It’s the MEGAJOURNEY’S FINAL STRETCH, long suffering Betwixt Fan!

Before we start I feel Dear Reader that I should commence with a few Key Fiji Items:

1. Bula (meaning almost anything mostly Hi) and Vinaka (thanks mate) have entered into my regular vocabulary so beware !
2. I ate a papaya one day for the first time and only found out is was such a thing using AI (thanks to Geoffrey Hunt, my scientific advisor), and it even showed me how to eat it. Rather nice. Useful even.

1. The biggest Fijian pop star was called Mister Fiji and he recently passed away after many hits worldwide! His real name was George Brooks Veikoso. So there!

2. There are a lot of things one can say about Fiji, and although I didn’t visit the rather rundown capital Suva where my Grandma once started a Girls’ School, all that’s in my mind about there is its beautiful calm fun gorgeous with amazing people incredible...

Well it’s hardly ideal is it? In the grottiest trains on Earth arriving 6 hours late in Sydney when THAT FORTH TO COME NIGHT the 31st December I’m invited to an amazing par-Tay in North Sydney LITERALLY with the most perfect view for the two fireworks shows to mark 2026’s arrival and I haven’t slept for 60 hours have a hacking cough and Hello Vera covers my Eek!

Anyway I arrive at my grotty Barmy Army hotel and get into my grotty room for a much needed 180 minutes of shudd-eye b4 taking the Metro to the rather delightful area North of the Bridge with a station called Victoria Cross. She’d have been flaming Not Amused I’d say. But the hosts the guests the family and the astonishing location are a treat, especially as my dear pal Lucy is with me for NYE. Wondrous and it’ll take me months to sort out the best snaps…..

Getting back at 1am is predictably a nightmare with a zillion police...

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...