The Hairy coooooooooo cow

To properly tell you about the Hairy cooo I will have to take you back into the mists of time (if this is not funny you are not reading the blogs thoroughly enough)....

It seems that the hairy cooo has been used since the mists of time as an aphrodisiac, its horns apparently warm to the touch when touched give of a potent aphrodisiac that helped the lusty young lads of Scotland earn their reputation as legendary lovers or so Fergie (tour guide not royal) tells us, this practice he informed us actually coined the term "feeling horny".

Not to miss a prime money making opportunity the drug company jumped on it, the idea not the horns, and have extracted the horn of coooo for the drug Viagra the fastest selling drug on the market currently...I wonder then have sales of Panadol gone down or up after all till Viagra is made for women won't we still have headaches honey....

But despite helping the love lives of many an aging man around the world the coooo's are also adorable, fat tubby little bodies covered in long red hair, that even covers their faces in a disturbing likeness to Kurt Cobain, with their soft pink wet and rather large nostrils being the only feature not obscured by their hair they are quite the site.

I leave tommorrow so that's me from the land of haggis, kilts, scots men and tartan...next report will be from Spain if I can afford the internet access.

I finally found out what is under the kilt

Well I can actually say that I am writing to you in real time as I am actually in Scotland and that is the subject of this blog.

I arrived in Scotland to be greeted with rain and a heart attack at the cost of my hostel, $50 Australian for a dorm bed with shared bathroom with 12 other people, but it was warm and blissfully cosy and marked the event of my first time in a hostel on my own. I walked around Glasgow, an old industrial city which is now emerging at a cultural and artistic centre, I was very much reminded of Chippendale in some parts. Glasgow is a gritty, urban and edgy city, perfectly defined by the fact that I stepped of the train to a swarming crowd of goths of every size and description almost comical is in their collective state, faces masked with white makeup - like they needed to be any whiter! Clutching bags decorated with sculls and various other Goth paraphernalia.

My fist night was in a four person dorm shared with 3 other quite solo women travelers obviously with the same grandma tendencies as me as we were all tucked up in bed by 9.30. The hostel was a strange environment as it was Saturday night and thus was filled with loads of 12 year olds (my description for anyone younger than 25 who wears skirt resembling a belt when it is clearly freezing outside) the middle group basically everyone in my room and then a strange contingency of Russian blokes that looked like the defected body building team form the USSR that controlled the kitchen with their large production of cooking 4 course dinners for themselves, I nick named them the Russian kitchen Mafia.

Anyway, a few hours into my blissful sleep I was woken by the 12 years screaming in a Scottish accent from which I could only clearly discern the swear words, followed by hours of ranting, hooting, singing, clapping, wooping and generally not sleeping which continued until 6am. And so I started my first day of touring around Glasgow I misjudged my map and ended up walking two hours out of town to a beautiful country estate and mansion it was worth the walk as it is now a trust house and they were holding a special Victorian day they had characters from the house telling tales and answering questions (yes I am that nerdy), and the gardens were hauntingly beautiful in the rain and mist. It was on the walk back however, when I noticed the afore mentioned rain had turned into ice and even the horses were wearing jackets that I started to feel a bit cold, hungry and longing for my little dorm bed, 3hrs later with many stops for directions and exasperated sighs I made it home, and promptly booked myself on a tour for the next three days.

My tour started in Edinburgh, and our tour guide Fergie set the right note straight away by promising that every site was a surprise despite the guide in our hands and by promising that we would instantly orgasm upon site of most of them, only people with a Scottish accent could get away with the things they do. We traveled from Edinburgh along the West coast through the beautiful and tragic town of Glencoe where "back in the mists of time" as Fergie would say a terrible massacre occurred all the way through to Fort Augusta home to Loch Ness and the monster, through to Skye where the mountains meet the ocean. Scotland has the most breathtaking landscape, towering snow capped mountains flanked by glassy lakes, green hillsides and amazingly for the three days of our tour blue sky's which I am told happens for about 5 days of the year in Scotland.

I even learned a bit of Gaelic different to that of Ireland and pronounced (Garlec), so loch is lake, glen is valley, and really that's about it, but I also learned a fair bit of a Scottish history in all its gory details, although it was confirmed that Fergie was a compulsive liar so I am a little afraid to repeat any of it just in case. But just for laughs I will do a little blog about the Hairy coooo for all my single readers...

My first bus tour brought out mixed feelings, the highlands could not have opened up to me so beautifully without the help of a guide and the landscape was unforgettable, however on the third day, a severe case of bus butt and gut, and bus anxious bladder set in and by 5.30pm I was keen to get off, however I did meet some great people in particular an American, a Canadian Girl and I formed a group that we fondly named the Haggis sisters and on our final night in Edinburgh we set off on a girls night around Glasgow with hilarious results.

Our first stop an Urbanite bar full of too cool for school 20 somethings looking decisively bored and yet entertained at the same time, a bottle of wine later we headed to the Three Sisters, to christening our own Haggis sister union only to find a bar filled to the brim with men ( I know sounds promising) except that they were all starring in the same direction with stunned looks on their faces (no it was not a strip club naked women would not have been any distraction for these boys) who were all fixated on the football or for those back home the soccer. Our next stop an Irish bar in Scotland weird at best, two accents impossible to discern don't make for great conservation so lots of nodding and answering yes, thank god no one asked if they could have sex with me...All that nodding and consenting could have got me into trouble. Then the best stop of them all the Liquid Bar Edinburgh's indi night club filled to the brim with 9 years (even younger than the 12 years and I think I even spotted some embryo's there actually) dressed as if they had fallen into a coma while filming a decephe mode video and then woke up in 2006 and headed straight for the club, swaying aimlessly to music even JLo couldn't dance to. Adequately drunk and brazen in a new city I centred myself on the dance floor and tried not to kill myself laughing when a rod thin embryo in tight black pants, leopard skin singlet and black vest, white to the point of radiating with a bob hair cut (yes I am referring a boy), starting dancing with me....it was a scream ah to be old and wise.

My first week in London

What can I say despite apparent lack of cows and pissing men, London is a great city, sure the sun never does shine here, but they have enough indoor activities and beer to deny and forget...and since everyone here walks around like shining beacon's no one is really bothered...

My first week in London was spent walking around to explore gallery after gallery or just walking along the newly developed South bank enjoying the riverside and pinching myself because I just could not believe that I was here. I had my first tube ride, and since I could leave my Lonely Planet at home (thanks to guidance of my lovely carers Marie and Ails), I had my headphones on and was not interested in making conversation and the fact that I am Indian (half of the Indian population actually seems to reside in the UK) I blended in and was even asked for directions at Oxford Circus station.

My first stop was to buy a coat, since winter in Australia average temps of 15 degrees on a winters day, saw my neck disappear turtle like, my hibernation and my ranting that it was just too damn cold, I felt that a good coat was going to be the only way that I could struggle through 5degree days without curling up in a small ball in front of heater. I had my first iconic British moment when I bought my coat at Marks and Spencer, and my second when I was walking home from the station and a police car blared past and I felt just like I was on the Bill.

London is a truly beautiful and exceptionally cultured city, but like any city it has it's quirks. First the British are the queens of queuing and after the screaming bum rush that happens in India for everything from entering the train to going to the toilet my queuing etiquette was a little rusty and I was promptly told off for not queuing properly at the bank, and then curtly told to have a nice day when the said telleroffer finished his business and left. I recently read an article about Londers that reveals their passive aggressive core beneath their perfectly mannered veneers - aptly told its all "terribly awfully sorry" while their eyes scream out at you to get out of my bloody way you git, fucking tourists...

They are also frighteningly quite on the train, you could hear a pin drop on the morning commute and feel a brute even breathing a little to loudly, but on a the street they are more than happy to help with directions and blissfully ignore you the rest of the time... quite a relief after feeling like a zoo animal for most of my time in India.

The best and most striking difference ofcourse is their accents, the many different accents and levels of well spokenness is amazing walking down the street, where they do occasionally talk a little I felt like I was flitting from the Bill,to the BBC, to Little Britain and then to Home and Away, every second person here is either Australian or a New Zealander and they even have their own brand of dinky pubs called Walkabout I cringe every time I walk past....

Anyway these are my first impressions of London and I off to Scotland next....

Our last four days...

I realise that I must be losing my readership due to the slackness of my blog but please hold in there as I am trying very hard to get it up to date.

After Rajasthan we headed to Puskhar for a much needed rest and stayed in 3 star luxury not as good at 5 star but not as bad as the minus 5 stars that we had been staying at. Enticed by the garden and the pool we dug into our pockets and decided to Splurge a little, not realising the dangerously low temperatures that Pushkar suffers at night and is thus retained in the pool water we gleefully dived in only to realise that our blood had stopped flowing and our hearts beating for a minute until we madly splashed out vowing to get in again tomorrow needless to say it never happened.

Our last stop before Greg got of the mad cattle train that is India was Delhi and what an end it was...Delhi is the most uninspiring city in India hotly competing with Chennai for its level of dullness, but to add insult to injury it is also suffering a major shortage in accommodation (a word Greg kept insisting on using while Indians stared blankly at us and I had to hastily follow on with 'room'...) and room would not really be the description I would use for the only place that we found we to stay in, cell or prison cell would be more adequate but then at one point I considered getting arrested as I was sure prison would actually be more comfortable.

After four days of rolling around Delhi trying to find anything of interest to do, visiting Embassy's buying stuff for my Europe trip and generally ranting about everything from the total lack of decent hotels, the crap expensive food, the cheating auto drivers, our blessed tummy's which insisted on coming out of our bums every hour or so (Delhi belly), the colds we were both suffering and the looming fact that we would soon be leaving each other, it was with relief that we finally pulled up to the international airport to check me in for my flight at 5am. To discover that only passengers are allowed into the doors of the airport as is strictly enforced by military types who have guns. At this point all hell broke loose both Greg and I were crying, I was pleading with the guard and ranting loudly about how much I hated India all this amongst trying to hug and kiss Greg within an inch of himself....what a parade no wonder Indians thing foreigners are mad. After regretfully and tearfully leaving Greg I went right through to customs crying my eyes out much to the interest and sympathy of the airport staff who treaded lightly and let me push into all the queues.

My flight over was uneventful, true to Indian style the staff seated us and then completely disappeared until meals were due and then vanished again as soon as rubbish was collected, I was in the last row with a spare seat next to me and a young Indian couple who I am sure were drugged as they were comatose from the minute we took off to till the last person stepped of the plane, not even stirring for food or the bathroom, why haven't I been granted the wonderful Indian trait of being able to sleep anytime anywhere......

I landed at Heathrow 8hrs later, having finished the first and second Harry Porter books, to be greeted by rain and a minor heart attack when I exchanged $200 US and only received £50 back. In my last session of uni I had a particularly loopy lecturer (the one that swayed for anyone I bored with the stories) who had been to India and sage-like had told me that when you get to India you areinitiallyy overwhelmed by the dirt andfilthh but are more overwhelmed when you return to thesterilee environments of the west - well give me sterile anyday (that does sound a bit strange on rereading..) I joyously walked through the airportmarvelingg at the fact that there was no rubbish anywhere, that men weren't pissing in the corners, that signs actually directed you in the right direction, and the total absence of cows was comforting. I was greeted by beautiful Aileen who now had short hair by the way and given my first tour of London, while I grinned from ear to ear about the fact that everyone stayed in their lanes, I didn't hear one beep and there were actual footpaths and not an open sewer to be seen.

But my heart was a little heavy as I pictured poor Greg setting of on his 2 year journey back home with all his changes and transfers.....but now that I have grown and matured from my India experience I realise that cheap flights are cheap for a reason...