Darlings, we’ve Watted you up, we’ve Watted you down, we’ve Watted you all around the town. It’s been grand and it’s been great but the time has come when fate has kicked us in the fleshy rear and booted us from there….all the way over to here.
“Here” is Kolkata which is a little like being a small and excitable child standing in the middle of the worlds largest fireworks display all going off at once straight under your nose, shooting sparks and streamers and stars and rainbows and torrential rivers of colour right before your eyes. It’s a fantasmagoria, a world spinning on a turtle, a silky, graceful, lithe, splendid, delicious, dream.
But before we can begin to describe the cosmic Bengali kaleidoscope we find ourselves ecstatically revolving in we must bid a final, fond farewell to the incredible Wats of SE Asia. Too many to choose from, all too beautiful, but here are some final pics from the last Wat we visited in Luang Prabang.
Who should we see but Ms Mary Poppins, holding her magic brolly and humming gently to herself. We edged closer and heard the following localised adaptation of one of her popular tunes…
”Just a spoonful of chilli makes the toilet seat slam down, the entrails unwound, the porcelain resound, a spoonful of chilli makes the toilet seat slam down, in the least delightful way”.
Stuck, not so much in a groove as in a rut of bad musicals we encountered a number of elderly Occidental males in the company of young oriental ladies and the following came to mind, sung to the tune of Camptown Races.
”Old white man and young brown girl doo-dah, doo-dah, poor old fella or unmitigated churl, who are we to say ? Sits and drinks all night, sits and drinks all day, lost his money to his third ex wife, she’s going to make him pay”.
Some of the baby monks appeared critical of our literary efforts.
This lady also appeared to be critical, seeming to say “Just say NO to cheap and shoddy rewrites of popular tunes and, while we’re at it, also to Elephant riding. “
I SAID NO !!!!!
We saw a cow seriously reconsidering his donation to the Save The Tiger appeal.
Then, on our last morning in Luang Prabang, waiting for the tuk tuk to the bus station at 5 am on a misty morning, we saw these baby monks drifting through the mist.
The Dislocated Hippies 
Beautiful and yet quirkely sentimental.
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We have quirk by the bucket.
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