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Published: September 23rd 2007
Typical Tartan Army bams....
....but at least they left their buckie at homeSod's Law: You spend two painfully boring weeks in smelly Delhi applying for visas for the Stans......and then poor Jom gets sick in our first port of call - Tashkent, Uzbekistan - and we have to fly home to sunny Scotland within a week of leaving India! The vagaries of travel in exotic climes eh? Still, when your heart is only beating a paltry 38 times a minute and the local Doc is adamant you fly home asap to see a cardiologist, you tend to follow orders.....looking on the bright side, Tashkent is home to possibly the best Syrian restaurant east of Damascus so at least we could gorge ourselves on top quality grub in between hospital visits. The silk road, the Pamirs and Iran will have to wait til another time but no doubt we'll get there in the end....
After four weeks of fairly intensive testing and treatment in Glasgow, it turns out that Jom's heart is ok and that some nasty intestinal parasite was probably responsible for all the fatigue/dizziness/nausea, but several sessions of IV antibiotics appear to have kicked its ass, happy days. Jom starts work again next month so she's minding the home front whilst
I continue to fly the flag for Scots abroad......and what better way to jumpstart The Big Trip than by heading to Paris with the Tartan Army to humble the French in their own backyard?? PRICELESS.
Following a couple of nights in Marseille - the only cheap place I could fly into France given the hordes of rugby and football fans there for the World Cup/Euros - I caught the TGV to Paris to hook up with the London boyz (Steve, Stuart, Campbell & Scot) and 15,000 other Tartan Army footsoldiers, kilted-up to the max and getting stuck right into the bevvy, quelle surprise; they'd managed to sink five Kronys each on the three hour train from Waterloo - departing at 9am! - so they were looking a tad bleary-eyed, hardcore. Nothing that a few croque monsieurs couldn't sort out of course.
The Eiffel Tower was the rendezvous point for the three mile march to the Parc Des Princes and naturally it was chock-a-block with tartan, saltires, huge carry-outs and people peeing against walls.....glad I'm not a girl. The pipers led us off at 6pm with Miss Scotland - looking rather bonny on the open-top bus - anxiously smiling
off loud chants for her to "get her t@#s out for the boys!", you could have fried an egg on each cheek....
After half a mile of tip-toeing along we decided to stop for a wee 'sweetener' - Campbell had to make do with Smirnoff Ice rather than his favourite Bacardi Breezers - and then catch the metro to the stadium, otherwise we might never have made it. Despite a 500 metre alcohol ban around the ground, us enterprising Scots - read sneaky buggers - managed to procure a couple of bottles of plonk from a wee grocers which Campbell artfully opened quicksmart
sans corkscrew, hidden talents galore.
Getting through the turnstiles was a huge palava - and then no-one even checked your ticket - but I just got in in time for The Flower of Scotland, and we all met up again before half-time. A tense match became almost unbearable after Jimmy McFadden scored that spectacular 30-yard rocket to give us a 1-0 lead and we had do defend heroically until the final whistle - an excruciatingly long 30 minutes - but the Tartan Army was absolutely immense throughout, singing ourselves hoarse with delirium. And what about
THAT goal?? Suffice to say the fans went berserk when the net bulged - after momentarily looking around in total disbelief - with pints of lager flying through the air and Campbell lifting me above his head Charles Atlas style; we all found numerous cuts and bruises in random places the next morning....
For apres-match entertainment we headed up to Pigalle - home of the Moulin Rouge - for a few celebratory shandies and Stuart's obligatory karaoke performance, not quite McFadden standard but the world loves a trier eh? And then in the wee small hours I had to head back to my bleach-saturated four bed hostel dorm - only to be woken every half hour from 6.30am onwards with folks rustling and packing their bags - whilst these boyos luxuriated in their hotel rooms, not hangover-friendly I tell you....
Montmatre and the Sacre Coeur provided an ideal setting for lunch the next day, before we headed down to the Gare Du Nord to bid farewell to Steve, Campbell and Scot; after much prevaricating Stuart took the plunge and decided to treat himself to another two nights in Paris
avec moi, and we found a wee hotel just
north of the Pompidou Centre to shack up in. Which just happened to be a stones throw away from the Auld Alliance - the best Scottish bar in Paris - so it would have been terribly unpatriotic not to pop in for a couple of early evening TL to continue the celebrations. By the time we arrived, the al fresco Tartan Army shenanigans were in full swing: lying down in the road blocking buses, kissing passing cyclists, dancing strip the willow with old ladies, playing keepie-uppie with the police, a verry creative bunch. Such high jinks couldn't last indefinitely in a busy metropolis however, and the gendarmerie soon told the proprietors to shut up shop for a couple of hours so that rush hour traffic (and commuters) could pass by unmolested, spoilsports....
Later on, we met up with Andrew and Cynthia (now pregnant, congrats) - a french couple Jom and I had travelled with through Jordan last October - and two of their pals for a very pleasant evening of wining and dining, with Stuart trying out the local
tartare, brave lad. Friday saw us (briefly) don our sightseeing hats for visits to the Picasso Museum - alas it
was ferme - and Notredam Cathedral, before hitting the Auld Alliance again - Stuart was the only kilt, locals had moved back in - to watch Engerlund get hammered at rugby by the Springboks, hard not to giggle....and then it was time for Stuart to head back to the drudgery of London whilst I jetted off to the Red Sea for a week of diving in the sun, thems the breaks....
This was my first visit to Paris as an adult and I have to admit that I was impressed big-time: the architecture is stunning, there's relatively little traffic, the are hundreds of wee Places lined with cool brasseries and bistros which are prefectly suited to watching the world pass by, and the Parisiens are just so damn
chic! I'll definitely be going back now that I've ditched my previous misconceptions that it was a wee bit cheesy and common, we can all get it wrong....
In sharp contrast, as soon as I touched down in Cairo I wondered if I'd made the right decision to come back to our least favourite country of the trip so far; the touts and conmen were just as bad as before,
Gabberflasted Parisiens on the bridge
Who are zees nutters??! We thought Braveheart was just American bullsheet.... waiting to shaft you immediately as you exit the arrival hall, spinning fanciful tales about taxis and terminals, save it for the rookies....anyways, I just made my late-night connection to Sharm El Sheik and shared a cab with the pilot to Na'ama Bay; he got out at the Sheraton whilst I was left to scrounge around for the cheapest room on the bay, talk about rubbing your nose in it!
Na'ama Bay is a torturous place for backpackers: verry expensive (my room was 35 euros, dearest in 12 months), it's pretty tacky and full of couples and families, not the most chilled corner of the earth....but in theory it's closest to the best diving so I was prepared to take the pain for a few days for some top quality aquatic adventures. Alas, the two dives I did in Ras Mohammed NP were possibly the worst of my brief diving career; hardly any fish - and those were dull - and crappy corals, so I decided there and then on the boat that I was outta there asap, much to the chagrin of the diveshop, hard cheese....
Dahab was much more my cup of chai: laidback, cheap and
Robocop and his bitches
Spot Campbell's 'sweetener', a wee smirnoff ice to complement the beer....big ladyboy friendly, and surprisingly the diving was much better than further south, bonus. I dived the infamous Blue Hole - saw my first octopus and a moray eel - as well as the Canyon - several big Lionfish - so that was a good pick-me-up after the disappointment of Ras Mo. I'll probably give the Red Sea another chance in the future - it has a few good wrecks and it's easily accessible - but let's just say Sipadan is absolutely lightyears better. The Dahab Instructor's response to hearing I'd recently done 25 dives in Borneo: "You've been spoiled my friend", quite....
Flew into Uganda last night, going white water rafting at the source of the Nile tomorrow - apparently home to the best rapids on the planet, four grade 5's - and then heading south to Rwanda. The great news is that Jom is popping out to Tanzania in a fortnight for a spot of safari and beaching-bumming on Zanzibar......and even better, she's 'bringing' Dave and Nirupa with her as well! Tip-top-jobbly-pop.
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loena
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Ah bliss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!