We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto...

And so it begins…

followmyyellowbrickroad — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:35:01 +0000

In the next few days I learn how to ride a motorbike with a foot pedal brake. I never thought it was possible but the traffic in Hanoi makes Taiwan’s traffic look like child’s play. It’s so congested you can easily rest your head on the shoulder of the person riding next to you. People don’t stop at red robots and riding directly into oncoming traffic with the type of death wish reserved only for suicide bombers and practitioners of harikiri is extremely commonplace.

I also discover my camera’s memory card has a virus! I didn’t even know cameras could get viruses! I lost all my Thailand pics but after using my laptop’s antivirus to disinfect the card all is back to normal.

One of my friends who is leaving decides to end her nine year relationship with her dreadlocks the day before she leaves Hanoi and we spend an afternoon cutting them off and unknotting what’s left on her head. We have farewell drinks at an outside table at a place called Hair of the Dog where workmen are ripping up the pavement around us replacing copper pipes with PVC. We move to a place called Mao’s until the cops arrive in their olive green uniforms and police hats. Nobody stays open later than midnight unless the cops are paid off. Places are usually made to look closed way earlier and then you have to knock on the door to be let in, cloak and dagger style.

I got a part time job at a Vietnamese public school twice a week. I’m not thrilled at the idea of teaching again so soon but I can’t turn down cash. The classroom’s got an old school blackboard with chalk and everything! No whiteboards and whiteboard markers. The kids are about nine and ten and on the day I have to teach my first lesson I go out to buy some props like a dice, sticky ball or squeaky hammers. I’m at a street stall that sells toys and the vendor kicks my bum and comes over to squeeze my thighs and motions with her hands how big she thinks my ass is. Ah, Asia. Where personal space is a privilege, not a right.

Whenever you need to go anywhere in Hanoi you can take a xe om or motorbike taxi. Xe oms are to Hanoi what yellow cabs are to New York City. I have a regular xe om who takes me to and from work. When it rains, because there aren’t drains in all the streets, they flood very easily and people ride with their shoes off or feet propped up high. One day, on the way home in the pouring rain, sharing a raincoat with my driver in rush hour traffic – when the pavement officially becomes an extra two lanes – I notice people stopping on the opposite side of the road in calf-deep water. They’re taking photos with their cellphones and smiling open-mouthed at the sky, gaping like children as if Buddha himself were coming down on a lotus flower. I turn around to see what the fuss in about and I’m amazed that the Vietnamese are taking the time to stop, in the rain, at the busiest time of day, to appreciate a double rainbow in the sky. On the way home I see the sky as I’ve never seen it before in my entire life. Imagine the upside down triangle of a thundercloud but it’s highlighted by orange circles of light as if lots of torches are being shone onto the cloud. It makes me think of the bottom of an egg box. It’s eerie and breathtaking all at the same time.

Isn’t it weird how seeing the sky for a few moments in a way I’ve never seen it before in my entire lifetime makes all my homesickness worth it?

The Fountain of Youth

followmyyellowbrickroad — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:45:06 +0000

We’re in Vietnam! We were on the go since our late Friday night arrival and even the arrival wasn’t without drama.We took a local bus from the airport even though we arrived just before midnight because of flight delays. We’d taken the same bus before so we weren’t too concerned about it being so late. The only difference was that this time the friendly conductor woman who was supposed to tell us when to get off forgot about us. The next thing you know we’re the last people on the bus. She realizes and makes the bus do a u-turn but I don’t think the driver was in a very good mood considering it was close to 1am and probably the end of his shift. The bus stops on the highway and I get this sinking feeling that we’re about to get kicked to the curb. I try to act stupid. I appeal that our bags are so heavy (and by so heavy I mean 40kg between the two of us excluding our daypacks). Conductor lady picks up my bag and throws it out of the bus. I look at her and ask if she’s really going to do this to us. She points down a dark road and says

- Walk. Maybe 20 minutes that way.

And that’s how B and I got stranded on a highway we later learn is called Dyke Road with all our cash, our cameras, laptop and passports on us and nothing but dark empty highway around us. B still contemplates how we’re going to jump the concrete barrier in the centre of the road to get to the other side. Meanwhile, my life is flashing before my eyes, convinced we’re about to get robbed. We are in the middle of nowhere, no shops, no people, just dark alleys to stare down. And then I see a small speck of yellow light in the distance…could it be a taxi approaching?? But it’s in the far lane. I almost jump out of my skin to flag it down and it sees us! It ends up costing more than the bus trip from the airport but I don’t care, we make it to our hotel alive and with all our belongings.

The first few days were exceptionally busy because friends of ours who have been living in Hanoi left three days after our arrival so they only had a short time to show us the ropes and introduce us to people. We spend the next few days networking and just orientating ourselves but I a beginning to notice something that has started happening with alarming frequency…everybody I am meeting is a lot younger than B and I.

I mean, obviously your own age is no secret to yourself but when you realize that the person you’re talking to about music has no idea who Erykah Badu is because she was five years old when the Baduizm album came out…it begins to dawn on me much quicker than it does when I realize I can’t party as hard as before, that while I’m still in my 20s, it is definitely the tail end. Or it’s that tell-tale silence when you tell a joke with a 90s reference and you realize that when you were brandishing a glowstick and spending your pocket money on Tiger Balm, they were ten years old.

Anyway…we went to a party the day after we arrived where GirlTalk was playing. Who is GirlTalk? A “mash-up” god apparently. I’m not a fan of mash-up, I think it’s djing for people with ADD. How else can you enjoy a set where each song lasts twenty seconds? But we go in the name of making friends and I know it’s going to be amusing when I see a blonde girl in red hot pants frantically working on the dancefloor. Her job is to load one of those toilet roll blowers, aim into the air and blow toilet paper all over the crowd. And boy is she taking her job seriously. I tell her in her ear I like her job. She laughs quite genuinely actually. Later I get off on the wrong foot with another girl who happens to be knocking back the vodka as I mention in passing that I think drinking vodka is the same as drinking nail polish remover. She takes offence even though I wasn’t talking to her and I tell her that she shouldn’t be offended by my personal preference. She turns around and says

- Well you started it bitch. Besides, I’m 23, I can drink as much vodka as I want.

Now here’s the weird part. It’s the 23 thing not the bitch thing that gets to me, even though I know she wanted the bitch thing to get to me. And that, folks, is a first for me. I immediately make plans to seduce her boyfriend or befriend her housemates so I can get the opportunity to pour vodka into her contact lense solution. Mwahahaha But in the end, of course I couldn’t be bothered and instead start watching two girls leaning over their friend who is laying spreadeagled on the dancefloor out cold. Her friends are pilled up and unsure of what to do. My friend (who used to work the door at Sliver and also doubled as the club medic at the same time B used to be the club photographer every Friday and Saturday night) and I look at each other. She goes over and gets waved away, so we wander off. After the party I end up at a house chilling with a girl who I mistake for at least 25. Turns out she’s 18. I am not happy with tonight’s running theme but at least I’m making friends. Only just before I leave do I learn vodka girl also lives there! She just lucky I’m old enough to know better than to waste my time on petty revenge. Besides, I didn’t have any vodka to pour into her contact lense solution.

Snakes Alive

followmyyellowbrickroad — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:33:58 +0000

So guys, here’s my first post! After a successful packing up of enough stuff to keep us alive for 6 months, we finally left the rock of Taiwan. We arrived smackbang in Bangkok, living in an alley off the infamous Khao San Rd.

Ah, Khao San Road in Bangkok. So easy to call Khoi San Rd.
Where young boys just out of school and nursing constant hangovers make me feel old – Dude we didn’t see the English girls or the Danish girls again! realizes Head-Clutcher. – But when we got there the English girls were next to the stage and then we got on the stage and the Danish girls were there, says Ass-Starer, probably recalling his last few moments of clarity the night before.

Ah, Khao San Road. Where a young foreign woman in a crop top, tight denim shorts, post-baby tummy bulging and a few month old baby an her arm makes me sad. This is no place for kids. But I guess a lot of women just stop partying long enough to give birth and then carry on. They’re here with their pink hair that offsets their phuza faces and their bored children with dreadlocks and their boyfriends that buy their stash.

We decide to catch a Muay Thai tournament. They’re held every night at some stadium but good matches are scheduled for Tuesday at Lumpini Stadium and Thursday at Rajadam Stadium. It’s Thurs so we’re off tot the Raj. The smell of Deep Heat is so strong it’s like walking into a wall when you enter the stadium. There are 12 fights, 5 rounds each and festivities start at 6pm with lightweight, young tall wiry boys with long legs and steely abs. Every time they clinch the crowd lets out what I thought was a deep, aspirated chant of “Heeee!” “Heeee!” but later I realise it’s “Knee!” “Knee!”.

: The difference between second and third class tickets – a fence.

There are 3 types of tickets for these matches – ringisde, 2nd class and 3rd class. 3rd class is separated from the rest of the stadium with floor to ceiling chainlink fencing. I’m in 2nd class and as I grab a spot right in front, looking onto the heads of the people in ringside, an old Thai man shows me a sign thats says FOREIGNER with an arrow pointed to the back. I smile, shake my head and say no. He looks at me for a second and then invites us to come and stand next to him.I notice the three seated rows in ringside are full of foreigners who look bored out of their skulls and are obviously only here because the guidebook said they should come. I start getting into it and suddenly realise that the music they play during the wai khru is being played live by a group of four old guys sitting next to us in a cordoned off section of the stand.I notice one of the fighters does not perform his wai khru before fighing. I think this is odd. The bell for the first round sounds and this same guy gets KO’d with a right jab, has a seizure and gets carried off on a stretcher. Always do your wai khru, kids. I notice that before the fight starts, in each fighter’s corner, they also get water flicked onto their bodies and faces from a paper cup and it looks like a blessing. A big, silver, circular tray is brought out between rounds to put the stool on. Between rounds, 2nd and 3rd class are a frenzy of betting, all hands in the air and phonecalls. After the first fight it’s clear the results are rigged. We also realize the old man next to us is a well-known bookie. He stops us from buying beer from a vendor, disappears and comes back with two cans in his bag, no charge. We rock up a conversation with a girl from Hong Kong who tells us her story about going to watch a ping pong show the night before. We leave promising her we’ll go.

In Bangkok, I eat breakfast in front of Ganesh every morning. In Bangkok all the Thais laugh mysteriously a lot – Go straight hahaha – How are you? hahaha -Where are you from? hahaha It’s weird. My guidebook also tells me that, in Bangkok, if I tell a local I am a freelancer, it will translate into that I am a prostitute who works with no pimp. I bear this in mind.

On Saturday we go to the Royal Palace and THE weekend market. THE one. The fucking biggest market in the world or some shit. Imagine a gigantic Green Point fleamarket. We get dropped on the side with the pet section. Crocodiles, rabbits, squirrels dead on their bananas, bags and bags of goldfish, turtles, giant tortoises, puppies, parrots, tubs of mealworms, stingrays, cats, skunks, lizards. All in tight square cages or barely covered with water. Fuck the weekend market.

I walk around and a sign outside a beauty parlour catches me: WE’VE ALL FOUGHT THE SAME BATTLE FOR CENTURIES – THE WAR AGAINST HAIR. I immediately go in and get a haircut and I was in and out in 30 minutes. It was the mosty blissful expereince of my life, all for the equivalent of R50. I drag B there later. She gets a hot new haircut. We go out clubbing to Zeta. My last thoughts on Bangkok are that I’ve seen absolutely no Thai children except for that time we rode past a school and also, I’ve come to the conclusion that the fact that they call their butch girls Toms and that I love Tom Yum soup is not coincidental.

Don't you think she looks like Elvis?

We move from Bangkok grime to Koh Phangan sublime. While Bangkok reeks of seediness, Koh Phangan just reeks of good old fashioned sex. Thailand’s like that. Probably why it’s such a perfect honeymoon spot. We were here in time for the well-known Full Moon Party, biggest fucking dog show in the world. It made me ashamed to be human, nevermind a visiting foreigner. Highlights include a woman I call Vivian the Hippo rolling around in the sea all fucked up while guys stood in a line pissing into the sea, everybody too fucked to see what was happening, Vivian especially. The guys were literally swerving to avoid her and she was tripping out on the stars, fully clothed in the water, getting a piss shower. She miraculously stood up out of the water after pretending to be rolling dolphin, reeking of piss, with her shoulder bag still over her shoulder. The sea was one big toilet for everyone. Rows and rows of guys were peeing into the sea, there should’ve been a sign up. WORSE is that fucked up people or girls too fucked to care would strip down to their bikinis, wade into the urine, laugh, probably pee themselves and run out and keep dancing. Because those toilets were damn far away. Then there were the antics of the straight-out-of-school-first-year-at-university Brits who lived at the same place as us and couldn’t quite pretend themselves out of high school. They dressed up with an original Alice in Wonderland theme on Full Moon Party night complete with a gay Mad Hatter named Herschel, and the Golden Couple going as the Cheshire Cat and the Queen of Hearts. Everyone at the party was covered in glow in the dark paint with messages fingerpainted on : Same Same But Better. Suck Me Beautiful. I love You Andrea, or simply, Full Moon Party. In fact, you had to actively dodge the glow-in-the-dark tattoo artsits, they were really pushy. Everybody was drinking whiskey or vodka out of a beachsand bucket. AND, they were raving to badly mixed tunes they didn’t even realise were ten years old. It really made me feel bad that the school-leavers of today have no music movement to follow. There were about six dancefloors along the beach, decked out in glow-the-dark deco and UV lights, stages with very bad trance and most people were just blind drunk, with a whiff of weed here and a teeth grinder there. For some reason, there were families walking around in this chaos, kids in tow, just shaking their heads when somebody ran by pissing or letting fireworks off horizontally into the crowd. What do you think they said? This is what sin looks like kids! I wish so much now that I’d taken my camera.

Dirty Spaniards arrived at our backpackers, shouting Spectacular! at the mushroom milkshakes on offer. Otherwise there were a few Germans and more Brits.

B went back to Taiwan and I stayed in Koh Phangan an extra four days. Just me on an island, a motorbike, my iPod and hammocks as far as the eye can see. In this time alone, I’ve managed to brush a snake off a bush and onto my shoulder and spot a guy standing in the bush and wanking at me lying on the beach on the same day. Anybody think that snake thing was an omen? Don’t panic! This has happened to me quite a few times before actually…Was a bit creeped out afterwards though. Took a scooter ride to the northern tip of the island and took a boat taxi to Bottle Beach today, had an awesome Thai massage and watched a truly beautiful sunset. I leave tomorrow morn 6:30am to meet B and fly to Vietnam, in the meantime, I’ll leave you with a view from my hammock:

PS All my pics are on Facebook.