I'd like to think it'll just come to me: November 2011

Tuesday 29 November 2011

Thailand

Who would have thought my time in Thailand would be shaped by a meeting in Kolkata of all places. When I was there the first time, suffering and on my deathbed, I met a baba who gave me a blessed prayer bead seed to wear around my neck, and told me that my stomach would be okay now. The next day I finally, after three weeks, passed something resembling what normally comes out of your bottom and I was immediately convinced of his powers. The fact I had been taking antibiotics for the previous four days may have been a factor but I like to believe in the power of the baba. When I flew to Thailand, I went from Kolkata, and having bumped into the very same baba; he introduced me to a Canadian guy who told me of a squat in Bangkok and I made it my plan to set up home there for a few days. The few days turned into nine, then a break in Pattaya and a further six back in Bangkok. To say I haven’t really seen a lot of Thailand would be an understatement. When I arrived I had two conflicting plans, one was to sit on a beach and the other was to go up to Chiang Mai and get a abdominal massage called ‘Chi Nei Tsang’, which unlocks all the bad chi, making you all happy, smiley and cuddly. I did neither.

Thailand was only on the list because to enter Burma, I have to do it from Bangkok, and in all honesty I was not particularly looking forwards to it; “it’s going to be full of clean folk, ‘the horror’”, was one particular thought which entered my mind. The clean folk are here because Thailand has sold it’s arse to both tourism and the west, making it quite a wealthy country in the process, but destroying whatever soul it may have had. My first night I went down Kho San Road, the most infamous of drinking streets in all of Asia, and one not to disappoint. I watched a Lady Boy getting touched up by a tourist and was amused by a policeman doing his best T-1000 impression on a motorbike. Having become fully acclimatised to India and Nepal, I was a mixture of shocked and horrified by this place. For those from Newcastle, it’s like the Bigg Market, and for those with any knowledge of British culture, it’s like one of those awful resorts we’ve created in little fishing villages around Europe. I was sober so I watched it all with clear focused eyes, and found myself questioning, as I watched the pissed Thai girls needing help walking, and the tourists shouting, screaming, making tits of themselves and generally pissing off the locals; whether these are those values we’re trying to spread around the world; I bet the Iranians can’t wait to be liberated. Welcome to civilisation, it’s shaped like a golden ‘M’ with a drunk hanging off it.

When I arrived here I was determined to prove how easy it would be to travel in a country of clean folk and order. “I’ve travelled India”, I told myself, “if I can travel India I can travel anywhere. Step aside Marco Polo, William has arrived”. Unfortunately I was proved very wrong. It’s not that I can’t cope with this country, that part was a doddle, but I realised I’m not actually a very good traveller if I’m on a time budget. My time in both Nepal and India had been quite infinite and for that reason I had simply been able to sit around, soak a place up and in, and then leisurely move on when I felt the time was right. That wasn’t possible in Thailand, I had less than three weeks here, and my birthday was smack in the middle, so I had that to take consideration of too. When I first arrived in the squat it was great, I was staying in a house, not a guest house, where my house is my room, but an actual house, and it was amazing. Throw in the fact the people there were great, especially my little companion Off; so I decided to stay a little while, but a little while as I’ve already said became nine days, and then it was nearly my birthday and after much deliberation I decided against either the beach or the chi, and went and visited an old friend in Pattaya; which is not like a resort town in Europe but is a resort town, and of course Thailand’s infamous sex capital.

Now for all my bravado and ability to give an impression which isn’t always quite accurate, most could easily believe me to be an enlightened saved man. I was once a drunkard who liked a good smoke, yet I now do neither and am actually happier for it, I even contemplated veganism recently; if twenty year old me could see what I have become, he would be horrified. But if India reveals you for who you are, to a degree so does Pattaya, or at least the darker side. Last year on my twenty-fifth birthday I spent the morning and afternoon in a Buddhist monastery and the night getting a hot oil rub down and a little ball tickle from a fortune teller. I swore the very next day, for as long as I continued to have birthdays; I would never out of curiosity stay sober on one ever again, and never would another man tickle my balls. So this year I had naked Thai girls sing happy birthday to me, and drank enough Thai whisky that I feel I suitably made up for last years sobriety and molestation. I would like of course to point out that I didn’t actual do anything with these naked singing Thai girls, and had no intention of, but it was nice of them to sing happy birthday to me all the same, and it’s a memory I certainly won’t forget in a hurry.

Having embraced the darker side of life; I returned to Bangkok with the plan of going to Chiang Mai and unlocking some of that bad chi I had built up of recent. However, having not sorted my Australian visa yet, and with these few days being the last chance I would have, I decided the sensible option would be to hang around in case of any problems. I feel vindicated in that I had to go and have a chest x-ray to prove I didn’t have tuberculosis and enjoyed my time with my friends in the squat. A few days before leaving; it dawned on me that maybe it would be possible to unlock some chi in Bangkok and a trip to Chiang Mai may not be completely necessary and I was proved right thankfully. With the darkness lifted; I finished my time in Thailand with a skip in my step and a smile on my face. I didn’t do a lot there and there’s not really a lot to tell but I enjoyed my time; and now I’m in Burma, which despite being so close, is, I can assure you, a complete other world.

Thursday 10 November 2011

Family

I’ve spent over eight months of my life now in Nepal. Whenever I tell this to people who have been there I always get the same look of disbelief, and it always makes me think that maybe I have actually spent too long in that strange little mountain kingdom. The eight months have been shared, rather unevenly, over three visits, and with three being the magic number, I can’t help but feel the third may have also been the final time. That was my intention at least when I went up there from India, to a degree a saying goodbye to the place, but more a few people who will always remain very much in my heart.

With Nepal being so close to India geographically and culturally; it’ll always be compared to it, and this is simply a battle it cannot and will not ever win. If India is ‘same same but different’, then Nepal must be ‘same same but shitter’. It has some very picturesque qualities, but so does India, and although in India people will try and rip you off, they try and rip each other off too which kind of makes it okay. In Nepal they’re just money hungry and greedy with it, but it’s the fact they get annoyed and sulky when you won’t let them cheat you which irritates the most; as if we should because we all have servants back home and we’re in the wrong for not. It doesn’t annoy me as it once did though; I have taken a step back and found myself taking a more amused view on the whole thing, but it has just strengthened my disgust of moneys corrupting values and what it has done to an inherently good people.

And they are a good people, you can see it in their nature, and it is why when money is not involved; I have made some very good connections. I have two families in this world, the one I was born into, and the one which adopted me. Many moons ago on my very first day arriving in Pokhara; I ate some mashed potato in a little restaurant called The Laughing Buddha. My life would never be the same again. Here a family work by day and sleep by night, and rightfully complain about both these things. I spent so much of my time there on my first visit that I became part of the furniture, and in time; part of the family too. Towards the end of my first spell I was being given free cups of tea, the second free food, and by the third I was so much part of the machine I was peeling potatoes and serving food; to both earn my free dinner and just help them out because I wanted to.

My last full day with them was taken up with the Depvali celebrations; a festival as important to Hindu’s as Christmas is to Christians and to Capitalists. It is in honour of the brother, so sisters perform the ceremony; sprinkling water around you and then rubbing oil into you before giving you ‘tika’; the mark on your third eye (your forehead). I was involved in this last year but this time it felt slightly different, as if I really was part of the whole procedure, and I realised then that I was actually part of the family, whatever that may entail. I don’t know when I will return to Nepal, if ever, but if one day I do find myself in that slow, corrupt little place; I know I will put all my effort into doing one thing and it won’t be paying a fortune for the honour of walking up a mountain, it will be to find my Buddha family. I will then commiserate with Imran and Nira about how hard life is, kick Prakash’s idle arse and make sure Rekha is working hard at school and hasn’t been married off to some lazy Nepali by Nira for a few rupees. Ah Nepali life.

But to talk of only one family in Pokhara; would do disservice to another. While The Laughing Buddha became my Nepali home, another one came together from many different countries, continents and cultures, but which was equally strong and open. Thanks to a beautiful Brazilian couple I met first in Varanasi; I was introduced to a group consisting of Brazilians; Germans; Turks; Japanese; French; Indians; Portuguese; Americans and Argentineans. It was an eclectic mix, where bonds were made first at a festival over hallucinogens and a show of solidarity in the face of greed, and then at a guest house; which became our home as we took it over cooking together, living together and ultimately being in harmony together. It was a perfect environment to live in and despite the fact I was tired of Pokhara itself; because of them I didn’t want to leave.

I realised given a bit of creativity things can be reused with a simply needle and thread, that vegan food can actually be really good, that I can be around people smoking a lot and despite it being tempting; not need to be involved in the smoking to not only enjoy myself but to be a part of something, that drinking your own piss only results in partial insanity, and finally that everything can be shared and everyone will always get what they need. I travel to learn and to experience, and while I naturally get both those things from the countries I visit and the local people, this was just confirmation that anyone and everyone around you has something to offer and plays the part they are there to play. Whether you want to cook, be the chai wallah, build the fire, take charge or simply sit back, observe and let people get on with what it is they want to do; people can live together and they can live together in harmony doing it. Of course long term who can say what would happen but in the time I was there, with them, these people showed me nothing but openness and love, and they will always be in my heart for it.

I wasn’t sure about going back to Nepal again but I am really glad I did, and although I may be tired of Nepal itself, it has provided me with a lot, be that experience, learning or simply people never to forget. I hope I see them all again someday, wherever and whenever that may be