Borneo (Part 2)

The Malaysian province of Sabah, whilst one of the poorest economically, is a veritable wealth of natural beauty. Stretching from the capital Kota Kinabalu in the west, around the Tip of Borneo to the north and along the east coast to Sepilok and Sandakan. Its biodiversity, from virgin rainforests to unexplored mountain valleys is a city slicker's perfect antidote.

Well, you may rightly ask, if we didn’t get up to any of that Indiana Jones nonsense, what did we do in Borneo? We got what we came for and what we came for was off the coast of Semporna. In two words:

Island style.

Does it turn you a darker shade of green? It should and if it doesn't you're a heartless, jaded and cynical person whose time on earth is best spent ruminating in your basement, burning effigies of your boss and throwing darts at a blown-up, vandalised photo of his face.

Waking up to a cup of kopi in a wooden stilt house built out over the Celebes Sea on Pulau Mabul, wondering which tropical island’s world famous coral reef or sand bottom to snorkel or scuba.

Watching colourful and weird fish you’ve only ever seen in aquariums, white-eyed moray eels and giant green turtles, all from the comfort of your balcony or kicking your feet up, with a smuggled 26-peso Filipino Red Horse beer and a game of cards.

Or just throwing your towel on palm tree-clad Pulau Sibuan with a good book and only being disturbed by one of the island’s 20 inhabitants asking if he could fetch you a coconut from 50 feet above your head.

Or being 50 feet under the water off Pulau Sipadan floating in an outer-space-like world with reef sharks and prehistoric turtles the size of little cars, with nothing above but bubbles and below 600 metres of murky, inky wetness.

So, we didn’t get to touch an orangutan. They keep those funny primates a good distance from tourists. We didn’t climb Mount Kinabalu. We didn’t get to white-water raft the renowned rapids of the Padas River. We did, however, get what we came for: a good tan and the kind of holiday which I can recommend to anyone looking to get as far from stinky Saigon as possible.

A new beginning, part 1: Jungle Beach

“Well imagine that,” you must be thinking. “He actually got off his lazy butt and decided to write something!”

So, as with most things that have become a tad confusing and outdated, one would do well to take it back the beginning, the root so to speak, and look at what it was then and what it has become. Thus, without trying to seem too arrogant, I want take this blog back to what it was when I, in a haze of dust and a revelry of real-life phantasm and delirium, stopped writing on it (barring the lame excuses and drawn out promises of updates). So thus, I introduce “Part 1” of the recount of my experiences to date.

That would take me back to the end of April, after a return from Mui Ne and Al Berg’s visit. I would like you now to imagine the soothing, trebling voice of a stage-hypnotist, softly caressing your senses, an oracular, oral massage of a message:

“Imagine a secluded beach resort, run by an eccentric Canadian, with nothing but beach and semi-private bungalows in sight…imagine being stroked to sleep by the narcotic breaking of waves onto the sand at night, drifting away under your mosquito net…imagine spending the days alternating between lying under a crude bamboo shelter on the beach with your partner, sheltered from the sweltering sun, occasionally venturing out from under the cover to cool off in the blue ocean, and lazing in a hammock, reading your book, drinking a beer, with nothing to worry about except running out of sunscreen or mosquito repellent,” and like the TV Bar chocolate advertisement of old – of the boys sheltering under the bus-stop in the pouring rain - the hypnotist utters the memorable line; “Imagine all of that…NOW!” and snaps his fingers and the audience let out a communal sigh and eyes roll back in their heads as if they’re fervent members of a religious cult.

“That, ladies and gentleman, is Jungle Beach Resort, 60 kilometres north of Nha Trang City on the south-east coast of Vietnam,” croons the tuxedo-clad hypnotist. Yet, suddenly he coughs and stutters. What could be the matter?

“But, all is not what it seems to be,” he rasps. “Beware, the lures of the so-called ‘trek to the waterfall’. It is not as glamorous as it seems. The road is treacherous and the journey arduous,” warns the man on stage, “and the end result will not be what you expected. Where, in your delusions of splendour you saw a shimmering sheet of water falling from the heights of a marble mountain only to splash, bubble and foam into a crystal-clear pool at the bottom, in reality you’ll be greeted by a trickle running down a mossy, sloped rock, ending in a dirty pool with a big irrigation pipe leading into it.”

“Heed this warning, too, of not overstaying your visit beyond the scope of the limited menu, which seems to be about five days, by which time dinners seem to repeat themselves.”

“But,” (the hypnotist is about the bring the audience out of their fantasy) “do not underestimate the healing power of a few days at Jungle Beach, which may cure even those most beset of evils such as city-sadness, city-sickness and covered-in-city-slickness.”

“Now awaken!” He snaps his fingers and you, the audience look around as if waking from a deep slumber, yet with a strange, strong urge to visit this oasis of calm, this fantasy beach, this castle-in-the-sky…

Sorry excuse...

Off to Thailand this week for my folks' 60th joint-birthday celebration so I'll get my head around kicking this blog (and myself) up the arse and actually get it running again.

Will be back next week with some sun-soakin' pics in the sun in Krabi.

Chiaaaaars!

Attention: Dwindling number of readers...

Off to Jungle Beach (about 60 kms from Nha Trang). Promise to post and upload some photos when we get back next Saturday and Al Berg's guest post is still in the pipeline. Have a good Vietnamese Independence Day holiday!

Yangon Days

I don’t know how the Lonely Planet manage to do it. Actually, I think I have an idea: They plough a lot of resources – these being money and patience - into other resources – these being the human capital of travel journalists – who in turn ply their trade by visiting and living in countries for a number of years and therefore, in the kind of shorthand you would use when interviewing a slick tongued politician, manage to encapsulate a country in a book. I’m not implying that this is at all entirely possible, but in a broad-based manner they do a pretty good job with their travel guidebooks.

I wish those resources were available to me, instead I have in my possession, a lot of torn and tacky hotel brochures and business cards, a weathered, Vietnamese $5 copy of Lonely Planet: Myanmar, a lot of photos, a few souvenirs – some with more meaning than others but all with their own distinct story attached - a couple of Ironcross CDs, an “I-am-a-tourist-for-damn-sure” Mandalay Hill t-shirt, a Moustache Brothers T-shirt and DVD and a scattered head full of memories of dust and temples, blood-red stained teeth and smiling children. So I’ll have to make due with what Sarah and I have but I wouldn’t swop it for anything.

I still don’t know where to kick off this story so lets begin at the start. Yangon. There will be no space in this post for Bagan or Mandalay which will have to wait until tomorrow or Tuesday.

Yangon, or Rangoon, as it was known in the Burmese days (the actually colonial time in history, not George Orwell’s 1934 novel) is way past post-colonial, and a long way short of developed infrastructure. Mildewed, gothic architecture holds hands with shantied establishments, all sporting the upside-down, iron umbrella haircut which comes with thousands of satellite dishes beaming in BBC and HBO even though the government urges the people, by means of large billboards and newspaper entries to “oppose those relying on external elements, acting as stooges, holding negative views” and “crush all internal and external destructive elements as the common enemy” (propoganda of which we made signs only to be nearly dispossessed of them, but that's for another day). These colonial façades bake gloriously in the wide-laned main roads and the ramshackled, burned shell of empty buildings throw cool shadows across the beehived alleyways where longyi-wearing men and women squat in the shade, sipping on tea, chew on betel nuts or smoke cheroots.

The motorbikeless roads (another government decree) are badly tarred hobbled affairs – except the one to the international airport which is immaculate –lined by large tropical trees and canalled sidewalks bustling with the trade and furor of the everyday: street markets, food stalls, hawkers, the inevitable tea-shops and betel-nut stalls, all vying for your attention as you traverse the various obstacles that follow in the wake of a people forgotten and oppressed and a city lost despairingly in disrepair: shopkeepers digging the grey, sludgy gunk out of the blocked canals crossing their shopfronts, uneven blocks of cracked concrete haphazardly laid down as if by an ancient, drunk stonemason, decaying litter and stray dogs lazing in the sun.

Yangon has a certain, distinct smell – not unlike Saigon. It is one of those smells you don’t recognise until you leave and return, which is when your olfactory senses light the spark in your neurons. By no means pleasant, it is still reassuring, like home baking or, the comforting sights and sounds of everyday activities that you are used to. It would be audacious and highly ignorant of me to say it’s the smell of hope, but it is intertwined with life of the common Yangon residents. Figuratively, there’s the sharp, sour smell of fear brought about by years of oppression; it mingles with short gasps and jerky, nervous body language and flickering eyes as a troupe of confident police officers straddle through the market. There’s the religious smell of austerity and age-old tradition in the form of musky, incense drifting from shrines and payas (pagodas) blown across the city to settle with the haze of dust and pollution like a smoky, tortoiseshell blanket across Yangon. There’s the smell of business, the musty smell of new and old money exchanging hands for similarly new and used clothes and bolts of cloth accompanied by the constant chatter of merchants and children laughing and crying. Everything in Yangon belies the history of the country and none more so then the people and food. Amidst the noonday bustle Indian faces melt in with lighter, smoother Chinese looks and rounder Burmese faces, and street-stalls selling hin (Burmese curry), noodles, chapattis and Indian curries, whilst a musallee call Muslims to prayer and Buddhist monks in maroon robes trail piously through the streets, creating a smorgasbord of sensory overload.

Yet, despite the melting pot of sights and sounds, the underlying religious principles of Buddhism rule not only the spiritual but also the common, working day lives of the people of Myanmar and Yangon. Perhaps it is partly due to the ever-present payas, with their intricately designed statues, steps and shrines that stand as sentinels and watch solemnly as the golden hue of their roof reflects brilliantly in the midday sun for all to see and is lit up magnificently at night. None more so then the massive and noble, jewel and gold encrusted Shwe Dagon Paya that stands as out of place as a magnificently polished, antique centrepiece would stand on an unvarnished, weathered table that has only three legs. Perhaps the ever presence of the omnipotent is what causes the Burmese to practise their religion so devoutly and live life with such simple austerity and sincerity, perhaps it is tradition suffused in this sea of mental well-being and future freedom from suffering, that is one of the primary practises of Therevada Buddhism, that causes the Burmese to have what seems to be such ease and acceptance with their situation.

Ironically, it is perhaps partly these principles of Therevada which allow the government to maintain such power and domination over the country – besides the everpresent fear of being thrown in prison for a unforeseeable amount of time or, worse, lugged off to a forced labour camp in the northern rural provinces of a country for no reason other than having the entrepreneurial spirit to show a tourist around town, that is. This actually happened to the brother of Kin Se Be, a young girl we met. At age 14 he was taken to prison and three years later he is still in prison while she now took up the reigns where he left off to make some extra money after to school to buy food and necessities to take to her brother.

I’ll harp on about this point often but this country truly is one of contradictions. It is baffling to think how such beauty and serenity which can be found everywhere in a city and people that is so stifled by the white-knuckled grip of a government that knows no other way than to force their autocratic, tyrannical priniciples upon those beneath them to the point of strangling. The contradiction of a broad-faced face split in half with a smile, showing a mouthful of betel-nut-stained teeth and a cheerful “Mingalaba!” (Hello!), only to recognise the trepidation and well-hidden panic in the eyes behind. This is truly a country where serenity and beauty can sit hand in hand at the same table as fear and hopelessness.

I've packed my bags...

Everything's sorted; the couriered visas arrived today, dong has been changed to dollars, valiums have been purchased and still don't have a clue where or what we're going to do in Myanmar. We're flying in about an hour so have a good Tet holiday everyone and I'll post again in about 2 weeks! Chuc Mung Nam Moi! (Happy New Year)!

PS: If you don't hear from me again, phone your nearest Amnesty International office and set up a petition to put pressure on the Burmese government for the release of the two young political prisoners from SA and Oz who, suprisingly, have been detained due to inciting riot and propoganda against the Burmese biter monkeys in north Mandalay. Much obliged.

Salaam!

Three guesses where I am? Hmm, I think those not blessed with the psychic gift will need more like 20 guesses. It’s about 1:30 am and I’m sitting on Doha International Airport. That’s in Qatar for those not in the geography-loop, which is quite near Dubai on the Arabian Peninsula, sort of.

I’m on my way back to Vietnam to continue the proletariat task of making a living by actually earning money myself, how working-class *yawn*. I hope everyone had as awesome a holiday as I did with lots of those yummy holiday munchies lining their stomachs. Despite all the sadness and misgivings of leaving loved ones behind again and returning to this tantalising, intriguing country which is Vietnam, I am glad in my heart. A kind of contentment as to what the future can hold has been bestowed upon me as if to say: “There, taste it, that’s what it’s like, now go out and fetch it.”

I feel this last year I’ve grown not in physical stature, except if you count the rotund Friar Tuck holiday-belly I’ve delicately developed, but in, I cringe to say it, an emotional way. It’s easy to palm it off as something that just happens as you get older, but I think it’s more than that – I now actually understand what people mean when they talk about life experience. It really does effect your mental state, absorbing new cultures and experiences and I think the Vietnamese have facilitated in this burgeoning enlightenment inside me. Damn Buddhists, you gotta love ‘em. Then again, many of my friends and family have equally contributed to this process, although some of my friends tried extremely hard to take me three steps backward along this process with them on New Year's Eve.

No, I haven’t turned into some new-age hippy or a positivist philospher or some shit like that, I’m just being realistic. It’s there – a tangible future that you can shape for yourself. Moulding your own life and letting others help you mould it. Actually, I just think it’s my sparkly new LG S1 Express Dual Notebook that’s making me happy. It’s so rad. It’s got like a little fingerprint security thingy so no-one else can use it (unless they shave off my fingertips ala Seven). Gadgets. You gotta love ‘em nearly as much as Buddhists.

Well I’m stuck in this damn desert oasis until 9 pm tonight, which is like another 18 hours away so I might ramble a bit more later…Salaam alaikum as they say in this part of the world…wish they'd actually let me out of the airport so I can go explore it...

Dozin' in Doha

Wow, there's nothing quite like sleeping on a cold airport floor for a few hours to revive the senses. Before I left my brother-in-law gave me some good advice, saying I should take a nap on the carpeted floor of one of the Islamic prayer rooms, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Instead, after my uncomfortable sleep, I found a designated "quiet room", which is this darkened room filled with snoring, slumbering bodies and sloping chairs which unnervingly resemble dentist's chairs. Overcoming the backflashes of Steve Martin in Novocaine I actually managed to catch a few winks in the dentist chair, so now it's 09:30 am. Less than 12 hours to go. Eish.

Duties done and dusted

When you're sleeping at night, when everything is really quiet, and you hear *bump* *bump* thudding around somewhere outside, don't fret; that would probably be me sleepwalking into things with my newly acquired, rotund, Friar Tuck-like Christmas belly. I think it may have stretch marks and if I had a hand-mirror to be able to see under the bulge I might be able to tell for sure!

I've been having an awesome time since being back - hence the lack of posts. First Natalie came to visit and we did everything we wanted, just chilling on the couch, shopping, going out for sushi, going to my sister's holiday house in Pearly Beach and I even managed some diving in between. My grand tally of crayfish caught stands at five which includes two oupa rooi gerte (grandfather crayfish) as long as my forearm. Nat went home on Saturday, which sucked big time not being able to spend more time with her, and then I went back to Pearly Beach with the parentals to do the family thing, which was very cool.

Christmas represented old-skool, going back to the tradition of spending Eve at my aunt's house in Franskraal with the whole famdam. I think this tradition stretches back to way before I was born so it's quite a solid one which I understand is good to maintain, like a Unesco World Heritage Site or something and not in the Calvinistic sense of tradition. Bleh. I had fun. Got some cool prezzies too.

I'm currently in Hermanus, where the next few days will be spent consuming a mishmash of alcoholic beverages, of dubious quality but impressive quantity, and surfing, or lying on the beach giving off the "surfer karma" making sure everyone knows I surf and trying to fool everyone into thinking I can do 360 airs, reverse rolls, drop-knee 720s and pull into two minute barrels just by the way I lie on the beach gazing across the blue expanse that is my playground. If I pull it off Uri Geller better step back cause his spoon-bending antics will be so-last-century...oh wait, they already are.

Will post again before New Year's Even hopefully. If I don't: You know what to do, don't disappoint yourself or me.

Some pics follow here or on FlickR shortly!

Journey: complete

Forty hours, five airports, six airplane meals, 24 Bellingham tiny wines, three hours of sleep, three in-flight movies, one suicidal piece of machinery and one sick passenger later: I am home.

These last few days would have been hell on earth if I wasn't so excited about coming home. After Bangkok we arrived in Nairobi at four am, departing at Jomo Kenyatta Airport. It felt like when you come out of a late-night movie in a mall and all the shops are closed, lights dimmed, and your footsteps echo in the empty corridors. We had to wait until 7:30 for our next flight, but that turned out to be 13:00, as some mechanical thingy-majig on the plane decided to commit suicide (selfish bugger) as we were taxiing, so we had to turn around on the runway and wait in the departure lounge until 12, by which time they'd figured out what was wrong, but then the pilot and his crew had completed their 12-hour shift and the airline was compelled by law to find another pilot. Luckily, there was a captain and crew sitting in the government/first-class lounge playing strip-poker and drinking games with the air hostesses, chuggin' on fat Havanas, downing tequila shots and chasing them with Jack and coke mixers. They would have to do.

Tiny wine was ordered and we headed off to Joburg aka Egoli, place of gold. It was a bumpy ride but the views while flying over the Serengeti and lakes Tanganyika and Victoria were worth it, as well of course, the copious i-tiny winies in constant supply and disappearing in a perennial stream. By the time we departed at Johannesburg, Christoff couldn't focus or handle heavy machinery (afterwards he said he couldn't remember ever climbing off the airplane at JHB International - damn lightweight) so yours truly had to do the PA work, booking us in and getting us on the Mango Airlines plane, who, by the way were pretty crap, and made us about three hours late but it wasn't their fault and if you pay minimal fees that's what you can expect so we couldn't complain. Other passengers did, however and kudos to Ghia the uber-cool air hostess who handled the grumpy, "this is not acceptable service", "I have hemorrhoids so I want a softer seat" whiny-ass passengers with grace and icy-cool finesse. Nice one! If they want silver service, maybe they should have coughed up a bit more money instead of buying the cheapest plane ticket on the market.

Again, while we were taxiing on the runway, some dude got a panic attack and freaked out. Five brandy shots and seven bitch-slaps didn't rectify the situation so we had to turn around again and drop him off. Back into the queue waiting to depart. I'm not sure, but I think we arrived in Cape Town at about 22:20 last night. It was good to see the folks and fam who had been waiting since seven I think, but luckily they used the Kotzé family common-sense and headed to the nearest airport restaurant to polish several bottles of wine whilst waiting.

I'm as happy as an ant in a cookie jar, bee in a honey pot, or caterpillar on head of lettuce. Will update again soon!