Impotent in Manali

All you impotent men out there: I have new-found sympathy. I now know how it feels to have an impressive looking bit of equipment that‘s about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

But would an impotent men ever go to a whore house? No sir, no he wouldn‘t, because that would be hell, wouldn't it?

Well that’s basically where I am right now. Sat in Manali, watching the River Beas tumble down the mountain through jagged, snow-covered peaks and evergreen firs, meandering through traditional wood and stone houses, with a stupid black box that looks like a camera, talks like a camera, but acts like an ornament.

If I was anywhere near Adana, I would take the stupid black box back to Murat the Mullah with his stupid pointy fingers and nose, and demand he fix it for free, and that he does it properly this time. But I’m not. So instead I have to wait here for a week while my trusty replacement crosses oceans and mountains to be with me, before I undertake the mammoth and teeth-shattering 18-hour bus trip to Leh.

It’s not so bad. I have a £2-a-night bedroom with clean, white sheets and a balcony, a myriad of relaxing riverside cafes and even some riverside entertainment. Although by entertainment I actually mean Manali’s form of child cruelty, which comprises equipping your child with a small metal hoop, a hat with a metre-long tassle on the top, a burlap sack and a begging bowl and making it do insane tricks in front of tourists, like a circus monkey.

If this is what they do with double-jointed kids, I’m very glad I wasn’t born in Manali.

Aleppo and a brand new baby

We’re now on day three of life in Aleppo, sat by the Sheraton swimming pool admiring the higgledy-piggledy city from the monolithic and hideous - but calm - walls of the hotel. It hasn’t all been like this.



Upon arrival we utilised our very smooth Arabic skills - “Salaam alaykooooom! Errrr, do you know errr cam-errr-ahhh shop? Can-non? We buy where?” (Yes. Our language skills are on fire) - and following an exhaustingly hot goose chase around town, we finally struck gold in an underground warren of shops stuffed wall-to-wall with spare car parts and tyres. Well, where else?



Sat behind a filthy desk, smeared in what I assumed to be oil, sat a rotund man who knew a man, who knew another man that owned a shop nearby in which sat a dusty and forlorn looking Canon digital camera.

After some equally smooth haggling, we took the replacement camera baby to explore the new city of Aleppo. I say new city, but what I actually mean is ‘newer city’.

Aleppo is reputedly one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world and the Al-Jdeida quarter was built during the Ottoman era, which makes it approximately 600 years old. Pretty old for a new guy.

So fuelled by a novel breakfast of fava bean soup and raw onions with flat bread, we set off down the crooked alleys to find an almost indecent abundance of photography opportunities.




It was a Friday so the streets were shuttered and peaceful; devoid of women, pavements dotted with turbaned and sleepy men languishing in the shade.

If Canon can't then nobody can

In my last entry I very nearly wrote: 'These things come in threes, I wonder what wıll go wrong next?' And yes. Yes. They do come in threes. And they appear to be gettıng progressively worse the higher the number.

My poor Canon baby has broken. My beautiful Canon baby. My well-behaved, well-travelled, shiny camera baby has been blinded by a vat of sanitiser. All life exhausted, just a ghostly black screen eyeing me with its idle nothingness.

I just had to leave the stupid black box under the watchful beard and tiny spanners of a mullah named Murat down some side alley ın Adana, disturbingly close to a street lined with rotting goat's heads. (I'm starting to regret that Adana Kebap.)



But let's forget about that shocking picture of my camera's intestines for just a second (pictures courtesy of Mr Breslaw)...

We stayed ın the most superbly pink hotel last night - Akdeniz Oteli. Do look it up if ever you fınd yourself in Adana. Barbıe would be truly spoiled wıth the coral-coloured wardrobes, pale pink walls, baby pink lace curtains and pink floral wallpaper border a la MumandDad'sbedroom circa-1989. The picture of cherubs kissing on the walls just about topped it off.

According to our Lonely Planet the hotel has recently been renovated and has handsome furnishings. We think this might be less about the delicate room furnishings and more a dubious euphemism for the abundance of prostitutes in the very special hall-of-mirrors hotel bar. Just found this on a more recent Lonely Planet web page.