So there we were, on a Kuoni tour around Sri Lanka.
Lucky us, in 1995, we were able to go as far north as the ancient city of Anuradhapura -it was often out of bounds for tourists in those troubled first few decades of Sri Lanka’s independence.
Long drive out to Anuradhapura, stopping at Kurunegala Rest House for rest and Miridiya Hotel for lunch – not bad.
I have very few relics from this two-week holiday in Sri Lanka, apart from my trusty (though quite pithy) journal notes and quite a lot of photos, only the highlights from which have been put into an album.
No itinerary, for example, although I do have a contact list…
This Sri Lanka trip was to be the last time we did one of these guided tour in a group things. We got a little frustrated with the regimented nature of the tour…
…and the difficulty/inability to really get to see places and meet local people on our own terms. Some of that sense of frustration will emerge from my verbatim transcription of my (at the time of writing, in early 2020) 25 years ago journal.
We must have left London reasonably early on 16th to arrive in Colombo early on 17th.
Arrive at Columbo only 40 minutes late – despite early two hour delay at Heathrow Terminal Four due to power cut.
Get to hotel early morning – everyone travel weary – therefore slept until afternoon.
Took optional tour round Columbo.
Not a very interesting city – saw municipal buildings, old colonial buildings etc.
Galle Face Hotel
Our guide, Barney, took us to the Galle Face Hotel at end of tour. He helped us to find recommended Seafood/fish restaurant where we tried hoppers, gambas, seer fish curry and Barney’s recommended tuna dish, ambul thiyal. Very good meal.
Tony, Phillie & Charlie Graham (Janie’s twin & family) were living in (or rather just outside) Bad Homburg, in Hesse for a few years. We only visited them there once. This was that visit.
Charlotte was still a primary school kid so of course she was in a show and we went along to see it. The music was Carnival Of The Animals by Saint-Saëns. The children dressed as animals and danced.
Charlie was the elephant, Phillie in pinkBalleticTake a bow, children
The Graham Family had taken a town house on the outskirts of the town; modern build but the shape of a Georgian or Victorian town house in England – i.e. several floors with more or less a room per floor.
Janie and I occupied the basement spare room which could have been a granny flat.
Phillie’s OCDs were in full swing by then, so if we used the bathroom we’d here the patter of feet down the stairs soon after and Phillie would be in there cleaning. She’s have been fine in the time of Covid, he realises writing this up in early 2021.
We had a day out as best we could at that poor weather time of year – Tony fancied Heidelberg so we bundled into his Merc and off we all went. It was a good choice and the weather was not too bad. The vista in the headline picture is from there.
A market stall in HeidelbergDon’t call me a square…oh I see, a picture of me IN a squareHeidelberg grandeur
On Sunday morning I recall military-style operations in order to deposit garbage at the municipal dump. Apparently such matters are verboten auf sonntag, but such rules are not for Phillie so off we all went for some civil disobedience. Tony’s penance was to clean his car’s hubcaps afterwards with various accessories including, at one point, a toothbrush.
You learn a lot about your nearest and dearest if you stay with them for two or three nights.
On the Monday, we bade them goodbye and spent a few hours in Frankfurt before our flight home. We visited the Goethe House, which I loved. We also had time to take a lunch of Schweineshaxe which is a bit of a rare treat favoutrite for both of us and put us in a thoroughly good mood for our flight after a very enjoyable long weekend with the kin.
The grueling experience that was the journey home from this wonderful holiday is well documented in my letters of complaint (which follow).
My main beef was the diabolical service and poor hygiene on the replacement plane, especially the Jakarta to Bangkok leg, plus the constant “goal-post moving” in terms of what we were told about the timing of when we’d get back to Heathrow…not the fact that a scheduled plane was delayed due to a technical problem.
Connoisseurs of complaint letters, dissembling responses to complaint letters and follow up complaints complaining about the dissembling responses as well as the original complaint…
I do recall a friend of mine, familiar with airlines from being “in the business”, reporting that Garuda Indonesia was known in the trade at that time simply as “Ruder”, in honour of it’s infamous service ethos.
My only other strong memory of this matter – absent from the complaint but vivid in my memory – was Janie’s ability to sleep on hard plastic chairs in bright lighting and with large noisy tour groups marching back and forth past our seats at Jakarta airport. No-one other than Janie in out unfortunate collection of passengers got a wink of sleep in those circumstances. I also recall some of the other passengers finding Janie’s ability to just curl up and sleep that way very amusing.
10th December – Lazy day by pool. Rose quite early. Swam etc. Took brave approach to sun for most of day – afternoon went down to shopping centre and walked back through Nusa Dua market – bought several gifts & goodies for ourselves – took some more sun / swam and then prepared to go out for our Babi Guleng which was wonderful but far too much for two – we ended up sharing our meal with other diners and the restaurant staff. Also tasted turtle which was good.
Well, we had been warned a couple of nights before that babi guling, which is a whole suckling pig, was a feast for several people, not just two people. Still, it was fun sharing it with other eager diners and the restaurant staff. I don’t in truth remember the turtle. Janie probably thought it tasted like chicken and I probably didn’t. I suspect that it isn’t the done thing to eat it any more, if indeed it was still the done thing in 1993.
11th December – Lazy day by pool – late start again. Took much sun and swimming. Had some lunch by pool & took canoes out in afternoon. Janie did most of the packing & then we went to seafood restaurant in evening for lobster/prawns. Fairly early night. (I finished Wilderness of Mirrors 10th & started London Fields 11th).
I don’t think the canoeing was a great success, but nor was it a disaster in those tranquil waters.
The nice musician in the restaurant gave me a chance to try his traditional Balinese bamboo instrument, known as rindik.
12 December – I rose early – getting deep into London Fields – we went to Galleria to sort out boarding passes etc. – then went down the pool for final few hours of sunning, swimming, barbecue lunch & last of the amazing sol ice cream milkshakes…
…Left for home 4:00 pm and spent several irritating hours delayed at Jakarta
OMG that flight home with Garuda Indonesia is another story – which I’ll write up at some point. Let’s leave this story with me and Janie by the pool and on the beach.
All the photos we took on those three days – by which I mean all 22 photos – can be seen in raw form in the Flickr album below:
At some point during our stay in Bali, in December 1993, Ged and Daisy “arrived”.
In fact, the first of our characters to arrive were The Clanricardes – Hugo, who is the Marquis of Clanricarde and his wife, Celia, the Marchioness. Lord & Lady C seemed to find the heat and the dust of the tropics terribly, terribly tiresome. They were barely able to find the energy to call upon the servants to do their bidding for them…not that there was much bidding to do, given that they were all on holiday in a hotel.
The Clanricarde’s servants, Ged and Daisy, emerged towards the end of our stay in Bali. Sweet and simple both, Ged and Daisy are a very willing pair…although perhaps more willing towards each other than towards Lord & Lady C. In truth, Ged and Daisy turned out to be quite bolshy towards The Clanricardes, somehow ensuring that the choicest privileges accrued to themselves, while Lord & Lady C had to make do with the lesser pickings.
Ged and Daisy, perennially 20 years old, remained pretty much a private matter for many years…
…until my involvement started with the Middlesex Till We Die website, around 2004, when I decided that Ged should represent my less serious side as a web presence.
Writing under Ged’s name was also supposed to help keep my genuine identity a mystery to most people around Lord’s and Middlesex. But it is hard to be a nom de plume laden, international man of mystery, when someone like Vinny Codrington, the Chief Executive of Middlesex at the time, would holler, “hello Ged” at the top of his voice whenever he saw me.
Then when Facebook came along, it seemed to make sense as a medium for keeping in touch with younger people, such as the nephews and nieces (remember when Facebook was for younger people?), so it only seemed right in those early days for their Facebook friends to be similarly young and less obviously their uncle.
As a budding writer, the “20 year old Ged” needed an image which, in the tradition of writers’ images, was taken a few years earlier. Hence this “16 going on 17” image, which became Ged Ladd’s avatar.
On Facebook, for many years, Ged seemed able to remain 20 on-line in the same way as he remained 20 by assertion in the real world. In 2007, when Ged started on Facebook, he claimed to have been born in 1987. For several years, on his birthday, he rolled his birth date forward a year, so he remained 20. Facebook would ask the occasional “are you sure?” type question, but would always allow the roll…until 2014, when Facebook refused to allow Ged to roll forward the year. An error message solemnly decreed that Ged Ladd had changed his birth year at least three times and that he needed to write an explanation to Facebook Central to get permission if he wanted to change the year again.
So Ged’s Facebook birth year has remained 1993 since 2013. How did those Facebook people know that the character Ged Ladd really was “born”, in 1993. Those Facebook algorithms must be truly remarkable.
Subsequently, of course, Ged’s Facebook presence has fallen into decline. It is mostly on cricket websites such as King Cricket and such places that the nom de plume Ged Ladd persists.
Meanwhile the sugary icons that are Ged and Daisy (see top photo and again below) entered our lives atop my birthday cake in 2012 and certainly represent what is left of the sweet side of our natures, 25 years on and counting.
9th December – Day trip to Lombok – early start (7:30 meet) – drive to harbour to meet hydrofoil – 2 hr trip to Lombok…
The things I especially remember about that hydrofoil was how crowded it was and the big screen film shows to keep the passengers occupied. Most of the passengers were local people, but most of the films were short British comedy shows of a fairly slapstick variety. I recall Mr Bean, Benny Hill and I think they showed Futtocks End on one leg of the journey too.
Met at other end – we are touring with five Germans and three guides – (two German, one for us!). Went to see weaving village (Sukarara)…
…and then pottery village (Banyumulek)…
I suspect that Lombok is still somewhat behind Bali as a tourist destination, but in 1993 there were not that many Western tourists going there and it really was a long way behind Bali. I’ll guess it might seem very commercially-touristic now, visiting these villages.
…then toured a Sasak village – Rambitan – (very primitive)…
…and then on to Kuta Beach for lunch and then Tanjungaan (Lovely beach). Finally stopped at Batik painting workshop near Rambitan before returning to harbour for homebound journey. Got home quite late (8.00) – ate at Chinese restaurant in hotel.
That was quite a day. All the photos we took on that day and the evening before – by which I mean all 56 photos – can be seen in raw form in the Flickr album below:
If I thought that a long holiday would bring a rush of creativity to my comedy lyric writing career at NewsRevue, clearly I was mistaken. Best part of four weeks and this is all he wrote, folks:
Lazy day by pool. Early swim – trip into Galleria for supplies etc. followed by more swimming and lunging by the pool. Saved our appetites for evening meal of Betutu Bebek (duck cooked in banana leaves stuffed with goodies) at Rai Restaurant – ordered Babi Guleng there for Friday. Also watched dancing there before departing.
Betutu Bebek is also known as Bebek Betutu – the latter rendering of the dishes name seems to be more common, at least now (2018).
Not an especially memorable day but this was an exceptionally memorable meal. We had been recommended this restaurant to try traditional Balinese dishes, which we had to order in advance.
Janie and I both look a little red in the face in the pictures from this particular evening. Perhaps the old-fashioned flash photography or more likely a touch too much sun that day.
So pleased were we with the Bebek Betutu that we ordered a Babi Guleng for Friday, despite protests from the staff that the latter (suckling pig) is a dish for many, not just two.
We tend to avoid places with “traditional” music and dancing these days, but were more tolerant (or perhaps less discerning) back then:
