Crazy journeys

[malumbu]

I've posted about my trip to Guyana/Brazil, and also to Bangalore, to see the World Cup and and England test match, respectively.

I've done a few other mad things, but now indulged myself enough.

Whilst not a competition it would be fun to hear others' crazy adventures. It doesn't have to be sports related.

[maxxi]

Not as exotic but crazy as in hysterical - hitched to south of France back in late 70s with a friend.

Although we were both young and newly minted punks and were trying (and failing several times) to form a band - we played some crappy folk stuff to try and busk abroad (me strumming on guitar him picking on long-neck banjo) - more 'My Grandfather's Clock' than Duelling Banjos. We camped (free) on a place called Calanque, near Cassis with some Frenchies we knew whose friends were paranoid around us (lots of pot smoking and cheap wine) because of our short hair (punk hadn't reached them yet) and thought we were police.

The journey back was a nightmare. Hitching in France was never easy and after getting stuck in a motorway services kind of a place, north of Lyon, for just over 22 hours (really) my friend snapped. He took his banjo out of its case and, holding it by the neck, did a Pete Townsend and smashed it to pieces on the tarmac whilst firing a volley of anti-French abuse at all the passing cars at the top of his voice. His rage was wonderful to watch and I was helpless with hysterical laughter which wouldn't stop.

We eventually walked over some fields to a town called Villefranche-sur-Saone and got a train to Dunquerque. I stayed there for a couple of days in a tent near the beach - my shattered friend stayed on the train and got the boat home.

[GSJ57]

In the early 80's a friend and I went from London to Spain on the "Magic Bus", leaving from Kings Cross at midnight. I think it cost 20 pounds return! From the horrific Channel crossing, to breaking down in Paris and having to wait 8 hours for a replacement coach, to the coach driver not having the right paperwork to cross the French/Spanish border.... it was the trip from Hell.

I think we flew home.

[StraferJack]

Any time I think about the coach/ferry from Swindon back to Cork in the 80s I think "did that really used to happen?"

4/5 hours to Fishguard on a coach

holding open at ferry station - often including searches at 1am or something

That ferry for another 4/5 hours

Coach for another couple of hours

throw in the number of times coaches broke down and waiting for replacements in freezing snow, or tides wouldn't allow crossings so we had to sleep overnight on the coach

just to go home for a week!

[vgrant]

I fell asleep on the night bus and woke up in Penge once.It was like arriving in a real life planet of the apes world, a vision of a distopian future.

[StraferJack]

at the Paaaaawwleeeeeene Ahms

[El Pibe]

SJ, I've done that journey about 20 times in the last year, now do it in a car with 2 kids who WONT GO TO SLEEEEEEEEPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!

[StraferJack]

madness EP

current thinking with us is to fly and (maybe) hire a car rather than face that

OMG I'm actually horrified at the thought I mighthave to do it one day

[the-e-dealer]

Whats wrong with the A-pawlene Arms?

[StraferJack]

The name and the spelling always stuck out on the old 176 buses when I first moved to SE London - I always ended up saying it in Pauline Fowler's voice

[david_carnell]

I always noted a sense of ennui in the pronounciation of "Penge" too.

It's hard to communicate in print but something like:

"This is the 176 to Pen*sigh*ge"

[the-e-dealer]

It always makes me think of Minge.

[Otta]

I did one of those coach to Spain things in 96. Bloody horrible journey!

Some 12 years ago I went to a posh charity do at a swanky nightclub on Oxford Street, that my friend's sister was running. After necking quite a lot of free booze I left at about 10 because it was a school night and I was actually planning to get to work at a reasonable hour the next day (which suggests something important must have been going on).

Left the club and saw a routemaster 12 to Dulwich Plough. Hurrah thought I as I jumped on the back at the traffic lights. I then fell asleep safe in the knowledge that the bus would be stopping at the plough.

I woke up a couple of hours later in Notting Hill.

I got another bus back to Oxford Street and paid some dodgey bloke ?30 to take me home in his "cab".

Next day I told my mate about it, and he told me his sister had put him in a cab a few minutes after I'd left and he'd been home by 11.

[Otta]

the-e-dealer Wrote:

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> It always makes me think of Minge.

Really?

Weird.

[Help-Ma-Boab]

Wrong thread T-E-D , the good lines one is a few below!

the-e-dealer Wrote:

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> It always makes me think of Minge.

[El Pibe]

Ha, yeah did something similar only to find myself back by liverpool st at some ungodly hour. I swiped myself into the office, fell asleep under my desk and was wokien by the cleaner, i subtly emerged from under the desk and started working.

Gosh you're early said everyone as they sloped in a hour or two later....yeah, think I'll head off early today....

[Bovine Juice]

vgrant Wrote:

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> I fell asleep on the night bus and woke up in

> Penge once.It was like arriving in a real life

> planet of the apes world, a vision of a distopian

> future.

Well if this is the future, the apes are welcome:

http://media.rightmove.co.uk/12k/11883/23069151/11883_632037A_6320379501_IMG_01_0001.JPG

(the Waterman's Square, Penge High Street)

[Otta]

Yep, all of Penge is like that, honest guv.

[Bovine Juice]

Otta Wrote:

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> Yep, all of Penge is like that, honest guv.

Shush, Otta, or we'll have to re-programme you.

[????]

Patchworks from Greyhounding around the States '81

Armed guards not letting us out of the Detroit Bus Station at 3am

Black guy saying "Do you eat acid man?" in gents in pre-snoop, snoop like way in Chicago Bus Station

Eating acid between Chicago and Louisville

A girl called "Plenty" on the Flagstaff to El Paso route, very well named.....*sighs*

[Dog duck]

the-e-dealer Wrote:

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> It always makes me think of Minge.

I went out with a girl who had a lovely penge

[numbers]

i subtly

> emerged from under the desk and started working.

how can you ever manage to 'subtly' emerge from under a desk? genuinely curious.

[Loz]

Dog duck Wrote:

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> the-e-dealer Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > It always makes me think of Minge.

>

> I went out with a girl who had a lovely penge

Did you take her up to Arsenal?