ANOTHER DAY ANOTHER BORDER CROSSINGplus other True Stories

BY MARC ADDIS

PLUS SPECIAL GUEST STORY‘Harry The Hustler: Back in the Days of Madness

by Pablo Caner.

© Marc Addis

BARNCOTT PRESS LONDON - AMSTERDAM - PARIS - NEW YORK - KATHMANDU - CAPETOWN

Contents

Another Day Another Border Crossing

The Enthusiasm of YouthRoll Out The Barrels!Ripped Off in MoroccoSerious BusinessOut of India

The FreaksThe ApolloThe Five Miles High ClubChristmas at the PalaceBrain Damage for Youngsters

Mushrooms - A Cautionary TaleThings Going Down in Camden TownHarry the Hustler - Back in the Days of Madness

Another Day Another Border Crossing

Nepal China Border. Photo: Marc Addis.

One evening in August 1986 I arrived in Kathmandu, Nepal, after a gruelling 8-hour bus journey up from the Indian plains. A battered rickshaw delivered me to the cheap guesthouse district where "backpackers" stayed, and I found the area rippling with excitement: for the Chinese (who occupy Tibet) had recently opened the Nepal-Tibet border to travellers, without any restrictions, the first time in modern history, ending centuries of enigmatic isolation.The imagination boggled; this was an opportunity too good to miss. Serendipitously, next morning during my breakfast in a local curry house, an old friend walked in, a

middle-aged socialist solicitor from Notting Hill called Martin, and we soon found that we both had the same idea in mind, and that we both had the time and money to do it.We planned for a 2-month stint. In those days we were both heavy dope-smokers, so the first thing

to organise was 2 month’s supply of the famed Nepalese charas (cannabis resin, unavailable in

Tibet), which we procured from a friendly young Nepalese bloke, very good stuff at a fair price, 200 grams, around 7 ounces, about the size of a slim paperback. Then we had the rigmarole of securing the Chinese visas, which took days, buying the bus tickets to the border, high-altitude travel goods, and gifts for the Tibetans. Our only real worry was getting the dope over the border, the Chinese authorities being well-known

for executing drug smugglers, and refusing baksheesh to look the other way, and we soon learned from returned travellers that on the Nepalese side they didn’t care what you took out, but on the Chinese/Tibetan side they searched the luggage carefully but didn’t do body-searches. Since Martin had a lot more to lose as a respectable solicitor in the unlikely event that we got nabbed, I agreed to carry the stash myself, secreted under my money belt on my midriff.The great day soon arrived, bus departure 8 am for an alleged 5 hour journey north to the Tibetan

border. The weather was warm and humid (August is mid-monsoon in Nepal), I was wearing only a light jacket, shirt and shorts, and money belt, quite awkward for concealing a large lump of charas for a no-doubt strenuous bus journey, so I stuffed it into a side pocket of my bulging rucksack, and planned to secrete it around my midriff shortly before we reached Chinese customs.The bus journey was the usual jam-packed chaos, luggage stacked high on the roof and everywhere

inside, people sitting in the aisle, screaming brats, lots of forlorn chickens tied together by their legs, and a couple of smelly goats, which were consigned to the back. There were four other foreigners on board. As we jolted north into the mountains the scenery became increasingly spectacular and steep and

wild, with plenty of hairpin bends, and the weather turned grim, huge dark clouds built up and started to pelt down heavily, and continued to do so. The road, which was already pretty rough, soon began to deteriorate, several times we had to wait while road crews cleared away mud and rocks, and there were some hair-raising moments as we were driven recklessly across flood-rivers and along slippery precipices. Around 2pm we were confronted with a major landslide, dozens of road workers were busy clearing it and dumping the rocks and mud down the right-hand side of the 45-degree slope into the raging river a few hundred feet below. This was deemed too dangerous for a top-heavy bus to traverse, so we all had to disembark, get our luggage off the roof, and slip and slide on foot across the quagmire getting muddy and wet in the process. Our driver careened the bus across after us, the luggage was reinstalled and we re-boarded and carried on.All these monsoon delays added up, so it was late afternoon when we finally reached Kodari, the

last Nepalese outpost, the usual sort of ramshackle little town. The bus terminated about 2 miles short of the Bhote Kosi river, the actual border, with 4 or 5 miles of "no-man’s land" between the two border posts.It was still hammering with rain. Several of us off the bus headed for the border, which was down a

damaged road in an extremely steep valley, with numerous rivulets and little mudslides to negotiate. In due course we reached the Nepalese customs & immigration post, no searches, as predicted, they stamped us through quickly, and right on the other side, a particularly steep part, there were pebbles and stones falling freely, and an official was on hand exhorting us: "Go quickly, go quickly! This is dangerous!" We hardly needed reminding and hurried along, getting peppered with falling debris, and squelched down to the river border far below.Across the "Friendship Bridge" with the Bhote Kosi thundering underneath, and on the other side

was the only bit of flat land for miles around, about the size of half a football pitch, with a recently-built Chinese temple and customs & immigration building, and a massive boulder the size of a dumper truck embedded in the lawn right next to them. We had already heard that this boulder had fallen in the first heavy rains after the buildings were completed, after which the customs & immigration post was hurriedly abandoned and now another office in the first village up the valley

was being used. This village, Zhangmu, was/is about 1200 feet above the river, about three miles by road, but the road was broken in several place so all traffic was on foot.At this stage I had planned to stash my contraband, but we were now surrounded by a swarm of

Nepalese porters jostling for our custom, to carry our luggage up to Zhangmu. Also there were the four other foreigners and several local travellers in the melee. Handing my rucksack over to a porter, I emphasised to him to wait for me at the top (so that I could secrete the charas).By now it was getting dark. The fit and tough Nepalis soon left us floundering foreigners far behind

as they hared up the steep footpath with our heavy loads (some of them even had bare feet), while we trudged grimly onwards and upwards by feeble torchlight. After about 2 hours of struggling we eventually reached flat land and could see the village lights a short distance ahead; but no sign of my porter. Since it was still raining I assumed he’d gone on to the village to seek shelter, so we hurried along to it and were soon intercepted by the porters, minus luggage, who led us to the customs & immigration post, which was still open, with two armed Chinese guards flanking the entrance.We entered a brightly-lit barn-like space, with Chinese guards sitting on benches along the walls and

a row of impassive Chinese officials sitting behind a long desk. In the middle of the floor was all our luggage in a big wet pile. I was rather nervous at this point. The bedraggled bunch of us dripped over to the counter to get our passport stamps and whatnot, and when the first of us had finished and turned to retrieve his luggage, the guards sprang into action and prepared to conduct the dreaded thorough search. But the Nepalese, Chinese and Tibetan gods were with us, for the senior official behind the desk jabbered a few curt commands and gesticulated: it was late, and we were wet, cold, muddy and exhausted; enough was enough. So perhaps some Chinese officials do have compassion; or maybe he just wanted to get finished and go home.Then we all trudged to the government-run guesthouse, had hot showers, changed our sodden

clothes for clean dry ones, had a cheap and hot Chinese meal, and afterwards several of us congregated on the sheltered verandah at the back, with the sound of the still-falling rain, and enjoyed a few joints of the superb charas, which hit us like a Himalayan avalanche after our eventful and demanding day.

Serious Business

Goa Party, AnjunaBeach, 2008. Photo from YouTube video by Yuhudastine.

Back in the mid/late 80s Goa parties were cutting-edge events, a few hundred young people in a tropical paradise, playing psychedelic techno which was just emerging, there was plenty of cheap LSD around and then expensive Ecstasy appeared, we were having it large dancing all night out of our heads amidst the palm trees. "LSD, a crystalline compound, C20H25N3O, derived from lysergic acid and used as a powerful hallucinogenic drug, also called acid", was our drug of choice, plus smoking joints and chillums in our spare time.It was relatively cheap to hire all the lights and a big sound system so there were usually 2 or 3

parties every week during the warm Goa "winter", and a hardcore of about 60 of us became party-animals, living our lives for them, coming back year after year, it was the best scene we’d ever come across.There were some pretty serious international acid dealers around, they had masses of it, in tiny

squares of blotting paper, tiny tablets or liquid form, and they often used to give it away free at the parties to stimulate future sales. Also sometimes the party organisers would pay one of them to hand out (say) 100 trips, as this virtually guaranteed a full-on party. So acid was often free at those parties if you were in the know and discreetly approached the right person. If it wasn’t free we bought some, for a quid or something.We took acid 2 or 3 times a week for months on end. I don’t think I’ve ever really recovered from

those years.

There was one party only a short distance from where I was staying, across a few paddy fields just up from the beach, where the organisers or the dealer got the dosage wrong: the free liquid (one dose in a tablespoon) was 4 times as strong as it should have been. Then I had my strongest-ever trip, thankfully the DJ was superb, that party really rocked, clouds of

chillum-smoke, there was a wild atmosphere and dancing, all I and lots of the others could do was dance for about 12 hours from midnight till midday sweating it off watching the lights running up the palm trees, getting even wilder when the big strobe came on with all the other lights off and no moon, it was completely psychedelic. Strobes are spectacular and powerful if used correctly, and have since been banned from operating for more than a few seconds at a time in the UK under absurd health & safety regulations, as one person in 10 million or whatever has a fit if they're on for long periods. As usual we had ours on for long periods. Then in the morning we watched the sun come up over the palm tress, enjoying our beautiful

surroundings and the company of our fellow flamboyant and friendly party-freaks.The acid was so strong that a fair number of partygoers came a cropper, particularly the younger

ones who weren’t used to it, going for a piss in the bushes was a strange experience, quite a few young people were lying around in various states of distress, some having wet themselves or even worse. Overdosing on acid can be extremely serious business. However I was in no fit state to assist them. Thankfully the sea was only 50 yards away. So I just kept on dancing and burning it off. Around midday when the party ended I had just about come down and found myself sitting next to a

friendly Australian girl also half out of her head, exchanging comments, "They got the dosage wrong with the acid but I had a great time, how about you?""Yes and no, I had a great party but the place where I’m staying (waving her hand about a mile up

the beach) got burgled last night and the bloke I’m sharing with has had his money belt nicked, he’s lost everything."I commiserated and staggered home to bed across the dry paddy fields. When I got back the bloke I

was sharing with, a friendly young American, was waving a money belt around, "Look what I’ve just found in the paddy fields!". It contained a young Aussie male’s passport, traveller’s cheques, an air ticket and a few hundred dollars cash.I really wanted to go to bed, having had a quadruple dose of acid and dancing for 12 hours, but I set

out over the paddy fields to return the money belt, and asked around the little tourist cottages & restaurants & cafes. When I finally found him downcast in his spartan room and handed it over he was so surprised and

pleased that he threw the whole lot up in the air and let it all flutter down around him, and bought me several beers in the nearest bar.Those were the golden days of Goa parties; in the mid-to-late 80s there were usually around

100-200 people dancing, 60-odd of us knowing each other, so it was quite intimate, with plenty of space so you could move around and see everything and everyone. In the meantime "acid house" and "raves" had appeared in England, techno was emerging elsewhere, word was spreading around the world about these fabulous parties, more and more people started turning up and the parties got more crowded. The final straw came in the 90-91 season when there was a party in the same place as the acid overdose one, it was jam-packed, hardly room to dance, and spilled out onto a large area on the beach.I was devastated, I realised that things would never be the same again and that I'd lost the best thing

I ever had. After that season I've never been back. Nowadays thousands of people attend those parties. And I bet there isn’t free acid.

The Apollo

The Apollo pub, Carnival 1982. Photo: Marc Addis.

Back in early 1980 someone told me about an "amazing" pub in All Saints Road, Notting Hill, West London, just off the famous Portobello Road and market. I lived in North London not too far away, so I went and checked it out one Sunday. All Saints Road was the "Front Line" apparently for the Caribbean (i.e. black) community in Notting Hill.The street was trendy shops and big Victorian houses with The Apollo on a corner, and the pub was

unbelievable, air thick with dope-smoke, joints & pipes everywhere, juke box fairly loud, a bit like an Amsterdam coffee shop except that the place was much bigger, booze was on sale (along with king-size Rizlas), and dope wasn't sold behind the bar, it was sold from the tables by various blokes of different nationalities and colours, who had a few ounces of different types stacked on the table in front of them with their scales, you could pick & choose. You could buy a few ounces there but if you wanted more of a particular batch you'd have to go off

with one of them back to their place and do the deal there. I reckon they must have paid the landlord off in order to be allowed to trade there, they weren't drinking much and stayed for hours.The jukebox was stocked half with reggae and half with other stuff, to reflect the demographics of

the pub's “criminal” clientele.After that I went there regularly over the next 18 months and bought loads of dope, and never had

any problems in the streets or in the pub. It was amazingly laid-back and cool in there, I never saw

any trouble (everyone was stoned), and all the buying & selling was done in plain view, in a big pub in the middle of London. Things were much more relaxed in those days, you obviously couldn't get away with that now.The main racism problem was due to the police (99% white), who stop-and-searched a

disproportionate number of blacks, and a lot of them were openly racist, which the blacks obviously resented. There was hardly any trouble between ordinary blacks and whites on the streets and I never saw any in the pub.Usually I/we went there by underground trains, but one sunny Saturday I had 4 young hippy friends

(all white, 3 male 1 female) visiting from out of London who wanted to visit Portobello Road market and the extraordinary pub, so I drove us all over there in the company car I had at my disposal, an estate car.We wandered down and up Portobello Road, bought a few little items and then bought plenty of

fruit & veg in the greengrocers' section as it was fresh and cheap.Then we went to The Apollo, and they were suitably stunned and impressed by the state of affairs.

We bought a round of drinks, found a table and then drifted round the other tables, all five of us buying an ounce or two of something or other and smoking it with the others. When we were back together at our table I pointed out that this was apparently the “Front Line”, the

pub was outrageously illegal, there must be some sort of surveillance, and the possibility of a search outside, so to hide their stashes somewhere. We had a dozen or so plastic bags and a few paper bags full of fruit and veg between us, so we all stashed our gear in the bottom of our bags, except the girl who put it in her bra. All in plain view of the rest of the pub.Then we staggered out of the smoke and music into the sunshine and cold fresh air and realised how

stoned we were. We made our way back to the car, chucked all our greengrocery bags in the back and set off back to North London.This car had the peculiarity of hopeless traction: if you accelerated just a fraction too much the back

wheels would lose grip and squeal and/or skid, even setting off at 0 mph. It wasn't dangerous, I knew the car's limitations, but it did sound dangerous, squealing car tyres always do.I was happy to meet these friends again and wanted to make them laugh, so as I drove round the

back streets towards the main road I made maximum use of the squealing and skidding round corners, and had them all in fits (we were all well-stoned).Then a police car appeared in the rear-view mirror and the blue light and siren came on. I wasn't

worried and reassured the others, "Don't worry, it's not a drugs bust, with all this skidding round corners they must think we've done an armed robbery or something. The most I can be done for is Dangerous Driving. We've been shopping in Portobello Road and you've never heard of The Apollo". They noticeably relaxed.I pulled in to park, the following police car pulled up right alongside blocking us in, then another

one pulled up behind it, then another one pulled up nose-to-nose in front of it, it all happened very quickly. About a dozen scowling cops piled out, and I jumped out as well, with long hair and wearing a ridiculously loud pair of red and gold-striped jeans. Their reaction was amusing, they hesitated and mentally took a step back, "Hang on, this isn't an armed robber". I immediately gave them the business card of my firm which the car was registered to, and my driving license, and dealt with them in a friendly apologetic manner. All four of my car doors and the back were opened, and my friends were taken aside for searching

and questioning. The bags of groceries were put on the pavement and the car got a thorough search.

We were split up and searched and given an avalanche of questions, "What's your name and address, where have you come from, what are you doing, where are you going?" etc etc, all of which we answered truthfully apart from the bit about going to The Apollo.As I spoke to my interrogator his radio went off and the gist of it was that my details were all in

order. I apologised again for my exuberance and skidding, I wouldn't do it again (which I didn’t).Meanwhile the other cops hadn't found any booty, guns, drugs or whatever in the car or on my

friends, so they reluctantly let us off and made their way back to their cars, very kindly putting the unsearched bags of groceries back into my car.As they were leaving the oldest one, a genial bloke around 60, admonished me in a friendly manner,

"We know you're all on something, but we can’t find anything, otherwise you'd be in trouble. And don't drive around like that, it upsets people. Take it easy young feller-me-lad and don't go too far". I later read in the press that The Apollo had been under surveillance for the entire 18 months that I'd

been going there. It got busted in summer 1981 and closed down, never to reopen, thanks to political interference.

The Five Miles High Club

Back in the good old days of 1992, when airport security was a relative doddle, and aircraft still had a smoking section at the back, I set out on one of my many trips to India from Heathrow, this time flying on the newly-formed Uzbekistan Airlines. The plane was brand new, smelling of fresh plastic, clean and pristine, three-quarters empty, and the hostesses were shy and unsure Uzbekistanis who spoke only basic English. Uzbekistan had only recently been freed from the USSR. There’s an old group called The Mile High Club formed decades ago when aircraft flew at lower

altitudes, dedicated to having surreptitious sex in flight, but I had my own club, The Five Miles High Club (membership: 1), dedicated to smoking cannabis on flights at modern higher altitudes, far away from customs and police and other busybodies.On this particular journey, as usual I’d smuggled a lump of hash aboard to smoke en route, so I

rolled up a joint and started puffing as soon as we’d reached cruising altitude and the "No Smoking" lights went off. The hostesses soon came along, oblivious to or perhaps politely ignoring the pungent smell, and served me the usual food and drink. After the meal I rolled up another one and started puffing again, the thick acrid smoke rising up and

spreading further; then a couple of big burly blokes in their thirties came walking down the aisle with their eyes fixed on me: the first looked like a violent criminal, broken teeth, shaven head and covered in tattoos and scars and body-piercings, the second a tall dark clean-shaven rather vacuous chap, both English. The former was all smiles, shook my hand heartily, told me in classic cockney that they’d noticed the smell and asked what was I smoking, so I handed him the joint and invited them to sit down and join the club. Which they did, so for the rest of the journey we smoked joints and drank copious amounts of free alcohol provided by the perfectly polite and compliant hostesses.Hours later we landed in Tashkent airport, the capital of Uzbekistan, a small and austere place,

another brand new creation smelling of plastic and paint. We were only in transit to India so there were no searches, so we spent about an hour in the bar getting to know each other better, although we were already as thick as thieves. The violent-looking one turned out to be a full-on, humorous, down to earth completely good bloke, with the unlikely but highly appropriate name of Bill Bailey. I kept in close touch with him for years afterwards, until his untimely early demise a few years ago. I can’t remember much about his friend. We didn’t smoke any joints in the airport due to the numerous armed guards dotted around. Then we got back on a plane for the last leg of the journey from Tashkent to New Delhi, but this

time it was a completely different kettle of fish: it was packed, all seats occupied, mostly Indians going home from all over Europe, so we couldn’t smoke our dope discreetly at the back, we had to sit amongst them in three adjoining aisle seats. Nevertheless, I still had a small but strong lump of hash to get rid of before we landed, throwing it

away was out of the question, so we brazened it out and rolled and smoked it blatantly in the three aisle seats, passing the joints around amidst raised eyebrows and knowing whispers from the Indians, a couple of whom had a puff with us for the fun of it, and polite solicitude from the hostesses, who continued to ply us with alcohol.I must admit that after about 10 hours of mostly free booze and smoking joints, I can’t remember

much about the landing in Delhi, but there were no hitches and the three of us eventually ended up in a cheap "hotel".

A triumph for The Five Miles High Club! Membership had tripled overnight, or quintupled if you count the two Indian blokes, a firm friendship had been forged, nobody got nabbed, and we all had a fine time.

Mushrooms - A Cautionary Tale

Back in November 1981 I was a 21 year old fun-loving criminal (according to our absurd drug laws) living in Highgate, North London, a very pleasant suburb with lots of trees and open spaces.Over the last few weekends I had been collecting "magic mushrooms" from Trent Park in far North

London, basically free organic ‘LSD’ (full of Psilocybin, a psychedelic drug similar to LSD). There were hundreds of them in the fields and I collected a large glass jar full of them, checking them carefully for maggots. Then a friend invited me to a party in Hampstead, which is a few miles away on the other side of the

large Hampstead Heath, with miles of greenery and trees and fields. So I got half a dozen friends round on that evening and handed round the jar, we all had some, one

of the "friends" named Duncan was not one of my friends, he came along with someone else, he was dark & quiet and a bit dubious, and apparently a heavy drinker, so he scoffed rather a lot of mushrooms, saying "I can drink ten pints so this stuff is child’s play", sort of thing. Then we set off for the party on foot, in freezing but dry weather, it was about a three mile walk up

through Highgate and across Hampstead Heath.As we walked across Hampstead Heath the mushrooms started kicking in and we started tripping, I

was soon seeing thousands of magic mushrooms in a perfectly-aligned grid across the fields.Eventually we got to the big house and blended in with the party. However dubious Duncan was by

now having a bad trip, and laid it all on me for giving him the mushrooms and kept following me around, sticking to me like a limpet, "You’ve poisoned me, I’m burning up, you’ve got to help me" etc, and he kept on following and accosting and accusing me. It became a nightmare, this troubled bloke constantly hassling me, serious business when you’re tripping. I figured that even if I left he would follow me, I couldn’t get away from him. I repeatedly told him straight, "Look you’re just having a bad trip, go and lie down somewhere and get over it," but he wasn’t having it and continued to harass me. I was almost in despair but thankfully I eventually found my original friend Paul who had brought

him along and handed him over to him, to Paul’s immense credit he took over and dealt with the bad-trip nutter and took him away, it was an overwhelming relief for me.Then I left immediately to get away from Duncan.I heard the next day that whilst all this was happening the party was getting rowdier and rowdier

until eventually a police car turned up to tell them to turn down the noise and behave themselves.Paul was still trying to calm down the utterly confused Duncan who by now had got it into his head

that he'd OD'd and needed an immediate ambulance and/or help. The police told everyone to cool it and were rolling their car slowly down the street just as Duncan managed to shake himself free of any minders who were telling him that it would all be alright if he lay down quietly for a bit.He rushed out of the front door wild-eyed and naked to the waist (as he was burning up) and began

running after the cop car waving madly and hailing them down shouting "Help me I’m dying!" which pulled up the cops. Paul managed to get to the cop car just as they were dealing with him and told them that he was just drunk and that the cold air had had an adverse reaction on him and that he would be OK as he’d look after him and see that he got home OK. This seemed to set the cops’ minds at rest and they were preparing to drive off again when Duncan

started jabbering that he'd been taking drugs and had overdosed and that he needed to get help and get to a hospital immediately, and started trying to open the back door of the police car (which was

locked) to get in. Paul continued to say that he really was OK and that he'd calm down soon. They asked Duncan what he had taken and he told them about the magic mushrooms (which were legal in those days) and was moaning "Take me away take me away help me". They then asked him if he had any drugs on him and he told them “No” and that he had ingested

them all, so the cops told him to "Bugger off''. It seemed everyone wanted to ditch Duncan.The cops drove off and the two of them were left to their own devices, Duncan being half-naked in

the freezing cold, half-mad and penniless. Paul took him back to the house and as they arrived a minicab fortuitously turned up for another partygoer, so Paul intercepted/hijacked it and got the driver to wait while he found Duncan’s jacket and got it on him, put his other clothes in a carrier bag and sent him packing. He lived with his parents so if he didn’t have enough money to pay the fare his parents would have to get out of bed and pay, and he would have some serious explaining to do. By this time I was home and tucked up in bed, vowing to myself never to give psychedelics to an

unknown person again, and blessing Paul (who was also tripping) for his presence of mind in dealing with the situation.

Another Day Another Border Crossing is now available as an ebook

published byBARNCOTT PRESS .