leaving Dhaka and hitting rural Bangladesh...

Travelling to the projects the charity I am interning for was the next part of the trip and involved escaping Dhaka and visiting some of rural Bangladesh. The absolute smelly, busy chaos of Dhaka is definitely not a sight I or anyone else would be too sad to leave; not having to escape lethal rickshaw drivers and the constant fear of mugging was welcomed! The four hour potential car ride to the field studies centre was deemed too easy by BRAC (the charity I am interning for) so instead we were shoved on an eight hour bus journey in a local bus to give us a more authentic experience (luckily air conditioning was an allowed luxury - how kind). Like everything in Bangladesh, even if you really try and prepare yourself mentally for something the reality is still a complete shock. The bus station (bearing in mind we are talking about a capital city) is little more than a few huts, a waiting room, and a small area for some buses to turn. The buses of course run on Bangladeshi time (whatever time they want to) so to keep you going there are plenty of people walking about selling everything from popcorn, curby grips, cake, to mango juice. Even at 7am my desire for a bargain ensured a bartering attempt from me.

Man: 10 taka for one...

Me: 10 taka for two...

Man: No

Me: Oh

Keith (to me with a wink): But that is all the money you have isn't it...

Me (confused): Em no...

Keith (to me): I am trying to help you out! Is that you bartering?!

I ended up paying 10 taka for one obviously and loosing all my street credibility (I have tons obv). Once on the bus though the real Bangladeshi experience began. Firstly, buses start driving whether everyone is on or not so you have the hilarity of watching people run on the bus (apparently local buses just never stop to let you off either). People also sit on top of buses (and trains) for a free or majorly reduced ride. A bargain option I may consider in the future ;-). The first thing the bus driver said (translated by one of the Bengali speaking interns) to the bus conductor was that he hadn't slept last night (a hilarious prospect). Luckily the roads were bad enough that there was no possible way he could have fallen asleep, people have clearly never been shown what their mirrors are for, while there are just far too many vehicles on the road (mostly scooters, rickshaws, or auto-rickshaws which can't even go above 10 mph). Therefore instead of looking in the mirrors, here an ingenious system has been set up that involves just beeping your horn constantly to get people to move our your way and bully your way through traffic. Consequently horns just beep continuously, and when you are in a fairly large bus it is a loud noise that after five minutes is more than slightly annoying.

And these are just issues that occur on a daily basis; our first emergency was a flat tyre (although making a loud noise this didn't worry the driver for another fifteen minutes or so). The solution was flagging another bus down and nicking their spare tyre, I can't imagine this working in the UK. Our second emergency was when we realised the AC had stopped working, the driver fiddled around in the back and emerged holding a very broken AC pipe. This was eight hours into our eight hour bus journey and we were not 0 minutes away so a debate was held as to whether we continue without AC (a luxury we had paid bloody extra for!) or wait for another bus to come. We continued but opened all the doors and fire exits to produce a draft, Bangla style.

Getting to the field studies centre then you can imagine was something of a huge relief. We were staying at facilities that were run by our charity so basic but safe. They are a training facility for community leaders and teachers so mainly Bangladeshis staying meaning more stares and lots of questions such as 'what's your religion', 'what do your parents do?' and 'where are you from'. Alright but you constantly feel you are trying to pass some sort of test and these questions are definitely more interregational than friendly. The experience at the field studies centre was one of those where initially it seems really nice with comfortable twin rooms that are ensuite (bucket showers of course mind ;-) ) and 3 good meals provided a day but after a day problems start to show.

FIRST ISSUE: The food - the 3 set meals a day are the same every day and I mean the same. For breakfast it is fried egg, chapatti, and potato stew. Lunch: potato and meat stew, chips, dahl, lots of rice, and cucumber. The dinner the same as lunch. So basically you are intaking pretty bland food that consists almost purely of carbs. Absolute chaos for the digestive system and incredibly boring on the palate. The amount of rice the Bangladeshis eat is absolutely insane! We constantly request pineapples and apples, consequently receiving stares as if we are fruit fiends or something.

Complaining over, rural Bangladesh is amazing! Visiting their projects means going to the village communities in the area. So we have visited a very poor (or ultra-poor as BRAC calls them) village, whereby BRAC gives them all some animals then a weekly allowance for food so they can start a small farm and eat better diets. Then also microfinance programmes where villagers can borrow loans and then use them to either improve their homes or start small enterprises such as shops. Most of the villages we have been to have never seen white people before so we are something of a novelty and everyone comes out to look at the foreigners. They like us to introduce ourselves (my Bangla accent is particularly amusing for them) so I say Amar nam Olivia then ami Scotland. Blank looks always respond to Scotland as clearly it is not a country then know, even Britain gets blank looks whereby London receives a combined 'ooooh'. I am not impressed by their travel aspirations.

This is when everything starts to turn a little gap yar, it is hard not too make it so, as we refrain from using such phrases as 'culturally aware'. As I take photos of the village children, Russell Kane's comedy sketches of gap year students saying 'oh look a brown person, take a photo' do spring to mind! At times political correctness can be taken too seriously and just goes out the window here.  I held a baby who instantly starting crying, apparently he prefers brown people they matter of factly stated! We also commentated ( in english) on a very white baby, our guide/translator instantly asked why to our horror, apparently she has a very white husband. Luckily children here do seem to genuinely love having their photo taken and then seeing the results but more amusing is that people like to take photos of us, you stand on the street and Bengalis are all getting their camera phones out and snapping us. One man even approached me and asked if he could take a photo of me with his daughter! The babies are particularly cute with their little pudgy arms. I did accidentally make fun of a toddler with rickets though (I thought he was just trying to walk like a sumo wrestler)! On the whole I have managed not to insult the Bangladeshi population too much mind.

Getting to the villages is one problem though as the auto-rickshaws (scooters with a seating cabin out the back) drive manically, we have already been in one crash, as they just literally drive out side roads without even considering looking. To solve the terrible transportation problems we decided to hire a car that would of course be much safer than an auto-rickshaw. Entering the luxury of an air conditioned car (after our air conditioned rooms!) plunged us straight back into a wonderful sense of security. Two minutes out the gates of our centre and wham we crashed into a bus, you see our driver (in typically Bangladeshi style) just swung out without even glancing into a very full bus that didn't even have mirrors. The damage was minor but the fear was there. This was unfortunately not a one off and our driver turned out to be an absolute maniac, as we drove down the country roads that are full of vehicles but less disciplined than the city streets, his driving was honestly like something out of Grand Theft Auto or some other video game where you move fast dodging in and out of obstacles. He just kept moving at a ridiculous fast pace beeping his horn while weaving around cars, rickshaws, bicycles, and people. Needless to say there was lots of screaming, so to calm us down we decided to sing. BAD IDEA - the guy just went faster in an effort to drop us off faster and escape our singing.

For our last night here some local entertainment was organised at one of the villages, BRAC helps run theatre performances which are fun to watch but also educational to the local community. So we went to watch a performance that taught the villagers about their legal rights and domestic abuse through the medium of live theatre. Sitting with the local children on mats at the front was pretty special as they were so happy to see us there and it was a treat for them getting to see some dancing and singing. We brought biscuits which of course went down a treat but did mean we were mobbed by huge swarms of children who seemed to come from nowhere. In typically Bangladeshi style just as the performance started the heavens literally opened spitting out heavy but hot rain, the type that really soaks you. Just like a Bollywood movie though it was great fun for a while as everyone danced in the rain and the children loved jumping around with us - it was very memorable! Leaving in our warm cars was quite sad but since the theatre was cut short we decided to maybe have a different dinner and sample a Chinese restaurant in town. One of the interns is Chinese and was so excited about having some Chinese food here as apparently British and American chinese restaurants are rubbish and greasy! Turns out rural Bangladesh is not the place to go to sample culinary excellence as we got the greasiest, gloopiest meal you could imagine. Shutong deemed it 'fake Chinese' noting that there weren't even any Chinese people in the restaurant!

So our first week in the North-West (check out a map!) corner of Bangladesh has certainly been interesting, entertaining, and memorable, but also terrifying, and very bizarre!

The first four days in Dhaka

DAY 1

Arriving in Dhaka was definitely throwing myself in the deep end of the East Asian swimming pool! No gentle easing in with a trip to Tokyo, Singapore, Beijing, or even Bangkok; bang slam straight into Dhaka. Whatever you see or hear will still leave you unprepared...

You arrive into humidity levels nearing 100% (I didn't even know that was possible but the pilot happily divulged) meaning your clothes instantly stick to you, while monsoon rains hit off tin roofs and a mass of taxi drivers in various contraptions wait to whisk you away. I opted for the exclusive limousine service (Bangladeshi style this just means a weathered taxi). The journey was enough excitment for the year; no one follows rules here, everyone drives all manner of things forward blindly and beeps their horns. Creating a very noisy, but thanks to the rickshaws, very colourful duel carriageway. After mega swerving and life threatening moments we ended up nearish my accomodation; the problem here is that the streets are so random no one knows where anything is so every journey involves about 10 stops to ask for directions.

Finally arriving, I found my single room containing a double and single bed despite requesting just a single. This confused me greatly as I was sure I had a private room so spent the afternoon expecting others to turn up, my jet lagged state also made me presume I was then sharing a bathroom so went down to reception to ask where it was. I was then taken back to my room where they opened the obvious door to the ensuite, giving me very confused looks as to where I had come from that ensuite bathrooms were not normal. So apparently the extra beds are all for me, meaning a whole plethra of places to watch TV from. Therefore first things first I made an inventory of all the English TV channels. Before settling down for my first Bangladeshi meal cooked by the hotel 'cook' from a slightly suspicious looking kitchen (you just eat what he gives you). Luckily my Bangla stretches to niramish (vegetarian) ;-). Dinner comprised of spiced vegetables, an oily soup, and enough rice to sink a ship with a little mango on the side for good measure. Good, especially the mango which I threw caution to the wind and ate (raw fruit and vegetable is bad news apparently).

DAY 2

Ok this day was virtually a write off. I woke up, looked at my watch read 5 and presumed this was am and I had woken up early so attempted to get back to sleep. Failed, got up, then realised it was 5pm! Felt I should probably leave the hotel, but the guidebook (in its infinte wisdom) advised against going out after dark, so I selected its nearest recommended eatery (luckily just down the road). Here everything on the outside looks a bit dodgy but inside I was relieved to see I had found one of Dhaka's nicer eating experiences serving 'authentic' Indian cusine at a fraction of home's prices.
VERDICT: Tasted just like a curry from back home. The Naan was good mind.

DAY 3

Since the fail of yesterday I had failed even further in then not getting to sleep until 5am and despite needing to be up for the first day of my internship at 7am. Not to worry, the first day of my internship involved getting across town to the offices of the NGO I was working for, and as far as I am concerned the only way to travel here is by one of the literally (correct use of the term here) thousands of rickshaws scattered across the city! You can't walk anywhere without someone trying to get you to take a ride in their rickshaw ;-)     . They are amazing though, brightly coloured, and most importantly dirt cheap. Problem is I have not quite got my bartering right yet and seem to go either horrendously too low (at like 10p) or let them rip me off (I say this like its expensive we are still talking no more than a pound). My first journey across the city was definitely eye opening as we have to go through one of the slums which is dirty, smelly, but an experience. You certainly feel  'Western' here as you walk down the street as I feel like the new circus attraction in town. It leaves you feeling very self conscious that you are offending the local population with something you are doing but I am assured it happens to everyone! After meeting the other interns with me, we looked for something to do in the evening, unfortunately despite Dhaka being a huge city there is surprisingly little! This must be the only capital city in the world not showing Harry Potter to my huge disappointment! However, the one cinema in the city is showing Twilight right now (the first not even second or third mind) so I that can take up a few evenings I reckon ;-). Resulting in us ending up in an internet cafe that must be one of the more western options the city has to offer with a coffee menu featuring syrups and waffles and sandwiches on offer (plenty of time for eating curries another day)  . Sitting in its air conditioned splendour I could have been in Glasgow, even the internet connection is dodgy here, reminds me of Virgin! Thankfully they understand the English for 'can you switch it off and on again' - works a treat!

Dhaka from the BRAC roof

DAY 4

Today I was back on a rickshaw to the offices of the NGO, BRAC http://www.brac.net/ I was interning with. Where we learnt about all the work the charity does in Bangladesh and further afield, largely in the area of microfinance, whereby BRAC gives small loans to the poor so they can invest the money and start a business or better their lifes which they then pay back at a fair interest rate. At the weekend we will be travelling to their projects in rural areas (I am already looking forward to escaping the crazyness of Dhaka). I decide that I probably should buy some more Bangla looking clothing attire (disguise is the key I reckon), Topshop has yet to reach here sadly so my attempts at style are not particularly appreciated. Walking about though is impossible, if you do manage to read a map nothing is where it is meant to be, there are no pavements, and rickshaws repeatly try to take your life! Even on a rickshaw your life is in danger and the major issue is that rickshaws cannot cross duel carriageways so whenever you hit one, you have to get out the rickshaw cross the road (praying for your life) then got on one at the other side. One shortish journey took 3 rickshaws today (which means being ripped off three times as well). Back to the comfort of my hotel, the Bangladeshi gods were shining on me, as none other than R-Patz's face was on my TV in the form of Cedric Diggory (this is the nearest to the final Harry Potter movie I will get here I feel).

Tonight though, I was leaving the seclusion of the Viator Guest House for a night out Dhaka style. It was one of the boys in the group's birthdays you see, unfortunately alcohol is not readily availiable here, so some sneaky dealings were involved to buy some which was then had at the flats of one of the interns. The boy in question was staying with an American expat host family here and since it was his birthday they let us join them at a party they were going to. Now when you live in a city such as Dhaka with very few Westerners and strict laws you have to make your own entertainment it would seem. The party we ended up at was thus hosted by a rich Western garment guru who turns his flat into a night club every now and then to stop himself going mad apparently. With a balcony view, marble floors, and a free bar we could have been anywhere but I would never have thought this sort of thing would be in Dhaka. It was like finding an Oasis in the Desert - crazy but amazing. Plenty of mum dancing and the most international group of people I have ever met in my life, being Scottish here makes me feel quite exotic (oh the irony)!

Living it up at Casa Loca!

The journey's the hardest bit when attempting to get to Dhaka...

Before leaving there were several things I was particularly nervous about. Firstly whether I had actually booked a flight or not, you see in my endeavour to find the cheapest deal I had booked my flight off an online phone company from a man who spoke bad english and refused to send me a confirmation letter. Secondly I was scared that if my flight was real what kind of airline I had found, again I had been looking up reviews online the night before and they were not good to say the least; I was convinced I was going to end up in a battered old aeroplane with no leg room, broken toilets, and food that would make me very sick. And finally I was terrified of spending the night in Mumbai airport which I imagined to be similar to a Brazilian slum.

So as to quell my nerves and ease me into a new culture I had spent the last two days before at a hippy music festival with my dad and brother. My dad revels at the change to show off his new bracelets, ever growing hair, and share his plans to couch surf around the world. While my brother likes to believe he is way too cool for this hippy malark stubbornly wearing skinny jeans and sitting with his IPod touch out the whole time. One thing we do all agree on is the comedy stage where this year particular highlights included a very naked man, a very lewd guitar player, and a female comedienne who told us of her brilliant new invention whereby if girls wear their pants inside out they have a handy minge pocket. GENIUS. Even news of this couldn't quite quell those nerves though...

Practising for his hippy days...

My mother clearly just as worried told me to text her as soon as I arrived in Mumbai Airport, I reminded her that this was also the earliest I could possibly phone her. 'Well you could text me on the plane...'. 'No I couldn't.' To which SHE (Miss Worryer of the Century) replied: 'oh don't be silly it doesn't matter anymore. ' Even going as far as to take it as personal insult that I wasn't prepared to do this.

Luckily I did value my life so my phone was switched off as soon as I boarded the plane and bloody hell was I relieved that A) I was on a flight and B) the aeroplane did not look like it was on its last legs (just yet) so now I could just enjoy the flight. I don't quite understand why people don't like flying - for 8 hours you get a lovely little seat with a blanket, pillow, and your own TV. Then, to make life even easier, air hostesses walk down the the aisles serving you food and drink. In fact, thanks to the fasten seat belt sign and general lack of space, you are dis-couraged from moving - I reckon in another year or two they will have built in toilets to your seats. I imagine this in a similar style to Eastern European trains whereby it just falls on to the platform - I do see the difficulty of emulating this on a plane obviously.

What I have described would of course not occur on your average Easyjet flight but believe me those pointless wet flannels they hand out at the start of the flight add some extra excitement and make you feel all posh (who knew it was so simple). And as for the food - since I was flying with an Indian airline it was all of course, well Indian. Which meant vegetable curry for breakfast, a curried veg wrap for lunch, then more curry and a weird potato thing for dinner ( throwing my digestive system in the deep end). Lovely as the curries were, I would argue it is a bad plane food selection for a group of people in an enclosed space with poor ventilation and only 8 toilets...

Although I did get funny looks for taking these, you can now play the which one is breakfast, lunch and dinner game!

Swiftly changing topics the plane also proved amazing for people watching. One Chinese girl (I say girl she was mid twenties) had invested in the full Hello Kitty sleeping range so roamed about in huge slippers and a neck rest potentially to show off her purchases - I wasn't impressed. While some very hippy Londoners with broad cockney accents were a random addition to the mainly Asian passengers.

Escaping the plane at 11pm local time only meant a 9 hour wait until my flight to Dhaka. Unfortunately the 'Slumper Lounge' provided was already full of the we-sleep-anywhere Chines contingency. Hours of playing scrabble on my IPod were inevitable, I had been playing with my brother before and so it was set up for 'pass and play' - a mode I initially couldn't get out of resulting in me playing several games against myself (advantage being I can't lose). And when I eventually did the first word the virtual player came up with was vodka - conveniently duty free were also giving out free samples.

Another highlight of endless travel is of course getting to test out whether 48 hour deodorant really lives up to its claim, don't worry I won't spoil the surprise! The toilets in the airport also confusingly have a conventional one and a squat one - this seems madness why would you choose to squat?! It is like being offered a free air conditioned taxi ride and going nah I will take the hot, over crowded bus instead!

Escaping Mumbai Airport meant my final flight to Dhaka, more curry, and a little more sleep (word of warning Bangladeshi men don't like you falling asleep on them in aeroplanes). My first glimpse of Dhaka was pretty exciting though, it is definitely a cultural change with grey high rise buildings and huge shanty slums.

Preparations....

PART 1.

The problem with stressing all the time and never doing anything is that well you stress all the time and never do anything. Therefore 5 days before I was scheduled to fly I had no Visa. This was not entirely my fault as a) the Bangladeshi High Commission from the layout of their website wants to make it as difficult as possible to enter their country, and b) I wasn't in my country until 2 weeks before I left... See me being dum had not thought about the fact that I could not send off a postal Visa application without my passport so arrived home two weeks before my scheduled departure with no visa sitting on my doorstep. A trip to London was definitely in order...

As to get from Glasgow to London (thanks to our wonderful train network) you have to go via Newcastle I decided my easiest option was to stop off at Newcastle and pay my flat a visit. Unfortunately my awful flatmate was there to meet me off the train so a wee mini tour of Newcastle was in order. In one day we managed to fit in: two games of scrabble, chai tea, pea soup, an art exhibition featuring old school photos mutilated in an amusing way by string, and cider all rounded off with fish stew. Impressive eh ;-). Unfortunately while I had been away my room had been stolen from me by an oversized giant (aka Tom) who had added a bike, porn movies, and a mattress protector to my already perfect room. A slightly softer night's sleep was appreciated mind...

Part 2: LONDON aka CAPITAL CITY VISA TIME

Wanting a cheap train ticket, I booked a ticket that got me to London at 11.45am leaving exactly 1 hour and 15 mins to get me from London King's Cross to the Bangladesh High Commission, I viewed this as a challenge. Trying to hide my map of London so as not to look too touristy and just sneaking even more obvious glances at it, I somehow managed to get across the city to be greeted by the posh glow of South Kensington. The BHC is something less desirable however shoved away in an underground cellar and featuring what must be the only outdoor toilets in South Kensington. Inside the scene can only be described as similar to one from the stock exchange but with Bengalis instead of bankers all waving their passports. The queue for 'foreign' visitors was empty and decidedly closed. I did manage to eventually find someone to talk to who told me that he couldn't give me a Visa. After basically travelling from Glasgow to London just for this Visa you can imagine I was very unimpressed so with some crocodile tears while I concocted some very elaborate story about camping out the whole night in London he told me to take a seat. A very suspenseful 45 minutes later a Visa was granted, thank bloody goodness, handwritten and everything!


PART 3: NAN

In the same way that since I needed to go to London I might as well go to Newcastle, since I was in London I felt I might as well visit my Nan in Southampton. Now my Nan is obviously my Nan so is a very treasured person in my life, but equally this woman is something else; one of those people in which life has delivered nothing but misery and has the attitude that if something bad is not currently happening it is just because something bad is about to happen. Her views on life therefore make a depressing read, she's not good company for the easily upset. The upside is her hearing is sufficiently bad enough to mis-hear any sarcastic comments me, my dad, or brother make.

Without a doubt her much controversial views are those on immigration:
Nan's views on immigration (largely gained from a daily subscription to the Daily Mail):
1. Immigrants all eat our swans
2. Takeaways (mainly Chinese and Indians) breed guinea pigs for their meat and also use cat and dog a lot. We did explain, in the same way they probably don't eat swans, that chickens are so cheap its not worth the bother of using swan, cat, dog, nor guinea pig.
3. Immigrants all pretend to be gay to gain entry to our country.
4. Immigrants never get jobs.
5. Immigrants all live in huge houses which have been split up to house them.
6. On the matter of organ donation, the 'coloured people' have so many diseases that they can't donate organs so aren't helping the system.
7. And finally noting that not many Christians go to Muslim countries. Again ignoring all the tourists visiting North Africa.

I can't really criticise though as the woman did teach me yesterday how to make an amazing bread pudding (not bread and butter!) which I ate most of (I was criticised for this as well of course).

And now the last stop before Bangladesh starts tomorrow with a trip to a hippy music festival with my brother and even hippier (than the music festival) father for a few days of glamping...

You wouldn't think I was leaving the country for 2 months on Saturday, oh dear...

THE END...of a trip to Split

For our last two days in Split my Mum choose the place we stayed at ( a huge challenge in releasing control for me). The place chosen was from one of the hundreds of leaflets my Mother insists on picking up everywhere we go to add to the mountains we have stashed away back home, all unread. It was advertised as a 'Boutique Hostel' my mum reads Boutique I just see Hostel, to me I have no idea why you would want to move from a hotel to something cunningly disguised as a youth hostel.

As we enter the reception area my Mum is gleeful at the reasonably 'trendy' interior declaring that she's always wanted to stay in one of these 'cool' places, they have even named it 'Golly and Bossy' whatever that means. I hate to break it to her but it just looks like a youth hostel with white walls and a minimilistic reception desk. Our room on the third floor (we skip past the lower floor dormitories of course) is quirky I'll admit with a nice view. The walls are all white and the decoration very modern with sharp edges and cute touches. One bed is in a corner with windows enclosing it in a rooftop view of Split while the other bed is tucked away on another level (reached by a very scary ladder). I already hate the fact that I have to basically climb a vertical wall to reach my bed, while being up high is also very hot, and the sharp edges everywhere are cutting my feet. And don't even get me started on 'wet rooms', why would you want a shower that is meant to spray water all over the room soaking everything. Oh and the tiled floor smashed my MAC foundation. I do realise that I sound like a pensioner here but after the fire alarm went off one night I am allowed to complain.

The effortsome ladder but you get the gist!

Escaping the room, on our final day we decided to visit another one of Croatia’s islands (the joke over there right now is that Greece has to sell islands to gain capital and hence Croatia can then claim to have the most islands) but for now there are not. Brac (pronounced very confusingly more like Brache, if you say you want a ferry ticket to Brac you get a very blank look) was our island of choice and involved another ferry journey with a Lost like ensemble of people and a nap for me. It turns out that Brac is something of the Costa Del Sol of Croatia with tourist packed beaches greeting us to our shock (where in the world do you have to go to get PEACE I wonder). Advantages of this were we somehow managed to sneak onto two Thomas Cook sun loungers for free (SCORE) and have a day not with the yuppies but the jet skiing, water sliding families. We got out our guide to Brac at this point and it turns out there is a lot to do on this wee island, including monasteries, one of the best beaches in the world (honest), and some old bridge; we couldn’t be bothered with any of this though and resorting back to falling asleep on sun loungers. After a nap the Croatian winds picked up again (honestly there is more wind on their coastline than the East coast of Britain) so we managed a wee amble round the cute wee harbour before deciding we had better get the ferry back for another nap.

not so bad really eh...

My mum was also very keen to get back to ensure she had bought every souvenir Split had to offer (she has decided that fridge magnets are her new collectible piece in an attempt to be ‘kitsch’) and I bought my brother a very tasteless postcard to her great embarrassment. We then of course had one last ice cream; where it turns out even Royal fever has hit with the creation of a ‘Wills and Kate’ flavour! Whatever next!

If you look very closely at the middle block of ice-cream you may just be able to see the sign...or perhaps not but honestly the ice cream was called Wills and Kate!

 

And of course it rained our last night, so while reports were coming through from Glasgow of beautiful sunshine we were being raining on in the Mediterranean! Luckily packing everything does mean that I was of course prepared for every eventuality so could whip out my school waterproof for that holiday in the sun look.

 

 

 Note my Mum's brilliant photography skillz..

And finally getting home, a very stressful experience for my poor mother - part of me doesn’t understand why she goes on holiday when the travelling part clearly ages her so much. Our journey involved a 7am bus ride to Split airport, a flight to London Gatwick where we had to check out then check back in for our flight to Glasgow, before a final taxi ride home. This as you can probably guess is a long journey, the whole duration of which my mum is so stressed you cannot talk to her – GREAT. I was just so excited for London Gatwick I barely minded, after a month away the thought of M & S food was making me potentially a bit too excitable. By the time we were on British soil I already had my whole meal planned out meaning I was able to rip open the packaging almost immediately after sighting the British food haven (and can I just say now it was totally worth the wait and hype!)

HOME SWEET HOME

SPLIT

Holidaying with my mother is of course laced with pros and cons... On the positive side, I get to stay in slightly nicer places (hostels are too much for her, the idea of sleeping in bunk beds confuses her) and eat in slightly nicer places (the woman does like a bargain but deems my usual eating bread on the street a step too far). Further positives are that I am not travelling alone and the company is useful, for instance we took a walking tour of the city, I was able to fall asleep (metaphorically) and get a simplified version from her later.

Negatives are that I am stuck for 8 days with my mother. You can take the person away from the package holiday but you can't take the package holiday out of the person. My mum hence enjoys doing nothing and somehow manages to make wandering about the town centre entering souvenir shop after souvenir shop last all day... Yesterday we found somewhere to sit and my mother not wanting to pay for pricey UK magazines managed to spend 2 hours reading the Croatian ones, she found the way UK celebrities were depicted very interesting, god knows how she worked out any Croatian! Not that I am necesarily complaining as we sample every coffee shop in Split, the only problem is finding a coffee that we define as normal...if you ask for a coffee you get an espresso, if you ask for a coffee you get an espresso with milk, if you ask for a cappuccino you get an espresso with frothy milk on top; or some crazy combination of all three. We have tried a whole range of hand actions and words to no avail, yesterday after a particularly heated sign language conversation, I was handed an espresso in a large cup and given a whole metal jug of frothy milk separately - we give up. Another negative quality of my Mother's is that she believes no one here can speak any English so does the very British thing of shouting at them in slow English. Even when they answer back in perfect English she still instinctively has to shout at them, this is incredibly embarrassing believe you me.
After exhausting every souvenir shop in Split, the last few days we moved to an island off the coast called Hvar (pronounced var with a kind of weird flemy sound on the front). The catamaran over there was entertaining in itself, Hvar seems to attract literally every kind of person under the sun; every nationality seemed to be accounted for, as well as families, elderly couples, back packers, and plenty of rahs ( one of which had an amazing TOWIE tote bag that said 'totally reem'). In a weird way I almost wanted the ferry to crash in a Lost-esque way as the people on that ferry would make a brilliant TV show. As long as I was the main character of course.

Hvar was in my mum's words full of 'Hooray Henry's', we managed to pick the one place in Croatia that is horrendously overpriced. Lovely as it was mind. The food was a particularly highlight as we made our way through cuttlefish risotto (a bright black delight), shrimp pasta, fish soup, muscles, sea bream, and plenty other culinary delights. While one night my Mum went all out and had a glass of wine, she never drinks so after about two sips was feeling slightly merry, made even more amusing because I had chosen a slightly 'hip' bar. She knows some of the songs thanks to aerobics classes and is always happy so show off her moves! A man was doing yoga one morning and she was one step away from having a yoga off beside him as apparently she is more flexible!b I also have a new hobby (as shown below) of photographing my Mum eating, as you can see there are some hilarious consequences, the woman is amazingly unphotogenic.

Sinister risotto while my mum goes mad for the shellfish.
It was at the harbour though, the full extent of the holiday makers Hvar attratcts is clear, the yachts were verging on private cruise liners all complete with crew that polished the white ships constantly. This is the place to meet your rich husband for sure, the pricesest cocktail bar contained plenty of men by mother's age who I would be more likely to head home with. We were more content however spending our evenings in our apartment watching BBC News (naturally the only English channel). We pretty much had a middle aged couple holiday! Having repeated naps through the day and only going for short walks which then tired us out for the day.

HVAR

AND FINALLY
just because its so funny, my mum's passport photo (she is scared of the flash!), I don't even know how she got away with this...