"Nobody Likes You When Your 23"

I was going to be celebrating my birthday on Koh Phi Phi, it is a beautiful island split into a national park and a more touristic side. The main beach is minutes away from where we were staying, it is a small cove where the tide can devour the entire beach or retreat almost out of the cove and exposing lots of hermit crabs and mudskippers. Our previous nights out in Phi Phi had been great; we had drank whisky on the beach while watching fire dancers balancing precariously on a tight rope. We had gone night swimming in the cove and sunk into a posh resort swimming pool, hiding under submerged bar stools only to be betrayed by a security guards flashlight. We had all been sharing rooms 3 in a bed to keep prices down and I would wake up early and go for a swim in the cove, in the mornings the tide was way out so you could explore the whole beach, as you walk in the crystal clear water fish dart past you and fist sized crabs scuttle for shelter and bury themselves in the sand a few feet away, there are even monkeys. On the eve of my birthday we went kayaking to some coral and cliff caves that were so tight you had to bend over backwards as you paddled through. Peering into the water there where swarms of tiny jellyfish that gave you equally tiny stings when you touched them, splashing about with the oars we witnessed sun delve beneath the ocean. Later we were all sat on the beach a few meters away from all the bars and the music drinking whisky, when it came to midnight everyone poured drink over me. That night involved dancing on wobbly stages, pizzas and whiskey buckets and concluded with a journey to hilltop bungalows in search of a snake, but what we encountered was a strange Finish lad rambling on about bears and small lions.




















So after a little sleep I woke up fairly early got down to the almost empty cove and had a bit of a wade around, the skies were overcast and the water seemed murkier than past days. By midday I had met up with the others and they brought me birthday breakfast, looking around our table everyone seemed to be suffering from last night’s antics, it seemed like today would be a recovery and I didn’t blame them. Birthdays always have a bit too much pressure about them so I was ready for a chilled out day by the beach, this didn't happen. We rounded everyone up and got on a boat cruise that absolutely rocked. We had brought so much Chang Beer from the 7elevens that my arms ached by the time we were onboard. Whilst we boarded the big boat speakers were playing “hey soul sister” and this was the moment that everything picked up, the hangover from last night had disappeared from peoples faces, as did the clouds that gave way to a fathomless blue canopy, so we blew up party balloons and we danced.The rest of the passengers, all around our age, looked bewildered and were maybe hoping for a more relaxed affair but we soon got some of them joining in as pretty early on Captain Art brought out an acoustic guitar and a mic so we all sang ‘Wonderwall’ and ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’. We got our ipods onto the speaker system and everyone was moving to ‘I’m on a Boat’ it was such a hit it got played again, immediately afterwards.

We arrived at Monkey Beach a few Changs lighter and dived off the boat, a small longtail took us to the shore where Edith was ready to give bananas to the monkey perched on a branch, he rapidly peeled it opened, discarding the skin whilst consuming fruit in a matter of seconds then, arms outstretched, eyebrows raised clearly expecting another one. Back on the main boat we partied more and went to a point of clear water where we went snorkeling, it was beautiful, but snorkeling while drinking isn’t like normal snorkeling, maybe I saw more fish than there actually was but it was glorious all the same, at one point I forgot that when you dive down to the coral floor you no longer have the option of breathing through your snorkel. Throughout the whole of this cruise we were throwing down some incredible shapes, the likes of which the world has never seen and we attracted attention from every other boat in the vicinity, some even abandoned their own ships to join ours.

Our final stop was the bay where “The Beach” was filmed, it was a reasonable small white stretch of shore but packed with people and cast in shadow by the surrounding hills. While the rest of the boat went to shore, me, Andy, Alana, Sara and Edith stayed behind, repeatedly jumping from the roof of the boat and playing fitting songs, like ‘What’s My Age Again’ and ‘It’s Tricky’. By the time the others had returned from the island the five of us were singing to Tenacious D (we like this song). We had a barbecue and chilled out on the front of the ship. This is where Andy pulled out a tray of cupcakes with 23 little candles protruding out of them and Captain Art gave me the a Birthday bucket with candles wedged in the straws. Around this time the sun was setting, and it was a beauty, the best I had seen in Asia. It cast the clouds on the horizon a burnt orange and if you looked a little higher you could see the moon looking like the Cheshire cat’s smile gleaming a brighter pearly white as the blue skies darkened. By nightfall I climbed again to the boat roof looking towards where outlined hilltops and beachlights of Phi Phi, feeling a little bit like Jack Sparrow. We stopped in the water and jumped again from the roof, Me, Andy, Sara and Edith bobbing about in the waters making the plankton light up, when over the horizon on the tip of Phi Phi’s tallest hills, lighting lit up the skies. Back in the harbour Captain Art played his guitar for a while, we sang more Oasis getting the whole crew involved. The last song the left the soundsystem was ‘Killing in the Name’. This boat rocked.

 By dinner everyone was truly shattered. Our heads still swaying the boat’s motion. We had a few beers and I got presents from Andy, Alana, Andi and Harry; An American Football, A new Frisbee, A fresh vest (free of luminescent paint). A robot/bug mask and a man purse with a little elephant on for all the bum change I collect. But the best was some awesome speakers so I can share my legendary music tastes with everybody. The original idea now was to go back out to the beachside and have more drinks but by the time we had dropped stuff of in our rooms, Sam was sick and everyone else (apart from Harry and Andi.. those rascals) had crashed in my room on the bed. Some strange Thai movie was on Tv people left for bed and we kicked Andy in his drowsy state off the bed, he didn’t get up for a few hours.

The South Islands: Part I

Our first experience of the Gulf of Thailand was on Railay, a small peninsula barley connected to the mainland, on approach you see sheer limestone cliffs, bright in the sunlight marked only by tropical plants and rockclimbers, the waters surrounding Railay are turquoise and tranquil and littered with small but tall islands, there are a few longtail boats drifting on their lines in the bay. We have collected some new friends; Sam and Shrilaka, two girls from New York and a well spoken Harry from Wimbledon. Arriving on the beach with no idea where to go, the best course of action was to sip from a ‘decision beer’ and mull over our options, you see a lot of Railay's accommodation is resorts, full of friendly families but way out of our budget, even worse, nowhere seemed to sell alcohol, many places instead suggested a healthy lifestyle. But eventually we found a shacklady who gave us what we wanted and here we made two Swedish editions to the group; Edith and Sara. Together we all found decidedly cramped but cheap accommodation.

Our newly formed motley crew, born of chance and a love of beer actually turned out to be a wonderful bunch of people and I have a lot of time for every member. Our evenings saw us playing drinking games, including ‘I have never’ (dangerous game to play in the presence of a close friend) we shared meals and sang Karaoke with a live band backing us up. I didn’t think it was possible but I think we managed to butcher Oasis beyond all recognition (we were quickly ushered off stage). Sara could hold a tune though and the band kept her on, I came to join her and redeem myself for ‘no woman, no cry’ but I am fairly sure the band turned my mic off. Railay is where I also experienced the perils of glow paint. We wrote on the floor of the bar in big bold letters; England, America and Sweden. England and America tried to walk all over each other whilst Sweden stayed out of it, things escalated after America was all smudged up and Shrilaka took it upon herself to turn me and my clothes luminous green.

The days we explored some stunning beaches (best I have seen on my wanderings thus far), we waded under overhanging cliffs, over rocks and between crevices to discover a secluded segment of beach, here we tried some Scoutmaster style fishing using some gooey mollusks as bait, alas the fish here are smart, they nibble at the snotty bait and steer well clear of the hook, We discovered an abandoned kayak, the reason for it’s desertion quickly became apparent when we tried to hope onboard, it gurgled and sank to the shallow seabed , we sat on our wreck relaxed and sang Tenacious D (special moment). On the way back to the main beach a rogue cloud opened upon us. I stood there, waste deep in the warm sea water, half squinting half staring at the cliff face while fat cool droplets hit my face and torso.

 

Khao San Road

I find myself back in Thailand’s Capital and this time round is a very different experience to the last, back then the infamous Khao San Road was dead and we had to wade through some of it's neighbouring steets, but now Khao San is bustling with people, venturing through the main street is an assault on every sense, the smell of exotic deep-fried street foods, sick, rubbish and booze. The bright neon sign of the coronal in white grins at you from one end of the street, on the the famous golden arches, trademark of the western world entices drunken revelers in. UV lights hang above t-shirts stools all the way down. Beats blast from bars and clubs up the street clashing together in the center. The swarms of westerns make up the rest of the sounds the occasional Thai asking if you want to see a ping-pong show or a tailored suit made, ladyboys grabbing your arms as you pass through. Most of the few days staying in Khao San Road were blurry and come back to me in random segments. It was fun here but the few days were enough. What I failed to appreciate last time I walked Khao San’s streets is just how complex its network of almost hidden and intertwining backstreets are, there are clubs here like a tardis, seemingly tiny from their street façade but once through the doors they open up into a impossibly cavernous club, (complete with a man who puts a hot towel over your back and neck every time you stand over the urinal). During the days I went on search for a replacement camera, (mine had succumb to salt water poisoning in Cambodia). I found my replacement in MBK, a huge shopping mall that you could get lost in for days. It sells everything in both counterfeits and genuine so you have to be careful.

On the rest of our daytime downtime we revisited the once flooded streets we couldn’t pass through just a couple of months ago, we tuk tuk’d to Tiger Temple, a Buddhist run home for orphaned tigers, (that is how they advertise it, there are claims the larger tigers are drugged..) the first thing you see when walking through the wooded park is the deer, cows and buffalo wondering freely along the paths, the first I saw of a tiger was a big pair of eyes peering through a gap in a wall, transfixed not on me but on a deer to my side, The tiger was stood on its hind legs her front paws digging into the side of the open air amphitheater, she remained there for a while, staring but then seemed to decided it wasn’t worth the effort, slipping down from the wall onto all four paws and slinked away. Looking down into the amphitheater there were younger tigers splashing round in the water jumping and swiping at rattling sticks and playfighting with each other. While a fat monk held a young and particularly playful tiger on a leash I took him for a bath, he tried to naw on a stick I held out and purred and rumbled. The canyon is where the bigger ones could be found; I had to hold the hand of a tiny Thai lady who safely navigated me through the tiger pit. You really get an idea of just how big these big cats are until you’re up close comparing hand for paw size.

Siem Reap and Angkor Wat

Siem Reap lies on the outskirts of Angkor Wat’s ruins; a long deserted city reclaimed by the forest. Alana, Andi, Andy and I stayed at Pop Rendezvous a 10 minute walk from the city’s nightlife and night markets. The main attraction in the city night is Pub Street a westernised avenue with restaurants, bars and clubs, a micro Khao San Road if you will. Angkor Wat Bar is where we spent most of our evenings as it played marginally better music than the rest, We met up with Canadian Jon from Chang Mai trekking, he had just about healed from his motorbike accident and introduced us some of his doppest rapping skills (when spitting his lyrical flow he goes by the name of J-Rizz). The daylight hours where devoted to what everyone comes here for; temple trekking, but that is the problem in itself because when you pass though the heavily guarded outskirts of the ancient city, what I found was slightly different for what I had envisaged, there are people everywhere, termites climbing their mounds. My Indiana Jones dreams of discovering a new booby trapped ruin were quickly dashed (although I did catch myself humming the tune now and then). Nethertheless you can’t help but look and marvel at vast temples and structures, as if it was only conceivable explanation is that some giant must have heaved these massive rocks and placed them precariously above intricately carved columns and then lent them against others like a house of cards. This architecture has survived the test of time and is incredibly impressive.

We spent three days exploring the city’s bones, we cycled through the grounds on aged pushbikes, disturbing families of monkeys that jump into the trees as you pedal through and along lakes and rivers, we braved heavy downpours that transformed dusty tracks into temporary ponds. The temple where Tomb Raider was filmed could have been the most beautiful but sadly was the least enjoyable, so many tourist pushing and shoving their way though, tripping over each other when someone stops poses for a the standard holiday snap, there was nothing to be done but let yourself be carried along on the current of people. However if you explore further into the depths of Angkor Wat you are rewarded, we came across a deserted ruin and just sat on the cool stone, watching the rays of light, reflected from pool of water that made the stone carved walls ripple. There were large traffic light coloured spiders anchored between great lintels that no longer supported anything and Lizards and Geckos that cautiously advanced out of cracks in stone. Another beautiful and almost empty temple had great trees growing from its thick walls, its roots reached from its trunk like knobbly arthritic fingers grasping the wall sides before sinking deep into the soil. We watched the sunset from one of the higher temples and cycled home, Alana’s bike died halfway and the girls flagged down a tuk tuk whilst Me and Andy pedaled hard because it was dark and the mosquitoes where biting.

Return to Phnom Penh

After a generous breakfast across the road from our shack we bid our farewell to Jamie, Eliouse and GirlAndi and hit the road for Phnom Penh, a city that we had only passed through in order to get to Sihanoukville for the festive season, entering the cities outskirts I looking out of the window at the pollution, motorbikes and rubbish, here we go again! the bustle of the city seemed a world apart from the salty air and laid back vibes we were enjoying just hours ago. The tuk tuk vultures surround our bus as soon as we stop but we manage to dodge them and find somewhere to stay that seemed adequate although our room had a structural wall removed to make way for a en suite bathroom (which we quickly blocked and  had to switch anyway). Tired from the sea air and transport and missing the beach and the people just a little bit, we crashed out. The next morning we decided to indulge our immature ego and got a tuk tuk driver to ferry us to a military base where we sat down in front of a vast array of weaponry and where given a gun menu. The list included; rifles, handguns, AK-47s, M16s, machine gun, even grenades and rocket launchers. I had heard a myth from other travelers who had come to the same place that you could fire a RPG at a live cow if you so wished, I had to ask and got the reply yes if you have the money, pretty sick, although I didn't believe the travelers when they told me, the fact it seemed to be true didn't surprise me anymore, but don't worry there wasn't anyway I was going to shoot anything living. I settled for a AK-47 and a coconut as my combatant. After payment you are led into a long narrow room with a table and chair, the rifle is loaded and prepped single fire so you don't spray bullets wildly rambo style. As you squeeze the trigger the sound erupts and reverberates down the room, you feel a recoil punch your shoulder and a rush of air hit your face and see the flash from the end of the muzzle, quite a big flash, the hot empty cartridge ringing as they hit the floor just like Hollywood. It does get your adrenaline going, but I was amazed by how blazay you can be about it, right in that moment I was firing a killing machine, after a few practice shots I aligned the sights and pierced the coconut that exploded in white pulp. About half way through my round the military guy said I could set my weapon to semi-auto where I wasted the rest of my magazine. I stood up and watched Andy use his rounds, it was so surreal but seriously when will I ever be able to fire a AK-47 again. As we left we saw a Aussie gun-nut and his weapon; a Russian heavy machine gun being set up. I knew he was a gun-nut because he grinned and winked at us in childlike elation and started reeling of facts about the weapon and the cheapest place in Asia to fire a rifle. It pretty much vapourised the targets but was over in less than a minute, he told us he had spent $80 on that and seemed wildly satisfied, I was going to take one of my empty cartridges home as a souvenir but the Aussie said "don't let the airports catch you or they will fuckyou up". and that we shouldn't fly for at least 5 days because the gun residue is still on our skin. Food for thought.

Our next morning our tuk tuk driver brought us too the killing fields. It is such a strange place, but I wasn't sure what I was expecting, as you enter there is a large stupa in front of you, it has a door and glass inside but it is unclear what it holds from a distance. The rest of the area is grassland with trees, orchards and lake. Birds are chirping and dragonfly and butterfly dart and waft through the air, we arrived fairly early, it is such a peaceful place that contradicts it's violent past. On entry you are handed an audiotape that helps explain what you are looking at and the atrocities that occurred here, pretty much where you enter is where the trucks used to pull up unloading vast numbers of people ready to be executed meters away. They were tricked into believing that they were being moved to better homes. The Audiotape explained how the Khmer Rouge came to power, how Pol Pot wanted to revert the country to year zero, a communist utopia where 'the old people' the peasants only existed, how he needed to destroy all intellectuals or anyone who had ''soft hands''. If something similar happened in the UK one in four of the people you know would have been murdered by the end. Pol Pot recruited uneducated children and young men from the fields to become soldiers they had very little understanding of the outside world and after the conflicts in Vietnam and the US bombardment they were looking for a way out, one that the Khmer Rouge promised. Pol Pot became paranoid of losing control and so even the "old people" suffered, they were forced to work in the rice fields for impossible grain quoter and many of Pot's own troops where beheaded on hunches. Reading some of the Khmer Rouge's propoganda slogans you begin to realise that a whole generation of Cambodians didn't stand much chance once such a misguided and evil ideology infected minds;

"Better to arrest ten innocent people by mistake than free a single guilty party."

"Better to kill an innocent by mistake than spare an enemy by mistake."

"He who protests is an enemy; he who opposes is a corpse."


Around the killing fields there are numbered placards in the ground that you key into your audiotape. At one point the audio explains how the sugar plant is used for food and shelter in the country but the base of the plants stem has serrated edges like a saw and this was used to cut the throat of victims, Pol Pot had ordered that bullets not be used on the victims as bullets were expensive, instead they used blunt instruments like rusty farm tools. The sounds of screams were drowned out by music and diesel engines. Walking round the site I see more and more craters in the ground, scars in the earth, these are the mass graves. The rainfall has exposed a layer of clothing, bones and teeth. some of the things that have happened here are beyond words. The audiotape finally leads to the stupa, as I walked closer the contents became clear. It was a great totem pole of shelves, all displaying the skulls of victims, men woman and children, The shelves are full to the brim.

S21 stands for security prison 21, there where many like it but this one stood on the outskirts of the city and was used by the Khmer Rouge to in-prison, torture and execute mainly political prisoners, the cells are awful, prisoners were treated worse than animals, chained to a metal bed and tortured until they would sign false confessions often making they were affiliated with the CIA, on the walls of these dingy, dark, bloodstained cells there are photos of the state the prisoners were eventually discovered in, all dead and decomposing on the same bed that still stands there today. Inside some of the larger cells were mugshots of all the prisoners who had been processed through S21 some still looked defiant some looked as though they had given up hope. Out of all the people that entered S21 between 1975 and 1979 there where only ever seven survivors, we managed to meet one of them, a frail old man who was trying to sell his yet to be completed book on his experiences. Phnom Penh proved to be one of the most uncomfortable but thought-provoking places I have traveled to.

Kampot & the 2012 countdown

Christmas had been truly great, but was pretty much a recovery day so we felt able to set sail on a boxing day booze cruise. At 11:00am we left the shore, the boat comprised of two levels with big speakers borrowed from the shack bar on the lower level the bass resonated to the dancefloor deck above. The drinks were red bull and whisky mixers, but the red bull is insanely strong compared to the UK equivalent, full of amphetamines and taurine so you really don’t want too much. We stopped just off an island and jumped from the top deck while we swam to shore, the bar crew shipped the speakers and BBQ food onto the beach, we had a few rubber rings and played some volley ball, Jamie also discovered a octopus inside a submerged rum bottle, but it soon squeezed itself out and squirted ink at us. And so for the rest of the day we relaxed in the water, playing Frisbee, fooling about and listening to reggae. Our journey back was more boozy from previous drinks, we watched the sun go down from the top deck and did backflips from the deck rail. On shore we returned to The Dolphin Shack, had more drink and all 6 of us trotted round the club in zigzag patterns attempting ‘the Will dance’ as made famous in the inbetweeners movie, there were some very confused looks from locals that evening but also became pretty renowned with the bar staff who even offered us work. By this point in the evening we decided it was time to skinny dip; running into the waters lit up by moonlight, the phosphorescent plankton shimmering. After we reclothed we had shoulders fights too, team Alana and James won everytime. We enjoyed a lazy day beachside and more movies in TopCat (Limitless and Blades of Glory) sharing interesting flavored pizzas.

Feeling re-energised I was ready for the three day excursion from Shinokville to Kampot and it’s national parks on scooters. Andy, Jamie and Myself would be driving with one of the girls as passengers. After a lot of hassle finding decent Scooters and something that looked reasonably like a helmet, we set off, Alana holding tight behind me, I don’t think she approve of the slightest lean on the bikes but didn’t complain, too much. The journey took 4 hours and we passed through some small towns and Cambodian countryside, we would overtake each other on the long empty straights whilst singing wonderwall and anything else we could remember the lyrics to. Once over the river and settled in Kampot town we found a restaurant, Alana and I sharing veggie meals involving a lot of cheese, and had a few beers, but tired from the driving we had a reasonably early night watching a few movies.

In the morning the motorbike convoy passed through the winding and meandering hill roads of the national park. This place had a lot of construction work going on that would basically ruin the vast majority of park and make it into an American style slice of suburbia. Consequently some parts of the road had sand deposits, in one corner, on sand, the bike slipped from under me and we both came off. Luckily we were going relatively slow due to my precious cargo continually reminding me to do so, but both me and Alana got a bit of road rash and a matching cut on our elbows. The road was empty apart from a dumptruck that ran over our scattered sweets. But when you fall off, you got to get back on, and during the rest of our journey we came across some pretty spectacular view points, abandoned villas and a old casino right on the edge of a cliff, at one point we also encountered a pet monkey that tried to gnawing on everyone’s legs. On the ride back to Sihanoukville at one point we were being run down by mad dumptruck driver eating up the road at a furious pace. Towards the last leg Jamie’s back tire burst so Andy had to trail Jamie’s bike whilst carrying two people and moving at a pedestrian pace, we stayed back with the extra luggage and leisurely sipped coconuts, once we found them beside the road the repair guy melted hot rubber onto the intertube and sanded it down, It cost $2 and we were back on the road. 

 

By New Years Eve we had brought marker pens, blank canvas' (dolphin shack vests) and decided on a theme; Asians, the girls had brought us Angry Bird accessories, the whole of Asia really loves angry birds right now! We got badges and bird neckless/mirror (I got a big fat purple one who looked more constipated than angry) in the evening we were doodling over each other. When we made for the beach you couldn’t move, so many people westerners and Cambodians alike. I managed to persuade the temporary bar staff at dolphin shack that I worked there and got free buckets of alcohol. By midnight everyone was setting off fireworks and all aimed into the sea, a mass volley of light that lasted a good 10 minutes. my hair also got singed. Maybe it was one of those nights where there was too much expectation or maybe it was our bodies needed more time to recover from the nights before, but the evening didn’t quite reach the same heights as Xmas eve.

New Years Day I woke up early, grabbed a bottle of water and a pair of boardies and went for a run down the beach, Passing all the shack bars and the dodging the remains of fireworks that now littered the beach, eventually I ran into the locals part of the beach and then after that I was running on a white sandy beach on my own. By the time I got back the sun was high and I was pretty sure I’d sweated out any lingering toxins from the night before. Rehydrating on coconut milk, I went back to meet the others, we spent most of the day on the beach eating BBQ tuna and then back to Topcat watching; Grandma’s Boy, Rise of the Apes and Are You Afraid of the Dark (by the latter I was sound asleep).

Our remaining days in Sihanoukville we stayed down the beach, had a traditional Khmer massage and entered a pub quiz as the sextuplets, but I think the questions were aimed at an "older" generation, we didn't have a clue and just doodled on our answer sheet, we lost so badly the owner felt pity and gave us free sparkling wine. We set sail on boat trip around some of the uninhabited islands and snorkeled, one of the beaches had such fine white sand it looked like sherbet. I would have taken pictures for you but my aquapac leaked and cameras hate salt water. We walked through a jungle trail barefoot and waded chest deep through murky swamps full of buffalo dung. Sailing back at sundown we saw dolphins diving through our wake. Sihanoukville had been good to us.