Some travel poems

I've noticed that I've been a bit lax in including poems in my recent blogs so in order to redress the balance here's an entry consisting of virtually nothing else. First of all let me give you the other two short poems that were written for the Poems on the Metro competition. (Two can be found in earlier entries.) Of the original four entries, the first one here was my own favourite, although I suppose, in hindsight, it is a bit downbeat for such a competition.

Incidentally it's actually a genuine observation of a family who were waiting for a train at Coseley Station* as I was off to work, one fine sunny morning.

Waiting For the Holiday To Begin

There's a family on the platform,
A man, a woman, two children
Lots of suitcases.
The little girl is throwing stones
At her brother
Who is pulling faces.
The man looks at his watch,
Then up and down the track,
But there's no train.
The boy, with concentration asks
"If this is a holiday.
Where's the rain ?"

The final one was a comment on the kind of whistle-stop tourism that long trips sometimes turn into.

Seeing the Sights

Been there, done that, can't you see the T-shirt ?
Round the World, and back,
Carrying a rucksack.
Sometimes, a hotel, a night of comfort doesn't hurt.
Here and there, everywhere,
Off and on the beaten track.
Deserts, jungles, from the mountains to the sea
Waterfalls, glaciers
I passed them on my way
Great Wall, Pyramids, every sight there is to see
The White House, Taj Mahal
I've seen them for a day.

Now, here's one written after a couple I was with were conned by one of the many dodgy tuk-tuk drivers in Bangkok. They agreed a price for him to take them where they wanted to go. He took them somewhere else, claiming it was tourist information. They went in and found it was a shop that wouldn't let them leave without buying something. Bangkok is by no means the worst place for this kind of thing but it is so common it can scarcely be called a scam at all. You really just have to take a little care. That and a licensed taxi-cab. It's really more of a song, but as I can neither play a musical instrument nor carry a tune, it's presented as a poem.

Bangkok Hustle

They hassle you and hustle you
And strong-arm you and muscle you
And ply their art of getting to your cash.
They badger you and bother you
There's nothing they would rather do
Than get their grubby hands upon your stash.
The tuk-tuk drivers take you to
Anywhere they're wanting to
But never to the place you want to be.
Their uncle's cousin's brother has
Things they say no other has.
They take you to his shop and get their fee.

So, you do the Bangkok shuffle
As they Bangkok hustle
And you try to get away
Do you want to buy a T-shirt?
Want to buy a CD?
They hustle in your way.
You do the Bangkok shuffle
The side-step bustle
To get to where you want to go
Do you want to buy a necklace?
Want to see some boxing?
Want to see a ping-pong show?

And if you choose to walk along
You'll find the con-men going strong
With pitches cons and scams of every sort.
It's getting old to sell CDs
The current trick is MP3s
But bet there's nothing legal to be bought.
Or else men in suits and floral ties
Will smile and look you in the eyes
And offer gems at prices that can't fail,
Which you'll find, too late alas,
Are nothing more than coloured glass
By then your salesman's vanished on the trail.

So, you do the Bangkok shuffle
As they Bangkok hustle
And you try to get away
Do you want to buy a T-shirt?
Want to buy a CD?
They hustle in your way.
You do the Bangkok shuffle
The side-step bustle
To get to where you want to go
Do you want to buy a necklace?
Want to see some boxing?
Want to see a ping-pong show?

And finally, an oddity. This poem wasn't written as much as it was constructed. Most of the lines are taken directly from the titles of the trips in a travel brochure. It occurred to me as I was reading it that all these grand sounding trip titles formed a kind poetry of their own and so with just a tweak here and there and a couple of additional lines I created this. For anyone interested the brochure was an old one from Explore and while the specific names may have changed I'll bet the trips are largely the same. I used to use them a lot. I'd recommend them.

Brochure Dreams

It's time I had the Summer planned.
The Golden Road to Samarkand ?
Central Asia - Overland ?

Which I wonder should it be.
The Kingdom of the Ashanti ?
Perhaps Dordogne Discovery.

I can't decide what's for the best.
The Malagassy Lemur Quest ?
The Blue Cruise (East and West) ?

I've spent more than half the day
Dreaming of the Nakasendo Way
And the Island Trails of Sao Tomé.

I wish that I could do it all
See Orinoco and the Angel Falls
Go to China - Walk the Wall.

I really don't know what to do.
The Dogon Trek and Timbuktu ?
From Delhi to Kathmandhu ?

The plan is grand but if it fails
Instead of on the Kasbah Trails
You'll find me in a caravan - in Wales.

*Who on Earth would have guessed that Coseley Station would have a Wikipedia entry, complete with a photograph? Boy, there is some trivial stuff in Wikipedia.