Goodbye Yellow Brick Road 2

Another final post for the second time in my own blogging history then. (see www.millsdoescanada.blogspot.com for more details) I would say have your tissues at the ready, but you're on the internet and the chances are they're close to hand anyway. I've done a lot of fantastic things on this journey - seen some amazing things and met flocks of fuckers (you can have good fuckers too) but in order that we have agreeable symmetry here, there needs to be a resolution at the end. Of course, were this Star Wars, or any traditional hero myth (I'm the hero, needless to say) this would be the darkest night of my soul, being the second part; but regrettably life doesn't always echo the Star Wars universe. Which is a bloody shame if you ask me; although on the plus side, I don't have to lose a hand.

So now there were two. Nabila and I had spent an incredible 10 days in Bali, but with Christmas and New Year blobbing satisfyingly around our waists, it was time to make a move. Flying into Kuala Lumpur late at night meant that as we drove towards our hotel, the iconic Petronas Towers were a shimmering and sparkling beacon lighting our way through the darkness. The differences in wealth were as blinding as the landmark we sped towards and perfect asphalt signalled a far richer country than those I'd been ratting around in previously. The room had a [superlative] view of the towers, which you can see in the photo at the top, and a free bar from 5:30pm-7:30pm meant I could bring the tone down, Norfolk-style.

Acts of shame:

After getting carried away the first night of the free bar and barely remembering eating in a restaurant with the 'best Malaysian food in KL' - although photographs indicate I was there - where I constantly harassed the waitress, reminding her she was Malaysian. Not maliciously, you understand, just out of drunken incredulence - I thought it was a good idea to get whammed the following night as well. The whole time I've been out in SE Asia I've never had any shoes, just sandles/flip-flops, so not wanting to waste time after going out for the day - a trip carefully engineered by moi to get us back in time for the free booze - I arrived in the Horizon Club (see - Horizontal Club) with my dazzling yellow flip-flops flipping and flopping with growing temerity towards the chilled beers.

Walking into the club is a feeling I can only compare to how Charlie must have felt as the doors to the Chocolate Factory opened. Just for the record though, I definitely wouldn't have swum in a lake of beer because with that much beer available, some pissed-up inconsiderates would unquestionably have taken a slash in it. So as Nabila rolled her eyes skyward, I skipped, danced and sang my way through free drink after free drink until I'd shelved the flip-flops and now was swaying towards the bar blitzed and barefoot. Fancying a break from watching the Discovery Channel playing out opposite her, Nabila decided to go for a wee and that's when, wrapped up in a drunken blanket of beer, another hotel resident bent down and started whispering in my ear.

There is a certain dress code in the club, you know? You mustn't walk around without any shoes on... This is, I'm sure, where I was meant to reply, but not wanting to grant the nonsense any credence whatsoever, I kept my mouth shut and stared fixedly ahead. The man started walking away, looking back open-eyed and nodding - It's just a bit coarse. Nabila came back to find me ostentatiously gnashing about some pompous cunt, pointing at my flip-flops and deliberately talking extra loud so he could hear me, while sneering towards his table in an attempt to goad him. Anyway, turns out he was autistic, so....

Crashing on - aside from the autistic baiting, Kuala Lumpur was a great couple of days. Went up the towers, went to Chinatown AND Little India, had a beautiful authentic meal, went to the national mosque and nearly had my ear bitten off by a parrot (see pic for a shot moments before he sunk his beak into the pinky goodness) One lasting memory which took days to leave me was a nasty batch of food poisoning and on the train to the culinary Mecca of Malaysia, Penang, I took a turn for the worst. Everything was fine until suddenly it wasn't anymore and I couldn't stop throwing up. All the time. Took the shine off the staff spiel at the hotel we arrived at when, as he proudly showed off the original fixtures and infamous seaview, I joined in at the toilet, loudly retching in approval.

The sickness lasted for two full days after that and couldn't have come at a worse time, being in the foody capital of the country. Just passing by food in the days following the M25 event (busy at both ends) resulted in a cold shiver of dread gobbing down the back of my throat, but on the flip side, I got a great workout on my abs. Which crippled me for about a week afterwards as well.

We took a taxi over the border, when I eventually stopped puking, and I was finally back where I started. Back in Thailand after all these weeks. Because of time constraints we had to stop in a pretty seedy town called Hat Yai - which I've since learned is no more than a brothel with city status - where I saw a beggar man lying on the ground who looked like an ant that had been blasted with a magnifying glass. All claws, bunched up skeletal legs and arms and a constantly shocked-looking expression on his twisted face gazing vacantly upwards. Honestly, if Nabila hadn't endlessly made fun of him for hours afterwards, suggesting he had just arrived in town and was simply surprised by the sleazy milieu and so on, I don't know if I would've got over it so quickly. What can I tell you? She just hates poor people.*

One night in Hat Yai and then a hasty bus ride out of the southernmost tip of the country to the infamous beaches made infamous by the beach movie called The Beach - and James Bond classic, The Man With The Golden Beach - which was to be our penultimate destination. As we had become used to at this stage, the resort (Amari) was stunning. Set just off the beach, with its own private area on the sands out front, the rooms came with an outside hot tub, a spectacular view of the picturesque ocean and a pot-bellied sense of entitlement. This was where I'd do it.

Unbeknownst to all you; well, most of you, I'd had a plan since arriving in Asia. Something I wanted to do, but not just anywhere; it had to be perfect. It took some arranging (me asking and the singer saying yes) but on our last night there, after spending days snorkelling, swimming through azure/green lagoons (see pic) feasting and blissing out, I got up on stage and starting singing to my girl. I sang my girl Your Song (enough pronouns?) but as I looked at her from the stage (bar) I couldn't hold it in, I was actually overcome with emotion and, worse still, it was having a detrimental effect on the high bits. The reason for this anomalous display of emotional vulnerability was sitting in my pocket until the end of the song, where I brought a confused Nabila onto the stage (bar) took the ring I had bought in Vietnam out of my pocket, got down on one knee and asked her to be my wife.

I know! She said yes, by the way and that night saw the return of the busy hands eluded to in chapter one, the insatiable strumpet. I had waited for the moment, the place, the night and it was all perfect - but more than that, I had waited a lifetime for the girl to be right and, aside from her politics, she is.

So back in England we are - the soon-to-be Mr and Mrs, going about our plans, our ideas and our dreams. This is the end of English Bitcherature and I finally have the happy ending we all aspire towards. Fuck you, world - I win! (Apart from the fact I don't have a job - anyone need a video doing? I specialize in montages of me) This blog was about how I move on from teaching, which I've definitely achieved. It was also about avoiding a life of extreme violence and ritual murder (see post one) which I have also done; although it has been tough considering all the travellers, children and teachers I've encountered (see post 26/13 - well, all of them really) who have been just asking for a series of rabbit punches to the throat.

Reading through the year's events it's almost as though there's no message at all to be found - no point, no reason, no intention; so what was it all for? Well, I'll leave it to Doc Brown, who bewilderingly sums up his motivation behind endangering the very fabric of time and space when he reads Marty McFly's warning about his impending murder by exclaiming 'I figured, what the hell...' Not good enough then and not good enough now. But that was the '80s for you. X

*She doesn't really.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

A list of things which make you a rock star:

1. Jet-setting around the world

2. Staying in beautiful and unique hotels

3. Eating, drinking and cavorting to excess

4. Being really, really sick

5. Drugging up the world in a smokey haze

Well, I'd like to say I've been doing all of these things recently, but the reality is ever-so-very-slightly different from the list. Isn't it always? To be honest - and as I've always said, that's something I continually strive to be - the list is a little misleading about what I've been up to. Number one is about right and definitely number two, since my beautiful girlfriend arrived just before Christmas, but that, frankly, put the kibosh on any cavorting/drugging plans I might have had which would eventually lead to number four. Don't worry though, I have been really, really sick recently, but that was far more a consequence of slimy chicken than wanton abandon - although I did very much abandon myself to that chicken. And she broke my bloody heart.

Indonesia was tough-going, I believe I've made that clear in the forerunning posts, but Bali was outstanding. Being the Australian destination of choice for revellers, jivers and fuckers, there are some none-too-discreet areas, like Kuta, but our first destination on the island was a far gob from there. Meeting up with Nabila at Bali Airport after so long was a definite highlight on this mammoth trip. I couldn't sleep the night before, despite drinking and masturbating myself into near-palsy, so when the morning arrived I simply rolled out of bed, unrested, hungover and enflamed, got my things together and limped into the taxi I'd booked. People talk about butterflies in the stomach, but the sensations I felt were more akin to a team of epileptic break-dancers performing on a bouncy castle at the national strobe fanciers ball while each holding a plastic bag filled with electric toothbrushes, dildos and butterflies. My tum-tum went all squiggly!

She didn't disappoint. She very rarely (but not unquestionably) does. The little black number brought glamour, elegance and beauty to the airport, but I have to say, it wasn't the most expensive shirt I've ever worn. (Do you see? Took you one way, then, BAM! It was about me, not Nabila!) She scrubbed up pretty well too and looking as good as she did was no mean feat after 36 hours travelling. I'd been travelling for 2,160 hours at that point and as such looked about as slick as - well, somewhere between Gandhi and any Italian man, but that didn't seem to matter to Ol' Ms Busy Hands. Honestly; I'm not just a piece of meat. In truth, it was surreal to see her after all that time and every episode we have where we don't see each other for a long time I almost forget how dazzling she is. Lights up any room she enters. Even the baggage reclaim ones. Not as easy as it sounds with brown skin.

This is where my old adventure finished and a brand new one began. We pulled into the Four Seasons Resort in Bali and I felt like Julia Roberts in that film where she's a whore - Eat, Pray, Love, I think it's called. Or any of them, really. The servitude was something I was not used to or indeed ready for at all; the bowing, the curtseying, the endless cheek-bulging grins, this was a different world for me. I had spent many weeks avoiding being ripped off, bartering, sleeping in flea-ridden despair holes gasping for breath, touching anything in the rooms suspiciously between thumb and forefinger and now I was in paradise.

We had our own villa complete with infinity pool which looked out onto the ocean, that I treated like a massive nappy, and spectacular views from the room into the natural beauty created by the Four Seasons (TM). The food was delicious and worry-free and any time you wanted to venture outside your villa, beaming porters arrived in little golf buggies to transport you from place to place. We spent an incredible few nights there, including Christmas and Boxing Day, that made me almost forget I was away from home for the first time during this period. Not that it was any great hardship - we had presents, spoke to the family on Skype (including an ostentatious bomb into the pool - just cos I could - first and only time the pool was spared my nudity) and enjoyed an unbelievable feast at the Coconut Grove Club for dinner. Father Christmas couldn't have brought anything better [insert joke about sack here]

After a teary and awkward Sophie's Choice style unfastening from the Four Seasons we made our way to the next location on Nabila's itinerary of magnificence - the island heaven (used paradise too much already) of Nusa Lembongan. Tucked in between other resorts, you could only reach Waka Nusa by boat and when we arrived it ticked all the boxes. Crystal blue waters, white sands, perfect snorkelling conditions, cast of Cocoon reunion, everything was present and correct. Our hut was just behind the sea, but you could still hear the waves as you drifted off to sleep - just before the fucking fireworks began - but I'm over that now. Soooo over that. Not being able to swim, Nabila had never been in water over her boobs, but when we went snorkelling I insisted she came in to just hold onto the back of me, and we shared some of the greatest, most pure waters I have ever seen. Fish everywhere and just the occasional terrified squeal from my new turtle shell. Look carefully and I'm sure you would have seen a little turtle's head as well.

Back to the mainland for our last Balinese resort - Alila, in the Uluwatu region of the island. Something so different from what we had been used to up to this point, Alila was a contemporary dream with wooden installations and clear symmetrical lines. It incorporated all the elements of earth, wind, water and fire into the concepts behind each room and villa and having another private pool out the back meant I could emphasize and build on most of these elements myself while taking a skinny dip.

New Year's Eve and Nabila's birthday were met with the now customary extravagance and after a beachside meal at Bali's number one restaurant we took in the new year and the final hours of the missus's birthday at the disastrously named Potato Head. A great club - just too many people. Midnight was outstanding though and the only time I haven't been pissed off to see fireworks. We took a crazy motorbike ride back to Alila, sharing it between three of us, and jumped in the pool when we got back because how many times are you gonna be able to have a midnight swim (or bob, in Nabila's case) on the 31st December? After a couple of days to recover in luxury we were off again, this time to another country - number six on my South East Asian tour.

So, as with all good franchises - and make no mistake, English Bitcherature is a franchise - the last part always comes in two parts. So what to expect from the last post? Traditionally there's a resolution, a twist, a massive battle and the stones/ring/force/world order is brought into a new equilibrium. Well, I won't ruin it, but it could be the best thing that's ever happened to you when you tune in next week. Just saying. Of course, if you choose not to read you'll never know. And we can't be friends anymore.

23

1am: I can't believe I've still got these pants on. Haven't had a chance to do any laundry because of the relentless need to keep moving of the last few days, so the ones I have on are already recycled from last week and after today, even the fact they're on back-to-front doesn't dilute the unmistakable stench of piss as I slip between the sheets. I feel a bit ashamed, but too tired to care. I've pulled the bed towards the fan I finally managed to prise from the owner's death grip and I'm grateful for it now as the room's fusty, damp and hot as hell. Still as a corpse and twice as smelly, I'm drifting off in a heady fug of wet heat and damp tramp crotch smell and barely have time to consider the contrasts of the day. From the morning's glory to the night's terrors in just under 24 hours - this must be what life's like for coffee beans. They always start life in exotic surroundings, but then end up in a Norbury greasy spoon. With that thought the sandman appears, with a peg on his nose, takes hold and I'm gone.

11:30pm: The bus finally rolls into Dempasar station and with it the familiar dread of clambering hands and discarded notions of personal space boundaries. Dismounting, I'm clothes-lined into the side of the door by an over-zealous taxi driver and angrily shove back, spitting my distemper through a sagging mouth and rolling pie eyes. Everything's sore and aching and tired and confused. I silently pray for a quick solution - that a shiny guesthouse lies just behind the station's fuming hub of noise with food, beer and breakfast included. Maybe a nice story to help me drift away and take my mind off my pants - something with a reckless mole who's blind to his own shortcomings - but I know it's never that easy and wheeling Daddy Bag onto my back, with Mummy Bag on my front, me and the others walk the wrong way for 10 minutes before realising our mistake.

By then it's too late and any hope of finding somewhere to bed down at this time of night quickly begins to dribble out of me like cranberry sauce at the Stroke Society's Christmas do. I find myself Goleming after another group, misguidedly hoping to limpet onto their successes, but, as is seasonal, for all of us now, there's no room at any inn. Casting eight ninja turtles shadows against the crumbling streets around the bus station a decision is made to rent a minivan and when the deal is finally made I'm struck by how much emphasis the driver places on the prefix of the term. Mini is entirely accurate and with the appropriate grunts, tsks and ninja moves, eight stinking, tired and grumpy (me leading the field in all categories) travellers shoehorn themselves into the mini(scule) van and head down the road to Kuta. It must have more instant food and sleep options. It's the right decision.

The guidebook calls Kuta not pretty, but I'd go further than that and suggest its positively disfigured. As we approach bass pounds and vibrates through the tin walls of our can-pram and eventually we're tipped out into the ketchup streets; late and in full swing. Shirtless, drooling dirtbags crab alongside us with a late-night swagger I mirror through fatigue and finally we settle for a hostel, embelished by the forgiving cloak of sundown. The room's got the customer review of three turd streaks wiped down the wall behind the toilet, but it's too late, in every sense of the word, for me to give that much of my own shit and change my mind. I just need to pursuade the owners to lend me an extra fan as the ceiling-mounted offering is set to suck, neatly emulating its own ability to function. Now for dinner - after a wait of over 12 hours anything will do, and in the kebab we settle for, literally anything could be in it. I squelch into the flakey meat and sweet sauces with the promise of cheap beer to wash it down and firm up my plans to leave this place tomorrow. Like the guesthouse, it stinks.

4pm: I'm feeling surprisingly upbeat. They may have sat me next to the fattest narcaleptic in Indonesia, whose idea of bonding has been his adhesively sweaty thighs sticking to mine throughout the bus journey while he peacefully slumbers, but we've reached the ferry port now and that means we're making progress. Getting on board is a dieselly affair, but above the fumes there's an air-conditioned room and shouting us above deck are a couple of nutters slicking about in the oily water of the pier. They're shouting for coins, apparently, and when they're thrown overboard the oily ticks penguin beneath the surface to snatch them up. I'm made a little uncomfortable by their life-limiting escapades, but beaming up at the boat, they appear happy and it's nothing a good soak in Fairy Liquid won't solve.*

As I watch Java shrink into the distance I'm relieved. It's been a sleepless couple of weeks and just downright tough at times, but today more than made up for it and thoughts of the morning colour my memories a rosy hue. The AC room has kicked off now and amongst the insistent cries for various instant noodle treats, the room has erupted into a karaoke den. I'm more tempted than you will ever know, but the crowd's hostile at best - at worst genuinely angry when I try to encourage the participators with applause - so I decide to give this one a miss. The boat finally begins to slow as we approach Bali, which is actually a relief as the 'singing' is testing everyone's screechy thresholds, and we start to load back up on the bus. Bali - land of beauty in more ways than one as it's here that I'll reunite with Nabila. Can't wait. Fatty-fatty sleep-sleep has disembarked and I have a seat of my own now. It's all good.

9am: How can I have been up for six hours already? I'm completely exhausted, but totally exhilarated. What a morning! It's been 12km of winding mountainous paths, up and down, but the sights and the colours and the feeling of achievement - these are the reasons I've done this trip and this was another one of those moments to feel blessed. The guesthouse is so basic but now that we've got back, the planet requires that I have a wash. The bathroom is cold - as cold as I've experienced in Asia and although I'm still flushed from the trek, getting naked is an instantly diminishing affair. No shower here, just a trough of freezing water and a plastic jug.

I countdown from five, squeezing my eyes shut and gritting my teeth - bracing for impact and condensing even further from the anticipation... The water tips, it hits, it saturates - then I scoop more and do it again and again, discharging the strange language icy water exudes from humans while furiously lathering the soap onto my smelly bits. Every bit. Goo-gaa-cak-cak-bah-baa-chis-chis-hahh-ha...! And it's over. I'm clean. I'm refreshed. I'm alive. It feels great and the lethargy just slips away. It's nearly half past now and our first leg of the long journey to Bali is about to begin, but I'm ready for it. Bring it on.

4:30am: The sun is about to rise. We've been walking uphill now for two hours and the layers (it's all about layers) have been gradually peeled off one by one. Started with five, now I'm on two. Looking over to the summit of Mount Bromo, it's quite a sight as the cloud florets mushroom into the tangerine spaces invented by the rising sun. The volcano is spoiled by this every morning, but for me, it's a moment to savour. We consume the view for another five minutes before moving on - gotta get to the top, make it all worth the work. We walk on for another 30 minutes and the path turns to road, we have to be nearly there. The sun's beating us now and I'm struck by how many times in Asia it's been a race against the firey star - sundown, sunset, sunrise; get there, see it, be there - a small window, but when will you get the opportunity again? I need the sun to burn this image onto my memory and I will make it. For the last 100 metres I run up the stairs - like Challenge Anneka, people are pointing upwards and shouting encouragement and my bum wobbles dutifully as I reach the top.

Wow. Ignore the people, this is stunning. It looks like a painted backdrop and can't possibly be real, but it is. Bromo sits eternally and the reds of the sun erupt the volcano for all of us to see. Shadows quickly turn to faces and light begins to lick life into the scene before you know it. But I was there. I saw it. Pictures and videos ensue and then the trek continues as we don't have much time. It's downhill, but the sun is hot now and rising fast. The path eventually flattens out into a plateau leading to the volcano itself. It's moon-like and its emptiness catches in your throat; the stillness and peace a surprise given the hoards of tourists at the summit. They couldn't walk the walk though and this is our reward. The hostel is just the other side of Bromo, a mere hour's trot in the sun. It's dusty and volcanic and at 7:30am it feels good to already be able to say, what a day.

2am: Shivering. Cold. Didn't sleep as much as I should. Probably got off at around 11pm in the end. Felt like Christmas as a kid where all you want is for it to be the other side of this wait. Sod it - I'm getting up early and putting on my layers (it's all about layers). I have my torch ready, woolly hat on and two pairs of socks. It seems almost perverse to hear the alarm go off at 2:30am, especially as I'm already dressed in preparation for the day. I open the door and start to see dark figures emerging from their rooms. It's time to leave and we all know this is gonna be a long day. I just hope it doesn't rain.

Well, there you go. Thought I'd try something a little different this week. Had a week off for Christmas - but you got the video, so what're you complaining about? Hope you all had a fantastic day and have a great new year too. Nabila has been here for a week now and we've had the most incredible time at beautiful hotels and restaurants, but I'll save that for another time. Merry Christmas, Everyone. X

(*It is. They will definitely die young)

The Undiscovered Country

Here are some things I’ve done which would make the Traveller Police literally spit their maggoty stink fruit out:

- Been to KFC two days in a row

- Watched the whole series of I’m a Celebrity... over three days (to be fair, I was ill; but it was fantastic)

- Asked three separate guesthouse owners to remove the chickens from my vicinity. When they didn’t, I attempted. The chickens went mental.

- Got a motorbike taxi driver to take me to seven different hostels because each time we would arrive at another construction site.

- Yelled SHUT UP! From my room every time a local spoke near me.

OK, that purging of the conscience does make me feel a little better. A lot of these are sleep-related though and as Nabila and any ex-member of Habitat (my house in Norwich) will tell you, if I don’t get my eight hours, I’m a horrible bastard... get me out of here. But this is about new beginnings and my arrival in a new country wipes the slate clean, as far as I’m concerned. Now I love noise when I’m trying to sleep.*

So I’ve bid my final farewell to the grabby clambering of the Vietnamese, but will always remember the kindness extended to me at the wedding of [VIETNAMESE MAN’S NAME] and [VIETNAMESE WOMAN’S NAME] that I was invited to. Thank God for that, in fact, as most of the other locals I encountered there were pretty bloody awful. Sorry, but that was my experience. The Traveller Police will have next-to-none of that maggoty stink fruit (look up durian fruit and you’ll see it. It stinks. Hence the name) left by the end of this post. But anyway, as I’ve indicated in the lines above (paragraph two, line four, ‘new country’) I’m currently sitting under a different sun in a world where the water goes the other way down the plughole. I’m in Indonesia. (The ‘new country’)

This part of my trip was principally about getting to Bali for Christmas to reunite with my very own little stink fruit (love you!) Nabila and watch her get sad. (As we discussed in our first months together, every time someone says Merry Christmas, a Muslim dies) Because of this (the movement across Indonesia, not the Islamicide) I’ve been here for a week and haven’t done much more than travel towards my festive destination, but in doing so I have obviously interacted with many of the locals, who have just been fantastic. A world away (or at least a country) from the Vietnamese, Indonesians are always pleased to see you. Every person you pass in the street beams up at you (they are rather short) and waves or says hello. My enduring memory of the people so far is of teeth and although some of these can resemble the clustering dental inadequacies of a mako shark, they are always on show for my benefit and not, thankfully, only available during financial transactions.

In Vietnam’s favour, so to speak, the attempts of country after country (Chinese, French, US) to attack, colonise or pinch from them could have caused this hostile predisposition and so you can’t really blame the people for being a little on the sod off side. But whether it be because of their faith, their beautiful unspoilt landscapes, their weather, beaches or food, the Indonesians are a happy bunch (just look at those lovely little kiddistinkles in the photo) and being around them makes me beam too. Apart from the call to prayer every morning at 3:30am. That, admittedly, is something which requires work. Not much work though – just move it to 7:30am. There. All done.

As a country, Indonesia is not as much on the traditional SE Asian stomping around list and I think this also contributes to their open, warm and friendly nature. Simply put, we haven’t had the chance to fuck it up yet. They haven’t had time to tire of the endless plod of crusty feet and underwear that makes up the typical traveller and sicken of the late-night tourists, hopelessly lost and jabbing an optimistic finger at a non-descript photograph trying to get home (see Snap, Cankle and Pop Part One) They seem to really love their country and are fiercely protective of its traditions and portrayal across the world. This is evident in the recent article exclaiming that a group of Indonesian punk rockers were arrested by the police, shaved bald, taken to a river to wash, given new (conservative) clothes, all while being forced to listen to more mainstream and less punky music. Hang on, that’s not really good, is it? No, it isn’t. It’s mental. So they are, at least, keeping that aspect of SE Asians alive.

The journey across the country has been tough though and none of it made any easier by the lack of any others’ presence before me. The truth is the people are exceptional, the countryside an unblemished jewel, but the guesthouses just suck ball-bags. For the most part, they stick rigidly and unswervingly to the description of a room, in that that’s exactly and only what you get. Four walls, often hastily constructed out of a bigger area from MDF, a floor and a bed. So what if the bed has visible festering mould on it? Who cares if it’s so damp you wake up in the morning feeling as though someone’s flicked you into the middle of a rainforest? And did you say you wanted to sleep next to some cockerels again? Well, that’s all part of the deal. Roll on, Bali. I’m man enough to admit I’m not man enough to take it without some Western comforts. Let’s face it, I’m no man.

Still, the endless journeys (32 hours in the last week – that’s nearly a full-time job!) have afforded me the opportunity to perfect my now regular bus routines of:

- Soundlessly mouthing the words to the Anita Baker album, Rapture, while fixedly staring out the window so no-one can see the tormented emotion in my face as I mime along. Closed eyes; the lot.

- Maintaining a faraway look of deep contemplation when anyone gets on to try and sell me something.

- Waiting for a tight gap on the road between vehicles, eagerly announcing, ‘you could get a bus through that’ and then breathlessly scanning the bus for a reaction. Nothing.

There you have it then. I’m on my way to my last few stops in SE Asia and it’s definitely a good thing to experience the other side of this continent’s offerings. So I’ve experienced it now. That’s enough. I need another KFC.

(* I don’t)

The Good, The Bad and The Early

Vietnam has been a strange place, where the ratio of mentals to lovelies is almost completely proportionate. That is to say that when you have a good experience with one local (share a joke in a local store) almost immediately something pretty vile occurs to redress the balance (guesthouse owner walking into your room at 6am to show people round). This post aims to reflect this Vietnamese phenomenon of ensuring a status quo is maintained - don't get too joyful or carefree because there's something terrible around the corner to even things up. That's Vietnam.

Let's start with the good because they're the most boring to read - we'll get to the bad (great) stuff later. Mui Ne is a small and well-stocked beach resort on the southern coast of the country. Arriving by bus, you hurtle down the main 'strip' on your way into town where neon lights throb out of wooden shacks - some with glitzy fairy lights in straight lines to entice people in like a human runway. The theme here is fish, which invariably meant a lot of normals banging on about how I have to try a scaly mouthful. I didn't. They feigned outrage to make their tired and dull lives more interesting. (Being self-referential makes me feel powerful) Anyway, because of the sea's proximity, the outsides of restaurants have a veritable smorgasbord of animal rights travesties woefully glugging at you from their shabbily constructed fishy shanty towns. Dogfish Beaker at their glass prison walls dejectedly and huge crustaceans tune into Cruelty FM with intertwining antennas. From a beautiful sea-view apartment to a luckless grief-hole faster than you can say, 'I can't eat it all.'

I spent three sand-filled days in Mui Ne; swimming, gazing at the perilous kite-surfers (one girl died doing it while we were there - isn't this meant to be the 'good' section?) and avoiding seafood. We took motorbikes - now becoming a staple of the SE Asian experience - to the beautiful white sand dunes and arranged to be there at sundown for optimum cliché. It really was stunning though and the picture that makes this post finally, after three weeks of none. Apologies. The colours and the spectacle more than made up for the propensity of sand to whip and fondle its way into your crevices and watching the sun melt into the nearby lake from our sandy vantage point will be something I remember for a long time.

Just before we left for the dunes, our rusty-toothed guesthouse owner, Mr Ho, insisted that we make it to a local wedding reception taking place at the digs later that night. This was just about kicking off by the time we got back and after spading the sand out of the aforementioned crevices, we settled into the hedonistic hootenanny. The locals were kind, generous and unbelievably drunk and seemed to make it their mission to get us there with them - well, it would be rude not to. We had all kinds of food poured onto our table, from an entirely tasteless pink and green rice 'cake', to a decimated duck dish and every time our glasses were half empty, we had to down it, '100%!', with an accompanying cry of, 'yo!' - which I'm sure means cheers. Or hello. Or yeay. Something. The music was completely deafening, musically illogical and brutally tuneless, but when we were fished up onto stage we gave it our all in the 'sing literally anything' part of the evening. One song. One and a half hours.

So that was the good. Now for the bad:

Happily cruising down the road on our way to the dunes, drinking in the sights and warm tropical air, a squishy pug-nosed man in uniform suddenly appeared in the middle of the road waving us over with his authority stick - and who were we to question the authority of a stick? I had heard about this from many travellers - about the corrupt police who pull you over and extort money from you, but, as the saying goes, you never think it's gonna be you. I was furious about it though and when he started to draw his filthy little rat claw over the well-worn document declaring, 'you pay fine of 160,000 dong', I kind of lost it a bit.

You do have a little more gumption in these circumstances, knowing full well they don't understand a word you're saying, so I let him know how I felt about him and his sickening scam, pretty much calling him every name under the sun. I also told them I worked for the BBC and would write a report on them, which seemed to be about as useful as threatening someone in a language they don't understand, but in the end they let us go; giving us a 60,000 dong reduction, I think mainly for our staying power. You cannot imagine how hard it was to resist giving them the finger as we left - it took every morsel of self-restraint I had and resulted in extra off-colour jokes later on in the evening to make up for it. Must... offend...

Think of the Mekong Delta and you can't help but picture a highly romanticised image of boat people, gorgeous scenery and craggy peninsulas. That's what I saw in my mind's eye as well when I booked the three-day trip a few days ago. The guidebook said good things and I had some time to kill, so I thought, why not? Here's why not:

The first day was OK. The journey wasn't the most comfortable, but was mercifully short and had a well-informed guide (who spoke like he had a mouth full of water) meaning we arrived fresh and ready to take it all in. This was the first organised trip I've been on, if you don't count treks, which are a bit different - more trekky - and straightaway it seemed odd. The people were OK, apart from an incredibly ugly Russian duo who spent half the afternoon trying to get a monkey high through the bars of his enclosure, but it was strange to be led from one buying opportunity to the next. Lots to see and do though and some great photo opps. Watch coconut candy being made, listen to locals sing (awkward) try the tropical fruits of the region, wear a snake - you know the drill. In the evening I shared dinner with some Aussies and went to bed early.

The next morning I was woken by the phone in the room going off just before 6am. 'What?' I demanded. 'God moning.' 'What?' I repeated. Click. We had to get up for 7am, so a call at 6am was completely unnecessary. Already vexed by this, I made my way downstairs for a piece of bread and some water - 'breakfast' was included, you see - and sat about for an hour thinking about how I could have still been asleep. We then travelled to the floating market, which was all right. Not particularly life-changing though and certainly not worth getting up so early for. It basically consisted of people throwing fruit into each other's boats and kids looking bored. They weren't the only ones. Then we went to watch rice noodles being made (whoop) and jack fruit being grown (cheer) The day would've been rounded off beautifully by a trip to the paint-drying factory, but I guess we didn't have time.

After the day's activities (which finished at midday - pisstake) we were driven for 'two' (three) hours to the arsehole of the earth and after waiting for everyone else to get their room, I was told there were no rooms left for me. The owners walked me over to another guesthouse, which was without doubt the worst I have ever seen in SE Asia. Wires sticking out of the walls, stains and filth caking the room and a moving floor of all types of insects - I wasn't pleased. The men next door kept me awake all night by phleming up and coughing as though they were shouting while watching teeny pop videos at full volume until I knocked at their door and told them to shutthefuckup. Exhausted and now unwell because of my lack of rest, I decided to forego the last day's agenda and asked to be put on the next bus back to Saigon, a local bus apparently and that's when it got interesting.

Saigon is separated into many districts - 2-many are for locals and the tourists almost exclusively only frequent district 1. When we got to Saigon, the bus pulled over and, while I tried to ask where we were, I was shouted at and physically thrown off the bus, with onlookers laughing and staring. Eventually, after wandering around in a bit of a terrified daze, I noticed that one of the shop's signs indicated we were in district 5. The people on the street then tried to get a crazy amount of money out of me to get to the one address I fortunately had on a hostel card in my pocket. Every time they quoted me about 10 times as much as it should be, knowing full well I was miles away and had no other way of getting there, they smiled and laughed about it. I suddenly felt very intimidated, alone and lost.

I started to get angry and shouted at them (very sweary - which they enjoyed enormously) until I finally relented and got on the back of one of their bikes (I literally had no other choice) for a 15-minute death ride through the choking smog. I got bike boy (finger missing, sweaty smell) to pull up at the travel agents and stormed in, demanding they pay for the bike, which, surprisingly, they did. I then spent about 30 minutes detailing my misadventures in the Delta and finally got a quarter of my money back. For SE Asia that's unheard of, so I'm quite pleased with myself. Think it was the cold talking.

So that's the bad - now the early:

As you've read, if you've got this far. This is, admittedly, a very long post. But then I haven't really written anything about Vietnam, so stop your bleedin' moaning. I got no sleep on the Delta trip, but before this, I stayed a couple of nights in Saigon. The guesthouse owner curled us into his beautiful room for three and, I have to admit, it was the quietest I've ever been in while staying in such a crazy city. At around 3am this all changed though. I was dreaming about teaching, I think, and being subjugated by the monsters, when they all started making this perculiar noise - like a high-pitched screeching. One, then two, then eventually all of them, making this same three-tone noise. It was bizarre until I finally woke to the sound of a cockerel giving it the morning big one. But how? I was four storeys up a building in the middle of Saigon - and it sounded like it was right outside the room.

Imagine my surprise when, once I'd been lying awake for around four hours because of the constant, relentless, merciless crowing, the sun came up and I could now see, right outside the window, almost on the ledge, a tiny wooden box with a cockerel in it. The gravity of my argument at 6am in reception was diluted considerably by my trifle hair, squashed up fatigue face and furious chicken impression and I knew while performing I would laugh about it eventually. Just not yet. Cockerels became a theme for the next few days, being woken by one three days later in exactly the same circumstances and then sharing a bus with a bag full of them a day after that. I hate them. (insert cock joke here - is 'insert cock' good enough?)

Right, that'll bloody do. Thanks to a record four comments on the last post. Victoria, you can be a part-time fussy eater if you want, but it's just not as much fun; Simon, a thoughtful response which informs as well as enlightens about your stance on the issue; Rob, you are right about the mayonnaise thing, but it wasn't cos it was foreign, it's cos it's made out of eggs, which are chicken periods; and Nabila - I only try things to make you proud. Happy now? I'm off to Indonesia tomorrow to begin my trek to Bali for Christmas time. It is Christmas soon, isn't it? Someone tell the sun that. Laters.

Food Inglorious Food

Blah, blah, blah, waterfalls; blah, blah, blah, diving; blah, blah, blah, motorbikes... OK, so I'm a horribly spoilt shit who doesn't appreciate what he's got in relation to the rest of the known world, who are currently sat under a miasma of vapid grey skies in England. I've been in Vietnam for the past week and a half and have actually found it fairly uninspiring. I miss Cambodia and its ramshackled charm and beaming locals and the Vietnamese, so far, have come across as cold and unfriendly in comparison. It's said that 0.5% of first-time visitors to Vietnam ever come back and I'm beginning to see why.

I really enjoyed Saigon, with its cracked and peeling walls scrambling at a chance of modernity and its pools of motorbikes which ebb and flow in time with the traffic lights, but Nha Trang was overcast and overpriced and Dalat was chilling in both temperature and attitude so I'm back on the beach in search of something more... salty; something, I mean, with a bit more flavour.

While I settle my ungrateful bot-bot into a sunnier clime and disposition, I thought I'd discuss something very personal with you - drawing inspiration from the lovely Alex and her far more professional and, some would argue, better blog, where you can see a post on the same subject(http://www.alexinwanderland.com/) This has been an ongoing issue and I'm actually surprised I haven't written about it until now, but anyone who knows me at all will know there's this thing about me; something everyone wants to change. OK, so there's a plethora of attributes people want to alter about me, but principally and for the purposes of this blog post, it's the fact I'm a fussy eater.

It's a flaw which has followed me all my life and now, at the age of 34, I've just about given up thinking that I'll grow into it. I've finally accepted this character defect about myself, but that's not even the half of it - it's the rest of polite society who seem steadfastly unable to do the same and therein lies the problem. You might wonder, That's all well and good, Andrew, and might I add, your hair's looking terrific these days, but where does this fit into a blog supposedly chronicling your philanthropic Asian invasion? And well you might. Actually, being out here, and especially reaching the various coastlines that I have, has given the normals ample opportunity to do what they do best; attempt to force some kind of change in my habits. Come on, just try it. One clam, You're never gonna get it so fresh!, but here's the thing - I actually don't want it at all.

If you're a vegetarian, that's fine; a Muslim or Jew, I can understand that; but if your aversion to specific food types stems simply from personal taste - well, you're about 1,000-times worse than Pol Pot with all the sophistication of a small town tittie bar. It's true to say that to be a fully grown adult human is an impossible task while simultaneously being a fussy eater. What kind of boorish yobo refuses asparagus spears or removes the salad from a burger before eating it? Well, me. I do. I just want to eat the food I like without the chastisement of the whole greens-eating planet. Can this happen? Fat chance.

What people don't understand - and trust me, I'm not looking for sympathy here, just a chance to put over my (or our; I know there are others out there) side of the story - is that being a fussy eater is no picnic. Well, certainly not one with scotch eggs in it; gross. It's embarrassing, humiliating, depressing, demoralising, excruciating and downright awkward to suffer from this affliction, but what makes it worse is the almost religious fervour the normals adopt in trying to convert you. As soon as they see that you're different, they become what I can only describe as foodie Jehovah's Witnesses in their quest to redeem you. Everyone wants to get involved; everyone wants to tell you about how their parents, wouldn't let me down from the table until I'd finished everything; remind you how much you're missing out with overt displays of satisfaction and delight while tucking into that day's nutritional salvation that you've passed on. Sometimes even your morals are called into question - How can you not eat it? People in (insert the third world country de jour here) are starving and you're just leaving all that food. You don't know how lucky you are. It never ends.

My question to you normals is this: why does it bother you so much? It's instinctive human nature to question the different and poke them with a stick - a celery stick in this instance - but when you can be pretty much 100% sure of what reaction you'll get, isn't that just outright discrimination? Yeah, that's right, I'm bringing out the race card because my experience bears all the hallmarks of a textbook case. I'm part of a different group of people; I can't change this thing about me; I'm constantly told to behave in a certain way just to fit in and the idea of simply leaving me to be myself is completely unheard of. In fact, the relentless attempts to muscle me into doing something I don't want to do puts me very much in mind of what life must have been like in Hitler's Germany. So, I hope you're happy, food Nazis - I'll see you in The Hague.

STDs

Saigon... shit; I'm still only in Saigon... Well, actually, no I'm not - been through there though and had a great time drinking, singing and exploring exotic and strange tunnels. Which brings me, rather graphically, to my next subject - sex tourism and the Sex Tourist Deviants (I hope you appreciate the tenuous attempt at a pun there - it'll just have to do) I've invented a drinking game out here since arriving - imagining for one minute that I find people tolerant enough to put up with my behaviour for an evening - that involves taking a gulp every time you see one of these niche crowd of grotesques and the fact I'm always losing my key and way home bears testament to the saturation of them in every country I've visited so far. They are everywhere and about as inconspicuous as a python in a wormery.

In the queue at Gatwick I noticed a couple of older, hirsute men knuckling their way towards the check-in desk and immediately had my suspicions, having heard all the stories and seen the documentaries - well, Louis Theroux's one anyway. But I thought they wouldn't be that easy to spot - the reality is that they really are, so allow me to describe them for you. I hope you're not eating.

The uniform they wear is fairly distinctive; a flowing, silky shirt with a deliberately haphazard design splattered onto the front - to hide those less deliberate stains of blood, semen and HP sauce; the Holy Trinity - that hangs loosely over the belly's cliff-face and slobbers hungrily up and down in the merest puff of wind. The untouchable's unmentionables are usually kept at bay - albeit temporarily - by an option of tight shorts or tight jeans ridden high above the beltline, forcing gut blobs to jelly over a belt notch long-since past its wear-by date. It's funny that this sounds so embellished and obvious, but the truth is that most of these descriptions are taken from an STD sitting about two tables away from me as I write this. Or is that a mirror? No, it bloody well isn't. Anyway the outfit is finished off with a pair of durable sandals (socks appeal optional) worn out at the sides from leaning into cars and crawling along kerbs - you get the picture.

Let's face it, the face is what we all want to know about. So, the standard palor is greying, ashen, deathly - whatever a life of smoking 40 Mayfair a day will do to your skin tone with a complexion to match. Wrinkles and folds in the skin tumble down the mush like a stack of upmarket pram wheels with extra tread and lank, greasy hair usually finds a tread to sit in and leer from. I swear I'm not making this up - he's here, he's sitting opposite me and he's a beauty! These men, almost always European and invariably German or English, come to the continent in search of a wanton desire - like the soup, but with their own scaly face croutons. They come to find what they couldn't in their homeland and so something that confuses me is the look of conquest and achievement that pours from their pores. An appearance of justice and victory about their deeds that is steadfast and not only unfounded, but creepily unsettling.

It's as if the cost of the ticket to get out here justifies the lewd acts which transpire as a consequence and people in this part of the world can either like it or hump it. It's a conflicting phenomenon though - whole families, who have previously lived with poverty and destitution for generations, are lifted from that into a far more comfortable world as a result of these relationships. The girls spend 3-4 years 'attached', rarely having more than 1-2 months a year where they actually have to tolerate time with the STDs, and in that time have a massively positive effect on their family's desperate circumstances. So the question is, is it such a bad thing?

Yes, of course it is! It's an act of exploitation and as such can never be fully morally justified. From what I've observed, there seems to be two types of girls who suffer this kind of degradation - the meek and the strong. The meek kind make your heart ache as they resign themselves to their lot and are pulled and dragged alongside the STDs, kind of like the way rich girls put a little shaky dog in their handbags, but the strong kind... look out. Since being out here I've seen plenty of examples of local girls completely bullying the pitiful, but grateful, STDs. They berate and intimidate the men and are able to use their unfortunate circumstances to their advantage. It's not perfect, but at least it's the exploitative men who are treated like dogs in this version of the story. Plus, I'll never get bored of seeing an STD gorilla-type getting a public dressing down by a skinny 19-year-old mummy long-legs. It's golden.

No pic this week - I've literally spared you and you should be thankful - but I have finished my new movie for the past month, which I'm sure you've already seen (if not, why? Give it a try, you might like it... Do it now!) but if not, here's the link. http://vimeo.com/32436430 By the way, kudos if you got the movie quote I started the post with. Couldn't resist. Ta-ta