Payne's World

Valentines Day - Schmalentines Day

2012-02-09T15:48:00.001Z

I actually watched the Note Book the other day, and two things occurred to me. One, I still don't get Ryan Gosling (his profile is the exact same shape as a crescent moon). And two, I am more teary and romantic than I thought.

But still, if someone ever bought me a Forever Friends card on February 14th, I'd probably dump them. Such concentrated, sickly and saccharine displays of wuv make me want to have colonic irrigation of the ears, eyes and every other sensual organ.

When I chatted to mum of two Sarah Whelan for Yahoo Lifestyle, she agreed. You can read her thoughts here.

VIDEO: Croc Rock

2012-02-04T21:56:00.002Z

Take one sleazy rock anthem, several thousand crocodiles and some atrocious French, and here's what happens.

New Year: New Me

2012-01-11T11:38:00.001Z

The Big Move: Generic Thailand picture

Ahh, the New Year. A time to hurl oneself at a treadmill and mainline cabbage soup.

Elly Earls, a magazine editor from the Midlands, decided that 2011 was the last year she would sit in an office from 9-5 each day, begrudging corporate mundanity.

I decided to carry on. So, from my boring, mundane office, I wrote a piece on her escape to Thailand for 2012. You can read it here.

VIDEO: Mushroom foraging in the New Forest

2011-12-30T11:02:00.001Z

The Wild Cook: Garry Eveleigh takes me to find some tasty 'shrooms

If you go down to the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise.. etc. Ah, the New Forest. Where wild ponies graze and big juicy mushrooms multiply in the mossy shadows. I stayed at The Pig hotel near Brockenhurst and a brilliant man called Garry (he's a fungi to be with) took me foraging.
You can read about it here and here is a video.

Why men shouldn't advertise bras

2011-12-14T18:51:00.000Z

There's a La Senza advert splatted all over tube stations at the moment which features a mammarily-enhanced female in barely-legal smalls, pulling a 'coy' face. Practically every man who passes it is left in a state of inappropriate public transport-infused arousal.

After Eva Herzigova's traffic stoppers, MnS' sexism and a throng of soft porn, there was really only one place lingerie ads could go. That's right, into the blokes' changing rooms.

Dutch department store Hema have started using a MAN to advertise bras. For those with a flat chest, say the Daily Mail, this just proves how fabulous its mechanics really are - it can even give a boy bosoms. The ad states: Mega Pushup! Two cups extra!

So far, so patronising. Imagine Calvin Klein advertising briefs for the less endowed man, featuring a GIRL in Y-fronts.

Like the reams of erotic vest 'n' pant commercials, designed purely with menfolk in mind, using male model Andrej Pejic to front underwear ads couldn't be any less FOR WOMEN. When looking for lingerie, a low percentage of women will muse: 'Hmm, I wonder what an androgynous man would look like in this bustier' or 'How would he decorate those protruding pectorals?'

I know, I know, advertising isn't ever actually practical or useful, it's purely to raise awareness of brands, man. To employ the shock factor, hype, buzz to make everyone remember stuff yeah? But if ever there was a reason why troupes of British girls go out every Saturday night dressed as low budget hookers, it is because of adverts/the media showing them that to be a woman is to wear make-up and dresses and optimise their femininity via the medium of fakery.

Employing a man in a dress and make-up to sell things to women just emphasises "being feminine" as being something you stick on with eyelash glue, or hold down with an almighty pair of Spanx. A man, with a man's biological nuts and bolts, as it were, can be just as feminine as a woman, more so than some, just by having long hair and a pout. It's enough to make me order a pint of lager, stuff five Yorkies in my face and be done with it.

Women's rights in Egypt

2011-12-02T15:06:00.000Z

Is it ever ok to for a man to have four wives?
Although the Western world struggles with monogamy, polygamy is generally frowned upon/impossible unless you are Hugh Hefner and your wives are classed as Oryctolagus Cuniculus. But in Egypt, while only one per cent of the male contingent actually have multiple Mrs-s, it is perfectly halal.

Hatshepsut temple: Is ancient tradition a curse in Egypt?

"Why are we allowed four wives? Muslims are not the first," says Omar, an affable tour guide in Aswan. "In fact the figure four was created to minimize the amount. There were a lot of illegitmate children everywhere."

The highest figures of polygamy are in the Gulf and Dubai where up to 12 per cent of men indulge.

Omar continues: "In the wars against the Romans and Greeks, many men died, leaving large amounts of women on their own, not working. They needed men for protection and money. It started for the sake of women not men. Women accepted it, they were happy to have protection."

Right. Wasn't that about 3000 years ago?

"Also, first cousins are allowed to marry. So if things go wrong, rather than angering his uncle by divorcing the daughter/cousin, a man can take another wife.

"Sometimes his original wife even picks the new wife for him! You have to treat your wives equally though - if you buy one a present, you must buy the other one a present too.

"Most women disagree to it now, but we don't see it as wrong. It is different. I think if a man has two wives - lucky man, life is not boring anymore! But to me, it doesn't make sense to have more than one mother in law!" Quite.

Women's rights in Egypt are less about religion, more about tradition - a cast-iron force to be reckoned with. Says Omar: "Traditions are very much upheld, especially in the South. That is why foreign occupation never has much effect - the police obey the head of a tribe before anyone else."

Because of tradition, women never inherit their parents' land, such is the strong desire to continue the family name, women must never sleep anywhere but their own bed, women must walk behind their men in the street, not speak to him just as he leaves the house for work and when he arrives home, and a woman is not allowed to leave the country without formal permission from her husband. If the ultra-conservative Salafis had their way in the upcoming elections, women will not even be allowed to vote or take part in public life.

Omar says: "But women aren't as weak as you think, they solve problems that men cannot. But tradition says they must have a lot of respect for their husband. Marriage puts an end to wars.

"We still have arranged marriages, there are women who go around with pictures of their daughters, saying look at her pale skin, she has good blood, marry my daughter! The saying goes that marriage is like a watermelon. You have to open it to see if it's sweet."

Turns out it can be quite sour. During the 70s and 80s domestic violence was inherent in wedded life. "I used to hear screams from my neighbour's house," says Omar. Even now if a wife tries to defend herself her husband instantly ends the relationship, because tradition says she should "go to her mother's house, lie in bed and cry, but never hit back."

According to Harriet Harman, in a recent feature for Amnesty International magazine, before the revolution progress was made on things like women's education (many are still illiterate) and tackling female genital mutilation - which was only fully banned after a 12-year-old girl died in 2007. But now with the ever potent rumblings of protest, and uncertainty in their future, can Egypt's women treated ever be equal?

Omar tells me: "In the last five or six years, the government were pushing women. Last year there were even more girls than boys studying engineering".

"But of course it is still a woman's job to cook and clean and be a mother." It's tradition.

VIDEO: Kayaking and copping a perve in Croatia

2011-11-16T19:33:00.001Z

I’m not sure who is more embarrassed, me or the man standing on a rock, reading his newspaper wearing nothing but a pair of flip flops. As our eyes meet, though, it is clear that one of us is a little overdressed for this liberated beach...

Read the rest of my feature for Travel Mail here.

VIDEO: My showreel

2011-11-15T06:55:00.001Z

My uniform: It's a dangerous job, but someone has to do it.

I recently became a serious adult, so it was time to cobble together a few clips of my video journalism in the hopes that some day one of the Coen brothers or Louis Theroux would get in touch to 'throw around' some ideas.

Here are some highlights:

- Cider in Somerset
- Foraging in the New Forest
- Penguins in Capetown
- Lemurs in Madagascar
- Lions
- Zebras
- The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct
- Tidal bore rafting in Nova Scotia
- Dog-sledding in Norway
- Frank Bruno

Mahone Bay scarecrow festival

2011-10-31T23:02:00.002Z

The Canadians love to scare away birds in kooky and decorative ways. Around this time of year the folk at Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, go crazy, displaying the extent of their scarecrow artistry in the streets. Here are some.

Prom Queen with attitude.

A right royal stuffing: Wills and Kate.

It doesn't take a genius to work out who this is.

Wizened: Oil of Olay is in short supply in these parts.

Thatcher: The latex lady herself.

VIDEO: Saving the African Penguin

2011-10-26T13:18:00.001+01:00

Due to climate change and overfishing, the African penguin is in steep decline.

Here is a video made by Richard Sprenger - wildlife cameraman extraordinaire, and myself (penguin life coach to the stars) about what's being done to save this feathery friend.

You can also watch this in the penguin enclosure at Bristol Zoo.

Not as boring as it sounds...

2011-10-12T17:01:00.000+01:00

The Shubenacadie river in Urbania, Nova Scotia, has the highest recorded tides in the world.

Here is what happens when you go rafting on them.

Dunwich: A camper's utopia

2011-10-04T15:01:00.000+01:00

My friend turned thirty and we went camping in Suffolk to celebrate.

I annoyed everyone by shoving a video camera in their faces.

Loving fashion is not a woman's job

2011-09-18T15:08:00.007+01:00

It's fashion, dahling!

To some (very basic hominids), a woman's love of fashion is similar to a man's love of sport. Embracing trends is akin to supporting a football team, and buying a "statement piece" connects you to other women, saying "I support the Naughty Nanny/Drunken Peasant/African Slave trend" - which is of course much like saying, I support Leeds United.

Another camp, which includes Nietzhche, who once said: "Comparing man and woman in general, one may say that woman would not have the genius for finery in general if she did not have the instinct for a secondary role," believes that a woman's penchant for clobber comes from her inferiority.

Of course they like decorating themselves, it makes a nice change from cooking.

Yet another philosophy, commonly learned from university lecturers and The Guardian, is that fashion is the evil claw of consumerism preying on insecure women, urging them to buy eight pairs of culottes instead of one and that the amount of time one spends in Primark is directly proportional to one's feelings of self worth.

But all of these schools of thought assume that women, just for the sheer fact that they are women, seem to deeply care about clothes. Pieces of material strung together to form reversible kaftans, pleated peddle pushers and other ridiculous items that supposedly identify who they are.

I like clothes, and I enjoy placing coloured, textured and patterned fabric on my body to make it look slightly less like a lumpy box. But style, uniqueness and the ability to choose for yourself what looks good is very different from the kind of tosh we A. see during London Fashion Week, and B. are told to wear for the rest of the year.

Suits you.

Fashion for fashion's sake, can take a long walk off a short runway.

Fashion that fills magazines with its endless pictures of frocks and bags and shoes that I am supposed to want (but all look like the sort of thing people called Debbie wear). The fashion that says, "next season, you WILL be wearing a bow-tie". I can tell you now, that I would rather shove myself into a sodden tabard, than be told to wear such a foolish neck adornment by a page in the kind of magazine that thinks women only consist of dieting, eyelashes and LBDs.

Fashion that doesn't want to be worn by anyone other than a twig with legs like hosepipes. To mark the start of London Fashion Week, Tanya Gold (a plump, opionated writer who campaigns against size 0 models) interviewed some fashion bods, one of whom, designer Inancio Ribeiro actually said: "A lot of labels will not want a size 16 wearing their designs." He also said:" High fashion is intrinsically elitist, because it's not trying to please everyone. It is a reflection of social status and the culture of the leisure class. Of that sort of thing, a slim body, is evidence of a lifestyle of wealth." Somebody pass me a shot gun. Or the aforementioned tabard.

Some will presume that Gold is just bitter because the world is not ready for her kind of jelly, but her point is that it's totally delusional to base an entire industry on ill girls who make everyone else feel disgusting for even whispering the word "cake".

If high fashion, which consequently trickles down to high street fashion, is based on elitism, why does every piece of media for women include fashion pages? I would sooner read a four page feature on the history of moths than read about rags, and I am *almost* 100 per cent sure that not everyone who reads Look magazine resembles Lana Del Rey.

I realise that brands need to PR their togs in the media and thus fuel our sluggish economy, but please dear lord let the editorial bandied about in every supplement not be so enormously superficial. "Girls, this Winter is ALL about the midriff! Do you dare to bear!" Oh, sod off.

How 9/11 changed my life: an amazing woman speaks

2011-09-09T10:01:00.000+01:00

Karin Charles

Ten years ago, this lady lost her husband Kenneth in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He was working on the 99th floor of the World Trade Centre. She made a decision early on to make sure her two children Ethan and Olivia were well looked after.

Talking to her was a real inspiration.

Read her story here.

Books, beards and 3D puppetry in Edinburgh

2011-08-30T11:26:00.009+01:00

Previously, when I pondered Edinburgh festival, a pub full of ale drinkers - belly laughing at substandard one-liners - formed in a thought bubble over my unamused head. But actually, it's not like that at all. I'm sure there are plenty of substandard jokes floating about, but thankfully, as I was stationed predominantly at the book festival - I managed to come out unscathed by "funnies".

Among the righteous feminism, men wearing lycra, earnest street poets and trombonists moonlighting as evil scientists, here are a few things that stood out.

The Future of the City was a lecture about the future of the city. Poet Michael Symmons, whose book Edgelands reveres those places in the sprawl of a city that you don't really notice: landfills, bridges, car parks etc, figuratively enthused about cities being spread out, wide and wild, while architectural historian
Robert Miles Glendinning ranted about the futility of egos in architecture, and prescribed building for reduced carbon emissions. I liked the talk, because Joan Bakewell was the host, and she had a nice voice, and also because it was interesting.

A nondescript building in Edinburgh

The first theatrical extravaganza we witnessed was Adolf, a one-man play of two halves: First the actor appeared as Hitler himself, addressing the audience in his final hours, dictating what should be done after his death. In part two, he switched the Swastika light off, whipped off his 'tache and made small talk, about things like the price of cigarettes. But soon talk became littered with racist slurs and Daily Mail-esque BNPisms. The actor's chat became just as much about ethnic cleansing as it had been in part one. He ended by saying, back in character as Hitler: "There will be no second coming, because I never left."

Yes, you

Unbound was a nightly event in the Spiegeltent, an elaborately-decorated vintage circus tent which served pizza and free whisky. Each night, writers, poets, comedians and musicians would perform to varying degrees of skill while a wine soaked audience cooed approvingly or sat in awkward silence.

Aidan Moffat, formally of Arab Strap, performed some gutteral songs with a zither, including one about his wife who had a brain tumor and one about polyamory and This Morning. You can watch the video I surreptitiously recorded from the Spiegeltent, below. *it includes some rather fruity language, I'm afraid*

Alasdair Gray is nothing short of a legend. A mole of a man, he scuttles about, repeats himself and is Scotland's greatest living writer (and illustrator). See why he is amazing, here.

The second talk we went to was by Gordon Weiss on The Death of the Tamil Tigers. Needless to say it was pretty depressing, and Weiss kept referring to this book he had written called The Cage ["as I say in my book..."] so we bought it.

After all this culture, I fancied a night of make shift puppetry. So we went to see Swamp Juice - a one man puppet show by Jeff Achtem. And by gosh, was it worth it. It involved puppets Jeff had made from rubbish, and a whole 3D section in which the audience held up bits of plant matter, plastic anenome and blue things to make it look like we were all underwater. Um, it was better than it sounds.

London Snorkelling team are an excellent jazz band, who employ the skills of two so-called Mormon projectionists/cartoonists to illustrate their brief musical interludes with little tiny pictures. They were accompanied by a useless drunken magician who was so drastically shite that at one point, after screwing up a joke, he squealed the excuse: "Oh, I appear to be faking a heart attack."

RM Hubbert was a wonderful guitarist who strummed with such passion it looked like tears were welling in his eyes with every twang.

The Kindness of Strangers was an rip-roaring debate about altruism. Does kindness come from our (selfish) genes? Are we only kind to those who we think we can get something out of/will help us to pass on our DNA? Oren Harman, the author of The Price of Altruism, Dominic Johnson, Reader in politics and international relations at Edinburgh and Ruth Chadwick, director of Cesagen at Cardiff led the discussion. When it came to question time, one very liberal looking woman (she was wearing tassels) stood up and said something about Anne Frank and everyone went quiet.

The last night in the Spiegeltent saw many and various middle class women and a gay man reading excerpts from their books, which were by and large written from the point of view of some kind of sex worker in Glasgow. Strangely, a middle class girl's view of what it must be like to be a prostitute, peppered with some light titillation for the benefit of the young men in the audience, was not my cup of tea.

There was a also a jolly man reading Little Red Riding Hood, swapping key words with words that are 23 entries below them in the dictionary. How we chuckled.

VIDEO: Kayaking in Croatia

2011-07-26T17:42:00.001+01:00

Here. I made a silly little video about kayaking on the Dalmation Coast.

Why do lottery winners go public?

2011-07-21T10:49:00.001+01:00

If you won £161 million, would you tell the world and consequently his dog? Well here's a piece I wrote for Yahoo, explaining why 'going public' may be wiser than it seems.

Big fat winners

VIDEO: Akany Avoko - a Shelter for Children

2011-07-19T09:13:00.001+01:00

While in Madagascar, I took my trusty cameraman to Akany Avoko, a marvellous place which takes in the waifs and strays of the city's capital: Antananarivo.

As well as caring for them, this locally run refuge prepares the children - who have been abandoned by their parents or orphaned - for life in the real world. Here is my video:

The day I was transformed into Cheryl Baker, I mean Cole.

2011-07-01T20:24:00.000+01:00

You can't beat spending five hours in a hair salon and being talked at by colourists who use phrases like "it is what it is," "it's all about running the texturisation through the lengths" and "do you know what I mean, if you know what I mean?". FIVE HOURS.

Being transformed into an older, fatter and less-inclined-to-punch-bog-employees version of Cheryl Cole was not short of its hairy moments. Geddit?

At one point, the photographer asked me to catwalk down a busy street in Covent Garden, to cries of "you're no model," from some hag sitting outside a nearby restaurant.

But thanks to the Edward Scissorhands of hairdressery, Stuart Phillips, my hair went from lank and average, to bouncy and Chob (Cheryl bob) like. And feeling like the sort of woman who spends triple figures on her hair (instead of about 3p a year) was unique and lovely.

In the words of Cheryl:

Anythin' that's worth havin

Sure enough worth fightin' for

Quittin's out of the question

When it's tough gotta fight some more

You gotta fight, fight, fight, fight, fight for this coiff

How to find your Mr Right - a lesson in cynicism

2011-06-30T20:16:00.002+01:00

Ahhh, the joys of being analysed by a relative stranger. Michael Myerscough, Relationship Expert/Life Coach from The Relationship Gym, says finding a good man is a bit like buying a car.

He runs a workshop called How to Find Your Mr Right, and being skeptical about pretty much anyone with the words "life" and "coach" in their career title, I went along.

**************************

Michael sits on a leather couch, surrounded by attractive single females (and me), armed with notebooks. Nervous glances dart around the room. What on earth could this guy say that we haven’t heard before on the subject of bagging a man?

He explains: “We’re happy to write lists and weigh up the pros and cons when we’re buying a car or a home, but not when we’re choosing a partner. Why not have a list?”

We begin by writing down the names of five of our previous boyfriends. “I want you to write down ten qualities about each man that you liked,” Michael says.

“Uh-oh, this’ll be a challenge,” I mumble as I eek out around five or six things about each. Does good at arguing count?

“Now the bad points,” Michael demands. He’s no softie, so we hurriedly start scribbling. For some reason, all of the girls have a lot more to say this time.

“If it didn’t work then, it’s not going to work now. Once you establish what you don’t want, you can move onto finding out what you do.”

The next part of the workshop is about figuring out what it is you are looking for in a relationship. “Admit you are needy – everybody is,” says Michael.

He divides needs into four areas. Certainty: which includes feelings such as commitment, inclusion and protection. Variety: which covers passion, adventure and spontaneity. Significance: being appreciated, loyalty, being listened to, for example. And connection – feelings like being desired, cared about and receiving attention.

We are told to write down our top four emotional needs. Interestingly ‘commitment’ and ‘being desired’ feature on almost everyone’s lists.

Michael explains: “If your needs are not being met in a relationship, you spend your time feeling unsatisfied and doing everything you can to get them met, either directly or indirectly. You can never feel stable or fulfilled.”

Weirdly, I agree with a healthy proportion of this bumph, but I dislike the idea that everyone's situation can be boiled down into four bullet points. Michael doesn't like my cynicism and tells me I should get therapy. I disagree. He doesn't like this and says: "you look like the kind of person who will never get what you want".

And with that, I give up all hope of writing for broadsheets, and produce this quality document for The People.

Folkestone Triennial

2011-06-28T12:21:00.003+01:00

Folkestone is an odd mix of delicately grandiose seaside town - with huge red-brick houses, pavilions and the sweet waft of 99s - and Royston Vasey. The pubs stink of piss and seagulls are on red alert for your fish and chips. One false move and they'll aggressively swipe your lunch and take your dignity, by crapping on your head as they squawk-gloat to their friends.

During the Triennial, "art" is dotted amid the hill top creative quarter and down to the seafront, and this year included a church with boats suspended from the rafters, Tracy Emin's tiny little children's toys made of metal and a generous helping of pretentious video instillations featuring wacky art students climbing up walls in the nude. Here are some pretentious photos I took: crab death, glass objects, hands touching hands, hew locke, mirrored gate in forest, small guinea pig, skulls, specials, mermaid, emin.

What's the French for apple?... erm Granny Smith?

2011-06-23T15:29:00.000+01:00

Leon from The Apprentice has so much punnery up his sleeve, he even calls himself a Leon-trepeneur.

Watch him draw a paedophile, fail a tres simple French test, and outline the ins and outs of cress commerce.

Ego, the Internet and why the end of Wall-E was realistic

2011-06-17T10:08:00.002+01:00

Why do people spend so much time on the internet? Because it is a world full of things they 'like', whether that's scantily clad nurses, cricket scores, SHOUTING ABOUT THE FACT THAT THEY'RE GOING ON HOLIDAY or stalking their ex's hamster's godfather's aunt.

It is life without the boring bits, it's drama, it's nuggets of uselessness and incorrect facts compressed into a size that our ever-decreasing attention spans can just about grasp. Of course there is also a wealth of important stuff available too. I mean where would journalists be without (vastly unreliable) sites like Wikipedia?

And in some (mostly futile) ways it's a kind of democracy.

But mainly, the internet, or social networking to be precise, is a personal propaganda tool. A place to show the world you are seizing the day, carpe diem-ing the hell out of it. When was the last time someone posted on Facebook: "I am sitting alone at home wondering if I have any friends," or "I can't afford to go on holiday this year and I don't have a cute pet dog"?

Looking at one's newsfeed, what we see is a paradigm of showing off: people presenting the great stuff about their lives which makes them appear fun. Now before I start sounding like an embittered old bat, I like it when my friends have fun, achieve stuff, get engaged, go on trips. Everybody does. It's just that I'd rather hear about it offline. And when some random I once met 'at a work do' starts shouting at me about their AMAZE hen-do, I do wonder what social networking has done to us.

You don't need to ask your colleague what they've been up to, because you already know that they've just come back from Portugal and their Glastonbury tickets have arrived.

It was once just advertising that made everyone aspire to have an impossibly perfect life - but now we are freely doing it to one another. Social networking, like advertising, has a habit of making you feel like you're missing out on something.

It is also as addictive as crack. Especially now that the so-called 'digital revolution' is occuring. With newspapers projectile vomiting money at their websites and making cuts offline, developing their digital platforms so that you can basically climb into your ipad and do a little dance, while finding out what the weather is like in Marbella, it won't be long before we are all glued to our tablets, living our live entirely via the internet. --->See fat human characters at the end of Wall-E.

Ok, that's not entirely true. But I'm still not sold on the advancement of technology to the point that we are able to social network from an igloo on Mars. Surely there are times in life when actually talking, doing and living are more gratifying.

I smell bacon

2011-06-15T17:06:00.003+01:00

Ok, so he's not quite Harold Bishop. But Erinsborough's resident rozzer Scott McGregor is so hot that there are Facebook groups called things like IF SCOTT LEAVES NEIGHBOURS I WILL NEED MEDICAL HELP etc.

I met him in a studio in Haggerston and we discussed the following:

*the NHS reforms
*the Arab/Isreali conflict
*Wagner

Not really, we just chatted about girls, being hot and his male friend who shaves his arms. So here is my interview with the lovely chiseled pig.

Why protesting against Hugh Hefner is pointless

2011-06-09T17:08:00.002+01:00

The 'feminazis' protesting against Hugh Hefner's latest Playboy "gentleman's" club were onto something. But not necessarily the right thing.

Various onlookers to their plight - both men and women - slated their attempts to boycott the new T & A joint, saying that girls who choose to dress up as bunnies for cash are NOT victims. Women are in control of their bodies and their minds. To call them victims is to objectify them in itself. If women didn't WANT to jiggle their jubblies in the name of "entertainment" (and tips) they wouldn't.

But the issue is not about lap-dancing clubs and other seedy jizz-holes where men go to get turned on by Eastern Europeans in PVC. Those girls DO choose to slide up and down a greasy pole with their legs akimbo. And there will always be a market for these places, as long as attractive women are short of cash and men have eyes, wallets and a few beers in their gullets.

It's about the wider view. Raunch out of context. The 80s adage 'sex sells' has sleazily morphed into 'sex sells... everything, from deodorant and Y fronts'. It's not the opening of a strip club we need to worry about, but the film industry who objectify women (who aren't sex workers) like slabs of beef, casually inserting irrelevant sex scenes in which the camera depicts only the man's eye view. It's about the music honchos, who goad females into thinking that empowerment is about rapping about what you like in bed whilst suggestively eating a banana. It's about the media constantly obsessing about what women look like. It's about the Daily effing Mail.

The sisterhood is failing itself. We are so aware of what men find attractive (long legs, curves not flab, the perfect combination of glossy hair, push up bras and bronzer) it becomes very hard to make friends with a woman who spends more time trying to perfect this than she does pursuing her own goals and/or being remotely interesting.

And talking of own goals, I was talking to a male friend recently, who found it hypocritical when girls in nightclubs wear very little, gyrate and then "go ape" if a man tries it on.

Firstly, the reason she is dancing like that is for attention. She wants every man in that club to look at her and growl "phoargh" - raising your hemline is the cheat's way to guarantee an ego boost. She doesn't want every man to look at her as easy though. Which I guess is what the Slutwalks were all about. The problem is, when a woman slides on her smallest items of clobber, the message she wants to send out is: Fancy me. But the message she sends is: I will put out.

Lady GaGa would probably argue that it's all about artistic expression. But that would be utter bullshite.

The Apprentice losers get the Holy Moly treatment

2011-05-26T13:43:00.001+01:00

The Apprentice contestants are usually so vile it's hard to avoid hurling your television into the fiery depths of hell before the programme's up. They are self-important jargon wielders who genuinely believe people care about their A-level results.

But because I mildly enjoy the feeling of wanting to lob things at strangers, I have been editing some interviews with the show's losers for Holy Moly. Here is the latest one. I actually I quite liked Felicity. Note her flirty eyes and skills with kirby grips.

You can watch GAVIN'S interview here, ALEX's interview here and EDWARD'S interview here.

VIDEO: In the ring with Idris

2011-05-22T19:31:00.002+01:00

Boxing. Not something I've ever been particularly bowled over by. Ahem.

Not until I found out that Idris Elba - aka Stringer Bell - would be helping to launch a very special new range of fightwear, and to celebrate I would be offered the chance to get in the ring with a 6ft7 heavyweight Muay Thai champion. Double POW!

In Portuguese, the word Luta means to fight, struggle, to never give up. In 2000, in the favela of Complexo da Mare in Rio de Janeiro, a small boxing club called Luta Pela Paz (fight for peace) sprung up. It was a get out for young people living in an area divided by heavily armed drug factions, plagued by gun violence, social exclusion and economic hardship.

Fight for Peace has helped thousands of young people and now works in East London to help youngsters avoid the dangers of gang violence and live positive, successful lives. And LUTA Clothing, the brainchild of FFP founder Luke Dowdney, will share its profits with Fight for Peace International, a charity that promotes the use of martial arts training to help improve the lives of young people living in dangerous communities.

So over I popped to North Woolwich to talk left hooks, bobbing 'n' weaving and why boxing can be for anybody. Oh, and stare at Idris Elba lots.

FYI I spent two minutes sparring with Daniel Sams, the behemoth Muay Thai champion. But we both agreed he was punching well above his weight.

How not to be a man

2011-05-18T17:51:00.004+01:00

Drinking pints, bodily functions, bad language and outspokenness. No ladies, I am not just describing your boyfriend. These are qualities deemed to be "un lady-like" along with (according to a made up survey) wearing a bikini over the age of 47, failing to detonate every last hair on your body and preferring burgers to Special K.

Did anyone see the Eurovision Song Contest? I remember a time when acts consisted of banjo-playing dwarves on stilts and masked men doing nose-flute solos. Well, almost. 2011 was just a showcase for a long line of blandly attractive women doing sex faces into the camera (ahem, Lena) and imitating Victoria's Secret models (ahem Azerbaijan). The only "wacky" entry this year was Moldova, and even then, they had an impossibly pretty girl jibbing about on a unicycle just for good measure.

I happened to notice all these "babes" because I was watching it with a male acquaintance who belched out "ooh I like her" at least every two seconds. I would be much less perturbed by this if there had been some filthy hot fellas for the girls to gawp at. And before anyone says "Duncan from Blue", no.

I am starting to bore myself with the whole inequality of the sexes thing. But it's rife. We're told to look great - better than great - with a body like a jeffing H&M bikini advert and a face like Cheryl Cole while ne'er uttering a word about the extreme hassle and impossibility of it. And a lot of women seem to just go along with it, continuing to numb their brains by reading god awful magazines telling them how to do so. Why?

There are rules for women. We can't just be the XX chromosome, juggling jobs, babies, outfit changes, and when to social network. We have to have nice hair, speak softly, not burp, have small appetites, talk about "body clocks" after the age of 35, wish we were dancers, tell everyone The Notebook is our favourite film and hate ourselves for every tiny flaw, while simultaneously pretending to be laid back.

The pinnacle of ladylikeness, as anyone who sat through the "pomp and pageantry" of the royal wedding will know, is of course Her Royal Highness, Princess Catherine Middleton. The number of times Will's love piece was labelled "immaculate" and "discreet" (code words for "boring and "without soul") reinforced the idea that a woman with any kind of interestingness is basically a shop-soiled slag.

I appreciate there are some also unspoken rules for men.

- Be outwardly competitive
- Have ability to lift heavy things
- Have books about WAR, GANGS and BOMBS
- Pulsate with excitement about men kicking balls in fields
- Think it's ok to have sex with 19 year-olds when you are 57

The list goes on...

But these are rules for the Alpha Male. Who let's be honest, is usually a bit of a pillock. Blokes who like opera, fine cheeses and growing long beards can ignore those things and happily blend in to society. A woman who disobeys the Rules of Femininity, by being, say funnier than a man, not shaving her legs, or not wanting to talk about shoes and weddings, will be tarred with the same brush as a simple wench.

But I digress. In fact, there are some rules for men. Secret things that men do, that really repulse women on a day-to-day basis. These are not written in a textbook, or in men's magazines. But they should be.

Here are some:

- Do not be a pervert AND a geek. The combination is hideous. Outwardly dribbling over page 3 models and grotesquely commenting on their anatomy, when you yourself resemble the Hunchback of Notre Dame, is the definition of evil.

- If you are ugly, lower your standards. In life, not everyone gets the Cameron Diaz character. Some have to settle for the Renee Zellweger one. But she probably has nicer feet?

- If you are good looking, it IS possible not to be a wanker. I have yet to find scientific proof of this one yet.

- The nice guy doesn't always lose the girl. He might miss out on the Cameron Diaz character though.

- Watching porn is less evil than being the leader of a terrorist group.

- Don't try to understand rape. Or attempt to do it.

- Telling long anecdotes about your mates getting pissed/your travels/something that happened at work IS boring. Every time.

The Lion, the witch and the eerily large appendage of an elephant

2011-05-04T18:33:00.002+01:00

Here's a short film which will (not) have Sir David Attenborough quaking in his semi-retired hiking boots. A drive through the Serengeti in Tanzania yields a wildlife lover's dream: Mufasa-style lions striding in the wind, cute little cubs, leopards up trees, guff-happy hippos and an elephant revealing a bit too much information.

Tour god - and prominent rasta - Bori Waziri tells me about the animals found in the savannah, why hippos smell bad and just how he makes people feel better when they fail to spot a lion.

*Please enjoy Bori's comedy smile after revealing what hippos get up to all day at around 1.15*

The swimwear issue: Why do women strip off?

2011-04-27T09:28:00.006+01:00

Victoria Pendleton is a British Olympic and world champion track cyclist. Wow. She also appears on the front of a recent ES magazine wearing knickers, knee-high socks and simulating sex with a bicycle. Oh.

However talented or pretty Ms Pendleton is, the constant sluttifying of her public image whiffs of desperate PR and the sad state of affairs that post-feminism left our society in after the Spice Girls high-kicked into the sunset - leaving in their trail one billion women thinking "prostitute" was a good look.

Looking pretty on the front of a magazine is a great boost for a woman I imagine, and anything that bolsters female confidence in a world where Nigella Lawson in slagged off daily for FIVE YEARS just for being a bit fat, is obviously a good thing. However, looking pretty is no longer enough. Having nice eyes or teeth or hair is one thing, sitting legs akimbo, wearing just your smalls is another. There are two things going on here.

1. Isn't it about time the confidence boost came from somewhere other than just how sexy a woman is? Does anyone remember intelligence? Wit? Humility?

2. Isn't being sexy something that works best when it's not trying to sell a product?

A man once told me he went to a strip club but felt it distinctly unsexy, because he had to pay for it. Strippers get cash for their display, but what do sportswomen, singers and other sexualised celebrities get for theirs? A profile boost possibly. How sad.

Many women feel liberated by posing nude, I'm sure. But there is a time and a place for it. If you are a glamour model and Hugh Hefner calls offering you a vast wad of cash, I imagine you'd go for it. But a cyclist? An Olympic cyclist who is actually talented? Shouldn't we be able to celebrate a win for the female species without telling her to mock arousal on the front of a magazine?

It was one thing when the pop industry metamorphasized into one giant porny cesspit, but why do professional women have to jump on the borderline-nympho bandwagon? What next, female politicians engaging in topless mud wrestling? [excuse Daily Mail style sentence].

To those women who say it's their own choice to be sexualised, fine. But sexy in real life is very different to sexy post airbrush, stylist, fake tan application and hair extension installment. Perhaps the bat of an eyelid, or flash of smile can be sexier than revealing what you had for breakfast in an outfit smaller than two tic tacs strung together with dental floss.

I went out in Essex the other day and wore a short skirt with high heels. Admittedly it felt empowering. Women crave attention like crack, so I can see why many opt for revealing outfits. But the looks from men are not looks of admiration, respect or "wow, I bet you've got a really interesting mind". No, the kind of attention most women really crave is better sought while clothed, telling an interesting anecdote or winning at Trivial Persuit.

The national obsession with sex probably comes from football, which I blame for everything. The money and power in football has spawned a whole tribe of women who feel so worthless that they forget to dress each day, and then throw themselves at any man who looks like he gets paid for a kick about. Getting rich and famous is more important than getting brains and using them, having a semblance of a career, or just being a nice person. And for a woman to get rich and famous, there's a strange misconception that she must do so wearing as little clothing as possible.

Dog-sledding in Norway: part deux

2011-04-26T12:15:00.003+01:00

Cross-country skiing and dog-sledding in remote Rondablikk for the Mail online. Read it here.

Alive with the sound of music

2011-03-16T22:34:00.000Z

A walking tour of Vienna for the Daily Mail. Read it here.

The bastardization of langua...

2011-02-22T12:47:00.012Z

Last time I checked, I was sitting at my desk. But according to the great herds of grammar-phobic Tweeters and furious Facebook status-updaters of this Earth, I was SAT at my desk. A simple difference in the way we write an active progressive sentence? Sitting, sat, shitting, shat. Who actually cares? Well, regrettably, me. I was sat does not make sense.

Over time, the English language has twisted and turned, dropping letters and words and been influenced by everyone from Detroit-born gangsters to Australian surfers who speak in a constant question. I remember a time, perhaps during the sixth form (or last year), when I said things like "wicked"without a speck of self-consciousness. Teen language is universally embarrassing by the age of 30.

The development of language is important, indeed, which one of us would endure writing texts if humans still spake like Billy Bob Shakespeare, or Jane Austen. A simple, 'Hi mum, see you at 7' would translate hellishly into: 'My dearest Mama, I'm inclined to say, by my troth, that I, Elizabeth Bennett, shalt seeith your fair, good self at seven hours past noon time, as the crow flies. And forget ye not the lavender bags". But I fear we have gone so far the other way, that pretty soon we'll be communicating in grunts and beeps.

Take Twitter for example. One might say that with a limited 140-character space to let your followers know all about the great life you're having, it becomes essential to shorten words. The invention of the LOLS, ROFLs and LMAOs are a good example of this need to acronymise. But I would argue that someone who can't be arsed to put the E on the end of 'the' or the O and the L in 'could' shouldn't be allowed to use extra letters, grammar to express excitement!!!!! or humour LOL.

A recent update I spotted went like this: "I am Soooooo exhausted.completely drained.I'm gonna hav to sleep like a grandad before this eve!" Firstly, why has this Twit used a capital S and about four billion Os? But most importantly, why has he left the E off 'have', WHYYYYyyyyyYYYYYYYyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!?

It's true that with invention of social networking came various changes in the way we speak and write. We never used to say things like 'to Facebook someone' or 'I'll iPhone you later'. Oh, we still don't say that one.

But not only have we started using more odious jargon than ever (say #hashtag in real life and I'll shoot) - our attention spans are shorter, we shout more, if the written word was once an art form, with each word intricately painted, we're now chucking words at a canvas like we're Jackson bloody Pollock. Only we're not, we just like throwing things.

Most people online don't have much to say. So to heighten the drama, they add exclamation marks, emoticons and miss letters off vital words. Essentially many Tweeters are PR-ing their lives to people they have never met, talking about things only they are doing, and that are of meagre interest to others. It's a pimped up version of reality that requires hyperbole - and plenty of it.

"OMG this is the most amazing day ever in the history of the world forever and ever amen."

But where was I? Texting and tweeting are often done on the trot and so hell, why be such a pedant about a small thing like spelling/grammar ? It's not like real people actually speak lke tht iz it? Actually, yes they do. Real humans who have brains, actually use phrases like: 'that was totes redic'.

There's nothing wrong with linguistic trends - in my teens I wished I didn't sound so average, so I kind of added a Bristolian twang to my accent (a technique now employed by Justin Lee Collins) - and where would journalists be without made up words like: sexting, mannorexia and staycation? (probably in better publications).

My problem is that these days there are so many outlets for people to speak/write (Farcebook, Twittsters deluxe, Textualising etc) that this non-language is thrust in one's face constantly. It unnerves me when someone I previously respected rolls out the text speak in an email or Tweets something banal with ten thousand exclamation marks. Bt mybe I nd 2 get out more.

Dogsledding in Norway: part 1

2011-02-10T09:50:00.000Z

So here's what happens when you find an emotive tune and stick a few bits of video together on top of it.

Skiing, dogsledding and snowshoeing in Norway: This time it's personal.

Sexism and its so-called victims

2011-01-25T13:31:00.005Z

You can't really be a 'victim' of sexism can you? The word implies that if a builder cops a perve and yells "nice pair", the colour in your cheeks will drain and you'll slip to the pavement as a stream of blood quietly trickles from your left ear.

No, be a victim of bullying, terrorism, rape etc if you want, but sexism exists to be fought against, not flop underneath, sighing “woe is me and my incredibly taut, young body”. It weakens the XX chromosome to be labeled a victim.

Men of a certain calibre use sexist jibes as a code, it brings them together. Laffs about wimmin not knowing the off-side rule or being 'lookers' are just laddish behaviour that has sadly existed since, oh about the time that women supposedly started getting 'obsessed with shoes and spending eight grand a week on celebrity trash mags'.

My point is that a kerfuffle about one or two thoughtless comments completely misses the point. Sexism is everywhere. While Richard Keys and Andy Gray are lambasted for making some mildly misogynistic quips about a female linesman, no one bats an eyelid about the so-called newsreaders on Sky news who squeeze themselves into tiny outfits pre-broadcast in order to show the kind of cleavage that reeks of 'yes, I have slept my way to the top'.

I’m all for aesthetic joy, but why the hell do female presenters have to look like two-a-penny whores for their dinner? The imbalance of average older man and extremely-attractive-but-not-massively-talented woman is everywhere: from Hollywood films to DFS adverts and frankly that’s where the problem lies, not in a couple of harmless comments from two blokes in a notoriously male world. I applaud women for wanting to enter that arena, why shouldn’t they? But don’t expect the old dogs to learn new-fangled female-friendly tricks.

Meanwhile, The Daily Mail have printed some devastating images of the latest 'victim' Sian Massey. In these sordid snaps, Sian appears to be, SHOCK HORROR, wearing a short skirt! Enjoying herself! Baring her legs while on holiday! Anyone would think she was asking to be a victim of sexism.

It's not very nice what those nasty men said, no. But football isn't that nice, ahem, hookers, underage groupies, serial infidelity, egos the size of the Shard. Being uncomfortable with a bit of sexism in the football world, is like being uncomfortable with a rogue slab of meat in an abattoir.

And on that note, I leave you with this reader comment on the Daily Mail’s website which, to me, sums up why feminism is currently a losing battle:

Ah, when I cross my legs they still don't touch. And I've had three kids. My husband call this the magic triangle and says its v. important. He is handsome, intelligent and looks after us so who cares if he's a bit shallow. I love reading what fat women have to say - stop reading the DM and go for a jog or something.

- Jo, Leeds, 25/1/2011 10:49

Hate Mail

2011-01-12T15:59:00.007Z

Liz Jones: The smile of a she-devil

I can hold it in no longer. The wrath has been building ever since I set foot in Lord Rothermere's fortress of doom four years ago and witnessed a harem of matronly frumps screeching headlines like WOMEN: HAVING A JOB CAN GIVE YOU CANCER. And ever since I, unabashed and feministical Yorkie eater, became fatefully preoccupied with the website of the Daily Mail.

DISCLAIMER - I must begin by saying despite what follows, Travel Mail is possibly the best travel section of a national paper, especially the online branch. And yes, I do occasionally write for them. The below is reserved for the 'showbiz' coverage on the site - which is basically everything else apart from travel.

I have no shame in admitting that as a woman I am slightly obsessed with things like whether Kim Kardashian puts on weight, if Kelly Brook's boobs look so good without a bra, and the age old question of what actually is Britney Spears' hair? That's why I've been suckered in to pawing over a website that is patently misogynistic and bordering on paedophilic - just for fun.

Many newspapers have a slightly dubious discourse when it comes to the Sheilas. The Sun with it's saucy 22-year-old blondes, perky and pointless - perfect for its painting and decorating demographic, the Telegraph with it's posh and pretty fillies branded on the front page to decorate the more serious news inside. But the Mail, a women's paper, has got it all wrong. Or right if you are a money-sucking monopoly praying on female insecurities.

The website has become a sleazy arena for Nuts and Zoo cast offs scanning the net for flesh, and for depressed women hankering after pictures of celebrities with cellulite, to make their own dimply thighs feel better. Pictures of women's bodies overshadow the news and many stories sound like they have been written by adolescent boys who have only ever seen bosoms while leafing through mum's La Redoute catalogue late at night.

You can almost hear the hormones fizzing as new snaps of Mercedes from Hollyoaks (unable to contain her curves in a tiny white bikini) hit the picture desk. And while proper tabloid newspapers remain kings of headline writing, these online writers have clearly had lessons from an aging erotic fiction novelist, using intricate and obtuse phrases such as: Only Way is Essex girl Amy Childs is lacking support as she spills out of her very tight dress - Her plunging neckline struggles to contain her surgically-enhanced cleavage. Her heaving womanhood glistened in the morning dew etc.

Words such as TINY, HOTPANTS and TAN LINES are often used to indicate non-stories conjured up for the sheer purpose of showing some nudey pics of a completely random model in Outer Mongolia. Oh no, they probably would have to be English.

But there's nothing wrong with sexy pictures, I hear you say. And it's true. It is just the way they are presented, this active encouragement of hatred for anything but perfection. Readers are urged to comment on any celebrity stupid enough to go on holiday with anything less than a sculpted six pack. Even the supermodels are open targets. "She may be thin, but look at the size of her belly button," for example. We're actively encouraged to pick these women apart. If I was a celebrity I would wear a wetsuit.

Headlines also have a tendency to include such woman hating statements as: Isn't it time for a diet? (about Jersey Shore star Snooki after she put on approximately a nano-lb) and Is gravity even catching up with Kelly Brook? At a stretch (about a tiny mark on her chest which may have been a stretch mark) and You're not a teenager any more Geri! Former Spice Girl makes fashion faux pas in tartan mini. For a website whose readership is 90 per cent bored middle England housewife and 10 per cent bored showbiz journalist, they don't seem to mind bandying around the insults. Maybe they know that women thrive on this bitchy gossip. But we don't need it shoved in our faces, if anything we should ween ourselves off it. It's a pretty ugly quality.

The writers are also very keen on using the 'She might be only fifteen but...[insert something filthy here]' line. Like the fifteen-year-old-models are somehow different from the pray of the paedophiles they love to stir up hate for. It's as if each slimy caption on the right hand navigation is a greasy come-on, for readers who can't wait to see the naughtiness just a click away.

Anyway as I say this I have the website open. I'm hooked. Is it the quality journalism that keeps drawing me back time and time again? No. I think it must be something like that stuff they put in crisps to make you keep eating them.

Save the Alaotran gentle lemur

2011-01-07T22:00:00.007Z

The second of our lemur series (of two) for the Guardian. This time we wade into Madagascar's largest lake, Lac Alaotra, to meet the wonderful people trying to save it's last surviving lemur, the gentle lemur.

WARNING: They are a little bit too cute.

Any Human Tart

2010-12-16T11:16:00.012Z

Post-feminism my arse.

A man's life, according to the C4 television adaptation of William Boyd's Any Human Heart, is divided up into very specific sections. Each one marked by the woman he was sleeping with at the time. And for the case of dear Logan Mounstuart: leading character, brilliant wit, writer and adventurer, there were quite a few 'chapters'.

The programme was excellent. It had action (for the boys) and drama (for the girls), but its treatment of women - as pretty totems for Logan to dance around, was just another reminder that those who burnt their bras in the 70s may as well have walked back into the flames, picked out their undies all sooty from the fire and painstakingly sewn them back together, whilst earnestly darning some of their husband's socks.

If you've ever done a Mickey Mouse degree like ‘journalism’ or ‘media studies’ you'll know about the male trajectory - a narrative form as suggested by Vladimir Propp. It says that life is what happens to a man before he gets the girl of his dreams. Adventure, travel, the rites of passage, happen in this kind of manly curve full of war, cricket and football until he 'wins' his girl at the end. Meanwhile the girl twiddles her thumbs and thinks really hard about what he’d like for dinner.

Any Human Heart featured all the women who succumbed to Mountstuart, without revealing an inch of their personality (apart from Kim Catrall, who was, you guessed it, a shameless hussy). All we knew was that they were pretty, and they were his girls. What else mattered? Well everything actually. If a man is defined by the women who come in and out of his life, surely he is not just defined by those lingering focus pulls on his wife’s red lips, or the flashback of the sex he had with his best friend’s girlfriend. Without any personality, it’s hard to see what Logan/any male lead would get from these random females. I can’t think of a single drama/film/series on British TV where the males in a woman’s life are treated as such trifling non-entities.

Nineties post-feminism as heralded by the Spice Girls was meant to give wimmin power to dress sexily and still have balls (not literally) but its woeful dregs, cast off on the sullied shores of the naughties are a much less powerful picture. It might feel ‘empowering’ to perform in a basque and suspenders (I'm talking to you Xtina) but it does about as much for the sisterhood as a smack in the face with a copy of Nuts.

And then there's (Lord, yuck) Alan Sugar's comments about female Apprentice hopeful Stella being a glorified PA, Lady GaGa's fame being totally reliant on her lack of clothes, Megan Fox's career, Sky Sports news presenters, the fact Adrian Chiles is allowed to be on TV... the list goes on. Sexism is rife. And I haven't even started on the Daily Mail yet.

Social Networking gone mad

2010-12-06T11:52:00.006Z

I haven't been writing this blog much lately, because I have been too busy tweeting. Doing banal little, unimportant things, tweeting about them in a witty way and then waiting to be retweeted by other people, which in turn gives me validation for being alive.

I'm not about to harp on about the golden age before the Internet or Facebook and Twitter, but I am going to quietly judge a society that has become so self-obsessed that even mild-mannered Aunts and surly Uncles have taken to 'updating their status' to: "Snow day lol, I am sooooo excited!!!!!".

After which, I will quietly unfollow various people, and shut up.

Firstly, I used to sit next to a girl at work whose idea for a great way to start a conversation in the morning was "I'm ill". She would proceed to wax on about being "tired" and frankly I grew tired of her. I am not a cold person, but moaning is not, for me, the way for someone to endear themselves to others. Thus, while Twitter and Facebook have become arenas for the confessional - for example, when one is drunk it seems logical to air dirty laundry to all 67 of your followers - moaning about life does nothing but create and radiate negativity. So sod off.

Next the total opposite. "OMG lol, my boyfriend has just proposed, I'm going on holiday tomorrow and Simon Cowell has just told me I am actually the best person in the world, followed closely by him and Sinitta." The boasters: formally a biscuit, now a whole breed of insecure tweeters who need the world to know they are leading a life so perfect, that Utopia resembles Clapton pond, before renovation.

Gloating is not a pretty quality ladies, and I fear it is usually the girls that do this. It's about waiting for the coldest day in history and then bragging that you're on a plane to Dubai - WITH NO IRONY, it's about retweeting one of your followers when they say something like: "EmilyCPayne you are so funny and beautiful, I need your babies" and it's about creating an online version of you, that deserves to have rose petals thrown at it 24-7 for it's sheer brilliance and smouldering beauty.

Women have always been competitive in an underhand way, saying things like: "It's so unfair that I can't put on weight, whatever I eat. I wish I was like you," (while handing you the XL dress to try on). And now there is a whole forum of females desperately trying to out do each other, to validate themselves via showing off. Why tell the world you are on holiday enjoying yourself? Why not just go on holiday and enjoy yourself?

Much like Lifestyle sections in newspaper supplements, real life does not echo tweets such as "Picnicking with Pearl Lowe on Primrose Hill. Papers, sunshine, dogs. Bliss". The reality is more like: "Pass the Tennants, and get that mutt stop crapping on the gingham rug." I am happy for people who have great lives, hold on to these precious moments, but it seems sad that for anything to be deemed meaningful or real, it has to be repeated parrot-like to one's followers.

Of course when a bit of humour is brought in, it includes others, anecdotes become entertaining, the boasting, needy, self-justifying is diluted. Some people's tweets and statuses are a total joy. But much like stand-up comedians, 'funny' tweets often jar a little. Question and answer sessions, in which the 'comic' provides 'hilarious' punchlines for a gaggle of over-awed, slobbering fans, just reiterate this whole 'I'm great, you're not' thing.

Are tweets just thoughts, consciousness played out online? I am aware that none of the examples I have given are people who intentionally tap away at Twitter to irritate me, but I do wonder how many people erase and start again repeatedly, trying to perfect the idyllic 140 word update. And what's wrong with that? Editing makes a better end result. I don't know, I think I just need to step away from the Internet and actually talk to my friends.

Lodge Terres Blanches

2010-10-13T14:53:00.003+01:00

Slowly and unsurely, I am getting to grips with the monster that is Final Cut Pro. Here is a video shot at the beautiful Lodge Terres Blanches on the West coast of Madgascar, and edited into some semblance of an order by yours truly. Hope you dig the soundtrack as much as I do.

The presenting leaves a lot to be desired. It would be fair to say that I'm no Christine Bleakley.

Are you looking at me? An encounter with the blue-eyed black lemur for the Daily Mail

2010-10-09T12:46:00.004+01:00

Finally my account of our voyage into the Sahamalaza Peninsula in search of the blue-eyed black lemur, has surfaced. Alarmingly, it made its way through savage rainforests, over rocky mountains and grassy plains into the Daily Mail's travel section, along with its video-shaped companion.

You can read it right here.

The floating corridor

2010-09-29T17:00:00.006+01:00

Liberty: The Interior

The power hasn't worked now for about ten days. And dining by candlelight every night has lost its romance. So has not being able to wash up, not being able to use the toilet in our own home, and having to walk for twenty minutes to use a plug socket – surprisingly.

During one of her sporadic visits, our landlady (or should that be waterlady?) made some typically non-sequitur excuses, and told us one of her troupe of bloke friends would come and sort everything out. Looking at her pink, gloating lips as she patronizinlgy chirped: “boating life isn’t for everyone,” I wanted to shout WOMAN OVER BOARD, and push her into the murky canal.

The only slight help we’ve had, is from a nice man (who I’ll call boat man as I can never remember his name) who has lent us his generator, or ‘Jennie’ as it’s known in the business. Fortunately that means we can turn on lights, use the taps, charge our phones. For all of five minutes, until 'Jen' splutters, coughs and dies in our arms.

The ear-bashingly loud box of doom does seemingly nothing, even if you plug it in for about fifty years. I am no expert, but I would say it is completely pointless. Also, our neighbour complained when we had Jennie going inappropriately late on Friday night. Whoops.

We had an enjoyable evening though, another day, another impromptu boat party, where whiskey flows, the crisps come out and everyone talks about things like film scripts. It seems like the only way to justify living on what has officially turned into a total shitheap.

The good, the boat and the ugly

2010-09-19T12:51:00.010+01:00

There are days when the engine purrs like a newborn kitten with of a bowl of Whiskers, when folk along the canal stop to say hello, when moorhens softly coo like mobile phones and when the sun shines making soft light ripples on the pine.

But sometimes the cassette toilet wafts its ugly stench, the fuel runs out and the shower goes cold about three seconds after I have coated myself from top to toe in shower gel.

A couple of nights ago we heard a thud against the window. Thinking it was just a standard knock against the towpath (which happens whenever a larger boat goes past) I continued what I was doing (which is generally reading ancient copies of The Week, as we don't have a television or the internet, which I am not all bitter about). But then the shouting and laughing came. Two lager-swilling hobos were outside, kicking our window, finding it disproportionately hilarious. After a while they left. They were a young boy and from the back what appeared to be a middle-aged blonde obese trampette.

In the morning after a restless night, two of our neighbours had been de-pegged and their boats were floating slow and ominously towards Angel. Those cider-addled rat bags had untied them in their sleep. Thankfully 'boaters' are a close-knit breed who look after their own. Someone must have alerted them to this, as they were safely moored just before they entered the darkened abyss of the Angel tunnel.

Our stringy landlady has proven herself entirely useless over the last few weeks. And now she tells us another couple are moving in a matter of three weeks, we had no idea of this and were planning on extending our boat life until the weather got unbearable. But now it is being cut short. So like the sun on the water, I'm reflecting on our time here. What follows sums it up.

The good: Cruising on a Sunday, the challenge and reward of doing the locks before a pub lunch, sitting up front while drifting through Angel's weeping willows, sunsets in Kings Cross, Bar Rotunda, the Guardian's loos, cups of tea after dark, the surprising sound-proofing allowing us silent nights, drinking warm ale and rioja, eggs for breakfast, remembering that there are friendly people in London, seeing the city's beauty instead of just seeing its dirt and stress and finally liberty itself: the boat and the feeling.

The bad: Ill-timed engine failures, not having a fridge, dogs relieving themselves dangerously close to our mooring, having to fill up on water, empty the bog etc after a long day at work, in the dark and the growing number of arachnids on board.

The ugly: Why the cassette latrine of course.

A whole lock of love

2010-09-09T10:20:00.007+01:00

Going through locks is a testimony to both physical and mental bravery. With every action you take to get through the damn things, there are boaters eager to see you trip up, tourists explaining to their grans what should be happening and if you’re in Camden, goths refusing to budge while they tattoo FML into their arms with a blunt compass.

The canal also seems the perfect spot for canoodling couples on early stage dates, in full I-fancy-you-enough-to-snog-you-straight-after-you’ve-eaten-a-hog-roast bloom. There are billions of tourists around Camden lock, from drunk geezers with a plate of noodles cascading from their gobs, to groups of girls competing over who can look most like a prozzer, to fat, pink-haired alternative types and blokes wearing skinny faded denim with a floppy asymmetric mop flouncing about their earnest faces. But those boys are everywhere. Victoria Park, Islington, Camden even bloody Regents Park. There they are in swarms, wearing stripes and puffing on roll-ys.

Actually we're relishing the challenge: winding up the locks, heaving the gates open, steering Liberty through, waiting while the water rises or falls, opening and shutting the gates again. Apparently at the right moment, yanking at the doors with all your might gives way to a light prod and the water gates are opened. We only discovered that after ‘doing’ about eight locks, so currently have arms like Popeye post-spinach.

Our mooring at Kings Cross was beneficial for many reasons. The location, once renowned for being a haven for the sort of girls who attract Wayne Rooney and/or inject heroin into their eyeballs, is now beautiful, especially at night when the lights of the posh flats over the canal reflect on the water allowing us to gaze into a lifestyle so different from our own, yet so geographically similar. I can barely remember what Clapton looks like.

And the other reason it is so great is that we can enjoy the 'facilities' in the offices of a well known broadsheet. This proximity also means we can hang out in bar Rotunda and invite various staff members of said newspaper back to ours for a rocking boat party in which they all drunkenly give me a job. Well that didn’t happen, but we did have a boat party - three ciders and some chats about how supermarkets are like really evil, and stuff. The boating life brings with it a more fruitful social life.

Saying that, my new best mates are three geese called Alan, Steve and John. They’re Cananda geese, beautiful, and very friendly. There are also big-abdomened orb web spiders and kawing moorhens. They’re a damn sight more affable than commuters - going into Kings Cross means the onslaught of people, hideous shouty, angry people. I fear I am morphing into Liz Jones, and that one day I will only be able to communicate with animals in some bizarre made up language because the whole world has clearly wronged me or something.

The sun was out today so I sat starboard and was entertained by passers by, including some charming Japanese oldies who were abrubtly shouted at by a big, hairy rude cyclist, but then came and sat on the boat and chatted about where they’d been in London and asking questions about how I make toilet ‘aboard’. I speak to a lot more strangers these days.

Boat life eh?

2010-09-02T12:54:00.006+01:00

Gone are the wafting hippies of Victoria Park. We have decamped to Kings Cross. Town, commuters, the bright lights of busy N1.

Things got a lot worse before they got better. First, our engine wouldn't start. Now, in boat world that means no charging of telephonic equipment, no lights, nada. And luckily the water also ran out, our hose wasn't long enough to fill it up and the cassette lav really, really hummed.

"Living on boat isn't for everybody, " our landlady told us. That's as may be, lady, but what you're renting us doesn't even qualify as a boat, it doesn't move for starters. Effectively, Emma was renting us a corridor.

Phil, our helpful, wordy engineer, had tried his darndest to get Liberty pumping gas again, but nothing.

And then came Simon. A nice lad with a ponytail and a bike. He's another of Emma's "friends" - who seem to vary between members of her 'family on the water' to relative strangers who she may or may not have shared a bong with at Glastonbury in 1994. Simon told us we needed to press a little red button when we started Liberty up. It's crazy, but it just might work, we thought to ourselves.

It did actually, and just as we were about to pack our bags and head for dry land, a nice, warm flat with TVs, non-smelly bathrooms, storage space and that sort of thing, we stopped. Maybe living "aboard" would be right up our canal after all.

With the water re-filled and the ability to live (albeit without the fridge, which has now been demoted to a cupboard because we only have enough power for non-useful appliances) fairly comfortably, our love for Liberty reigned supreme. We were boaters. Life was great.

Driving the damn thing is a different story.

All aboard the Liberty Aylesbury

2010-08-25T10:58:00.004+01:00

Sunday 22 August 2010

Morning one of our boating experiment – the six weeks we’ll be testing out life on the water in a narrow boat – and it's clear that this will be less quaint camping holiday, more mental music festival – the sort where you lose your mind. You wake up desperate for the loo, but you have to queue, you’re thirsty but all you've got to drink is warm cider and you’re desperately in need of a wash, but chances of a hot shower are slim to none.

Ok, it’s not that bad. We do have a toilet. A very 80s sounding “cassette toilet”. But when you look at the cuboid contraption you’ll see it looks more like it was made in the 30s. It has an unnerving smell, but that could be the brie that Richard’s mother brought us, which now sits humming away in the fridge that doesn’t work. We also have a shower, but the hot water is about as likely to work as us firing up the engine and setting sail for the Caribbean.

But no, I am painting an awful picture of what is actually rather an idyllic lifestyle. Life afloat, on board the Liberty Aylsebury,currently moored in London’s beautiful Victoria Park – it couldn’t be more bohemian! I feel a bit of a fraud, actually. I mean I suppose I am bohemian in the sense that I don’t want to pay truck loads of rent for a boxy flat in Clapham, spend my life watching Strictly and eating things like McCains oven chips, but really? Do I even like hippies? I don’t know.

When we came to look around this boat, our landlady greeted us, smoking a fragrant cigarette and talking about being an artist, while wafting around, starring deeply into our eyes. I wasn’t sure how efficient she’d be at administration – or indeed life. But she was essentially a nice woman. “Everyone thinks people who live on boats are mad,” she told me, squinting into the sunset, her wild hair anything but in place.

So this morning I headed to the public loo in the park (I am too scared to use the cassette lav currently). On my way back, the ginger tramp I saw yesterday, said “morning darling”. It was like now we live on the canal, we are the natives. The real park dwellers, with greasy hair and last night’s makeup, we are more like the alchys who stay on the same bench for 72 hours, feasting on Tenants, than we are the yummy mummies and daddies walking their dogs, or the billions of joggers religiously hammering their way around the park each morning. I felt as though me and the ginger tramp are going to be seeing a lot more of each other, so hurriedly rushed back to Liberty, feeling a bit
dirty.

Of course it was wonderful to have a bowl of Dorset cereal and a real coffee while sitting outside, while ducks swam past and acorns fell off the tree onto our roof. It’s a calming life. Listening to the wireless, wondering whether the milk is going off in the fridge and where the hell Phil – our helpful engineer- is.

Richard has just come back from his first trip to the cassette. “It was ok,” he says. “ But I don’t think you ‘re going to particularly enjoy it ”.

The Old Man and the Sea

2010-08-24T14:26:00.007+01:00

On the North West coast of Madagascar, a 72-year-old Frenchman spends his days fishing for marlin and waxing lyrical about life on the sea. He lives and breathes for the ocean.

This is Jean Yves, and here is his favourite fishing story.

Top five things to do in Madagascar?

2010-08-23T14:22:00.004+01:00

There are a lot of wonderful things to do in Madagascar. I wrote about five of them for the Lonely Planet's website. Here they are.

Dairy of a taxi brousse journey

2010-08-20T16:22:00.003+01:00

Road travel in Madagascar is always an adventure, especially if you opt for the dreaded night bus. We took the five o clock bus from Majunga to Antananarivo, and here's what happened....

Expidition Flavifrons recognized

2010-08-08T16:30:00.006+01:00

So the beards at the Gruaniad thought our lemur video was a bit of alright.

Camp Bandro: video diary

2010-08-08T16:20:00.003+01:00

While in Madagascar, myself and my trusty cameraman visited Camp Bandro, MWC's well hidden conservation lodge, from which dawn voyages in search of the gentle lemur (or bandro) were the order of the day. Here is what it was all about.

I bless the rains down in Africa

2010-06-29T11:44:00.027+01:00

Arrival in Tanzania filled me with excitement. We were free! We were in a brand new country, and we met Boris, a local rasta (and friend of our former driver Adam) who would be our guide to Africa’s most famous Safari park, the Serengeti.

After an appalling breakfast at the Kivi Milimani hotel (cold coffee and bitter pineapple) we waved goodbye to the Dragoman family, repeated the tight squeezes we shared last night and boarded a shuttle bus for Arusha.

We met a lovely Irish lad called Donal. And after switching minibuses three times we were finally ready to depart. Soon afterwards, a beautiful Tanzanian bloke showed us his Vuvuzela – the controversial horn which football fans have been banned from tooting during the World Cup.

Donal was great, telling us all about which local foods to try (githiri – a plate of chapati, rice, beans and spinach like scumawiki), and to persevere with the Kenyan tea (which disgustingly, consists of hot milk and sugar, but not water). We stopped for rice and beans (hallelujah) at a gorgeous roadside café and then swiftly crossed the border.

Tanzania looks like what Africa has always looked in my head (as well as anyone else who has seen The Lion King or Madagascar 2: Escape to Africa). The ground is yellowy orange, acacia trees and baobabs dot the vast expanses and huge mountains touch the sky. It is breathtaking.

Boris and his kempt dreadlocks met us at the terminal and we hopped into his Land cruiser, our new mode of transport, which beats the Dragomobile any day. In the passenger seat, sat a friend of his, a large chap, closely resembling a hippo. Which funnily enough was his favourite animal.

Football chat ensued, and Boris and his mate found it hilarious that Rich looks like Wayne Rooney with a beard. Um, I think I prefer the Jesus Christ references.

Seeing the Masai for the first time: huge silver earrings hanging from dozens of holes, implausibly bright red and blue blankets wrapped around them, bald heads and staffs, is amazing. We past thatched villages, decorative young boys herding goats in preparation for manhood, had stones thrown at our car by Masai boys and were flabbergasted upon seeing Masai men with puffer jackets over their traditional dress while they casually texted.

The Snake park is a typical backpackers digs, with a bar strung up with signed tee shirts saying things like “Cape Town 2 Uganda – Paddy and Ryan 04” and adverts for the local brew Kilimanjaro lager: “If you can’t climb it, drink it!”. The only difference, is this place owns a black mamba, the most perilous animal in Africa. One bite from this evil genius will kill you within 24 hours. It’s run by an outspoken Saffer from Durban called Ma and her husband BJ.

Just as we’d got used to leaving our Dragoman friends behind, they turned up at the campsite. We put our tent up in the quiet shade of an acacia tree, only to return to find 12 other tents closely packed next to it. But it was a pleasure to see our old friends again.

We played darts, drank Springboks (crème de menthe with amarula) and listened as they described our replacements on the truck. Watching them go about the tasks that we have been doing for the last two weeks, and listening to those awkward preliminary conversations was bizarre. We were outsiders. But darlings Chrissie and Di insisted that we join them for dinner, and snuck us a coffee and some toast in the morning.

Boris was due at 10 am. 10.30 came and we started to get twitchy. This was the bloke who we’d already paid a sizable wad of cash for our forthcoming trip. Had he done a runner?

We called Boris. Boris answered. But it was not the Boris who we’d met yesterday. This Boris claimed he hadn’t heard from us since our first telephone call in Nairobi. It sounded very much like we’d been done. We pieced things together. When we arrived at the terminal, there were some friendly blokes, teaching us Swahili words and insisting they could help us. One of them claimed to know Boris, so he called him and told him we were ready to be picked up. Ten minutes later, we were sitting in the car with ‘Boris’, getting excited about Masai warriors and elephant sightings.

Rich got off the phone and confirmed that we had been scammed. We had lost 600 of Obama’s finest. I got very upset and then angry. One tends to, when humiliated by theft. Ma, the lovely South African comforted me. “You have to be more cynical, like me” she said. My brain went back to the moment we handed the fake Boris the cash. How could we have been so stupid? But how were we to know he was an impostor?

And then something very peculiar happened. Boris turned up. And it was the fake Boris. He had been late because he was shopping for our food. God knows who the Boris on the phone was, but fake Boris turned out to be real and we set off. I was still pretty nervous, until Florien, our personal chef, handed us a red banana each. Rose bananas are fatter and sweeter than yellow ones, so I was happy.

But nothing could prepare me for magical local Masai market. Yes there was hassle and everyone clamoring to get to the mzungus with their large supplies of cash (we didn’t have any), but wow. This wasn’t a tourist market, laden with the obligatory hand carved elephants and Kilimanjaro T shirts. I think this was where the actual Masai buy their blankets, insanely bright jewels and sandals made from car tyres. I am sure many tourists visit, but I felt lucky to be privy to such a bizarre bazaar.

Some slightly more enterprising Masai folk charged us a fair few dollars to visit their village. The brown oblong, houses are made of cow poo and we were invited inside. It's pitch black with two beds, a fire on the floor and cow hide everywhere. The Masai love cows. Dinner is accompanied by cow blood and milk mixed together (maybe it looks like a strawberry milkshake?) and when they're not jumping, sleeping or eating, the blokes tend to their cows. We did the hokey cokey with some of the kids at the local primary school and two of them cried. No doubt Richard's beard was the cause.

Next stop was the Panorama campsite, where a tent with beds (yes!), views over Lake Manyara, and a plethora of exciting African masks awaited us.

A lengthy drive through the wet rainforest of Manyara National park revealed to us giraffes, all sorts of monkeys and many, many elephants. We came back to find a plate of popcorn and some Nice biscuits waiting for us. Washed down with some Kilimanjaro tea (there is also Kilimanjaro lager and water) it was just what the doctor ordered frankly. A foul man behind us in the dining area slurped his tea loudly, belched and guffed his way though dinner.

And I still don’t know who Boris is.

In the evening we were treated to a performance by The Black Tiger – a Tanzanian acrobatic troupe, who wore slinky bright-coloured satin and had the bodies of Adonis. Rich was pulled up on stage for a limbo dance, which admittedly he performed quite well.

It had been a great day. We fell asleep in our rift perched tent and awoke to a cloudy sunrise.

It was up early for our voyage past the Ngorongoro crater to the Serengeti. The roads were rough for two hours, but Florian had made us an amazingly fun pack-lunched to munch at the Park’s, which made up for it.. Sandwich, samosa, muffin, chocolate bar, er, hello. There’s always a pest hanging around tourist picnic spots – it’s usually the violent baboon – but here, it’s the Superb Starling. An iridescent blue thing, that will get your crumbs come hell or high water.

At the gates of the park, there were three Masai boys in black, one of whom had a white painted face. Bori told us that he had earned the markings by not flinching during the circumcision ceremony. That if you are brave and don’t bat an eyelid, you are a stronger man. If you flinch, you are outcast by your clan.

The drive showed us elephant bath time, giraffes, hyenas, warthogs, some female lions lazing in the long grass, and randomly a black and white kitten.

We made up in the Dik Dik (it’s a type of small deer, ok?) campsite, right in the centre of the park. There was a baboon in the kitchen and a sunset the vision of Africa. We had a hot chocolate, with Nice biscuits and tunes on the ipod in the tent. Bliss.

We were getting to know Bori (for his name is not actually Boris) quite well. He was a rasta with a heart, so he took us to the one television set he knew in the Serengeti to watch the football. I was picturing a swanky hotel, maybe the sort you can get hot air balloon rides from, and little salty pretzels come with your drink. But no, this was a bar for the local cooks and tour guides to let their hair down. Two women, behind bars, served up bottle after bottle of the local poison to a herd of men perched on crates, cardboard boxes, whatever they could find that would hold them for 90 minutes of unadulterated sport.

Naturally I fitted right in.

Sunrise, and a drive to find a beautiful pride of lions turned out to be fruitful. The smell of early morning and pet shops fills the air at this time, and it’s freezing. Silence was stirring, vultures hanging in the trees, hippos quietly trumping and the sun making it’s way upwards until the day had finally started.

The Mum lion and her cubs were lazing under a tree, while Dad was snoozing by a bush about 20 metres away. There were about eight 4x4s hovering eagerly, their passengers hastily snapping at the big cats, hoping that one of them might do something, might pose for the perfect “I’ve been on safari” type picture.

Luckily, Dad awoke from his slumber and made a manly journey over to where his wife and kids were sitting. As he strode across the grass, his enormous mane swung in the wind. Bori whispered to me: “The Lion King”. It’s weird that male lions look so grandeoso, but are basically quite pointless. There was a ginger man in the truck in front of us, who had a rather large bouffant, and striking bushy beard. At one point his face, like the lion’s was side on to me, the two together in profile. Simba and Mufasa were reunited at last.

I interviewed Bori on the bonnet of the truck, where he told a hilarious anecdote about lions, involving him whipping off his huge rasta hat, to reveal his long, leo-like dreadlocks. Unfortunately he got it slightly wrong, and said ‘female lion’ at the moment he unveiled his ‘mane’. Whoopsie.

We camped on the edge of the crater among elephants and what from the inside of the tent sounded like a hailing blizzard. It was actually just some light rain, but boy was it cold. It was the coldest night in the history of camping. We ate well, met a lovely Swiss couple and then curled up in our tiny tent for what would be the least amount of sleep I have ever had in one night.

But the next morning, we watched a lion killing a young zebra in the Ngorongoro crater. Well almost.

The zebra had strayed from its herd and was wondering around aimlessly. A lion, in stealth mode crept on her haunches, through the long grass towards it. Suddenly the zebra looked scared, he knew. His fate was set. You could smell the fear. He had nowhere to turn (but away from our truck, so we got a really crap view). The lioness started running, bounding towards her prey. They ran behind the queue of 4x4s in front of us, and the kill was made. Suddenly Bori revved the engine, there were about 15 safari trucks all speeding towards the kill, everyone wanting to see what they’d seen on nature programmes, but real, in the flesh.

We watched and listened as the lion drained blood from the zebra’s neck and pulled out it’s innards for a tasty meal.

The crater is strange. It’s a bit like being on the moon, but there are hippos and hyenas living here. It is grey with dust, but at the same time, it has a lake, a rainforest and lush greenery. The creatures of the Serengeti come here during their dry season to get a bit of moisture.

And talking of moisture, it was the last night ‘on tour’, so we headed back to Snake Park in Arusha and bought Bori and Florien a drink. The real Boris turned up. A Zimbabwean chap with a big grin. I think he may have been a little annoyed with Bori for stealing his clients, but in the end, they made up and even made business. The Dragoman massive arrived. It was Chrissy’s sixtieth birthday. Drinking games were played. I cringed. But it was great to see everyone. And say goodbye for the umpteenth time.

Arusha to Nairobi was a hellish, long journey, we had a flat tire and a roadhog driver. The Kivi Milimani hotel was still awful, so we had dinner in a local hovel of boiled potato and banana.

It was our last morning in Africa. They say (when they’re being particularly cheesy) that it takes a while to remove the dirt from under your nails, and the dust from your clothes, but Africa never leaves your soul. I tend to agree.

Jinja Ninjas

2010-06-28T08:22:00.022+01:00

As Rwanda turns into Uganda, all you can see are massive hills. Their height defies gravity, as do those working in the paddy fields which lie almost vertically down their slopes. With all this greenery, it would be less surprising if this was Asia, but Africa?

Where are the dry grasses and acacia trees?

After a night in almost luxury back at Lake Byonyoni (we upgraded from our tatty tent to one with beds in it and hurrah – electricity sockets!) we trucked on to another watery haven – Lake Mburo.

I was feeling off kilter so ducked out of the walking safari in favour of relaxing at camp with the grumpy Australian couple, and Ida – one of the glamorous Danes. Ant kindly put up my tent, and despite his nuances, I like him. Adam, the other driver had malaria. We were all very aware how easy it is to catch.

Rich assured me that the walking safari was great, and took this amazing photo of an impala. Incidently impalas are much like Bob Marley. They have many wives and children all over the place.

I sat in the bar and made a birthday card for Dave. Oh, lovely quiet Dave.

By the time the the others arrived back I felt well enough for a can of Castle and a sunset cruise with Rich, Chrissy and Di (the lovely London dancers). It was beautiful: we saw sea eagles, colourful kingfishers and a hippo swam under our boat.

On most of our journeys we stop at a supermarket (which vary in levels of hygeine), Denford stocks up for lunches and dinner, and the rest of the truck stock up on booze, crisps and Rum and Raisin Dairy Milk. There must be a trail of shops in our wake with gin and tonic shortages and bursting tills. You can see why truckers get fat, sitting down for hours on end and grazing on crud is a fast track to fatland. Our well, you’re only thin once, as they say.

Uganda’s capital, Kampala is an ugly city, whose outskirts contain hundreds of hand painted shops, with signs saying things like God is Good, Great Beer – Great Taste, and er, Coca Cola. But there’s a fantastic ShopRite (huge supermarket) which, after ‘bush camping’ resembles civilasation.

The good news is, I haven’t got malaria. I never really thought I had it, but what’s a hefty dose of health anxiety between friends. For a few days I felt rough, headachy and sick. It costs two dollars to get a test and I thought, why the hell not?

The mazungu (white man’s) clinic only dealt in appointments, usefully, so Ant and I went to the local place. A quick jab in the wedding finger, followed by some anxious staring at posters about Mbola (the deadly disease where pretty much everything liquidizes) in the waiting room to the sounds of the world cup, and out popped the doctor, who gave us both the all clear.

Our taxi driver tells me he’s had malaria three times this year. He crosses his fingers it wont be four, but despite Africans having a higher anti malarial threshold, they of course, aren’t dosing themselves up with expenisive Malerone or dubious stomach churning Doxycyclone. It’s rife at the moment, and it seems on every overland truck we bump into there is one traveler suffering.

We're in Jinja – where Idi Amin was born and grew up, honing the chip on his shoulder, and it is exactly what I expected. It is home to the white water rafting capital of the world, thus, it is full of arrogant, beer swilling Antipodeans who think doing extreme things will get them laid. It usually does. But it is much more gorgeous than I imagined.

We’re camping so that our tent opens out onto the white water of the Nile. And talking of white water, I almost went white water rafting. So close that I signed the form and stood there waiting for the safety instructions for this Grade five reign of terror. Then I just decided it wasn’t for me. I chickened out. I felt bad for all of about five seconds. I felt like a let down to the entire sea-bleached haired adrenalin junkie society, I felt like a loser. Then suddenly I realized that I would actually rather eat my own eye ball than sit on a rubbery boat and get chucked around for “fun”.

So I went horse riding and then spent all our money on tat/lovely presents. We trotted through minute muddy villages, past schools of adorably tiny children, saying Jambo to all and sundry. My stud was a stunning thing called Tanqueray. I was keen to canter, but some of the elderly riders were screaming when their four-fended friends even so much as twitched a hoof, so it was ruled out.

The shops all sold the same wooden spoons with giraffe heads for handles and overpriced sarongs, but it was good to finally walk through a town, rather than bound along in the truck, aimlessly taking photos of hedges. Various team members bought traditional African fabric, which made me cringe for some reason.

Rich came back looking like a shadow of his former self. My hero. And then the evening was spent watching the football and the White Wafting video. Which were both really really interesting.

Morning came, and it was time for our epic journey back to Nairobi.

The hungry child. At several of our lunch stops, we have been joined by a throng of bony children, who hang around expecting us to give them food. They wear broken clothes, shiny white grins and look at us with big sad eyes. Meanwhile, we unload hunks of bread, cheese, salads and all the pickles you can imagine and proceed to overeat, after which, we pack it all away, get on the bus and power off into the distance.

Some feel guilty, others lay down the moral high ground, saying: “It’s handouts from white people that have made Africa the way it is.” Surely that would be the poverty, warlords and machete happy armies with dollar signs in their eyes. In Madagascar, the amount of hassle you get from street children and vendors makes it so easy to flip them away, shouting no. They’re annoying.

But the idea that feeding hungry children the leftovers of your lunch, will somehow perpetuate the bigger picture here is hard to believe. We have the food. They don’t. If you can help a child who hasn’t eaten for days surely you should. I don’t know.

By the time we arrived in Nairobi for the final time, our last night together as a trucking family, it felt like we'd be waving goodbye to some really good friends. All 21 of us ate an awful meal at the hotel washed down with Castle lager, and wonderful Barry gave me some words of advice on how to handle being a Piscean. Wise words. There were some genuine hugs and then bed. The next morning, we'd be on our own, heading for Tanzania.

Uganda to Rwanda

2010-06-27T04:55:00.008+01:00

It was Richard’s birthday, so as a treat I look him to the Queen Elizabeth National Park, between lake Edward and lake George, to see Elephants, hippos and buffalos. The campsite was back to basics: long drop, musty tents and dinner round the campfire. One tends to take so much for granted in England, it’s not just the quality of the lavatory, it’s the location. Once you’re wrapped up in a tent, getting to the bog in a pitch black, wild environ leaves much to be desired.

As we drove through the park, huge cranes flew past the windows in threes. Chrissy, one of the gorgeous ex go-go girls dropped a rum and raison Dairy Milk out of the window. The baboons had a field day.

After setting up camp (the site overlooks the lake and is infested with warthogs) we boarded a safari vessel, and seeing as how there were Aussies, Brits and Danes present, we took some lager with us. Wow, hippos are great. Bobbing up and down, yawning and proudly waddling out onto the mud banks, displaying a hell of a lot of belly. There was a family of elephants packing their trunks and saying goodbye to the circus. Actually they were just wading in, mothers, dads, babies, uncles and aunts.

It worried me, as I’d heard that when elderly elephants are about to pass on, they walk slowly into the water, where their tired limbs finally succumb to the water and they drown – thus creating the elephant graveyard.

It was gin and tonics o’clock, so we sauntered into a beautiful safari lodge, next to our scruffy campsite. There were huge, sleek wooden sculptures everywhere, stone décor, a well stocked bar and stunning views over the park. The only thing spoiling the view for me was a woman wearing a yellow G-string bikini in the swimming pool. Ant saw it, and said: “There you go, Rich. Happy birthday.” I personally thought the muffin I bought with a candle in the top, was a better present. The dancing girls sang happy birthday and Chrissie gave Rich a leg over. Or something. It was a sight to behold.

We stayed up late with Will and Tracy, the lovely and fun UK/OZ couple, and later Chrissie and Di, who now go by the collective name of Ab Fab. They are real Cockney gems, with full make up, gorgeous smiles and lashings of bouffant blonde hair. Chrissie, who could be Joanna Lumley’s less posh sister, told us of her horrific car crash and consequential surgery. It was moving, and she tells a great story. Rich and I, and Lyn and Derek, the mother and father figures on this trip were gripped and howled with laughter when she went on to talk about a particularly saucy massage she had in Morocco.

We were woken in the night by the grunts of a troup of hippos trampling past our tent.

Travel is long and tiring in East Africa, but we were rewarded with a night at Lake Bunyonyi (place of many little birds) a silver, misty lake with luxurious hillside facilities and the World Cup on TV. It must be good here, because at the height of his barbarous reign of terror, Idi Amin bought a lovely property here. We’re camping on the grassy shores of the river and I had a blissful solitary gin and tonic next to our tent on arrival. In a group of 24 people, a moment alone is a rare treat. I sat and watched as huge birds soared past, feeling rather smug.

To get to Bunyonyi, our gargantuan vehicle had to career over tiny mountain tracks with sheer drops to certain death. Several people shut their eyes as we went around corners.

England were playing, which automatically made me feel tired, so I found the designated internet computer, where one of the porters chatted me up and hovered furtively. The same man later asked Rich if he knew an Emily, and if she had a boyfriend and if he was with her on the trip. Rich confirmed all questions, though failed to divulge his identity.

The loos at the border were typically rank.

We arrived in Rwanda’s capital, Kigale, in the morning. We were in Rwanda. Wow. The city is a huge industrial skyline and a smattering of shacks. African cities (apart from Cape Town) are not known for their beauty.

The genocide museum left us bereft and appalled. It was interesting to read that German anthropologists played such a huge part in separating the Tutsis and Hutus, measuring their skull size and setting them off against each other. The museum made the point that before colonisation, the two 'tribes' lived happily along side each other.

Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński, whose amazing book The Shadow of the Sun (just £9.99 on Amazon) says there was always hatred between the cattle owning Tutsi, and the more lowly Hutu people who were pushed off their land to make way for more cattle. Either way it ended so bloodily, it doesn't really matter who was who.

Rwanda is also home to the black glossy mountain gorilla, a mystical and powerful beast, the obsession of Dian Fossey, better known as Sigourney Weaver, whose anti poaching movements ended in her being brutally murdered with a machete.

Our mountain hike was classified ‘intermediate’. It was a six hour adventure through bramble, thorns, bamboo and spiky shrubbery. There was no secure footing, each step a probing question, will I slip, fall and tumble down the mountain? Scorching sun, mud everywhere, wasps, ants and six hours of up and down hill scrambling. But boy was it worth it.

The first glimpse I caught was a sliver of black fur in the trees, just a metre or two away. Would this beast attack? Our guides ushered us on to a safer area, where the giant silver back was lounging in the foliage with four babies and their mother, all lazing and preening each other, completely obliviously to us. We were still about a metre away.

Youngsters frolicked in the branches, comically falling off and tripping over, munched on branches and one made a nest. We stayed for an hour, just watching, and just as we were leaving, the big bad male stood up, to protect his family. He was suitably terrifying. As we left, one of the guides suddenly pushed me and two of the others at the back into the bushes. Another male was passing, and quickly. We could have touched his fur we were so close.

We’re staying in a converted hospital on the outskirts of town. It looks ike the prison on Robin Island were Mandela was holed up. In the evening we were treated to a ‘local meal’ of rice, plantains and lots of ugali (maize) at the home of a Rwandan man who would talk to us about the history of the country. It was a shame we’d just finished a six hour hike and were all exhausted, and also that we were all too shy and afraid of asking impertinent questions to someone who had lived through the 94 genocide. It's not something you can really reduce to simple touristic interest.

Trucking great

2010-06-26T18:30:00.008+01:00

Day two was all about the Kariandusi school. Much like a township tour I once did in Cape Town, visiting children in school in Africa was like going to the zoo. I cringed as various members of the group took photos of the children and we awkwardly plodded about looking white and helpless, cooing and patronizing in equal measures.

The headmaster was a charming gentleman with great cheekbones and a peaceful nature, which seemed to infiltrate the pleasant the hill top school. It was hard to believe how well behaved and tranquil the pupils were. I imagine a Kenyan visiting a primary school in Knowle West would run for the hills.

The library was well stocked. Some might say too well stocked, as Rich spotted some adult fiction on the shelves. I'm not entirely sure how Mills and Boon made it onto the curriculum. We were here because Dragoman donate some of their earnings to improving the place, and various volunteers have planted trees, painted classrooms etc. Sadly, we didn’t’ have time to make much of an impact. Other than reinforcing the view children have that mzungus (people of European descent) are just fools with huge cameras.

It was all aboard Caprice for a six hour slog across Kenya. Roads are marginally better than in Madagascar, yet being on a ten tonne truck means we at the back actually leave our seats as we go over speed bumps, of which there are many.

I could write a book about the characters on this bus, but for now here’s all I need to report: There’s an older couple, ex army and as cheerful as the burning pits of hell, who are hilarious. There’s a fruity Londoner who mimes emphatically to Fleetwood Mac songs and showtunes from Wicked. And there’s a couple of gin swilling dancing girls – who like cheese have matured with grace. Their stories about dancing on stage with Ken Dodd are something else.

Our journeys are spent listening to power ballads and looking out of the window at Kenya, not the Kenya of luxury safari lodges, but its streets and streets of identical shops with hand-painted signs and hilarious names, like Scams Investments, at the traditionally build women in fantastic, bright dresses, at the babies strapped to their backs and men reclining on big silver motor bikes.

Everyone smiles at us and waves frantically.

At night, we parked up in Elderet, a campsite just before the border of Uganda. After bush camping, this place – complete with open fire and exquisite curry (the owner is Indian, and has a nack with paneer) seems a total dream. There’s a downpour, so we head to the cave like bar to drink red wine and sit by the fire. There are 12 dogs here, who keep us awake, but it’s bliss. Until are 5.45 wake up call the next morning.

At the border there is a long queue and disgusting loos.

After no man’s land, the small stretch between countries, I try to spot the difference between Kenya and Uganda . So far, everything looks similar. We cruise a wide main street of brightly coloured mobile phone shops, sofa sellers and cluttered butchery shops. The bloated handmade chairs that sit outside along the main roads, look like large ladies wearing traditional bou-bous (?), it’s as if rows of Winnie Mandelas are lounging in the sun. We stay at a backpackers hostel where fresh faced youths wax lyrical abouit NGOs and cultivate their dreads.

Kibale National Park - a rainforest teeming with technicolour butterflies - is home of our closest known relatives, the chimps. We were divided into groups to see these beasts, while trekking through a relatively tame rainforest. Well, that was what I thought until the killer ants attacked. And attacked, and attacked. Hundreds of the things crawled all over my leg, up my trousers and into my belly button. I morphed into a three year old and wept with irritated panic.

The chimps are, as Barry (the Aussie Londoner who loves ‘strong women’) would say, “fntaaastic”. We tripped over branches and brushed past bramble to see them, high up in the trees with babies on their backs and swinging through the canopy, looking like hairy humans with every bumbling movement.

As the afternoon mellowed, the chimps’ calls got louder. It was dinner time. The swooping moans were almost deafening. It sounded like there was a ferocious fight going on around us. Our guide lead us further into the forest. “The mother is calling her young to dinner,” he told us. There was nothing vicious about it. But running through the trees surrounded by these ear piercing sounds was the closest I’ve been to the frontline.

We drove on to our home for the next two nights: a beautiful hillside campsite, between nine massive and green tea plantations. As a treat the crew had set up our tents for us. Morale was high and the long drops had seats.

Uganda has got a lot greener. It’s positively lush here. Green and dewy, with tea and frangipane growing everywhere. Its hard to believe this continent holds the Sahaharah and the dry plains of the Serengeti. The sun boils through the day, but evenings are chilled and we sleep soundly in our tents.

We took a guided walk around the tea plantation, learning all about the origins of a cuppa. The workers earn cash per kilo here so their pace is quick and their sweat prolific. Rich offered to help one man, but only made matters worse as he got in a pickle with his tea picking. The afternoon was just below uncomfortably hot, so naturally I sunbathed.

The Truck, like the cow, in Africa, is the king of the road, where other vehicles flounder in mud or over potholes, the truck pushes through, and its driver has the key. This and lashings of public school arrogance makes it currently quite difficult to converse with Ant, our leader, without squirming under his giant ego. This would later change, but only in good time.

Around meal times there is always a wild frenzy of people queuing, armed with plates and cutlery hoping to load up on food, worried that it will run out. The table and washing up things are laid out, then comes Denford, the amazing and placid chef, and then chaos. But tonight the boys have gone into town and are not back yet. It gets to 7, 8, and then 9 oclock and still no sign of them. When a group of people are hungry, certain people go into meltdown. Others start to collaborate, start a war effort, come up with ideas. Shamefully I just watched as a couple of the girls made popcorn, soup and some amazing spiced potatoes. I wouldn't survive two days on Big Brother.

Safari so goody

2010-06-17T20:19:00.013+01:00

At approximately four in the morning, I woke in a tent to the unmistakable sound of a lion’s hungry roar. In a slumber, I turned to Rich. “What’s that?” I said. He snored. There was barking, a hyena. The pair circled the campsite. It was our first introduction to sleeping in the wild in Africa.

Kenya! How things have changed in such a short time. People are bigger and blacker and they speak English, and zebu have turned into donkeys. Views are huge, unbounding, massive, seeming to never end, oh, and we now have a ‘Tour Leader’.

Tall, dark and wildly Nomadic (when I was in Malawi….) it turns out our Leader is from Fulham. Within three minutes of meeting him, we knew pretty much every stamp in his passport, including the one that said TOOL. But thankfully the others in the group seem lovely. There’s backpack loads of travel boasting, and you can't go three minutes without the Serengeti being brought up, but as far as things go, we could do a lot worse.

And the South London element is more than made up for by the fact we have seen the most incredible beasts imaginable in just two days. And some ok animals as well.

The Dragoman truck can only be described as behemoth. It’s the size of around six taxi brousses stacked up on top of each other, has gigantic wheels and room to swing a pony. There are three leaders, Denford, the beaming cook from Zimbabwe and the drivers: Adam, and Ant, who have appeared in the Observer travel section don’t you know. Above our heads we have netted areas for all our day to day belongings: mozzie spray, snacks that sort of thing, and there’s a library at the back, of which Rich has picked up an epic tome, entitled Stalin.

And talking of communist dictatorships, this trip we have embarked on, is not by any stretch of the imagination, a holiday. We are each enlisted with jobs (mine is puttng the stools out, and then away at the end of meals). All thoughts of luxury treehouse lodges have left the building. This is going to be hard yacker.

After a relatively comfortable night in Nairobi, a typically polluted capital city, we had a six thirty start (fry ups before 7am should be made illegal) before our first stint in Caprice (all the trucks are named after ‘supermodels’ apparently, and the dilapidated state of ours says a lot about Caprice’s tired career).

At Lake Nakuru there’s a candy floss pink line on the horizon. It is made of flamingoes. We cruised through this beautiful National park, though the pale green savannah in slow motion, spotting zebra, giraffe, lions, white rhinos and countless birds, the vultures and storks of particular note. Safari buffs refuse to use plurals, for example: “Oh, its such a shame you missed the four leopard.”

It was clear that several of the group were trigger happy photographers. On day one, I barely knew a thing about anyone, but several people had leaned over my table and practically sat on my lap in order to get THAT quintessential Safari photo. The adventure, both through Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, and into the depths of my patience was beginning.

We like to croc the party

2010-06-05T06:17:00.015+01:00

I’ve never been a fan of holding animals. There’s always the risk of something unpleasant happening. As my dear late grandmother once said: “One end kicks and the other end bites.” Now, I’m sure chameleons don’t kick or bite, but having one such creature gripping onto my arm, I was pretty sure it was about to relieve itself. Thankfully it didn’t.

It was our last day in Tana, so what better way to spend it than with ten thousand jaw-snapping reptiles at the Croc Farm? There were some seriously beefy specimens on show and we arrived just in time for the feeding display. Five brave men appeared with buckets of meaty goodness, which they tipped out on the bank of a river teaming with gigantic crocs.

And just like that old advert for Mr Dog (now called Caesar), the crocs came from all directions over land and water, for those succulent meaty chunks.

They were really quite fat.

To assert his place at the top of the food chain, Rich ordered a croc kebab in the restaurant. Apparently the meat tastes like a cross between fish and chicken. Later we were led around the park by one of the rangers. We saw tiny baby crocodiles and then some larger two-year-old ones, which the ranger told us were the tastiest as the older specimens were as tough as old boots. I thought it was quite sad to eat tiny toddler crocodiles, but Rich was still digesting one of them, so I didn’t mention it.

We held some smooth, cold snakes, saw a fosa (the beautiful catlike lemur predator), stroked a sixty-one year old giant tortoise, said hi to a sifaka and perused a selection of hideous crocodile bags and shoes. It was all going so well. And then appeared the stroppy receptionist, with a seething glare that could have killed a small dog.

“Monsieur, monsieur” she said pointing at Rich (who is looking more and more like Jesus by the day). “You have to pay 100, 000 Ariary to film in this park,” she fumed, and then babbled angrily in French about confiscating the tape. We didn’t know where to look. But we did have a cunning plan. Being that we have limited funds, and failing communicate that we were making a video for their website (so officially they should be paying us) Rich handed over his cleaning cassette in disguise as the tape we had just shot. It was all so simple, she just had to believe.

Then. finally, after furrowed brows and harsh words in broken Franglais, we managed to get through to her softer side and she let us off. Phew.

Aside from leaving a slightly nasty taste in our mouths (and a crocodiley one in Rich’s) the Croc Farm was great.

The journey back from Fianar to Tana – out last ever TB ride - was predictably awful. I knew something was rotten in the state of Denmark when the woman behind us started to produce goblin-esque squelching noises. One minute she was loudly trumpeting into her handkerchief, the next she was spewing into a carrier bag. Oh the joy of listening to someone wretching for seven hours. Also onboard was a solemn American missionary, with a striking resemblance to Nicholas Hault. I’m not really sure what his job is, seeing as everyone here is Christian already. We stopped for rice n bean and met the cutest old lady in the world.

Being back in the capital meant a little treat was in store for the Spraynes. Andry and Juliana had invited us to dinner at their home on the other side of town. We were so excited we bought some cheese! It had been a while since we’d seen our only friends in Madagascar, and they were preparing us some traditional Malagasy cuisine. Tsara be!

Getting there was a total drag. We picked up a 2CV taxi and bartered the driver down, but rather than take us directly to Ambohipo, he had to drop his mate off, who lived 50 score miles and ten from anywhere. Traffic was thick, and drivers ruthless. We were an hour late.

Andry and Juliana were waiting for us with beaming smiles, and took us up lots of stairs to their homely apartment with views of the Rova. The neighbourhood is surprisingly tranquil for Tana and their flat was charming. We dined like kings, on riz Cantonaise (Chinese style yellow rice), salade des oeufs, crevettes, mashed potatoes with mayonnaise and cassava with coconut milk, washed down with a trusty jar of Fresh.

Our digestif was an interesting concoction of rum, condensed milk (ranono mandry) and egg yolk, which Juliana makes herself. It’s called Alexandra, and made me think maybe I do like eggnog. We had some marvelous chats, flicked through the family snaps and enjoyed jokes galore. It was sad to say goodbye.

We are a little down in the mouth generally to say veloma to this fascinating, eye-poppingly beautiful, excruciatingly difficult, confusing, sad, jovial, ruined, untouched country. There is certainly much more to see. But the next chapter looms. And until then, a tout a l’heures.

We'll take all the beans Anja Reserve supply.

2010-06-03T10:24:00.002+01:00

To many Malagasy men, wives are like windows. A house with one window, just has one view, which you soon get tired of looking at. If your house is on fire, having just one window means the smoke gets trapped inside, more windows means more chance of survival. So generally, the more windows – or wives – you have, the better.

In fact, the only thing stopping men from having more than about three is the 800,000 Ariary zebu he has to present to each of his new woman’s parents as a dowry.

So what about les dames? Are they allowed to have lots of husbands too? Well yes, actually. But only if they live in a big enough town, so they don’t end up marrying two brothers or best friends who would end up fighting over you. Unlike polygamy, having too many men within a close proximity would be frowned upon.

That’s what Adrien, our guide around the Anja Reserve, tells us over lunch.

It was Mother’s Day as we made our way to Ambalavao from Ranomafana and there must have been something in the air, as everything we saw was quite peculiar.

At Fianar we bumped into our old mate Jasara, who had helped us out with various Taxi brousse enquiries. He sat us down in his office, where we had a Coke and some big chats and he showed us the swastika tattoo on his right leg. His English is impeccable and his smile huge, which makes it difficult not to like him. But I’m pretty sure Hitler didn’t have him in mind when penning Mein Kampf.

On the bus, our driver was so busy picking his nose and examining the findings that he failed to notice some fowl in the road. We ran over a chicken and it popped.

Families were out with their mothers, all dressed up in smart Sunday best. One woman had taken mother’s day a step too far, as post breast-feeding she had forgotten to button herself back up - revealing a lot more information than necessary.

Anyway, talking of lunch, we’re sitting upstairs, or should I say upladder, in a traditional Betsileo (the tribe here in Ambalavao) mud house. Each corner of these crumbly homes has a different purpose. In one, its inhabitants cook, another they communicate with the spirits, another with their family and another they make rice. We are dining on the floor of one of the bedrooms with reed mats as a table and a view over the mountains. There’s a Jesus poster on the wall and the roof could cave in at any moment.

Adrien, Rich and I have been treated to a feast of stacked-high rice with white beans, followed by a banana and some sweet coffee, by one of the local ladies. It’s a whole different way of eating here: one piles in lots of basically flavoured, starchy foodstuffs, rather than fiddling about with garnishing and side salads. We’ve grown to love it, especially on days like this one, where power walking is the name of the game. After eating we head downstairs, to see the lady of the house’s skills with the warp and weft on her weaving loom.

From Ranomafana, the geography changed considerably. Rainforest and waterfalls turned to spiny cacti and naked, rocky mountains. Today we’ve walked through bright green leaves and climbed rocky staircases, like plate tectonics, looking for Madagascar’s trademark primate: the ring-tailed lemur.

Pushing through high grass, tip-toeing over stepping stones, through corridors of viney trees and scaling steep rock faces made it a challenge. But this variety and difference from the other tree-based national parks meant Rich and I “thoroughly enjoyed the terrain”.

At our hotel, Les Bouganvillees, we met Alice, a rookie guide, who would be joining us on our day-long hike. My French must be improving, because around three minutes into our conversation, we had already discussed the pros and cons of having children, and that she had recently come out of a long term relationship and preferred being single. She also said I was charmandu, which means lovely. So naturally, she was great, although she did smell phenomenally bad.

Stripey ring-tailed lemurs are the zebras of the treetops. Except, if they are trying to camouflage themselves, they’re going about it the wrong way. That monochrome tail really gives them away. And there were loads of them at Anja. Grooming each other in groups, darting through the trees, snoozing - and a couple of plucky specimens hopped onto the forest floor, prancing up to have a look at us.

One very lucky chap got a piece of Rich’s banana.

Adrien dished out his pearls of wisdom on these fellas, as well as the Bestsileo traditions; pointing out some ancient tombs within the rock face, where country folk rebury their dead seven years after they have been buried in the ground. We saw crazy insects, baby baobabs and a half naked Rasta bathing in a rock pool. You can tell this National Park is community run, because instead of beige clad tourists with their socks tucked in, actual people live here.

On the home stretch we pitied a chameleon being eaten alive by ants and took a trip to yet another hellish Malagasy toilette.

We had missed our lift, so by foot we traveled over the landscape we had admired so much from the minibus window. Over the paddy fields, which shape the land into green steps, passed ploughing zebu and under the shade of the humungous mountains, which as Adrien pointed out, looked like a woman lying down.

Money has been an issue while we are here, as there are no banks, and we slightly underestimated the amount we’d require. This made it awkward when it came to tipping Adrien, who had been remarkably good, and KO’d our decision-making when it came to dinner. There was no choice but to knock back a couple of sleazy snacks from the local street stalls. In the end, these were delicious. Deep-fried cassava, banana and potato followed by salty peanuts. Gillian McKeith would literally go ape.

Ambalavao is a burnt umber coloured town, where old men wear cowboy hats and wrap lambas (sarongs) around their shoulders. It’s a happening place, which looks like the set of a Western. We’re disappointed to miss the Zebu market that takes place every Wednesday, as it would no doubt have been quite a sight. But due to this weekly event, there are plenty of bars, and plenty of pregnant young girls.

We took coffee the next morning in a hotely – a tiny local restaurant, often pitch black, usually dirt cheap and dirty – where the lady boss wiped our cups clean with a filthy rag, and three cops in camo dropped in for their petit dejeuner. It’s so much more interesting doing this than spending quadruple the price for breakfast with the vazas in your hotel. We had a chat with one of the Old Bill, who was indulging in warm milk and noodles for brekkie. Hotel Bouganvillees was ok, but nothing more, with insecty rooms and the worst shower this side of the Sahara. Dry.

And now we are back in Fianar. I felt sick so our plans to go to craft capital Ambositra were cancelled, we’ll just head back to Tana (for our departure) directly from here.

We’re staying right in the thick of it in a rank hotel that I doubt has seen a foreigner since the French first arrived. It’s the polar opposite of the Zomatel, where we stayed last time. There is a loo where the balcony should be, so you can watch the world go by while nature takes its cause. Or they can watch you, if you are that way inclined.

This city is big, more backward than Tana and the air is filled with the hot stench of human waste. But we found a charming street side patisserie called Chez Chef Yves, for a lunch of rice and two types of bean: tsara masu, the white ones, and voanjobory, big black ones.

We hit the supermarket, which was a lot less air conditioned than I had hoped, and sold a truckload of tat, such as a Casio keyboard from the 80s with its demo playing on a loop.

We're in hot water now

2010-06-01T12:34:00.018+01:00

6pm, Ranomafana (direct translation: hot water). It’s pitch black, we’re sitting in the backseat of a souped up, blacked out Peugeot, listening to ‘90s rap with some serious bass. We’re bouncing past the rain forest, and Mark Morrison and Faith Evans are here for the ride. It feels like we're about to commit a felony or do a drive by. But we’re just here with our head torches on, looking for mouse lemurs.

In a bush next to the road, we spot one. My camera dies instantly. I whisper a swearword. But actually looking at the creatures through my eyes is better than through the lens, and these furry blobs are cuter than should be legal. Controversially the nocturnal lemurs are baited with banana here, to guarantee a sighting. It feels a bit like cheating, but then you also feel cheated if you pay up and see nothing. And what’s a bit of banana between friends? We also see bright green chameleons in all shapes and sizes, smooth ones, scaly ones and ones that are actually leaves. And the tiniest reptile imaginable.

Finally, after much frustrated fiddling, my camera starts working, I stride out purposefully hoping for more lemur action. “Ok, so let’s go” says our guide and that’s that. We get back into his mate’s car and Puff Daddy joins us.

The eau so natural hot springs turned out to be rather man made. They were divided into two sections, le bain and le piscine, which I thought would be metaphorical names for a smaller more intimate pool surrounded by palms, and a larger area with flowing healing water in a kind of rocky secluded ravine populated by tropical birds. Actually they were just a bath and a swimming pool, with hot water.

To get there you walk down a spindly bridge with rungs missing, over the village’s huge gushing river. There is a line of baths in little rooms which looked a bit seedy, and were populated by a dozen little brats who kept trying to spy on the vazas. But once submerged in the piping hot tub you can see the attraction. It’s boiling and the water relaxes you instantly.

This village is the most picturesque we’ve seen yet. A market selling healthy looking fruit and brightly coloured bags and necklaces is the centre piece, and a clear stream runs parallel to the river, in which fat ducks and geese waddle and paddle. Everyone says ‘Salama” for a change and our charming digs are just what the doctor ordered.

The staff here, three smiley men with varying English skills are all so kind.

Without meaning to sound like a total tool, it feels good to get back to our Malagasy roots, maaaaaaan. And by that I mean a simple, cheap place with the potential of magic. We’ve been craving rice and beans again (French food does this to one) and on arrival the friendly hosts said of course, whatever you so desire, which is basically unheard of in this country. So after a wander down the sunny main street we gorged ourselves on this simple Malagasy plate. The restaurant was full so we ate on a strange bandstand thing on stilts in the middle of the road among the bright green geckos. It was bliss.

Our room is small and concrete, with hideous curtains and a view out onto the river and a gorgeous garden, paddy fields and the lurking mountainous rain forest.

The guide who had helped us find this place, Jean Chry, appeared at six to discuss our plans while we’re here. He’s a stumpy man with the same macho air as Evereste, but he assures us it would be an easy stroll through the trees with the chance to see golden bamboo lemurs.

To see what we’re missing, we ventured to the posh Centrest hotel for dinner. It was a ghost town, where an eager waiter was waiting to wait on us. The food was palatable and I had a carafe of South African white, but I think we made the right choice. It is so much easier to be disappointed when you pay more for a hotel. And usually the only bonuses are air conditioning which gives you a cold, and free peanuts with your drink. We have come to really appreciate the wide range of places we have stayed in.

So at the crack of dawn, we forced down an omelette de tomate and a café au lait before loitering outside for Jean Chry. An impossibly good-looking man approached us, telling us he was the J man’s son. Wow, Rich and I were both in awe of this luscious eye-lashed Adonis – he turned out to be only 19. I do worry.

We hitched a lift in a pickup truck to the forest where we met our tour companions: A tall Chinese man called George, and his wife, whose name I pretended to hear but didn’t. They had been traveling for 10 years and Madagascar was their 78th country. George had a massive camera, which beeped loudly like it was about to explode. He talked about when he lived in London and “hiking around Hyde Park”. He was a gentle giant and made sure we all got to see each animal instead of the pushing and shoving we have experienced elsewhere.

The woods were cool and crisp and we caught sight of brown lemurs, red-bellied lemurs and snatched a tiny glimpse of a fat golden bamboo lemur. I experienced a weird knee spasm which made walking down hill very difficult.

Jean Chry and his son had an interesting take on team work. Jesus, the suitably named younger would run off ahead to find the lemurs, while JC would trundle along slowly with the tourists. When Jeez spotted a furry friend, he’d give dad a call on his dusty Nokia 3310, which then disturbed the forest’s peace with its loud monophonic ring tone and flashing lights. By the time dad had answered the phone, a massive crowd had gathered around, and the lemurs had scuttled off. It was a bit like the bit in Crocodile Dundee when the Aboriginees crack out their Rolex watches. Or is that racist?

We stopped at a look out point covered in gigantic spiders.

We stopped at a leafy glade and out popped an American woman with a huge forlock of hair and a troupe of intelligent-looking people following her. “Welcome,” she boomed spreading her arms out to show the trees, as if she was the lord of the manor, and the trees were her obedient slaves. It was Patricia White, primatologist and founder of the Ranomafana national park. She had a twang of self-importance I had seen before somewhere in a primatologist. Can’t think where.

After another hefty rice and bean lunch we braved the piscine at the hot springs. It was well worth it. The water is like a warm bath, and looking up all you see are mountains, a local soccer game and a couple of zebu. There seemed to be some kind of adult swimming lesson going on, involving grown men lying on the side of the pool mimicking the arm movements of front crawl, and then making various misshapen attempts at the stroke in the water. Bottoms in the air, hands with palms facing upwards and arms splashing waywardly. It was most peculiar to watch, but reminded me of myself and my lack of elegance in water.

It was time for a massage. We made our way to the baths, where according to the guidebook a handful of local ladies offer massages to weary trekkers. A man with a limp greeted us and led us to a room with two old school tables covered in sarongs and a curtain strung up to separate them. I lay down on one and Rich the other, and we waited for one of the women to come in. The limp bloke came back in, undid my top and started work. It was like being massaged by a random friend’s dad. He just didn’t seem the holistic type. And his nonchalant bloke-ishness meant that as he walked past to do the other shoulder, I felt his mobile phone in his jeans pocket bang against me. At least I hope that’s what it was.

The morning of our departure, all the local celebrities were milling about outside our hotel. Most notably, the toddler “who speaks English” (he just waved). the guy in a wheelchair and an 106-year-old man called Dadalira.

This beaming, wizened chap was strumming a relic of an instrument which looked like a cross between a zither and a cardboard box, while the baby looked on. Soon a group gathered and a pal of one of our hotel hosts told translated, as we asked Dadalira – who was alive during colonization - some questions. His answer to the secret of life was thus:

Being a vegetarian
Sweet potatoes and casava (spinach like green stuff)
Cutting out salt
Drinking coffee and rum in vast quantities
Knee exercises daily (which he proceeded to hilariously demonstrate by bobbing up and down with alarming agility)

We took all this on board as we mounted the minibus back to Fianar.

Taxi brousse almighty

2010-05-28T13:11:00.007+01:00

You don’t drive on the roads in Madagascar, you ride them. And there is a very good reason why people avoid the back seats. Put it this way, I’m glad I was wearing a sports bra during the thirteen-hour night ride from Majunga to Tana. Yes, despite Rich assuring me they were good roads, yeehah it was a bucking bronco of a journey, and the driver took a kamikaze view to road travel.

You can listen to our blow by blow account of the night bus - accompanied by some relevant (and not so relevant) photos - here.

We downed two caiprinhas at Tropicana (where unfortunately the drinks aren’t free) and headed for the Gare Routiere. The place which had smelled so strongly of turd when we’d arrived here at night some days ago, was a happier, sandier place at dusk. Dancehall was jolting out from the bars, the pace was mora mora (calm) and we watched for an hour as the taxi brousse boys strapped a massive spangly motorbike onto the roof of our vehicle. That, along with about 32 empty wooden crates. The logic here still escapes me.

At six it was pitch black and we set off, armed with my wicker basket full of processed cheese, crackers, Cracky (yeah, cracky - our new favourite crisps), biscuits and Nosy Be rum. Within moments I knew our driver was a few fromage sandwiches short of a picnic. I gather there is some kind of machismo contest between bus drivers here, and it manifests itself when one road hog takes over another. It then becomes a race.

A malevolent Toyota took a shine to the rear end of our bus and drove nose to tail for ages, feverishly trying to overtake. When he finally drew out from behind us, our man refused to let him pass, so the two buses were careering down a tiny road next to each other at the rate of knots. He skimmed past us and proceeded to drive pensioner slow once he was in front, plumb in the middle of the road. We finally overtook again and the whole process started again. This continued at varying levels of terrifying until two local women screamed for the driver to stop it. Bloody hell, I thought, if they’re scared this is officially quite bad.

We stopped for dinner but Rich and I saw this as a rare opportunity to be stationary enough to have a snooze. Conditions when in motion were so rough it was hard to take a sip of water without almost eating the bottle, thus sleep was impossible. There were various stops, mainly for urinating, smoking, or other necessary evils.

I felt a twang of pity looking at the row of passengers in front of us. While we had paid extra to have three seats to ourselves, five of them sat in the same amount of space, including a grown man sitting on another man’s lap. It made me sad for some reason. But at least the fat man (who bore a remarkable resemblance to US rap god Fiddy Cent after years of failed bulimia) had vacated to the front of the bus.

One of the men was dozing, and having a headrest free seat meant his head was lolloping about in all directions. I donated my aeroplane pillow to the sleeping fellow, which Rich neatly propped under his head to stop the wobbling. We looked on as he came to and realized what was going on. It was a lot funnier than it sounds.

It got cold as we entered the highlands and even though we are pretty seasoned these days, we came ill equipped in summer outfits and one jacket (Valerie’s jacket actually) between us. Either the rum was talking or I suddenly became a genius, as I started coming up with great new ways to keep warm. One: place plastic bag on feet to double up as a pair of socks – it really keeps those tootsies warm. Two: jam holes in the windows with empty biscuit packaging – drafts be gone! Three: switch laptop on, to generate some heat and use cover as a hat – this one didn’t work so well.

We arrived into a very misty Tana at six in the morning. It was hard to tell how the driver could see the other traffic, but as we have learned its best not to think of such trivialities as dying and leave the life and death stuff to the experts.

The Gare Routiere Sud, where we went to buy our tickets for a little sojourn down South, has a bit of a reputation. We’d heard that you get tussled and hustled like there’s no tomorrow. But we weren’t prepared for just how much. Before we’d even got there, three men were running alongside the taxi shouting things at us in a frenzy. One of them had his head through our window and then hooked his hand round the lock and opened the door. The taxi driver started blaspheming heavily and suddenly this chap was in the car with us.

Realising we couldn’t avoid doing business with him, however hard we tried, we agreed to follow him to the ticket booth. Here about ten men sat around in a tiny room swarming with testosterone and sweat. They pushed and shoved us around and when Rich paid the man at the desk, the fella that had joined us in the car ripped the money from his hand and refused to give it back. Aggressive shouting and hand thrusting ensued until eventually the money was given to its rightful owner and we got the hell out of there.

National Express this isn’t.

Our one night in Tana saw us dine at the kitchest Thai restaurant imaginable. Later the reception lad at our hotel cheekily asked us to buy him a beer. We did, but the next morning, Rich went all Malagasy on his ass, ordering him to carry our bags to the taxi, saying sternly: “AZAFADY”. Which means please.

We headed back to the brousse station, prepared for all manner of ills that were likely to occur before our journey to Fianarantsoa. We were tugged at and bullied again and this squalid dump has a decided edginess at such an ungodly hour. Men stared at us with petty theft in their eyes, and girls and women thrust all kinds of tat in our faces, desperate for our monetary funds. The archetypal dodgy moment came when a shifty looking bloke slid up to Rich, looking left, right and left again, and held out a gold ring at hip level. Rich wondered if I might like it for a second, and then realized it was about as kosher as a bacon butty.

As usual we arrived at our wreck of a bus way too early. I used the opportunity to inspect what would be our seated hell for the next ten hours. The chairs were pleather and there were holes in them where metal spikes poked through. I couldn’t wait to jump aboard.

We found a haven in a tiny hotely with blue and white tablecloths and café au lait served in bowls.

As we’ve learned it’s best to get to know your fellow passengers because it generally improves the quality of the journey if you can throw in some rudimentary jokes here and there, rather than just looking gormless. The two women in front seemed tres jolie, until one got out of the bus, squatted and trickled one out, right before our eyes. She later hacked up several portions of bile into a plastic bag and then threw her phlegmy parcels straight past my face and out of the window. OCD sufferers would not enjoy this. Thankfully I remained relaxed, even when threatened with other people’s TB and the like.

There was a metal beam poking out of my seat next to the window, and unfortunately my derriere was a little too large to sit neatly betwixt it and the aforementioned window – so I spent most of the journey contracting piles. Lunch was rice and the “vegetarian option” which was green beans with pork bones. Lush.

Heading Southwards, the landscape changes, as do the houses. Gone are the palm-roofed shacks and sand, people live in bricked buildings here. The two-storey lodgings, which are the colour of carrot cake, look as if each brick is just resting on the other with no mortar, and the roofs are jauntily tiled. One gets the impression Hansel and Gretel may have passed through here.

We drove through what the guidebook calls classic plateau towns, Antsirabe – famed for its cheese and Ambositra, the artisan capital – I failed to understand how dozens of market stalls selling second hand men’s pants was in anyway artistic. But one may argue, what is art, anyway? The French and Dutch influence was clear in the low sloping triangular roofed buildings and things looked cleaner, greener and more airy than up North.

Fianar is, according to the Lonely Planet, ‘nothing to write home about’ so…

But. I will just say that I was on top form at the Gare Routiere, securing us tickets for our trip to Ranomafana with a discount - and managing to not get annoyed with a single person. A little attitude goes a long way it seems. Down South, the touts and hawkers are used to tourists so they up their game by learning English and telling you to cancel all your plans and let them conjure up a magic tour for you which happens to include their mate’s hotel and their dad’s taxi. It’s tiresome, but no-one actually nicks your stuff, so you put up with it.

We stayed at Zomatel – a ‘business hotel’ with a bath and a minibar. It was a little pricey and devoid of character but the curried fish, rice and flambeed banana followed by the best sleep I have had in six weeks more than made up for it.

The three hour trip to Ranomafana, home of some natural hot springs, began with us waiting for hours at the station, observing the pond life. We had our usual café au lait and distinctly average fried snack and watched as bow-legged beggars, persistent vendors and adolescent taxi brousse assistants moved this way and that, doing anything in their power to earn a bob.

One particular gentleman employed such an uncommonly debonair approach to begging that we gave in and slipped him a few hundred Ariary. He was so shocked he turned to us, saluted and gave an earnest speech in French. If only we had understood. What a man.

Ranomafana is gorgeous, at the foot of a mountain and with a river flowing through it. We chose the locally run budget option, a peaceful bungalow next to the river. Rice, beans and basic bedding were long overdue. And so, to the hot springs.

Mahita Voay Aho!

2010-05-25T13:00:00.025+01:00

While men tend to rush through life scoring goals, winning, fighting and making bold statements; women are more observant, meticulous and tend to take a more leisurely stroll. This is a sweeping generalisation, but when it comes to National Park Forest Guides in Madagascar, it is totally accurate.

Olga, our guide in Park Ankarafantsika, was a miniature woman who led us along the sandy paths at snails’ pace – unlike Evereste in Andasibe who lept wildly around, pushing past pretty flowers in constant search of the Indri – showing us everything from Tique tress to caterpillar cocoons and a mother heron protecting her chicks in the reeds.

She was a mine of information, telling us the name Ankaranfansika meant spiny mountain, that dominant male sifakas kill their wife’s babies if she has an affair, and that fish eagle chicks kill each other in their fight for survival, which is one of the reasons there are only two left in this area.

Along our gentle turn though the deciduous trees we came across brown lemurs lazing in the branches, a boggle-eyed milne-edwards sportive lemur snoozing in his perch, a very low down sifaka, countless shiny lizards, a snake, a chameleon and an aviary’s worth of exotic birds. But the best was yet to come.

After lunch we chugged around the lake on a little motor boat, breathing in the most wonderful scenery and becoming more enthusiastic about aquatic birds than I have ever thought possible. Gloriously gliding in the sun while flocks of the things swooped above our heads, it was, as Jordan might call it, ‘stunnin’. There were ibises, hunch-backed egrets, herons, whistling ducks and the last two gigantic fish eagles. Fish popped out of the water feeding on insects, creating ripples, and all the while Olga shed her knowledge, like a lizard sheds its skin.

Just after I failed at taking a photo of the eagles, the captain of our galleon yelped: “Croq, monsieur, grande croq!”. Rather than referring to the cheese and ham toastie that he’d be having for lunch, he was talking about a giant reptilian swerving through the water. There it was, a large, scaly beast just metres away from our boat. It was the icing on our wildlife-obsessed cake.

Later we took another promenade to four 500 year old baobabs – Madagascar’s landmark fat-trunked trees.

On the way back, we past the second largest paddy field in the country at sunset, taking in all shades of green from tennis ball to microleaf salad. Women in posh-looking frocks stood in their watery workplaces and men hunched over their reflection toiling in the last of the afternoon heat. We took the luxury option of getting a car, rather than a taxi brousse, so we could enjoy the breeze and the scenery without bunched up knees and the infernal din on the stereo.

Cruising past the countryside is always more charming than traversing the town. There is so much to see, every single sight making the perfect photo. Women with their hair in Bjork style buns and their faces painted bright yellow, families and produce trudging past on zebu carts and bathers decking the river beds in all states of undress. Not that I’m looking or anything. At a tiny village, called village de citron, we stopped to buy some of the extremely delicious spicy lime chutney we'd grown addicted to while with the scientists.

On our return we fell into the cool swimming pool and went out for some well earned fruits de mer.

We’ve come to love the wafting easiness of Majunga, its wide streets, pousse-pousse rides (especially Rich’s infamous vaza pousse-pousse trick– see previous entry) and our dear Tropicana hotel. It’s a relaxed affair, we’ve eaten pizza at the bar while watching Avatar with the owner (a Franch-Irish man called Paddy Brady, who drinks kir and smokes like a chimney), we’ve dangled limbs in the pool while sipping low-alcohol beer and we’ve dined on langoustine and camembert, oh my we have lived.

It's as colourful as Tana but without the general egginess. It's just more doable.

We’ve found a local restaurant qui s’appelle L’Expresso, which serves up prawns in pernod and crème caramel. We’ve certainly seen the French’s colonial mark recently, and Majunga is abundant with Parisien middle-agers moaning about the state of croissants and picking up young Malagasy beauties. One particular gent speeds around town on a quad bike with a Naomi Campbell lookalike clad in skintight white on the back. Do other men respect that? I suppose so. To me it just reeks of mid-life/late-life crisis.

And so to our overnight voyage back to Tana. We've got a few more soothing hours by the pool, guiltily enjoying Usher and Enrique Iglesias before mounting the bus of doom. We're taking a packed lunch and no doubt a bottle of rum - a few treats to see us through. A tout a l'heures.

Paradise: Tranquility vs trouble

2010-05-23T06:05:00.036+01:00

“We’re going against the wind today,” said Jacky, a rotund red-faced 70-year-old Frenchman. “So it may be a leetle, how you say? Like zees,” he laughed heartily, moving his hand to suggest a rocking motion.

His tiny three-seater plane was soon rammed with our two massive backpacks, a selection of bags, baskets, the tripod, Rich in the front looking like a school boy in a sweet shop and me looking a pallid shade of yellow.

The Zahamotel, where we had been staying for previous two days was like Madagascar’s equivalent to Benidorm. Full of other people changing, a cramped swimming pool and food that gives your belly hell.

We had had some difficult heart to hearts there, and were both ready to fly far, far away.

Once airborne, we three in this tiny craft, must have looked like Playmobile people in a little plastic plane hovering in the sky on a piece of string. Unlike in a large plane, turbulence is the status quo, and it feels like that piece of string could snap at any point.

Higher and higher we went over the island’s edge, the sand and trees getting further away, beaches looking pretty from a bird’s eye view and bamboo shacks disappearing into dots, all the way Rich grinning like a fool and me wondering if we would make it to our piece of paradise.

The landing strip was a dirt track, which Jacky, the former bush pilot, described as a ride at Disney World, and we seemed to come at it from an improbable angle, like 47 degrees or something. But it was a remarkably smooth entrance to Lodge Terre Blanche, the fly in sanctuary, one of the world’s rare virgin beaches, a place where we forgot about taxi brousses and the hot bother of busy Malagasy towns.

Sebastian, the Rwandan/Belgian owner sat us down with a tropical juice and then led us to our tranquil sea view bungalow with hammock on the porch and huge wooden doors which we can leave open all night to watch the stars and wake up to the loudly ebbing tide.

Just a second after Jacky sped up the runway for his return to Majunga, a loud purring from a nearby tree made us jump. Looking up, Rich noticed a whole troupe of sifakas in the tree next to our shack, and these fellas weren’t shy. So naturally we spent the next half an hour taking photos and Rich whipped out the video camera.

You know there is something up with your insides, when you flush the loo and a frog jumps out. Or maybe it’s just that our little bungalow is home to a veritable feast of wildlife. Sebastian tells us that if you switch all the lights of at night and lie in the hammock, after just 10 minutes you will start to hear the scuttling of what sounds like a rat. It is actually a tiny mouse lemur with huge eyes, taking refuge in your thatch. Spiders spin in the beams above our bed, bats zip in and out at dusk, dragonflies, butterflies and lizards all visit us through out the day.

Meals are communal, giving us the chance to listen to the other guests, who are a mixture of French and Andorran chat and laugh in foreign languages, occasionally jumping in with a basic joke or two. Jean-Yves has been coming to Madagascar since 1968, he spends the day chugging on a pipe, drinking rum and waxing lyrical about politics, history, nature and frogs’ legs. He is a pleasure to listen to, as are the other well-seasoned couples.

Aside from yoga on the beach, cards and reading a book about conjoined twins (The Girls – I don’t recommend it) the first two days were pleasantly empty. Poor Richard had to cope with my ailments – headaches, inexplicable dizziness and a bastard panic attack on the beach, so for that I would like to thank him. I had a little cry, took some fat painkillers, supplied by Jessica, Sebastian’s lovely plump-lipped wife, and set about enjoying the beautiful, untouched paradise, which I had longed for since we arrived on this red island.

Jean-Yves became more and more fascinating as the days went on. His potent Frenchness (he actually wears stripy tops and rolled up beige slacks) and rich, Gallic tone filled meal times with amazing tales of life on the sea. Since retiring, he has traveled Africa extensively, wrestled with record breaking fish, and learned a lot about people and places . His 72 years on this planet have made him one of the wisest men I have ever met. Sensing I wasn’t well, he said: “Young lady (what a gent) you need to relax. You can talk about how you feel instead of keeping it to yourself”. He eats well, drinks well and still snorkels, dives and fishes like a pro.

Inspired, Rich and I interviewed him for a short abstract documentary we will be calling: The Old Man and the Sea.

The third day brought us a boat trip with snorkeling and collecting shells on the prettiest beach I’ve seen. As the sun set we masked up, spied on multicoloured fish and drank a bucket load of sea water.

It was beautiful, and being among the family, Jessica and Sebastian have two boys, Matthieu, 12 and Cyril (aka Didi), 2, as well as Jean Yves and his glamorous ladyfriend Kathleen, was calm and easy. Kathleen, like the other French-speaking ladies is the picture of chic in bandeau swimwear, chiffon and perfume as heavy as her gold drop earrings.

My attempts at snorkeling were pitiful. Although I did see that blue and yellow fish off of Finding Nemo.

The next day, we had a blissful outing, kayaking through the turquoise mangroves. I’ve always been a fan of activities that potentially tone the bingo wings, so this was a winner for me. Tranquility, nature, calm waters and a great upper arm workout. Meandering through the water-rooted trees, I saw a flying fish leap past my canoe, and a Jesus Christ lizard (the one that walks on water). We dropped the kayaks off chez Jacky (yeah, Jacky). The man has clearly made it, his manor was stunning, propped up by palms, overlooking the beach, buzzing with butterflies and bouganvillia.

At night we watched the moon slowly dip towards the sea, surrounded by every constellation imaginable. The big cheese is on its side over here, so it looks like a ghostly hammock floating above the water. From our own hammock we watched low flying bats and eagerly awaited lemurs. This nightly activity, which involves turning the lights off, listening for rustling and then, quick as a bolt, flicking on the torch to check for mouse lemurs, I have cunningly named ‘Hammock Safari’. Sadly, the only animal we spotted was a two-a-penny gecko.

Over at the lodge, meals are big and French. We drink coffee from a bowl in the morning with the cheese and bread. We eat potato dauphonoise and langoustines, marlin and grouper and the local tipple - a vanilla rum short with honey. The barman, also called Jean-Yves, is an elderly local with the pace of an escargot. He mixes each drink with the precision of a scientist, inspecting his chemicals before creating explosions. As Rich put it; he was less Tom Cruise, more retirement cruise.

The day we left I watched as three large Sifakas hopped the lengthy distance (around 100 metres) from the lodge to a tree next to our room. Seeing these unlikely bipeds in action really is something else. They move in such a dainty, camp way - you half expect them to stop mid journey, produce a Vogue cigarette and say “Darling, I’m really craving an Evian.”

The return flight was as thrilling as our first journey with Jacky. He swooped extra low over the famous Cirque Rouge, an area of soil erosion which makes the land look like it has had a spoonful taken out to reveal a queen of puddings of red, cream and white rock. As we careered left, right and down towards the sharp edges, I recalled watching Blue Peter presenters flying with the red arrows, and literally “screaming their heads off”.

Majunga was her usual sandy, hot self. Our joint male pride (I have an alarming amount) was hurt when we refused to get in a taxi, saying it was too pricey - only to find it was basically the only taxi running today. We had to call him back with our tails between our legs while a troupe of Malagasy men roared with laughter.

We are staying at Hotel Tropicana. It has a pool and the Internet and nice food and Aerosmith on a loop. There’s a leafy courtyard where we have spent a delicious portion of time making like lizards and chatting bad French to the friendly proprietress. I went to a doctor yesterday, who prodded me a bit and prescribed a smorgasbord of medication to help my bacteria beaten belly.

Today we engaged in an impromptu tour with a Push Push (rickshaw) driver – or should I say orchestrator- we met last time we were here, called Big Chef (or so his T Shirt said). He took us to a huge market, which ponged of fish and sold sad tortoise shells with gaudy paintings on them and fruits and vegetables in every colour. It was fascinating, and such a contrast to Terre Blanches, where the ‘them’ in ‘them and us’ was well hidden. Here, it was out it force.

Ladies here on the Wild West coast plaster their faces in a yellow mask, which looks tribal, but in fact it’s just vanity. The gloopy mix is meant to protect their skin from the sun and keep them young.

I learned that taking photos in a place like this can end disastrously. After a beer, Big Chef took us past a rowdy group of reclining men who demanded that I took their picture. When I obliged and then showed them the distinctly average shot, one reached out and groped my derriere. Rich was horrified, naturally.

We saw a huge baobab tree on the quiet road along the beach, and then Big Chef tried to rip us off, we had a row, and sulkily ate a plate of sautéed vegetables and rice.

Richard lightened the mood and simultaneously the load of our second push push operator, by demanding he hand the wooden vehicle over to him, thus pulling me along while the driver looked on laughing in shock. A vaza pousse pousse, how hilarious!

Later I realised how positively aged I have become, when the waitress asked us if we'd be going to the discotheque, as it was Saturday night. I physically recoiled at the thought of young people 'grooving' to pop music in tight clothes.

Moribund in Majunga

2010-05-14T18:34:00.009+01:00

Make no mistake, Madagascar can be a cruel, cruel mistress. One minute you can feel the most triumphant you have ever felt, ecstatic that you have made it, lived rough and survived to tell the tale. You can look out at the sunset while your taxi brousse hurtles past paddy fields and tiny villages, amazed by the technicolour landscape and fascinating people. You can feel the wind in your hair, as the smell of oncoming rain fills your nostrils and a ruby red butterfly flutters by.

The next you want to take a large machete and do bad things with it.

A taxi brousse leaving at 6am, generally won't leave the station until 9.30am, after the driver has texted his girlfriend, had a drawn out chat about onions with a marketeer and realised the sound system is broken and he has no petrol. Ten hour journeys can take up to twenty, and you can be sure to be deafened by the tinny din on the radio before you arrive.

If you ask for water in a shop in perfect Francais, you may has well have done so wearing nothing but socks and a bow tie for the strange looks you'll receive. And if you're ordering food, you need to leave at least an hour until receiving it, and your dish will almost certainly come half an hour after everyone else is finished. Oh, and don't ask any awkward questions about the food, because the answer is always no, even if you can patently see "We sell vegetarian food here" written in neon lights.

But once you accept these things, and live by the mantra that says never expect anything, things tick along fairly well. Anything is possible here. If you shut your eyes and pray, eventually you make it to the other side.

***************************************************************

Contrary to popular belief, having a few beers before setting sail on choppy seas IS a good idea. Ever since a tempestuous trip to the Corn Islands off Nicaragua, I have declared war on water travel, especially when it involves a gut-squeezing to-ing and fro-ing and nausea to the nth degree.

But our journey out of the forest and towards civilasation was peppered with beach stops, on one of which, we were granted with our first ice cold drink for 10 days, which was a beer, because we deserved the hell out of it. From the Sahamalaza penisula, we sailed to Nosy Sama, an island resort so different to the craggy conditions of the reserve, it felt as though we’d arrived in Mauritius by mistake.

We had a meeting with a Frenchman called Frederique, who managed this blissfully deserted island boutique. As we melted into the first chairs we’d seen for days, he plied us with THB and spilled his pearls of wisdom about the country, its people and why tourism is near impossible here.

“People are not naturally good,” he philosophised, smoking cigarettes like they were quenching his thirst.

“Nosy Be is an example of anarchic tourism, the local community there are degraded, like the trees in the forests,”

He was a very interesting chap, with white blue eyes and a French arrogance that led him to interrupt everyone else because he knew what he would say would be better and truer. Unfortunately, touristic information was not all he supplied me. His unnaturally small shorts, meant I copped an eye full of something rather more sinister as well.

Back to the boat and by the time we got on again, bound for Antsohihy, I was the happiest I have been in Madagascar. In each of the sixty minutes it took to reach dry land, I had a small but positively ecstatic realistion. When we arrived though, the hangover kicked in.

Antsohihy was still her rugged ugly self. We stayed in a dirty bungalow and I ate a mosquito who was hiding in my omelette de tomate. We bumped into Valerie over breakfast, who had taken on a new lease of life after leaving camp. I think she was heading to Nosy Be for some well needed R and R.

Luckily we just had a leisurely 10 hour taxi brousse journey to get through the next day, and then we’d be on our way to our own slice of seaside paradise in Antsinitia. Or so we thought.

As it turns out, we endured 13 hours of hell on that bus, partly due to my guts wanting to exit my body, partly due to the persistant piss taking of the driver, who spent two hours trying to leave Antsohihy, and partly due to an accident involving a zebu - or large cow.

During the daylight hours, our not-so-charming chauffeur drove like a granny, but as soon as night fell he transformed into a bat out of hell, driving so fast I am sure we over took sound, and maybe even light. To reserve battery power, I suppose, drivers keep their headlights down low until the very last minute, which was instrumental in the moment we collided with the bovine flank of a bull. Sitting right at the front I was almost able to hear the poor beast's pain.

We passed three dead dogs, whose fate I presume, had also been at the hand of reckless driving.

Lunch and dinner came and went, with both offering me yet more material for The 100 Worst Loos In The World book, which I should definitely have enough material for now. Coming back from one trip to the lav, I found Richard surrounded by young women, who I assume were interested in making some business proposals of an untoward nature.

We finally arrived in Majunga at midnight, and were greeted by two giant rats and the hot stench of shit. Luckily our nice taxi driver, who looked like Lurch from The Adams Family took us to the clean and clinical Anjary hotel, where the Chinese-looking reception man enthusiastically tried to sell us some tours, while we basically fell asleep in front of him.

Morning shone a different light on this washed out beach town. It feels cleaner and wider than the other cities, and the ocean smell, and abandoned seaside attractions make it an eery but pleasant, colonial ghost town. There's a strong Indian influence here, so you're just as likely to see a beautiful woman in a Sari, as a tiny Indonesian looking man or a traditionally built African woman in a flourescent sarong. It's amazing that they are all Malagasy, but look so totally different.

Unfortunately our dreams of the beach resort were dashed, as it has closed down due to a power cut. We also both have a few digestive issues.

But our newly aquired patience will see us through.

Expedition Flavifrons

2010-05-14T11:13:00.023+01:00

To get to the Sahamalaza peninsula, home of the elusive blue-eyed black lemur (or Flavifrons), where the field site is based, we sailed for another hour on a bobbing tide, and then hiked for two and a half hours. I'm pretty sure all this hiking will mean that back in London I'll jack in the Oyster card and walk from Theydon Bois to White City most days, just for the sheer hell of it.

The camp itself is a warm haven, green with papaya and banana trees and installed with a permanently smiling cook. There’s a well equipped kitchen area, table to dine around, idyllic waterfall and river to wash in and a long drop complete with friendly live in Huntsman spider, who I’ve named Harry.

Naming the terrifying beasts tends to soften the fear factor. When I used the latrine on the evening we arrived here, I asked Rich to do a thorough check for cockroaches and the like. On getting the all clear, I confidently waltzed in and prepared for my business meeting. Suddenly from the bamboo rafters I heard a loud rustling. It sounded heavy, like a large rodent. But looking in the corner, I saw eight orange, hairy legs clattering away into the shadows.

During an afternoon hike in one of the forest fragments that surround the camp, we saw a family of blue-eyed black lemurs and two Sahamalaza sportive lemurs. The B-EB females are orangey critters who hang prettily in the branches, while the ebony males leap around, getting as close as two metres away.

Unlike Andasibe, paths aren’t clear cut and neatly trimmed. To see these delights of nature, you have to walk through spiky trees, itchy plants and most of the scramble is done in the ducking position. Spiders the size of dinner plates hang in lofty webs and flying insects are armed and dangerous.

Meals seem to be very close together, and rice features heavily. Breakfast is a sloppier version of the sticky stuff we have for lunch and dinner. Accompaniments vary. Christoph, our jovial host, likes his with Cornflakes, Smacks (remember those?), sugar and chocolate milk, while some choose the local handmade peanut butter, or condensed milk -Ronono Mandry, which directly translates as sleepy milk - because it takes its time to ooze out of the tin.

We rise at 6.30am for this bizarre petit dejeuner, which is later followed by a rice and bean lunch. Black-eyed beans are called Tsaramasu - which translates into beautiful eyes. For dinner it's yet more rice, usually with beans again or vegetables, but always washed down with a healthy dose of uber hot sauce, which is made by leaving limes out in the scorching heat.

There’s a black widow or similar lodged in the thatch above the dining area.

As well as several Malagasy guides, there are two friendly chaps installing solar panels here, called Jean and Wenceslas. We’ve had some fun with them over a plate of vary (rice) or two, trying to suss out each other’s language and failing abysmally. For them, the word kettle is particularly tricksome.

On the first day, our main task was washing our clothes, which as always we performed with little to no ept.

Day two was bliss. Survival, it turns out, is not quite enough for me. I can survive on rice three times a day, walking through thorny forest with irritating beasts shouting in my ear, I can survive with not washing for three days and sweltering at a communal table, while cramped between bodies all speaking a different language I don’t understand (German, French and Malagasy).

But we’ve taken a few extra measures now, which mean we can more than survive, we can enjoy this. Every morning, we knock back a vitamin drink which provides the nutrients we’re craving (making us constantly hungry). When our spirits are down, we take chocolate biscuit from our ‘treat’ bag, and at night, we down a large swig of the Madagascan rum which we bought in Tana, to help us sleep on a rocky floor in a spidery wood, under the stars.

Another beautiful discovery is the waterfall. We’d been warned not to bath in the pool above it, as fady declares it's home to a malevolent ghost, but once you tip-toe across that you reach nature’s equivalent to a power shower. A cool deep pool is perfect for initial refreshment, and then a rocky seat can be found underneath the steady jet of water, where you can sit and wash your hair with ease. Herbal Essences adverts could easily be filmed here.

The day was also excellent because we got so much done. We set up an interview hot seat in the neck of the forest for the scientists, where we questioned them one by one as to what they are doing here. I sat for an hour in peace, working on the laptop with headphones in, so as not to be disturbed by inane tittle tattle.

In the evening, there was a shock announcement from the animated French field assistant Valerie who declared she'd be leaving the next day. These condidtions are not for everybody. And I am not just talking about the camping, roughing it and sweating bucket loads per day. The social dynamic reminds me very much of Big Brother 3, with a smattering of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here. Christoph whipped out the chocolate and cookies after dinner, which went down well all considering.

We braved a wilder, less forgiving forest fragment on day three. Ancient trees towered over us as we ducked and dived through the leaf litter, narrowly avoiding spider webs and wasps' nests. The lepe lemurs we saw look like a hybrid mix of Yoda and a kitten, and their droopy movements echo Bob Marley after a hard day on the spliff.

Our last day was amazing. I interviewed Christoph in a location that would have made even the great David McAttenborough break down in tears. Or something. After a long trek, we found a family of B-EB lemurs, who seemed very keen on getting their five minutes of fame. So much so that, one by one, they trundled along a branch behind us, perfectly in shot. I love it when a plan comes together.

In the afternoon I had the best wash of my entire life. Our beautiful waterfall has got to be one of the world's most exotic bathrooms. Fish swim around you as you sink into the icy water and the sun twinkles through the trees. One hundred per cent lush.

A party was in order for our last night, which basically meant cheap vin rouge from a carton, spaghetti instead of rice, and blaring out the late, great Michael Jackson on the iPod speakers. A surreal, but memorable moment came when we switched the lights of while listening to Man In The Mirror and one of the guides used his torch as a disco ball. We all linked arms and swayed to and fro. When the bulb lit up, us Brits cleared our throats awkwardly as if nothing had happened.

So in a reflective moment I wonder what I have learned from this experience. I will now resort to bullet points.

- Patience. Things have been hard since we left Tana, but eventually they always come good. Patience is bloody hard work, but it is the only way you can cope in this place.
- How to make peanut butter from scratch. Trust me, it's delicious.
- Vache Qui Rit and other such cheeses last for ages and don't need to be refrigerated.
- Work is hard, but a challenge is good. I feel we have both really achieved something here.
- Cockroaches generally stay still if you don't shine torches on them.
- Staying quiet can work better than speaking up.
- Rice and peanut butter really work as a team.

It’s worse than Afghanistan

2010-05-14T09:09:00.019+01:00

I normally mistrust people who like to go Off The Beaten Track. Not those who wish to leave the typical tourist areas and head for pastures new, challenging and without camp, bitchy reps and a swim up bar – that’s acceptable. No, I mean people who boast about it. Like it’s this magic place that only they go to and that basically Bruce Parry is their dad. And Bear Grylls is their uncle.

That aside, I will now boast about the very thing. We have been there, walked 60k through tricky rainforest, wading through rivers, up and over craggy mountains in unbearable heat with nothing but a couple of grains of rice in our stomachs and our flagging inner strength to get us through. We’ve slept under the trees, made toilet in the dark among bum-nibbling creatures, fought our way through brambles and washed in a trickle of murky water with the night frogs.

To quote Rich, conditions have been "worse than Afghanistan".

On top of that, my outfits have been chronically awful (think bright red tracksuit bottoms, blue Nike Airs and a scraped back bushy plait). There has been blood, sweat and tears, we have stood on a mountain's summit munching on sugar cane like it’s the last food on earth, drinking brown water, praising the lord for a gust of wind or 5mm of shade to rest our weary selves.

And we’ve also spent time in the company of some intense and at times exasperating primates: that’s right, the scientists we are traveling with are mad.

We’re in the Wild West of Madagascar, where transport is nigh on non existent, so our feet have had a battering after three long days of trekking and not really eating very much (I’ve started dreaming about Soya and Linseed bread topped with plasticy mild cheddar and marmite with cucumber on top).

The first lap of our epic journey took us from Tana to Antsohihy via thirteen and a half hours in a hired Taxi Brousse.

The trip had been delayed after two of the girls were afflicted with Tana tummy, so Rich and I spent a decadent day taking in the sights – by having a hammam and gommage at La Medina and another tasty feast at La Varangue and meeting up with Andry and Juliana at our new fave restaurant, L’Indigo, which does everything from Jamaican shrimps to fajitas, yeah.

Early on Saturday morning, we whizzed past countless joggers wearing jeans and loafers, and the Frenchest thing imaginable: A 2CV taxi full of baguettes. I also saw a man with a dead pig cut in half on the back of his bike.

We arrived at the Saint Laurant hotel at 6am to meet the scientists, who it appeared were already ready to whack each other over the head with a test tube or do something horrible to each other with Bunsen burners.

It had something to do with boxes, tents and Vache Qui Rit, but after packing up the bus with a million and one boxes and bags we were en route with what turned out to be the worst collection of music I have ever heard.

I dare say the Malagasy have an appaling taste in music – there’s the slushy guitar ballads, which pretty much all have the same chord structure as Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong, then there’s the frenetic and eggy reggaeton\folk infusion which sounds like a fairground on crack and before you can say pass the sick bucket, there’s a whole heap of the slimy R and B.

Soon the outskirts of Tana, with their glassy paddy fields and bright red soil erosion disappeared into yellowy pale grasses, white houses and lots of wide open space. This melted slowly into green hills that looked like rolls upon rolls of Rubenesque fat.

As ecological disasters go, the deforestation of Madagascar is quite beautiful.

We stopped for lunch in a place called Good Town. It wasn’t that good. There were two crusty French men with teenage girlfriends, and a cock fight going on outside. Gambling is taken very seriously here, with people betting their cars and even their houses on their chosen feathery friend.

Antsohihy – our first night stop – was as hot as the atmosphere was tense by the time we got there. We stayed in a room with a tin roof and a broken fan and Rich got an ear infection. Thankfully being with scientists means antibiotics, ketamin and whatever else floats your boat or heals your ear are easily accessible.

It was then on to the baron dust pit that is Maromondia, where dogs are so thin, that their rumps resemble the back of a rhino – all sagging skin and no substance. An emaciated mad man wanders the street in a loin cloth, pausing to stand next to you, piercing your wallet with his eyes.

Our shack was wooden and covered in Shakira posters. I felt pretty sick, which wasn’t helped by the lunch of just one solitary bowl of rice, chats about offal, Coke being more available than water and an interesting socialist attitude towards money, that we hadn’t exactly factored in.

While the others went off for a meeting in the village, I stayed at ‘home’ and got chatted up by a seventeen year old boy called Antoine. Never lost it.

Evening came, and I couldn’t face more rice, so we let the others slope off for dinner while I stared at a wall. It was boiling and putrid. Eventually cabin fever took over, so we slowly strolled out onto the high street, where its population stared at us, laughing and generally making us feel like prize fools.

“Come with me,” came a voice from the shadows. It was a young lady, so we thought, what could possibly go wrong? And down a darkened fish-odoured path we went, further and further until we thought possibly this could be a bad idea. Thankfully she was just leading us to the other vazas and we all had a jolly nice meal together.

From Moromandia we began the four and a half hour walk towards the first field site, which as it turns out didn’t exist yet. The mission was to set up the French student Alice for her project on the mainland. Sounded simple, but Madagascar plus headstrong and tense females equals a massive ball ache.

We aimed to leave early, to avoid the midday heat, but instead we left late, and embraced it. The first part of the journey was a manageable flat road, but sooner than I desired, we off roaded and gentle plodding became random scrambling, over the salmon coloured mountain peaks, down sandy red hot paths and through sacred rivers, which means come hell or high water, you have to take your shoes off.

Arriving at the village of Capane: which consisted of two huts, a small baby that looked like BA Baracus and more fat ducks and skanky chickens than should be legal, was a relief.

At last, I thought to myself, we can sit down, crack open lunch and chill the hell out. But Madagascar being the hot, relentless bastard that it is, we had one more thing to take care of before eating, and generally being happy.

A fady is something that is taboo within a specific area here. So where in one place it might be fady to eat pork, in another, it’s fady to take ginger on a boat because it upsets the ghost that lives on the river and the vessel will sink.

It is fady for the scientists to study lemurs in this neck of the woods without permission, so before we could set up camp, we had to walk “500 metres” to see the king, wearing the traditional lamba (like a sarong) and feed some lemurs a bag full of squishy banana.

Another several hours later, we hadn’t arrived. Morale was low. But it was about to get lower.

The king was elsewhere (probably cruising the mean streets of Capane in a pimped out Ford Capri) so we sweatily gathered in a hut, waiting for various elders and their forefathers, who would hopefully grant their permission. The Malagasy among us yelled things to our faces, while we sat there plum-coloured and soaking into our sarongs (Rich looked rather fetching in his I must say), waiting for something to happen, while a particularly crinkly man – who had a mouth just like Jeff Bridges’ rolled up a joint.

Said man took a shine to Rich, came very close to his face and started talking gobblydygook. So Rich hilariously played along, talking in English to him.

“Well done on the Oscar Jeff,” Rich offered.

The man smiled, heartily.

“You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?” Rich suggested.

The man nodded. And so on.

After all that, they said no.

Deflated, we had no choice but to camp near the smelly village, so another long walk later, a sunset tent erection and a dip in the stagnant, parasite filled pond and we’d arrived. I can’t say I was over the moon. We dined late on rice and tomato juice, while mosquitoes merrily munched on our ankles.

The camp was under the shade of a mango tree, which sounds romantic, but was torridly temperate. So hot that I barely slept a wink and shed a little tear of desperation. In the words of Joseph Conrad: "It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst hits for nightmares.

After such a bogus waste of time and energy the day before, we decided that the next day would be our day off. So naturally, we went on an eight hour hike to not see any lemurs.

Now I am a big three meals a day kind of person – as unfashionable as it is, I love lunch. So walking for six hours on a watery plate of rice with no food, tends to decrease my mood tenfold. I felt faint and discombobulated.

The hike back to Maromondia was easier than predicted, due to our new technique of staying at the back to avoid hearing the tiresome bleeting of certain members of the group.

Exhausted, we finally reached the town, where we knocked back water, Coke and beer. There had been tears, angry words and we hadn’t even had a chance to get the camera out. I felt so glad we would one day leave this crew of oestrogen fueled insensity.

After we ate, our old friend Skinny Man appeared at the window, again piercing our souls with his hungry eyes. The hotely owner, scooped our leftovers into a bowl and he held out a dirty plastic bag, while she poured them in. He whimpered and ran off into a corner, where he got on all fours, and pawed the sloppy seconds into his mouth, while some onlookers laughed aloud.

How sad, that a pensioner could be so disrespected I thought.

Thankfully, things were about to get a whole lot better.

Ananalava – a beautiful beach town with postcard sunsets – was our next stop, and we got there by boat. So my desire to sit down was granted. We lunched on langoustines and bounteous vegetables, drank THB to our hearts content and stayed in a squewiff shack with proper loo and wallpaper.

At sunset, I strolled along the beach with Valerie, and we talked about the stress between the group, which at this point had reached preposterous levels, for reasons which make me want to commit libel and slander simultaneously.

Arachnid anticipation

2010-04-29T18:09:00.015+01:00

You know that bit in Arachnophobia when the Grand Mother of all spiders looks like she’s dead, but then suddenly roars up in a blaze of fire with eight evil eyes, legs akimbo and abdomen the size of a basket ball? Well pretty soon, I’ll be talking on the role of Jeff Daniels and attacking said beast with a fire extinguisher until it’s left a throbbing pile of spidey-guts and puss.

Or similar.

Tomorrow, we’ll be traveling for three days, by bus and boat to a deciduous forest in the North West, home to over 100 species of spider, and also the only primate aside from humans with blue eyes: the black lemur.

A couple of nights ago we met with the scientists who’ll be taking us. Mel, a PHD student tells us there are hundreds of rats, ‘roaches and eight legged beasts, but it’s fine, because after a while you get used to it. Now, being someone who can’t physically use a latrine with cockroaches in it, let alone come face to face with an army of arachnids, I find that hard to believe.

She told us how one night, while utilizing the long drop, she heard a curious slurping and munching sound coming from above. Shining the torch upwards, she witnessed a huntsman spider (all bulbous and yellow) slowly chewing on a cockroach, eventually splitting its rancid feast in two.

So naturally I remained as enthusiastic as ever to get the hell to camp.

And speaking of creepy crawlies, Antananarivo is a breeding ground for leathery old French men with their sights on young Malagasy maidens. The evidence of sex tourism here is rife. Sit down to lunch at any given café and you’ll spot several mismatched couples.

The man, a withered toad, is speaking loudly in French on his mobile phone, while smoking a Galouise. “Merde” he oozes, taking a glug of THB. He is red faced, white haired, and sports saggy clam-diggers and a bumbag.

His ladyfriend is in her early twenties, wearing a skin tight frock, she’s adorned in silver and has a bored grimace plastered on her face. She stares into space, or occasionally feeds her grandfather/lover some of his lunch, which ends up smeared on his chin.

No doubt he tells her how they’ll get married and escape this seedy world. But it’s pretty clear he’ll be flying home solo back to the wife, once his exotic needs are catered for. Prostitution is so cheap here, that apparently everyone is at it.

In lighter news, I’m off to be sick. No really. We had a dodgy breakfast and now I am cursing that guava juice and all its unpurified wrongness.

Rich coerced me into going to the supermarket, even though I felt like my inner nuts and bolts were about to pop out of my ears. Thankfully, the event was fruitful in my recovery. The aisles and aisles of normality were like antibiotics to my ailing sanity. No beggars cajoling me into buying an out of date Economist, some crusty vanilla pods or a wooden rain maker. No exhaust fumes or eau de fish market, or rotten fruit steadily festering in the midday sun.

No, just nice things in pretty packages, uniformity, reassuringly cheap supermarket combat trousers and those delicious bars of white chocolate with rice crispies that you get on your French exchange, after being amazed that your new ‘family’ actually eat horses.

So after a croissant (with a bit of egg shell stuck to it) and a strong coffee, we met Christoph and the science gang in the superstore, in preparation for our looming fieldtrip. It was exciting loading the trolley full of tooth destroying snacks, supernoodles, Vin Rouge in a carton and Vache Qui Rit. Just knowing that you’re going camping and can eat naughty things for breakfast is a real joy even for two serious adults like myself and Richard.

Alice the 24-year-old French PHD student misunderstood the instructions about buying one bog roll per person per week, and appeared with a whole trolley full of it. It reminded me of that mortifying walk to the facilities of a campsite, when you’re clasping a roll of boggers and everyone knows exactly what business you are about to attend to.

Next Rich and I thought we’d play a hilarious joke, by popping a giant blow up reindeer into our trolley, along with our other gumph. It didn’t go down too well, with one of the girls getting genuinely worried there wouldn’t be enough space on the boat.

(Dad joke alert) We’ll need more than an Oyster card to get through these language barriers.

I enquired about washing clothes on site, saying we couldn’t find a launderette in Tana. This was also misunderstood, with one of the five Alpha Females assuring me that there certainly wouldn’t be a launderette on camp. And there was me thinking we’d be catered for with a kebabby, Ladbrokes and Dot Cotton propping up the tumble dryer.

*****************************************

Today I treated myself to a massage at Bio Aroma, a pungent shop selling all sorts of healing potions and equipped with four podgy masseuses, ready to pour oil on you and fix your weary corps. I opted for an all over body massage. When spas say all over body, normally they mean back, neck, head, legs, arms, maybe a quick tummy prod. But today, no stone was left unturned as it were. At one point I wondered if I had walked into the wrong sort of massage parlour.

I was given a cup of sweet tea and a foot wash and led into a bamboo chamber, given a wedgie and finally came out reeking of arnica but feeling like a new woman.

In the afternoon, we visited Akany Avoko , a children’s home for 110 of the many waifs, strays and runaways in Tana. There were children from 1 to 18 who had been abandoned, orphaned and abused, as well as pregnant teens and petty criminals.

Simon, a warm Brit who has lived out here for six years, showed us around.

I’d been wondering why the people here have so many children, given the poverty.

He explained that the Malagasy have large families as a sort of insurance. In previous years, when medicine was scarce, most of your familial flock weren’t expected to survive, due to pneumonia, bronchitis and other curable deseases – indeed, his wife was the only one of eight children to survive – so the more children you had the better.

Now that healthcare is improving (ish) there are just as many babies being born, and they are all surviving. Only just, sadly.

The stories we heard we throat tighteningly sad. One girl we met had a gigantic, shiny smile, despite her mum deserting her just a month ago. Another little boy’s mother had killed his father in a fit of rage. But despite their bleak histories, they all looked so happy to be in this light, peaceful environment.

As well as funding their education, the charity provides the children with skills they will need on the outside world, like craft workshops, in which they screen print their own T shirts and make bags and clothes, a garden to learn how to keep vegetables, cookery, sustainable energy including a bio fuel toilet (pongsville) and careers lessons. They also have a makeshift chapel for contemplative moments.

It was an inspiration to see all this in action, so hopefully our video for their website will help in some small way.

Back to tomorrow’s adventure, it’s time to get our packing on the go.

It’s pretty clear that apart from one wooden hut for working, there’ll be nothing other than a long drop equipped with spiders, our tents and a deciduous forest full of mother nature’s beasts and creatures waiting to pounce on us immediately.

We’ll have no ‘lectric, no internet and certainly no home comforts, but have invested in a bottle of local rum for when times are tough. We’ll be filming Dr Schwizer and his brainy band, getting up close to blue-eyed black lemurs and I’ll be about as far from my former life swilling bubbly in the West End with washed up Hollyoaks stars than I ever thought possible.