I'd hate to throw frustration in the spotlight above other more interesting emotions, like curiosity, amazement, fear and whatever you call a mixture of the three so I'm quickly following up my previous communique with a shopping list of interesting things that have happened to me recently which elicited said emotions.
1. Ever seen Airplane? Of course you have. You, most likely, found it dryly witty and thought the thick line it walked between satire and farce was well judged. You found the peppering of inconceivable events into the story useful as both a barometer of tone and also as a comic device. The storm through which they, these passengers of this Airplane - (incidentally, which is more proper? Airplane or Aeroplane? Or is it just a Truck/Lorry America/Rest of the World thing?), fly is suitably over-the-top. You probably laughed as the plane was lit up by lightning licking at the windows. So did I. And then one day, long after, I boarded a plane leaving Bangkok bound for Sydney. I didn't know what nest of red tape vipers awaited me once I was to land safely but you see as the flight was in progress the prospect of landing safely seemed then even more unlikely than easily making the connection seems now.
I awoke, stretched across four seats (the flight was almost empty :) ), and thought I saw out of the corner of my eye a flash of light. Then I realise people all over the plane are huddled at the windows. I try to stay asleep, to retreat back to the evil world of dreams where all the horrors aren't real. But it's too late, I've seen it now and my body has taken over, has pumped in some adrenaline. Not much, but enough to keep me alert. A nasty remnant from millions of years of evolution where once my personal actions may have served to save my life, instead of just make it's final moments miserable and helpless. Another crazy flash. This one happens in three parts and continues for at least 4 seconds. I walk to the bathroom, being thrown around my turbulence but for some reason the seatbelts sign isn't on. Perhaps it's a final concession on the part of Qantas. A no hope policy. Sorry, Sir, you're going to die... but you are free to move around the cabin as you please. We hope you have enjoyed your flight. I maintain my upright stance all the way to the back of the aircraft and ask the steward what's going on.
"Tropical Storm, mate," he says. "And she's a Big'un too," he says.
"Yeah? Well yeah but you've seen worse... right?"
Here he whistles, and says something like, "Wooo, I dunno, mate, she's a Big'un."
I look out the window as the plane rocks and stare at the darkness, which persists just long enough for me to think we've outrun the inclement weather. Then a gigantic swirl is illuminated by a flash that comes from above. The plane shudders a little but the Steward assures me we're flying well above the storm. I watch with a mixure of fascination and fatalism. Then I go back to my seat and listen to Morissey's new album thinking about how the more you travel the less scary it should seem.
2. This brings me nicely to where I am now, and under what circumstances I came to be here. I am in Queenstown, New Zealand. And in order to get here I had to take a flight from Wellington to Christchurch and then another, this one with a FUCKING PROPELLOR on each wing, to Queenstown. The weather in New Zealand is almost custom designed for bumpy flights. It's extremely windy and there isn't a massive amount of land between many of the airports to break the wind's strength as it rolls down from pacific storms or up from the Antarctic. Bumpy pumpy I can handle, but the approach to Queenstown airport, one which no pilot on earth could possibly be used to, is the craziest there could possibly be. The plane, propellors going like the clappers mind you, did a FIGURE OF EIGHT through mountain peaks, LORD OF THE RING-TYPE MOUNTAIN PEAKS in order to line itself up at the correct height with the runway. On at least three seperate turns I was convinced the pilot had suffered a stroke and was unaware he was headed for a piece of vertical land. He didn't, but I feel that purely accidental. We landed and I'm here but only by the slimmest of margins. The unspeakable truth of course being that I have to make the reverse trip again in three days. And what am I doing between then and now? Taking a jetboat through a few ravines and doing 360s in it on a lake at speed, riding horses through valleys and contemplating (although largely already certain that I will not proceed with) a bungy jump. Perhaps you can excuse the overriding theme of fear but it's not something I feel a whole lot of. Not out of bravery but more by subtracting the opportunity for it to strike.
3. Stumbled across a gigantic sleeping sea turtle 15m down at Green Rock in Ko Tao on my final dive. Watched him snoozing for maybe 10 minutes as his resident pilot fish cleaned his shell.
4. A lighter note: In an attempt to see more of what Ko Tao had to offer - more than diving and eating/drinking I indulged in a single night at a Muay Thai tournament (wherein small people whose musculature made them look huge hammered each other against ropes until one of them lost consciousness) and made repeated visits to a Ladyboy Cabaret show. The star of this nightly show being one 'Whitney' - whose finest act of the trip I didn't manage to catch on video for you but not to worry some child of the Cyrillic alphabet has done this for me us :)
Monday, May 18, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
The silken sad uncertain rustling of an aussie airport worker's papers.
Imagine a long and slightly mournful night of drinking on the beach. A night you knew would be your last there, and maybe for a long time. Imagine, say, going to bed that night at around 4am. Now throw in, for example, a wake up at 7. Then, just for the hell of it a trip to the pier in the back of a pick up truck followed closely by a two hour wait/queue to get on a packed boat that took two hours to get you to the mainland. Now, just for seasoning, imagine that when you got to the mainland you took, I don't know, an eight and a half hour bus wedged between a tall and tired Irishman that you knew and a tall and tired Spaniard that you didn't. We don't need precise measurements to explain the word wedged here beyond the simple fact that both my outer shoulders and thighs were consistently pressed against those of my flankers - in the hot hot heat. Unpleasant, you'll agree.
Now let's say you arrived in a city that was custom built to tear you a new exit. You found a place to stay, deftly avoid robbery/assault and found that once there you were overtired. Too tired, that is, to sleep. So you think, a quick drink should fix that. Now say that quick drink ran on a little and the next thing you know you're sitting in the back of a taxi the next day and an hour later you're waiting for a flight that takes roughly eight hours and forty five minutes. (Note that it would only take seven hours and fifty minutes but Sydney doesn't allow planes to land in it's beloved airport in it's beloved city before 6am lest it's beloved citizens be awoken from their beloved sleep by some pesky interlopers in from hot climates. - You may already see where I'm going with this - my apologies to all my good Australian friends; I merely wish to accuentate your good eggedness and decency by throwing it into sharp relief against that of your more, shall we agree on... unpleasant, countrymen.)
Now we have a background for a state of mind. Try, if you can, to transpose that mindset so it fits your own. Imagine how you would feel. Well this is how I felt as I alighted yet another plane early yesterday morning. My passport clenched in my hand, I looked at the little sticker, the one that told me my bag would be sent to Wellington on flight QF 47, and looked for the transfer desk to get myself a final boarding card for the last leg of this woeful journey out of heaven.
I clear security before the transfer desk, not before some local makes a snide remark about the gun on my T-shirt. It gains me also a "random" search from some bored officals thereafter, who say they are swabbing my person and handluggage for traces of explosives though I know it's for narcotics. I pass. They seem a little disappointed. They let me go, watching all the way for some imperfection on which to find purchase, a handhold, something they can grab in order to pull me down. They evidently find nothing. And so it was that I presented myself to the Syndey Aiport Transfer Desk.
"Hello," I said, attempting to set the tone, make it chipper and govial. We're all friends here, my voice said, let's just get this over as quickly and politely as possible. "I'm transfering to Wellington on QF47, it's a BA flight that's being operated by Qantas, here's my baggage slip, they said I'd need to get a boarding card from you guys."
"Righto," he says, and I can see his smile is hiding a sneer. I can tell right away that things have all gone too smoothly this morning. I can tell that he's seen me approach the desk and try, under the weight of such a journey, to be positive and creative with my internal misery and exhaustion. He bears his teeth unwittingly. I can tell me wants to destroy something beautiful every chance he gets and that this is his chance for today. "Can Oi say yoor Oitinery?"
"Ah, I don't have one," I say, still confident. "It's all e-tickets linked to my passport. I'm just flying back to New Zealand to meet my travel buddy. We're on to Fiji on the 22nd."
"But yow must hiv an oitinery?" he's secretly delighted.
"Oh sure, I have all the information stored in my email accounts, if you can't find it on your system I can get the onward details from there if you like."
"Aw look yow caan't print inithing here. Yoor s'posta heave that alriddy."
"Oh sorry, I haven't had that stuff for a single flight in all the 36 I've taken in the last twelve months. Are you sure you can't find my details right there. They're all Qantas flights."
His namebadge had a Qantas logo.
"Aw look Qantas don't even fly to Fiji," he says
"Well when I say they're all Qantas I mean they're operated by Qantas, the actualy flight is probably sub contracted to a local airline where the destination isn't one of their own."
"Look Oi caan't lit yow floy t'day, they won't lit yow inta tha cuntry without onward travil plans an' oi'll get moi azz kicked if oi let you go ova."
"Right, I understand that, but I do have onward travel plans, all booked and paid for that take me right back to my own country. All of which are Qantas flights,"
"But yow came here on a British Airways floight," he says. OHMYFUCKINGGODAHHH I'm thinking. Keep it together.
"Yes I know, I went home for Christmas and stayed around Europe a little while, but now I'm back to finish my original trip,"
"Aw look" he says. And here is interuppted by a horrible little voodoo doll of a woman. She's of Asian descent but Australian through and through. Note also that while all this is going on, while my poor and lovable head is in a vice, the other workers at this desk and laughing coarsely on the phone and making loud and vulgar jokes. It's like a downmarket topless bar in HELL. Each of the aging ladies behind the counter has that cracked look, makeup running ever so slightly, like that final scene in Cabaret where the glamour and sophistication of an idea is betrayed in slow motion by it's awful workaday reality.
"We need written confirmation of on ward travel otherwise we can't let you fly," she says.
"I know, I have that, if you'd just let me print it out?"
"You can't print it here, you should have already printed it."
"No one ever asks."
"Get in touch with your travel buddy then and have him fax us your details."
It is apparently totally cricket for Adam to print the very same thing, and fax it to them. Then it's official. He could type it out in notepad and print it, then fax it and that renders it a legal document. My eyes bulge as my brain struggles with the logical hall of mirrors this conundrum presents.
And here, your hero begins to get worried. He turns to go upstairs and find communication - internet, phone, smoke signals. Note that his phone has died and only hours earlier he learned Adam's New Zealand number off by heart, just for something to do. He holds no currency and is wondering about making a phone call, procuring local cash and hears from behind him, with a rueful grin advertised in the tone "Betta hurry, mate, floight closes soon,"
Currency exchange. I ask them to change baht into dollas. No luck, he says it's too small, I can't convince him that all I want is change for a phone, he doesn't want to help. Is there an ATM here? A what he says. Shit. I find one. 20 dollas. Back to the exchange desk. Can I have change for the phone. He takes a deep breath. Changes the note for me but holds my change on his desk for a FULL MINUTE while he clicks around on his computer unneccessarily holding me hostage to his T crossing and I dotting. Inside I scream. I scream so loud inside that outside I make a little ooh noise. I boil over with rage. Payphone. Dollas entered. I dial 00, drop the local 0 and the rest of his number, no joy. I have to ask three people, all locals, one of them an airport policeman, before a girl from Malaysia tells me the international dialling code in Australia is 0011. I Dial again.
"Hi Adam, emergency, need you to fax all onward travel plans to this number within the next half hour or I can't get the plane over, theses swine are turning the crank on me."
"Got it. Done, I'll text when it goes through," he says. A real professional.
"Oh god. Thanks, had to get that out before the phone died. How's tricks anyway?"
"Good good, hopefully we'll have a pint later."
"Yeah man, clock's ticking, thanks for that."
BEEEP.
Free internet kiosk. I check emails, find flight numbers and airline, borrow a pen, scribble them down. Head back to those BASTARDS.
Downstairs it's the same soul destroying grind of helping 50% of the people, antagonizing the other half and speaking loudly, making crude jokes, talking and talking and talking absolute shit. Right in front of me is a very tired French lady. Though exhausted her inate class is so obvious as to be embarassing here. It is 7.32 am. She hands her documents over.
"Look, Oi told you already THREE hours ago it was seven forty!" the woman at the counter ACTUALLY SHOUTS at her. The lady from France looks at the clock behind this lady which now reads 7.34. "I am very tired," she says. The transfer desk woman ignores this and shouts further. Something irrelvant and pointlessly rude and sends the lady on her way, crushed. Sure that they don't speak french I call after her, nod at the desk and say "Je suis aussi tres fatigue... avec cette mierde." She smiles and I'm happy for a brief moment. It's my turn at the counter.
"Right, my details are being faxed through so..."
"There's nothing here yet."
"I know, when they're here.."
"I said we haven't received them yet. There's no fax for you."
"I know," I say, forced to raise my voice a little, "when they do come through I'll be notifed I just wanted you to double check your system for my details on these flights." I hand her the notes I made from my emails. She flounders for a while, shakes her, says no, sorry, no record. Then clicks again, presses more buttons and as soon as she's found them I know because she starts making that confused face and hits many more buttons unnecessarily as if some anomaly greater than her own perpetual uselessness and cruelty has occurred to her.
"Hang on," she says. For another ten minutes she flutters about attempting to make a call. Once her plan is in her mind she says: "Alright we're going to contact your travel airline and have them fax over the things you need." I tell her there's no need. It's on the way already, I just wanted her to know what she was waiting for, that I had everything in order long ago. She starts to lecture me.
"You can't just dispose of these tickets, you need them, they're offical documents, they'd never let you into America with just your passport if you said you had your details online."
They will. And they have. I went to New York on business last year and that is in fact exactly what happened. But I bite my tongue. She is interuppted by the sound of a fax. Everything is in order. With much grinding of their teeth I am given a boarding card. Then I walk around bitter and tired but triumphant at least and listen to the television and some crumpled old bag from Adelaide who tells the country how outraged she is about something with her unfeasibly whiney voice and down sloped eyebrows, how it's a terrible thing for Australia. How it offended her. How unfair and randomly cruel it was.
Later in Wellington I purposely keep the dreaded onward travel documents in my bag as I clear immigration, just to see. My passport is stamped with a smile by a young lady. I am told to enjoy New Zealand. I don't tell her that her instruction is superfluous.
A postscript concerned with the first thing that happened once I'd cleared immigration:
On the flight to wellington I declare that I am bringing food to the country - a box of chocolates I bought on the previous flight to watch a movie with. Normally I wouldn't but Sydney put me on edge. When I get to customs a red marker is put on my card. Then a strong man takes me to a steel desk marked 5. He asks what I do, where I come from, who I'm meeting. He then looks in my bag and at my chocolates. He says into his radio that he's got a RED ON FIVE. He asks for my mobile phone and tells me that he's swabbing it for traces of narcotics. He then puts on a rubber glove. A person my age at the desk opposite looks at me like I was his friend and smiles. He says he's heard I've been smoking that shit. I look as puzzled as you should reading it. The test comes back in less than a minute. Negative. Lovely he says. You can go. We're all good? I say. All good he confirms. I offer him a chocolate. No Thanks he says. Your funeral I think.
Now let's say you arrived in a city that was custom built to tear you a new exit. You found a place to stay, deftly avoid robbery/assault and found that once there you were overtired. Too tired, that is, to sleep. So you think, a quick drink should fix that. Now say that quick drink ran on a little and the next thing you know you're sitting in the back of a taxi the next day and an hour later you're waiting for a flight that takes roughly eight hours and forty five minutes. (Note that it would only take seven hours and fifty minutes but Sydney doesn't allow planes to land in it's beloved airport in it's beloved city before 6am lest it's beloved citizens be awoken from their beloved sleep by some pesky interlopers in from hot climates. - You may already see where I'm going with this - my apologies to all my good Australian friends; I merely wish to accuentate your good eggedness and decency by throwing it into sharp relief against that of your more, shall we agree on... unpleasant, countrymen.)
Now we have a background for a state of mind. Try, if you can, to transpose that mindset so it fits your own. Imagine how you would feel. Well this is how I felt as I alighted yet another plane early yesterday morning. My passport clenched in my hand, I looked at the little sticker, the one that told me my bag would be sent to Wellington on flight QF 47, and looked for the transfer desk to get myself a final boarding card for the last leg of this woeful journey out of heaven.
I clear security before the transfer desk, not before some local makes a snide remark about the gun on my T-shirt. It gains me also a "random" search from some bored officals thereafter, who say they are swabbing my person and handluggage for traces of explosives though I know it's for narcotics. I pass. They seem a little disappointed. They let me go, watching all the way for some imperfection on which to find purchase, a handhold, something they can grab in order to pull me down. They evidently find nothing. And so it was that I presented myself to the Syndey Aiport Transfer Desk.
"Hello," I said, attempting to set the tone, make it chipper and govial. We're all friends here, my voice said, let's just get this over as quickly and politely as possible. "I'm transfering to Wellington on QF47, it's a BA flight that's being operated by Qantas, here's my baggage slip, they said I'd need to get a boarding card from you guys."
"Righto," he says, and I can see his smile is hiding a sneer. I can tell right away that things have all gone too smoothly this morning. I can tell that he's seen me approach the desk and try, under the weight of such a journey, to be positive and creative with my internal misery and exhaustion. He bears his teeth unwittingly. I can tell me wants to destroy something beautiful every chance he gets and that this is his chance for today. "Can Oi say yoor Oitinery?"
"Ah, I don't have one," I say, still confident. "It's all e-tickets linked to my passport. I'm just flying back to New Zealand to meet my travel buddy. We're on to Fiji on the 22nd."
"But yow must hiv an oitinery?" he's secretly delighted.
"Oh sure, I have all the information stored in my email accounts, if you can't find it on your system I can get the onward details from there if you like."
"Aw look yow caan't print inithing here. Yoor s'posta heave that alriddy."
"Oh sorry, I haven't had that stuff for a single flight in all the 36 I've taken in the last twelve months. Are you sure you can't find my details right there. They're all Qantas flights."
His namebadge had a Qantas logo.
"Aw look Qantas don't even fly to Fiji," he says
"Well when I say they're all Qantas I mean they're operated by Qantas, the actualy flight is probably sub contracted to a local airline where the destination isn't one of their own."
"Look Oi caan't lit yow floy t'day, they won't lit yow inta tha cuntry without onward travil plans an' oi'll get moi azz kicked if oi let you go ova."
"Right, I understand that, but I do have onward travel plans, all booked and paid for that take me right back to my own country. All of which are Qantas flights,"
"But yow came here on a British Airways floight," he says. OHMYFUCKINGGODAHHH I'm thinking. Keep it together.
"Yes I know, I went home for Christmas and stayed around Europe a little while, but now I'm back to finish my original trip,"
"Aw look" he says. And here is interuppted by a horrible little voodoo doll of a woman. She's of Asian descent but Australian through and through. Note also that while all this is going on, while my poor and lovable head is in a vice, the other workers at this desk and laughing coarsely on the phone and making loud and vulgar jokes. It's like a downmarket topless bar in HELL. Each of the aging ladies behind the counter has that cracked look, makeup running ever so slightly, like that final scene in Cabaret where the glamour and sophistication of an idea is betrayed in slow motion by it's awful workaday reality.
"We need written confirmation of on ward travel otherwise we can't let you fly," she says.
"I know, I have that, if you'd just let me print it out?"
"You can't print it here, you should have already printed it."
"No one ever asks."
"Get in touch with your travel buddy then and have him fax us your details."
It is apparently totally cricket for Adam to print the very same thing, and fax it to them. Then it's official. He could type it out in notepad and print it, then fax it and that renders it a legal document. My eyes bulge as my brain struggles with the logical hall of mirrors this conundrum presents.
And here, your hero begins to get worried. He turns to go upstairs and find communication - internet, phone, smoke signals. Note that his phone has died and only hours earlier he learned Adam's New Zealand number off by heart, just for something to do. He holds no currency and is wondering about making a phone call, procuring local cash and hears from behind him, with a rueful grin advertised in the tone "Betta hurry, mate, floight closes soon,"
Currency exchange. I ask them to change baht into dollas. No luck, he says it's too small, I can't convince him that all I want is change for a phone, he doesn't want to help. Is there an ATM here? A what he says. Shit. I find one. 20 dollas. Back to the exchange desk. Can I have change for the phone. He takes a deep breath. Changes the note for me but holds my change on his desk for a FULL MINUTE while he clicks around on his computer unneccessarily holding me hostage to his T crossing and I dotting. Inside I scream. I scream so loud inside that outside I make a little ooh noise. I boil over with rage. Payphone. Dollas entered. I dial 00, drop the local 0 and the rest of his number, no joy. I have to ask three people, all locals, one of them an airport policeman, before a girl from Malaysia tells me the international dialling code in Australia is 0011. I Dial again.
"Hi Adam, emergency, need you to fax all onward travel plans to this number within the next half hour or I can't get the plane over, theses swine are turning the crank on me."
"Got it. Done, I'll text when it goes through," he says. A real professional.
"Oh god. Thanks, had to get that out before the phone died. How's tricks anyway?"
"Good good, hopefully we'll have a pint later."
"Yeah man, clock's ticking, thanks for that."
BEEEP.
Free internet kiosk. I check emails, find flight numbers and airline, borrow a pen, scribble them down. Head back to those BASTARDS.
Downstairs it's the same soul destroying grind of helping 50% of the people, antagonizing the other half and speaking loudly, making crude jokes, talking and talking and talking absolute shit. Right in front of me is a very tired French lady. Though exhausted her inate class is so obvious as to be embarassing here. It is 7.32 am. She hands her documents over.
"Look, Oi told you already THREE hours ago it was seven forty!" the woman at the counter ACTUALLY SHOUTS at her. The lady from France looks at the clock behind this lady which now reads 7.34. "I am very tired," she says. The transfer desk woman ignores this and shouts further. Something irrelvant and pointlessly rude and sends the lady on her way, crushed. Sure that they don't speak french I call after her, nod at the desk and say "Je suis aussi tres fatigue... avec cette mierde." She smiles and I'm happy for a brief moment. It's my turn at the counter.
"Right, my details are being faxed through so..."
"There's nothing here yet."
"I know, when they're here.."
"I said we haven't received them yet. There's no fax for you."
"I know," I say, forced to raise my voice a little, "when they do come through I'll be notifed I just wanted you to double check your system for my details on these flights." I hand her the notes I made from my emails. She flounders for a while, shakes her, says no, sorry, no record. Then clicks again, presses more buttons and as soon as she's found them I know because she starts making that confused face and hits many more buttons unnecessarily as if some anomaly greater than her own perpetual uselessness and cruelty has occurred to her.
"Hang on," she says. For another ten minutes she flutters about attempting to make a call. Once her plan is in her mind she says: "Alright we're going to contact your travel airline and have them fax over the things you need." I tell her there's no need. It's on the way already, I just wanted her to know what she was waiting for, that I had everything in order long ago. She starts to lecture me.
"You can't just dispose of these tickets, you need them, they're offical documents, they'd never let you into America with just your passport if you said you had your details online."
They will. And they have. I went to New York on business last year and that is in fact exactly what happened. But I bite my tongue. She is interuppted by the sound of a fax. Everything is in order. With much grinding of their teeth I am given a boarding card. Then I walk around bitter and tired but triumphant at least and listen to the television and some crumpled old bag from Adelaide who tells the country how outraged she is about something with her unfeasibly whiney voice and down sloped eyebrows, how it's a terrible thing for Australia. How it offended her. How unfair and randomly cruel it was.
Later in Wellington I purposely keep the dreaded onward travel documents in my bag as I clear immigration, just to see. My passport is stamped with a smile by a young lady. I am told to enjoy New Zealand. I don't tell her that her instruction is superfluous.
A postscript concerned with the first thing that happened once I'd cleared immigration:
On the flight to wellington I declare that I am bringing food to the country - a box of chocolates I bought on the previous flight to watch a movie with. Normally I wouldn't but Sydney put me on edge. When I get to customs a red marker is put on my card. Then a strong man takes me to a steel desk marked 5. He asks what I do, where I come from, who I'm meeting. He then looks in my bag and at my chocolates. He says into his radio that he's got a RED ON FIVE. He asks for my mobile phone and tells me that he's swabbing it for traces of narcotics. He then puts on a rubber glove. A person my age at the desk opposite looks at me like I was his friend and smiles. He says he's heard I've been smoking that shit. I look as puzzled as you should reading it. The test comes back in less than a minute. Negative. Lovely he says. You can go. We're all good? I say. All good he confirms. I offer him a chocolate. No Thanks he says. Your funeral I think.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Death of a Cockroach
Pong Pheng Guesthouse, Room 14 - July 2008
"Hey Paul, C'mere"
"What is it?"
"Nothing, just look"
"Fuck sake,"
"There."
"What?"
"On the wall, there, see him?"
"OH JESUS CHRIST ALMIGHTY. KILL HIM KILLHIM KILLHIM"
"Ah ha ha ha"
"I don't know what you're laughing at, you're cowering behind the door the same as me"
"Look at the size of him"
"Oh Jesus"
"Right who's going to do it?"
"Oh come on"
"Alright I'll do it but you stay here and spray him with something - to kill the eggs"
"Oh Jesus"
Paul holding a can of Lynx deodorant as threateningly as he can is cowering behind Adam who himself is standing low, knees bent with a sandal high above his head. The two inch closer to a cockroach who is attached to the bathroom wall. The cockroach is slightly smaller than a human baby. His face and individual legs are discernible from a great distance. Adam gets close enough to strike. A lifetime of missed attacks informs both men that this may not be the fatal blow. They prepare for much scuttling, possibly towards themselves. They run the nightmare scenario in their heads - the cockroach starts flying. Both men are aware that an airborne offensive will require backup. They'll need hotel staff to get involved. Adams hand begins to tremble. The cockroach will sense the strike. He'll run. And then it comes. CRACK. He didn't run anyway. Paul descends, still wobbling from the encounter to spray the corpse. Together they dispose of it without ceremony. Within minutes both have begun drinking. Hours later one laughs, then the other. It is over.
In-Touch Guesthouse, Room 14, Koh Tao - May 2009
"Barry I don't want to alarm you but we have a job to do."
"Yeah? What is it?"
"Look in the corner"
"What the washing?"
"No, behind the bin"
(silence for 10 seconds)
"Oh Jesus"
"Yes"
"I can't"
"I know"
"I can't kill it"
"I know, I'm worse than you Barry. But it has to be done"
"I know"
"Right if you move the bin and get me a good strike distance I'll do it."
"Fine"
"Do it slowly though, we don't want him to flee."
"What if he runs under out beds?"
"Then we sleep on the beach."
Here Barry with great patience and purpose of motion removes the waste paper basket from the corner of the room in which a cockroach no smaller than an adult male goat has taken up residence.
"Right I'm just going to get out of the room."
"You can't leave me Barry. What if he moves?"
"Right I'll stay."
"Okay"
"Oh Jesus."
"Oh Jesus."
Here Paul approaches the corner, much like Adam a year before him, a sandal high above his head, knees bent, preparing to strike. The roach could be asleep. They sleep don't they? He might not sense me coming. But then he might. And then what? Don't think about it. If you think about it you'll get too afraid. Fear is the mind killer. I must not fear. I'm close enough now. My hand trembles slightly. I'm close enough to make out individual hairs on the beasts legs. One.... Two... Fuck it. BOOM! Direct hit. BOOM! BOOM! Just to be sure. I life my sandal and a broken cockroach convulses on the ground. BOOM! The fatal strike. Soon we dispose of the body in an empty Pringles can. Then we blame any food residue for his presense. The bin and some half empty beer bottles and removed to the veranda. Once a sweep has been performed we both shiver thinking about what could have done wrong. Later I dream of victory and how what it is to be brave is to fear and continue anyway.
"Hey Paul, C'mere"
"What is it?"
"Nothing, just look"
"Fuck sake,"
"There."
"What?"
"On the wall, there, see him?"
"OH JESUS CHRIST ALMIGHTY. KILL HIM KILLHIM KILLHIM"
"Ah ha ha ha"
"I don't know what you're laughing at, you're cowering behind the door the same as me"
"Look at the size of him"
"Oh Jesus"
"Right who's going to do it?"
"Oh come on"
"Alright I'll do it but you stay here and spray him with something - to kill the eggs"
"Oh Jesus"
Paul holding a can of Lynx deodorant as threateningly as he can is cowering behind Adam who himself is standing low, knees bent with a sandal high above his head. The two inch closer to a cockroach who is attached to the bathroom wall. The cockroach is slightly smaller than a human baby. His face and individual legs are discernible from a great distance. Adam gets close enough to strike. A lifetime of missed attacks informs both men that this may not be the fatal blow. They prepare for much scuttling, possibly towards themselves. They run the nightmare scenario in their heads - the cockroach starts flying. Both men are aware that an airborne offensive will require backup. They'll need hotel staff to get involved. Adams hand begins to tremble. The cockroach will sense the strike. He'll run. And then it comes. CRACK. He didn't run anyway. Paul descends, still wobbling from the encounter to spray the corpse. Together they dispose of it without ceremony. Within minutes both have begun drinking. Hours later one laughs, then the other. It is over.
In-Touch Guesthouse, Room 14, Koh Tao - May 2009
"Barry I don't want to alarm you but we have a job to do."
"Yeah? What is it?"
"Look in the corner"
"What the washing?"
"No, behind the bin"
(silence for 10 seconds)
"Oh Jesus"
"Yes"
"I can't"
"I know"
"I can't kill it"
"I know, I'm worse than you Barry. But it has to be done"
"I know"
"Right if you move the bin and get me a good strike distance I'll do it."
"Fine"
"Do it slowly though, we don't want him to flee."
"What if he runs under out beds?"
"Then we sleep on the beach."
Here Barry with great patience and purpose of motion removes the waste paper basket from the corner of the room in which a cockroach no smaller than an adult male goat has taken up residence.
"Right I'm just going to get out of the room."
"You can't leave me Barry. What if he moves?"
"Right I'll stay."
"Okay"
"Oh Jesus."
"Oh Jesus."
Here Paul approaches the corner, much like Adam a year before him, a sandal high above his head, knees bent, preparing to strike. The roach could be asleep. They sleep don't they? He might not sense me coming. But then he might. And then what? Don't think about it. If you think about it you'll get too afraid. Fear is the mind killer. I must not fear. I'm close enough now. My hand trembles slightly. I'm close enough to make out individual hairs on the beasts legs. One.... Two... Fuck it. BOOM! Direct hit. BOOM! BOOM! Just to be sure. I life my sandal and a broken cockroach convulses on the ground. BOOM! The fatal strike. Soon we dispose of the body in an empty Pringles can. Then we blame any food residue for his presense. The bin and some half empty beer bottles and removed to the veranda. Once a sweep has been performed we both shiver thinking about what could have done wrong. Later I dream of victory and how what it is to be brave is to fear and continue anyway.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Bangkok 2.0
It's always an experience at least. A city that never fails to chew up it's first time visitors. And this time was no different. The highlights without naming names, of either victims or predators, this time include:
- The loss of almost 10,000 baht to a drunken hour in a club.
- The extortion of 1,000 baht by a 13 year old girl for two bags of corn (thrown with her hand clutching ours before we could stop her) with which to feed the bangkok pigeons.
- Two ten minutes sessions pretending, in order to secure a kick back for our driver, that we were interested in having more suits tailored for us than a stick could be shaken at. (Why we didn't employ the use of a four letter expletive spelled with an F, a C, a K and a U closely followed by an OFF I can't say/remember/invent a reason for.
- The procurement of some excellent forged press credentials. Just because we could. You never know.
- And finally, a 12 hour bus trip which began with our meeting a young Serbian father of one who now resides on Ko Pha Ngan and the story he told us about the young driver who last took him from Bangkok to Chumpon and how he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed. He also took pictures of this and showed them to us, laughing, saying how he wasn't hurt because the left side of the bus impacted the tree, that he was on the right and that the only reason the entire vehicle didn't descend into a ravine was it's reflection by this tree. He then showed us a picture of himself giving two thumbs up, smiling, in a hole in the side of the crashed bus. He then identified the driver of our bus as the same young man who had crashed the previous week.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Guess Who's Back.
I won't, jeans stuck to my leg as they are, go into what has happened in the last four months. Let's just say that after being told Australia catches fire in January I decided, during a terrible moment on hold for a Sydney taxi hearing Drivin' home for Christmas, to drive, fly, sail and walk home for that particular fortnight of festivities and basically slept in until April. Well, that's not precisely true, there was a short jaunt to Berlin with my parents (to see the world's largest model railway - at least that was the excuse) and another to Amsterdam for purposes undisclosed here but I've been off the grid until now. Round 2.
Adam's still in New Zealand and there's the small matter of global circumnavigation yet to be completed so Paul, with the best of intentions decides to go directly from a marathon of self harm called the Bangface Weekender to Bangkok (why not stop in Thailand if you have to go to New Zeland?) And that's it, that's where I am. I left Pontins in Camber Sands this morning, hiking through a swamp of drug addled scene-sters and musos to catch a bus and three trains and then two flights and a taxi and now I'm here, again, on the Khao San Road in Bangkok. Which brings me neatly to the explanation of why my jeans have taken on a slightly adhesive quality: I'd been raving in them for three days solid before flying to Qatar and then trudging through this city and it's associated heat so I'm off now to replace them with shorts.
More on the above, mentioned life-hiatus later, when the mental dust has settled. This is just a bugle call to my faithful readers, now departed, to let them know that for the immediate future at least, I'm gone. Which means I'm back. Back again.
Adam's still in New Zealand and there's the small matter of global circumnavigation yet to be completed so Paul, with the best of intentions decides to go directly from a marathon of self harm called the Bangface Weekender to Bangkok (why not stop in Thailand if you have to go to New Zeland?) And that's it, that's where I am. I left Pontins in Camber Sands this morning, hiking through a swamp of drug addled scene-sters and musos to catch a bus and three trains and then two flights and a taxi and now I'm here, again, on the Khao San Road in Bangkok. Which brings me neatly to the explanation of why my jeans have taken on a slightly adhesive quality: I'd been raving in them for three days solid before flying to Qatar and then trudging through this city and it's associated heat so I'm off now to replace them with shorts.
More on the above, mentioned life-hiatus later, when the mental dust has settled. This is just a bugle call to my faithful readers, now departed, to let them know that for the immediate future at least, I'm gone. Which means I'm back. Back again.
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