Hi. It’s me again. It’s your friendly overseas traveller slowly losing his marbles but gaining a sun tan, so you don’t have to.

Well this part 3 of 4 takes us from Sydney to Melbourne for meeting with friends and the 4th Test of the 5 match Ashes series, and me hooking up with the legendary Barmy Army!!!

PLUS we have the hotly awaited results of the Best Australian Toilet Equipment Manufacturers Competition!!!!!!

Well THIS stage in proceedings starts chucklesomely enough….”1st Class” (aka 50 year old Intercity 125 train downgraded to 100 mph, remember Dear Reader?) 15 hour journey Brisbane to Sydney (think 12th class ANYWHERE ELSE) and meeting the lovely Jackie B and Mark for late night drinks …..with an early start for Melbourne my home for 3 weeks and Christmas, I check out at 6am and await the trainspotter in me to react to the chuff chuff for the journey to Victoria’s Not So...

Time she flies time she flies Dear Reader.

Phew.

Phew. India, Thailand and Australia. How do they most differ from the UK? Well, if you’re chilly you go inside in the UK, the others you simply “better go, walk out the door, don’t look around now, cos you’ll be warmer evermore…”

BRISBANE AUSTRALIA THEN. Lordy. Phew. Brizzie. Brisbane. Another stunning pretty modern city with a snakelike river in the middle leading to the sea with the Sunshine Coast to the north and the Gold Coast (including former hippie colony Byron Bay) to the South. I arrive and do a few cups of delish coffee in the Roamer cafe opposite the Roma station (see what they did there?), before walking the 1km stroll (phew) with my bags through the CBD (as these areas are universally termed these days) to a fab hotel with the greatest view possible!

The Fortune of the Phew.

I unpack only to see on my room TV they’re...

Let’s talk OZ RAIL. It’s rather like the Trainline Company of the US of A. Quite a lot really. Ya gotta wonder why these forward thinking countries (ish) are soooooo BACKWARD about RAIL!????? F’rinstance Australian Cities can be greatly distanced from each other….an efficient super competitive rail system should prevent people hopping endlessly on planes.

ANYWAY To get from Sydney’s Central Station half way up the coast to Brisbane is a three times a week 15 hour journey on old British Rail Intercity 125 “stock” downgraded to 100mph, and THE ONE I WENT ON stopped five hours short “due to staff shortage” and I was replacement bussed. Bust. Truly ghastly to do this at 2am…and as I was straightaway heading up to Cairns on the Great Barrier Reef for some genuine R&R and pretty views of fish, ie ANOTHER 26 Hours on a train, well it now seems madness not to fly. But I didn’t. So there...

We’ll gloss emulsion and no silk finish over 8 hours in Kolkata Airport voted the most pointless airport on Earth other than a place planes might take off from eventually, in my case, en route to Stage Two of this Megajourney THAILAND essentially to visit my most dear buddette Auntie Jo who lives two hours south of the capital Bangkok in a gentle coastal fishing village named Pattaya once nearly described by Trustpilot as Costa Brava On Crack.

Bangkok then? Landed, lovely if somewhat bouncy Thai Airways flight with luscious food and a surprising amount of Laurent-Perrier champagne as there were only two of us in Business.

Cab to hotel greets one with vast numbers of enormous characterless skyscrapers and motorways…..

Still, thankfully, my hotel in a fab area by the Lizard packed and Lake filled Lumphini Park….plus a gay bar strip where I behaved drank and mostly ate and watched a...

You wanna know about Indian Trains and “Sleepers” ???

First Class means er slightly more comfortable than otherwise with a Force nine gale blowing up yer gusset and sharing with 3 other geezers.

It’s a BYOB kinda affair (Bring your own bogroll) though ideally Avoid The Number Two. Though I risked one out of necessity on my final Indian Rail journey…twas ok apart from the broken door, but that’s another Khazi tale…

My first experience post the numerous touristy joys of the Pink City of Jaipur (well pink ISH) and the lakeside city of Udaipur (plus “153 steps to heaven” aka hotel reception) was The Night Train to New Delhi! Well. Couldn’t sleep so finished off my Miriam Margolyes autobiography (fantastic) then wondered what to do over the rest of the 13 hour journey…

In a compartment with infamous Indian Opera Trio “The Three Snorers” performing Nessan Dorma (aka “you ain’t sleeping...

Let’s talk about Lavatories and Eating. In Injer.

Well every Khazi here including on Indian Rail has a dirty great big hosepipe. This is clearly intended for uh “Watering the Marigolds”. Well last night in Agra after an initial sunset viewing of some Taj building or other, I risked a Thali or an Indian Combo as they called it. It was spicy but crucially delicious in every way possible!

Next Morning it wasn’t so much Delhi Belly as Nagasaki Alka, but there’s still no way I’m going to use that hose ….

Then life is all about ups and downs and at 5.30am we drove off for a second time to see the Taj Mahal …words cannot describe how beautiful it is and actually how simple it kinda looks too. 20,000 people built it coming from Persia largely, and the marble carving techniques have never even been equalled (since approx 1650)….

So much so that Dilip my trusty guide here took me to the...

Well HELLO AGAIN, I said HELLO DEAR READER! I’ll be Capitalising A LOT due to my reliance on NHS Hearing Aids these days, but if I’m WAY TOO LOUD, then please ask to be removed or UNSUBSCRIBED. It doesn’t require anaesthetic. I’ll miss you but not as much as you’ll miss me. (With three darts )😘

THIS MY LATEST TRIP follows on from my Bucket-List Event of 2024 good ol’ Aurora and her Borealis, Scandinavian event where we could see the Northern Lights, but only really well after a bit of fiddling about with ones IPhone. (Other phones are available apparently).

This Bucket-list Marathon Maraud (Maud) is initially to visit my place of birth. Now those of you who believe I was created in a Lab in Staines must now realise that, yup, I was BORN. In INDIA. Yessiree Sari Sam! Sure thing Nancy Naan! INJER…..

So off we go for this Betwixt part 1, and Editor’s Note, three more Bucket-list...

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Moi, aka Bubbles DeMarsh dear Reader, may currently be found near a small town in the heart of England called Ashby-De-La-Zouch, at a Health Spa called Champneys Springs, a place frequented by myself and my beloved Denise on numerous pre-Surgery-and-COVID occasions….

One dons ones white robe and flipflops, gets in sauna steam and swim mode and awaits the joys of a facial, pedicure and Head in the clouds Cocoon massage….whilst trying to avoid too much eye and teeth contact with the most smiley staff since Starbucks Seattle and all this while Staying Off The Booze!!!

They tested me early mind you, with Northwest Trains making me “run” for a replacement bus parked not as stated “outside the front of Rugby Station” but 500 yards away …. I only just survived thanks to the driver having to stop at strategically placed roadworks …..still, here I am.

It’s changed a bit from before now...

The Last leg. Or knee as my most dear friend Marianne Wit might put it, for sous chef baker raconteur and all round good surgery battered egg has hopefully just had her flipping final operation for a long long time and has been on crutches serving me home made delish muffins and tea at her domicile in Den Haag, aka The Hague…..

Not too much time to explore very much after the journey from hell (or Hamburg as we have to call it, via Amersfart, the interchange station either no lifts escalators or taste in scaffolding)…..

But hey we’re in Holland and they love beer of course, especially Belgian???? Oh well. Average pint cost in Norway £9 London £7.50 Stockholm £6.50 and Den Haag £4.50.

So it’s therefore bye bye Holland and a massively efficient early couple of trains to Brussels which is in Belgium by the way which means one stop before the end of the journey and Belgian Ticket...