‘Gili to Dili’ or ‘14 Degrees of Separation’

If the world was a Terry’s Chocolate Orange, now stay with me here people, Plain or Milk it doesn’t matter for the purposes of this analogy, then just one wedge of that orange, though of course if I had a choice I’d probably go for the Milk, without a doubt, who wants to live in a Plain chocolate world? Then just one wedge of that orange, assuming there are 25 wedges in a chocolate orange, not sure about that actually, you can’t get them here or else I’d have checked it out, but anyway ‘assuming’ there are 25 wedges then just one wedge would represent about 14 degrees of the Earths Longitude, give or take.

I spose if that guy Harrison had known that he wouldn’t have spent all that time messing about with clocks. He’d a been straight down the newsagents, picked up a couple of Terry’s Oranges, one to fend off scurvy, the other for navigational purposes and then quick sharp down the Admiralty to collect his prize. Job done.

Anyway, 14 degrees of Longitude is also ‘amazingly’ the distance from Gili Air, Lombok, Indonesia (where I was) to Darwin, Australia (where I wanted to get to). And in some small, misguided way, once I’d figured this out, during one of my more lucid moments propping up the bar, I kind of felt better about sailing it. ‘One wedge’ I thought, ‘how hard can sailing one wedge be’.

Ok, so it turned out that mixing confectionary and nautical navigation was slightly misleading, and I’d have been better off considering the wind direction and tides and actual distances an ‘stuff’, but hey this is a leaning curve maan, you have to make mistakes to learn maan, stop twisting my mellow maan.

So, there were three of us; two East German freedom fighters who’d been deep undercover in Asia for some years now, and me, still a relative rookie on the world scene but keen to fight freedom and the causes of freedom where ever I could. What? Antja and I had been down t’market buying all the food for the trip; 10 papayas, 144 packets of super noodles, a jar of Nutella etc., Andreas, our skipper had also been busy, bribing the police, the harbour master and the immigration officials (they come to stamp your passport on the beach for about 5 bucks and a packet of smokes!).

Ready to go, we upped the anchor and with a minimum of fuss said ‘goodbye Indo, hello OZ’, ‘tally ho’, ‘pip pip’, ‘bon voyage’ and sailed into the rising sun to the east. By the time the sun was setting to our stern 12 hours later we had hit a storm, were getting chucked all over the shop by the swell, torn our foresail and realised we’d forgotten the beer. How things change at sea. The thing about hellish nights you think will never end is that invariably they do, eventually, end. And the thing about watching the sun come up over a now calm sea, the tatters of your boat flapping gently in the breeze, is that gradually calm begins to seep back into your brain, the adrenaline slowly subsides softening your iron grip on the helm, the warmth of the morning allows you to unclench your teeth and relax the sphincter a smidgin. Undeniable feelings of ‘Well that wasn’t too bad now was it’ and ‘we’re gonna be alright’ jostle for attention next to the, by now familiar feelings of ‘We’re doomed’, ‘we’re all going to die’ and ‘I can’t believe we forgot the beer’.

The trip should, we reckoned, have taken about 2 weeks straight sailing without any stops. However stops were already looking like a bit of a necessity and by the time we got to the north coast of Komodo 48hrs later we dropped anchor in a secluded bay to get some rest, check the damage and have a nice cup of tea. We’d gone the full 70hrs without more than an hour or two sleep here and there, surviving almost entirely on Tango vanilla wafers. We didn’t talk much over dinner. We slept ‘soundly’.

It wasn’t until we actually hit the coral reef at 5 the following morning that we realised the anchor joints were seized up rendering it pretty much useless on a sandy bed, also that the depth sounder didn’t work very well. Upshot being my morning snorkel was shunted forward and I’m swimming down holding onto the anchor chain and trying to give signals to help Andy reverse off the reef before the tide dropped any lower and we got stuck there for the rest of the day. One wedge, I ask you

There really is no way of condensing the antics of the following three and a half weeks into anything you lot would consider reading. Come on, I know you, tell me you didn’t already scroll down to see how long this was going to take you! ‘Two bleedin pages, who does ee fink ee is ey?’ Undoubtedly when they make the film of it - I see a comedy starring someone like Chevy Chase or Steve Martin, possibly even Bill Murray, a classy flick like – the whole thing would be put in montage format with some cheesy overdub.

There would be the section depicting hardship, mishap and anguish; shots of me kicking the broken steering system , close ups of leaking fuel filters, burned out starter motors, and smoke pouring out the engine box. There’d be Andreas covered head to foot in engine oil and dripping sweat beating the hell out of rusted up bolts, swearing loudly in German and hurling spanners about the cabin. Cut to Antja and me sitting up top, silently signalling to one another for the cigarettes or lighter, knowing that now would not be a good time to ask how the repairs were going. There’d be a brief pan through the interiors of various mechanics shacks, discussions with Indonesian grease monkeys, sitting on our haunches making diagrams in the dirt, rowing toolkits and mechanics out to the boat and rowing them back again for the screwdriver they forgot. This section would probably culminate with the engine spluttering to nothing at 3 in the morning, leaving us drifting for days, the sea as flat as the proverbial pancake, neither a whisper of wind nor a cloud in the sky to take the edge off the sun.

Segway to the upbeat section, the fishing boat coming to our rescue having seen us waving our sarong. Cheers and celebrations as nervy engine coughs splutter into life. Windy days with the sails out full, each of us on a rope or the wheel, silent communication. Sailing into ports or past cloud tipped volcano islands with the music full blast. Any sort of generic upbeat 80s track would do for this section, dare I say, maybe…Rio? Golden orange sunsets melting into sliver blue moon rises. Starry skies and black seas sparkling with phosphorescence. Massive pods of dolphins silhouetted against the dusk sky. You know I’m sure they winked at me. The montage would draw to a close having successfully compiled over three weeks into under three minutes, and we’d be sailing into the small port of Dili in East Timor, out of Indo, out of energy and running out of soundtrack. After the inevitable fade to black I’m pretty certain there’d be a brief shot of me boarding a small prop plane on a deserted airstrip, and as the plane banks into the setting sun, I (or Steve Martin, whatever) would look out the window at the boat down in the bay and smile distantly. Then turn to the stewardess to order a drink.
Roll credits.

The postscript would of course be that Andreas did eventually manage to get the boat to Darwin, after six weeks of engine work and numerous flights to Oz for spare parts. And as a heart warmer it would, if it’s the kind of tacky 80s film I’m imagining, also add that he fell in love with the woman who replaced me as crew and they are now living happily ever after in Malaysia. Now how’s that for a Hollywood ending?

Yes it is, it's the magic number..."

Welcome back listeners and boy do we have a show for you today, the energy here in the studio is simply electric. I can now, (finger in ear), yes i can confirm the phone lines are now closed, all votes have been counted and the results are ready to be announced. In keeping with modern times, the age of the compilation, league tables and bullet points and in view of the shortening attention span of todays youth i have reduced, simmered down to a rich gravy if you will, my observations and entertainments of the last couple of months. The results have been reformatted to be accessible yet informative, incisive and still overarching, oh and so a la mode it hurts.
I give you my top 3's.

Top 3 Life Affirming Moments:
Climbing to the top of Mount Rinjani in the middle of the night to get to the top for sunrise. Only not quite making it it time and deciding not to bother with the last 400meters ascent in favour of eating cookies and smoking tabs.
Sipadan - the best dive site ever! I haven't felt that alive since i tried to join the Silly Buggers society at Eton.
3 hour motorbike journey wearing full backpack up mountainous dirt tracks. Think i may have broken with protocol and gripped the drivers waist. Should have took a cab on reflection.
Top 3 Unintentional Double Entendres:
"My knees not so good now because i go down so many time" - Porter on volcano trek
"Oh don't worry, we not loose them, i have small boy in the bottom" - Guide on Volcano trek
"Yesh, vee like it hard and raw in Germany" - Nauseating German on Volcano trek who insisted on telling me about his thrash metal band.
Top 3 Emails received:
Paul Smith's Rasta Dub Poems - 'Accutely Political, Bitingly Real' The Guardian
'Dear Rupert, thank you for your email, you are more than welcome to join me in sailing my yacht to Australia next month. Call me on..."
'You have won the lottery - just open the attachment and your winnings will be forwarded directly to your bank account' - how was i sposed to know it was spam?!!
Top 3 Travelling Partnerships:
Wetfoot, Flemmy and Nick; the Borneo Collective AKA the Last of the Unmarried. Early risers the lot of 'em but still bloody good folks.
Jasmin, Germanys future diplomatic envoy to Indonesia!
Lucy and the Pussycats - sounds like a girl band that - Alex i guess that means you're on the drums!
Top 3 Dismal Musical Experiences:
Feigning interest in being taught November Rain by Guns and Roses on the guitar, by some tone deaf 'what I lack in talent i make up for in raw energy' Balineese local.
Singing 'Born to Be Wild' in after hours kareoke bar in Sibu, only westerner in the place. Utterly arseholed, god i love that song.
Gamelan music. I know I know it's an intrinsic part of Balineese culture, a cornerstone of their traditional heritage and all that, but you goto admit it sounds like a toolkit in a washing machine.
Top 3 Things to look Forward to:
Sailing down through Indo to Timor next week and maybe seein some of them dragons on the way. Then, having won the Ashes by the time i get to Oz.
Cheese. God i want some cheese.
State Pension.
Top 3 Beach Faux Pas:
Mullit, hoop earing, white jean cut offs, chest wig, frisbee (bloke).
Orange Brummies venting spleen at beach hawkers; ' Naw, eye do not want any bluday pyneapple - Or Ryte!'
Speedos, cigar, and cowboy hat. There should be a law.
Top 3 Late Nights:
4am sit down meal with Kuching underworld members we'd apparently met earlier at 'Cat City' nightclub.
Full Moon on Gili Trawangan - mushrooms turned my shoes into a small boy, strangely.
Semi Nekid vollyball in the rain and the mud in the middle of the night in the middle of the jungle in the middle of nowhere.
Top 3 Skin Complaints:
A rather interesting rash on my elbows, seems to be clearing up now.
The onset of trenchfoot in the Jungles of Borneo
Got a downy patch of hair on my chest - is this normal?
Top 3 Books Read:
The Complete Enderby Series - Anthony Burgess (Smiffy you need this in your life!)
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men - David Foster Wallice (so so good)
How to Give your Body and Hold onto your Dignity - Chad Barnett (contender for the Booker apparently)
Top 3 Gastronomic Encounters:
Pan fried chickens feet in a 'please enjoy our specially prepared local delicasie while we watch you expectantly' sort of situation
Jack Fruit - looks like chicken, tastes like chicken, is not in fact chicken.
Steak and a bottle of Shiraz (such extravagance!) shared with that special someone.
Top 3 Hawker Sales Tactics:
"Mista, mista where you come from? England? Oh Lovely Jubbly. You want to buy porno, big cocks!'
"Mista you want water" - No thanks i already have water as you can see
"No this water better' - That water is exactly the same
"No is better, only 3 thousand" - Look, i have water, see?
"Mister, where you from"? - England
"Oh England, lovely jubbly, you wanna buy water?"
"Hello brother, you wanna buy ecstasy, is good" (Sits on haunches in the sand, eyes rolloing back into head, hugs knees, falls slowly sideways, adopts foetal position, moans quietly)

Well thats all we have time for this month, thanks for tuning in and a special thankyou to all those who took part and voted. A reminder that all the money raised will go to a nice peanut seller i met in Semporna. Bye for now and don't touch that dial.

Young Man and the Sea

It was close to 3 in the morning when it suddenly hit me. Actually hit me. Fairly and squarely in the face. Like a wet fish, because it was a wet fish, with wings on it. If you’re hit in the face with a wet fish in the black of night way out in the south china sea and no ones there to laugh do you make a noise? I’m not sure on the protocol. All I could think of saying was ‘oh’, and sat down to shine a torch at the little fella flapping about by my feet. I mean you got to hand it to him, he’d come a good 30 foot or so, right over the bow, down the full length of the boat and I dare say he might have made it off the stern and back into the water too if my face hadn’t got in the way. He had to be just as surprised as me by the whole thing I guess. I mean one minute you’re flying gracefully through the air, content in the knowledge you’ve successfully evaded some preditor or other, the next you’re on a sail boat bound for Singapore and your wings have stopped working. Dems the breaks I spose.

Koh Samui to Singapore was going to take six days straight with no stopping, and since there were only two of us on board there wasn’t much chance of me pulling my usual sailing trick of holding some random rope, looking busy, cracking a beer and stareing into the middle distance. Actually that’s not entirely true; our shift patterns meant that Ashley the Skipper and I were rarely awake at the same time so I had quite a lot of freedom to absent mindedly look to the middle distance, except in sailing parlance we call it ‘on look out’. “Hold your course and whatever you do don’t sail into another boat or an island or anything” were my instructions on my first night shift as Ashley went down to bed. It was, I don’t mind admitting, a rather edgy few hours; ‘Please God don’t let me sink this lovely, shiny, expensive yacht on my first shift. Ok, ok, focus, focus, any lights? Do we see any lights? Anywhere? Behind us? No? nothing. Nothing at all…..hours pass….is that a light? Could be, no, no it’s a star…am I thinking this or saying it?’ When I did finally see a light on the horizon I locked on, got me compass out, took a bearing, licked finger and held aloft, and waited, poised, to see if evasive action was required. And waited, and waited. Nearly an hour later we passed the fishing boat to port side, narrowly missing it by about four nautical miles or so. My next night shift I brought up a book and a head torch.

The highlight for me was the 5:00am – 8:00am shift, strange as it may sound. The sunrise is not something I’ve often been priviledged enough to observe, what with having been afflicted with acute lazyness from an early age, but when you’re on your own in the middle of nowhere with a 360 horizon and she rears her head over the sea its enough to knock your socks off I tell thee. ‘Your missing the best part of the day’ I heard my mums voice come through the duvet of time as at 8:01am I collapse face down into my bunk.

Singapore, when it came, came full on. The Singapore straights is the 2nd busiest shipping lane in the world apparently and I can quite believe it, s’kinda like a oil tanker motorway. We hit it at around midnight with the skyscrapers of downtown sparkling in the distance. ‘Lights, lights, omg lights everywhere, we’re surrounded, what are we going to do?!’ Luckily Ashley didn’t trust me anywhere near enough to allow me to have any responsibility other than tea making during our passage through it. Shrewd judge of character that Ashley.

Quite a lot like ‘Lost in Translation’ I kept thinking as I walked round mall after mall of Prada and Gucci, Channel and Versace. With me playing the role of the dry, witty, sardonic Bill Murray character at once confused, perplexed and amused by all he sees and Singapore playing the role of the Asian uber city chasing its tail to keep up with its own image of the western values of commerce and hyperreality. Its quite a police state really; undemocratic, civil liberties coming pretty far down the list, just under ‘make money and keep schdum’. You know even chewing gum and oral sex are illegal in Singapore. (Individually I mean, getting caught doing both at once doesn’t bear thinking about!) Well my rebellious streak’s a mile wild and I don’t know if it was the enhanced illicit nature or what but I never enjoyed a Juicy Fruit so much.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, Sasquia the Dutch maritime lawyer hooked me up with a job crewing on a dive boat on Tioman island off the Malaysian coast and I’ve been there ever since. I fill scuba tanks, pull ropes what need pulling and mix fantastic rum cocktails and in return I get taught how to endanger my life in new and exciting ways underwater. I’ve not worn shoes for weeks and I shower only rarely. These are the good times.

The Motorcycle Diaries

"It is illegal to gamble within 100km of Phnom Penh. Those surprised to find two large casinos within walking distance of the city center are evidently new to Cambodia." (Footprints Guide to Cambodia)

Cambodia's a crazy place, its crazy past seems to have given way to a crazy present. The majority of the population is under 20, a generation of the country's educated, cultured and skilled have been wiped out and the government seems so openly corrupt that 'cash for questions' would be laughable. This leaves a strange moral vacum in peoples' day to day. The standard byline is that 'anything is available in Cambodia, for a price'; from girls, guns and ganja to children and contracts on peoples lives, the dollar will get things done.

Well, this is what people tell you anyway, bars overflow with stories told to you by folk who no doubt heard them from other people in other bars. Personally, i cant claim to have seen any of this. With just a few weeks to spend my perception of Cambodians seemed to be defined by foreigners heresay on the one hand, and what i was seeing on the roads as i passed through them every day, on the other.
Now, for your Steinbecks and your Kerouacs the road represents choice, escape, opportunity, and ultimately the road is all about freedom. I'm not sure this has ever really occurred to your average Cambodian as they trundle into the towns and cities to try to make a buck. However the way people flow through the streets of Siem Reip and Phenom Penh must show something, and if it is possible to read a nations personality through its rules of the road, then the roads of Cambodia describe a schizophrenic with obsessive compulsive disorder, 'rules' and even 'roads' often being hard to pin down.

At the top of the food chain are your Land Cruisers, and your other chunky 4x4s. They dominate the road and answer to no one. Since they house affluent Cambodians there really is no concept of right and wrong on the road for them, the dollar again able to encourage a policeman to turn the other cheek in the case of a fatality. Somebody i met (yes, in a bar) said they were on a bus and saw a 4x4 go into the front of 2 bikes oviously killing one of them as he flew headlong into a wall. The only forigner on the bus, and a GP, she stood up and shouted for the bus to stop, which it did momentarily, but only so it could reverse and drve round the bodies. GP said nobody else on the bus batted an eyelid.

Most of the roads traffic though is made up of motorbikes and in a similar parallel they surcumb to the dominance of the monied, getting out of the way when they're parrped at without fuss. These motorbikes, usually the trusty Honda 125, were my medium; my vessel to ride the roads and the lense through which to see them. Its weird but road rage doesn't seem to exist, dispite the most random driving this side of Calcutta. As big cars and busses pull out into busy roads as the whim takes them, flying through junctions without stopping or just stopping for no apparent reason, the constant flow of four or five lanes of bikes just opens out, absorbing the obstruction and then pulls together again, all meshing together like a YKK. No raised fists or curses, just calm stoic acceptance.

Lane discipline appears to be a bit of a fluid concept. Though in the main the traffic flows on the right this is in no way a restriction on the road users freedom. If he or she, or more often they, wish to use the left hand side of the road then that seems fine with everyone. Veering across the road and subsequently switching between left and right regularly is also a good way of meeting people and gaining a fresh perspective.

Roundabouts seem interesting too; standard is an anti clockwise rotation, but all the cows i saw using roundabouts were going clockwise. I'm not sure if this is just cows or all quadrupeds because most of the dogs on the roundabouts were mainly just sleeping on the road until an attractive cars, bike or cow came along to chase in either direction.

Use of mirrors seems frowned upon unless it is for the combing of the hair or the picking of the pimples. Similarly indicators, though often used, are mainly used to indicate that the driver may or may not have recently turned left or right, also that he may or may not be turning left or right again in the near future, though they don't specify exactly when.

What about protection on these crazy streets? Well do not worry the Cambodians have got this covered, they have umbrellas. Versatile, they offer both protection from the sun and the rain, in heavy weather they tend to be held out horizontally in front of the bike. This stops the rain going in the eyes of the driver and also allows a perfect view of the 3 ahead of the front wheel, the rest of the mayhem on the roads is obscured and thus the driver is free to converse with his passengers uninterrupted.

Motodrivers in Cambodia are always keen to win you as their fare and will often take a stock refusal as encouragement to simply ride alongside you until you crack. 'Is hot today no?' tends to be the opening gambit, 'too hot for walk no?' And as sweat trickles down your nose its often hard to disagree with them. These guys will not rest till you are being delivered somewhere on the back of their bike, fanatical; I was on a moto one day and as we pulled up at lights some motodrivers lounging on the corner lept up with a 'hey mister, you want moto?' I was momentarily stunned, and by the time i thought about helping them with their marketing strategy by suggesting they possibly only focus on people not already on a moto, the lights had changed and we'd trundled off.

Maximum passenger capacity of the average 125 motorbike is really only restricted by the imagination and ingenuity of its passengers. Obviously the seat affords a cosy housing for three, then the handlebars and cross bars are to be used for the smaller passengers the young and the old. The livestock can either be hung or slung as you see fit and then the passengers shoulders
are also an option if you're feeling fancy.

The Honda 125 provides Cambodians from all walks with the transport they need when they need it. Waiting for a bus outside a hospital i saw a moto pull out into heavy traffic, on the back was to be the drivers wife sitting side saddle holding a new born baby over her shoulder. As this marvel of new life disappeared into the smog and traffic another bike came into the hospital car park from the other direction. The passenger slumped forward into the drivers back and the driver was holding, vertically in one hand, a t-bar of rough wood knocked together to support a bag of plasma connected to a drip which disappeared into the passengers clothing.
Balance, i thought, from the cradle to the grave the Honda 125 gets you there. That should be the byline.

Not For the Dark of Heartness.....

They said it couldn't be done and we'd be foolish to try. We did it any way. They said it would take 10 days, we did it in 8. They said it would be cheaper, easier and quicker to take the bus, and on that I have to say they may have been right.

We were in Phongsali in Northern Laos, just off the Nam Ou River, about 30 clicks from the Chinese boarder. Yes, that’s right my friends; clicks. This is deep in Heart of Darkness territory, the lands of Kurtz, where rogue CIA agents smuggle opium, the birthplace of Pathet Lao the Laos Communist party. If I don't get to use the word clicks here then I just don't know when I get to use it. Getting there had taken 5 days on slow boats, sitting on wooden planks for 6 hours a day, chugging upstream watching jungle and water buffalo slide by. Each day fewer travelers joined us in our journey north, until on the 5th day Ben and I made up two thirds of the landing crew at Hat Sa. The final third being a mellow bearded Californian who said he was Tim. Tim, if that was his real name, (I was trusting no one) started the ball rolling by telling me about a couple of Swedes he'd met who'd bought a canoe and rowed down stream to the next town. Apparently, so Tim said, without mishap. Eyebrows were duly raised, ears were pricked up, conspiratorial glances were conspiratorially glanced. Could this be our mission up here? Row the 200miles back to Luang Prabang, to go deeper? to search for Kurtz, truth, ourselves? Or was Tim leading us astray deliberately, was he in fact working for the other side, was there even another side out there? We needed a drink. Our paranoia died quickly after a few mid afternoon beerlao and by evening two other Brits had been enrolled on our mission, a date had been set, and we'd all become experts on white water techniques, boat maintenance and the construction of emergency shelters using bamboo, banana leaves and bits of string.

'Why you want to buy boat?' a new Laos friend from the Phongsali tourist dept. asked the following day on hearing our plan. 'is only one day on bus, is ten day on boat'. He was lost, clearly perplexed, I started to explain how the British sought out adventure, how the empire had been built on pure bloody mindedness, a willingness to endure, a desire to overcome. I told him that just because something may be a stupid idea, and they may not have the faintest idea what they're doing, the British would stride forw.... My Laos friend already had his head in his hands and was rocking forward and back with silent laughter. Poor disbeliever. We pressed on. And so on my 29th birthday we hit the riverside at Muang Khua and began the complex bartering process for a boat big enough for 6 people and their gear (our group having swollen still further as our drunken blathering had grown louder). I became the proud owner of a slightly rusty 12" machete with a loose blade, we all became part owners of a 38' boat, 5 oars and a bamboo pole, and a random Laoation ex-boat owner walked away, I’m sure rather contentedly, with enough money to buy himself another boat and probably an engine to go with it.

The thing about 6 people all rowing the same boat, it turns out, is that they all need to 'want' to go in the same direction, also they all need to know their left from their right, and most importantly, they all need to maintain a healthy sense of humor at all times. These requirements gradually sunk in as we zigzagged downstream, careering off rocks, our oars splashing independently of each other on either side of the craft. The looks we got from the fishermen and kids we passed encouraged us to think that, whilst we may not be an entirely new breed, 6 falang in a boat was clearly not an everyday sight. Looks of confusion and disbelief without exception broke into wide smiles and waves as we 'Sabadee'd' everyone we saw. The screams and splashes of the kids playing in the river mixed with our own cheers and clapter temporarily shattering the peace of the Nam Ou valley. The scenery would have taken our breath away if the rowing hadn't already done so, huge limestone cliffs rising from the water, densely forested hillsides, the sound of the jungle all around. Tiny bamboo villages populating the riverside every half hour or so peeked out from behind the tree line. As the sun dipped our thoughts turned to shelter for the night. Though we had tarpaulin and blankets and enough laolao (rice whiskey) to get us soundly off to the land of nod fairly promptly, camping out remained an unattractive option. It had been raining heavily every morning that week, the mosquitoes and fire ants seemed to have most of the beach taken, apart from that occupied by the water buffalo and so our utopic image of a night under stars soaked away. All was not lost however for whoever came up with the phrase 'Relying on the kindness of strangers' had evidently been to Laos for his hols. A reconnaissance team was sent into the first village we came to and they returned with a cluster of curios kids and a village elder come to see what all the fuss was about. He sized us up briefly and then sized up our craft obviously impressed with her sleek lines, the way she sat in the water. He asked how much we'd paid and we lied telling him we'd paid half the actual price. Smiling he gave us the international sign for 'you bin done there mate', picked up his own body weight of our gear and strolled back to the village motioning for us to follow.

Our hosts treated us with incredible kindness, gave us quarters, food and copious laolao (it's considered rude to turn down the first two offered according to our book. The book wasn't clear if it was ok to drink them dry or not), whilst most of the village took it in turns to come and look at us. When communication is limited to 5 words, and the locals are bored of seeing you juggle, we found music can be a strong way to convey thanks and goodwill. So, in the flicking candlelight of this bamboo hut, in deepest darkest Laos we danced around singing Old McDonald as all the kids fell about in hysterics.

Days wore on and as we progressed downstream we became an elite unit, expert rowers and navigators of rapids (kinda), inspired kids entertainers (hats off to Ali and Ben S) and every place we stayed in amazed and inspired us. We took tea with monks, sang Beatles songs in candlelit temples, and arrived at the inescapable truth that bug stew tastes better before you know its main ingredient. The scenery having changed dramatically each day opened out on day 7 as we finally reached the end of the Nam Ou and hit the mighty Mekong. Twice as wide, twice as fast and twice as busy as the Nam Ou, it possibly wasn’t the greatest idea to get utterly smashed on laolao and sleep on a restaurant floor the night before our final day. That said, we did it anyway and next day, a shadow of our former selves we limply sculled on in the midday sun, Luang Prabang the so called 'jewel in the crown of SE Asia', our goal, glistening in the distance.

Since we'd got there, and we'd managed against all odds to keep our boat in one piece and the right way up throughout, it seemed to us reasonable to give thanks to the dominant force in the area. So, after a celebratory steak and bottle of wine, we approached one of the local Buddhist temples to find a monk with enough English to understand that we wanted to donate a boat and would he be interested. Amusingly the look of confusion and disbelief on his face once he grasped what we were saying was not dissimilar to that on the face of the original boat owner when we said we'd wanted to buy the thing. Even so he seemed happy with it and as the ropes were ceremonially handed over, we too were pretty chuffed to see the boat filled up with monks in saffron robes checking out their new ride, and probably wondering what they were going to do with it.

Laos continues to inspire.

Beach Life Its the only Life I Know


I just read this quote from Evelyn Waugh in the preface to a book I’m reading;
“There is some longing, romantic, reasonless, which lies deep in the hearts of most Englishmen, to shun the celebrated spectacles of the tourist and without any concern with science, politics or commerce, simply to set their feet where few civilized feet have trod”

Now, there is some mild irony in this for me because the last month in Thailand has gone pretty far from shunning tourists civilized or otherwise. And though I kind of fancy the Waugh style intrepid explorer image, baggy khakis and butterfly net and huge mustache discovering new waterfalls never before seen by western eyes (Parker-Bowles Falls I was going to call them), I also want a well stocked bar and a bar keep who mixes a good daiquiri and I suppose you can’t have both, so this month at least, I got on board the tour bus and mucked in with all the others.

So, I met an Alaskan gold miner who seemed in constant search of Thai gold diggers, presumably to discuss some technical issue he had. I met a Canadian who told me he ran ‘a great little promotional products business back home’, but who also, and more interestingly, claimed to be the reincarnated son of some Burmese monk he’d met at a full moon party some years previous. As I left him he was packing some promotional products, mugs and picture frames I think, and was taking them to his father from another life up somewhere in Burma. I can’t help wondering what a devout Buddhist monk was doing at a full moon party anyway, and whether if you do meet a monk at a rave is it at all possible that they may lay some of the ‘reincarnated’ stuff on the Farang just for laughs. I met a couple who found absolutely no humour whatsoever in the fact that they were called Peter and Parker. Not only that but they seemed to take issue when I helplessly displayed the amusement it brought on in me. And I also met dozens of blond, bronzed Scandinavians who loved to dive, party and themselves in equal measure.
This random collective along with Ben and myself were all washed up on to the various beaches and islands of the Andaman coast, and I have to say there are a lot worse places to be washed up.

Paradise having been located and paradise bungalows and hammocks having been secured, we set about immersing ourselves into the culture; discussing the royal wedding, watching European football and rugby, learning to dive and so on. As for the latter we had a man, and I use that term in its loosest possible sense, on the inside. Passing for a Scandinavian in more ways than one, not least his tenuous grasp of the English language, Nigel entered our lives once more and took it as his task nay his duty to introduce us to the PADI family.

It would be a lie if I said I wasn’t slightly concerned as I signed my responsibility waiver with the blond one stood grinning over me ,but in fairness this concern was un warranted. In between regularly declaring, to the world in general it seemed, how much he enjoyed diving, ladies in bikinis and his hair, Nige proved a competent, patient, and helpful coach in the ways of the scuba. Supportive and encouraging when initially, and somewhat understandably I thought, my brain reacted poorly to being asked to breathe underwater. Informed and educational when describing the names of the fish we’d just seen for our log books (though I have an idea he may have just been saying some fish names he knew; ‘Cod? U sure Nige’?). And inventive, if somewhat unconventional when teaching the rudiments of break dancing at 18 m (I always wanted to head spin like that). He seemed upset at not having seen the Whale shark spotted by his peers on previous days, and I sympathized with him bitterly, though truthfully if I’m going to come face to face with a 12 meter shark, I want to at least be able to use my flippers properly first. Also one of those cage things would be nice. All in all though, a truly mind-blowing few days and I’ll be having some more of that as soon as I stop having the Jaws dreams.

“Dude, it’s so like, underwater skydiving on mushrooms, maan” I was told by an American long hair the following day, and I immediately thought less of him for it. Later in the evening as he was juggling fire things on the beach, one of his batons became loose, flew off and hit me on the nose as I was attempting to enjoy a cool beer. My low opinion of the long hair shrank back still further. The night, having started poorly proceeded in a downward spiral from then on. I was deposited upon by some, as yet unnamed tree dwelling creature (my suspicions lie with Mr. Wee’s pet squirrel whose been giving me funny looks since I got here), and to round the evening off I was struck with the inevitable traveler belly bug and was unremittingly ill for 12 hours. Just another day in paradise as poet of our times Phil Collins so memorably stated.

Evidence if the tsunami has been everywhere and yet strangely illusive down the west coast. On the one hand you often see whole rows of palms flattened. Or empty sections of beach; ‘there used to be a really nice restaurant there’ or ‘there used to be 46 bungalows there’. We saw an island that had been cut in two when the wave had washed through the lagoon and straight out the other side. Everyone had a story to tell of their experience, niges motorbike repeatedly told its story, by making the weirdest rattles and leaking seaweed out the exhaust. But since we arrived characteristically late on the scene it was sometimes hard to know what had already been rebuilt, what had been untouched, and what were always scrubby bits of piled up plastic beach furniture. The locals just want people back, and seem understandably put out that an article in the Bangkok Post just after the tsunami had described Ko Lanta as ‘Devastated’ in a map of the area, when actually there was relatively little damage at all. Kind of like the ‘bring out yer dead sketch. The bar owners particularly need your help as they seem, out of a mixture of depression and boredom I guess, to be getting high on their own supply so to speak and can be seen staggering about the beach bottle in hand, looking out to sea wistfully.

Ben and I are getting on admirably it has to be said. We have come to an understanding on many things, neither of us is, on any circumstances prepared to rub sun cream into the others back, there shall be a strict conversational hiatus until breakfast is over and as long as he stops using my toothpaste I’m sure we’re going to get on just fine. We both feel ready to leave the beaches now though, bloody sand gets everywhere and if I have to listen to that Jack Johnson album one more time… We heard that Lao coffee is good, that they have reasonable red wine up there and that everything is half the, frankly laughable prices in Thailand. We leave tomorrow.

Here begineth the Blog of Bare...

Mr Robbins him say that "Just as a sudden infatuation will often light up a persons biochemical sky more pyrotechically than any deep abiding attachment, so an unlikly, unexpected burst of linguistic imagination will usually reveal greater truths than the most exacting scholarship. In fact the poetic image may be the only device remotely capable of dissecting love, let alone disclosing the hidden mystical essence of the material world." Well, we'll soon see about that.