Let’s hope the roads will be good and the bus will be spacious and comfortable …. I’m an eternal optimist. Anyway, it’ll probably be a week or so until I get a chance to blog again, so until then, keep well and keep happy …and keep in touch! Love Debbie x

Blog 8 – Hatyai (Thailand), Penang, Melaka (Malaysia), Pekanbaru, Jambi, Palembang, Bandar Lampung, Bandung (Indonesia)

Blog 8 – Hatyai (Thailand), Penang, Melaka (Malaysia), Pekanbaru, Jambi, Palembang, Bandar Lampung, Bandung (Indonesia)


Well, it’s been a while! I am currently on a ferry which is travelling between Sumatra and Java in Indonesia and have escaped to the lounge to do a bit of writing for as long as the battery in the laptop lasts. The last time I updated this blog was from Koh Samui about ten days ago and as you can see from the locations above, we’ve been to lots and lots of places. Believe me when I tell you that my love affair with the bus has well and truly come to an end. In fact, I think that so much damage has been done to our relationship that there is no chance of any type of reconciliation … EVER … we’re finished! And I’m afraid, as I write this, there’s quite a lot of bitterness between us! I’ve had several enquiring emails over the last few days as to why there’s been a delay with Blog 8 …… and the simple answer is that the long long days on the bus has allowed me time for nothing other than eating (always a priority), washing and sleeping. Even the ‘washing’ element of the equation has only stretched as far as washing myself and not any of my clothes. If there’s any consolation, it’s that all of the Oz Bus passengers are in the same boat (pardon the pun), as tonight is our 8th night on the trot in a different location and logistics doesn’t allow for us to be able to do laundry before the bus departs in the morning. Most of our days of late have consisted of at least twelve hours in the bus, with Tuesday hitting fifteen hours. To-day I’m told it will again be over fifteen hours before we arrive at our hotel.

We were always aware that travelling through Indonesia was going to be very tough but believe me, it’s become a real test of endurance and stamina. I’ve noticed that people are easily irritated, we’re becoming increasingly more tired, our diet is so unhealthy and we’re simply trying to survive until we get a few days to relax in one place and to build our energy up again. But in saying that, it’s all part of what we bought into and I’m continually thankful that I have remained healthy throughout this trip – lots of other passengers haven’t been as fortunate. I’ll probably arrive home at Christmas and not leave the bed ‘til July – riddled with malaria, Japanese encephalitis, rabies and Hepatitis A (am still convinced that skimping on those inoculations will come back to haunt me).

Anyway, just so that I’ve set the scene for you, that’s been what I’ve been at for the last ten days. Just days and days of 6.00 a.m. departures and 8.00 p.m. arrivals into hotels in cities that Lonely Planet advises us to avoid. Like battery hens, we’ve been cooped up on an uncomfortable bus, with the highlight of the day being service stations toilet stops every two or three hours. And even sitting down here today to write, what’s going through my head is what in God’s name will I write about that won’t bore you to tears?



Well, why not start at my one good laugh this week (which could also be called my ‘only’ laugh). About three days ago, we had left Jambi very early in the morning and were travelling to Palembang. Conscious that this journey would take fifteen hours, we had all stocked up on snacks and drinks and had charged our appliances etc. – it was a case of “Fail to prepare; Prepare to Fail”. The bus stopped around 9.00 a.m. and we filed off and used bathrooms etc. and then climbed back on. I then fell fast asleep and the next thing I awoke to find to the bus had stopped again in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere, and the people were getting off the bus. I groggily looked down at my watch and it was only 10.00 a.m. – a mere one hour after the last stop which is unprecedented. Afraid to let any opportunity for a toilet stop pass, I retrieved my own personal roll of toilet paper and my hand sanitizer from my bag, wiped the sleep from my eyes and I too got off the bus. I noticed that directly outside, the passengers had all congregated together with their cameras in their hands ‘hmmmm, strange that they’re not rushing to join the toilet queue’, I thought, but continued on my way, towards an old concrete building about 100 metres away from the bus. About 60 metres from the ‘toilet’ I heard someone calling my name and I turned around. The girl who called my name, walked towards me, handed me her camera saying ‘If you take me, I’ll take you’. Taking her camera in my hand that wasn’t holding my toilet roll, I looked at her blankly and said ‘The toilet? You want me to take a picture of you in the toilet?’ Very confused, she looked at me and said ‘No, at The Equator Monument’. “The Equator Monument?’ I repeated, equally as confused. She looked at me, threw her eyes to heaven, grabbed the camera out of my hand and said ‘Never mind, I’ll get someone else to do it’ and she turned and stomped away. AND THEN IT DAWNED ON ME! We weren’t on a toilet stop, we had stopped at the ACTUAL Equator Monument, a huge 50 foot structure in the sky that I had walked past in my blinkered state. Well, I climbed back onto the bus to retrieve my camera, with my toilet roll and hand sanitizer under my auxter and I really had the best laugh at myself and my stupidity. One of the most famous and renowned landmarks in the world, the zero point of the equator line, and all that was on my mind was how lucky I was to be getting to the front of the toilet queue while the other eejits dilly dallied outside the bus. The only comfort was that when I climbed onboard the bus, there too was Laura putting away her toilet roll and retrieving her own camera from its case. She too had made the same mistake so I didn’t feel quiet as much of an ass. But God, did we laugh at ourselves. We had this vision of a cartoonist drawing the scene – the Oz Bus parked on the side of the road, 28 people taking photographs from every angle of the actual point of division between the northern and southern hemisphere …. and Laura and myself scurrying past them all with our rolls of toilet paper under our arms, oblivious to everything, with our only care in the world being whether the toilets would be clean or dirty. For those who have travelled with me before, I know you won’t be too surprised, as I too have seen the photographs of Debbie asleep at the Pyramids, Debbie asleep at the Grand Canyon, Debbie asleep at the Niagara Falls, Debbie asleep at the Colosseum and Debbie asleep at the Acropolis (I think it’s the Wonders of the World and their ilk that generally are at the root of my doziness). Anyway, for what its worth, whenever I think of that day at the Equator, it never fails to make me smile, and it’s the perfect indicator of how simple my basic needs and requirements have become throughout the last couple of months.



It’s strange really to think that I haven’t used a hair straightener since the end of August, rarely (if ever) put any make-up on my face, worn the same few clothes that’s in my rucksack, survived all the freezing cold showers and shared a room with a different person every night. I also notice that I have become completely tolerant of the varying levels of cleanliness in the hostels and hotels and having spent the first three weeks of the trip spending hours inspecting and fumigating each bed for insects and whatever else, I now find myself falling into the bed without even checking what the conditions the sheets are in or what flora and fauna they may contain. I think it was in Agra in India that I realized that I had changed. We stayed in a particularly awful dive of a hotel and I was room-sharing with Vicki. On entering the room, without even taking out my inspection kit, I was met by the sight of several species of wildlife walking across my bed. My rule of thumb was that I could tolerate any beast with two legs, but anything with more legs than myself wasn’t good.

Vicki kindly labelled each of the ‘Walkers’ … ‘there’s a bed bug Debbie’, ‘oh, that’s a flea, in fact there’s three fleas’ and ‘that’s a lesser spotted highly dangerous hard-backed beetle’ and as she rummaged at the bottom of the sheets, ‘that HAS to be a death-inducing poisonous and paralyzing red-backed spider’. Now bear in mind that whilst she was being so helpful with her recognition and classification and cataloguing skills, all her findings and detections were on MY bed and not her own. I gazed over at the pristine and lily-white sheets on her bed and kicked myself for ‘not baggsing’ that side of the room when I had walked through the doorway. With the inspection still ongoing and Vicki still on all fours on top of my bed …., I stood in a state of shock and paralysis …. and that was even before I had even succumbed to a bite by the red-backed spider. As the pillow visibly moved up and down the bed with the power and force of the creatures that lay both underneath and within it, I reckoned that I’d have been safer sleeping naked in the Amazonian jungle or indeed in the Crocodile enclosure in Dublin Zoo than on the bed in front of me.



Now I admit, that first night I spent many hours jack-knifing bolt upright in the bed … to maim or murder whatever crawled, flew, hopped, slid, or trampled across my leg, or my arm, or my foot or my face. But, on the second night, perhaps it was fatigue or simply a resignation to the fact that I hadn’t died the first night, I climbed into my little single bed and slept as well as if I was in a five star hotel with 250 thread Egyptian cotton sheets and rose petals sprinkled on my bedcovers. Since then, regardless of what’s thrown at me in the manner of species in hotel rooms, I’ve risen to the task. I’ve killed cockroaches, earwigs, ants of all colours and sizes and crushed bed-bugs (incidentally, they make a squelching sound). Although having to be persuaded by the wildlife experts of the Oz Bus that gravity does not come into play with certain creatures, I’ve slept with several lizards sleeping on the ceiling directly over me. If those experts are incorrect and if one or all of them lose their balance and fall during the night, I have been proactive and Googled ‘Steps to follow if you swallow a lizard’ and bookmarked it and saved it in under my Favourites folder. That’s where you’ll find it when doctors all over the world are bamboozled as to why their patient’s tongue keeps darting in and out and why her skin has turned to scales. Anyway, I think that all of this is the proof that you might need that I most certainly have changed over the last few months and the Debbie that appears in Renvyle on the 15th December may be considerably different than the one who left on the 4th of September. In fact, how comfortable are you with dreadlocks, hairy legs and arm-pits, Jesus type sandals, body tattoos and a few piercings and nose rings? (I think in that sentence, I might have mixed the new-age travellers with the hippies with the punks and the religious freaks ….. but you get my drift!).



Anyway, we all can’t believe that in less than ten days we will leave Bali to fly to Australia. And on the 5th of December (in just over three weeks time) we arrive in Sydney. Although really looking forward to going home for Christmas and seeing family and friends, all of a sudden, I am starting to feel real pangs of sadness and can’t believe that my Oz Bus dream is almost over. When I think back to the initial few weeks of this trip and to things that happened, it seems like a year ago, so I can’t say that the time has absolutely flown. But I will say that other than on the very first night in Bruges, (when I sat with my head in my hands on my bunk bed in the cramped eight person dorm), not once have I thought that I made a mistake in coming on this trip. And despite what I said about the excruciatingly long bus journeys, even on the longest and most miserable of those days, I have never wished that I was in any other place or doing anything different with my life than exactly what I was doing. So for all of you out there who are pitying me (and I know you are through your ‘wouldn’t wish what you’re doing on my worst enemy’ type of comments), I can guarantee you that I’m not to be afforded sympathy of any description. However, in January 2011 when I’m in jobless, moneyless and suffering from Seasonal Adjustment Disorder, your most powerful sympathy pangs can be directed my way and will be gratefully received at that time.



That’s of course if I haven’t moved to my Palace in Varanasi! Time for me to explain again. Whilst our group were in Varanasi in India, we went on a tour around the city – lots of golden Buddhas if my memory serves me right. I mustn’t have been as Buddha’d out at that stage as I am now. Anyway, the Indian Tour Guide took a bit of a shine to me and kept sitting down beside me on the bus and walking by my side when visiting any of the attractions. He named me Princess Varanasi, which you could imagine was the cause of much amusement and mirth amongst my fellow Oz Bussers. Now, being labelled ‘Princess Varanasi’ sounds like a wonderful honour to bestow on a person, but bear in mind that Varanasi is renowned far and wide as being the dirtiest city in the world. So I can assure you that the Princess Varanasi title does not have the same connotations as being labelled Princess Bahrain, Princess Dubai or Princess Monaco. In fact, when he said it to me first, and when my mind started wandering (as it invariably does), instead of envisaging myself on a diamond throne, wearing a sparkly tiara, ball gown and delicate golden pumps, I could see myself wading through the sewage covered streets in Varanasi in my black wellingtons, two corgis under my auxters, my waterproof oilers, a Michael Jackson style facemask and my tiara a dull grey from the traffic fumes. But since that day, I have been nicknamed Princess Varanasi and believe me, most often it is used in a less than complimentary tone. I’ll give you an example.



When we were en route between Chitwan and Pokhara in Nepal, we were fortunate enough to be invited into a typical Nepalese family home (I think it was the Nepalese Tour Guide who had organized it with his family). You can imagine thirty of us disembarking the bus in the middle of the countryside and traipsing into this small and simple family home. The very extended family (about twelve of them) had gone to great lengths to make our visit enjoyable and despite their obvious lack of wealth, had bought a lot of drinks and food for us. As they had no knowledge of English and our Nepalese was …hmmm, limited …. communication between us consisted of a lot of smiling and showing of teeth. Their smiles and our smiles, their teeth and our teeth! They were adamant that before any of the hors d’oeuvres could be served, every one of the thirty of us should have a seat in the small room. Although we were more than happy to stand, the family members insisted on giving up their own seats and there were chairs brought from every other room in the house. Eventually someone amongst the family spotted that 93 year old Granny who was minding her own business knitting booties in the bedroom had the audacity to still be sitting on a chair, and that too was whipped out from under her and given to one of our group. Now, this whole seating process had taken about twenty minutes and it was becoming more and more awkward as even when you got a chair, there was nowhere left to put it as we were like sardines in a tin. Also, we were all getting lock jaw from the smiling and nodding. At the end, there were 29 of us sitting and I was the only one left standing but was very comfortably leaning against the wall trying not to be noticed. But, from way down the corridor, Granny’s 77 year old son caught my eye and did a bit of ‘tsshhing’ and nodding and gesticulations with his finger to someone in a kitchen off an adjoining room. I beseeching looked at him and mouthed ‘I really want to stand, no chair, I’m fine … PLEASE’. And then I saw it ….. A FULL-SIZED RED SEQUINNED GOLD-TRIMMED ARMCHAIR still wrapped in its plastic covering, being lifted aloft in the air and like a food parcel convoy, being carried over heads and up the corridor. It arrived into our room and because of all the bodies and chairs, had to be passed in overhead to find a space. Curiosity had got the better of four foot six inch Granny, who being left chair-less, had left down her needles and had made a little space for herself to watch the proceedings. But her standing space was allocated as the exact point where the arm-chair should be placed and Granny had to move at speed before she herself became a part of the pattern in the carpet. With the ‘throne’ in the middle of the floor, Uncle beckoned me and insisted that I come and sit in the arm-chair in the middle of the room. The roars of ‘Nothing but the best for Princess Varanasi’ echoed around the room as I sat into the chair which not alone had never been sat in, but had never been taken out of ‘the good room’. I can tell you, that I almost died of embarrassment and I blushed to a degree that I never thought possible. After ten minutes of clicks and flashes of cameras (at me in the throne, as opposed to at the typical Nepalese family!), the food and drink was served. Then Great Granddad who was the oldest male member in the house gave us individually a blessing which consisted of a red flower dye paste and red petals – which he placed on our foreheads and said some prayer. When he approached my throne and was giving my blessing, instead of relishing in the moment, all I could think of was ‘I hope it doesn’t stain my white shirt ‘cos it’s the only thing I have that’s clean’. But all in all, it was a memorable day and Princess Varanasi survived it – I was going to say ‘with her reputation intact’ but that really is debatable.



So, another blog almost completed. I generally reckon that about 3,000 words is as much as I can inflict on you in one go. Anything over that and you’d be skipping paragraphs and pages and that wouldn’t be good. I just had a read back on it and even with 3,000 words it’s not really clear that I’m in Indonesia is it ….. I’d better put it into the title of this blog. I’m sure Michael Palin is not having sleepless nights over me wiping his eye and being offered his travel programme. In fact I could do my own programme and it would be called – ‘Read 3000 words of her travel experiences and guess which country she is in’. We head to Yogyakarta tomorrow, home of Mount Merapi volcano. In fact we have had to change hotels as our appointed hotel was within the exclusion zone which is about 30kms from the volcano. I read yesterday that lava travels at a speed of 100kms an hour. I’m on the treadmill since.

The boat has docked and after one night in Bandung, we’re staying in a fabulous hotel for the next night in a place called Pangandaran in Java … and after a few days, we move onto the island of Bali. You see, that’s why I don’t use names in my blogs, it’s even boring for me and goes in one ear and out the other. I’ve decided to not inflict you with menial trivia like location names, so really, you should be thankful that I’ve chosen to spare you all! Anyway, where we are now the beaches are beautiful – sort of like the Bounty Ad and instead of frolicking by the aqua-blue waves like the rest of the group, I am sitting on my bed in an air-conditioned room updating this blog. Shows how much you all mean to me, that’s all I say. Please keep in touch, I love to read your comments and get your emails. Until next time, love to you all. Deb x

Blog 7: Siliguri, Maldah, Calcutta, Bangkok, Koh Samui (India and Thailand)

Blog 7: Siliguri, Maldah, Calcutta, Bangkok, Koh Samui (India and Thailand)

It has been over a week since I’ve had a chance to blog and during this time, we have endured the longest coach journeys of our trip so far. For four successive days, we were on board the bus for on average of ten to eleven hours each day and believe me, when we flew from Calcutta to Bangkok, we were delirious at the prospect of spending four days in the one location. Many of the group still speak about our time in Nepal and most say that they will return to hike and trek. Meanwhile, I have decided that if I ever return, it is to climb Mount Everest. This is coming from someone who hardly puts a foot in front of the other at the best of times, and definitely doesn’t if there’s any degree of an incline meeting that same foot. But, whilst on board the small airplane which took us up to view Everest, I was overcome with a longing to stand at the summit and stick the Irish flag into the frozen ground. In my photograph which would sit on every Renvyle mantelpiece, I’d be dressed in my red all-in-one snow suit, I’d have a gleaming smile and there’d be frost covering my moustache (all Everest climbers have to have the moustachioed faces). So when I return home, the training starts – the raw eggs every morning, the plates and plates of pasta, the protein filled steaks, the boxes of energy bars, the …….hmmm, even I am starting to see something wrong with this picture. Perhaps I’ll re-evaluate my strategy or I’d have to get my snow suit specially tailored to fit my dimensions.

But, I keep forgetting that this is a travel blog and not a Debbie Ruddy (a la Walter Mitty) innermost thoughts and feelings blog. So, getting back to Mount Everest, it was really fantastic to be able to view it and whilst having my turn in the cockpit and standing beside the pilot, once again I felt so fortunate to be on this trip. Actually, sometimes when sitting on the bus, I worry that when I get home, I’ll look back on those fifteen weeks and it will all seem like a dream. My genuine concern is that the countries and places I’ve been to will all merge into one and that I’ll struggle differentiating my thoughts and emotions and sensations from each other. I know you’re reading this and thinking ‘isn’t it little she has to worry about’, and you’re right. But I desperately want to remember that exact feeling of when I stepped out of the hotel in Amritsar and my first impression of India. I want to always remember how I felt that first evening in Bruges and my feelings of loneliness and homesickness. I never want to forget how I felt whilst up in the hot air balloon in Goreme in Turkey, standing by myself in front of the Taj Mahal, walking past the bodies awaiting cremation by the side of the River Ganges. I want to remember the emotions I felt when walking through the squalor and dirty side streets in Varanasi and witnessing several four or five year old smiling children tip-toeing through the filth and faeces, desperately trying to keep their beautifully turned out white and navy school uniforms clean. And I also want to remember the feeling in my heart when I saw the little faces of the impoverished and emaciated similar-aged children sitting on the filth and faeces covered steps watching those same children walk by – those children who would never be so fortunate as to have a school uniform to keep clean. Or my feelings of exhilaration during the jungle walk in Nepal, the vision of Iranian women in full hijab or the absolute fear and panic I experienced when surrounded by rats in the Rat Temple. But equally as important to me to remember are the memories of the specific children I’ve encountered, the smiling babies, the kindness and care shown by small children to their younger siblings, the conversations with wonderful people and how humble I’ve felt when a simple wave out the coach window can instill hysteric excitement amongst a group of young school children.
I think writing this blog has been a very helpful exercise in preserving my memories and indeed I’m hoping that my photographs will have captured some important moments that will jog my memory in the future. But for the moment, all I can do is to enjoy and make the most of the next six weeks. And I promise that when I’m sitting with you in pubs and restaurants and at your kitchen tables, I will do my very best not to start every sentence with ‘did I ever tell you about the time I was in India, Iran, Nepal, Hungary, Thailand …….?’. Already I can see eyes being thrown to heaven and mumblings of ‘she was always a bit of a bore, but dear God, she’s a hundred times worse since she came off that Oz Bus’.

For those of you who read my blog about my entering the Rat Temple because of my desire to grasp every opportunity thrown at me (despite knowing it was probably going to be a mistake!), I want to tell you that I did not learn from the experience. Whilst in Bangkok two days ago, I decided (as did most of the group) that it would be the place to get a really good massage at a relatively cheap price. When leaving the hotel I met Lana and a few others and they had been for one the previous day and it was fantastic. She asked me about my plans and said ‘Get the hot oil massage Debbie, you’ll love it’. So off I went by myself, arrived at the place and there was a four feet six inch woman sitting on the doorstep eating her lunch …. a bowl of noodles. I asked where the massage parlour was and she left down her noodles and stood up (she came up as far as my navel). She revealed that her name was Pokie and she herself would do the massage. ‘Thai massage or hot oil massage?’ she asked. Now although I had genuinely never thought of having anything other than a hot oil massage, what came out of my mouth was ‘Thai massage’. Maybe subconsciously I thought ‘when in Thailand one should get a Thai massage’, but it was VERY subconsciously and I most definitely did not engage brain before I opened my mouth.
She removed my shoes, filled up a basin of water and bathed my feet (there were dual benefits as she washed the noodle juice from her hands in the bathing process) and then she ushered me up a rickety stairs. Off came my clothes and she handed me a pair of emerald green loose pantaloon type things. The thought crossed my mind that they looked like they had been worn by every one of the Bangkok soccer team, the Bangkok cricket team, the Bangkok sumo wrestling team and the Bangkok judo team … without ever seeing any Bangkok detergent. But despite her size, Pokie looked quite a formidable a character and I meekly but ever so sprightly stepped into them. Then she beckoned me to lie on the mattress on the floor. Down I went onto the mattress (feeling the first sense of trepidation) and then she herself turned to a lighted tabernacle type of religious icon on the wall. She joined her hands in a praying type of gesture and gave a big bow in front of it. Then she did three rapid genuflects and mumbled a few prayers which sounded something like ‘dear Buddha, throughout the next hour, please let me not break her back’.

She put me lying onto my back and smiled down at me as she too stepped onto the mattress. The thought went through my head ‘relax and enjoy it Debbie – you’re so fortunate to be having a Thai massage in Thailand – make the most of it’. She knelt down and gently picked up my left foot in her tiny little hands and I closed my eyes. ‘AAAAGGGGHHHH’ I roared. I looked down to see that in one move, she had separated my little toes so far from each other that one could easily have fit another full foot in between each toe. She smiled at me, pushed me back onto the mattress and proceeded to maneuver each toe around the ball of the foot, wrap them around my heel, up around the ankle and then she had a little game to see how far up my calf muscle she could stretch them to. I honestly thought that I would collapse and die with pain. After about five minutes of savaging my left foot, I contemplated paying Pokie and leaving but decided against it as she had at this stage manipulated it from being a size 6 to a size 9 ….and I felt that unless she did the same thing with my right foot, I would never again be able to buy a pair of shoes in a normal shop as very few would sell a size 9 and a size 6 as a pair! After about ten minutes, like a cat that tires of playing with a dying mouse, she had exhausted all the fun she could have with my foot and moved up my leg. Then she came at me with her bony elbows. Even before they hit skin, I winced and let out a very loud screech. She looked at me and said smiling ‘you strong or soft?’. When she asked the question, I didn’t know did she mean my flesh, my feelings, my emotions or my legs … but my immediate reaction was that ‘soft’ seemed a safer option than ‘strong’. Now this may have been a motivation technique that might work with some, but I’m afraid not with me - ‘Oh soft Pokie, VERY VERY soft’ I replied. She threw her eyes to the heavens and the tabernacle and muttered something under her breath and proceeded to knead and pummel me as hard as she physically could. There was obviously a lot lost in the Thai translation of the words ‘soft’ and ‘strong’.

So just picture it, me lying there on the broad of my back shouting ‘ow, oww, owww’ every time she exerted pressure. Now I wasn’t shouting because I’m a wimp who simply can’t tolerate any level of pain, but she was so rough and was like a woman possessed (or a woman who had been disturbed from eating her lunch). As I was the perpetrator of the crime i.e. it was I who had separated her from her feckin’ noodles, I was the one who had to pay! And although only about six stone in weight, when every one of those six stones is ‘resting’ on ones thighs ….through her elbows … it is EXTREMELY painful. She then grabbed my right leg and put her iron grip hand on my right shoulder (thus anchoring my body in place) and twisted that same leg over to land on another mattress, which was located about twelve feet away. My body and my mind went numb and I honestly thought that she had dislocated both hips and both shoulders. Like a rabbit caught in the headlights, I lay there as she then repeated the procedure with my left leg, bringing it almost out of the massage parlour and onto the corridor. As I waited for some sensation to come back to my body, all I could think of was ‘does the Oz Bus have a wheelchair ramp?’ I could envisage myself for the remaining six weeks, being loaded up and down the ramp, with my rucksack on my back and my container of nappies in my carry-on bag on my lap.

With thirty minutes gone and thirty still to go, the fun wasn’t over for Pokie. She then physically picked me up and turned me over onto my stomach (at this stage I was gone beyond being able to perform such a maneuver myself). If she needed any convincing, the rolling eyes and the drool coming from my mouth was probably an accurate indication of the fact that I needed her helping hand. Every limb and sinew and bone and muscle felt like it had been rolled over by a double decker bus. With my head buried directly into the fluffy pillow, on all fours, Pokie climbed up onto my back. I was unable to shake her off simply because I was on the verge of smothering to death in the pillow as I couldn’t turn my head to breathe. Utilizing all her years of experience at attending Karate classes, she proceeded to karate chop her way from the nape of my neck all the way down my spine. I tried to think back to Biology classes and remember whether it was possible to sever ones spinal cord with a bang to the back. I wondered whether my insurance company would pay for an Air Ambulance for the transfer back to the spinal cord injury hospital in Dublin. I figured if they would, they would probably have to bring Pokie with me as well, as her right hand would still be securely embedded between my seventh and eighth vertebrae.

She then climbed down off my back and sat cross-legged at the top of the mattress, put a pillow between her legs and beckoned me to come towards her, with face down and put my head on the pillow. Although conscious that it was an open-plan space and it might appear to be a slightly strange positioning for those other victims who were entering and exiting the room, I crawled to her and did exactly as she said. She started massaging my head which initially felt very nice, until she entangled all her rings in my hair and I thought that I was going to be the first person ever who went for a massage and ended up being scalped. I had visions of myself going home at Christmas and walking in the door and saying ‘do you notice anything different about me?’ ….either with having great clumps of hair missing or else being completely bald. After a few prayers to the tabernacle, she eventually disentangled herself and her rings from my head and she then turned me over like a chicken on a spit and proceeded to massage my forehead and face. But that didn’t last long … the sight of my bare and available shoulders were too much for her to resist and from her improved and elevated position, she couldn’t stop herself having another ‘go’ at them. In between my bouts of consciousness, I could see that only her elbows were visible and her hands, wrists and forearms were nestled deep within the flesh of my shoulder blades, probably resting somewhere close to my esophagus.

Pokie then looked at her watch, and although it was covered with 2/3rds if my attached tresses, she managed to tell the time. ‘Lady’, she said ‘time up – maybe hot oil massage now?’ Like someone who had just experienced a miraculous recovery at Lourdes or Medjugorje, I leaped from the mattress, had the pantaloons off, my own trousers on, had paid my money, had bounded down the steps and was back in the hotel before she had finished her sentence. Since then, I’ve been applying equal proportions of Deep Heat, Difene, Diazepam, Tiger Balm and Regain for the hair loss and I have sworn to myself that I never ever will succumb to the fleeting thoughts of ‘whilst in Rome do what the Romans do’ philosophy. In all truth, my body really is so sore to touch – every part of it … and I can no longer fit my feet into my flip flops. With all the bone manipulation, Pokie has turned them into boats ….which incidentally may be quite useful over the next few days.

I’ll explain. I am writing this blog from Koh Samui island (also in Thailand) and since we arrived yesterday evening, the island has been hit by a tropical storm with the worst thunder and lightening that I’ve ever seen. Apparently all the boats and ferries have been cancelled and the airport is closed until the storm subsides. I am sitting here in a little beach hut about forty feet from the wildest sea I’ve experienced …. and coming from Renvyle, that’s saying a lot. The beach has been closed to swimmers, many of the businesses have closed up, electricity has been off most of the morning, the wind is howling around me and we are bound to the complex as it is impossible to step outside with the monsoon rain. I just keep thinking of the recent panic in Bangkok amongst the females to buy ‘the perfect bikini’ for those four days of island life. (present company excluded may I add … I still have my Confirmation money swimming suit!). Instead, those same bikinis are still in their boutique wrapping paper and everyone is going around now in Lowe Alpine and North Face rain jackets and barely able to stand up. It goes to show, so much for plans.
But, despite the fact that we sincerely believed that we’d be lying on the sun recliners by the aqua blue sea, sipping pina coladas and margueritas, I still refuse to complain. It’s been a rare occurrence to be able to sit on the bed and write this blog without worrying that I’m missing something in whatever location that we’re staying in. If the rain continues (as is forecasted), you may even get another blog fast on this ones trail. Now isn’t that a worrying thought? For what its worth, when I sat down to write this, I had thought it was going to about Chitwan and the elephant trekking and bathing …. best laid plans, they say. I’ve just heard that the next location we’re going to after Koh Samui has been flooded out ….so I don’t know whether that will have repercussions for us. But, before there’s panic and consternation amongst the Oz Bussers, you and me now know that if we have to get off the island, my feet can more than improvise as a sea faring craft. We have a lot to thank Pokie for! Until we chat again, love to you all, Debbie x

Blog 6 – Lumbini, Chitwan, Pokhara, Kathmandu, Hetauda (Nepal)

Blog 6 – Lumbini, Chitwan, Pokhara, Kathmandu, Hetauda (Nepal)

With only two more nights remaining before we return to India, all of the group are making the very most of Nepal and Kathmandu where we are currently based. On a personal level, I have had some of the most enjoyable days of the Oz Bus trip so far and although we have been here over ten days, I feel that we have only scraped the surface as regards experiencing what Nepal has to offer. We had a twelve hour bus journey from Varanasi in India to Lumbini in Nepal and the border set-up was the most primitive I have ever seen. We arrived in darkness, parked on the side of the road in a very busy and dirty looking town and fought our way through mothers with babies and empty milk bottles, beggars and street hawkers. In my three minutes walk, I politely refused to purchase 72 Buddha’s, 45 Mount Everest’s, 24 plastic Taj Mahals, 18 Golden Temples and 3 babies.
There were two men working in what resembled a dilapidated hut which was called ‘Border Security, The Passport Office and Immigration Control’ – so with all those titles, they were undoubtedly very important men! In order to be processed, you had to walk over every type of animal shit on your route to their very important desk. They threw some forms at us which we filled in whilst using the outside walls for something to lean on and they then took our passports and brought them into what looked like a dark broom closet and closed the door. The thought entered my head that I would never see my little maroon EIRE passport again and that it was destined to a life in the cupboard buried in the mop bucket and the Domestos. (if that’s where it ended up, it DEFINITELY never would be seen again because from the look of the place, neither mop bucket or Domestos had EVER made it out of the closet either). Anyway, my fears were allayed when Important man No. 1 came out with the passports stamped and handed them to Important man No. 2 who flung them at us in a ‘take them to hell and get out off my sight’ gesture. We did exactly that, boarded the bus and drove to Lumbini which is a few kilometers inside the Nepalese border.

That night, for the first time since I boarded the bus in London, I was allocated my own bedroom. Because of the odd number of females on the bus, (as opposed to the odd females on the bus) each night there is one person who is granted the luxury of their own room. In fear of an Animal Farm type of revolt, when announcing who has their own room each night, Lana our Tour Leader has had to develop a watertight system that is 100% transparent and free from ambiguity. Therefore, this single room allocation is done alphabetically and most of the passengers had already experienced their ‘turn’, but being an R (Ruddy), it took 40 nights of sharing before it came to me. Unfortunately, the actual hotel we stayed in that night was a bit of a dive and the room was tiny and damp and dirty – but I absolutely loved it.
On entering the room, straight away I emptied my rucksack onto the bed and then folded each piece of clothing ever so neatly and placed each garment into the musty wardrobe whose door was hanging off. I used six of the six shelves – about one piece of clothing on each shelf! I then went into my little en suite bathroom and put every toiletry I possessed on top of the sink that I didn’t have to share with anyone. I walked to the door (one step actually) and stood and admired the magnificent sight that was my shampoo, my conditioner, my shower gel, my deodorant and my facecloth … STREWN over the bathroom. Out I came and threw myself onto the double bed (only after I had a look for insects and creepy crawlies). I contorted myself into every position possible and spent the next ten minutes deciding which way I’d lie when I first got into bed, which direction I’d then turn before I went to sleep and what way could I best utilize every inch of the double bed. When I tired of that game, I decided to have a shower before I went downstairs to dinner. I gathered my belongings close to me (my four bottles) and turned on the water and was experiencing my freezing cold but ’isn’t life wonderful’ shower when all of a sudden ….. complete darkness … a Lumbini power cut! I turned off the taps thinking ‘that might bring the lights back on’ (the mechanics of plumbing obviously isn’t my strong subject), but no, that didn’t work. I closed my eyes for thirty seconds … and reopened them … but surprisingly enough, that too didn’t work, it was still in darkness. All of a sudden, this single room lark didn’t seem quite as attractive a proposition after all. After five minutes of chanting ‘oh god, oh god, oh god’ I decided to try make my way out to my bedroom. I knew there were no windows in the bedroom when I entered the bathroom and chances were, there still wasn’t going to be windows when I came out. My assumptions were correct. Like a spindly legged newly-born giraffe taking his first steps (more emphasis on the giraffe than the spindly legs please), I performed little tentative baby steps from the shower and out into the bathroom. I found the sink and felt my way along the wall until I came to the towel rail and then found the door and then the door handle. Feeling quite confident and cocky at this stage, I opened the door and stepped out. Somehow, between the time I entered the bathroom and exited the bathroom, a HUGE step had appeared … a huge step that I had not anticipated in my stepping out. I felt myself falling and falling and falling and my life flashed in front of me … I had flashbacks of myself in a pink baby-gro, as an awkward teenager, on my graduation day, on the OZ Bus …….and BANG, I hit the deck! I lay in complete darkness on the floor of the bedroom in a crumpled heap, at least three and a half foot below the bathroom floor level. Had I survived or was I dead? Could I hear angels singing in the background? Where were the fluffy clouds and cherubs playing harps? Were the shadows I could see the silhouettes of the pearly white gates? I lay there in a state of confusion until I heard three Nepalese male voices roaring at each other outside in the corridor – presumably looking for the candles or matches or the generator switch. With the newly acquired knowledge that I had survived the fall and was definitely alive, whilst stretched on the ground, I performed a full body check on myself – starting from wiggling my teeth and ensuring that at least a few of them were still embedded in my gums. I rotated my ankles, gyrated my hips, counted my fingers and toes, swiveled my neck, felt my vertebrae, circled my shoulders and then I tried the concussion test. Whilst, on the broad of my back, I held up three fingers in front of face and couldn’t see them. Then I held up two fingers and couldn’t see them either. It became strikingly apparent that the fall had left me blind.
‘Mary and Michael Joe, it was one of those unfortunate things, she hit the step with her head in the only place that could have left her without vision! I let out a bloodcurdling screech akin to Mary Ingles in Little House on the Prairie when she herself went up the ladder in Pa’s house and discovered that she had gone blind. Then I remembered that the lights were off and no matter how many fingers I held up, I wasn’t going to be able to see them. Blushing at my silliness, I hoisted myself up onto all fours and crawled over until I found the bed and gingerly stood up. I knew that I had carpet burn on my knees as I could feel the remnants of Persia’s finest carpet patterns across my patellae. Other than that, my other injuries were not life threatening. In complete darkness, I proceeded to try to find clothes in my wardrobe … any clothes .. and put them on in a manner that would allow me to go downstairs for dinner. Isn’t it quick that food came back onto the agenda once I discovered that I had a pulse?  I had just made my best attempt at dressing myself when the electricity came back on. With the luxury of a 200 watt bulb, I checked that I had all garments on in the right way; I had another examination of my wounded knees, applied some TCP and plasters and limped downstairs. Before I left the room, I located my torch in the base of my rucksack and brought it with me. Never again will I have to go through the ordeal of power outages and being left in the dark … literally!

Anyway where were we? As those blogs are going on, I’m getting more and more distracted. Yes, I was telling you about Nepal and some of my wonderful days here. Let me tell you about Chitwan. We arrived in this mountain village and our accommodation consisted of timber huts in the middle of trees and a forest-like landscape. There is no internet, wifi, or mobile phone coverage so it really felt cut off from the rest of Nepal. The first morning we got up at 7.00 a.m., had some breakfast and walked down to the riverside where the entire group boarded canoes. With about seven people to each canoe, we were transported down the river by a Nepalese man who used a pole to navigate his way through the river. Our boat was fortunate enough to be the first to go through the undisturbed territory and throughout the ninety minutes, we were privileged to see the most wonderful array of flora and fauna. I kept thinking it would have been a bird-watchers paradise – every type of imaginable bird from Kingfishers, to Lapwings, to Fish and Serpent Eagles to Pheasants to Peacocks. (I’m a complete novice when it comes to ornithology – I’ve now exhausted my terminology). The guide had very good English and was able to point the places we should be looking in order to see the best views of the animals – monkeys, rhinos, deer, elephants and many many more species. When we arrived at the point of the river to get meet up with our fellow Oz Bus boaters, we discovered that the screeching we had heard earlier was when a crocodile had leaped from the water directly beside one of the other boats. They were all still quite shell-shocked when we spoke to them but totally exhilarated and believe me when I tell you that Mr. Crocodile is regularly mentioned when discussing Nepalese highlights. By the way his dimensions get bigger every time we’re re-told the story. In fact there’s a direct correlation between the size of the crocodile and the number of cocktails consumed – hope you’re not thinking there’s any signs of the green eyed monster in this blogger????

That same afternoon, we went out on a two hour jungle trek which rates as one of the highlights of the trip for me so far. We were separated into four different groups and prior to starting off, the guides instructed us on how to react if we came across different animals. For example, if we were charged by a rhino, we were to run in a zig zag shape as fast as our legs could carry us and up the nearest tree. But, if we were charged by a tiger, on no account should we run away from it. He told us that we have to face the tiger head on and APPROACH it and this might make it run away from you. (the ‘might’ didn’t convince me too much!). Being mindful that my attention to detail isn’t too great, I had visions of myself getting my new instructions all mixed up and sprinting towards the rhino and being impaled on his rhino horn or alternatively, running from the tiger when she makes her appearance and being mauled to death three paces into my zig-zag sprint. So you can imagine, I was a nervous wreck starting off on my jungle trek. The rain was absolutely torrential – in fact, in my whole life, I have never ever experienced two hours of rain like it. Whilst listening to the Head Guide giving the ‘you’re doing this at your own risk’ and ‘on no account will we pay for your body to be repatriated’ spiel (okay, he didn’t say EXACTLY that, but you get my drift!), out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the other Guides tucking their trousers inside their socks. I thought ‘if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me’ and although having no idea why I was doing it, I proceeded to do the same with my own Adidas socks and my jungle walking trousers! I was willing to sacrifice looking like a complete eejit if it was going to protect me from something bad happening to my ankles. So we set off, and I have never felt more like David Livingston or Sir Francis Drake …. as I entered into the unchartered and highly dangerous territory …. a Guide to the front of our group of six people and a Guide to the back of the group … and me as good as ON the latter’s back!

Twenty minutes into the expedition, I realized why the Guides had tucked in their trousers … feckin’ leeches. The monsoon rain had brought them out in their millions. Now, I had never seen a leech before and I definitely didn’t realize that they attached themselves like limpets to your skin and if not removed within seconds, they make you bleed as their slimy little bodies gets fatter and fatter from your platelets and red and white blood cells. If there was any chance of spotting rare and exotic and wild animals, it was effectively nulled by the sounds of squealing and screeching every thirty seconds when someone felt themselves being bitten. The rare and exotic and wild animals were given more than sufficient time to be in the next province such was the extent of the howls of pain and the efforts required to remove the leech before one needed an emergency blood transfusion. However, one hour into the jungle trek, with both of the Guides eyes scanning the horizon for dangerous wildlife and our eyes scanning our legs for leeches, the fella at the front, practically falls to the floor on all fours, puts up his hand and whispers ‘SSSHHHH STOP’. He says ‘Mother Rhino and her baby – very dangerous combination… NOBODY MOVE!’ At the risk of succumbing to death by undiscovered leeches, I averted my eyes from my legs and peered through the bushes to try and see ‘the dangerous combination’. Through the lashing rain and the jungle terrain, I could just about see some shapes in the distance which in truth could have been a rose bush, a double decker bus or a mother and a baby rhino. He ushered us all to keep low down as she could charge at us – I was down so low that I was on eye level with his tucked in socks. All of a sudden he shouts ‘SHE’S SEEN US – RUN’. Well the six of us took off in a 100 metre sprint – in all different directions. I almost trampled the other Guide who was standing his ground with his big stick – in fact I used him as a human springboard to make it up the nearest tree. My heart was jumping in my chest as I hid my frame around the six inch wide baby sapling and I wondered did rhinos trample their victims to death or would I simply be gored to death by her ivory horn. I tried to calculate how many of my vital organs would be attached to her horn when she decided to remove it from my torso – I figured definitely the liver, kidneys, pancreas, at least one lung and maybe one if not both of the intestines. Next thing the Guide shouts ‘I think she’s gone, you can approach slowly’. He and his fellow Guide stood in a warrior like position brandishing their very primitive like sticks in the air (I would have been FAR happier ‘approaching slowly’ if both carried Kalashnikov rifles). Endangered species statistics mean very little to me if it comes to a choice between slapping an approaching rhino with your stick saying ‘you bold bold rhino’ or giving him a bullet straight between the eyes. Whether the rhino and her baby actually ever existed I’m really not that sure but did it make us forget about the leeches, without a doubt!

I haven’t even gotten to the elephant trekking or the bathing the elephants part of the day yet and I’ve ran out of blog and you’ve ran out of patience I’m sure. I’ll tell you, it was one long and eventful day. I think there’s quite a lengthy book written called ’61 hours’ and the full book is written around those 61 hours and nothing else. I think my ’24 hours in Chitwan’ bears a strong similarity – I’m only up to 1.00 p.m. and I have a load more activities to tell you about – maybe I’ll include them in another blog if I haven’t bored you to tears. If you see my bathing with the elephants description appearing in the Koh Samui beach blog, don’t be surprised – but for now I’ll spare you the details. We head back to India in two days time for three days and then we fly from Calcutta to Bangkok – so that’s probably when you’ll hear from me again. Till then, wishing you the very best and will chat soon. Debbie x (the Fearless Jungle Explorer).