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[Paul Crate, well known Evershot resident, is on a round-the-world tour and has promised us a word or two from time to time. Here's the first instalment.]
Saturday 8
November 2003
bloody electrickery!
I tried to send a message yesterday but i don't
think it got through so i'll send it again, if you did get it and i'm
repeating myself then ignore this one!
basically theres a problem with the connection between south africa and
england so the internet is very tempramental at the moment, the chap in
the internet cafe said its slowly improving though.
we're getting on very well indeed, rossy's family are absolutely
fantastic, feeding us like kings, very comfy beds and lots of beer and
wine, not quite sure if this is backpacking yet but its very nice
indeed! we were going to hire a car but it turned out to be phenomenally
expensive so istead its worked out cheaper to buy one! got ourselves a
nice bmw 5 series 2L injection actually!! one of ross's relatives is a
mechanic with his own garage so he's checking it all out and servicing
it before we set off for pilanesberg game park, which is about a couple
of hours away from pretoria where we're staying. then we're going to do
a round tour and meet some more of rossys relatives before returning to
pretoria.
i'll try and send a more comprehensive letter when we come back (five
days or so i think) because a) the e-mail might not be so sketchy then,
b) i'll have some more exciting news and c) i won't be so enormously
hung over then! (hence the speeling meistakes and poor grammar)
weathers here wish you were nice etc etc
love to you all (more to some than others obviously - you know who you
are)
international cratey.
Friday 14 November 2003
hi everyone, lots has happened sice i last touched base.The car we
bought needed a service and as we needed to get going, stan (rossy's
relative) insisted we should take his brand new beemer! so off we went
to pilanesberg game park in a fat bmw with loads of borrowed camping
gear, there was ostrich and monkeys loose in the camping area so we had
to be careful what we left outside. we went into the park, saw rhino,
elephant, stripy horses(zeba apparently but i think they're pulling our
plonker!), spingbok, buffalo, giraffe(very graceful, probably my
favorite so far) and all sorts of other stuff. saw the footy and rugby
in the bar, and the following day tried to go to "sun city" holiday camp
on the other side of the park.got halfwaythere and stopped next to a
watering hole with three rhino and a hippo when, after 15 mins, the car
cut out. oh shit!
managed to short two wires out and get the car started, then it was
over heating! double shit!! got about 5k's down the road and got in to
sun city (sort of like butlins only nice) then about 300m's in to the
park the car broke down so we had a small laugh/cry when we got a tow
back to the park garage (the mechanic said "you follow me yeah?"
bullshit mate we're bloody tied to your truck where else are we
going?!!!) and enjoyed the pool and slides all day whilst they fixed
stanleys car for a very cheap price.nice one.then went to colligny, near
lichtenberg (pronounced like luxmburg) which is proper farmer country,
where rossy's other relatives live. saw a different side of S.A. life,
drove through the most amazing lightening, they have it here almost
every other night, also saw a really nasty head on crash, and went to
another game park where they had a "vultures resturaunt"where all the
local vets dump they're carcasses, loads of vultures, good pictures.
went back to pretoria and got absolutely hammered with a friend of pams
(stans wife) sons last night and now we've come to jo'burg in a
backpackers hostel which is nice and clean and are playing cards and
drinking games, off to soweto tommorow to have quite a harsh sightseeing
trip by all accounts but this why we've come so we'll learn alot.
hope everything's great in dorset, i miss it
already, have a beer for me.
international cratey
Tuesday 25 November 2003
Seems like a long time since i last wrote, but we have been very very
manic chasing about trying to fit in as many activities in around
pretoria as we can before we left for the coast. went to soweto as i
mentioned before and it was not exactly fun but im certainly pleased i
went, our guide was born in soeto and still lives there so he really new
what he was talking about, he was in the june 16 1976 uprisings when he
was a 13 year old kid (also look up hector peterson if you don't know
the history, i didn't and couldn't believe it but i couldn't explain
properly in a quick e-mail) we actually got taken round one of the
squatter camps too and inside a small tin house about the size of our
kitchen at home, no water, no electricity, and six of them living there,
although it made you realise what we've got and how lucky we are it was
also very awkward the way we were ushered in to 'gawp at the poverty' if
you know what i mean, but it brings them some money i suppose. got lost
on most of our car journey's so far which always adds a nice edge to the
excitement, but we've convinced ourselves its character building and a
good way to see the sights!
Went to kruger, last week too (which is the size of both wales and
isreal apparently - very interesting indded, hmmm) saw some great
animals up really close, from elephants to tortoises and even a wild dog
which is very rare so we've been told. (slade - yes eddie izzard's got
giraffe off to a tee but i think they'd lost their stilletto's in the
mud somewhere - and we also saw a tiger, in africa!), before kruger we
looked round the area near it very nice, say cheers to jack in the
boozer if you see him it was his idea (gods window, graskop, lisbon
falls, blyde canyon etc if he asks)
ross has dinked the nose of the car beacause a tree wouldn't move and
drunk a cupfull of ants in the middle of the night which he thought was
milk and zimb has had a dog nick one of his sandals and had his suntan
lotion explode in his bag, which was incredibly funny until it happened
to me too, arse.
we are now in durban which is nice enough but still a big city at the
end of the day and we're looking for some quiet beaches now so we're off
down the coast to take time out and stop spending so much money
hopefully!
Boris (the bmw) is being very well behaved, had a slow puncture fixed
after kruger for R20 (less than 2 quid) and a hole in the exhaust fixed
for two cans of coke,nice! both the blokes who worked on the car tried
to buy it too so it doesn't look like it'll be a problem to sell it.
oh yeah, what about the rugby! we watched it in a pub full of english
people and i'm now 104 years old and have been through two livers,i
spared many thoughts to you watching it two hours earlier in the talbot,
must have been messy. great bit of history though, very proud to be part
of it. especially with the aussies in their back yard, can't wait to get
there in august!
its ten to nine here and i'm still sweating buckets in shorts and t
shirt, smug smug smug etc.
emmy hill - we get to bombay on the 24th jan is em dyke coming with
too? let us know your plans, we'll go out for a curry or something!
sue - tell jocky theres a shop chain over here called king pie, he'd
love it! anyway got to go and rescue fodder from the oven (potato gratin
with tuna and sweetcorn - not very south african but its cheap like the
budgie!)
hope everythings great with everybody,
KRAnE
Monday 1 December 2003
greetings from africa!
we've now rolled in to buccaneers backpackers in cinsta just up from
east london and it is absolutely gorgeous! we've got a four bed dorm
with a balcony that looks down over trees to a lagoon, then theres about
20 feet of sand before 17km of beach on to the indian ocean, happy days!
they've got all sorts of free things to do here too, canoes to take out
on to the lagoon, climbing wall, free surfboard and bodyboard 'hire' (is
it hire if its free?), a volleyball court, gorgeous pool all the sports
equipment for the beach, its best! really really well run too, they
organise a free activity every day like a booze cruise down the river,
volleyball or whatever and, get this, they only give away free wine with
the free activity! free wine! so we've cancelled the rest of the trip
and we're staying here!, not really but it does happen, izzy (nice name)
the girl who works on reception arrived here and was booked in for two
nights, and is still here eleven months later, same with chris the guy
who's sorting all the free activities out all the time, he's was
passing through and just stayed, madness! you can see why though (don't
get worried mum, i couldn't last here i'd get wine poisoning).
we stopped off at coffee bay on the way here too, that was right in the
middle of nowhere about an hour south of Umtata, proper local africa
with kids everywhere trying to sell you all sorts, necklaces, shells,
cannabis anything! they'd all come in to the hostel every night and sing
before fodder time too, clapping and drumming, really impressive.
there was a guided tour to a landmark in the sea called 'hole in the
wall' which is like a massive durdle door type thing but we thought to
save money we'd drive ourselves to see it in boris. got some directions
and set off before realising that the roads out here aren't much like
the ones in dorset! potholes about 8 inches deep, massive great big
gouges out of the tracks and we had five people in the motor (tom and
danielle were with us from the coffee shack, bet they wish they hadn't
bothered!) after much bottom scraping (thats boris not us) we got to the
hole in the wall, met the people on the tour took some photo's and set
off again, halfway up a massive hill (we thought we'd struggle to get up
it, and we were right) the cap blew off the radiator and we lost all the
water, shit. luckily we had some in the car and put that in, then the
guided tour drove past us on the way home and after they'd stopped
laughing they said they'd bring us some water back out. managed to limp
the car home (everyone had to get out and walk up the hills too -
luckily i was driving) and found we'd also burst a pipe and were hours
from anywhere that sold anything (other than bloody necklaces or shells)
that was remotely pipe like. but i managed to chop the pipe down a bit
and fix it, you should have seen ross and james's faces realising they
were relying on my mechanical knowledge to get us through rural africa!
ha!
all that time i spent cursing my old red 309 at home and that was the
only reason i knew what to do, every experience really is a good
experience! we had to leave coffee bay quickly though as it worked on a
tab system for everything and we were spending too much at the bar (i
won a free tequila cocktail as i won the killer pool comp, but then had
to neck it as there was a 'no right handed drinking rule' that i'd
forgotten about in my inebriated state - messy).
the backpacking system is really good though, you get to find out where
the good places are through talking to the people you're staying with,
and as we're moving along the coast there are other people doing the
same so we make friends at one hostel and then they turn up again at the
next one along a few days later, quality!
chad - cheers for the band stuff, if theres any gossip from the gigs or
really amazing bands let me know yeah? i'll mind my language too!
if anyone see's andy mac tell him i keep getting my messages returned
from his e-mail address, i've checked it and its right cos i'm recieving
the stuff he sends me - strange.
ali B - nice one on that backpackers, we'll definately check it out as
i've got to see a dog that can climb trees!
anyway i've piffled on enough (i had to come inside on the computer as
it was too hot on the beach!) hope evershots great and everyone is ok.
ciao for now!
Tuesday 9 December 2003
Africa calling
we've FINALLY managed to tear ourselves away from the free wine (not
sure if i mentioned that in my last e mail did i?!) but not before
finding out a) ianda (bloke who worked at buccaneers) lived in bridport
for 6 months a year ago and b) chris (bloke who went to buccaneers for
two nights and now lives and works there) only knows dr stomp and oz
really well! its through his sister or something, couldn't believe it
when we found out.
we also had 3 lads and a girl move in to our dorm who were from
sherbourne, small world indeed!
not done too much since last writing, went on a day tour of the
transkei - very rural area over the kei river, where we did cliff
jumping, visited a local project run by the government, saw some
gorgeous scenery and i went free climbing above this massive deep pool
which was fed by a waterfall, one of the most amazing things i've ever
done, it was quality! we've now moved down the coast, stayed in port
elizabeth and are now in jefferies bay. i'll write a more detailed
e-mail when we get a bit further up the coast. from me (tanned and now
peeling - proper british!)
dave - haven't heard from tom, he's probably too drunk to get to an
internet cafe! say hi to everyone.
sue - wish jocky happy birthday and hope you're both really well, could
you send me your address please?
there were loads of other people who i wanted to say stuff to but can't
remember now as zimb and pakes are hasseling me to hurry up, so i'll
save it and write later.
Thursday 18 December 2003
5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ...!
BUNGYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!! The reason i was so brief in my last e-mail was cos i
was absolutely filling my pants and didn't want to mention where we were off
too next. We booked in to 'Tube n Axe' which is a hostel right next to
storms river but more importantly about 10 mins drive from Bloukrans bridge,
home of the highest commercial bungy jump in the world. 216 meters to be
precise, for the price of about 50 quid you can hurl yourself off of the
apex of a massive road bridge over a big green gorge with trees in the
bottom of it that look like broccolli! It was really well run, plenty of
banter with the guys putting your harness on (its yellow so we can find you
in the trees when you land, specially designed to stop your body parts
flying too far on impact etc etc) and the walk out to the apex of the arch
(you actually jump from under the road) is over a wire mesh walkway so you
can see right down to the little trickle of a stream in the bottom, it also
has a nice wobble on it as you take each step just to get the adreneline
flowing. When you actually get out to the jump area they've got really large
tunes pumping so we were all dancing around and leaping about like nutters
as we were too nervous to sit down or keep still, ross was up first, and you
can't really see people when they jump so all we saw of him was being
perched on the edge, then he just disappeared which was really weird, but
the look on his face when he came back up just added to the atmosphere
because he was just absolutely buzzing!!
As i was so nervous when i went up to be strapped on i was crapping it and
just talking too much, i got myself in to some banter with the guys running
it, having a laugh and taking a bit of mickey and that, whether they got the
wrong end of the stick and thought i wasn't nervous or i was being a bit
cockey or something i don't know but as they counted down 5,4,3,2,1 and
shouted BUNGY! i was just going over the edge and one of the guys shouted
WAIT!, now we'd heard stories of them doing this before but i wasn't really
expecting it, absolutely shit my pants for a split second, then had a real
'what the bloody hell have i just thrown myself off this bridge for?' moment
and then managed to enjoy it. you freefall for 7 of the longest seconds you
will ever experience, reaching 150kph then on the first bounce you spring
back higher than the whole victoria falls bungy, the second bounce is higher
than the next nearest bungy to bloukrans and after that you can finally get
your breath back and have a look around at the view up the river to the sea
or down the ravine in to forests. Amazing, can't explain it really you
should all come and have a go! you're hanging around for quite a while
whilst the guy on the winch (apparently called elvis, and i told him he was
'a f#$@ing legend!') comes down and hooks you on to pull you back up, all
the blood rushes to your head and you can really take everything in, its
fantasic, we took a whole roll of photo's so i think we're going to get them
developed and send them home but judging by the african postal system they
should get back by about march! [See photos here.]
we've also done black water tubing, which is a sort of individual
raft/rubber ring that you go down a river in a ravine with, had our car
break down AGAIN, met a complete lunatic called joe who we're going to hook
up with in cape town for xmas, and made steady progress along the coast.
we're currently in wilderness (its the name of the place but it doesn't
really fit right, nice beaches though) but heading for hermanus tomorrow and
planning to be in cape town for the 22nd.
got to go now as fodders ready (bar-b-q in december, nice!) say merry xmas
to everybody from me and the freak shows, probably write again next year!
international cratey.
p.s's
if anyone see's jamie or janine,my e-mails arne't getting through for some
reason, can you get them to send me one so i know i've got the right
address.
its nice to hear back from people but if you ask me questions and i don't
asnswer its because its ages between when i read them and when i reply and
also as its usually cheaper to e-mail at night and i'm more often than not
drunk by then!
Tuesday 23 December 2003
just a sly one to say we've actually made it to cape town (who'd ever
believe it?) settled in to our new home for two weeks - it must sound weird
but after nearly two months out here, a fortnight in the same place seems
like ages!
table mountain is absolutely amazing, its clear today but when we turned up
yesterday the entire sky didn't have a cloud in it except for the whole top
of the table which was covered with a layer of fluffy cloud (cumulo nimbus?
- one for you geographers) which they call 'the table cloth' its really
strange as it always seems to be moving down the mountan's edge but it never
changes position!
we're going to walk up it some time (zimbs on about a mountain bike trail
down but then he has got a screw loose!) and also going to visit robben
island (where mandela was in prison) and cape point just to be touristy.
everybody have a merry jubbly christmas and don't drink too little!
international cratey.
p.s's
hugh - cheers for forwarding that e-mail i think it must be Diane.
Diane - helllooooooo, are you out there?
Richie - who's this new lady then mate? news travels fast even if nothing
else in africa does!
anybody seen the premiership table? if anybody can tell me who's top of the
table for christmas i'd really appreciate it as i can't seem to find out
over here, (honest!)
Wednesday 31 December 2003
sloppy xmas and a messy new year!
everything is wild and groovy in cape town, christmas day was incredibly wobbly indeed. started with champagne and bacon sarnies for breakfast (the champagne made the bread a bit soggy tho so we just had bacon in the sandwiches and champagne in glasses instead) then went up to ashanti which
is a really nice hostel where a load of mates are staying, got more
shitfaced than i've ever been on christmas day, had a bit of a dodgy lunch
(what do you mean no sprouts? i hate the little buggers but ITS CHRISTMAS!)
and i think its the first time ive gone through the whole xmas period
without hearing fairytale of new york by the pogues, rossy's singing isn't
far off shane mcgowan but zimbs Kirsty McColl leaves a lot to be desired.
scouse steve (random geezer we met along the garden route towards cape town)
managed to wade his way through the whole shooters board at about four in
the afternoon (17 very dodgy different shots in 8 mins 46 secs - and was
still fairly coherant for the rest of the night!) and things pretty much
carried on like that until i woke up at 3pm feeling rather delicate on
boxing day!
since then we've climbed up table mountain [see picture] which was knackering (not helped
by having to push boris about 300meters to a parking spot as he overheated
on the way there, needed the exercise tho!) but we saw a fantastic sunset
when we got up there. just been chilling out on the beach other than that
really, tonight we're probably going to an open air party on the beach and
to tee ourselves off we've bought a classy 5 litre box of wine for just
under 3 quid (i'm going to be a chatau le cardboard expert by the time i get
home). then theres a 3 day dance music festival which we might try and get
too depending on how long it takes us to scrape ourselves out of bed
tomorrow. and if we survive all that, we've got a wine tour in stellenbosch
on the 3rd or 4th and robben island to visit and table mountain to abseil
off of! happy days.
hope every one had a fantastic christmas and has an enourmous new year.
see you in 2004.
internationally hungover-but-still-going cratey
Thursday 8 January 2004
We have now just about recovered from general merry making and festive
frivolity and are starting to get our serious heads on. New year was
absolutely quality, we started off down at the V&A waterfront but by the
time we'd walked down there and found out it was all tourists and english
pubs full of families it was gone 11, so we hotfooted it back in town
looking for some kind of street party or a big crowd of some sort, not a
great deal about so its now about half eleven nearly quarter to twelve and
we've still not decided what we're going to. i'm starting to get a bit
tweaky as i don't want to be stood in a street at midnight saying 'well
where shall we go then?' looking like a sketchy muppet, so we dive in this
club called 'DeLuxe' we'd heard about from some guys up at ashanti - 6 of
us, me,rossy,zimb,joe and two scots guys called mat and james (james has a
band called soulsaver who could be on the verge of making it - you heard of
them here first!) and just about managed to get a beer in, get on the dance
floor as the music stopped and they counted down to midnight, cue lots of
clinking of glasses, shaking of hands, hugging and backslapping etc etc
before the dj set off with some enormously large and funky tunes and new
years eve had just started!
it was really weird as at home everyone starts in the afternoon and 12 is
the big climax that the whole day builds up to but over here midnight was
almost like the starting pistol, then two hours later we counted down and
celebrated english new year which made all the locals think we were
completely arseholed (hmmmmm, hang on a minute...) before leaving the club
about half four ish, imber and joe ran in to a carnival on the way home with
about a hundred people dressed in colourful yellow,red, blue sequinned
suits, a large brass band playing, people blowing whistles, dancing with
umbrella's and singing like lunatics - at least thats what they THINK they
saw! then we went to our hostel and sat on the balcony drinking cheap shit
wine with a load of people from ashanti and watched day break on 2004, it
was quality!
since then we've climbed 'lions head' which is a smaller mountain next to
table mountain, and although its smaller, its probably a steeper climb,
you've got sketchy little chain routes you have to pull yourself up on, a
bit more like proper climbing, theres no way health and safety would allow
it in england though! then we got to the top and found a guy selling bottles
of cold beer - VERY handy, so we watched the sun go down with a great view
of the table looking down over cape town drinking a cold carling black
label!
we've also been to stellenbosch which is one of the biggest wine producing
areas over here, had a tour of four different vinyards where they showed us
how everything is picked and juiced and filtered and all the grapes are
selected etc etc etc before rushing us through all the technical areas and
getting us straight on the piss at half 11 in the morning! we were taught
all about correct tasting procedures, the areas of your mouth that the
different taste buds are in, how to aerate the wine properly and how to talk
a lot of bollocks like gilly goulden before he addmitted that taste buds and
personal prefernce means that two experts could have two completely
different opinions about the same wine! had a really good day though and the
guy taking the tour had a good balance between the serious facts and
techniques in wine tasting and production and the fact that sometimes it can
be taken a little bit too seriously.
we're now back in cape town trying to get boris spick and span and well
behaved before sell him on, hopefully shouldn't be too much stress. probably
planning to abseil off of table mountain on friday, and do robben island,
cape point etc next week.
a couple of minor points before i go, a) there are more species of plant on
table mountain than in the whole of the british isles. b) the best phrase to
sum up african attitude so far has been 'europeans have clocks, africans
have time' and c) harry kewell is a cheating tosser.say no more!
anyway, hope everyone had a class new year, be sure to let me know any
REALLY embarrassing stuff that happened in bridport or the acorn or any of
the other usaul haunts.
International Cratey
P.S. it's still obscenely hot over here but then i didn't come here for a
haircut!
Friday 16 January 2004
Can't really remember the last time i wrote so if i go over things twice
then just ignore me (just imagine its a usual saturday night in the pub and
it should set them mood perfectly).
since new year we've been on a wine tour in stellenbosch so we now know how
to talk shite about booze like true professionals as opposed to amatuers,
been to robben island where mandela was incarcerated for obscenely long
periods of time for very silly reasons (thats pretty much word for word what
the guide said - honest) and i won the same pool competition that ross won a
couple of weeks back so now we've both got a free abseil off of table
mountain, nice!
Other than that we've been trying to get boris shiny and new, advertising
him and waiting by the phone and finding new and intersting ways to get very
drunk on very little money.
we've also been looking in to the problem of trying to book places in
mauritius and bombay to stay as we're off this time next week, i think
mauritius is just going to be a 'sleep in the airport' job as the cheapest
place we've found so far has been 120 quid per person per night which is
about twenty times out of our price range! bombay shouldn't be a problem tho
as we've been talking to quite a few people over here who've either
travelled india or used to live there and know lots of handy stuff, and
slade's sorting us out with a few idiot proof guidelines too (cheers mate!).
i think we've got our route pretty much worked out too, get out of bombay
before too much madness sets in, down to goa where we're meeting up with em
hill and em dyke, then work our way down the west coast, up the east coast a
little, in to humpi (see jocky for entertaing jokes and double entendres)
before working our way up north towards jaipur and other places that i can't
remember the name of now.
i'll probably write again before we leave SA and let you know who had the
biggest stains in their pants after the abseil (just the 1000m up in the
air!)
be excellent to each other
international not-sure-if-its-dirt-or-a-tan-anymore cratey
Thursday 22 January 2004
Greetings for the last time from sunny africa (bloody sunny africa! its been
a steady 32 degrees the last few days!) the absolutely dumbfoundingly
amazing news is...........we've sold the motor! yes with just 48 hours to
spare before we leave the country we found a new home for boris. theres a
company called 'drive south africa' who sell cars to tourists and offer them
a guarenteed buyback price who also buy beemers off of clueless dorset
idiots as it happens so happy days, we can sell the can of petrol and put
the matches to a much better use! it really was skin of the teeth stuff
though because as we'd arranged to meet steve (MD of DriveSA) at 9am this
morning to give him the keys and collect the cheque, but as we drove home
yesterday the service inspection warning light came on (again!), so after a
small tear and huge amounts of abuse later (imagine the scene in fawlty
towers where basil runs off and gets a stick to give his car 'a damn good
thrashing!') we devide to go and see him anyway, be honest and see what he
says (bet mums well proud!). so honesty is apparently the best policy as he
said they were going to have to check it over and do some work on it anyway
so no problems we went straight to the bank, changed the money in to
travellers cheques, settled our bill at the batty-backpackers and lived
happily ever after, hurrah!
So final thoughts on south africa, hmm although we've been here nearly three
months it has absolutely flown past, and not until we really start talking
about the best parts do we realise how much we've done, to start off with i
should say an enormous thank you to all of ross's relatives over here, they
really took us in and made us feel at home, showed us amazing hospitality
and were just generally brilliant in every way (if any of you think i'm
going over the top then YOU let us come and stay with you for 3 weeks!) so
thank you very much to ian, nikki, veronica, leon and all the kids and
especially to stan and pam who sorted us out more than we can say when we
first turned up. not fogetting ronnie T who is a living legend!
Seeing all the wildlife and landscapes has been amazing too (shame theres no
lions over here tho, they would really settle in well if only someone would
introduce them!), breaking down in front of the rhino's and hippo, ross
shitting his pants like a big girl when a grasshopper landed on him - you
should see him jump when cockroaches run across the floor its worth an
entire reality tv show!
ALL the fun at buccaneers, driving to hole in the wall at coffee bay, the
bungee, black water tubing table mountain and the complete party institution
(i think much longer and we WOULD have been institutionalized!) that has
been cape town for a month today. the people we've met have been a class act
(you know who you are) and all the not such fun holiday stuff too such as
the soweto tour, robben island and the huge transformations the country has
been through and in many ways is still going through, has been an experience
that i wouldn't swap for anything else. If anyone has got the slightest
inkling to come over here then do it, but do it properly and have a really
good look round, its quality!
aside from getting in to complete state tonight, just to celebrate selling
the car obviously, and abseiling off table mountain tomorrow (weather
permitting, it gets VERY VERY windy down here at times and if so its not a
good idea to jump off of a rock a kilometre high) we are preparing for a 24
hour stopover in mauritiaus and then the insanity that is india, i really
can't wait, although i realise that at times (probably most of the time) the
place is going to kick the shit out of us - pardon the pun - i think that it
is going to be the most extreme place that we're visiting, in every way.
people we talk to that have been there before all give very sound advice and
many say different things but the one thing they all agree on is 'expect the
unexpected.' �Should be an experience.
it seems like i've been able to write fairly regularly since we've been over
here but i'm not sure what the case will be in india so if you don't hear
from me for three weeks or so don't start throwing party's and having good
riddance celebrations too soon or i'll come home and give you all the shits
and the nasty diseases i've contracted! speaking of which, if anybody's got
a weak stomach and doesn't wan't to know about any of the horrid things we
get up to then let me know and i'll tell you anyway.
If anybody has any reccomendations from home as to where they've been, or
people they know or other things that are going on we might not hear about
on our way round (any international cricket we could go and see Maccy? we
missed the test at newlands over here as we had booked our wine tour and
found out too late when we got back so let us know nice and early if you can
mate) then let us know.
i'd better go as i've got a date with an enormous quantity of cheap alcohol,
So, as they say in Llandow, ciao, for now!
International still-with-solid-stool-and-clean-left-hand Cratey
P.S. we've been keeping up with the football pretty well over here (lets not
mention the weekend eh?) but i don't think india will be the same so can
everybody keep me posted, results, transfers, injuries to any dirty gooners
(thats fans AND players!) etc. i mean we can probably get papers but its
better to hear from people you know innit?