San Francisco: Vietnamese Delights, Street Hikes and Lonely Alcatraz Nights

Although there is no actual entry requirement to wear flowers in your hair when going to San Francisco, I felt obligated to make some sort of effort. This was the last stop on the road trip extravaganza, after all. With no fresh blooms in sight at the grimy Megabus stop at LA's Union Train station, I made do with flower print leggings from the H&M sale and stepped aboard, ready to part-sleep the eight hour journey.

I arrived in the early hours, tumbling out onto the corner where I'd waved Leah goodbye a fortnight and a half ago amid crowds of merry students and hipsters dressed in their yuletide finest for SantaCon. My hostel was in North Beach, tucked in among tired nightclubs, depressing strip clubs and a grimy looking pizza/kebab shop that was surprisingly spitting out the most delicious aromas, even at eight in the morning.

I clambered up the narrow staircase, ready to plop into whichever bed I'd been allocated, but as is always the case, it was never that easy. The fat, beardy receptionist sweating behind the counter, who I just knew had a neat collection of perfect-in-their-box action dolls alongside his sticky hentai comics on his bedroom shelf, arrogantly denied me admittance. No check-in's until 11am.
I was knackered. I was having my period. I just wanted to sleep. Show some mercy, El Beardo. He stood steadfastly by his 'dems the rules' ethos. Frickin' jobsworth.
I was forced to hang about, drowsily looking through San Fran city guides in the common area and checking at my watch every six minutes, willing the hands to turn faster.


Restless and frustrated, I gave up at the 10am mark and went for a wander around Chinatown. It was here, at the unassumingly named Latte Express, that I found sanctuary in my first ever Vietnamese Banh Mi sandwich. A new love affair with a filled baked good was born.

Glazed cuts of hot pork, chicken or beef came encased in a warm flaky baguette, the savory flavours colliding with slices of pickled carrot, daikon radish, fresh cucumber and sprigs of coriander. A crunch of jalapeno brought up the rear while some sort of pate (of which I usually am not a fan) spread across the bread reminded me of herby stuffing (of which I am a massive fan) and warded off any creeping dryness. How had I not encountered the simple Banh Mi earlier in life? I found plenty of cafes and restaurants in the city that were vying for the title of Best Banh Mi in San Francisco and made a vow to try at least one every day until my flight back to Heathrow.

There are hordes of homeless in San Fran, thanks to the generous benefit system and heavy duty soup kitchens. Most city guides I'd read had waxed lyrical about the delights of the Mission district, with its graffiti muraled walls, scores of thrift shops and multicultural vibe. To be fair, you can find this sort of community in any major city. London has Brixton and Harlesden, New York - Brooklyn and Harlem.

Read between the lines and it simply means a quarter where the poor, spirited and colourful were forced to live, but in recent years has caught the eye of developers, yuppies and hipsters. I'm pretty certain there was a Whole Foods or Trader Joe's lurking about (the Waitrose counterpart) and if that's not a sign of gentrification, you and your skinny Cheap Monday jeans can take a hike. 

I walked into a ghetto Dickensian tableau the moment I turned the corner into the Mission. One of the homeless was aggressively shoulder smashing a Chinese tourist, demanding he hand over the 'money, drugs and hoes.' The poor bloke looked petrified, despite being half a foot taller, and slightly stockier, than the (most likely disease-riddled) tramp. His flashy camera quivered as he looked about for possible saviours to rescue him from this street madness. I wound the shoulder strap of my bag, already strategically placed in an anti-theft position across my body, tighter in my wrist. 

Apart from the murals and odd kitschy shop, there wasn't much else to look at or do down in the Mission. Not that I stuck about to explore. Charity shops and down-and-outs make me nervy itchy. The depressing hopelessness of all the poverty was enough to propel me out of there and back towards the twinkling lights of the city after a mere few hours. 

The next day, after a pit stop at Saigon Sandwich in the Tenderloin for a $3.50 grilled pork de-frickin-light, I headed east towards Haight and Ashbury. This is where the Summer of Love happened, where hippy central was headquartered and where the theory that peace and love would heal international conflicts was conceived. Men in parked cars murmured 'Hey grrrrrl, oh hey', as I wheezed past them.  It reminded me a lot of Camden; clouds of weed dancing above the pavements and shifty dreadlocked stoners anchoring street corners, except it was very hilly. Some streets were so steep in fact, it was in that bit in Inception where the pavements turn vertical as you walk up to them.

No trip to San Fran would be complete in my eyes without a trip out to Alcatraz. Trips to the former US fort and prison are in such high demand, visitors are advised to book up to a fortnight in advance to guarantee tickets, advice which I duly followed. I left it until the morning of my final day, taking an early ferry out of Pier 33 across choppy waters and under a suitably grey sky to the Rock. Alcatraz sits on one of the most hostile, desolate lumps of land in the world, at the mercy of violent waves rolling into the Bay and San Francisco's temperamental weather. 

Ideal for caging America's dirty and dangerous. 

 Although its life as a prison is long dead, you can't help shuffling around the damp cells mournfully, as if you yourself had been banished here for a stretch. The worst bit was when I was having a look around the isolation block and someone briefly closed the door. I'm not afraid of the dark, and it was only for a second, but it was enough to give me heeby jeebies that took at least twenty minutes to shake off.
The free audio guide that comes with a standard ticket walked me through the main facility, giving me facts and figures and former inmate accounts that explained in detail just how grim it was to live in such a place. Didn't seem that bad. The cells looked a mere hygiene rung below some of the motel rooms we'd had to sleep in when Leah and I had the car.

A recording of the experience of one former inmate said one of the worst things about the prison was its proximity to downtown San Francisco. When the wind blew the right way, it carried laughter and music from clubs in the harbour across the bay, over the rocky cliffs, right through the concrete walls, mocking the miserable jailed with the sounds of the free. Torture in itself. I could have spent most of the day rattling my plastic water bottle against the cell bars, muttering lines from the Shawshank Redemption into the shadows, but my flight was departing in the early afternoon and I had to get a wiggle on for my ride to the airport. 

I stood waiting to dump my swelled backpack at Virgin Atlantic's departures lounge, idly flicking through my photo album and looking back at three months in the most fascinating nation on the planet. Clam chowder, Elvis fanatics, leis, hurricanes and voodoo superstition, cowboys, ghost towns and deserted desert highways. Home simultaneously to the brave and free, and Earth's most notorious penitentiary. 

What a hot mess of a country.

Why Can't Everywhere Just Be Hawaii?

I was in Hawaii for ten days, way too long to document in its glorious entirety through the give-it-to-me-quick medium of the blog. So here are the highlights, best bits and weirdest things that happened during my short but sweet time in paradise.


North Shore 
It made logistical sense to use the rental car for long distances while we had it, and North Beach - home to pro surfers across the seven seas - would be at least a day long trip. Off we sped, to the Waimea Bay the Beach Boys sing of in Surfin' USA and about five miles from shore, so tantalisingly close that we could smell the spray coming off the big-ass waves, we hit traffic. Proper chocker.

There's only one way in and out of Waimea and its popularity means that street is in deadlock traffic most of the time, each vehicle stacked with at least two surfboards and crammed with beach bummers winding themselves up into an increasing state of tension.
We brainstormed, cursed the cars in a variety of putrid English, Swedish and Australian, then rerouted to a closer seaside town where the water was just as mental. After a hearty lunch of fresh fish tacos (I was infatuated) we sat watching the water on the warm sand, marvelling at the fearlessness of surfer kids smashing themselves and their boogie boards into the churning blue ocean. All three of us spotted a sea turtle at the same time, its shadow tracing over the top of the plundering waves, and squealed in unison with unadulterated glee.

Pearl Harbour All I really know about Pearl Harbour and the devastation that took place there seventy-odd years ago I learned from the Hollywood blockbuster of the same name. After failing to see the DiCap and Wahlberg stalking the streets of Boston, I wasn't holding out any hopes of Ben Affleck waiting for me at the door in WW2 period dress.

However, there were a few other stunning models about - sleek submarines and out-of-service battleships lined the harbour while the occasional troupe of choppers or military aircraft painted the skies overhead with dainty white skids.
This was one of the best things I did in Hawaii - the trip to the USS Arizona memorial (under which the actual ship lay, many of its boys imprisoned in the underwater grave since that horrible morning in 1944) was free of charge, as were two of the exhibitions explaining Japan's ambush and the US response, as well as the interior of a small submarine. Decommissioned missiles dotted in the broad, mowed lawns gave us the perfect slivers of shade to escape the heat sizzling out of the white concrete under our flip flopped feet. You could probably spend the whole day there, and we might have done, were we not in such a hurry to get to the Aloha Stadium up the road to haggle with stall-holders at the weekend market for souvenirs and plucky ukeles.

Diamond Head There are no diamonds in this crater on the south east corner of Wakiki Beach, I discovered like many before me as I sweated and clambered up to the top (cheap day out, entry only costs $1 if you walk in, $5 for cars). The trek started out easily enough with gentle slopes leading to corners upon which you could gaze at windswept panoramas. Then came the stairs.
Some were cut directly out of the rock, crumbing, some covered with soft moss with only a rusty handrail for support and guidance. A lot of the elderly seemed to be attempting the mountain the Sunday I went, taking up entire swathes of the path with their zimmer frames, false teeth and IV drips while I was forced to dodge around them.
One lady seemed to think high heels were suitable for the hike. While pushing a pram loaded with a child that probably could have made it using its own two feet. Oh well, I guess it was their holiday too. After three sets of stairs and a stupidly dark tunnel, I made it to Diamond Head's summit and revelled in a rare sense of accomplishment. Fabulous view.

Surf School Every morning, I'd set my alarm for 7am in the hope that I'd be able to motivate myself to get up and pop down to the beach for a $30, hour long Early Bird surf lesson with the Star Boy instructors. But each morning, some sort of crisis would arise - dry mouth, headache, couldn't find my goggles. Until my last morning when it became a case of now or never.
The swell isn't particularly dangerous in Waikiki (compared to North Shore) but enough to make you worry when you're trying to balance on top of the water. I spent three quarters of the one hour lesson gulping sea water, gathering bruises and cuts on my elbows and accidentally slicing myself on a rogue piece of coral, incurring a cut on the sole of my left foot. It stung suggesting there was blood but in the adrenaline flow, I didn't even stop to think about sharks.
'When I say paddle, PADDLE', Kenny my instructor instructed superbly as we bounced in the sea. 'When I say stand up, YOU STAND UP'. Cheers, got that. The board caught the wave and I shot forwards towards the beach. 'STAND UP, ABHA!! STAND UP!' How was Kenny so loud over the waves?
I crept my knees forward, balancing on my palms, then brought my left leg up before finally swivelling on my right so I was upright. I was so surprised not to fall immediately over, I began cheering like an idiot and in my celebration, failed to spot a small child on a small surfboard, about thirty metres away, directly in my line of fire. 'Moooove!' I screamed at him. Too late. I jumped off just before we made impact, causing my own board to whack me in the head, coming up spluttering to see if I had maimed the tiny tot. He was still perched above his board, huge eyes dotted with bits of the sea or tears. Shit. I didn't stay to find out. 'You're alright, aren't you?', I threw back over my shoulder as I paddled away from him and my shame towards Kenny.

Booze Cruise, Christmas and Karaoke Queens Christmas time, lack of mistletoe made up for the copious amounts of wine. We began the Hawaiian Chrimbo celebobs in excellent style, heading to a catamaran that offered a two hour sail along Waikiki with an open bar for a mere $25. I collected my chums and we made our way to the Moana Surfrider Hotel, outside which the vessel was moored. It wasn't the best day weatherwise, but it was Christmas Eve and we pretty much had the run of the boat so we set about the challenge of drinking the bar dry and attempting to spot whales in the distance. There was a sighting, but I missed it because I was chatting with a pot-bellied Canadian about the merits of holidaying on the Mexican peninsula (never been, but he didn't know that).

Karin was the best Lad On Tour, downing mai tais like they were cookies and she the Cookie Monster, although each of us was trying to do her best, and keep the honour of her country intact. Representin'. Perhaps it was the sway of the boat, maybe they were being a bit tight with the drink, but none of us really felt the effects until we were back on the sand. Then they hit us like a sodding tidal wave. 

On Christmas Day, we carried ourselves and our vile hangovers to the cinema to watch Tarantino's latest, Django Unchained. Nothing says 'good tidings' like a bit of slavery, bloody executions and horrific torture.
We spent the late hours of the day wailing out Christmas songs in a hole-in-the-wall karaoke bar where the drinks were cheap and everyone was gay. I FINALLY got given a flower lei and celebrated by screeching to Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode.

Perfecto Chrimbo.