speech of my fingertips

2011-12-09T22:38:00.002+08:00

fuck, I don't know what to write.

to San Francisco

2011-12-02T01:15:00.002+08:00

Road trip is an extended trip in a motor vehicle.

- Merriam Webster

Whatever road trip means, the dandelions were fine and we were cool. We drove through the furthest possible route to San Francisco from Sacramento via venues of all kinds: calm bushes, still and quiet neighbourhoods, golden hills, a famous theme park with an obvious roller-coaster track and some turn-offs. Driving to San Francisco should not take that long but taking the easy route is boring. We wanted a road-trip and therefore we consulted the locals with strange minds like ours. We drew the strangest possible route and we rocked.

We stopped at some places,

you oughta know – Applebee’s

2011-08-27T04:31:00.005+08:00

I was told that this place is good. I believed so I went. And yes it was good: good ambient, good service, good food and good everything. They named it Applebee’s and I don’t know why; I saw neither an apple nor a bee on the menu. I noticed apple symbols though beside some items on the menu and I asked why. The waitress told me that those were the favourites and I picked one of them for myself. Came my Fiesta Lime Chicken, coated with cheese on the bed of coloured stripped chips. I had one my hand feeding me the chicken and the other one picking up chips. I was occupied.

I was kept telling the folks around me about my past life stories/craps. "I think I was a Mexican in my past life. I am attracted this much to their food," I told them when I was in a Mexican restaurant. And when I was around the local chicks, I mumbled "I think I was an American in my past life." And finally when I was in Dubai, "I think I was an Arabian, I like their turbans!"

Now who said Sacramento is a small town? They have all the American top food franchises here. The California State Capitol is somewhere here. And they even own their own TV station! I am so going to be occupied, most of the time with food.

old old Sacramento

2011-08-25T21:27:00.002+08:00

It was in Sutter’s Mill where James Marshall spotted the flecks of gold, the reason behind the greatest human migration in American history, from everywhere else to Sacramento. And that was like 160 years ago. I am now in the Old Sacramento sniffing around for the history, stepping back in time and celebrating the Californian heat.

Here the railway meets the Delta, the entrance of the waterway interconnecting San Joaquin, American and Mokelumne rivers. The languid river that flows in mother of all silence is where the famous Delta King Hotel in a shape of a pretty ship docked for years now. The Tower Bridge is a vertically lifted bridge across the Sacramento River, painted in gold because the earlier silver was complained to be glaring.

Given a chance, I would like to hover upon this city and watch these in gaiety, but I am without the benefit of parachutes or not even a chicken wing. Driving in US can be somewhat freaky as I am driving on the other side of the road, the total opposite compared to where I came from but in Sacramento town it is indeed much easier. You don’t see many cars in here, almost a ghost town I would say. But again, not really; sometimes these people these cars come from God-knows-where.

Somewhere in the centre of Sacramento, near the Old Sacramento is where The California State Capitol is and this is where the Californian governor sits. The beaming white that envelopes it, the dome, the "Stars and Stripes" and the building as whole was splendid in appearance!

the lazy song

2011-08-18T21:28:00.004+08:00

Today I don't feel like doing anything
I just wanna lay in my bed

Don't feel like picking up my phone
so leave a message at the tone

'Cause today I swear I'm not doing anything

I'm gonna kick my feet up then stare at the fan

Turn the TV on, throw my hand in my pant
Nobody's gon' tell me I can't

- Bruno Mars, The Lazy Song

just a jiffy in Fisherman's Wharf

2011-08-18T12:48:00.009+08:00

Even though I was just done with the flight claustrophobe moment; even though my left eye blushed like baby carrots and my head did tango and stuffs. Even though my lips were transforming into a sausage and there was still another two hours of drive to the hotel, San Francisco didn’t want to let me go. Despite all the jetlag symptoms visiting like guests on Deepavali, I did Fisherman’s Wharf on a frosty Wednesday, recommended by the staff from the car rental place. “You can find good seafood in there” I remember her saying.

The breeze was cold and velvety, like as if the sea was whispering secrets from the other continents. It felt like a massage on my fagged muscles. The Fisherman’s Wharf, this this sea is where the old San Franciscans lived to make a living. I can see where the city grew from, and where the city nucleus is now. The bell from the far-away trams, the extolment from the stall-keeper’s lips about his own fresh crabs, the chop on the lobster before each half of it was sold and bought for eighteen dollars and the beeps and chinks from the cash register machines of the nearby restaurants and outlets kept this part of San Francisco busy. I came here with an intention to feast the lobsters but only later I realized that my stomach was not ready for anything local yet. I ate Burger King instead. Even that I packed a quarter and slid inside my bag for dinner.

Enough for now, I am not Frank McCourt to write an Angela’s Ashes. I am just a temporary yankee. A fleeting glimpse of the sea bade farewell before I proceed to Sacramento, two hours and many mountains away.

at last, San Francisco

2011-08-17T13:36:00.009+08:00

Oh no, I am now enmeshed again inside another torture chamber named AK B777-500LR, this time it's for 16 hours. If you’re planning to travel to US via Dubai from Malaysia, mind you that you’re looking at 32 hours of journey in total including the long transit. You might want to transit in Hong Kong instead. An Indian lady I met in the flight, on her way to the lavatory told me that it’s quicker. We ended up with cups of hot chocolate at the back end, in the cabin kitchen for almost an hour. Her husband is working in Fremont she told me. They were immigrants (probably now already US citizens) for the past 13 years. She was on her way back from India after a vacation. She was happy.

The abiding journey got on my nerves. I watched three Indian movies in a row, several travel and cook shows and occasionally listened to Robbie Williams and Michael Jackson. Still the plane was moving like a retarded snail.

The meal was awesome, needless to say. First it was the mushroom omelette, served with a broccoli cutlet, baked beans and fried potato cubes. Croissant was served along with butter and preserve.

Lunch was breaded fish fillet on a bed of mild garlic cream sauce, mashed potatoes with spring onion, seasoned baby carrots, and broccoli. Dessert was the not so great chocolate choux bun with butterscotch mousse and a rich chocolate sauce. One man asked the stewardess, “Which one is nicer, chicken tikka or breaded fish fillet?” And she replied him with a smile, “They all taste the same, Sir. Probably you don’t want to think so much as your options are limited.”

Particularly I liked this vegetarian pizza topped with tomatoes and cheese, tasted better than any local pizza of thin crust and meagrely toppings and an expensive price tag. If you know how my idiosyncratic tongue structure is like, pizzas are not my cup of tea but this one is exceptional. Like as if it became all of a sudden a non-Italian, stupid me and my non-consistent preferences.

I spent my final flight hours at the cabin kitchen listening to the stewardesses talking about Victoria's Secret, sipping the hot chocolate and ardently people-watching. They liked my camera and I became their instant guru in camera technicality. I stood there in the presence of their conviviality until one of them reminded me, "Sir, please take your seat now, we are touching down in minutes!". And arrived me in San Francisco, my home my whore for the next two weeks.

Stranded in Dubai

2011-08-16T15:19:00.005+08:00

I am in Dubai – the blooming and briskly Dubai. But not so good for me this time, I am jailed temporarily within the four walls of Dubai Airport in the name of transit, en route to San Francisco. Ten hours of confinement is awful. And like as if this is not enough, earlier the flight from Kuala Lumpur kept me hovering for six terrible hours until I fled out from the Emirates flight in Dubai with wantings for space and comfort. I was received by the heat on my cheek; 32 degrees in Celcius if the pilot didn’t announce a lie.

I am not at all excited about this trip unlike my previous ones which I accepted with fervour. Probably I have had enough or probably I am turning into a sour-grape these days or age is just doing its work. But this is what I am feeling right now; maybe tomorrow I will be titillated by the tickles of an American summer holiday. Never know.

Good thing, Emirates was bitchin’ except for its stewardesses in turbans. They removed their red turban-like-hats anyway when the plane flown a distance, to serve the passengers meals and whatsoever. I just couldn’t understand why they wore it in the first place. The menu was a dope: spicy chicken pieces served with carrots, broccoli and steamed rice, apricot chocolate cake, cheese and biscuits, chicken breast on soft roll and mini pita with marinated grilled vegetables, tiramisu mousse. And I was a drag when I bugged the stewardesses for instant noodles during their rest time (if they allowed to have some) and in many occasions for hot chocolate drinks which I became addicted to.

I am here sucking up the airport electricity to charge my laptop while writing this entry cross-legged on the marbled floor polished to shine. The Azan is resounding now loud from the speakers, calling the Muslims for prayer. On my left a couple in their deep sleep, one cuddled up with another. On my right a Persian girl, peeping on my screen every now and then. Is she CSI or something? I am waiting for my next flight, to San Francisco and I hate doing this. I can complain thousand and one thing about this journey: long queues in the airport toilets, the poor internet connections, the long transit, the weird smell that the Emirates flight had, etcetera etcetera.

The boarding gate is now open. I got to go.

goodbye Hat Yai

2011-08-15T15:08:00.025+08:00

Goodbye Hatyai cowboy town of southern

Thailand door to the kingdom of five baht

buddha sticks and reclining fat buddhas

home of dust and mangy dogs and children

- S.K. Kelen

It was my last morning in Hat Yai. I ribbon-cut the day with a good breakfast but bad numbed legs. Yes, the sedulous attempts of conquering the town yesterday benumb everything and anything. I didn't want to move out from my room, not even from my bed. Evidently, I was lazy. The slothful me wanted some sleep and only sleep. But Alvin wanted one last walk around the Asian cowboy town.

Alvin with his empty plates and my plates which he emptied earlier.

Alvin with his team spirit t-shirt and the team was he himself.

Alvin with the army men. I don't think they give a damn.

Alvin at the train station with his backpack waiting for the train to Malaysia, home.

she floats like a lotus. she offers contentment.

2011-08-15T04:32:00.004+08:00

On that afternoon when it drizzled and the town folks were shooed away as wet puppies, I heaved aboard a van-like taxi. It was far better than sitting in a comfortable hotel room doing uninspiring things. As I was still getting wet (the windowless taxi was not much of a shelter), I made it clear to the driver that floating market was my intention. Obviously the communication was a flop because he dropped me at a wet market instead. With the help of the locals and my co-travellers, we stressed to him one more time our destination and this round he was crystal clear. The bumpy road was hammering me and once in a while I popped my head out of the pane like a snake from the charmer’s basket. It was still drizzling. You are fortunate to catch the freshness in your nose when the crumbs of rain and breeze sprinkled on your face. We tottered all the way.

The entrance of the floating market was a temple with its walls craved with Thai Gods with chadas. Poor Thai’s befuddled minds are made of a terrible amalgam of religions, mainly Hinduism and Buddhism. Why should I even bother debating? When they subsisted with this perplexity for centuries. Within the walls they built for themselves.

A big crowd was heading towards the other bank of the river, crossing a strong bridge with a long stretch of stalls appeared to me like a Malaysian pasar malam. The river was beautiful, only until a heavy rain came by to turn it into the colour of dirt as quick as a chameleon. Business was still as usual, with the flaming woks sizzled every time the last drips from the exasperated sky touched. The shopkeepers, mmm the boatkeepers with straw hats were still indefatigable and untouchable.

His head is tilted to the left to show His great sorrow

2011-08-01T21:56:00.000+08:00

a walk in Hat Yai / Seremban

2011-07-30T19:35:00.004+08:00

Hat Yai had the driest mornings and cashew nuts. The lanes of shops like rows of flailing fabrics and cottons in a dhobi ghat, nonchalantly minded its own business. The sun was up like as if it was going to school.

Young green coconuts were ever ready to quench thirst, Bento(s) of various flavours were dancing in the wind like prom queens, prawns were red like as if they were on lipstick. The drivers of the many van-like taxis were looking for passengers; some were screaming, smiling and seducing to announce their existence. The stall owners were waving and alluring customers to their corners rich with snacks and nuts. Okay lah, now I like this place. I like that lazy walk somewhat of my childhood resemblance. In 1980s when I was still a three-foot kid, I used to take the yellow town bus with amma to a town, a photocopy of Hat Yai, named Seremban by don’t know who and I don't really care when.

Amma keeps asking me to behave, not to pluck out leaves from the trees, not to pick up coins from the street, not to put my dirty fingers into my mouth. She cannot accept funny faces nor does she allow strange repetitive sounds that I love to make. My mouth secretly imitates a train but unfortunately it is not a train that we are waiting for. The bus comes with that familiar horn sound, packed with round aunties with horrendous stares. A manly lady ticket conductor with a crew-cut-hairstyle pulls me into the bus. Her breasts are little, suppressed under her tight shirt like a secret. She speaks in a man’s voice, mana mau pergi? (where you want to go?). Little strands of hair squeaked out from her cheek. The world thinks she is a man. But I know she is not. Because her breast peeps out at me when the button on her shirt snaps. And she gives me an eerie now-you-know-my-secret-look. I am obliged to keep her secret for her anger could kill a tiger. She passes amma our little paper tickets to Seremban / Hat Yai. The bus drops us near the lanes of shop-houses where amma shops for dresses. After shopping, after a good Indian lunch and after a bowl of cendol from the street stall we are ready to go. The yellow bus brings us back home, passes a beautiful Catholic Church with Mother Mary and baby Jesus at its entrance.

the coconut ice-cream

2011-06-26T21:10:00.004+08:00

Sitting at the entrance of a hill shrine in quaintly Hat Yai, without wanting to walk in, without knowing what God was standing inside, I was watching the street dogs and their stamina. Came to me Alvin, my co-traveller with a glee-soaked-smile and he was asking if I want coconut water to quench my thirst. I nodded. He went to the nearby stall that had green coconuts at all its sides. He came back to me running with a slight disappointment this time saying, “Not coconut water but something else.” And we went there running to try without knowing how it was going to taste, something called the coconut ice-cream.

She slashed open a baby coconut, dried out the water and scraped the white flesh, leaving them inside as slices of drenched carnation petals. She tossed in some kidney beans, crunchy nuts, jellies of all kind, sticky rice and enriched the whole thing with scoops of vanilla ice-cream. She garnished and technically flavoured her creation with sweet milk that wasn’t so sweet. Hat Yai balances on its head the culture, world-class street food and wild stray dogs and many more. My journey continued in the land of to-a-certain-extent-orthodox, to-a-certain-extent-not, after a refreshing break in the form of a coconut ice-cream.

The Other Day

2011-06-11T16:55:00.035+08:00

This post received the Gold BATOM Award of the Month via Blog-a-ton 21 on June 2011. Thank you for your support as always.

The bus stopped in front of a restaurant just a mile away from the border. I was hungry but nothing in the restaurant I could imagine eating. The last meal I had was in Vietnam, a plate of fried rice that I devoured before I heaved aboard the bus that I almost missed. The Cambodian sun was simmering; as yellow as a yolk and as bright as the tanned kids around me. My odyssey continued through the bumpy roads of Cambodia. The dust fluttered like butterflies. And the bloody chuckholes! They convulsed the bus every now and then and my arse ached. I prayed for a quick end of the bus journey.

The other day, when the rain fell copiously in 1975, news came that the city was taken. Announced Khmer Rouge via loudspeakers that US was going to bomb Phnom Penh. That the Americans would swallow the poor Kampucheans. Citizens were commanded to leave and hence the start of the march of death from the city to the countryside. They carried with them things so little, all that their small hands could carry. Citizens turned refugees within their own land. But US never came. The Americans didn’t at all swallow the Kampucheans. Khmer Rouge did. For the next three years, eight months and twenty days the Kampucheans prayed for a quick end of the Khmer Rouge communist regime.

I arrived in Phnom Penh with my rucksack weighing the dirty cloths I brought with me from Vietnam, unwashed. Unsmiling sanctimonious monks wrapped in sadly coloured cloths prayed to broken figurines of unknown religion. But this land is not a terra incognita. These people around me, they know well their history and they know well where they belong. And here I recounted the wrinkles and the saga of Phnom Penh, the woebegone Cambodian part of earth.

The other day, when the ability to think was a problem, the doctors were killed. The teachers were killed. The cham Muslims, the Vietnamese, the monks were all killed. The Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot deserted cities and demolished civilizations, temples, schools, law courts and markets. Familial bonds were forbidden. When relationships and ties were the problem, mothers and children were separated. Fathers were killed. Sisters were taken away and never returned.

Stood there a former high school that turned into a notorious Security Prison in 1975 known as Tuol Sleng, Hill of Poisonous Trees. I walked in with unwillingness where many school rooms divided into torture chambers and crude cells. Thousands of photographs of victim’s frightened faces and blood stains of yesteryears painted the wall.

The other day, hundreds of prisoners arrived in Tuol Sleng each day with hands chained, eyes blindfolded. Their photographs were taken and their autobiographies were written before they were stripped to their underwears. They were detained and chained in mass, forbidden to communicate with fellow prisoners. Twice a day they were fed with four small spoonfuls of porridge and soup of leaves. And the rest of the day with beatings, tortures, sexual abuses and interrogations. Sometimes they were forced to feast human feces and urine. Among the prisoners were foreigners, some of them arrested by Khmer when their boats drifted into Cambodian waters. None of the 17000 prisoners survived except for seven fortunate ones. Most of them brought to Choeung Ek for further tortures and executions. Some were killed by bleeding them to death in the prison, some by serious beatings. Most of them were burried headless, with hearts doing their final beats in mass graves of Choeung Ek.

A tuk tuk brought me to Choeung Ek Genocidal Center, landmarked by a Buddhist stupa fifteen kilometres from Phnom Penh where the stench of death clung on me. Incense sticks were vaporizing. Flowers were burgeoning. The tourists solemnly prayed for the deceased and I did nothing but stared at the skulls with their memories that weren’t purged.

The other day, trucks would arrive here every three weeks with not less than thirty blindfolded prisoners (intellectuals, ministers, foreigners, women, children, peasants…) mostly transported from Tuol Sleng. The frightened them were led to ditches for immediate execution. They cried, they moaned but overshadowed by the loudspeakers that played the sound recordings of festivals, music and laughter. But when victims to be executed increased to over 300 per day, it became impossible for the ditches and pits to swallow them within a day. They were detained in a dark wooden rooms for the next day’s killing. On January 1979 one last truck remained here until today. None came back.

I walked from one mass grave to another, made of 1,386,734 victims; unearthed in 1980. I was stepping without realizing on bones and teeth fragments, sometimes on the patches of cloths worn last by the dead victims. The killing tree stood in front of me as a demoniac fiend.

The other day, to kill along the possibility of sprouts of revenge in later days, babies and children were executed after their parents. The babies horrendously smashed against the killing tree with a belief – cleaning grasses, it shall dig its entire root off.

I left Phnom Penh with photographs in my camera hung around my neck. With questions stewing in my head. With a strange fear palpitating along with the beat of my heart. And with a promise I gave to myself, not to return again to this part of earth for it gave me the utmost dismay and apprehension.

juvenescence of a night

2011-06-08T00:00:00.008+08:00

Night came without an invitation. The transition was divine. Nights had been always this beautiful. It was the thought of men that made it dirty, spine-chilling and bloodcurdling. I was reminded of my favourite subject during my childhood, Colours. You take the colour navy blue and squeeze it on a drawing paper. And then you take the colour black and squeeze a little (very) around the same spot. You mix them with paint brush and ease the process with drips of water and that’s what you could almost get – the colour of the juvenescence of a night. Divine.

My co-travellers left me behind in the room with the thought that I was a dead man (with a migraine). I doused water over my face and picked up the most vibrant t-shirt and dressed up and scrambled down to the street. I waved at a motorbike taxi and he asked me in return “Yu wan kampong girl?”. Oh shit, shut up that kampong girls nonsense, I thought but gave him a plastic smile in contradiction. “Bring me around the city. Just around the city” I told him. I hop onto the bike. The taxi man, my migraine and I had the ride around the city through the humps, potholes, splotches of mud and the malodorous back lanes of Hat Yai. Young girls in front of their massage parlours waved at me and screamed with papery voice “massage, massage Sir”. The taxi man turned back and said “we got a new Thai girl show in town Sir, just around tis place” and squawked a laugh. The further we went from the city central, the quieter Hat Yai became. Poorly lit suburbs with two-legged-ones hardly seen, with meagrely played pub music, and with less business opportunities except for some hawker stalls with dim yellow light. The stink was stronger. The civilization was a child. And that was a ghost town I saw before I quickly decided to return.

I was back in my room, trying to imitate the me whom my co-travellers left under the blanket with a migraine. I played the dead man again. Outside, a lady people affectionately call mamasan was yelling. Mamasans are the rich businesswomen in Thailand working as the lady-pimps. We are talking about some serious legal business here. Transvestites are the country’s notable treasure and some see them as pundits of unrestrained sexual cravings. Sharing the piece of cake are the real lady prostitutes and the male hookers. Some call them the culture. The culture was knocking doors, she was spitting words I don’t know. The tik tok tik tok of the culture’s stiletto heels was a hammer on my head each. I wanted to open my door and tell her to shut up her noisy mouth but how could I with the migraine on my head. Someone obviously did not pay for the service. I slept. And my migraine had an intercourse with a wild imagination that came afterward.

He was on top of her. Or was she on top of him? They uttered out monstrously the pleasure within the brothel’s four walls, sometimes it escaped like the cookie crumbs from the Cookie Monster’s plate-like mouth. Toe to toe. Fingertip to fingertip. Lust transformed into rides. Rides into a broken bed. Orgasm.

temples

2011-06-02T21:28:00.003+08:00

I am a dabbawalla. My trips are like a Tiffin carrier. Every compartment is a destination where I store my accomplished wants. I am God and my devotees are ~~happy~~. They are my inner wants. I am something and my aficionados are ~~happy~~. They are my inner wants. I am sex and my amorists are ~~happy~~. They are my inner wants.

People speak English here. Hence, messages are comprehensible and to obtain a temple tour for 500 Baht wasn’t a challenge at all. It was totally different in Bangkok two years back, when I unzipped my pants to make them understand that toilet was what I was looking for after numerous attempts of communication. We jumped into a van driven by a young Thai lad. On his LCD, he played a sex video. He drove us to places where statues live on earth like humans. To Wats.

Around me elephants were blessed with garlands. Lotuses were breathing their final breath. Lips murmured prayers. Gods listened. Monks laughed.

When I noticed a girl in her scanted shorts, incense sticks in her grasp smoking like a chimney environing her bosom, I knew for sure I loaded into my Tiffin carrier a brand new sin. Who am I? A devotee: ardent and pious? A photographer: keen and observant? A tourist: insouciant/nonchalant? Or a sinner?

I arrived in Samila beach with a migraine. I laid down somewhere like as if I was a child and like as if that somewhere was a crib. All I wanted was my hotel bed when the rest photographed themselves beside the Songkhla mermaid. She was the ugliest mermaid I ever seen. And to be frank, my migraine needed more attention than anything else.

I forced myself to like this place like I did some years ago to eggplant, tomatoes, the smell of milk and the word 'fuck'.

2011-05-30T00:53:00.011+08:00

Arrived. With a small pain on my neck, a little hunger on my stomach, a slight thirst on my throat. The railway station was a sad thing, miserably dirty and a home for the feebly beggars and drunkards. Anyway, that’s Thai. I looked up at Hat Yai when a tuk tuk driver enquiring my destination, when a lady with a straw hat on her head selling me stuffs I don’t know and when the sun wasn’t a hot thing.

I was not excited. Everything here a photocopy of the place I came from, Malaysia except for a Thai song from somebody’s radio. I walked through the worn and stale buildings of Hat Yai towards a small bunch of new ones, clearly visible for their heights. I should have travelled further north, where the smell and sound of Malaysia is completely gone. Where there is abandonment of broken Malay on the Siamese tongues. Where mangoes, breasts and tom yam manifest themselves more like Thai fellows. First thing to settle was the accommodation. I am not keen into hotels with extravagant price tags, with comfortable thick bed, with five-stars meal, with the roar of an air-conditioner overshadowing the croaks of frogs at night. I am a street person. Backpackers lounge is posh enough and I do not grumble about sleeping in the open parks. But with demanding co-travellers beside me, at least a decent hotel is a must now. You know – someone to make your bed every morning, someone to replace your dirty towels and top up the fridge, something to be eaten in a morning hotel buffet and some numbers to dial when you’re in need of a body massage. And if you can get all these for just 600 Baht for a night, why not sometimes pamper your good self. At the entrance of my hotel, a Ronald McDonald was standing with his palms kissing each other. Welcome to Lee Gardens Hotel, he said without saying, with his swollen lips smiling.

I was in my room, high enough to see the most of Hat Yai. Old gray buildings planted like maize in a farm, with paint smelled of erstwhile memories. I forced myself to like this place like I did some years ago to eggplant, tomatoes, the smell of milk and the word 'fuck'.

I slurped with pleasure the tomyam reminiscing my earlier encounters on my way to this restaurant. “Kampong girls? Yuu wan kampong girls. I bring yuu der.” the voice of the tuk tuk drivers still audible around my temples. Kampong girls means village girls. And the fact that they were asking me means prostitution, as simple as that. Minutes ago, my co-travellers declared to the waitress that they couldn’t consume pork and pineapples. Thank God you don’t put these things into tomyam and I continued tasting my tomyam (without pork and pineapples in it). And I can certainly forget about pork and pineapples for the next two days. Even though so, I forced myself to like this place like I did some years ago to eggplant, tomatoes, the smell of milk and the word 'fuck'.

to Hat Yai by train

2011-05-25T00:11:00.005+08:00

My journey to the north of South East Asia started off with a McDonalds meal; quick, cheap and unwholesome. I boarded into the train of ten-hours-of-boredom when I still had the taste of chocolate sundae on the tip of my tongue. With me hundred other passengers – men with their ladies, ladies with their kids and kids with their toys, pillows and tantrums. I took my seat by the window, continued eating my chicken burger with brimful mayonnaise. The kids, the plague were making so much of havoc and the train didn’t move. The aunties were showing excessive discomfort on their wrinkled face and the train didn’t move. The horn made a long snore and the train at last set off from Kuala Lumpur. People say, every dog has its master, or was it every dog has its day. As the train travels along the curvy Malaysian peninsular, I thought myself: Every trip is a responsibility. Every journey is a job. A job of self-satisfying and self-educating. Until then you’re beholden to that trip. It was boring the train journey and I was sick of the smell of my chair and I was sicker when the kids kept making noises you don’t want to listen. I walked from one compartment to another, maybe six of them with the curiosity on what the canteen has to offer for my hungry stomach. I reached, forgetting how to walk straight and guess what, I saw nothing. These train canteens are all the same, they smell like a toilet and sell nothing. And I walked back to my seat, the other end of the train, six compartments away.

I was half-sleeping-half-awake like a half-boiled egg while sitting on my second class seat, watching with extreme covetousness the next coach, first class bed seats. They were sold out the other day when I was purchasing the ticket. I studied in detail the faces of people who were quicker than me, the victors. I slept. Somehow everybody around me did the same. They snored but.

With my book scantily touched, with almost ten hours of journey spent with my eyes shut, with my damp towel on my face I arrived in Padang Besar, the border of Malaysia and Thailand. Border crossing isn’t like last time when it used to be thrilling and fun. Nowadays, you will just need to carry your passport over to the box counters, get it stamped by the stern looking officers and walk across the border. No more troops with German shepherds and M16s, no more long queues and no more greasing one’s palms. The train swallowed me once again. All the other coaches were disconnected, left now only with two, mine and the first class bed seat coach. To Hat Yai on the way another two hours spent like a wink.

Bangkok 2009

2011-05-24T23:16:00.003+08:00

Two years back, so much of memory loss in between, I was in Bangkok. The city was dancing every night, drenched in Chang. It was strange to discover penes behind pretty faces, a Brahma behind a four-faces Buddha. I loved Bangkok. For being dirty, animated and a prima donna.

the journey of a mirror

2011-05-24T00:44:00.007+08:00

Magic Mirror on the Wall, who is the Fairest one of all?

I am a mirror and I have around me colours that speak louder than words. Surein purchased me in a souvenir shop by the beach of Gold Coast on a Halloween day. He was good looking, that was for sure. I was hung on the wall like a dog to a leash with layers of dust and beach sand for a long time until the day he arrived at my door, looking at me like no one did. And that day I knew that I was the beauty of Surfers Paradise. He bargained my price like a cheapskate but he failed as the salesgirl did not buy his look-there’s-a-scratch-mark nonsense. He bought me still for I am a beauty, like I told you before.

And I followed him wherever he took me that night. I was excited, over-excited to be exact and with him I explored Gold Coast for the first time. To an Irish Bar with music so loud that I would have been cracked into pieces if he didn't walk out that time.

To the streets of Surfers Paradise that went dead. Except for the men who drunk themselves into a stupor, perfumed with the stench of beer or whiskey.

To the Hard Rock Cafe.

And to a nearby casino where he slept by me when I wondered why he couldn't afford a decent hotel room. On the way, I posed for his camera like a bitch. All the time I did.

Broadbeach, not forgetting.

He packed me in bubble wrap and I looked like a princess, ready for the trip of my life the next morning. To his motherland, a place called Malaysia.

And here I am on his wall like an ornament on a Christmas tree.

Halloween in Gold Coast

2011-05-22T19:04:00.001+08:00

I arrived in Gold Coast on a jack-o’-lanterns day when trumpets, whistles and horns played their Sound of Music in pubs and discotheques. Halloween. It turned beach into Disneyland, pubs into brothels. The beach town welcomed me with its residents in vividly coloured costumes, I thought as a self-centred man. The costumes of craziness, creativity and naughtiness were fun to see and yet a stress to the eyes. Bittersweet. A leather dressed cat woman with a walking spider tied to her leash, Super Mario with his bushy moustache, Jesus with a blessing cross in His hand: were some who I could still remember as they walked around and around me many times so much so they were nailed on my memory. Oh dear, I hate beer but nothing else I could find in here. But with all those new songs playing ear-splittingly on the stereo, with all the stupid moves that the superheroes and cartoon characters put on the dance floor, it was a different beer. The next day was my flight back home and sleep was almost unnecessary. I spent the night until the sun came up, in a nearby Casino where the chuckles of coins never die.

MILF

2011-05-19T01:49:00.004+08:00

MILF = Meat I Love to Feast

On many occasions I put my crave for kangaroo meat in words, verbally in many formats. “Come to Australia and not eating the most wanted meat in here, come on!” I faked my arrogance. “Hey look, the kangaroo road sign. We shall try eating one soon” waking up from my lethargy, I pointed out as my another hand winding down the car window like an over-thrilled kid. “I am not going to leave Australia without eating a pinch of her kangaroo” I demanded with class when I was in the Brisbane museum, posing for the camera beside a man-made kangaroo.

Recommended by my Australian host, a posh restaurant selling the meat of the wildest things was my dinner place in Brisbane. Very much similar to a Malaysian restaurant with main menu of crocodiles, venison of poor dears, paddy frogs that no longer jump and tasty wild boars; on which locals pay scant attention. My host, a married Chinese couple shared with me their stories of migration from Singapore to Australia and expressed how badly they wanted to do this in reverse, to be back in Asia and to invest in a business. I listened while I feast my crave. Both, my ears and my taste buds were occupied. I multi-tasked. The tender meat of the hopper melted on my tongue like a chocolate. It tasted like lamb. Tender like chicken.

Xin Fu's pizza

Ally's lamb

everybody's wedges

and finally, mine mine mine

ginger beer, coffee and a night

2011-05-03T00:24:00.005+08:00

Brisbane at night was a modern Carcosa, mysterious. And made of a buoyant crowd, savoring their city life. Playing in my imaginary headphones was a Cassilda's Song:

Along the shore the cloud waves break,

The twin suns sink behind the lake,

The shadows lengthen

In Carcosa.

Strange is the night where black stars rise,

And strange moons circle through the skies,

But stranger still is

Lost Carcosa.

A bottle of ginger beer was the beginning of my moonlight odyssey. Bundaberg was the name. The taste of fresh gingers immediately changed my perception of the ordinary drink of such back home, with cheap price tags. Amazing is what travel teaches you along the way, like an ardent school teacher. A journey remoulds the thinking like as if it’s a wet clay on a turning potter’s wheel.

Every time I see this picture, it reminds me how bad I was eaten up by the previous backpacking days around the Australian outback. I was left with fifty kilograms of bones mostly, as thin as their kangaroos.

A coffee became a need and that was by the Brisbane river. A lovely river it was with her curves housing the ever awake business opportunities. At the background of my coffee break was the Story Bridge, singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars.

And this the Brisbane Eyes, spinning man made mechanical thing.

Did I tell you that Australians are very straight forward in person?

Brisbane

2011-04-30T23:55:00.005+08:00

Every city has its story.

Kuala Lumpur is now going crazy with Anwar Ibrahim’s sex video. Perhaps the whole nation is out of equilibrium and the rumours (or facts, only God knows) spread from one mouth to another like a flu. The temptation to type out “Anwar Ibrahim sex video” in the online search engines is as good as my crave for peri-peri chicken at this very moment. It’s funny that every election we have a brand new porn movie released. And the actors in nude are our politicians or their look-a-likes.

Every city has its story. London is raining with confetti of the Royal Wedding. Everybody is talking about how disappointing the royal kiss was. I am not sure what is all the hype about, turning a peanut into a global event for no reasons. These I like about every city I visited to date, their stories, their twist, their peanuts/global events. Sometimes, their girls. Sometimes, their abnormalities.

Brisbane was burgeoning with the purple petals of the Jacarandas. The sun was out keeping the venues hot. We took a flight from Cairns the night before, to this place, the capital of Queensland. Prosperous. And looking rich. It was the Safe Work Australia week. Strange birds were walking like they were the rightful ones in the streets of the city, bothered less about the people around them. College girls were handing out to the passers by, pamphlets telling people the availability of rooms for rent which I enjoyed watching. I did a trip to the library, to the museum crossing the river from one bank to another via Brisbane’s beautiful bridges.

Wallaman Falls, an experience

2011-04-21T19:54:00.002+08:00

We clambered down through the rainforest of Tropical North Queensland before we wetted ourselves under the mother-nature’s shower. All the way down, the waterfall was playing a sonata incessantly, like a didgeridoo. Spiders and strange faunas ignored our presence and lived their mundane life with their forever ease. It was surprisingly a tougher job to do, to climb down a hilly wild forest. I still remember how my buttocks was aching. I am not sure if it was the same with Ally and Xin Fu, my co-travellers. But I know that they liked Wallaman Falls as much as I did. Waterfall and some photographs, at last. It drizzled madly and still is in memory.

some hours ago...

On our way to Wallaman Falls we did two things with utmost urgency and importance like as if we will not get to do them again:

(1) we packed some good food

(2) we stopped by at the Australian famous Frosty Mango outlet for a refreshment of frosted fresh mangoes

Mind you, we drove almost 275 kilometres from Airlie Beach to North of Townville to witness this grand view of Wallaman Falls which is Australia’s highest sheer drop waterfall at 268 metres and what is a small Tupperware of Frosty Mango? The travel itself made me feeling like a gypsy, sometimes like a crazy man. On top of that, we had to drive up the secluded mountain/hill of Girringun National Park (it was too low for a mountain and too high for a hill, hence resulting this dumb-blonde-ignorance). The laterite road was bumpy, the forest murmured things and it was a little creepy at times. Blair Witch Project came to our mind uninvited but little did we know that it was going to be our best day in Australia. One thing that I really liked doing was to jungle track and to mount climb was perhaps the second thing. Back in Malaysia, I have climbed some wonderful mountains and bukits (hills in Malay) and something slightly different this time in Down Under, I clambered down instead. This somehow brought back to me my old likings, my playthings.

journeys

2011-04-03T00:32:00.117+08:00

Many times my childhood bedtime story, spoon-fed by mother together with Marmite-rice was the Puranic legend of Lord Ganesha walking away with the divine mango of wisdom after winning the race-around-the-world. Sulked Ganesha alongside his roly-poly mouse looking at Murugan’s promising vehicle, a gigantic peacock with a well-known speed. He thought: How could this poor thing compete with a peacock with papery feathers? He circumambulated his parents instead, declaring them as his world. But it was not the victor Ganesha who beguiled me then but the defeated Murugan’s journey around the world thrice with his flying peacock that seemed both fascinating and extraordinary.

I spent most of my childhood dreaming about places besides watching Popeye at grandma's place and stalking Iza Izahana in school. I spent substantial fraction of my kid time dreaming about places. And structures were my favourite kid-food. I anatomized them in details but with that small age in my pockets, I cannot be blamed for being wrong with my facts and figures. I still remember how I used to think pyramids were God-made, that Taj Mahal was a posh-looking mosque, that Statue of Liberty was Indian and that Eiffel Tower was the tallest building in the world. During my adult years, I peeled off layer by layer my childhood misunderstandings and miscalculations. It was the day I stood beneath the Big Ben that became the most memorable event in my life. How not when it was my favourite man-made-thing since my diapers days. And during my journeys, sometimes I bumped into structures I never heard of but turned out to be fantastic experiences. One of them was the Sacré-Coeur Basilica on the highest peak of Paris, Montmarte. A dedication to Sacred Heart of Jesus, it is too a monument for the atrocious recapturing of Paris during the time when the socialist, government La Commune de Paris crowning its most obstinate neighbourhood in 1871.

Big Ben at the back, London 2010

Sacré-Coeur Basilica, Paris 2010

I thought Stonehenge was a bunch of stones doing nothing, UK 2010

III

Being a foreigner in a foreign land automatically grants one the VIP privileges of many kind. When I walked through the wildest street in Bangkok, Patpong where pubs and discotheques running good entertainment businesses, I was stopped by well-built Thai men and surreptitiously shown laminated posters of various sex shows with funny names: Thai Girl Show, Ping-Pong Show, Go-Go Girls to name a few. And this I liked the most when I travel, to be the centre of attraction despite knowing the fact that it was all for the dollars inside my pockets. This is a norm in poor countries, I can tell for sure. I was chased for miles by a midget lady belonged to the Black H’mong tribe in the hilly Sapa of Vietnam for not buying her cross-stitched artwork. In Cambodia, a tuk tuk driver stalked me all night long, alluring me into his vehicle that earned him only a dollar and later a bell-boy spent hours selling his cheap hotel room which I didn’t end up taking. In all cases, I felt honoured and at times inspired and emotionally touched for reasons I couldn’t phantom. Talking about inspirations, I must tell you that nothing could be more inspirational in Bangkok than a statue of a little boy with a little penis, blowing a conch shell; standing in the midst of green lotus leaves and purple lotuses. Even its world-class legal prostitution became nickel-and-dime.

an unplanned party, Bangkok 2009

the boy with a conch shell and a little penis, Bangkok 2009

the tribe ladies in Sapa, Vietnam 2011

I have seen people consuming the weirdest food during my days and nights in places I shared my memories with. Immoral, I thought at first and it took me ages to realize that one man’s meat is another man’s poison. Thank God, kangaroo was the strangest thing I have ever eaten to date. The juicy flesh of the hopper was grilled with unknown greens and herbs, tasted much better than the bloody half-cooked duck meat I tried in the city central of Paris. Paris was equally exciting when it comes to food; the snails in Escargot drenched in a French sauce, cooked with milk if I am not wrong was an extreme treat to my adventurous taste buds. I did not try the frog legs though. I stayed away quite a distance from the fried insects in Bangkok and the medical drink made of snakes and scorpions in Vietnam. On the other hand, I truly loved the road-side noodles in hot soup of fresh cockles, mostly in Hanoi and that Qiu Lian Ban Mee in Singapore which I used to carry over to a nearby Pig Intestines shop just to eavesdrop the Opera-like song that she, the shop owner murmured every other day. And to watch her curves.

my road-side lunch, Hanoi 2011

right after a satisfying breakfast of Egg Benedict, Australia 2010

Escargot, Paris 2010

Almost December 2006, I was sitting on the wooden bench in Boat Quay, Singapore with a resignation letter shied inside my bag. In front of me was the Singapore River and imaginary boats made of confusion. I was reminiscing my six months sojourn in Singapore which was my first overseas trip and I was disappointingly calculating the reasons why the journey ended too soon. On my side was a beautiful girl, Risk whom I took along with me back to my hometown, a suburb of Malaysia not knowing what awaits me the upcoming years: journeys.

i see red, i see blue

2011-03-24T00:00:00.005+08:00

Sometimes it was good to be away from the country, to pretend like as if the awful commitments were forgotten, to stubbornly deny the fact that I have a father and and a mother; and to stay away from the stupid debates on who is the innocent: Saiful Bukhari or Anwar Ibrahim? Sometimes it was better even, just to know that I have a flight ticket purchased and kept somewhere for an upcoming furlough.

Morning was coming soon. We drove once again to the Castle Hill but this time with clumsiness and somnolence. Obviously neither I nor did the girls get enough from the hill last night. The Saint was hanging in a form of graffiti on the surface of the rock hill where the colour of earth was prominent. That was the same saint we saw last night, in a stick-man format with a halo upon his head.

The truth is: the sun never wait for anybody, nor does the urge to see it shrink or dilate. In Malaysia, sometime back I hiked in rush with my heart palpitating like nobody’s business towards the tip of Broga Hill just to watch the nascent orangey fire ball. I almost ran out of sweat while I cycled in Siem Riep a month back with a DSLR around my neck to see Angkor Wat during the sunset. And here in Townsville, Xin Fu made the whole sun rising scene a dream by playing “The Last Song”. Famous, she said. As the famous tune (awkward at first) developed from a word into a song, the sun blossomed in front of us. We sort of dissected the newborn sun and examined it in detail like as if it was on a high-schoool-Science-lab-table. The song sang, watching the stars till they’re gone like an actor all alone…

Watching the stars till they're gone
Like an actor all alone
Who never knew the story he was in
Who never knew the story ends.
Like the sky reflecting my heart
All the colors become visible
When the morning begins
I'll read the last line

Owaranai ame dakishimeta yoru ga asa o mukaeru
Kokoro wa mada nureta mama

In endless rain I've been walking
Like a poet feeling pain
Trying to find the answers
Trying to hide the tears
But it was just a circle
That never ends
When the rain stops, I'll turn the page
The page of the first chapter
Kizutsuku dake kizutsuite wakatta hazu no kotae o
Doushite mada toi kaketeru
Am I wrong to be hurt
Am I wrong to feel pain
Am I wrong to be in the rain
Am I wrong to wish the night won't end
Am I wrong to cry
But I know, It's not wrong to sing The Last Song
Cause forever fades

Kigatsukeba mata hikari-yoru no sora o mitsumeteru
Sukoshi-zutsu kiete yuku OUR MEMORIES
Kizutsuku dake kizutsuite wakatta hazu no kotae o
Doushite mada toi kaketeru

I see red
I see blue
But the silver lining gradually takes over
When the morning begins
I'll be in the next chapter

Owaranai ame dakishimeta yoru ga asa o mukaeru
Kokoro wa mada nureta mama
Kizutsuku dake kizutsuite wakatta hazu no kotae o
Doushite mada toi kaketeru

it was a threesome

2011-03-17T21:55:00.002+08:00

In Townsville, we stayed in a backpackers hostel. It stood quietly in a suburb slightly away from the quieter city central. Here, all I could hear were the sexy giggles of the young backpackers. Outside, many decent restaurants were alluring hungry passers-by, one of them where I had my dinner of juicy ribs earlier. Hunger was dead.

Three of us received stares from the temporary occupants like as if we were a peculiar thing. How not, when I am an Indian and two of them Chinese girls loitering, giving away the best Colgate smiles. I understood their confusion. Little did many aware that Malaysians are mostly Malays, Indians and Chinese in race. For them, probably I was from India and the girls were from China and for three of us to be a thing was nearly impossible.

Good news was we got a room for six, but for the three of us. Unlike the one we stayed in Airlie Beach, this backpackers was more school-like: the same gray on staircase, the same smell of bricks and paint. It somewhat gave me a feeling like as if I was staying in a school hostel. A huge kitchen opened its doors for overnight cooks and the wannabes. Washing machines and iron boxes were unusual for a budget place. Still, bad news: the bed was hard like rock, thin like a paper. I am not suppose to whimper as all the other Lonely Planet recommended hostels were full. Not forgetting that I have considerable experiences of sleeping in worse places among which an open park in the middle of Phnom Penh, Cambodia where crime was a piece of cake. This was good enough.

Townsville, an intimidation

2011-03-13T20:39:00.005+08:00

I was already burnt like an over-microwaved cookie. The sun was at its highest possible degree. And I was still stubborn for not applying the sun block. In fact, I didn’t bring any.

Townsville: certain amount of structures, certain amount of nature, certain amount of sports and certain amount of everything. I always had an image of how I want my retirement place to be. Townville reflected that image precisely and that certain amount of everything makes it a good place to live in. And I would be a happy old man one day if and only if.

An abrupt decision was made that evening that Castle Hill will be hiked, or to be honest, I will be driving to the hilltop for the sunset. I drove all the way up despite the fact that I was dead tired, passing by the healthy townsmen doing their routines of exercises. I was being extra cautious not to knock anyone off the steep hill. Throughout this trip I was kept stressing that Australians are health conscious. And that was obviously an obvious thing. And that too intimidated me more than often. Back home, I bought a pair of dumbbells years back and now they are lying in peace under a blanket of spider webs. Every one month I put an odd effort to run around the neighbourhood lake but every other day I did nothing but to sit or sleep and eat. My gym membership was a waste. Townsville re-motivated me but cowed me in many ways. Who doesn’t want a flat abs and bumpy arms?

Sunset was amazing. The rays of twilight shone on the little boxes which I assume to be the houses belong to the people of Townsville. The way the day ended was an experience.

Dinner was ribs and Sangria.

on the road...again

2011-01-20T23:04:00.005+08:00

It isn’t short the journey to Townsville and we got to stop somewhere. It was when I felt like having a break, came to me like a gift this one place with just one thing – nature. I saw nothing else – no Homo sapiens (except the three of us), no buildings, no vehicles, no gossips but just nature. I remember Xin Fu saying, “Wow, is this Africa?”. I had the same feeling, like as if I was in Sahara. I imagined the fast and furious cheetah, the father-like elephants, the sickly looking Thomsons Gazelle and the African Giraffe that I always liked.

The verdure was like a giant curtain introducing the beetling white clouds in the blue sky. The invisible birds were only noticeable by their tweets but nowhere to be seen. I learnt the smell of greens for the first time.

Before we continued the 275 kilometres journey, we dipped some rice crackers into the basil dip for lunch. We chomped some apples and munched some breads. Far away, we knew Townsville was waiting with a plate of adventures.

the journey

2011-01-18T00:22:00.002+08:00

For a journey this inspiring, we packed a Basil dips and rice crackers; we screamed an euphoric song. And funny the way Australian named their creeks: The Snake Creek, the Chinaman Creek, the Wadda Mooli Creek, the Goondaloo Creek and the Electric Creek to name a few. We often caught ourselves laughing.

break-the-fast

2011-01-17T23:49:00.002+08:00

I am trying to recall what happened that morning. In my half-wakefulness, I was facing a plate of Egg Benedict. The creamy yolks from the poached eggs peeped and wished me a good morning. The English muffins were wearing red slices of ham and I stripped them off while an Australian radio channel was singing. Outside, young backpackers were burgeoning most possibly to do what we did the previous day. With these resting on her shoulder, could she Airlie Beach ever sleep?

under the moonlight, a Gavotte-like dance

2011-01-17T01:13:00.011+08:00

Good it feels to express my fascination over number twenty-three and somehow it’s becoming an addict. The reason for this infatuation is a numerology book that tells great things about this number (or was it thirty-two? whatever!). One thing I don’t like about numerology, it beguiles you from the reality. It eats up your confidence like a Pac-Man.

So when we got number twenty-three on our table, somehow I got excited. That was how we ribbon-cut our night in Airlie’s beach, with an Indian dinner like as if I wasn’t an Indian. The girls suggested beer to start with and I agreed although I am not really a beer person. Sometimes, I wildly wonder how people drink something this bitter and ill-scented. I went to the bar, dubiously asked the girl behind the counter for the lightest Australian beer she had and she gave me three bottles of XXXX beer. And I told my girls that that was the best I could find. They believed.

We walked to another pub after the dinner and to another one after that, drinking stuffs I can’t remember. But mostly fruity and tropical, that I can tell you for sure. I wasn’t drunk at all but already telling the girls stories weren’t meant to tell. With music that loud, I believe they heard almost none. Under the moonlight, some drunken ones danced all of a sudden a dance like Gavotte but a quicker and a hyper version. And I slept with the memory of the dance on the backpacker's bed that smelled like the previous occupant.

I must admit: I don’t really drink much, probably once or twice a year. Like a camel and the water. Like a desert and the rain. The last time I remember drinking prosperously was during William’s wedding dinner many many months ago. Nothing can be more rip-roaring than a best friend’s wedding. Here, some pictures taken during the dinner for which everyone promised to wear blue and when all of them kept their promise except me. I opted for a white shirt that Shiaw Mei thought I was looking good in. I still remember how she insisted that I should buy that particular one from a shop that had nothing else for me. It’s rare to find a shirt or jeans that suit my body. Almost impossible.

the night was coming

2011-01-09T22:29:00.001+08:00

For auld lang syne, my dear,

for auld lang syne,

we'll take a cup of kindness yet,

for auld lang syne.

The boats and yachts docked and still. The brackish wind was now sluggish. A bush turkey sang “Auld Lang Syne”. The doors and windows of Airlie Beach were all shut and quiet. The dogs growled.

The night was coming.

surein, Xin Fu (the little fish) & Ally (the Bond girl) @ The Great Barrier Reef, Australia

2011-01-09T18:53:00.002+08:00

At first I didn’t want to snorkel. I thought of just being the photographer from the boat. I was helping the boat boys with some chores in the boat until Xin Fu came to me like a little fish and said, “Surein, Surein it’s fantastic over there. Come, come, come!”. And I jumped into the sea leaving behind the tasks given to me and the joyless boat boys gave me a disappointed look. I followed her to wherever she swam (like a quick little fish) and yes she was right: I almost missed the beautiful Great Barrier Reef. The view was a million bucks worth. I kissed jollily the ocean and sometimes the fishes and the corals. On the other hand when all these were taking place, Ally was returning back to the main boat on a hovercraft manoeuvred by a well built man. With her tight black swimsuit, with her hair swirling in the air she looked like a Bond girl.

This place is the home for 30 species of whales, dolphins and porpoises; 17 species of sea snakes, at least 1500 fish species, 49 species of mass spawn, 330 species of ascidians, 500 species of bryozoans and 6 species of sea turtles; crocodiles; 125 species of shark, stingray and chimaera; 5000 species of mollusc, giant clam, nudibranchs and cone snails; 49 species of pipefish, 9 species of seahorse, 7 species of frogs, 215 species of birds and 250 plant species.

Look what Xin Fu have saved me from missing, the great Great Barrier Reef and the great satisfaction.

Whitehaven Beach: 98% pure silica + 2% girls in bikinis

2011-01-09T14:12:00.006+08:00

“Welcome to Whitehaven Beach,” said the boat boy via a microphone that seemed like a part of his flesh and blood already. I jumped over, dragging along my camera bag which became the girls mobile locker for most of the time throughout the road trip. Girls don’t like to carry stuffs, we all know that for sure from experience. The sand was so soft, so much so almost all my legs went deep inside and got buried every step I made. The sand was made of silica, giving it that white as the colour, the boat boy said. I could taste salt in between my lips, the evident of a bouncy boat ride.

It was a dream scene. Almost an unpopulated sea, a secluded beach, a beautiful fusion of colour in between the beach and the sea, with some girls in bikinis made it hard to believe. From a mile I could smell fresh prawns the boat boys were preparing for lunch far inside the green foliage. And to run away from all those temptations, I jumped into the crystal clear sea. I smiled like a happy kid!

Lunch was simple and healthy. My plate was looking like as if it was coloured by a three years old. The prawns were still alive? I had a doubt! That fresh they were, golden orange in colour, curled like a new born infant.

I could guess what the rest of them were thinking after lunch: you brought me to a heavenly beach, you gave me good food and now bring me to the world famous Great Barrier Reef as the happy ending.

blue

2011-01-02T15:33:00.002+08:00

I never liked blue this much before. In fact I never liked blue at all. Even when blue belongs to Aiswaria Rai’s eyes. The way Airlie Beach open up, overlooking the Whitsundays was like a break point at which a secret was revealed. And it was all in blue that I start liking.

The journey to Whitsunday Island was a brand new experience although it reminded me a little the boat ride to Redang Island when I was twenty-three. The splashes of sea was refreshing. The breeze was fresh. The sound of the motorboat wasn’t a nuisance. Nor were the disorganized fellow passengers. It was consistently intriguing the journey all the way from Airlie Beach to Whitsunday Island. And outside, not so far away, I know many brown snakes, handful of Gilberts Potoroo, the friendly Koalas, the cute looking Platypus and 460000 aborigines were doing wild wild west. How exciting!

good morning Airlie Beach!

2010-11-22T21:32:00.001+08:00

The memory of last night’s bonking scene woke me up in the morning. Or was it Xin Fu who tapped me on my shoulder and woke me up like an alarm clock bought from the Chow Kit road? A cup of coffee introduced me to a well-lit Airlie Beach under the sun. Magnums Backpackers revealed itself; wooden and obscured within Australian greeneries. No wonder the chirps of birds were lunatic last night. The place I slept and spent my night in was a total stranger but no longer one now. The crowded venues last night were now unbelievably unoccupied. The only evidence of the clamorous wild yester night were the empty beer bottles and the stench of overspilt liquor. I had a tour bus to wait for. To the world’s largest reef system, one of the seven natural wonders of the world.

I was a little wanderer myself

2010-11-21T00:13:00.013+08:00

It was first the Bangkok’s Patpong Street that came to my mind as I walked into the full of pep main street of Airlie Beach. The same briskness and the same faces of gaiety. Pubs full of people with their deejays playing hit songs ornamented the long street. I was enticed into one with my exhausted co-travellers for our first toast of the road trip. It came to my notice that this place was engulfed with backpackers from all places of the globe, partying with their hands in the air, their feet hardly on earth.

A good looking boy and a good looking girl were making love when I opened the dorm door of the backpackers. All I could hear was their whispers. All I could remember about them was her back when she walked into the toilet as I was making my bed. They vanished like roadrunners when I woke up the next morning. Nothing much I have in mind now about the dorm. Sharing the dorm with me were my two co-travellers, the loving couple I mentioned earlier, a Vietnamese-looking girl with a netbook that kept her occupied all the time and two other girls with big appetite for each other. They brushed each others hair, they shared jokes in an unknown language, they walked out together and they walked in late night drunk, man-held each other.

My travel buddy was kept enouncing that she forgot to bring the poker cards. I was telling myself: Thank God you didn’t. We travelled 4022 miles not to play Blackjack. Did we? I had my own plan to take a promenade along the beach when the moon was still up which I did when the dorm’s light went off.

Often as a kid I wandered around alone away from my old neighbourhood, clambered down a red-brown hill, into a jungle where I found a river that led me to a small waterfall. I could see them coming those little fishes with monotonous colours on them. They kept me company until I heard weird calls and that was when I remembered fear and ran back home terrified. I went there again, again and again. But that place never stayed the same. The river stopped flowing one day, the jungle disappeared without a notice and the waterfall was nowhere to be seen. Our house we sold off and we moved into a new place. But little did I bothered about the house and all I cared about was that jungle that housed my many childhood memories.

from Brisbane to Mackay with many fantasies

2010-11-17T18:07:00.003+08:00

Amid the fever pitch a long wait was a maddening turn off. I have waited enough. For months before this trip take place. Earlier in the brisk Malaysian airport where everything was familiar. Later in the Gold Coast airport for the bus driver to gather enough passengers before he could start the journey. Now in the Brisbane airport with two girls who named me a camel for drinking only negligible amount of water. The truth is I can do nothing when I am overexcited. And what was drinking? A little more waiting possibly could piss me off. No doubt I like moving around but two flights in a day can be a pain in the ass.

Jetstar, a budget plane flew me from Brisbane to Mackay. I travelled over many marvellously curly rivers of Down Under; like snakes they moved to form a labyrinth. The sun was shrinking like a balloon running out of air. I slept on the pillow of rays formed by the ribbons of orange sky; and with the murmurs of my co-travellers on my temples. When I opened my eyes, the pilot was blaming turbulence for the delay of the touchdown as always, as expected. The Mackay Airport and a rental car was waiting in a night. I knew I had to drive for another four hours before destination but I was already imagining Airlie beach in the format of my spoiled fantasies.

I imagined Airlie beach to be like the one in Bournemouth, South England – a festive pier with a theme park sitting on it, a bunch of amateur surfers broadcasting their talent, a box of cheap Chinese fried rice, lazy girls in bikinis and a cold weather during the summer time of 2010. Let’s do a flashback:

the road trip

2010-11-08T23:58:00.008+08:00

With me a girl who travelled around Europe and Indochina on her own and a girl with an urge to travel around the world the hard way. We were just scarcely ambitious to plan our route this way, just a total of 3444 kilometres. From Brisbane to Mackay. From Mackay to Airlie Beach. Maybe to the Great Barrier Reef from Airlie Beach. And then to Townsville. From Townsville to Cairns before a trip back down to Brisbane. With a rental car and some budget flights and boat rides in between, we thought it was merely easy to accomplish. Rucksacks packed in minutes and we were all geared up for a rock and roll.

under a Jacaranda tree

2010-11-08T21:45:00.005+08:00

Though very tall, my leaf is small, its form is one of fern,

large panicles of bluebells swell to trumpet unconcern.

A Bee collecting nectar from an ample deep white throat,

takes flight to join its family, and of its feast to gloat.

Ann Beard

Blooming overhead the Jacarandas, the purple border line between me and the clear blue sky. I was deeply affected. It was in Singapore that I first began to understand this. That every venue on this planet has its own ID and that makes travelling fascinating. And it’s always personal on how one relate things to places he or she visits. To me for instance, Singapore is the Ya Kun Kaya Toast place and now looks like Brisbane is the Jacarandas. Whatever I got outside my home so far were tantamount to my desires. Whatever I got inside were otherwise.

and one fine day when I somehow ended up in the compound of University of Queensland, I got caught up in the rain of the bluebells of Jacarandas. I couldn't help posing for my D90 when good looking girls walked past by.

Indians-are-from-India-and-Chinese-are-from-China

2010-11-08T02:15:00.007+08:00

The word was that it was raining for days before I arrived. I saw that in the dampness of my surroundings, the puddles and the soggy leaves, the wet wind despite the hot sun. Quickly, I (and my co-traveller) was named as the 'sunshine carriers' from Malaysia. Whatever it was, I was glad to be the one who shooed away the dark clouds as sun is the torch for travellers. A friend was waiting with chicken schnitzels and a Brisbanian house. She shopped for fresh zucchinis, chicken coated in breadcrumbs the way Australians like it (and the way Austrians invented it or was it Italian?) and ingredients only girls familiar with right after a memorable Hongkie breakfast. She prepared a lunch like a master. We talked while we ate about my journey earlier from Gold Coast to Brisbane by a slow bus driven by an extremely friendly driver and our conversation drifted to most Australian’s Indians-are-from-India-and-Chinese-are-from-China misunderstanding. I still remember in a train to Broadbeach, a lady questioned me in doubt, “Malaysian? You look like you’re from India and funny that your name sounds Thai?” Ladies and gentlemen, now that's fallacy!

going Down Under

2010-10-25T06:48:00.017+08:00

To leave behind the smart dicks at work and some strange things happening at home, I thought running away to Australia was the denouement of the whole cock-up. To Gold Coast by a budget plane and from there a road trip to remember, I was hoping.

Those little little small wanderers on mother earth were amazingly unique with specifications of their own – the big nose Jenny, the always horny Tom, the grumpy Rose. That was what I liked the most about travelling – the people. I felt crazy seeing people sleeping everyplace as though they were on a comfy piece of bed. People play like as if the world their playground. Yes! we own a planet. When I was in England, despite the unfavorable feedbacks I received about the gypsies, I think I like them for their casualty and in them I see the passion for the world. Sometimes I wondered if I can just pack my rucksack and let go my stupid job for the world just like the gypsies. Life will be fun slurping noodles in the streets of China or watching the two-humped Bactrian camels lollop in desserts of Mongolia.

I met a Russian girl in the flight with coloured set of teeth and she presented it so well that she looked alright, perhaps perfect in my eyes! And the other day, someone old told me when I gave her my seat, “The magic of gray hair is fantastic.” Sometimes, it takes just seconds to appreciate the world but back home or at least around me back home there were instances when it were just winks to pinpoint and to push away the responsibilities. Therefore a break was important. I was not pushing away my responsibilities but I was just running away from them which was to me acceptable. I was an escapee. I liked it.

Arrived in Gold Coast, defenceless with shivers still resting on my back I was not so excited. Thanks to the cold air that enveloped me throughout the flight like a good friend. I thought I was dying. But how can I complain when the temperature outside was even worse, as low as sixteen degrees Celsius? The rich dampness was inviting.

just like the Busby Babes in Days gone by

2010-10-20T02:12:00.000+08:00

A very last minute decision but why Manchester? The only reason I can openly confess here is the Old Trafford, the greatest ever football venue. Some call it the theatre of dreams. I spent most of the day driving up north just to spend an hour or two at the stadium. Now, that's embarrassing! If you like driving as much as I do you will like what I did (and you will like me definitely *wink*). And if you're a die hard fan of Manchester United, I think you will do any distance to be here. To stand here and to sing your Glory Glory Man United song. For me, it was just a ho-hum Sunday to kill and therefore I did.

Some pictures that might make you as jealous as a pig:

A small walk around the city seemed to me a necessity before an unforgettable lunch of succulent braised shoulder of lamb. Served with mint and rosemary gravy, peas and vegetables. The background was a bunch of noisy youngsters and pretty waitresses in presentable black.

Clovelly, a tiptop beauty

2010-10-20T00:47:00.005+08:00

Driving around here was fun. The previous experience of driving all the way to Land's End from Portsmouth; and before that to Paris with so much of difficulties made my next destination a doddle. Clovelly was the place.

and a banana was my breakfast…

I walked down the 400' high cliff back to the 19th century for the world famous English fishing village on its cobbled pathway. I was sandwiched all the way down by vividly coloured small houses, with little windows, small doors and jolly good inhabitants. Greeted me their ornaments, carvings and the God-made smells of sea. Not forgetting a warm welcome stare by the village’s sluggish donkeys, a stare like as if they were saying, “Welcome dude!”. And I continued my walk happily knowing that I was not the most slothful thing on earth after all.

and and and this cat was a clown!

It was always a kick to see others having an equal amount of joyousness with me. And these kids did.

Towards an open sea I walked and I still don’t know why I was so impressed all of a sudden with that thin line that borders the sea. The I-have-conquered-the-world feeling overwhelmed me. Beautiful dot!

If I had the extra bucks that day I would have stayed another night there in the village for I love the tranquillity and peace that it was built in. Only last minute did I know that the village belongs to a family since 1738 and that they have kept it until today they very same way it used to be in 19th Century. Beautiful dot!

We went like "You jump, I jump" @ Gunung Datuk

2010-10-09T23:07:00.002+08:00

that was when I said, "Job done!"

the Malaysian green, Gunung Datuk

2010-10-09T16:45:00.017+08:00

I owe you folks a story. Let's do a flashback! The place was Gunung Dato when I was still in Malaysia, when my head was almost bald and that was when I was so passionate about mount climbing and jungle trekking.

The green foliage like paintings.
The chirps from birds that nowhere to be seen.
The footprints of four-legged ones and the previous mountaineers on wet muddy trail.
The smell of yesterday's rain.
The venation in each leaf, a story.

All these warm things enveloped us, the amateur climbers. We ran like monkeys when we should have moved as slow as a Koala, we blabbered when we should have just kept silence and stayed vigilant like a deer, we whined when we should have appreciated the mother nature.

This is what Malaysia overstocked with. We can get nature without a doubt when we open our backdoors. We can enjoy good breeze when we unclose our windows. We can go basking in the sun anytime any day. I never seen a green like this before anywhere outside the country. Singapore has it but almost all the time they play God; they crop their trees to look like balls, durians, merlions or Chinese gold ingots.

When we reached the peak, I wanted to stay there forever if I could but my fellow friends disagreed. Around us, laid majestically a good view words cannot do justice.

to North Devon for an English train experience

2010-10-03T20:11:00.006+08:00

Barry was a nice man to give me a complimentary ticket for the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway train ride. He was surprisingly well-known in the railway circle and I must admit that Barry was the big man with big reputation. That fact alone helped me in a way for numerous rides from the Woody Bay Station to Killington Lane, and from Killington Lane to Woody Bay; all for free.

The long drive to North Devon was a bitch, but when I saw the aged locomotive with so much of characters nailed on it I was smitten by excitement. It was like a chariot with lots of stories, histories. No wonder Barry spent most of his vacations on trains. He have in his fingertips the chronicles of English trains. Talking to him itself was already a good train journey.

Fun it was. To ride on that narrow single track, to be astonished with the green hills of Wales, to inhale the chastity of nature it was fun. A beer party was on going with lots of music, lots of dance and lots of food somewhere behind the platform. I blended in within a wink. I tasted with excitement an English scone with lots of cream. I watched a couple danced a dance of big age. I enjoyed a dulcet band singing country songs. I was completely satisfied.

ADV: Are You Moist Enough?

2010-09-05T23:51:00.008+08:00

That day when Peter brought me out for lunch, he didn’t give me an option to dine under the roof but instead dragged me out to the sun. So we lunched alfresco. Bloody hell, I thought. As we ate, he was kept apologizing for the uneasiness he thought I was in but he didn’t know that I was Vaseline-coated and that I couldn’t bother much as I was moist enough.

It was amazing to see Britons being passionate about the sun. To see how much the sun fascinated them, no matter how dry it was to me a fascination. Every time I travel I compulsorily bring along to name a few: adequate supply of underwear(s), a bottle of Davidoff’s Deep cologne and Vaseline. With Vaseline I can guarantee myself an ideal vacation with zero compromise and I can unveil myself under the sun all day long like the dhobi-wallahs do to their clothes on the river banks and Ghats of India. I never said NO to my English folks!

So yes, yes, yes I am moist enough that you can comfortably kiss and love-bite. LOL!

a day beneath the Big Ben

2010-09-01T20:17:00.002+08:00

I spent most of my childhood dreaming about places if I remember that correctly. Besides watching Popeye at grandma's place and stalking Iza Izahana in school, that was what I always did, spending substantial fraction of my kid time dreaming about places. And my kid's mind used to analyse the buildings I believed to be the landmark of my favourite places. I anatomized them in details but with that small age in my pockets, I cannot be blamed for being wrong with my facts and figures. I still remember – how I used to think pyramids were God-made, that Taj Mahal was a posh-looking mosque, that Statue of Liberty was Indian and that Eiffel Tower was the tallest building in the world. Big Ben was always there prickling without pain but pleasure somewhere in my brain, yes, vaguely I can remember now. But I didn't know that it was standing in London. I didn't even know London those days! I just liked and still loving that structure for reasons I still can't fathom. The sound that it makes every hour, the fact that it was looking like an out-of-shape-chandelier – all these peculiar things that I imagined and I believed like as if it was true made one thing clear, that I like this building just very much.

Unlike my previous London visit, I didn't hurry from one attraction to another but I enjoyed the hours around Big Ben, lazing around like one of the heroin hippies watching the good looking girls carrying good stuffs with them. And camwhoring of course around the London Eye, on the huge green chair somewhere near the banks of River Thames with a wine bottle as my buddy, the Big Ben watching. This place, London was still an old-fashioned skyscraper-less city with the smell of urine in corners of its underground walkways. With people with faces painted in all possible ways (like King Arthur, like Napoleon Bonaparte, like X-Men’s Mystique) and some talented ones effortlessly broadcasting a little bit of music and songs that I never heard before, this British capital always a place worth visiting.

Was I short? Or was she on heels? Fuck it!

2010-08-15T20:41:00.021+08:00

London was not in my list at the beginning. I thought Paris was enough to fag me out. A wrong thought it was. Waking up day after day with so much energy and always on the run like as if I was on battery I definitely underestimated myself. But one thing for sure, something about this place keep bringing me back; maybe the cocktail of strangers walking around with the same expectations and excitements as mine. If you remember reading me the last time I was in London, I confessed that if I ever have another opportunity to London, I will do it nonchalantly, pick just a venue or two and unbend with a glass of beer. That was what exactly I did this time without the beer that slipped my mind.

My venue was Madame Tussauds, the home for the fake celebrities and their irritating enthusiasts (or fans or whoever), the museum where I paid never a sincere adoration. It was my very first disappointment of this trip officially. How not? When I had to queue that long for a picture with Aishwarya Rai just to find out that the wax was so hard that any idiot would know that her boobs were fake. Silicone breasts are still acceptable but indurated wax breasts are absolutely not. And she was so tall that I couldn't even attempt a lip-to-lip kiss. The egoistic me shamelessly doubted that she owns that height in person. So the kiss was a major failure and when I tried that for the camera I looked like a fox reaching out for the grapes. And finally I knew the reason why – she was standing on a stage and on top of that she was on heels with an unbelievable height. The necessity to leave the museum became urgent and compulsory. Who on earth like embarrassments?

With her father-in-law watching, that was one odd moment:

I don't know what pleasure these guys were getting by squeezing the harden wax. I tried the same but it looked horrible so the pictures remain not posted:

Hey player, I am a player too!

David Beckham's ugly, expensive feet:

and my other favourites:

that day I felt great in Land's End but today I am feeling shit in wherever I am

2010-08-12T02:25:00.007+08:00

I don't see why this is necessary, I thought years back when Sue mentioned about Land's End. 7 or maybe 8 hours of drive just to see the sea? (Or just to see how big is the sea? Or just to see how blue is the sea? I just didn't see why this was necessary!)

Only when I saw those pictures Lo brought back from his trip I changed my mind abruptly. That emphasized the importance of the need for the visit and the satisfaction that it could give me. My assumptions of the end of England being somnolent, dull and plain was wrong. Or should I say that the fact that it looked that somnolent, that dull and that plain made it looking photogenic? Yes it was indeed.

The sky couldn't make up her mind that day. Sometimes she was dark and cloudy, making me a little worried about what I was going to see in Land's End. Sometimes she was bright and sunny, making me a happy man. As happy as the sheep that I couldn't look away. They were calm, they were focussed and they had an obvious objective.

Mmm, I don't feel like continuing this post. You don't know how lazy I am feeling right now. So I am stopping right here, posting some pictures and hoping that they speak louder than my words. Goodbye!

D-E-C-I-D-E-D

2010-08-10T00:04:00.004+08:00

Even before my UK travel got confirmed, I had already decided for a round trip to Land's End. I booked a day in my schedule that initially didn't at all exist. I dreamt based on the pictures shown by the victors and stories that they brought back. I listened.

I googled, I you-tubed.

And I knew nothing can cast away my plan, even my co-travellers. Except for the God Himself.

But He didn't.

a walk in Arundel, chicken and peas in Chichester

2010-08-06T22:20:00.005+08:00

Again Arundel Castle, the place of the Dukes of Norfolk. Again the excitement. Again the swans and the ducks. It was super suprising that I was (I am still) attracted to the nature and the old bricks this much. But again I must tell you that I already hated castles at that point of time. It was like a quotidian breakfast(s) of oats and cornflakes.

I came here two years ago and today it was still pleasant as it used to be. Every nook and corner I knew and old memories were my GPS. I walked that evening around the huge castle, Arundel tinged with a crave for Chichester. Chichester wasn't far from Arundel perhaps. To my favourite restaurant I went, the Dolphin and Anchor where I found my niche last year. An eleventh hour decision for a dinner of chicken and green peas that tasted not so great. But was that really Chichester? Whereinto I have crept? Where the girls I met last year? Nah, kidding! I still liked that place when the tower of the only cathedral popped up and said hi.

Weekend is approaching like a click-clack of a train. Let me tell you in the next posts my weekend experiences of Land's End and my revisit to London. Those took over my initial plan to Wales (somehow I saw a little bit of Wales from an old locomotive I travelled on when I was in Devon, yet to be blogged).

Bodiam Castle, like Goddess Guanyin on a lotus

2010-07-28T18:49:00.006+08:00

There gone the Californian summer (like Barry used to say) in the place I am living in, hot and dry. Now the English summer taking over, keeping things cold and wet and yet the sun still shines as bright as it was. The earth is getting crazy these days, it should have been cold but it wasn't and it snows when it shouldn't. The BBC radio channels were playing madly this We No Speak Americano song which I became addicted of. The song goes like this,

Pa pa l' americano
Pa pa l' americano
Pa pa l' americano

And this made driving more fun, and kept my head jiggled to and fro; kept my wheels forward. Pa pa l' americano. So driving to Robertsbridge wasn't like three hours at all.

Robertsbridge is a village believed to be old enough to be called old. Bodiam castle was sitting there cross-legged on the moat like Goddess Guanyin on a lotus. I know my writings sometimes too obtuse you might find it nonsense but I am telling you what I was seeing. BODIAM CASTLE WAS SITTING THERE CROSS-LEGGED ON THE MOTH LIKE GODDESS GUANYIN ON A LOTUS.

Its sun-baked walls was defensed by the moat with green water of calm. Ducks played like kids in tranquillity of the venue the faith brought them in. And I blended in like magic but at that point of time I already hated castles. I visited many English castles during my previous UK trips but this was definitely the prettiest. But again I already hated castles and didn't feel like walking into Bodiam. Good thing, it was closed.

fish, chips, birds, beer, beach and a bitch

2010-07-22T22:10:00.003+08:00

I bet nothing beats bird-watching. They were the hungry ones, the tame ones and the wild ones. They flapped their wings like masters and around me they circled as excited as a dog with a wagging tail. Like as if they have with them good news from the sea. Sometimes, they stayed away like as if they were the secret-keepers of this land. The living antiquity; they must have been doing this for ages enticing their watchers. And people say, if you come to UK and don't try their fish and chips, you're a dumb-ass. So I bought this Atlantic cod sprinkled with perfect amount of salt even though I am not really a fish person (except for Salmon, plainly barbequed). Yes, I liked it. On the beach. Bird-watching. Being a non-dumb-ass.

the journey back to England

2010-07-22T21:05:00.002+08:00

It was time to bid farewell to France. Despite meeting so many rude French bastards I still loved Paris. Maybe it was the luckless me because many told otherwise about the people here – friendly, helpful, soft-spoken and all the good things one can think about. I didn't meet any of those though. Imagine folks, I almost got scolded for speaking English. Like as if it was my mistake for not knowing French. That was when I felt like smacking the aged ass of that old weirdo. Again, maybe I was the unlucky one to meet all the wrong individuals. Stupid wasn't I to blame the whole nation?

Journey back to England seemed faster. The roads somehow seemed shorter, the boat speedier. I enjoyed la Manche more thoroughly this time round. The seagulls, the inhabitants that came and gone even before I could process their names, the sun-kissed yachts and boats - they sang their part of the sayonara song. Le Havre looked pretty from the sea and it was hard to leave. The escargots were still living on my tongue, kept saying try me more, try me more and it was hard to forget how they tasted like. Yet I could not resist to go some many miles to see England once again and the friendly Britons who seemed friendlier now after I met some of those French I mentioned and the ones I will keep mentioning like a sick parrot.

Yes, yes, yes, I could see the Spinnaker Tower posing like Beyonce Knowles did in London’s Madame Tussauds, welcoming. Without seasickness but with sleepiness I reached England safe and sound. I was already having plans in mind on where to go, what to do...

lunch at Le Havre

2010-07-20T20:56:00.004+08:00

An Arabic pop song was playing on the stereo; a cram-full restaurant it was, packed like sardines. Looking posh, looking good and that can be a very good reason to stop-over. A seething restaurant is the eating place I like for I know for sure that it’s brimful with praises, compliments and good stuffs. I found this place in Le Havre when I was hunting for lunch. Probably my last meal in France and it was not French. I like recommendations and this time I was recommended the couscous which I have heard enough. Lots of music of an unknown language, lots of people, lots of smells and came my meal with vegetable stew, all meats on earth and chickpeas. And a cup of Cappuccino for a small French touch.

the Sacred Heart of Jesus, my souvenir from Paris

2010-07-20T18:21:00.003+08:00

Sacré-Coeur Basilica was beaming white. Very white that I will not be surprised if they were scrubbing it every day and night with Colgate. I was told that the stones used to build this church acts like a bleacher when it’s wet.

Speechless I was standing there on the highest peak of Paris beside the most serene sanctuary I have seen in my life. From Montmarte, the buildings and skyscrapers of Paris were midgets. Sitting there looking at Paris was fantastic. I was out of this world and that tranquil moment was my souvenir from Paris.

pane

2010-07-20T01:24:00.005+08:00

Certainly I can see the difference now between the English buildings and the French buildings. Not the same like I thought beforehand. In particular, I liked the French windows. I was smitten by the classicality that they carried. In Malaysia, windows are more than often grilled in an ugly looking way just for a little security. Here, they were wide opened for the sky. I rather have the sky than that little security that not so a security.

And I can certainly say now since I drove enough here, that driving in Paris sucks! Parking was difficult to find, cars were parked with one kissing the other’s rear bumper, rude policewomen screaming in French some vulgar words only the French knows what, traffic jams, traffic lights - too many of them and most of them hidden not clearly to be seen, etcetera etcetera.

In short, Paris is a beautiful city that you will not want to drive in. I am certain and confident about that.

the masterpieces from Louvre

2010-07-19T22:30:00.010+08:00

I am not gifted with the knowledge on how to appreciate paintings and sculptures. And I don’t own a masters degree in art. So to me, if it’s nice it’s nice. If it’s not then it’s just not worth looking at.

Not all exhibits in Louvre were French. Some were taken from other parts of world like The Mona Lisa from Italy and The Seated Scribe from Egypt. I remember asking one of the staff there for the famous Last Supper painting by Leonardo da Vinci and she told me, “In Italy” in a tone like as if they want to steal that as well. I’m sorry, I'm rephrasing that: like as if they want to have that in their good custody as well. How selfish!

Here some art I thought deserve a snap at the Louvre; some were better than the stony Mona Lisa but that’s personal actually. And folks, you must excuse me this time for some of them designed to expose their breasts and penises. So if you’re below eighteen, kindly get lost please.

Louvre, Lisa and all these girls

2010-07-19T20:26:00.002+08:00

One book I always remember reading, The Da Vinci Code was my introduction to Musée du Louvre, the home for thousands of art pieces, paintings and sculptures. Wrote Dan Brown in his book and I read this many many times until the pages were blemished, the letters smeared,

Langdon felt a familiar tinge of wonder as his eyes made a futile attempt to absorb the entire mass of the edifice. Across a staggeringly expansive plaza, the imposing façade of the Louvre rose like a citadel against the Paris sky. Shaped like an enormous horse-shoe, the Louvre was the longest building in Europe, stretching farther than three Eiffel Towers laid end to end. Not even the million square feet of open plaza between the museum wings could challenge the majesty of the façade’s breadth. Langdon had once walked the Louvre’s entire perimeter, an astonishing three-mile journey. Despite the estimated five weeks it would take a visitor to properly appreciate the 65, 300 pieces of art in this building, most tourist chose an abbreviated experience Langdon referred to as “Louvre Lite” – a full sprint through the museum to see the three most famous objects: the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory. Art Buchwald had once boasted he’d seen all three masterpieces in five minutes and fifty-six seconds.

How true was that fiction, expressed nothing but only the fact and the exquisiteness of Louvre. The entrance of the museum was a glass pyramid encircled by three other pyramids, smaller in size. And the fifth pyramid was La Pyramide Inversée, pointing to the core of the earth; hidden underground like a secret; hung up-side-down like a bat. I found all of them and of course the Mona Lisa and I got them all photographed. It was not easy to get a picture with Mona Lisa though because everybody else wanted to do the same. And she was hung a distance away from the visitors and a bodyguard (or picture-guard in this case) was guarding. An exacting shielder he was, with voice like a bulldog he kept saying, “Stay away! stay away!”. Seriously, it was much easier to stand next to Marilyn Monroe in Madame Tussauds, London.

Anyway, I didn’t find Mona Lisa good looking at all. She looked as old as her age. And like a witch of many tantrums, without eyebrows and eyelashes.

where's next ???

2010-07-18T07:52:00.003+08:00

a walk in Paris

2010-07-18T07:30:00.002+08:00

Paris at night was awesome! I walked along Champs-Élysées, window shopped along the most prestigious street in the world teeming with the Gods of brands, brimming with tourists and the rich and I stood there for an hour at its end and where the Arc de Triomphe was standing opulently. One hour was definitely insufficient to canvass the Napoleon Bonaparte’s piece of art built as a tribute to the French fighters who fought for France (obviously) during the Napoleonic Wars. A perfectly symmetrical monument where twelve big streets emanate, meet, greet and form a round-a-about. It was the next day when I drove around the round-a-about and later on Champs-Elysees. I felt good. And rich.

It was unanticipated to see how Eiffel Tower changed at night, like as if she was dressed up for a school prom. Jeweled with lights, she entertained the crowd around her with an expensive pride. Beneath her, near her corroded legs I tried crepe, a French street food. It was a pancake sweetened with gobs of mashed bananas and Nutella. Délicieux!

dinner time the French way

2010-07-17T05:36:00.003+08:00

How can I leave this place without trying its food? If I did, that would be a crime and Sara Sidle would hunt me down.

Dinner was at Chez Papa in the heart of Paris, recommended by the locals. The restaurant was chock-a-block full. The menu was in French and later I was given the English version only when I sulked. And this time it was still in French but spelled in English. I gave up! My choice was a pint of Oldarki, a French beer made of Patxaran (a typical Basque alcohol, vividly blue in colour at its original form) and a plate of the rawest duck meat with its blood still wet. How raw you must be wondering? I was given the sharpest knife and still I was struggling to slice them into pieces. I ended up swallowing big chunks as cutting was making things messy. Not forgetting the French snails called les escargots and the lamb, cut into unusual shapes, drenched in gravy. Very strange, the duck I was always familiar with tasted foreign and repugnant this time but the snails that supposed to be yucky tasted very much homely indeed. Something like cockles cooked in Indian kurma or maybe the Malay masak lemak without the chilies.

I had a stomach completely full, no kidding. It was getting dark outside and the orange clouds bade farewell. I was eager to walk in Paris when the moon is up and the sun down.

the French snails, les escargots

Notre Dame, creepy

2010-07-16T13:53:00.004+08:00

It was creepy inside the Notre Dame and I am sorry if I am rude to say this. But it was really creepy. The flower-petal-shaped stained glass, the statues with eyes that speak, the amount of the light that designed to stride in, the organ with strange keys shooed me out of the Gothic Catholic Cathedral in minutes. It was the detailed architecture that needs appreciation. I queued in the long queue, I walked in, I snapped some photos and I came out amused and confused.

Someone tell me please why it was still a gloomy day? The blue of the sky was no where to be seen, the clouds I didn’t become aware of and all I could snap was some ugly photographs.

Chicken Tomato and Basil Pasta and the Iron Woman

2010-07-14T20:49:00.004+08:00

Ate my Chicken Tomato and Basil Pasta and bought myself a ticket for the Eiffel Tower in eager to discover the world’s fame. Whoever designed the Eiffel Tower, he must be a God! And I must be a dumb-ass to proclaim such nonsense. It was just some pieces of aged metals and junks put together to form a tower. But I must admit that from distant it looked magnificent, romantic and whatever!

The French call it La dame de fer, the iron woman. But it looked to me more like a male tower, like a guy with a thing. Bothered less about the gender confusions, I opted to walk up to a level that I can’t walk anymore and catch a lift from there onwards to the summit. And it was like climbing a hill or the steps of Batu Caves and in fact it was like climbing a 81 story building. And it was not you alone but the whole world attempting a climb there. Too bad it was a gloomy day and all you could see from up there was a little bit here and a little bit there.

To M Eiffel the Engineer the brave builder of so gigantic and original specimen of modern Engineering from one who has the greatest respect and admiration for all Engineers including the Great Engineer the Bon Dieu, Thomas Edison.

Thomas Edison, 1889

on the road to Paris

2010-07-14T06:31:00.007+08:00

Shit, these French roads stink without English sign boards except for ‘Paris’ if that’s English. Fortunately, I brought with me a GPS loaded with complete Europe maps. During situation of this kind it was like holding a gun with bullets loaded.

The moment I stepped into France I was contented for I knew at that point of time the plan was possible. I still remember searching through a long list for my exam result in front of the lecturer’s room when I was in college and to find out that I scored well was emancipation and an invitation to a week-long-party. That was how I felt when I reached France. An enormous feeling of happiness! Not a big deal anyway, these days you can travel from one end of the world to another within 24 hours. This was just 480 minutes to be exact.

So used to driving for free on highways in England, paying for the tolls in France was a twinge. And unlike England the land of round-a-bouts, France was swarming with traffic lights every corner, every junction.

After two English-less hours, I was in Paris. Bonjour!