The Masshive Kok

I felt pretty rough this morning. Its not that we went out last night or anything, just felt out of sorts. Travel is a weird beast sometimes and often you don’t actually know where your headspace is. Your body is always a step ahead and it can take a fair swathe of time before you re-connect and realign. Felt like I was a man in limbo today, unsure of how and why he was on a ferry from a small island in the Thai gulf about to head to another massive foreign city. No home, wandering, a life in transit with everything owned strapped like a giant boulder to my back.

Once returned to Chumphon, we boarded a plush looking bus in order to get up north to Bangkok. The toilet on this vehicle was one of the worst I’ve ever dealt with, hunching notre dame style in order to squeeze into the bastard and then burning my back on the ceiling light. When you travel you always notice the little differences, things like the price of a Big Mac and the state of your ablution facilities. The toilets in Thailand are nothing to type home about, though I’m told that Thais are the cleanest toilet-goers in the world thanks to the water hose fastened next to every squat hole cubicle in the country. Personally, toilet paper has got me this far in life and I have no intention of plunging a water hose up my date in any circumstance. I don’t care how clean it is. I didn’t do it Morocco, nor Turkey, and I aint starting now. Pete and I remarked at how routine our bowel movements have become thanks to the preponderance of Pad Thai and Green curry in our diets. Grunt and splash has been the order of the morning, day in day out.

As you drive around the roads in Thailand, especially as you near the big city, you notice massive, countless images of the Thai King and his missus, usually esconced in gold rimmed frames and all sorts of elaborate fanciness. Over here, the King is a big deal and if you go messin’ with his ass your ass gets messed up big time. You cant step on currency because his mug is on it, can’t be derogatory towards him or any of his thousands of images, and you cannot give him the bird. A prominent personality over here in Thailand once got jail time for calling him ‘the Skipper’ – and he was intending to be nice! It’s good to be the King.

I’d been expecting the worst from Bangkok, after hearing about all the intense madness of the place and how it tends to do your head in. I have to say that on first impressions, though completely and utter chaotic and insane, I dug the place. After disembarking the bus ride Pete and I followed big T around the tourism-packed Khoa San Rd precienct with all its’ neon and mobile food stalls, wastoids and touts, and set up shop at a cosy joint called ‘Sawasdee Hotel’. We reunited with the British girls who were staying here also, as well as a pom called Matt who followed the chicks up from Ko Tao as well.

My first night in Bangkok was a complete Baptism of Fire. After smashing some Changs we all jumped in a couple of Tuk Tuks (bizarre little 3 wheeler taxis – kind of like the bastard child between a moped and a Ferris wheel carriage). Barelling through the night in our little Tuk Tuk, I felt welt land truly immersed in Bangkok, raging and veering wildly through the chaotic streets with no apparent traffic laws and the feeling that I could die courtesy of a bus head on at any moment. Bangkok is known for a few things, one of which is its thriving Sex industry. I recall an enjoyable night at Nan and Phil’s place prior to leaving, where we discussed at the dinner table the ins and outs of a Ping Pong show, elaborating crudely and having a right old laugh – one of the many reasons I love the family dinner at the Faribarns ranch. I wasn’t sure what my ethical stance was on a Ping Pong show, but I figured ‘when in Bangkok’ you’ve gotta go with the flow. Just like the bullfight in Spain, this would most likely be a once off. The tuk tuks took us to a Ping Pong show alright, but not a very good one, in fact, a shady one in a dark end of town. Pat Pong 1 and 2 are the main Ping Pong drags in town, and though the driver ensured us this was where we were going, it wasn’t. Just like the bullfight in Seville, though somewhat impressive at times, I couldn’t stomach too much of the Pong show, which was largely depressing and bizarre, significantly downbeat compared to some of the other joints we heard about in Pat Pong. The soundtrack was just plain creepy – all Savage Garden and soft romance tunes with all the synth and reverb of a late night Danoz Soft rock compliation sale commercial. Anyway, good or bad, I can say that I ticked the infamous Ping Pong show off the list. And I wont be going back. Smashed some calming drinks at a nearby joint called Gullivers and hit up the hotel room for some slumber – compromised slightly by the fact that Pete and I had to share the one bed. Avoiding the ‘dodgy uncle scenario’ by the skin of my teeth, it was a flashback to when we were 5 and 7, top to toe at Nan and Phil’s joint trying desperately to gain some sleep in a single top bunk and having Pete’s rank foot in my face.

Woke up the next day and moved to a room with two beds. Brekky in the café downstairs and a spot of chit chat with the chickitas. Pete and I then wandered off into the madness, getting well lost in the Bangkok anarchy, eventually finding our way to the river and leaping aboard a vessel to head south into the balls of the city. After walking a considerable length along one of the busy main drags, I almost fainted due to the combination of the crack drenching heat and the constant, rapid madness of the city. I felt like I was walking through an endless labrynth of sheer repetition and madness – an assault on the senses and the brain. I sniffed roasting fruit, burning oil, fresh Pad Thai, sometimes a hint of hot garbage. The smells in the air always drift from place to place and afford the nostrils a smorgasbord of flavours to deal with. In a shopping mall I copped a whiff of one very potent scent that took my memory right back to when I was a kid; I worked out it was the smell of the hard chewing gum I used to get inside a packet of Batman cards. Pretty random, I know, and perhaps not very interesting, but it blew my mind. I love it when smells return to your life and take you back to a place you haven’t been for a very long time. Its all about the sentient conditioning.

With Matt now in tow with us, we wandered the afternoon around the bustling Siam district in the guts of the city, buying a bunch of stuff, including a sweet Canon camera which I’ll finally be able to take some shots with. Pete was on a mission to purchase up big in the wardrobe area and we dropped into Narry’s tailors for a measuring and the buying of much suits and shirts. Narry was a fully Sikh Indian with a kickass gold turban and looked like he knew how to tail a mean suit, though Pete would later feel a little compromised having Narry’s wandering hands floating about his package.

Consumating our ‘Man-date’, us three blokes then went and treated ourselves to some new underwear together from a counterfeit shack on the side of the road. We didn’t hold hands though. But we did share a meal together – a meal that also brought me back to my past. After an onslaught of Thai fare we decided the best option would be to get decrease the propensity of grunt and splash and solidify the movement down south courtesy of some staple Western food. We went to Sizzler. Its little wonder this chain went out of business in Australia, as we punished the all you can eat salad bar with the fury of three ravenous moose. Got our money’s worth alright. In the tradition of the fat guy in Monty Python, we were stuffed, though avoided throwing up in a little bucket or on any of the waitresses.

It’s funny how easy it is to become so accustomed to facing your certain death time and time again. After just a handful of tuk tuk rides the seeming lack of danger, though very real and present, had all but disappeared and the only major discomfort was attributed to inhalation of the toxic fumes blow out the crack end of the tuk itself. I was more concerned about contracting an acute case of Bangkok emphesema rather than having my block knocked around by an oncoming passenger bus, though the latter was far more likely. Moreover, I was a tad amused by the only Warning sign stamped on the tuk tuk interior, which clearly banned any farting inside the tuk tuk. Though, again, considering me and Pete’s bowel status at present, this was almost certainly in the driver’s best interests. I still ponder how many of those little tuk tuks get slammed by Bangkok traffic, and indeed, what the road toll is in this maniacal capital – smashes, fumes, Western flatulence, whatever.

Having not learned our lesson from Ko Tao, and seeing as it was the girls’ last real night here before heading back to mother England, we all hit the Khoa San rd for a spot of street buckets and good times. Bought a range of cheap counterfeit clothes from one of the many bizarres tucked away down the main drag, which was cheaper and faster than doing my laundry. Rocked out on acoustic guitar with a toothless Thai party animal who we’ll call ‘old toothless’ for want of his real name, and dealt with all manner of touts selling everything from percussive wooden frogs to free ‘fire shows’. Bought the ingredients of a Thai bucket from 7-11 and smashed another, this time with old toothless joining in for a spot of the hard stuff.

Gulliver’s was host to our drunken antic again tonight, and after the girls got considerably more bollocked I found myself along with randoms dancing stop the billiard table to bad techno and 80’s noise pollution. Found Matt the pom and we continued to evening’s festivities at a place nearby called Gazebo. Admission was cheaper for groups of five, and after running into 3 lads from Cornwall we joined forces – turns out as well as being cheaper to get in, the club also provides yourt five person group with a 1.6 litre bottle of Red Label Scotch. Extravagant consumption at this hour in anyones book, I had two on the rocks before losing my sense of mobility and opted for the boudoir not long after.

Bangkok
Until 4pm today I was drunk without question and failed to achieve anything worth noting down, except for writing a significant chunk of this waffling blog at a downtown Starbucks. One thing travelling aroud these parts has made me really appreciate is the how caffeine-spoilt we are in Melbourne and how rare it is to find a decent, drinkable coffee in this mammoth bloody city. It sprawls and winds and explodes with energy and madness, and still, despite all the variety and options there aint a good bloody coffee to be found anywhere. In former times I would have kicked myself in the coxcyx for ordering a Starbucks Latte, but my surroundings and drunken state declared my disdain for Starbucks treatised for now. It wasn’t great, but it was good.

If my mind wasn;t already blown through its roof then first glance at the nearby Grand Pavillion shopping centre was like c4 through the skull – the 9 story bohemoth mall was possibly the biggest I’d ever come across and contained a veritable onslaught of consumerist stimulus. We hit up the giant cinema on the top level and escaped the maddening world outside with sitting in on the new Indiana Jones flick. Not too shabby at all.

Once again outside, Pete and I assumed our role as Dog’s Ball foreigners, getting berated by every tout in town for either a wild tuk tuk goose chase or a special massage no doubt with free Henri Lee. We took a cab back to the Khoa San, met up with the chicks and hit the hay fairly early..

Last Days in the Blue Lagoon and Bucket Fever

The final few days in paradisic Ko Tao yielded some glorious weather and magic times. Though after declaring the pitfalls of Sangsom Thai whiskey in my last post you’ll be unsuprised to learn that we spent our second last night on the island smashing buckets in horribly perilous style. This activity produced one of the less magical moments of the trip, the buckets flooring me completely whilst jiving old school in the ‘Lotus Bar’, forcing me to re-meet the seafood dinner I consumed some hours earlier. And it was a great meal. Pete, Big T and myself parked under a lightning lit black sky at a makeshift beach restaurant where the locals offer a mammoth range of fresh seafood and cook it up for you. We dined in style – lobster, crab, king prawns and a big feesh, cooked to Thai perfection. As great as the meal was, I would have preferred seeing it only once.

Looking for a little relief, and I aint talking about the Henri Lee variety, Big T and I booked ourselves into a little beachside massage shack for a bit of Thai massage. Not knowing what to expect, we both got an absolute working over as the little Thai woman cracked and smashed my inflexible body, ramming her elbow into all sorts of nooks and crannies. They work right into the groin area these masseuses, and this proved fairly embarassing for Big Trev as he began to sport raging wood during the middle of his leg session. This made me, and the Thai women laugh a lot.

At first, the night seemed like it was going nowhere, as Pete and I trailed along the main drag unsure of what to do. We ended up at bloody Chopper’s bar, again choc to the brim full of Westerners and the two dudes playing backpacker favourites on acoustic guitars to a drunken, table top dancing audience. Sometimes the best nights are the ones you don’t plan – the ones that suggest an early bed time would be a more suitable option. One way to remedy this is to run into a couple of Swedish lunatics. Enter Olaf and Julius, two Swedish lunatics who proceeded in buying us shots and joining us in the smashing of much piss. Olaf spoke of his run in with the Laos authorities, and his dream of finding finding a shipwreck that his old man discovered once off near scandanavian waters. Pete and I united to down our first Thai bucket, which, as you’ve already read, set the night in a very different direction. With the power of amphetamine driven bucket whiskey floating around our systems, we hit up the 80’s party down at Lotus Bar and got down big time. Met a bunch of poms and a Brazilian, and due to the fact that noone was going to remember anyone’s name, we donned each other ‘the Units, and a letter of the alphabet attached to the start of ‘unit’ to reflect the area one one’s origin. Brazilian was B-Unit, the beefeater from North England was E-unit, and hailing from Melbourne, I became M-unit. So I didn’t actually get anyone’s name, but this system worked pretty damn well.

At around this time I suffered the technicolour maritime yawns and my night was bollocked. One positive is that I didn’t lose my pants. And my body still felt pretty good after that massage, though perhaps not as good as Big T.

Our final day was whiled away at an even steven pace, mentally working off the bucket-over. It rained a gale this night. We had pancakes from ‘Ali’ the jedi-pace pancake chef who parks outside 7-11 every night to capitalise on the drunk Westerner market. I reckon he must do pretty well. His banana-chocolate pancakes are bloody tasty. Watched the 4th series of Entourage on DVD in our shack and was reminded of the two weeks I worked night shift back home and how integral the viewing of this series was to my routine and sanity. Good times.
Tomorrow, we be bangin' in Bangkok

Life's Tough

Buckets, Purple Dogs and the Bathroom Devil Goat

A strange, alien noise bellows from your mini bathroom adjacent the cabin. It is the sound of a possessed island goat that has yet to be exorcised or sacrificed. It once again startles the hell out of you as you try once again to discern what kind of animal could possibly be responsible for noise of this chilling calibre and moreover, what its business is in our bathroom. The satanic bathroom goat eventually gives way to a greater spectrum of commotion outside. Whispering, roaring curling ocean water lapping onto the shore and the sound of distance; of being so far away from big cities and home. The sound of one massive expanse of water surrounding you on a small, beautiful island.

Gathering some semblance of meaning after butchering your neuronal network the evening prior, you raise your sore nut and peer outside the window. Suddenly, the consequences of the big night are lessened, as your eyes experience what your ears just heard. Out the window lies that magnificent stretch of beach, glorious, glorious golden sands and shallow, bath temperature water glistening in your immediate view.

You throw on as little clothing as possible without risking being thrown off the island for indecency. You wave at the green Gecko that lives on your roof. You trundle the well trundled path along the magnificent oval curved Sairee Beach, lined with clustered palm trees swaying in the distance up and above around the point. Fruit smoothies and breakfast at a café on the sand in clear view of the ocean, a little internet time down at Chopper’s café, a trundle down the main drag, vying for room next to the plethora of tourists and locals fanging around on quad bikes and two wheelers. The heart of this little village roars with motors, hums with cafes and bars - tropical small time chaos in motion where everyone gets along and life could never be taken too seriously. It is lazy, cruisy, classy yet grungy, the antithesis of nearby islands Ko Phag Nan and Ko Samui, which from all accounts are largely hotbeds of rabid bogans and inebriate poms, legless airheads out to shag anything that moves after vomiting their lot across the main beach. This is especially prevalent around the time of the Full Moon. Thousands upon thousands of tourists flock to these islands for the big ‘Full Moon Party’ where the drink of choice is a ‘Thai bucket’ – a small sand pail blended with Red Bull concentrate (read rocket fuel) and Thai Sangsom brand whiskey (read liquid speed). Needless to articulate, this concoction is as potent as it gets.

After bringing back 8 bottles of the stuff after a trip to Thailand some years ago, my mate Chode copped the full brunt of the bucket one night at a party, losing his trousers on the roof of the house and waking up to find that he’d somehow made it to 7-11 in the middle of the night, intimidating the store clerk in his Y-fronts, before acquiring a full sack of assorted treats which he slept with until the next afternoon. What I’m getting at is that this drink is powerful and will make you lose your mind and your pants. Or make you think you’ve gotten action when all you’re really spooning is a bag of mixed crisps.

The full moon party on Ko Pha Ghan is the place to be for widespread bucket smashing and pants-losing, but after hearing a lot of dodgy stories surrounding the local mafia who run the parties and pretty much the whole show over here, we opted for a quieter more relaxed vibe on Ko Tao. It is an amazing place, everything you crave and desire in a tropical island paradise. And to give it even more cred, that 80’s Brooke Shields flick ‘the Blue Lagoon’ was actually filmed here back in day, Make of that what you will.

Feeling the effects of the cheap booze and diet of Penang curry and Pad Thai, Pete and I made a concerted effort to fight the spare tyre syndrome earlier in the week, hunting out the local Muay Thai kickboxing gym 10 minutes up the concrete road. The next few days we did some great workouts next to the Muay Thai kickboxers, though the glint in their eyes suggested they looked on at us as pansies due to the fact that we weren’t using our legs.

When buckets become anti-social or don’t suffice, Chang beer is the beverage of choice over here, and after acclimatising ourselves with this particular brand of beer in the week leading up to the trip back home, Pete and I can safely declare that a ‘Changover’ is far worse that the ordinary run of the mill ‘Hangover’. Especially when it’s 30 degree heat pretty much the whole time and ongoing perspiration means perpetual dehydration. Chang on!

Through our adopted travel parents the British gals we met another top bloke, Trev, aka Big T from regional England, and pretty much every night this week has been spent at one, or many, of the local bars. The Lotus bar was a highlight, a wooden shack structure planted right on the edge of the water line, where everyone downs a menu of cocktails and dances on coffee table in the tide. The girls leave today, but we will catch up with them in Bangkok when we head there on Sunday. I can’t guarantee we will be able to avoid a Ping Pong show, from all accounts, like a Spanish bullfight, it is a once off must see event. Stay tuned for that one.

One observation I make about this trip is that it feels a great deal different to the last trip overseas. I don’t feel like I am even overseas – perhaps this is because the time zone is barely different, and I’m not yet in the ‘wrong’ hemisphere. The sheen of amazement and awe is not as immediately present as that first amazing trip to the UK and Europe. Perhaps it will reignite once I get my kiester over there. And maybe, just as well, working in the midst of an action packed and never dull backpackers hostel back home has made me feel like the travels never really ended when they did. And in many ways, this is a good thing. It gives way to living immediately in the now, in what’s open to you, and lets you adapt to every waking change.

The other night i walked home by myself after reaching my Chang threshold. I sat on the beach under the tender luminance of a waning moon. I strummed my guitar as five island dogs came along to sleep by my side. Today we will again chill beachside. We’ll traipse the return route along the beach past the multitude of wooden bungalows and palm tree resorts, past bronzing up British bikinites soaking the last rays before London, past the iconic dalmation-cross beachdog that someone dyed purple (first purple dog I have ever seen), and back on home to our little wood balcony. Play some guitar, write a song, eye that magnifique beach some more and let the moment soak into your soul for safe keeping.

Koh Tao

Nick Drake’s velvety heartstrings filter in the background as Pete and I chill on the wood balcony of our modest beachside resort. Our bungalow perched right on the beach some 20 metres away, my eyes gaze upwards at the domineering full moon in Scorpio just as Drake’s ‘Pink Moon’ smooths its way into our moment. The moon above just as beautiful as the song affiliated, yellow rather than pink and no less majestic.

We survived that bus ride. Made it to the portside town of Chumphon well before Dawn’s sweaty crack, though it all felt like a throwback to those travelling freakshow days back in 2006 where Rev, Brooks and myself would punish ourselves through a gauntlet of painstaking plane, train and automobile action with rapidfire frequency.
The four English birds we met proved not only to be great value, but they adopted us, willingly or unwillingly, and we latched onto their every move from that point on. We sailed early morning through a canal on a ferry into the Gulf of Thailand, waving at recently woken up fisherman on their orange and olive green wood fishing vessels with massive nets. Thailand has a great vibe about it, and knowing we were about to crash on a magic island beach somewhere, paying sweet nothing for our goods and accommodation, well, I wouldn’t say it warmed the cockles – the cockles have been sweating their arse off as much as the rest of my bits since we got here…but it made me happy on the inside regardless. Pretty sure Pete felt the same. We both smelt pretty rank by this point, and were in desperate need of an internal and external cleanse.

Last night we went out with the girls after an extensive nana nap in our throbbingly warm bungalow. Massive Chang and Tiger beers cost around 50 Baht here, equivalent to $1.20 locknecks if you were drinking back home. We cabbed it in the back of a pick up truck, all six of us, to the base end of the island and dined at a sweet little joint at the turning point of the Mountain-cosied beach cove. Illuminated fairy lights and the glorious sight of the lit up mountain resorts and shops to my left provided one of those moments where you just look deeply into the scenario before and make you thank God you are alive. We hit up the ‘Easy bar’ for Mohitos not long after, followed by a cosy Reggae Bar run by a couple of perpetually baked Rastas, one going by the name ‘Dodo’. He might have been high but he sure wasn’t flying anywhere anytime soon. Long Island Iced Teas are a dubious call anywhere, I feel, and the ones Pete and I downed grounded us both, as we lie on cushioned floor sand lounges under the near-full moon above mere footsteps from beach and sand. It is here that I remind you that today, according to the Age, it reached a blistering 13 degrees in Melbourne with chronic showers and little inspiration to get out of bed either in the morning, or the duration of the afternoon. To be fair, Pete and I failed to experience the morning either, but for far different reasons. After peeling ourselves off the floor of the Reggae Bar we trundled back home, only to find that the 10 minute taxi fare back to our neck of the beach was nowhere to be found. We managed to persude two Thai chicks on Moto Scoooters to take all six of us back in two trips for a couple of bucks each. I gripped on for my life as we plundered through the night, me and ‘Fan’ on one bike, racing old school with Pete and his Thai biker chick. It was surreal, exhilarating, dangerous and most importantly of all, got us home without sustaining any unjury. Jammed with Pete on the balcony and wrote three songs of mixed calibre, ranging from dreadful to seriously, diabolically shite. A local dog came up to join us, so I guess we must have had something going for us.

After working in a backpackers hostel for 2 odd years its kinda nice to be on the other side of the desk. I remember again what its like to carry your life around with you on your back; what its like to watch sunsets on lands so far from your own; the thrill of not knowing what to expect next, and the faith you put in the universe knowing it’s guiding you on the right track to somewhere. This is living, right here. This is the stuff that makes you feel alive.

Singapore, Maraysia and the bus trek to Thailand

So we arrived in Singapore in one piece. And except for the mindless traipse down the completely wrong terminal minus luggage upon disembarking and confusing the shit out of customs at that end (and ourselves) we managed to talk our way back into the correct terminal and reclaim our effects. Which, incidentally, were the final few straggling packages lumped on the floor at the end of the rush. We instantly felt the heat. Dear God, do not bother wearing denim in Singapore. With moistened legs already sweating like a piece of steak in the sun we made out way to the cab rank and jumped in the first available. First impressions of Singpore were precisely on expectation – meticulously clean, tree lined highway boulevards leading into a fair metropolis of booming scrapers and a London-esque illuminated eye. Our cab driver was a jovial, rotund little bean who entertained us with his banter. I impressed him with my knowledge of his city’s well crafted Feng Shui, which I’d learned 45 minutes prior on the Qantas documentary channel. It was decided that we’d head into the area know as :Little India, a small nook north of the city that was true to its name. If the Indian Ocean yielded little Indians but our tally was adhered to in this instance. We fell into a cosy pub called the Price of Wales, a good vibe corner hostel run by an Aussie – a dead giveaway considering the hoard of local number plates punched into the back wall and the presence of Gippsland Grand Ridge beer on tap. Pete and I walked around like confused fish far from water and hit up a nearby hawker bar for hot pot noodles courtesy of the slowest chef on earth, before camping out for some hours in a park with a couple of mashive Tiger beers and a pack of smokes. It is illegal to spit or chew gum over in this neck of the woods, and though smoking is legal, the authorities have done their best to repel addiction with some of the most offensive oral disease graphics brandished on smoke packs that I’ve ever come across.

After some drunken conversation with two yanks from California, one a Korean-living Sandiegan named Ted and the other an emo, tatted nugget who ran the bar and whose name I didn’t recall, we hit the hay in our toasty bunk and looked forward to the next days festivities.

With little organization and a headache to boot, and no doubt an advance on our oral cancer from ingesting those offensive cigarettes, we lugged packs to the nearby bus station and hit the road north to a little place called Johor Bohru. Through immigration I fiercely avoided eye contact with the local authorities as they were brandishing some mammoth potentially life ending guns, and kept on walking rather than waiting for a lagging behind Pete after eyeing a ‘No Waiting’ sign out the other end. So we made it through to Malaysia with ne’er a cap in our arse, eventually hoping we had after getting hassled to buggery from the local transport touts at the bus station. After a frustrating few moments gathering our thoughts and getting pummelled by options to get further north, Pete and I threw down an embarassing meal at the Malaysian maccas and felt shite and culturally ignorant. This would be the first and last fast meal of the trip, mark my words.

Though Malaysia seemed to offer a fair bit it was decided unanimously by the brains trust Pete and myself that we should make our way up north as fast as possible. Destination Thailand, from all accounts we would be crazy not to make our esteemed presence felt drinking amphetamine-riddled Thai whiskey on an overrun Thai island under a great white full moon. Whether or not this plan would yield fruit is yet to be discovered.

In the lead up to yet another stint on a long haul bus we downded a fruity sugar drink at a bus station restaurant where they sold whole coconuts as well as sweet plastic bagged beverages, more akin to the bastard child of a colostomy bag and intravenous than a sellable, healthy beverage.

The bus was long, and bladders grew full. We ended up downing a whole coconut at another restaurant upstairs prior to the bus ride – a foolish brag to say the least, though it afforded a quality photo opportunity.

KL

Right. The bus pulled in to a bustling Chinatown area of Kuala Lumpur at roughly 8pm and we marvelled at how we’d gone from one mental place to a new one, with the only difference being more insanity and the sensual odour of hot garbage and sweaty noodle.. From what I’ve heard this was nothing on Bangkok but the place was completely electrically insane, haphazard and sense intensifying. We were fortunate enough to come across a toothless old tout whose name we didn’t get, but who I would like to call Jerry for the sake of this blog. Jerry, a veteran of the local tourism scene did his utmost to secure a night bus in order for us to travel another 10 hours north to Hat Yai in Thailand; allegedly a bunch of would be full mooners were attempting the same route on this busy Friday night and we pretty much had buckleys chance of getting any further than a hotel room and a late meal. Despite following a maniacal Jerry a whopping distance on foot to the nearby train station there was no train for us on this night, subsequently returning to the hotel we arrived at with a concentration of back and pit sweat in direct correlation with the contours of my heaving pack. Hotel room over hostel, thugh mor expesive, allowed Pete and I to return to some semblance of sanity without our heads completely exploding.

We smashed a couple of plates of local Kwai Teow and Singapore Mee Hoon as well as a regime of sweaty Tiger beer locknecks at an intersection in the heart of the Chinatown cheap goods market. All who know me understand how deeply I am fond of the Kwai Teow meal; this one failed to disappoint, though the Mee Hoon could have done with less mee and more hoon. Weary, zonked, inebriated and full as a fat ladies brazziere we hooned back past jerry and his congaline of touts and chaotic food stalls to the Citin hotel for much needed rest.

To Hat Yai

For a change, today would be fecund with not one, but two long haul bus rides. The chase for the full moon was well and truly on and it was fast becoming our dire mission to reach that goddam tide swinging ball of space rock before it got as full as we were after a meal of Mee Hoon and Tiger. May 20 was the deadline, though from all accounts the body of partying and good times was prevalent in the days and weeks prior. We said farewell to KL at the crack of 9 and fanged it big time over 9 hours up to the Thai crossroad town Hat Yai. I cant say much about the bus ride because I snoozed almost the entire time and had some intensely weird dreams about flying and barelling uncontrollably backwards in a large moving vehicle. Considering the time this trip took my dream might have been forgiven for imitating a more truthful reality.
But we eventually made it. Through another arduous but more friendly border crossing.
Met some cute British chicks and one Brisbanite girl who we pretty much latched onto to quell our lack of planning and completely random trip structure to date.
It proved in our favour. The chicks, Kim, Sarah, Alex and Jess were all headed to KO Tao, an island not far from the fullmoon party island KO Pha Ghan. We might have to give that arrogant bloody moon the arse and opt for something far better.
Two Chang beers and a noodle meal in the heart of a busy hawker market and it was time to board a night bus further north. Tomorrow, god willing, the pace of the last few days would be lessened and we’d finally hit up an area of beach to last us at least a few nights.
Its only been two days and I’ve sweated more from walking than I’ve done in the last two months back home, and the beer gut is struggling to maintain order down south. I fear for it and my health in the coming weeks. But I always said the first few weeks over here with Pete were going to be some of the more wild.
Keep yourselves strapped in
I’d do the same but this runaway Thai bus with floral curtains has no belts.

Franciscenglasia ’08!

36,000 feet beneath my elevated, cruising body winding plains flurry to and fro across a barren desert wilderness, ridges bending like wild snakes, breaking and connecting, on and on without conclusion, without reason and hardly without beauty. Synchronous with my hope, the spiritual heart of the country shows up out of the great wide nowhere, seducing my vision and my soul. The rock. The big fella. It’s right there and I have never been closer to it. As we soldier on I feel chuffed at our nation’s ability to construct commonsense, accurate titles for its big landmarks. The Great Sandy Desert is all three at once. Alas, the rendezvous with sandy turf is to be cut short for another time. Just a brief stopover, old bean. This bus is headed across oceans where the sun will blaze daily through the days that would normally constitute a nut cracking winter.

To the esteemed eyeballs honing in from back home at this moment in time, I welcome you all to the rejuvenated, international launch of the Buckmaster“ acclaimed Dog’s Breakfast Compendium of the Juicy minutiae of Life. Life has been good to this Dool, and I feel it in my bone that life is going to get even more wild. Accordingly, prepare for the dog’s breakfast to get that little more tasty, the compendium to get more systematically gathered, the juice to get more juicy and the minutiae more minute.

I preface the following account of discovery and adventure by divulging that not long ago I found myself at a life crossroad. I saw In the Wild at the cinema and it cut me deep to the core. I needed to shake up this life a little, for I’d gone and got too comfortable. The options were few. Should I return to tertiary study and bomb the brain with lecturing and late night stresses involving 1000’s of forgettable words? Or not? The latter got the gig and I find myself instead destined for new adventures in distant lands. In the tradition of the 2006 European Travelling freakshow Epic, I bring you the exclusive tales from the inaugural 2008 Asian, English, San Franciscan Epic of Mammoth Proportion. Also to be know as Franciscenglasia ’08! Settle yer kettle and strap on whatever needs to be strapped on. But not too tight, or you just may just burst.

The Qantas Airbird shoots towards the sun set on the dust horizon of this here leg. Inside the cabin, this here phoenix prepares to flap his wings from out of the ashes that defined his life of the past. We just hit the Indian Ocean and so far, no sign of any Indians.