Yesterday I spent a radiantly delightful 4 hours in the hospital, and an even more delightful RM500 (80 quid) on a bunch of x-rays, some fabulously strong drugs and a black wrist support which makes me look quite a lot like Luke Skywalker. It means that I can only move my left arm in the style of a late-90s raver, so I have dubbed my new robotic attachment "the rave claw".
One good thing to come of all this is that now most people have stopped greeting me with the standard "where you from?" and going for the even more inventive and mentally taxing "what happen your arm?". So, see good in bad I say.
At least the bloody thing isn't broken, but the soft tissue is pretty mangled up, and has started going black now as the deep internal bleeding from the impact has soaked through the muscle. Also my wrist is a delightful shade of yellowy-orange. My "good" knee has suffered a "good" bit of muscular damage, but lucky no tendons, ligaments or bone damage. Both are going to take about 6 weeks to heal.
So there we go, one unguarded moment and I get a busted MacBook (getting fixed next week), a limp, a rave-claw, an arm like a rainbow, 100 quid spunked away on hospital fees (quite literally poured down the drain) - but at least I got to top up my caustic vitriole gland, and can quite merrily call the government here a bunch of first rate, super-corrupt, lazy, uneducated shits, and I have a good reason to do it because it's their bloody fault I fell in a drain in the first place.
Love to all - ps: it's vanessas birthday on friday, she's 25
19 May 2008
Oh the hilarity
Just a quickie, as I just couldn't resist telling you straight away. I just saw one of the oddest things, whilst shopping for new stuff for our lovely new apartment.
In the shopping centre is one of those places with random entertainment for little kiddies, and there I saw possibly the most incongruous sight.
A small Malay child riding on a mechanical zebra, ok, not so weird, but the zebra was playing Jingle Bells from inside its face.
A asian muslim, riding on a fake african equine creation, playing christmas songs from its face in May?
Oh dear, where am I?
On another side note of weirdness, I was delighted almost to death yesterday with the Malaysian style of fitting out a new appartment. Firstly they fitted a water heater power shower so we can bathe in less than subzero conditions, ok, but because the landlord is so bloody cheap he didn't want to do it properly, so instead of wiring it up nicely he got the contractors to bodge it by wiring the shower up to the light fitting.
Great idea Einstein.
So day one, I turn on the light then go to take a shower. Hmm, why did the RCD just trip? Have a look, then a quick visual inspection, no the shower doesn't turn on if the light is off. Oh dear.
Call Landlord, call him a cheapskate, so he gets the boys to "fix it"
They come, declare it "fixed" then bugger off.
Phenomenally unsafe morons that they are, all they bloody did was fit a higher ampage RCD, but daft old silly Timbo is too pre-occupied with feeling sorry for himself with his injuries to check properly. So yesterday I turn on the bathroom light
BANG!!!!
Darkness.
"Hmmm, what is this", although in the back of my mind I know the answer. I open the bathroom door and see a black spot on the wall, where once there was fresh virgin paint. "Ho ho ho, I got to see this for myself:.
So I off the light, then flip the trip back on, keeping a safe distance I turn the flip the light on.
BAAANNGG, POP!!!
Wheee, fireworks in the bathroom, the blinking power cable for the shower has exploded in a shower of nicely deadly blue sparks, then of course the power cuts out again. My goodness me boys, has your mother never told you that water and electricity don't mix? No, of course she hasn't because you're Indonesian contractor and your mother probably doesn't even know how to spell her own name, do you? Is your name even the same as the one on your fake ID card? I doubt it.
So I shout at the landlord, call him an utter cheapskate and mention that I'm more than a little bit upset at him trying to kill me and vanessa in order to save a pound or two, so he comes back with his moron contractors. They look at it and have a little discussion, at which point I tell them that whatever brainchild they're trying to cook up will never work so do it my way. my way however costs about a Fiver and would take an hour, so "ooooh, cannot lah". Instead they fix on drilling a hole in the wall, to the back kitchen (semi-outdoors) and wiring it directly into the mains that feeds the socket there. OK, no problem, but then i realise that they just bodged it "for the time being" and left the socket hanging off the wall. I mean come on, it's 240volts and enough ampage to cook a donkey, but there we have it, got to wait until tomorrow with a death shower sitting there all nice and deadly. Fab, I hope it doesn't rain or the bloody fuseboard will explode in a fabulous cloud of doom - then again, I hope it does rain because then it would teach the cheapskate landlord that penny-pinching doesn't pay, but that's the Malaysian way, and I've seen it a milion times in a million ways, and it always ends up costing more, but they always come back again and try to do it cheap-cheap, thinking that classic line of "I know where I went wrong last time".
Yes, Malaysians never learn, but at least it's entertaining, and, touch wood, it hasn't killed me yet.
Not yet.
Now I'm going to go and have a ride on the good old fashioned Christmas carolling Zebra to cheer me up
In the shopping centre is one of those places with random entertainment for little kiddies, and there I saw possibly the most incongruous sight.
A small Malay child riding on a mechanical zebra, ok, not so weird, but the zebra was playing Jingle Bells from inside its face.
A asian muslim, riding on a fake african equine creation, playing christmas songs from its face in May?
Oh dear, where am I?
On another side note of weirdness, I was delighted almost to death yesterday with the Malaysian style of fitting out a new appartment. Firstly they fitted a water heater power shower so we can bathe in less than subzero conditions, ok, but because the landlord is so bloody cheap he didn't want to do it properly, so instead of wiring it up nicely he got the contractors to bodge it by wiring the shower up to the light fitting.
Great idea Einstein.
So day one, I turn on the light then go to take a shower. Hmm, why did the RCD just trip? Have a look, then a quick visual inspection, no the shower doesn't turn on if the light is off. Oh dear.
Call Landlord, call him a cheapskate, so he gets the boys to "fix it"
They come, declare it "fixed" then bugger off.
Phenomenally unsafe morons that they are, all they bloody did was fit a higher ampage RCD, but daft old silly Timbo is too pre-occupied with feeling sorry for himself with his injuries to check properly. So yesterday I turn on the bathroom light
BANG!!!!
Darkness.
"Hmmm, what is this", although in the back of my mind I know the answer. I open the bathroom door and see a black spot on the wall, where once there was fresh virgin paint. "Ho ho ho, I got to see this for myself:.
So I off the light, then flip the trip back on, keeping a safe distance I turn the flip the light on.
BAAANNGG, POP!!!
Wheee, fireworks in the bathroom, the blinking power cable for the shower has exploded in a shower of nicely deadly blue sparks, then of course the power cuts out again. My goodness me boys, has your mother never told you that water and electricity don't mix? No, of course she hasn't because you're Indonesian contractor and your mother probably doesn't even know how to spell her own name, do you? Is your name even the same as the one on your fake ID card? I doubt it.
So I shout at the landlord, call him an utter cheapskate and mention that I'm more than a little bit upset at him trying to kill me and vanessa in order to save a pound or two, so he comes back with his moron contractors. They look at it and have a little discussion, at which point I tell them that whatever brainchild they're trying to cook up will never work so do it my way. my way however costs about a Fiver and would take an hour, so "ooooh, cannot lah". Instead they fix on drilling a hole in the wall, to the back kitchen (semi-outdoors) and wiring it directly into the mains that feeds the socket there. OK, no problem, but then i realise that they just bodged it "for the time being" and left the socket hanging off the wall. I mean come on, it's 240volts and enough ampage to cook a donkey, but there we have it, got to wait until tomorrow with a death shower sitting there all nice and deadly. Fab, I hope it doesn't rain or the bloody fuseboard will explode in a fabulous cloud of doom - then again, I hope it does rain because then it would teach the cheapskate landlord that penny-pinching doesn't pay, but that's the Malaysian way, and I've seen it a milion times in a million ways, and it always ends up costing more, but they always come back again and try to do it cheap-cheap, thinking that classic line of "I know where I went wrong last time".
Yes, Malaysians never learn, but at least it's entertaining, and, touch wood, it hasn't killed me yet.
Not yet.
Now I'm going to go and have a ride on the good old fashioned Christmas carolling Zebra to cheer me up
17 May 2008
It's just not my month
So, yet more delightful antics from the world of Timbo.
Allow me to explain. Well firstly I don't know if I told you that we moved house. Well we did, to a really nice new place not far from the old one, I'll stick up some photos when we've cleared away all the moving house crap. So my problems this week begand with moving house. I called one of the numbers that get fly-posted all over advertising lorrys for hire, book them, order a 2 tonne lorry and 2 people, price RM180. On the day they turn up 2 hours late, this is ok, as it's Malaysian time, I forgive. They turn up with a 5 tonne lorry and 4 people, then when they come into my appartment they threateningly tell me that it will cost RM550, but they do this in such a way that the fridge and sofa (ie the stuff I can't carry) is already in the lift. The people are professional con-men, or another C word that I can't use because children read this. Yes, that's right, Cads. Oooh, aren't I the naughty one.
So, I basically tell them that they're are a bunch of Cads, and they can absolutely Flick Off and Fudge themselves with a rusty pipe. I haven't got 500 ringgit, in fact that's more than most of the furniture is worth, and they can go take a flying Flamingo through a rolling doughnut for all I care. The big man, who was getting the brunt of my Frollicking Cads Sugarlumpery called his boss, saying "ini Matsalleh cakap busuk-busuk lagi Boss" (translation: This white bloke is talking lots of stink-stink like a dirty potty mouth boss). I tell you, how dare you threaten me in my own house!!! I was a proper raging bull of all my filthyest malay, I told the boss that he can make coitus with his female sibling and all that sort of chiquanery. All jolly fun, but what could I do but insult that barskets.
So RM300 and it all goes in. But, to my utter chagrin, we arrive at the new appartment and, oh, the 5 tonnes lorry is too tall to enter the carpark, so we gotta handball the stuff in cos we can't get into the lift. These workshy Indian lazy arse lorry boys are none too pleased, not only did they not get to proeposeterously rip off the white-man, but he expects them to do the job he's paying them to do??? This is certainly not the Malaysian way. So they basically dump it all on the floor and make me pay for, well, absolutely Funk all. But what can I so here? They know where I live and make certain that their eyes tell me so. Anyhoooo, I called them all Constables and insisted they wouldn't get a penny from me if they don't take the biggest stuff in. So with heavy hearts at having to do a days work, they took the sofa, fridge and big box inside, then left muggins with the rest of the flat. In the blistering heat, getting back to some good old fashioned back breaking labour. Oh, did I mention the cheeky shnitzels had the cheek to ask for a tip??? I gave them a tip, "don't eat yellow snow", now Flower off down the rathole you crawled out of. And don't blame me that your grandparents were coolies.
Ho de hum, the place is nice though.
So, this brings us up to yesterday. I took a little stroll down the road, to see if there's an internet place near to our new place. I pootle along the pavement and a sign catches my eye outside a restaurant, laptop in bag. I look at the sign for approx 5 seconds (or 2 steps to be exact) and think "ooh wi-fi".
WHAAANNNNGG
Next thing I know my head is floor level, but what is this? Oh, my body is below floor level? What is this? My knee hurts, as does my hand. Why is this?
Oh, I have fallen into a drain. A DRAIN!!!!!!!!!! For the love of a god that doesn't exist, a Frollicking drain!!!
Yes, some utter, utter, utter Bar-steward had stolen the bleeding drain cover, I look away for 5 seconds and there we go. Now I sit here typing with one hand as I have a suspected broken wrist - hard to tell on the Xray, need to go back in 2 or 3 days and see the specialist - and my knee is all banged up. Worst of all my brand new Macbook got a right old smack, and the DVD drive is a bit jimmied (lucky under warrently, but I don't know if that qualifies 'Involuntary Drain Entry' as a fixable reason. Fire, Theft and act of Drain. Not sure, but I will get it fixed by the time honoured method of jumping up and down and making a scene for several hours if necessary, they don't know how to deal with that here, it's brilliant) and a new pack of fags got squished.
So there we go, I'm reet Forked off at the moment, with bloody bruises and possible broken bones. Bizarrely though - when I was 16 I broke my right wrist, and then of course there was the left-knee business of a few years back. Lucky enough this time I hurt my left wrist and my right knee. So there we go, at least I'm balanced out nicely now innit.
Love to all and watch out for the holes in the floor
I wandered down the road, try
Allow me to explain. Well firstly I don't know if I told you that we moved house. Well we did, to a really nice new place not far from the old one, I'll stick up some photos when we've cleared away all the moving house crap. So my problems this week begand with moving house. I called one of the numbers that get fly-posted all over advertising lorrys for hire, book them, order a 2 tonne lorry and 2 people, price RM180. On the day they turn up 2 hours late, this is ok, as it's Malaysian time, I forgive. They turn up with a 5 tonne lorry and 4 people, then when they come into my appartment they threateningly tell me that it will cost RM550, but they do this in such a way that the fridge and sofa (ie the stuff I can't carry) is already in the lift. The people are professional con-men, or another C word that I can't use because children read this. Yes, that's right, Cads. Oooh, aren't I the naughty one.
So, I basically tell them that they're are a bunch of Cads, and they can absolutely Flick Off and Fudge themselves with a rusty pipe. I haven't got 500 ringgit, in fact that's more than most of the furniture is worth, and they can go take a flying Flamingo through a rolling doughnut for all I care. The big man, who was getting the brunt of my Frollicking Cads Sugarlumpery called his boss, saying "ini Matsalleh cakap busuk-busuk lagi Boss" (translation: This white bloke is talking lots of stink-stink like a dirty potty mouth boss). I tell you, how dare you threaten me in my own house!!! I was a proper raging bull of all my filthyest malay, I told the boss that he can make coitus with his female sibling and all that sort of chiquanery. All jolly fun, but what could I do but insult that barskets.
So RM300 and it all goes in. But, to my utter chagrin, we arrive at the new appartment and, oh, the 5 tonnes lorry is too tall to enter the carpark, so we gotta handball the stuff in cos we can't get into the lift. These workshy Indian lazy arse lorry boys are none too pleased, not only did they not get to proeposeterously rip off the white-man, but he expects them to do the job he's paying them to do??? This is certainly not the Malaysian way. So they basically dump it all on the floor and make me pay for, well, absolutely Funk all. But what can I so here? They know where I live and make certain that their eyes tell me so. Anyhoooo, I called them all Constables and insisted they wouldn't get a penny from me if they don't take the biggest stuff in. So with heavy hearts at having to do a days work, they took the sofa, fridge and big box inside, then left muggins with the rest of the flat. In the blistering heat, getting back to some good old fashioned back breaking labour. Oh, did I mention the cheeky shnitzels had the cheek to ask for a tip??? I gave them a tip, "don't eat yellow snow", now Flower off down the rathole you crawled out of. And don't blame me that your grandparents were coolies.
Ho de hum, the place is nice though.
So, this brings us up to yesterday. I took a little stroll down the road, to see if there's an internet place near to our new place. I pootle along the pavement and a sign catches my eye outside a restaurant, laptop in bag. I look at the sign for approx 5 seconds (or 2 steps to be exact) and think "ooh wi-fi".
WHAAANNNNGG
Next thing I know my head is floor level, but what is this? Oh, my body is below floor level? What is this? My knee hurts, as does my hand. Why is this?
Oh, I have fallen into a drain. A DRAIN!!!!!!!!!! For the love of a god that doesn't exist, a Frollicking drain!!!
Yes, some utter, utter, utter Bar-steward had stolen the bleeding drain cover, I look away for 5 seconds and there we go. Now I sit here typing with one hand as I have a suspected broken wrist - hard to tell on the Xray, need to go back in 2 or 3 days and see the specialist - and my knee is all banged up. Worst of all my brand new Macbook got a right old smack, and the DVD drive is a bit jimmied (lucky under warrently, but I don't know if that qualifies 'Involuntary Drain Entry' as a fixable reason. Fire, Theft and act of Drain. Not sure, but I will get it fixed by the time honoured method of jumping up and down and making a scene for several hours if necessary, they don't know how to deal with that here, it's brilliant) and a new pack of fags got squished.
So there we go, I'm reet Forked off at the moment, with bloody bruises and possible broken bones. Bizarrely though - when I was 16 I broke my right wrist, and then of course there was the left-knee business of a few years back. Lucky enough this time I hurt my left wrist and my right knee. So there we go, at least I'm balanced out nicely now innit.
Love to all and watch out for the holes in the floor
I wandered down the road, try
7 May 2008
My Crap Holiday
Yes I was compelled to leave the country for a shoet while, despite being really busy trying to shoot this documentary. So on thursday off I went to Thailand to have a little break. The origional plan was to fly, but I had left it a bit late, and by the time I realised I needed to go away I discovered it was Labour Day (may Day) bank holiday and every man and his dog wanted to take a long weekend, thus prices too high. So I got a train, possibly the worlds most unnecessarily slow train, to Hat Yai, just over the Thai border.
I was going to scooch up to Bangkok and visit our friend Kim, but when I got to Hat Yai I was just dead. See there were no beds left on the train, so I spent a delightfully gruelling 14 hours in a rubbish seat, the sort of seat you get on the little Sprinters, ie rubbish, with a small Malay girl-child staring over the seat in front at me for almost the whole bloody trip.
So, as you can imagine, the prospect of another 14 hours on a train to Bangkok (again with no beds available) was about as appealling as a putting a rotten fish in my socks.
Thus I opted for a new travel plan, and now I realise it could have turned out incredibly badly indeed, as it was it only turned out to be utter rubbish instead.
See, I looked at a map and thought, hmmm, I've still not gone into Myanmar (Burma) have I, and there is a train from Hat Yai that goes almost direct to Yangon (Rangoon). This was early Friday evening, and I was very close to buying a ticket and just having a bit of a peek, check the lay of the land with a view to going back in a few months and having a month long trip there. In the end I could ascertain when the train would leave Rangoon to come back to the Malaysian border area, so though, well never mind, this is only a short trip, no bother I'll go somewhere else.
Lucky I did n'all I rekon.
Instead, I went West to a marine park called Satun, it's only about an hour North of Langkawi by boat, and I've heard it mentioned so thought I'd have a look, then I could get a boat back to Malaysia and spare myself the pain of another long train journey. This decision turned out to be a good one on 2 counts. As I managed not to get caught up in the Typhoon that annihallated Rangoon and the Irrawaddy Delta, in sunny - not to mention delightfully oppressed - Burma on Saturday (which would have pretty much co-incided with me getting off the train) but also the nasty train crash south of Kuala Lumpur that has thrown the Malaysian rail network into confusion and dissarray. Whoop de woo, somebody's looking after young Timbo today.
Needless to say I had no idea about either of these incidents until I got back to Malaysia and used the internet, with a sigh of relief and only a petit browning of the underwear.
So, there I went to a place called Koh Lipee, via Koh Tarutao. It was a very lovely picturesque place, however me being a dunce I didn't take any pictures. See this was all a bit unplanned, and I'd packed the small camera deep into my bag. In a moment of clear thought I opted to keep one Tshirt dry for the return bus from Penang to KL, otherwise the insanely high Aircon would freeze a damp shirt to my skin and result in hypothermia, which is actually possible in the tropics if you go on a bus/train or linger in Malls too long. Where was I? Oh yes, dry tshirt, I put it in a plastic bag, then obviously I had the great idea of putting the camera in there too, to keep that dry. Then it seems I forgot about the camera, and whenever I looked at the dry tshirt bag, I just thought, "nothing but a tshirt in there". Yes, still the same old Timbo, forget my brain if it wasn't glued in. So I convinced myself the camera was in the appartment and you don't get to see any nice photos as a consequence.
Spending a few days on Koh Lipee was ok, but I really was not in the mood, I just wanted to be at home sorting out this film. The weather was OK at first, as my peeling tomatoe nose testifys, but after Saturday evening the sky went a bit black (tail end of Typhoon I now realise) and it got a bit drizzly and grey for rest of the time. Also it was the very end of their season, so most places weren't open and there was essentially bugger all to do. Which again wouldn't have been so bad if the bookstore wasn't closed and I'd brought enough to read. So I took advantage of cheap alcohol and drowned the days away.
On the subject of drowning, I nearly did. Not a very nice expeience. (Now I hear Mum have a heart attack and roll around on the floor gasping for breath).
Allow me to explain.
See I wanted to go for a dive, after all it was a marine park. So on the sunday I went and booked a dive, before I went away on the boat back to Malaysia. Monday morning I was quite hung over and tired, but that's not so bad, I've dived hungover before and generally it's not so bad. THe guy said he'd take us to a nice easy spot and just go cruising around on the reef.
As soon as I got in the water, the hangover went away, but I was still a bit tired. Never mind, we went down, and there was something very wrong. See he'd said that visibilty there was usually around 20 to 25 meters. This day it was about 1, sometimes less, sort of like swimming in a glass of milk.
The surface current was really not bad, which is normally where the current is, but when we got to the bottom there was suddenly a bit of a surge. Not to worry, we swam on. Then after about 20 minutes I was getting tired, whichever way we went we ended up swimming into the current, it just kept changing. Then I need to burp (quite normal) and was trying to get it out, when the current got really strong, like swimming and moving nowhere, maybe even backwards. Now I really don't like diving in such conditions and I was all for just going home and calling it a day, but we kept on going. I still couldn't burp cos too busy breathing and kicking. Then I got cramp in my leg. Again quite normal, so I went to release my cramp, by pulling by fin towards me. To do this you have to stop kicking, so I stoppped, but the current pulled me back and I really couldn't see very far, thus not wanting to loose the instructor and my buddy I kept on swimming, the cramp was savage, but I kept on kicking.
Luckily my buddy noticed I was getting into trouble, and he spotted a fishing net snagged on the reef. We both grabbed on for dear life and had a rest.
Then the strangest and most unpleasent thing happened>
First the fatigue hit me like a brick. Nearly 30 minutes of harm swimming and I was knackered. I released my cramps, but I'd started to breath too fast, I think I was close to hyperventillating, panic was starting to rise, it was getting a bit dangerous. Then, and I don't remember how, I choked on a bit of water, and before I even knew what was going on I had pulled my regulator out of my mouth!!!! Can you believe this? I had no idea what I was doing, I suddenly and for the first time ever, became the textbook "panic diver", "diver in distress".
Then, well luckily i realised that I'd taken my reg out before I tried to breath in (bear in mind I already had water in my lungs, and more, well, not really that healthy) so jammed it back in and breathed in, which of course caused me to cough up the water. Then I had a lovely long burp, and managed to calm myself down, with the help and eye contact of my lovely lovely buddy. I have no idea who he is, he spoke no english, but well I'm very grateful cos he was proper good.
So there we go, the first time something like that has happened and I hope to christ it is the last. It was a stupid decision of the dive leader to keep diving in those conditions, and I really don't know why we didn't just go up after 10 minutes of soup swimming.
There we go.
After the dive he was really confused, says he's dived there for 3 years and never seen conditions like it. Of course, now it's clear that the whole of the Andaman sea was in a state of turmoil what with the typhoon 500 miles away. At the time I was just happy not to become fish food, it would be a pretty rubbish way to die right.
So, not to worry, I just came home and now I'm just wish I hadn't had to go away, and I might do a bit more research before I decided to randomly take a holiday, oh and try to remember that I packed my camera.
Love to all and don't worry about me, not a bother innit, it's all in a days work for a bloke with no job
I was going to scooch up to Bangkok and visit our friend Kim, but when I got to Hat Yai I was just dead. See there were no beds left on the train, so I spent a delightfully gruelling 14 hours in a rubbish seat, the sort of seat you get on the little Sprinters, ie rubbish, with a small Malay girl-child staring over the seat in front at me for almost the whole bloody trip.
So, as you can imagine, the prospect of another 14 hours on a train to Bangkok (again with no beds available) was about as appealling as a putting a rotten fish in my socks.
Thus I opted for a new travel plan, and now I realise it could have turned out incredibly badly indeed, as it was it only turned out to be utter rubbish instead.
See, I looked at a map and thought, hmmm, I've still not gone into Myanmar (Burma) have I, and there is a train from Hat Yai that goes almost direct to Yangon (Rangoon). This was early Friday evening, and I was very close to buying a ticket and just having a bit of a peek, check the lay of the land with a view to going back in a few months and having a month long trip there. In the end I could ascertain when the train would leave Rangoon to come back to the Malaysian border area, so though, well never mind, this is only a short trip, no bother I'll go somewhere else.
Lucky I did n'all I rekon.
Instead, I went West to a marine park called Satun, it's only about an hour North of Langkawi by boat, and I've heard it mentioned so thought I'd have a look, then I could get a boat back to Malaysia and spare myself the pain of another long train journey. This decision turned out to be a good one on 2 counts. As I managed not to get caught up in the Typhoon that annihallated Rangoon and the Irrawaddy Delta, in sunny - not to mention delightfully oppressed - Burma on Saturday (which would have pretty much co-incided with me getting off the train) but also the nasty train crash south of Kuala Lumpur that has thrown the Malaysian rail network into confusion and dissarray. Whoop de woo, somebody's looking after young Timbo today.
Needless to say I had no idea about either of these incidents until I got back to Malaysia and used the internet, with a sigh of relief and only a petit browning of the underwear.
So, there I went to a place called Koh Lipee, via Koh Tarutao. It was a very lovely picturesque place, however me being a dunce I didn't take any pictures. See this was all a bit unplanned, and I'd packed the small camera deep into my bag. In a moment of clear thought I opted to keep one Tshirt dry for the return bus from Penang to KL, otherwise the insanely high Aircon would freeze a damp shirt to my skin and result in hypothermia, which is actually possible in the tropics if you go on a bus/train or linger in Malls too long. Where was I? Oh yes, dry tshirt, I put it in a plastic bag, then obviously I had the great idea of putting the camera in there too, to keep that dry. Then it seems I forgot about the camera, and whenever I looked at the dry tshirt bag, I just thought, "nothing but a tshirt in there". Yes, still the same old Timbo, forget my brain if it wasn't glued in. So I convinced myself the camera was in the appartment and you don't get to see any nice photos as a consequence.
Spending a few days on Koh Lipee was ok, but I really was not in the mood, I just wanted to be at home sorting out this film. The weather was OK at first, as my peeling tomatoe nose testifys, but after Saturday evening the sky went a bit black (tail end of Typhoon I now realise) and it got a bit drizzly and grey for rest of the time. Also it was the very end of their season, so most places weren't open and there was essentially bugger all to do. Which again wouldn't have been so bad if the bookstore wasn't closed and I'd brought enough to read. So I took advantage of cheap alcohol and drowned the days away.
On the subject of drowning, I nearly did. Not a very nice expeience. (Now I hear Mum have a heart attack and roll around on the floor gasping for breath).
Allow me to explain.
See I wanted to go for a dive, after all it was a marine park. So on the sunday I went and booked a dive, before I went away on the boat back to Malaysia. Monday morning I was quite hung over and tired, but that's not so bad, I've dived hungover before and generally it's not so bad. THe guy said he'd take us to a nice easy spot and just go cruising around on the reef.
As soon as I got in the water, the hangover went away, but I was still a bit tired. Never mind, we went down, and there was something very wrong. See he'd said that visibilty there was usually around 20 to 25 meters. This day it was about 1, sometimes less, sort of like swimming in a glass of milk.
The surface current was really not bad, which is normally where the current is, but when we got to the bottom there was suddenly a bit of a surge. Not to worry, we swam on. Then after about 20 minutes I was getting tired, whichever way we went we ended up swimming into the current, it just kept changing. Then I need to burp (quite normal) and was trying to get it out, when the current got really strong, like swimming and moving nowhere, maybe even backwards. Now I really don't like diving in such conditions and I was all for just going home and calling it a day, but we kept on going. I still couldn't burp cos too busy breathing and kicking. Then I got cramp in my leg. Again quite normal, so I went to release my cramp, by pulling by fin towards me. To do this you have to stop kicking, so I stoppped, but the current pulled me back and I really couldn't see very far, thus not wanting to loose the instructor and my buddy I kept on swimming, the cramp was savage, but I kept on kicking.
Luckily my buddy noticed I was getting into trouble, and he spotted a fishing net snagged on the reef. We both grabbed on for dear life and had a rest.
Then the strangest and most unpleasent thing happened>
First the fatigue hit me like a brick. Nearly 30 minutes of harm swimming and I was knackered. I released my cramps, but I'd started to breath too fast, I think I was close to hyperventillating, panic was starting to rise, it was getting a bit dangerous. Then, and I don't remember how, I choked on a bit of water, and before I even knew what was going on I had pulled my regulator out of my mouth!!!! Can you believe this? I had no idea what I was doing, I suddenly and for the first time ever, became the textbook "panic diver", "diver in distress".
Then, well luckily i realised that I'd taken my reg out before I tried to breath in (bear in mind I already had water in my lungs, and more, well, not really that healthy) so jammed it back in and breathed in, which of course caused me to cough up the water. Then I had a lovely long burp, and managed to calm myself down, with the help and eye contact of my lovely lovely buddy. I have no idea who he is, he spoke no english, but well I'm very grateful cos he was proper good.
So there we go, the first time something like that has happened and I hope to christ it is the last. It was a stupid decision of the dive leader to keep diving in those conditions, and I really don't know why we didn't just go up after 10 minutes of soup swimming.
There we go.
After the dive he was really confused, says he's dived there for 3 years and never seen conditions like it. Of course, now it's clear that the whole of the Andaman sea was in a state of turmoil what with the typhoon 500 miles away. At the time I was just happy not to become fish food, it would be a pretty rubbish way to die right.
So, not to worry, I just came home and now I'm just wish I hadn't had to go away, and I might do a bit more research before I decided to randomly take a holiday, oh and try to remember that I packed my camera.
Love to all and don't worry about me, not a bother innit, it's all in a days work for a bloke with no job
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