Cambodia

Let's be straightforward here, some folk like to get a little stoned. And most folk who like to get a little stoned, like to ramble through dusty, tuk-tuk, BBQ-scorpion-on-stick, backwater kind-a places, well,
...stoned.
And yet, even with the shadow of spending one's last minute against an ominous, pock-marked wall in East Java, the same people, will still try to get a little stoned. And succeed :)

Yet there are some places in the world, that regardless of whether someone could show them to you on a world map, will evoke a Deep Emotional Response, a look of pained remembrance and whispered, hallowed advice,"...terrible things happen there".

Such a place is Cambodia.

Maybe it has something to do with bookshops having a disproportionate number of titles in 2 genres*: Theme One: Barangs (Foreigners ) and their their gruesome survival tours in Asian prisons, or Theme 2: Books on the Khmer Rouge, Cambodias infamous genocidal government of the late 70's.
Oh course, the fact that most people seem to be related to a policeman/army captain in some way, might also help to aggravate the feeling of paranoia.

In fact,Cambodians are a great people and I did not test this hypothesis, but more likely to "fine" you for unscrupulous tourist behaviour than truck you off to some jungle gulag, ( progressive behaviour that is far less likely to happen(anymore) in places like modern South Africa.)
But For all the good humour of the people of Cambodia, there lingers deep in all minor tourist criminal minds, the awful dread of ever having to call long distance with 6 terrible words to impart,"Mom, I'm in Jail.... in CAMBODIA".

Poor Cambodia. Great people. Beautiful place. Heavy Name.

p.s. Due to extreme superstition, this blog was not published until after leaving Cambodia.

*This generalization about Cambodian bookshops in fact grossly untrue and was a cheap ploy to make a point and rustle up some cheap laughs... there are also lots of great coffee table books about Ankor (a phenomenally beautiful place and 1 of the Ancient Wonders of the World)...

ModbookScrapbook

Noodle Soup

Nothing can instill deep, sincere homesickness quite like food. Specifically, food you don't recognize.
Food, in fact, that looks suspiciously like Things We Don't Eat. Take for example that mainstay of Thai cuisine, the good old street vendor noodle soup. What exactly are those sinister cadaver-grey golfball shaped edibles anyway? And why pray, are there only 2 of them. Maybe a diet of exploitative Indiana Jones movies has left me with an overactive imagination, but the least one can do is make a little effort in disguise...add some food colouring, make it three instead of 2, and please please, change the size.
I do eat them though, but with a particular mechanical jaw action that suggests to the casual observer, "He's killing something" or "Hit him with a broom! He touched the wire!" or more likely "He knows not what he eats...yet his eyes allude to terrible suspicion"

At some point it all gets a little too much and one wakes bathed in deep refined-sugar withdrawal sweat, neon logo'd Pizza Hut burning through the cortex. Giving in to this dark demon has terrible consequences for both diet and wallet. There is no wheat in Asia, and based on the price tag of a medium Hawaiian, no cheese or sugar either. In fact, the single most expensive meal you can buy in Asia is probably a pizza from Pizza Hut. We're talking more expensive than the King Prawns in a top local restaurant. And to add insult in injury, after months of eating rice and green bean, it leaves you feeling quite nauseous...but that's the price of western food crack.

I do prefer the soup...If only it would stop watching me....

Special Good Luck Morning Price

When budgeting for a trip to the Orient, it is crucial that you do a honest and brutal personal assessment of your skill level in the chess game that is The Haggle.
It is not unrealistic to say that your precious travel allowance could last twice or half as long depending on your bargaining temperament. Travel guides are quick to bleat about how uncool it is to barter over what amounts to a few cents, but the truth is, without steely resolve and a suitably aghast expression when you're presented with the initial price, there can only follow a financial massacre, leaving only, blood soaked sarongs, an empty wallet and a bag full of cheaply varnished "antique" art, to be handed on to new travel friends as a gesture of "what a great connection", before b-lining it to the airport.

And be aware, it doesn't stop when you leave the tepid, sticky bubble that is the local market. It continues everywhere. Negotiating (and its dark twin sister, BeingRippedOff) are as ubiquitous in this culture as courtesy and helpfulness.
Everything requires a haggle: Accomodation. Price of the lunch buffet.

Even the morning paper from street corner newspaper guy. There in the top corner of the broadsheet, a delicately scratched out price has been replaced with a far fairer recommendation - 90,000 rupees (about 80 South African Rand). And we're not even talking chunky newspaper with Tonight section and stuff. No, just a flimsy 6 pager....80 bucks.
"It's a newspaper for christs sake, you insolent bastard."(This suitably aggrieved opening salvo marks you as no apologetic haggle first timer)
"okay, okay. I give you special discount.... 80,000" The price delivered with a hand flourish to bring attention to the headline, as if to suggest that the choice of Times New Roman in the masthead clearly marks THIS paper out to above your average fish n chips packaging.
"You make me want to throw up my undercooked banana pancake, you bottom feeding cur.(Here, the use of confusing high brow English allows for satisfying cussing without fear of being understood whatsoever ) I'll give you 3,000"
"Bank-roooooot!" (This standard guilt-laden response is accompanied by an anguished expression intended to invoke nightmarish imagery of starvation, pestilence and general hardship, which though most likely true, is damn unfair business practice )
"It's a N E W S P A P E R! Do i look like i've just picked my brain out of my ear with a blunt fish knife. How white do I look??! I've got a tan and everything...4,000"
"Okay okay...Final Special Good Luck Morning Price....60,000"
"Not only do I find that screamingly offensive, but this whole exercise is growing profoundly tedious. 5,000... (As none of this English will be understood, it is best at this point, to actually replace outstretched paper with 5000 rupee note and start backing away....
"No,no okay okay.... 10,000...9,000....8,000....6,000"
Wow really? You're so relieved at having dropped the price from 90,000 that you gratefully shove another 1,000 rupes into his hand and proudly stride away with a newspaper worth about 3,000.

And that's how they get you...everytime.

Kuta Diva

Bali Kiss

That Chinese Red Shit

Forget Antiseptic lotions and band aids. Throw out your Mercurochrome and sterile swabs. Alongside a packet of cotton buds, a mere single item is now required in your western first aid kit. Ho Choa Hu... not quite a house hold name, yet lauded in coral reef cheese grated circles by it's more vernacular name... That Chinese Red Shit. It's a miracle cure for just about anything with a pain quota to back it up.

How to cure (most) flesh wounds while on a tropical island:
1.) Follow clear instructions before proceeding "re-application lotion until health is happy"etc
2.) Find discarded chair leg or old palm fond and insert in mouth for bite protection.
3.) Apply chinese red shit generously to wound and scream in wonder as thick red goop proceeds to simultaneously cauterize and kill everything it touches in a wonderous display of fizzing, bubbling and hissing.
4.) Discard palm fond and hobble about, muttering obscenities and perspiring until pain subsides.
5.) Repeat every few hours until scarification is complete.

A Lament to Surfing

I love surfing. Unfortunately, over the years and (more poignantly) over the last 3 weeks, I've come to realize that surfing tends to attract a disproportionate number of, well... surfers. Strange that such an historically spiritual pursuit should be dominated by men (primarily) who's idea of soulful is Limp Bizkit's rendition of George Michaels "Faith".

Things I've learnt from hanging around with surfers:

-> Don't refer to the tent scene in Brokeback Mountain has art. This causes a primary response shutdown in the blue-blooded surfer male, involving a glazed look in their eyes not dissimilar to that seen in fluffy toys (just a lot less cuddly). I presume this is a primal heterosexual defense system aimed at preventing contamination by any form of modern sensitive thinking.

-> Always have up to date weather information on hand to bandy about. This will put any skittish man-herd at ease, in much the same way that having a working knowledge of Tri-Nation's Rugby will (I tend to fail to dismally in the latter and I'm justifiably and swiftly dispatched to the "kinda gay" pile)

-> Don't live in Australia. I strongly suspect its full of them.

Surfing My Sweets , i think i might need a divorce....i don't think i can stand your other lovers anymore....

Birthday Babylon

Saturday 30 August was my 35th Birthday. And in fabulous style I managed to rustle up a small posse to head into Indonesia's very own Heart of Darkness,the infamous Kuta Beach, Bali. For those who are not news-hounds, Kuta is such a despicable, heinous pit of western decadence that extremists have tried to blow it up...twice. This initially caused a suitably satifisying stampede of Antipodean yobs back to their outback trailer parks... but alas, like any herd of semi-intelligent mammals, they have now drifted back to take up there god given right to get pissed and fall about in other peoples front yards.
Of course when (literally) in Rome, the evening was as blur of overpriced and under-spirited cocktails, he-she solicitation and a truly awesome rendition of Stairway to Heaven by the Espresso Bar Band... and some real sexy guys in a neon cage gyrating to Indo-techno.

T-shirt tans and calve implants

There is something about not having a tan that causes distrust and pure snobbishness in well bronzed (read "saddlebagged") beach goers.
Even worse is the classic t-shirt tan ( in this case the short wetsuit tan) to make even the most samiritan of sun-worshippers shun you like some much under-cooked Indonesian tofu.
Being from a sun soaked homeland, I just have no desire to look like Bridget Bardot when I'm 40, though I might be tempted to scalp her freshly deceased body for calves and her butt. Yes, believe it or not, it is possible to get calve implants(!)...
If I had known this when I was 15, I could have avoided the whole "cycling to get big calves" period that ended so tragically in the notorious "cycle-by" the girls boarding hostel during sunday lunch on the grass.
An attempt to slow to near stop, so as to take in the "lay" of the land, rapidly disintegrated into failed freeing of feet from foot straps and plummeted into historic grand finale involving lumo attired manchild + twisted metal on tarmac, witnessed by 2 dozen aghast teenage girls.

I now have a tan, but the calves still elude me.

Day 1 - kinda

So here it begins. Being a man of pictures rather than words, I always find it best to keep it byte size.
Formalities first - I big thank you to all my friends and (ex)co-workers for showing me off in fabulous style and medical supplies...
Which brings me rapidly ( readers already dropping off in the back row) to:

New Things I've Learnt on my Travels ( Day 1 ):

1.) Don't ask a local to put 8 litres of petrol into your motorcycle when it only takes 3. This will cause silence, raised eyebrow and pertinent question:
"How long you have bike?"
..."eeeh, 10 minutes"
"How long you drive moto?"
..."eh, 10 minutes"...

2.) Don't attempt quick embarrassed getaway from petrol lean-to using both accelerator and brake. Will result in panicked chickens, irate mange dog and formal motorcycle lesson by concerned local.(quite useful truth be known)

2.) There are 2 fundamental things that single travelers' are unable to do:
a.) take photos of themselves ( see attached photoshop workaround )
and
b.) Put suntan lotion between their shoulder blades.
Therefore, being a man of solutions, find attached first blue print ( and guaranteed best-seller ) of "Nice tan you ol' hottie" Combo Self Photo/Lotion Applicator.

Of course you could just walk up to some Venezuelan skinny dipper and ask her to apply some lotion between you sinewy rear board and get her equally under-attired friend to take the picture of the whole Ibiza-esque fraternade, but after 35, it can all be a bit touch n' go.

3.) You can never have enough Mecurochrome. ( photos hopefully not to follow)