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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