Travel Biography - Week 104.

The Journey from San Luis Obispo to West Hollywood.

The four days I spent in San Luis Obispo took three nights and four days. These included the day I arrived as Day One, and the day I departed as Day Four. This gave me two full days - the first, I hired a bike and rode to Avila Beach. The second full day I spent checking out the town and spending time in the library. On day Four, it was time to return to Los Angeles, as I had just one week left of this 1997 Round-the-World backpacking experience. I intended to settle in Santa Monica, the coastal district of Los Angeles, where I stayed two years earlier in 1995.

The HI-AYH Santa Monica didn't accept off-the-street check-ins. Instead, the hostel required an advanced phone call booking and a submission of my credit card number to get a reservation. So, whilst I was still in San Luis, I found a public phone box and dialled the number for the hostel. For the first time, I was told over the phone that for the coming evening, all the beds were taken, but they were happy to take me two nights later. By working out the evening of take off, I managed to reserve for five nights starting on a Thursday to the following Monday night, the final night spent in a hostel before boarding the flight on a Tuesday evening.

Hollywood in 1977. Much has changed by 1997.

None of this existed in 1977. This was 1997.

King Kong dominates the Upper Level.

Stairs linking the two levels, Universal Studios.

My hostel guide booklet for North America included a Banana Bungalow Hostel in West Hollywood. Thus, with extra care, I made a booking for a two-night reservation starting that evening. If everything goes to plan, I have the advantage of revisiting Universal Studios in Hollywood for the first time since my initial visit in 1977 as narrated on Week 14.

Later that afternoon, a couple of backpackers were also ready to leave. There was even a suggestion of a car lift to the Los Angeles area, but the guys weren't heading there. But I was offered a lift by them to the Greyhound bus station and left to make my way south alone. To my joy, there was a Greyhound station at West Hollywood, just the ideal location to alight! It was far better than ending the journey at the main city terminal on East 7th Street.

The 185-mile (298 km) Americruiser journey took around five hours to complete. After arriving at West Hollywood, I alighted, and with the aid of my guidebook, I found the Banana Bungalow hostel and checked in. I was assigned a bed in one of the carports or garage in a row of several, the most unusual place to spend the night. The mouth of each carport had a thick, translucent plastic sheet covering it which hung freely, allowing anyone to enter and exit. Inside the carport were four bunk beds, two on each side, thus each carport accommodated eight sleepers. It also meant that to get to the bathroom, I had to step outside onto the yard to reach the main building where the bathroom was housed.

The adjoining main building was inviting, with a games room dominated by a snooker table. Throughout the evening, I watched as a group of lively guests concentrated on the game. The best I could do was casually watch. But I didn't play, instead, I shopped locally for dinner and the morning's breakfast. Like at all other hostels, this one too had a guest kitchen and dining room, thus rating the accommodation as adequate. But some of the other backpackers I spoke to gave the hostel a poor rating.

As for me, spending a night or two in a garage didn't bother me too much. It was summer, warm, the south Californian climate was subtropical, and palm trees flourished. Indeed, any creepy crawlies could have sneaked under the plastic sheeting, yet there were no bed bugs. Recently, I have heard about upstanding hotels and even a British holiday camp chalet suffering from bedbug infestations.

Palm Trees at Hollywood.

Outdoor mockups seen from the Glamour Tram.

A tree in a remote village.

The same tree gets flooded, Glamour Tram views.

A Day at Hollywood Studios.

After making my way there from the hostel, the price of $36 admitted me into the theme park. Straight away, I saw big changes from the 1977 visit. A giant cutout of King Kong dominated the main street, and cinemas were showing classic Hollywood movies, along with buildings several storeys high and housing shops and stalls. Neither were there before. The theme park was on two levels. All the commercialism was on the upper level. The studios proper was on the lower level, and it was at the lower level where I spent most of the day, including getting an unexpected soaking.

However, the outside mockups on the lower level remained very much the same as in 1977. A more updated version of the Glamour Tram was still in operation, winding its way through the mockups as well as passing through an indoor tube station setting, where an explosion on a stationary train startled all of us. There was from my side of the tram a street deliberately flooded, uprooting a tree in the process. As already explained during the 1977 visit, actors are filmed entering and leaving the mockup townhouse, but all indoor scenes were shot in a studio room elsewhere.

A Cowboy prepares to shoot.

This was in Bruce Almighty and Back to the Future

A view of the mockups from the upper level.

After the glamour tram ended where it began, I was free to wander around the site, although the public was forbidden to venture among the outdoor mockups, I was still free to visit the indoor studio elsewhere in the park. At the entrance, the doors remained shut until a reasonable-sized crowd had assembled outside. Then the doors opened and we were all escorted inside a large shed. This building was one of several which housed the mechanical side of filming, where various machines produced both visual and sound effects when making a movie.

The escort stood on a stage above us all and pointed his finger at someone in the crowd. When a person responded by approaching the stage and climbing a step to reach the waiting escort, he was given instructions on how to operate the visualisation gadget when given the signal. I couldn't help but feel a tinge of envy at the random picking from the audience. He then pointed his finger at what looked to be directly at me.

You sir - please come up here. He called out as he stood by another of the machines. Startled, I made my way to where he was standing.

As I approached and climbed the step that led to the stage, he cried out, I wasn't calling you, but the gentleman behind. But come up anyway and I'll show you what to do!

I was led to the sound simulator. I was told that when a pilot light lit up, I was to turn the crank handle fast. We both waited. The other chap's light came on first and he activated his gadget. Then the light on my gadget lit, and I began to turn the handle, and a siren sound was emitted from a nearby speaker. The light went out, and I stopped. Then it came on again, and I began to turn the handle again. In all, I turned the crank three times at exactly the right moment.

On the screen above the stage, the demonstration was replayed after filming. The blending of the visuals and sound in harmony was the basis for making a movie.

It was difficult to describe how I felt afterwards. On one hand, I felt honoured to partake in a public demonstration here in Hollywood, yet also humiliated after he disclosed that I was the wrong person to come up to the stage. Who was the fellow behind me? I didn't look back to see. Was he wearing a green hat, for example? Then why wasn't the escort more specific? Such as: Will the gentleman wearing the green hat please come up here? Like that, I would have known that he wasn't referring to me.

But he said nothing about a green hat, and his finger did point directly at me. This was Hollywood. A place where people act, to create a world of make-believe. While I was writing this, I thought back to the incident. Was it likely that his "wrong man" statement was deliberately delivered to hinder any puffed-up feelings?

However, whether the escort liked it or not, I partook in a demonstration right here in one of the world's most famous locations, whose image is broadcast worldwide. The feeling of achievement won over the feeling of humiliation. Yet, this little experience has opened my eyes to how such an ego booster the studio really is, and always has been. Aspiring actors have always dreamed of Hollywood, the ambition of drama students to have their names illuminated in big letters right across the cinema screen.

But with fame comes responsibilities, especially in maintaining marriage relationships. According to statistics, the divorce rate of Hollywood celebrities stands at 52% (Source: the website Bonobology.) Hollywood has one of the highest divorce rates among celebrities. True love, family commitment and inflated egos don't seem to match very well, especially at home. For me who is at present fully committed to our own marriage, Hollywood, where many would give an arm and a leg to star in a movie, gain fame and rich pickings, can make shipwreck of the noble institution of marriage - going back thousands of years - to lie in ruins like a bombed city.

Wet, Wet, Wet.

There is at least one rollercoaster, or rather, a water chute in the Hollywood theme park, the Jurassic Park ride. After my stint in the indoor studio, I made my way to the attraction. Having noticed that everyone was dripping wet when they alighted from the boat, I asked whether there was a safe place to store my camera for the duration of the ride. I was led to a room lined with lockers. In one of them, I left my camera and other valuables.

I boarded the vessel at the front for the best views. By then I knew that we were all going to get wet, but that still left me to ponder: Why do American amusement owners have an obsession with soaking their guests? Along with Hollywood studios, both Disneyland and SeaWorld have attractions that could leave one dripping after the ride or show. 

However, the ride itself was amazing. We sailed past dinosaurs - the Brachiosaurus, Psittacosaurus, Stegasaurus, the duck-billed Hadrosaur, a Dilophosaurus, and then the Tyrannosaurus lunging straight at us, but just escaped its claws when the raft fell down a 26-metre waterfall into a lagoon below. But even before the waterfall, we had already been spat upon with water from the mouth of some of the dinosaurs we passed, but the waterfall was the final climax. The splashdown drenched us.

Entrance to the water chute ride.

The 26-metre waterfall.

Splashdown!

After the ride. I had no other clothes to change into or no towel to dry myself with. But thanks to the warm, balmy climate, along with wearing a summer shirt and shorts, it didn't take long to dry out, and I stayed in the vicinity until I was dry enough to move on. At least that was one big difference between 1977 and 1997. On the earlier visit to Hollywood, I stayed dry throughout. 

As evening drew in, I made my way back to the upper level and passed under King Kong to make for the exit, and to make my way back to Banana Bungalow Hostel. I also had to prepare for the next day, when a short local bus journey would take me to Santa Monica, my final stop on this Round-the-World trip before flying back to London. Santa Monica would bring mixed emotions.

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Next Week: The Final Stop. I made the most of it.