Mexico

We stayed in West Hollywood. Sounds glam, but it was far from that. I haven't felt so unsafe since Pehom Pehn. Especially as they asked for a cash deposit of more than double the room rate... In case of breakages and stuff. We were separated, but demanded to stay together. We took one look at the room full of death metal tapes, dirty socks and studded leather accessories, and decided if we weren't killed on the streets outside the hostel, we'd be murdered in our beds. To sum up the area, we spent hours browsing in Borders, the only safe haven for miles around. Just on the way home alone, we were accosted 4 times by weirdos. My sense of dread, coupled with the heat, (nearly 100°), noise from the main road and helicopters (fighting the neighbouring raging bush fire, getting ever closer,) meant exactly 0 sleep! (owner of the heavy metal turned out to be OK in the end, and we managed to get 'House' on the TV. Huge Laurie literally saved me that night! So it wasn't all too horrendous.)

We thought it couldn't get any worse, and we were really looking forward to Mexico. Stupid us.
We were collected at 6.45am, and made our way to China Town to get picked up. This should have been a hint in itself. To cut a long story short, we were put-on a minibus full of Chinese,with a driver who spoke as much English as I do Mandarin! If you ever wondered what it would be like to join one of the Asian tours (but why would you?), the type that tell you when and where to go, take photos, eat, with no free time...that was it. It started off not too badly, as we dozed down to San Diego, had a look around the Disneyfied old town and then proceeded down to the Port. Here everyone was told to go on an hr boat ride around the harbour. Why? $75 too. So Sarah and I opted for a walk around the centre instead.. Anything to get off the bus, and listening to the bodily functions of the guy behind us, and the snores of everyone else. We were in big trouble for being 3 mins late, as we had to drive a further 20 mins out of town only to be dumped at an Asian all you can eat buffet for lunch. We hadn't been allowed to eat in town earlier, and the was no other choice now. Neither did we get to choose to wait for everyone as they piled off the bus for duty free cigarette at the boarder, or when we drove nearly an hour past where we were staying, in Mexico, to see a blowhole. All very good, but we'd both seen better in NZ, wanted a shower, and not see a lot of greasy Mexicans trying to sell us sombreros and fake bags. On finally getting to the hotel one of the group asked us why we were on this tour....they were as confused as us, as he said - it was cheap what can you expect?

Need less to say, some free tequila at a restaurant and several excellent margaritas later we felt a lot better!

Unfortunately the next day was even worse. They had all voted (we obviously hadn't had a clue), to have a 6.30am wake up call to go to some Mexican buffet breakfast 45 mins up the coast. Brilliant. Sarah and I opted out and had tea and waited for them. We then went on to Tijuana (in an OC stylie!). Only to pick up a Mariachi singer on the way. I almost tried to jump out of the moving bus when everyone started to sing along to the Macarana. I should have saved that thought for when the driver put on the complete back catalogue of Celine Dion. Even the memory makes me want to cry.
Tijuana is a hole, full of cheap drugs (the legal kind)and alcohol and more greasy Mexicans trying to sell tat. So much for seeing Mexico. We saw a lot of the car park by the border though. 2 Chinese students didn't have the correct visas, so another 1.5 hrs wasted. You'd have thought the Chinese agency would have checked. Another 50 mins wasted at a hotel near San Diego. It was where Some Like it Hot was filmed, but 50 mins? We sat outside the bus and read our books. Finally we got lunch at 3pm, having been up since 6.30. Guess where... Yes another all you can eat Asian buffet in the middle of nowhere.

We finally got back to the civilisation of Santa Monica by 8pm having been on the bus so long in one day I read 1.5 books.

To top it all off, the driver asked for tips. $20 per person. We tried not to pay, as there was nothing to tip. However he came back and directly asked us in front of everyone, so we had to concede! There will be complaints.

The next couple of days were Sarah's last, so we didn't do too much. We walked down to Venice Beach - very Camden on the sea. Saw some lifeguards in yellow trucks (red shorts and everything). Went shopping, and saw the Getty centre. Very impressive, but I guess it should be for $1 billion!

Then on Sunday I headed back to San Fran and left Sarah to abuse her credit card some more.

To cut another long story of useless service in LA short, the shuttle bus I'd booked nearly 2 weeks previously cancelled on me. In fact they hung up on me twice after informing me that I had to get the Greyhound bus. So I did. It took an extra 3 hrs, was in a very bad part of town (the only gated bus depo with its own security I've ever seen,) but it got me back to Aida and Steve's OK.