Hello all,having a lovely little holiday at the moment. This is going to be a quick one because the internet place is quite crap, as I have to hit the spacebar 3 times in order to actually get a space.
So far we have stayed in a lovely boutique hotel for 15 quid a night, eaten lots of nice stuff, driven 2 hours to Solo (for no real reason that I can figure, but it was nice anyway and we got to see a demonstration by some genuine Islamic fundamentalists who are actually considered to be a terrorist organisation, well, in fact they are terrorists as it was them that owned up to the Bali bombing).
Then today we went to Borobudur (look on wikipedia, photos coming in a few days) and some other temples, then went to a viewing point on a volcano to look at some other volcanos.
Brilliant. Oh and our bedroom tonight has a scorpion in it, so I just came to have a look at how venemous small black indonesian scorpions are.
Brilliant. Lifes same old boring stuff as usual
love to all
5 Aug 2008
16 Jul 2008
Got flu now
Maybe it was all the fun of the big trip from KL to Ipoh and then Penang, but now this week I feel like crap. It's about time really, not had an illness for months on end (despite Vanessa, Adam and other friends dropping like flies all around me). So I am generally sitting around at home feeling sorry for myself.
The film is still going nicely, I have embarked on the arduous and thankless task of sitting and transcribing every single interview - which when you have 10 interviews, several of which run to around 80 minutes, you may guess that it is endless fun. Oh for an army of plebians and a typing pool so I can just sit there and go "work faster scum" and pay them next to nothing.
Ho hum, Vanessas little brother Stan is working as my typing coolie instead (and yes Stan I know you read this, so work faster dammit). Little bugger went all Chinese businessman on me the other day (aided and abetted by his mother) and demanded more money, would you believe it, 12 years old and threatened to down tools. Well, being from a family of Union supporters I had no choice but to honour the agreement, not wanting to be seen as just another colonial out to exploit the Chinese right.
Apart from this I don't have much to report, just lots of me sitting around and writing, going through over a pen a day, and reading the papers to see quite how rotten this nation is. In brief here is an update - Ex-Deputy PM (now de-facto opposition leader) has been accused of sodomy charges, again. He is not very happy. The lad who has accused him suggested they both go and swear in front of the Ulamaks. The Ulamaks I think are the Islamic equivilent of a Cardinal. They are going to try a rather crazy notion (one that none of my Islamic friends have ever heard of) which involves both parties swearing on a copy of the Qu'ran and then the Ulamak tried to convince God to strike down the sinner. Yes. You heard right, this so called legal proceeding is in attempt to get a heavenly lightning bolt to turn the guilty party into a sinful pile of ash. Brilliant isn't it, this one has amused me for days now. My question is why do they think God would give a crap? Why not burn down all the Gay-pride festivals in the world if He's that bothered about bum sex?
The other day the Opposition called for a Vote of No Confidence, but for some reason (no reason was given) the Speaker decided to throw it out without even a thought. Not quite sure how that is supposed to work, but there you go.
Then the same day the Police dropped hardcore roadblocks absolutely everywhere, supposedly to prevent a demonstration that nobody had planned. The aim, so all the blogs (including the Newspaper blogs, so I am allowed to write this cos it got past their stringent censoring, don't worry) was to make the people think that the Opposition are all evil do-ers out to destroy the lives of all Malaysians. But, lucky for Malaysia, not so lucky for the propaganda boys, Malaysians are as dumbshit as they think they are. Everybody is now shouting about it, asking "why did I have to sit for 3 hours in a traffic jam because there wasn't a demonstration 10 miles away?". Nobody has been able to come up with an answer that isn't hilarious yet.
Fun fun fun, in the sun sun sun.
The film is still going nicely, I have embarked on the arduous and thankless task of sitting and transcribing every single interview - which when you have 10 interviews, several of which run to around 80 minutes, you may guess that it is endless fun. Oh for an army of plebians and a typing pool so I can just sit there and go "work faster scum" and pay them next to nothing.
Ho hum, Vanessas little brother Stan is working as my typing coolie instead (and yes Stan I know you read this, so work faster dammit). Little bugger went all Chinese businessman on me the other day (aided and abetted by his mother) and demanded more money, would you believe it, 12 years old and threatened to down tools. Well, being from a family of Union supporters I had no choice but to honour the agreement, not wanting to be seen as just another colonial out to exploit the Chinese right.
Apart from this I don't have much to report, just lots of me sitting around and writing, going through over a pen a day, and reading the papers to see quite how rotten this nation is. In brief here is an update - Ex-Deputy PM (now de-facto opposition leader) has been accused of sodomy charges, again. He is not very happy. The lad who has accused him suggested they both go and swear in front of the Ulamaks. The Ulamaks I think are the Islamic equivilent of a Cardinal. They are going to try a rather crazy notion (one that none of my Islamic friends have ever heard of) which involves both parties swearing on a copy of the Qu'ran and then the Ulamak tried to convince God to strike down the sinner. Yes. You heard right, this so called legal proceeding is in attempt to get a heavenly lightning bolt to turn the guilty party into a sinful pile of ash. Brilliant isn't it, this one has amused me for days now. My question is why do they think God would give a crap? Why not burn down all the Gay-pride festivals in the world if He's that bothered about bum sex?
The other day the Opposition called for a Vote of No Confidence, but for some reason (no reason was given) the Speaker decided to throw it out without even a thought. Not quite sure how that is supposed to work, but there you go.
Then the same day the Police dropped hardcore roadblocks absolutely everywhere, supposedly to prevent a demonstration that nobody had planned. The aim, so all the blogs (including the Newspaper blogs, so I am allowed to write this cos it got past their stringent censoring, don't worry) was to make the people think that the Opposition are all evil do-ers out to destroy the lives of all Malaysians. But, lucky for Malaysia, not so lucky for the propaganda boys, Malaysians are as dumbshit as they think they are. Everybody is now shouting about it, asking "why did I have to sit for 3 hours in a traffic jam because there wasn't a demonstration 10 miles away?". Nobody has been able to come up with an answer that isn't hilarious yet.
Fun fun fun, in the sun sun sun.
10 Jul 2008
In Penang at the moment
Hello all,long time no jibber jabber. Has to be said I have been a bit caught up in many many ways. Where to start? Well along with making my documentary (which is going marvellously well and costing me an arm and a leg, but is looking amazing and will almost certainly be a smash, no shit guys it's going to be very interesting indeed), where was I? Oh yes, aside from making my documentary I have ended up being involved in a tourism/travel show for the USA. A long story, but basically Adam the cameraman found out I'm not too bad an editor, the american woman who presents the show thought she could edit it, after a month she still wasn't able to look at any of the footage so Adam and I hijacked the show and said we'd do it for a token fee, really to solidify a relationship and prove that we are the only people they need to shop with in the future. The americans got a bit upset and haughty, thinking we were basically going to try and screw them over somehow, but we went ahead and did it anyway.
So yours truly edited together the first episode (only 6 minutes, essentially long adverts, american style, but nice ones that are mini "come visit malaysia" programs) - then we sent it to them and they all wet their pants with glee.
So now we are almost entirely sorted, got 3 more episodes to do and it's going to be sweet. The only problem is on the Malaysian end, see the Americans refuse to bribe anybody - why? Because they have an inland revenue service like we do, and accountants that notice when 10% of the budget has evaporated into thin air, and also laws that back up these observations. In Malaysia? Well the laws exist, as do the accountants, but just bribe them under the table, ok lah no problem. Like that.
So the Malaysian client, who operates for the Malaysian tourist board, thus promoting bringing American money into Malaysia, are not being very forthcoming about payment until they get their bribe. So what to do? Dunno, not too bothered cos I got a film to make and no doubt it will all play out nicely in the end. If not, bugger it, we now know that we're good enough for the yanks market, so the rest of the world is no problem.
As for my documentary - well this week has been a bit of a heavy one (intentionally so as Adam has a 30 day job all through august, so I want to use the downtime to start editing my film) so on Monday we set out for Ipoh and met with our man Hong (the museum owner), where he delighted us with a box full of incredible old photos, along with various letters and cards etc, so we spent Monday night trawling through a whole shoebox packed with piccies. Incredible stuff, but led to a very late night. Then after spending the night in the museum (and yes I know that's the title of a crap film, and yes it was a bit scary as Adam got bizzarrely "attacked" by a "spirit" - and yes this sounds weird, but he's really a very normal and sensible guy, but he says he has dealings with the spirit world and when a guy is talking to you in a spooky 130 year old house then suddenly goes "huh?" and then doubles over and makes hideous vomitting dry heave noises on the floor in a very much Exorcist style, then goes into a trance and starts clapping (banishing the evil spirit into hell apparently) and in the process you suddenly feel like you're having a severe heart attack, well, it makes you wonder, and yes that was an inordinately long sentance with no break, but it is very very late and my head is now quite blur blur.
I digress, what was I on about? Cameramen being attackedby demons? No after that. Oh yes, on Tuesday we interviewed Olga again, but this time she was wearing the wrong blouse (bad continuity for interviews, very bad) so we had to devise a whole scene on the spot. Thus we got a great set of footage of her going through all the pictures, letters and stuff, a lot of which she had never seen before, despite it being her collection. Don't know, it's hard to tell with an 87 year old lady, her memory is utterly superb, but, well, it's hard to have a full bag of marbles at that age, right.
Anyway we all sat around until far too late having a brilliant time and getting some incredibly good footage. Then at around 8.45 we finally realised that we were scheduled to drive an extra 200kms up to Pulau Penang, so figured it was time to leave.
We finally made it up to Penang and found a place to sleep around 1.30am - ending up in a really nice and fabulously budget saving backpacker hostel (from whence I write this jibberish) and collapsed in a heap.
Early this morning we scraped ourselves out of bed and went to meet a man called Cheah Boon Kheng, who is a pre-eminant Malaysian historian, with a good number of excellent books to his name, and was a lecturer of history at University Sains (science, not my bad spelling) Malaysia or USM for 30 odd years. We had a lovely chat and although he had declined to be intervied, I have to add a, YET, I am firmly convinced that I can cheese him into it, with some good old fashioned flattery. This guy confused the crap out of me, namely because he is 74 or 75 (for sure as he was 5 when the japs invaded) but looks like he's in his late 40s. Weird? Yes. I thought I was talking to the wrong guy, in fact I kept expecting him to say "so when do you want me to take you to see my dad?". But no, another incredibly good looking youthful elderly person (that makes 4 or 5 so far on this film), there must have been something in the water back then, either that or there is something bad in the water now. Incredible. Anyway I got to be really cheeky and made him sign my copy of his book (one of them).
Finally we went back into Georgetown (which I will add incidentally got declared a UNESCO world heritage site yesterday) and collapsed. Later we went out to shoot some cutaways for the american travel show (may as well right, we needed them, we're here already) then went to meet a lady called Khoo Salma. She's the lady (or one of a few, but a very important one) who just got the whole of Georgetown declared as world heritage site. I like her already, stick one in the eye of the ignorant money grabbing uneducated shits that rule this country, who would gladly bulldozed the whole historical part of the city, grind it down into cement and use that to build "PENANG WORLD THEMEPARK" which would consist of cheap badly made replicas of the origionals (which would of course fall down in 2 years and have to be re-built, thus securing more under the table bribe money for the cabinet and their family members).
It's the saddest thing about this country that it takes a mandate from someone like UNESCO to say "you cannot tear this down" in order to save the history of this country from the vultures , surely they just have to look at these places to see they're worth saving!!! But no, they see only $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Sidetracked again. I was saying that tomorrow we're going to interview Salma and her husband, in an incredible place. It's an old chinese shophouse (I imagine dated around the 1890s, but I no expert) which looks amazing. It was the house where Sun Yat Sen (who was the father of the Chinese revolution in 1911 or 12 or sometime around then) had his secret HQ and planned the successful revolution that saw the end of Chinas Emporers. It looks utterly amazing in there, so much dark hardwood furniture, walls, floors, staircase, everything, and it positively stinks of history. I'd recommend looking Sun Yat Sen up on Wikipedia, cos he was a proper interesting bloke and changed the course of world history (as it was only after his revolution that Chan Kia Sheck and his Kuomintang lads, and Mao Tse Tungs Red brigade we established, he was the father of modern China, whether you like the outcome or not)/ Oh and we got an open invitation to sleep in the place whenever we are back in Penang, which is just amazing.
So now it is gone 1am again and my head hurts, so time for another beer.
Sorry no photos, but we killed the batter taking pictures of Olgas pictures the other day, and dunce boy here forgot to bring the camera battery charger. We're going to try and shoot some stills on the HD cam tommorrow if we get the chance, so as I can show you the location. The word for it is "Wah"
Love to all, Andrew hope your back is better soon
So yours truly edited together the first episode (only 6 minutes, essentially long adverts, american style, but nice ones that are mini "come visit malaysia" programs) - then we sent it to them and they all wet their pants with glee.
So now we are almost entirely sorted, got 3 more episodes to do and it's going to be sweet. The only problem is on the Malaysian end, see the Americans refuse to bribe anybody - why? Because they have an inland revenue service like we do, and accountants that notice when 10% of the budget has evaporated into thin air, and also laws that back up these observations. In Malaysia? Well the laws exist, as do the accountants, but just bribe them under the table, ok lah no problem. Like that.
So the Malaysian client, who operates for the Malaysian tourist board, thus promoting bringing American money into Malaysia, are not being very forthcoming about payment until they get their bribe. So what to do? Dunno, not too bothered cos I got a film to make and no doubt it will all play out nicely in the end. If not, bugger it, we now know that we're good enough for the yanks market, so the rest of the world is no problem.
As for my documentary - well this week has been a bit of a heavy one (intentionally so as Adam has a 30 day job all through august, so I want to use the downtime to start editing my film) so on Monday we set out for Ipoh and met with our man Hong (the museum owner), where he delighted us with a box full of incredible old photos, along with various letters and cards etc, so we spent Monday night trawling through a whole shoebox packed with piccies. Incredible stuff, but led to a very late night. Then after spending the night in the museum (and yes I know that's the title of a crap film, and yes it was a bit scary as Adam got bizzarrely "attacked" by a "spirit" - and yes this sounds weird, but he's really a very normal and sensible guy, but he says he has dealings with the spirit world and when a guy is talking to you in a spooky 130 year old house then suddenly goes "huh?" and then doubles over and makes hideous vomitting dry heave noises on the floor in a very much Exorcist style, then goes into a trance and starts clapping (banishing the evil spirit into hell apparently) and in the process you suddenly feel like you're having a severe heart attack, well, it makes you wonder, and yes that was an inordinately long sentance with no break, but it is very very late and my head is now quite blur blur.
I digress, what was I on about? Cameramen being attackedby demons? No after that. Oh yes, on Tuesday we interviewed Olga again, but this time she was wearing the wrong blouse (bad continuity for interviews, very bad) so we had to devise a whole scene on the spot. Thus we got a great set of footage of her going through all the pictures, letters and stuff, a lot of which she had never seen before, despite it being her collection. Don't know, it's hard to tell with an 87 year old lady, her memory is utterly superb, but, well, it's hard to have a full bag of marbles at that age, right.
Anyway we all sat around until far too late having a brilliant time and getting some incredibly good footage. Then at around 8.45 we finally realised that we were scheduled to drive an extra 200kms up to Pulau Penang, so figured it was time to leave.
We finally made it up to Penang and found a place to sleep around 1.30am - ending up in a really nice and fabulously budget saving backpacker hostel (from whence I write this jibberish) and collapsed in a heap.
Early this morning we scraped ourselves out of bed and went to meet a man called Cheah Boon Kheng, who is a pre-eminant Malaysian historian, with a good number of excellent books to his name, and was a lecturer of history at University Sains (science, not my bad spelling) Malaysia or USM for 30 odd years. We had a lovely chat and although he had declined to be intervied, I have to add a, YET, I am firmly convinced that I can cheese him into it, with some good old fashioned flattery. This guy confused the crap out of me, namely because he is 74 or 75 (for sure as he was 5 when the japs invaded) but looks like he's in his late 40s. Weird? Yes. I thought I was talking to the wrong guy, in fact I kept expecting him to say "so when do you want me to take you to see my dad?". But no, another incredibly good looking youthful elderly person (that makes 4 or 5 so far on this film), there must have been something in the water back then, either that or there is something bad in the water now. Incredible. Anyway I got to be really cheeky and made him sign my copy of his book (one of them).
Finally we went back into Georgetown (which I will add incidentally got declared a UNESCO world heritage site yesterday) and collapsed. Later we went out to shoot some cutaways for the american travel show (may as well right, we needed them, we're here already) then went to meet a lady called Khoo Salma. She's the lady (or one of a few, but a very important one) who just got the whole of Georgetown declared as world heritage site. I like her already, stick one in the eye of the ignorant money grabbing uneducated shits that rule this country, who would gladly bulldozed the whole historical part of the city, grind it down into cement and use that to build "PENANG WORLD THEMEPARK" which would consist of cheap badly made replicas of the origionals (which would of course fall down in 2 years and have to be re-built, thus securing more under the table bribe money for the cabinet and their family members).
It's the saddest thing about this country that it takes a mandate from someone like UNESCO to say "you cannot tear this down" in order to save the history of this country from the vultures , surely they just have to look at these places to see they're worth saving!!! But no, they see only $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Sidetracked again. I was saying that tomorrow we're going to interview Salma and her husband, in an incredible place. It's an old chinese shophouse (I imagine dated around the 1890s, but I no expert) which looks amazing. It was the house where Sun Yat Sen (who was the father of the Chinese revolution in 1911 or 12 or sometime around then) had his secret HQ and planned the successful revolution that saw the end of Chinas Emporers. It looks utterly amazing in there, so much dark hardwood furniture, walls, floors, staircase, everything, and it positively stinks of history. I'd recommend looking Sun Yat Sen up on Wikipedia, cos he was a proper interesting bloke and changed the course of world history (as it was only after his revolution that Chan Kia Sheck and his Kuomintang lads, and Mao Tse Tungs Red brigade we established, he was the father of modern China, whether you like the outcome or not)/ Oh and we got an open invitation to sleep in the place whenever we are back in Penang, which is just amazing.
So now it is gone 1am again and my head hurts, so time for another beer.
Sorry no photos, but we killed the batter taking pictures of Olgas pictures the other day, and dunce boy here forgot to bring the camera battery charger. We're going to try and shoot some stills on the HD cam tommorrow if we get the chance, so as I can show you the location. The word for it is "Wah"
Love to all, Andrew hope your back is better soon
26 Jun 2008
Just to get the family up to speed with Malaysian Politics this week
Woo, it's all fun and games over this side of the world I can tell you. Yes indeed the current political situation warrents a bit of explanation for all the boys and girls back home. It's twisted, it's convoluted, it's mind-boggling and it's actually a little bit frightening, but there you go, that's life in Asia for you. Deep breath, here I go.
This week a famous Malaysian blogger, a man called Raja Petra (or RPK to all) who is the editor of www.malaysia-today.net has dropped yet another bombshell in his campaign to rid the nation of the nasty deputy PM. Najib Razak. You see, since before I got here the newspapers have been covering the murder of a Mongolian lady called Altantulia - who was over here acting as a translator and then somehow or other ended up murdered then taken out into the jungle (or a plantation, can't quite remember) and her dead body was blown to smithereens with C4. The C4 explosive was (not really very hard to do) traced straight back to the police, I think special branch. And over the months (well years now I think) the case has dragged out and then the personal bodyguards of Datuk seri Najib Tun Razak were in the dock facing murder charges - on doubt they had upset somebody, asked for more money or something otherwise it would never have got that far. In their defense and in an attempt to escape the noose they said (something like) "we didn't kill her, we were just disposing of the body like, your honour". And these boys are police innit, nice to know they were just disposing of the body, after all, you wouldn't want to think they were doing anything bad now would you.
So, the case has gone on and on, and Najib and his wife have managed to remain uninvolved in the proceedings, despite the fact that bascally everybody has been talking about it for ages and ages, but that's Malaysia.
Anyway, RPK posted on his blog a few weeks ago something along the lines of "send them all to hell" and called the Altantunia trial a "showtrial in a kangaroo court several times, then said "they'll probably send me to prison for that" so they did.
But the strange thing was that even though what he said qualifies as Defamation of character, or attempting to pevert the course of Justice, they slapped him in the nick with the very outmoded and contraversial Sedition Laws. Now I can't quite figure how saying that the judicial system is completely corrupt (which is is BTW) has any baring on trying to bring down the government, despite his claims being aimed at the Deputy PM and his wife. Anyway, they got him in the nick in a couple of days, then loads of people made a big stink and thousands (I think 30 or 40 thousand) donated 1RM each to get him out of jail. He initially said "NO I WANNA STAY IN JAIL AND MAKE A POINT" but then there were death threats, the prison guards couldn't guarantee his safety (as by all accounts you can bribe a lifer to kill somebody with a pack of fags and a new jumper) so his wife told him to come home.
Time passed. And in the corridors of power the corrupt current leadership are having all out battles with the corrupt opposition, who are getting stronger and stronger everyday. Now in Sabah there are calls from the politicians for votes of No Confidence from the PM.
I have to digress a little here, and branch into the wider political scape. The Barisan Nasional (BN) have been in charge since the British left. The British locked up anybody who wanted to oppose the BN coalition before granting independance, so allowing BN to dominate through widespread election rigging for years and years. But despite this a lot of people (Malays mostly) blindly voted for UMNO, who are the main party that rule the land, because they are basically a bunch of racists and vote for those that favour their own race. Ho hum. In 1969 the Chinese voted against the MCA (Malaysian Chinese Association) but the Malays still voted UMNO - this threatened the BN alliance, but as UMNO were still all powerful and had control of the army they were able to agitate a few riots (using the UMNO youth movement) and then blame it on the Chinese, whom they promptly machine gunned a few hundred and called on the Emergency Laws (kindly left by the British for them, ostensibly to suppress the Communists). A few weeks of curfews and killings and a Parliamentary blackout, whereupon Tun Razak (the 2nd PM who was at the time Deputy PM and Defense Minister) deposed the 1st PM, the late-great Tunku Abdul Rahman, and held a coup, changed the constitution and declared himself lord and master of all, oh and then he told Singapore to piss off from Malaysia as there were too many Chinese there and it affected the balance of racial politics too much, so by expelling Singapore then Malaysia became a Malay majority land. He is still touted as a good leader and a great man, May 13th 1969 is still claimed to be the fault of the chinese despite the fact that it wasn't. His son Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is the current Deputy PM and the Defense Minister. Sounding like things are making a bit more sense now?
So, back to the nowtime, and the May 8th elections. Basically 54 out of 140 odd seats that were "won" by the BN coalition came from the states of Sabah and Sarawak. Now very few (if any in fact) of these seats were won by UMNO, as there really aren't that many Malays over there; ethnically it is mostly Kadazan, Iban and Dyaks (the former headhunters), some Chinese and Malays and others. And Sabah and Sarawak are not very happy at the moment, as they are basically just exploited for their resources and get very little in return.
So the Opposition have been trying to turn Sabah and Sarawak away from BN, as if they switch to the Opposition, then the Opposition have the parliamentary majority and the BN are very much on the loosing team.
Now, Najib Tun Razak knows this, and he's not very happy at the thought of loosing out on his "right" to sit in the Golden Chair and command his subjects as he sees fit and all that.
Funnily enough though, the leader of the party that is calling for the No Confidence vote, has now been threatened with a visit from the Anti-Corruption Agency, for some RM5million bribe several years ago, this says 2 things (1) it's ok to be corrupt as long as you're in the BN coalition, and (2) the Opposition don't care if you're corrupt as long as you're with their coalition.
Which brings us up to what the hell has been happening over the last few weeks. In brief
Former PM Mahatir resigned from UMNO and stated that he would only rejoin when the current PM is gone, (now this to me is Sedition, trying to overthrow the current government, but instead of anything like that being said, it just gets laughed at).
Then Mahatir is trying to blame it all on the Chinese and incite racial tensions from way way back, luckily the people of Malaysia are older and wiser now, it is a very different time to 1969 - bearing in mind that in Indonesia in the late 60s the Indonesian Malays slaughtered half a million chinese in brutal racial violence). Most people have roundly ignored Mahatirs incitement of racial hatred, but still there are a lot of ignorant and uneducated Malays who will believe whatever BossMan tells them. Which is frightening.
Then suddenly and without warning the Petrol price skyrockets, this causes most problems, as Malaysians are obsessed with money and the only way to get a rise out of them is to threaten their wallets - but luckily the people who went out and marched in demonstrations are wise to the powers that be (see, people can sometimes learn from history) and didn't start any riots. Even more relevant here is that the biggest marches were arranged by PAS and the PKR (both Malay political parties) and the police simply would not and could not attack a crowd that is comprised solely of Malays, as by doing that any legitimacy they would have over their claims that "it's the Chinese fault" would evaporate and the parliament would be stormed by an angry mob. It is interesting to note here that the only colonial powers that tried to mess with the Islamic Malay people were the Portugese, and their colonial time in Malaya didn't last long - the Dutch, British, Japanese and the current government know that the simple rule to a "happy" Malaysia is this APPEASE THE MALAYS because if you don't, they kill you. The British Resident Birch learned that one, when he tried to abolish slavery in Perak (the Malay Sultans wife had lots of slaves) so he got assassinated and then a bit of a civil war broke out. After that they learned, don't mess with the Malays.
Have you ever heard the term Amok, as in Running Amok? Yes, it's a Malay word, and it was Malay people that suffer most from the Amok tendancy. Something snaps and they grab a machete and run mentally round and round hacking up anybody they can see, the traditional cure for somebody running amok is for lots of people to grab bamboo poles and beat the mental man to death. You may now understand why the police didn't fire teargas and water cannons on a Malay only demonstration that began at a mosque.
Which leads us up to 2 days ago - and RPK (remember him?). He was not content with the Sedition charge, and it seems he is unable or unwilling to be cowed into submission. So, get this, he has gone straight to the High Court and made a Statutory Declaration, saying that he has information from a witness to Altantunias murder, who is a cast iron VVIP, who puts Najib Tun Razaks wife at the scene of the C4 blowing to smithereens of the poor Mongolian girls corpse.
Hooooeeeey, this has caused a stink. Furthermore his Declaration says that the PM recieved a memo from MI about the event, which he passed on to his son-in-law Khairy (who is a very very dodgy character, mega rich through construction contracts, corruption and all that, who is now an MP despite loosing the inital ballot, but a miraculous recount put him 800 votes ahead, amazing the miracles that money can pull off innit).
Natturlisch all those who have been implicated are crying foul play, saying nothing to do with them, "utter garbage" says Najib.
Who knows what the real truth is, but I'd have to assume that RPK has some pretty potent information that has to be cast iron, otherwise why would he subject himself to Purgery (as well as god knows what else laws you break by going to the High Chief Justice and give a statutory declaration saying the Deputy PM/Defense Minister and his wife were involved with the nations highest profile murder case ever).
But there we go, the chances are that Najib will orchestrate some violent upheaval, slap down the Emergency Laws, suspend Parliament, Re-write the constitution, expel another state and declare himself lord and master whilst putting all his enemies onto the slammer, just like Daddy did. Or maybe not. It's one of those points in a nations history when the answers are in the very Black and White. Either BN are finished, or they become a Dictatorship, again.
The big question is what happens next - the choices are Najib, and whatever plans he has for subjegating everybody, PAS (the plainly titled Parti Al Islam) who want to subjegate everybody under syariah law and are horrible and insane megalomaniacs who people seem to believe are good (the worst option totally), Anwar Ibrahim from the PKR who was former Deputy PM (under Mahatir) who is being touted as the saviour of Malaysians but I wouldn't trust the bastard as far as I could throw him - as he is no doubt hell bent on revenge after being kicked out of UMNO, put in prison under the ISA and smeared as a prostate massage loving sodomite in all the papers, he also wants to sell Malaysia to the USA.
The choice is
Proven to be Shit
Xenophobic religious extremists who are rancidly Shit
and
Revenge fuelled smooth talker who will undoubtly claim this that and the other, then get in power and turn out to be, you guessed it, Shit.
It's nice to know that the British have left such marvellously divine political systems in the wake of the Empire innit.
Read the Malaysian blogs
www.malaysiakini.com
www.malaysia-today.net
www.thestar.com.my (then interactive, citizens blog)
www.jeffooi.com
or just google Malaysian blogs and it makes for some real interesting reading
This week a famous Malaysian blogger, a man called Raja Petra (or RPK to all) who is the editor of www.malaysia-today.net has dropped yet another bombshell in his campaign to rid the nation of the nasty deputy PM. Najib Razak. You see, since before I got here the newspapers have been covering the murder of a Mongolian lady called Altantulia - who was over here acting as a translator and then somehow or other ended up murdered then taken out into the jungle (or a plantation, can't quite remember) and her dead body was blown to smithereens with C4. The C4 explosive was (not really very hard to do) traced straight back to the police, I think special branch. And over the months (well years now I think) the case has dragged out and then the personal bodyguards of Datuk seri Najib Tun Razak were in the dock facing murder charges - on doubt they had upset somebody, asked for more money or something otherwise it would never have got that far. In their defense and in an attempt to escape the noose they said (something like) "we didn't kill her, we were just disposing of the body like, your honour". And these boys are police innit, nice to know they were just disposing of the body, after all, you wouldn't want to think they were doing anything bad now would you.
So, the case has gone on and on, and Najib and his wife have managed to remain uninvolved in the proceedings, despite the fact that bascally everybody has been talking about it for ages and ages, but that's Malaysia.
Anyway, RPK posted on his blog a few weeks ago something along the lines of "send them all to hell" and called the Altantunia trial a "showtrial in a kangaroo court several times, then said "they'll probably send me to prison for that" so they did.
But the strange thing was that even though what he said qualifies as Defamation of character, or attempting to pevert the course of Justice, they slapped him in the nick with the very outmoded and contraversial Sedition Laws. Now I can't quite figure how saying that the judicial system is completely corrupt (which is is BTW) has any baring on trying to bring down the government, despite his claims being aimed at the Deputy PM and his wife. Anyway, they got him in the nick in a couple of days, then loads of people made a big stink and thousands (I think 30 or 40 thousand) donated 1RM each to get him out of jail. He initially said "NO I WANNA STAY IN JAIL AND MAKE A POINT" but then there were death threats, the prison guards couldn't guarantee his safety (as by all accounts you can bribe a lifer to kill somebody with a pack of fags and a new jumper) so his wife told him to come home.
Time passed. And in the corridors of power the corrupt current leadership are having all out battles with the corrupt opposition, who are getting stronger and stronger everyday. Now in Sabah there are calls from the politicians for votes of No Confidence from the PM.
I have to digress a little here, and branch into the wider political scape. The Barisan Nasional (BN) have been in charge since the British left. The British locked up anybody who wanted to oppose the BN coalition before granting independance, so allowing BN to dominate through widespread election rigging for years and years. But despite this a lot of people (Malays mostly) blindly voted for UMNO, who are the main party that rule the land, because they are basically a bunch of racists and vote for those that favour their own race. Ho hum. In 1969 the Chinese voted against the MCA (Malaysian Chinese Association) but the Malays still voted UMNO - this threatened the BN alliance, but as UMNO were still all powerful and had control of the army they were able to agitate a few riots (using the UMNO youth movement) and then blame it on the Chinese, whom they promptly machine gunned a few hundred and called on the Emergency Laws (kindly left by the British for them, ostensibly to suppress the Communists). A few weeks of curfews and killings and a Parliamentary blackout, whereupon Tun Razak (the 2nd PM who was at the time Deputy PM and Defense Minister) deposed the 1st PM, the late-great Tunku Abdul Rahman, and held a coup, changed the constitution and declared himself lord and master of all, oh and then he told Singapore to piss off from Malaysia as there were too many Chinese there and it affected the balance of racial politics too much, so by expelling Singapore then Malaysia became a Malay majority land. He is still touted as a good leader and a great man, May 13th 1969 is still claimed to be the fault of the chinese despite the fact that it wasn't. His son Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is the current Deputy PM and the Defense Minister. Sounding like things are making a bit more sense now?
So, back to the nowtime, and the May 8th elections. Basically 54 out of 140 odd seats that were "won" by the BN coalition came from the states of Sabah and Sarawak. Now very few (if any in fact) of these seats were won by UMNO, as there really aren't that many Malays over there; ethnically it is mostly Kadazan, Iban and Dyaks (the former headhunters), some Chinese and Malays and others. And Sabah and Sarawak are not very happy at the moment, as they are basically just exploited for their resources and get very little in return.
So the Opposition have been trying to turn Sabah and Sarawak away from BN, as if they switch to the Opposition, then the Opposition have the parliamentary majority and the BN are very much on the loosing team.
Now, Najib Tun Razak knows this, and he's not very happy at the thought of loosing out on his "right" to sit in the Golden Chair and command his subjects as he sees fit and all that.
Funnily enough though, the leader of the party that is calling for the No Confidence vote, has now been threatened with a visit from the Anti-Corruption Agency, for some RM5million bribe several years ago, this says 2 things (1) it's ok to be corrupt as long as you're in the BN coalition, and (2) the Opposition don't care if you're corrupt as long as you're with their coalition.
Which brings us up to what the hell has been happening over the last few weeks. In brief
Former PM Mahatir resigned from UMNO and stated that he would only rejoin when the current PM is gone, (now this to me is Sedition, trying to overthrow the current government, but instead of anything like that being said, it just gets laughed at).
Then Mahatir is trying to blame it all on the Chinese and incite racial tensions from way way back, luckily the people of Malaysia are older and wiser now, it is a very different time to 1969 - bearing in mind that in Indonesia in the late 60s the Indonesian Malays slaughtered half a million chinese in brutal racial violence). Most people have roundly ignored Mahatirs incitement of racial hatred, but still there are a lot of ignorant and uneducated Malays who will believe whatever BossMan tells them. Which is frightening.
Then suddenly and without warning the Petrol price skyrockets, this causes most problems, as Malaysians are obsessed with money and the only way to get a rise out of them is to threaten their wallets - but luckily the people who went out and marched in demonstrations are wise to the powers that be (see, people can sometimes learn from history) and didn't start any riots. Even more relevant here is that the biggest marches were arranged by PAS and the PKR (both Malay political parties) and the police simply would not and could not attack a crowd that is comprised solely of Malays, as by doing that any legitimacy they would have over their claims that "it's the Chinese fault" would evaporate and the parliament would be stormed by an angry mob. It is interesting to note here that the only colonial powers that tried to mess with the Islamic Malay people were the Portugese, and their colonial time in Malaya didn't last long - the Dutch, British, Japanese and the current government know that the simple rule to a "happy" Malaysia is this APPEASE THE MALAYS because if you don't, they kill you. The British Resident Birch learned that one, when he tried to abolish slavery in Perak (the Malay Sultans wife had lots of slaves) so he got assassinated and then a bit of a civil war broke out. After that they learned, don't mess with the Malays.
Have you ever heard the term Amok, as in Running Amok? Yes, it's a Malay word, and it was Malay people that suffer most from the Amok tendancy. Something snaps and they grab a machete and run mentally round and round hacking up anybody they can see, the traditional cure for somebody running amok is for lots of people to grab bamboo poles and beat the mental man to death. You may now understand why the police didn't fire teargas and water cannons on a Malay only demonstration that began at a mosque.
Which leads us up to 2 days ago - and RPK (remember him?). He was not content with the Sedition charge, and it seems he is unable or unwilling to be cowed into submission. So, get this, he has gone straight to the High Court and made a Statutory Declaration, saying that he has information from a witness to Altantunias murder, who is a cast iron VVIP, who puts Najib Tun Razaks wife at the scene of the C4 blowing to smithereens of the poor Mongolian girls corpse.
Hooooeeeey, this has caused a stink. Furthermore his Declaration says that the PM recieved a memo from MI about the event, which he passed on to his son-in-law Khairy (who is a very very dodgy character, mega rich through construction contracts, corruption and all that, who is now an MP despite loosing the inital ballot, but a miraculous recount put him 800 votes ahead, amazing the miracles that money can pull off innit).
Natturlisch all those who have been implicated are crying foul play, saying nothing to do with them, "utter garbage" says Najib.
Who knows what the real truth is, but I'd have to assume that RPK has some pretty potent information that has to be cast iron, otherwise why would he subject himself to Purgery (as well as god knows what else laws you break by going to the High Chief Justice and give a statutory declaration saying the Deputy PM/Defense Minister and his wife were involved with the nations highest profile murder case ever).
But there we go, the chances are that Najib will orchestrate some violent upheaval, slap down the Emergency Laws, suspend Parliament, Re-write the constitution, expel another state and declare himself lord and master whilst putting all his enemies onto the slammer, just like Daddy did. Or maybe not. It's one of those points in a nations history when the answers are in the very Black and White. Either BN are finished, or they become a Dictatorship, again.
The big question is what happens next - the choices are Najib, and whatever plans he has for subjegating everybody, PAS (the plainly titled Parti Al Islam) who want to subjegate everybody under syariah law and are horrible and insane megalomaniacs who people seem to believe are good (the worst option totally), Anwar Ibrahim from the PKR who was former Deputy PM (under Mahatir) who is being touted as the saviour of Malaysians but I wouldn't trust the bastard as far as I could throw him - as he is no doubt hell bent on revenge after being kicked out of UMNO, put in prison under the ISA and smeared as a prostate massage loving sodomite in all the papers, he also wants to sell Malaysia to the USA.
The choice is
Proven to be Shit
Xenophobic religious extremists who are rancidly Shit
and
Revenge fuelled smooth talker who will undoubtly claim this that and the other, then get in power and turn out to be, you guessed it, Shit.
It's nice to know that the British have left such marvellously divine political systems in the wake of the Empire innit.
Read the Malaysian blogs
www.malaysiakini.com
www.malaysia-today.net
www.thestar.com.my (then interactive, citizens blog)
www.jeffooi.com
or just google Malaysian blogs and it makes for some real interesting reading
13 Jun 2008
Yes, I'm a coward, but it's probably best to be diplomatic
Hmmm, in a moment of angry madness I posted some jolly old ravings about the petrol increase. Well, I got in trouble with the misses, as well, basically I didn't really think to cleverly before going and raging about all sorts. So in a rare act of tact and diplomacy, I have decided it's best to capitulate and delete them.
It does make sense, after all, my white flesh does make me an eternal follower and even if I had lived her 80 years I'd still be matsalleh and so shouldn't try and interfere. Also I don't wanna get mistaken for a spy/agitator or some such and then cause an international incident.
So there we go, shock horror, Timbo backs down and uses his head for once.
It's all quite quiet and peaceful here today, but I just walked past KLCC and the Petronas Towers and there is a great big fence aroud the thing and a boat load of piggies in riot gear all stood around with their cry-maker gas guns (and no doubt the cold shower mobile around the corner on standby). Funny thing is that there are no protesters or anything, just some tourists standing and looking at the scene of police with some degree of confusion. I think Petronas are getting a bit worried, because now everybody is talking about why it isn't a publically listed company - it's accounts are totally opaque, there are no public shareholders, the only person they have to answer to is the Prime Minister and people are asking where the Billions of dollars in oil, petrol and gas revenues actually go. Interesting innit.
The Prime Minister told everybody that they have to learn how to save, but now most people are saying "save what?" as the price of Rice, Cooking Oil, Flour, Petrol, Diesel and Electric have all gone up considerably, and they're going to take away the subsidy for RapidKL (the main public transport company) very soon, and as the cost of transporting goods has basically doubled so everything else is going up as well.
The government did make a supremely magnanimous gesture this week though. They have AXED a whole 10% from the "entertainment budget" for Ministers - which comes in at an incredible several Million Rinngit, just in "entertainment" whatever that entails. So, they must be feeling the pinch now that they are down to only 3 types of canopees and the caviar is off the menu until the next budget. Poor things, it makes you weep doesn't it.
Have fun in the temperate zones,
It does make sense, after all, my white flesh does make me an eternal follower and even if I had lived her 80 years I'd still be matsalleh and so shouldn't try and interfere. Also I don't wanna get mistaken for a spy/agitator or some such and then cause an international incident.
So there we go, shock horror, Timbo backs down and uses his head for once.
It's all quite quiet and peaceful here today, but I just walked past KLCC and the Petronas Towers and there is a great big fence aroud the thing and a boat load of piggies in riot gear all stood around with their cry-maker gas guns (and no doubt the cold shower mobile around the corner on standby). Funny thing is that there are no protesters or anything, just some tourists standing and looking at the scene of police with some degree of confusion. I think Petronas are getting a bit worried, because now everybody is talking about why it isn't a publically listed company - it's accounts are totally opaque, there are no public shareholders, the only person they have to answer to is the Prime Minister and people are asking where the Billions of dollars in oil, petrol and gas revenues actually go. Interesting innit.
The Prime Minister told everybody that they have to learn how to save, but now most people are saying "save what?" as the price of Rice, Cooking Oil, Flour, Petrol, Diesel and Electric have all gone up considerably, and they're going to take away the subsidy for RapidKL (the main public transport company) very soon, and as the cost of transporting goods has basically doubled so everything else is going up as well.
The government did make a supremely magnanimous gesture this week though. They have AXED a whole 10% from the "entertainment budget" for Ministers - which comes in at an incredible several Million Rinngit, just in "entertainment" whatever that entails. So, they must be feeling the pinch now that they are down to only 3 types of canopees and the caviar is off the menu until the next budget. Poor things, it makes you weep doesn't it.
Have fun in the temperate zones,
1 Jun 2008
Just watched the new Indiana Jones movie
Helo all, yes me and the good lady have just been freezing our respective nipples off watching the new Indiana Jones film, and it was alright. Not bad for an old fella like, but the soppy wedding at the end was just a bit, well, weird, watching wrinklies play tonsil hockey in front of a load of other wrinklies - it's enough to put you off your dinner, and god only knows what damage it could do to the minds of the young. Shame Kate Blanchett is about as convincing a Russian as I am a Bangkok chick-boy (and I was ultimately confused by her supposedly being some psy-corps type Babylon 5 sytle psycho-kinetic woman able to open the door of Area 51 with a flick of her hand from 20 paces in the opening scenes and from then on posessing nothing in the way of psychic powers for the whole rest of the film, but then again I got really really confused when the inter-dimensional portal opened up in the Mayan temple and the alien crystal dudes flew off in a spaceship, not to space, but to "the space between spaces" and it all turned, well, what is the best word? Erm, crap?).
So there we go, Vanessa failed to understand my excitement and desire to go "doo do doo dooo, doo doo doooooo" etc and jump around cracking my imaginary bullwhip, as it was just a good old fashioned pile of turd. Too heavy on the self referencing, and Indys illigitimate son was an utter waste of space, a pathetic wimpy little fart of an actor, who was supposed to be some tough-guy style 1950s teddyboy a la Johnny T in Grease, with less character than John Mayor and less depth than Posh Spice.
Yes, I am a little dissappointed, and now I remember why I don't really go to the cinema anymore, namely because its a waste of money (and in this country its so sodding cold that they actually offer Gold Class expensive tickets with a blanket. A BLANKET!!! WHY NOT TURN THE AIRCON DOWN YOU IDIOTS!!!!)
On another note I witnessed my first police raid in a nightclub last night, which was utterly surreal and annoyingly expensive. Literally a case of enter club, pay 40 rinngit (6 quid), 2 minutes later policeman shines torch in face, lights on, music off, everybody show your ID. Being white it wasn't bad at all, as myself and my Croatian mate Boris were led out by Vanessa and Cheng and they didn't even look twice at us. Problem is the pigs were just out to persecute the Malays who were having fun, what with them being born Islamic and unable to excersise the most fundamental write of self determination. So, pity the poor underage Malay drinkers, and pity even more the ones that had taken drugs (and during the few minutes with the lights on I could see more than a dozen very scared faces in the crowd) god knows what happened to them, very possibly sent to a re-education camp - read religious indoctrination - if they didn't have the cash to bribe their way out of it.
Shame though because the music was very decent, and it cost me bloody 40 dollars for 2 minutes. I went back later and started chewing the Bouncers, demanding a refund. I asked him who his boss was, so he pointed to a bloke, so I started chewing his head, anyway I asked where I was supposed to get my refund, and should I go to Bukit Aman (police headquarters) and demand it back, he laughed. Told me he couldn't do anything, police matter, so I demanded ot see his boss, "who is your boss?", "oh, chief constable whoever". Oh your police, yes, erm, ha ha ha, sorry about that I thought you were staff. Not impressed face, but Timbo scores another minor point against the facists, yeah, eat my demeaning comment porker.
Bizarrely the club accross the road was playing similar music, had a lot more people (numbers wise the same amount of Malays, but in a much lower percentage due to more people)and we danced there until 3am with no bother. I think it was a matter of concentration, thusly raiding the one club instead of the other means the same amount of bribe money with much less effort. So nice of them isn't it.
So there we are, dissapointed by Indiana Jones, but at least I got to fire a minor insult at a corrupt killjoy oppressor of fun and it only cost me 40 dollars (plus cinema ticket).
Oh and my hand still hurts.
Love to all, I'm going up to Cameron Highlands tomorrow to meet a new interviewee who lives right next to the Tea Plantations, so lets hope my bus doesn't fall several thousand feet down the hill like that one the other week. Any prayers welcomed.
So there we go, Vanessa failed to understand my excitement and desire to go "doo do doo dooo, doo doo doooooo" etc and jump around cracking my imaginary bullwhip, as it was just a good old fashioned pile of turd. Too heavy on the self referencing, and Indys illigitimate son was an utter waste of space, a pathetic wimpy little fart of an actor, who was supposed to be some tough-guy style 1950s teddyboy a la Johnny T in Grease, with less character than John Mayor and less depth than Posh Spice.
Yes, I am a little dissappointed, and now I remember why I don't really go to the cinema anymore, namely because its a waste of money (and in this country its so sodding cold that they actually offer Gold Class expensive tickets with a blanket. A BLANKET!!! WHY NOT TURN THE AIRCON DOWN YOU IDIOTS!!!!)
On another note I witnessed my first police raid in a nightclub last night, which was utterly surreal and annoyingly expensive. Literally a case of enter club, pay 40 rinngit (6 quid), 2 minutes later policeman shines torch in face, lights on, music off, everybody show your ID. Being white it wasn't bad at all, as myself and my Croatian mate Boris were led out by Vanessa and Cheng and they didn't even look twice at us. Problem is the pigs were just out to persecute the Malays who were having fun, what with them being born Islamic and unable to excersise the most fundamental write of self determination. So, pity the poor underage Malay drinkers, and pity even more the ones that had taken drugs (and during the few minutes with the lights on I could see more than a dozen very scared faces in the crowd) god knows what happened to them, very possibly sent to a re-education camp - read religious indoctrination - if they didn't have the cash to bribe their way out of it.
Shame though because the music was very decent, and it cost me bloody 40 dollars for 2 minutes. I went back later and started chewing the Bouncers, demanding a refund. I asked him who his boss was, so he pointed to a bloke, so I started chewing his head, anyway I asked where I was supposed to get my refund, and should I go to Bukit Aman (police headquarters) and demand it back, he laughed. Told me he couldn't do anything, police matter, so I demanded ot see his boss, "who is your boss?", "oh, chief constable whoever". Oh your police, yes, erm, ha ha ha, sorry about that I thought you were staff. Not impressed face, but Timbo scores another minor point against the facists, yeah, eat my demeaning comment porker.
Bizarrely the club accross the road was playing similar music, had a lot more people (numbers wise the same amount of Malays, but in a much lower percentage due to more people)and we danced there until 3am with no bother. I think it was a matter of concentration, thusly raiding the one club instead of the other means the same amount of bribe money with much less effort. So nice of them isn't it.
So there we are, dissapointed by Indiana Jones, but at least I got to fire a minor insult at a corrupt killjoy oppressor of fun and it only cost me 40 dollars (plus cinema ticket).
Oh and my hand still hurts.
Love to all, I'm going up to Cameron Highlands tomorrow to meet a new interviewee who lives right next to the Tea Plantations, so lets hope my bus doesn't fall several thousand feet down the hill like that one the other week. Any prayers welcomed.
21 May 2008
Well, my arm isn't broken, just mashed up
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
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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