Ben Welsher | Writings

Day 29 - Utila Diving in the morning conceded to pure recreation in the afternoon and evenings (for us at least, the truly hardcore dove morning, noon and night). Time we filled with large amounts of nothing, only the metronomic swing of the hammock marked its steady progress. Après-scuba indeed. Faces became familiar, familiarity became friendship. Nicola and Tania monitored our diving progress with enthusiasm, each success toasted with the clink of glass. We became part of a little community where, even if everyone did not know your name, they certainly knew your aim and common ground was reclaimed from treacherous waves. Life outside the island was fond but faded remembrance, what did we lack but the means to exist here in perpetuity? How long could a person spend in this permissive utopia where not a policeman walked the streets and resplendent stars lulled you to sleep under a haze of slumbering cloud. All writing ceased and it is only now nearly a month since arriving that I...

Day 26 - Utila Tanks were parked along the dock, we were about to invade a land that was not ours. A crash course in theory left disjointed terms floating around our head - regulators, pressure groups, equalisation, first stage, second stage, beans, rice, fish. The aquatic life below, I imagine, surveyed these nervous, rubberised humans with weary familiarity. We were being thrown in at the shallow end but fears were nonetheless for it. Certainly strapping on 14 pounds of iron before swimming would seem counterintuitive at the least. Fins on feet I staggered to the edge like a drunken clown. Below, the sea, above, the sky, the thin sliver in between where we live our lives. Perhaps I dramatise but, with the intonation 'continuous breathing so your lungs don't explode' ringing in my soon-to-be squeezed ears, mistakes would be costly. At least there is a slight affinity with the water in my person, my amigo had no such love. From anti-aqua to nascent snorkeler and now wannab...

Day 23 - Utila Rain lashed our island paradise, the waves tossed the boat nauseatingly from left to right. Passengers doubled over the side and we questioned our judgement. It wasn't like this in the brochure so lasciviously flicked through in my head. A sodden golf cart whisked us through the weather to a striking white wooden structure jutting out into the Caribbean sea. The verbose landlady (perhaps a better term should be invented for an island hotelier) delivered a filibuster of a welcome talk while previous recipients looked on with amusement. A piece of advice she did give was to acquire supplies lest Santa enforce a shutdown the following day. In need of personal hygiene but finding deodorant priced the same as a bottle of wine it was clear that that night would be spent stinking drunk (I already have my coat on). Walking back along the main street we dodged children on quad bikes and spied building after building flying the red and white flag of scuba. On Utila a driver...

Day 23 - San Pedro Sula Christmas was two days away and, being enamoured by the idea of spending it on the beach with lobster for dinner, we turned in the direction of the Bay Islands off the coast of northern Honduras. Figuring it was worth the extra money to guarantee our dream we dropped $50 on a 'King Quality' bus, not a chicken in sight. It should, all being well, leave us within spitting distance of the islands by nightfall. The lesson that in Central American bus travel all is never well had obviously not been learned. $50 would appear to be no guarantor of punctuality nor indeed, ironically, of quality. We were late leaving due to a faulty aircon, the fact that the bus' gear changes sounded like an elephant being hit in the face with a cricket bat indicated that the problems ran deeper. Death was pronounced at 14:02, a couple of minutes past our scheduled arrival time and still a full five hours from destination. Even the loosest of itineraries with the most genero...

Day 21 - San Salvador For the sake of completeness El Salvador required a visit. It is, I am told, Central America's most densely populated country, its largest economy and yet is largely ignored by tourists. Hidden charms or a worthy swerve? We would find out. My enjoyment might be tempered by an unpleasant bout of traveler's flu though. The cough was ceaselessly unproductive while my nose streamed. My eyes stung to be open, stung to be closed. I bore it all stoically though and resisted the notion of gender-specific ailment. Our bus from Antigua was going along just fine until a large, solid bang consistent with an impact struck us. I suspect if we had actually run down an unfortunate Guatemalan pedestrian the delay would have been less than the burst tyre that actually transpired. We sweated in the dry heat as a herd of cows lumbered past in the opposite lane and the driver got to work on the wheelnuts with a blowtorch. Judging by the looks and mutterings of the locals this...

Day 17 - Antigua The retrospective nature of these writings means there is a good chance you already know we made it but create an artificial suspense now if you like. Antigua was the colonial capital of all Central America until leveled by an earthquake in 1773. Siting the town between three volcanoes would seem to invite such destruction I would say. It still retains a handsome charm and, given its tourist draw, would be an ideal place to spend a few days and let the accumulated miles ease themselves from our sweaty, dirty bodies. The Danes pointed us in the direction of a hotel but rooms were hard to come by. After fruitless wanderings we took Michael's detested and feared option of a dorm. The fact that no-one shared it with us for more than one night can only be a coincidence. Antigua, in common with much of Guatemala (and I suspect, Central America), has issues with crime. Over here Security Guard is a job for life. From the guys at the bank with the sub-machine guns to the...

Day 13 - Flores A not insignificant amount is charged when you leave Belize, payment on entry would surely be a more reasonable system. We'd stopped in San Ignacio on the border the night before and received Guatemala pointers from a charming French girl named Lila. As soon as we'd walked across the border we were beset by Taxi Drivers and Bus Drovers bellowing "Flores!" and "Tikal!". Going alphabetically we chose the former. A familiar buzzing noise greeted our arrival into the town, the hairs on my travelling partners neck stood up. Tuk-tuks. His deep seated and impassioned loathing for the machines (or more accurately their operators) was salved by a few jars with some chickens. The Mayan ruins at Tikal were widely touted (and not just by the aforementioned) so a tour was booked for the following day. We waited on pre-dawn streets silent but for the shrieks of bats diving in and out of the eaves. Our transport was exactly on (Guatemalan) time and we wer...

Day 9 - Belize City Night was not Belize City's best side, black was not its colour. We fell in a parabolic curve down through Mexico, gravitating towards the little country sitting below the peninsula. The book helpfully outlined the places not to walk at night in Belize City - just about everywhere. We caught a cab with a German called Benton or Fenton or something and made for the Smokin' Balam Guesthouse. Our landlady also instructed us to 'be careful' and with nervous glances all around we walked to the main street in search of sustenance. We collared a copper to ask about gringo-friendly venues and though his suggestion of a bar down a dark alley was not taken seriously his advice to 'stay safe' certainly was, despite the fact that he should surely have a hand in that. Carmita's by the famous swing bridge was relatively friendly and a couple of buckets of Belikin (Belize's #1 beer, sorry, 1 beer) softened our angst. We had Lyndon's (after Joh...

Day 7 - Merida We bid farewell to Hostel Rio Playa regretting that we didn't have time to bathe in their foot-deep 'swimming' pool even though, as notified by sign, diving was prohibited. Our early bus was of the plush (no really) ADO variety, I sense our standards of carriage can only decline as the trip progresses. We set our compass to Merida, the cultural capital of the Yucatan. First stop was Valladolid though for a brief excursion to the Mayan ruins at Ek Balam (Balam meaning Jaguar, Ek as in 'ooh ek'). A collectivo taxi with two Mexicans heading that way provided an economical connection. The Mayans put up some pretty impressive structures without the use of metal tools or draft animals and though most had crumbled the 29m pyramid still stood resplendent amongst the trees. The ascent was jagged and unforgiving and a slip could be painfully, bone-breakingly fatal. The view from the top, however, engorged the eyes with its vast verdancy. The climb down was mor...

Day 3 - Cancún I fervently hope that a runway is approaching us with the rapidity that we are approaching the tree-carpeted ground. Black waters have become turquoise and grey skies an endless blue. I've never seen so much jungle and I've been to the New Forest ferchristsakes. Summer had arrived in December. We had touched down in Cancún in the Yucatán Peninsula. A town infamous for being a magnet to alcohol deprived American teenagers in spring and all the exported debauchery that suggests. Our hostel was sited in a disused shopping mall, the escalators had halted long ago but the place did the trick and it was in short order that we were sipping our first ice-cold Corona. The trip proper had started now, 'journey' if you're of a more literary bent. I had been fighting a rather fatalistic state of mind for the past two days, a mind of dark and doomy imaginings. Now every edge was a precipice, every drain cover a trapdoor, the cracks were everywhere. It drives one...

Day 1 - New York The cold, dark New York air hits our faces as we rise from the petroleum-scented depths of the subway. In a life of bright, hopeful beginnings and dim, crestfallen endings here is another of the former that asks for a wordy substantiation, a placement in the order of things and, perhaps like none before, a worthwhile reckoning. Or maybe I just squeeze my eyes shut and fuse the disjointed, the dismembered ends of this violent year into one seamless, happy whole. As we walk across the Brooklyn Bridge it provides as apposite a metaphor as any of the dreaming spires and brilliant lights that lie ahead. Our curious cattle shed of a hostel (can someone please investigate the previous life of the Bowery Whitehouse and let me know?) grounds us and in the finest of tourist traditions we are shortly ensconced in an Irish pub called McSorley's supping God's love (B. Franklin, 1779). Sarah, Sarah, Simon & Matt ably straddle the dividing line of a common language re...

Day X - Birmingham It's not an easy thing to summate the thoughts and feelings of the past few weeks and I attempt it now not entirely confident that I will be successful. Indeed I am waiting for the usual flow to take me but the current is not there, stagnant I think is the descriptor. I look back at highs and lows, the 'emotional ECG' of it and find cause to treat any sensation or mood with a wary eye so mindful am I now of their fleeting conviction. One day joy, the next gloom, was either emotion worth the heartstring it was written on? It’s as if there if there is no definable identity, you are one of a myriad of personalities created only by a given state of mind. The subconscious and its teeming processes are hidden from our analysis but every second of every day they are creating and destroying you like a miniature Shiva inside us all. But there is solace in such vibrant variation and the furious energy it seems to grant, home is such a comfortable coma where I co...

As I reach the end of my course of medication I look back at the variety of pharmaceuticals I swallowed, usually in complete ignorance of their purpose. Having done some 'research' into these colourful little concoctions I present the results below. Top to bottom, left to right. 1, Name : Forte Type : Caplet Size : Very large Colour : Dried blood Purpose : This pill establishes whether there is any constriction of the airway, being sized, as it is, to the average human airway. If it becomes lodged in the throat constriction has occurred. In this way it is a little like Witch dunking in it's functioning. Side effects : Death by asphyxiation 2, Name : Vizylac Type : Caplet Size : Medium Colour : Shocking pink Purpose : This pill is administered when a patient has temporarily lost the use of one leg. It enables the patient to comfortably put all their bodyweight on the other leg for extended periods of time thereby increasing mobility. Contains extract of F...

T-0 - Delhi My bandages were fresh, discharge set for 2PM and we waited. At 3 my consultant bade us au revoir and we were free but for the small matter of a large bill. A bill that in it's compilation took longer than The Domesday Book. First it was a two hour wait (incredulity) then another hour (incensement), wars have lasted less time. Indian efficiency and mindless, box-ticking beadledom was set to 11 and suddenly an extra hour on top of the 700ish already spent in the Apollo Hospital, Delhi seemed intolerable. We threatened (and nearly effected) a walkout which, credit to Indian resolve, speeded the process not one bit. I feel in hindsight and looking at the 37 page document that eventually arrived that the problem lay partially with the communication of the complexities of the task. How on earth the hospital accounted for 955 individual items on that bill I shall never know. From the syringe (7.7 rupees) and it's needle (3.1 rupees) to it's contents and the gloves th...

Day T-2 - Delhi I've no love for private healthcare. For all its myriad imperfections the NHS can stand proudly (if not literally) next to the Great Pyramid as one of humankind's greatest wonders and most transcendent creations. Having been in the Indian health industry's life pricing clutches for the best part of a month i'm left faintly disappointed. For all intents and purposes and since I have insurance (thanks ma!) this experience differs very little from the one I would have had if I had thrown myself from a train back in the UK (or a less impossible but equally deleterious deed). Surely they're missing a trick here? My treatment won't be cheap but it has been standard, where are my choices? Wheres the menu Doc? I guess i'm getting the best the hospital offers but how can I be sure unless there are clearly deliniated tiers of care? Health tourism is growing massively not least in the Subcontinent but apart from competitive prices whats the USP? The ...

Day T-6 - Delhi There seems to be a lot of shouting coming from outside my window. Either there is maintenance going on or the hospital has realised how grossly underutilised the roof space is and has created a new ward out there populated by the most vocal patients. The hands of the clock draw slowly around its face, 40 hours on the same piece of furniture, surely a new personal record. My new(er) wheelchair (freshly pilfered from the 3rd floor, kudos Attendant) stands forlorn and empty. All pleas for early release on the grounds of good behaviour have been flatly denied. It might be just me but the less you can do for yourself the less of a person you actually feel. I sit up, I lie down, 90 degrees of movement, 6 degrees of separation  from the person you were. All high melodrama really but also an injection of sensation into a vacuum of stimuli. Anyway the doctors came and unwrapped my leg after 46 hours, a slow roast if ever there were one. For those of you more concerned wit...

T-8 - Delhi I'm afraid the precise day of the trip on which we're on is impossible for me to pin down as time seems to pass in a different manner inside the walls of a hospital. I have therefore resorted to using possible days until discharge. Any stay beyond a few days in these places sees the familiar structure of your normal life break down or, more aptly, decay. The only constants would seem to be the times at which drugs are administered. Sleep is fitful and disjointed but is infinitely better than if I were on a ward with its perpetual twilight, its dimmed quiet. I like the isolation of this room, when the doors are closed it is my kingdom and I order it as I fancy. Of course there are limits to my power imposed by a pantheon of higher beings beyond the door. But they check my actions for my own good, benevolent gods if you will. I feel an odd contentedness this morning but I'm loathe to trust a feeling of positivity without knowing from whence it sprung. Has my fav...

Further to my previous post you may be wondering how all those people find sufficient activities to fill their time. Well wonder no longer, the list of tasks for maintaining just this patient is innumerable.I have cataloged a random day from around a week ago up until lunchtime. N.b. 'peek' denotes when a hospital worker opens the door to look inside but does not actually enter the room (the purpose is never known), the number in brackets is persons required for task. 00:01 - 05:45 Drip stand check every 45 minutes or so 05:45 - Blood test 06:00 - Tea 06:05 - Sheet change 06:10 - Drip stand check/robe change 06:28 - Housekeeping (2) 06:45 - Blood pressure check 06:49 - Tea collection 07:07 - Drip stand check 07:10 - Papers 07:30 - Drip stand check 07:50 - Drip stand check 08:05 - Peek 08:08 - Drip stand check (2) 08:14 - Breakfast 08:18 - Doctor's questions 08:25 - Peek 08:27 - Drip stand check (2), blood test, breakfast collection 08:46 - Doctor's c...

The Apollo Hospital in New Delhi employs a multitude of staff in various different roles. To aid in their visual differentiation they usually wear different coloured uniforms. I have described the types below according to my experience of them. Blue Shirts - Generally unpossessed of English or alternatively forbidden from talking to patients. Quite lowly, frequent surly look may indicate dissatisfaction and possibly plans of uprising against superiors. Known wheelchair thieves, always be sat in yours or have hidden it in toilet when a Blue Shirt is around. Red Shirts - Housekeeping. English also tends to be limited but is given freer rein than that of the Blue Shirts. If something must be picked up from the floor then these people must  be called, no-one else is qualified. Sometimes employed as limb support during bandage changes with varying degrees of efficacy. Yellow Shirts - Rarer than Red Shirts, possibly a sub species as have similar habits/habitats. Have not been obse...

A day - Delhi I sit behind glass doors that won't be opened looking over a city that can't be explored. A famous philosopher once said that he'd rather be living in a cave looking at the Taj Mahal than living in the Taj looking at a cave, an interesting perspective. At least my confinement allows me to conjure fanciful notions of the world outside or, more accurately, my position within it. I am become detached from its ebb and flow, its bustle, its spin. My presence in that world is just that of an avatar, given life only by my imagination. All that I have ever done or ever might do seems superimposed when I look through the window at a planet that will not stop turning, where time will not stop ticking. Did I expect it to? Surely not! Such self-inflicted interludes have been my lot before. Perhaps never before though have I been so eager to to get on with the life that I have paused. But then of course I need only the briefest respite from daily reality to conceive the m...

Day 0 - India The Indians believe we we have reached the Age of Kali, the final dice throw when, If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky that would be like the splendor of the mighty one I am become death the destroyer of worlds. Shame, I rather like India. An apocryphal epoch in which to visit this this vast wedge of land with a history all of its own. It has endlessly fascinated me since I first visited, indeed it may well be the impetus for this particular journey. I have endeavored to understand the people, the culture, the esprit du corps. I have thus far failed but wholly enjoyed the toil. The dubious British gift of bureaucracy lingers and we had come together as a small band of travelers in the Kandy visa office to collectively curse, pray and wonder at the process by which we'd earn our entry sticker. After what seemed like, and was, hours we had the approval we needed, a paltry three months but surely sufficient baring any mishaps....

Day 13 - Nuwara Eliya It happened. Somewhere on the train between Peredeniya and Nanu Oya a romantic, idealistic, sure-to-be-disappointed dream of travel was made flesh. The butterflies in my stomach fluttered through valleys and hills blanketed with tea plantations. The land was verdant green and cool and there was an affinity with it I'd never before known. The trees turned straight and tall, their russet foliage contrasting with the lime of the shrubbery. The grass was no longer wide and indolent but prim and upright much as if the British had imported their own all those years ago. I talked about the country around with a Nederlander whose meditation related injuries suggested it was not always the calming experience it purported to be. Later, sitting in the door of the train I slipped into a whirlpool of feeling from which I would barely escape. All seemed possible even that which was not. Next to my beastly filth sat dark intrigue that intoxicated with tales of the world. I ...

Day 11 - Kandy We bussed it back down to Kandy yesterday and for once arrived in a place at a reasonable hour to find accommodation. Leaning against a building next to Trinity College we decided to search again for the place where a bed for the night costs less than a bottle of Coke. Up into the hills again we went, a young Buddhist monk reoriented us and sent us back to the very building we had been leaning again. Finally we observed the small lettering of the 'Burmese Rest'. An exuberant puppy greeted us and managed to draw blood on my hand, he didn't look rabid so I should be alright. We were welcomed at 'The Pub' with the familiarity of regulars which by flighty tourist standards I suppose we were. A beautifully cool pint of Lion on the roof terrace atop a nearby hotel ended the evening. Today (Friday) we struck out for the Elephant Orphanage. Intrepid ideas of connecting buses were forgotten with the chartering of a private taxi. We descended the hills at a d...

Day 9 - Polonaruwa/Sigiriya/Dambulla Bemoaning the sedate pace of the train we switched to the bus for the journey to Polonaruwa. They are rattling old beasts but, judging by the crush of people aboard, the most popular way to travel. In this compressed way we passed the next few hours, the monotony only broken when my pack fell from the overhead rack onto a fellow passenger. He took this assault from above most amiably and offered me pineapple. I've found most Sri Lankans to be of this cheery disposition and how pleasant to be offered a warm smile for looking different rather than the traditional fear and suspicion. Our landlady rather bucked the trend with her repeated attempts to extract money from us and indignation that we should choose to spend it elsewhere. She did tempt us into having our sweat-sodden clothes cleaned though the headband of my hat, stained betel juice red is surely beyond hope. I admire Sri Lankan's industry and constant efforts to earn a living wage....

Day 7 - Anuradhapura I hope We tried our hand at hairdressing this morning, or barbary in Michael's case, my Nicky Clarke to his Sweeney Todd. Uncontent with a freshly shaved head he also removed a fair portion of his eyebrows. I am trying not to laugh too hard, I am failing. The staff at the Indian visa office didn't seem to notice the discrepancy between his picture and his actual appearance so no harm was done, except to his ability to look normal. The applications filed we were instructed to return to Kandy to collect in two weeks once the bureaucratic machine had spun its interminable wheels. That may not be time enugh given that the train on which we are travelling north has been broken for two hours...tbc Engines came, engines went, the train spluttered forward, the train stopped. Heads were scratched. The mercantile vein ploughed its ceaseless circuit with all manner of foodstuffs from apples and nuts to, based on the seller's cry, 'showaddywaddy'. We reac...

Day 5 – Kandy Like it or loathe it, whatever your view of Kandy it can flip in a heartbeat. An 8 hour train from Galle (2 less than the journey that got us to Sri Lanka) does sensitise a person to the tribulations inevitable to unplanned travel but nonetheless our first evening in the spiritual capital was one of extraordinary frustration and rare anger. We searched first for the £3.50 a night guesthouse run by Burmese monks. Alas no trace could be found on its supposed road or in people’s local knowledge. We entered into the familiar tug of war with a tuk-tuk driver over where we wanted to go and where he wanted to take us. We checked into a mosquito-ridden guesthouse where the beer had run out by the ‘charming’ ethnic music being played in the garden most certainly had not. I don’t know if it was a man or a woman that ran the place but I do know he/she had a mightily impressive afro. Over a bottle of Coke we began talking to a well travelled Serb whose interest s clearly lay in the...

Day 3 – Galle Colombo’s inexpensive but inextensive (don’t check your dictionaries) charms receded into the distance as we pulled out of Fort Station. We traded urban bustle for serene blue sea and as our train hugged the south coast nothing lay beyond the horizon but water and ice. I sat in the door of the train to watch the altered world pass by. Shacks lined the track and dotted the beach, a meagre existence for sure but one soothed perhaps by the constant crash of waves. We passed a sign ‘navel gazing ahead’. Do they look beyond the horizon the people within? Or can any of us not? Aren’t we all born of a planet where a journey can only end in a practical or emotional sense rather than a geographical one? There is a need to push our imaginary boundaries even when the desert ahead seems endless. Perhaps it is courage to stay or perhaps it is courage to resist that urge to stray. I should think that our lives are long enough to do both. Galle swelters on the Southern tip of the isla...

Day 1 - Colombo The city awoke early and so, after 10 hours in the air, did we. The steaming heat had already settled on Colombo and the first drop of perspiration trickled down my brow. The Sri Lankans have embraced the Ryanair concept of airport naming and 'Colombo' airport is a full two hours taxi ride from the city proper, still at £12 for the fare our complaints were few. Glossy billboards extolling our Western mores marked our path, the abnormally whitened faces in contrast to the populace about. But here we were, drunken concept made real and many miles of (malaria) pills 'n' thrills and bellyaches lay ahead. I confess the long demanded excitement was quickly subsumed by practicality and the as yet, planning being what it was, unfulfilled need for accommodation. If only there were a place where we could have-a-good-time, possibly with a Native American, a Policeman, a cowboy and that other one? There was and at £3.50 a night represented a very good deal. Colomb...