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IN THIS ISSUE

• Margaret Manning remembers more of their English holiday
• Richard Ross tells of an unfortunate incident
• Louise Kruithof also encounters a resourceful villain
• Gerrit de Leeuw sends another dumb blonde story
• Tom Williamson advises that we watch those L O L
• Marilyn Magid suggests an amusing website

Margaret Manning resumes her story about

AN UNFORGETTABLE TRIP

Once we´d re-organized our return tickets we realized time was running out to fit everything in during the next three weeks. We wanted to go north, south, east and west from our base in Stowmarket. The priority was taking a grand-niece and her husband out for lunch. They live at Bury St Edmunds, 14 miles west of Stowmarket. They were expecting a baby, are both young and very fit, and accustomed to long healthy walks. We could hardly feign old age and sit about doing nothing, so we gave it our all and managed to (mostly) keep up with them as we made our way to the Abbey Gardens. They were very kind and kept asking if we were okay.

Bury St Edmunds is a very ancient Suffolk town. The Abbey Gate, which was built in the 14th century, leads into the gardens. These are always, 365 days of the year, ablaze with colourful flower beds, cleverly landscaped to blend in with changing seasons. There are great swathes of luxuriant grass shaded by large trees, and wide pathways. I was about eight when I first saw the Abbey Gardens and the basic layout and philosophy of the surroundings has remained pretty much the same over the years.

There are a few remains of the original Abbey to look at, and the Cathedral Church of St James is nearby. A darker side of the town´s history involves nearby Angel Corner, where religious heretics were killed.

We were all ready for a hearty lunch after the long walk to and through the gardens and back into town. We found a nice little cafe in a quiet back street where we were able to talk without being bothered by loud music. Lisa said her unborn baby enjoyed the long walk and she hoped we did. And we did enjoy seeing this lovely old town again and hoped we´d have time to return and relive some more memories. (Lisa and Mark had a baby girl seven weeks after that visit. She´s gorgeous and very active and can hardly wait to start walking.)

The next day we went east to the Suffolk coast. There are so many beautiful unspoiled places that it was hard to confine our choice to two that day. We decided to visit Dunwich and Minsmere, our favourite coastal settlements. We took the A.1120 road, parts of which follow the original Roman road. There are many attractions along and just off this route, Saxtead Green Windmill and Framlingham Castle being two of them. We had a delicious morning tea at the Weaver´s Tearooms, Peasenhall, a delightfully quaint "Olde Coffee Shoppe" place.

Our route crossed the A.12 at Yoxford. Here we could turn left and visit fashionable Southwold, turn right for Aldeburgh, or go straight on for Dunwich and Minsmere.

The Suffolk coast is fairly bleak, even on a summer´s day, and by the time we reached Dunwich the wind was coming straight off the sea. Dunwich was once important enough for be a bishopric. It had an abbey, many churches, and a large population, but the buildings fell into the sea from the extraordinary erosion that occurs along this coastline. The remains of Greyfriars Priory are now perilously close to the cliff edge.

The town of Southwold, north-east of Dunwich, used to be north-west. The relentless erosion continues, although modern preservation measures are helping to delay the inevitable.

Despite the cold wind we went for a walk through part of the nature reserve behind the shingle beach. The walk stretches for miles through marshland - perhaps almost to Southwold. The fish and chip restaurant near the beach is for the time being safe from the sea, while the settlement´s small museum, pub, and scattering of houses are well back from the coast.

We decided to go to Minsmere for lunch, remembering that the former coastguard cottages on the clifftop had a gift shop and cafe. The landscape was stunning, with heather in full bloom. We were intrigued by some structures that looked like huge bamboo sails erected in rows across the heath. These were made into the form of sculptures from local birch wood and reeds from the surrounding marshes. They were placed as an indication of expected coastal erosion over the next century. To compensate for this, the National Trust has purchased some land further inland for a restoration project to replace the disappearing coastline.

The protected heath stretches south to Sizewell, with its nuclear power station. We would have loved to go to Aldeburgh and other places south as well, but it was time to return to our holiday base and get organized for the evening meal.

(To be continued)

Richard Ross has just lost all his money and documents to a pickpocket while boarding a bus in his

INDIAN CHRONICLES

No-one spoke English. My flight was in an hour and my ability to remain calm in the hours to come was going to be tested severely. Without photo-ID and penniless, I boarded another bus. Weighed by despondency, I stood out not just as a white-skinned vagrant, but a white-skinned vagrant on the verge of a cosmic melt-down. Six schoolboys, still clad in proper uniform, asked what had happened, in intermediate English. Short of breath, I let body language express the vicissitude of the last half hour; fluttering, squealing, but nevertheless communicating, the young boys understood my desperation. Making my flight, they assumed, was of most importance to me - and I suppose at the time it was. My predicament had me cornered, but my departing flight held promise. Promise to escape this sweltering, Dravidian hellhole, if not with my personal belongings, at least with all limbs intact.

The young boys, together, represented me, describing to the rest of the bus my current hardship. Before I knew it, lower-class Indians, with little but rags for clothes and dirt on their hands, passed around a hat, each contributing to me: the rich, strange, foolhardy American.

I could have used my energy more constructively. The flight, long- gone by the time I reached the airport, proved that fleeing the crime was appallingly counter-productive. Without the police´s observance in document form of the incident, I had not a hope to board a flight in a country recently zonked by terrorism.

Here, there and beyond, the schoolboys would not leave my side. When we first returned to the scene, the policemen on patrol insisted I identify the perpetrator - a feat that even by Hardy-Boy standards would be impossible, especially considering that two hours now had passed and for all I knew, the sneaky crook already had fronted two months´ rent, booked a flight to Boston, and had his family holding a still pose as he searched for the viewfinder of his new Cannon digital camera.

So, squooshed into the back of a cruiser, I went to the station, a dusty dungeon of prehistoric office equipment including rusting typewriters and glossy, see-through paper for tracing - the most pervasive method of photocopying I´ve seen throughout India. I sat, of course. Just as I learned in my first experience (see Chronicle 1) in a Delhi police station, one must always remain seated. The schoolboys converted my English into Tamil out loud and on paper. One grizzly-haired man, perhaps an administrative assistant, handed me a boiling cup of tea and with utmost confidence, maintained I had come to India on a Christian mission. "No, I have not, sir." Speechless, but mostly because he was at a loss for more English, he disengaged.

Hours passed, but the procedural tedium remained the exact same. "Sir, please write the name of your father on this line," and that line, or in that space, or on this document. Bureaucrats in this country, you will quickly learn, are fixated on paternal lineage. The designated box: Father´s Name, may even precede the box for your own.

By now, my cell phone was receiving the calls of worried mothers, all of whom were notified much earlier that their son would not be home in time for dinner. While the police were still disputing the spelling of my father´s surname, I had a minute to semi convince the boys I would be okay and that they should run along; my sister had arranged other help that was on the way. And so they did, against their gentle will. We hugged farewell, my eyes filling with tears.

There´s nothing that I love more about Indians than their kindness to strangers. The inevitable crack of the smile if eyes lock, or their teddy-bear indifference to a pat on the back. These four boys, Raj Kumar, Mohan, Frank, and RK, were typical of the selflessness anchored into the hearts of so many Indians. And not yet is it the wily pickpockets, so-called corrupt politicians and inept police force that make the final difference here. It is the four boys and the millions and millions of Indians like them who know benevolence and nothing else. India is a daring experiment, both in its overpopulation and fragmentation, but it carries on, cautiously, clinging to the age-old promise that Gandhi himself embodied - truth and love will always win.

I did in fact return safely to New Delhi the following morning. I went straight to the American Embassy and filled out the proper paperwork for a new passport. I purchased a new camera, and spent the next four days, again, clambering through the muck of Indian bureaucracy trying to reinstate my stolen visa. In the 11th hour, a day or so before my flight to Sri-Lanka, I located the only woman who was not pre-set by clockwork. She was on all counts more logical than the bobbling-head androids I dealt with. She spoke and then she listened, and what she possessed was an imagination. Staggeringly, she unearthed my paperwork among the sky-scraping clutter, and with just an ink-stamp and my trust, she reissued my visa - free of charge.

India once more revealed its schizophrenia. As I found in Chennai, for all the unforgiving, the compassionate will always be on call, and for all the jostling and jolting, you´ll always meet a gentle embrace. I will continue to regard India, as I´ve said before, not just as episodic ups and downs, but as an ever-unfolding debacle - and to be frank, one I have really come to appreciate.

Stay tuned for a couple of weeks for Chronicle # 5. It´s sure to be the best so far: filled with nostalgia from a wonderful and rapturous voyage through Sri Lanka, Goa, Bombay, and back to Goa.

Louise Kruithof writes: Travelling educates the young, and also the not-so-young!

LIVE AND LEARN

My husband and I think that as a team we have become pretty savvy travelers, but we had a little adventure that made us review that opinion.

We were on the way home, starting from the city at the end of the road in Inner Mongolia and we had reached the larger city, Shenyang, from where we were to take the plane to reach Beijing and fly back home to Canada.

The day before leaving Inner Mongolia someone from my husband´s work place, the company he was being a consultant to, offered to drive us to Shenyang instead of us having to take the train or hire a taxi. The journey to get there had been so difficult and at times harrowing that we had decided on a journey by train. The train was the preferred mode of transportation to get back to the closest airport particularly because the road gets snow and ice, whereas the train follows the railroad regardless of the weather. When someone offers a driver and a vehicle at no cost it is difficult to refuse.

The vehicle that came to pick us up was an Audi SUV, the lap of luxury, to take us to Shenyang. There was a third passenger, also a Canadian, coming with us so that the vehicle was not big enough to take the three of us with all the luggage. The driver called the company´s garage, someone else came and took all the luggage, and we had a short ride in the Audi to the company´s garage to get a different vehicle. What a nice comfortable car that Audi was!

Once at the garage, there was a short consultation and it was decided that we would go in a Land Rover, which is a bit bigger vehicle and it took all the luggage and the passengers. This voyage was uneventful: the road was getting a bit better, we had a professional driver, and we stopped along the way to have lunch.

The driver did not know where the Holiday Inn was located in Shenyang so we did a bit of running around in the middle of the city and finally found it. Once settled into our room, we went for dinner downstairs for some sustenance (beautiful cream of mushroom soup followed by ?.)

Next morning, we repacked for the two flights, the one to Beijing and then the one to Toronto, and called for the bellboy to help with the luggage. Downstairs, we asked the bellboy to get us a vehicle larger than the regular taxis. There are quite a few people using vans as taxis so we thought that would be better and a bit roomier for my husband´s long legs. We were told that someone would come but that it would take one hour. I said that because of the time schedule of the plane we could not wait for one hour; please find someone else who can be here within 15 minutes. The bellboy came back within a few minutes to say that someone would be there in 15 minutes, and 15 minutes later there was a van waiting outside the main door of the hotel.

Groaning and moaning, all the luggage went into the back of the van and we left for the airport. Soon after we got underway, the driver asked me about something which I did not understand fully, although I suspected, so I shrugged my shoulders and indicated that I did not understand. He picked up his cell phone and called someone and then passed the phone on to me. The person he had called was the bellboy from the hotel, who proceeded to tell me that I had to pay the driver right away, at which point I made the statement that this was not an accredited taxi, to which he acquiesced. So I said that I would pay once we reached the airport. I passed the phone back to the driver, who was not happy with what the bellboy told him.

What happened next was interesting: he turned into a side street, shut off the motor, and just sat there. Another phone call, but this time I had a short discussion with my husband who said, "Just pay him. We don´t have time to fool around and remove all the luggage from the back and find another taxi." So I gave the money and the motor roared and we went on the way.

There still was something not quite correct. The van was so slow that everyone was passing us at what looked like great speed. This time I was very unhappy and requested another phone call to the bellboy. I told the bellboy in no uncertain terms that if we missed the plane because of the shenanigans of the van driver, his boss, the manager of the hotel, would hear about it. The phone went back to the driver and a long conversation followed of which I did not get very much and once the phone got back on the seat, suddenly the van could do very good speed.

Once at the airport, the driver wanted a tip. Very daring he was! A short conversation with my husband, the luggage was all taken out of the van, I requested that the driver sign the envelope he had given me full of little receipts because I had insisted on a receipt. I wrote his licence plate number on the envelope and sent him on his way. No tip. He was not happy but if he thought he was taking me to the cleaners he had the wrong person. We made it to the check-in desk just in time. At the check-in they took all the luggage, assigned us seats, and off we went to board the plane to Beijing with not a minute to spare.

I thought that because it was a person from the hotel requesting the transportation it was going to be legitimate. It was not. That one goes in the "live and learn file".

Every day something pleasant or nice happens if you give it a chance. Later in the day, we were at the Beijing Airport with all the luggage in two carts just prior to the opening of the check-in desk, my husband left for a minute and I was looking after the luggage. On top of luggage I had two coats that I call the "Mao" coats. They are the coats that one can see in lots of winter pictures from China, particularly if it has the army in the photo. It is the coat that Mao Tse Tung was wearing in a lot of his photos and that a large portion of the people working outside wear. I had purchased two of them in Inner Mongolia because the lining is made with sheepskin and they are very warm.

Because of the material they are sewn with, they are heavy and very slippery if you try to put them together on top of something else. Mine did what I dreaded: they started falling and I had to rescue them from the floor. Beside me there was a group of older Chinese people, a tourist group, and they saw the coats sliding and were looking at me while I was trying to manage them. I looked at them and said in Chinese that I had just returned from Mongolia, and smiled. The few who were close to me and heard what I said smiled back, shaking their heads in understanding the reason for the heavy coats, and started telling everyone in the group about this foreigner who had just come back from Mongolia. In no time, the whole group was examining the coats, smiling, and wishing us a good trip. What a nice way to counteract the greedy van driver!

Later at the Air Canada counter, the gentleman dealing with the boarding passes offered to put them in a large plastic bag so they would be easier to handle and even offered to check them with the rest of the luggage, cautioning that they could get damaged because the plastic could rip. So we took them into the cabin with us. One was for my sister, who is very, very happy with it, wearing it in cold Montreal. The other is with me.

Gerrit de Leeuw sends this story about a dumb blonde:

WINTER RULES

One winter morning a husband and wife in northern Alberta were listening to the radio during breakfast. They heard the announcer say, "We are going to have eight to 10 inches of snow today. You must park your car on the even-numbered side of the street, so the snowplows can get through."

The good wife went out and moved her car. A week later while they were eating breakfast again, the radio announcer said, "We are expecting 10 to 12 inches of snow today. You must park your car on the odd-numbered side of the street so the snowplows can get through."

The good wife went out and moved her car again. The next week they were again having breakfast, when the radio announcer said, "We are expecting 12 to 14 inches of snow today. You must park...." Then the electric power went out.

The good wife was very upset, and with a worried look on her face she said, "Honey, I don´t know what to do. Which side of the street do I need to park on so the snowplows can get through?"

With the love and understanding in his voice that all men who are married to blondes exhibit, the husband replied, "Why don´t you just leave it in the garage this time?"

Tom Williamson writes: The next time you use a pair of rubber gloves, you´re going to smile when you think of this:

RUBBER GLOVES

A dentist noticed that his next patient, a Little Old Lady, was nervous so he decided to tell her a joke as he put on his gloves.

"Do you know how they make these gloves?" he asked.

"No, I don´t," she replied.

"Well," he spoofed, "there´s a building in Canada with a big tank of latex and workers of all hand sizes walk up to the tank, dip in their hands, let them dry, then peel off the gloves and throw them into boxes of the right size."

She didn´t crack a smile.

"Oh, well, I tried," he thought.

But five minutes later, during a delicate portion of the procedure, she burst out laughing.

"What´s so funny?" he asked.

"I was just envisioning how condoms are made!"

Gotta watch those Little Old Ladies - their minds are always working!

SUGGESTED WEBSITES

Marilyn Magid sends this site which illustrates what a great source of comedy has been lost with the retirement of George W. Bush:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP4d4oFKv78

Remember all those student bloopers we´ve read over the years and wondered just what age those students were? For a compilation of those bloopers and Snopes´ comments on them, see

http://www.snopes.com/humor/lists/student.asp