Skye night 2

Well, that was some crappy Indian food. Went for variety: tikka sampler appetizer, pakora sampler, tandoori chicken appetiser, kima naan. None very good. Why did I do Indian in Skye? Because I didn't want more seafood or another burger and our driver had recommended it. Or maybe he was just calling it out as funny.

Walked around some, found the supermarket was still open around 9, which surprised me, and bought their last croissant and some fruit. Croissants have been a staple travel food for a while: keep decently for a no-preparation starch, and they incorporate their own fat. Walked around more, found a row of streetlights and what looked to be townhouses up a hill, which surprised me for no good reason; 2500 people have to live somewhere.

I don't think I'd want to live in a place like this, unless it was with some very special people or person, but I'm thinking of finding a B&B somewhere small and cheap and idling a bit at some point. Maybe.

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I never ranted about the hostel shower. It was a big surprise. What looked like an electronic control unit, with an on/off button, a clearly labeled temperature dial, and a Power dial with blue wavy line, red wavy line, and double red wavy line markings, which made no sense to me and didn't seem to do anything. Also, the on button had to be complemented by pulling a cord by the door, and only one shower room had a sign to that effect. Like putting in memory chips, you had to pull the cord hard enough to feel at risk of breaking it before it worked.

But they're starting to repeat. I've seen the B&B one before, I think in South Kensington, where you twist the base of the dial for volume. The shower itself is excellent.

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One benefit on last night's unwanted adventure is that I'll cultivate a new habit: looking behind me as I pass landmarks and odd intersections, so that I'll know what they look like coming back. It was utterly stupid of me to not know the name of my place, so that I couldn't have asked for help unless the police knew where my guide was staying, or I'd called Timberbush, but my problems began before that came up, when I reached the key intersection and it looked utterly unfamiliar. There's a good reason for that: the ground falls away,
so a certain building or complex looks really different, undermining my confidence in my weak memories of anything else.

More kinesthetic memory would help too but, well, I'm more of a symbolic thinker. Landmarks and maps and labels, yay. Motion I tune out of easily.

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Loch Ness has cell. Will post last night's entry.

Tour day 3

I forgot one thing of interest to me at the distillery. The visitor room had placards about the history and founders. The two men diversified their income, getting into sheep farming -- clearing crofters off their land. They "redeemed themselves" by organizing relief for an Irish famine. Call me socialist, but I don't see the occasional act of charity, that others could have organized had they the means, as redeeming the theft of people's means of production and support.

Some gorgeous cloud-sun- mist-mountain combinations as we left Skye. No photos, sadly. But that reminds me that Skye's names from both Scots and Vikings are along the lines of Cloud Island and Misty Isle. Well-earned, and easily so for a large island right off the west coast of Scotland.

We passed three slow trucks carrying long white pointed objects with flat bases today. My first throught was missiles. Then, noting what felt like a rise to concavity near the point, I though boat, like very long canoes. But then I could see that the bases were solid and round. The Maltese gentleman next to me suggested windmill, and soon a curve in the road let me see the other side, and yes, they're big windmill bladder.

Driver claims that as a Scot he's not supposed to believe in the Loch Ness Monster, but that Rickie MacDonald of the Academy for Applied Science has convinced him that sonar has found 18 distinct large animals, eating 3 ton of arctic char a day, and that a satellite -- "Google Earth" -- caught two large animals swimming together last June. 300 of them around the world, and something about a "magnetic pulse" and diving fast, which makes no sense to me. My judgement is so suspended it could support a bridge.

Skye's covered in basically grass and heather, and has an annual forecast of cloudy with occasional chance of sun, with wind and acidiic soils. No fun for making a living on. I'm kind of surprised there were 40,000 people to clear away.

GPS pickup on this nowhere Scottish road: crappy to non-existent.

Bad driver pun. Bride in a church sees aisle, altar, you. His second wedding was on a boat on Loch Ness. "Stairway to Heaven" was written on the shores of Loch Ness. Lake is black and opaque with peat-oil.

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Not much to say about the boat itself. We went out, saw dark water, forested sides, the sonar dots of fish. Arctic char is apparently tasty. Trout in the loch can get rather big, taste like smoked salmon raw but tasteless cooked. No "sightings" or attempts to sell us on a pod of giant stealty airbreathers, though the windows had silhouette decals on them so you could take fake monster photos.

Ooh, someone got lost going from the boat to the bus. And this village has swing bridges. This may bork the trip! Even without the Maltese matriarch feeling ill and perhaps not fit for two hour road trips. Bumpy trips with no facilities -- this isn't a bathroom bus.

13:10 upload.

Jacobite Day, Highland tour day 3 part 2

Posting early as bait for James, who might have something to say about Scots and Jacobins and lost causes.

Retracing our steps past the next two glen lochs, then toward something called Monarch of the Glen, which has a dreadful BBC program, but is beautiful -- ah, it's the countryside we'd be driving through.

Driver History lesson: the last of the Jacobite rebellions, led by Italian born and raised Bonnie Prince Charlie. Landing in 1745 with no resources he managed to rally 5000 men and win two big victories, ended up not far from London. But then got spooked by non-existent troops and retreated back to Inverness. Worse, he decided to fight a field battle at Culloden, with Highlander hill guerrillas against 10,000 trained British redcoats. And to do this by marching to a failed ambush, and marching back again, while having forgotten to feed his men.

When the battle broke, he fled, to die in Rome in his 60s. But his men were butchered without quarter by the second son of George II, who then spent a year trying to eradicate the whole Highland people, murdering across the hills. After that four laws were passed: no weapons (so no hunting), no bagpipes, no tartan, no Gaelic, on penalties of death. And finally the Clearances, getting the landlords to let the government ship Highlanders to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, or else burning the in their homes, replacing them with sheep. And so it is that we see hardly anyone as we drive along, but plenty of sheep.

Somehow I've never heard the word genocide applied to this.

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Nothing much happened between there and Pitlochry lunch break, and I don't anticipate much happening to Edinburgh. I did get good enough cell to log on, send a few messages, and get a B&B room for tonight. On reflection hotel might have been better for uncertain check-in time and emergency laundry; I have one clean shirt, and driver is looking at the engine... Now he has a manual out. Maybe I'll need a BnB here.

This stream of events and consciousness style of posting is brought to you by the Maemo free app MaStory, which lets me build up an offline post as stuff happens, via my phone, then upload it when I get an opportunity. So I can type on the bus, or in the bathroom, or while leaning against the bus waiting for the engine to work. If you've wondered about my verbosity, while on an event filled trip, this explains much of it. My eee has barely been touched, until just now in the cafe.

Wait, Morag never came up again. Maybe that's next. Or would be next, if we were going anywhere, which seems unlikely. Dead battery? At least we're in a town of sorts, vs. the middle of the hilly road.

I'd naively think that by now we could have live monitoring of battery health, not just charge.

Were told there wouldn't be progress for another hour; went to look at bus and train schedules... And it in fact would be quite easy to get out of town. Buses every half hour until 19:30 to Perth and some transfer, or trains every two hours to Edinburgh. 18 pounds. And when the regular service stops, sleeper picks up.

I'M IN A CIVILIZED COUNTRY. IF THIS WAS THE US WE'D BE SO FUCKED.

Don't know why the bees love the car park or our bus.

That was fast. Another tour bus is already here, and seems to have started us. Of course, the passengers were scattered for an hour. Nothing much after this, train might be safer. Or faster... Hmm, driver anticipated getting in earlier than scheduled, due to early start, so now we'd be on time. Guess I'll risk it. Train would be faster, but also later.