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?!