Pleasure No.2: Beach Holiday Adventure

Who you are is who you know. T knows L who is another Australian living in Cox’s Bazaar who knows a local M who knows a hotel owner’s son, so we get to crash at this hotel for free for a few days. Bonus.

Out and about
M is a Mecca born Bangladeshi, and a very talkative English teacher at a local high school – I think he’s got the hots for L. He took us for a bit of a trip around town on the first day. Cox’s Bazzar is on the Burmese boarder, in fact, quite a few UN agencies here look after the stateless Rohingya refugee camps not far from here. There is a huge Burmese community here with their own temple and stupas, and a “Burmese Market”, which we went and checked out. The Burmese women wear crazy white powder on their faces and are quite plump compared to the Bangladeshi girls.

M took us to the local Bangladeshi markets to check out some local produce. Dried fish seems to be a staple here. Then there’s a huge strip of houses completely free of furniture and interior deco – each of the entire house is hung with giant pearls of bananas at different extents of ripeness, basically when they are ready they get taken away to the markets. Next to the “Banana Street” there was a fairly large rubbish dump in front of a small stretch of land you need to walk in order to get to a line of boats – we got cornered by a number of children diving for mud fish in a square waterhole. We then took a big CNG ride around the quiet beaches and climbed up a hill top with sweeping views of the Indian Ocean. It is actually quite amazing to see open space in Bangladesh for the first time without cluttered houses and crowds of people. The scene reminded me so much of the tramp up Mt Pauanui when I was young.

We took a walk down the beach - I didn't think that the Bangladeshis would like the beach given how they don't show much flesh, but I was totally wrong. Particularly young people like to walk around, children swim and most others get up to their knees. And just like beaches in Europe they hire out little benches you can lounge around in, so we got one and spent an afternoon watching the world go by there drinking coconut juice. Oh man, life!!
Night out at Mermaids
Mermaids is a strippers bar in Wellington, so when I hear of the name Mermaids I always think “dodgy!!”. But Mermaids in Cox’s is quite a different establishment. Its an ex-pats oriented beach front cafe run by a German-Bangladeshi guy, its probably the most worldly and internationally looking establishment I've come across in Bangladesh. Its a classy and lovely little hide out with relaxed deco, a beautiful sand garden and fantastic indy music - and a sit-down toilet, would you believe! We met L there for dinner (it was average, I must say) and some strawberry shisha.

We were meant to leave before midnight but it started to rain pretty heavily, so we shared the rest of the smuggled in beverages with the staff, who were fantastic party animals and didn't treat us like foreigners. As they don't get alcohol very easily here the boys really did appreciate it and were totally in the mood to go hard. I think we almost broke the wooden floor... At one stage the cafe dogs (aptly named Shakira, Yellow, and Brown) came up and danced with us for a wee while before heading back into the garden to guard the place. We raid the kitchen for some light midnight snack. Its pouring down like mad, and the pitch black sky beyond the beach is hollow like the desert ... must be time for midnight swim. I haven't been in such a good mood for ages. The dogs are calling out to me from the beach... aroooh, aroooh, don't go too far so we don't have to come get youuuuh~~

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I woke up at 6am in a completely foreign hotel room at a different end of town, and there's a fucking cockroach crawling across my chest. My wet clothes in a soggy pile on the floor. Hmm. The entire room smells like five month old jungle socks and there's broken glass and rusty steel frames lying around in the hall. Well, at least its T who's asleep in the same room and not the guy that likes "Malaysian girls". T&I settled the bill downstairs and hop onto a rickshaw and headed back to our original hotel.

Its not a holiday untill you've had a fight with locals

The rickshaw lad refused to take our money even after we insisted three or four times, and just rode off. It was quite a weird situation, but we were too tired and hung over to chase after him so went back to our room to catch up on sleep. We re-emerged outside at 12pm quite shocked to find the young bloke waiting for us in the dead midday heat. He demanded something along the lines of 5 hours of pay - - - we of course didn't think it was particularly fair, and this kerfuffle of the three of us "negotiating" drew a huge crowd of other rickshaw drivers to his aid. I felt like a pompy Hollywood actress trying to fight off the paparazzi - I should just really learn to accept this sort of occurrence given the situation.... we finally sorted it out with the hotel staff - the guy thought it might be a good way to earn dosh by waiting for us at the place he dropped us off so he could take us to the next spot, and charge us for the waiting time as well, not knowing that we'd be gone for half the day. While I really did feel sorry that he'd missed out on half a day's work, its kinda quite stupid that he'd think we'd fall for his little plan. We agreed to give him money for the ride plus an extra bit just to cover for his "losses" and he left with a bit of a sigh.

above: naughtiest kids I've met so far are from Cox's Bazare

Waiting out the Riot

It turns out that we aren’t able to get a bus out of Cox’s Bazare the day after tomorrow. We kinda expected things to get a bit complicated upon leaving Dhaka the day before, as there were large police presence all over the streets. There’s a huge riot going on in Dhaka, and its feared that it might spread to other parts of the country. Therefore there is a huge nationwide curfew for big cities including our destination, Chittagong. Basically it means you get shot by the military if you are found on the street within curfew times. So our bus companies are cancelling their runs as well just not to make it difficult for themselves.

One of the burnt out buses in Dhaka -

took this picture after we travelled back through to pick up my passport

I am not completely sure on how the riot came about either. From what I can gather, police had beaten up a few Dhaka University students at a soccer match recently, and they had refused to apologise for their brutal acts, and its caused the students to fight back. But it is more of an overall dissatisfaction at the rule of the interim government after a vote of no confidence brought down the government, and they have been fairly incompetent with their rule. Apparently they have been arresting students and professors who were accused of instigating the violence – I think any country that arrests academics on mass needs to be questioned. The worse off are definitely the migrant workers and homeless people, as many of them do shift work over night/live on the streets. Now that they won’t have an income or places to be safe, a lot of them are forced to go back to their villages.

I started befriending a young boy no more than 4 or 5, who looked like he was orphaned. He hung out outside the inn we were staying at and I give him a biscuit or dahl ball or two when ever I had any with me. I made the mistake this morning of playing with him by simply just clapping hands with him. When it was time to leave on a rickshaw he wanted to come with us, but obviously we couldn't take him. It was a bit awful because he started running after us behind the rickshaw holding his arms out wanting me to take him with me, and almost hurting himself in the meantime. He was so little, and the wheels of the rickshaw were so big and travelling so fast... I tried to tell him to let go, kept saying "bye bye", he started crying because we weren't stopping and he couldn't catch up. The rickshaw sped up and he was left behind crying on the street full of people that just went about their business and no one bothered to ask him if he was alright... He's probably never had any one expressing any interest or care towards him, and to have someone who does then suddenly leave is just something really heartbreaking that I am not quite sure if I am able to live with. It left a depressing and powerless feeling in my chest. I felt so upset.

Challenge No.4: Traffic

Traffic in any Bangladeshi city is a complete chaos. There are no road rules, not even the keep left thing; it comes down to who is more brutal than the rest, and who can sound more horns per minute than the rest. Thousands of rickshaws, CNGs (autorickshaws, ie. a semi motor bike with a cage built around it), delivery wagons, motorbikes, small cars, giant fourwheel drives (90% of the time belonging to the mighty UN), rusty buses, and the occasional animal all share the road - the main boulivards are actually very wide, but when they are all here scrambling to get through from A to B, it is impossible to see where you are going. All this aculmunates to dusty and fume filled air and an earful of screaching beeping, swearing, screaming and the odd crash here and there.

Old beaten buses, mainly imported from other countries after their use-by-date has been long gone hoon the streets, with their paint scratched from hundreds of near accidents and their metal frames rusting away into a dark orange. Passengers young and old are packed inside like chickens in a cage and spilling out the side windows and side doors with a few hangers on at the back or half way up the roof resembling a circus human pyramid stunt. Imagine my self-consciouness when a bus and a half load of people like this all starring at you with their wide open eyes the deep black against the pale white bewildered and possibly petrified.

The personality of your rickshaw or CNG (autorickshaw) driver really shows when you put your life in their hands. There's the timid young guys who always get bullied into giving way to others whenever they push in and never argue with you about the price at the end of the ride, and then there's the (I'm sure he was) retired fighter pilot types who looks pretty harmless on the outside but will shoot through any traffic jam in record speed just so that he doesn't have to put up with the touts hassling us trying to sell anything from popcorn to colouring-in books to the latest pirated Harry Potter book (not that JK Rowling needs more money anyway). Who needs Disneyland when you can take a ride in Dhaka?

Challenge No.3: Two Worlds in One

I sit on the rocking rickshaw looking across the busy smoky crowd. The skinny man in front of me paddling the rusty chains of the wheel, sweat soaking through his thin shirt, already tattering at the edges and moldy spots line a triangular shape over his back, only looking behind to check for traffic. His lungi is perched up a, two thin legs working away, stick like insect pushing against gravity, no shoes, just a big scar at the back of his right leg changing shapes as the flesh push forwards and backwards. When we pull over in front of a bookshop I search my purse for a twenty takkas (40 Australian cents) note. His eyes peered at the ground as he waited for me, only looking up at me for a brief moment to receive the money, nods, and rides away into the waves of traffic. He didn't think he was worthy to look me in the eye. He didn't think he was worthy to ask for another five takkas, he didn't think he was worthy to be seen at the forecourt of a middleclassed shopping strip. He's just a rickshaw wallah, nothing’s going to change that.


Without going into a middleclassed shopping district you can still spot a middleclassed person from a mile away. They are the impeccably dressed people that never look at the ground, and stroll leisurely through an air conditioned shopping mall and ride up and down the escalator. The men will never be seen in a lungi outside of the house, have beautiful shiny shoes, and will always take a rickshaw. Their wives will have beautiful gold high heeled sandals, and they will hide behind a scarf around their head. The women would never speak to strangers, but will look at another woman from an angle. The men would talk to me politely in English and talk about a relative who lives in the UK. They are the ones coming in and out of shop fronts with a big sign that says "Immigrate or Study in Australia". At the end of the day, nothing is going to change the fact that he is from one of the poorest countries in the world.

Challenge No.1: Being a B Grade Celebrity

My first and by far the biggest challenge is to get comfortable about being uncomfortable. Its true - I am the biggest weirdo to walk this planet, and the Bangladeshis have the biggest apetite for walking freakshows I've come across on my journeys so far. There's absolutely nothing I can do about the way I look, and no matter how much I modify my dress, body language, or the way I talk, I am just bloody different here. Not that its a huge change to my status in life, I've spent my life being out of place, and I am really quite used to being the odd one out.

In Bangladesh its another story though. There is no tourism industry here, and of the few foreign aid workers here, not that many roam the streets all day. Culturally it is also not unacceptable for them to do the following: stop and stare, point at, talk about, and follow someone who is not your average Bagladesh Jane. Templeton being the very brightly sparkly caucasion boy that he is and me with my 'almond eyes' and pink dread walking down a busy market is a bit of a travelling circuit all on its own.

Other than sheer curiocity, there is probably an element of accepted nosiness as well, because the perception of personal space and what is actually considered personal is completely different here. Your business is everyone else's business, and you are hiding something if you don't want other people to see it. Which is a completely different concept to what we value as basic space and privacy. And by far, this is probably the biggest culture shock element I've experienced in my life, basically because a) No Bangladeshis so far is able to explain to me why they do this and b) Being Taiwanese where ppl gossip but don't get involved and Kiwi where personal space can be as wide as a ten acre farm, this sort of enchroachment just makes me uncomfortable

Here are some examples of what I feel uncomfortable with

• Asking me how much I earn, or sometimes straight to how much my husband (where ever he is...) earns
• This lady came up to me in the supermarket and literally fingered through my shopping, picking up different products (fine, they're like Aussie food but...) and examining it
• Templeton's young female neighbours greeted us at the front gate of the apartment, sniffled as soon as they saw me, then proceeded to follow us four storeys up to T's apartment door, while offering to shine their mobile phones into the house while we get in the door, then covering their mouths with their ornas while they giggle and peer
• Stopping at a traffic light and everyone crossing or touting pokes their head inside the CNG(auto rickshaw) first to look, then to tout
• A swarm of waiters all just hanging around us in restaurants and laugh when I get a bit clumsy about using my fingers to scoop curry... sniff! ITS NOT MY FAULT THAT I'M DUMB!#$%

Oh well, just gonna have to get used to it huh?

Pleasure No.1: Food & Attire

My pleasureful food journey started in Bangladesh at New Market, a busy shopping strip in Dhaka.

We had this fantastic snack called pushka - a chickpea based thin round case about the size and shape of an egg, filled with dahl and spices and herbs and you lace it with a sweet fruity sauce. The cases are kept inside a large cabinet heated by light bulbs once its cooked to keep it crispy till ready to serve. It certainly is a delicacy and something I've never seen before. Except I ate it too quickly to get you a picture, so hope this drawing does the job.

While everything is quite new to me, it does seem like here are only a few common staples at restaurants, eg. lamb, beef and chicken mild curries and dahl, at most with a bit of ruti (flat bread) on the side. But there's numerous little snacks to entice your apetite such as shish kebabs (given that they are Muslim and have quite a bit of Middle Eastern influences), those evil fry up shops that serve up lots of shingaras (potato and ginger balls in thick pastry), lentil balls, and samosas, and a times-ten-sugar-and cholestrol version of deep fried donuts. By far the most different thing about food is that you eat with you right hand (left hand is banned on the table.) Its quite a messy business, and the curry can get very sloshy to handle, but its actually quite fun!!!

Shopping malls here are not the white shiny sparkly sort of thing we see in the west, but big grey concrete buildings resembling more of a skeleton of the building, often without basic rails or windows refraining people from falling off the side, office desks are sometimes right at the edge of the forth or fifth floor. I'm actually more worried about people falling on me rather than them falling...


New Market has mainly household goods on the first two floors, like clothes and accessories. The top floor is devoted to an array of hand printing fabric workshops, where you can bring your own material to and select your prints and designs from a sample book, and the apprentices will work on it for you. The feature of this is that the printing blocks are all small square blocks no bigger than 5 or 6 cm squared, its a painstaking and crafty job to get the reoccurring patterns exact and matching throughout the fabric to make it perfect, and it almost always is.


In the hall ways amongst the goods the middleclassed women in perfectly groomed and colourful salwar kameezs walk leisurely inside, not a speck of dust on their multi coloured ornas (scarf). The men wear tailored dress pants and shirts and always have shoes. I feel really scruffy compared to these people, and I don't feel particularly comfortable in a two piece western outfit where the pants are tight around my butt. Salwar kameez is also known as a "Three Piece", which is the most common outfits for women in Northern India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. The top is a long dress which comes down to the thighs usually with a patterned collar. The trousers can be either loose or tight, and goes straight down to the ankle. The orna is warn like a loop around the front as to cover one's breasts from those "wondering gazes". It does amaze me how they ever keep cool when they are asked to cover themselves up like this all the time.


In my search for a kameez, I found a lot of the local designs is a little too ostentatious with just a little too much gold and jewel sewn on, or at the complete other end with crazy psychedelic tie-dyes that I just couldn't possibly bring myself to put on despite it being quite popular with the local girls... I did manage to find a more earthy coloured one (to my surprise cos I thought I was gonna go all out on something like fluoride pink and ocean blue...) oh I feel sooo much better, and surprisingly cooler due to the light fabric.

Here are the two that I brought during my stay here - you may note that I did not wear the original pants with the kameez in either shots as I found them a little clumsy to get around with, so have chosen my own 3/4 pants underneath instead.

Welcome to Bangladesh

I arrived at Dhaka's Zia International Airport at about 6am local time, equivalent to 1am London time on an 8 hour flight. In the air Dhaka looked like thousands of leaves floating on water and the dawn made the bay shine with a tender orange. As the plane closed in on the city I was surprised at how big the buildings looked compared to my preconceptions. I really thought I will be going to a big camp in the mud somewhere, but its a bustling city just like any other.

I had not slept the entire night and in hindsight should really have taken some of that evil motion-sickness tablets and makes me go to sleep like a piglet. But instead I stayed up and forced to watched this Bollywood crap starring that old guy with the grey beard <- which is essentially about a young widow that - dear oh dear - falls in love with some other guy and remarries, but they make the hero out to be the father in law (grey beard) who is oh-so-liberal and defies tradition and allows the happy couple to be together, rather than the young widow who could have been a feisty go getter but instead portrayed as some obedient little doe and doesn't want to leave her family and is afraid to break tradition, blah blah blah. Fucking piece of chauvinist crap. Why don't they just dub some more dance scenes over the crap dialogue and get it over and done with. Bring back Fire. Anyway... so I didn't get much sleep and stuck in a line in immigration because the immigration officer is in fact doing data entry WHILE he processes you at the same time. I realised why it took so long - he didn't actually know where all the keys are and my full name is REALLY WEIRD, so I conducted a typing lesson while I stood over the counter. Done.

Templeton is equally nervous, having to see me wonder from counter to counter behind the glass window. I figured it wasn't a good idea to greet with a hug or kiss in front of a large crowd of on-lookers who by now has followed me outside the terminal and to the taxi rank. The drive in reminded me so much of a similar drive from Hanoi Airport. Along the busy road hundreds of people go about their lives - carts pulled by bike full of various primary stock like hey, fruit & veg, sacks of rice, piles of sand, trucks full of chicken in cages... What is quintessentially Bangladeshi though is the hoards of rickshaws decorated in bright colours and pulled by a man in a lungi (bit like a Samoan lava lava).

Although its early in the morning and technically autum, the sheer heat is cooking me inside out in the taxi. I was feeling a bit wired as I couldn't possibly sleep in the bright day light, so T and I went into town for a snack and wonder around - mainly to look for some local attire for me. My first rickshaw ride was quite exhilarating - being perched up about half a meter higher than usual and just watching this mad world go by is quite overwhelming, and trying not to fall off at the same time.

I'm not surprised that this is the capital city of the most populous country in the world (and also one of the poorest and most corrupt). There are people everywhere you look, and there's always something going on somewhere. Street vendors line the side of the pavement selling stuff like bananas, roasted nuts, cookies and guavas cut into a shape of a flower served on a skewer, stalls pulled by bikes here and there do odd trades like panel beating (great business given how many rickshaws there are) and shoe repairing. The more disturbing is perhaps the children and the elderly in rags crouching in rubbish, some looking for things to eat and some picking out plastic or metal to sell to the recyclers in a rag sack they carry around all day.

As we hopped off the rickshaw and walked into the busy market cafe for a bite to eat, I realised I was in for some rewarding pleasures but perhaps many more hard challenges here in Bangladesh.

Mind The Gap

I thought by this time of my trip I'd be able to sit back and relax for a bit and reflect on the comings and goings in my head for the last four months... ask myself questions and present some viable answers to my tumbling mind.

But I am in London and it doesn't give me a chance to stop. I gasp for breath but I inhale a bit more intrigue. No illuminations in the vast horizon.

Crossing another continent and this time tomorrow I'll be another half way around the world. I'm not thinking about it, I'm just travelling too fast. All I can do is mind the gap.

How-doo-yoou-doo~~ again!

Why One Country Two Systems Don't Work - EVER & ANYWHERE

On the evening of 9th of August I arrived in London with Scottish money and Scottish accent.
The first thing to reject me was the Oyster card machine. Well, p'Ahhhh!

Pit Stop & much hugs

I am back at Wendy and Deno's place in Hackney, on my comfy little fold-out couch with pretty bright linen from IKEA. I could almost feel like Fogg returning to the London Reform Club, back to the beginning at the end of a crazy run and feeling a bit breathless and a bit tired and just want to have a good sleep. Thank goodness that some of the food I left here three months ago is still sitting in the fridge cos that is saving me a bit of dosh (did I hear you say 'oooh gross'?) since I am spending pounds again and doing numerous social engagements with mates I am catching up with, including Jeremy& Anna, Melissa& Ryan (the kiwis I met in Vienna), Debbie, and Wendy's cool workmates.

I caught up on a bit more sight seeing and exploring around the place, including

Markets in Notting Hill; ancient cemeteries in Stoke Newington;

Subway hopping & Paddington with Debbie

And then I was shocked speechless
I will be heading off on Friday to Bangladesh to catch up with Templeton. Apart from the numerous travel admin to sort out on English-speaking soil, I thought I'd also drop into Brick Lane, aka Bangla Town, for a bit of a warm up to the subcontinent. It was all quite cool and interesting and proceeding in theme with the piping hot spice smell steaming out the windows and the Bollywood music ringing the streets, until I witnessed a blatant case of racism not seen thus far in Europe right in front of my eyes, when, in a fastfood joint hoping for a small snack, an ethnic-African couple in line before me was told by the Bangla shopkeeper that "We don't serve Blacks". They were absolutely repulsed and walked out, and I walked out with them so that this horrid man won't have the chance to say what he might say to me when its my turn. I just didn't think that people who have been subjected to racism themselves would have the ignorance to subject it to others, particularly spending so much time in Hackney where every race just gets along side by side, but maybe I'm wrong. There had been really bad ethnic violence in London in the past, but hell, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. If its not going to stop somewhere it would never stop. This is a sad day for London.

But Bob Marley@ Buckingham saved the day
On a brighter note and in solidarity with our Caribbean brothers and sisters, I went to a rather amusing Changing of the Guards yesterday at Buckingham Palace. It turned out that the Jamaican Regiment is doing a bit of summer exchange over in the UK, and are taking regular turns guarding the Queen and have their military band play during the ceremony. They looked pretty smart in their military attire which blended in ethnic gear such as head bands and leopard skin (I didn't know that Jamaica had leopards... but maybe just 'not anymore'...) and some had traditional instrument. But this best bit for me was them breaking into reggae to Bob Marley's 'One Love' and the hoards of tourists rocking away forgetting where they were. And I caught one of them scratching his arse with his clarinet. Eat yer heart out Empire!!

Elsewhere in Scotland...

This is a pine martin.

Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Edinburgh - ancient medieval buildings line the hilly roads, Arthur's Chair and the magnificent Edinburgh castle nestle the town and home of the Scottish Parliament. History, pride, dark ale in a barrow. Bleak, cloudy, chills to the bone on an August morning...

Land where they escaped from and then came back for some soul searching, and vice versa... I hear that if you are from either Edinburgh or Dunedin (NZ), and you got drunk in the middle of the night in the other town, you'd still be able to find your way home because the streets have the same names, same lengths, and same turns... spooky if you ask me.

outside the Andy Warhol exhibition.

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Welcome to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the biggest annual gathering of compulsive exhibitionists in the world. So I feel right at home. A kaleidoscope of performing artists gather from around the UK and the world and ensue in a month of comedy, music, drama, dance, and anything else in between.
High Street is explosive during the afternoon when all the acts come out to do short previews of their shows, and hundreds of actors and crew come out to tout for their shows. Beer gardens open till late and buskers who are not in the official program take over the pavements. Many actors just come out socializing and walk about in their costumes and make up, so it was hard figuring out whether a conversation at the pub or on the street corner was for real or out of a crazy script.
To make it here, pulling out a Statue of Liberty/poodle penis balloon ensemble/ Red Indian piping backed by tape type act simply will not do and simply met by pelting tomatoes from the highly critical audience. It is hard being creative when the good ideas and good jokes have all been thought about through out the last 50 centuries, and bloody competitive when the best of the world is also here. Everyone wants to be seen and heard, and many will do free shows or half ticket prices just to get their names out there. I did buy two half price shows but managed to get to quite a few just for free. The audience can be so desensitized that they could potentially not laugh one single time through out your entire session, so you have to be very very good, or very very bizarre.
Highlights – dirty rabbit man; children-eating vampires; Korean clown team that says nothing but ‘squeak’; the rugged Harley Davidson versions of celtic bagpipe band; church choir meet Backstreet Boys kind of ensemble; mutant super heroine; and soccer kneesupathon.

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I’d like to thank Jacky and Ruth for having me stay over, very kind of you gals I hope I didn’t make too much of a mess. And Fi for enlightening me about Pine Martins ;-)

GLASGOW 101: Jane's Bday Bash

Moooooooooooove ovahhhh Posh and Katie, cos Jane's 'Welcome to Glasgow' Birthday Party has definitely upstaged your meekly little 'Welcome to LA' Party'. reporting live...

1) 10:05 am. Barras Market
Despite heavy storm warnings and reports of danger lurking in the streets, a large and growing group of party goers mainly from the pro-Scot colony of New Zealand set off early on Saturday morning into the unknown of Barras Markets, their first stop of a weekend long education about Glaswegian life.

Yes, this is definitely a B grade or worse version of Paddy's Markets in Sydney. Think plastic guns, pirating, passed use by date food, deep fried mars bars, bones for your dogs, ginger wigs on pom pom hats, backyard fudge etc etc etc. My outfit today tried to replicate the French Revolutionaries, in honour of the Parisians I left behind a few days ago. However, perhaps due to the largest number of kiwis I've seen in four months, I ended up feeling a bit like Jake the Muss and low and behold was mistaken as Jeff da Maori by one of the locals almost immediately.

2) 11.34am. Mission Impossible

They were then given a list of tasks whilst in the underground system to undertake in order to familiarise themselves with fine Scottish traditions such as music, attire, beverage, theatre and, of course, procreation.

Ok, so I am thinking the dead baby scene and no probs with number 5 cos I have my lucky undies on. Will work on the others for now. NB: ginger is pronounced 'gh (as in gh in gherkin) ing - ah' in NZ.

3) 12.29pm The Primo Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery

The party goers attended a self guided tour of Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, one of the oldest and finest institutions for historical and cultural preservation in Scotland. They were treated to an organ concert worthy of a standing ovation.

This must be where they keep all the heads of Englishman they chop off... Highlights for me were a) the giant prehistoric moose, b) Robert Burns's sexual exploits exhibition c) the very very large key to a chastity belt. ouch.

4) 1.45pm The Pub Meal & Whisky

A light lunch at the local pub, another old and fine institution of Glasgow, took place at The Primary, followed by even older and finer whisky at the Uisge Beathe. A small break away group then terrorised local children at the Kelvingrove Park with decomposing leaves. A young Glaswegian lad also reported a missing ice cream. So far no arrests have been made but those withholding information are encouraged to come forward.

Meat-and-three-vege. Excellent. But my hang over from the night before was starting to catch up with me after the first drink of the day and I don't remember much of the next three hours. Except for that I was teased. On the way through to the next of many pubs to follow we staged an amusing rendition of the breakfast scene from Trainspotting at the park as no one else was keen on sourcing a prop as a dead baby. Nevertheless, tick one.

5) 6.20pm Guinness World Record Haggis

A locally sourced and produced portion of haggis was then sampled by the revelers at The Goat and an environmentally friendly method of cleaning was employed for the silvery. The incredible amount of kilojoules provided by this fine Scottish staple led the party goers to perform what is known in the Southern Hemisphere as the 'Bird Dance' in the middle of busy traffic. No kiwis were killed.

Next thing I knew a very very very large portion of haggis preordered by Jane was served and demolished within 3 minutes and 43 seconds. It was so creamy, fatty, salty and good that we did some spoon and plate licking. I weep over the fact that I was completely cheated on my first afternoon here by eating that big piece of deep friend mongrel haggis served in the alley way behind Buchanan Street. I believe this was when the idea of an invisible bagpipe orchestra was first floated. Tick two.

6) 8.00pm Dooon a Booorkie
Soon after 8pm in the evening, an alleged male Australian was seen purchasing and distributing swig-fulls of an infamous local fortified wine commonly known as Buckfast to under aged female near the junction of Byres Road and Argyle Street in the well reputed West End neighbourhood by a motorist.

Woo hoo finally found some Buckfast!! Tick three. It actually tastes ok.

7) 9.00pm Ashton Lane
Unfortunately our reporter was barred from entering the Brel in Ashton Lane and lost the party goers for the rest of the evening and unable to complete the rest of the report.

Ashton Lane: we came here to drink a bit more and check out the cool kids. Head nodding Cooool. And enjoyed a bit more of that Scottish rain in the beer garden.

8) 11pm Cutting some kiwi shapes at Otago Street Yep this is a pretty hardcore house party. Best and hardest I've seen for about five months. I was almost about to give the Party-hard award to Canadians on this trip but I think Kiwis are back in the game. Jane you out did yourself, and kudos to the DJ and the hosts (Rachael, Lucy & Don) particularly for putting up with the mirror shattering, bathroom trashing, pizza passing and kilt peeping (oh, tick four) antics. There may even have been some homesick tears in my eyes as we head-banged to the beat of 'Victoria' by the Exponents, but I know I am really becoming to love Scotland. Ahh haa haa, even got a scottish battalion flag as a prize!!

And I'll leave tick five to your vivid imagination.

How Now Brown Cow

I touched down in Glasgow on my way back to London to visit fun-bomb Jane, my old flatmate from Wellington in ’03. She is hosting a very very large birthday party over the weekend. Arriving in Glasgow from Paris on Ryan Air was an assault on the senses. First I was confronted by a new coat of lilac paint on the wooden wall at Prestwick Airport’s tin-shack terminal, and the smell of old fish’n chips batter looming in the arrival lounge. As I boarded the train into town, the goosebumps on my skin tells me that summer in Scotland involves a warm jacket, woolly hat and a raincoat.

The Scottish country side is hilly, green, lush and dotted with wild flowers and familiar farm animals. It reminds me of how much of New Zealand’s wild had been converted by the British settlers to look like home. Hearing English (well, some sort of highland version of it) and walking on the left side of the road again tells me that I am back in a more familiar world, but I am still some how extremely excited about getting to know this bunch of distant mad cousins tucked away at the other end of the world.

Glasgow is brown. The streets are lined with old stone industrial era flats and old Medieval chateaus with bits of oxidized copper and sprawling moss reminiscing moldy gingerbread houses that’s been sitting at the back of nana’s cupboard since xmas 92. In the subway, dark brown sludge sits beneath the train tracks reminding commuters of the wet weather outside. The theme of brown continues onto the foundation on the faces of some of the lasses on Buchanan Street, this time with a shade of orange, not unlike members of the once popular Japanese Ganguro movement, only seven years too late. The town's favourite drink, buckfast, is a nasty caffeine infested goo that is also of a brown complexion - I was told that if you visit the Ned (ie. Chavs but they are a level worse and beat up people) area of Gorbals, you would often find smashed buckfast bottles and bloodstains on the ground. And I hear too, that a Scotsman named Brown recently became the new PM

oh,and this is the famous portion of brown haggis I ate on the afternoon I arrived - it was like a power ball - after I ate it I didn't feel hungry at all for 24 hours. Breakfast of a champion!!

The best thing about Glasgow is definitely the people. Maybe cold climates just breeds warm people. These folks are the friendliest I have ever met in Europe so far, its almost like back home where strangers would greet you with a smile on the street. I would simply be just looking on my map in the middle of the road and almost definitely some one would stop by and ask me if I needed help. The service in the pubs and shops are always fantastic and they would crack a joke on you the second you meet.