This is part of my journey around the world. You can start at the beginning, or you can just carry on reading.

I arrived at Los Angeles airport at about 6 am. I asked at the help desk how to get to Santa Monica, and set off walking. When I finally made it to the ocean in the late afternoon, I could see Santa Monica pier, and I could see Ye Olde King’s Head just across the road from it. I stopped in for a Guinness.

There were a couple of English blokes sitting next to me at the bar, and they asked what I was up to and where I was staying. I told them I had just arrived in LA, and didn’t have anywhere to stay yet.

One of them told me,

If you walk about a mile down Ocean Avenue, there’s a hostel. Dump your backpack, put on your posh togs and come back here. My son is going to a party tonight. You can go with him.

After dumping my stuff and after another pint of Bass or two, I headed off to the party at UCLA with the son and a few of his friends. They didn’t tell me we were gate-crashing until we climbed in the bedroom window, and we climbed back out pretty damn quick when a very large man chased us away.

“Get the fuck out of my house!” he said.

We eventually found another party that didn’t throw us out, and we had a splendid time drinking their Coronas, and talking to their ladies.

The next morning, I headed down to Venice Beach and bought myself a surfboard.

I met Brett and David on the beach. Brett was Australian, and he taught me to surf. David was from Philadelphia. We hung out together on the beach for a few days until Brett suggested we get a room together up in Hollywood.

The hotel we found was on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. It was one of those hotels you might see in a gangster movie from the 40s, the kind that has prostitutes and drug dealers in the lobby and the receptionist is behind bars.

We hung out in Hollywood for about a month and did all the Hollywood things. We watched movies at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre (Clint Eastwood’s Bird was the best), and we found the perfect spot to be picked up every day for the live studio audience for TV shows. Night Court was great. Gilmour Girls, not so much. Every show had a stand-up comedian to keep the audience warm between takes, and the comedians were all brilliant!

We were all poor, so we set ourselves a challenge to find the cheapest breakfast in Hollywood, and then we didn’t need to eat for the rest of the day. In the end, we were able to get bacon and eggs for 70¢. We eventually discovered an all-you-can-eat Sizzlers, where we could stuff ourselves for $8.50 and be so fat we had to sit on the pavement for an hour before we could walk back to the hotel.

As we got near the end of our time in LA, Brett flew off to Australia, and David and I went out on the town one last time. We ran into a posh bloke in a bar who took us out for a posh dinner in a very posh restaurant. We didn’t know why he would want to do that, but we were very hungry, so we went with him. It was the fanciest restaurant I’ve ever been to — the kind you might take royalty to, or an Oscar nominee.

After we finished our dinner and walked outside, Chaim asked if we would like to go somewhere for a martini. I quickly said “yes, please”, but David said, “Er… no, thanks… I have a thing…” and wandered off, leaving me with Chaim, who turned out to be the gayest gay man in Los Angeles.

As we wandered out of the bar after our martinis, Chaim invited me back to his apartment, where we could get to know each other a little more. “Er… no, thanks, Chaim… I have a thing,” I said, and wandered off back to my hotel.

When I looked back, Chaim was curled up like a mushroom on Sunset Boulevard, screaming “Noooo! Come back!!” He wasn’t happy.

When I got back to the hotel, David was gone, and he’d stolen all my money.

Back in those days, the safest way to carry lots of money was to buy traveller’s cheques and then change just enough into the local currency when you needed it. I was due to leave for Tahiti the next day, so he only stole about fifty dollars. But still… what a twat.

And that was LA. Good times, but my trip to Tahiti was coming up next and it was gonna be wonderful!

If you enjoyed this little story, you can find more tales of my travels here: