After sleeping under the stars near the beach the previous night I felt ready for a night I felt good and ready for a comfy bed and a night in a proper town. I had also suffered the unpleasant side-effect not mentioned in Lonely Planet-style write-ups of sleeping outside: I had (and still have) mosquito bites all over the one thing that was left exposed to the elements: my face. I have three on my forehead, one on the bridge of my nose and a couple on my eyelids.
I'm not a pretty sight at the moment.
Still, I arrived in Montpellier in high spirits and followed signs for what I thought was the tourist office. I actually ended up being led to the parking for the tourist office which is a massive multi-storey entirely underground, and once you reach the barriers there's no turning back. So, I decided to manoeuvre the bike around the side of the barriers and get in. I left my bike there unlocked and without a ticket and headed out onto the main concourse, la Place de la Comedie (this turned out to be an extremely apt name as we shall learn later).
Following the previous night's lonely dining experience I was keen to get some food somewhere I wouldn't be the only person eating, and stumbling
upon a little courtyard just out of the centre, I discovered a pretty little place with some eating and, I was glad to notice, some cross-table chatting. The Mango Cafe turned out to be something of a delight, as I chatted to the Manager about his time in Thailand, which explained the Thai food on the menu (I had green curry. I was average. I guess the french palate isn't up to the spice). It also turned out that I was seated next to a couple of students from England who were nice but boring, but while I was speaking english to them it turned out that the waitress (pretty, sporty-looking, about 22) was also english. This turned out to be the first time that this many english people had ever been in the same place in Montpellier and was the source of much amazement. I got chatting to the waitress and she turned out to be really friendly and was telling me all about how she got a job and an appartment with her A-level french and gave me some good tips about getting established. She also gave me, much more importantly, her phone number and told me that she'd show me around the city on tuesday (tomorrow) and also invited me to be on her pub quiz team. Pub quiz! In Montpellier! You can imagine my delight...After leaving the cafe I went, on the waitress's recommendation, to find a sheesha cafe which is apparently famed as being great. As it turned out, great was not the word. If I could design, from scratch, with as much budget and equipment as I needed and no regard to whether or not it would make money, I could not dream up a more perfect little place than the place I found myself in.
The beautiful girl behind the counter (who turned out to be Ukranian) invited me to take off my shoes and take a seat on one of the many leather cushions that lined three of the walls of the dark souk-like room. I ordered jasmine tea (what else!?) and a mint sheesha and these were cooked up and served with infallible style and pageantry. It was all very lovely. I got chatting to the girl and we talked all evening in french about proper stuff like music and festivals and living in France v. living in England or Spain.
I told her of my mobylette, hidden in the dark depths of the car park under the Place de la Comedie and she made a face and said that she thought it was pretty unsafe to leave it there (especially with the helmet right there on the handlebars) and told me of a place around the back of the pub she lived above which has a combination on the gate and where I could leave my bike. This sounded great so I paid and headed back to the car park. I found my mobylette there as I'd left it (I'd had my fingers crossed!) but when I lept on to start it it wouldn't go. Now regular readers of my blog may know that troubles starting this little machine are not uncommon and I thought the kickstart had packed up again. Knowing that the solution to a bike with no kickstart is to roll it down a hill, and being on the "top floor" of a deep subterranean car park I began rolling it down the ramps but to no avail. I was now on floor -4 which was dark and competely deserted and was nowhere nearer to starting my bike. I was in trouble (and out of breath from my efforts with the kickstarter). I headed upstairs to the security booth for help, mindful of the fact that didn't have a ticket for the car park as I'd entered illegally.
The guy appeared monumentally unimpressed with my tale of a broken moped but nonetheless followed me down to the -4th floor to inspect it. We had some midly humorous moments with him (late fourties, suited and booted) racing wildly down one of the ramps in an effort to get it started but the engine clearly wasn't firing. It was when he, in a last act of desperation, got down on his hands and knees to inspect the engine found the the cable connecting the timing with the spark plug was flying loose. It turned out that rather than nicking my bike which is what had been expected of the people of Montpellier someone had, in a hilarious prank, stolen a vital piece off the bike which made the engine fire. I was boned. Or was I? After a long haul up four sets of ramps the guy, who spoke no english at all, rootled around in his office for a long while before reimmerging with a paper clip and a much younger colleague who seemed to be saying that it didn't matter that the piece was missing. A lively debate followed in which the older security man invited the younger to try starting the machine as it was and much goading which I didn't follow. Anyway, following an heroic effort with a pair of pliers and this paper-clip, the older guy got the cable re-connected to the spark plug and stood back to admire his efforts. He gave the kickstart the mearest of tickles with his shoe and the engine lept into life. I was totally stunned. And incredibly thankful.
In a final stroke of luck the security booth was, for some reason, nowhere near the exit which was entirely unmanned and I was able to slip out the way I got in.
When I returned to the youth hostel after parking my bike in the Sheesha Cafe girl's courtyard and thanking her and her boyfriend for everything, I found the room in full swing with drinking and smoking and lots of lively chat in english. Me and the gay austrian catholics had been joined by two über-buff german beach dudes, an american guy, two dutch girls and an unidentified sleeping guy. All had brought sangria and beers and seemed to be having a great time. I, needless to say, joined in and didn't get to bed till late. Sweet.
Now to get some breakfast....
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