Adventures in the West

lots of naked people in Trafalgar Square – they were protesting about something, but despite the exuberant mass nudity and little willies perched on bike seats, none of them ever made it very clear what they were protesting about.

Covent Garden

On Saturday, I had a fun night out at the Royal Operah House, as you do, and then caught the long scenic train down the south coast to Falmouth, right down on the pointy bit of Cornwall, where my young son Goob resides. Cornwall is full of fun things to see and do, like cider and rocks.

Goob proudly surveys her domain

Gina, Goob and Shorty

My first couple of nights here were mainly focused on the important task of rediscovering cider, and rum, and Weapons Grade ginger beer, and other good things, which meant that the days were focused on sleeping and eating. However, a headache drove us to the beach for a recuperative brisk sea walk, which turned into a fascinating wildlife discovery, and which was much more fun than melting in bed. We saw loads of baby seals playing together right near the coast, which was fucking cool, as I have never seen wild seals before and didn’t even know that they lived in Cornwall. There were several big birds of prey, and I sat in a ladybird nest. We went home and ate Thai curry.

The next day we drove to somewhere where I didn’t know where we were, but Nolly was there, and we went swimming in the sea, there was another seal and some mussels, I got bitten by a weaver fish, and it was ace. We went home and ate Indian curry.

Yesterday we completed our wildlife adventures by driving to The Lizard, which is the name for the skinny bit of land right at the south of the pointy bit at the end of Cornwall, culminating in the MOST SOUTHERLY POINT IN THE WHOLE OF ENGLAND!! We went for another brisk coastal walk, and saw something that might have been a sea lion or it might have been another seal. I’m going for sea lion. They also often have 11m long basking sharks here, but we didn’t see any. And we sat by the nesting site of a bird called a clough. This was a very cool trip; I don’t know why it’s so exciting to be right at the extreme of somewhere, but I found it very thrilling.

a tourist standing at the most southerly place in England !!!

ice cream faces

some rocks

some cormorants and some SHAGS sitting on a rock

a beached whale

Friday morning there were big explosions and fires at Falmouth docks! But I don’t really know much about it except that I got woken up by a really noisy siren, and that some men in high-viz jackets said I couldn’t run where I would otherwise run. Then we went to see some arty degree show things, and went to a sea shanty festival. Yesterday we came to Fred’s house in Bristol, where I am now blogging, and soon we drive to Glastonbury.

Travel

"That is why we need to travel. If we don't offer ourselves to the unknown, our senses dull. Our world becomes small and we lose our sense of wonder. Our eyes don't lift to the horizon; our ears don't hear the sounds around us. The edge is off our experience, and we pass our days in a routine that is both comforting and limiting. We wake up one day and find that we have lost our dreams in order to protect our days.
Don't let yourself become one of these people. The fear of the unknown and the lure of the comfortable will conspire to keep you from taking the chances the traveller has to take. But if you take, you will never regret your choice. To be sure, there will be moments of doubt..."

I read this in a book or something, I like it.

Hello from windy Cornwall

This photo was not taken in Cornwall, it was taken on a boat on the Mekong, somewhere upstream from Luang Prabang in Laos. I think it's a very good photo, so I'm putting it up in lieu of a lengthy explanation of everything that's going on in my life. Many fun things are happening, and I will write about them one day soon. Maybe.

goats

goats

goat close-up

baby goats

goaty love

goat attack

goat bums

pig!

unfortunately these pigs don’t have such impressively large testicles as the last male pig we had. those grand jewels of Billy ‘Bollocks’ Bacon were made into sausages and now make up the bodies of my family and their friends, which is a nice thought.

Elsa and I have invented a new game, which involves a squash racquet, a tennis ball, and biting Puff on the neck when she gets in the way

Stripey is looking more ill by the day, which we compensate for by giving him bowls of Häagen-Dazs or whole roasted chicken breasts whenever he desires. seen above in some erotic poses from his glamour shoot.

here is new baby alpaca Rafael, still soggy from the womb on Tuesday morning.

here he is with the whole crew, having dried off and learnt how to use his legs.

here is my brother holding a polystyrene gun.

Oversexed chickens, tigers, and curry

Now back in busy busy Kirdford, I wasn’t sure whether to keep writing or not; partially because my two biggest blog readers already know everything that happens here, and partially because, well, nothing happens here. But I don’t just want to leave it to rot all summer, and besides, it turns out there is a life outside of Asia after all.

At first, it was strange and disconcerting to be back here - where are the motorbike horns, what is this birdsong and wide open spaces, why does no one heckle me when I go for a run, why is there no soup lady outside my front door?! At first, at least once I'd got over the excitement of seeing the family and dog, I didn't really like being back. (I've never really spent much time in this house even when I lived in England, so it didn't feel much like "coming home".) But after a few days, I have come to appreciate the positive sides of the English countryside. Sussex is beautiful! Especially in the full bloom of summer... I might take a photo at some point.

The best part about being at home is all our animals. No one gives me unconditional love like my dog does, and we spent happy hours today rolling around in the grass whispering sweet nothings to each other. I can also visit our pet pigs, who tackle me with eighteen stone of piggy love and get snout slime all over my leggings (in case it's not clear, this is a good thing.) One of our alpacas is pregnant, so we expect a bow-legged fluffy camelid any day now. Tomorrow my mum is getting goats for the first time, so I don’t know what to expect with them, whether they’ll be friendly or bitey or nervous. But goats are pretty cool either way. Other pet-related news: Stripey’s dying, Spotty’s not, Puff’s completely deaf and nearly blind, and we have a bantam with an 80’s hairdo to accompany the sexy chicken who has to live on her own because the Cocky-Doo kept sexing her and she almost died of exhaustion.

I even went to an actual city yesterday, even if it was Chichester. The sights and the sounds almost overwhelmed me after the social void of Kirdford. I got another ear piercing, bought some inappropriate shoes, and went to see some peregrine falcons in the cathedral. The chicks were almost ready to fly from the battlements of the cathedral (do cathedrals have battlements? I mean those pointy bits in the tower, whatever, there were falcon chicks in there) so it was an exciting time.

I also learnt more about what the RSPB does and basically they’re really awesome. The Indonesian government were selling off large portions of the Sumatran jungle, which is the last remaining habitat of some 200 Sumatran tigers, in order that it could be cut down and turned into paper. The RSPB outbid the Chinese government (!) to buy the land, but then obviously didn’t want to turn it into paper; they’d rather let the Sumatran tigers do their thing. The Indonesian government weren’t happy about this, said it was against the law not to cut it down (?). So the guys from the RSPB flew the relevant Indonesian government official to London, wined him and dined him. and convinced him to change the law so that the Sumatran jungle was allowed to survive. So the tigers have their habitat and 200 of them survive – this is apparently the critical number, with just enough genetic material to maintain the species and allow them to be bred in the future. Basically the RSPB used political clout to save an entire species. They are able to do this because they have more members than all the British political parties put together. Go RSPB!

So after my jaunt with the peregrine falcons, I caught a bus to Petersfield to see Nolly!! Joy!! Joy and cider and curry. Excellent!!

This evening I had curry again. Excellent!!

Sorry if this blog isn’t as interesting when it’s just about England. Actually I’ve noticed that there are lot of interesting English culture things, as much as interesting Vietnamese or Lao culture things. Like men in flat caps, rollies, cobbled streets, being called “me love” or “darlin”, goths, curry... I like it!

Luang Prabang to Hanoi to London

In order that I don't get accused of being dead again: I'm in Hanoi after a long 29 hours on a bus (nothing that some ambiguous sleeping pills and a good book can't help with), and I'm loving being back in the smelly, noisy milieu. Just been walking round with a big grin on my face, eating a lot of soup, catching up with various people, dodging traffic. I fucking love this city.

I plan to fly to England in a week or so, although nothing's booked yet. I'm looking forward to it I guess, but am also nervous that I won't like it, because everyone shuts themselves inside off the streets, there's less to fascinate me, and there's less soup as well.

The wilds of Northern Laos

From Luang Prabang, I took a bus north to the town of Nong Khiaw. The journey became significantly longer than it needed to be after a broken axle diverted us back to more or less where we’d come from, but eventually we pulled up at a dusty bus stop under towering limestone mountains. The road onwards was blocked by a huge wedding party playing pumping Lao dance music (actually I later learned that it was a baby-naming party), and so we heaved on our backpacks and trudged past the cheers of drunken Lao men and down the road, in search of water.

Nong Khiaw is spread over two sides of the river, and the few backpacker bungalows and restaurants are on the far side, which (incidentally? consequently?) is the prettier side. I found a little wooden bungalow for 30,000 kip ($4), showered off accumulated grime and sweat, and went for a walk away from the town, past rice paddies and wooden huts and buffalo and phenomenally strong old ladies with logs on each shoulder. I was headed for a cave I’d read about, but completely failed to spot the conspicuous English-language sign pointing to it, so it was just a meander down the road and back again, without any real destination. I didn’t mind this, since as we all learn, it’s the journey that matters, not the destination. I went back to the cave today, but freaked myself out by letting myself believe that it was full of demons.

In the evening, I met up with new friends from the bus, since it was one guy’s birthday. Here are some cats:

feed me

The following morning, Saturday, I caught a boat ferry one hour further upstream, to Muang Ngoi. Muang Ngoi is only accessible by boat, has no electricity, no real roads, and only one motorbike, owned by a teenage boy who drives it up and down the 200m ‘high street’ to show off to girls. I feel that Muang Ngoi is what Laos is all about – beautiful, peaceful, isolated, green, with friendly people and abundant lao-lao (homebrewed sticky-rice-whisky). It’s got a nice-sized backpacker community as well, and after a few days here I felt like I knew most people, both locals and foreigners, and almost felt at home.

the high street

some boys cockfighting :(

On my initial exploratory walk, I met a cool Lao guy called Sai, who works as a trekking guide, and it felt right to go on a trek with him. (For the benefit of the two people reading this who know what I’m on about – Sai is like the Lao Pet...) The downside of travelling alone is that it’s more expensive to do activities with only one person. Opposite Sai’s house I spotted three Swedes I’d met the previous night in Nong Khiaw and again on the boat in the morning, and so I asked if they wanted to come trekking. They hadn’t planned to, but thought about it for a bit and decided to come with me. The upside of travelling alone is that it’s really easy to make new friends. We booked a two-day trek with Sai, leaving the next day.

Despite the fact that the generators are turned off at about half nine, Saturday night ended late, fuelled by free lao-lao shots from Sai, and the company of new and only-slightly-less-new friends (and the coincidental re-meeting of a dreadlocked Israeli I’d hung out with in Vientiane). Because I’m a machine, I sprung out of bed at six the next morning with the crowing of the cockerels, and got ready for the trek.

The trek was HARD WORK! I guess I’m less fit than normal at the moment, and the walking was all up and down through the mountains, but we kept up a fast pace. Sai said we were as fast as locals. One long uphill stretch was covered in huge leeches the size of my finger, and so we had to go up so quickly to avoid getting bitten as much as possible. The slimy bastards still got some of my blood. (Back in Muang Ngoi, I drew a picture of a human leech with two bodies stitched together in the middle and two huge gaping mouths full of teeth and blood. I showed it to three blokes I didn’t really know and they didn’t talk to me much after that.)

 

freshly-picked tobacco drying in the sun

swedes are so aryan

We spent the night in a tiny Khmu village. The Khmu are an ethnic minority originally from Cambodia. A few of the adults speak a bit of Lao, but mostly the Khmu people are completely isolated up in the mountains, still living in their traditional ways and without much contact with other influences. I find it very strange to think about how cut-off they are – a difficult 4-hour walk even from Muang Ngoi, which itself seems very far away from anything. I wonder how their concerns differ from ours; like what they worry about whilst we’re worrying about Japan or the global food crisis or the polar bears. If your frame of reference was so much smaller, surely you would think very differently? That’s not to undermine their concerns, of course – often the unmaterialistic ‘simple' life is idealised, but I’d say it’s fucking hard work. I also think that it’d be very frustrating, especially for the young people, that they don’t really have any prospects beyond the village. Anyway, it’s very interesting to go to places like this and see how differently people live their lives in all the corners of the world. The people were very hospitable, and generous with the lao-lao toasts.

village

beds

breakfast

The next day’s walk was almost all downhill, and I frequently felt that I was going to slip and hurtle to my death, but I never did. For much of the way, there was no path, and so we just walked down the riverbed in our trainers. The leeches had a feast.

after one last steep climb – the destination is in sight

We had to get a boat downriver to get back to Muang Ngoi. The boat driver brought tubes so that we could float down, as popularised by Vang Vieng. I almost died tubing and had to be rescued by Sai wearing just Doraemon boxers but that’s a story for another day.