City of Mugus

In my hotel, it costs $16 to use the internet for 24 hours (mad), $14 for coffee and orange juice if you buy it in the restaurant (shocking), and $30 if you send for it through room service (outrageous!)

The last time I was in New York City, I had a whale of a time. Everything was so new and so fresh and so exciting. The noise, the stench, the mad folk... it all went down pretty well with me. I was a happy bunny.

Now I find myself easily sparked off and ready to bash a cab driver over the head with my handbag whenever he has the audacity to attempt to keep my change. I have also taken to tipping less than 10% if a waiter's service has been satisfactory, and 10% if it has been good (apparently this is an abomination, it should only ever be 15 and above). I have also refused to tip the many doormen and luggage boys I have encountered, and no there ain't been no $2 on my pillow for the turn down maid either.

You may think I am doing this because I am a cheapscate, but that is only half the truth. I am doing this because I am pissed off. Why does every "service provider" or "facilitator" in this place think it my duty to contribute to his financial wellbeing?

Last time I was here, my friends gave me some long shpeel about waiters etc receiving only the minimum wage and being expected to make it up through tips. Now my question was, and still is, is that my business? Did I sign up (when I queued for 30 mins for one bloody stamp at stinky Newark airport) to any agreement that somehow made me responsible for the shafting of all workers in the "Tri-State Area"?

Yesterday, I had lunch. The bill came --> $55. I put down --> $60.

Waiter (who took bloody ages to do anything, talk less of proffer a smile) goes "You're leaving a $5 tip?" in the frostiest tone ever.

I looked him square in the eye and said "Yes" and then I left, to the backing track of his mumbling and muttering.

I ask you... since when did gratuity become compulsory? If they're going to act like you're breaking the law every single time you decide not to tip, or tip less than what they expect, then WHY call it gratuity at all?

Bitchy is angry.

Period Pains, Blocked Noses & Marriage Proposals

I proposed to Mista Fanutastiki yesterday.

And what did he do?

He laughed, gave me a hug and then ignored me.

Now when this happened, I was just a little pissed off. How dare he ignore me, I thought. Should he not be honoured that a super fly chica mohita like me is proposing to his silly self? Instead he laughs it off and says NOTHING?

I began to have flashbacks to all the times in my *cough* youth, when some poor clueless sucker would pour out his feelings of love and deep deep deeeep affection to me (always over the phone, they never seemed to have the balls to do it in person) and then I would respond with a very long and very eery silence (I got a kick out of it you see - yes I'm twisted, and no, I've never been in a mental institution of any kind).

Well I can assure you that it was NOT fun when I received a taste of my own medicine yesterday. In fact, it was mortifying, embarrassing and downright annoying!

Later in the evening, I asked, very calmly and in my super-cool voice "Did I or did I not propose to you this afternoon?" He laughed again, and then changed the topic. A third time I said, actually yelled, "Are you okay? What the hell is your problem? Didn't I ask you to marry me?"

Mista Fanutastiki yelled back (and I quote), "What kind of rubbish proposal was that? Are you well?"

Leaving me... gobsmacked... and just a little peeved.

Fine, he may have had a point or two. Prior to my utterance of the words "Will you marry me?" I had yelled at him for talking too loudly on the phone, freaked out when one of London's dumbest delivery men ever arrived with a massive box that he expected me to go downstairs and then lug all the way back into my flat with my spectacularly muscle-free arms. I had then proceeded to yell at Mr. F for standing around, and then shoved him downstairs to deal with my very heavy package and the box-bearing buffoon. (Seriously though, what is wrong with this city? How can a company accept your payment for a very heavy item, arrive with it and then tell you at the door oh, not at the online checkout counter, that their delivery is to "doorstep only"?)

Anyway by the time Mista Fanutastiki made it back upstairs with the very heavy box, I was sitting on my bed, the bright red insect biting my brain had departed, and I was beginning to blubber... like a baby. In my defence, it had been a very very stressful day. I had contracted the flu overnight, been working on my flat renovation since I got up at 6am whilst sneezing like a monster, I had a job interview coming up at 2 pm, it was already 1 pm, I was running late, I wasn't even prepared for the interview, and oh... (super huge factor)... all this was happening on the most painful strength-sucking day of my period. Sorry I know I'm supposed to say "lady week" but I think that's just ridiculous. Men need to learn to deal with the fact that every single woman on this planet has a week when blood, yes, blood, not red paint or ribena, seeps out of her. They also need to learn that it can make her very cranky and moody and emotional and downright insane as in my case, and that she can get incredibly pissed off at the fact that she is expected to tread on eggshells for no apparent reason by referring to her PERIOD as her "lady week", "time of the month", "red monster", (insert other annoying cover-up metaphor here) even though SHE is the one suffering the pain and discomfort!

I appear to have digressed, but in the middle of my crying and wailing ("I'm not going to my interview!", "I'm too sick!", "I hate my life!", "The world is over!") Mista Fanutastiki held me, and hugged me, and allowed me to cry for as long as I needed to. (If the shoe was on the other foot, I would probably have slapped him and yelled at him to get a grip.) Then he sat me upright, told me he was going to help me sort things out and that I was going to be just fine at my interview, and then said (the magic words) "You need to eat. What do you want me to get you?"

He left the room and the only thing I could think to say (actually yell, because he'd gone to the kitchen) was "Will you (sneeze, cough, sniff) marry meeeeee?"

Lucky for me though, he didn't say yes. I am in no position to get married anytime soon - I don't even have a car, a decent savings account or a National Insurance number!

But it would've been nice if he had at least played along and said yes, and had allowed me to believe that he wanted to marry me. When I told him this last night, he said, "The only reason you want me to marry you is so that I can be your butler."

So... A word of advice to any young chica looking to blurt out the big question? Wait for him to come to you, and when he does, laugh it off and leave the room, make him wait, make him ask again until he is forced to yell "OI! DID YOU NOT HEAR ME? I SAID MARRY ME, YOU FREAK!"

Mista Fanutastiki may not know it yet but that is sooooo the treatment he is going to get if he ever does propose. I am certainly not asking him a fourth time, that's for sure!

[Feel free to share your own embarrassing, or mushy, proposal stories at this juncture. Or to lament and side with me on the PERIOD (still yelling it) point I raised earlier.]

The Long Overdue Moan About... My Hair!

I went to the hair salon in the ghetto yesterday - the one in which Feline (of Smackdown vs Raw fame) reigns supreme. Feline wasn't there, but another equally feisty Jamaican fatty was, and she provided many a blog-worthy moment. So many in fact that it would be far too tedious to sift through my memory in order to select the most worthy of the blog-worthy.

On a more general note though, what is it about hairdressers in London? Is it because we (black women that is) entrust them with our most prized possessions that the city allows them (on a regular basis) to get away with murder and daylight robbery? Obviously in the ghetto there is no robbery of which to speak, but in posher parts (to which I have been known to take my silly useless head on many an occasion) it is bloody ridiculous! £180 for -N-8,000's worth of hair work! (You do the maths... Ridiculous!)

And do they treat us like royalty? Like the precious (life-giving) gems that we are? NO! They keep us waiting (even when we have appointments), argue with us when we want certain combinations that will take longer to produce (but for which we are ready to pay), and leave us fuming, pissed off, teary and scuttling under the cover of darkness for fear of being seen with the monstrosities they have sealed tight onto our heads.

It is all too much! And in the midst of it all, they have the audacity to be so intimidating!

I've come to discover that a male hairdresser is often the best solution to the problem. He will not shirk you off onto some lesser-trained assistant in the salon, fight with his co-workers over your aching head, scream at you in incomprehensible patois for no apparent reason, or walk out and refuse to do your hair because his choice of tv channel or radio station has been ignored by the rest of the workforce.

Unfortunately though he is only to be found on the (again, RIDICULOUS) posh side of life, he has been known to mess up and leave you teary, and he WILL keep you waiting. At one such posh palace on Wednesday I noticed that the lady to my left (with half a head of braids) was relatively ignored, right from when I arrived, to when I left. I decided that she had to be a self-employed billionaire or a cushy kept-woman, from the calm, unperturbed manner in which she accepted such crap treatment. She sat reading her novel and said nothing to nobody, waiting patiently for her favourite demi-God to find the time to work his magic on her kinky locks.

Why she was willing to sit so patiently, I will never know. What I will say though is that women like her are the reason why hairdressers in this country are such bloody divas, and they are the reason why hairdressers think we have nothing better to do than pass entire days (working days too mind you) in their company. So please, if you are a black women living in or around the London area, kindly huff and puff with impatience during your next visit to "Chez Enrique". It will remind Enrique and all the other little "maestros" in the establishment that your time is precious, even IF you are unemployed, and with nowhere really to go, like Bitchy ;P

Ta! Xxx

New Dawn, New Day, Shut Up and Give Me a J.O.B.

I am a looking for a new job. The process has not been as easy as I thought it would be. Not even close! Now I find myself wondering how much the chubby middle-aged women boogieing and doing pointless sign language at the bottom right corner of the screen on 'The Box' get per hour.

I don't think it would be too embarrassing a job. How many people watch 'The Box' for music videos after 11pm anyway? It's only us unemployed folk! But in all sincerity, I really must ask -> What is wrong with those signing women on 'The Box'? Why are they all fat (sorry, chubby)? And why do they all wear tight clothing that sticks to the folds in their tummies? Why do they feel the need to dance so stupidly along to hip hop songs whilst they sign away? And why do they come onscreen only after 11pm? Do people with hearing difficulties only watch music channels after 11pm? Why aren't there young, hot chics and guys in tight clothing jiving on screen and signing with glee at 2pm in the afternoon?

Is Bitchy the only person in London who cares about the welfare of the audibly-challenged?

Sorry about this. I'm sure you were expecting a much more upbeat post, especially as I've been uber lazy this last month. What have I been doing? Well first I was in Lagos, recovering from what turned out to be a very manic and super scary case of malaria. I ended up in hospital on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. What fun, ey? After that, I was forced to take things slow, not just because the doctor ordered it, but also because I could barely keep up with my grandma! I was so tired out by the illness, that I could do nothing but eat, sleep and moan on the phone to Mr. Fanutastiki who absconded to the UK as soon as the worst was over.

Next came the weekend when I decided to give up (finally, do I hear you say?) the training contract offer I moaned about many a time last year. I said "bye bye" to the hugely successful, massively massive corporate law firm just over 2 weeks ago (8 weeks before the job was due to begin), and did a series of liberation dances in the mirror. (Picture me skipping and pirouetting, singing, then croaking, "I'm free! Free of the Rat Race! Whoopee!")


All this of course was until the "Oh oh what I am going to do now? I'm UN.EM.PLOYED in every sense of the word! CRAP!!" phase hit. This 3rd phase (as I'm sure you expect) brought on many a panic attack, many a crying spell and many a bout of gloom.

Now I am in phase 4 --> "So what if you're unemployed? You are Oluwabitchyola, the one, the only, you reign supreme. Can't nobody take your pride, can't nobody hold you down, oh no, you're gonna keep on mooooving. Yeah baby." So whilst Mr. Fanutastiki eats the lemon cake that my unemployed arse paid for, and fends off clients begging him for work, I sit on the computer next to him in his office googling and researching like a rabbit on Red Bull!

I will get a job soon, be it legal (the kind where you leave the office at 6.30pm and not the kind where you leave at 5am for the same pay) or funky (anyone with a hookup at Conde Nast or The National Magazine Company do holler.)

Till then, I may be silent on this blog, or I may be noisy and whingey as usual, who knows? 2008 was supposed to be a year of regular, fastidious blogging. So far it has brought with it illness, uncertainty and a rather funny (and very blog-worthy) visit to the National Youth Service Corps office in Abuja. Yes, you read right, if Bitchy doesn't get her act together soon, her cute little nyash is going to be encased in those disgusting turd-tinged nylon trousers frog-jumping from one end of the Lagos NYSC camp to the other. Teeheehee! 2008 promises to be an adventure, doesn't it! Xxx

Mista Fanutastiki & Me

Apologies are in order.

I have been sick (malaria plus flu plus basic body crash as a result of the incessant traveling). And I am in Lagos, as are a number of the (few) people in this world that I would give an arm and/ or a leg for. It was also my mother's birthday (think embarassing and downright hilarious karaoke party planned by yours truly), Christmas day, and my birthday (3 days ago. Yes, do feel free to sing "Happy Birthday" to me in your mind!) in the space of one week.

Before the year is up though, I want to blog about something. And have only just been hit by what feels to me like the best way to blog about the issue that I have now decided I am ready to blog about (in as discreet and non tongue-twisting a manner as is wise of course).

One thing I have never done, in my year and 4 months as a blogger, is share a work of fiction (however small) that is mine i.e. that I wrote, and then edited, and then ripped, and then re-wrote. And tonight, I have decided to copy and paste a small section from an as yet unfinished short story that I churned out sometime in the summer this year.

If you know me personally, or have been a regular (of sorts) on my blog, you will know that for a long time I thought being a writer of fiction, that is, adult, contemporary, cultural, and more specifically Nigerian, fiction, was the only way to go. Why? Because it is the form of literature that I connect best with, that inspires me the most, and that is able to (literally) blow my mind when it is done right. (You can see my 'A Nigerian, Afropolitan, African Brit' post if you're curious.)

But this year, I discovered (slowly and painfully) that, though fiction is where my heart is (and probably always will be), it is not the form of literary expression that comes easiest to me. In fact, you could say that, because I love (and desire to be) an afficionado of fiction (pardon the poor pun), it is the one area of expression via the written word that I find excruciatingly painful whenever I (after a long and tedious process of gearing myself up) decide to dive into it.

Before I go on and on (as I am always wont to do), I will stop myself from going into a detailed breakdown of the excerpt below's history. I will not talk about the (now abandoned) short story it was supposed to be a part of. Neither will I tell you about the day I forced myself to hack at it to the point where I felt (for the first time ever in my life) ready and content enough to read it aloud to a room full of talented (and inspiring) writers, at the head of which sat Chimamanda Adichie (whose 'Half of a Yellow Sun' was one of the above-described works that did (seriously) blow my mind). I know some of you will probably disagree with what I have just said, and whilst you are very much welcome to, [please insert Paris Hilton voice here] whaaaat ever!)

What I will however say about this excerpt is that I am putting it on my blog because I have finally met my own real life Mista Fanutastiki. And whilst he has nothing whatsoever in common (aside from his 'fabulousity', in my eyes) with the Mista Fanutastiki of the piece below, I wanted and (in a weird way) needed to put this scene up here. Perhaps because it will help him get to grips with how I feel about him (even though he knows it, because he literally does blow my mind, my heart and my everything)? Perhaps because it will help him understand why this razzo has gone from calling him "Mr. Fantastic" (in those cheesy moments) to calling him "Mista Fanutastiki" all the damn time (even in public!!)? And perhaps because in some weird way, it could potentially force me (especially as the New Year approaches) to grab hold of this talent I know I possess, but am as yet at a loss as to how best to turn into a fruitful, satisfying and seriously lucrative (kerrching!) career.

In exchange for this however, I must ask that you, as always, let me know exactly what your thoughts are (be honest, be brutal) about the blurb below. Perhaps I am a sicko, but because I truly am my own worst enemy, there is nothing I revel in more than a word or sentence of (constructive) criticism that points my attention to something that I hadn't even noticed in myself! :) I really do live for such moments.

Have a fantastic and blessed New Year everyone! And I'll be seeing you in 2008.

Yours,

B. Xxxx

---

Still Without A Title, Or A Home, Or Even A Short Story To Call Its Own

At the centre of the hall, the bride was being plastered with filthy naira notes. Her groom danced beside her, sweating profusely, enduring similar torture.

Gele and aso oke-decked bodies, gyrated and towered over them. Men in their white, crease-free agbadas. Buxom women readjusting their red and gold, or blue and gold, aso ebi (that indicated whether they were with the bride’s or the groom’s family). Their faces, plump with good food, champagne, London’s Dry Gin, betrayed their complete oblivion to the sweat trickling down their necks, mingling with coral beads, gold, and diamond necklaces.

Loud drumming and music, courtesy of Ibadan’s finest Fuji band, filled the room. Onstage, the self-acclaimed Fuji Fantastics shimmered in silver shirts and tight black trousers, the drummer and saxophonist sported crew cuts and sunglasses, the guitarists, an array of Afros, of varying heights and widths.

The lead singer, resplendent in a white waistcoat and matching trousers, bellowed into the microphone. “Wo n pe mi, Mista Fanutastiki. Patty people, I say, Gerron Down! Oyaaaa! Jo fun mi!”

His back-up singers wriggled their waists and hips in short silver dresses, the sparkling tassels on their wrists flaying in time with their long black hair.

“Jo, jo, jo…” came their reply.

Ceiling fans, swiped lethargically through the air, displacing balloon bouquets and streamers, doing little to quell the damp on the foreheads and underarms.

The room was like an oven, already preheated. Poised, to brown a chicken.

---

You may, at this juncture, feel free to rain a tirade of insults on me (for making all that noise, or for being a lazy bugger), because it really and truly does end here ;) Xxx

Oh My Goodness, I Can't Think Of A Title! This Has Never Ever Happened Before!

I have been doing something that I rarely do, but which I enjoy immensely whenever I get the chance to do it. I have been reading my old posts. Posts which were written not too long ago, but which were generally (heck, always) conditioned and influenced by whatever I was going through at the time.

It's been a long while since I wrote a post like 'Boys Can't Cry' which got all my favourite blog people thinking and talking and sharing their own experiences, and doing what I love them for --> eventually changing my perspective. I have been feeling for a while now that my style as a blogger has changed. I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was, but today I think I have. Hardly any of the posts I've put up since the summer have been thought-provoking. Why? Because I began to keep my thoughts to myself, without really realising it. And even though I was still giving a lot away about my life and the way I live it, I was merely retelling events without really providing any insight into them, into how they affected me, or how they changed me. With my old posts, I always gave some insight into my personal perspective. Even when I was strong-headed, as with 'Boys Can't Cry' and when I was remorseful and humbled, as with 'Boys Can't Cry Part Deux'. (Can I just add that I am an equal opportunities employer on the boo hoo front these days?)

I can't say for certain why it is that I stopped sharing the part of my personality that (before you accuse me of bragging, scrutinise the evidence abeg) was easier to connect with and more popular than the part I currently focus on right now (my sense of humour and my ability to laugh at absolutely everything that happens to me). Perhaps I thought I was giving away too much and that it was dangerous? Well it was a bit. I learned that lesson very hard and very fast when I saw the impact my addiction to the "self sharing" opportunities provided by my blog had on the relationship I was in at the time. Perhaps I also haven't really been allowing myself to mull over my emotions, thoughts and perspectives of late, as I was wont to do in the past? I have found recently that whenever I sit down to blog, I can't help but throw all the personal bits out the window. Literally! Like with my posts on India and on France, there were so many thoughtful observations I wanted to make (and share) but just never did. It was like I just couldn't bring myself to get personal, and I didn't know why!

When I sat down to write the previous post, I actually wanted to talk about how impressed I was with India, how moved and inspired I was to see a country with such a similar history to ours forging ahead with the full effort and support of its people. I wanted to talk about all the things I learned about Hinduism and the impact that's had on my personal approach to Christianity, the immense respect I have for this much-ignored faith (well in the West anyway) which is probably primarily responsible for the huge sense of morality that pervades every single Hindu and the way he lives his life. This by the way I really believe is so closely connected with the fundamental differences that I noted between Nigerians and Indians. There is a strong strong sense of right and wrong in India, which we have completely lost in Nigeria. I felt safe when I was there, in a way that I would never have thought possible given its status as a 'developing country', and in a way that I so desperately crave to in Nigeria. This is not to say that Indian tour guides do not use their sway with tourists to extract extortionate sums by way of commission from shop sellers, or that there is no corruption in India. Far from it! But there is a difference between their (mental and moral) corruption and ours, and I don't know if I have been able to put my finger on just why that is, not since I came back, and definitely not now in this post.

India has so many of the problems we have! We (Nigerians) often feel cool about the fact that we have 250 ethnic groups or whatever the figure is. We often use this as an excuse when talking about the leaps and advances made by our neighbours in Ghana for example. But our differences are nothing when compared to the differences (ethnic groups, kingdoms, languages, religions) that prevail in India. And just as we are, Indians are VERY much victims of the colonial experience. In fact, in my opinion (shoot it down if you will, you're more than welcome to because I am no professor) they were changed and affected a hell of a lot more than we were. Walking around the Colaba and Fort areas alone in Mumbai, was enough to convince me of this. I would look up at the top of a beautiful beautiful Victorian building like Bombay University or whatever it's called, which could easily be planted amongst the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, and would stand out only because of its exotic Mughal features and little else! And I would feel like I was in England, but in a dirty, rundown, faded and unkempt England that had brown rather than pale people running all over the place. The architectural and other (now rundown) remnants of their colonial era are still very much a reminder of just how strong a presence the British had in India. Imagine how angry, repressed and altered they must have been! Fine, this applies especially to Mumbai and not at all to areas like Udaipur (that were never touched by the British), but it made me think!

In a lot of the traveling I have been doing, I haven't just been meeting Italians, and stuffing my face, and fending off mosquitos. I have been learning. Learning so much about myself and thinking so much about my country. Making comparisons all the damn time, pissing people off with my incessant observations, and becoming more and more determined to connect better with the place that I call home and with its many many MANY problems. And it has been amazing!

Gosh! This wasn't supposed to be this long. I had planned to stop 3 paragraphs ago with a sentence or two promising to make the effort to share more of myself. Blogging just hasn't been the same for a long while and I have been feeling very dissatisfied and disconnected. But I'm just glad I have finally begun to work out what was missing. Now this doesn't mean you'll be getting any insights into topics like the amazing, wonderful person I have recently let into my life in a way that I am not yet able to define (apologies to any nosy parkers). But I am definitely going to try and give more of me. Xxx

Coconuts, Cows, Mosquitoes & Geckos

Each time I had the urge to blog, it was impossible to get to a computer, or to get to one with an internet connection at least. In India, there was so much to tell, but no bloody internet anywhere, and even when there was internet, I was charged an arm and a leg for it and would have been foolish to do anything other than check my email and spy on friends on facebook. The problem now though is that I possess the memory of a gold fish, and have been in hibernation for the last 3 days doing nothing but watching Friends and Frasier re-runs and my X-Factor (Go Rhydian!) recordings over and over again, so my recollection of events might be somewhat... ummm... warped.

One thing I remember wanting to talk about was the "animal situation" in India. As one who hails from the tropics, I am not unfamiliar with mosquitoes, neither am I unfamiliar with a sighting or two of goats or cows in allegedly 'urban' areas. What I am unfamiliar with though, is fearless animals, animals who don't give a shit (or a rat's ass) about humans. Mosquitoes that dive nose-first into your eyes when you are wide awake and staring right at them, dogs that attempt to cross the road without looking left or right, goats that refuse to heed to a driver's loud horns, crows that steal food from restaurant tables in broad daylight, pigeons that quench their thirst in swimming pools, and cows that do whatever the hell they want whenever they bloody well want to. The cows were unbelievable! Not only did they take strolls on busy roads in city centres, they took up prime car-space on the motorway. And on narrow country roads, they wouldn't budge, not even when they were hit by the hard, metal body of a car. Slowly, we grew accustomed to the following sounds: car door + cow trunk (oomp), car door + cow horn (boonp), and car door + cow snout (donk): neither of which was very pleasant.

In Kerala, farm animals were not as prevalent, perhaps because fish, crab and lobsters ruled the streets in that region. Oh and coconuts too! Kera La means "land of coconuts" and my goodness there were coconut trees everywhere! I was about 10 the last time I drank from a coconut - my brother and I begged our mallam to climb one of the trees in our backyard. He hacked at it with his huge dagger/sword thing, we stuck 2 straws in it, and after one or two slurps, our time was up. In Kerala though, coconuts are different. It took me TWO HOURS (slurp, pause, slurp, gasp, slurp, hold stomach to stop the swishing, slurp) to drain the coconut I was given, and after that I decided I was done. My struggle with the coconut was on a houseboat in the middle of nowhere, and I had nothing else to do, which was why I kept it up.

Gosh... the houseboat!! Yet another thing I wanted to talk about.

To get to the houseboat, we drove from Kochi to Alleppey, and into a yard with very exotic-looking bamboo houseboats. Within 5 minutes, our luggage was on board and we were off. The crew introduced themselves - there were 3, the driver, the engine-master, and the chef (who was skinny - that we took as a good sign). We were out in open water, on the backwaters of Alleppey, and it was beautiful, breathtaking in fact. There was nothing around but water, it was completely silent. I made a note in the sacred 'Where To Go On Honeymoon' notepad that I keep in my (insane) mind, (and am ashamed to say make regular amendments to). 15 minutes later though, 'Houseboat on the Backwaters of Alleppey' was scrubbed right off the list! There was nothing to do on the bloody boat! There was no way I could get online (duh!), the 3 books I had brought on board were non-fiction (dull), in French (I wasn't in the mood), and in pre-1890 French (hello?) and I was starting to freak out. Zozo on the other hand was ensconced in 'The God of Small Things' and I was kicking myself for having recommended it to her, as she had subsequently lost all interest in speaking to me. So I sat there, on the boat, watching the beautiful lake and the beautiful birds and the beautiful multi-coloured dragonflies go by, sipping my coconut and twiddling my thumbs.

We pulled into a narrow stream for lunch, I bargained with 2 fishermen who rowed up to the boat to sell langoustines, we set sail again, and then the SUN came out. By evening, I was blacker than night (the boat was shaded so I don't get how it happened), my allergies had kicked in (I am either allergic to nature/ water/ natural water because they showed up unannounced 2 days before when we swam under a waterfall in Kochi) and there were mosquitoes and geckos everywhere. It was incredible! The sun went down, we sat in the armchairs, and one by one, mosquitoes appeared, and as they did, so did the geckos. The highlight was when a gecko lost its balance mid tongue-stretch, and dropped onto Zozo's chair, which sent her flying and screaming and brought all of our 3-man crew running to apprehend the danger. Once dinner was over though (think sweaty, sticky, harassed Bitchy eating the most delicious langoustines ever with a drippy drippy nose! Yuck! Yum! Yuck!) we locked ourselves in our bedroom where thankfully we had air-conditioning, and then shivered all night long (because the sheets were too thin).

I should write a movie script about my time in India - it would put Ben Stiller and Will Ferrell to shame! It was so bloody funny! I'm afraid my re-telling of it hasn't painted quite as funny a picture as I would've liked. I want to write about Mumbai next, but I am going to stop here because this post is already very long and very dull. I seem to have lost my blogger's mojo!

Crap! Xxx

P.S. Both photographs are mine. I am no longer a pilferer (I don't think this word exists) of images from google!