"Light skin, dark skin, my Asian persuasion, I got them all that's why these girls out here hatin'...Cause I'm sexy."
The above words come from no brilliant philosopher, no celebrated poet. They are, instead, the heartfelt autobiographical confessions of professional sibling and nipple possessor Janet Jackson.
When looked at closely, the inner workings of this quotation reveal a number of pertinent observations as Jackson ponders the concepts of race, envy and even stumbling upon the reason so many millions of people suffer from bullying worldwide (because they're "sexy"). No, the most interesting and only loosely relevant part is the mention of that so befuddling a concept, an 'Asian persuasion'.
Now, that phrase could be linked to a litany of possible meanings and interpretations. Most commonly, of course, it refers to a sexual preference (of which there are no anecdotes attached, unless I were to diarise Matt Bundy's gap year). Moreover, a very simple explanation is that Asian people are, in the truest sense of the word, 'persuasive' - one would only need the briefest of glances at Brewin's shoes to know that. The manner in which I mean the phrase, however, is none of the aforementioned. It's simple. Asia has a magnetic lure, without lacking the indefinable charm of weakness. Frankly, it’s a warm, dirty potency that I could only realistically compare to that of Jaxx on a night where you only ever intended to go to the Prince Arthur.
And, what is more, it's over. We have left South East Asia's delicate, colourful and oft troubled shores for a Western environment again. Gone are the mountains of rice, tired eyes and difficult L pronunciations, to be replaced by flavourless lagers, fast food and proper traffic laws. An utter shame, but we attempted to make the most of those last oriental weeks; with the following being several things that happened, just with mass exaggeration, some entirely fabricated events and huge amounts of censorship. Enjoy.
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At the last count, some time in 1994, we were on our way out of Vietnam and heading to the little-known and often mis-pronounced country of Laos. Getting there entailed yet another bus ride, but this one was extra special. Now, a lot of people reading this will have a bus career based mostly around traveling for two or so hours popping from one large public school to another in the name of sport. Well this was thirty hours spent in Asian beds (4 foot coffins) with around 110 more people on board than was necessary, safe and legal. All aisles, nooks, crannies and so on were filled with bits of Asian people, interspersed with traumatized backpackers. What’s more, the on-board entertainment consisted of the same Vietnamese music video over and over and over and over, or for the more energetic types you could attempt to clamber to the toilet over all the sleeping people.
(I realize that I spend an awful lot of time writing about how atrocious these journeys are, but in Asia they happened so darn often and made such an impact that it's terribly difficult to avoid them; a weekly horror on the scale of Charlie Dimmock's inexplicably braless nipples throughout every single episode of 'Ground Force' ever made. How Tommy even knew where to look, I shall never know. )
Within the harrowing journey, having moseyed through the 'official' border crossing in Laos (pay a man 30 dollars), we halted our progress in the country's capital, Vientiane. The city fails in offering anything for a traveler to write about, other than its own emptiness, shortcomings and fountain. Yes, it had a nice fountain. But then so does Basingstoke.
Après ça (which means 'after that'), we ventured to the charming riverside town of Luang Prabang. Here, we did things like ride bicycles, explore markets and marvel at how lovely the Laotians are. Truly the most laidback people in the world, they possess an almost British sense of humour, and immediately latched on to the fact that James Brewin is easily wound up – not giving him a mattress to sleep on until he was tired, irritable and partially undressed. A fine prank.
They weren't all sadistic amateur comedians, though. In fact, the Laotians make the Cambodians seem like miserable, adolescent Smiths' fans when it comes to a sunny outlook. They are, frankly, absurdly happy. In London, for example, if one were to cycle in the street shouting ‘Good day!’ to passers by, they would probably be stabbed or sectioned within minutes. Do it in Laos though, even from a huge distance or from car to car, they’ll just smile and shout ‘Sabaii-Di’ back at you. Being disarmingly happy and pleased to see you, the only reason you would not receive an enthusiastic greeting from a Laotian would be if it was just too darn tiring; and that lethargic way is perhaps their most notable feature. The Laotian people take ‘relaxed’ to a frightening level. You may have noticed that Thailand have built a megacity, gained a massive tourism industry and like to fight each other; while Cambodia have had a thoroughly rocky ride in the last few years and Vietnam had a right old go at the Americans - but what of Laos? They've done nothing, because creating infrastructure, committing genocide and hiding in tunnels looking for John McCain seems like ever such an effort when you could simply have a glass of rice whisky and a joint.
After having dinner with a Northern girl (see we're totally, like, tolerant of other cultures now) in a glorious restaurant overlooking the Mekong, it was time to sign our lives away and head to Vang Vieng – the backpacker capital. The town is most associated with 'tubing', which is one daytime outdoor activity that will not be part of David Cameron's 'big society' - but should. It involves sitting in a rubber ring on a river, floating down that river for a day and drifting to and from each of the 12 bars littered on the shore – (where each will give a free shot of whisky) and using their huge rope swings. This makes a fine recipe for a good time, especially when the river has a brilliant mishmash of deep water and sharp rock. It’s exactly the sort of activity that would inject some much needed popularity into the Duke of Edinburgh award.
For those days not spent on the river, people expend their days lying in any of the countless lounge bars, which all have sofas instead of seats, and a big screen showing Family Guy, Friends, Scrubs or the Simpsons. Hours and hours can be lost there, and the service tended to be the slowest and most casual we had ever seen. After ordering a meal from the single waiter (the most perennially exhausted man in the world) in our bar of choice – he would nod, sit down, watch an episode, and then fall asleep on his way to notifying the chef. We cared very little, but it was the sort of behavior which would ignite my father to carve an italicized letter of complaint into a stiff piece of cardboard.
In terms of nightlife, each evening in Vang Vieng consists of moving between three different bucket bars on the riverside. It may seem like a banal existence, but remember the inspirational words of Asher Roth: “time’s not wasted when you’re getting wasted”. Now, I have spoken once before about the dangers of buckets – and they really do decide your night, for by the morning you will be firmly in one of these two camps - buckets are either the cat's pyjamas, or the beverage embodiment of Lucifer himself.
Both of our nights in town featured this method of drinking, and tended to begin innocently enough with casual drinking, conversation and gawping at Scandinavians. Then, the slow corrosion of time leads to a rapid erosion of memory and sense as the dancing commences, buckets get filled and refilled, fire limbo strikes up and before you know it you're doing shots whilst getting a 'massage' from the female twin of All Blacks prop Neemia Tialata. Tim's neck has never been the same since. In fact, all I will say of the first night is that a number of questionable decisions were made, but that amongst the five of us some diplomatic progress was made with the Scottish, French, indistinguishable nationalities and 'spotty people'. The second night, meanwhile, can be neatly summed up by the various places people woke up: in a red ants’ nest on a building site, on the hotel roof and in a hammock at one of the bars and naked on a bathroom floor.
Feeling it necessary to flee the town before we lost our souls, we all headed back to Vientiane prior to going our separate ways, but not before we could see the most impressive sight of the travels to date. It was, put simply, a manifestation of masculinity so profound that it blew Ankor Wat, all the vistas and most of the girls out of the water in terms of impressiveness.
Rolling down a Vientiane street with little to do but gaze out of the window, there before us was a goat with the largest testicles of any creature to ever walk this earth. I mean that literally, too, for we saw those of an elephant later in the week and they were pathetic in comparison. These… ‘things’ were at least a third the size of its body, and that is only a slight exaggeration. It looked like the hideous result of an experiment to place Clifford the Big Red Dog’s two veg on a fairly diminutive Asian goat; science can be sick sometimes.
But enough of that, for the three of us were heading back for a final week in Thailand. First up was dropping into Chiang Mai for a week of frivolity before Bangkok. Chiang Mai is the calm, cultural and indie city of Thailand. It is to the capital what Melbourne is to Sydney, what Wellington is to Auckland and what Winchfield is to Hartley Wintney: the understated, chic alternative.
We spent a number of days in Chiang Mai, flitting round the place on mopeds, haggling in the oversized night bazaar and being so, like, cultural. This entailed some trekking, bamboo rafting, white water rafting, elephant riding and eating McDonalds in a power cut. The guesthouse here was most bizarre (or was it bazaar? Eh? Eh? No.) , and run by a fairy godmother figure, but less in the sense of Cinderella and more of Don Corleone, for whatever we needed, she would know a bloke who did it cheaper than anyone else. The out-building we stayed in, though, was manned by a perpetually shirtless chap who spent his entire day either showering or singing at the top of his voice.
The highlight of Chiang Mai, quite easily, was its zoo – which was essentially a large collection of caged animals, like a zoo. The difference, however, is that humans are not in charge. No, instead there is an arrogantly liberated peacock who manages to get into every enclosure, around every corner and at the scene of all the crimes, whilst at all times maintaining a front of haughtiness. The avian Hercule Poirot.
There may be fifty ways to leave your lover, but there are only three ways to exit Chiang Mai, and we decided to take a train. This train was fairly unremarkable, other than stopping for 10 minute breaks every 6 minutes and an outrageously attractive hostess, who had decided to alter her Thai Trains uniform to include a micro skirt.
Scuttling in to Bangkok, we returned to the place where it all began: the Khao San Road. When we left the city at the start of March, there were simmering protests by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinwatra’s followers – calling for an election. Five weeks later things had escalated quicker than a Lord Wandsworth 18th party (oh no he didn’t!), to the extent that the national monument was draped in Red, streets were controlled by rogue police and there were thousands upon thousands of colour-coded protesters camped throughout the main streets and shopping district, just yards from the Khao San. The Red Shirts, though, were entirely peaceful and just as lovely as all the Thais, as we spent the day meeting them and watching the protest. Their support, too, was enormous. Brewin and I went out that evening wearing protest headbands (because we entirely understood the situation and didn’t just think we looked fabulous) – an accessory which garnered us free shots, free entry, access to shut off streets and more handshakes than you could ever realistically want.
The days leading up to that weekend saw the troubles take a dramatic turn for the worst, as the government began firing on the protesters, using riot weapons and taking lives. It must be stressed that contrary to media reports, the army did fire the first bullet; governing with all the even-handed patience and understanding of a Lord Wandsworth management team (see that, SATIRE!). It strikes me that the situation in Bangkok - with the Red-Shirted protesters fighting the Yellow-Shirted pro-government supporters - is just the world’s largest traffic light party. All they need is to get the army in green shirts, have a drink in hand, pump up the bass and let what happens happen.
Our two nights in Bangkok were enhanced hugely by the presence of a clutch of friendly faces from the Home Counties, as we then had an excuse to see the ping-pong tournament once more, and have a wild night or two. The first went swimmingly, especially when I did a bit of swimming in the small hours. In short, towards the end of the night, after a number of bars, clubs, ‘shows’ and such – a man offered to take myself and Brewin to a club on the other side of town. This seemed a wonderful idea at the time, were it not for the club in question to be a backstreet brothel. Having given us a ride, drink, and time to chat to the selection of women, it quickly became apparent that neither of us had any intentions or money with which to support the establishment, so a ‘runner’ was necessary. This proved easy enough as both of us know how to run, and Thai people only have little legs. We were slowed down, however, by a wall in a car park that blocked our progress quite literally. Upon seeing this obstacle, I noticed what appeared to be a tunnel under the wall – and, deaf to the pleas of observation and common sense, promptly slide into it.
The tunnel was an open sewer.
In the much and rightly acclaimed ‘Shawshank Redemption’, Morgan Freeman mellifluously narrates that Andy Dufresne is the only man to “crawl through a river of shit and come out clean on the other side”. Morgan is entirely correct, for I crawled through a river of shit and came out the other side filthily covered in shit. Once out and having lost my t-shirt, debit card and dignity to the river – it was necessary to steal yet another tuk-tuk in order to get back to the hotel before the wretched evening came to a close. I can only really describe the experience as ‘character building’.
The Rolling Stones sang that ‘yesterday don’t matter, ‘cos it’s gone’ – but I definitely felt that it mattered in the morning, especially given that I had to launder those clothes, which an old lady willingly did for just a few baht. How vile.
After another heavy night, involving eating cockroaches and welcoming Matt Bundy’s newly 19 year old liver to the city, we popped onto a big bird bound for Sydney – fortunately just three days before violence hit the backpacker district.
And that, dear fellows, is Asia. The first chapter of the trip all done, dusted and then dirtied again. We saw just how horrible Bangkok is; covered the brilliant and heartbreaking Cambodia; the awesome, feral and multi-faceted Vietnam; the horizontally laid back Laos and the luminous Chiang Mai. We’ve eaten more rice than Sierra Leone, seen more temples than a retired head-masseuse, witnessed dogs being spit-roasted (something probably happening in hotel rooms across the area, too…) and quite a little bit more.
Myths about the area must be dispelled. There is, for example, very, very little crime aimed at backpackers. We met perhaps 3 or so people who have even heard of any. In fact quite to the contrary, a Cambodian tuk-tuk driver drove all the way back to our restaurant one night because Tim had left his wallet in the back, gladly returning what would have been perhaps a month’s wages. What’s more, they are not as good at kung-fu as Jackie Chan films would have you believe.
Asia is all about contrast and contradictions. One of the most amusing sights, for instance, was seeing Buddhist monks doing every day things. They live a life entirely devoted to God, spending most of their day meditating and shutting off all human desires – yet are still seen using ATMs, wearing hard hats and playing video games. To the same end, the diversity of shops is outrageous – like the florist who also sells knives, or the hotel receptionist who opened with ‘you want blow up cow?’.
In truth, nothing makes sense in the whole peninsula, and that’s wholly the way it should be. South East Asia is both vulgar and processional; grand and squalid; animal and noble.
But entirely brilliant.
Saturday 3 April 2010
Sunday 28 March 2010
'Turn and face the strange...'
Anybody who has seen even a trifling modicum of American film or television from the last 20 years will have encountered the now cliched character known only loosely as the 'embittered and mentally unstable Vietnam war veteran.'
This man tends to have permanent stubble and a voice that could be created only with the willing help of tobacco. He will have an irrational fear of ceiling fans, and yet spend most of his time lying on dirty mattresses, staring maniacally at them. His list of stock phrases will include 'You weren't there, man! You don't know!', 'I think, on balance, we had the moral victory.' and 'Actually honey, I'm gonna give Apocalypse Now a miss...Glee is on.' and his best friend in the whole wide world is a man named Jim Beam (because Jim doesn't judge him). Finally, this gentleman will only speak in a non-aggressive tone to other veterans of the second Indo-China war.
Well, I'm delighted to say that James, Tim and I would get on with this man like a house on fire. The reason? We've done it. Been to Vietnam, and survived. Pettifoggers amongst you may argue that 10 days backpacking up the country with a healthy budget and the seductive warmth of travel insurance does not compare in any way to a decade of guerrilla warfare - but they're actually remarkably similar. We made friends, made enemies, spent too much money and got headaches; so throw in some casual slaughter and chemical bombing of civilians and you have yourselves a like for like. Essentially, we know. We were there.
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The last time I wrote was upon arrival to Ho Chi Minh City, and there was to be our home for four days. Besides Bangkok, the city is perhaps the most Westernized on this whole oriental peninsula, as Adidas stores and Pizza Huts litter the streets like unwelcome gypsies with warrants for stay. I cannot criticise too heavily, however, as we did enter both of these establishments and enjoy their products with a sad sense of nostalgia. It must be said, though, that our main motive for having a Pizza Hut was to see if Jan (the haggard mutton-looking head waitress from their Basingstoke branch) would have a Vietnamese counterpart. She does not.
Formerly known as Saigon and later named after the 20th century president, Ho Chi Minh (a man who lives up to his name's first syllable by being used for absolutely everything out here), the most startling thing about the metropolis is its mopeds. They're everywhere. By night, every red light sees before it a gathering of perhaps 150 two-wheeled beasts, like the start of a lazy marathon, or the assembling of a paraplegic army (not that I can envisage any diplomatic crisis where such an army would be called upon). The mopeds make crossing the road as a pedestrian a subtle art, and one which we cannot wait to put into practice in London.
The city's most popular attraction is its 'War Remnants Museum', a collection of artifacts (including tanks, torture cages and helicopters) from the 70s conflict. By far the most vexing and horrific exhibits were the vast number of photographs capturing the napalm, phosphorous and Agent Orange victims both immediately and years after the attacks. Even worse is seeing them in person, begging at the city's market; their skull-like faces devoid of skin, muscle and expression; each and every one a singular piece of evidence for the pointlessness and hypocrisy of that war. In fact, the whole experience is one which evokes a mass dislike for the United States. Walking around the museum as Republican American must be one powerful yet slow erosion of that national pride and arrogance that they seem so keen to thrust at the rest of the world. What's more, marry the whole chemical bombing malarky to the fact that they had the audacity to attempt remaking the Pink Panther films, spawned Miley Cyrus and think it appropriate to sit the wrong way round on a chair - well those chaps have a lot to answer for. A lot to answer for.
Very little of note occurred in Saigon, in fact so little that the next paragraph is about a Cornish Pasty. I shall now give you a moment to scroll down past it.
Those of you who know him will be aware that James Brewin has a certain pride in his ability to eat a lot, to consume amounts of food that would make a dinner guest with a regular appetite say 'gosh, James, you eat slightly larger portions than I would expect.' Well, ladies and gentlemen, that reputation has gone. Finished, to never return. This fall from grace occurred in an Vietnamese Irish Pub (a niche if ever there was one), not two weeks ago. Faced with the challenge of 'Cornish Pasty, chips and veg' (simple, surely?), James managed merely three whole mouthfuls. Tim and I, bewildered but still able to finish our meals with consummate ease, soon became aware that we were watching the most patently unadulterated case of a great reputation turning to mush since Alan Titchmarsh sold his soul to ITV1. James will blame illness, fatigue and my own uncontrollable narrative exaggeration , but the truth is that - to quote Top Gun (something I try and do at least once a day) - his ego was writing cheques his body simply couldn't cash. Incredible, and please feel free to deride and mock him upon your next contact.
Now give yourselves a moment to let that sink in.
Our method of transport in Vietnam, as is the norm for travelers, was the mysterious 'sleeper bus'. Envisaging a Harry Potter-style double-decker creation with palatial King Size bed, four poster slumber havens and a peaceful night's transit; imagine my staggering disappointment when it turned out to be an over sized hearse designed purely to drive its passengers to insanity, insomnia and the beach resort of Nha Trang.
According to these people, a 'bed' was a four-foot leather board, with a third of that length being taken up by a ludicrously capacious foot-well. The best description I can come up with is this: imagine lying on a stretcher designed for a toddler, about to enter an MRI scan. You begin to move for a second or two into the tube, before a powercut halts all progress. Then you are asked to sleep.
What's more, once contorting your body and dislocating several major joints to fit in bed, the bus driver will do his utmost to ensure sleep is a distant pipe dream. He will do this in a number of ways. Firstly, in Vietnam it seems mandatory to make sure other drivers know you are there not by headlights or the position of your vehicle or just by being an enormous bus, but instead by holding one's hand on the horn until your journey is completed. In our case, 14 hours later. Secondly, whenever the driver or his assistant dropped anything, or needed a to see a map or felt their passengers had built up a resistance to the horn trick - they would turn on every single light on the bus at once, with police-interrogation style surprise. Still not drifting off yet? Well on top of that he will drive with all the care and manners of Nick Griffin guiding a tank through Leicester. The extent of the bumps led us to create the game 'Pothole or Child?', which caused genuine debate on a number of occasions.
We'd spent 7 years with Mr. Leyshon's Friday morning services and seen the England Scotland game the week before, so it wasn't the toughest psychological test of our lives - but it ranks.
Dropping into Nha Trang was welcome relief from the bus, so we spent the day getting obscenely sunburnt - mainly in Brewin's case. Brewin, who is thus far bumbling his way through Asia with all the grace and panache of Barney the Dinosaur on an LSD trip, turned entirely one colour for around a week after thinking it a terrific idea to use Baby Oil for sunscreen whilst spending a day on the beach. Tim also used the oil, but being 80% werewolf, he was fine. That ethnicity is all well and good now, but he wasn't laughing come the full moon, no sir.
Anyway after a night in Nha Trang we gathered no moss by scything up the coast to Hoi An, a World Heritage town half way up the country. We've seen a lot of World Heritage things on our trip - and Hoi An is nice, but in reality, if Winchfield isn't granted that status within a year then I'll eat my hat. And out here, I'm wearing enormously inedible hats.
Hoi An, though, is renowned for its tailoring - and rightly so. The streets are lined with shops which could make you any garment in any material, all bespoke, for a fraction of the European price. The temptation was massive, but Tim and I were admirable in resisting the charms of a pink three piece, or tweed bikini. You'll notice I did not mention Brewin - for he has revealed himself to be the most easily persuadable human since Eve (of Adam and - fame, in Genesis. No, not the Phil Collins band, the Biblical myth. Ok?). Having bought a shirt that even Holden wouldn't wear to a fancy dress party, James decided to buy a pair of custom-made canvas shoes, which was a slightly less intelligent investment than throwing his money in the beautiful river that runs through Hoi An. The finished product looked like ugly bowling shoes that've had a 3 year old throw up on them after over-indulging at the Pic N' Mix, but he loves them.
Next, whilst waiting for a bus in Hoi An, we witnessed the single greatest thing that traveling has managed to serve up to date.
For years, caterpillars in Hoi An have been stuck. Unable to break free from the shackles of the leafy verge provided by one side of this particular road, and longing for one of their kind to stand up and fight. That hero came in the form of Ranulph, a quite fat and odd looking caterpillar found one morning on a side-street. Ranulph was sick of the way his people were stuck in this rut of entrapment. Caged by their location, attacked by society and sparrows - caterpillars had it tough. What's more, non-caterpillars saw them as merely ugly preludes to butterflies; or worse - they compared them to the one caterpillar that made it into mainstream literature, Ian, whose eating disorder was ridiculed and simplified to portray him as simply 'very hungry'.
Ranulph had a dream. He had seen the promised land, where caterpillars could go either side of the road and be judged not on the content of their stomach but by the content of their character. He was going to this land, he had seen the greenery on the other side of the street and he said 'who's with me?'. Their answer? 'I'm alright over here, Ranulph, but you go ahead mate.' Not put off by their lack of adventure and presence of common sense, Ranulph embarked on a dramatic 8 minute march across the road. Timing it to perfection to dodge mopeds, lorries and blue tits, Ranulph made the distance and rejoiced in his findings. Six small steps for man, and around 140 awkward contortions for Ranulph. It was like Sir Walter Raleigh and Martin Luther King rolled into one, the greatest single act of courage since Ricky 'she bangs' Martin came out.
In truth, Ranulph has inspired us all to get on with our lives - to not be boxed in by our reputation and what people 'say' we can or cannot do. Essentially, he taught us to not stop believing, to hold out for a hero, to do something today to make us feel proud, to heel the world, to know that it's my life, it's now or never, to imagine all the people living for today, to recognize that we're the world's greatest, that we are never going give you up, never going to let you down, that everybody hurts and to dream the impossible dream. Thank you, Ranulph. Thank you.
After Hoi An was Hue, where we stopped for an hour or two to meet with Jamie and Holden. This was the beginning of a two week period of being 'Five'. I don't mean we spent a fortnight as the popular performers of 'Keep on Moving' and numerous other late nineties smash hits - but rather that we gained two people in our merry troupe. Having them back in the gang was a real delight, especially when Jamie immediately perks up with 'Guy, when was Sherlock Holmes alive?'. We had missed that.
With them, we powered on to Hanoi - the country's capital and an enormously compact and inconsistently developed city. When choosing a hotel I remembered what I'd read back home about John McCain's experiences at the Hilton. Frankly he should not have had such high expectations of a US hotel brand abroad, and kept his grievances to himself rather than basing a political career upon that 'injustice'. Whenever he was here he should have headed to 'Lollipub', for $4 a night they did all you'd expect and had the best name in all of Asia.
The main night out in Hanoi was centered around the Six Nations, which was surprisingly easy to find all over Asia. Again, an Irish pub was the venue as we embarked on six hours of pure, filthy, non-censored and hardcore rugby union. Drinking our way through the Wales game while Tim shouted 'araf!' 'Tom Jones!' 'leeks!' and other preposterous Welsh words at the television, we eventually made it to the England game...and the pub shut. It turned out that all pubs and bars close at 11pm in Hanoi, and thus finding a lock in was the only possible way. This was most irksome, so wandering the streets seemed the only way of finding such a place. And we found one, but not before losing Brewin, losing the pub, finding some Danish girls, taking them home, getting threatened by a taxi driver and a local with a bottle/brick, and finally getting locked out of our hotel room. A busy night, and topped off only by the ineptitude of Danny Care.
Hanoi is an interesting place, and not a massively nice one. It's for this reason that we decided to book a tour to Halong Bay (another bloody World Heritage site), where we'd experience a beautiful bay of oddly formed rocks, clear seas and enormous caves whilst staying the night on a Vietnamese 'junk' ('boat'). Except, we did not. The weather was atrociously foggy, the tour expensive and itinerary hugely exaggerated. What is more, the cruise involved another hilariously inept tour guide. We have no idea of the man's name, but we immediately called him Jack (to his confusion), owing to his ludicrous comb-over. It later turns out that it was Bobby Charlton, and not Jack, who had the famous comb-over. The name still sticks.
Jack, who was described as 'English speaking' but must have been fluent in cockney-rhyming slang or Cornish to earn such an ill-placed moniker, guided us through the caves of a mountain telling us not how they were made, or any particular facts or statistics, but stopping and pointing at any particular rocks that looked (to him) like a crocodile, Buddha, some cauliflower or, in one memorable case, like a man's penis. Thirty two dollars for a pervert with a laser.
As for our 'junk', well the food was portioned to be roughly enough for a shrew with a fever, but otherwise nice enough. Leaping from the sides of the junk into the bay was a highlight, as was spending the night sitting atop the boat, drinking, and listening to Bob Dylan. That made me think that without the Vietnam war, Dylan would have written about flowers and Marmite and rubbish stuff like that. So maybe it was worth it?
Alright it was not.
Come the morning, however, when the 'cruise' was set to end, the driver decided to delve into a lovely bit of blackmail - which was nice, as we'd not suffered that for at least a week. Upon leaving the boat, he demanded 5000 dong -
Which reminds me - the currency is called 'dong'. This led to much hilarity, as we could say 'Tim put your dong away', 'Brewin, just give the lady some dong and she'll be happy' and 'Guy, your dong just came out of your trouser leg! So did your money.' Brilliant, cutting edge humour there.
Anyway the driver demanded 5000 dong per can of whatever beer we drank, no matter if we bought it from the shore, Hanoi, Bangkok or Newbury, or we would not get our passports back. After arguing for perhaps 12 minutes, we saw our passports as more important than our pride (just), and left the boat feeling bitter and slightly racist.
That fiscal rape, I am afraid, is an overriding feeling from Vietnam. They want your money, and will charge wherever they can, for whatever they want. In addition, there's a terrible North/South divide here. In the South, the people are less likely to steal your money, are nicer with better manners, speak a little clearer and aren't as dirty. In the North, the people seem less welcoming and keep a keener eye on your wallet, they like to fight and lack a little in courtesy. *You may choose your own punchline to this lazy set up: (01) FOR 'Which reminded us a lot of England.' (02) FOR 'I guess Vietnam is alone in this... NOT!' OR (03) FOR 'My mate drowned in a bowl of muesli the other day, it's thought that a strong currant pulled him in.'
And that, ladies and gentleman, concludes Vietnam. We did it mighty fast, but saw an awful lot. A list of 'only in Vietnam' is easily created after the oddities of the nation. Only in Vietnam could a baby be riding on the back of a motorbike holding a gun. Only in Vietnam could a travel booking shop be so alarmed by customers that its staff have to wake up, dust themselves off, flip up a laptop to pretend they were working, have a shop covered in different ladies' shoes and then offer only a train ticket to one small town in the North. Only in Vietnam could a man use a circular saw on an iron girder in the middle of a busy street, and only in Vietnam could nine beers cost £1.24.
In a lot of respects the country is tremendous. It has it all in terms of mountains, beaches, shops, restaurants and travelers - but lacks Cambodia's naivety and Thailand's services. Vietnam is incredibly aware of its own beauty and potential for development on the grounds of tourism, resulting in it trying too hard to make money from the West, missing out on the chance to charm tourists with its people. It all just made me think, 'jeez, what's the West ever done to you?!'.
Oh, oh well fair enough then.
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I can't refrain from tendering a massive apology for the tardiness of this second blog (we are now in Chiang Mai and six days from Australia), but solemnly swear that the next - a roundup of Laos and Thailand - will be posted before we touch down in Sydney. I also understand that is was a long old read, so must ask - why did you waste that time? Take heed of Ranulph's example and get off that computer. 'Cross the road'.
Once more, love to all back home and please keep us posted with your news - but only the interesting bits as we probably won't read what you have to say if it isn't written in colourful capital letters, and concerns exciting things like guns, girls and car chases and cool stuff like that. We continue to miss you in those varied amounts I spoke of last time, however some people have even had a namecheck of late. So count yourselves lucky Georgie Maughan, Graham Smith, Isabelle Manley-Cooper, Fuller's London Pride, Ed Butler, Lizo Mzimba and 'being cold'.
Until next time, big love to all.
The Englishman.x
This man tends to have permanent stubble and a voice that could be created only with the willing help of tobacco. He will have an irrational fear of ceiling fans, and yet spend most of his time lying on dirty mattresses, staring maniacally at them. His list of stock phrases will include 'You weren't there, man! You don't know!', 'I think, on balance, we had the moral victory.' and 'Actually honey, I'm gonna give Apocalypse Now a miss...Glee is on.' and his best friend in the whole wide world is a man named Jim Beam (because Jim doesn't judge him). Finally, this gentleman will only speak in a non-aggressive tone to other veterans of the second Indo-China war.
Well, I'm delighted to say that James, Tim and I would get on with this man like a house on fire. The reason? We've done it. Been to Vietnam, and survived. Pettifoggers amongst you may argue that 10 days backpacking up the country with a healthy budget and the seductive warmth of travel insurance does not compare in any way to a decade of guerrilla warfare - but they're actually remarkably similar. We made friends, made enemies, spent too much money and got headaches; so throw in some casual slaughter and chemical bombing of civilians and you have yourselves a like for like. Essentially, we know. We were there.
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The last time I wrote was upon arrival to Ho Chi Minh City, and there was to be our home for four days. Besides Bangkok, the city is perhaps the most Westernized on this whole oriental peninsula, as Adidas stores and Pizza Huts litter the streets like unwelcome gypsies with warrants for stay. I cannot criticise too heavily, however, as we did enter both of these establishments and enjoy their products with a sad sense of nostalgia. It must be said, though, that our main motive for having a Pizza Hut was to see if Jan (the haggard mutton-looking head waitress from their Basingstoke branch) would have a Vietnamese counterpart. She does not.
Formerly known as Saigon and later named after the 20th century president, Ho Chi Minh (a man who lives up to his name's first syllable by being used for absolutely everything out here), the most startling thing about the metropolis is its mopeds. They're everywhere. By night, every red light sees before it a gathering of perhaps 150 two-wheeled beasts, like the start of a lazy marathon, or the assembling of a paraplegic army (not that I can envisage any diplomatic crisis where such an army would be called upon). The mopeds make crossing the road as a pedestrian a subtle art, and one which we cannot wait to put into practice in London.
The city's most popular attraction is its 'War Remnants Museum', a collection of artifacts (including tanks, torture cages and helicopters) from the 70s conflict. By far the most vexing and horrific exhibits were the vast number of photographs capturing the napalm, phosphorous and Agent Orange victims both immediately and years after the attacks. Even worse is seeing them in person, begging at the city's market; their skull-like faces devoid of skin, muscle and expression; each and every one a singular piece of evidence for the pointlessness and hypocrisy of that war. In fact, the whole experience is one which evokes a mass dislike for the United States. Walking around the museum as Republican American must be one powerful yet slow erosion of that national pride and arrogance that they seem so keen to thrust at the rest of the world. What's more, marry the whole chemical bombing malarky to the fact that they had the audacity to attempt remaking the Pink Panther films, spawned Miley Cyrus and think it appropriate to sit the wrong way round on a chair - well those chaps have a lot to answer for. A lot to answer for.
Very little of note occurred in Saigon, in fact so little that the next paragraph is about a Cornish Pasty. I shall now give you a moment to scroll down past it.
Those of you who know him will be aware that James Brewin has a certain pride in his ability to eat a lot, to consume amounts of food that would make a dinner guest with a regular appetite say 'gosh, James, you eat slightly larger portions than I would expect.' Well, ladies and gentlemen, that reputation has gone. Finished, to never return. This fall from grace occurred in an Vietnamese Irish Pub (a niche if ever there was one), not two weeks ago. Faced with the challenge of 'Cornish Pasty, chips and veg' (simple, surely?), James managed merely three whole mouthfuls. Tim and I, bewildered but still able to finish our meals with consummate ease, soon became aware that we were watching the most patently unadulterated case of a great reputation turning to mush since Alan Titchmarsh sold his soul to ITV1. James will blame illness, fatigue and my own uncontrollable narrative exaggeration , but the truth is that - to quote Top Gun (something I try and do at least once a day) - his ego was writing cheques his body simply couldn't cash. Incredible, and please feel free to deride and mock him upon your next contact.
Now give yourselves a moment to let that sink in.
Our method of transport in Vietnam, as is the norm for travelers, was the mysterious 'sleeper bus'. Envisaging a Harry Potter-style double-decker creation with palatial King Size bed, four poster slumber havens and a peaceful night's transit; imagine my staggering disappointment when it turned out to be an over sized hearse designed purely to drive its passengers to insanity, insomnia and the beach resort of Nha Trang.
According to these people, a 'bed' was a four-foot leather board, with a third of that length being taken up by a ludicrously capacious foot-well. The best description I can come up with is this: imagine lying on a stretcher designed for a toddler, about to enter an MRI scan. You begin to move for a second or two into the tube, before a powercut halts all progress. Then you are asked to sleep.
What's more, once contorting your body and dislocating several major joints to fit in bed, the bus driver will do his utmost to ensure sleep is a distant pipe dream. He will do this in a number of ways. Firstly, in Vietnam it seems mandatory to make sure other drivers know you are there not by headlights or the position of your vehicle or just by being an enormous bus, but instead by holding one's hand on the horn until your journey is completed. In our case, 14 hours later. Secondly, whenever the driver or his assistant dropped anything, or needed a to see a map or felt their passengers had built up a resistance to the horn trick - they would turn on every single light on the bus at once, with police-interrogation style surprise. Still not drifting off yet? Well on top of that he will drive with all the care and manners of Nick Griffin guiding a tank through Leicester. The extent of the bumps led us to create the game 'Pothole or Child?', which caused genuine debate on a number of occasions.
We'd spent 7 years with Mr. Leyshon's Friday morning services and seen the England Scotland game the week before, so it wasn't the toughest psychological test of our lives - but it ranks.
Dropping into Nha Trang was welcome relief from the bus, so we spent the day getting obscenely sunburnt - mainly in Brewin's case. Brewin, who is thus far bumbling his way through Asia with all the grace and panache of Barney the Dinosaur on an LSD trip, turned entirely one colour for around a week after thinking it a terrific idea to use Baby Oil for sunscreen whilst spending a day on the beach. Tim also used the oil, but being 80% werewolf, he was fine. That ethnicity is all well and good now, but he wasn't laughing come the full moon, no sir.
Anyway after a night in Nha Trang we gathered no moss by scything up the coast to Hoi An, a World Heritage town half way up the country. We've seen a lot of World Heritage things on our trip - and Hoi An is nice, but in reality, if Winchfield isn't granted that status within a year then I'll eat my hat. And out here, I'm wearing enormously inedible hats.
Hoi An, though, is renowned for its tailoring - and rightly so. The streets are lined with shops which could make you any garment in any material, all bespoke, for a fraction of the European price. The temptation was massive, but Tim and I were admirable in resisting the charms of a pink three piece, or tweed bikini. You'll notice I did not mention Brewin - for he has revealed himself to be the most easily persuadable human since Eve (of Adam and - fame, in Genesis. No, not the Phil Collins band, the Biblical myth. Ok?). Having bought a shirt that even Holden wouldn't wear to a fancy dress party, James decided to buy a pair of custom-made canvas shoes, which was a slightly less intelligent investment than throwing his money in the beautiful river that runs through Hoi An. The finished product looked like ugly bowling shoes that've had a 3 year old throw up on them after over-indulging at the Pic N' Mix, but he loves them.
Next, whilst waiting for a bus in Hoi An, we witnessed the single greatest thing that traveling has managed to serve up to date.
For years, caterpillars in Hoi An have been stuck. Unable to break free from the shackles of the leafy verge provided by one side of this particular road, and longing for one of their kind to stand up and fight. That hero came in the form of Ranulph, a quite fat and odd looking caterpillar found one morning on a side-street. Ranulph was sick of the way his people were stuck in this rut of entrapment. Caged by their location, attacked by society and sparrows - caterpillars had it tough. What's more, non-caterpillars saw them as merely ugly preludes to butterflies; or worse - they compared them to the one caterpillar that made it into mainstream literature, Ian, whose eating disorder was ridiculed and simplified to portray him as simply 'very hungry'.
Ranulph had a dream. He had seen the promised land, where caterpillars could go either side of the road and be judged not on the content of their stomach but by the content of their character. He was going to this land, he had seen the greenery on the other side of the street and he said 'who's with me?'. Their answer? 'I'm alright over here, Ranulph, but you go ahead mate.' Not put off by their lack of adventure and presence of common sense, Ranulph embarked on a dramatic 8 minute march across the road. Timing it to perfection to dodge mopeds, lorries and blue tits, Ranulph made the distance and rejoiced in his findings. Six small steps for man, and around 140 awkward contortions for Ranulph. It was like Sir Walter Raleigh and Martin Luther King rolled into one, the greatest single act of courage since Ricky 'she bangs' Martin came out.
In truth, Ranulph has inspired us all to get on with our lives - to not be boxed in by our reputation and what people 'say' we can or cannot do. Essentially, he taught us to not stop believing, to hold out for a hero, to do something today to make us feel proud, to heel the world, to know that it's my life, it's now or never, to imagine all the people living for today, to recognize that we're the world's greatest, that we are never going give you up, never going to let you down, that everybody hurts and to dream the impossible dream. Thank you, Ranulph. Thank you.
After Hoi An was Hue, where we stopped for an hour or two to meet with Jamie and Holden. This was the beginning of a two week period of being 'Five'. I don't mean we spent a fortnight as the popular performers of 'Keep on Moving' and numerous other late nineties smash hits - but rather that we gained two people in our merry troupe. Having them back in the gang was a real delight, especially when Jamie immediately perks up with 'Guy, when was Sherlock Holmes alive?'. We had missed that.
With them, we powered on to Hanoi - the country's capital and an enormously compact and inconsistently developed city. When choosing a hotel I remembered what I'd read back home about John McCain's experiences at the Hilton. Frankly he should not have had such high expectations of a US hotel brand abroad, and kept his grievances to himself rather than basing a political career upon that 'injustice'. Whenever he was here he should have headed to 'Lollipub', for $4 a night they did all you'd expect and had the best name in all of Asia.
The main night out in Hanoi was centered around the Six Nations, which was surprisingly easy to find all over Asia. Again, an Irish pub was the venue as we embarked on six hours of pure, filthy, non-censored and hardcore rugby union. Drinking our way through the Wales game while Tim shouted 'araf!' 'Tom Jones!' 'leeks!' and other preposterous Welsh words at the television, we eventually made it to the England game...and the pub shut. It turned out that all pubs and bars close at 11pm in Hanoi, and thus finding a lock in was the only possible way. This was most irksome, so wandering the streets seemed the only way of finding such a place. And we found one, but not before losing Brewin, losing the pub, finding some Danish girls, taking them home, getting threatened by a taxi driver and a local with a bottle/brick, and finally getting locked out of our hotel room. A busy night, and topped off only by the ineptitude of Danny Care.
Hanoi is an interesting place, and not a massively nice one. It's for this reason that we decided to book a tour to Halong Bay (another bloody World Heritage site), where we'd experience a beautiful bay of oddly formed rocks, clear seas and enormous caves whilst staying the night on a Vietnamese 'junk' ('boat'). Except, we did not. The weather was atrociously foggy, the tour expensive and itinerary hugely exaggerated. What is more, the cruise involved another hilariously inept tour guide. We have no idea of the man's name, but we immediately called him Jack (to his confusion), owing to his ludicrous comb-over. It later turns out that it was Bobby Charlton, and not Jack, who had the famous comb-over. The name still sticks.
Jack, who was described as 'English speaking' but must have been fluent in cockney-rhyming slang or Cornish to earn such an ill-placed moniker, guided us through the caves of a mountain telling us not how they were made, or any particular facts or statistics, but stopping and pointing at any particular rocks that looked (to him) like a crocodile, Buddha, some cauliflower or, in one memorable case, like a man's penis. Thirty two dollars for a pervert with a laser.
As for our 'junk', well the food was portioned to be roughly enough for a shrew with a fever, but otherwise nice enough. Leaping from the sides of the junk into the bay was a highlight, as was spending the night sitting atop the boat, drinking, and listening to Bob Dylan. That made me think that without the Vietnam war, Dylan would have written about flowers and Marmite and rubbish stuff like that. So maybe it was worth it?
Alright it was not.
Come the morning, however, when the 'cruise' was set to end, the driver decided to delve into a lovely bit of blackmail - which was nice, as we'd not suffered that for at least a week. Upon leaving the boat, he demanded 5000 dong -
Which reminds me - the currency is called 'dong'. This led to much hilarity, as we could say 'Tim put your dong away', 'Brewin, just give the lady some dong and she'll be happy' and 'Guy, your dong just came out of your trouser leg! So did your money.' Brilliant, cutting edge humour there.
Anyway the driver demanded 5000 dong per can of whatever beer we drank, no matter if we bought it from the shore, Hanoi, Bangkok or Newbury, or we would not get our passports back. After arguing for perhaps 12 minutes, we saw our passports as more important than our pride (just), and left the boat feeling bitter and slightly racist.
That fiscal rape, I am afraid, is an overriding feeling from Vietnam. They want your money, and will charge wherever they can, for whatever they want. In addition, there's a terrible North/South divide here. In the South, the people are less likely to steal your money, are nicer with better manners, speak a little clearer and aren't as dirty. In the North, the people seem less welcoming and keep a keener eye on your wallet, they like to fight and lack a little in courtesy. *You may choose your own punchline to this lazy set up: (01) FOR 'Which reminded us a lot of England.' (02) FOR 'I guess Vietnam is alone in this... NOT!' OR (03) FOR 'My mate drowned in a bowl of muesli the other day, it's thought that a strong currant pulled him in.'
And that, ladies and gentleman, concludes Vietnam. We did it mighty fast, but saw an awful lot. A list of 'only in Vietnam' is easily created after the oddities of the nation. Only in Vietnam could a baby be riding on the back of a motorbike holding a gun. Only in Vietnam could a travel booking shop be so alarmed by customers that its staff have to wake up, dust themselves off, flip up a laptop to pretend they were working, have a shop covered in different ladies' shoes and then offer only a train ticket to one small town in the North. Only in Vietnam could a man use a circular saw on an iron girder in the middle of a busy street, and only in Vietnam could nine beers cost £1.24.
In a lot of respects the country is tremendous. It has it all in terms of mountains, beaches, shops, restaurants and travelers - but lacks Cambodia's naivety and Thailand's services. Vietnam is incredibly aware of its own beauty and potential for development on the grounds of tourism, resulting in it trying too hard to make money from the West, missing out on the chance to charm tourists with its people. It all just made me think, 'jeez, what's the West ever done to you?!'.
Oh, oh well fair enough then.
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I can't refrain from tendering a massive apology for the tardiness of this second blog (we are now in Chiang Mai and six days from Australia), but solemnly swear that the next - a roundup of Laos and Thailand - will be posted before we touch down in Sydney. I also understand that is was a long old read, so must ask - why did you waste that time? Take heed of Ranulph's example and get off that computer. 'Cross the road'.
Once more, love to all back home and please keep us posted with your news - but only the interesting bits as we probably won't read what you have to say if it isn't written in colourful capital letters, and concerns exciting things like guns, girls and car chases and cool stuff like that. We continue to miss you in those varied amounts I spoke of last time, however some people have even had a namecheck of late. So count yourselves lucky Georgie Maughan, Graham Smith, Isabelle Manley-Cooper, Fuller's London Pride, Ed Butler, Lizo Mzimba and 'being cold'.
Until next time, big love to all.
The Englishman.x
Friday 12 March 2010
'Res Ipsa Loquitur... Let the good times roll'
This blog will not be a work of art, and nor will it re-define the genre. Instead, we aim simply to create a darn good yarn, a pleasant read and an insight into the big bad world as seen through the eyes of innocent little boys. There may not always be gripping tales of culture shocks, blood, sweat and tears. It could sometimes be lacking in sincerity, factual content or actual words - but it will attempt to raise a smile, to educate, to inform and perhaps move you to places that emotionally you never thought you could go.
It is, simply, what it is. And sure, if publishers are interested, a cult status is garnered or BBC3 would like to pitch a spin-off sitcom, then so be it. (gofkelly@gmail.com).
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Our tale begins thusly, in the idyllic setting of Gatwick (local name) - since we must commence with an as-yet unpaid advertisment for Emirates Airline. Throughout my life, I have found that anywhere which gives out warm, scented hand-towels as standard gets a tick, but marry that to an interpretation of the familiar G+T partnership whereby G is by far the bigger brother (the measure could easily have killed a mid-sized marsupial), and you have yourselves the ultimate flying experience. What is more, the in-flight entertainment system contained an Ice Hockey game with a potentially higher addiction rate than heroin. Perfect.
All that, however, was immaterial. The minimum one requires of a carrier is that they get you there - and after pausing for a McDonald's in a lightning storm-hit Dubai, we bounced down in Thailand mere minutes after expected.
It appears vogue these days to criticise Bangkok: to cast it aside and offer the pithiest advice to would be travellers ('Oh God you'll hate it there'...'Seriously darling one day to get rozzled and then get the Geoffs out of there'). Well, I'm a fairly fashionable chap, and to that end I shall now mainly criticise the city for a good paragraph or so.
Bangkok is a hive, and I mean that in both senses of the word. It is, very obviously, a hive of activity - buzzing with wide-eyed Westerners, platoons of tuk-tuks and, most of all, Thai people. Skyscrapers loom next to tin shacks, street stalls dwell adjacent to multi-billion dollar brands: it's a city of contradictions, and not one makes sense. To take that hive reference a little further than is cool, Bangkok is more of a hive in the biological sense - a sore on the relatively unblemished face of South East Asia, built on and constantly attempting to perpetuate the trades of drugs and sex. What's more, it is a frightening preview to the other large cities of a path they find themselves on, and seem to want to stay on.
One thing in Bangkok is for sure, though, that your first night will be fairly intense. In our case, it involved taking a trip to the opposite end of town for a 'ping pong' show, in which scarcely little ping pong was played and the the players must have been really hot or something - then heading back to the infamous Khao San Road for a night out. After breezing through a few bars we found ourselves with a bucket (a bottle of whisky, a can of 'energy drink' and some coca-cola in a bucket for $5), then entered a club so I could reverse the forklift and such. What happened next? Well, I woke up on the floor of our hotel room at midday. How we were not robbed, how we got to the hotel, or what happened in the missing 8 hours betwixt is a mystery on a par with the Bermuda Triangle, the whereabouts of Madeline McCann and the roles of Nicky and Kian in Westlife.
Suffice to say, Khao San Road is a better night out than Fleet.
One dire consequence of the aforementioned soir, however, was that it conjured the ludicrous idea the following morning that I should dabble with my hair colour. Specifically, to peroxide it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was awfully unsuccessful and I looked, for a good few days, like the unlikely lovechild of Marilyn Monroe and Mark Speight. Far from the look I was going for, but I felt I rocked it with admirable aplomb.
There's ever so little in Bangkok in the way of sightseeing, so we cleared out the following morning to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Along the way we tended to notice that Asian interpretations of lavatories became progressively looser - ending up now with a small room, a drain and a bucket of water. We were of course initially surprised, but Tim soon piped up to say that he'd seen similar facilities in a 4-star ensuite in Llandudno - so soon showed us what was what. For Tim, coming from an ethnic minority has been of tremendous help, as he doesn't share Brewin and mine's wonder and bafflement at poverty, poor sanitation or just people not wearing shoes. For him, it's a little like home.
Philosopher Cat Stevens once said 'oh baby baby it's a wild world, it's hard to get by just on a smile girl'. Cat Stevens had never been to Cambodia. The Khmer people are perhaps the politest and most welcoming I have ever come across outside of Winchfield, beaming at you for no reason other than that you are both there - and alive. It must be something in the water, probably cholera. In Siem Reap, we met a great lot of superb locals, most of whom heard where we come from ('near London' is our stock response) and would riposte in a flurry of nonsensical, unrelated cockney rhyming slang. The average Cambodia male, it seems, says 'lovely jubbly', 'top banana' and 'diamond geezer' more times a minute than the male protagonist in a Guy Richie flick.
A town born out of tourism, Siem Reap feeds, houses and entertains predominantly the thousands of tourists who visit the vast ancient city of Angkor - a mile of so up the road. The town is predictably tacky, and so full of Japanese tourists that you half wished Godzilla would show up - but a necessary evil to see the absurdly impressive Angkor temples. In burning 40 degree heat and with a comically good guide (Bunvaht felt the need to put a rhetorical question into every third sentence, yet answered it himself with deadpan efficiency), we toured for the day around the ancient city, seeing lots and lots of old stuff where some people did some things ages ago. One temple was the set of the 'Tomb Raider' films. For us, it was far more exciting to be in a place where Angelina Jolie's breasts have also been, rather than where the Khmer Empire was located. Angkor Wat itself is enormous, at least as big as a Thai girl's Adam's Apple if not larger. I wish I could say it left me speechless, but I simply had to mention that it was, in fact, 80 years younger than St. Mary's Winchfield. One-nil to us, and a major new tourist slogan developing in the Barley Mow as soon as this goes to print.
Returning to Siem Reap that evening, we ate at a restaurant with an American friend and were served raw snake, crocodile and kangaroo meat on a platter (marinated in raw egg), then given a wok and told to cook our own damn food. It was interesting. Apres ca, a drinking session with a local tuk-tuk driver involved venturing to an entirely tourist-free bar and club, where we were treated like royalty. A girl stood beside our table with a cooler full of beers to top up whenever we finished, and complimentary food was placed down all evening. The table-minders are not uncommon, though in one restaurant she took her job absurdly literally - standing a foot away and staring at the table, not actually serving or clearing anything. A massive waste of staff costs, but gosh did she mind that table. The night was rounded off by a street party, complete with live band, as we got progressively merrier and met more and more people we'd never remember - singing Oasis and Journey until the wee hours.
The next morning meant a long, 6 hour bus ride to the capital, Phnom Penh. I must stress that it was getting ever so dull and lifeless, so I decided to make the time fly by fitting, falling unconscious and vomiting all in one not-so-swift motion. Waking to find most passengers gathered around in shock, I felt like Jesus or Ghandi: a martyr for the people, noting the lack of fun on the bus and giving my fellow travellers on-board entertainment. Giving is supposed to be a terrific feeling, but this felt dizzy and kind of horrible. Anyway, they all got a bit of drama and I got a lifetime's supply of wetwipes. I don't know about you, but I'd call that a victory for all concerned.
Once in Phnom Penh - a brilliant tuk-tuk driver named 'Dave' drove us around everywhere for 3 days, charging tuppence. The city is beautiful, centered around a river, littered with bars and containing a Royal Palace of definitely over-compensatory proportions. It was also the site of mass embarrassment for Brewin, as he went dangerously close to canoodling with a 'lady' who had a five o'clock shadow, before promptly being shunned by an actual female. Poor form.
The main attractions in the city are the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng - a former school turned torture prison, now the National Genocide Museum. The Killing Fields contains at its centre a striking tower holding almost 9000 skulls, bones and clothes of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge party's victims. Couple this with the museum, which is relatively untouched and still holds torture equipment and blood spattered cells, and Western visitors are left dumbfounded by events of the late 1970s. A mixture of feelings fill one's head upon the visit; from confusion at how intelligent and educated men can have such ignorant, illogical and monstrous ideas, anger at the West's ignorance during the time and hope that it is included in our history classes in the near future. Perhaps what was most impressive and potent was the Cambodia you see now - just 30 years on. Our own tuk-tuk driver had relatives tortured to death in the regime, and yet there is no obvious hangover: they choose not to dwell and mope, but to see liberation as a chance to celebrate each day, to cherish their country and welcome visitors. I suppose this explains the smiles and sunny outlook, for they know exactly how quickly it can be wiped away.
Easily, and in fact by far the most pertinant point we garnered from the whole experience, though, was the slow realisation that should former Britain's Got Talent winner Paul Potts ever wish to visit this glorious country, he may wish to change his name before entry, to save some serious hassle.
As an aside, a major attraction of Phnom Penh and Cambodia are the females, who mostly come complete with the relevant parts - unlike their Thai counterparts. Some are simply traffic-stoppingly gorgeous, which is a very ill-chosen metaphor as the traffic stops for nothing out here; to the extent that we have met two groups whose bus has killed children on the road, not stopping for breath. Speaking of absurdly attractive people, Phnom Penh saw me acquire some hair product designed to colour Asian men's grey hairs brown. Having used this in a desperate attempt to veer away from albinism, I went a delicious shade of auburn. In essence and put simply, I now look like the unkempt hypothetical offspring of Fiona Bruce and an urban fox.
The beach resort of Sihanoukville was our next stop, where we found out what Kanye West was talking about when he jabbered on about the good life. It is, it seems, sitting on a beach, being given beer after beer, listening to Bob Marley, destroying barbeque chicken and meeting people from all over the world. It was a cliche we got used to very quickly. What's more, the street children would sit with us and play noughts and crosses, and rock paper scissors for money (or bracelets), for hours on end. The children were lovely, and so cute that we could have eaten them. Knowing the Cambodians, this was probably on offer for a few thousand Riel.
From an outsider's, cynical perspective - one might have thought that those children were attempting to pry some money from us, to distract and pickpocket whatever valuables we had. That was not the case - and hasn't been throughout. Nor have we met along the way anybody who has fallen victim. It seems the guidebooks are mere scaremongerers, and anybody who knows me will tell you how little time I have for mongerers - be it of fear, war or fish.
The Asians, in fact, concern themselves predominantly with petty, small-time fraud. And who doesn't love a bit of that? I certainly tune into 'Hustle' every once in a while - when it comes to minor cons I'm game, just show me the pitch.
The above view was revised dramatically and almost immediately after writing. This U-Turn is born of a poor decision to take the advice of our hotel receptionist, a man of untrustworthy eyebrows from the start. He suggested we take a tiny, newly opened border point on the coast, for 'it be quicker' than the mainstream ones. And it was, until we were driven to the middle of nowhere outside a not-even-one horse town, before a bus rolled up and a kind gentleman demanded $40, or we would stay there. What a deal! That bargain was made all the more brilliant by the lack of an English speaker on the bus, and seemingly octagonal wheels. Comfortably numb after that, we switched to a coach halfway and slowly meandered into Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) last night, 13 hours after leaving the beach.
So, Good Morning Vietnam! Can you smell the napalm? And other hilarious and borderline racist puns will be the main thrust of next week's entry, as Vietnam is documented in hopefully briefer fashion.
I trust this finds everybody cold, miserable and jealous, but most of all well. Do keep in touch with news, and be safe in the knowledge that you are being missed in varied degrees, from 'an awful lot' to 'scarcely liked them anyway'. The trick is to get into that upper echelon. As a famous cult band said 'reach for the stars'.
Love to all,
The Englisman.
It is, simply, what it is. And sure, if publishers are interested, a cult status is garnered or BBC3 would like to pitch a spin-off sitcom, then so be it. (gofkelly@gmail.com).
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Our tale begins thusly, in the idyllic setting of Gatwick (local name) - since we must commence with an as-yet unpaid advertisment for Emirates Airline. Throughout my life, I have found that anywhere which gives out warm, scented hand-towels as standard gets a tick, but marry that to an interpretation of the familiar G+T partnership whereby G is by far the bigger brother (the measure could easily have killed a mid-sized marsupial), and you have yourselves the ultimate flying experience. What is more, the in-flight entertainment system contained an Ice Hockey game with a potentially higher addiction rate than heroin. Perfect.
All that, however, was immaterial. The minimum one requires of a carrier is that they get you there - and after pausing for a McDonald's in a lightning storm-hit Dubai, we bounced down in Thailand mere minutes after expected.
It appears vogue these days to criticise Bangkok: to cast it aside and offer the pithiest advice to would be travellers ('Oh God you'll hate it there'...'Seriously darling one day to get rozzled and then get the Geoffs out of there'). Well, I'm a fairly fashionable chap, and to that end I shall now mainly criticise the city for a good paragraph or so.
Bangkok is a hive, and I mean that in both senses of the word. It is, very obviously, a hive of activity - buzzing with wide-eyed Westerners, platoons of tuk-tuks and, most of all, Thai people. Skyscrapers loom next to tin shacks, street stalls dwell adjacent to multi-billion dollar brands: it's a city of contradictions, and not one makes sense. To take that hive reference a little further than is cool, Bangkok is more of a hive in the biological sense - a sore on the relatively unblemished face of South East Asia, built on and constantly attempting to perpetuate the trades of drugs and sex. What's more, it is a frightening preview to the other large cities of a path they find themselves on, and seem to want to stay on.
One thing in Bangkok is for sure, though, that your first night will be fairly intense. In our case, it involved taking a trip to the opposite end of town for a 'ping pong' show, in which scarcely little ping pong was played and the the players must have been really hot or something - then heading back to the infamous Khao San Road for a night out. After breezing through a few bars we found ourselves with a bucket (a bottle of whisky, a can of 'energy drink' and some coca-cola in a bucket for $5), then entered a club so I could reverse the forklift and such. What happened next? Well, I woke up on the floor of our hotel room at midday. How we were not robbed, how we got to the hotel, or what happened in the missing 8 hours betwixt is a mystery on a par with the Bermuda Triangle, the whereabouts of Madeline McCann and the roles of Nicky and Kian in Westlife.
Suffice to say, Khao San Road is a better night out than Fleet.
One dire consequence of the aforementioned soir, however, was that it conjured the ludicrous idea the following morning that I should dabble with my hair colour. Specifically, to peroxide it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was awfully unsuccessful and I looked, for a good few days, like the unlikely lovechild of Marilyn Monroe and Mark Speight. Far from the look I was going for, but I felt I rocked it with admirable aplomb.
There's ever so little in Bangkok in the way of sightseeing, so we cleared out the following morning to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Along the way we tended to notice that Asian interpretations of lavatories became progressively looser - ending up now with a small room, a drain and a bucket of water. We were of course initially surprised, but Tim soon piped up to say that he'd seen similar facilities in a 4-star ensuite in Llandudno - so soon showed us what was what. For Tim, coming from an ethnic minority has been of tremendous help, as he doesn't share Brewin and mine's wonder and bafflement at poverty, poor sanitation or just people not wearing shoes. For him, it's a little like home.
Philosopher Cat Stevens once said 'oh baby baby it's a wild world, it's hard to get by just on a smile girl'. Cat Stevens had never been to Cambodia. The Khmer people are perhaps the politest and most welcoming I have ever come across outside of Winchfield, beaming at you for no reason other than that you are both there - and alive. It must be something in the water, probably cholera. In Siem Reap, we met a great lot of superb locals, most of whom heard where we come from ('near London' is our stock response) and would riposte in a flurry of nonsensical, unrelated cockney rhyming slang. The average Cambodia male, it seems, says 'lovely jubbly', 'top banana' and 'diamond geezer' more times a minute than the male protagonist in a Guy Richie flick.
A town born out of tourism, Siem Reap feeds, houses and entertains predominantly the thousands of tourists who visit the vast ancient city of Angkor - a mile of so up the road. The town is predictably tacky, and so full of Japanese tourists that you half wished Godzilla would show up - but a necessary evil to see the absurdly impressive Angkor temples. In burning 40 degree heat and with a comically good guide (Bunvaht felt the need to put a rhetorical question into every third sentence, yet answered it himself with deadpan efficiency), we toured for the day around the ancient city, seeing lots and lots of old stuff where some people did some things ages ago. One temple was the set of the 'Tomb Raider' films. For us, it was far more exciting to be in a place where Angelina Jolie's breasts have also been, rather than where the Khmer Empire was located. Angkor Wat itself is enormous, at least as big as a Thai girl's Adam's Apple if not larger. I wish I could say it left me speechless, but I simply had to mention that it was, in fact, 80 years younger than St. Mary's Winchfield. One-nil to us, and a major new tourist slogan developing in the Barley Mow as soon as this goes to print.
Returning to Siem Reap that evening, we ate at a restaurant with an American friend and were served raw snake, crocodile and kangaroo meat on a platter (marinated in raw egg), then given a wok and told to cook our own damn food. It was interesting. Apres ca, a drinking session with a local tuk-tuk driver involved venturing to an entirely tourist-free bar and club, where we were treated like royalty. A girl stood beside our table with a cooler full of beers to top up whenever we finished, and complimentary food was placed down all evening. The table-minders are not uncommon, though in one restaurant she took her job absurdly literally - standing a foot away and staring at the table, not actually serving or clearing anything. A massive waste of staff costs, but gosh did she mind that table. The night was rounded off by a street party, complete with live band, as we got progressively merrier and met more and more people we'd never remember - singing Oasis and Journey until the wee hours.
The next morning meant a long, 6 hour bus ride to the capital, Phnom Penh. I must stress that it was getting ever so dull and lifeless, so I decided to make the time fly by fitting, falling unconscious and vomiting all in one not-so-swift motion. Waking to find most passengers gathered around in shock, I felt like Jesus or Ghandi: a martyr for the people, noting the lack of fun on the bus and giving my fellow travellers on-board entertainment. Giving is supposed to be a terrific feeling, but this felt dizzy and kind of horrible. Anyway, they all got a bit of drama and I got a lifetime's supply of wetwipes. I don't know about you, but I'd call that a victory for all concerned.
Once in Phnom Penh - a brilliant tuk-tuk driver named 'Dave' drove us around everywhere for 3 days, charging tuppence. The city is beautiful, centered around a river, littered with bars and containing a Royal Palace of definitely over-compensatory proportions. It was also the site of mass embarrassment for Brewin, as he went dangerously close to canoodling with a 'lady' who had a five o'clock shadow, before promptly being shunned by an actual female. Poor form.
The main attractions in the city are the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng - a former school turned torture prison, now the National Genocide Museum. The Killing Fields contains at its centre a striking tower holding almost 9000 skulls, bones and clothes of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge party's victims. Couple this with the museum, which is relatively untouched and still holds torture equipment and blood spattered cells, and Western visitors are left dumbfounded by events of the late 1970s. A mixture of feelings fill one's head upon the visit; from confusion at how intelligent and educated men can have such ignorant, illogical and monstrous ideas, anger at the West's ignorance during the time and hope that it is included in our history classes in the near future. Perhaps what was most impressive and potent was the Cambodia you see now - just 30 years on. Our own tuk-tuk driver had relatives tortured to death in the regime, and yet there is no obvious hangover: they choose not to dwell and mope, but to see liberation as a chance to celebrate each day, to cherish their country and welcome visitors. I suppose this explains the smiles and sunny outlook, for they know exactly how quickly it can be wiped away.
Easily, and in fact by far the most pertinant point we garnered from the whole experience, though, was the slow realisation that should former Britain's Got Talent winner Paul Potts ever wish to visit this glorious country, he may wish to change his name before entry, to save some serious hassle.
As an aside, a major attraction of Phnom Penh and Cambodia are the females, who mostly come complete with the relevant parts - unlike their Thai counterparts. Some are simply traffic-stoppingly gorgeous, which is a very ill-chosen metaphor as the traffic stops for nothing out here; to the extent that we have met two groups whose bus has killed children on the road, not stopping for breath. Speaking of absurdly attractive people, Phnom Penh saw me acquire some hair product designed to colour Asian men's grey hairs brown. Having used this in a desperate attempt to veer away from albinism, I went a delicious shade of auburn. In essence and put simply, I now look like the unkempt hypothetical offspring of Fiona Bruce and an urban fox.
The beach resort of Sihanoukville was our next stop, where we found out what Kanye West was talking about when he jabbered on about the good life. It is, it seems, sitting on a beach, being given beer after beer, listening to Bob Marley, destroying barbeque chicken and meeting people from all over the world. It was a cliche we got used to very quickly. What's more, the street children would sit with us and play noughts and crosses, and rock paper scissors for money (or bracelets), for hours on end. The children were lovely, and so cute that we could have eaten them. Knowing the Cambodians, this was probably on offer for a few thousand Riel.
From an outsider's, cynical perspective - one might have thought that those children were attempting to pry some money from us, to distract and pickpocket whatever valuables we had. That was not the case - and hasn't been throughout. Nor have we met along the way anybody who has fallen victim. It seems the guidebooks are mere scaremongerers, and anybody who knows me will tell you how little time I have for mongerers - be it of fear, war or fish.
The Asians, in fact, concern themselves predominantly with petty, small-time fraud. And who doesn't love a bit of that? I certainly tune into 'Hustle' every once in a while - when it comes to minor cons I'm game, just show me the pitch.
The above view was revised dramatically and almost immediately after writing. This U-Turn is born of a poor decision to take the advice of our hotel receptionist, a man of untrustworthy eyebrows from the start. He suggested we take a tiny, newly opened border point on the coast, for 'it be quicker' than the mainstream ones. And it was, until we were driven to the middle of nowhere outside a not-even-one horse town, before a bus rolled up and a kind gentleman demanded $40, or we would stay there. What a deal! That bargain was made all the more brilliant by the lack of an English speaker on the bus, and seemingly octagonal wheels. Comfortably numb after that, we switched to a coach halfway and slowly meandered into Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) last night, 13 hours after leaving the beach.
So, Good Morning Vietnam! Can you smell the napalm? And other hilarious and borderline racist puns will be the main thrust of next week's entry, as Vietnam is documented in hopefully briefer fashion.
I trust this finds everybody cold, miserable and jealous, but most of all well. Do keep in touch with news, and be safe in the knowledge that you are being missed in varied degrees, from 'an awful lot' to 'scarcely liked them anyway'. The trick is to get into that upper echelon. As a famous cult band said 'reach for the stars'.
Love to all,
The Englisman.
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