Nagoya International

(John Brack 'Green Nude' 1971)

It started with Chinese new-year. The revellers and Kuala Lumper's eighty degree humidity made for another sleepless night among the hazy guest house partitions I had called home for the last couple of days. It was 1989, and I was a 23 year old ex-dishwasher on my first overseas trip. My very first long term girlfriend had fallen into the arms of a walking narcissistic personality disorder, and in turn, I'd decided to boldly launch into a South East Asian adventure, liberated by a passport and a fist full of dollars. In fact, I'd limped. But escaping had proved an inspired plan. I had spent the previous two weeks on Thailand's Koh Phi Phi Island and it had worked its particular magic. I'd met two German girls - Carmen and Lucy - in a reggae bar in Penang some time ago, and coincidentally hooked up with them in Krabi. From there we moved on to Phi Phi where the three of us instantly fell into a Cabaret version of Blue Lagoon, scripted by Noel Coward, directed by Fellini. We slept under coconut trees all day, ate and drank like centurions, and rolled around naked together till morning. We'd laugh at the lunacy of it all till tears poured from our eyes. To a sad, heart-broken boy, it was paradise, relived in the early hours of that sleepless night in KL.

The 5.00am taxi ride at to KL International was uneventful enough except that the Chinese driver had asked me where I was from, and to my immediate embarrassment, he began quickly waving his hand in front of his nose. Too many cigalette, too many cigalette. It was as if someone had dropped a red hot coal into his groin. It was true. I had spent my sleepless night chain smoking duty-free Marlboros, and my breath had a awful rancid smell. I had personally stunk out the whole cab. He looked disgusted as he threw me my change and sped off. I was convinced that he would report the foul breathed Australian to his family as they ate their noodle breakfast.

I checked into Japan Airlines for my flight to Nagoya and hunted out the restrooms. I wasn't looking good. My shirt was a bit grubby, filthy actually. I had chosen it over the last clean one because it smelt deliciously of the German girls and of Phi Phi. I'd saved my last clean one for the flight but had accidentally checked it in with my backpack. My unshaven state made me look slightly unhinged rather than raffish. Then there were the eyes. Was it the lack of sleep? The poisonous night smog of KL? Whatever, but in the mirror peering back at me were not human, but the bloodshot eyes of madness. They were the eyes of Danny the drug dealer from Withnail and I - sunken black sockets with peering red currents. Still, I figured that I could count on seven hours of sleep and that my monstrous face would assume some normalcy. A comforting theory.

I thought about catching up with my friends Tim and Sal as the JAL 747 cruised over the South China Sea. Tim was a son of the Wimmera wheat belt, part of a gang of mates forged by the strictures and privations of an arcane Christian Brothers boarding school. Sal was his Canadian girlfriend. I had introduced them years back. They were on the first wave 'teach English in Japan, make a fortune for very little work' racket. Sal was simultaneous immersing herself in Japanese language and culture while Tim expended his easy earned yen in the delights of the local off-beat bar scene. I had pre-purchased rail travel on the shinkansen bullet train, and had no firm plans.

The entry forms included a friendly looking card with a series of tick the box questions under various categories. There were lots of categories and what seemed like reams of questions. There were the usual (did I have a cold? when was the last time I had diahorrhea?), but also questions about height, weight, colour of hair, colour of eyes, tattoos or distinctive markings. One asked whether I was carrying porn. It reminded me of a job application form I had once half jokingly submitted for the Australia Security Intelligence Organisation. Still, it was important to cooperate, and resisted the temptation to write Holy Shepard, or Dog Barber under previous occupation. I also dutifully ticked boxes stating that I neither took drugs nor had visited Africa.

Both were true, mostly. Except the drug thing and that was a minor infringement. In Penang, a Swede I was drinking with told me that you could buy amphetamines locally over the counter. Stunned, the very next day, I went to what looked like a pharmacy and asked the attendant for some. He produced an entire shoebox of loose blister packets and asked me for which brand. So, for the next week or so I would pop a couple of these tabs after breakfast and head go out for a swim. Not the splash about, lazy sun-tanning thing but a sort of daily amphetamine fuelled death marathon. I'd thrash up and down the beach, going faster and faster, till my heart rate climbed into the red zone. I'd sustain that for as long as possible, before I'd let up, stagger back to the sand and collapse, ribs heaving with exhaustion, blurred vision, on the very verge of unconsciousness. It was the type of pointless, dickhead thing you do travelling.

The unrecognisable smell in the gantry told me I was somewhere new, and that it was cold, really cold. I hadn't managed to sleep on the flight, and felt heavy as I shuffled to passport control. There are some strange constants in travelling. I'd always wondered whether there was a competition among international airport staff to see who could get their vinyl floor the shiniest, and whether there was an annual championship with national teams that compete for a world title. Another are the guys in uniform, the groups of two or three that seem to always be there, milling about, not doing much. Did they publish in Saturday newspapers - Wanted: Airport Layabouts. Where there position descriptions? The given right in front of me was the expression of the officials stamping the documents, a type of disinterested suspicion. It's the same in very passport control in any airport all over the world. Do they learn that? Are they taught? Was there a first, an original passport controller, perhaps the best passport controller of all time who looked like that all which subsequent passport controllers over the generations had striven to emulate?

I snapped out of that daydream, took two steps forward when the official waved me on, and handed my passport and other documentation over the counter. The controller gave me his best bored semi-sneer, and I knew he was a gun. He was a big guy, with big fleshy cheeks and malformed Elvis sideburns. I was in mental no-man's land, waiting for the stamps indicating I would soon be on my way. I didn't hear him at first.

No
What?
No!
Er, excuse me? I muttered
Itinery. You give me. Yes. Now. He demanded.
Is there a problem with the Visa?
What for you�....come.. Japan?
My mind snapped into consciousness.
I'm on holiday. You know, tourist, tourist visa.
Now he was staring at me, unmoved.
I've come to see friends, right here, in Nagoya.
I mentally raced through all possibilities as Elvis considered the likelihood that I actually had friends, and was here to see them.
What fren? You tell me. Now!
I gave him the names, and Tim and Sally's address. Elvis sneered at my filthy address book. It was only grubby because it was old, and it was old because I used it was a living a record of every miserable, certifiable woman I had been associated with. Flicking any page served to provide a wave of intense relief at having to no longer deal with the deranged. Still, that wasn't helping me now.
Here's the phone number I offered.
By his reaction I knew it wasn't good.
No! no, no. no. Too much number. Too many, pointing with a chubby finger.
Look that's the number he gave me. I'm sure it right.
No change.
OK, I don't know exactly if its right. I'm sorry I don't know about Japanese telephone numbers. I've never seen any others to compare it with, but that's the number of my friend. Go ahead and call him. I pleaded, making the international hand sign for telephoning. I knew it was getting desperate.
Try the number, try the number. Talk to my friend. Right here� in Nagoya� where I'm going to visit� as a tourist� on holiday.

At least his face had unscrewed itself somewhat. It was make or break time and I sensed it could go either way. He re-examined by passport, peered at me again (I was trying my best indignant supplicant look) and sighed as stamped my visa, scribbling a note in the back pages. He clearly couldn't be arsed making the phone call.

Relieved, I started to walk towards baggage, examining the passport. OK, I thought, a minor run in with some ignorant, dime a dozen, obnoxious, jumped up, tin-pot Hirohito. No harm. But before I had taken six paces, two other airport officials quietly sided up behind me, expertly slipped their hands under my armpits and had begun escorting me towards a small room. This was Customs� Nagoya International, and the fun was about to start.

They had locked me in a windowless room. One of the fluoro lights was flickering. There was an empty desk, a couple of chairs, and me in the middle. For good measure, they�d assigned a junior official to watch over me -a tall lanky teenager, with a pencil thin neck floating out of his shirt three sized too large for him, and a cop styled hat perched on top of a hair cut doing its best impersonation of a pineapple. Junior averted my gaze, and had a chronic case of bouncy leg happening just to put me at ease. I knew that I had nothing to worry about, but it wasn't helping. After an eternity, the door opened, and two more customs officials entered, blurted something to Junior who looked immediately relieved and scarped. One look at them, and my state of nervous discomfort progressed to nausea. The razor sharpness of the crease in their uniform trousers, the steely guns, the batons. They sat down silently, and placed their caps on the empty desk.

One was older, dark skinned, thin and drawn, with a weary, heavily lined face - a Japanese Harry Dean Stanton. He didn't look the friendly type. The other made Elvis look like health nut. He was taller, somewhat younger and much fatter. His face was a mass of broken capillaries with a huge, hairy mole on his neck, the sort that you did your best or ignore but couldn't. I'd seen pig arses more attractive then this guy. He already had sweat patches under his arms. Both of them clocked me for some time, as if they were mentally reading me for the tell-tale signs of criminality. I was transfixed in a state of shock. This was turning all wrong. Harry gave some kind of order in Japanese. He barked it out again when I'd gestured limply with my hands, trying to signal my lack of comprehension. This time, the order came with a fluttering his hand, motioning me to stand up. I stood awkwardly to attention. They conversed sternly among themselves. Harry started up again.

Where you come from?
I'm from Australia� Australian.
No! Where you COME from?
Er, Melbourne, Melbourne Australia..down south.
NO! Where you COME FROM?
I'd misunderstood. They though I was being a smart arse.
Oh, Japan, no, Thailand, no, shit, what am I saying, KL. horrified at my fumbling response. Kuala Lumper, I'd come in from KL, before that Thailand.
What for Thailand?! He barked.
What did THAT mean - what for Thailand? Did he want to know why I was in Thailand? Does he want to know what I was doing? Why was I there? What else could it mean? Damn it, it could have meant lots of things. I really did not understand.
Holiday I offered tentatively.
Harry angrily barked back again - What for you go Thailand?
I had to talk.

I was, am, on holidays. Thailand is close to Australia, not very far, and it's cheap. Lots of Australian's go to Thailand on vacation. It's like a tradition� like Bali, but without Kuta Beach. Many Australians go. I'm travelling, backpacking. I started in Malaysia, in KL, and spent some time in Penang, took the overnight train to Bangkok, stayed in Khe Sanh road, went north, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, did the islands. It's beautiful. It's a great country, and the people are lovely. That's all. Just travelling. You know. Being in a new country, seeing new things, seeing how people live their lives, seeing their culture, talking with locals, eating the food, playing with the kids, having fun, hanging out with other travellers.. drinking Mekong Whisky� just having fun.
Both their faces were telling me I wasn't winning.
I've come to see my friends in Nagoya. Just to visit my old friends, Tim and Sal in Japan, just to continue my vacation, do the same, travel, visit Japan, talk to Japanese, go on the Shinkansen, look at the cities, the countryside, how people live, have an experience.
At which point, the fatman stood up, and with face red with rage, and literally spat at me, FUCK...YOU?! What for say� FUCK YOU?

They thought I had told them to get fucked. I thought I had pleaded a semi-cogent case, hopefully perhaps even a slightly lyrical narrative about travel and experience, and why at this point in time and space, I just happen to be in a small dimly lit room with a flickering fluoro light in Nagoya International with nothing to hide� and they thought I had just told then to get fucked. A wave of nausea hit me like a bolt.

NO, NO, NO I pleaded, wildly waving my hands, desperately trying to point out the misunderstanding� I no say,fuck you, me, no say, no!

It was pointless. Harry motioned me to sit down, and blurted out something that could have only meant shut the hell up. I sat down and felt like being sick.

After a series of terrible, pointless, misunderstood questions, two other officials entered and dumped my luggage on the desk. Harry and Fatman sneered at me as they made way. The new guys unzipped my bag and my hand-luggage, carefully laying out each item, handling them as if they were radioactive. It was basically a pile of embarrassing dirty laundry and sundry essentials. With studied determination they manually rubbed every seam of the backpack. They unlaced my shoes and turned them inside out. They emptied every container - shampoo, conditioner, deodorant - opened, emptied, examined. They cut my soap up. They squeezed the toothpaste from my tube, and cut that up as well. They emptied all of my Brylcreem and spread it on a tray to see what I may have concealed. They examined the pages of my guidebooks and journals, poking skewers down the spines. They disassembled my camera, my walkman and my alarm clock. They emptied my film canisters. They unscrewed the pirate cassettes I had bought in Bangkok. They pulled part my supply of malarials and Imodium. They even scraped the fluff from the turned out pockets of my jeans on to a damn Petri dish. They were convinced, and when I thought they had finished, they re-started the whole process over again.

You tend to get attached to your pack and watching the search being repeated was starting to piss me off. Perhaps I was beyond tired. Perhaps I had sat long enough to recover. These guys may have been within their rights, but as I peered at Harry, and the Fatman who was sitting back, greedily slobbering through a bag of nuts or some such, I felt the beginnings of a building contempt. I might have looked a bit shabby but I hadn't done anything wrong. They weren't going to find anything. I had a visa, and a right to enter the country. Harry motioned to me again, and barked out something as equally incomprehensible as before. He wanted me to stand. I deliberately stood as slowly as I possibly could.

Harry looked at me. Take off he ordered, tugging at his own shirt. I knew where this was going. I pretended to cough, covering my mouth with my hand, and at the same time, quite loudly muttering � dickhead. My heart was pounding from the problem of what was clearly going to come, and the fact that I had called a hard man of Japanese customs a dickhead. I stripped my shirt off. The search guys waved for me to hand it over for examination. Harry then pointed at my shoes. I took the sneakers off, then my socks and passed them over. I looked at Harry. Harry looked at my pants. Without being asked, I dropped my jeans. There I was, naked, except for underpants, dreading the thought of any further instructions and mentally floundering as I desperately searched for a way out of this. Fat man looked slightly amused.

One of the search guys came over, kicked my feet apart and raised both my arms. He patted me down, and ran gloved hands around my ears and through my hair. He obviously wasn't enjoying this either. He stepped back. This was it. There was only one other place for it to go from here. I certainly knew it. Harry knew it. He knew that I knew it. By the nervous looks of the search guys, they knew it. Fat man was probably looking forward it. There wasn't a living being in that room unaware that we were collectively on the verge of re-enacting the Last Tango in Paris and that love was definitely not in the air.

There hadnn't been any prior mental processes� Harry was about to make his move. It just came out.

No fucking way. NO� FUCKING WAY. I shouted at them. Call the embassy. Call the Australian embassy. Shit for brains, ring them. I want to speak to the Australian consulate.

It was grossly defiant, bitter, and seemingly suicidal. For some reason, the fact that the worse case scenario was a plane ride back to KL had been all but been lost numerous hours ago. I walked over to the desk, and started to get dressed - my spastically trembling hands betraying my temporary bravado. They were all shocked, gob-smacked actually, and more to the point, they didn't stop me. I was flummoxed. Was it the Richard Chamberlain Shogun approach? Was it sympathy based on the special relationship between men and their rectums which we all intuitively understand? Whatever, I really didn't care. Harry, Fatman, and the searchers hurriedly conversed, and then vacated, looking puzzled and cross. I simply slumped onto the chair. The effort had drained the blood from my face, and I was almost bodily paralysed with mental and physical fatigue.

After half an hour, Junior reappeared, bowed, and stuffed the remainder of my belongings back into my bag as if he was running late for something. He politely hurried me along, shoo-ing me as he muttered something in Japanese. It sounded sympathetic, and I was grateful. As soon as we had walked through a door to the public areas of the terminal, he bowed once more and disappeared. If was as if he had just finished scraping dog poo off the bottom of his shoe.

It had been almost a full six and a half hours since I had arrived in Nagoya, and at least seventy-two hours since I had slept, and probably much, much more. I locked onto the idea that if only I could make it to my hotel, the whole sorry incident would all be over. With that I collected my bags, and walked out of the terminal into the wind and freezing sleet of Nagoya. After a frozen eternity, the downtown bus arrived, I climbed aboard. This itself was obviously hilarious, since the moment I scrambled my sorry self aboard, the entire bus immediately erupted into spasms of laughter. Clearly, the sight of this cripple struggling to stow a pack and find a seat was enough for the fine citizens to pee their pants. I then knew that it was not over. Not in the least over. And how right I was. There was to be four hours lost in the labyrinth of the Nagoya underground, an incident with a vending machine, a dressing down by a gang of ruthless female jewellery shop assistants, and yet another argument, this time with the hotel manager. It was to be a long time till I lost myself in sleep. It was the single worst day of my life.

Nino Spirelli

Lamentable Enterprise

The phrase 'Choc 'N Bits' refers to a small business venture in the Victorian Wimmera where allegedly an energetic and ambitious single parent with many kids (and allegedly as many partners) and obviously far, far too much time on her hands, decided to open her very own business. Perhaps she'd watched something on Oprah (had a vision, transcribed it into a dream diary), or had been conned into a set of Anthony Robbins videos while watching late night TV, eating micro-waved Bi-Lo pizza. I don't know. But, fuelled by a zealous self belief and unfetted entrepreneurial spirit, she proudly launched her gleaming new town store - right in the middle of one of the very worst rural recessions on record. Her idea had been to supply the impoverished and increasingly desperate farming community with all the equipment and raw materials they needed to make their own chocolates. Brilliant. Now that's what I call niche marketing. She called it Choc N Bits, probably thinking it was snappy and a bit cute at the same time. Needless to say it was just plain naff, and the thing died a pitiful death. Poor thing. The townsfolk probably started calling her Choc n Bits after that. Don't look now Joyce, here comes Choc n Bits. A least she had a go. But good on her I say. If I'd been a fourth generation wheat cocky with the arse out of my trousers and needed to whip up some dark truffles, then she'd have my business. So, henceforth, every business idea that we'd thought which has carried a fundamental, fatal flaw or was just screwy earned the title of a Choc N Bits idea. I've contemplated many, too many. Here are just a few.

One involved selling sub-standard furniture. Nothing unique in that, except that this plan was to market it as having been hand-made by Saint Joseph himself, and just may have been used by the Virgin Mary and the young Jesus Christ. There were some irrefutable facts. Clearly, Joseph had been a carpenter by profession and surely would have knocked up quite a few items over his lifetime. Isn’t it at least possible that some of this had survived, and if so, why couldn’t it be offered to a god-fearing Christian plus GST? We were convinced that the average blue blooded American bible-belt god botherer would part with some very serious money indeed if they believed that the very chair straining to support their fried chicken ass may have once cradled the arse of Christ. And it would be cheap to make. In fact, you wouldn't expect it to be much good. In fact you'd expect it to be pretty crappy. First year apprentices would knock them up, even really terrible first year apprentices that clearly had no future in furniture making, or you could outsource it to a collective of partially blind furniture makers. Whatever. Initially we'd planned to offer just the basics� perhaps just a roughly hewn stool, and perhaps a rickety old table. To that we thought we'd possibly add a couple of old chairs, some boxy things that looked like beds, that sort of thing. Made out of pellets and packing creates. Then it got a bit much. Kitchen buffets, whole nests of occasional tables, entertainment units, cabana style mini bars, modular lounge suites, porch swing-sets, and pool-side deck chairs. It was ridiculous. It had degenerated into a whole catalogue of supposedly genuine St. Joseph furniture.

Then there was a notable variation on this theme - a plan to sell genuine Lourdes Water (actually from a tap in Bayswater) in one-litre plastic bottles in the shape of the Virgin Mary (you screwed off her head). We were going to take out large, full colour ads in the back pages of The Australasian Post, which boasted about being in full colour, and we planned to lure customers by having convincing real life testimonials. We were going to use a mug-shot we'd found of some old wrinkly woman we'd lifted from an old trucking magazine. She looked like a transvestite version of Prune Face from Dick Tracey, pulling the sort of weird expression that a severe electric shock might produce. Underneath we were going to add the following endorsement. Thank-you Aussie Virgin Mary Lourdes Water. I've suffered from crippling arthritis for seventy-two years, but now thanks to you, I'm now back at the sink, peeling carrots for Shepard's Pie. You Beauty! Regards, Joyce� Aussie Battler. You could almost see the crates of mildly affordable Aussie Virgin Mary Holy Water empties by the fly wire door. But, sadly the Post folded, and there were problematic issues of ethics. One of us suffered a recurring nightmare, where, on a nightly basis, Joyce would morph in a highly disturbing version Mr Magoo, and severely scold him over the plan. That was the end of Aussie Virgin Mary's Lourdes Water.

Not all the ideas were as inherently stupid. Some just ended up that way. Chops O'Hallahan, Dog Detective was a case in point. It was a cute idea. Chops was to be a children's book - basically a self styled Raymond Chandler rip off for 8-12 year olds which was to stand apart from the prevailing fluffy rabbit, cutsie-pie, Hello-Kitty books current on the shelves. It was to stand apart because it was to have a 1950s Beat era, film noir, James Ellroy feel in the storyline and illustrations. All the characters were dogs. Chops was the witty Christopher Marlow anti-hero, T-Bone was the numbskull offsider, Fifi LaRue, the chanteuse in distress, Fleas Fernandez, the nightclub owner and so on. The idea was that this would instantly appeal - not so much to kids - but to the parents, uncles and aunts who were 100%, genuine, paid up, card carrying members of the vegan, uni educated, multilingual, PBS listening, drugged up, poly-sexual, black skivvy wearing, cafe latte, inner-city, Brecht set. And they had the cash.

But there were problems with the initial draft. The plot line and dialogue were too sophisticated for a kid's book - too adult. Unable to remedy this, we decided to make the book even more adult, figuring that it could feasibly be a kid's book which parents could use to educate them about adult relationships. When even that failed, we made it even more adult, and decided that it could actually be illustrated erotica - for an adult audience, that just happen to look like it was a kid's book. It was at this point that we were suddenly hit with the realisation that what we were proposing to do was to produce illustrated soft porn, in the style of a book designed for 8-12 year olds, where all the characters were dogs. It was just wrong. And not only that. It was only a matter of minutes that, having rejected the book idea, each of us confessed to having mentally considered whether there were enough dog owning nutters to constitute a viable market for dog porn. Actual videos, of dog sex, bought by lunatic dog owners, for their own dogs. Capitalism takes you to some dark and terrible places.

Finally, one of my particular favourites was Aussie Dickhead Cola. The stunning thing about the Aussie Dickhead Cola plan was its simplicity. Step 1. Buy several second-hand vending machines, cheap, you know, off the back of that truck. Step 2. Get a graphics company to design some snazzy Dickhead Cola graphics and a logo, and plaster it over the machines (a picture of a cross eyed kangaroo, playing a banjo, something classy like that). Step 3. Place said vending machines in various boarding gates and transit lounges across all Australian airports (and/or anywhere in Queensland). Result? Sit back and watch the cash roll in as daily waves of overseas travellers, captivated with this wholly manufactured Australian idiosyncrasy, line up for a can of good old Aussie Dickhead Cola. And you could charge an outrageous amount, say twenty dollars each since this would only add to the mystique. A soft drink calling itself Aussie Dickhead Cola and costing twenty dollars! I had to admit it was intriguing. The original concept was even more outlandish. This rejected the need for actual cans of cola. People would simply insert bills, trigger a red LCD light, and an automated voice would deliver a long, 'ya dickhead'� in a slow Australian accented drawl. But as appealing as that was, it would do nothing as the first impression of Australia. Imagine. Even before reaching passport control, travellers would be ripped off twenty dollars and called dickheads. It just wasn't on.

So these have all been sad, dismal failures. Well, most of them at least. I forgot about the plan to retail defective lollipops. It just so happens that while still round, the ones that fail the manufacturer's quantity control tend to be somewhat misshaped, and also often weirdly wrinkly. Most of them a puce, flesh colour. We were going to buy these at next to nothing (I think they're usually used for goat feed) and sell them under the label, Mahatma Candy, with the logo, 'non-violent protest is useless'. There was to be a TV commercial using a rewritten Iggy Pop lyric. Ghandi, Ghandi, Ghandi I can't let you go, all my life you've haunted me. I love you so�.

But truly, that's enough. These have been the big ones, the failures, and it's just as well. The world is probably a far better place without shoddy home-ware made by stoned teenagers in Frankston masquerading as Holy Relics. Tap water isn't likely to fix arthritis. Kids books probably should be about fluffy rabbits and dogs probably aren't interested in porn. Come to think of it, I'd rather have some half balding, white-socked taxi driver with bad breath and sweat patches under his arms, greeting our international visitors with a friendly, 'g-day mate', then have them summarily abused by a vending machine after having stolen from them. Mostly. But, then again, sitting on my sideboard is a junk mail catalogue unashamedly offering its discerning clients the chance to purchase an unlikely looking set of salt and pepper shakers that farted when you lifted them off the table, and I just have to sit back and think to myself that perhaps, just perhaps, it's only a question of timing.

Subcontinental Holiday Blues

I started travelling in my undergraduate days and the odd break aside, haven't really stopped. I've been to a few places and in all of that time and there's almost nowhere that I've ever been to that I wouldn't gladly revisit. But there's a single blot on this copybook love affair. Actually not so much a blot as a huge, stinking stain - as if some mange ridden, geriatric black dog with irritable bowel syndrome had dumped on my shag pile magic carpet. I had been forewarned. Good, well meaning people whose views and opinions I didn't automatically reject as the musing of lunatics had furrowed their brows with concern. Think again, they'd counselled. Its not like other places, they warned. Its hard travelling, they said. Others were more direct. Don't be freaking insane you idiot. And its not as if I hadn't seen something, buried deep in the back of their eyes, something slightly disturbing, that had damaged them, made them just a bit unhinged. But I'd arrogantly shrugged it all off. I thought I was better than them. I thought I could handle it.

The vast expanse of the India sub-continent contains a truly magical place. Not so much magical as special. Well, not so much special as life affirming. And not so much life-affirming as life-saving. No, it's not the Taj. And its not the Ganges, the Kerala backwaters, nor northern hill stations. It's the back of a 747 speeding down the tarmac at Mumbai International about to lift off on departure. I remember shaking with happiness on that day. I suspect I was sporting the sort of radiant idiot grin common to cult members. The stewardess had asked with apparent concern whether everything was alright. Oh yes, I'd replied with my left eye twitching, I'm fine Captain! as India finally disappeared through my small cabin window.

How do describe India? I had been captured at an early age by that pioneering doyen of convenience foods, Maggi, and one of their inane commercials from the 1970s offering exotic rice dishes from 'the land of contrasts'. And like the rice itself, the reality had stood in stark contrast. In truth it is shit. That's probably how you'd describe India. That's about it really. Apart from there being a lot of it in India, and I mean a lot, you can readily equate shit with awfulness and that just about properly describes everything. Now that might sound like exaggeration. That's just precisely what I would have thought too. Before, that is. And forget about the old chestnut of India polarising people. It doesn't polarise, it traumatises. It actually seeks you out, as if by heat seeking radar, locks onto you, and you're done for. You don't either love or hate India. You just use every rupee and means possible to get your arse out of there. Why? Here's what a typical day in India looks like.

A filthy phone by the bedside will wake you at 4.00am, about 30 minutes after the street noise has died down enough to let you sleep. You'll get a painful electric shock from the receiver. It will be Ramshesh or some such from the front desk, for some reason jabbering about how you must pay your bill, even though you've just checked in that afternoon and you've been asleep for half an hour. You'll explain that you'll pay later that day, or when you leave, and it will be sorted. Ten minutes later Ramshesh will ring again, and you'll have to go over it once more. So you either go down and throw him some rupees (he'll grin as if this horrid imposition is like some silly joke), or you'll endure another three or maybe four more calls. In another half hour the street noise will start up and there will be no more sleep. It was just like that last night, and the night before that. Fine. You'll decide to get up and make an early start to the day.

You'll discover that the shower taps are marked Hot and Hot. Neither, however, will produce hot water. One will be icy, the other just less than icy. So, you'lll strip off, and set to quickly jump in. But you'll find half a dozen faces in the bathroom window. Just there. Looking. Transfixed. What the. They do that in India. No matter where you are, there are always people there, staring. They don't even blink. It's like a cruel form of torture. You'll try to close the window (the lever lock won't work) and continue. The flow from the shower will then spray three quarters up the shower door. It will be impossible to even get your head under. No, it's not broken. It's made that way. So, you'll use your hands to try of divert some of the terrible cold water over your body. Forget about using soap. You'll give up on that after a couple on minutes. Fine.

The power will then cut out and you'll lose the lights. It might be a five minute black out. It might be five hours. It will happen at least three or four times today. But there's no pattern. So, you'll stumble around naked and cold, looking for your bag and clothes. You could follow your nose, since the luggage wallah from yesterday's bus trip managed to accidentally drop your luggage into the mud (strangely enough there were designated luggage cleaners conveniently located at the station, and the station cops were smiling) and it how smells like ten people had wiped their asses on it. Dressed, you'll locate your toiletries and almost poison yourself by brushing your teeth with something called Colfate which is in fact some illegal and toxic substance sold as tooth paste.

After washing some of the burning sensation from your mouth, you'll try to open the door, and after cursing the sticking door knob, struggle with the dead weight of the Indian slumped beside it a comatose slumber. You'll need to tip-toe between snoring bodies to get to the lift. You'll notice the sharp smell of burning electrical wire from the button you've just pushed. Why? Because it stinks worse then the stench of stale urine that was already there. The lift won't work, so you'll take the stairs. There will be more bodies. Getting through will be like a game of moving Twister, played in 3D. At the desk, Ramshesh and his gang will take this as a signal to start noisy negotiations over your bill again (even though you paid him at 4.00 in the morning). Having anticipated this, you'II blurt out something about an appointment and rush past.

Out the door, you'II be violently re-acquainted with any number of olfactory offences. It's as if two malicious fairies had taken a sizable dump in each of your nostrils, with the crap having stood in a sauna for a few hours. You cannot get rid of it. It's the personal smell of India. A mix of open sewers, recycled diesel fumes, cow shit, decomposing animals and a million festering wounds. On the curb to the left, the sleeping bodies will be wrapped in shawls and lined up like sardines. The roadside will look like a morgue. To the right there will be a little chai shop, where a gaggle of early risers will be drinking tea and eating various fried things. It will look okay. Unfortunately, almost every Indian male spends at least the first hour or so of the day clearing their nose and throat by doing their personal best to huck up a lung. It's a horrible noise when one person does it. They all do it. No tea for you then. You'll then try to dodge the spit, snot and sleeping bodies to find breakfast.

You'll be enveloped by an instant human scrum before you've taken ten steps. One will have an elaborate heart breaking story about needing to buy injections for his dying daughter. Another will display a huge, freshly de-scabbed leg ulcer. There will be appeals to you as a God fearing Christian. Snot nosed street urchins will tug at your sides with postcards. There will rickshaw drivers. Several people will offer to guide you to nowhere you want to go. There will be a tall blind guy with freakish white eyes that looks like Indian version of David Carradine's teacher from Kung Fu. Almost everyone will be looking for coins for their collections. It literally starts within seconds, and will not let up. Each is in competition with the other and the keys to success are to grab tighter, plead louder, be more desperate, and cry and wail. While this is happening there'll be an audience of a few hundred others gracing you with that disturbing, wide-eyed stare that laser beams into your brain. You'll have beads of sweat on your forehead.

So, for arguments sake, assume that you've shaken the throng (left them looking dejected and offended), and found a refuge somewhere that looks vaguely like a restaurant. Excellent work. There'll be a brief, fruitless search for menu. There won't be one. You will however be provided with all the most god-awful noise your rapidly fraying nerves can handle. Hindi Pop. Played at full volume. Through the cheapest speakers India can manufacture. It's blasted out in cars, rickshaws, buses, trains, and aircraft. It's spewed out of almost every slum, house, hostel, guesthouse, and hotel. Just try pulling a 32 hour overnight bus trip accompanied by the noise of a thousand wailing cats being tortured set to music. What the hell is wrong with these people?

With the terrible noise stabbing you in each ear, you'll eventually find a waiter and point to something at another bench that looks like a large yellow pancake and a glass of something like lassi. The waiter will smile and leave. Another hour later, you'll be served something resembling a plate of cold duck sick with a couple of boiled bear paws thrown in. The monstrous thing won't even be on the menu. It'll be what they think a Westerner would like for breakfast. God knows why. There will be no possibly reason. And forget about whatever is in that glass. It'll be some concoction more likely involving coconut milk and anchovies, and maybe a couple of slices of salted green mango in the bottom. The waiter will frown when you push the plate aside. He'll make you feel ungrateful. Any number of oily-mouthed diners will be peering at you with similar disapproval on their faces. You know that there aren't any supermarkets, or fast food outlets, and that you'll eventually have to conquer these places if you're ever going to eat. At least you can get a cup of tea, and have a cigarette to calm your nerves.

Let's say you've decided to run an errand, perhaps to cash a traveller's cheque. You'll grab a rickshaw (easy enough), inform the driver of the bank you need (he'll nod enthusiastically), and settle on a price. You'll sit back in a momentary fit of self congratulation until you're in traffic, where you'll realise that your face is now level with a thousand spewing tail pipes, being blasted by streams of hot, filthy, doctored diesel exhaust from every clapped out car, truck, motorbike and tractor on the road. You'll get momentary relief when, after five minutes he pulls into a station for petrol, and about ten minutes after that when the rickshaw breaks down. The servo will necessitate a pointless argument about who should be paying for the fuel. The breakdown will last at least one hour. Your face will be filthy and you'll be sweating heavily.

The driver will have his hand out for a baggage fee (after you've paid for the petrol), though you're not carrying any. Naturally you will have been dutifully delivered to a gem shop, travel agent, carpet seller, restaurant, handicraft shop, tailors, massage parlour, fortune teller, dentist, hotel or family-fun park. There won't be a bank in sight. You might protest. You might say things like - so, lets get this straight, if I actually wanted the bank, I should have asked you to take me to the midget circus. Of course! How stupid of me! My mistake. Here's $100 for your trouble. Tell you what, why don't I jab myself in the eye with this stick, just for the hell of it. But cynicism won't work. He'll just take it as if you've freshly defiled his sister on the footpath. The smart thing is to not get back in. The experienced will have thrown the fare in the back seat and walked away. In less than a minute the guides, beggers, drivers, touts and con artists patrolling the streets for the weak and vulnerable will again line you up.

Let's pretend you're at a bank. There will be a series of queues, each snaking past the armed guards and out the front doors. There's no point asking any of the hundred or so people in the queue whether you're in right line, they'll all just say yes with just enough enthusiasm to assure you. Worst still, it will taken as an invitation to talk. And talk they will. For hour after hour they'll talk. They'll talk at you. They'll talk to you. There be almost no talking with you. In the blazing sun, with no food in your stomach and your head aching with stress, they'll go on and on an on like some type of indecipherable, unstoppable, Duracell powered talking torture robot. And you'll just have to stand there and take it. You'll be advised to get married and have as many children as human anatomy deems possible (roughly twenty three). You'll be educated on any number of crackpot philosophies. You'll be informed that India has the most educated population on the planet and find out that almost every single, breathing Indian male is a world famous engineer of some sort. Just when you think its winding up it will start anew. You'll be drifting off, wondering whether its possible for someone to actually talk you into a coma.

While all of this is happening the plentiful counter staff will be sitting behind their desks, shuffling papers, making notes in ledgers, engaging in chit chat, basically doing just about anything not involving serving customers. An eternity will pass. It is possible that you might make it to the end of the queue. It's been known. But there's almost no possibility that they'll cash that travellers cheque of yours. No siree. It's far more likely that the friendly teller will greet you by handing over a shiny brass token. What''s the token for, you'll wonder as you get pushed from the counter. The token entitles you to join the next fucking queue. It's at that point that the bank will close for four hours for lunch, or the power will cut out again. If you hadn't thought about cutting your wrists, you will now.

If you haven't abandoned whatever other plans you'd been foolish enough to entertain for the rest of the day, you probably will now. You'll somehow get back to your hotel after another series of misadventures, lie back on your bed with the phone unplugged, and vacantly think to yourself. Imagine. How any sane person could mentally endure getting to a train station, buying the right ticket to get you where you want to go, locating the place you want to go to, do the things you've travelled thousands of miles to do? This must be the closest I've ever been to hell on earth. Ramshesh will then start banging on your door asking for rupees. You'll close your eyes and tip over the edge.

That was me, in Bangalore I think, mindlessly staring at the ceiling in a pair of grimy underpants, like Martin Sheen in the opening scenes of Apocalypse Now. But I can't be sure. Perhaps it was Mumbai. Or Pune. There was another bit about a gut paralysing dose of Giardia, but I've used enough references to crap as it is. And the day before a box of Indian matches decided to spontaneously combust in my pocket, leaving an excruciating wound on my thigh. And when all my clothes had been returned from the laundry expertly folded to disguise the fact that they burned holes into every single item during the ironing. But, I think I'm better, now. And its probably good manners to stop there.

I escaped to Goa. I found a nice guest house run by two friendly Swedes. I spent a week with some older Brits and couple of very funny German, recovering, on the beach. I suspect it's what rehab would be like. The sea breeze calmed my nerves. The food was recognisable. The piecing stares were shut out by compound fencing. It was almost normal. After dinner one night, I asked the unmentionable. I'd looked around at the assembled diners and just came out with it - who can honestly say that India isn't crap? One woman snorted her gin and tonic through her nose. A Dutch guy didn't even look up from his paperback and just said, jah, India, she is a shithole, that is for sure. Mildly vindicated, I sat back, gazed beyond the large concrete wall that partitioned us off from the street and thought - there's never going to be a time when, if anyone ever happened to offered me a return trip to India and thousands of dollars, that I could ever say anything but mate, sick it up your arse. There never has.