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

Weighing Angkor

If there's one thing you're guaranteed to see in South-East Asia almost as much as the expectant look on a tuk-tuk driver's face as you approach, it's temples. Thailand, Laos, Cambodia; all binded by the commonality of faith and all massive fans of these dazzlingly bright structures you see everywhere. Consisting of golden effigies and narrative etches on the walls, you're usually no more than rubbing distance of a Buddha's belly wherever you land in this continent.

To be honest, and I strive to be as much as possible, I had been feeling a little templed out of late. On my first day in Bangkok I was ferried from one temple to the next throughout the entire day and even at that early stage I felt like - OK, I get it: big Buddha, small Buddha, sad Buddha, happy Buddha, pensive Buddha, vengeful Buddha, gold, frankincense, myrrh (no myrrh) monks, candles; frankly there's not that much to choose between any of them. But as this predictable preamble may have had you guessing, that all changed in Siam Reap.

Granted, the temples around here are a bit older than the others - erring on the side of crumbling ancient ruins - but not since Peru's magnificent Machu Picchu have I witnessed a site so intoxicating and just plain wondrous as the millennium-old temples at Angkor Wat. As one of the only must-see stops on my tour, my expectations of the infamous tourist trap couldn't have been higher. Big brother Richard wrote in an email to me recently that, aside from Norwich, the archeological find was the most beautiful place he'd ever been to and I'd have to agree with him. Apart from the Norwich bit. The chimpanzee's masturbatorium of Prince of Wales Road on a Friday night is truly a marvel to behold - just don't forget your football rattle if the locals start to get curious and grabby. Loud noises confuse them.

But I digress, I've spent the last two days making my way around the 400-square kilometre site, taking in as much as I possibly could and around every corner there was always a new reason to make my gob get all smacked. On the first day, along with a lovely Scottish couple I'd been stalking for a few days, I hired a mountain bike to really get the feel of the place. The feel, incidentally, was hot - at 35 degrees plus. Angkor Wat is actually the name of the main temple of the many treasures in the park and also the first one you come across when entering. Despite the dogged tenacity of the too-numerous-to-count vendors that swarm and badger before you've even had a chance to pull up and the thousands of gawking foreigners, there's something so unique and hypnotic about the building that you could almost feel alone there.

A paradoxical notion, for sure, but looking up at the dark, decaying towers and the blackened walls that strike a murky fork of lightning into the surrounding lake's reflection, you can't help but feel completely dumbfounded. It's an experience which eradicates sound and thought until it's just you and Angkor and, for me, that's the magic of the place. Somewhere that's so utterly inundated which can simultaneously detach you from its contemporary chaos to a time before tuk-tuks. It only happens for a moment - but it's euphoric. (Fucking hell, calm down! But it is good though)

After Angkor Wat comes so much more -The Terrace of the Elephants, The Terrace of The Leper King, the many faces of Angkor Thom, the list goes on and on and never lets you down. There have been many restorative efforts over the years that continue today, but the occasional blue and green tarpaulin of modernity never impedes upon the natural symbiosis of jungle roots, swamps and archaic construction that make up the site. Straight out of Tomb Raider (literally; it was filmed here a decade ago) it's a trip which leaves you breathless at every turn. On the second day we relented to the call of the tuk-tuk and bounced around the outer circle taking in more and more amazing views until the sunset cast its orangey throw over the scene, signalling the end of the day. Temples will never be the same again after this. Go and see it. It's electrifying.

Sorry if that was a little on the pretentious side, but if there's anything makes you gush romantically it should be this. Thanks to my boy Billy for the comment on the last post - vintage stuff, Bill. Only you have the ability to make science as dark as that. I love you. Off to Vietnam in a couple of days now, but I don't expect you to know about it; you weren't there, man.

Coral Sex

Mosquitoes. I know they're a recurring theme at this stage of the blog, but my already wafer thin patience is getting skinnier by the minute. How do they get inside the mosquito net? I mean, how the fuck do they do it?! I tuck the whole thing in and vigilantly patrol the edges until I fall into a frightened sleep, but the purging parasites always seem to find a way in and then sit contently in the inner sanctum so that I can see their freshly-bloodied little proboscises first thing in the morning.

Actually talking to them can't be a good sign and I'm worried it could be a symptom of dengue fever, but now, as soon as I wake up and see the inevitable dark patches on the netting, I always give them a line just before my offensive push. Something like, 'hope you enjoyed that meal, cos it was your last!' or 'allow me to provide dessert, hope you like punch!' The last syllable is always accompanied by a whack, flick or swat intended to de-life and, to be fair, it generally does because they're usually so bloated on my insides that they're too fat to move their spindly, ugly carcasses in time. That, in turn, leaves lots of blood specks on the bedding and I'm fairly sure people think I'm on my period pretty much most of time - not the first time that scenario has been concluded.

Anyway, the good news is that for the last couple of days I've been granted a reprieve from the insatiable insectoids as I've spent most of it in water and at sea, completing my PADI Open Water diving certification. It's difficult to avoid cliches at the best of times when traveling, but almost impossible after spending time at the bottom of the sea. As such, I will endeavour to pack as many in as possible while describing my scuba dive off the islands of Koh Teng in Cambodia.

A roller-coaster of a trip, it was magical, humbling, life-affirming, life-changing, spellbinding, enchanting, mystical and all wetter than cinema seats after the premiere of a new Twilight movie. Exactly what you would expect from a dive through a tropical reef is exactly what you got and although the words and subsequent pictures and footage that follow can't possibly do the experience justice, I'll bloody well try. Just for you. Because I love you.

The light illuminates the alien creatures beneath the waves as they sway rhythmically and majestically in time with the ocean's swell. Electric blues, Brazilian yellows and blood reds set the seabed alight as the expanse serves up its timeless platter of purity and natural extravagance. Aberrant oddities crane their exceptional masses out of impossible habitats to observe, occasionally attempting to affix themselves to your wet suit and help with any potential parasite issues you may be having. It was truly an honour to spend time alongside the staggering beauty and as I gulped in the 71% nitrogen and 29% oxygen it was another moment to feel good to be alive. This is it. This is what I came for. That and the fried insects, obviously.

Needless to say, I can't be a part of something so unsullied and naturally stunning without fucking it up a little bit, so this is how I did that: David our dive instructor, a diminutive Argentinian with perpetual mouth meringues and more positivity than a careless boom-boom pedlar's pregnancy test, encouraged us to accompany him in our break after the first dive towards the island to gawp at the reef from a surf's-eye-view. You didn't have to ask me twice, so I followed him dutifully - flapping, blinking and gasping with pleasure in the wake of his lean and lithe trail of expertise. When we arrived at a particular spot, he swanned under the water and glided through a craggy, sea urchin-lined crack in the reef, popping out the water on the other side with a head-hinging grin. 'You have to try it, man! It's incredible!', he beamed. 'OK, OK!' I slobbered, geed up by the moment and his infectious hedonism.

The minute I attempted the dive I knew something wasn't quite right. I wasn't plummeting at a satisfactory speed and no matter how hard I flipped and flopped my fins, my trajectory was all off. It dawned on me a moment too late that he hadn't been wearing the buoyancy aid of a wet suit when he'd attempted the dive, but I, suddenly very clearly, bastard-well was. It was a moment too late as I had already entered the spiky-lined crevice and was immediately being forceably retrieved by the unswerving agenda of my wet suit back to the surface, by any means necessary. The emergency route chosen smashed me straight into the side of the crack and brittley stroked me against the wall of sea urchins, who had been watching with interest up until this point.

I always thought my first penetration in South East Asia would have been as a consequence of too much booze and an opportunistic ladyboy, but instead I was gang-raped by a cluster of blase urchins who speared me so effortlessly and apathetically that it not only hurt like hell, but also made me feel inadequate and really unsexy. I kicked and thrashed about like Jodie Foster in The Accused as they took it in turns to nonchalantly jab and plunge at me until I was holier than the plot of a Littlest Hobo episode. I surfaced soon after the ordeal, wide-eyed and panicked to a few bemused-looking divers who had joined us and a guilty-looking David. We spent the next half hour de-pricking (a lengthy process, in my case) my hands, feet and legs before I made my way to the shower to sit, hold my knees, softly sob and occasionally ravage my body with a nail brush while screaming that, 'it won't come off! It won't come off!'

Apart from the rape, or maybe even because it, the scuba dive has been the greatest experience of my time out here so far. They started well and bloomed in elegance from there until the final one, which blew my mind. It used to be all about the cage diving with great white sharks in South Africa, but we have a new winner now and I'll never forget it. Off to Siam Reap next for the awesome and renowned Ankor Wat temples. I'd love to see you all then.

The Beat Goes On

OK, so it's time to get out the patented Millsy word horn and attempt to cram in all the fun, joy and impatience that makes up another week in this bloody boiling continent. I'm now in Cambodia, having been bounced across the border in a flurry of unkept promises, duplicitous travel agents and a bombardment of queries as to whether I want a tuk-tuk or some lovely old boom-boom. Tuk-tuk drivers are fast becoming my least favourite humans - I even got asked, while I was in one, if I wanted 'tuk-tuk, sir? Hello, friend?' I'm in one! I'm bloody sitting in one being driven around! How can they possibly think I need another one?! I know Rob mentioned in the comments last week that I need to lay off the beetles, but I'm not that gargantuan that they need one per buttock. There have been a lot of chips lately, but they're mostly shoulder-bound, as per.

My last stop in Laos was on the flat-lining 4,000 Islands near the border of Cambodia. As discussed, Laos is a far calmer place to visit than its neighbours, but Don Det - the name of the island I chose out of the 4,000 - takes this to another level. The handful of bars and guesthouses are sparsely populated with red-eyed stoners, whose gravelly, strained attempts at conversation are more painful to sit through than standing barefoot on an upturned plug. And half as charming. Still, as a place to kick back and soak up the mosquitoes, it really can't be beaten. Hammocks that overlook the chocolaty Mekong swing peacefully in the breeze in front of your room and if reading and relaxing is your thing, this is the place to go for a timeout from the madness.

After being defibrillated back into the land of the living, I took a lying bus over the border to another fairly sleepy area in the north-east of Cambodia. Lying because the agent said it was on an air-conditioned 'VIP' bus that took five hours. The reality was half an hour on that bus, kicked off just over the border and wait for six hours in a restaurant before boarding a local bus, principally used for transporting fish and bad smells as far as I could tell, for a total time of 12 hours. The destination was the almost bustling town of Ban Lung, made famous for its blue (green) water lake encased in an ancient volcanic crater, waterfalls and jungle treks. I stayed in the beautiful Treetop Guesthouse, which really was as stunning as it sounds, and run by the ubiquitous Mr T. A nice man, but as I attempted to explain to him, I wasn't getting on no plane, fool. Well, quite.

I met an Argentian couple on the lying bus before we arrived at the guesthouse (I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it) and on the following day we rented motorbikes (Yeah! Neeeaaaaaaarrrmmmmmm!) and took in the crater and waterfalls. This day was almost a complete write-off after being woken at 4am by another egotistical monk, screeching his devotion through a sound system that would make Streatham's most obnoxious car radios blush. Talk about love the sound of your own voice. Literally the only one then. However, riding around through the streets of Ban Lung (neeeeaaaarrrmmmm!) having a dip in the green warmth of the volcanic crater and having a massive beard now just about made up for it all. Just don't do it again, cheeky monk-ey.

I stayed a lot longer than I thought I would in Ban Lung, but this was chiefly as a result of finding gainful employment there. No, not as principal milk poisoner for Mr T, but rather as his writing and videoing bitch. The day I was going to leave I noticed he was struggling over a descriptive piece for a trek being led out of the hostel and I said, 'I can do that'. And he said, 'OK, then'. And that's how I ended up getting four nights, including two on a trek, all meals and my ticket to Phenom Penh paid for, which was pretty bloody sweet.

Unfortunately the trek was far harder than I thought it was going to be - a lot more difficult and painful than the one in Chiang Mai - and the trip home on motorbikes ended up being a muddy nightmare too. The same distance took an hour on the way, but after some rain took four and a half hours, in the pitch black, with one minor and one fairly major fall thrown in for good measure. I was going to do a whole post on it. Even had a name for it - Scar Trek. But I didn't bother in the end. I made a video for the trek as well, which I'll post on Vimeo soon for you to see. I'm not in it that much as I took all the footage, but that's possibly a selling point for you bastards. Why won't you let me in?!

So that brings me, finally, to Phenom Penh, where I'm sitting and writing this in the Sweet Home Guset House - genuine spelling error. Classic. The capital is everything I thought it was going to be, which is fast, fun and full of freaks. I've had a couple of nights out, experienced clubbing Cambodian-style (I've still got it, incidentally. You never lose it) and taken in the sights of the Royal Palace and Central and Russian markets. Called Russian for no reason at all - but if you were looking for reason, you've come to the wrong continent.

I also went to the infamous Killing Fields that pay testament to the atrocities perpetrated by Pol Pot in the mid to late 70s. An appropriately ghoulish experience, which included a visit to the torture prison S21 with its notorious photographic categorisation of the victims that made their last journeys there all those years ago. What surprised me most about this trip was the fanfare made and beauty grown out of the violence. Auschwitz is a cold, gloomy and grey place that reflects the horror born out of it, but the sunshine, flowers and well-kept grounds of the Killing Fields seemed incongrously juxtaposed with the subject matter. The remains that continue to sprout from the earth and the stories I heard will stay with me for a long time. Truly the saddest wank I've ever had. Joke, joke, joke, joke! Don't be angry - we all have our coping mechanisms.

So that's your lot for now. Thanks to an unprecedented three comments last week. Witchfinder general, I raise a glass to you, although I have no idea who you are. Thanks for joining in. Al, spot-on again - still don't have your new email, mateski. Come on, touch me, bruv. And Rob - where would I be without you? Certainly more bereft of blog comments for a start. I need more time to think of other consequences of a life without you. Tuk-tuk, sir?!

Traveller Checks

A little while ago I wrote a post while teaching about the different types of teachers. As this resulted in the virtual standing ovation that was zero comments I've decided to do the same thing again with travellers. Vitriol and spite fans, it's been too long.

The Bargain Hunt:

That could be rhyming slang for this particular brand of roamer. For them it's all about how cheap you can get absolutely anything, regardless of the minimal saving and the maximum discomfort. They'll brag continually about how they stayed on a plank of wood in Cambodia for less than the cost of a paperclip and massage their hands together gleefully as a pulsating grub arrives at the table between two leaves of freshly peeled tourist skin. If you pay more than 20p for dinner - including relaxing massage and signed ping-pong - they'll screw their pugnacious faces up in disgust and follow that with an incredulous grin, as though you're some kind of mug. Funny because it's exactly the same face the locals pull as they gag and heave their way through their grub grub. Bargain Hunt will tell you it's all about immersing yourself in the experience, but I'd argue that to do just that you don't have to sit naked by a rusty water pump with your swollen belly as flies plumb greedily at your eye jelly.

The Smug Fuck:

And it's a re-entry into the top five for this variety of teacher and traveller, but the conventions are altered slightly. This is the wanderer who, whenever you mention something heinous, have no idea what you're talking about. For example, when you scratch your weeping, bleeding legs to satiate bite after bite, they'll gaily exclaim that, 'oh, I'm not really troubled by the mosquitoes. If you put it out of your mind I find they don't bother you.' Suffering relentless attacks by the bloodthirsty flying gits is not a state of mind. If anything the little bastards find a 'chilled' attitude a welcome relief from the scorching heat. Speaking of which, the Smug Fucks also never endure the sun's compulsion to flay the skin right off your face: 'I didn't even put any lotion on today and look at you!' I'll have my revenge when, in about 10 years, your dermis looks like an old paper bag and mine's still milky fresh. I can wait.

Traveller Police:

This lot have their radars ready wherever they go, listening out to contribute their opinions and stamp out even the merest Western sensibility. Their answer to every nuance of frustration is, 'well, you're in _______ now.' which can be filled in according to whatever country you're unfortunate enough to make their acquaintance. This can be about anything, from getting no sleep, to being horribly ripped off or just getting annoyed with the perpetual inconsistencies of what is told to you and what actually occurs. Much like the actual police, Traveller Police are always there at exactly the point you don't want them. Say you've just done a particularly gruelling overnight bus journey, had no sleep and are pleading with some confused-looking, but very loud locals to keep it down because if you don't rest soon there'll be that blacking out thing again where you wake up surrounded by body parts. 'Hey, you're in Laos now, buddy', they unhelpfully smirk through their matted dreadlocks. And then the darkness.

Obnoxious teenagers:

Young, dumb and rude to their mums. I caught one of these freshly squeezed ball fruits actually arguing with 'mom' in a shared internet cafe about being safe: 'Mom, I am sensible! The car paint will come off! God!' Loud displays of hateful rhetoric fuse naturally into further demonstrations of how to ignore absolutely everyone around you and frankly give a shit. Rude to the locals, this lot want their Ibiza holiday anywhere they can and happily ruin a good night out for everyone else with their karate chop dance moves and incongruous drug abuse. The OTs parade their annoyingly perfect bodies around, wide-eyed and gurning, to the shock and awe of the indigenous people in their pursuit of the ultimate high in the most unlikely and inappropriate of places. Fun to watch as they nod in drug-addled approval for their brethrin, who jive and grind their buns off in front of a bemused-looking monk. Still, the drug police can only be round the corner - I wonder if they know the butt-fuck boogie? So good it hurts. A lot. For years.

The Besters:

An irrepressibly, to the point of utter delusion, positive group of trippers who have always had the best, happiest, most amazing, pant-wettingly incredible time and if you haven't - well, they just shake their heads slowly in mock sympathy. If you went on a trek and had fun, their time was more meaningful than just fun. If you enjoyed your time at a waterfall, they reached new levels of mystical enlightenment round the corner - oh, didn't you see that part? If you tried a local whisky and got a bit squiffy, they have stared into the eye of Buddha himself - who was grateful for the opportunity to meet them. A difficult bus ride is an experience you grow from; a lying, cheating travel agent is all about the experience; experience, experience, experience, experience, experience. This morning we were all woken abruptly and loudly at 4am by the local temple as they celebrated the life of an old woman who died recently. 'Singing', chanting, music that sounds just like the noise a Spectrum made when it was loading, all played through a speaker system that could be heard over 20km away, while happily only being 1km away from us - because God loves amplification. A Bester came down bleary-eyed and crease-headed but still smiling. 'It's good', she said. 'I really liked the sound. Amazing.' Cunt.

Just as I did with the teaching categorisation, I need to think about where I fit into all this. Well, I'm too much of a fussy shit to be a Bargain Hunt and have way too much self-loathing to be a Smug Fuck. Too moody to let the locals get away with it, so can't be a member of the Traveller Police and, let's face it, too hairy and crusty and about 15 years too late to be a teenager, leaving just The Besters. Overwhelmingly positive...? Hmm. No. I guess I'm actually the opposite of each of these sorts - but that's not necessarily a good thing and I'm certainly not blowing my own trumpet. I don't even have a trumpet. My experience out here is about trying to get by without offending anyone (too late) and making the most of it while trying to avoid being ripped off (fat chance) and sunburnt. Also, apparently, to sit in judgement upon all others from my septic and toxic point of view. Who do I think I am? I'm worse than the whole lot of them.

Thanks to my glorious girl for her comment last week - although it was a little hateful. Maybe I'm rubbing off on you a little bit? Sounds rude. Will be. By the way, I've uploaded a video of my first few weeks here, if you're at all interested. See it here: http://vimeo.com/30932580 Bwye!

127 Laoers

I can't believe it's only been a week since we last spoke. I have no idea where to begin - I've seen and done more amazing things than you could crack a whip at; met people I liked, people I hated (more of these, obviously, as it's my wont) happy locals, indifferent locals, surly locals. Fallen off a bridge, tubed down a river, got bitten endless times by mosquitoes, popped a few of the fuckers when they're too fat to fly away on my blood. Drank in quite possibly the most hedonistic bar I've ever been to, been undefeated on the pool table and slept in majesty and squalour, all for less money than the entrance fee to Alton Towers. This has been the last 127 hours in Laos(ers)

The slow boat journey into Laos from Chiang Mai took three days and included two hostel nights, a flash of blind panic, a little bit of sick and the cumulative erosion of my arse. The scenery on this trip was simply breathtaking. On either side of the Mekong - yeah, the bloody Mekong - vast wildernesses of jungle shrubbery interwove like only undomesticated and feral forests can - entangled and intertwined with one another in a series of frozen embraces like a Pompeian silent disco. This for hour upon hour almost distracted from the bot-bot gently crumbling beneath me but I'm not putting a photo of it on this post.

Getting into Luang Prabang after three days travel, the pace of the trip slowed considerably, which is no easy task after the slow boat. The surroundings were a manufactured beauty, but no less striking for it. After I relented to the first guesthouse to beckon me in, I put my bags away, had a shower and then walked out into the quickly erected night market right outside my digs. The streets were lit by an array of colours from the lanterns and candles which adorned them. It was like walking through a firework display up in the clouds, without any sound. The people were calm and friendly and no-one pushed and pulled you through the market with the desperation I'd witnessed over and over again in Thailand.

The night market came with its own fast food outlet down an alleyway, where plumes of traditional smells stung the eyes and rumbled the tum. The waterfalls were a spectacle in the coming days and offered a chilled relief from the biting heat that scratched at your skin like kitten claws in the midday sun. The festival provided a chaotic mix of music, temples, candled offerings floating down the Mekong and two fingers flicked at any sense of safety as fireworks bounced off your arm and exploded a foot away. I have to say, very difficult not to lose it at the kids for doing this, but instead I sated myself by swearing a lot at them and glaring. You know, that terrifying glare of mine. Picturesque in the extreme, but it still doesn't make it as the post photo.

Four hours from the still tranquillity of Luang Prabang, party city Vang Vieng rose from the touristic desire to experience the splendour of Laos countryside from the comfort of an inner tube. Rent one for the day and spend it drinking heavily in the bars dotted along the route and swinging into the water from their various equipment - this included a trapeze, a slide, a rope, an air bag, or just a fall, which I opted for after tucking a few too many local whiskies away. I felt more out of place than Stevie Wonder at the Imax in my UV protection t-shirt, green wanker hat and sporting my usual cadaver chic skin colour, but the beautiful ones looked pretty stupid too. Enough strutting to make a peacock blush, they lushed and pounded their way around the bars with that inimitable and unswerving confidence that only the very young can get away with. Now I know how it feels to be an 80-year-old woman and twitch nervously at the curtain when you hear that loud jungle music pulsing down the street. Incidentally, get some music of your own, ball-fruit - every single tune was a remix from when we ruled the earth. We still rule - I'm pretty sure of that. Stunning natural vistas, but even that didn't make the grade this week.

After drinking too much, the next day was about taking it easy - Easy Rider, that is! Hired a motorbike (with shopping basket accessory for added credibility) and bumped down the 'roads' to a beautiful blue lagoon which bubbled and steamed as I entered after the baking ride. So much fun and made all the better by the cave which lay above the lagoon after a steep 200 metre climb. This was quite superb and a real trial to conquer. No guide meant that it was down to us and our torches to navigate around the stalactites and stalagmites in the pitch black. Almost as soon as you enter, the light shone in through the mouth and lit up a golden Buddha lying on its side and shining in the sunlight. I've never seen anything so striking and just plain foreign. For once I felt like Dr Jones and that's why, after all the astonishing sights and unbelievable moments of the last week, that's the picture which makes it. Check. It. Out.

In the capital Vientiane at the moment (the capital city) awaiting a bus-bus-boat to 4,000 Island in the southern most tip of the country where I'm told the amazing displays will continue. Just ate a fried cricket, which was easily the most disgusting thing I've ever done, but it's about the experience, and it all contributes. Even if I will be pulling cricket legs from my teeth for the next day or two.

Thanks to mainstays Al and Rob for last week's comments. Al, if it makes you happy I'll admit it. She did offer the reach-around though, so that's mutually respectful, right? Also, I emailed you at your old email address - is this still correct? Message me, dammit! Rob, as you can see, it doesn't seem to be me that can't get over it. Get a Pop of your own - this one's taken. Cap chai.

Snap, Cankle and Pop - Part Two

So it turns out I wasn't the only one to suffer at the hands of Chiang Mai's after hours mean streets that night. Every single other person who stayed out later after the boxing encountered the same fate, except they didn't have a guy-girl guide guiding them back. In fact, it was revealed early in the AM that AM was the swiftest to return, with a new Commonwealth record of two hours and 34 minutes; the others took considerably longer - but they were considerably drunker and were trying, in vain, to find a mysterious and hitherto unbeknownst guesthouse by the name of The Holiday Guest Village Guesthouse. This, needless to say, does not exist.

So after next-to-no sleep (but still more than the others, who made it back about 30 minutes before we left - in all reality) I packed my bags and got ready to begin the first of my treks here in SE Asia. Although I was emboldened by the others' vampiric pallors, I still felt as rough as Pop's chin and the prospect of hiking through the tropical jungle in the sweltering heat was about as attractive as a backstreet Bangkok blood transfusion. The journey to our first stop was a muted affair and centred mostly around the desire to locate and consume lots and lots of water - this was a matter of urgency and fortunately a quick stop at a garage and local market allowed for this and for strength to slowly return. Plus a good chance to look, point, laugh, gag and marvel at a traditional local market. Always strange, always wonderful.

Our first stop on the tour was at the elephant 'sanctuary'. I put this in quotes as it was far from a sanctuary for these poor beasts. It became a bit of a moral dilemma for me and I really thought I just wouldn't be able to ride along because they were clearly being mistreated. Their huge grey heads were peppered with sickle marks where the drivers used painful spikes to guide them one way or the other and while some lolloped reluctantly towards us for our ride, others were brutally chained to the ground and spent the entire time taking one step forward and another backward in a textbook example of trauma and boredom. Still, I got to feed them lickle 'nanas on the way - come on, Nelly, carry me round the forest - no! sickle, sickle The other way! I felt so bad, but thought the organisers may get offended if I didn't go and it could create a big scene. I'm so weak. Sorry, Nelly. (tender sickle)

After the elephant abuse we ate lunch, building our strength for the first part of our trek. Dutifully the heavens opened during the eats and drenched the surroundings in a deluge of biblical proportions. With this unrelenting, we took up our possessions, wrapped ourselves in more plastic than freezer-bound leftovers and made the first tentative steps into the jungle. The guide, Nop (he preferred us to pronounce it Nob - not a problem for me) wore nothing but shorts and a T-shirt and skipped and twirled his way through the monsoon conditions as we huffed and heaved behind. The initial intention was to avoid getting completely saturated, but it's funny how quickly those inherent sensibilities leave you when you slip and fall for the 3rd time. I think the phrase you eventually come to is: fuck it. Tiny rivulets of snot, sweat and rain trickled purposefully into my mouth, giving the whole experience a distinctly salty hue, but about an hour in I realised something - I was loving it!

The surroundings were intriguing at worst and breathtaking at best. I've left a pic at the top of the post for your delectation - now in cool new panoramic! The jungle was hard and, make no mistake, treacherous (one of what became a very trek-based dialogue - see also arduous and painstaking) but it was the sense of achievement felt by every one of us by the time we reached our camp for the night which spurred us on through the paddy fields of the following day and the just downright dangerously thin and slippery bamboo bridges of the next. The hiking was filled with snakes, spiders, slips, falls, swearing, rain, mud, terrifying sensations of cobwebs breaking in your face and the sure knowledge of jungle spiders on you (getoffme, getoffme!) but the evening brought bathing in waterfalls, Nop's delicious massaman curry, singing, stories and beery silliness making it all worthwhile. Add tribal villages, a sprained ankle (there's your Snap) and an allegic reaction on my left foot (and finally your Cankle) and you have a memory to be cherished forever.

Here's to you, guys, and the treacherous Thai jungle. Cheers.