Back by Christmas 2003

Vang Vieng - Somewhere in Northern Thailand

2003-03-21T17:32:00.000-08:00

Man by a Bus
Okay, details are still hazy. For the past thirty minutes I've been forensically trying to reconstruct my journey between Vang Vieng and Bangkok--in other words, I've been googling a lot. The sole line I've got to go on is: "Travelled from Vang Vieng to Bangkok, hooked up with an English lass named Melanie."

The only thing I know for certain is that when I say hooked up I don't mean any exchange of saliva. It was a purely platonic relationship that lasted less than twenty-four hours. I see glimpses of the day but they don't connect together. I feel like I'm trying to look at a whole piece of artwork by examining tiny details of the piece. It's frustrating as hell--I mean, that was a whole day and I have near zero recollection of it.

A Restaurant with a View
What I do remember are very brief moments: guarding bags at Vientiane's crowded bus station; walking around a duty-free warehouse stacked with cigarettes, alcohol, and perfume; eating lunch with Melanie in a deserted restaurant that overlooked the Mekong in Nong Khai; killing time at the station waiting for the night-train to depart. They feel like scenes from a David Lynch film--logically incoherent with a strange or soundless audio overlayed.

Killing Time
Maybe I'm stitching together moments from different days, different years. It's a scary thought considering the fallibility of memory. And it's not just a long-term thing. Different observers recollections of the same event an hour before are notoriously diverse. It pays to remember we're never objective observers when we recall the past. We bring a lot of baggage with us--our psychological frameworks, our neuroses, our emotional states. What we notice says more about ourselves than the events. Keeping a diary is a great way of reminding yourself about this. It helps to make you more than just this bundle of impulses and rationales at the particular time in question. It helps to avoid self-deception that can allow a person to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

So, I say this: get in touch with your younger self and reflect on who you were and who you are now. Have you changed? Have you confronted your demons? Do you know why the things that happened in your life happened? Life is unique, don't get stuck on a railroad loop.

Amnesia

2003-03-20T16:18:00.000-08:00

Chemistry in Action!
I don't know what I did today. The journal entry for this day is sparse on details of the itinerary. My mind was occupied by events back home that are too personal to go into here. All I wrote about the day itself is "Didn't go tubing today as I felt hungover and not especially sociable." Not very colourful is it--although you might be curious about tubing.

Tubing does involve a tube, but it's not got anything to with colonic irrigation. The tube in question is an inner tube--a huge tractor wheel of an inner tube--that you ride down a river in. I guess it can be fast and furious and involve whitewater rapids, but around Vang Vieng the waters move slowly and tubing is a leisure activity more similar to smoking a big fat reefer than anything else. First, if you don't feel like it you don't have to move. You can sit with your butt dipping into the mild waters and let the current take you downstream as it pleases. Second, every five hundred metres or so (the distance equivalent of the time it takes to roll and smoke a bifter) there is beer and refreshments available. These are served by locals from the banks of the river. Using elaborate hooked-poles they snare the tube and pull you in for not-very-chilled bottles of Beer Lao. A three or four hour ride can result in some very merry campers--kind of like a pub crawl for the pathologically lazy.

I have some regrets about not doing this iconic activity so representative of Laos, but having the right company in this kind venture is critical. If you get stuck with the wrong person it's like being cornered by the pub-bore with no easy means of escape (I mean, how fast can you paddle?). Since there wasn't anybody I'd really hit it off with in Vang Vieng the impulse to go tubing wasn't so strong.

Cool dudes or frontin' tosspots? And how does she put out her fag?
One of the other big draws of Vang Vieng, aside from the magic mushroom, is the incredible limestone geography of the area. Karst formations abound with limestone hills riven with caverns and tunnels that have been forged by the action of acid rain. It must make for some spectacular potholing. But maybe that's too energy intensive for a place like Vang Vieng...

Writer's Bloc

2003-03-19T15:58:00.000-08:00

Fancy a stroll? After you, then.
I must be one of the slowest writers ever. In the two months I've been away, I've managed to write one-and-a-half tales. That's a pretty poor return when the sum total of things to do on an average day is feed yourself and get to the bus/railway station.

It's not for lack of ideas or being in the wrong environment. I've learnt pretty quickly that ideas are more common than landmines in Laos (between 1964 and 1973, the United States dropped 2 million tons of bombs along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the North Vietnamese supply route that snaked through Eastern Laos--see Laos: Exploding the Past for an in-depth report), and that the only things you need to be able to write are the implements and the right frame-of-mind. External distractions can be a pain, but if you start to seek that perfect writing space you'll probably find it's like going after the holy grail. It's much simpler to change a personal attitude than it is to change something like the sound of the streetlife outside your hotel room. I used to be a writing-space junky--lining up pens and books at home, or going to the library for peace--but travelling has helped me realize that the only thing I need is an uncluttered mind. For me this extends to having an uncluttered space--too much stuff around distracts me and my attention wanders.

Writer's heaven...what crime to do the time?
So what's been the problem?

Tangibly, a lack of discipline. I am a great procrastinator when it comes to writing. A perfect window of time and space opens up to scribble away and all I'll do is fritter the hours away on convoluted flights of fancy, or worse, make an excuse that this particular piece of fiction would be better done tomorrow/when it's sunny/under a full moon while wearing a pink sombrero. Before too long, the experience of sitting down to write and not writing actually makes it harder to try it again the next time. It's very easy to get into a vicious circle where an hour of writing will steadily become some terrible mental torture that leaves your skin crawling and your fingers crippled.

The answer, as anyone who's flipped to the first pages of those self-help books knows, is to just write. Write about wild elephants, write about that kid you bullied at school, write about the really fucking annoying guy who sits in the cubicle behind you at work and starts every sentence with the word 'Presumably'...see, I'm doing it now! Trouble is, this advice was never especially persuasive for me. A good story isn't made of stochastic literary impulses--although I understand it worked for James Joyce. A good story is a crafted thing, perhaps sub-consciously shaped, but shaped nonetheless. It has a structure, a narrative flow, an inevitable-in-hindsight conclusion. In the best work, all the aspects of the story bind and reinforce one another. The opening line informs the last. The minor character on the second page holds up a mirror on the protagonist. The setting supports the thematic heart of the piece. It's clever, subtle, and when done well, devastating in it's impact on the reader. To achieve this, as well as skill and experience, you need a plan. Writing whatever pops into your head is unlikely to lead to prize winning fiction.*

And here I spy the crux of things in regard to my indiscipline. I am afraid. Afraid of failure. Afraid of writing laughable sentences, characters, and plots. Afraid of trying my damn best and still falling well short. Better not to try and always have maybe. I think that's a truer depiction of the world than the old motto, better to try and fail than never to try at all.

But to never fail is to never learn. So I will embrace failure. I will take every rejection and rejoice, for I know by examining my failures I will improve. Let me just re-iterate that last part. Failure itself is no key to betterment. As I learnt from Samuel R. Delany recently, writing bad fiction only helps write more bad fiction. The analysis of the ugly mound of congealed clay that is your first story holds the secrets of producing that stunning vase.

Today I embraced that philosophy. I probably began with dull exposition, left commas hanging, and didn't leave out all the parts that people skip, but by Jove, I got some material to work with. And I still managed to tit around and climb a limestone hill, watch HBO dramas, and check my email. Life is looking good.

There's a deep, pitch-black cave in that hill. Honest!

*In free writing's defence, I would say that it aids lexical suppleness, and helps unearth a writer's voice--one of the magical ingredients of a good read.

Sports Day

2003-03-18T17:52:00.000-08:00

Gentle waters. Check. Incredible karst topography. Check. Story about where Thai women keep their ping-pong balls. What?!
In an effort to re-balance my increasingly sedentary travelling lifestyle, today was an action-packed sporting bonanza. First up was an early morning kayaking trip on a nearby river. We arrived at the launch site around ten, the stones of the shallow banks already hot from the sun. After a brief safety demonstration, we slipped our vessels into the slow-moving waters. I paddled along with a cheerful Australian who gleefully recounted tales of hookers in Hanoi, trannies in Thailand, and cunnilingus in Cambodia. Not the kind of conversation that is well-suited to the brisk, uplifting, respectable world of kayaking--especially through such spectacular scenery. Kinda like scoring a gram of speed at the local church. There's a time and place.

This isn't me. Small clue: the kayaker is upright.
By the time the Ozzie began another story with "Let me tell you about a good friend of mine, Prince Albert," I'd had enough and made my excuses. Not only did this soothe my disturbed mind, it gave my body a refreshing workout too as I put several lengths between our kayaks. Maybe that encounter warded me off casual socialising this morning, because I barely spoke to anyone else for the rest of the journey. Since the river was slow, except for a small section of rapids, or rather, a small rapid, the physical exertion of paddling was high and I enjoyed a lonely buzz not unlike that a good gym routine gives. Some guys took on the rapid several times, carrying their kayaks up the rocky banks after they'd plunged downwards. Later downstream there was another stop so anybody who wanted to, could dive elegantly from a high outcrop that jutted over the river--that or bomb.

Not me again. Crucafix poses are against my religion. Instead, I dive-bomb!
On the way back in the truck, being the sole passenger amongst a stack of kayaks, I took a nap. The great thing about daytime naps, expecially after excercise and in unusual places, is the weird, surface-floating dreams that you experience. I remember waking from a dream convinced I was a miner trapped under an avalanche of multi-coloured canoes....it wasn't so far from the truth.

In Vang Vieng, refreshed from the sleep and keen to stay energetic, I soon found myself hitching a ride to a game of football with the locals. Organised sport, along with friends and family, is one of things I've missed most while away, and it felt great as we got closer to the pitch. Few activities give me the same level of anticipation that football does. Even though the pitch was a dustbowl, the sides were uneven, and there was no referee, I still felt the butterflies and the prickly urge to win. Because of school, the game didn't kick-off until twenty minutes before sundown which didn't help matters. Nor did the ongoing gambling, which had to be settled every time a goal was scored, and seemed to involve about forty players. Inadvertently, I'd got myself involved in this by handing over a thousand kip at the beginning, which I'd mistakenly thought was some entry fee for foreigners. It was only when we scored and somebody gave me the money back that I realized this was Laos' version of Saturday afternoon at the bookies. Now, I'm all for a flutter--providing you're betting for your team to win--as it adds an extra frisson to proceedings. What's not so good is settling-up while the game is still going. Can you imagine an Arsenal-Chelsea derby with the players carrying around wads of notes in their pants and couting out bundles every time there's a goal?

Man on!
Not that the football was anything to write home about. From afar the game probably looked more like a riot between two groups of amnesiacs who kept forgetting who was protesting and who was keeping the peace. Apart from an admirable tendency to uphold the law of handball, other small matters such as acknowledging fouls, having one goalkeeper per team, and complicated tactics such as spreading out and passing to a teammate were noticeably absent. It was schoolboy stuff--probably because they were schoolboys and I was a grown man. A friendly tip for picking an outsider at the next world cup. Avoid Laos no matter how long the odds. In the football world, Laos is no sleeping Asian giant. It's more like a weedy child in a long-term coma.

News of Iraq's invasion filled the screens back in town. CNN have taken the lead in Dr. Strangelove-esque pronouncements--one commentator talking about cruise missiles: "The beauty of these weapons is..." You gotta love the free press.

Luang Prabang - Vang Vieng

2003-03-17T16:38:00.000-08:00

Chalk and cheese. Astrology and astronomy. Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng.

Luang Prabang, Sat, 5pm: Lads getting ready for a big night out...
Whereas Luang Prabang--royal capital and UNESCO World Heritage Site--is studded with temples, palaces, and stuppas, Vang Vieng is a motley collection of guest houses, restaurants, and internet cafes. The only thing both places share is a slow-moving river. This contrast of physical make-up contributes to their different vibes. In the streets of Luang Prabang, amongst the gentle Buddhists and white-washed buildings, dignity is dominant--tourists whisper, tread gingerly, and act respectfully; in Vang Vieng, amongst the restaurant chatter, box-office movie screenings, and the heckles of commerce, travellers (not tourists!) stomp down the dusty main thoroughfare like gunslingers in frontier towns.

Vang Vieng, Sat, 10pm: Nobody's even out yet this town is so clarkey!
The journey between the the two towns was packed full of incidents--in my head. The combination of the snaking road, rancid meat in my stomach, and spookily empty buses going the other way meant that I kept imagining myself lurching to the front of the bus, throwing-up, and then getting bullet-sprayed by rebels hiding in the jungle. Not ingredients for a relaxing ride. Fortunately, two English lads, Nathan and Scott, were on hand to put my mind on other things. In Kasi, a small trading post near Vang Vieng, we played 'Pop the Balloons' which was literally a game involving popping ballons. No expensive arcade machines to maintain here when it comes to entertainments...

Upon arrival, at dusk, the first task was to traverse the decrepit runway that divides the town from the road. During the Vietnam War, Air America (an airline covertly owned and operated by the CIA) used this as an airfield to ship passengers and cargo into the region. For the briefest of moments, with the red glow of the town ahead, the thrum of the bus engine behind, and the heavy pack on my shoulders, I felt like a US Marine planted down in enemy territory. A thin rivulet of sweat ran from my temple as I imagined Vietcong snipers setting me in their sights. I hit the ground hard, seeking cover, while mosquitos buzzed around. "Game over, man. Game over, man!" I screamed and threw a grenade--an apple, in fact--at a trio of approaching gooks.

'Nam Flashbacks
Actually, that's all lies. At the time I thought 'What the fuck is this massive, weed-ridden, cracked, piece of tarmac?'. 'A dozen concrete football pitches back-to-back?'. We walked across the airstrip and booked ourselves into one of the more swanky establishments in town--a new hotel with ensuite bathrooms. Price? Three dollars per night. After checking in, we headed out into the night for traditional Laos cuisine. Or pizza.

Pizza it was then. One of the specialities in town is large pizzas liberally dressed with tomatoes, mozzarella, and magic mushrooms. A special you don't see on the menu at Pizza Hut. Still feeling ropey from the bus ride, I went for a more traditional option though. A brief tour of the place and then it was back to the hotel for a smoke and hip-hop. Throughout the day I'd been battling my innate prejudice against the English (which I still have to this day--I only have think back to this morning's trip to Sainsbury's to happily characterise the whole of the nation as a brain-dead, lethargic, selfish, self-centered, and po-faced lot), or more precisely, the English lad (hostile, unmannered, boring). In their hotel room, listening to their stories, I realized perhaps I'd unfairly judged them. That's the advantage of travelling when it comes to social encounters--you have enough days to take chances on people you wouldn't otherwise mix with. And sometimes that can make life a richer experience.

An Englishman adjusts his chair
Hell, they probably were doing exactly the same when they hung-out with me, the Oxbridge, physics nerd.

Muang Ngoi Neua - Luang Prabang

2003-03-16T13:49:00.000-08:00

Time for the gang to go its seperate ways. After a low-key breakfast we took a boat down-river to a non-descript town where the roads began again. Simon, Vero, and myself were headed to Luang Prabang while Katherine and Fred were headed elsewhere. Our bus was first to leave and there were hugs and well-wishes before we set off--only for the bus to stop fifty yards down the road. Katherine and Fred, in the meantime, caught up with us, and we had that awkward situation where you've already said your goodbyes and been solemn and offered serious words, and then you have to take the conversation back to more easygoing pastures until the real moment of departure arrives.

A live boar, trussed up with fraying rope and hauled onto the central aisle of the bus, provided a diversionary talking point while we waited. Eventually, we left, our animal cargo reminding me that if I thought I was uncomfortable the boar was in a whole different league. In circumstances like these--as an average Westerner shielded from the living conditions our livestock--I find it impossible not to consider the treatment of animals.

When the boar was pulled off the back of the bus--landing on the tarmac three feet below with a meaty slap and making a horrible whining noise--the first instinct, the natural instinct, is to imagine the animal is suffering. But is this really the case? Is the animal actually experiencing pain or is this just misplaced anthropomorphism? The boar has a face. It has two eyes, two ears, a mouth, and a nose. It has skin and hair, and below the hide we know its internal structure shares many organs with our own physiology. But do these similarities lead logically to the conclusion that the animal is experiencing mental phenomena like pain?

If I built a mechanical device--like Vaucanson's Digesting Duck of France--that displayed lifelike behavior such as waddling, squealing, eating etc you wouldn't ascribe any kind of awareness to the machine once you saw its cog-based insides. But isn't an animal just such a machine? To my mind, the only part of the animal we should be paying attention to is the brain. According to the current position in cognitive science, the mind is directly correlated with the activity of the brain. And the only cognitive feature of mind that should have any bearing on the question of animal suffering is consciousness. Without consciousness it doesn't seem possible to experience. For example, when a hospital patient is anaesthetized they are unable to feel the cut of the surgeon's life.

So the question becomes are animals conscious? Or, how high up the animal kingdom do you have to ascend before you find conscious creatures? Again, seeing those "puppy eyes" or that "playful grin" on your dog's face doesn't logically mean the dog is conscious. Sadly, modern neuroscience has not yet developed a theory of consciousness consistent with the biological structures of the brain. Current studies from the victims of brain injuries suggest that consciousness arises from a complex interplay of various localized parts. We know some structures or connections that are necessary for conscious experience but not the set which is sufficient for such experience. Some scientists have posited humankind's unique ability with language as the touchstone for consciousness--even going so far as to suggest that humans pre-1300BC or thereabouts had no awareness. If that's true then animals are nowhere near the threshold! This seems to be a minority position, however.

The fact that humans are naturally evolved creatures offers partial evidence that the animals most likely to share this special attribute are those species most closely related to ourselves. Primates in particular, and mammals in general. Some evolutionary psychologists have suggested that consciousness, like other skills such as sight or hearing, confers certain survival advantages--for example, problem solving, decision making, adaptation. An insight like this suggests that an indication that an animal posseses consciousness would be the manifestation of these abilities.

So where did all these speculations leave me as I rode that truck along dusty roads? The question of whether animals suffer is still an open one. The only way to be sure of not inflicting pain is to treat animals humanely. In my opinion, this doesn't preclude eating them though! Which is just as--self-servingly--well for me as I love a bacon butty.

Cave Dwellers

2003-03-15T13:41:00.000-08:00

America may have been gearing up for "Operation Iraqi Liberation", but for us, deep in the heart of one of the world's least developed countries, in a village only accessible by river, we had other things on our mind. Like the challenge of swimming across the lazy, wide river. Or, after negotiating the trials of a particularly leisurely lunch, exploring a large cave system a kilometre from the village. We were like Enid Blyton's Famous Five, except we didn't have a dog, and there was no mystery to solve. Instead we just pratted about.

Throughout the day we did our best to be obnoxious tourists. First, we harrassed a local kid for a ride back in his canoe when we got to the other side of the river, probably paying him way to much in the process and annoying his parents. Second, to guide our way in the dark of the cave, we used a plastic bottle stuffed with lit paper that spewed toxic fumes and smoke into the darkness. Third, the running joke for the day revolved around denigrating the local culture: first, someone would say where they planned to go next--when they were asked what was there, they'd reply "Waterfalls, caves, temples...and treks to minority villages."

Sad, but ultimately, fair comment on the average traveller's experience.

In the evening we went back to the previous night's restaurant hoping that meat was now on the menu. It wasn't. At least not until a live chicken was brought in, hanging upside down and struggling for its life. Sometimes you get the freshest ingredients at the remotest places.

Muang Khua - Muang Ngoi Neua

2003-03-14T08:11:00.000-08:00

If this were a fictionalised account of a journey, an entry like today's would certainly find itself cut from the final draft.

The truth is nothing of any note happened today. The gang awoke, shared waffles sprinkled with sugar, and then got on a boat to Muang Ngoi Neua. The most interesting thing is that our destination can only be reached by boat. A circle of mountains covered with dense brush surrounds the village, and no roads to the place have yet been built. This means, Muang Nboi Neua, above all, is a peaceful place. Stilted structures made of bamboo and other woods line the steep banks of the river, and the only sounds come from the occasional outboard motor passing below. The verandas of these guesthouses are populated with hammocks and easy-chairs, and the most popular activities are reading and staring into the middle distance. It's very pleasant, not to mention cheap at $1 a night.

At dinner we discovered one of the downsides of the lack of transport links. Instead of the feast of seafoods and red meats we'd anticipated as we read the menu, upon ordering we found that the only options that night were the vegetarian ones. It's like being at a retreat for vegans . . . it's undeniably healthy with the zero pollution and a diet of fresh fruit and veg, but you suspect you might be able to have more fun elsewhere.

Constant interaction with my French-speaking companions has not only improved my French, it has also mangled my English. In that way people mimic one another's behavior--including their style of speech--when they are bonding, I've found myself saying things like: "Tommorow, we go here, yes?" and "I've finished with the guidebook. Do you want, yes?". Weird.

Luang Nam Tha - Muang Khua

2003-03-13T05:31:00.000-08:00

It's a bus, Vero, but not as we know it . . .
A day of travel.

By lunchtime, we found ourselves back Udomxai, the nowhere town which functions solely as a place between places. There were no plans to stay here, but we had a couple of hours to kill before our afternoon connection left. I didn't feel like depressing myself by walking around, so we encamped ourselves in one of the restaurants that bordered the dusty bus compound. Perhaps "restaurants" is a little misleading. They were open-fronted shacks on stony ground with a grill at the back. Naturally, Coca-Cola signs adorned the walls.

We'd just finished our plates of limp food, when news came that our bus was leaving. Another triumph for the timetables...

We weren't the only ones who'd heard the news. When we got to the bus -- which, in fact, was a truck with low-ceilings -- everyman and his dog swarmed around it. We shrugged at one another, nodded, and then waded through the crowds, managing to bag the last patches of floorspace at the back of the truck. There were no ticket checks or no seat numbers. I just hoped we were on the right bus.

Two raised wooden planks on either side were the only seats, but even they looked uncomfortable as the truck jerked up and down over the potholed road. Sitting cross-legged on the floor was no fun either. After fifteen minutes I decided to join the two men who stood on the metal step at the back. Constant vibrations through the structure tingled my hands, and every few moments I would become airbourne as the wheels plunged into the road craters. It was like a fairground ride! Low lying branches arched over the road, and sometimes it was necessary to duck while in mid-air too. Even the young kids had seen it all before though, so it was with a sheepish air that I sat down again later.

In Muang Khua we quickly found a reasonable guesthouse with large, airy rooms, and shortly afterwards set out for dinner. A Chinese restaurant with a wide menu was the venue of a great meal, and not even the fluorescent lighting or the lack of other patrons could spoil the mood. I have no recollection of the conversation, but I know by the end were all giggly and well fed. I think the alcohol might've had something to do with it.

Loitering outside the guesthouse, we decided it was too early to retire, so we took the rope bridge over the ravine that splits the town in two. It was a good choice. On the other side, we found a few musicians playing guitar, while drinking shots of Lao Lao. They were more than happy to share, which allowed us plenty of opportunities to practice the only Laos phrase we knew:

Kob Chai Lai Lai!

Nam Ha National Park - Luang Nam Tha

2003-03-12T17:01:00.000-08:00

Russel, Katherine, Veronica, Fred, Simon, and Olivier...Friends
A brisk three-hour walk through deforested woodland and cultivated fields, and we were back in Luang Nam Tha.

The weather was drab, my mood was heavy (yesterday's soaring sense of freedom swiftly brought to earth), and I'd decided I would check my emails in an effort to garner a good dose of self-pity. You see, I expected to find my inbox empty, devoid of any birthday greetings. Out of sight, out of mind. That's the kind of impression I make on people. Well, back at the tourist office, a long, detailed questionaire awaited us, so I couldn't actually get away until I'd filled out the damn paperwork.

By the time I had, my mood had mellowed, and I joined the others for lunch. I was glad I did. Continuity of relationships is something I struggle with, and this was a small step towards changing that. Through my life, friends have come and gone like seasons of fashion. The only friendships I have been able to properly maintain are with people I met around seventeen -- and even those bonds have weakened. There are many people I love dearly, I just don't seem to be in contact with them very often. Life only has so much room, and everyone's so geographically distant -- scattered like the flowers in a daisy chain. I should just pick-up the phone...but I always feel a sense of loneliness after hanging-up. I don't just want to read about, or talk to, people. I want to see them, smell them, watch them, prod them, get drunk with them, dance with them, share life with them. Phone conversations are so safe and bland and unreal by comparison. A detached voice. Pauses. "Take care. Goodbye." And then the sound of a dead line. So, that's why I don't phone or write so much. But I'm happy to be visited, or preferably, do the visiting, so be warned!

Invigorated by the meal, I skipped back to the guest house of a few nights ago imbuing my original room with much romance. A simple place, but clean, light, knows what its about. A place to get down to business and jolly well get some writing done. The kind of place I imagined Mark Twain, or Thoreau, penned one of their classics. Furnished with a small table and a basic bed, nothing adorning the walls, but still proud in its way.

Was it hell. Actually, it was. Hell, I mean. Squalid, dirty, dark. Cockroaches and bed-lice. Brown water from the taps. Broken nozzle on the shower, curtain torn and blemished with unknown stains. Not my scene. Encouraged me to get out and about, at least. No writing today.

At the internet cafe I found thirty or so birthday messages. No doubt, many corraled by the dictatorial Shaz -- at the time, half girlfriend, half ex -- but I was happy for the thoughts. Until you really spend a good few days with one or two people, travelling can be lonely, and the emails helped a lot.

I went to dinner with the trek gang, and the conversation come round to everyone's age.

"How old are you, Steve?"

"Twenty-six....I mean, twenty-seven."

"What?"

"Err." Long silence. "My birthday was yesterday."

So, in fact, I did get to celebrate with these folks. We shared dishes, drank more Lao Loa, and had a fun time. So much so that five of us agreed to travel on together -- a first for me on this world trip. Something I should've done sooner, but happy it's happened at all. Had a final toast, before turning in and enjoying a good night's sleep.

And not just because of the alcohol and the bed.

A Different Kind of Celebration

2003-03-11T16:21:00.000-08:00

Creepy crawlies in the salad cause Veronica and Simon to lose their appetite
Today, I turned twenty-seven.

I didn't tell anybody. Just for a change.

Birthdays, or rather, my birthdays, have always been a combination of happiness and anxiety. Happiness because I get to be spoilt and get all my diverse friends together. Anxiety, not because I feel the weight of age, but because it means being the centre of attention.

So today I kept the knowledge of my birthday to myself as if I was a child hiding a frog in his pocket. Having this secret was strange, like a frog's skin feels strange, but it was also very exciting. I knew I was breaking a taboo -- denying people the joy of my birthday -- but it was thrilling. By not telling them, I had power. If I told them the power would be lost. All day, I was sheepish and grinning to myself.

After breakfast we set off through the woods. We ate a lunch of omlettes, sticky rice, rattan, and cabbage, accompanied by a hot-chilli dip, served on those enormous fronds, and then we swam. Stripped down to underwear, everyone splashed about in the shallow, chilly stream. Afterwards we basked on warm boulders like lizards. On the rock I felt a tremendous peace. It was on this day that something changed inside me. I felt like a snake shedding skin. From this day on, the travelling became easier, my life became easier. I no longer felt trapped. I'd finally found peace with who I was. Later than some, earlier than others. Be yourself. It's the oldest cliche, but the truest too.

How do you make a story better? You make it more of itself. How do you make a life better? The same way.

This acceptance has alienated me from many things both on a cultural and personal level. One small example. When I came back from travelling I went back to my old football team in Brighton. I lasted one game. Not because I'd lost my talent. But because I couldn't be who I was with the other players. That's the price you have to pay. In my mind it's not a very high price. It forces you to seek out friendships, groups, and ideas that you really believe in. I wouldn't want to live any other way now.

The second village was spread over a long, steep hill. The houses were built on stilts. Patchy grass covered the slopes. I saw a small child with a leash. Instead of a dog, the leash was tied to a bird. Every few steps it was mercilessly jerked backwards to the child's great amusement. Maybe a capacity for cruelty is a useful tool for a person.

The sun gently waned, earth and sky changing through a multitude of colours: ochres and violets, emeralds and umbers. The evening progressed much as the previous one. A feast of dishes and constantly charged glasses of Lao Lao. Later, massages were given by pairs of girls -- fourteen or fifteen -- dressed in bright smocks. They were old heads on young bodies -- and not just because of their experienced technique. When they finished they whipped out bracelets and fabrics for us to purchase. Who could deny them?

A perfect day.

Click on me! I'm over 900Kb of goodness!

Luang Nam Tha - Nam Ha National Park

2003-03-10T16:36:00.000-08:00

Thinking I should book myself on a trek, since this was prime trekking territory, I got up early and set off for the tourist office.

Fifteen minutes later I was running back to the guest house -- I needed to check out and get back to the office for a three day trek that was leaving at nine sharp.

Made it back okay, and got introduced to the other trekkers on the jeep ride out to the drop-off point. For once the de-facto language of the group wasn't English: a Belgian couple, two French guys, a Canadian woman, and another Englishman with a flair for French, meant we were asking "Ca va?" instead of "How yer doin', mate?" Fortunately, everyone took pity on yours truly (and the non-french speaking guide helped too) and soon enough we slipped into English -- not that I minded listening to French conversation!

Russel, Oliver, Fred, Veronica, Simon, and Katherine soon revealed themselves as decent, eco-friendly, backpacking types, and we had a great climb getting to know one another. At eleven we stopped for lunch. The guide tore down three giant fronds from nearby plants, and voila, we had our table. Onto these leaves a spread of sticky rice, algae, chicken, pork, and ferns, was laid. I can't say it was delicious, but it was authentic.

Talking to the guide, I got a sense that he had the difficult task of satisfying our curiosity while being loyal to his government paymasters. For example, during lunch, we heard the sound of timber falling and asked if the trees within the National Park were being cut. He said no -- that we were close to the park boundary and the deforestation was happening outside. Later, when we passed a tract of denuded land, tree stumps littering the hill, he altered his story to tell us only the young trees had been felled. It seems there are commercial timber operations working alongside conservation programs in an effort to keep everyone happy. The free market has reached Laos, and unsurprisingly, the locals want to get rich. How this will pan out over the next twenty years, I don't know, but if the world wants to keep tropical rainforests, places like this need to be supported.

Hogs won't like the free market
At four we got to the tribal village where we would stay the night. Again, the presence of tourists with astronomical sums of money has distorted these people's way of life. We were now the main revenue stream for the community, and ancient practices have been turned upside down overnight. In the very basic village I got a feeling that there was a general apathy -- that traditional customs or trades no longer made much sense after the encroachment of the wider world. How should this transition be managed, if at all? Another very difficult question with no right answers.

Some traditions were still in place. People helped one another, including us, bathe at the village well. A "feet only" version of volleyball was still alive and well -- which I was ecstatic to join in with, having not kicked a ball for months. And customary handicrafts were still being made -- although that I'm more dubious about as we, the tourists, seemed to be the only market for them.

Dinner, after hours of preparation which had made me feel hungry and guilty, was served with continuously topped glasses of Lao Lao, a potent kind of Vodka that tasted of engine grease and alcohol. Brain cells have never been killed so effectively. Before we crashed, somebody cracked open a box of cigars, and I spluttered my way through five puffs before deciding it wasn't for me.

Fell asleep on the open floor of the hut stoned, drunk, and feeling very content.

Yoga and sport in one handy package!

A Load of Bull

2003-03-09T06:12:00.000-08:00

Ever played chicken with a two-thousand pound bull?

I have.

My Polish friends had departed with invitations to Warsaw and Krackow reciprocated in kind, and I'd hired a sturdy bike and cycled out to a local stupa. After thirty minutes riding along the flat roads that laser-beamed through brilliant green paddy fields, I passed a pond where several bulls wallowed in the muddy water. They looked stupid trying to swim, with their heads poking out the water, so I decided it was a good time to take some pics.

With the bike lying on the tarmac on the other side of the road, I tiptoed up to the bank and snapped away. It was only after I'd finished taking shots that I noticed that the head bull had come out of his hut and was now keeping watch on me. Less than five yards away, the smell of sweat and dirt from his coat was rich in the air. His nostrils flared, and his haunches rippled. His horns looked a more useful weapon than my APS camera.

I stared into those tar-black eyes, big marbles of deepest night, feeling like I was peering at the Devil himself. I didn't dare flinch. I stared and stared. Then I stared some more. The bull's cloven hooves stamped and sent up blooms of dust, and his tail whipped against the weaved walls of his hut, but I kept focused on his eyes.

Eventually, he looked away, defeated -- and graciously let me take a photo.

Like Tarzan, Master of Beasts, I continued on to the stupa, a supreme feeling of wellbeing in my heart.

Overlooking the plains from atop a small, knobbly hill, the stupa was an odd mix of the old and new. Where the ancient one had crumbled into disrepair, the modern one had blossomed. A collection box for further restoration had been smashed in two, and then partially fixed with a Chubb lock. It was heartbreaking.

Udomxai - Luang Nam Tha

2003-03-08T16:36:00.000-08:00

Robust, funny, and alcoholic: Poles make great travelling companions
The usual bus horrors compounded the journey to Luang Nam Tha, but it was somewhat relieved by the appearance of two plucky Poles. Because there were no free seats, they had to stand in the aisle, which allowed me to chinwag with them.

Coming from a relatively poor European country, Maciek and Thomas have been taking the real budget route: a huge overland route through Russia, Tibet, Burma, and China. Their non-nonsense approach and happy demeanour made the last hour of the ride fly by -- no tales about the best beaches or DJs or clothes, these guys were bollock deep in human rights, Communism, Dalai Lama and child trafficking. Okay, I made that all up as my journal doesn't record what we talked about. Needless to say, it was all great shit.

In Luang Nam Tha, at a guesthouse opposite the bus station we found a three-bed room for a dollar each. We didn't hesitate. Freed from our packs, we took a stroll before deciding it was time to find a bar. (Poles may not be the richest people, but that doesn't stop them being one of the world's chief pissheads).

The only place open that early was an alfresco restaurant that an hour earlier had been jam-packed with dozens of people. Since the tables were mainly empty now, we wondered whether they were still serving. One table was left with six or seven communal dishes, traditional Laos food still uneaten.

"Can we eat," I asked one of the waitresses.

"No problem," said the woman.

We watched her wind her way over to the table stacked with lukewarm food. Where were the menus? She came back carrying three of the dishes. It was then we realized we'd gatecrashed the end of a private party and were being offered the leftovers. Too embarassed to walk out after this show of generosity, we picked at the food, hoping we might be given Beer Lao to wash it down with.

None was forthcoming.

Apparently it was National Women's Day -- a day celebrated in many Socialist countries. What that woman thought of three men intruding and demanding food, I don't know, but after a suitable amount of time, we slunk away to another, genuine, restaurant.

Here we did get beer, and the night flashed by -- partly because the town only has electricity until ten. We stumbled home in the darkness, somehow able to find the guesthouse. In bed, I fell asleep instantly, waking up much later when I was dying for a slash. More difficult than you might imagine. No light and no familiarity with the layout of the room. With all the noise I made, I wouldn't have been surprised if Maciek or Thomas thought I was some wideboy Brit out to rob them while they slept.

Luckily they were too pissed to notice.

Men are scarce on National Women's Day

Luang Prabang - Udomxai

2003-03-07T13:12:00.000-08:00

The 09.30 bus...leaving at 09.12
Sometimes travelling sucks. Today was such a day.

On the whole, the actual travelling part -- the physical ferrying of yourself and all your belongings -- is tedious. The biggest draws of all these planes, trains, and automobile rides is the sense of movement (and I don't mean over potholed roads or through pockets of turbulence). New adventures are coming your way. New experiences and new stimulations. The destination is an exciting, exotic place just a few hours away. Sometimes you might even meet someone interesting on the journey.

None of that happened today.

The bus station in Luang Prabang is a dust-bowl at the edge of town filled with ancient vehicles and crumbling shacks. That's fine. I'm here to catch a bus, not make an in depth comparison with National Express facilities. Except, it turns out that my bus -- the bus in which I reserved a seat less than twenty-four hours ago -- has departed and the next one doesn't leave for three hours. Apparently, when the bus is full it leaves. Sensible, really.

Of course, when the next bus does pull into the station two hours early, churning up clouds of dust that sticks to my sweaty skin, it's best to get onboard. After all, you don't know what time it'll leave. So, crammed onto the bus with everyone else in the midday heat, we waited. And waited. Eventually the driver deemed the bus full enough and we left. To give the people their due, there was a lot of camaraderie between the passenegers, which I was fortunate to share. Pieces of fruit and ice-cream were distributed round and I offered some biscuits in kind.

The journey was very monotonous, the landscape uninteresting. The only energizing part was the thought of the new town. Udomxai. Lonely Planet was particularly brief, leaving the cityscape to my wild imagination. A frontier town, I thought, full of hustlers and backpackers exchanging stories of danger and revelry, before heading out into the badlands or returning to civilization.

How wrong can you get?

Udomxai has to get my personal award for most charmless place I've ever visited. It's a two-dimensional place, having no buildings beyond those which line the main road that passes through. Rotton fruit and cheap electrical good vendors ring the bus yard. Stray dogs and buzzing insects swarm the broken pavements. The buildings it does have are functional, Communist style blocks, built and maintained with no love. I walked up and down the town, looking for life. If I could at least find other backpackers then I'd take a bed in a dorm -- even if the dorm looked like a prisoner's wing. No luck. It seemed everyone else had moved on or checked into private rooms and necked half a dozen sleeping pills to avoid the reality of this hideous place.

A small family run establishment caught my eye and I marked it as my lodgings for the night. The luxury room at $5 sounded just the ticket to leaven my sour mood. Or maybe that was cruel joke for gullible guests. The TV had one Chinese station, the squat toilet was underneath the shower, the A/C was broken, and a foul aroma permeated the air. Nice. When I asked if we could negotiate the price, the owner took out a marker pen and scrawled a number on the wall.

Maybe he was redecorating tomorrow.

I nodded, defeated, and took off my backpack. Inspecting the room I found the source of the smell: a box of rotton eggs in the bedside cabinet. Maybe it was supoosed to be a treat? The biggest thrill of the night -- between eating bad food at a nasty restaurant and checking my threadbare email account -- was dumping those eggs in another room. I went to bed vowing to leave this outpost of hell at the earliest opportunity.

This doesn't do it justice...

Breeziness and Betrayal

2003-03-06T10:18:00.000-08:00

Children play cricket
Loudly in the temple square.
It's too hot for me.

Oak floors, plump cushions.
Sip Earl Grey and read "Medi-
-tations" while anger grows.

have you ever had to push push push push? biketrouble oh yeah!

2003-03-05T10:42:00.000-08:00

Feeling energetic, I hired a push-bike and headed out of town. Where I was going, I didn't know.

After ten minutes of aimless cycling I decided I needed a destination. Fortunately, a road sign pointing to "Kowangsi Falls" appeared shortly afterwards, and I was set -- even if I was skeptical about visiting a waterfall again. I figured that if I could maintain a steady fifteen k/hr and provided the falls were within forty five klicks, I'd be okay. The first assumption was swiftly derailed when the route took me off the pristine highway and onto some dirt track. Along the dusty, pot-holed road, man and machine rattling in equal measure, my speed slumped.

And that was before the sun rose higher and the path got steepened! I consulted my Lonely Planet and found out that the falls were a paltry thirty two klicks away -- no problem. I must've riden at least ten already, so I pressed on, invigorated. Jeeps full of youthful travellers, lithe and tatooed, swept past, probably wondering who the idiot on the bike was. In turn, I wondered what was wrong with the youth of today. There they were, crammed onto hard benches, inhaling petrol fumes and dust, and missing out on the joys of physical exertion.

Fools!

Except, by the fifteenth kilometre I didn't think that anymore. What was I doing? My shoulders burned, my water was finished, and my ride was falling apart. The front brake, envious of the back brake which hadn't been working from the off, snapped, leaving me with no means of stopping except the old-skool foot on the tire trick. Then the rear bracket began to disassemble itself from all the jiggling...

Too proud to flag for help, I carried on, determined to make it under my own steam.

Luckily, fate intervened and saved me from heat exhaustion and/or bike homicide -- one of the jeeps that passed carried a couple from Hawaii, Brad and Sarah, I'd met a few days earlier. I waved in a nonchalant manner that surface-conveyed "I'm absolutely fine", but screamed underneath "Please help!". At first they didn't stop, disappearing round the next bend, and I cursed myself for my stiff-upperlippedness, but a kilometre further on I found them waiting at the side of the road. We hoisted the wheeled contraption onto the jeep's roof and I joined them in the back, grateful for the shade and the breeze and the water.

Kowangsi Falls didn't disappoint. It was multi-levelled, climbable, and studded with places where you could swim, dive, relax and watch. At the foot there was a deep pool where you could get under the falling water and have your body and head smacked about. I messed around here with the Hawaiian couple, dive bombing, and checking out Sarah who looked a lot like Denise Richards. Shame I didn't have the balls to take pics of his girlfriend right in front of him. However, this was somewhat remedied later when I came across four Swedish girls posing in one of the mini-falls higher up. What with all my ogling and rope-swinging and ascending, by late afternoon I was knackered.

Needless to say, I took the jeep home.

Vientiane - Luang Prabang

2003-03-04T11:27:00.000-08:00

The sub-title of this post is 'Dope Heads, or, the Carnival of Human Stupidity'. That's right. I was at the airport today.

I don't remember this particular airport experience as better or worse than normal, but it gives me an opportunity to make a painstaking argument that if you want to witness homo sapiens at their most pig-headedly stupid then go to the airport.

First off, patterns of behavior aren't helped by the fact that everyone who goes to the airport is in a state of stress on arrival. Lone-travellers? Sweaty and fatigued from battles with the public transport system to the airport (because taxis are way out of budget). Couples? Aware that the relationship is going to endure microscopic investigation over the following fortnight, couples are often very tetchy. Families? Work/life balances are suddenly all out of kilter on vacation, and the ten nights in Corfu with the whole gang suddenly doesn't seem so appealing in the departure lounge. Only the kids seem to enjoy the experience, tearing around the shops and being the totally selfish beings they are, much to the annoyance of everyone else. The airport staff? Who in their right mind ever aspires to working at an airport? Do you do it for the scenery? For the relaxing vibe? For the easy commute or the hours? No. You do it because flipping burgers at Gatwick Grill is the best employment opportunity you've ever had. These people deserve double holidays -- maybe that'd help make them happier.

So, first step after you're thrust into the airport is to check your luggage in. You grab a trolley and steamroller your way through to your airlines check-in desk. Except there's five of them and no formula known to man that'll help you predict which queue will move fastest. Even chaos theory comes unstuck here. Oh, but there is one queue which is empty -- the first class/business line -- but it isn't open to the likes of you. So, you stand in line like the rest of the lemmings and watch the other queues move forward at an astonishing rate. Apparently you've chosen the line for muppets. Misplaced passports and tickets, overweight luggage, lengthy discourses about preferred sitting arrangements are the domain of this bunch. What you're doing here is a mystery until you spy the hand luggage cages. One piece only, and no bigger than a briefcase. Okay, that'll be my theatre of operations, you think, as you marshall your arguments for why you need so much stuff on-board the plane (because the 20kg weight allowance for hold luggage is pathetic and you don't trust the throwers..sorry, handlers, with your new laptop and other breakables). Sometimes, cunningly, I hide my second piece of hand-luggage at my feet or on my back -- try it! (Except it won't work with the current zero-policy).

Next, you have a choice. Do I go through customs now or later? Duty-free enticements and a slight feeling of superiority that you're one of the special ones (i.e. travellers) allowed over the other side, mean most people go through straightaway. The customs control is a kind of necessary evil that you can't get away from anyway. Here, the country's finest and brightest law enforcement officials apply their razor-sharp minds determining if your belongings pose a threat to the flight. Given that these guys are less sharp than the policy makers who've decided airplane food can be served with real forks, but not real knives, I'm not so confident. What are they looking for on those monochrome screens? How do plastic weapons get picked up by a metal detector? Can a person take down a 747 flight armed with a pair of nail-clippers? Why do you need my belt?! Enquiring minds want to know.

So, you pull up your trousers, put your shoes back on, collect your items from the seventeen receptacles that your belongings have been divided into, and stumble into the land of duty-free. What a concept! Cheap stuff! Except I have no more room, and buying my hi-fi at the airport doesn't make sense on so many levels. I shuffle past and go through the long corridors that wind their way to the departure lounge -- which never take as long to get to as the estimated times in the duty-free area indicate. It is here that the stupidity index peaks. Everyone is so keen to get on-board! Guess what? Flights don't leave until everyone is on board! Perhaps it's understandable for flights without seat allocation. Get on first -- get a good seat. But, then you think about it, and really, there's only three kinds of seat. Window, middle, and aisle. The row is irrelevant. Get on last and you'll still probably get the seat of your choice. You wanna get off first at the other end? Why? You can't leave the airport until you've got your luggage anyway, so you'll have to wait with everyone else. To my mind, it makes sense not to rush. The plane hardly has spacious seating. No one's going to serve you anything. The flight magazine can wait. I feel sorry for the airline staff in bright cagoules -- each appearance they make precipitates a sudden scrum of activity, which if it reaches a critical mass is unstoppable.

Why can't we be civilized!

And the best bit -- when the flight lands and the safety-belt lights go off and everyone stands up...for about ten minutes! Claustrophobia has never been so much fun!

Anyway, this flight was fine if a little turbulent. The landing was expecially cool, as the skies were clear and we had a great view onto the hundreds of stupas and temples that dotted the hillsides of Luang Prabang. And then, karmically, waiting to collect my luggage I got chatting to an English-Japanese couple, Duncan and Keiko, who live in Tokyo. We shared a ride into town, got on pretty well, and exchanged email addresses. I never saw them again in Laos...but I did see Duncan later...

Luang Prabang was low-key, or lower-key, compared to Vientiane, and I found myself alone in a trendy bar that night. I drank, taught the barman how to play chess (or maybe he was teasing me -- he picked it up fast), and ate home-made pizza. Kicked-out shortly after ten, I ambled homeward, still looking for more adventure.

It didn't take long to find...although "adventure" may be stretching it.

On an empty, dark street, somebody whispered something from one of the few well-lit sections on the other side. A little drunk, I didn't catch what they said. "Sorry?" I said, wandering closer.

"You want opium?"

I was being offered drugs. Cool! "No, marijuana," I said, still a good fifteen feet away. Subtle, this wasn't.

He came over and indicated that we should climb over the small wall next to the road. We did, noisily.

In broken English we did business, but before he bolted I explained I needed him to roll for me. He shook his head, but made up two spliffs before disappearing over the wall. Then I realized I didn't have a light. I climbed down to the street and went over to his spot. "Can you give me a light, please?" I said, making the universally understood lighter motion. I wasn't his best customer by a long shot, but he lit the joint.

The farcical exchange was complete when I inhaled and discovered I was smoking an ordinary cigarette smeared in opium resin. Whatever, I thought, and wandered home happy.

Laid Back

2003-03-03T04:29:00.000-08:00

The Welsh guy, Richard, who I'd shared a room with for the last two nights departed for Vang Vieng this morning. I would've kept the room except for the bed bugs which had left a machine-gun of red blotches down my legs. I checked into another hotel and then headed out.

Searching for news on the internet, I discovered there was still limited information about the gunmen who'd attacked and killed a bus-load of passengers. What were their motives? How many gunmen were there? Was another attack anticipated?All these questions remained unanswered. Because of this I decided I might as well fly to the next city---Luang Prabang---rather than getting the bus. I booked a flight for the following day.

The rest of the day I fell into the gentle rhythm of the city, lounging and reading and then leisurely eating and drinking.

Some thoughts about travel types:

1. The Lad

The lad is typically a young male in the 18-25 age range, although older examples are occasionally spotted. For the lad, travelling entails transposing his weekends back home onto the entire duration of the trip. This means extended binges of alcohol and drugs---usually lager and weed---consumed in inoffensive bars hooked-up with cable, interleaved with days of comatose-like recovery when the lad does the sight-seeing bit. Always chasing skirt, and regaling anyone who'll listen about the threesome he had in Bangkok with a couple of dirty hookers, the lad is a fun companion in rare doses, but generally a complete bore for anyone whose interests are wider than beer, women, and sports. The lad is quick to find other lads and ensure that any burgeoning enthusiasm for history, language, art, science, and culture is quashed under cheap jibes emanating from the lad collective. Odd lads have been known to dedicate their travels to buying as many bootlegged DVDs as possible, as if the acme of a once-in-a-lifetime, round-the-world trip is the film collection they return home with. Willing to do strange and dangerous stunts in order to raise status in the group. Best avoided altogether.

2. The Cultural Observer

The cultural observer comes in many guises. They may be a pair of octogenarians or a single thirty-something. The cultural observer's MO is to do extensive background reading about the place in question---historical accounts, interviews, sociological studies, original sources---and then throw themselves into the experience whether its a temple excursion or an authentic meal at the house of a grass weaver. For the cultural observer the local people are often viewed as a necessary irritation in their quest to chart the cultural lives of long-dead civilisations. Polite and knowledgable, the cultural observer is an acceptable associate to have while travelling, but can be a bit of a stick-in-the-mud and usually disappears early doors to board luxury coaches and be whisked to satin-sheeted beds.

3. The Earth Healer

The earth healer is a traveller who truly believes that he or she knows not only the answers, but also the questions, to make the world 'right'. The earth healer has a very black and white view of things and categorises human activities into good (organic, natural, hand-based industries, sunshine, love etc) and evil (globalisation, money, high-technology, hatred etc). This despite the fact his or her travels are funded by either Daddy's rocketing corporate wage, or selling imitation Third World handicrafts like cow dung earrings and healing stones at astronomical prices and not returning any of the profit to source. The earth healer often dresses like a local and insultingly believes this impersonation extends to remaining unwashed for weeks and stinking to high-heaven. Changes philosophy of life like a DJ changing records. One day Vipassana Meditation is the route to spiritual wellbeing, the next Vedic Astrology. Fun on occasion, prolonged contact with the earth healer will result in a dissolution of all critical thinking followed by entry into some kind of scary drum-thumping cult.

4.The Shoe-Stringer

Money doesn't just talk for the shoe-stringer, it whimpers, cajoles, screams and whispers. The two questions the shoe-stringer asks when making choices on the road is how much does it cost, and can it be done cheaper? The shoe-stringer's affiliation to a strict budget usually comes not from a rejection of the capitalist system with its inherent paradoxical nature predicated on unlimited growth in a finite world, but from being incredibly lazy. In drinking circles the shoe-stringer always goes AWOL when its their round, but is happy in the drunken delusion that nobody minds. The shoe-stringer is easily spotted by their terrible appearance: a Happy Mondays T-shirt bought at THAT gig in 1986 or similar worn over their skinny physique like canvas over a rickety tent frame; disease-ridden gums from budgeting toothpaste off their essentials list; listless, staring-into-the-distance eyes as the shoe-stringer lives in a twilight world of reduced sensations, forever thinking about where the line between hunger and starvation is drawn. The remorseless logic of the shoe-stringers situation often means that they end up broke and reduced to petty thievery from rich, bourgeois [read 'other'] travellers. Useful for finding cheap places to stay if you don't mind roughing it, but remember to sleep with your valuables down your pants if you do.

Who am I? Well, a little bit of all of them I guess ;)

I've got a couple of other types to write-up, but would appreciate you telling me any I've missed!

Capital Dreams

2003-03-02T02:06:00.000-08:00

Vientiane is unlike any other capital in the world.

In places it has the wide-open boulevards, historical authenticity, and self-assurance of any other capital, but the overwhelming feeling is one of tranquility and timelessness. The city isn't carved into discernable districts. There's no banking district. No shopping district. No entertainment district. The place is just a gentle amalgam of stupas, temples, monuments, embassies and unhurried commerce. For a capital, the streets are deserted. Few cars populate the roads---which are still being constructed even in the centre of the city. The buildings are generally single leveled, and a great expanse of blue sky is visible almost anywhere you go.

It's very relaxing.

At one point during the day I stumbled across Laos' National Stadium. Thinking there might be a national football team having a training session I entered the complex. Maybe they'd be a slim possibility of hiring the ground for a kick-about with the other travellers I'd met on the long bus ride here.

I poked around the dusty car-park outside the ground looking for the reception. There didn't seem to be one. However the doors to the stadium proper and the changing rooms were open. I could've wandered in and treated the place like home. Imagining doing that back home at Wembley made me chuckle. You wouldn't get near the stands, never mind the England dressing room.

Eventually a porter type wandered out. I rifled through my photocopied Lonely Planet trying to find the language page. Before I could get a chance to book the pitch using the basic phrases supplied in the guidebook---"Can I have...", "I'd like a strong coffee." etc---he disappeared back into the building.

In the afternoon I hired a bike and cycled up to the famous stupa, Pha That Luang. In Laos, the tourist machine isn't as well-oiled as other places and the temple was a fascinating snapshot of a site in transition from primarily religious to commercial significance. Worshippers mingled with tourists. Rows of historical artifacts were interspersed with tin ashtray stands. At the entrance to the temple grounds a vendor sold souvenirs.

Later I rode along the bank of the Mekong to a bamboo bar overlooking the river. The bar was like a huge treehouse with wooden tables and seats. Sipping Beer Lao, I watched kids play on a sandbank in the middle of the wide, lazy river as the sun set. They looked like they were walking on the water which shimmered as if sprinkled with petals of gold. Their laughter bounced across the surface like skimming stones.

Was I a spolit Westerner romanticizing an ordinary day, or was I witnessing something that we're close to losing in the developed world with our minds preoccupied by growth, productivity, crime and instant gratification?

Cau Treo, Vietnam - Vientiane, Laos

2003-03-01T15:56:00.000-08:00

Fell asleep in the early hours, eventually adjusting to the iron seat, the constant rattling and the sweaty guy wedged in the adjacent seat.

Unfortunately, shortly afterwards the bus pulled to rest and I woke up.

We'd arrived at Cau Treo, one of the three border crossings between Vietnam and Laos. Three points of entry/exit? Obviously relations between these countries are not too warm.

It was twenty to five in the morning and the customs office didn't open until seven. Night gradually lifted, revealing a husk of a building through the morning mist.

High security this wasn't.

Around six a few of the passengers, including myself, stretched our legs and wandered over to the customs building. It wasn't just missing furniture. It was missing doors. Windows. Even walls. We walked through the deserted, concrete-floored rooms and out to the other side. No guards stopped us. We could've walked across the neutral strip of land and straight into Laos.

But we needed our visas.

At five to seven a couple of bored officials sauntered into the building, setting up shop in the one room with a counter. A vague line formed as people got their passports out and thrust them at the officials. In front of me was a young British guy with a head of red hair. He popped his passport on the counter.

"Fifty thousand Dong," said the official. A small sum of money.

"What's that for?" asked the Brit earnestly.

"Visa. Fifty thousand Dong."

"Can I have a receipt, please."

The official looked up from his paperwork, then placed the guy's passport to one side.

"Next."

"Can I have my passport back!"

"Next."

There are times to take a principled stand against corruption. This wasn't one of them. The guy quickly realized he was going nowhere without his passport and began grovelling to the officials to get it back. The rest of us hung around outside, thinking but not saying, how long we right reasonably be expected to wait for him. An hour? Two? All morning? Fortunately he grovelled sufficiently, or more likely, coughed up sufficiently, to get it back and we went on our way to the Laos side where we repeated the process in a better building.

Back on the bus we made our way towards Vientiane following the winding course of a river through rocky terrain. The contrast to Vietnam was immense. I don't think a single soul for hours. There was nobody here.

Or maybe everyone was staying inside after recent events:

Search begins for Laos gunmen

We kept our eyes peeled on the jungle which draped itself over the edge of the road. At one point, after a whole day's driving, with the sun beginning to set, the bus's engine overheated and we had to stop. We got out and played hackey-sack on the highway.

And that was as dangerous as it got, thankfully --- not being mown down by bandits but almost by the traffic.

Ha Noi - Cau Treo

2003-02-28T09:28:00.000-08:00

At breakfast I bumped into Dorothy, the Dutch woman I first met in Nha Trang, which proved how narrow the tourist trail really is. I think Vietnam is especially susceptible to this because of the thin, snake-like geography of the country, but it still reminded me how much people are creatures of habit. The cities dot the spine of the country like sweets laid on a path for greedy children, and we hungrily follow.

She was sad because her month's holiday was ending and she was going back to working life. I was sad because today was my last in Vietnam, and, thinking of my arrival in Laos, I was anticipating similar feelings to those I'd felt when I'd arrived in Vietnam. That is feeling like an outsider and not connecting with people. I knew there'd be new people to meet, but I didn't want to start from square one. I wanted to see the people I'd begun to form relationships with, but that was impossible. Now it seems like one of those perennial paradoxes of the human condition. We're happy with familiarity --- it gives us comfort and a sense of belonging --- but at the same time we're always craving new stimulations. Striking the balance between these two competing drives is one of the hardest things to do, I believe.

We said our goodbyes and I nipped back to the hotel, stuffed my backpack with yesterday's gifts and headed to the post office. The bustle of the place helped me to cast off my gloomy thoughts. One of the staff taped up the box I'd inexpertly packed and my box of goodies began its long voyage home. Two months by ship along God knows what route. I had no idea if the package would make it.

I checked out of the hotel still with six hours to kill before the bus left. After the last overnight journey, I decided I would prime my body for the ordeal by having a massage first. The receptionist snapped her fingers and one of the men dozing on the couch jerked awake.

"Take this guest for a massage," I imagined she said, my Vietnamese still ropey. "The finest parlour we know. No sleeze, just beautiful female masseurs with honeyed fingers and the most relaxing oils," she continued in my mind.

After weaving through the chaotic, droning streets of the Old Quarter and being led up to an ill-lit room with a wiry man standing next to a dentist chair in the middle the room, I reassessed her words as:

"Take this guest for a massage. Somewhere awful because he didn't tip."

The wiry man indicated I remove my T-shirt and proceeded to pummel my body from the waist up. Thankfully my fat reserves shielded me from the worst of his blows. I think his last job was with the secret police.

After grabbing my bags at the hotel I hobbled round the corner to the travel agents and sat on the curb waiting for my ride to the bus station. The sun had gone down but the air was still warm. The streets were alive with chatter and flaming decorations and the smell of street food. I felt like I was leaving a place where I'd barely scratched the surface, countless lives and stories hidden just round the corner.

Somewhere to return to one day.

My ride arrived and ferried me across the city.

We slowed up near a metal husk of a bus. Surely that couldn't be the luxury, air-conditioned, reclining-seat coach the travel agent promised could it?

It was.

The Complex Plane

2003-02-27T14:19:00.000-08:00

Feeling guilty about yesterday's leisurely pace, I spent today throwing myself around the city from first light to the wee hours. I think its an English thing.

First stop was at a push-bike hire shop where I fitted myself out with a standard issue cycle. One of the nice things about communism (putting to one side the secret police, informant systems, gulags etc) is, or was, that nobody has a better or worse bike than anybody else. There's one design and everybody rides it. No heartwrenching decisions about titanium alloy wheels, or Shimano DX or LX gear shifters. No decisions about anything. Who's going to steal your bike when theirs is the same? Equality.

One of the worst things about communism is that nobody has a better or worse bike than anybody else...people are different! I may not be the tallest Westerner, but that bike was still damn uncomfortable!

Luckily, the experience on the roads make you quickly forget about the saddle trying to lodge itself in your stomach. Cycling is a socially bonding activity hear. Bikers move along the streets like shoals of fish, a colorful, dancing carnival of life. Riders slip in and out of the stream, but the shape coheres. For once, cyclists aren't second-class citizens of the road next to drivers. It's a wonderful, liberating feeling. The nearest sensation back home is when cyclists arrange a 'Reclaim the Streets' ride and take over a long stretch of thoroughfares.

Roundabout, Vietnam style
Pumped up, I parked up and headed to the mausoleum (like you do when the adrenaline is flowing, right?). My psyched mood was swiftly brought down to Earth by the stately ambiance of the huge grounds which contained the mausoleum building. Everyone spoke in whispered snatches and moved like geriatrics. I had to hire some trousers, bare knees frowned upon by the guards.

In my too tight regulation issue trousers I joined the line and edged toward the tomb. The building is an ugly slate grey box of sharp angles and rock and totalitarianism. This isn't a time to crack a joke or flick the ear of the man ahead. The guards look mean and ready to pummel anybody who denigrates Ho Chi's resting place in the slightest.

And that included the great man himself.

He actually requested that he be cremated when he die. The living authorities thought better. I guess he didn't get everything right.

We enter the ill-lit building and silence reigns. Please no giggles, I think, endangering myself to the giggle-loop. Uncle Ho looks at peace, but it is still seriously creepy that I'm looking at the real body of the man. How long will it be until he can truly rest in peace and not be subjected to tens of thousands of pairs of eyes every day?

I spent the afternoon doing my gift shopping for the whole trip in one frenzied blitz. The Old Quarter is really something. There are streets dedicated exclusively to one type of good. Chinese decoration street. Or ironmongery street. Or snake wine street. I think it would drive me nuts if I owned a shop and all my competitors were in the same street. Although checking out the competition would be an easy task...

I'm crap at choosing presents for people usually. I endlessly prevaricate, neither having the chutzpah to buy something awful and get it over with, or having the discernment to pick the perfect item. In the end I make an impulse purchase and try to forget about it.

The strategy here was different. Buy a load of stuff and decide who got what later. Statistics would take care of the details. Even if that meant one entirely inappropriate present for one unfortunate individual - the carved wooden turtle compass, sorry, Dad - it was still worth it.

No agonizing shuttling between shops. Just, bang, bang, bang and Bob's your Uncle. I bought silk sleeping bags, an egg-shell painted tray, chopsticks, Vietnam flag T-shirts, a scarf, sequined purses, a vase and much more. All for under twenty quid. Tomorrow I'll go to the post office and get them shipped to the UK and that's that! Might even give it a try with the Xmas presents one year...

Tonight I ditched 'Highway #4' - not the debauched biker bar I expected (cause men in leather turn me on, oh yeah) - and went to the 'New Century Nightclub', named without any sense of irony. It was like being back at the Event in the early nineties. I think 'Late Century Nightclub' would've been more fitting. Glitter balls, wipe-clean surfaces, cheesy rock, soft-light porn decor.

The place was empty. I sat alone on a bar stool overlooking the dancefloor a level down (another throwback to the meat-markets of the eighties) and wondered what time the Vietnamese well-to-do youth started to party, if at all, or if there was such a demographic as the well-to-do Vietnamese youth. A Madame came over and offered me dances by unseen women. Unseen at the time of offering, not unseen when they danced. That would be ridiculous.

I politely declined.

The club was a good example of no matter how hard a society tries to hold back sexual desire, it will always find release somewhere. I never saw any physical chemistry outside on the streets in daylight, but here on the dancefloor couples necked while scantily-clad women strutted above.

I went down and boogied, for once taller than almost everyone else.

Unfortunately, tall, dark and handsome doesn't seem to apply here. At least not the tall bit....

Mean Streets

2003-02-26T09:00:00.000-08:00

It was still night when the train pulled into Ha Noi.

Half-awake I stumbled out to the car-park outside the station and waved over a motocycle taxi.

We sped through deserted streets, the pre-dawn air chilling my skin. Nothing looked familiar. I wondered if I was being taken to right hotel. The street lights were few and far between, occasional pools of ugly sodium yellow illuminating broken roads and vermin. Jesus, it's four in the morning and I'm riding on the back of some random guy's motorbike in the capital of Vietnam.

Surreal.

But then any life is surreal if you think about it.

I shook my head and enjoyed the moment. I did get taken to the right hotel. Only problem was the hotel didn't open till seven and I needed to (a) lie-down, and more importantly (b) pay the driver the right fare. You see, I only had whole dollars on me and the fare was much less than that. I knew if I gave him a note he would say he couldn't give me change, so I trekked up and down the street looking for a place to break the notes. Nothing was open. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. I gave him the dollar and sure enough there was no change forthcoming.

I guess I was ripped-off but it wasn't so bad. A dollar was a lot for him so he was extra happy, and a dollar wasn't so much for me so I wasn't that unhappy. A perfectly amicable swindle. And maybe he really didn't have change.

The day's second attempted fleecing came when I bought some baguettes and was given four thousand Dong change instead of the correct forty thousand. Luckily I had my wits about me and got the money before I walked away.

Mt. Fansipan Base Camp - Ha Noi

2003-02-25T08:43:00.000-08:00

At the foot of the mountain, while we were waiting for the ride back to Sapa, Thanh bought us a couple of beers and we sat outside the the shop/house enjoying the relaxing feeling washing over us.

By the time the jeep arrived my limbs had stiffened up so much it was painful just getting into the vehicle.

And that was pretty much the order of the day. Waiting for connections and then nodding asleep in various minibuses, trucks and trains as I made my way back to Ha Noi. Even the snaking, potholed road couldn't keep me awake such was my exhaustion.

Mt. Fansipan

2003-02-24T16:20:00.000-08:00

Lounging Lizard
I've just returned from ascending Mt. Fansipan, the highest mountain in Vietnam at 3143m (that's over twice the height of Ben Nevis) and I'm totally stoked.

The tour group I booked the climb with described the climb as a 'trek'. Now either we're dealing with a linguistically challenged translator or else someone with a wicked sense of humour. The climb could not be called a trek; it involved ascending over 1500m in a little under eight hours in total.

This is not the domain of 'trekking'.

It is the domain of climbing. And remaining in that hunched chimp state even when the path shallows because you're so knackered!

We set off around ten in the morning and the first twenty minutes was like a scene from 'The Sound of Music'; gentle rolling hills, pretty streams and almost skipping along the path

Then we reached the foot of the mountain.

Conversation ended as it was energetically too wasteful and my focus became utterly consumed with the next step ahead; where to tread, or place a hand. Looking up the path was an utterly pointless thing to do because there was no visible peak to attain, and doing so only depressed the body further.

After an hour we stopped for lunch (I think our guide was being kind) and we chatted with a few fellow climbers. Some were headed down. Some up. It was easy to tell who was who. People with a look of fear on their faces were going up. People with a look of schadenfreude were going down.

Our guide, Tau, smokes because it's too easy otherwise!
They really laid it on thick: 'You think this is bad? Wait till you get a bit further.' We didn't need to hear that.

Back to the task in hand. The body goes into autopilot and you become hyper aware of the stresses and strains on your body. The pulse in your ears hammering away at a very unhealthy tempo; your breathing ragged and deep, the sound of your footsteps on root or rock. Very weird Zen like sensation. The hours go by quick but the moments last ages. Finally arrived at base camp around three. Feelings of happiness, but also trepidation about the following day. Your mind relays the quotes you've heard: 'The last hour on the second day is the worst'. In bed by nine, body fighting to recuperate.

Awake early. Stuffed full of energy in banana and chocolate pancake form; by the third one you feel sick but you don't want to burn up three quarters of the way up the mountain so you eat anyway.

Leave camp at eight thirty. Feeling pretty good. Mainly because all the stuff that I stupidly decided to carry up to base camp (books? like I've got the enegry to read, spare clothes? luxury, toiletry bag? don't even bother) could be left behind and I could climb light (camera, water and jacket sufficed). Again the Zen like state.

And suddenly I'm on the summit looking down over Vietnam and China, and over the mountains in the distance, Laos. Fantastic.

Planning the descent...
Coming down is a different kind of punishment. Not so physically demanding in terms of stamina and endurance, but a mental resilience is needed. One false step and you could be over the edge. Every footfall is deliberate and careful. Knees take a hammering as each step down jars. The route down amazes; did I really climb this far, and this steeply. It's hard to believe. Much rejoicing at the base camp.

I know a better answer to why people climb mountains now; not because they're there. But because you test yourself to the limits. Bring on the Himalyas in Nepal!

Anyone want to donate a flag?

Ha Noi - Sapa

2003-02-22T15:20:00.000-08:00

Five Evocations:

1. Being mesmerized by the hotel receptionist dressed in traditional Ao Dai dress. I was leaving my most prized possessions in storage at the hotel while I went on a side-trip to Fansipan, but one look at this gorgeous woman put all my fears to rest.

2. The chaos of the smaller streets of the Old Quarter where road-space was divided between card-games, commerce, traffic, parking, pedestrians, and dining-tables.

3. Having my concept of 'overloaded' shattered time after time.

4. Boarding the train at Hanoi Railway Station in the steamy night, entering my shared berth and immediately bumping into a pair of smelly size twelve feet hanging from the opposite bunk.

5. Arriving in Sapa to the crisp dawn air and feeling not at all ready to climb thousands of metres.

City Life

2003-02-21T15:14:00.000-08:00

The train rolled into Ha Noi around 6am. I grabbed a taxi with three Australian girls I'd met during the journey and we were carted to a cheap hotel in the Old Quarter. They had no free rooms, but assured us there would be some available by 8 when the first guests checked-out. We ate some limp breakfast and got more and more slouched in our chairs as we waited for a room. Eventually they led us to a drab room with four mattresses slung on the floor. Nobody thought much of the room so we headed out and looked elsewhere.

At the next hotel there was a three-bed room which was ideal for the girls. They took it and I went on to another hotel. There didn't seem to be many single rooms for a decent price so eventually I took a real dive of a room in some dingy hotel down a backalley.

I showered and hit the streets. First call was finding another room for anymore nights in Ha Noi. After that I caved in to my desire for music and bought a CD-player and loads of cheap albums. I'd wanted the travelling to be about immersion in foreign cultures and this excluded listening to familiar tunes. However, after weeks of tourist bars, crowded sights, and internet cafes who was I trying to kid? I stocked up on batteries and looked forward to some aural stimulation.

After some pho with odd things floating in the broth, I booked a trek up Vietnam's tallest mountain and then went to the cinema. 'The Quiet American' was playing. The place had some hygiene issues: rats scurried underfoot and a side door with a WC sign above led out to an alleyway. Luckily the film was good enough to forget about these things.

Hue - Hanoi

2003-02-20T14:31:00.000-08:00

The School Commute, Vietnam
Five thoughts about travelling as a couple (from observation, not personal experience!):

1. You can't hide from the relationship.

Compared to life back home where relationships are squeezed in between work, family, friendship and interests, travelling as a couple away from home is all about you and your partner. Annoying behaviors which are silently tolerated at home will have to be confronted. Differences of opinions or values will surface. It'll either make the relationship stronger or end it. I've seen the faces. Glum listless looks of those who've realized the awful truth thousands of miles away from home, and the serene joy of those feeling the opposite.

2. It's harder to meet other travellers.

As a single traveller, the people I naturally gravitated towards were fellow single travellers, either alone or in small groups. Here I could make simple one-to-one relationships. With couples it's more difficult to do. You can feel like you're intruding, or not paying enough attention to one or the other, or feel like you're interacting with a symbiant creature. It's just easier to avoid that. Of course, couples still meet many people. I'm just suggesting the connections won't be so deep.

3. You can lose your own personality.

People talk about their experiences. For couples travelling together, those experiences have been the same for months, and this often means their individual conversations centre on the same topics. Add to this that the couple have probably heard the same tales/thoughts from each other's lips many times, and they start to talk alike. I call it normalizing. To hear two different people relate an event identically is creepy. Where to draw the line between your independence and your partnership is difficult enough at home. On the road it's even harder.

4. You won't feel lonely...but you might not feel free.

The companionship a partner gives must be great. Somebody who knows you so well, right alongside you for the journey. The downside is not being able to make those spontaneous decisions so easily. Someone asks you to drop your plans and go on a jungle-hike for three days? If you're on your own you can say yes or no straight away. As half of a couple, there needs to be discussion...

5. There'll always be someone just as keen as you to get out the holiday snaps!

All aboard...the night train!

Grave Times

2003-02-19T11:13:00.000-08:00

Bone idleness kept me from making a pre-booked tour of Hue's Royal Tombs. At six thirty in the morning, the idea of poking around a stuffy crypt lost out to the idea of enjoying some more sleep.

Around eleven the guilt kicked in.

Armed only with a brief sketch of the route, I hired a push-bike, and set-out for the tomb of Minh Mang -- reputed to be the most impressive tomb in the area.

It also happened to be the furthest -- about thirteen kilometres from the city.

I pedalled furiously, fearing I was sure to get lost or wreck the bike or be sidetracked, and would need at least six hours to do the whole trip. I passed plenty of Vietnamese with bemused looks on their faces. Whether it was my means of transport, my red-face, or my khaki shorts that caused the looks I don't know.

Out on a quiet lane I passed an abandoned monastry or some such. The place just oozed atmosphere; I imagined Bruce Lee's enemies being trained in a place like this -- solemn fights to the death, breaking bricks with bare hands, meditation etc.

I got back on my bike, crossed the Perfume River by barge with a few locals, and eventually found the tomb site. Its a huge Russian doll of enclosures.

It begins with two lines of statues facing each other over a wide courtyard outside.

Then you get to the outer gates. The central one has only been opened once: to let through Emperor Ming Mang's coffin.

The second wall surrounds the majority of the forty temples, shrines, and other buildings comprising the tomb.

Then through a border house...

And some striking gardens...

Across a lake...

And up the steps of the burial mound.

That gate's locked!

Nuoc Leo

2003-02-18T10:56:00.000-08:00

I can't believe how few photos I took of the food I ate while I was away. Guess I was too hungry and the food too appetising to waste an extra five seconds taking a pic!

However, one meal I'll never forget was the chicken satay wrapped in rice paper and accompanied by a peanut sauce (nuoc leo) I ate. Boy, was that a messy affair. Real pig at the trough time! Here's the recipe for the sauce.

Be careful, this is seriously scrummy!

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large clove garlic, peeled and minced
1 or more bird's eye or Thai chilies,
seeded and minced
3 ounces unsalted roasted peanuts,
1 tablespoon chopped, the rest finely ground
(but not butter)
1 cup chicken stock
1/3 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk
1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon sugar

1. Heat the oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir-fry the garlic and chilies until fragrant, about 5 minutes. Add the ground peanuts and stir until they give up some of their natural oil, about 5 minutes more.

2. Add the chicken stock, coconut milk, hoisin sauce, fish sauce, and sugar, and bring just to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low and cook until the oil from the peanuts starts surfacing, about 15 minutes. Transfer sauce to a heatproof serving bowl, garnish with chopped peanuts, and serve.

Hoi An - Hue

2003-02-17T09:07:00.000-08:00

Moved up the coast to Hue, today. On the way we stopped several times to let the engine cool, and once to see the Marble Mountains where the VC holed-up in the cave system during the war.

In Hue, a cyclo-driver had the misfortune of lugging yours-truly around town. You see, consulting my bland but informative Lonely Planet, I'd noticed an unusual guest-house on the other side of the river from all the rest and decided that was where I was going to stay.

So, on the creaking cyclo, pedalled by a groaning octogenarian, I left the bustling heart of the town and crossed the river into the old city. It must've taken twenty minutes of solid riding. It was a world of tranquillity; gentle breezes, swaying trees and barely a soul in the hotel.

I didn't like it.

I leafed through the guidebook and pointed at a another place that sounded okay. Off the old man huffed, heaving my lardy frame and overpacked rucksack along the potholed roads again. Imagine my embarrasment when we pulled to a stop not fifty yards from where I'd hailed the cyclo in the first place! I gave him a big tip and sheepishly went into the hotel.

Ozymandias

2003-02-16T08:42:00.000-08:00

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'

This is one of my favourite poems and the Cham site at My Son, twenty minutes drive from Hoi An, illustrates the verse beautifully. Despite, or perhaps because of, its UNESCO World Heritage Site status, the site has suffered great damage through the years. Pillaging, natural erosion and bombing during the Vietnam War have all taken their toll, and the temples have a real decaying civilisation feel. The jungle presses in on all sides, there is little commercial presence, and the curators, or guards, sit away from the buildings smoking cigarettes and playing cards on fold-up tables.

Preservation efforts seem minimal. When the last partially standing temple finally falls, I'm sure the site will be lost to the jungle again -- tourists don't want to visit piles of masonry. Being a dreamer, and someone who thinks about the far-future too much, it makes me wonder when our great cities will be lost and forgotton.

And then I think, who will rediscover them?

London, 26th Century?

Lager Lager Lager

2003-02-15T15:59:00.000-08:00

Fat, yellow Buddhas abound
The bus dumped us on the outskirts of Hoi An around 7am. I felt grouchy and was determined to find a hotel myself, so I began a big tour around the small town. By the time I'd walked the length of the place, stopping in every budget hotel listed in the Lonely Planet but finding a problem with all of them, I was shattered and still without a place to stay.

I walked back to the last one I'd passed and took a room.

Bad choice. It was expensive, empty and the decor was more suited for a reluctant suicide-job who wanted to make sure this time. Everything was made of black teak or mahogany. The walls. The chest of drawers. The bed. The only things that weren't was the bed linen, the embroided tablecloths, the doilies and the mosquito net. They were snow white.

I felt like I was in a BBC period drama with all the gloom and lace. Even the bed creaked in a spooky way when I sat on it. It got me out the room at least.

The mood came with me though, and I spent the day moping around. In the late afternoon a surge of energy found me hiring a bike and pedalling to the beach, 5 klicks away. At this point I regressed to typical-Brit-abroad-mode and acted like a beached whale on the sand -- reading and people watching and stuffing down the odd ice-cream or two. This set me up for a futher deterioration towards total lout status; I spent the early evening watching the Man U - Arsenal FA Cup match with a crowd of other Brits, ate pizza and guzzled beer. I might as well have been back home.

It wasn't homesickness as much as just letting myself slide into a familiar routine. The talk was standard blokey fare: football and women and laughs. Nothing unusual, and most the time I enjoy it, but tonight it just depressed me. I headed back to the hotel and read a little before the black decor beat me into submission and I turned the lights out.

Being away from any obligations, I've begun to notice the natural rhythm of my moods. It's all too easy to ascribe bad feelings to recent events, when in fact it often has more of a long-term, underlying cause, or is just part of a normal cycle of feelings.

Looking back from 2006 I think I've definitely smoothed those negative feelings out a little, and managed to channel feelings of anger or frustration in more productive ways. The Hungarian tax system is currently testing my 'If you can't change it, change your thinking about it' mantra, but even a hassle like that is washing over me these days. Anyway, apologies to anyone in the past who's had to endure my explosions of rage when the anger dam burst -- and that includes a completely innocent kid on a bike in rural France back in 1994.

After ten hours non-stop driving to make a ferry connection in Calais, all the way listening to the heavy-metal, verbal drivel, snoring, and bodily noises of my four mates, I flipped out, wound down my window and yelled 'F@$! You' in the kid's ear from point-blank range.

Poor kid nearly fell off his bike.

Nha Trang - Hoi An

2003-02-14T15:40:00.000-08:00

Thanh, guardian angel of the deep
The previous night's drinking hit back with a vengeance.

I'd booked a diving trip. For the morning. The pick-up was at eight. By the time I'd crawled out of bed ten minutes earlier and made it down to reception there was no time for breakfast -- not that I felt like eating anyway. Sitting on the back of an open-top jeep we gunned around the town collecting the other divers before heading to meet the boat.

I felt sea-sick already.

Then we got on the boat.

I sat in the middle of the boat and closed my eyes. Monks performing zen meditation couldn't have been more focused in removing themselves from the realm of the external world. I was the dead, still centre of the universe.

Unfortunately, the boat wasn't.

Sea spray whipped across my face. The ship pitched and swayed. The beautiful horizon jacked up and down as if God were shaking out the sea like a rug. Waves -- small, pathetic little waves, but waves nonetheless -- rocked the boat as they passed. I tried to eavesdrop on the conversation between the Dutch divemaster and one of the other rookie divers to distract myself, but the nausea held firm.

After about twenty minutes we came to our dive spot. The stillness was bliss. It was time to get in the water.

One of the things you never notice when you watch footage of divers in action is the temperature of the water. Arctic or tropical you still see a balletic-esque sequence often against a soundtrack of classical music. The South China Sea is not the world's warmest body of water. It was probably exacerbated by the alcohol, but even in a wetsuit I had the chills, and was shaking from the cold a couple of metres under the surface.

The dive was still excellent, though. I had a great instructor named Thanh. He was so skilled that for the duration of the dive the only part of him I saw was the occasional signal from his hand over my faceplate. Kind of like my own guardian angel. The rest of the time my gaze was trained on the legions of fish, snakes and coral-types all around. The water was a little murky from dust churned up from the recent rain, but once up-close everything slid into view nicely.

The weirdest sensation came when we went under the boat and I lost the direction of the sun -- and therefore which way was up. I panicked and couldn't grasp if the surface was beneath my feet or above my head. I decided to call it a day and gave the thumbs-up sign indicating I wanted to come up.

On the deck Thanh informed me I'd got down to a depth of seven metres and spent thirty-one minutes underwater. Both figures beat my stats from the King Alfred Leisure Centre swimming pool in Hove, so I was pretty happy. Some of the shine was taken off when a right-on Danish guy emerged from the water thirty minutes later, and started talking about depths of twelve metres.

The hangover was still lurking and I nibbled at my lunch before we headed back to shore.

I took it easy in the afternoon and got ready for the twelve hour bus ride to Hoi An which left at seven.

If there's one thing that unites countries from pole to pole, rich and poor alike, it is this: getting a decent sleep on a overnight bus is impossible. It must be an international conspiracy. There are countless ways to arrange your body on a pair of seats in a half-full bus. The prayer position. The curl. The sideways slide. The feet in the air.

None of them are comfortable.

How I envied that guy laid out straight on the back-row.

As I finally began to drift off I had an idea for any budding entrepreneur: design a bus seating plan where everyone can lay flat. You'll be a millionaire within a year. The idea soothed me, gently leading me to the land of dreams. I imagined getting comfy on a deluxe sprung matress with a pillow filled with the best eiderdown feathers. Covering me was the softest duvet in the world; snug and fresh smelling like just washed and dried fluffy towels.

Then a pothole in the road jolted me awake again. Somebody's cheesy foot brushed my nose.

Cycle Culture

Mud Wrestling

2003-02-13T06:52:00.000-08:00

The penny will drop...
Some people, largely men I suppose, expend an inordinate amount of mental energy picturing lithe young things messing around in mud baths. Messing around usually means wrestling, grappling, sliding about wearing nothing but bikinis or Speedo swimming trunks. Or so I've heard....

The reason these things are only imagined is simple. In the West, the only people who can afford to go to the exclusive health farms where you can find mud-baths are rich, middle-aged-and-over folks with waistlines bigger than their bank balances. And who wants to picture an Anne Widdecombe type mud-wrestling with a Norman Lamont type? The cheap option of wallowing in the mud of the Thames estuary watching dying whales and shipping vessels pass just isn't the same.

But....in Vietnam the fantasy is a reality! Thanks to globalisation and international exchange rates the mud bath experience is open to any Tom, Dick and Harry hailing from the developed world. 50,000 VND will see you into the Thap Ba Hot Springs, a health-spa on the outskirts of Nha Trang, where you can live the dream.

Or have it ooze away like the melted-chocolate-esque mud.

You see, it may look like melted-chocolate, but one accidental mouthful and it won't be Cadbury's Milk Tray you're thinking of. You'll be thinking: hmm, tastes like gritty mud...bit like that time I was two years old and decided garden soil might be edible. And then you'll think: am I really sitting up to my neck in a bathful of mud? Cold, clammy, itchy mud that in normal circumstances I wouldn't contemplate letting the tip of my shoe touch, never mind my skin. And then: damn, this is foolish.

Advanced capitalism at it again.

All these thoughts put a bit of a dampener on the lithe-young-things-mud-wrestling idea. I got to thinking of the liposuction-to-expensive-soap process in Fight Club. Rich people spending vast amounts of money siphoning off excess fat only for Brad Pitt to steal it and sell it back to the same people as high-class soap.

To be fair, I did feel pretty relaxed after the mud-bath, but I still wonder what it's all about. Good as a one-off experience I think. I showered and then moved onto the jacuzzi...

In the evening I went to the 'Crazy Kim' bar where I got talking to a Dorothy, a Dutch girl taking a month's holiday in Vietnam. We drank a lot of beers and cocktails and shots and had a fun time discussing God knows what. I've always liked the Dutch people I've come across and Dorothy was no exception. She was bright, articulate and attractive. I would've been attracted to her if I hadn't been in a great state of confusion about the relationship I'd left behind in England.

Da Lat - Nha Trang

2003-02-12T16:06:00.000-08:00

The Road to Nha Trang
Nha Trang is a large town on Vietnam's south-east coast and is marketed as a beach resort with diving opportunities. Upon arrival I let the first tout I came to ferry me to their hotel. I didn't like it. I didn't like the hotel, and I didn't like the room -- a kind of space between spaces in the middle of the building which had no natural light.

I put my foot down.

"No. I'm sorry, I want to look elsewhere. Thanks."

"Sorry nothing."

This is a stock reply to any question which you answer in the negative and then apologise (a peculiar British trait). They mean your saying sorry is worth nothing to them. Politeness doesn't help them feed their families, so it's understandable. I left, determined to find something better.

Eventually I did. It may have taken a thirty minute walk, sweating like a pig, fully laden with all my belongings, but I ended up with a large, clean room overlooking the sea for a good price. Next time I think I'll just wander around without taking a lift from a tout.

I remember standing in that big room with its three single beds and wondering what I should do with myself. I was feeling a little lonely, but didn't want to just talk to anybody. I was missing everyone from back home. I stepped out to the balcony and took in the view.

Nha Trang can't be said to be the most beautiful place in the world. The day was hazy and there was a brisk wind whipping the palm trees over the road. The beach stretches most the length of the town, but there is no clear boundary between the beach and the promenade and the dusty, gritty sand seems to spill everywhere. There was something very dilapidated about everything. Not just in an obvious physical way, but in the resigned atmosphere of the place. Not a laid-back vibe, but a defeated one.

To brush off my glum mood I headed out.

To a bar.

Alcohol's always a good stop-gap...in the very short-term. Now, obviously this varies by personal temperament and place, but for me to strike up a conversation with a stranger in a bar is difficult. In England, conversation in a pub between two strangers usually gets as far as at "After you," as you bustle your way about. If you try to push your way into a group you get treated as if you were a paedophile. And obviously there is no one on their own to talk to. And if there is you probably don't want to talk to them.

It's pathetic really. What is this hang-up about talking to people you don't know? Yeah, you might not be on the same wavelength, or have completely opposite opinions, but if you're in a situation where you want company and you're alone then what's wrong with just talking to somebody?

So, I made it into the bar. Then instead of engaging someone in conversation directly I looked for a sneaky route in. Nabbing a cigarette, or getting a light are possible entry points. I wasn't smoking, so I used...the pool table. Talk about a long-winded method. I put down my money on the side of the table and waited my turn. Then in painful dribs and drabs between strokes, I stoked the conversation with my opponent. We went from monosyllabic exchanges to meaningful dialogue over the course of three games. Why the pool table prop is needed I don't know.

Anyway, it ended up being a fun night with an American-Irish couple who probably needed some respite from one another. I think it was a turning point in the travelling because it wasn't purely coincidence that led me to the night's events, but an active choice...

...albeit only about deciding to play pool.

It was a start.

Paradise Lost?

Orchids and Dirt

2003-02-11T03:57:00.000-08:00

Da Lat is Vietnam's honeymoon capital. The place where affluent newly-weds come to titter and frolic after they've exchanged their vows. A cooler climate, a wide lake, a European style to the architecture.

Nothing too special for me. A set of qualities I have met and will meet a hundred times again in cities all over Europe. Transport the place to Vietnam and it takes on a whole different meaning. For the Vietnamese a place like this is a rarity. And because it is a rarity it is expensive.

So even though there's nothing inherently special to this place, no important history, no places of outstanding natural beauty, this is where people can distinguish themselves from others in an economic way. Strange what a desire for status can do.

For the traveller this just makes Da Lat an ordinary place with extraordinary prices and pomp. Although still poor by Western standards -- in terms of infrastructure like street maintenance, litter collection, health standards at public markets etc -- there is an air of pretension about the town which is almost absurd.

Central Market, Da Lat
For example, at dinner, feeling like something else other than rice or noodles, I went to a Western restaurant. On the menu I found dishes like the 'Eiffel Tower Steak' and 'Parthenon Pasta'. What exactly do these descriptions mean? Are they going to be scale models of their names? No, it just the food's going to be small and pricey.

Or take the carefully manicured lawns surrounding the 'Lake of Sighs' -- a boating lake 5km from the town -- peppered with glorious flowerbeds. Fenced off, and out of the fiscal reach of most locals, rich fellow countrymen come and stroll around in ostentatious dress twirling sun parasols as they go. After strolling about like Victorians they might picnic on the grass or paddle about in kitsch swan-shaped boats.

There is a scale model of the Eiffel Tower in the the town, and at one time Da Lat attempted to add the moniker 'The Paris of Asia' to its name. Fortunately it didn't stick.

So that's how I spent my day. Mopeding between areas of squalor and extravagance.

Xuan Huong Lake, Da Lat

Bao Loc - Da Lat

2003-02-10T09:23:00.000-08:00

Gorgeous Greens
After getting off the beaten track I decided to get right back on it again. Following breakfast, the first thing I did was book my place on a coach to Da Lat for later in the day. I still believe in leaving the tourist trail, but next time I'd do it with some companionship, or at least the basics of the local language.

In the morning I took a walk around the town -- that's if around can be used to describe the long march up and down the main road. Advanced capitalism in action. You see, Bao Loc has no width. Height and length are present and correct, but the third-dimension has gone AWOL. The town exists next to the main road alone. It's like those a frontier town from an old Western: the buildings look like stage sets with one-dimensional facades, and if you go one street back from the road the town ends.

Bao Loc must've ballooned in size when the road was built. There was no financial incentive to build other roads when you had a perfectly servicable one cutting through the heart of the place, so the town grew like an elastic band being stretched. And, to stretch the simile as it were, it simultaneously grew powerful and brittle. Economically strong, but with faultlines riddled through its social fabric.

Maybe I'm reflecting my own prejudices, but this linear town with its forgettable buildings hunched over on either side of a dusty road, had lost its spirit. Community depends upon a myriad of factors, but I think it begins with physical inclusion. A central hub about which people can build an identity and feel they belong. Away from heavy, polluting traffic which as well as being dangerous for children reinforces a notion of fleeting existence. I'd hate to live in such a town.

I don't believe this is just about Vietnam, or other developing countries, either. It's one of capitalism's knock-on effects. Profitability before social welfare. It's especially pernicious where the institutional framework to put people first is absent, or in the pay of economic forces. Newer towns are especially vulnerable -- whether in Middle England, or the third world.
Any economists, town-planners, psychologists, or anyone else want to chip in and reinforce/demolish my house-of-cards?

The town's temple had a listless and defeated air, too. You don't see that very often in Asia. Usually the temples are the vibrant heart of a place. Not here it seems. I took some pics and trudged back to the hotel to pack.

The scenery on the coach-ride lifted my spirits: a chequerboard of paddy fields of the most amazing lime-greens. When we pulled into Da Lat the sun was shining on the shimmering lake. Getting off the bus, it was a cool, fresh air I stepped into, with a very fine light. Back on the trail!

A entrepreneurial hotel owner picked another guy and I up and whisked us to his newly built hotel after we'd been walking for not more than two minutes.

Advanced capitalism, I thought, as I settled back into the tourist groove.

Da Lat, Paris of the East

Ho Chi Minh City - Bao Loc

2003-02-09T06:43:00.000-08:00

Religious Harmony
Today I acted on the idea to discover the 'real' Vietnam.

I'd booked a ticket from HCMC to Da Lat -- an old summer retreat in the highlands with a European air -- and had got on the coach fully intending to complete the journey. However, half-way along I had an impulse to just get off at the next town we stopped at.

The coach eased to rest in the middle of a long non-descript strip of a town, and I grabbed my backpack and left the air-conditioned coach to bemused looks from my fellow travellers slouching in their reclined seats. The coach roared away leaving me coughing in its dusty wake, and I took a minute peering up, and then down, the long straight road.

Right. Here we are, then. What happens now? No guidebooks to consult. Just me in a small town in Vietnam with my own wits. Fantastic!

I strolled up the road and went into the first, and possibly only, hotel. Some kind of celebratory lunch was going on in the main dining room. A hundred guests sat at a dozen round tables filled the air with a chaotic din of conversation and consumption. Everyone was dressed smartly: the men in shirts and ties, jackets draped over the back of their chairs; the women in elegant ensemble pieces.

Everyone except me, of course.

I stared at the feasting in my mud-caked boots and splattered fatigues with the straps of the backpack pressing sweat patches outwards, and waited for an invite to join.

It never came.

I trudged up to my room a little deflated, threw my stuff on the bed, and inspected the room top to bottom. Bed, sink, shower, table. Everything in order. I slipped out to the passage which ran under an awning and nosed about. The other rooms seemed vacant and nobody was about. Perhaps this was going to be really boring.

I went down to reception to hire a motorbike; I'd read about a waterfall twenty kilometres away and wanted to check it out. After some umming and ahhing a man in a leather jacket pulled up outside on a beat up moped. I asked for better directions to the waterfall and set-off. First I just rode up and down the town's main road, getting a feel of the place and the bike. I kept to the innermost lane and looked for memorable landmarks, but everything was indistinguishable to my eye. Eventually I took a guess at the right road to turn-off and headed into the sticks. How many roads could there be?

Lots. And unlike the laser-beam straight highway they looped and twisted and turned and joined and forked and climbed and dipped and ended. The few signs there were didn't mark the way to the waterfall, or if they did, I didn't know about it. I headed back to the hotel like a lost schoolboy returning home. The leather-jacketed man picked-up his moped and another man arrived with a proper motorbike. I hopped on the back and started out again, this time confident I'd get to the waterfall.

The conversation was stalled by the language barrier and the noise of the engine and the wind, so I just enjoyed the speed and the scenery instead.

The waterfall site was overflowing with local tourists and I felt like the proverbial sore thumb, ascending and descending stone steps on my own and watching with a sense of weird detachment gallons and gallons of water falling under the effect of universal gravitation.

Is it that special?

Water and gravity. Gravity and water. There are more interesting combinations in the world. Like light and droplets of water forming a rainbow, but I didn't see that. A sense of wonder of the world is enormously enriched when you have some idea of its mechanisms and history. I can see the waterfall as a symbol of nature's power, but with our 21st century understanding I find something seemingly banal like the ant even more spectacular.

In the evening I played a version of snooker with three balls and no pockets in a low-ceilinged hall across the road from the hotel. It was fun but again the conversation was limited to a few basic phrases like 'good shot' or 'bad luck'. I think I went to bed about nine, setting my alarm for 1am to catch an Arsenal game.

So much for the adventurous lone-traveller off the trail...

Spectacular...or not?

Chasing the Dragon

2003-02-08T16:52:00.000-08:00

Religion...it gets everywhere
Tet celebrations were winding-down and the city was beginning to return to normalcy. This meant all the traffic which had been out of town was now coming back in -- minus all the vehicles that had been written off over the period (281 road deaths and counting). Fortunately by now I'd mastered the zen-like approach to crossing the street.

After throwing myself into the culinary fare of SE Asia without reservation for the first three weeks, I now had my first hankering for good old English grub. The kind of English grub which comes from anywhere else in the world but England that is. Burgers, pizzas, steaks, Mexican, Indian, Spanish. I didn't mind. I found a faux-European style cafe and ate a couple of slices of dry limp pizza. Perfect. It was a taste of home -- just like waking up bleary eyed and peeling out the last slice of pizza left out overnight on the kitchen table. Everything was familiar until the arrival of one very unusual customer.

A seven-man Chinese dragon.

Accompanied by a cacophony of clashing cymbals and tambourines it snaked around the Euclidean geometry of the cafe, a vibrant blood-red celebration of rebirth. It's head was huge, bigger than a 20" TV, with a great whisker lined maw of a mouth and large piercing eyes. Primary yellows and blues and greens offset the red, a real explosion of colour against the cafe's muted decor.

I followed it outside and watched it perform for a large crowd, twisting and weaving in a well choreographed routine. Excellent.

Pictures don't always do it justice...
One disappointment with the travelling has been the inability to talk with any Vietnamese people except a few of the younger generation who speak a limited broken English. A girl who works at Miss Loi's, Oanh, has been one of the few people I've been able to talk to, but because of the watchful eye of Miss Loi I've been unable to hold any decent conversations with her. I still uncovered her great sense of humour, though. A quote from an email I received from her a few days after I left HCMC:

I hope I can meet you soon, I can not go to Eng now, because I must work and still studing, but I hope one day you will take me to England with you in the future.hihi

I'm just jorking, Thanks alot for staying with us. Every body in MissLoi guesthouse always fine and love you so much.

Until a universal translator like Douglas Adam's Babelfish comes along, communicating with people who don't share a common tongue is always going to mean the awareness of their culture is limited to excerpts from books and your own observations. Understanding your own culture is difficult enough. Understanding the culture of a foreign land is probably impossible (whatever that means). That's not to say staying at home and reading traveller's reports, historical accounts, translated newspapers etc will give you a better picture. There are some things you need to see or hear or feel that can't be properly understood second-hand.

Like the streets I walked down tonight.

Rather than heading towards the centre, I thought I'd head in the opposite direction and get a taste of the 'real' city. I wandered through several alleyways and eventually came out on a road a couple of blocks away from the guest-house.

The change in the cityscape couldn't have been greater. I think the shock must've overridden my personal safety circuits because I stumbled down the pitch black road not thinking I was probably a prime candidate for being robbed or worse.

The road surface itself was so pocked and broken I doubt any traffic ever came this way. The north side was one long wall and on the southern side of the road there were great gaps between the buildings which on closer inspection revealed piles of masonary or half-standing houses. There was no electricity, but I did see candles burning through a couple of shattered windows down the street so I guess this was home for some.

The destruction can only have resulted from the bombing of Saigon during the Vietnam War.

I suddenly realized where I was walking and headed back the way I came.

Oanh, Miss Loi's

Vertigo

2003-02-07T04:15:00.000-08:00

'Lazy River', Saigon Water Park
Sufficiently recovered from the Ho Chi Guts to risk Saigon Water Park today.

Francis and I bused out to the complex early, arriving shortly after 10am when the park opened. It was deserted. I guess a daytrip to an attraction like this is too expensive for the average Vietnamese family. It did get busier as the sun got higher in the sky, but never became as crowded as an equivalent place back in the UK on a bank holiday. Good for us, bad for people who couldn't afford it.

We wandered round the park and didn't have to queue for a single ride. Water rapids, flumes, wave pools, undulating water-slides all freely available. We were like kids doing Supermarket Sweep in a confectionary store -- or at least I was. I don't know about Francis.

I remember one time we climbed up the four flights to the water-slide platform and I bounded ahead, grabbed a mat, and then launched myself down the slide at a run. After I plunged into the end pool at the bottom I got out wiping the water from my eyes and looked back up for Francis. I couldn't see him.

All I could see was a mat, bereft of any rider, creeping its way down the outside track in sad spurts. I looked further up to the platform, but Francis was nowhere to be seen.

Had he fallen off the platform? My stomach lurched at the thought. The mat limply arrived in the end pool, bobbing on the frothy water like a deserted raft, and I waded over to retrieve it. I clenched the spongy material in my hand; the last thing Francis had touched. I squeezed out some water from the mat as if it were shedding tears. Why, Francis, why? You had so much to give.

I sat at the side of the pool and stared into the swirling, foamy water, patterns coming and going in the blink of an eye.

A shadow loomed over me.

I looked up, squinting from the rays of sun that surrounded the head of the figure like a halo.

It was Francis. Was he an angel already? God works fast these days, I thought.

Angel-Francis shuffled from toe to toe. A cloud blocked the sun. Angel-Francis had a bashful look on his face. Angel-Francis was actually mortal-Francis.

I smiled. "What happened?"

"I lost my mat. And then I lost my bottle. I had to come down."

I broke his gaze, trying to hide my smirk as I pictured this pale gentle giant coming down the stairs clamped to the handrail with playful kids swarming past as he went.

"Fear of heights," I said. "That's not nice."

Later, after Francis had left, I was charging my way round 'Lazy River' when I bumped into a Vietnamese girl named Phuong. I grabbed an inflatable ring and drifted along beside her, letting the current carry me along. We got talking -- no sophisticated and witty opening line, merely an apology for crashing into her -- and I found that she spoke enough English to hold a decent conversation with me. She was a student at a university in the city. We flirted around, went on some other rides, and generally had a laugh.

What wasn't so fun were the looks that I was picking-up from quite a few others. I have no idea what the Vietnamese think about Westerners, or the British in particular, but there was an air of disapproval in their looks. I've heard a high proportion of visitors are sex tourists so maybe when a Western man is with a local woman that is an immediate suspicion, or perhaps any kind of relationship between a foreigner and Vietnamese is viewed as a betrayal by many. I don't know. All I know is that I try to approach every person I meet in the same way.

Perhaps there is some truth that some Asian women get together with Western men for the material rewards that they can offer. In my eyes I don't see this any different from any of the other reasons people get together -- shared values, physical attractiveness, sense of humour etc. We all take the things we want. Sometimes its more outward thing like physical beauty, sometimes its more inner things like being understood. Sometimes, if you've grown up in poverty and rich Westerners are waving their cash in front of your nose, you want to live in a different world. It's all based on taking. The thing is, for one person to take, another has to give. I try to remind myself of that when I feel I've been taking too much.

We exchanged email addresses, and I headed back to Miss Loi's.

At Ben Thanh Market where the bus terminated, I stopped-off to pick up some food. However, in the fresh produce area, a mangy rat keeled over and convulsing through its death throes put me off that idea.

I went out for dinner with Francis at a Cao Dai place instead.

And found a live caterpillar in the eggplant fritter salad. It put my thoroughly Westernised stomach off its dinner.

Ben Thanh Market....don't look down!

Don't Believe The Hype

2003-02-06T15:14:00.000-08:00

Saigon River, HCMC....swimming not recommended
There are two schools of thought when it comes to illness and travelling.

The first school espouses a very sensible philosophy: never eat street-food (that's buying from a street-cook, not licking roadkill or fighting with the rats for odds and ends of unwanted food); drink only bottled or boiled water; and keep clear of rich or unusual foods. This way the chances of getting sick are minimal.

The second school says fuck-it, I'm going to be ill anyway, might as well get it over with now and build up some resistance for when it really gets hairy.

I attend the latter school.

And today I got grounded for it. The great thing about not sharing a bed is that you can make it as fetid or smelly as you like. Who's gonna complain? Me? It's my smell. Just times ten. Feel some wind pressing on the inner wall of your sphincter? Let it out. You know you'll be grinning like a trooper when you do.

Not this time for me. I guffed, smiled one of those satisfied grins, and rolled-over. Then I realized I'd followed through. So to speak. Poisonous gases are one thing. Other states of matter cannot be so easily overlooked. It was a severe case of Delhi Belly, or Ho Chi Guts as I dubbed it. Frequent sorties to the bathroom looking like Renton from Trainspotting when his laxative kicks-in told me today's trip to Saigon Water Park with Francis was a no-goer.

I daren't even venture out my room for breakfast, lest my cup overfloweth. I was consigned to my room, my only companion the ever reliably dire CNN. Though I was probably not in a fit state to even make a judgement about which way was up -- the Ho Chi Guts making me see the world in a feverish daze -- I still retained enough of a handle on reality to question what Colin (when did the geek-boy name Col-in get recast as Co-lin?) Powell was spouting on the box. As would any six-year-old looking at the grainy aerial photos of Iraq's equivalent of Homebase (a DIY store) and hearing our main man Co-lin Powell solemnly incant that this was cast-iron evidence of a chemical weapons programme.

You what?

To be honest I felt a bit sorry for Powell having to host this charade. You can imagine the Whitehouse meeting beforehand. Bush: "Dick's tied up at Halliburton getting ready for a little job in the Middle East, and Donald's got his plate full with his North Korea 'Terrorist Regime' comment, so why don't you do the WOMD presentation, Colin?" For the administration's leading dove he sure did a lot of dirty work.

So that was most my day. In the afternoon I hardened up (no Eddie, not like that!), got dressed, grabbed some food outside (from a grubby looking sausage shop, of course), and then checked out Francis' website at www.flourish.org. Francis had been posting some of his experiences of his travels much like this. Little vignettes about his feelings, unusual ways, strange places etc. Nothing unusual there.

What was unusual was the vitriolic attack one his posts had attracted. I don't have the exact quotes, but the gist was Francis was the worst kind of tourist for believing that some local Cambodian's friendly behaviour was due to anything but financial motivation. At the time I could see both sides. People do look out for their self-interests, but people can also be nice without any obvious reward.

Now I believe it's more complicated. If you've travelled around you'll know as well as I do that the way a tourist gets treated does not simply correlate with the wealth gap between tourist and local. In Laos it's tranquility incarnate. In India you can't move for hassle. Religion, social custom, political allegiances, history, and many other factors as well as economics comes into play. Not everyone buys into, or even has the conceptual awareness, about capitalism to make it the basis of all their life decisions. Money is not the sole arbiter of people's happiness! In fifty years will people look back at Western culture of today and say "God, didn't they have it hard without the money we have now!".

Wouldn't that be incredibly patronising as well as being untrue?

Working from home, HCMC

Can Tho - Ho Chi Minh City

2003-02-05T15:35:00.000-08:00

Hmm...where are the goods?
Awoken at six in the morn by a ra-ta-tat of loud knocks on my door.

Bleary eyed, with a dry throat and a minor hangover, I opened the door to an empty landing. A practical joker or a supernatural visitor?

Neither. It was our enthusiastic tour guide rousing everyone in time for the floating market on the river. We breakfasted on fresh fruit, still rubbing the sleep from our eyes, and then got taken to a boat. Sitting on a hard bench, feeling the wind whip through the vessel, and listening to the wash lap against the hull I realized that perhaps I'd got carried away with the heat of South East Asia.

It was freezing.

Not literally, of course. But temperature's all relative, and in my safari shorts and skimpy T-shirt at seven o'clock in the morning out in the middle of one of the Mekong Delta's widest channels I was shaking like an Parkinson's sufferer drying a polaroid.

The floating market didn't help ignore the cold either. A sorry flotilla of trading boats greatly outnumbered by crafts packed full of tourists looking equally shell-shocked as ourselves. The produce available to buy was limited and there was little in the way of commerce happening.

I was trying to catch the Vietnamese equivalent of "Alright, darling. Fancy a pound of my plums. Oy oy!", but the only people buying appeared to be the tourists who were addressed in broken English. I think I bought some bananas and glumly ate the first one while willing the energy to warm-up my goosepimpled arms.

The cynic in me thinks the whole market is staged for the tourists -- or maybe there is a real one, but it only happens once a week and we got the wrong day...

A 5km hike through the Mekong Delta jungle turned out to be a walk down a paved path running next to some local's homes, and we ate a traditional Vietnamese lunch packed tighter than the dancefloor in your favourite club. Perhaps that was the traditional aspect.

You're probably getting the impression I didn't enjoy this two-day tour around the Mekong Delta. That's not quite true. I made some friends, learnt something about Vietnamese life, and did some great work on my tan. I just think I might've had more interesting, authentic experiences if I'd made my own tour of the area. I wonder what drives these kinds of package tours. Is it genuine tourist demand? Or is it perceived demand by the tour operators?

The roads back to HCMC were chocka block with traffic from everyone heading to the city after Tet. This made the drive more scary than usual, especially as the guide cheerfully told us how many people are killed on the roads over this period. Perhaps the four-lane system where the middle two lanes are optional for either direction of traffic should be reviewed....overtaking in the third land while someone heading the other way has the same idea for the same stretch of tarmac certainly adds a buzz to the ride.

Back in the city I popped out for a 100% bona fide Vietnamese dining experience and found it on a street corner near to Miss Loi's: a steaming bowl of phó -- a thin soup of long rice noodles with fresh vegetables and meat or seafood -- served by a surly young man. In the dark street I sat on the kerb, slurping my soup, coughing from the spice and the pollution, and thinking how grand it was. Grinning like a fool I passed back the bowl and spoon to the young man and skipped back to the guest house.

I had the runs within six hours.

Ho Chi Minh City - Can Tho

2003-02-04T05:43:00.000-08:00

The Lazy Mekong Delta
I love the above picture.

Perhaps it looks a little staged, but it captures the essence of the Mekong Delta I think. First there's the Delta itself. A vast interconnected, tree-like branching system of tributaries which lazily empty themselves into the South China Sea along hundreds of miles of Vietnam's coastline. The water is a muddy brown colour, barely moving, occasionally rippled by the wildfowl or passing boats. This, coupled with the constant hot gaze of the sun on the river -- never shielded by the low lying scrub on the banks -- gives the whole place a very laidback, timeless feel. It's easy to while away the ride sunbathing on the roof of your boat, or reading in the shaded section beneath, dipping your hand in the water from time to time.

All along the banks, spaced a good deal apart, are the local's houses. Like the one in the foreground of the picture, they are usually makeshift structures made from corrugated aluminium sheets, and perch precariously over the river, supported by wooden stilts that disappear into the silty water. The children often wave and run along side as you pass.

On the far side a Catholic church is the most well-built building in the area. It is another reminder of the complexity of Vietnam's history, and the power and range of religious belief here. As well as mainstream creeds like Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and Christianity, there are smaller sects such as the Cao Dai, and also worship centered around spirits in animals, plants, and other parts of nature.

To get to our destination, Can Tho -- a bustling city in the heart of the Delta -- by nightfall, we left HCMC at 8am sharp. The guide, seated at the front of the coach, began a long monologue about various places along the route out of the city, but quickly gave-up when he realized most the passengers weren't listening and trying to get some extra sleep.

After transfer to boat we paid a brief visit to a coconut sweet factory on one of the thousands of islets that pepper the Mekong Delta region. I understand why these Third World factory tours happen: because the factory owners can make extra money from entrance fees and sales off tourists.

What I don't understand so well is what the tourist gets out of it.

There is no way of knowing whether this factory tour is representitive of general conditions across the country. In fact, there are reasons to believe it isn't and might well show much happier workers with much better working practices than the norm. If that is the case, then visitors can come away with a completely misguided view of the labor market. And it is doubly pernicious because it undermines various agencies efforts to publicise the consequences of global trade, and it makes these tourists, average consumers back home, more complacent about what their lifestyle entails for workers in the Third World.

If you're going to visit a workplace in a foreign land, you have a much better chance of seeing a true picture if you randomly pick a business and just ask to be shown around.

Upon arrival in Can Tho it transpired that the booked hotel didn't have enough rooms for the entire party. We were split-up into various groups and scattered around the town. Sneakily, I had prevaricated so that I got placed with a trio of English girls who had met at Middlesex Uni and were travelling around the world together. We went out for dinner together and talked about London, relationships and student days. Travelling, away from familiar people, places and routines, seems to be a good way of moving on at the end of a relationship.

Can Tho, Vietnam

A Short History of Vietnam

2003-02-03T05:25:00.000-08:00

Reunification Palace, HCMC
One of the must-see sights for any visit to Ho Chi Minh City is the Reunification Palace. A trip to this historical building will give insight into Vietnamese history, nationalism, and architecture, as well as the life of the political leadership up to the end of the war.

Over the course of its lifetime the building has been renamed twice and rebuilt once. The building was first built between 1868-71 after the founding of the Union of Indochina by the French imperialists. It was named Norodom Palace, after the Cambodian King of the time, who had earlier signed a treaty recognizing French protection, and symbolized the authority of the French over the area.

After the French pulled out in 1954, the country became polarised along geographical lines. In the north, true liberation from international interference was achieved, but in the south the country traded French for US rule. Although obstensible less involved, the US installed their own choice of leader, Ngo Dinh Diem, who refused to carry out the Geneva Agreement pledge to hold free elections, and ruled in a authoritarian and nepotistic fashion. He renamed the Norodom Palace as the Independence Palace--without any sense of irony.

Discontent spread rapidly, and in 1962 there was an attempted military coup. Two AD-6s dropped bombs on the Independence Palace, destroying a large part of the west wing, but leaving Diem unscathed. Seeing the building was beyond repair, Diem ordered it to razed and rebuilt in a new style. Unfortunately for Diem, he never got to see the Rome Laureate award-winning building, being assassinated just over a year after the construction work began.

This is the building that still stands today. A blend of modern architectural style and Oriental elements, covering 20,000 sq. meters and including 95 rooms on four floors. Maybe if Diem's design had been less grand he might've got to see it.

On April 30, 1975 the Independence Palace had its fifteen minutes of world fame. After battling their way to Saigon, the Liberation Army finally arrived at the political headquarters of the South Vietnamese. Tank No. 390 crashed through the main gates and pulled up outside the palace. A solider ran to the top floor and pulled down one flag and rasied another.

The war was over.

No longer would a president live or rule here. The Independence Palace was renamed the Reunification Palace and it stands to this day with the same name, a constant memorial to Vietnam's turbulent past.

I arrived a few little before 1pm, getting hassled by cyclo-drivers, coconut sellers and kids selling sets of postcards while I waited for the Palace to open. Again visitors are given the tour-guide treatment, but this time I slipped away and did my own exploring. The rooms are eerie, considering this is where people once lived. Immaculate furniture, polished floors, cavernous halls with high ceilings. I can't imagine anyone could actually relax here. It's more like a museum than a living space.

Or the unfleshed out idea of a child megalomaniac. Labyrinth basement. Check. Escape tunnel. Check (although it was never finished, leading nowhere). Hi-tech gadgets. Check. Helipad. Check. Massive chambers with no obvious purpose. Check. Spooky.

Travelling alone gives you plenty of time for self-reflection. In these beginning days of the trip I often felt isolated. There were hundreds of other tourists around but I wasn't making the effort to meet them. I expected people to come to me without really appreciating that it takes effort on their part to do that. I started to wonder how other people perceived me.

In some ways it's good not to be concerned about other's opinions of oneself. Otherwise, you can become wrapped-up in your outward appearance while your inner life is neglected. However, considering how others look at you can help empathise with other people's perspective, and help you shape your own life.

So how did I think people were perceiving me?

Independent-minded, reserved, a little tense, maybe boring -- my intonation is pretty flat, and the way my brain works means that I'm terrible at relating stories in speech (I generalise, mix-up the chronology, forget the punchline etc), in fact in the TEFL teacher training I completed in 2005 my delivery was still flagged as something which needed work. Of course, these are just aspects relating to first impressions. People who know me better have a different, or more meaningful, image of me--I hope!

But to get to know people you have to go through those first stages. With these thoughts in mind I made an effort to be more relaxed, less self-critical, more open, and add more expression and enthusiasm to my speech.

Would you like your own private chopper?

Waiting for the Miracle

2003-02-02T12:53:00.000-08:00

Inter-species chinwag
Paying homage to the Seventh Day, I took it nice and easy today.

First off, that meant saving my legs today and grabbing rides instead. It's not hard to do. The entrance to Miss Loi's (it may sound like some seedy establishment, but it's as far from that as you can imagine) is in a narrow alleyway just wide enough for two mopeds to pass one another. This means whenever you step outside there is a man sitting on a moped, reading a paper and waiting to get a fare.

I showed him the location of a curry house recommended in my Lonely Planet guidebook, got a price, and climbed on the back. The roads were much quieter than the day I arrived, but we were still one amongst thousands of other road users, and we weaved through the traffic like corpuscles of blood around the body.

A small aside about travelling with guidebooks. I've often heard it said that carrying a Lonely Planet is the wimp's choice; for somebody who is not blazing their own unique trail but instead is following the usual tourist rut. Kind of like taking the Kama Sutra to bed and reading-up as you go. I understand the sentiment, but I think many people who espouse this philosophy don't really go on and live the reality that it entails. As I see it, with limited time, language competence, and knowledge of a place, the guidebooks provide an almost essential reference. People who don't have them invariably sponge the information from those that do. And how do you find your way around a huge city without a map?

Maybe there are travellers who really do it. Boldly trek into the unknown, not knowing if that night they will lie in a guest-house bed, on the floor of a local family's house, or in the gutter with the dogs. In a way I envy their power, their shedding of practical concerns, their chance of an especially weird or wonderful experience. Maybe one day I'll try it.

The restaurant was tucked behind one of the city's few mosques, and I sat alone in an arched courtyard area and was given the full attention of the waiter. Plates of curry were ferried out from inside the mosque to my table, and I ate the spicy food wondering where everyone else was. The meal was tasty and I washed it down with a gorgeous mango lassi, but I think I felt the first stirrings of some kind of stomach bug there. We'll see.

After lunch I headed to the zoo/botanical gardens for a stroll and a little education about Vietnam's flora and fauna. I've never been a big zoo fan, and this visit didn't do anything to change that feeling. Listless animals cooped up in tiny enclosures, with hundreds of people gawping at their every move. The reptile house was in a particularly sorry state. They're the modern equivalent of the human freak shows from the nineteenth century. I've got no idea if they suffer out of their natural environment, but I do know the amount of learning going on at zoos is minimal. Much better to pick-up a David Attenborough series if you want a general introduction to the lives of animals.

The alledged botanical gardens were practically non-existent, a few trees and thickets peppered between the lame amusement rides and candy machines. It seems to represent that perennial question about what we should view as progress. Economic growth or preservation of the environment? They are mutually exclusive ends. Which one do we want? And if it's the latter, how are we can going to stop capitalism, the most effective force in mankind's history?

Dinner with Francis in the Bodhi Tree seemed to gravitate to the topic, because he ended up outlining his plan to save humanity. His idea was that since religion seems to have such a persuasive hold over so many people, the way to engineer change for the better is to found your own religion, convert people to your faith, and then use this swell of political power to influence the world in the way you see fit. Sounds a bit like a dictatorship, but if anyone truly has society's welfare at heart, I think it is Francis.

How's it panning-out, Francis?

Francis, a man on a mission

Cu Chi Coo

2003-02-01T16:18:00.000-08:00

Do murals like this really work?
The Cu Chi tunnels, located some fifty kilometres outside Ho Chi Minh City, are a small part of the extensive network of Viet Cong tunnels which stretched at one time from the Cambodian border to the outskirts of HCMC. Sadly, instead of developing the site into a historical snapshot of that terrible era, the Vietnamese authorities have recast the place into something which falls halfway between propaganda camp and theme park.

Visitors to the camp are disgorged from their coaches into a dusty car-park replete with confectionery shops and souvenir sellers. After buying their Cokes and Cornettos everyone is corralled into groups of twenty or so and assigned a tour guide. The first stop is into the classroom for a twenty-minute video which sets the context of the place.

I don't remember the details, but the film portrayed the conflict in a very cut-and-dried, simplistic way. The South Vietnamese were caricatured as American stooges, while the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese as liberators. The actual development of the war was very complex with French colonial aspirations, Buddhist revolts against Roman-Catholic oppression, the Truman Doctrine on the perceived threat of Communism, and the Gulf of Tonkin incident all playing their parts.

A large section of the video went into the physical details of the tunnel systems, with cross-sectional schematics of the hills shown in primary colored graphics. Interesting from an engineering point of view but more political analysis would've been much better, I feel.

The lights came one and we all trooped outside, squinting in the pockets sunlight that came down through the forest canopy above. This wasn't a tropical jungle by any means. Thin withered trees with dry foliage dotted the shallow hill we climbed and the ground was hard and cracked. Perhaps this was an example of the way Vietnam's whole landscape had been transformed by the saturation bombing during the war.

After a couple of minutes we came to the first 'exhibit'. Crowding around our guide who'd stopped in the middle of the path, we watched him kick away some dirt on the ground and reveal a small wooden trapdoor about the size of a piece of A4 paper. He popped a finger into a gap in the wood and pulled the door away.

It was an entrance to the tunnel system.

We were all invited to take turns standing in the hole for a photo-op. It was a weird feeling posing for a picture while at the same time experiencing the claustrophobia of the tight walls. To get your arms in you had to put your hands above your head like readying yourself for a dive and then crouch down and pull them in. Fortunately the tunnel leading off the entrance was blocked off so it wasn't even possible to get underground.

Throughout the area were mock-ups of makeshift bomb factories, kitchens and living spaces--dug into the ground rather than actually under it like in the original rooms. The lifeless models of the Viet Cong, the hordes of tourists, and the daylight all undermined the power of these mock-ups though. No sense of the fear or the determination or the confinement that these people must've felt came through in these delicate reconstructions.

Later we did get a chance to get into the tunnel system proper, however. The passages had been considerably widened from their original size and lamps lined the sides, but it still managed to give a tiny flavour of the conditions. How people managed to live in these warren-like tunnels is astounding.

The tour finished with a shooting range where trigger-happy tourists could fire off a few rounds of Russian, Chinese and French firearms. Very surreal, and for me, the thought of pretending to be Rambo made me feel queasy so I didn't do it. That didn't stop quite a few of my group picking up a Kalashnikov and letting rip, though. What is it with men and guns?

So overall: interesting as a sociological insight into how the Vietnamese presented the history of the war and what tourists want; disappointing for learning the subtle complexities of the war and the stories of real participants; depressing in the way many visitors approach the place.

In the evening, back in HCMC, I took a long walk around the city. The New Year celebrations go on for four days so there's still a holiday feel in the air, but I wandered around in an aimless fashion feeling detached from the events. Two boys were working in a team were trying to pickpocket unwary tourists near a street food-stall. Even after I'd clocked what was going on they still kept circling me, and it became farcical as I tried to explain I knew what they were up too and I wasn't going to let them steal from me.

Being able to travel is a real luxury. Every day when I wake-up there is a moment of realisation that I'm half-way round the world, thousands of miles from friends and family, and have no real idea how the day will map out. It's scary. But then I remember the feeling I got when I used to wake-up on a weekday and know I had to go into an office. That's when I feel very privileged. My challenge is to turn that fear into excitement; to stop observing so much and begin participating more; to find things in life that make me jump out of bed in the morning rather than groan. I can feel these changes coming, but they're slow and come with a lot of frustration.

I got back at nine thirty to find the guest-house staff asleep in the communal area on the ground floor. They don't get any personal space whatsoever. It's almost unimaginable to a person from a developed country. It's a bit of head-fuck to think that it may not bother them in the slightest and a bigger one to think it may not even cross their minds. What will people in fifty or a hundred years think about the way we live today?

I went upstairs and started reading a book called 'A Bright Shining Lie' which is about one American soldier's experience of the war. Here, in 2006, as I write this, I have to admit I barely remember one line from that book. It makes we wonder if I should've been making more opportunity of where I was.

The original Cu Chi tunnelsSteps and handrail added later...

A Ravaged Country

2003-01-31T16:42:00.000-08:00

Skyline from Miss Loi's
The War Remnants Museum may have changed its name from The American and Chinese War Crimes Musuem, but the former title is still the more fitting. Located in a quiet street near the city centre, the musuem highlights all the well-known atrocities the American's committed (the My Lai massacre, Agent Orange devastation, heavy bombing strategies) without mentioning a single-incident painting the North Vietnamese Army in a bad light.

Communist societies probably have a worse record at providing a balanced, fair assessment of events than non-Communist ones, but the museum is really just another stark reminder that in any conflict, truth is as much a casualty as the people.

Bearing that in mind, the museum is still a powerful illustration of what war means at the level of individuals and the suffering and madnesses they have to endure. The most chilling photo is of two American soldiers grinning like wild men while holding aloft the recently decapitated heads of two of their enemy. To me it shows how far ordinary men, outside of many of the controls of civilized society, can have their moral resources eroded to the point at which a human becomes less than an animal.

Additional exhibits of deformed foetuses--killed by exposure to Agent Orange--preserved in jars of formaldehyde, helped to show how the technologies of modern warfare can have the most devastating consequences for ordinary men and women. I hope one day the human race will become mature enough to renounce violence because in the not-too-distant future there will be weapons created that no enforceable level of security will be able to contain. It is only through a universal agreement to not develop these technologies that we'll be able to have a worldwide peace.

Whatever you're opinions about the use of war as a means of settling disputes, the human cost should always be borne in mind, and a museum such as this one does a brilliant job of cataloguing that cost.

After the museum I walked a good part of the city, trying to get a sense of the place. The city seemed deserted, but perhaps that was because tonight marked the beginning of the Chinese New Year and many people were probably at home or visiting relatives in the countryside. The scars of the war, which ended less than thirty years ago, are still painfully visible everywhere in the urban landscape. The damage is primarily economically caused; splintered pavements, decaying buildings needing urgent renovation, and potholed roads. And this is in the city centre.

I walked over one of the bridges that crosses the ponderously-moving Saigon River, and hit an even more degenerated area. Here I ducked into a typical Vietnamese diner and enjoyed some fat spring rolls, a seafood dish in a fish sauce called nuoc mam and a drink all for less than forty pence. Talking of food, one curiosity is the culinary legacy of the French occupation. It is probably the easiest place in Asia to find baguettes and good coffee!

Back at Miss Loi's I met an English guy called Francis, who'd been travelling for a while through other parts of South East Asia. We went to a vegetarian restaurant called The Bodhi Tree (a fig tree under which the Buddha gained enlightenment), and during the conversation I learnt Francis had once been a software engineer at Vega (the first company I worked for) too! What a coincidence--although if there was one company to put a person off IT and go travelling around the world it was Vega.

After dinner we went to the 'Bamboo Bar', a pub at one end of Ho Chi Minh City's own Khao San Road--only this road was smaller and dirtier. It seems that what the average traveller wants most, is to feel like he is back home, minus the bad weather. This means every tourist bar is a dead-ringer for a bar back home. Any elements of the country's own particular brand of alcohol consuming establishment are lost in the effort to make the bar as similar to the ones back home. Not that I don't like English pubs, it's just I want to see how things are different here. Mental note to get away from the tourist spots when I can.

At Miss-Loi's we camped out on the roof and waited for midnight and the fireworks to bring in the New Year. Enjoyable except for the American girl who had to sit on the roof's wall and make me nervous that she was going to fall. Back downstairs we ate some traditional New Year foods which included hybrid fish/rice cakes which tasted disgusting.

When asked how they tasted I, of course, said they were delicious, not wanting to belittle my host's efforts.

Their reaction? They laughed.

Later I found out the dish was intentionally bad as it symbolised the hardships endured in the creation of Vietnam.

Maybe brussel sprouts fulfill a similar role in the UK.

War and Peace

Bangkok, Thailand - Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

2003-01-30T15:59:00.000-08:00

Spirited Away
Good Morning Vietnam!

Apart from a delay at Vietnamese customs, where an American tourist loudly denigrated the country he was visiting ("What do you expect from the commies?"), the journey from Bangkok to my guest-house on the edge of the city's centre was pretty invigorating. First, sat next to me on the plane was a beautiful Vietnamese woman who spoke Vietnamese and French. My Vietnamese isn't up to much, so I dusted off my French and proceeded to butcher the only langauge in the world in which it is hard not to sound sexy. Second, once I'd negotiated customs--distancing myself from the ranting American--I decided I was going to boldly step past the air-con coach counters and the taxi-touts, and find a more traditional means of getting into town.

Emerging from the scrum of cabbies into a forlorn looking super car-park withering under the harsh midday-sun, I found myself wondering if I'd made a big mistake. Pride said I couldn't go back, but the only apparent form of transportation was a gaunt gentleman leaning against a moped. Not breaking my stride and giving away my chancer status, I marched up to him and pointed at his moped.

Maybe he wasn't a taxi-service and was just waiting for a relative, but when he realised there was a money-making opportunity he snapped into action. I paid a fifth of what the car-taxis wanted, hoisted myself onto the back, and gripped his waist.

We were off.

We rode for a long time, skirting along the bank of a putrid looking stream and seeming to make-up the route of the road as we went. Three scenarios came to my mind: the airport was miles from the centre; my pronunciation of the destination had been mistaken for 'Take to me the dirtiest place you know'; or, I was being taken to the secret police, suspected of being in cahoots with the loudmouth in the airport.

Whatever happens, think of it as an experience, I said to myself.

Part of the experience that wasn't necessary was holding the driver's waist I discovered after a little experimenting. My seasoned-traveller cover was blown, or worse, the guy thought I was groping him.

Eventually we came to Miss-Loi's guest-house. A tall, slender building with clean rooms and friendly staff on the periphery of the backpaper area. More accurately would be to say it was a good twenty minute walk from the next guest-house, as I found out when I went for a little walk after dumping my bags.

I was just adjusting myself to the rawness of the streets; the broken pavements, the dust, the intense smell of sewerage, the open houses where whole families sat in circles, and the crumbling state of the buildings, when I stumbled into a street with the most chaotic market imaginable.

All the produce was green and vibrant and laid out in large circular weaved bowls attended by crouching women in conical hats. A rich aroma of fresh leaves and herbs permeated the air. Both sides of the street were lined with vendors. Between these banks of merchants a river of people flowed full of chatter and smiles. Occasionally the stream would split in two to make room for a trader who'd set his stall in the middle of the road. A kind of mist or smoke floated around giving the whole place a dream-like quality.

It was the most amazing spectacle and I moved with the current in a trance, giddy with the feverish anticipation I felt in the air.

Later I learnt this was the last day's trade before the Chinese New Year started and everyone was stocking up for the holiday. The next day when I walked down the same deserted street I had a weird feeling I'd invented the whole experience such was the contrast. (It reminds me now of the deserted market in Spirited Away which has a energetic life at night).

I'd been having trouble crossing the roads because of the constant stream of bikes, cyclos, mopeds (with up to seven passengers), cars and buses, but had always managed to dart across during a gap in the lesser streets.

Then I came to the enormous plaza outside Ben Thanh market which was ensnared by an huge roundabout of tarmac and spoke-like avenues leading off it. No darting was going to happen here. The numerous paths of the vehicles meant even a supercomputer wouldn't be able to find a way to cross the street.

It was impossible!

I stepped away from the kerb flummoxed.

And watched a crinkled octogenarian hobble into the road, not even bothering to twist his arthritic neck to check if anything was coming. He kept up his snail's pace across the whole road never deviating from his path or tempo.

Instead of making way for the traffic, the traffic making way for him!

Enlightenment! I burst out laughing, realizing it was my expectations which were all askew here. It made me realize how easy it is to paint yourself into a small box of behavior because of assumptions taken for granted.

In the evening I dined alone unable to break the unwritten rule that you should never join a person who is dining alone...and then wished someone would join me! The stupidity!

I have a long way to go to be free....

How did the chicken cross the road?He followed the old man.

Yogic Flying

2003-01-29T14:22:00.000-08:00

Revenge of the Mopeds
Back in the steamy metropolis.

The train pulled into Bangkok's main station around six in the morning. Bruce was (and still is!) an experienced traveller, and kindly offered to show me some of the tricks for making a tourist's life easier. This was put to immediate effect as we hailed a taxi to take us Khao San Road and found ourselves heading in the wrong direction. Bruce subtly let the driver know he knew the route and we were soon going the right way.

I wouldn't have had a clue.

We agreed to share a room and then he came out with his next gem. There is one budget priced hotel on Khao San Road that has a swimming pool on the roof. The D & D Inn. Without Bruce I'd have probably ended up back at the first guest-house with its cleanliness issues, instead of being able to tan myself next to the pool, up and away from the hubbub of the street.

After giving me plenty of tips on laundry, internet, restaurants, and somewhere I could keep all those travel guides until April (when I would fly from Bangkok to Delhi), Bruce, the consummate host, then took me on a tour of the city. We glided above the streets on Bangkok's skytrain, taking in the banking district and Siam Square, where on the top-floor of a gigantic multistoried shopping centre we ate lunch in a state-enterprise style food hall.

You first walk down a long aisle filled solely with fruit stalls. The range of produce is astonishing. I used to think I was fruit-aware when I (occasionally) shopped in Waitrose and bought kiwi-fruits and mangoes. Really I was fruit-deprived. Some of the fruits they sell in Thailand I'd have trouble describing, let alone naming.

One that did leave a lasting impression on me was the durian fruit. It has the rough shape of a rugby ball, but its surface is bobbled like egg packaging. The skin is pale orange and very tough. To get to the (arguable) delicacy you need a dirty big knife. More importantly you probably need a peg on your nose.

The thick, syrupy liquid inside smells of vomitus...but tastes of heaven. To my mind the two senses aren't really separable when you eat so I had to give the tropical fruit the thumbs down.

At the food hall the first have to buy food coupons because cash isn't accepted at the counters. Whether this is due to hygiene, untrustworthy staff, or socialist ideas of profit sharing, I don't know. Maybe it just allows the cooks to concentrate on food preparation. A theory that gains credence by the delicious plate of freshly-made sushi that I enjoyed after finally picking a dish from the hundreds on offer.

Back on the hotel rooftop next to the pool, Bruce led Ben and I through the entire gamut of yogic positions. Frankly, some of the ways Bruce contorted his body would be more suited to a zombie flick than a breezy, balmy evening in Bangkok.

His stomach seemed to be missing in a couple of the positions--a state I got no way near emulating by the way!

Tomorrow I fly to Ho Chi Minh City. I can't wait. Any anxiety I had at the beginning has drifted away and my mind and body are ready for more adventures.

Foodtastic!

Koh Lanta - Bangkok

2003-01-28T14:48:00.000-08:00

Bruce and I
Long day of travelling back to the capital today.

Just to put the parameters of the trip in perspective, I'll mention the way I planned the whole thing. I knew I wanted to go around the world, and the only proviso I had was that I didn't want to include Australia/NZ (because those places are the most common destinations for British backpackers and I wanted to experience places which had less in common with the UK). I phoned STA Travel to book my ticket and ended up spending an hour plotting my course with the operator (who was a seasoned traveller). The ticket I bought was through Star Alliance: a network of big airlines which cover almost every route on the globe.

Basically I could have an unlimited number of flights, up to a total trip milage of 29,000 miles. This allowed me to backtrack, change the dates of flight (but not the route), and take little hops to avoid gruelling bus journeys. For example, one leg of the ticket involved a one hour flight from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on January 30; a road journey equivalent of twenty-four hours plus more difficult border crossings than in the airport. So my travels were very open ended with the only obligation that I needed to be in certain places at certain times to catch a plane. And I could always change the date of the flight for no extra cost if I wanted to stay in a place longer. Very cool system which I would recommend for anyone thinking of a similar venture; in fact, Star Alliance has grown considerably so the choice of routes must be even better.

Two ferry crossings, a minibus leg back on those avenues of death, and a proper bus ride, and I was back in Surat Thani, ready to take the train back to Bangkok.

Except the station was nowhere to be seen. I was in Surat Thani, that much I was certain.

Sadly the station wasn't. At least not geographically.

Thirteen kilometres between station and town is stretching the definition of said station belonging to said town, I think. I was actually aware of this and had been assured I would be delivered to the station. However, one hour before my train was due to depart I found myself standing in a travel agent's office more than eight miles away.

The rep said everything was under control, but he was acting very strangely. He kept hanging around on the street outside the office. Every few minutes he would suddenly furiously beckon me outside, only to wave me back just I started to come.

"I bet he's flagging down local buses to take me," I half-joked to another traveller headed in the other direction.

That was exactly what he was doing! He must've been waiting for the right bus to come along, because finally one time he did start beckoning and didn't stop.

"Quickly," he shouted, as I tried to run out of the office with my overloaded backpack (for some inexplicable reason I thought it'd be a good idea to carry travel guides for every country I was visiting--even when I wouldn't need the books for months).

The bus screeched to a halt and the conductor hauled me on just as it began pulling away.

Once aboard, the conductor sold me a ticket and then offered me a large green leaf. He mimed the action of removing the leaf from the stem by running a pinched hand down the stem, and then indicated I should chew the leaf.

Not wanting to snub his hospitality and being genuinely curious about eating leaves, I happily scrunched up the gift, popped it in my mouth and started chewing.

And chewed some more.

And some more.

Little more.

That's enough.

You know those kinds of things that no matter how much you chew they don't break down--you know, dirt, mud, grass; the kinds of things two-year old kids stuff in their mouth as they're learning about the world in a very hands-on way (I'll never forget the sight of half a slug in my younger cousin's chops when I was eight). Leaves are in that category, too. I was a two-year old child again.

By now, the leaf had transformed into an inedible, gritty mulch in my mouth. It tasted how I'd imagine cardboard would taste and it made my mouth really dry. If I really wanted to eat this I'd have to swallow and regurgitate just like a cow. No thanks. I spat the mulch out the window and try to gauge the conductor's reaction.

It was probably a practical joke on gullible tourists, but the guy showed no signs that it was. Maybe I'd really offended him, I don't know. The merest glint of mischief in his eyes suggested I hadn't.

At the station I still had some time to kill so I checked my email at a nearby internet cafe. I found out that my Nan had died two days earlier. She'd been sick in hospital but recovered sufficiently to come out. Although not well, nobody had expected that she would die so suddenly. I was pretty distraught. I hadn't considered that the goodbye I gave her when I left might've been the last. Everybody said I should keep travelling and not come back for the funeral--it would be what she wanted--but it felt awful not being around to support Mum and everyone else. Later, on the day of the funeral I had some quiet moments of reflection to myself.

Death is a natural part of life, but it's still such a cruel thing. All we can do is live the days we have to the fullest. Dream hard, work hard, play hard, love hard. Never dehumanize anybody; remember that we're all trying to find meaning in a meaningless universe. How are you doing?

On the overnight train back to Bangkok I met two interesting characters. Ben, a recently retired Thai woman, and Bruce, a former Democrat party member now living in Japan. Bruce had plenty of stories about political life in America. For example, on election days basically being a taxi for people who were too lazy to go to the polls otherwise. Democracy?!

Bruce also practices yoga.

Tomorrow he's going to teach Ben and I the basics!

Easy Rider

2003-01-27T05:21:00.000-08:00

Tree with a View
So I hired a moped.

How hard can it be? In France they let children as young as twelve ride them--without helmets, such is the confidence in the Gallic youth. But then again they do a lot of things in France that are considered foolish elsewhere--snail chomping and wearing strings of onions the way Hawaiians wear garlands of flowers, for example.

Although mopeds don't have gears and clutches, they do have a particular feature which makes mopeding more difficult for the absolute beginner/fool: they allow you to accelerate and brake simultaneously. Not an especially useful feature. One that might well lead to quite a comical situation.

After hiring the moped from a shop in the main town I sped out of the town, keen not to demonstrate my complete lack of moped prowess in front of the shopkeeper or the legions of tourists freshly arrived after a hard night's travelling and now looking for easy entertainment.

Cruising is easy.

I cruised along the island's sole dusty highway, a spitting image of Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider. As I got further from the town, the building-sites of partially constructed hotels and restaurants at the roadside gave way to the jungle, helping to shade me from the scorching glare of the sun. Every 500m I passed what I thought were fizzy drink pumps; indigo and crimson liquids in small twinned cylinders like.

It was only when I looked at the fuel gauge and discovered I was nearly empty that I realized these tiny pumps were petrol stations.

As I came onto the next one I tried braking for the first time. The moped began to slow. A Thai man sitting in a deck chair next to the pump spied my approach and began lazily unfolding himself from his seat. I veered towards the side of the road readying to stop.

Something wasn't right though. I wasn't slowing fast enough.

The man got to the pump and started unfurling the petrol hose like he was coiling rope.

I still had the accelerator on; my right hand still twisting the throttle.

Panicking because I was going sail right past the man, or worse, into him, I tried to to simultaneously clutch the brake harder and release the throttle. Somehow the signals got mixed up on the way from my brain to hands, and the reverse happened. I eased the brake and raised the throttle.

The moped shot forward. Suddenly the man's laidback attitude vanished as hundreds of kgs of man and machine beared down upon him. He jumped out of the way and I missed him by a whisker, meekly raising my left hand as a gesture of apology. Of course this meant I took my hand off the brake and I accelerated past even faster. He probably thought I was some hit and run prankster.

I was too embarassed to go back so I refilled at the next pump.

Eventually I got the hand of the thing and had a great day zigging, zagging, climbing, and bombing down the single road which snaked more and more as I headed into the interior. Near the tallest part of the island I stopped for refreshment in a fantastic bar which had a palatial open-aired treehouse with great views over the bay. Sequined cushions were liberally scattered about and I plumped one up, curled into a little nook where the trunk met the platform, and enjoyed the scenery.

Later, down by the coastline, I parked up and walked to the end of the second town's pier. Three kids were fishing under the concrete struts, keeping out of trouble and the sun. They seemed slightly forlorn, but maybe they were just chilled-out youngsters and I needed to readjust my expectations. In England boys of that age would be trying to blow up the fish with smokebombs or graffitiing the pillars. I thought how cool it would be to grow up on a small island like this. Have a tight circle of friends of different ages and know the whole place intimately. Great fun.

In the evening I went to the bar and got chatting to a guy who wanted to visit every country in the world, and a couple who'd travelled overland from China, arriving in Beijing on October 1st (the day the People's Republic of China was established in 1949) and been awed by the crowds in Tiananmen Square. Talking to new people was really exciting, and I know I'll meet some interesting characters over the next few months.

At one point the barman rolled me up a traditional Thai cigarette.

Strong doesn't come close. It nearly knocked me off my stool.

It was time to go to bed.

Bad Boys, Thai Style

Killing the Muse

2003-01-26T15:02:00.000-08:00

Another great sunset. How passe.
The travelling really began in earnest today.

Saw Mark and Luke off from outside the hotel early doors. It's been fantastic to have their company, but even though I'll feel lonely later, it is time to go my own way in the world. By nature I'm an easygoing, accommodating person and am generally happy to go along with whatever, but in some ways that attitude is a path to unhappiness.

I believe, more so than ever these days, that every person has a responsibility to themselves. To fight hard for that space where they can grow as their personality and desires dictate. What a human can achieve, in any one of the infinite bands which make up our spectrum of activity, truly staggers me. What a human can waste equally staggers me.

Today I started to shape my life in line with my own instincts.

It was a tentative beginning; I moved a small wooden table from inside the hut out onto the veranda.

And then spent most the day writing. I've harboured a dream to write for many years, but aside from a creative writing course in 2001 and occasional bursts of productivity since, I've never been consistent enough in my approach. As of 2006 I've developed many good writing habits and I'm now convinced the key to any kind of success has as its foundation in discipline and hard work. What about creativity? Or literary dexterity? Or a deep well of life-knowledge? Hard work can help progress all those aspects.

Anyway, sat at that table, listening to the waves gently breaking on the shore and the shrill cries of birds in the palm trees above, I still hadn't absorbed those lessons about routine and discipline yet, and I tore through two-thousand words in a few hours thinking the moment of epiphany had come. The muse! Inspiration! All I needed was the right environment and the words would come! How I was going to replicate this tropical environment back in England when I finally returned I didn't consider.

I trotted down to the beach staring into the middle distance. I was contemplating book deals and conversations with the literary glitterati and award ceremonies when I walked straight into an ongoing volleyball game. Three locals were playing two lithe, muscular, kiln-brick tanned Brazilians. They seemed to be doing oaky despite their numerical disadvantage, but even so, as I soon as I strayed onto the sandy court they beckoned me to join.

I think they mistook my daydreaming meander into their game as a not-very subtle hint that I wanted in. I flapped off my T-shirt revealing my pasty, flabby flesh and picked-up the ball. How these two Adonis's could benefit from me and my birthright of cold, pebbly beaches rather than the sundrenched avenues of sand they were used to in Rio, I didn't know.

I did my best. I served. I spiked. I dived. Where my team-mates got sand into their tousled hair and over their sweat-sheen backs, I got it up my bum. When I jumped acrobatically to save a point I got friction burns and the ball ricocheting off into the sea; they got gasps of adulation and perfect set-ups.

Eventually, I left them to it and went back. I had books to write. No more harmless frippery for me. Leave them to their childish games. We made casual arrangements to meet later in the evening. I finished the story. More a parable than a story, but it had a character, a conflict, and an ending. What more is there to fiction? I put the pen down pretty happy with myself. And only managed to pick it up again about twice more over the next seven months. I think I learnt something about writing from that day and the unproductive ones that followed.

Later I waited for the Brazilians, but they never showed up. Too busy having a good time I supposed. I ate dinner alone wondering why I'd spent most the day not two metres from my bed when there was a whole island to explore.

Tomorrow would be different!

Money Making is a Wonderful Thing

2003-01-25T15:30:00.000-08:00

Ventured into Koh Lanta's main town today, although perhaps town is too generous a label to apply to the assembly of shops which line the place's only road. To my overactive imagination it has echoes of the wild-west settlements which sprung up around gold prospecting country in the States. This time the gold is the natural beauty of the island, and the propectors are the tourists.

Everything revolves around commerce here. This isn't a place to live, but a place to do business. Every building is festooned with advertising hoardings each reaching a little further into the street or higher into the sky than the one before. They all offer the same things, the actual number of products of services relatively small. The only differences being the marketing slant.

Do you want 'Tour Exclusives' or 'Eco-Tourism' or 'Travel Services'? They all mean the same thing. Due to the limited products and the fact the history of the place stretches back five or ten years at the most, walking through the town gives an immediate sense of deja-vu. How many internet cafes can a place support? Didn't I just walk past the Koh Lanta Travel Shop (no, that was Lanta's Shop of Travel).

There was only one bank, but unlike the old wild-west, I don't think it was subject to too many armed robberies. Also, bar brawls, gun fights at sundown, and the streets awash with the paralytically drunk were thin on the ground (actually, scratch the last one). The biggest danger came from walking in the wrong direction after a few beers and falling off the pier.

Anyway, I changed some of my traveller's checks but cocked-up the exchange-rate calculations and came out clutching enough Thai Baht to last a month rather than the week I had left before I flew to Vietnam. Maybe I would be experiencing one of those ladyboys--just to lighten my wallet and spread my wealth, as it were.

Actually this illustrates a serious point. The world has seriously bought the idea of capitalism. It's a great invention. I once saw a quote describing trade as a kind of magic which can turn raw materials into flashy things like iPods and laptop computers. Maybe that's stretching the notion a little, but I perfectly concur with the idea that it is commerce which is the driving force behind making these things available to all.

The big question, for me, is where is this ideology leading us?

John Maynard Keynes, one of the twentieth century's leading economists and one of the people best placed to understand and predict where capitalism will lead, once said:

"Capitalism is the absurd belief that the worst of men, for the worst of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all."

Perhaps I'm selectively misquoting him. I don't know. Trickle-down economics has often been trotted out as an excuse to leave the markets alone and let wealth spread of its own natural accord. It's true that in absolute terms capitalism makes us all richer. The problem is, it doesn't make us all richer at the same rate, and it is the relative wealth that divides people which is far more important than any absoulte measures (once basic thresholds of poverty are breached--still a way to go there which is why economic booms in India and China are great engines for raising standards of living).

Really, the developed nations of the world should be doing far more to understand the limitations of free-market economics. Some believe there are self-correcting mechanisms which will make everything all right in the end. I don't buy it for a second. Even if it is true over the long term, slavish adherence to the market will lead to plenty of strife on the way.

Goldman Sachs have predicted world oil production will peak in 2007. When US oil production peaked in 1973 and OPEC (Middle East dominated oil producing countries) lowered their production the world suffered a major energy crisis and prices rocketed. Unless we find another sustainable energy source this is coming again. Permanently.

My own tentative solution involves not aiming for economic growth but for economic stability. Increasing technology and mechanisation will continue. This will mean more productivity for less human labour which in turn will mean everyone can work less. Eventually we'd all have ten hour weeks with the same total economic wealth as today. Then we can all focus on our creative sides! Also bikes in towns and cities would be compulsory.

Seriously, if anyone knows any economics can they let me know why we always aim for economic growth and whether this means the entire future of the human race will involve 37.5 hour weeks and taking sickies. Not too ennobling a vision if you ask me.

So, I came out the bank, spent a few Baht on a couple of gifts for Luke and Mark as they're leaving tomorrow, and went for a beer to mull it over.

Bit off topic for a travel blog today, but travelling's there to broaden the mind too, right?

The International Jet-Set

2003-01-24T03:27:00.000-08:00

A Hard Life?
My sleeping-patterns still hadn't settled down yet, so Mark and Luke had to wake me around eight otherwise I'd have slept through to midday. A converted jeep was awaiting us after breakfast, and we jumped in the back and set off for the boat.

If the short journey in the jeep was an indication of the boat ride we were going to be in for an exhilarating day. We bombed down narrow, bumpy dirt tracks that twisted all over the place with the jungle canopy looming over us. Sunlight would occasionally come into your eyes and then it was all about the warm breeze rushing past, the metal frame you were clinging on to, and the roar of the engine. A few other tourists got picked-up and then we gunned down the island's main road to the port in the main town, the driver keen to show us that the jeep was good on the flat too.

Our party was the last to board and the boat left shortly afterwards. Unfortunately, the jeep ride hadn't been a good indication of what to expect for travelling over the waves. The sea was pretty flat and we coasted along too far from any landmarks to give us any real sense of speed.

There's something strange about the allure of pleasure boats. From your average landlubber's perspective, such as myself, the dazzling white hull, the trim of silver railings, the black-tinted windows, all hint at something cool going down. Homo sapiens is one hell of a curious species and if there's one thing that gets us off our butts it's seeing other people having a good time and wanting to get part of the action. Pleasure boats or yachts are a prime example. The windows must be tinted black because of all the naughty but fun adventures going on behind; white tuxedoed waiters serving flutes of champagne to supermodels and great wits. The silver railings hinting at danger. Masts and rigging to be used for high-sea heroics.

The reality is a little different. At least for me on this boat.

Behind the windows below deck were a few sorry looking tables and a wooden-planked floor around which sea-water sloshed. This meant everybody was above deck. Now maybe this boat was a little slimmer than normal, and maybe there were more passengers than usual, but the upshot was that everyone was practically on top of one another. The combination of fifty strangers, the early hour, and no spaces escaping the blaze of the sun is not a good combination for interesting conversation. I gazed at the sea, got sea-sick, and then gazed back at my fellow passengers.

And got thinking about national stereotypes. Now the word stereotype is often used as a pejorative term. I think it comes from a personal desire not to be stereotyped ourselves. We are bigger and more complicated than any of the generalizations which can be made about ourselves. Of course we are. I wouldn't dare to try to understand one person's life through a list of attributes: race, sex, nationality etc.

But...in a complex world, stereotypes allow us to function without crippling ourselves into inaction. Everyone makes judgements based on imperfect information. And the gaps in our knowledge get filled by things like stereotypes. The one thing I would say is that everyone should try and make their own stereotypes and not just rehash the ones that have gone before--ones that are often more to do with power struggles, disagreements, political or religious animosities. The other questions are how much do stereotypes shape people, and do we get influenced by what we've heard before?

So with those caveats in place, on this boat with my limited observations over this day I found people from the Low Countries were outgoing and respectful. The Americans were self-confident and energetic. The English were reserved. The Japanese were serious, and the Israelis were strong-minded.

After we moored up at a small deserted island I spent a lot of time snorkelling, peering down at the colorful shoals of fish and the coral which had an other-worldly feel. Spectacular! I can't imagine what a proper dive on a place like the Great Barrier Reef would be like.

When I got out the water my back was as pink as a lobster. Sleeping was painful that night!

More Interesting Below the Water!

Notes from the Andaman Sea

2003-01-23T10:40:00.000-08:00

Ko Lanta, as of 2003, was one of Thailand's less developed resorts. Further down the claw-like peninsula of the south than Phuket and other islands, it takes the better part of twenty-four hours to reach from Bangkok, and consequently has been less exploited as a tourist destination.

The hotel we were staying at, and the entire cluster in this bay, were a case in point. There must've been an average of three or four guests per hotel. At night the staff outnumbered the customers in the bars. To my vivid imagination it felt kind of apocalyptic. Here was a paradisiacal place: crystal clear waters at a temperature perfect for a newborn baby; gentle breezes rippling through the palm trees; miles of golden beaches. So where was everybody?

A vision of the future?

People, tired of dying, will slough-off their physical forms and upload themselves into virtual immortality, emptying the land. Or, the age of cheap flights having ended, every Englishman will holiday at the Great British seaside just like his Victorian forebears instead of in the global village.

The lazy feel of the place quickly gets under the skin and everyone seems to loll around in a daze. Very cool in its own laid-back way, but for me, with my propensity to take the easy option at every opportunity, it just meant I spent the first full day on the island covering my own little Bermuda triangle where I was lost to the world. Its apexes? My beach hut, a small strip of beach, and the hotel's bar-cum-restaurant.

Swinging in my veranda's hammock, I spent a good part of the day reading 'The Diary of Anne Frank'. Probably not an ideal location to try and empathise with Anne's terrible plight, it was nonetheless, an inspiring read and a kick-up-the-bum to take every opportunity life and these travels bring--except the ladyboys, perhaps. To not do so would be an affront to people like Anne, and millions of others whose circumstances deny them the freedom to pursue their lives as they wish.

In my diary I wrote a quote from the book. If I remember rightly it was said by one the neighbours Anne was annexed with.

"The Spirit of the Man is Great,
How Puny are his Deeds."

When I read it I thought this would be perfect for a motto to live life by.

Tomorrow will be a day of action, I decided.

We booked three tickets on a luxury boat trip.

Perplexed bar personnages

Suratthani - Ko Lanta

2003-01-22T12:51:00.000-08:00

Another safety-conscious driving experience
The train was delayed during the night so instead of arriving around six we rolled into Suratthani around seven thirty. This didn't mean anyone got any extra time in bed. Oh no. The first rays of sunlight and the train guards were forcibly ejecting people from their beds. I'd like to see a little more of the democratic principle in these situations; can't everyone make their own choices? Those who want to sleep, can. Those who don't, can get up. The upside was being treated to great view of dawn breaking, though. A light green chequer-board of fields slightly hazy from a dewy mist, and avenues of palm trees marking the boundaries of the land. I'm in the tropics, I thought, rather obviously.

Ko Lanta is one of the less developed beach islands off the west coast of southern Thailand. To get there involves a journeying by train, bus, minibus and ferry. This in turn means opportunities for commerce for lots of locals. Hence the scrum-like scramble for your business everytime you arrive in a new place. Especially in a half-way sort of town like Suratthani. So how do you choose?

This is the traveller's chance to redistribute some of his not-very-(in absolute terms compared to the locals)-hard-won money. Contribute to a fair and even world for all. Make all those greenhouse emissions that it took to get here a little less shaming. Demonstrate that though our governments and multinationals may be power and profit-driven monstrosities, the average Westerner is an all right sort of bloke and sympathetic with the people of the poorer nations.

We got on the bus with the air-con.

The minibus leg gave us some memorable times. For all the wrong reasons. The roads in southern Thailand are pretty straight. Kilometers of tarmac over the flat landscape with not a single bend. You'd think this would make accidents less likely. Maybe it does, in which case I don't want to think about what the mortality rate would be if there were more turns.

Anyway, the road was a simple one-lane-in-each-direction affair with a kind of dusty track to either side for slower moving vehicles such as bikes and scooters. A car one hundred meters ahead started to indicate right and slowed to a stop in the middle of our lane. An old man was cycling on the track just before the car. Traffic kept passing in the other direction preventing the car from turning. We got to fifty meters, still humming along at seventy.

The car hasn't turned.

Thirty meters. Still no braking. I'm pushing an imaginary brake pedal like I always do with drivers who make me nervous.

The car still doesn't turn.

Ten meters. Seventy miles per hour. Unless this minibus has got some shit-hot technology, braking isn't going to help any longer. Other passengers moments ago in deep slumbers awake knowing something's up. The atmosphere feels electric.

Our driver suddenly apprehends that, just maybe, the car ahead isn't actually going to turn in time and he's the only person who can do anything about it. He slams us hard left into the track and I swear we're going to take out the old man on the bike.

We pass between the stationary car and the old man like a bullet down the barrel of a gun. Milimeters. If I'd rolled down the window and pursed my lips I could've given the old guy a smack on the cheeks we were so close.

And the best bit? The driver veers back onto the road proper and doesn't skip a beat, dragging on his cigarette with all the nonchalence of Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca.

Later, for the last part of the journey on the island we rode on an adapted scooter. Try and imagine two benches jury-rigged onto the back with a kind of roof awning above. I was pretty happy when we could get off and help push the thing when it got stuck in a sandy ditch in the road.

At the resort we walked back and forth down the beach, finally choosing the hotel we'd been dropped off at. I've got a log cabin a stone's throw from the water with a hammock on the veranda. Another Kodak moment.

Bangkok - Suratthani

2003-01-21T14:14:00.000-08:00

Campbell had to leave for the airport at five in the morning so it was an early start to see him off. Some might have had reservations sharing with the descendent of a convict, but I shared no such prejudices and I'm happy to report nothing untoward happened upon my person over the entire time I shared his company.

I think I must've still been in a bit of a daze what with the place, the heat, and the enormity of what I was doing (I mean in a personal way; this travelling was perhaps the first 'real' choice I'd made in my life) because I don't have too many clear memories of these first few days. I know a lot of my awareness was directed inwards at the time; I thought a lot about life in England continuing and how I was like the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle, far away from its familiar home.

I was finding myself.

It's a tired cliche, but does have a kernel of truth. Most of the time we live in social structures which are pretty rigid. With friends, family, and work colleagues we follow familiar patterns of behavior. Hopefully they're happy, healthy patterns for most of us. But even then, as well as providing comfort, they constrain us from what we might become. Putting yourself in a alien situation provides a way of finding out what makes YOU tick. Obviously this is an idealistic scenario: going round-the-world still involves plenty of things we're used to. It's hard to get away from all your social and human and cultural references, but I do believe the further you go from these 'safe places' the more you let your own natural personality out.

I think the dazed feeling I had was the unconscious realization--and fear--I was going to be as free as I'd ever been. And I was looking inwards and towards home as a means of ignoring this. Fortunately I snapped out of this mode after the first couple of weeks.

Anyway, to end my life-guru rant, do something different. You might even enjoy it.

The big cultural event of the day was a boat trip over the river to the Temple of Arun (Dawn) - photo below. If there's one thing I'd have liked to done differently with the whole travels, it would've been to read some history before I'd left. Without knowing the significance of a place to the people who built the place and the people who used the place afterwards all you're really looking at is architecture--not that architecture's not a damn fine subject (which I don't know much about again). Seeing edifices such as these does help to convey how important religion was though; everything must have been appreciated through such a conceptual-prism for almost everyone.

We left Bangkok by train in the late afternoon, and not so long after boarding the carriage transformed into its night incarnation--bunk beds lining both sides. I sometimes think I'd prefer this to be the default arrangement for all trains so a crafty sleep is always possible! Outside Bangkok packs of kids boarded the train as it trundled dead slow through the night--I thought they were cute until I realized they were just trying to rob tourists. I'd probably do the same in their position.

Didn't fall asleep for a long time thinking about the past, future, dreams, and where the safest place to put my valuables was (down my pants--pretty rare visitors there--but there are comfort issues!).

Bangkok Tourist

2003-01-20T11:48:00.000-08:00

Campbell planned to make the most of his limited time in the city and was up and out by the time I rose. (Although later I found his good intentions in tatters: by mid-afternoon he was back in bed).

Met Luke and Mark for breakfast in the guest-house lounge. Fruit seems to be the thing to eat in the mornings and despite the rumours that watermelons can house lots of bacteria I dug into three enormous slices of mouth-watering lushness.

If today is anything to go by, travelling involves many long, meandering walks with constant breaks to consult maps and gawp at unusual things--unusual to a Englishman with little to no previous knowledge of other cultures and religions, that is. Like a visitor to England stopping and admiring a post-box or a hoodied youth, I suppose.

We ambled. We consulted. We took our shoes off and went into a Buddhist temple. I've got to admit, I've never got the hang of going into places of worship. I'm not religious (I know, I know, Buddhism's not technically a religion) and I always feel like I'm intruding on other people's spiritual sanctuaries. Being there as an observer alone feels kind of wrong, like attending a Singles Party to check-out the scene when you've got a partner. What am I missing not being a Buddhist? Lots of statues of the Buddha in the Lotus position, for one.

After booking tickets on a sleeper train for tomorrow night at the main railway station--a painless affair, unlike later mishaps, notably in Delhi--we made an equally circuitous route back to Khaosan Road, taking in Chinatown, the Golden Buddha, the Royal Barge Museum, and a gentle boat ride up the river. Chinatown was a blacksmith's paradise, the Golden Buddha was golden, and the Royal Barges were very, very long.

In the evening we watched Lord of the Rings--to help understand Western cultural influences on the Thai mind, of course--and during the course of the film I got to witness first-hand the Thai bride phenomena. A lecherous, sixty something English gentleman was basically letting his dining-mate--a young Thai woman--be his personal slave. Perhaps it was true love and the woman was just spoiling her man, but I always feel slightly uncomfortable seeing relationships where there are gross imbalances of power. It makes romance seem to be solely about self-interest instead of mutual respect and love. Am I hopelessly naive?

Crashed out early, still adjusting to the time-difference.

Somewhere Over Asia - Bangkok, Thailand

2003-01-19T12:34:00.000-08:00

The plane landed in Bangkok at 4pm local time, coasting down through cloudless blue skies. The view from the window seat was spectacular; the patchwork of fields giving way to the edge of the capital with the city's minareted skyline shimmering in the distance.

Not that I saw any of that.

A woman with a window seat told me all about it as we disembarked.

I couldn't see anything squeezed into the middle seats of the middle aisle and was too busy worrying about a landing disaster to do anything more than stare stiffly at the back of the chair ahead.

It was my first time in Asia and the thing I remember most as I got off the plane was the intense heat. A kind of heat that has substance and you have to push your way through it to move like wading through water. And then you breath it in and the heat comes into your chest like your whole body is regulating itself to the climate. It sparks a feeling that everything will be more leisurely here, more sedate. Or maybe that's just a cliche looking for a susceptible mind....

Attempting to look like a seasoned traveller I confidently left the airport ignoring the offers of taxi touts and walked up to the bus stop just outside. There were lots of other backpackers milling about so I guessed this was the right place. If it wasn't at least I was in company.

Eventually a bus pulled up and everyone, including myself jumped on. It was here I met my first travel buddy - a strapping Australian named Campbell. He'd been working on a cattle farm in England for six months and was on his way home, stopping over in Bangkok for a couple of nights only. It was good to meet another lone traveller and we agreed to share a room in town.

Khaosan Road. If you're in Bangkok and you're a backpacker you will almost certainly stay in or around Khaosan Road (Cow-A-San if I've got the pronunciation right). I don't think I've seen any other city with such a compressed tourist area. It's a long wide street but it doesn't seem so due to the almost relentless activity and life which plays out on itself. The contrast between the quiet early mornings and the rest of the day is amazing. Stalls line the pavement on both sides of each sidewalk (next to the shops AND the kerb). They sell T-shirts, alarm clocks, jewellery, perfume, batteries, sarongs, coconuts pierced with a single straw, and a lot of other stuff. Between these stalls a single-file line of mainly young tourists bustle, looking for bargains or trying to get access to the numerous internet cafes, hotels, guest-houses, bookshops, pubs, restaurants, travel agents, laundrettes, bars, tattoo parlours. Most people walk on the road proper with scooters zipping past and the occasional honking car.

For a tired, first-time traveller it's a bit of a sight. With night descending we walked the entire length of the road in a daze. Then we hit one of the street's lesser tributaries and walked down that. Eventually we shook our collective heads and ducked in to a chilled-out looking guest-house. (Actually once inside, discharged of bags, and sipping a beer, everyone does there best to give an air of pitying nonchalence to the poor sweaty fools still trying to find a room--the lounging is so affected on occasion). We checked in, dumped our bags and went back out with newfound confidence.

I'd arranged to meet Mark and Luke at 8pm outside Gullivers--a bar on the corner of Khaosan Road. They'd been travelling for a few months by that stage and happened to be in Thailand when I arrived. I jumped at the chance to have some familiar faces around--especially with such seasoned hands. We were a little early so we sauntered down the street again. And bumped into Mark and Luke half-way down. Like I said, Bangkok starts and ends with Khaosan Road for most. I was really happy to see them.

We went to a vegetarian restaurant. I don't remember the conversation, but I do remember still being on edge a little and Luke really helping me relax with his bouyant mood. I barely ate my food and was happy to get on to a bar. Beer is a real good fix for calming nerves. We laughed and I found out a lot about Mark and Luke's adventures in India. By the time I crawled into bed--not even that late--I was pretty drunk.

Travelling's the best I thought as I slipped to sleep, completely removed from reality by the logic of the intoxicated.

Later I woke with a raging hangover thinking 'Oh my God, no turning back now....and who's that strange man in the opposite bed?'

Hove, UK to Somewhere Over Asia

2003-01-18T12:30:00.000-08:00

It was half past five in the afternoon. My fifty litre rucksack, a purple and lush green affair still a little dusty from long days spent in dark cupboards, lay in the middle of the lounge floor surrounded by a archipelago of traveller's must-haves. Guidebooks, malaria tablets, a small mountain of socks (a grevious misjudgement I realized not much later), underwear, a small first-aid kit, fiction, blank diaries, travellers cheques, misc. clothing. There was no way everything was going to fit.

And the flight was leaving in less than three hours.

To be honest, after talking about this round-the-world trip for the better part of a year, thinking all the time about tropical paradises, crazy characters, spiritual enlightenment and the freedom from working-life, now it was finally happening I was really bricking-it.

Shaz and I would be breaking-up, or at least spending a hefty amount of time apart. Also I was, in effect, throwing away my career as a software engineer and the financial security that brought. And lastly, I was jumping into a situation I had no real experience of and would be at the whim of all the nefarious agents of the world.

No wonder I was stalling as much as possible.

But if there's one trait I do possess it's keeping my appointments and after hastily packing the rucksack to bursting point we were ready to leave. I'd already said goodbye to Mum and James, so it was only Shaz and I who were passengers in the car as Dad bolted up the motorway to Heathrow. Aren't roads the most depressing way to come and go from a place? Rivers of tarmac through the countryside and everyone divided into little metal boxes. I was glad this would be my last journey by car for a while.

At Heathrow check-in was a painless affair as there was no queue. Afterwards we sat in a Burger King--if in is the right word to describe airport terminals and their indivisible spaces--and picked at some fries while my flight got nearer. Then we suddenly realized I had to get through customs and this weekend looked like one of the airport's busiest. That's why there was no queue at check-in. Everyone else had sensibly gone through early. There were rushed goodbyes and hugs and then I sped to the rear of a very slow-moving line. Dad and Shaz stood together while the queue inched forward. I shed a few tears and shuffled past a screen that seperated the travelling hordes from the non-travelling hordes.

And came to the custom's queue proper.

It was a like an entire hangar devoted to customs. How many people were leaving the UK? Was this normal, or was their some 'Lets Leave Britain' conspiracy afoot? There was no way I was going to make it in time if I waited. I waved over one of the custom's helpers and got fast-tracked through.

Then I sprinted. Endless avenues of glassed corridors flashed by with views onto the runway. My pace slowed. Are airports deliberately designed for maximum distance between terminal and plane? It seems so. To shed a few last ounces of fat for overburdened planes? To enjoy the scenery? Finally I ended up walking.

When I got to the gate they were just calling last passengers.

I flashed my passport and boarding pass and left British soil.

A Confession

2003-01-15T10:15:00.000-08:00

Between January and August 2003, I spent seven months visiting nine countries in two continents. I kept a personal diary for the entire trip and made a promise to myself that I would write-up this private journal into a publically-consumable travelogue one day. I made this promise because foremost I wanted to share my experiences in a way which was convenient for those who might be interested. Secondly, I wanted to make something that I could look back on and spark memories of this amazing time in my life.

It is now 2006 and I've finally got myself in a position to do this project. I will try to write each day of the trip's journey on the corresponding day in 2006 so that everyone who wants to can re-live the experience with me. I hope the length of time between then and now doesn't detract from the diary too much. It was a timeless experience in many ways, after all.

I openly encourage anyone to make comments on my posts. I want this to as rich and flavoursome a stew as possible!

Steve