Trains, Planes and Automobiles
After chancing our arms and managing to sneak our 'slightly' over-sized rucksacks through Dublin airport, we eventually got nabbed at Heathrow and had to check-in what turned out to be a 15kg bag and perhaps the longest opening sentence for a blog entry ever!
Being my first flight in a long time on a non Ryanair plane, a 747 I guess, it was an altogether rather fancy affair with TV screens on the back of the seat rests with video games and movies to watch. So even-though I entered a caffenated Zombie mode there was plenty to do and some really excellent food (tasty curries for din dins and breakie too!).
After landing and grabbing our bags (at which point we noticed that Myra's funky keychain had been pinched enroute - I guess those Carrolls' mini Lephrechauns are even more valuable than we'd thought!) we entered the Sri Lankan version of 'Death Race 2000' a.k.a. Public Transport!
Now although Dave Gargan had warned me before leaving that neither the chicken nor the egg managed to make it across the road in Sri Lanka, I foolishly only laughed a little and straightened my J-Walking crown. Two minutes into the bus journey the crown was handed over to the driver and I prepared to fish out a fresh pair of boxers as we zoomed down the cluttered streets weaving in and out of the more-or-less on coming traffic (think Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban).
Along with the driver is an assistant conductor who basically holds onto whomever wishes to hop off and checks if the inside lane is clear before 'helping' them down over the three foot drop. The more experienced locals opt for the delicate 'Tuck and Roll' departure technique which looks like it could well be on the Extreme sports channel before too long.
The next stop was the train station where we met Linton, a rather helpful local railway/tourist assistant, who more-or-less completely sorted out our travels on Sri Lanka not to mention some accomadation for the evening and pointed us in the right direction to collect our tickets for part two of the 'Death Race 2000' tournament - 'The Night Train'!
... which wasn't actually too bad but was great fun to see. The whole railway network seems to consist of the orignal British set of trains from back in the colonial days. The doors are usually left open for the entire journey and people just jump on from both sides of the track and clamber onboard or cling to the outside. We'll hopefully have a few photos to show you in a few days time.
Being my first flight in a long time on a non Ryanair plane, a 747 I guess, it was an altogether rather fancy affair with TV screens on the back of the seat rests with video games and movies to watch. So even-though I entered a caffenated Zombie mode there was plenty to do and some really excellent food (tasty curries for din dins and breakie too!).
After landing and grabbing our bags (at which point we noticed that Myra's funky keychain had been pinched enroute - I guess those Carrolls' mini Lephrechauns are even more valuable than we'd thought!) we entered the Sri Lankan version of 'Death Race 2000' a.k.a. Public Transport!
Now although Dave Gargan had warned me before leaving that neither the chicken nor the egg managed to make it across the road in Sri Lanka, I foolishly only laughed a little and straightened my J-Walking crown. Two minutes into the bus journey the crown was handed over to the driver and I prepared to fish out a fresh pair of boxers as we zoomed down the cluttered streets weaving in and out of the more-or-less on coming traffic (think Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban).
Along with the driver is an assistant conductor who basically holds onto whomever wishes to hop off and checks if the inside lane is clear before 'helping' them down over the three foot drop. The more experienced locals opt for the delicate 'Tuck and Roll' departure technique which looks like it could well be on the Extreme sports channel before too long.
The next stop was the train station where we met Linton, a rather helpful local railway/tourist assistant, who more-or-less completely sorted out our travels on Sri Lanka not to mention some accomadation for the evening and pointed us in the right direction to collect our tickets for part two of the 'Death Race 2000' tournament - 'The Night Train'!
... which wasn't actually too bad but was great fun to see. The whole railway network seems to consist of the orignal British set of trains from back in the colonial days. The doors are usually left open for the entire journey and people just jump on from both sides of the track and clamber onboard or cling to the outside. We'll hopefully have a few photos to show you in a few days time.
posted by graham at
8:17 a.m.
1 Comments:
Aha, there you are - I was hunting for this Blog last week on google, you'd think I'd find you with a search for 'Graham Fennell blog' but no, this is what I found - a sordid biblo of Grimbo's previous works:
Intimacy in Later Life
Sexual Life in Sweden
Here's the evidence ppl :
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-author-exact=Graham%20Fennell&rank=-relevance%2C%2Bavailability%2C-daterank/104-6330358-7907102
ps Rockin' blog so far...my vicarious life is now sorted :)
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Anonymous, at 12:37 p.m.
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