Forbidden Places Strange Faces

By Gavin Moles

The Author has a unique, artistic and romantic mind, with a special way of seeing and describing the world, and this time a very special way of travelling, with no plan, no map, no idea, therefore thinking what could possibly go wrong? He describes a journey he took through parts of Asia on a small budget fuelled with big dreams, following instincts and longing to find the legendary Shangrilla, timeless valleys, and revelations for inner growth. With Chorma's smile still warm in his heart, he sets off walking down a forbidden road through Tibet, hoping to reach Lhasa. The travel Gods answered his prayers as they often do when you ask, but he forgot to say exactly how he wished to get there! His writing style and artistic imagination will take you spiralling down infinite thoughts, hillarious situations and potential oblivion, sometimes floating, sometimes soaring, but always eventually appearing in wonderland drinking tea with the mad hatter himself. You will not want to put it down, just like travelling, eager to see what is just around the next corner?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: May 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496979889

Gavin Moles

The Author has had a colourful life, an artist, a traveller. Whilst moving around he realised he is not unique in the trials and tribulations that life challenges us with, that had led him to pursue a more nomadic way of living; searching for the ultimate truth and inner peace through the eyes of others and challenges of the road. Having an artistic and inquisitive mind, fuelled with a very active imagination, naturally led him to adventure, discovery, near madness, and euphoria.

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© 2014 Gavin Moles. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

The author or authors assert their moral right under the Copyright, Designs

and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author or authors of this work.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/12/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-7987-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-7988-9 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or

links contained in this book may have changed since publication and

may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those

of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher,

and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Preface Early days of adventure

Forbidden PlacesStrange Faces

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Thank you to all my friends and family who have listened relentlessly to my ranting and raving over the past years; who have always encouraged me to pursue my dreams which has kept my imagination alive, helped me to confront my fears and dared to chase my dreams, finally telling me:

For heaven’s sake write a bloody book

Therefore I would like to use this opportunity to thank all the individuals I have met along this great adventure of life who have contributed so much and enriched my life, experiencing so much compassion, kindness, and having shared such memorable time together. I will be forever humbled by such memories, and only hope to inspire others to dare to dream, and to explore all possibilities. Life is an adventure, a… . DISC OVER Y

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"Life is like riding a bicycle; you have to keep your

balance so as not to fall off."

Albert Einstein.

"He who sees just a grain of sand in his hand only sees

himself. He who sees the infinite in all things sees God"

William Blake

When a teacher asked John Lennon what he wanted to be when he grew up, he replied: I want to be happy

The teacher replied angrily I don’t think you understood the question

He replied I don’t think you understood the answer

Be Happy

Preface

Early days of adventure

Maybe the Jolly Welder had come into our lives for a reason, as part of a riddle that seemed to be unfolding before me, whereby I would discover an answer to a question which would lead me on to discover two more questions, exponentially accelerating towards a nervous breakdown or complete madness sugar coated with a hint of mysticism, trying to kill two birds with one stone and dancing on the yellow brick road to la la land to end up down that rabbit hole drinking tea with some unhinged hatter. These early days were often strange, uncertain but which made it all the more magical and full of daily surprises.

I had just left my job as a mechanic due to reasons that will become clear very soon which made me look for a change of direction that had me enrolling on a college course to pursue a more romantic and artistic career in media production.

Having a passion for art and being creative as much as possible was always a distraction for me as I became easily bored with the day to day dull routine, even with a huge imagination I failed to see how I could survive it, work, relationships, money, house, old age, pension boredom, regret, death. I was often caught day dreaming a solution to it all, and have always been ready for flights of fancy, any excuse to do something different, so when my Father telephoned to tell me he had seen a canal boat with a for sale sign on it, that looked like it was moored up at the bottom of a farmer’s field, covered in crap, almost floating! on a very unpopular stretch of canal and was looking a bit neglected, therefore he thought it could be selling cheap and maybe I would be interested to take it on. After receiving his phone call and listening to his description, for some reason at that moment I knew this was it, inspiration… . adventure!

The more I thought about it all the more it took shape in my mind and the clouds of uncertainty suddenly parted. A bright light now shone from the heavens, which now illuminated the way ahead, because at this time I was standing at that crossroads of life wondering which way to turn, ahead of me now was a big arrow pointing towards the future, although in reality the letters where kind of unfashionable bright neon, blinking like a cheap hotel sign, but that did not matter I was inspired and nothing could go wrong.

That is it! . . . . That is what we should do I prophesied to my family, raving like a mad monk,

"Lets buy a boat, we can live on it, be pirates, river rats, whatever you want to call us, houses are boring, static and too expensive, we can do it another way’’ I fantasised.

Then in an instant, my mind tumbled through an infinite romantic boat scenarios… . and I was gone.

The boat seemed to me to be another element to the riddle, art, creativity and maybe a romantic way to escape the rat race a little, or just a crazy combined solution to fill the void of a boring college design brief that I was stuck with at this time which I had now thought to make a documentary about the journey from the Midlands from where it was moored, up to Harrogate north Yorkshire to where we were living, which is pretty much as far north as you can get by canal boat so no one really ever wants to go there, its a dead end!

There were a lot of ifs and buts at this time and more importantly very little money, but thinking as Moses turned out not to be so mad in the end with his interest towards boats I took it on, along with the support of my girlfriend at that time, our daughter and my first ever small loan from the bank.

On the first viewing of the ‘Jolly Welder’ it turned out to be an unfashionably home made affair, made by some enthusiastic DIY welder, that was obviously hiding behind a jolly name plate, of which I instantly took a shine to, because at this time I was still young, enthusiastic and my last job I had been working as a mechanic, whereby sometimes I found myself creating new bits of bodywork for old cars, cutting and welding pieces of steel together and I thought I was often jolly about it all, even on those cruel wintry days in the Yorkshire northern hemisphere, with numb, bruised knuckles, spannering away underneath an endless supply of snow covered customer cars, which melted, then dripped deliberately down the neck of my overalls, occasionally one would test my spirit even further by coughing up a belly full of spent diesel oil, or gearbox oil, which was terrible as the smell was so particular, and the taste, if you were unlucky enough at the time to have your mouth open, you could never quite get rid of the smell out of your nostrils, or the taste that clung to the back of your throat for the rest of the day. A few years in this trade and EP 80 gear oil for a vintage that was best forgotten.

Thinking about the name of the boat I felt a sort of destiny about it all and if any doubt creep in, all I had to do was re adjust those rose tinted glasses, until everything looked rosy and perfect. People often asked me: Why are you so happy all the time, how do you do it? Which often took me by surprise as I had not thought about such a question. I was just so naturally happy and enthusiastic with life, so I had not known what to answer them, looking back now it’s easy to answer; I had a good imagination and a feeling that I could do anything if I put my mind to it, more importantly I could feel the universe conspiring with me, it was as excited as I was and therefore very happy to be conspiring with my thoughts, that whatever I thought about, the necessary particles of the universe suddenly manifested themselves somewhere just outside of my visual world, being born in the infinite quantum field of potential, which would then start to gravitated towards me and solidify into actual ‘things’.

‘The imagination has no boundaries’ Einstein.

I never imagined I would ever fail at anything, or be disappointed; the only thing that ever really stops us from achieving things in this life is fear, often we fail before we have even tried.

Being a mechanic satisfied me for some time, satisfied my imagination and sense of curiosity to how things worked, so I enjoyed taking things apart, it was an adventure and a journey in itself if you like often into unknown territory, from which you returned with new experiences and knowledge. Fixing things, came hand in hand I suppose, with those rose coloured glasses combined with imagination and fuelled with a burning sense of adventure. Often my imagination would run away with itself and I would be lost in thought, day dreaming about infinite possibilities. I remember my school reports always making the same comments:

Could try harder, too much time spent looking out the window and dreaming.

With the advances of quantum physics theory these days science seems to be observing exactly just that, that the mind effects matter, maybe creates it even, maybe if they did not look for certain particles, they would not exist, maybe all this is just my day dream, and we are all dreaming each other! Its not impossible.

Being a mechanic had its various problems and there were often times where I needed to relieve the tedium of it all, therefore for my amusement and sanity preservation I developed a catalogue of various vehicles in my mind, makes and models which I enjoyed personifying, giving them various characters and their associated attitudes, a bit like pets and their owners you got a sense of who would own a such and such.

Some were like well bred women that were well out of your league, the BMW’s, Mercedes (blond haired with long painted finger nails, Daddy owns a Porsche, these were the type of high class rollers that you dreamed about and once in a while on a few rare occasions, you even got to fiddle with them. Whilst others just had attitude, they were the dregs of society and they did not want to be fixed in any way at all, had too long a life, too many miles on the clock and seen a lot of shit, their names were the abused Citroen’s, Skoda’s the formidable, and my own personal enemy, the hateful… . Fiat 126… . these in my opinion were life’s outcasts.

Fiat 126… . my God!

What a vicious car that was, the only one that very nearly sent me over the edge.

Normally I was a calm, happy, well spirited type, nothing could phase me… but this one occasion, which threatened to compromise my `Jolly Welder` attitude… . I came very close. This infamous, dreaded… . Fiat 126… . No matter what frame of mind you approached them in, it always ended in tears, bruised knuckles, multiple lacerations and a new word that you had to invent, just so that you could insult it to the core of its design, but did it care? No!

Naaaaaaaaa… . feck off. It rasped at me… . as I tried to approach it with a clear and calm professional attitude. Cough, splutter… . keep yer ands off me ya Baaaaaaasssstad. It rasped at me again.

If Fiat 126’s were a person it would be a small, fat, red faced Scottish tramp, high on special brew and stinking of piss, but that would be a big insult to tramps and not enough insult to Fiat 126’s.

This was one of those special days that quickly became like a scene from Faulty Towers… . I was standing there, shaking with blind fury, poised behind its rear end, just out of its line of sight so that I could get the first blow in.

You F… . G baaastard… . That’s it… . I warned you.

My knuckles were already bruised, bleeding, my overalls had been viciously torn from deliberately sharpened body panels, it had swallowed one of my Snap On sockets and branded my arm for life with its hot exhaust whilst trying to retrieve it from the depths of impossible body work, designed to be just perfectly out of reach, exactly where the engine had been producing and leaking carcinogenic sludge, and just small enough with what felt like strategically positioned fish hooks, so as to lacerate your flesh when retracting your arm after touching the hot exhaust, after a few attempts of socket discovery and extraction, resulting in a few deep lacerations to the forearm whereby the carcinogenic sludge easily seeped in and absorbed into the epidermis, then quarterized and sealed in with a few exhaust burns. These cars were designed on a combination of days alternating between Fridays and Mondays; Friday being where everyone is pissed off and wanting to go home to the pub, therefore cutting corners, making mistakes and rushing through design deadlines, and Monday `hangover` mornings, where no one can be arsed to produce anything sensible, and come up with design flaws deliberately just to piss someone else off so that they know how crap they are feeling.

I was seconds away from committing Fiat genocide. I stood there paralysed with rage, foaming at the mouth, and wielding my biggest hammer that I could put my hands on… . when suddenly had a flash, a premonition. I saw my future… . I was just seconds away from losing my job. I saw broken glass splintering all over the place, dented body panels, frantic slashing and bashing, oil and antifreeze draining away down the nearest manhole, to finally witness it’s last pathetic groan, a defiant clunk, cough, and then a cloud of smoke rising up like a raised middle finger of final insult from its underpowered engine… . and then… . nothing, silence. It was dead. I was at peace!

A certain stillness came over me, as responsibilities were suddenly overruled by complete need to act. I cared not at all about losing my job against the satisfaction of beating this pile of crap to a much over due scrap yard burial. On a deeper level I think it was just a complete sense of defeat that came over me, failure, then anger, then an acceptance, a recognition of imperfection that not everything could be fixed in this world and that there are places for imperfections and this was one of those such cases, the phrase came to mind… .

No matter how hard you try you just cannot polish a lump of shit.

With that new revelation I knew I had to get out of this line of work. I dreamt to be doing something more creative, beautiful and romantic, so I decided to go back to college and develop my artistic nature and express myself a little less aggressively with a paintbrush.

I was still young and unhindered by the onslaught of life, its baggage had not built up sufficiently yet to cloud the mind and judgement and had not developed too many fears, so I guess I was commonly known as not having any common sense and being irresponsible.

I was still wearing those rose tinted glasses, and therefore I did not see all the mould, condensation, rotting wood, and ignored the dank smell of unfashionable curtains and paisley patterns that would have caused even the strongest of minds to flash back to bad acid trips, whether you had ever tried any or not, I must say it was offensive in retrospect, but my vision were impervious to negativity and was brighter than ever before.

The owner was a round jolly character who had a slightly defeated, too many miles on the clock, or worked on too many Fiat 126s air about him and seemed obviously embarrassed by the condition the boat was in, constantly making excuses and apologies about it all; it was a funny situation, the worst salesman meets the perfect buyer, because I could not be disheartened by his apologies, my mind kept repeating it’s mantra, a sentence to me that was sufficient to carry out the entire pirate adventure.

it floats… . it’s great, it’s perfect, it just needs a little modernising… . I will buy it.

I repeated this to the owner; then again, and finally after the third time, he stopped apologising about the boat and realised I was serious, it was like lifting a curse for him, on that day the clouds parted for him and he almost seemed happy, or surprised more like!

I became the proud owner of The Jolly Welder, and a potential home owner for the first time. All that I needed to do now was to bring it up north, to Yorkshire and of course I had no idea how you would do that by the canal system from its present position in the Midlands up to, as close to Harrogate as possible. I promptly bought a canal guide book and quickly studied the route; there were not too many choices.

It was to be my first real adventure, a little journey of over 300 miles at walking pace. Only at this time the UK was experiencing severe drought, and many parts of the canals were restricted, which meant only allowing people passage who had moorings that they need to get to. We did not have any moorings as yet, or a canal licence, or a certificate of safety, or any idea of boats, locks or navigating a tidal stretch of river that was soon to be experiencing spring tides, and just for extra spookiness there was to be a solar eclipse exactly on the day we decided to travel on it, and set the scene for a perfect horror disaster movie.

That day came and we were waiting inside the lock that was a T junction which would open up and allow us access onto the river. Darkness had descended and turned daytime suddenly into night as the moon replaced the sun, flocks of birds took to the skies in confusion and panic, an eery drop of temperature taunted my soul whilst fumes from the prehistoric 2 cylinder Volvo Penta engine, filled the lock with a chocking smoke screen, my left hand was clammy with sweat as it gripped the throttle ready to go. Suddenly a loud Claxton sounded signalling that the lock gates were opening, slowly the huge black lock gates swung open and my eyes bulged in terror as I watched the river flowing past horribly fast which I estimated was twice the speed of my underpowered engine.

There was no going back now we were fully committed and firmly instructed by one of the British Waterways guys to… .

"Just floor it mate and go straight out, do not turn, do not pass go and collect your soiled trousers the next time around.’’

Assessing the whole situation very quickly I positioned my partner and our small daughter at the front of the boat, with life jackets on, instructing them as calm as I could whilst trying to hide the fact that I was crapping myself… .

Be ready to jump off, I think we are having an adventure.

Well needless to say we and the boat did survive, not by skilful planning and experience of course but it certainly gave me a few stories to tell and maybe was the start to many more flights of fancy and adventures… . and of course it was.

It is my pleasure to be able to tell you about some of those adventures that have come and gone, some of which are still going on in my mind, my heart and hope by sharing