Look who's Alone Now

I’ve had the novelty of returning home to familiar places, my lovely family and my friends. I’ve also had the novelty of starting work again in the UK for a sporting charitable trust full of distant memories, past youth and old friends. And now? Now the novelties are wearing off. I feel that it is just me and me and me in this big, miserable, exciting, scary, beautiful, ugly, ambivalent, make of it what you will world. My family of course, have been a great support in all ways and so have a few, select number of friends. But I feel the rest have let me down; so caught up in their own lives, they enjoy the novelty of looking at me after three years, listening to the odd accent I’ve picked up and generally comparing themselves to me or vice versa which I don’t feel is the most productive way to catch up with old friends. Some are too busy for me. Some are too cool for me. So they think! Some have just drifted away as people do. Some just don’t care. Most cannot fathom my life in recent years, most cannot understand the adjustment period I’m having in this country and most therefore don’t know what to say to me which makes for either stilted conversations or silence on their part. And then there’s the people I met on my travels. People who I really connected with for that short period in the same time and place; people who I bared my soul to, people who bared their soul to me and then on occasions, these self same people who turn their back. So all I can say to my old friends, my new friends and all the others inbetween on my email list; where are you now?

Novelties

Spending time with my family, being back in my childhood home, walking down the high road, catching up with friends, people understanding English humour without any explanation needed, going to the pub, going to a wine/cocktail bar, eating a curry, eating pretty much any choice of cuisine from anywhere in the world I choose, television, hi-fi’s, easy and more or less free internet access, shopping in the supermarket (slightly overwhelmed with the choice!), not living out of a bag, living in a house, leaving my toothbrush and shower stuff in the bathroom without fear of it being nicked, going for a drink by the river, riding on the tube, chip and pin payments, choice and number of shops to shop in, clothes everywhere(!), Earl Grey tea, home cooked roast dinners, volume of people and traffic, not using a padlock to secure my belongings, a bath, my bed and pillow, not being intimate with airports, speaking English rather than pidgin-English and lots of sign language, "wrong leaves on the line", working like eveyone else, wearing shoes and lots more... anything normal inEngland is a rediscovered new for me!

The Gulf

And no I don’t mean the geographical Gulf, I mean the gulf that three years abroad can create between you and your friends. For some reason I didn’t think it would be as big as it is But it is. So now I have to deal with it. A price to pay perhaps?

It Began... in Coffee Bay

Returning after over 2 years to the first place we stopped, loved, lived and worked in, but this time on my own was really quite an indescribable experience, but I shall try anyway. I was met at East London airport (yes there is an East London in South Africa!) by the lovely owners of the backpackers in Coffee Bay after an epic journey by boat from Koh Phi Phi to Phuket in Thailand, a flight from Phuket to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, hanging around for a few hours as you do, another flight from Kuala Lumpur to Johannesburg in South Africa…more swinging my pants in Jo’burg and then my final flight to East London followed by a four hour drive to Coffee Bay. Exactly, bang on, precisely 36 hours. I felt lovely. Yeh right. But I arrived on a Friday night which is community night at the backpackers with lots of tribal drumming, dancing and general merriment and despite bowing out due to exhaustion at 10pm the sheer energy propped me up for a few hours with the sound of the drums bouncing off the surrounding hillscapes and both familiar and new faces greeting me with enormous smiles.

After a very well-slept night spent in a tent (an ex-army tent where I could actually stand up – bonus!) I awoke to the sound of the waves pounding nearby and the birds in their morning swan-song, unzipped my front door (so to speak!) and looked out onto a beautiful, fresh view of tropical garden and the Bomvu River. This is where it gets indescribable! It just felt right. I have maintained throughout my travels that the Wild Coast (where Coffee Bay is located) had captured my soul and was my second home; the energy of the last night and freshness of the following morning just re-confirmed to me that coming back, despite reservations was actually my best idea to date! There is always that fear that your memory serves you incorrectly, or rose tinted glasses are worn too much when considering past times and places and that the new reality will somehow be a let down. Especially since when I first arrived with my travel buddy extraordinaire we were quite fresh in our travels, relatively wide-eyed about a lot of experiences and a good couple of years younger in age! Happily for me my concerns were absolutely non existent in the new reality. Of course it was different, the tourists were obviously not the same bunch and quite a few of the staff had moved on, but it didn’t escape from the fact that I felt right at home straight from the start. Oh glorious days!

Inbetween “volunteering” in the office and bar (along with breaking up a fight courtesy of some unfortunate, drunk, chauvinistic, racist pig typical of certain sections of the wider South African population) I went horseriding on the local beaches and surrounding village, swam a lot in the sea (great for curing hangovers ‘cos the waves just bash it out of you!), took spiritual yoga classes in serene surroundings, met up with old friends and made some great new ones as well, picked up a South African accent (according to my English friends, but not according to my South African friends!), continued drinking vodka as my tipple of choice, learnt some new djembe drum beats, organised a festival, fire danced lots, taught other people to fire dance, got back to nature and fed my soul lots of yummy goodness!
[Photo: Coffee Bay, river and dog ©]

The ForgottenPeople

The title sounds like it should be frightfully meaningful in the grand scheme of things.. but ultimately it's not. I think it matters in the here and now but in the long term probably not. Koh Phi Phi has a massive community of westerners, many of whom are around for the high season (roughly October - April) forming relatively close knit groups for a bunch of strangers that are randomly thrown together. Then they leave. And they are never spoken about again. Unless they are coming back. Pretty much. It seems a shame that people can be so caught up in their own little groove on such a superficial level that nothing else matters to them apart from what's happening and with who right now. Oh well. Left actually having grown rather fond of the place really and made some wonderful friends. And the diving is awesome. Maybe I just don’t like being forgotten so easily!
[Photo: Koh Phi Phi Don Viewpoint, Credit: Dru]

People of Strength

The people of Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos - this was gonna be one of those vaguely intelligent posts, but really a summary has more effect:

• Extreme poverty set side by side with hotels catering for the super rich tourist - uncomfortable viewing in all three countries.
• Nixon's secret war that's not very secret anymore which royally f***ed up Cambodia during the Vietnam War.
• Western influences - the bad ones - drugs, alcohol at the extreme end of abuse.
• Pol Pot being a psycho - watch the "Killing Fields" and you don't even come close.

Most locals still have a smile for you anyway. Bloody amazing.

Old Haunts

1967... my mother spent nine months living and working in Vietnam via the Australian Government during the Vietnam/American War helping set up medical facilities and equipment for local civilians...

2006... I arrive in a different time and a different century to check out some of her old haunts and see what the last forty years has done to a country since it's reunification and embrace of Communism...

And I've had writer's block on this for nearly a year! So much to say and so few words that I can find.

An Ancient Wonder of the World

I have to admit to being "templed" out... I have seen the temples of Angkor plus numerous other temples of religion from Hindu to Buddhist, with regional variations inbetween... I'm not sure I could cope with more day trips to see more temples so I probably shan't! However, they were all worth it - they are all magnificent in their own way, but the Temples of Angkor are truely a wonder and truely, really rather ancient.

The intricately chiselled carvings are amazing in their complexity and the sheer number and size of them beggars belief and then even more so when you realise if was all really rather a long time ago and well over several centuries - absoultely outstanding craftmanship, patience and dedication must have been involved to achieve the temples they built and carved.

The Angkor Wat is the temple that everyone gets to see from their living rooms; huge, imposing and well restored it is the daddy of all temples! Others are marginally smaller in size but no less in design and intricacy - one of which has four columns of four buddha faces staring down at you - "big brother" (or should that be buddha?!) ancient style perhaps?? Others have imposing life-like rock carvings of great, ferocious looking creatures at each entrance way intent on intimidating you despite the fact they are not real... while others have been left for nature to consume with enormous tree roots spiralling down the side of crumbling ruins.

Apparently all the tourist activity of climbing up and down ancient temples is causing subsidence or something - basically the old buildings can't take the pressure anymore. Which isn't really surprising when you see the bus loads of rather well dressed looking tourists coming through. It also makes it hard to get a classic shot of the main temple without a gazillion other people in your photo. No easy answers to that one, since by being there myself I have contributed to the overall decline, but I at least stayed in a local run place not a super-duper place that sits uncomfortably next to local poverty.

Un-Sustainable Un-Eco Tourism (a.k.a a bit of a rant and a rave!)

Sadly there is always a downside to toursim that should instead help bolster the local community while improving livlihoods without damaging either the environment or people's sensibilities!

In Siem Reap (the town closest to the ancient temples of Angkor) the main "highway" (I say highway, but really two lanes in opposite directions with enormous potholes for the driver to chicane around) has 5 star hotels on either side - totally swish, totally swanky, totally shiny and totally out of bloody place. Side by side with these looming bits of Western life is the poverty; the dirt, the dust the street kids begging, the amputees also begging, the locals haggling and hassling... it is a huge juxtoposition and those hotels are totally inappropriate. There are other ways to provide the comfort and standards needed by certain groups of people without resorting to the building equivalent of a slap in the face to local people. I also was very keen to know (although never found out) if the hotels were locally owned (better) or part of an international chain (awful)...

The tour buses are also a bit full on. Not only are there lots and lots of them full to bursting with European or Japanese tourists they also help contribute to the sinking of some of the temples as they all get to the same temples at the same time and all the people tramp up and down ancient stairways with their state of the art photography equipment to get the best view - oh lucky lucky people that manage to get a shot without other tourists in the way!

So added to this is the use of the US dollar as an eqally accepted alternative to the Cambodian Riel - it's a wonderful way to increase the price and round everything up to the nearest dollar... same, same in Vietnam (although not quite so regulalry used) and Laos.

Riding round freestyle on the back of a motorbike through the mountainous region of Dalat, Vietnam was also an eye opener in many ways... a gorgeous lake surrounded by pristine pine forest was being slayed and a tarmac road was being built around the lake. My lovely local guide, Nam told me, "They build the road for the tourists and when they finish road they build hotels next to the lake for the tourists to have nice place and nice view". A bright idea of the government no less in order to bring in more tourism dollar! Nevermind that travellers like myself detest exactly this kind of development, it is aimed at the fussy holidaymaker - a far higher class of traveller than myself and usually the type that would like their little bit of home in the middle of Vietnam - what an earth is the point of even going abroad if this is what they want?? And even more so if they have to destroy a precious natural resource in order to do it. Arrghh - so frustrating.

The natural scenery of limestone cliffs of Vang Vieng, Laos is totally amazing and majestic - truely a sight to behold. The town of Vang Vieng has sprung up chiefly to service tourists travelling from Vientiane to Luang Prabang with the added attraction of a bit of caving and some tubing (going with the flow down a river in a giant tractor tube as you do!). The current development is low-level shacks and a few riverside bungalows thown in, although the pace of it is overwhelming... speaking to people who were there two years ago (pretty much when I started off on my travels) they said half the town didn't exist and the riverside bamboo bars were merely platforms of bamboo with locals selling beers.

So now they call the main road "Khao San Road" and it's very much like the original in Bangkok, albeit in miniture... bars, restaurants, money exchange, tour shops, internet access... you name it, it's there... everything a traveller needs. So yes, it is handy but the charm of this place is that it is in the middle of nowhere, very rural and nearly untouched and yet somehow I feel that it won't stay that way and will be a major destination on the tourist trail with none of the existing charm. The Laos people are reknown for their friendliness to travellers (which makes a nice change!) except in Vang Vieng I noticed a distinct attitude no matter how much you smile or cover yourself up with clothing - almost like they wanted to emulate the often fed-up attitude of their Bangkok counterparts... now that is a shame and totally our fault.

Ultimately it is becoming harder and harder to travel the world and see it as it is. Rather it is easier to go where all the people go and transform a place into a ill-trained circus of tourists... and the new places such as Vang Vieng get more and more talked about, more and more visited until the original reason for going seems rather lost. Don't get me wrong, I like that locals often seem to improve their lives with tourism, I just wonder at what cost and I wonder how an earth it would be possible to have a happy balance between the environment, the local people and their traditions and the on-going rampage of tourism through little known parts of the world. I also realise that by being there and doing my traveller thing, I have contributed to all my own complaints... well, at least I try to recognise the effect of it all I guess.

Onwards

So I have spent a lovely couple of months chilling on Koh Phi Phi and meeting some lovely people and having a lovely time. It's very OTT touristy but nice in some ways, with gorgeous beaches, snorkelling and diving and a couple of really nice chilled bars... am officially a certified scuba diver now which is cool and heading off for a jaunt round Indochina in a couple of days... feeling a little apprehensive and a little excited and a little drained all at once. So wish me luck and I'll let you know...

The Good

Freedom from whatever you want freedom from, meeting pople from all walks of life; the nice ones, the shite ones and the "characters", new stuff to try; hiking, surfing, beach volleyball, rock climbing, snorkelling, cliff jumping, scuba diving, kayaking, new jobs to try that you know will end so you don't worry too much if they are spectacularly pants, traditional food and drink, the 100 Club, you name it!, gorgeous and majestic landscapes, warm lagoon sea, squeaky sand, a whole new country to figure out, a new culture to begin to understand, independence, lack of habits and routine, adventure wherever you care to look, away from the daily grind, stunningly sunny weather and spectacular storms, culture not out of a yoghurt pot, making friends for life (not just for Christmas or in that fact, just for travelling either!), drastic improvement of mathematical ability stemming from working in African bars with no till or calculator to speak of and moving around so much that the currency converter is the one you have adjusted automatically in your head and at the end of it all... letting the dream come true!
[Photo: A Very Good African Sunset! / Credit: Bomvu Paradise Backpackers]

.. the Bad

Missing my family, my friends, my house and all those material possessions that I'm supposed to be immune to when travelling, being ill with unknown foreign virus and/or bacteria and having no hope in hell of receiving medical care to the standard of home, spending 90% of travelling when meeting people with your right arm stuck out to shake hands with innumerable strangers and your general spiel at the ready; "hi, this is my name, this is where I'm from, this is where I've travelled, this is how long I've travelled for and this is where I'm going next and how are you??" and in the process on the receiving end of "well I've been here, here, here and here and had this great experience and this awful experience and I am a totally cool traveller and so much better than you until you prove your experiences to be at least as good as mine" usually by people who don't know their arse from their elbow and should really not have been let out of their home country in the first place (!), getting totally, totally ripped off by locals convinced that cos you are western you are therefore rolling in money (ha I wish!), wishing I'd done it all earlier, trying to go out somewhere random (usually in Asia) and failing to get either a decent meal or meals that arrive together, tummy bugs that are inescapable when travelling, other poeple that drive you nuts but you're stuck with them out of politeness or for nothing better available (I'm not really that horrible honest!!) and the boredom of waiting... for buses, planes, trains, automobiles or yer dinner!

...the Ugly

..the way some cultures treat their domestic pets, their disabled, their women and their environment, the drunken brawls between travellers, the way some women are truely intent on nicking your fella, sexpat middle aged fat old men, any sexpat for that matter, motorbike accidents in South East Asia, animosty directed at you just for being a "white, western" tourist and being threatened physically or verbally by mean nasty people!

... and the truely Bizarre!

..sitting in a minivan designed for 15 people in Mozambique with 34 crammed in (and yes I counted!) travelling behind a big local bus with one goat tethered to it's roof, wondering if a family of 5 was the maximum number of people that could be fitted on a motorbike in South East Asia and discovering that actually 6 is the maximum, being intent in taking a close up photo of some temple or other, and upon hearing an unfamiliar noise, whirling round to discover myself face to face with a rather large elephant - as you do...!

[Photo: A kindred spirit of the goat on the bus! / Credit: Bomvu Paradise Backpackers]