So where've you been? 6 Borneo

We believe that terrorists and criminal elements are continuing with plans to kidnap foreign tourists from the islands and coastal areas of Eastern Sabah. Boats travelling to and from offshore islands and dive sites are possible targets.
If you wish to visit resorts on, and islands off, Eastern Sabah, you should exercise extreme caution.

FCO article

I wasn't that nervous; better to go somewhere dangerous but informed of the risks than to wander off into the back of beyond without a bloody clue of what could happen (as most of the borneo junglist backpackers I met in Eastern Sabah were). To quote an ex, from many many exes ago, I threw money at the problem. I stayed on the biggest bloody boat.

The live-aboard diving boat was relentlessly obsessively fish-fuelled. Me and 28 half-dressed blokes: dutch, italian, malaysian. Inbetween dives we looked at encyclopedias of fish. Using half remembered childhood references and undersea signing as a language, we looked at each others' photos of fish. We recounted what we had or hadn't seen ("cinquo manta!" "pinocchio!") We watched home videos we'd made of each other diving, jeered at anyone caught in the act doing all those things divers bullshit each other they never ever do: touching a turtle, distressing the fish, touching or hacking at the reef.

Divers like to maintain a fantasy that it's those bloody dynamiting fishermen who destroy reefs. Bollocks. Move back a little when you see other divers. Hover and watch the mammals scaling the horizon with their expensive toys like the dambusters swooping in for a spot of blanket bombing. Divers destroy reefs. Not the handful of subsistence fishermen in the longboat. Divers.

I cried off the night dives each day, and spent that time asking the crew to teach me a bit of bahasa malay. My facility with the language is zero - it took me a full week to learn to even mispronounce 'thankyou' consistently. Chatting with one of the crew beneath the Big Dipper on the top deck one night, he reminds me I'm leaving alone the next day - not as rich as the EuroDivers, I cut costs by cutting the trip shorter. He repeats several times that it's him who's taking me. "You and me. Alone in the boat, yes. Just us two. No one else."
And the FCO warnings jingle in a memory recess.
Suddenly, my malay expressions are worth looking up; did he know my dad's CID? And my brothers. My two brothers, you know, the interpol officers who box?

No dangers, no surprises, no aby sayyaf interludes on the boat back to Semporna; biggest worry turned out to be racing to the airport via the wrong direction at 130k/ph ,in a van with no seat belts (I lay down; easier not to be scared), to check in ten minutes before the only plane back to Kuala Lumpur left.

So for those of you who were nervous, cheers. I got the voicemails.

So where've you been? 5 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I love cities, and KL is no different. I'm here twice, and lucky enough to be here at both Deepavali and Hari Raya - 'christmastide' for two big big religions, essentially; the people watching is rich here.

My first impression, though, was formed by toilets.

It's not like I've never used a squat toilet before. It's not like I've never had to do without paper before.

I guess it's just that some things are hardwired into your range of cultural response. The instinct of revulsion always struck me as one of the strongest in humans, and one of the easiest to manipulate. No accident that nazi propagandists utilised associations with shit to create a cultural image of Juden that would excite a physical response.

KL is a strongly pious muslim city, and that line reminds me of some odd details; the T shirt bearing a 'Matrix' pattern that professed Israel not real. I put it in the same mental comedy category as the 'Engrish' t-shirts worn by devout teenagers that say 'fuck off motherfucking wanker' beneath a neatly pressed hijab, of which I've now counted five so shockingly worded you'd shield your granny's eyes. Though I know it's not.
Though I do know it's not the same at all.

So anything to do with toilets is dodgy cultural ground anyway. And tourists spend a lot of time in the toilet. (Seriously, I nearly did a post from Borneo announcing the arrival of a solid poo)

So some things just pull at your lower gut in a way that's not sensible.

The first time I ate fish and chilli porridge. The durian cakes that tasted of creamy garlic n butterscotch filling. The hotel where you had to stand in the men's urinal to shower. The fourteen person dorms. All gut wrenching. At first. Then you shrug and move on.

But when I realised with a shock that the squat toilets weren't the whole story. The no paper wasn't the whole story. The not eating with your left hand because it's reserved for Other Purposes wasn't the whole story.

The reason there's a hosepipe in the cubicle.

What the bucket and cup of stale water are for.

That sort of thing. Temporarily disturbing, followed by rationalisation: "but that's just plain sensible in the tropics."

But: glancing down in the Petronas Towers cubicle, in the ritzy designer western seat-toilets, Iaccidentally saw the next cubicle and occupant clearly reflected in the pools of hosepipe effluent. But.

Realised why the toilets in Malaysia look so muddy. Why the plastic seat has footprints.

Penny.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
plink

These people are crazy, I tell you.

toctoctoc

So where've you been? 4 Singapore

I love Singapore. I don't give a flying fuck if you, you or you think it's "sterile", think it's "just another city".

What, like Rome's just another city? Like Buenos Aires is just another city? I don't care if it's Asia Lite. What, am I on a long hard search to see poverty and suffering or something? Is it not really travelling unless I'm watching squalor? I worry about people. Really. What's so cool about watching human misery?

Three really brilliant moments in Singapore (and I'm going back so I know there'll be more):
1 Meeting up with wifflewiffle, who is as brightly animatedly clever as his blog suggests, to watch the mass breaking of ramadan fasts, and to shop for net curtains. He was sharp, witty, goodlooking, entertaining, and a bit of a wryly sarcastic insight into the culture I'd been bobbing about on the edge of.
And memorable for the hilarious closing line "I've never spoken to a white person that length of time before."
2 Rowing with the British Dragonboat Racing team in Singapore. I just wanted to stretch my muscles a bit, but they were gearing up for November's races, and didn't have time to cope with passengers; they expected me to work.
"Hi, I thought I'd come and see what the dragonboats are about?"
"Get in the boat. We can talk later. Get in the boat."
Without space to protest, mewl or be feeble, it was cool to suddenly stop being both observer and outsider, and have a part to play in a team effort. And ... we beat the bloody Singaporean team. Okay it was a friendly. But ... those boys are fit.
Worth the hangover later.
3 Learning to make a laksa at the cookery academy. Chef Choon moved way too fast for me to capture any photograph, so I bumbled through it, trying to remember the different ways to use three bloody different types of ginger. I was particularly careful with the chillis. I've eaten hawker market laksa - I know your ears should steam, your face should purple, your specs should fall off and the sweat pool around you. I counted out TWELVE chillies - the small, red ones, mark you, the ones that hurt.
"No no no," chef barks, ripping the bag of chillis from my hands and throwing another twelve in.



Twenty four chillis. And that was the mildest tasting laska I ever had.

Ever read Asterix stories? You know the movement they'd be making when you read 'these people are crazy / toc toc toc'? :)

War-blogging on Flickr

Shitty book,
originally uploaded by digitalia.

I keep reading ridiculous books - by now if I'm in a city, I hoard novels people have recommended, despite how much they wiegh [aka a serious craving] so I won't be forced yet again into spacing out my time between activities reading some poor novel I've swapped with someone.
And I hated this book in the photo, really felt offended by its pomposity and look-at-me posturing about how much the author knows.

But books are for reading, for falling into other people's worlds, for enjoying, and for everyone who loves sci-fi, there's someone else who finds it ridiculous - I'm quite happy for you to like that nonsense, as long as you don't crow too loudly about how shite my favourites are.

So it was fun, like, when Terry invented a new way of reviewing poor novels on t'internet. I approve. War-flickr-ing.

Cheers Doll

ferry faerie,
originally uploaded by digitalia.

I'm in Borneo now, in a paradisal place. A wooden village on stilts above the ocean, thick wooden pillars crusted with bright soft corals. Gleaming acquamarine shafts of light flicker up from cracks in the walls and floors. Three rooms to myself. After the squalor of Kuala Lumpur, the tacktacktack sound of cockroach approach, the urinal showers, the filth and abuse and explosions, this is Heaven.

Closed, gated heaven.

If I go out, the whole fucking town follows me. Cars screech to a halt, people drop things, stare open mouthed.

I thought it was perhaps my hair colour, or perhaps my clothes - but no, theres about 8 other tourists in Semporna, who all dress in tank tops and shorts. I cover up entirely.

Turned out the crowd inducing thing was: I'm out on my own. They've never seen a foreign woman without chaperone. Without a man.

Now when I see some daffy tourist girl floating about in a bikini behind her conveniently placed boyfriend, I want to stab her, frankly.
Cheers, doll. You just made my life that bit easier.

No

Buddha's open for business,
originally uploaded by digitalia.

The Malaysians love to say no, (whereas Chinese Singaporeans seem to do anything to avoid using the word no - give you the wrong food, the n wrong directions, send you off into the far distance - anything to oblige).
Sample conversation here:
"So you're telling me I can't sit down?"
"No."
"Can I eat this?"
"No."
"What, this food, you're selling to me? I can't sit down and I can't eat it? Can I put it in a bin?"
"No."
"There are no bins in Malaysia?"
"No."
"There are no seats in Malaysia?"
"No."
"What about them, they're sitting down?"
"No."
"Why can't I sit down?"
"No."
"So you're telling me I can buy food but I am not allowed to eat it?"
"No."
"I'm just going to sit down here and see if you can stop me then."
"Yes."

To dive or not to dive?

Turtle

Malaysia and Indonesia are proving super duper expensive / super duper difficult to organise for diving.

If I dive in Malaysia, at the world class reef at Sipadan, it'll cost me 1250 GBP.
If I dive in Indonesia, at Bunaken Reef, it'll cost me another 800 GBP.

But a travel Malaysia by train first class pass is 40 GBP. I'd be high, dry, possibly bored, but I could travel further, harder, longer.

Which to do?

Footnote I chose the diving. Live-aboard diving boats. Half the price, twice the diving. Rah.

So where've you been? 3 Kadavu, Fiji Islands

PHOBIAS ASSOCIATED WITH
THE SEA

• Hydrophobia - a fear of water

• Ichthyophobia - a fear of fish (or,
more specifically, the fear of sharks,
elasmophobia)

• Nyctophobia - a fear of darkness

• Claustrophobia - a fear of being
enclosed or enveloped

• Barophobia - a fear of being
crushed

• Pnigophobia - a fear of being
unable to breathe, or of choking

• Phagophobia - a fear of being
eaten alive

• Bathophobia - a fear of depth or
sinking

• Thanatophobia - a fear of dying

In sum: Thalassophobia - an
irrational terror of the sea.

The first time I swam with a shark its presence, and its obvious interest, horrified me.

Arriving in Kadavu, events, situations, people conspired; I needed to complete my diving course fast. It was time to kill my phobia of deep water stone dead.
The Great Astrolabe Reef, world class dive site, home to sharks, barracuda, manta rays, turtles, would be where I spent the rest of my time in Fiji.

The first night, listening to a tall tale about a shark ripping a man's stomach out, I introduced my fear to its public by explosively vomiting everywhere.

The first day at sea, I suited up, oriented myself, rolled backward headfirst into the ocean chop. And felt my throat tighten in horror. I looked down to reassure myself - beneath my tiny suspended legs helplessly lifted by the swells, was space. Lots and lots of space. A galaxy of pressurised current filled nothing.
My throat closed entirely. Looking up into sky and spray or down into the greened void was the same. I couldn't do this.

The thrashing and the panic wasn't pretty. Me insisting we abandon the dive wasn't pretty. Me hiding at the bottom of the boat, trying not to see any more sea at all wasn't glorious or brave. I still had to swim back from the harbour. Crying salt solution into an ocean of more salt, more solution than anything I'd ever contribute was neither adventurous nor exciting.
My fear was located entirely at the surface - once in the depths, the belly of the ocean, I had no nervousness, no panic, my dive skills were good. I was a strong swimmer. I knew my stuff.
Theat day's walk back to land and to the ignoble routine of dismantling equipment I'd been too terrified to use was a taste of pure defeat.

The instructor levelled with me. "I could tell you that it's going to be okay, but it's not. This fear of the surface thing is something you're going to have to deal with. You'll never be okay if you don't get past it."
The whole journey so far has been a process of learning to deal with fear. I have a number of ways of evading the immobilising rise of panic before it climbs from diaphragm to gut to throat, now. I had to fix myself, know myself, use them all.

I went back out the next morning, and did that fucking dive. And the next. And the next.

Qualified. Then did sixteen more bloody dives. In all conditions. On my twelfth shark, I reached across and playfully tweaked his tail.

Hit that fucker of a phobia. Smacked through the barrier. Nailed it. Right on the head.

So where've you been? 2 Ovalau

Ferry crowds,
originally uploaded by digitalia.

After a journey that lasted three days with only six hours of sleep time, I felt like a plague carrier trying to bury myself. The difference between big touristy pacific islands and quiet isolated atolls where people greet you warmly though they've not seen a new face in some time is marked.
I ditched the idea of island hopping in Fiji. I needed peace, I needed stillness, I needed not to lift a backpack. I needed some semblance of rationality and health to be restored.

I hid in the middle of nowhere.

At first it was great; the loud stillness of the rainforest, the weekly half day trips into the island's small seven shop town, Levuka, to get pissed with the expats and the mayor. The novelty value of drinking rainwater with worms in, of bathing with fish in the creek. Of kerosene lamps that send you to sleep soon after sundown. The that was all caught or grown on the farm. The way Fijians yell across the volcano to greet the slightest movement in the distance; don't allow anyone to remain a stranger; call out a loud "Io" and rope everybody in. The warmth of the farmer who declared this to be where I could rely upon 'my Fijian family' to restore me to health.

But Fiji the white beach blue sand paradise is an illusion. Life in the bush is hard. Even in the cities the average wage is $50 a week. A farmer with ancestral land grows dalo and kava and dreams of leaving. Any stranger is a chance, a possible opportunity to change the world they're trapped by. Something different. Something they can take.

The grins in the traditional villages mark out duty, mark out control, mark out a perimeter of territorial obligation. Cross into that world, and eventually, that world claims you: the good and the bad dissolve together in a soup of roles and expectations that encroach and gather and limit you.

"I guess you're seeing the real Fiji, in these places, eh?" a Tongan overstayer, Stanley comments, as he passes round the kava bowl, and Sammy plays the ukulele. I guess I did. It was striking, bucolic, and wistful. It was unexpected, scary, and hard.

So where've you been? 1 Atiu, Cook Islands

Waiting for the plane,
originally uploaded by digitalia.

The last night I was in Atiu, I could barely speak English any more, even to myself, in my head. There were four tourists on the island, and two of them were Deutsche, had not a word of English.

The island ferry hadn't turned up for three months, and bread was rationed to one doughnut per day; order a day in advance. Like most pacific small islands, it's not fairness that governs the system, it's contacts, so foreigners' doughnut orders are the first to fall off the list. Which left tinned beetroot and tinned corned beef (I didn't even know you could tin corned beef) to eat. Coffee I could get - I was being put up by the owner of a coffee plantation, and it was in his interests to keep me wired on the stuff till I was addicted. But tinned horror-food was a step too far.
Daniel, an american writer also staying in Areora village, was determined to eat like a local.
I was determined to act like a local. I set out to hitch to the near deserted 'big hotel' to sweet talk the owner into sharing his imported stash of real lettuce and carrot.

The ploy worked. Daniel flew out early, sick to his stomach of tinned corned beef. I stayed, dining nightly with the hotel owner, mayor and visiting fisherman from Takitea. The payment, beyond the nominal cash price of food at its normal price, was to act as interpreter for the Deutsche pensioners.

My German has deteriorated to the point where a six year old has about the same vocabulary, but probably more confidence in grammar. Such were my translation efforts that within the space of six hours, I started forgetting how to speak English also.

My last night on Atiu, the ferry arrived (it had six hours to dock and unload before a freak distress call from a beached ferry sent it away for another 3 months). Bread was suddenly cheap, and the local Maoris held a huge huge party.

I've seen 'island nights' when trespassing in luxury resorts to bag a decent hammock/beer/shower. They're execrable; plastic smiles and cheesy grass skirts. This was the real thing: a table laden with all manner of goat, rukau, taro, ike. The muscle bound local ladies, in finery and hats despite the heat, formed a line by the paper plates as the band struck up on the ukuleles. Kura, the cook, nudged me as I hesitated, held back, the tourist stranger at the feast: "better get there fast; once these Maori ladies get there, there's nothing left."
Kids dancing in grass skirts and coconut shells, war dances, feats of strength and endurance expressed in hand gestures, roars, hipsway and song. The audience roaring their support when their own family were on the floor. The lads from the tumunu (the bush beer drinking club - a shed roof and a bucket full of vile orange stuff out in the forest) all pissed on aussie export beer, and expansive. It was great. Toll, in fact. Genau.

Not bombed yet

and necessary,
originally uploaded by digitalia.

Yeah, I was meant to be in Indonesia right now, but as you can tell by the trillions of photos I'm pasting over flickr, I'm neither there nor dead.

I switched lots of flights to stay for 5 weeks in Fiji - there are points when you just can't face hostels and moving and a new flight every week any more, and this was one.
Spent my time in horribly remote locations - saw a tourist at one point open up a laptop during a local ceremony, and was shocked at how horrified I was by his rudeness. I think I'd become accustomed to the idea of a world without wires. At last.

I'll be in Singapore next week, meeting wifflewiffle, who really should still be blogging, then Malaysia and then Indonesia, a little later than planned to avoid the 12th October anniversary.

Fuck terrorists. I'm still going.

... ahem

Burtonesque,
originally uploaded by digitalia.

...

alive.

...

Yeah.