Flying with drunk Norwegians...

One of my more memorable flights was from Marrakesh to Oslo, back in October 2008.

What I hear from my Norwegian friends is that Norwegians like to go for charter tours, and get really drunk and behave silly from the moment they board the plane. What I experienced first hand was a Norwegian getting drunk on the flight back to Norway.

It was a 6hr flight in the afternoon, and I took the window seat and a norwegian woman in her 40s (lets call her Norsk dame) in the aisle seat, with the middle seat vacant. Her husband occupied the opposing aisle seat.

I could not help but notice that the Norwegians around me (seats in front and beside) were consuming beer and wine purchased from the in-flight catering, and having some stuck-in-your-seats party.

3 hours into the flight and a few wines later, Norsk dame picked up her magazine. I turned on her reading light to assist. She appreciated the gesture. She fidgeted uncomfortably for 20 minutes and gave up reading for some sleep. She could not sleep in her seated position, and so she raised the arm rest to her side, and lay down, occupying the vacant seat, head toward me. She smiled at me to get my consent.
After 10 minutes of writhing in the 2 seats, she decided she needed more space and politely asked if she could place her head on my lap.
I responded," only if your husband does not mind." We looked towards him for a response, and he just smiled at us. I agreed. He then said," You're a good man." I just smiled, puzzled at what had just happened.

For the rest of the flight, I remember chatting to the couple and taking pictures (for the husband) of the sleeping Norsk dame on my lap.

I still wonder:
Why did I allow Norsk dame to lie on my lap? (I did not find her attractive)
Would I allow my drunken spouse to lie on a stranger's lap?
Is such behaviour embarassing? It's all done in good fun after all.

Jakarta bombings

I arrived in Jakarta on Friday morning at 0830hrs.
Whilst waiting for my host's driver to pick me up, i got an sms from a friend, asking me if I had left Jakarta. I thought it was a strange question, so i responded that I had just arrived and I asked her if something was wrong. To my horror, she told me that the Ritz Carlton Jakarta had just been bombed.
In the next few hours, I receive sms and calls asking about my safety, to which I promptly respond to reassure both friends and family.
At lunchtime, I am with my host Elisabeth, her mother, 2 aunties and their driver, having lunch at a seafood restaurant, after a visit to the History and Wayang Museums and the old port.
Somehow they see it very differently from a non-Indonesian's perspective. I just put my faith in them, and trust that they would not bring me to places where there would be potential danger.
The day continues with a visit to some shops selling brassware and the National Monument. I have dinner at her place, and spend the rest of the night watching a hilarious game show called Take Me Out Indonesia, where each week, around 30 girls hope to find their Prince Charming from 7 potential male candidates.
I spend Saturday in Bandung and its surroundings, where I visit a couple of volcanic craters and the city centre. After a fantastic dinner at Kampong Daun, I return back to Elisabeth's and make the wiser choice of staying indoors.

I have another day in Jakarta, and up to this moment I am having a fabulous time, notwithstanding the 9 bombscares that were announced over the radio and television on Friday.
I trust my host knows how to stay safe in the city, and I will follow her advice accordingly, and not put my health at risk.
Thanks for the smses and calls and facebook posts, my dear friends and family, and stay positive as I am!

ben

My most stressful night of travelling

1 night in Er Rachidia

Er Rachidia is mainly a military base, with good bus connections to other main cities of Morocco, including the desert. I spent 1 night there, to make a choice of whether to continue towards the Sahara desert or to Fez for my boutique hotel room.

The moment I alighted the tourist bus, Kamal (more about Kamal later) received me. Kamal informed me that accommodation in Er Rachidia was about Dh130 (ca. EUR13) a night. However upon stepping into the hotel, the price per room was raised to Dh390, as he thought there were 3 people, and each bed would cost Dh130. I was pissed, and I demanded a cheaper room, to which he brought me to another hotel, and charged me Dh20 for something that looked pretty much like a prison cell with a broken bed. Again I told him off and asked for a better quality room. I managed to get a half-decent room (details and picture to follow) for Dh120 that night on the third attempt.

These are the other experiences that made things worse:

• Being offered a desert tour package which was more expensive than the one I paid for in Marrakesh, when I was only 80km away from the dunes (the dunes are more than 200km away from Marrakesh), to which I aggressively declined (I told Kamal toF*** off).


• No one could give clear information on directions to the desert from Er Rachidia, about whether the flood had subsided clearing the road to the desert, or a weather forecast. Well, no one really spoke English.

Mostapha trying to help with directions/weather advice

My means of communicating with Mostapha

• Owner of the internet café wanted to rip me off an additional EUR0.1 in front of his very young daughter/niece, who was grinning at his dishonesty.


• Sleeping in a room with a broken door handle on the inside and a window facing the toilet.

fancy?

The morning after - a different Kamal
I survived the night in that hotel room, to my relief (I do remember calling my ex at night informing her of my situation), and made my way to the bus station, with my dreams of reaching the Sahara shattered, towards Fez.
I saw Kamal at the bus station, and told him my plan. I had some time to kill before my bus arrived, and so I sat down with Kamal for a pot of Moroccan tea. Kamal was a totally different person from the night before. No more pushy and sly sales tactics. Just talking about family, his business, the djellaba, and life in Er Rachidia. It was filled with sincerity and laughter.

I guess the lesson here was - People have more fun when money is not involved.

Morocco - where less planning is better

I used to take pride in the way I organised my trips, with Excel spreadsheets detailing where to go on which day, how much to spend, and where I would be staying. Basically, everything was always under control. Turned out Morocco is just not the country you want to visit if you expect things to go smoothly..

I had planned a week for Morocco (18-25 October 2008), with a 3 day trip to the Sahara desert, and subsequently to Fez, Meknes etc. The plan was not detailed as my other trips, but I'd enough faith in the public transport system to get me from one city to the next on time.

A Sahara desert tour package was booked from Marakkesh, and the plan was to finish the tour in Marakkesh and make my way to Fez immediately. I booked a boutique hotel room (EUR65 a night) in Fez, in anticipation that I would need it after a camel ride and a night under the stars in the Western Sahara desert.

Here is where things went wrong:

We were supposed to arrive at the Erg Chebbi desert dunes on the second night of the tour, after a 200km bus ride from the Dades Gorges. We arrived at Erfous, 40km away from the dunes, and our tour bus came to an abrupt halt. Apparently all traffic had stopped as the road to the desert was flooded!




Checking with the driver, there was no alternative route, and all he could do was to drive back 200km to the Dades Gorges to spend the night, and return to Marakkesh the next day.

That was not an option for me, as I had to get to the desert that night, and then make my way to Fez immediately for the following night in the boutique hotel (which I could not cancel!).

So I made my own Plan B - I dropped off at the nearest town of Er Rachidia, where I would spend my most horrible night of travelling ever, and reflect whether to make my way to the desert the next morning, or to make my way to Fez for the boutique hotel.

What happened in Er Rachidia will be documented in another post, but the eventual conclusion was that I would make my way to Fez, and leave my Saharan adventure for another trip (which I did make in June 2009). I found out later from the tourists on the desert tour that they made it to the desert the following night and had an excellent time.

To summarise - Flood destroyed my dream of making it to the Sahara desert, and I spent a night in an amazing boutique hotel to comfort myself for missing it.

I was alot more well prepared in my return to Morocco in June 2009. I did not make any plan at all... and it was a good thing I did not...details to be documented in a later post.

Chinese saying - Have fate thousand miles will meet; No fate face-to-face will not hold hands

The following entry focuses on the first half of above saying.

This happened in the summer of 2008, whilst on my Spain tour with Charpin. We were in Granada (13 July 2008), touring the Alhambra (what else?!). I had gone ahead to take some pics and ten minutes later I turned around to see Charp had befriended someone.

She was Jamie, an American psychology undergrad on exchange in Toledo, a charming town just an hour from Madrid. I mentioned that I would probably be visiting Toledo later on, and it would be great to meet up again. We exchanged email addresses, got a pic of Charp and Jamie, and departed, as she only had an hour (or half?) to finish the entire Alhambra. I did not have further correspondence with Jamie due to the hectic pace of our trip (10 cities in 14 days) ...

Fast forward to a week later, whilst walking through the old town of Toledo (19 July 2008), I noticed a familiar attractive blond walking with a companion, and yes, it was Jamie! This time we exchanged phone numbers, and I promised to call her to meet for a drink once I finished my tour of Toledo (I had only 3 hours). I did call Jamie after the sightseeing and picture-taking, but somehow was not able to get through...

I guess this post does have to do with the second half of the chinese saying after all...

To date, we keep in touch online, and I must thank her for entertaining me during my many boring weekday nights in Oslo!

Talking to Norwegians

Norwegians have been reputed to be cold people, and some of the most difficult people to befriend. That might be true to an extent, but I know Norwegians to be curious and extremely warm on first impression , meaning they will smile, laugh, query, dance, drink with you and even give you their contact number/email address/facebook contact (and possibly more), but do not expect to ever see or hear from them again in the future.

Here are a couple of pleasant first impressions:

On a late Friday evening, after the usual fredagspils (customary Friday beer session), I was thinking of saving on cab fare and asked the girl in front of me in the taxi queue if she was headed in the same direction as me, and it turned out she was. We shared the taxi ride back. Turns out she was an auditor as well! Some money saved, and good conversation on the journey.

On a separate evening, I had missed the last train back home. Again, in order to save some cab fare, I approached a slim attractive blond and asked if she was headed in the same direction as me, and whether she would like to share a cab with me. Turns out she was headed back to the university close to my place, and agreed to share the cab, but had no cash and needed to draw some from the nearby ATM. I then suggested that since it was only a half hour walk in the Oslo snowy winter, why not walk the journey instead. To my surprise she actually agreed, and we walked and talked to our own residences.

Interesting thing I remembered from that conversation was how she had to redo a semester in university due to almost a year spent in bed, as she found herself very weak and unable to get out of bed to work and study (a disease you will probably not hear of in Singapore).

Another observation: I only asked her name at the end of the evening, meaning we had been sharing personal things such as work, studies, family, relationships, health and hobbies for half an hour with a stranger.

Are names important at all?

There were quite a few more random encounters, but the above 2 just remind me of the kind of friendliness that I have yet to receive in Singapore.

First entry - introduction

Here you will find some experiences encountered during my travels during the period October 2007 to July 2009, which I found amazing or in some ways amusing.
I decided to document them in a blog in July 2009, for fear that I might forget them, and to aid in my memoirs writing possibly 40 years from now...
Hope you enjoy reading them!

Ben