TravelStream™ news feed for member gazalache on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/gazalache en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 13 Sep 2009 13:20:28 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/3/1252862063/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/3/1252862063/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/3/1252862063/tpod.html Sun, 13 Sep 2009 13:20:28 -0400 Trying to return

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Surin, Surin, Thailand

Nice's last show
So after being on the piss with us the night before, I saw Nice at about 8.30 the next morning. I was rough and buying some cigarettes to get me through the day. Nice was very rough, and on his second beer to get him through the day. He offered me one and as much as I wanted to, in my elderly wisdom I declined, as I had quite a lot of TCB - ing to do that day. Nice told me it was his day off, and that he would just drink his hangover away and then sleep all day. Nice was wrong. It was not his day off. After tying up many of my loose ends, we were called back to duty to help out with the elephant show once again. There was Nice, centre stage for some reason (he normally commentates from an air conditioned office with a good line of sight some ways away) swaying slightly and slurring heavily. And putting on the show of his life. The crowd were a like a pool cue in his drunken hands, and he was clearing off the break with every shot he took. They were in hysterics, and he was loving it. The show normally lasts 20 minutes, and todays topped out at about 50. It involved getting a ladyboy up from the crowd for something (the show is in Thai, so we don't have a clue whats going on), and also getting me up from the crowd, Nice groping me heavily in front of 400 school kids (I later found out his joke there was that we are gay together, the gay men joke really is both an eternal and multinational joke, however none do it quite as theatrically as the Thai) and trying to get me to make out with a 15 year old girl. As I had needed Jack to point out to me that the girl Nice was talking to earlier was in fact a boy, I was reluctant to with both the possibility of paedophelia charges and making out with a dude looming over my head. I'm not sure which concerned me more. Anyway, I gather Nice in fact kept his job, which is good cos he is a cool guy. I spoke to him about Mr. Shit the night before, and he was highly apologetic - I told him it was ok, but he was concerned. He did have a new name for me on the last day, but it was in Thai and I didn't catch it. Probly something along the lines of "Mr. Takes it like a little bitch from me every night", in keeping with the homosexual joke theme. I don't know, and I don't care to.

One Tonne Tan Wan

Tan Wan does not weigh one ton. But it rhymes, and sounds kind of clever, so I went with it. At a guess I would say Tan wan weighs about 250-300kg. This is not a problem, as he is a six month old baby elephant. The 'baby elephant' clarification in the last sentence seems a little uncalled for, he is hardly going to be a six month old geriatric grandparent, or a 300kg baby ant. Moving on. Tan wan is a very cute, smiley playful little fella, the size of a St Bernard, mischevious and adorable. He is also in great danger, as he has made a dangerous enemy. Me. I hate the little big bastard with a passion. As far as I am concerned he sucks furious amounts of Blue whale dick, because that is the only dick I can think of that is larger and probably worse tasting than Elephant dick. I imagine it would be really salty. This probably requires some explaining (my hatred of a cute baby elephant, not the salinity of a whales cock), so allow me.
Like any relationship, it began with a certain level of trepidation and nervousness on both parts. I fed the grey little bloke a few bananas, and he warmed to me. I stroked his relatively small trunk in a completely non sexual way (fearful of paedophilia, bestiality and gayness this time) and scratched his enormous head. We were friends. I was told that he could only eat bananas, he was not strong enough to chew the sugar cane that the older elephants devoured with such vim. I broke one down into smaller pieces for him, and he managed to eat it up. It was like a coming of age for him, I had led him there through kindness and trust. I could see in his weirdly large eyes that we were tight, a regular Turner and Hooch, Philo and Clyde. We could have fought crime together, but it was not be. Because Tan Wan is a quarter ton of pure cunt. Two days before I was to leave, I was peeling bananas for him and feeding them to him, obviously I would not be peeling them to make a facial mask for him, or to blend into banana daiquiris. That would be frowned upon. He was uncharacteristically demanding. After three or four nanas he just grabbed my hand with his trunk, pulled it down to his mouth and started chewing on it. Elephants have large teeth, but they are not made for breaking human hands, especially at 6 months of age. It still kind of hurt, as there was a lot of pressure there. Maybe he was making a joke, maybe it was his way of saying "I love you Gaz, and I will miss you deeply as a guru and a friend". I laughed at him and called him a dickhead. Tan Wan, or any elephant for that matter, surely cannot have a grasp of the English language so strong as to recognize that classic insult. Perhaps it was something in my tone, but he let go of my hand. I looked down on him with a warm and almost fatherly smile, proud of him in so many ways. Then he nutted me like a drunken Liverpool fan. Headbutted clean in the sternum. He may be only 6 months old, but 250 Kilos of elephant behind a head four times the size of Mick Wescombe's fucking hurts when it nails you in the chest unsuspectingly. I dropped to my knees, winded and broken hearted by this needless betrayal. The bastard had another crack but thanks to my lightening reactions (read: lightening reactions compared to a baby elephant) I avoided being concussed. I was about to punch him in the head, but I thought that first of all it would probably hurt me far more than him, and beating an infant elephant is not a good look for a volunteer in an elephant sanctuary. And that was the end of it. I dragged myself away, weeping with sorrow at the lost friendship (not the pain in my chest. Well the emotional pain in my chest, not the physical pain in my chest, because I'm kind of a tough guy. Except when it comes to being fucked over by wildlife toddlers, that breaks me down hardcore). We havn't spoken since. I've heard elephants never forget. Well neither do I. Well actually I tend to black out a lot when I drink, and I forget a lot of things that others consider important, but I won't forget Tan Wan. And he better hope he remembers me, cos when he sees me coming next time it won't be with a handful of peeled bananas. It will be with something much more menacing (which is not hard when comparing it with peeled bananas, unless of course you are allergic to bananas) which I cannot think of right now. But yeah, it's on like Donkey Kong with me an Tan Wan, this chapter has only just begun. (I should have been in 8 mile, dead set)

Train Station

This one should be good. I have been waiting for a while to get here, because it is rich in veins of awkward situations which can be mined, refined and alloyed into entertaining sentences for you to devour at your leisure. I have to be in the right frame of mind for this one, and that requires some preparation. Namely taking yet another shit. Sorted like folded laundry.
So I got dropped at the train station at about 9.30pm, Apple said bye and left - she doesn't like drawn out goodbyes and I can hardly blame her, as she does it on a fortnightly basis. My train was leaving at 10.02, so I settled into my book, a time bending military black comedy action thriller by John Birmingham. It's shit. He was great when he wrote light comic pieces on real life experiences, but has gone to shit by trying to be a real writer. Sounds like a warning bell. An old guy who looked like Ghandi came up and sat beside me and started chatting in English. Turns out he was a monk, the praying kind not the asskicking kind. He was ok. Then he thanked me for the conversation and left me be. I was glad to be alone. For about five minutes. A 60 year old guy came up and tried to feed me a shot of whiskey from his hip flask. Understandably, I declined. You cannot smoke on planes or trains, which is why I do not drink on planes or trains. Then he nattered away at me in broken slurred english for quite some time. After a while I realised that he was proposing that we fuck off our train ride till tomorrow, go hit the clubs and pick up, and failing that we get some hookers and go back to his place. He was seedier than a tomato. Again, I declined. He forgot this and started his once in a lifetime opportunity offer again, but I was in no mood to be kidnapped/killed/raped and so declined another three times. As I saw the drunken blackout roll over his features and he began his sales pitch a sixth time (to the huge entertainment of all those sitting around me, who claimed they could not speak English but seemed to understand the drunktard beside me pretty damn well) my train rocked up five minutes early. I wandered up to the train guy (what do you call them? I know the conductor is the fat guy at the front, but what are the other people on the train called? Rail hostesses? I shall call them track slaves, even though that sounds like jive talk for junkies) and showed him my ticket.
"Ahhhh, no you on next train. You wait."
"oh ok, thanks man."
And he winked at me. I found the wink suspicious, not in a gay way (my thats a recurrent theme today, and I am not even done with it) but in a purely suspicious way. I had a good look at his face, and committed it to memory. Thai, thin, mid teens to early fifties (I find it hard to pinpoint asians ages) with a bit of facial hair. Got it. The train fucks it's way off down the line as they usually do, and I sit down again. I wait a bit. 10:15. I get my book out again and read some more. 10:45. I go and find my friend the monk, who tells me I have missed my train and the next one is at 7am. I ask him if there is an office where I can get information, and he finds my joke hilarious, as do the rest of the waiting passengers. I am not impressed. I wake up the old drunk guy and ask him if I have missed my train. He looks at my ticket and asks me if I want to go to a bar with him etc etc. I ask him if there is an office here where I can get some information. He points me in a direction that I follow. A guy at a desk asks me for 30 Baht, which I pay before entering the office. The office is in fact a toilet, but I need a piss so I am not entirely upset with this turn of events. I want to sit down again but the dodgy drunk is still waiting for me, no doubt with another offer of the worst night of my life. So I wander around. I find a news stand. I look for an English Cryptic crossword book. Amazingly, I can't find one. There is plenty of porn though, and I quickly pass over it with a disgusted scoff. But something catches my eye. Something that doesn't usually catch my eye. Gay porn. There is a magazine in the top right corner, a Thai title I cannot interpret and a large glossy picture on the front. It is the picture that interests, well not so much interests as stuns me. It is a picture of a man. He is very pale - almost as pale as me. He has a scruffy dark beard - almost as scruffy and dark as mine. He has a fairly large beergut, almost as impressive as mine. A snail trail works it's way up from beneath his black leather G-sting and blossoms into a hair chest, a snail trail and hairy chest much like mine. It's the Thai version of me. I'm a fucking gay porn pin up. But everything on this apparently sexy man is accentuated on me, it's like looking into a magic mirror that turns you into a Thai man who is attempting to be seductively gay. And suddenly a lot of this trip falls into place. Moped drivers fearful of me sliding forward to them. Tong's hungry beady little eyes and constant sweat. Being slapped on the ass by men with worrying frequency. I am horrified. Very slightly flattered but definitely mostly horrified. I was tempted to buy the magazine, but I would rather leave the image of Thai Gaz seductively (I assume, I was entirely unseduced) grasping his balls - I assure you I only grasp my balls in a scratchy, not a seductive way - behind. In retrospect, it is good to know I have something to fall back on if severely hard times befall me. I cannot imagine how hard those times may be (and the opportunity for a gay joke here is so good, but being the butt of said joke - there is another opportunity - I must decline). So I sit on a suspiciously unattended row of chairs and mull over the several terrible things that have accosted me tonight. I see the face of the track slave who told me that my train was the next one, and I conceive of multiple detailed tortures for the rat bastard in order to keep my mind off the fact that I am in a seedy train station in Thailand, and apparently I am the equivalent of Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Alba's lovechild to the gay community over here. As I drop further into my reverie, I lean back and the row of chairs collapses, landing me on my arse. I am not in a happy place. I recover myself with all the grace of a retarded sloth and listen to some of my favourite music and think things over, trying to get into a good mood. It doesn't work. Some attractive girls come and sit near me. They are dressed like hookers. Here is a good rule of thumb for visiting Thailand. If a girl is dressed normally, they are probably a hooker. If they are dressed like a hooker, then they are definitely a hooker and probably a man. I decide it is time to brave the mean streets of Surin and find a hotel for the night. It is about 11:40 at this stage. As I haul my sorry arse through the exit, I see a light to my right. Under this light sits a man, behind a perspex screen, with a sign saying office in front of him. I walk up. I show him my ticket. He takes it off me, checks his computer and plugs some numbers into a calculator. He shows me the calculator screen, which reads 23.50. Unlike me, I have a fairly short temper at this stage. I should explain that they don't really use cash registers in Thailand, but put their price into a calculator and show you, exactly like the elusive office man just had. I calmly tell him "Like fuck I am paying 23.50 to get my ticket back off you cunt. I want my money back and I want a ticket for a train first thing tomorrow, if I make it through tonight." He looks very confused and I look proportionately angry. Then I hear a train whistle. He hands me back my ticket and points at the train pulling into the station. I look at my phone. The 24 hour time reads 23:45. He was trying to tell me my train had been delayed until 11.50pm, not charge me 23.50. I am so thankful I get down on my knees (in hindsight, not a great move after the magazine I had just seen) and say thankyou about 12 times, then rush to the train. I hate trains. After doing the Ghan about 20 times and the Grand Canadian once, I cannot wait for tube travel to come about, because trains suck. They are uncomfortable, I cannot sleep and everyone seems to want to talk to me. I nail some poor sleeping guy in the back of the head with my backpack, and I know the laptop is in the corner and it would hurt worse than a headbutt from an elephant but I don't care. I find my carriage which has about 20 other beds in it and I settle into mine. I try to get comfortable, and just as I put my head down and begin to prepare for the sleepless night ahead, I wake up. I was out like a 50 kilo Thai kickboxer copping a knee to the head from an 80 kilo Norwegian kickboxer (which I saw at a tournament the other night, and believe me that is quite severely out). I was in Bangkok. I got a taxi to my hotel and once again, all was well.

That has to be it for now, soon you can learn about Scuba Dick Game, of which I am the king. It's really not as dirty as it sounds.

By the way, the title of this blog and the previous one are not a joke. There are almost 50,000 blogs per week published on this web site. I have read some of the most popular ones. They are a regular recounting of events of some truly amazing experiences. But they are not much fun to read. If you tell two friends about this, and they tell two friends and they tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and they tell two friends, then that is 63 people (I think, I'm a little tired). Get the readership up peeps, because my ego demands it. Thanks for reading, and thanks to your two friends.

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Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

I'm only running about five days behind, which is really quite impressively punctual of me. Where were we? Mekong Delta.

The Mekong Delta was a disappointment. I punched no glass, I dethroned no God complex dictators, and I sure as shit didn't get back to basics. Let me explain.
I had expected on the outset of this journey that I would spend three days two nights on a boat, floating up the river with a bunch of hardened sailor type ruffians. At first they would mock me in their own language, but then we would drink and work together as we traversed unknown offshoots of the river, they would grow to respect me and we would work the boat side by side, battling the elements as a team, hunting our food. Perhaps they would consider me one of the own, I could be the smart/funny one of the group, and they would tattoo me with their group insignia.
In retrospect my expectations lay somewhere between the realm of ridiculous and fantastic, if not in the place known as ridiculously fantastic, which usually requires a special kind of mushroom to achieve. So I was bound to be underwhelmed.

We began by checking into a hotel. Apparently we would not be sleeping and living on a seafaring vessel, but living in an airconditioned unit with room service. At least the hotel offered snake on the menu, which is apparently illegal but very tasty. I'd love to say I hunted down said meal with the idea of me or him, wrestling in hunger to survive. However all I did was pick him out of a barrel of snakes (not unlike a barrel of fish) and then wait a grueling hour while he was cooked. Tastes like chicken, if chicken tastes like snake. Soya sauce can make rat edible, so what it did for old snakey was nothing short of...delicious.
Anyways, after a far too comfortable sleep, me Chau and the toothless boat driver made our way out onto the delta with the young english speaking Dai. We found a water coconut which looks like a vagina to my endless mirth, and tasted somewhat better than it's genitalia double. As I settled in for the boat ride, relaxing while we cruised among the local fishermen, I head a strange birdcall. I looked around for the exotic aviary vocalist. I couldn't find it. Thats because it was the message tone on the mobile of one of the simple fisherman we passed. I watched him leap up to his boat, read the text, LOL, and reply with the lightening dexterity of a japanese schoolgirl. Apparently the Mekong Delta has awesome mobile coverage, and most Vietnamese fishermen require constant jokes and or facebook updates as they reap their aquatic harvest. The real killer was floating into a restaurant that had free wifi advertised next to the menu. My dream of roughing it was destroyed in a blaze of new age technology. Everything else on the trip was fairly enjoyable but unimpressive, except for the coconut monk, who was awesome. He started a religion where you worship the coconut, and eat only coconuts and drink only coconut milk. Then he trained cats and mice to live together, claimed he was God, claimed he was Buddha, and tried to build a rocket to the moon on his Island. Then he died, of old age not rocket explosion. What a Hero! He had a few hundred devout followers.
Speaking of Heroes, I went to the Ho Chi Minh museum the other day. It was great, he was an amazing man. Traveling in his youth he learned from Lennon, such concepts as "All you need is Love" "Come together" and "I am the eggman (woo), they are the eggmen (woo), I am the walrus, Goo goo ga joob". Were bought back to Vietnam to eventually revolutionise the country.One thing I couldn't figure out was why there were shitloads of KFC's in Nam but no Mackas. Check this out: go to a google image search, and put in Ho Chi Minh. Then put in Colonel Sanders. Same guy! More like Ho Chicken Minh. He joins the ranks of many other great revolutionaries who began food chains, such as Taco Bell Guevara and Mussolini Dominos. (I just edited that line in and I have to say I think it is priceless). I'm sure that joke has been done before, but I found it simply Malarious. I thought better of using it over here as the Vietnamese almost worship the colonel, and like someone with no lips or tongue it would not have gone down well (thats mine, I'm very proud of it).
Anyways, we got back from the Mekong Delta eventually (two hours on the back of a shitty scooter is a long time) and I took the next day off to recover. Then we went out to the crappiest theme park in the world. Seriously, they had obviously borrowed some concepts from the yanks, such as size matters, because everything was huge. There were two waterslides, both of which I ended up having to stand up and walk down, they were so slow. Oh, and I have a correction to make. Chubby westerners are not the funniest thing in the world. Chubby westerners in their swimmers stacking it on the side of the pool is the hands down funniest thing in the world. Thats all I would like to say about that. I digressed. Rather than huge theme park rides, they just had huge statues. A giant horse. A giant turtle. A giant frog. It was boring and crappy. Then I noticed the giant shopping trolleys. What the fuck are they for? oh, for the giant supermarket in your theme park. Come, marvel at giant reptiles, walk down shitty waterslides, buy some shit paper. Anyways, I should have bought my camera because the crappiness cannot be expressed in words. The next day we went to a real waterpark. The Vietnamese have an excellent concept of what matters in waterparks. Speed = superimportant. Safety = Meh, she'll be right. My body is all kinds of fucked up (right knee, lower back, neck, left shoulder right wrist and right ankle), but I had an awesome time, and when I grow up I want to design and test waterslides. This was the park that has the multislide, and beleive me, Victory was definitely to me. I may not be real fast and agile with any thing else in life, but when I hit a waterslide I get some serious G's going. Those kids didn't know what was going on, they will be telling their grandchildren about the fat hairy white lightening.
I had my last meal tonight, it was terrible. I won't go into detail. On my way home I passed a barber shop, and decided I needed a haircut. A chlamydia (for I have decided that is the name for a group of hookers) of chicks dressed like whores dragged me in and sat me down in the hairdressing chair. I just wanted a trim. They inquired as to whether I would like a two girl blowjob with the trim. Imagine my shock when I realised I was actually in a brothel! Hookers. Whores. Prostitutes. Ladies of the night. Women who pay their rent with the hairy cheque book. No No, just the back and sides today thanks ladies. (Honestly!) One of them proceeded to tell me how handsome I was and pointed out the beauty of my eyes to the others by actually poking me in the eye. It hurt, alot, and she did it repeatedly. Then she grabbed my beergut and said "Baby!" and the 12 or so gorgeous rent-a-cunts shrieked with laughter in unison. That hurt emotionally. They tried to convince me to take a massage several times, and one of them started to massage my shoulders. She was very good until she started a bizzare form of massage which involved her punching me in the neck, hard, for about five minutes. It was in no way relaxing or therapeutic. I was glad I didn't take the blowjob, she probly would have bitten the old fella off. Then a super camp dude walked in and started to cut my hair. Just my luck. 12 stunning negotiable rate lovers sitting around, and I get yet another queer in my space. I've got nothing against the happier sexual orientated population, but not when they are inappropriately forward. Anyway, hairdresser was very professional. I was wearing a Tintin shirt, and he gave me a Tintin haircut! Fucking awesome! I'm stoked. Off to buy a yellow overcoat and a small white dog tomorrow. The dog may come in a take away container but I will still take it for walks, until I get hungry. Off to work with the John Merricks tomorrow, so will probly be a few days between updates. Take it easy fo-sheezy.

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Phuket, Thailand

And away we go...

So I was, as usual, talking about some chicken that I was intending to eat. It was quite tasty, although the foot was overly crunchy (as expected) and the Thai have a habit of simply hacking their chicken into pieces including bones, so every mouthful holds a sharp splintery surprise. The fowl is smashed into chunks using a machete, which is the all round tool for the Mahout. I have seen it used as a tong, a hammer, a knife, an axe, a carving utensil, a wood splitter and countless other things. Now that I mention it, the morning after camping we watched Ting extricate something from his foot with surgical precision (using a 1 foot iron blade), which in retrospect I was very glad it happened after his machete was used as a cooking/serving implement. I don't like to think of what it may have been used for before the serving of dinner, and I hope to God his children are uncircumcised.
After the splinterchicken everyone began to get boozy. We played kickboxing, had some singalongs, and drank drank drank. Two revelers stood out as the messiest - Yeah Boi and Ting. Yeah Boi is apparently a bit of a pisshead and suffers a turbulent at best relationship with his young child rearing wife at home. He is the same age as me and I think the discovery of this to him opened up a mixed bag of jealousy and awe, at my singleness, relative wealth, transient life and undeniable sexiness. The last is not actually a joke, I will explain later. So Boi stole my camera and burned the battery out on 2000 narcissistic photos of himself posing while drunk. Ting merely opened up a bit, and I discovered that he actually had pretty good English, he was just shy in using it. After a brief chat I also discovered he was 59 years old. In his youth he was a state champion kickboxer. He currently has three wives. And an 18 year old girlfriend. He went on to continue drinking till the early hours, then stayed up the entire night to guard the camp. What he was guarding us from I do not know, but due to the fact that he didn't get any trouble I can only assume it was not Demi-gods that posed a threat, although I reckon even immortal beings would think twice before fucking with Ting. Ting is apparently some kind of superhuman - I found out later that he had not had a drink in ten years, but felt that it would help him get closer to us if we enjoyed a piss up together. I don't know what Ting is doing now, but I would assume it is one of two things: Battling demons in some other dimension (as KP eats demon grass and watches uninterestedly) to secure the safety of all mankind, or having a threesome with 19 year old Italian twins while solving the Grand Unifying Theory, and also juggling machetes. He is that fucking good.
We all woke up a bit seedy, and me and Dog went for an early dip. We had refried rice with sugar for breakfast, which is kind of like the Thai version of porridge and quite nice actually. Then one of Boi's mates turned up with a fresh carton of beer and we got stuck in again. I fell asleep after a few, as I am wont to do (ooh that rhymed, I might try that again) and Boi was maggot again after a couple. Then we got back home and moved into the actual elephant park to live with some mahouts in their elevated huts. While we had mosquito netting which was highly effective, any body part which came to rest against said netting would quickly become as perforated as a Junkie's forearm with the little fuckers bites. Also, earplugs would have been nice. While Pong's chickens couldn't fight for shit, they could scream like vengeful banshees in the early hours, not to mention the mating toads who went off like the backing vocals on Graceland whenever it rained, and of course having an elephant living underneath your house generally means you can throw sound insulation out the window. I did get used to it after a while and actually had some trouble sleeping when I got back to the relative quiet of Bangkok.
The next few days were fairly busy, building more fences, shampooing our elephants, which is a gargantuan task. They have hair everywhere, and you have to shampoo it all. It's like shampooing 20 large hairy russian men one after the other. If you have ever done that I'm sure the analogy is probably apt, but I have to ask why have you done that? You probably havn't so the question is moot, like an American who can't say mute properly.
Then we had our farewell party. It was something short of epic but nonetheless enjoyable. I quite liked Jack and Sarah from just a few days in, Jack was a lad's lad and Sarah had a good sense of humour, both of them were Durham educated which is apparently a big deal. They seemed pretty cluey to me. They were with us of course, Jack even through his unfortunate cunty bowel syndrome. I say cunty because irritable does not cover it, and someone who is extremely irritable is justifiably called a cunt. I beleive he was at a count of about eight innings on the porcelain oval a day (just came up with that, quite proud of it too) and the bum gun had been elevated to a position of worship in his eyes. Actually, a truth came out at this party. Days before Jack and Apple had made a trip to the chemist in the next town to get some medication for his guts, which were in the most literal sense giving him the shits. Apple translated to the chemist and they procured some medication. Jack had steadfastly adhered to his prescription since with nothing but a decline in bowel control to show for it. He asked Apple if they could perhaps go to another chemist as just like in the Verve song, the drugs did not work, they just made him worse. She replied that they seemed to be doing a great job, after all they were supposed to make him shit more, to get rid of the bad stuff in him. We were both somewhat perplexed.
"You mean I've had diarrhea (that word is not spelt how it should be) for the last week and I've been eating laxatives to help it?"
Needless to say, his condition was contagious, as when this revelation was revealed I damn near shit myself with laughter, for about half an hour. Honestly, the look on his face was like someone who had taken 48 shits in 6 days for no good reason. Hilarious.
Once we got over this, Jack was sent with Dog to go get some rum and mixers. During their absence Yeah Boi rocked up. Today being our last day we had taken our Elephants out for one last trip to Mun River to wash them and have a play, obviously for me this involved a lot of sitting on KP as he ate or sat in the river, which I can only imagine resulted in barely contained joy behind his gigantic impassive face. Yeah Boi never turned up for the river expedition, but did appear once we had some booze. He was not drunk, he was plastered like 50 cents cheeks. Completely. He got emotional, friendly, slurry, somewhat retarded. Apparently he had been on a bender since the camping trip. Good for him. Jack and Dog returned, with a bottle of rum and 4 small fireworks. It was a valiant attempt by Jack to convince Dog to buy sprite instead of explosives, but alas he had failed. Apple asked him whether they were loud or not, as obviously at this stage we were surrounded by 65 sleeping elephants, which are very timid and easily frightened animals. Dog assured her they were, and so Yeah Boi decided to let one off to prove Dog's point. Casually lit with his burning cigarette, Yeah Boi wandered indirectly to a point about 5 metres from where we were drinking, and nonchalantly flung the cracker into the air above his head. After years of drunkenly playing with fireworks in Alice Springs, I have developed something of a sixth sense regarding safety when it comes to recreational explosives. The minor nuclear detonation that ensued Yeah Boi's lighting and flinging exercise saw me hit the deck with speed to rival a certain F. Gordon, using Sarah as a convenient shield. After the smoke cleared, 65 recently awoken and irate elephants voiced their displeasure at this audible display of weapons grade artillery. Dog was summarily berated by Apple and sent back to the shop to trade the fireworks for mixers. Head down he departed for his mission. About 5 minutes after he left, from the direction he had headed in echoed another re-enactment of the big bang. Dog is crazy, but certainly not wiley. He managed to return with a bottle of sprite and some soda, and of course four roman candles, which were disappointing after the display of wick based destruction we had earlier witnessed.
Dog and Tong ( a third Tong, a Mahout who I was living with at the time, and a pretty cool young lad all round) had spent the afternoon making luck balloons for us. I had witnessed Tong masterfully crafting the balloons from crepe paper, wire, bamboo, wire, wax and glue for some time, and while Dog seemed to just hang around breaking shit with a machete I am led to beleive that he was helping in some way. So the luck balloon is a symbolic thing - you light a ball of wax at it's base, and the resulting heat acts upon the large colored airtight crepe paper like a mini hot air balloon. As the iridescent contraptions float off into the night they symbolise your farewell and hopefully a never ending rise of luck and happiness in your life. Jack and Sarah's balloons gracefully rose into the clear starry night, a multicolored beacon against the midnight sky before they flew ever upward and away. When my balloon finally got lit, it erratically chugged its way over the top of the nearby village. Where it lost it's upward momentum, caught fire and crashed onto some poor peasant's house, burning it to a cinder. Not really. It did lose its momentum and crash, and then Dog went for a mission and found it. Once it was retrieved from a nearby tree and returned, Tong made some quick repairs. We relit it. This time it rose about two meters, drifted to the left about four metres and ignited, the entire fiery debacle lasting all of four seconds. At this moment I thanked myself for not being superstitious in any way.
It is now half twelve at night, and I need to be up tomoz at seven to go diving. I am not supposed to be hung over for my dives, but I did imbibe some liquid inspiration to get through this blog that has slowly been turning stale in my mind. This however is a poorly pronounced mute point, as I am apparently the greatest scuba diver who ever lived. I'm like the God damn Harry Potter of the scuba world. If there was some kind of Scuba antichrist, I would be destined to destroy him/her/it in an exciting and satisfying finale. In the next installment:

Nices Last Show
One Tonne Tan Wan
Almost but not quite
Train station
Scuba Dick game
Dreaming
Clare is a Legend for sending me money through Western Union (pending confirmation)
Also, I will be using these quotes (or some amalgamation of them):

"Sucks furious amounts of dick" (Courtesy of Liam O'Conner)
"I generally grab my balls in a scratchy, not seductive manner (Yours truly, Scuba Potter)

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/3/1252413031/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/3/1252413031/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/3/1252413031/tpod.html Tue, 08 Sep 2009 08:32:05 -0400 Trying to return

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Phuket, Thailand


I have reverted from my cryptic crossword clue titles back to the more classic "double title" for my blogs, as the response from my readership was so dismal as to be nonexistent. A shame, really. I know I am halfway through a rambling list of events and people who went camping with us, but I really needed to get todays events out here. First a couple things you need to know. At this stage I have taken four shits today. I do not have a bad belly, or the runs. It's just that every time I eat, I get a stomach cramp until I take a crap. Food just needs to touch the inside of my mouth and my bowels are all like "Myeeeh, take me to the pool asshole" And I'm like "You're the asshole, sphincter. No, just relax will you?" But my internal organs do not co-operate and I have to go choke a darkie (that ones for you Donno). So my ass is tender. Secondly, a certain moment of my life flashed before my eyes three times today - not the same moment, a different one each time. I will explain as I need to.
I woke up at 8.30 and tried to ring three different scuba course companies. None of them answered so I went for a walk. I found a tour booking place just around the corner with a lovely older lady in there, and she sorted me out with a VIP ticket to the kickboxing tonight, a taxi there and back, and a hotel pickup to go for my scuba lessons tomoz. This cost about $200 all up and left me with around about $50 AUD. Then I went for breakfast, which was glorious, and I had another pint of espresso then ran home while doing cartwheels. This left me with about 35$. Beer is twice the price at my hostel that it is at the corner shop, so I bought several beers, and a couple litre bottles of water and a packet of cigarettes, plus some more soap and sunscreen and other assorted essentials, such as several more bottles of beer just in case. This left me with about $20. I had lunch which cost me about 8$ (and was one of the best pizzas I have ever had) thus leaving me with twelve. I went back to the atm to grab some cash and opened my wallet. No bankcard. I tried to remember if I had left it in the hotel room. Blank. Then I had my first flashback goddammit I gotta shit again. Right thats much better. Just the talk of food now sets off a serious trip into the turd dimension. I may as well relate this little bit of info now. I am a fan of the bum gun. You may remember me talking about a moveable Bidet in my hotel in Vietnam, which I later figured out to be the toilet bowl cleaner and was "glad I didn't shoot that thing up my arse". Turns out I was right in the first place. Jack and Sarah, my co-volunteers on the project were huge fans of it, and talked it up no end. I found myself without toilet paper the other day, and the only option was to go the bum gun. It's actually quite soothing and almost pleasant, and the nozzle is pressure sensitive so you don't need to blast your coit into a watery oblivion. Luckily, due to years of playing video games my thumb pressure control is as good as a surgeons, only I do get a little nervous. The stakes are much higher here - if you hit it too hard you don't lose a life, you suffer a cold enema. So having had five trips to grow a tail so far today, my arse is still relatively intact, thanks to the bum gun and my highly developed thumbs. I hope you enjoyed that, I really had to share. Where was I? First flashback.
The ATMs in Thailand are different to Australia. They give you your money first and then spit out your card. I had three quick flashes of samaritans chasing me down to return my card to me over the last 2 weeks, and then a more detailed flashback of me pocketing my cash from the Bangkok airport ATM, and then walking away. The Bangkok ATM is currently 400km away, 300m from gate A1 and just around the corner from Burger King. This did not help me much. So I went and cancelled my card via the phone in my room, calling international to ANZ, then set up my Debit card so I could access my savings through it. The girl on the line was by far the best customer service chick I have ever had with over 20 years of dealing with ANZ. She told me that I could use the same pin number for my savings account that I usually use for the Debit card. I asked her if she could verify the pin number for me and she said she is not allowed to, and I said thats fine I am 99.9% sure of the pin number. We both laughed, because thats what you do in those situations. I went back to the ATM and tried the pin I was very sure of. It was declined. I know you get three tries so I tried another one I was not really sure of at all, and it was also declined, at which I was completely unsurprised. Then I had a flashback of me getting my new, current Credit card in the mail about 9 months ago, with the pin number sent a few days later. Me and Mitch, sitting on the couch, me opening the letter and saying "Why the fuck would I want a pin number for my credit card? Pffft." Scrunch up paper throw it in the bin go have a ciggy and a beer.
I go back to the phone in my room and call ANZ again. They can't tell me my pin, but they can issue a new one, which must be mailed to my home address in Australia, and should be there within 3 days. This does not help me a great deal, but it is the only course of action. I may not have any food, but I have a shitload of beer and cigarettes. I get online and try Western union, I've seen their ads. After a lengthy signup process I try to send cash to myself. It tells me I have to call them to complete the transfer. I make the third international call on my Hotel phone to Western Union. Some girl with an unidentifiable accent gets all the info I have just given online and puts me on hold several times. Then she tells me she can't process my transaction today, "have a great day". Thats her actual words. I tell her my day will probly consist of me starving to death in Phuket because I havn't lived in my unit for more than a year and thereby don't qualify for their security check. She says OK and hangs up. So I start to worry, and crack one of my many beers. I get back online. ANZ has failed me. Western Union has failed me, both fiscally and sympathetically. I turn to my last resort and log in to facebook. There are two trustworthy friends online. Dom Ryan, the drunkard stoner Irishman I work with in Margs and Trev Kerr, the most intelligent, reliable, capable responsible and beautiful man I know. Trev does not answer my call on chat, and neither does Dom. I spark up a cigarette and consider the hopelessness of my situation. Then, like the bell of an Angel (Do angels have bells? Well if they were to play an instrument it sure as shit wouldn't be drums or Maracas. Oh, they play Harps.). Then, like the beautiful chord of a harp plucked by a true angel, the beep from facebook rings through my laptops speakers, telling me someone has responded to my message. It's not Trev. "Hey dude" says Dom "was just at the bar getting a beer. I'm hung over as shit. Whats up?" It's something, it's better than nothing. I tell Dom my situation. He finds out that there is a Western Union in Margs, and it is still open. He heads down there to wire me through some cash money. Then Trev responds and I chat with him to take my mind off things. After about ten minutes, Dom re-appears in an online sense and tells me it is good to go. I race outside and the receptionist hails me a moped bike. He is charging 400 Baht for the round trip. I have 450 Baht. We go. It is a very hilly ride, and I keep sliding forward into the back of the driver as we descend the steep downhills, and evidently my driver is homophobic, because as soon as my front flesh comes into contact with his back flesh he quickly scoots forward. By the time we find a western union in the next town over he is pretty much sitting on the handlebars. I get the cash and all is well. As we ride back over the hills, my driver a foot and a half in front of me glancing back nervously, I watch the sunset over a crystal clear sea and smile. Then we get to a roundabout and some white guy screams "Sacre Bleu" and flies over the handlebars of his rented moped, eating shit severely face first on the bitchumen. This is where I have my third flashback. It is of the French guy eating shit again, in slow mo instant replay. It was hilarious. Me and my gay hating driver laugh aloud together and he drops me home. I tip him 100 Baht. And thats it. I gotta go watch some white guys get their asses handed to them by tiny hard Thai guys now, and I love you and owe you big time Dominator. Hopefully tomorrow I can have:
Camping pt 2
One Dog Night
Yeah Boi gets drunk
Ma-Chet-ay
Nices Last Show
One Tonne Tan Wan
Jacks cure
Almost but not quite
Luck Balloons
Train station
up for you all. Thanks for reading kids.

Gaz

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/3/1252334318/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/3/1252334318/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/3/1252334318/tpod.html Mon, 07 Sep 2009 10:40:09 -0400 Trying to return

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Surin, Thailand


Hi there! How are you? Well thats great! Oh me? Well, let me tell you all about it.

There are three main individuals in this relating of events - their names are Ting, Tong, and Pong. I am for serial. Lets start with Tong.

This is not the same Tong that was enamoured with me in Vietnam. This is a supercool Thai Tong. Because I like him much more he will retain his moniker of Tong, whereas Vietnamese Tong will hereby be known as "gay in an uncomfortably forward way Tong" Tong is about 5 foot nothing, with funky facial hair and a bigass mop of black curly hair. He is hung over in the morning and from midday he is full of an eight year olds energy. Tong is one of the liasons for i-to-i in Thailand, his job with his wife Masako is to pick us up from the airport and get us to our hotel for the night and give us a briefing on what we are doing. He succeeded eventually, I only had to wait an hour at the airport for him to find me. Then he bought me a couple of beers and the other girl arrived, and we went to the guest house, where I met my room mate Ollie, a geezer. Ollie has been adventuring for months, and the guy could drink. We went for a beer at about four, and then went out to dinner at eight or so. I was drinking Chang, which is the coopers sparkling of Thailand (6.5%) and was quite boozy by the time dinner came round. Dinner was ok, we met all the other peeps volunteering in various things in Thailand, and I met Jack and Sarah who would be working with me on the Elephant park project and who struck me instantly as the straight as religious type. I was worried about this but thankfully later proven wrong. Anyways, we were all going to head out to a ping pong show but it didn't eventuate so we just had beers back at our hotel. I was blind by the time I bailed out and went to bed, but I think I carried myself fairly well. Who knows, who cares. We had a two hour orientation the next day from Masako, in which we were warned about stds and not to do drugs (my mum may as well have done the speech) and then the various volunteers made their way off to their projects. Ours did not start till much later, so Tong took us out to Khao San road, the main tourist strip in Bangkok for some shopping and a feed. He played a game of rock paper scissors with his assistant, and won. Evidently the game was to determine who was driving, cos Tong went ahead and ordered a bottle of whiskey for himself and got stuck the fuck in. I had a few beers with him, and after half a bottle I couldn't understand him but he has the most infectious laugh in the world. He would make a joke, slap me on the back and giggle like a fat kid being poked with a giant candy bar. It was gold. He then did a rendition of Cindi Lauper's "Girls just want to have fun" while in the back of the car, and it was pure spun and woven gold. I realised at around this time why I loved Tong so much. He was the Thai version of Seabass, to a T. I miss the Bass. Me Jack and Sarah got dropped at the bus station and we were on our way to Surin to help with the Elephants.

We spent our first week with Mr Prakeet, pronounced Pricket. He is the mp in the small village and his wife is the 2IC. They are like the Bill and Hillary of the tiny 2000 person Elephant village, but I don't know if Pricket ever penetrated anyone with a tobacco smoking implement, but it wouldn't surprise me. He has that look about him. So we were staying with the mafia of the village, which was nice. It was very hot though. But I am getting ahead.

On the first day there we met Apple, who speaks very good English and was basically in charge of us. Apple is gold. Slightly prone to being emotional when drunk, but sweet as. She didn't work us too hard and was very patient and caring for us the whole time, and also bought lots of beer and rum for us. Her heart was broken by a Perth man a few years ago, and as such she was dubious about me at first but we worked through it. On the second day, I met my Mahout (Elephant carer) Ting and his elephant Kam Puang, which is pronounced "Come Pooing". Needless to say this provided me with hours upon hours of mirth. I got to know Kam Puang (KP) that first day. KP likes to eat, sleep, poop and sit still in the river. He is very big and he does not like people or other elephants. I didn't really like him at first, but then I came to the realisation that I was faced with the pachydermisation of myself. If it was up to me I would sit at home and eat poop (that should read eat and poop, not eat poop. I havn't eaten poop in years) and sleep constantly, playing xbox being my version of sitting still in the river. I don't really like other people, however elephants I am really quite impartial about. After this realisation, I felt like I had grown closer to KP. Kp didn't give a shit and continued eating and pooping regardless of me opening up my emotions to him. To give you an idea of KP's eating talents, the average elephant nails about 200kg of food a day. He is closer to 300kg. I was impressed with my 2 kilo steak challenge, but KP put me right to shame. We were walking one day and he saw a little patch of grass that he deemed particularly tasty. It was behind a large wooden fence, and he reached with his trunk for it. He was short by about 10cm. This did not bother him. He simply moved 10cm closer, which involved crushing the fence to splinters, which he didn't seem to notice. You have to admire his dedication. Ting is constantly berating KP for ignoring him and eating when he should be walking somewhere, but I thought about it and it works like this. KP weighs about 2800kg. Ting weighs about 50 kg. This is about 1.7% of his weight. At my husky weight of 95kg, this means that it would be the equivalent of having a 1.5kg animal sitting on my head, telling me what to do and yelling at me for being lazy and eating too much. A large Guinea pig perhaps. And this large Guinea pig is on my head, telling me to stop eating and get moving all the time. Sure it could nip me, which would sting, but I am fairly safe in the knowledge that I can drop punt a guinea pig about 30m onto a freeway if it pisses me off too much, so I see where KP is coming from. I am not going to cut a meal short for a demanding guinea pig on my head. I must say that is probly the most beautiful final line of any analogy I have ever written.

So our activites involved some cleaning, a lot of shovelling elephant shit (which can be fun if you make games out of it, as me and Jack did) weeding the sugarcane fields, cutting down eucalyptus trees and making fences out of them, and helping out at the two daily shows the Elephants put on to raise funds for food. Nice, who Mc's the show, didn't catch my name the first time I met him, so he referred to me as Mr Gleeb for a couple of days until I eventually became Mr Crap. This is referring to me over a large sound system while I perform in front of about 400 people. I asked apple what Crap means in Thai, and she said it had about 5 or 6 different meanings depending on context. I asked her what context my name was in. She told me "Oh, yours is not the Thai word. He means it like the English way, like Mr Shit." I was somewhat upset but took it all in stride. I got a second name from Pong, the king of the mahouts. He called me rambo, because the first day we worked together I lifted a tree on my own. It's not like it was a redwood, but it was still a pretty big tree. Thankfully Rambo caught on and stuck with almost everyone else. Somehow my ability to eat had already spread through the park, and everywhere I went people offered me food. Thai people I had never seen before would yell as I walked past "Lambo, Lambo (they have trouble with R's)" and then mimick me coming over to eat with them. It was good to know that I had a constant supply of free food but a little strange. After a week we went camping by the Mun River, about 2km from the park and a short 45 minute walk by elephant.

Now to catch up in a couple things...in the last tour group, there was an English girl named Sarah. She hooked up with one of the mahouts and they are ridiculously and hysterically in love with each other....despite being unable to communicate at all. Must be some pretty fucken good sex. So when Sarah and Jack came out to the park, being an attractive English girl named Sarah, I cannot imagine the bets and dares that went on amongst the mahouts. Sarah's mahout was named Boi, and he has a turbulent at best relationship with his young wife. As such, when she heard that he was taking the new Sarah under his wing as such, he was immediately banned from speaking to her. So for the first week Boi had not spoken to any of us at all, just kept his distance and been quiet. Ting, my mahout had not spoken much - he had limited English and was very shy about using it, like a man with a micropenis (micropenis is the actual medical term for men who have a penis of less than 2 inches erect <known colloquially as an angry cashew>, which is not really a gentle reference but fair enough). Jack and his Mahout Lod were basically in love with each other. Both Lod and Ting were ex- Muay Thai kickboxing champions for their state, and were keen to teach us. I was keen to learn, but my lungs were also keen to collapse, so my training consisted of 6 minute sessions followed by an oxygen mask. Joining us on the camp would of course be apple, and Pong. Pong I have already mentioned as the king of Mahouts. He is renowned in Asia for his ability to calm and communicate to elephants, he has five under his charge and has worked all over the world with his skills. He is about 5 foot two, has a gut to rival mine but is a ridiculously hard worker, strong as an ox and flexible as hell. We played a game of Da Claw (the Thai national sport, a cross between hackeysack and volleyball involving a very hard and unforgiving wooden ball - my ankles were bruised and bleeding after the first game, much like foreigners after their first drunken ride in Thailand. I speak of Mopeds, not whores you dirty minded bastard.) Anyway Pong realised I was not highly skilled and proceeded to nail lightening power serves at my head, which I consistently fucked up, resulting in him collapsing in high pitched guffaws. I managed to return one, which he was impressed with, and the next day I carried the tree on my own and earned a grudging respect from the Buddha-esque man. The respect was mutual until our leaving night when he turned up in a pink floral dress. I assumed it was some traditional Thai garb, but it turns out Pong just finds his pink dress to be very comfortable thank you very much. My respect for him skyrocketed after that. Right, where was I? Camping.

We rode our elephants to the river and set up tents along the bank. The mahouts arrived later with a large clucking bag, which had five live chickens in it. A young boy was with them. The young boy was Dog. Dog is one of my favourite people on earth. He works like a golem, talks incessantly in Thai regardless of your level of understanding and is generally insane. Not generally, completely. He is priceless, he should have his own TV show. Dog stripped down to his boxers, which had a faded design of a popular thai kids show which appears to be a cross between Spongebob Squarepants, Stimpelton J cat and a Care Bear, set in the year 2300. If I could understand the show, I would almost certainly be a fan. Also the boxers had pockets in them, which I consider the only major design flaw of Western boxers. So Dog went for a swim, then opened the clucking bag. Then he grabbed a big stick and beat the chickens over the head until they died. He was pretty good at it, and nailed four out of five. The fifth one though....well. I know it sounds terrible, but it was quite funny. I had to look away towards the 15th attempt (it was a really hard chicken. It was the god damn Brad Pitt from Snatch of chickens, it just would not go down) but the sound effects were still quite funny. WHACK. BRAWWK. Swearing in Thai. WHACK WHACK WHACK. BRAAWWWWK. More swearing in Thai. WHACKBRAWKWHACKBRAWKWHACKBRAWK etc, until it finally shut up. I know some of you may be offended by this. I have a solution for you though. Go hug a tree and cry into your tofu soup. Oh speaking of Tofu, we had a soup the other night. There were white things floating in it. With my supreme fear of seafood I asked Apple what the white things were. "It's like tofu" she said. "Oh" I exclaimed, disappointment rife in my tone. "Yes, it's made of pork and chicken". Pork and chicken based Tofu. That is my kind of hippy food. Anyways, the next step was to pluck the chickens. The easiest way to do this is to dump them in boiling water, and then the feathers basically fall off. I don't understand the science and neither do the Mahouts, but it works. The first four chickens are no problem, then the chicken that took 2 hours to kill gets it turn. At this stage it's head looks like it has been in a long term relationship with both Bobby and Chris Brown. They immerse it in water which is about 99 degrees, and it kicks up again, a bubbling boiling squawk emerging from the pot as it flaps and splashes scalding water all over me. It burned me, unsurprisingly, but I was simply in awe of the toughness of this chicken. It was the Marv, John Maclean, and Dirty Harry of chickens rolled into one. If it hadn't been suffocated in a sack, beaten with a stick for an hour and then boiled alive, it probably would have united all the chickenfolk worldwide and overthrown humanity with demands for free corn and rice for all. Good thing we killed it and I ate it. My way of saving the world. I ate one of it's feet (you know when in Rome) and was still quite concerned that the severed and deep fried appendage would claw me in defiance. Speaking of Chickens, Pong is a breeder and trainer of fighting roosters. We watched a few fights - there were no razors, no blood and the chicken is trained to concede when it has had enough. Which is a good thing, because although Pong is extremely good with elephants, all his chickens are a bunch of pussies. He lost consistently, his chickens bowing their heads after just a few pecks to the head and claws to the face. The head down means they have had enough and the fight is over. They are then cleaned, nursed and fed. It's really relatively humane, compared to say boxing or horse racing. If you have a problem with this then I have another solution for you. Go eat some horse snake beef based tofu and harden the fuck up. It's part of an ancient culture and the roosters seem to like it. OK, this has been epic enough, I have to call it here. There is plenty more to come, and most of the funnier stuff (I hope) is to come. Will hopefully get it up for you tomorrow. Haha.

Lambo

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Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Right, no time to fuck about here, I'm behind, a little drunk and tired. I took today off. Was supposed to go to the American/Australian embassy (exciting!) and then to a water park for slides on my own. Which is fine. Really. I'm not upset about having no friends whatsoever. Anyways, Chau's bike broke down, so I decided to sit at home and drink beer, play video games, write, surf the net, do crosswords and read red dwarf. It has been glorious. But I must begin at the usual place.

Once I washed the travel and Tong from me, I settled in for a minute and made some plans on my complimentary map of Ho Chi Minh. I got my camera, wallet and smokes and began a journey that lasted all of five minutes. Then I met Chau. I believe Chau means rest in Vietnamese, but I can't be sure. It makes no sense if it does, because Chau does not seem to sleep or eat at all. He pulls up beside me on his scooter as I am walking all of fifty metres from my hotel and accosts me with offers of help and guiding. After I deny him repeatedly he pulls out a seriously underrated tool in the repertoire (thankyou Clare) of the dodgy tour guide - a small notebook. It is filled with testimonials from happy customers, and he convinces me. I jump on his scooter. I wrote a haiku about him:

Cyclone of Saigon
Straight shooter on red scooter
Somewhat dodgy cunt

which pretty much sums it up. He gave me a pretty comprehensive tour of Ho Chi Minh museums, temples and government buildings. Not incredible in any way, but I got the touristy bit of Vietnam out of the way and we arranged to meet at ten the next day to go to Gucci, whatever that was. Chau seemed excited, and it was infectious. I learned several things that day. Nam means Man, which is quite easy to remember. Bia means Beer, which is even easier to remember because it is spelt phonetically. Special "beef" means dog, and special chicken means cat. At least I thought so. I was informed recently that Ho CHi Minhians (?) (ha ha Hoochi Minions) do not eat cat or dog, only rat. The Special beef curry I had on Saturday night was an unidentifiable white meat. Got the runs a bit but still alive. Also I learned there are no rules as far as road safety goes in Nam, it's a different experience being on the back of a scooter. Chau delights in showing me the road accident column in the paper, which is a series of pictures of people who have died on the roads in the last 24 hours with their mangled scooters beside them. Inspiring.
So the morning rolls around and I jump on the bike for another journey. Gucci is about 60km away, and I have to take a break about half way through because my arse cheeks feel like someone has been at them with a jackhammer. I hate to think what Tong would make of that statement. Anyway we get there and it is actually called Co chi, and it's the old HQ of the Viet Cong. Got to shoot an AK47 and a M1 garand with live ammo (no one wants to shoot the M1, it's only cos I remember using one in Medal of honor that I wanted to try it. Very loud is the only comment I have) and force my large frame through supposedly widened viet Cong tunnels. It was still very Winnie the Pooh, forcing myself through gaps too small. Oh, one of the things I learned today was that as far as the Vietnamese are concerned, there is nothing funnier than an overweight caucasian. The tourguide at Co chi looks me up and down in front of the other twenty in our group. He opens his mouth. Yeah, I think, the usual. People just like me. He has singled me out to be his friend. It's cool, I'll play along.
"Where you from?" he inquires
"Australia"
"ah. You eat too much Kangaroo. That why you so fat. Ahahahahhaah"
Funny shit you skinny little bastard. I would have shot him with the AK (not really) if it wasn't fixed to a mount. Those were his exact words, there is no exaggeration on this one. I laughed along becuase I was fairly confident that he was actually ex viet cong and could fuck my shit right up if he wanted to. Anyways, Me and Chau made the journey back to my hotel and he arranged to pick me up to go to the Mekong Delta for 3 days the next morning. I was excited.

Here are some other things I have learned:
EIther 90% of men in vietnam are supergay, or I am just too sexy for my own good. I find the latter easier to believe, as it is more flattering. However I have noticed a distinct lack of children over here, but they probly all just died in scooter accidents. After avoiding Tong fairly well - except for the clothes washing incident, when I called reception to say I need my clothes washed, and then a knock came at the door. It was Tong. He was there to pick up my dirty clothes. I gave them to him, and he left without more than a ridiculously unsubtle arm brush and another comment about my *spectacular* eyes. I do have beautiful irises, I must say. After about five minutes another knock came. I answered, and Tong was there, kneeling (not suggestively) on the floor sorting my washing in the hallway. At first I was shocked, and then I realized that this was the ideal place for it, so as to minimize panty sniffing and whatnot. Disgusting and shocking I know, but you don't know Tong, dirty little fucker he is. He had everything sorted and knelt there with a single sock in his hand.
"Odd sock. Where the other one?"
"ah, god knows mate. It happens. Just wash her and the other one will turn up in time."
"I need other one to wash" he pleads
"Let it go dude"
He stares at me, holding the sock up hopefully and looking like a severely lost and confused "special beef".
"Let it go Tong. Let it go" I intone as I close the door slowly and deliberately. I did get all the clothes back eventually, wonderfully cleansed.
So that night I ate in the restaurant around the corner. They have a revolutionary system called the Rock Grill, wherein your food comes out on a hot rock so as to keep it warm as you eat. Great idea. Super expensive (for nam). However the Rock Grill name is somewhat misleading. It should be called the "pay triple for your meal and then sit there and cook it your fucken self while we watch grill" Never seen anything like it. 6 waiters, 2 bussers, 2 security a manager a dishpig and five chefs. No more than fifty seats in the restaurant and I am the only one in there. I ordered chicken, as I usually do, and out it came. A raw chicken breast, with a hot rock. I chucked the raw chicken on the rock with the same cutlery I was expected to eat it with and did my best to avoid the spattering boiling fat, which was to say I was burned severely and choked on the smoke for some time before I could eat it, when it burned my tongue being severely hot as it was straight off the "hot rock". It was fucked. Anyways, as I left the restaurant, one of the waiters asked me a question. I didn't understand and intelligently asked him "Huh?" and he said "Nevermind" and slapped me on the arse. I felt like a piece of totty. It was both demeaning and emasculating.
Tong, the last piece of related events and the fact that I feel like I am being "checked out" is what leads me to believe that everyone in Vietnam is gay. Right, that'll do for today, tomorrow: Disappointment on the Mekong.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/3/1250089584/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/3/1250089584/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/3/1250089584/tpod.html Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:12:09 -0400 Trying to return

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Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Tong! (no prize for this one)

Tong works for Saigon Mini hotel as a security guard who cleans rooms. This seems strange but one must always be open to new things in new countries. I know a few security guards back home who would be better off as maids anyways. So I wake up early for my free breakfast which is freshly squeezed orange juice with two teaspoons of sugar in the bottom (fairy nuff) a pretty good coffee, an omelete that was quite tasty and two slices of white toast with enough jam and butter for one slice. Not bad for free food.
I made my way back up to my room, intending to shower and plan my day. That's where I met Tong.
"Hello"
"G'day mate"
"My name Tong. What yours?"
"I'm Gaz"
"Daze?"
"Sure why not."
"I work here, cleaning"
"That's what the shirt would suggest. You sitting on the stairs reading a gossip magazine would not really re-enforce that idea, but who am I to argue."
"yeah"

Tong gets up.

He has a severely broken smile, some teeth missing and those remaining seem to have chosen random angles to grow at. His smile is not winning.

"Where you from?"
"Australia China"
"What?"
"Uh, Australia mate."
"ahhh, Siddeny"
"Yep." What follows is one of the most brief but uncomfortable silences of my life. By this time I am at my door. Tong is still smiling his special case smile, but very successfully blocking me from my room door. He reaches down to the dirty towel basket, grabs one and starts wiping the sweat away from my face. It's at this point that I realise that Tong is camper than twelve scouts vying for tent badges. The stance, the lisp, the constant smile, the way he GENTLY DABS A USED AND DIRTY TOWEL AT MY FACE. I should point out in this interim that Saigon Mini Hotel describes itself as "hotel for business people" which to me translates as "We assume that you are on holiday with your niece and if your niece should be an eight year old Vietnamese boy then we will happily turn a blind eye". So I assume that every white towel in Tong's dirty towel basket is caked with semen. I quickly push his hand away and inform that it's not necessary. We continue small chat as I edge towards my door, slowly managing to move him away from it.

"you look tired"
"yeah pretty full from breakfast mate, probly just gonna go back to bed and sleep it off"
"Ah. When you tired I come and give you massage, I give good massage to tired people"
"Thats great" I concede as I get my door open and edge in, avoiding any body contact.
"I give you massage now. I come." he announces as he tries to wander through the doorway with me.
"Like fuck you do mate" I let him know. Thankfully his English is poor and he understands the tone of denial if not the harsh words it is presented to him in.
"OK, later then."
"..." I just give him a polite non smile.
After a fairly lengthy diatribe about the beauty of my eyes, how strong and handsome I was and how hairy I was (it was a compliment apparently, it's a first) Tong hugs me. Not like a guy guy hug, or a sibling hug, or even a girlfriend hug. He gets in there, and he nestles his head between my man boobs. Like I'm his mother. Now I do have exquisite breasts, but there is a line. Thankfully Tong understands that, and I manage to guide him out of my room.

And thats Tong. I've successfully spent my time avoiding him so far, but I daresay there will be further unreciprocated encounters. Tomorrow I am exploring the tunnels of the Viet cong, then I take a 3 day tour of the Mekong Delta, and I am still behind with what has happened so far. I'll let you know soon enough.
Toodles.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/3/1250088257/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/3/1250088257/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/3/1250088257/tpod.html Wed, 12 Aug 2009 10:56:30 -0400 Trying to return

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Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

This one is a little easier than the last. Same rules apply, first one in with an answer gets the sweetass lighter. I hope you like this.

So to pick up where we left off...

I nailed the challenge at outback Jacks in all of 26 minutes, and I got a t-shirt to prove it. It's all about strategy, and being able to stomach 2 kg of heavy foods in a short period of time. Last few days in Darwin were glorious, many beers and reminisces, wedding was great. Went to the free Darwin waterslides that were actually pretty good. Having written that I just had a look at what waterslides are available over here. With descriptions like "Multi Slide colorful with many lanes making for you chances of expressing your talent to families and friends . You have joyous feelings and so wonderful with Multi Slide. Victory to you !" I am definitely going to put some time in on those bad boys. Tried a Barefoot Radler beer the other day. It tasted like the South African gay cousin of Sprite. Thought you should know.
Right, so I got to the airport with a twinkle in my eye, a spring in my step and a pool of sweat in pretty much everywhere. It was Darwin. I was there early, and I waited patiently in the queue to check in. One thing I always forget about airports is that they and their staff hate me. From being abused about wearing a do rag in NY, accused of being Michael Vick in Canada (looong story, google the name if needs be) having my bag searched everywhere and seeing a rubber glove come out in Germany (I was not entered as such, in case you worry). I neglect this fact of my life in all the excitement and rush of packing, making it to the airport on time and the trepidation of a new and exciting journey. Like an opposite, more intense and alternative of Marylin Manson, I love airports but the airports despise me.
When I got to the (stunningly beautiful) girl at check in, all went smoothly, until she told me I wasn't allowed on the plane. This was something of a problem. I asked why. She showed me the scanned and printed out version of my Visa approval document. It was all in order apart from the date when the visa expires, which was cut off at the corner of the page, so it read "Valid: 11/8/2009 to 31/01/201-" the zero in 2010 being cut off. I informed her that she couldn't possibly be serious. Why would the visa expire in 201? Obviously there is a number missing at the end, I am not going to be returning to the past via my tardis to hang out with Zhao Tuo the Chinese conquerer who consolidated Âu Lạc into Nanyue in 207 BC (thankyou WIkipedia). This didn't fly. I tired to blame the company who organised it for emailing it to me without the end numbers on. Like Ansett, this didn't fly any more than the other excuse did. After fucking about with the wireless in the airport, then using my own, calling 2 travel agents and being transferred twice I finally found the original scan on my hard drive. It had the numbers on it, I was just retardis and had printed it out wrong. 2-0 to i-to-i (the guys who organised my trip, I tried to blame them for booking me the wrong trip some time earlier, but I had confirmed it as correct weeks before I picked up on it being incorrect). So I went back to the counter, where check in desk hottie made me wait for half an hour to see a supervisor. I still couldn't print the document out with the right dates on it, and the he just looks at my laptop and goes - "Oh, if you have a copy on there, that's fine, go ahead" so I do as they are making it last call for boarding. I still manage to wolf down some red rooster while in the queue (it was an atrocity) and then go through to the second security check, which is for liquids apparently. That goes well. Then I give my passport to old mate at the desk.
"It's damaged" He informs me.
"It is" I concur. And I'm thinking, you can't possibly be fucking serious.
"I can get my finger right up here (hehe) in the photo scan part"
"Obviously. Can you stop doing it though?" I request politely as he rips my already battered passport to shreds.
"Hmmm. I'm going to have to ask you to step over here."
What kind of fuckwit pre-empts a question with "I'm going to have to ask you..."? And it's not like I can refuse the airport security guy. "How about no, mister pretend police man. I like it just fine over here. Maybe I'll build a fort from my back pack and clothes, with a foundation of bullshit that I have to go through every god damn time I fly. Motherfucker."
Sorry about that.
So his supervisor comes over and after the customary glance-at-the-photo-look-of-disbelief-snicker shows me how damaged my passport is by tearing it up some more and makes me promise to get a new one when I get back to Australia (yeah no worries anonymous figure of authority, I'll get right on that.) and lets me go with the phrase "I've seen worse passports get through Asia, but I give you no guarantee they will accept it.". Thanks love.
The flight was fine, I probly smelled really bad but I was just playing Gas and no one bothered me, got to watch a great thunderstorm from above the clouds which was something else.
When I finally got my Visa processed in Nam (they did not even blink at the passport or missing number on the end of the date, must get a lot of time bandits through there) and got through the gates, a taxi driver just about threw me in his car as I was smoking (old American couple in the back copping all my second hand smoke) and man what a ride it was. The dudes on mopeds are just crazy and everywhere, and I watched in awe as they all avoided death by millimetres, constantly. Just as I was thinking how beautiful and amazing and graceful and invincible they all were, we rounded a corner and almost drove straight into a prone body, mangled moped right next to him. His mate helped him up, he wasn't dead but there was claret everywhere and old mate was quite severely fucked up. At this point I decided that at no point on my journey would I drive a moped. I have a 2-0 losing record with motorbikes as well as i-to-i and I am happy to cut my losses and leave it that way, with my limbs intact and working. There was also an exploded sewage main on our route home and it took me quite some time to identify the smell as shit. Myself and Josh had discussed at length how different races of people have different smelling poop. I think the Canadians have the worst smelling poop. It's not me trying to be offensive or funny, it's just an honest observation. Sorry eh.
Taxi driver dropped the yank couple off at their hotel, then drove around the block and pulled over. "Where you go" he asked me again. I showed him the hotel address and name. He drove around the block again and dropped me at the same hotel as the seppos. No split cabs in Ho Chi Min. Crafty bastard. Hotel is good as gold, free wireless, double bed, free breakfast, cable tv in room for $22 a night. The bathroom though is unbelievable. It is a small room with sink, toilet and a shower suspended in the middle. No curtain, and the shower is in the middle, so basically you have a shower that contains a toilet and sink. You can shave, brush teeth, piss and shit in the shower with none of the negative stigma it carries back home. Glorious. I thought it had a bidet on a hose too but I have since discovered that it is a high powered jet of water for cleansing the toilet bowl in lieu of a toilet brush. Really glad I didn't shoot myself up the arse with it.

I'll be back soon with Tong!, a masterpiece about unrequited love.
Victory to you.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/3/1250087662/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/3/1250087662/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/3/1250087662/tpod.html Wed, 12 Aug 2009 10:44:01 -0400 Trying to return

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Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia

I've been doing too many cryptic crosswords. First person to email me the answer to the title of this piece gets a sweet ex-vietnam war zippo lighter. They are super cool. Here we go:

A beginning

Long time no visual stimuli. Lets hop to it.
I really felt in the last week or so that Margs had been shitting on me. It has a habit of sometimes turning on you in all aspects - everything goes to shit in a short amount of time. It happened once before, when Jessica was taken from me. Jessica was my bright orange Specialized Hard Rock 2009. She was beautiful. All I have left is a velcro strap from the broken lock, where she was last seen. I sometimes sleep with it, in a platonic way, because velcro is in no way sensual.
I felt like Margs was shitting on me, but I don't think it was. I reckon I was just being emotional, as I sometimes do. I left town on the bust that leaves at 6.55 am, and a friend washed my sheets and cleaned the last of my room. I left without the wines and beers I had intended to bring for friends that I was going to see around australia, because it was early and I was tired and disorganised and that is hardly the time of day to be aware of anything.
I got on the bus and slipped straight back into one of my travel modes. There are three last count - Gaz, who is curious and attentive but not really organised though organised enough to get by. Montana, my outgoing party boy side who gets me into SOO much trouble and will definitely be taking a back seat this trip. The third, one whom I have only just realised exists and has a name, is Gas. He is the unfriendly one of the trio. I hadn't showered since midday the day before, and that shower had preceded some heavy drinking followed by three hours of sleep. I dragged myself onto the bus smelling like a brewery's urinal, and put on my angry face. My angry face is often used at work to control the drunken/cracked out children that are my customers, and it involves a complex mix of seriousness, disappointment and anger. What this does is severely discourage anyone from sitting next to me and definitely from attempting a conversation with me. This was much easier to accomplish when I had my shitlocks and beard, and I looked like fat Jesus (Hangover) with male PMS. Now that I am clean cut and socially acceptable I have to work harder to make myself unapproachable, but a little Gas goes a long way. That and the fact that I passed out while listening to my ipod and woke up to myself singing along with none other than French band Air's "Sexy Boy" with a Beethoven (the dog not composer) - esque drool patch on my shoulder was enough to deter event the most determined of pesterers. So I got two seats on the bus up. It was sweet. Gas has also made appearances at hostels when annoying douche's want to be my friend, or when Gorillas are stalking me, or when seedy Indians (feather not dot) ask for money.
I'm sitting at my sisters at the minute, it's 32 degrees and I am melting slowly, but I have Farmers Union Scoffs, so all is not lost. Went to the cas last night, where kingy got cut off after 5 beers, which was most entertaining, and I won $250 on the pokies, which did not stay in my pocket for long. $25 blackjack tables are the bane of my monetary existence. Otherwise I am very excited about "Outback Jacks" dinner tomorrow night. The challenge is to eat 1kg of steak, 500g of wedges and 500g of salad in under half an hour. I am not sure where the challenge is supposed to lie here, perhaps you are underwater, or there is a team of ninja hampering your devouring efforts. I cannot be sure, but I am sure of one thing - pity the staff at Outback Jacks, I laugh in the face of their snack challenge.
Outie.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/2/1197810720/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/2/1197810720/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gazalache/2/1197810720/tpod.html Sat, 26 Jan 2008 08:21:06 -0500 Eastern Europe

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Berlin, Germany

Once again it appears that I have nothing written about Berlin... but here are some random bits you may find entertaining...

Everywhere in Europe they have their hatred for their neighbours (not like in Australia, where everyone lives on Ramsay street and looks up to a man named Harold) and they have ways of physically inflicting this dislike. The Spanish had the Inquisition. The Germans had the concentration camp (and I have been to Aushwiczt), the Russians had the Gulag ( and I have read "One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich, been to the museum of terror), the English have their smiles and the French their personalities. But the Polish are the most subtle of all. They have their cuisine. I have just returned from a christmas dinner at a Polish house. In Australia if you don't want to eat kangaroo we go "fine, here is a potato salad you big poof" but in Poland if you refuse a dish your host makes you feel like you have just called her and her mother and her mother's mother a whore and a cheap one at that. "Haf sum Herring" they say, forcing it into your mouth. "I am allergic to fish. It causes to have a serious outbreak of death. Please don't poison me, I have dreams, however unlikely, of being an astronaught in the future and this is not the way I saw myself 'biting it' as ironic as it seems in this instance." And as you look into the face this aging pole, she sheds a couple of tears, as if her whole life was the build up to making you enjoy her herring, and she has failed after 62 years of waiting. This was her Apollo Herring, her takeoff, what she had spent weeks in solitude and zero gravity for. And what have you done? You have destroyed an old lady's dreams. You cunt you. And so you take a bite of not only what is seafood cyanide to you but what is possibly the worst cooked fish in the history of mankind. When homo (ha homo) erectus first discovered fire and threw a fish on there to see what would happen, then tore into scales garnished with coals, it tasted better than this mouthful of pure shit. You swallow and smile like it is tasty despite the swelling in your throat. As you pass out you see a glimmer of joy in the old lady's eyes, before she glares at you disapprovingly over another fork of fishy death. Apparently it is bad manners to go into cardiac arrest in Poland, especially at the dinner table.

Prague - an excerpt.

So after much convincing I finally got Amanda to go to a puppet show with me. Prague is famous for it's puppet shows, and this is not without good reason. Tossing up between Don Giovanni and Cats, we went with Cats because we had both seen it and we knew the plot line, whereas Don Giovanni would involve a large amount of guesswork. I can say honestly, without an ounce of lie, that I enjoyed it completely. See, they had gone the extra mile here. Cats was performed by cats. Well, it was not performed by cats but by puppeteers USING cats. Apparently they are selected as kittens according to temperament and how much their appearance is alike that of the Cats character they are destined to play. Their paws are pierced with the small silver barbells that disgruntled teens so much like to decorate their face with. Before the wee kitten can even walk, it is being trained in backflips, two steps and pirouettes. And such is the life of the famous feline.
I have to say that the performance, while spectacular and different, was somewhat disappointing. Now I did enjoy it, but the cats did not seem to be "into" their performance. Perhaps the fame had gone to their heads, perhaps they were coming down off a big night of (ohhhh don't but yes I will) catnip the night before, perhaps they were lamenting that they missed out on the creatively titled movie "Cats and Dogs". For those of you who haven't seen it, it was about Cats and Dogs. But their performances lacked. The puppeteers were fine, even great. These furry creatures were flung willy-nilly about the stage, hand and arm (or paw and paw as it would be I guess) being wrenched from socket in what would most definitely be painful to us, but to an animal who has devoted it's life to the stage, it was purely in a days work. Or so one would think. How they whined and yowled as they scratched and bit each other, hackles (is that dogs or both cats and dogs?) raised in unprofessional aggression. About 3/4 of the way through, the audience had had enough and they let the cats know. We screamed, "Puppeteers, you are both talented and admirable, cats you fucking suck at your unchosen profession!" The cats seemed unfazed by our criticism, either though a lack of professional commitment or because they don't speak English. We heckled with canine abandon throughout the remainder of the performance. When the final curtain dropped we sighed with relief, the show was hardly worth the 2 dollars it cost. But then we were afforded a great privelige. The so called actors came out on stage, lined up like slaves who had survived the arena in Rome. One even looked just like Russell Crowe. A faceless voice from backstage asked us if they were worthy or not. As one, the entire audience threw their thumbs up (which was impressive, as in ancient Rome thumbs up meant that the gladiator be killed, not spared, unlike modern Rome where the thumbs up means I would like a male prostitute named Milton. Strange culture the Italians) and the pussys were condemned. The rotweilers were fast from the wings, savage and efficient in their execution. Some got tangled in the strings from the cats, but they had no problem in tearing these pitiful furry excuses for thespians paw from paw. It was just as good as watching the ewoks die at the end of Return of the Jedi. The Rottys tossed body parts into the crowd as prizes, I myself took a spectacular catch of Mr Mestopholes head, and it is now the main prize on my keyring. We went and had a couple beers with the puppeteers afterwards, taking shots from the skulls of past great "actors" for about 20 cents a hit. I held one in my hand and said "Poor Yorlik, I knew him backwards" and we all laughed. It was wonderful.

The above prose is a lie, forged for your entertainment. We actually watched Don Giovanni. There are no real cats in Cats. I hope you enjoyed it. The following prose walks a fine line between reality and falsity for your laughter, not unlike a puppeted cat walks daily the line between death by Rotty and glorious praise. Please listen carefully.
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