Woody and Tink Across the Globe

Wednesday, 11 August 2010

Well, it's never too early.....is it?

There's no two ways about it, monsoon season is definitely here. Woody's even been sporting a rather fetching see-through yellow poncho, although photographic evidence to support this claim has been destroyed. My word against hers. At times the rain has been oppressive, so insistent. So piss-istent as the joke goes. It's a blanketing rain that is in so many ways just like stepping into a hot power-shower, made all the more exhilarating by having all our kit in tow - and the flip-flops, God's sake the flippin' flip-flops. Shut up about the flip-flops. Within miliseconds a layer of water becomes trapped between the sole of the foot and the surface of the 'flop. Combine this with the layer of water between the pavement and the sole of the 'flop and you get an exciting double-aquaplaning action which makes walking less than easy. It makes running for a bus while jumping puddles with a twenty kilo rucksack a miracle to rival Jesus walking on water.

We escaped mainland Thailand and headed for our own wee slice of island bliss on Koh Payam, a quiet little island in the Andaman Sea. We found ourselves a small bamboo hut and set up camp there for a few days. The joys of having an outdoor bathroom with no roof during monsoon season. In a way Koh Payam is like Neverneverland (think Peter Pan not Michael Jackson). In Neverneverland you have the indians in one area of the island, pirates in another and Pan and his lost boys in another. Here there are the monks to the North, sea gypsies to the South and a small colony of ex-pats by the pier. Walking along the vast beaches we had the whole space to ourselves, save for the wild dogs who'll follow along just for something to do. They must just enjoy the company, maybe the feeling of 'being walked' - desperate for attention are those wee tingies. The storms come in quick and fast on the island but we had a little makeshift porch so we could sit and watch the different characters going about their days. The orange-robed monks wake up at about 4am (funnily enough we missed that bit) and start their chanting. We could hear it from our hut, melodic and haunting but pretty nice mixed in with the crashing of the waves. A bell rings at 11am which drives the dogs mental and signals the monks for their meal. Or as I'd call it - Elevenses. Forget about a SodaStream and a pack of Golden Wonder - they have the full work up, they have to do all their eating by midday, 'else Buddha doesn't like it. Bellies full, they do a bit of praying, watch a bit of telly and smoke their religious little lungs out before early to bed to repeat the process the next morning. The sea gypsies have the beach in the southeast and seem to spend their days fishing and generally dicking about on boats - as you'd fully expect a sea gypsy to do. And then there's the ex-pat community. Not extensive, but we met a few old chaps who evidently spend their days in paradise boozing it up to the max, and why not? I think it takes a 'special' kind of person to be able to completely up sticks and move permanently to an island with a population of about 80, but then when you see how utterly relaxed and not-bothered-about-anyfink these old dogs are you can definitely see the benefits. There was the one chap, Eliot. Imagine if Kaa, the slightly effeminate snake from 'The Jungle Book' had a lovechild with Keith Richards, that's what Eliot looked like. He waxed lyrical about the differences between island life and the UK: "Yessss, it's beautiful here. Well, I wouldn't ssssay Edinburgh's pret-ty, but it's very.....hmm, what's the word..... aussss-tere". He's right about the first part though - beautiful island...

Back on the mainland we spent a couple of nights in tsunami-ravaged Khao Lak. The 2004 tsunami devastated the town, but the beach and the resorts seem to have got back on their feet pretty quicksmart. After a couple of days walking the immense beach we headed for an uncomfortable night in an empty Phuket airport with only our cheese sandwiches and each other for company before jetting off to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Four years ago, our very favourite small, attractive and accident-prone brunette photographer spent time in Cambodia and returned in 2010 to find it much changed. Woody worked at an orphanage down by the lakeside, spending her days laughing and playing with the orphans, and fell in love with the country and it's people. A disappointment, then, to find out that this entire area of Phnom Penh has been transformed into a tourist hotspot full of guesthouses and pubs and that the project she so enjoyed no longer exists (at least not in it's past form - tuktuk drivers now offer trips to orphanages as 'tourist attractions'). The Cambodian people, though, still remain as friendly and warm as she remembered. Arriving in the Cambodian capital was an instant bombardment, an assault on the senses. The city is chaotic, and navigating it is like playing the most nerve-racking level of the old computer game 'Frogger'. Motorbikes, tuktuks and bicycles zip around with a seemingly 'by any means neccessary' attitude - on the pavements, on the wrong side of the road, anything goes. Crossing the road demands commitment - just keep going and they'll avoid us, just keep going and they'll avoid us. So far it's worked - we just keep going, and they avoid us. There must be a cool, Cambodian way to do it, but we've yet to discover their secret as far as road crossing is concerned. For all the chaos, we felt instantly charmed by Cambodia. The Khmer people are among the smiliest, most tactile people we've encountered on our travels, and you pick up that energy so quickly. Of course the country (and especially Phnom Penh) is steeped in a bloody history of torture, cruelty and execution from the seventies. At times while padding around the streets there's this haunting feeling. Anyone over the age of thirty survived the brutal regime of the Khmer Rouge, and this feeling crops up when you see someone over the age of fifty: "What did you do? What was your part to play in all of it?" They either survived, or commited the atrocities that are documented at Tuol Sleng - the S21 Prison, and Choeung Ek Killing Fields. We walked through the blood-stained hallways and cells of the prison, a sombre and spooky place, relatively untouched since it was abandoned in 1979. Ghostly mugshots of former inmates stare at visitors and it's an unsettling experience. Equally disturbing is the skull-filled tower at the Killing Fields, which stands as a memorial to the lost souls. Walking between the mass graves even now scraps of prisoner's clothing and even bones are exposed as the monsoon rains hammer down and wash away the earth. So it's a city of opposites really: everywhere you look there's this movement, activity, life going on. At the same time there's the undercurrent of brutality and death. Pretty heavy going, all in all...

So far one of the things that has proved to be really interesting about Cambodia are the various abandoned buildings which have just been left to gather dust all over the country. In Kampot we trekked through the jungle and ascended the 1000-odd metre Bokor Hill to visit the Black Palace. It's an old casino and ghost town from the twenties which was abandoned by the French when Khmer Rouge forces stormed the area in the 1975. Supposedly haunted by the ghosts of unsuccessful gamblers who threw themselves from the cliffs in despair, it's a place straight from a horror film, or a Steven King novel. Dingy corridors with an inch of rainwater which has leaked in from the crumbling roof, dark rooms with smashed up bathrooms and wind howling through the window frames. If I was a junkie, I think it would be exactly where I'd want to shoot up. It's perfect. The surrounding mist adds a ghostly feel, but the pink and orange moss which covers the building from entrance to the the top balcony makes it look like it was invaded by aliens - the best place to gamble in all Cambodia. In Battambang there is a deserted railway station and repair sheds, as well as an old Pepsi bottling plant just out of town, abandoned some thirty-odd years ago. Peering through the windows there are shelves and shelves of the old-school Pepsi bottles (the ones that say PepsiCola in swirly red letters) and some old uniforms hanging up. The good thing about the monsoon season is that there are less tourists, so these little gems almost appear to exist for us to enjoy alone, at our leisure.

The streets of Battambang were also where a group of old men picked up the "Friendliest Cambodians of the Day" award, for their generosity in providing us some culinary delight - a bag of crickets no less. They must have seen the glint in Woody's eye as she checked out their bag of crunchy snacks, and were quick to offer up a sample. Probably half expecting us to politely turn down the offer, the old chaps were delighted to see us gamely delve into the bag and munch the heads off these plasticky wee creatures. Not bad - tastes like chicken... "You one more, you like? You like?" There's only one way to reply to that, in the style of English soft rockers 10cc -

"I don't like cricket.................. I love it"

Saturday, 24 July 2010

Yes Mr Lebowski - Phuket - that's your answer to everything...

The people looked different, I think they looked.....Asian. And they were speaking a different language, I think it was....Asian. Long gone are the days of leisurely strolls down to the Lyttelton Coffee Company to lounge around with the cuzzie bros, driving around the port hills in the Su-BAR-u, and early morning repeats of the World Cup on the ol' SKY telly box. All are now but distant memories of time well spent. As is the idea of fresh air, which seems a foreign concept in the humid monsoon season of Southern Thailand. It's boiling hot and humid all day round. But that's not a complaint, because it feels flippin' great to be back on the road again.

After another ten day 'break from travelling', exploring Phuket island with Woody's mum and Peter, eating hefty bacon breakfasts and doing things we couldn't normally afford to do, I feel it's appropriate here to re-reinforce just how lucky we are both feeling to be standing at the beginning of yet another spectacular looking path. It has meant a lot to be able to share some of the experiences along the way with our families. It seems to be a rarity in the backpacking world (which can be 50% legends and 50% wankers, depending on your location) to do that - to meet family along the way, and it's a blessing that we've been fortunate enough to do that. To have had a year which has seen us having Christmas on a Florida beach with Dorothy and Peter, been drenched by the majestic force of the Iguazu falls with my dear ol' ma and sister, meandered from winery to winery in the Autumn sunshine of the Marlborough region with my dad - the Rabster - and LJ, and shared countless meals, stories, jokes and laughs with Anneli and Keith in Lyttelton is nothing short of astounding.

It's also important to say here that without Anneli and Keith's unfaltering kindness to take our scruffy little selves in for much longer than they bargained for, the trip would have taken on a different (probably less interesting) shape. New Zealand would have ended up costing us an arm and a leg - much more than we'd anticipated. Effectively, their kindness is a huge part of why we're able to start this next chapter, to come and enjoy South East Asia. Amen to that.

That's not to mention the innumerable emails and phonecalls coming from home (cheers to Brian and Linda) which really mean a lot, and the Christmas and birthday gifts which have been sent out to us. In short - make no mistake, we know how lucky we are to have you all. Bless that, and thankyou.

Hey that's all a bit heavy for an 'exciting first blog from Asia', but it won't happen again so there you go. Normal service will be resumed in three....two....one....

You've got mail...............GENITALIA. Is it gay if you think a ladyboy's good looking? Just joking - but not really. Surely it's not gay if they look like a girl - that wouldn't be gay would it? Not gay if they look female. Surely. Who cares. In Trainspotting, Renton says something along the lines of "it's not about being gay or straight, it's just about who ye fancy". Either way, Dot and Peter descended into Thailand and dragged us straight into the gutter to see a ladyboy cabaret show in Patong. Simultaneously hilarious and strange. More silicon breasts than you could shake a stick at. Indeed some of the ladyboys in question could shake a stick at it, if you know what I'm sayin'. (What I'm sayin'.........is that some of them had dicks. get it? Sticks/dicks? It rhymes.) It's all fine by me - those trannies can sing. Well, they can mime with the best of them at any rate...

Besides the highbrow culture there was a birthday trip to the stunning limestone islands around Ao Phang Nga, the area where Roger Moore and Christopher Lee duked it out in the 007 film 'The Man With the Golden Gun'. That film is a boyhood treasure and the day didn't disappoint. Whizzing around in a speedboat, surrounded by flying fish, snorkelling in the crystal waters with the sun beating down, exploring lagoons and caves and even getting caught in a downpour in a mangrove - and that was Tuesday. There was also plenty of opportunity to engage with some of Thailand's wildlife on Phuket island. We went on an elephant trek into the hills above Kata, with excellent views of the Andaman Sea below, checked out a gibbon rehabilitation centre and had an interesting encounter with some 'nibblefish'. The idea behind a 'Fish Spa' is that you dunk your feet in a tank full of these 'nibblefish' and if you stay still, they start to eat the dead skin cells off your little piggies. You could liken the sensation to that of pins and needles - not entirely unpleasant but slightly un-nerving. After twenty minutes I'm not convinced that my feet were any softer. Granted, with extended flip-flop wearing it would take a shark with a chisel to soften up these bad boys. We also took in a snake show where, in between shrieks of terror from Dorothy and delight from Woody, me and Peter were bound at the calf by a huge python. It constricted us below the knee quite uncomfortably, until it was peeled off by Jimmy, his handler.

From one bonding experience to another, we were lured off the street by a friendly Nepalese tailor angling for a sale. He dubbed Peter 'The Boss' and me 'The Brother'. in another time and place that's a Marvel crime-fighting duo just waiting to happen. Woody and her mum wre charmed by a young girl across the street - pashminas were bought. Four return trips to the tailor later, the Boss's suit fitted and final alterations made to the 'Brothershirt'. All we need now is a batcave, a butler and a fancy car and we're good to go...

Phuket town itself was a really interesting place to explore. Late last year, my esteemed colleague Garry Weir visited and asserted the following: "Somewhat fortuitously I was staying inland in Phuket town" G. Weir, Nov. 2009. I would agree with that entirely. Their is a noticeable Chinese influence in the architecture of the town, so after D+P jetted off we decided to hang around an extra day and pad around the streets. Plenty of temples, monks and human activity to keep us going for the day - as the sun went down we watched some tai-chi, yoga, keepy ups and muay-thai training all happen withing one hundred feet of each other, the groups all sharing the space in total harmony. We ducked out of a downpour to enjoy some classic Thai food and some classic Thai rum. Why is the rum always gone? You know why Woody, you know why....

Back on the buses, over the other side of the Andaman coast to Krabi. Here we met some most excellent South Africans who are among the best people we've met on our entire trip so far. Kyle and Marene are a great laugh. Their pride for Africa is only matched by their powers of persuasion. After only a couple of hours we were all geared up to join them the next day for another speedboating adventure round the Phi Phi islands, aquamarine sea and beautiful beaches. Indeed one beach so beautiful it was used as the beach in the film of the same name. Which was called 'The Beach'. We jumped off the front of the boat to swim and snorkel - plenty of danger in them thar seas, sea snakes and painful looking black sea urchins among the more visible of them. As we pulled up to the last island of the day, a cracking monsoon battered the beach below. We sat in the sea as the warm rain racketed down all around us and looked out over the turquoise waters up to the threatening skies above. A surprisingly calm and peaceful experience and a definite highlight of the day. That was Wednesday...

In South America it was often impressive to see just how many people it was possible to cram onto a single moped. Standard two, sometimes three, maybe four at a push. In Thailand they're really on top of the game; entire families, pets included, buzzing and weaving down the road seemingly as light as a feather. In Krabi there were plenty of motorbike taxis eager to prove their credentials as expert balancers of people. Just the two of you? No ploblem. So with little compact Woody sandwiched in between the driver and me, all arms and legs like a baby giraffe perched on the raised pillion seat, he twists the throttle and away we go like some sort of macabre bi-racial circus sideshow. It's only marginally more comfortable than it sounds. On the way back into town our driver ran out of petrol - much to the hilarity of the locals at the side of the road. We walked, the three of us, to the nearest petrol station, our driver smiling and skipping around and pushing his bike along 'so sorry, so sorry"...

The reason for all the bikery was a trip to Wat Tham Sua - The Tiger Cave Temple. There's a 1237 step climb to the Buddha at the top and fantastic views out to sea and beyond to the islands. Best done in the middle of the day, I say, when the sun is at it's hottest. Cheers. Well worth the sweat and burning calf and thigh muscles for the view - as well as soaking up the spiritual atmosphere all on our own at the top. Down at the bottom there are monk's dwellings built into the side of the caves, where Woody got a few hundred photographs under her belt, relishing being back in some fascinating and unfamiliar culture. I think it's.....Asian.