Passing Round the Snaps.

A different view every morning.

Well, my bloated yeomen, let me share with you a family tradition. On Boxing Day, after over indulging on the cold turkey, pickles, pease pudding, ham, sausages, various salads, mashed potato and anything else unwise enough to be lurking in the fridge, we collapse in the comfy chairs. There tends to be a period of minimal movement until the digestive processes reach a fairly advanced stage and the turkey sandwiches and mince pies make an appearance.

Quite early on, someone produces a strange shaped bottle of lurid coloured liquid and invites us to sample something they discovered on their holidays. (Note 1) As the liqueur destroys any brain cells stupid enough to be out and about during the festive season, someone produces their holiday snaps.

So, gird up your loins bold yeomen. It is time for the next instalment of ’What I did on my holidays.’

The first proper full day of the holiday saw us arrive in St. Lucia. (Note 2)

We docked in Castries, the capital of St Lucia. The harbour is a real contrast to Barbados and certainly is smaller. It became a habit with me on the trip to go out on the balcony every morning and to take a few pictures. The ones below are of Castries harbour (as is the title photo).

It is difficult to describe in words the sheer scale of the cruise ship. One turn around the promenade deck is one third of a mile. The ship is twelve stories high from dock level (amazing how easily you get into the habit of discounting those below decks).

We spent our day in St. Lucia on a tour of the island. Our chosen mode of transport was a catamaran – and judging from those who took mini bus tours we made a very wise choice given the state of the roads and the terrain of the island. (Note 3). For a small portion of the tour we did transfer to mini bus so I am talking from experience here!

Our first stopping off point was Soufriere. The town itself is built on the floor of an active volcano and has some interesting links to the French Revolution and to Napoleon. However, the tourist industry isn’t that sophisticated yet and this wasn’t really explored by the guides. Soufriere was quite a contrast to Castries. As soon as we arrived we were pestered by young boys begging. They dived from the dock and swam out to our boat offering to dive for coins. Wherever we went we were followed around by peddlars who all sold the same jewellery at the same price. As I said, the St Lucia tourism industry is unsophisticated. (Note 4)

Transferring to mini bus, we had a guided tour of the drive in volcano (tipping very much encouraged) and the botanical gardens.

After the tour it was back to the boat. We headed off to a beach for a Cajun meal and a swim. Oh and all the while, the crew served up free rum punch. Not that we could take much advantage of this as the delays in arriving meant that the Captain’s Reception had been held over so when we returned to the ship I would need to squeeze myself into my penguin outfit.

On the way back to the cruise ship, the catamaran did a quick tour of MARIGOT bay. This only served to reinforce my view that the people who really benefit from tourism in St Lucia are the foreign hotel chains.

There are no pictures of me in my penguin attire or of the Captain’s Reception. So here endeth Day Three of what I did on my holidays. TO BE CONTINUED…

From 14th June, the industry standard Crozzy Standard has been applied to footnotes.

NOTE 1: The really sad thing here is that the liquid is delivered with a strange haze rising off the glass. If you are unfortunate to get some on your skin, it goes a funny orange colour. It invariably tastes foul and reacts with one of the gherkins you ate earlier to produce the vilest wind. Yet the person with the bottle (and the one wearing the protective goggles and asbestos mittens) insists that it is an absolutely ‘wonderful’ concoction that the discovered in the most ‘delightful’ bar overlooking some church. They would have gone back, but they couldn’t remember their own names for 48 hours and when they did someone had moved the church. Click to return

NOTE 2 : I’m not going to recap why this was the first full day of the holiday. For those of my yeomen who don’t know, the reasons, they can be found HERE and HERE. Click to return

NOTE 3: I should point out that I have only included the small sized photographs from my Flickr account. Should you wish to see the larger pictures, simply click on the photographs and you will be magically transported! Well to Flickr if not St Lucia.Click to return

NOTE 4: The same cannot be said for foreign companies who have been quick to set up their brand of resorts on the island. There is one resort between the Piton mountains which is very exclusive charging thousands of dollars a night and importing white sand for its beach. There are no natural white sandy beaches on the island because of the active volcano which turns the sand gray. Click to return

TECHNORATI TAGS : St Lucia ; Tourism ; Travel ; Soufriere ; Caribbean ; Arcadia ; red1hols.

The Last Hop

Where the hell are we?

I dare say that quite a number of you brave yeomen fell soundly asleep during my entry describing my first day of ’What I did on my holidays.’ Fear not, I will not hold it against you. However, your fellow yeomen are going to have to suffer a recap (and they may seek retribution during recess).

The first day of the holiday had been effectively written off by a combination of the US Navy and Thompsonfly. After 23 hours travelling, we still hadn’t reached Barbados and our cruise ship. Instead we had been diverted to Antigua and after a white knuckle taxi ride, been put up in a hotel somewhere on the island.

Despite enduring a tortuous journey and getting to bed late, jetlag caused me to rise at dawn. I was at a low ebb. The events of the previous day had done nothing to reduce my stress (and that is what holidays are for after all). I was tired and annoyed. Above all, I had no idea if the ship had sailed without us or what arrangements had been made to allow us to join it.

When I went out onto the balcony of the hotel room, my whole mood lifted. That picture above shows the view that greeted me. (Note 1) The sun was climbing over the hills on my left. The air was warm compared to the chill of the room – and that view was breathtaking. My mood lifted considerably.

Warmed by the sunshine and the tropical air and given new energy by the location and breakfast, I started to take an interest in where we were. Which of course, was Antigua. A place which is far better in daylight!

It turned out that we were in a hotel near Jolly Harbour. (For a map CLICK HERE). Even now, I’m not sure where we where exactly, but I think it was probably on Mosquito Cove, half way down the left hand side of the island. (Note 2) If you have to be stranded anywhere, then there are a lot worse places than The Jolly Beach Resort.

Wandering about the resort, the bond between passengers on the flight strengthened. Soon, we discovered that a P&O representative was in the resort. That we would still be meeting the ship in Barbados and that it was hoped to have us restart our journey at 10:30 that morning. (Note 3)

While we waited, we wandered up and down the beach and I generally chilled out taking a few photos. It was all very pleasant and relaxing. I even chanced upon the local cricket ground and the team practicing. (Note 4)

The whole resort was alive with birds. They swarmed around the place – especially near to the restaurant where they tried to get inside. It was surrounded by netting and had swing doors. It didn’t put the birds off, they would perch near one of the doors and wait until the doors opened and fly in and out at will. While the starlings contented themselves with food, some of the birds had higher aspirations.

After a spot of lunch, we left the resort and headed back to the airport in a fleet of taxis. This time the journey was less white knuckle.

Although my time in Antigua was brief, I was struck by what in the first world we would describe as poverty – the villages we passed through seemed to consist of little more than small shacks. There again, we drove past a wedding on the way back to the airport and everyone looked very smart in their Sunday best. (Note 5)

The airport was packed – I mean absolutely heaving with people. We did the queues for check in and then the security check – only to be presented with a departure hall that was standing room only. We reached the hall at 14:00 and with an expectation that our flight would take off at 17:30, it looked like we faced a long and uncomfortable wait.

The aircrew (the original crew from the flight the previous day) arrived at 15:30 to spontaneous cheers and applause from all the delayed Brits. The numerous Merkins looked at us suspiciously as their views about the mental stability of the British appeared to be confirmed.

We eventually took to the air at 18:05. At 18:43 we touched down in Barbados. Here we were shown just how efficient arrival procedures can be. (Note 6) By 19:35 we were on coaches. By 20:10 we were on the ship (I was actually the last passenger to board due to a slight issue remembering where I had put the passports). By 20:30 we were safely in our cabins. After everything else we experienced - that was incredibly slick.

After getting something to eat, we climbed up to the top of the ship to watch the Captain back it out of its berth turn it round and head out to sea. Given that the ship is over 250 yards long he made it look like he was driving a mini.

At long last the holiday had begun!

So here endeth Day Two of what I did on my holidays. TO BE CONTINUED…

From 14th June, the industry standard Crozzy Standard has been applied to footnotes.

NOTE 1: The feint haze on the picture is condensation on the camera lense. Hard to believe as it may seem, I had actually woken up shivering thanks to an air-conditioning system with aspirations to be an industrial freezer. When I took my camera out into the warm, humid tropical air condensation formed on the lens. In my befuddled state I failed to notice and this is the only salvageable picture from a series of half a dozen or so. Click to return

NOTE 2 : For those of you not used to technical terms – that’s the West Coast. Click to return

NOTE 3: This was later amended to 13:30 departure. The P&O rep worked hard to sort things out and to re-assure us. We had assumed that she had come from P&O’s Oceana ship which we had seen moored in Antigua as we came into land the previous evening, but in fact she was the islands P&O rep. Click to return

NOTE 4: Given the heat and humidity, I was very impressed with the training cycles they ran through. Certainly they didn’t fit with the outdated stereotypes of West Indian cricket! On a cricketing theme, we also got a view of the Stamford Cricket Ground in Antigua. For those of you not up with the noble game – that was built by an American Billionaire and hosted the West Indies 20/20 championship. Click to return

NOTE 5: I also noticed that most street corners had a couple of young lads lurking and with a furtive look. Young girls tended to walk up and down the side of the road. I have this feeling that goods and services were being traded by these young people – but of course they could have been waiting for a bus to take them to church. Click to return

NOTE 6: The efficiency and the trust shown by all of the countries should be shown as a shining example to the Merkin immigration and airport security services. We visited some poor and supposedly backward countries but all of their immigration and security checks were fast and efficient. In America, they seemed to employ twice as many people who took twice as long to do the same job. Most of them seemed to be employed to point vaguely at something only they could see. Click to return

TECHNORATI TAGS : Trivia ; Life ; Travel ; Comedy ; Caribbean ; red1hols.

Dominoes

Just a diversion.

Well my fine yeomen, it has been a while hasn’t it?

I have now returned from my holiday and while my body is busily trying to select a time zone to operate in, I am going to treat you to a few well chosen lines and pictures about my vacation. (Note 1)

It doesn’t seem possible that only a few short weeks ago, we arrived at a wet Birmingham airport to catch our flight to Barbados where we would board our cruise ship.

It would have been rather over optimistic to expect that the travel arrangements would go smoothly. There are always snags with travel, you just have to shrug and accept them. So it was that a one hour delay in departing Birmingham was shrugged off. At the time, I didn’t realise that this was just the first domino falling.

The flight was a double feature. Nine hours in the air is more than enough time for two feature films. Pirates of the Caribbean – Dead Man’s Chest was a rather clichéd choice for an in-flight movie given the destination. During the second feature Good Night, Good Luck , that the second domino fell. (Note 2)

The Merkin Navy out on patrol in the bandit filled Caribbean, got word that a fleet of hostile pedallos had set sail from Barbados. As general quarters blared across the quarter deck, they decided to test fire missiles. A quick phone call to the Merkin Air Traffic Control and a huge chunk of airspace around Barbados was closed. While the Merkin Navy got to play with their big boy toys, we had to fly the long way round to Barbados.

We were about an hour out of Barbados when the plane took a sharp left. About 10 minutes later the Captain felt the need to tell us about the course change. Almost as an afterthought, he added that we need to pick up some extra fuel in Antigua so that we would reach Barbados. (Note 3)

When we touched down in Antigua I had the feeling of being Jenson Button doing a quick splash and dash for the chequered flag.

As we sat at the end of the runway, straining our eyes looking for an approaching fuel truck, this sense of optimism and excitement spilled over. Here I was in Antigua, an extra stop on my vacation – so I snapped a couple of pictures from the window to record the stopover.

It could be that while I was framing up the shot that the next domino fell. More likely it was during the hour an a half that we waited for a spot on the airport apron to open up so they could park the aircraft and get it fuelled up.

It was dark by the time the plane found its way to the apron. The intercom from the Captain of the plane was strangely silent. Waiting for fuel gave us chance to get to know our fellow passengers. An elderly couple in the row in front of us were celebrating their Golden Wedding. You have to admit – their day was memorable.

Being from Britain, the stiff upper lip kicked in and the gallows humour abounded. The spirit of the blitz surfaced as we waited patiently for news. (Note 4)

By the time the fuel turned up, we discovered the reason behind the last domino falling. The flight crew had run out of hours and were therefore not able to fly us to Barbados. The good news was there was a flight crew in Barbados and they were looking to charter a flight to bring them to our plane to fly us the rest of the way.

At 11:15pm, fourteen hours after we boarded the aircraft, we were told that we would be waiting in the terminal building. Half an hour later we started to disembark.

Antigua airport was effectively shutting down for the night when we arrived. 315 tired and irritable passengers walked into a terminal building with little or no air conditioning to join a snaking queue for a security check. The security staff had the worst end of this particular deal. They are must be made of stern stuff those Antiguan Security Staff. I’m not sure if I could have faced 630 shoes that had been worn continually for at least 18 hours being thrust under my nose.

We were handed vouchers for refreshments at the one food stall in the airport (which did not cover beer) and an unsightly scrum ensued as everyone tried to get served. The guys behind the counter coped well considering. I doubt they often have 300 people to serve in one go, but they managed – even if the choice was limited.

We ate our food and twiddled our thumbs waiting for the relief air crew. Then came the bombshell announcement that our flight was cancelled and that we would be taken to hotels for the night. Some frayed tempers finally snapped. (Note 5)

We had to complete the immigration procedures for Antigua. More queues, but the reward of an Antiguan stamp in my passport. We queued for our luggage (Although some elected to leave their luggage at the airport – and yes, some cases got lost). We then queued for taxis. The guy that was organising all of this deserves a big pat on the back. Where in some places everyone authority finds a place to hide – this guy was organising cajoling and generally getting things done. I wish I’d taken his picture as he deserves some credit.

We ended up in taxi number 796. A taxi which entered to official Holder “World’s Worst Taxis” at #1 with a bullet. The taxi itself smelt like an Amsterdam Coffee shop. The tropical air hang heavy with the smell of scorched herbs. The driver hurtled along potholed roads avoiding the worst by driving on the wrong side of the road. He also totally ignored two red traffic lights. By the time we reached the hotel I was a gibbering wreck and thankfull for the offer of my first (and definitely not the last) rum punch of the holiday. (Note 6)

There were more queues at hotel reception as we snaked our way towards the promised room for the night. We were lucky. By 3:30 am we had completed the formalities and manhandled our cases up twisty stairs to a room and a bed. Where we collapsed after 23 hours travelling. Others were not so lucky. A number of those who chose to argue at the airport found that the hotel ran out of rooms and they had to bussed to another hotel – they didn’t get to sleep for another two hours!

It might not have been the best first day of a holiday – but it was certainly memorable.

So here endeth Day One of what I did on my holidays. TO BE CONTINUED…

From 14th June, the industry standard Crozzy Standard has been applied to footnotes.

NOTE 1: Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I don’t have to treat you all to a meal and watch as you drain my stock of duty free booze before sitting you down to a slide show. Such are the joys of the digital age, I can do it all from the comfort of my own computer screen secure in the knowledge that my supplies of hooch are safe. Click to return

NOTE 2 : I’m sure that a sadistic ex-smoker chose this film deliberately. Being a smoker on a long haul flight is bad enough. To have to sit there and endure a film where someone lighting a cigarette marks the start of every scene is the ultimate torture. Click to return

NOTE 3: I don’t like thinking about just why the plane needed to pick up extra fuel. It is not that far from Antigua to Barbados and ever since I had visions that the plane was flying on fumes as the air crew scrambled for their parachutes. I should be charitable and mention the turbulence we experienced and maybe even use this as an excuse for why the plane was running with such a low fuel load – although it was a Thompsonfly charter flight and I suspect that they were running at the absolute margins to save money. Click to return

NOTE 4: Long haul flights are never particularly comfortable. Long haul charter flights are even less so. The seats on these flights are never big enough. Sure, the legroom was better than some, but they just don’t build the seats wide enough. Yet after twelve hours or so in a plane with three of the four toilets out of commission and with very little news coming from the flight crew, you suddenly realise just how bad conditions must get for those unfortunate enough to fall victim to a hijack. Click to return

NOTE 5: Fine yeomen, a handy travel trip. When your travel plans have unravelled to the point where you find yourself sent to a hotel for the night – don’t argue. Resign yourself to your fate. Follow the instructions to the letter. Move fast and get to the front of the queues that are bound to form. Those that chose to argue with the poor girl behind the counter ended up at the back of all the queues and were several hours behind us in collapsing into a bed. Click to return

NOTE 6: I have travelled in taxis all over the world. I thought that I had seen the worst of all taxi driving – yet the Antiguan roads and taxi 796 beat the lot. Click to return

TECHNORATI TAGS : Trivia ; Life ; Travel ; Comedy ; Caribbean ; red1hols.