THE LOLA BOYS ABROAD !

Paul had never had any confidence in his partner’s ability to kick the dreaded weed.  Andrew had been an ardent fan of Sir Walter Raleigh’s ruin long before they had even met.  By the time he and Paul had ‘shared digs’ whilst on an early theatrical tour, Andrew had developed a habit akin to the late Deirdre Barlow. Paul had dutifully pointed out the dangers of his lover’s addiction, as any caring, sharing partner should, but the ensuing conversation was often incendiary. Or the hot topic was deftly flicked aside, like a tired fag butt.  Andrew certainly didn’t light up at the thought of not lighting up !  And so it was, with only a touch of skepticism, that Paul viewed Andrew’s latest decision to trash the ash as just that. His latest attempt.  Of course, he kept this secret pessimism from his partner,  he didn’t want the latter to become demoralised.  But inwardly, he couldn’t shake the idea that Andrew’s nicotine abstinence would soon be going up in smoke! Just another weary flash in the ash-pan.  But he definitely wouldn’t let Andrew get a whiff of any of this.  It was obviously kinder to play along, and Paul had always been very good at putting up a smokescreen when need be.

Andrew could see right through his husband’s shambolic attempt at giving support . He knew Paul far too well.  Behind the earnest ‘well done babe’ and the sincere, ‘you’ve done so well’, there lay a simmering, contemptuous knowing; a smouldering suspicion that this smoking suspension would only be temporary. A quick fag-break, so to speak. It irked him that his partner had such little faith in his latest scheme to cessate – yet he was also well aware that he shared the very same suspicion, which certainly did nothing to build his confidence.  It also amused him that Paul thought himself so Machiavellian when it came to hiding his thoughts, when they invariably hung in the room heavier than any tobacco he had ever encountered. Like a disapproving fug.

Forty-eight hours into the latest foray into the world of non-smokerdom, and Andrew was climbing the walls like a cat on a hot tin roof.  Tennessee Williams would have been proud.  Sleep beckoned, and then ran away to the corner shop for a pack of ciggies.  He was crawling with discomfort.  Somewhere through the mental smog he could hear Paul suggesting that perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to have given up smoking just before they had a show to do.  He wanted to take his partner by the throat and squeeze his gullet of non-smokerness very tightly, but instead made do with a terse,

‘I’ve done it now haven’t I?’

Although this most certainly was not a question.

And definitely did not require an answer.

Show days were always a little tense in ‘The LolaBoy’ household. Andrew could become quite manic and producer-like, whilst Paul, more often than not, took a couple of extra diva pills at breakfast.  This state of affairs usually resulted in a heady mix of artistry ,  redolent of Burton and Taylor at their most fervent.

The  day of this particular show, however, promised to become positively incandescent, what with the continued absence of Mr Nicotine.  Paul had suggested that the cheeky little blighter might just be invited back until after the performance, but had this idea firmly stubbed out by Andrew.

‘I’ve done it now haven’t I?’ he screamed, banshee-like, demonstrating his new non-smoker lung capacity.

Paul decided to stay off the subject, thinking it best to save the fireworks for their cabaret later.

On the evening of the show, and now fifty two hours into his new world of clean living,  Andrew felt ready to kill.  He was withdrawing heavily now. Not only from the drug to which he’d been addicted for over thirty years, but from society too.  Instead of making his usual social rounds, pre-show, he secreted himself behind a sequinned piece of cloth The Lola Boys used as a makeshift dressing room.  Ensconced behind the faux silk slash, he felt safe. In control.

‘What the fuck are you doing skulking behind here?’ screeched Paul, on finding his partner propping up the bar behind the arras.

‘And how many fucking drinks have you had?’ he continued, after noticing the empty pint glasses and the glassy look on Andrew’s face.

‘Don’t have a go at me’, Andrew was forlorn, ‘it’s my first show without nicotine!’

‘You’re not normal’ Paul hissed.

‘I know I’m not, it’s the tablets’ pleaded Andrew, alluding to the pills he had been taking to help stop smoking, ‘they’ve made me high!’

‘So stop them, you’re already fucking high enough.  It’s like working with Amy bloody Crackhouse!’

‘I can’t’

‘You can’

‘I can’t’

‘You can’

‘I CAN’T !’

Curtain up.

The show went surprisingly well considering.  The crowd were fun and the boys in good voice, although Andrew’s physical balance was a little suspect during the second half.  As Paul was singing his last verse of ‘I Will Survive’ he noticed his ‘co-star’ swaying precariously stage left, and hoped he too would continue to exist should he fall into the pile of electrical equipment, pint in hand! But fortune smiled on The Lola Boys, on stage at least, and Andrew stayed upright. Off-stage however, there began an altogether different performance.

As the last remains of the audience drifted merrily into the night, Andrew did the same perched on a barstool.

‘Where are the car keys? Paul asked ‘I’ll start packing.’

‘Haven’t got them? Andrew slurred.

‘You have Andrew’

‘I haven’t – I told you not to give me any responsibility tonight. I can’t remember anything. I’m nicotine free’

‘You’ll be fucking oxygen free if you carry on you git – where are they?  It’s the door keys too you know.’

‘Haven’t got them’

It turned out Andrew was correct. He didn’t have them. What he had done with them remained an absolute mystery.  At three in the morning, after two hours of searching, huddled around their speakers, the boys came to the conclusion they were not going to find their keys.  They were carless, homeless, and in the case of Andrew, legless!

They were alone, under the stars. It could have been romantic.

But it wasn’t.

As the wind got up Paul decided he was going to make for home.  He was concerned for their little pooch, Lola, who was now ‘home alone’! He left Andrew spooning the speaker and began the long march back, in a crystal choker and full slap. He really hoped he didn’t bump into anyone he knew. At four in the morning along the deserted carriageway it was highly unlikely, but not impossible.

Fatigued, after a night in stilettos and an unexpected hill hike, Paul lay on a sun-bed, starlit and starving.   He couldn’t get into the house to satisfy his hunger, he was spending the night in the garden.  He’d arrived back, with diamonds intact, to find Lola quite uninterested. She gazed nonchalantly in his direction beyond the glass door and then made her way upstairs to bed. He needn’t have bothered.  He lay back down and attempted to get some sleep as the bedbugs began to bite.

Andrew woke on the beach in a very compromising position with a mic stand. Half a  feather boa was stuck to his face and his mouth was as dry a Disney cruise!  Luckily there was no-one around to spot him.  Still stressed from the night before, he manically retraced his steps, like a hungover Poirot, only to find nothing. No keys! He was saved from deeper depression by an angel of the morning called Jacqui, bearing coffee. The sun was up. He’d think of something.

Paul awoke with a slight sizzle as the sun began to dissolve his mascara. He forced his lids apart and shivered. It was surprisingly chilly for Andalucia in July, but then, he wasn’t used to spending the night outside. His sleep had been broken, and his body felt equally so after a night spent on apparatus the Nazis’ would have killed for. He called his friend Stella for help.

As Stella mounted the pavement and parked, Paul laughed and mocked her technique,

‘I’m afraid you’ve failed your test Ms Hallet’ he joked.

‘Oi you’ she giggled, in ‘Windsor-esque’ fashion.

They laughed. Paul had been relieved to find their good friend at home, on the damp morning after Andrew had mislaid the keys.  He had called her shortly after sunrise, once he’d restored blood flow to his fingers, and asked her, as the keeper of the spare keys, to come and give him entry. She’d duly assisted.

Once inside, he grabbed the spare car key and he and Stella headed for the beach to rescue Andrew.

Paul looked across the sands, then back to The Lola Boys equipment, which was stacked carefully in the corner of the open chiringuito, then back along the sands.  Andrew was nowhere to be seen.

Paul then went to the car to try the spare key.  He and Andrew both had sneaking suspicions the thing didn’t work.  After turning the ignition, Paul knew they’d been right.  The key didn’t work. They were officially without automobile!

Thank God for Stella!

It was now late morning and Andrew stood waiting outside the boys’ house on the hill.  He’d been lucky enough to meet their friend Wendy at the bottom who offered him a lift, so he was spared the mountainous climb in the heat.  He’d been grateful for that, as he was still in his wet-look leatherette show pants,  and weary after his night in the sand.  He saw Paul and Stella as they climbed the pavement and parked.

‘What are you doing here? Paul asked, ‘we’ve just been to the beach to get you.’

‘I didn’t know what to do’ Andrew replied, ‘I feel so stupid.’

‘Come here’ said Paul, and gave his husband a big man hug to show that it didn’t matter, he’d only lost the keys to their life after all.

‘We’ll sort it’ Paul re-assured Andrew, giving him a friendly squeeze, although he had no idea how.   As he did so he caught a faint familiar smell in his nostrils.  The wonderfully pungent, unmistakably acrid aroma of used tobacco. He needed no smoke signals to understand it’s meaning.

‘Oi you’, he goaded Andrew,’I know what you’ve been up to’.

‘I couldn’t help it’ Andrew explained forlornly,’I just had to buy a pack’.

Paul looked at Stella and sighed.

He really was worried about his lover’s terrible habit. But there was very little he could do, and was more concerned about getting the car started again.  Besides, he secretly found it quite sexy when Andrew smoked.  Even when Andrew was smoking, in Paul’s eyes, he was still ‘smokin’!

Of course, he would never tell him that, and Andrew would never guess ……

My last foray into the world of blogging found me attempting to experiment with ‘ The Third Person’ – not a film starring Orson Welles, as I had previously thought, but no, that useful little vernacular that allows the writer to ‘expand his repertoire’, so to speak.  Perhaps it’s always a good idea to ensure the third person ain’t reading the repetoire  before you go to press, or one could end up feeling well and truly Citizen Caned !  Ouch!

So, this morning, I am sticking well and truly to my tried and tested lexicographical path, and as it loquaciously unwinds I promise I shall not stray into further exotic linguistic ‘forests of the night’, but hold tightly to the hand of that true and trusted friend, the First Person Singular.

I have woken this morning with a head as bloody as John The Baptist and a body as parched as that of Joan Of Arc.  I am irreligiously overhung !

Andrew, on the other stake, is irritatingly chipper.  He has the demeanour of Shirley Temple and the look of a manic Buzz Lightyear – in my current medieval mood I could have him hung, drawn and quartered!  Twice !

I am now being forced to listen to ‘Defying Gravity’, a merry tune from the very loud Broadway Musical, ‘Wicked’.  For the fifth time !

Mr Kennedy has taken the lead role of Elpheba, better known as ‘The Wicked Witch Of The West’, and is belting it to the back of the stalls, whilst I am feeling decidely green and worrying that I  could soon be forced to lean over one of the said ‘stalls’ prior to  the interval.

If Andrew doesn’t take his encore soon, I may be forced to see to it that gravity is well and truly defied !

Of course the reason for my grey mood is no doubt due to the overdose of colour with which the past week has spoilt us. On Wednesday the particular shade happened to be white, as we were delighted to be part of the beachside nuptials of our good mates. All of the invitees were required to be clothed in the virginal hue to celebrate the happy event. It was a simple touch, but one that created a serene atmosphere – even when perched on a beer barrel and spilling half a  lager. Mind you, most of the celebrants had lost their look of purity by   ‘last orders’!  A marvellous time was had by all. I think !  It was a definite whitewash by the finish ! Probably quite a few of them !

Then, without even a theatrical pause to allow our boa feathers to settle, we found ourselves  making a coastal comeback – with a full performance mid the mini-cyclone that was Friday evening!  For a moment we imagined the chiringuito may literally take off with us and our audience inside, only to dump us, minutes later, in ‘Munchkinland’. With that damned witch again ! However, despite the great gusts battering our tornado alleys, we remained grounded, physically at least, even if the show itself took a rather unusual flightpath over that most amusing and of late, most ubiquitous of subjects, European Politics. Yes. ‘The Brexit’ made a ‘Brentrance’! Brussels sprouted forth and the whole indigestible debate had got in on our act!  It seems that’s all anyone wants to talk about at the moment.

In our household, we have struggled to keep up with the rather churlish arguments, via the media, that have meant to provide us with at least some elucidation.  Andrew and I have been ‘in’ and then ‘out’ on so many occasions it’s been like doing the political ‘Hokey Cokey’ for weeks.  That, or something much, much ruder !

I, had firmly come down on the ‘in’ side, no surprise there, that is until President Obama decided to throw his ‘two-euro-worth’ into the ring.

‘Back of the queue‘ – Bloody cheek ! I presume that is precisely where we found ourselves back in 1940 Mr President ?!  Cheap gag I know- but cheap shot Barack. You won’t even be Commander-In-Chief then.  The Whitehouse will be just that again ! God help us !

And wasn’t it Rome that burnt when Euro fiddled? Something like that.

Then that strident, Tuetonic woman, with the terrible hair, begins dictating, or rather, expounding, and it all gets highly confusing. I could literally europop!  In. Out. Out. In.  ‘Fuck off ‘  has so far been my gut reaction ! I could happily drown all of them in their own merkel wine lake ! I mean murky !

I thought the voting at The Eurovison Song Contest was controversial – but this latest adventure in continenental drift has fast turned into ‘The Eurovision Wrong Contest’!  With all the misinformation and blatant ‘shit de bull’ that has been excreted from both sides, I’ve no option but to award them all nil points.

I’m not liking any of the entries in this year’s competition.  There’s no Buck’s Fizz about the whole thing.  Most of the ‘Outs’ seem out of their tiny minds, and the majority of the ‘Remains’ seem just that. Only an urn is required! Deathly dull argument from all sides – not a catchy tune in sight. No ‘Waterloo’.

Well, not yet !

I’ve sadly come to the current conclusion that one may as well just toss a Euro coin rather than attempt to make an informed decision.   In fact, I am so eurozoned out by it all, I’m not sure I even give a toss !

And presently, with Andrew downstairs, obviously intending to musically remain in ‘Oz’ for the rest of the morning, I find myself with a desperate need to get to the other side of the rainbow. There is only one way to escape this infernally wicked internal Eurobabble. I’ve been following ‘The Euro Brick Road’ for far too long.

Time to get up and get out into the Andalucian sunshine.

Forget about wicked witches, East or West. Export oneself out into the unoppressive sunny blue sky. Forget about quotas and trade deals, all of it defying sanity, and import the fresh free air.

Breathe. Import. Export…..

Time to make a sharp ‘Spexit’methinks.

via Edit Post ‹ Completely Ablog ! — WordPress

I awoke at dawn’s crack, which to anyone who knows me well is quite unusual, whatever the connotation! I packed my trusty, happy-snappy Nikon into my rucksack and set off for the ancient city centre of Hoi An in central Vietnam. 

  
I knew that if I were to take anything even resembling a decent picture, I would need to beat the busloads of bustling day-trippers who descend on the place each day after breakfast, turning the quaint narrow lanes into a scene akin to The Hajj in Saudi Arabia.

 After all, Hoi An is a Mecca for historians, sightseers and shoppers alike, and once it’s population grows to literally a thousand times that of normal, it is most in-conducive to finding an atmospheric scene to capture. Unless that is, the photographer is after a multitude of shots featuring the multitude fencing each other with their ‘Selfie-Sticks’, parrying one another for the best angle of fisherman angling on the river. It’s a sight to behold.

Fortunately, when I reached the historic part of this beautiful town, and crossed the wonderfully restored Japanese, covered bridge, I found myself  almost alone. Just me, an incredibly placid road-sweeper, and some equally chilled out dogs who were just coming round from their dreams of Pedigree Chum, or whatever it is that constitutes a canine diet in Vietnam. If it’s at all similar to their human master’s, I shudder to think!

  
All at once I was transported to a world of ornate rickshaws and colourful robes, as incense and the faint sound of a classical symphony wafted toward me along the artisanal avenues. A bird perched daintily in a Fraginpani tree sang along and for a few moments it was more than sublime. It was truly magical.

I was lucky enough to spend at least an hour ambling around this little miracle of a city before the twenty-first century began to rear it’s ugly, industrial head. I was so fast, after the particularly potent coffee they brew here, I could have exposed every 60s model quicker than David Bailey, and taken their photographs at the same time! I felt what others describe as blessed. This has to be one of the prettiest urban settlements in the world. Even after the chattering masses arrive, her spirit and radiance cannot be completely obscured, she is too much of a classic beauty – the Sophia Loren of Unesco world heritage sights.   
  Simply stunning.

Of course, this town is so chocolate-box picturesque, that even the most myopic could pick up a ‘Box-Brownie’ and create a mini masterpiece. As photographers say of the camera-friendly Kate Moss, when she steps in front of the lens, half of the work is done for you. 

I was only to realise, later in the day, just why it had been so unusually peaceful on my anti-meridian stroll – it was a public holiday. And not just any celebration, it was the first full moon after ‘Tet’, the Vietnamese New Year.

The same evening, Andrew and I decided to cross the river to see what was on the other side. Absolutely no chance. On both banks the thousands of revellers swarmed like excited honey-bees, each bearing fiery, paper lanterns to place onto the river to assuage their queen, the great silver moon, who beamed down with an extra fullsomeness upon them.  The meandering water was alight with lighters and their crews taking in the romance and mysticism of this spectacular scene. The Thu Bon river itself awash with candlelight as the lamps made their way downstream. It was mesmeric.

  
We did not stay for long however, as Andrew is not the best when it comes to crowds, and after being carried involuntarily for about half a mile with the current of excited drones, desperate to launch their light craft offshore, I piloted him to the relative safety of a crowded back street, where at least we couldn’t be inadvertently drowned. I’m actually quite good rubbing shoulders and other parts with a vast number of humans, but even I had a slight panic to head for the lifeboats during this loony, lunar siege.

 Definitely a once in a lifetime experience, by that I mean, we won’t be doing it again!

The following day we hired bikes. Well, I say bikes, but really they were medieval torture instruments with saddles! We were forced to stop for coffee after only ten minutes, or we may both have lost the ability to jump into the saddle ever again!

   
   
Seated on the now empty riverbank, a few sad lanterns caught in the weeds for company, Andrew noticed an interesting Captain making good her vessel. He prompted me to take a snapshot, so I took my camera, surreptitiously pointed it in her direction, and made a subtle click. Then, from aft, all hell broke loose from it’s moorings. Amongst a group of chain-smoking skippers sharing a pre-cruise cupper, their came a mighty roar, and one of the men let rip. He screamed and squawked, gesturing in our direction, waving his sinewy arms, making a malicious semaphore that could only have meant one thing. We’d crossed the plimsole line. We had dared to snap a cheeky shot of his boatswain as she fiddled with her sheepshank. He was very displeased to say the least, I thought perhaps this could be the start of another naval conflict in his country. With us as the enemy!

I really didn’t understand what all the hoo hah was about. I couldn’t have been the first tourist, in a city where the main source of income was tourism, to take a picture of his wife.

Perhaps he didn’t want others to know how she made her living !

  
We swiftly paid up and left.

This hasn’t been the first time Andrew has nearly got me killed on this trip. 

 A few weeks ago, whilst in Cambodia, we both decided that the very thing to sort our tired limbs after a jungle trek, was a massage. We headed to the blind masseurs, who are famous across the country for their healing hands. After our talented, sensitive healers had done their bit, Andrew absconded for a detoxifying fag, and left me to pay. I handed a hundred dollar bill to the lovely lady who had been pummelling me for over an hour, apologising for the lack of change. She assured me there was no problem, and held the note an inch from her face, attempting to study it. There was silence. She then shouted to her neighbour, who was fortunate enough to have the gift of sight, and asked him to peruse the note I had just proffered. There was another awkward moment when together they took the bill to the shop next door to have it verified for the third time. She then returned to me, with the guidance of her grocer friend, and informed me in a brusque manner that the note was a fake. Of course not, I assured her, oh yes, she assured me, it most definitely was, as it had ‘COPY’ stamped across it in big red letters! I looked down and immediately saw the scarlet giveaway. I went the same colour. I apologised profusely, blaming the prescription in my glasses, telling them I would be having words with ‘Specsavers’ in Marbella on my return home. It was just a mistaken case of the blind bleeding the blind! Needless to say they did not see the funny side !

When Andrew told me later that he had earlier found the note on the pavement and put it into the wallet as I joke, I also failed to be completely amused. I could have beaten him black and blue with a white stick if I’d had one to hand. Imagine, they had thought I had played a cruel game of blindman’s bluff – I felt terrible – even though I had been completely shortsighted!

So now, having regained full sight, Mr Kennedy and I have decided to split for a while. He is to remain static, no doubt due to the static that has built up between us after nearly two months of sharing a ruck-sack and a toothbrush, and I am to move on. I need to rediscover my inner Tin Tin, the teenage explorer which still survives within my adult body, kicking and struggling to get free. It is almost too pleasant here, more a destination for an exotic ‘Thomson’s’ holiday rather than the esoteric ‘Thomson Twins’!

  
Must be the gypsy in me! As I young family we decamped quite often, making homes in Australia, Cornwall, Dorset and several parts of London, north and south. All of this before the age of fourteen. I think my darling mother must have required movement in order to distract her from my father’s distractions. Let’s just say my beautiful sister and I got very good at packing!

Mum

Sis

Andrew, on the other hand, comes from a family who were much more stable, geographically, if not mentally! He, therefore, sometimes has a strong desire to linger, much like the cigarette smoke he constantly produces.

So be it ! The time has arrived for me to go off piste, rather than off pissed!

I have always had itchy feet. My mum used to blame this condition on the regular bouts of Athelete’s Foot from which I suffered as a teenager. But I knew otherwise. My heroes were never Kevin Keegan or Pele – I only wanted to play ball with this great planet of ours. I wasn’t concerned with watching ‘The Harlem Globetrotters’, only visiting that famous district of New York City and trotting round the globe myself. I eschewed ‘The Beano’ and ‘The Dandy’ for ‘Herge’s Adventures Of Tin Tin. I could imagine nothing more adventurous or thrilling as a boy and his dog travelling the world together and meeting such colourful characters?

  
And so I am to become that boy once again. A little more frayed around the edges and without my trusty canine companion, I am casting off on a solo voyage of discovery.

I have bid adieu, or rather, au revoir to my own gorgeous Captain Haddock, leaving him to his own devices in his solitary hammock. We plan to meet again in a weeks’s time in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi.

   
 Unless, of course, somewhere else takes my fancy ……..

Here in Da lat city, in the beautiful, south west highlands of Vietnam, we had planned to get behind one of the famous ‘Vietnameasy Riders’ and head for the hills. However, when our two bikers turned out to be what looked like an eight and a half year old boy, and a poor guy with the use of only one of his arms, I made the unilateral decision that I wasn’t comfortable putting my life in his hand !

We are both quite adventurous when it comes down to it, but thought this was one trip we should keep at arm’s length. Besides, the kid should really have been at school.

Instead, we restricted our mode of travel to footwork, and and an old locomotive, a relic from the country’s ‘L’indochine’ past. To be honest, we’d probably have been safer on the back of ‘One Armed Luke’s’ mean machine.

The tiny wooden train rattled precariously along the decripit tracks, blowing it’s whistle continuously, warning any countryfolk not to step onto it’s path. On one of the many unguarded, almost imperceptable, crossings en route,  we almost took out two cyclists and nearly turned a youthful, daydreaming baguette seller into sliced bread.

His mother would not have been proud.

When we reached our destination, which seemed to consist of two tyre shops, three naff cafes and four puzzled locals, Andrew turned to me and asked in his best Canvey Island accent,

‘Why the fuck have you brought me here?’

I must admit, it was difficult to come up with an answer immediately. Especially as we had been promised an exciting ride aboard a romantic steam train and spectacular scenery. As it transpired, our route took us past a million plastic greenhouses, and the engine was a deisel, belching fumes into the open carriages, almost suffocating the poor Chinese family who had barged their way to the front of the train.

Serves them right for having no manners, I almost thought, but then my Buddha nature kick-started, and my sympathies were aroused. After all, being gassed to death by an Eastern Thomas The Tank Engine, is probably not the nicest way to go! Death on the Oriental Unexpress. Very Christie-esque!

I left Andrew sitting in one of the better establishments, with one of the ferocious Vietnamese coffees which seem compulsory here, and a packet of hideous ‘Craving A’!

I then headed off up the one street to find something to see. It seemed we were in, what one calls, the arse end of nowhere! The end of the bloody line. Everything looked lost and so I turned to head back towards Puffin’ Bill, when suddenly my path was blocked by a very stern woman with a vicious crew cut, with whom we had shared our carriage on the way.

“Where do you go?” She demanded.

“Back to my friend for coffee”, I fearfully replied.

“You don’t want to see Pagoda?” She shouted.

“There’s a pagoda?” I stuttered.

“Yes! Of course!”, she shrieked, “why do you think everybody is heading in this direction? For fun? Come now, or you have no time.”

I was a little frightened of this nanny-like  European.

Earlier, when still at the station, she had forced me into going onto the crowded platform, and coralling passengers to make their way to the ticket office. The lacklustre lady behind the counter had informed us, that unless we had at least twenty people to ride the train, this choo- choo wouldn’t be a’chugging. Not even to the arse end of nowhere!

My strident tour guide woman, who had a distinct look of Eva Braun, was in no mood to be left motionless on the platform. So, she organised a flash mob in the waiting room, to make it clear to la femme de billettes, that unless we departed, she may end up as the departed one!

Sweating on the track, after we had reached the arse end of nowhere, I assured Ms Braun, that we would definitely make the effort to visit the temple, she had worked so hard for us to get to.

I returned to my partner and told him, in no uncertain terms, we were to climb the hill to the pagoda. I could see in his ‘seen one temple, you’ve seen ’em all’ expression, that he wasn’t keen.

To be honest, neither was I. We were both sunburnt and exhausted from our 15km midday hike the previous day, after refusing the services of the ‘Vietnameasy Riders’.

More than satisfied with the hard ride we had just undertaken, I could have been swayed by Andrew’s lack of enthusiasm, and joined him for a steaming glass of tar in the relative cool of the fanned shack he had found. But the Neo-Nazi like voice of our travelling companion was still bellowing in my ears, and the thought of the teutonic ear-bashing we would receive on the return leg of our journey, persuaded me to persuade him to undertake the sweaty pilgrimage.

And we were so glad we did.

As we turned off of the ‘high street’ onto a lane of charming wooden shuttered homes, we were astounded to see a pagoda of such ethereal unearthliness, curving and winding it’s way skyward, just feet in front of us. This majestic place had been hidden from us, that is, until we left the road most ridden. Down this small, dusty, unpreposessing track lay a secreted wonder. Andrew stood agog! I was only partly surprised, as I have always been party to the virtues of magnificent secretions in back alleys.

Still, this was a wondrous affair.

All at once, we were as alight and colourful as the buildings before us. The joy and exuberance that emanated from these, almost miraculous structures, was quite tangible. The happiness and religious fervour which came from some of the faithful visitors was also quite obvious too. It was an enchanting site and an entrancing sight.

“This is why we came !” exclaimed Andrew, at his most blue-green eyed and innocent.

I could only nod.

We were indeed, very fortunate.

Back on board our non-puffing engine, I thanked Eva for her friendly coercion.

“Of course” she replied, now in an utterly charming manner, “we have been here before. You really had to see it.”

She sat back contentedly, as we rattled back along the tracks to Da Lat; a touristic Mary Poppins, her job done.

Da Lat City herself, is very pretty. If somewhat over manicured. She reminds me of one of those other infamous easy riders, the Essex Girl. Her flowerbeds primped and pruned to within an inch of their horticultural lives. Her perfect aquamarine lake expertly shaped like a Saturday night eyebrow. The collars and cuffs definitely match here.

Gazing at the giant, fibre glass, swan-shaped pedalloes, propelled along the surface by the immaculate footwear of the party dressed peddlers, I had to smile.

It was like an episode of T.O.W.I.D. The Only Way Is Dalat!

Although, I fear that had the rather ample Gemma Collins, that well known Essex bird, taken one of these birds onto the water, the outcome may have been somewhat less graceful. Being a little less diminutive than the usual Vietnamese honeymooner, it would probably have been her swansong!

Today, we bid adieu to the land of the bikers and hikers and head for the sophistication of Hoi An. An affluent town in central Vietnam. But we shall never forget the heavenly, other worldly pagoda or the easy ride we have had of it in lovely Dalat.

We loved her make-up.

As they’d say on Canvey Island ….
I’m not being funny darling, but she was reem.