Rivers

[wild greens]

The danube always sounds quite mythical to me, a part of the world I've never really been to, to be honest

I dont know what its called but the one in the middle of Shanghai with the Three Graces on one side and all the mad futuristic buildings on the other was visually great at night, neon and scorched. Shame about the stinky tofu stands dotted about, knocks me sick that smell

The Hudson is visually great, ate a burrito on the rocks near there and smoked a big blunt, great day

 

[Slothrop]

It's a weird thing about living on a small island, not really having any really serious rivers. Alison's PhD supervisor grew up on the banks of the Mississippi in Louisiana, now she's retired to a place near Tunbridge Wells and she finds it hilarious that people try to act like the River Rother is a real thing.

 

[luka]

an australian friend describded it as a model railway set country. but sufi's thing is that hes adopted this horrible foetid ditch and learned to see it as a mighty Missisipi, which of course it is

 

[sufi]

an australian friend describded it as a model railway set country. but sufi's thing is that hes adopted this horrible foetid ditch and learned to see it as a mighty Missisipi, which of course it is

yeah me and the brook are having a thing

 

[sufi]

 

[wild greens]

The Lea is really nice in places. Thames a bit boring to be honest

The Severn is good

Can we expand it to lakes? Windermere is like a dream

 

[luka]

i like the Thames which is just as well becasue i spend all day staring at it

 

[luka]

my dad had a real thing for riverside pubs i think i got some of my feeling for the Thames off of him. he lived in Docklands in the '70s and collected driftwood from the shores, built sheds etc. i find it a very frightening river. it terrifies me, looking down at it as you walk over a bridge. horrible colour, bilious, sloshing in its trough

 

[luka]

very strong currents, very cold, very threatening, a long way down

 

[shakahislop]

Used to hang out on islands in the ganges in my mid-20s. Other people were hanging out on islands in say Greece, which would have been better in every conceivable way. They were pretty bleak places. But it was fucking nuts watching the river change from a small thamesy one in the winter to an expanse as far as the eye could see during the monsoon

 

[Leo]

you've really gotten around, Shaka.

 

[sufi]

 

[luka]

this river looks like a mighty river

Yangtze - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[sus]

you've really gotten around, Shaka.

I'm very envious I have never been out of North America+Europe

 

[luka]

instead of being envious just tell yourself he's lying

 

[shakahislop]

I'm very envious I have never been out of North America+Europe

i'm never quite sure what i think about it all really. i get where this emotion comes from, i used to have it. actually i still have it a bit, when someone tells me they've been somewhere i haven't been, but there's always this thing at the back of my mind which knows that there's a certain hollowness to going to places like what i've done, no-one really needs to do it. and mostly the experiences that you have closer to home are deeper things i find.

the other thing is that if you've got a bit of time and importantly some money (it doesn't need to be much if you're ok to rough it), and probably most importantly no children, it's generally not that hard to go to these far flung bits of the world. so you probably do it if you want. not sure how it looks from the midwest, but you can be in colombia in five hours from nyc.

 

[shakahislop]

although the easiest and cheapest way to do it is just to make it up like i'm doing

 

[shakahislop]

also in particular this period when i was going to this ganges islands - it was interesting and eye opening, but it fucking sucked. i lived in this tiny shitty town for a year and a half and was incredibly isolated. i ended up smashing half a bottle of vodka every night without really realizing what i was drifting into. at night there'd be electricity about half the time and its boiling and humid, you lie there sweating night after night, every time you got out your bed you'd be attacked by the insane hoards of mosquitos that emerged like clockwork as soon as the sun started to go down, all of your food would get eaten by ants if you left it even for 15 minutes without a lid on, your stomach would be a total mess half the time.

then going to the islands themselves would involve driving all morning, getting out into the heat, finding these little wooden boats, sitting there in the sun as some guy punted you across the brown water to the islands, a thousand people staring at you, smoking shitty cigerettes, walking for miles across these sand islands, turning up in a village where you have to do everything through a translator, getting sunburnt, eyes stinging from the light the whole time, no shade anywhere, sitting on the back of motorbikes getting stuck in the dirt. it was a rough life. i don't think it was anywhere close to fun. the worst thing was the isolation though, for that length of time it really does a number on you. these experiences have a high cost i think.

 

[luka]

that sounds exactly like it was for me living in Sydney. i only went there for a girl i had no desire to be in Australia. it left me thinking i never want to leave London again, it's never worth it.

 

[luka]

i think it's more fun for girls cos boys pick you up and take you to parties and give you drugs but if youre a boy you just get ostracised and people stare at you suspiciously like cows when you;ve wandered into their pasture.