Just found a video showing where I'm off to
Tuesday 22 September 2009
Earthquake
In 2004, just two months before I was due to visit Bangladesh, the tsunami struck causing devastation. And now, more devastation. An earthquake has hit the NE Himalayas. The epicentre of the quake, measured at 6.3 on the Richter scale, was just inside Bhutan’s border with India. The tremors caused panic in Guwahati, Assam. My first port of call in the Seven Sister States.
My contact and his family live in an Assamese village where there are no tall buildings, so they are safe. Thank goodness.
My contact and his family live in an Assamese village where there are no tall buildings, so they are safe. Thank goodness.
Thursday 17 September 2009
Owt for a couple of bob
Want to swap jobs for a week? Bet you my job’s worse than yours! Even if you’re unemployed and make do with gravel for breakfast, you wouldn’t swap with me. Even the chap that works at the sewage plant picking cotton buds out of last night’s vindaloo, looks down on me. You don’t have to swap with me for a whole week, just the last twelve hours. In fact, yes, last night would be a good one. Go on, what shall we say, a fiver? You’re on!
10.30pm and so to bed. Telly watched, hot milk drank and chocolate hobnobs consumed. Just drifting off into the land of Nod and… the damned phone rings. I should know better. I’ve been doing this job now for over seventeen years. It’s going to be the alarm monitoring company telling me that there’s been an activation at work. I could just ignore it. Pretend I was deep in the arms of Morpheus, dreaming of pies and beer. But damn, that ring tone is just so alluring! “Hello?”… “Hello, it’s the alarm company….” D’oh!
I’ve been doing the job so long, I know when I’ve got a way out of this without lying. “Is the alarm a confirmed or an unconfirmed signal?” I gingerly inquire. You see, if it’s unconfirmed it means that just one sensor has activated and neither I nor the police have to attend. It could just be a spider passing the lens on his way to a dinner of plump, tasty wasp. Huzzah! The activation is unconfirmed. I can close my eyes and go back to pies and beer. I’ll just have go to make room for my second gallon by visiting the bathroom. And with eyes still closed, halfway into dreamland, disaster! The barmaid rings the last orders bell. For the first time in my life, I actually wish it was the last orders bell. It’s actually the phone and, naturally enough, the alarm company once again. Another activation at work and this time the signal is confirmed. An intruder is in the premises, the police have been called and my presence is requested.
You know it, I know it and my bank manager knows it, I’m paid a pittance. But now it’s after midnight, I’ll get a guaranteed two hours of pittance at double time. Wuhooo, let’s splice the main brace and do a jig. On second thoughts, better make it bogof Irn Bru from Asda because once the chancellor has got his share, I’ll be left with about fifteen quid. Is it really worth getting out of bed and braving the night air for fifteen measly quid? What in the name of sweet baby jeebus can fifteen quid buy in Britain these days? Even the working girl, with no teeth and a gammy hand on Molseworth street is asking for more than that… so I’m told. But dash, damn, buggery and blast it all I’m saving for NE India. Fifteen quid will buy me a fair bit over there. With a bit of luck it’ll buy me enough rice beer to be off my head for a week. So I dress and drive out into the cold, autumn night air.
Arriving on a rough housing estate at midnight is always a chastening experience. The feral kids are still out and about. I’m not talking teenagers now, I’m talking eleven and twelve year olds. Still, most of them know me and once they’ve concluded their drug deals and waved to me, they’re off. The building’s alarm is deafening when I enter and why can’t I open the security door first time? Instead I fumble around pressing the wrong codes into the panel. Only to remember I’m using my house code instead of the work code. It’s going to be a long night, I can feel it already. Still, nothing looks damaged. No sign of any intruders. Perhaps it was two spiders off to dinner and it’s a false alarm after all? After a quick examination of the alarm panel I find out it’s one of our sublets whose sensor has been activated. I trek deep into the bowels of the building and my worst fears are confirmed. The internal doors have been kicked off and there is debris strewn all over the floor. They’ve been in, grabbed what computer equipment they could and legged it. To make it worse, only a few people could have know what was stored behind those doors. The culprits must be known to us. It feels like a kick in the danglers.
Ok, onwards and upwards. A quick call to the police to let them know I’m on site and within thirty minutes, a police officer calls to take a statement. Now only the alarm to sort out. Once an alarm has been activated, it needs to be reset. This can only be done via a machine that’s held by the alarm company. I can’t have one of them. I’m just not important enough. I bet Bill Gates has got one. Richard Branson probably has two. Rupert Murdoch would love one but they won’t let him have one. That’s why he looks like he’s sucking a lemon all the time. If he had just a small one he’d rule the world. You phone them up (the alarm company, not Billy or Dicky), tell them what numbers the alarm panel is displaying, they tap them into the machine. It beeps, whirrs and clicks and out comes a reset code. Only this time it didn’t. They’ve changed the system and not told anyone. Because the alarms have worked and actually detected burglars, the panel can only be reset by an engineer visiting the site. Gosh, I can picture the engineer now, in a gold lamé jumpsuit, huuuge sunglasses and a Harley Davidson motorcycle. Probably.
An hour and forty minutes later and I’m still sat there awaiting the arrival of *deep voice* The Engineer! My eyes are half closed and I’m beginning to slip back into that dream about beer and pies. Perhaps The Engineer has been stopped by an over officious policeman concerned that his gold flares may catch in his gears? Or maybe, just maybe, the lazy sod hasn’t got out of his bed yet? The clock ticks remorselessly on. It’s an eleven hour working day today and I have to be back here at seven as it is. It’s now two am and still no sign. Just as I begin to fear I may be here all night. I hear the unmistakable roar as his Harley pulls onto the car park, encased in a mystical light, surrounded by cherubs and seraphim sounding golden horns, his gold flares flapping in the breeze. Actually, I’m lying. He was in a van and wearing a blue polo shirt.
No matter, he’s here. Somewhat disappointingly he uses a mobile phone to obtain a reset code. And within fifteen minutes, he’s done. The alarms are set and I’m good to go. Only problem is, I’m now wide awake. Back home, settled into my bed and sleep is a distant memory. A voice in my head screams, “Go to sleep! Dream of pies, beer, mucky women!” Nope. My eyes are beginning to resemble Wile E. Coyote when he’s been up all night waiting in vain for the roadrunner. Just when it can’t get any worse, it does. I’m woken by the nauseating whine of Sarah Kennedy’s dulcet tones. I must have drifted off to sleep twenty minutes back and “Sick note” (it’s her BBC nickname apparently) is now harping on about “chesticles” and her “liberty bodice”. Time to go back to work. Aaaaaargh!
10.30pm and so to bed. Telly watched, hot milk drank and chocolate hobnobs consumed. Just drifting off into the land of Nod and… the damned phone rings. I should know better. I’ve been doing this job now for over seventeen years. It’s going to be the alarm monitoring company telling me that there’s been an activation at work. I could just ignore it. Pretend I was deep in the arms of Morpheus, dreaming of pies and beer. But damn, that ring tone is just so alluring! “Hello?”… “Hello, it’s the alarm company….” D’oh!
I’ve been doing the job so long, I know when I’ve got a way out of this without lying. “Is the alarm a confirmed or an unconfirmed signal?” I gingerly inquire. You see, if it’s unconfirmed it means that just one sensor has activated and neither I nor the police have to attend. It could just be a spider passing the lens on his way to a dinner of plump, tasty wasp. Huzzah! The activation is unconfirmed. I can close my eyes and go back to pies and beer. I’ll just have go to make room for my second gallon by visiting the bathroom. And with eyes still closed, halfway into dreamland, disaster! The barmaid rings the last orders bell. For the first time in my life, I actually wish it was the last orders bell. It’s actually the phone and, naturally enough, the alarm company once again. Another activation at work and this time the signal is confirmed. An intruder is in the premises, the police have been called and my presence is requested.
You know it, I know it and my bank manager knows it, I’m paid a pittance. But now it’s after midnight, I’ll get a guaranteed two hours of pittance at double time. Wuhooo, let’s splice the main brace and do a jig. On second thoughts, better make it bogof Irn Bru from Asda because once the chancellor has got his share, I’ll be left with about fifteen quid. Is it really worth getting out of bed and braving the night air for fifteen measly quid? What in the name of sweet baby jeebus can fifteen quid buy in Britain these days? Even the working girl, with no teeth and a gammy hand on Molseworth street is asking for more than that… so I’m told. But dash, damn, buggery and blast it all I’m saving for NE India. Fifteen quid will buy me a fair bit over there. With a bit of luck it’ll buy me enough rice beer to be off my head for a week. So I dress and drive out into the cold, autumn night air.
Arriving on a rough housing estate at midnight is always a chastening experience. The feral kids are still out and about. I’m not talking teenagers now, I’m talking eleven and twelve year olds. Still, most of them know me and once they’ve concluded their drug deals and waved to me, they’re off. The building’s alarm is deafening when I enter and why can’t I open the security door first time? Instead I fumble around pressing the wrong codes into the panel. Only to remember I’m using my house code instead of the work code. It’s going to be a long night, I can feel it already. Still, nothing looks damaged. No sign of any intruders. Perhaps it was two spiders off to dinner and it’s a false alarm after all? After a quick examination of the alarm panel I find out it’s one of our sublets whose sensor has been activated. I trek deep into the bowels of the building and my worst fears are confirmed. The internal doors have been kicked off and there is debris strewn all over the floor. They’ve been in, grabbed what computer equipment they could and legged it. To make it worse, only a few people could have know what was stored behind those doors. The culprits must be known to us. It feels like a kick in the danglers.
Ok, onwards and upwards. A quick call to the police to let them know I’m on site and within thirty minutes, a police officer calls to take a statement. Now only the alarm to sort out. Once an alarm has been activated, it needs to be reset. This can only be done via a machine that’s held by the alarm company. I can’t have one of them. I’m just not important enough. I bet Bill Gates has got one. Richard Branson probably has two. Rupert Murdoch would love one but they won’t let him have one. That’s why he looks like he’s sucking a lemon all the time. If he had just a small one he’d rule the world. You phone them up (the alarm company, not Billy or Dicky), tell them what numbers the alarm panel is displaying, they tap them into the machine. It beeps, whirrs and clicks and out comes a reset code. Only this time it didn’t. They’ve changed the system and not told anyone. Because the alarms have worked and actually detected burglars, the panel can only be reset by an engineer visiting the site. Gosh, I can picture the engineer now, in a gold lamé jumpsuit, huuuge sunglasses and a Harley Davidson motorcycle. Probably.
An hour and forty minutes later and I’m still sat there awaiting the arrival of *deep voice* The Engineer! My eyes are half closed and I’m beginning to slip back into that dream about beer and pies. Perhaps The Engineer has been stopped by an over officious policeman concerned that his gold flares may catch in his gears? Or maybe, just maybe, the lazy sod hasn’t got out of his bed yet? The clock ticks remorselessly on. It’s an eleven hour working day today and I have to be back here at seven as it is. It’s now two am and still no sign. Just as I begin to fear I may be here all night. I hear the unmistakable roar as his Harley pulls onto the car park, encased in a mystical light, surrounded by cherubs and seraphim sounding golden horns, his gold flares flapping in the breeze. Actually, I’m lying. He was in a van and wearing a blue polo shirt.
No matter, he’s here. Somewhat disappointingly he uses a mobile phone to obtain a reset code. And within fifteen minutes, he’s done. The alarms are set and I’m good to go. Only problem is, I’m now wide awake. Back home, settled into my bed and sleep is a distant memory. A voice in my head screams, “Go to sleep! Dream of pies, beer, mucky women!” Nope. My eyes are beginning to resemble Wile E. Coyote when he’s been up all night waiting in vain for the roadrunner. Just when it can’t get any worse, it does. I’m woken by the nauseating whine of Sarah Kennedy’s dulcet tones. I must have drifted off to sleep twenty minutes back and “Sick note” (it’s her BBC nickname apparently) is now harping on about “chesticles” and her “liberty bodice”. Time to go back to work. Aaaaaargh!
Friday 4 September 2009
Dogs, idiots and fat, ugly women
I’ve got a sign above my head that can only be seen by dogs, idiots and fat, ugly women. I’ve no idea what the sign says but it must be there as they all make a beeline to me. The worrying thing now is, I think this sign can be seen even when I use the phone. Don’t get me wrong, I quite like being approached by dogs and the occasion fat, ugly woman. In fact, some would say the two groups are one and the same. However, the idiots of this world, I can do without.
All I want to do is transfer USD to an account, held in the name of my Indian tour operator, at the State Bank of India. I’ve contacted the chap in India, he’s contacted his bank and equipped with all the relevant details, we’re set to go. How difficult can it be? Being a tech savvy kind of guy, online banking is the way forward. I can keep out of the sweaty branch at lunchtime and conduct all my business online or over the phone. Tickety boo!
Whilst I can open a new deposit account “in a few easy clicks” there’s no way to transfer money from one bank to another. So, it looks like it’ll have to be phone banking. After fifteen minutes talking to some lame-brained Lloyds telephone monkey, my life force is being sapped from me at an alarming rate. Have I got the receiving bank’s identifying code? No. Have I got the BIC? Have I got Saturday’s lottery numbers?...Ok, I made the last one up but you get the idea. No matter, let’s go direct to source and speak to someone at the State bank of India.
I’m in luck. There’s a State Bank of India branch just down the road from me. I’ll give them a phone call. Surely, I can buy some travellers cheques (commission free) and then just deposit them into the tour operator’s account? If only life were that simple. Have I got an account at the State Bank? No. “Oh well you’ll have to open one and then transfer the money to the receiver’s account and then keep the account open with a minimum of $1,000US.” What about the traveller’s cheques idea? I might as well have asked her about football’s offside law. Gibberish, that’s what she came back at me with, gibberish!
Meanwhile, the local dogs must have smelt my presence. Woof! Woof woof! I could just about hear the bank employee now over the noise of the dogs. Woof woof! “look on the…”woof woof! “and you’ll be see..” woof! Woof woof!”… then contact your bank…” woof woof woof! “...but there’s a charge” I lost the will to live, hung up and contacted Lloyds again. Thirty minutes later and I was still dealing with a phone monkey reading from a pre-determined, un-wavering script when… my phone gave up the ghost and, like me, its batteries went flat.
Tail between my legs, I trekked to my local branch of Lloyds at lunchtime. Another soul destroying experience. The place was crammed to the rafters with folk. Luckily, the good folk at Lloyds have come up with a novel way of managing the queues. Shut a couple of teller’s windows and go for lunch. No noisy, inconsiderate customers for them. A Greggs steak slice and sit on a bench for thirty minutes, that should see the queue die down a bit! Bastards!
Forty minutes later, with my lunch missed, the transaction is complete. Apparently, it’ll take twelve to fifteen working days for the money to get India. There’s no guarantee the money will get there and they won’t notify me if it does. I’ve been charged £20 for this wonderful service and I’ll be paying again when the recipient receives the money. I can’t understand why we have a banking crisis with this standard of service. Ah well, as long as there’s a couple of pounds left over for them to award their executives a nice bonus. Bastards the lot of ‘em!
Now then, where’s that fat, ugly woman?
All I want to do is transfer USD to an account, held in the name of my Indian tour operator, at the State Bank of India. I’ve contacted the chap in India, he’s contacted his bank and equipped with all the relevant details, we’re set to go. How difficult can it be? Being a tech savvy kind of guy, online banking is the way forward. I can keep out of the sweaty branch at lunchtime and conduct all my business online or over the phone. Tickety boo!
Whilst I can open a new deposit account “in a few easy clicks” there’s no way to transfer money from one bank to another. So, it looks like it’ll have to be phone banking. After fifteen minutes talking to some lame-brained Lloyds telephone monkey, my life force is being sapped from me at an alarming rate. Have I got the receiving bank’s identifying code? No. Have I got the BIC? Have I got Saturday’s lottery numbers?...Ok, I made the last one up but you get the idea. No matter, let’s go direct to source and speak to someone at the State bank of India.
I’m in luck. There’s a State Bank of India branch just down the road from me. I’ll give them a phone call. Surely, I can buy some travellers cheques (commission free) and then just deposit them into the tour operator’s account? If only life were that simple. Have I got an account at the State Bank? No. “Oh well you’ll have to open one and then transfer the money to the receiver’s account and then keep the account open with a minimum of $1,000US.” What about the traveller’s cheques idea? I might as well have asked her about football’s offside law. Gibberish, that’s what she came back at me with, gibberish!
Meanwhile, the local dogs must have smelt my presence. Woof! Woof woof! I could just about hear the bank employee now over the noise of the dogs. Woof woof! “look on the…”woof woof! “and you’ll be see..” woof! Woof woof!”… then contact your bank…” woof woof woof! “...but there’s a charge” I lost the will to live, hung up and contacted Lloyds again. Thirty minutes later and I was still dealing with a phone monkey reading from a pre-determined, un-wavering script when… my phone gave up the ghost and, like me, its batteries went flat.
Tail between my legs, I trekked to my local branch of Lloyds at lunchtime. Another soul destroying experience. The place was crammed to the rafters with folk. Luckily, the good folk at Lloyds have come up with a novel way of managing the queues. Shut a couple of teller’s windows and go for lunch. No noisy, inconsiderate customers for them. A Greggs steak slice and sit on a bench for thirty minutes, that should see the queue die down a bit! Bastards!
Forty minutes later, with my lunch missed, the transaction is complete. Apparently, it’ll take twelve to fifteen working days for the money to get India. There’s no guarantee the money will get there and they won’t notify me if it does. I’ve been charged £20 for this wonderful service and I’ll be paying again when the recipient receives the money. I can’t understand why we have a banking crisis with this standard of service. Ah well, as long as there’s a couple of pounds left over for them to award their executives a nice bonus. Bastards the lot of ‘em!
Now then, where’s that fat, ugly woman?
Wednesday 2 September 2009
It all started with a toothbrush
How is it that when I go online and buy something as innocuous as a toothbrush, it ends up costing me a fortune? I'd better explain...
Amazon are the masters of online retailing. They seem to sell anything and everything. But beware! Buy just one item and be prepared to receive a deluge of daily emails. They quite politely ask if, because you purchased toothbrushes, you would be interested in the following related items… And there my spending starts. For alongside the associated toiletries was a book, The Lonely Planet Guide to North East India. “You may like this book”, the email read, “because in the past you purchased…” do you see which way this is heading?
And so it was, I bought the book, devoured every page and booked my plane ticket to Kolkata. Already my spending had gone from a toothbrush, to a book, to a plane ticket! Maybe I was a little hasty buying that plane ticket but I was now committed to travelling and the planning had to begin in earnest.
In my office at work I have a map of
The problems seemed to be mounting. Next was the issue of Restricted Area Permits for foreigners. Different websites gave differing advice. “Not possible to visit Arunachal Pradesh unless you pay for 4 people minimum” was one piece of incorrect information. “No access to Mizoram for foreigners”, was another. Even the Lonely Planet guide book was conspiring against me, telling me that a visit to Champai on the
Time to go back online and check out my favourite
Still the map on my office wall enticed me with memories of many happy times, visiting
In 1959, his holiness the 14th Dalai Llama fled
Majuli tourism is a state registered tour company based in
organise Restricted Area permits and Protected Area Permits (something I wasn’t even aware I needed). He would include Majuli island in the tour, along with two, yes two National parks! Even more, He would take me to Champai . Remember Champai? The place that the Lonely Planet guide book said that I couldn’t visit? Jyoti seemed to think it was no problem. My itinerary was complete.
I fly to Kolkata and from there to Guwahati. It’s then Jeep all the way to Tawang, Nameri NP, Kaziranga NP, Majuli Island, Shillong, Aizawl and Champai before retracing my steps to Kolkata.
So you see, from buying a toothbrush on Amazon, I’m all set to discover the remote North East of India. At nearly 50yrs of age the spirit of adventure is still strong within me… or maybe I’ve taken leave of my senses!
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