Out and About in Chennai

Things are much better now. I’m healthy again (I think, the Imodium hasn’t stopped working yet, so I’m not completely sure) and except for the fact that the bus broke down on the way back to Chennai, everything has been going pretty smoothly.

Yesterday I went out. We went to some westernish style bar, drank a couple of beers, then moved on to gin and then got hit on by an old faggot who had flown in from Australia, probably with the intention of finding himself a toy boy. That wasn’t quite so amusing, especially considering that initially we had a pretty good discussion about politics. I knew he was gay right from the start, but I thought I was giving the right signals to make him aware that I wasn’t interested. Apparently he didn’t see it that way after pouring two bottles of champagne down his throat.

After that we met the New South Wales Cricket team and went up to one of their rooms (don’t worry, there were some women). They had absolutely smashed the place. Clothes were strewn about, people were passed out from alcohol abuse and the toilet lid had been smashed by some drunken, oversized lout.

It was mystifying, watching them in action. They just assumed that everything would work the same way as back home. One of the people I was with (not a member of the cricket team) probably explained it best when he said ‘they are just country lads with no real world experience, who found out one day that they could throw a ball’.

They drank and they drank and they kept ordering more booze, even after the 11:30 booze curfew had passed. The hotel kept given them drink, as these guys were like gods to them. One of the Indian people I was with excitedly told us that he had seen a cricket legend in the pub he’d been in before. That turned out to be their coach. The Indian man could initially barely contain his excitement. That changed a bit when he was sitting with them and watched how they were behaving, at which point his excitement mixed with confusion and unease.

It’s interesting to see when West and East clash and can’t get to grips with each other. It also happened over in SEA, but it is much more apparent here. Probably because the Indians are far more direct in giving their opinions. When the South East Asians don’t like something you do, they gossip about it afterwards. When the Indians don’t like what you do, they yell at you.

I’m learning how to yell back.

Alien

There’s been so many things that the Indians do that have just left me shaking my head in disbelief. I’ve been told so many stories about other people’s adventures that just leave me wondering if the Indian people are actually human, or belong to another species entirely.

I’ve already mentioned their ability to lie straight to your face without a shred of guilt or worry that you’re going to find out just a few minutes later that they’ve lied to you. For example, a man in the queue behind me at the bus station told me that I had to get a ticket from a special office. He knew it was bullox and he knew I was going to come right back to that same bus a few minutes later, obviously pissed that I’d been tricked out of my position in the queue. Yet it made no difference to him, he still said it.

Or their complete different interpretation of personal hygiene. As many of you might well know, the Indians use their right hands to eat and their left hands to wipe their bum. Now that would be a great idea if they would use toilet paper or, barring that, they would then use soap to wash their hands. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m sure many of them do use soap, but many of them don’t! What’s even worse, sometimes you walk up to the washing basin area and you can’t even find soap there! You’re like ‘this is a restaurants, I’m sure that the cooks have to do their business sometimes, they don’t have soap at the wash basins and I imagine they can’t cook with only one hand. Hmmmm….’

That’s like that story of a town that they spent a great deal of money on to build toilets in this little village, then they came back a couple of months later and found that the people were using it for storage. Why? Because the villagers preferred crapping out in the open by the river. You don’t crap in the house, that’s dirty! You crap outside, preferably by the river so that it washes away (and the dysentery only affects the villages down river).

Or the place where the government spent huge amounts of cash to cover up the open sewers and the people then proceeded to rip back open those same sewers, as they preferred to have them there to do their business in, or throw their waste in.

But then they won’t clean bathrooms. That is a task only left for the lowest of the low. To ask people to clean the bathroom is a certain way to be ostracized and ridiculed.

Or their completely different way of interacting socially. When a woman engages in idle chit chat with a man, for instance, that pretty much means that she is sexually interested in him (according to the man, anyway). Or the way they take western politeness (when they are trying to sell you things on the streets, for example) and means that the person is really actually interested in the product but just being difficult.

And the way you can say ‘no’ seven times and they will still ask you an eighth, a ninth and a tenth. You can’t have a conversation with somebody who sells something without them ever giving up on trying to sell you that thing!

Now I’m sure I’m grossly over generalising, but so far this place has been truly alien. I’m still waiting for the good stuff.

Internal Workings

I only just got up. It’s 5 PM. No, I didn’t go out last night and get plastered. I was, I fact, on the set of a Tamil movie (a little like Bollywood movies, but then down south) as an extra, acting like a stupid white person. That ended at two o’clock (though they tried to keep us there till five, as they weren’t finished yet). Then we went home and back to sleep.

The reason I was only able to get out of bed only a bit ago was because apparently on the set they fed me some bad food. As a result, all I’ve been able to do is poo, sleep and occasionally get out of bed to complain for a few minutes.

The problem was that while I was sleeping it was very hard to control my bowels and I couldn’t not sleep. Suffice it to say I’ve been forced to hand wash a lot of underwear. I hate being sick as it makes you hate what ever you’re doing. Right now I really don’t want to be out here in India. I’d much rather be somewhere clean, organised and understandable. Yesterday I was loving India, so I know it’s just the illness, but still.

I’m in a little place called Mamalapuran (or something like that) which is half way between Chennai and Pondicherry. Tomorrow, or the day after, I’ll be travelling up north with a couple of people to do a night on the town. We’ve been invited to join a PHD student who is out here to do her anthropology studies.

After that chances are I’m going to hit Bangalore (I want to get over to the west coast). Right now, however, I don’t really feel like moving at all. I just want to sleep more and get well.

I still haven’t figured out why I’m here. A girl I was chatting to a few nights ago explained that there are normally three types of travelers; the hippies, the naïve and the mystics. I didn’t fit into any of those categories, according to her. Maybe that’s because people like me don’t normally go travelling in places like this.

I think I went on this trip even though I no longer really wanted to go, simply because I’d been telling myself for so long I wanted to go. Not that it’s been bad. I’ve enjoyed myself tremendously and don’t regret it. I do often wake up, though, and ask myself ‘Why am I here?’

When I know, I’ll be sure to tell you.

Pondycherry (or how ever you write it)

Yesterday I took a 3 and ½ hour bus ride down from Chennai to this place. It’s an old French colony that still retains a great deal of the French attitude and architecture. Many of the buildings here are hundreds of years old and really do make you feel like you’re in France, if you can ignore the fact that everybody is a great deal darker, dirtier and more conservative (yes, the majority of the Indians are more conservative than the French, believe it or not).

Last night I stayed at an Ashram. The problem with that was that the Ashrams have a number of rules. These are 1) No alcohol, 2) No smoking, 3) No drugs and 4) no coming back after 10:30. Now I can do rules one, two and three (oi! I heard that!) but number four is just too much. What, am I sixteen again? It’s not that I have to stay out beyond 10:30. I just want to be able to have the choice (very Dutch trait, that).

So this morning I got up at seven, got out of the hotel by eight and walked around till 11 to find a new place. The reason I had to walk around so long was that everything was full, too expensive or just nasty.

I’m now staying at a guest house that has obviously just been turned into one (there’s still screws lying around and that kind of stuff). It isn’t half as nice as the Ashram, but at least I can come and go as I please.

I did just have to switch rooms, though. The reason? There was no water in my old room. That’s a bit annoying when you got a slight case of Delhi belly and there’s no new water to flush the toilet.

My new room has a balcony and (this is a very interesting feature) a bathroom that I can only get to by way of the balcony. I hope the neighbours don’t mind seeing a half naked Dutch man shuffle around in plain view, because if they do, well I guess they’ll just have to turn the other way.

So far India has been a great deal milder than everybody seems to have suggested. Though the occasional smell has assaulted my nose and the occasional taut has harassed me, it has all been pretty smooth sailing (well, except for the mosquitoes, the lack of water, Gandhi’s revenge and the interesting interior design).

I found an internet place that has wireless, aircon and great coffee. Unfortunately I think I drank a bit too much of the coffee, because it’s 12 at night and I’m still very much wide awake (despite spending half the day walking around).

Well, I guess that just means I’ve got more time to write. No rest for the wicked; or the caffeinated, for that matter.

Lair

I checked into a room in Chennai that was advised to me by the Lonely Planet. The place was a bit run down, but it was clean enough and it had a nice view of a little lake by a temple, out back. I said ‘what the hell, I can always get a new room tomorrow’. I noticed that there was no mosquito net and that there were some pretty big gaps in the windows. I asked the boy that was showing me around if there were any mosquitoes.

‘No,’ the boy said, ‘there are no mosquitoes.’

It is now four o’clock in the morning and I am not exaggerating when I say that I’ve killed more than twenty so far. And the little fuckers are still flying around!

In order to kill them I just turned on the light and sat on my bed, waiting for them to sit down on me. Then smack! Dead mosquito. The first time I did that I must have killed about 15 in the space of ten minutes. I didn’t have enough hands to kill them all.

I tried going back to sleep after that, but they just kept biting me. Add to that that the bed is too short for me and not very comfortable, plus I haven’t had a smoke (which had apparently, without me realising it, become a big sleeping aid, as I’d been smoking before I went to sleep for the last few weeks) and I don’t think it’s very likely at all that I’m going to be able to get any sleep tonight.

I can’t believe that that boy just lied to me like that. He must have known there were mosquitoes. If he had told me, I would have gone out and got some spray (which admittedly I should have done anyway, but never mind that).

It’s the second confirmed time since I walked out of the airport that somebody lied straight to my face, without a pang of guilt. The first time it was a tuk tuk driver who told me straight out that a taxi was 475 rupees and his tuk tuk was only 300 to get into the city. I didn’t believe him, walked up to the taxi stand and was only charged 280 rupees to get where I wanted to go.

Will this happen everywhere I go? Do many Indians just lie to get what they want? I’m going to have serious trouble with that, if they do. I can’t stand liars.

My hand is covered with blood splatters from all the mossies I’ve killed. I can’t wash it off, because the water has been turned off. This is turning out to be one hell of a first night in India.

Well, at least things can’t get much worse, right?

Famous last words.

Social Evolution

Since I believe in evolution theory, I accept that everything has evolved for a reason. Nothing is superfluous and everything either gives an advantage to our genes, or was a side effect of something that gave an advantage to our genes. Now these types of ‘advantages’ might not always be advantageous for the species (e.g. peacock tails), but nonetheless it evolved for a reason.

Since this includes everything, this also includes social interaction and courtship, especially the underlying urges that drive our interactions. Specific actions in a social situation might well be learned and imitated, but the underlying pressures and motivation are genetic in origin.

In terms of male/ female interactions often what is happening is genetic selection. The male needs to demonstrate his prowess, which the female then uses to select the highest placed male that they can.

This bears out in numerous studies, with the interesting trend that for long term relationships men and women almost always end up with somebody of similar physical beauty (with physical beauty often having a direct correlation to physical fitness).

The elaborate process we therefore go through to find and mate is actually a highly necessary, as annoying as that may be. It is only through this process that value can be demonstrated and the appropriate partner can be selected (Generally by the female, I might add. It seems that in general men strut and women chose. This fits in nicely with the fact that men can impregnate many, while women can only be impregnated once, leading to men needing to be less choosy in whom they sleep with.)

If you look at the mating ritual as an evolutionary process, it suddenly becomes a bit easier (note the bit) to understand a large number of the actions that both sides undertake. Of course men do the approaching, as they need to make the women aware of their availability. Of course women will be choosy about who they sleep with, as bearing the children of a dunce will be a huge waste of resources.

Of course, among humans it is no longer only physical prowess that needs to be demonstrated. Human males must also demonstrate their social status (as people with high social status make better providers) and their mental competence (same as before). Of course, women must do the same in order to demonstrate their own value, though both sexes do so in notably different ways.

So next time you’re stuck in a mating dance and wondering what the hell to do, think from an evolutionary perspective ‘what would her genes want me to do?’

Now there’s a big difference between the above question and the normal question most men ask. Most men ask ‘what would she like me to do’ but that is something quite unrelated to what the genes might want. She would probably like a nice, pliable guy that brings her many gifts and is meek and easily controllable. But do her genes want that?

No! They want something completely different. They went somebody tough, bad and in some ways nasty, as somebody like that would be much better prepared to fight off possible dangers and raise the likelihood of her offspring surviving (even if she might not actually be happy with him).

Girls like nice guys, but their genes know that most likely those nice guys are a genetic dead end. So, though they will befriend the nice guys, they won’t sleep with them. Nice guys make good allies and second choices, but ultimately the rougher, tougher guys will dramatically increase the chance of a large number of offspring carrying on the lineage.

Self Perception

Apparently, a perfect stranger is almost as good at predicting our future actions as we are.

The reason, it seems, is because we give ourselves a halo of importance and ability. We believe that we are far more capable and in control of ourselves than we really are. We are more objective about strangers than we are about ourselves and our loved ones. Our high regard for ourselves actually distorts our perception of ourselves.

Therefore, when we predict our future actions we believe we will be far more ethical, brave and able than we really are. This, not surprisingly, has serious consequences for the choices we make. We end up choosing a course of action that is not actually the most suited for ourselves.

Another interesting little tit-bit: When they gave professional gamblers more and more information about the horses participating in a race their actual ability to predict who was going to win the race didn’t actually improve. The only thing that improved was their belief that they were making the right prediction!

What this means is that we’re not very good at weighing the significance of a certain factor, especially if there are many other factors competing for our attention. When there are only three statistics available, we can do a relatively good job at balancing them against each other and deciding how to weigh them. When the number of variables increases, however, it becomes harder to attach the right weighing and our accuracy does not increase overall.

So what does that mean?

It means that our confidence in making the right decision is much higher than the actual likelihood of us making the right decision. Therefore, it is important to always accept that a decision you’re making has a high chance of being the wrong one. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t make decisions (indecisiveness is a terrible trait to have, and I should know), but that we should be more willing to alter our decisions as we realise that we’ve made the wrong one.

The best way to deal with our obvious inability to make the right decisions is to be adaptable enough to change our minds when we find out we’re wrong. Unfortunately, this is apparently goes against another human characteristic, as we don’t like to change our minds once we’ve made a decision (we’re all very stubborn, it seems).

If we could fight this, however, then we should have an incredible advantage over those around us. By being more adaptive and accepting of our own faults and wrong decisions should ultimately lead us to make more right decisions.

But of course, I could be wrong about all of this…

Bored out of my skull

I haven't really spoken to anybody for about 24 hours. Some of the people on the street try and I had a short conversation with this mediation traveller chick from holland, but for the rest it's been just me, myself and I.

Unfortunately I'm far to dependent on social interaction to be very good at that. It's kind of funny, I desperately crave social interaction but find it very hard, recently, to just talk to people. Even when people talk to me I'm generally very reserved and distant. It's like they have to prove that their interesting before I'll engage.

Which is an interesting counter point to this mediation traveller chick from holland (hereafter MTCFH, which is unpronouncable but at least readable), who was completely open, outgoing and spontantious. Her body language (I'm currently studying bodylanguage in a couple of e-books I downloadeD) was completely open and with no holding back. I could see that she met a lot of people and made a lot of friends.

Of course, it isn't totaly my fault as the place I'm currently staying is is competely devoid of people I would normally start a conversation with. The only people here are old, families or couples. They are not interested in me and I'm not interested in them.

Tomorrow night this big budhist festival starts and I originally came down to see that. The unfortunate thing about it is that it is that the government has installed a ban on all alcohol for the entire duration. That means that all the pubs, bars and clubs (places where I normally find it quite easy to meet people) are all closed.

I know nobody, I can't drink, there is nobody at my guest house to talk to and there are no interesting things to do as far as I can discover (and I've asked). I am, in other words, looking at a second night of sitting in my hotel room, smoking spliffs and wanking.

I think I'm going to piss off tomorrow (bugger the festival), but I have no idea where I'm going to go. I don't want to go back to colombo and I don't want to end up in yet another place where there is nobody to talk to.

Oh woe to the poor lonely travelling backpacker that is me.

Yeah, I know, I really don't have anything to complain about, but when you're bored you need something to kill the time, right?

The first of many

So staying in Sri Lanka turned out to be a mistake. I decided to stay an extra week, after I finally managed to hook up properly with this model chick I discussed earlier. I thought, ‘one more week will be good! We’ll hang out and have fun. Then I’ll leave for real and we’ll both have good memories.’ Unfortunately, the moment that I decided to stay longer she turned weird on me.

It was to be expected. Any chick that will have you on the side of her boyfriend is bound to have some inherent weirdness. I could have kept things going, but decided I didn’t like this ‘half way here, half way there’ bullshit that was going on, so I said to her ‘tomorrow I’m leaving Colombo. I’m going to go up north. You can come if you like, but you leave your baggage behind.’

She couldn’t, of course. It didn’t really come as any kind of surprise. She tried to explain herself and I told her not to bother. I only cared that she wasn’t coming, the reasons why were really of no importance to me what so ever. Guilt, self loathing, honour, values, whatever. It’s all that same, in the end.

So how do I feel now? A bit sad, I’ll admit honestly. It was never going to work out (conversation was difficult, to say the least), but it was still fun while it lasted. I also feel relieved, however. It’s time to continue my journey and at least I know that it was all my decision (when she told me she wasn’t coming I informed her that then it was better we didn’t see each other again, as a clean break was better).

She was definitely the oddest girl I’ve ever been with. She’s left some good memories, and ultimately that’s what it’s all about, right?

It was a mistake to stay here, but I don’t regret it. I’ve learned from it. The next super hot model that bounces up to my table won’t have it so easy, I promise you that! I’m glad I’m completely alone again. That’s how it was supposed to be. All I hope is that my next few months will be as interesting as the first one was. Then I’ll be happy.

What's going on here?

It’s weird. Ever since I’ve left Singapore I’ve not really received any E-mails, or any comments on my Blog, or any visitors for that matter. It’s like I suddenly stopped to exist, or the people I used to know have ceased to exist, or that I’ve moved to some parallel universe.

Before anybody suspects of it, I’m not whinging, or asking you all to start writing, visiting and commenting more, I’m just noticing a strange occurrence. Is it coincidence, or is the fact that I’m somewhere far away make me seem less accessible, or less contactable? Does the idea ‘he’s on a trip’ influence the frequency of how often people are likely to type in my e-mail address and send me something? Or is all that just hogwash and is it really because I’ve stopped writing e-mails and haven’t put anything interesting on my blog for a while?

I don’t know. I’d ask you guys to comment, but you wouldn’t anyway, so I won’t bother. (That sounded a bit nasty, didn’t it?). I guess I’ll just keep doing my thing and hope that the trend reverses itself. And if it doesn’t? Well, then I guess I’ll just keep writing for myself. There’s nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you really are your own best audience.

Compilation

‘Rot’ the sign said, so that’s what we did. We sat and we rotted away, slowly suffocating in our own bodily fluids, the wet raspy laughter frightening away the other guests.

Giggling insanely, the leprechaun skipped away, carrying the baby’s head. The body it had left for the family to find. It was the sixteenth child he murdered, this serial killing figment of the mind. It often made designs in blood on the baby’s bedroom wall. ‘With love’ he would write, or ‘Sorry’.

What else could he do?

Boom, the cannons roared. Boom, boom, they crashed as thunder against the heavens, lighting ripping alongside. The metal balls sheared through cloth and man, ending lives and uses where ever they went.

God has decided to learn how to play the violin. He sits up, in his attic so that his angels can’t hear, and pulls the bow across the strings. A few more years, he thinks, and maybe he can play them all a little ditty. They can line up, five pence a piece, and come listen to him play.

Excitement soon fades to normality and normality slides into boredom. The wind smells of the lady’s scent.

Look carefully at my eye. Look carefully at the white space, there, in the middle, where madness holds reign. I will show you the way to enlightenment and there I will murder you, by they gooseberry bush.

With bloody hatched he worked on the body. The clinically clean room was soon splashed with the life blood of his victim, slashes of red showing the violence that he had wreaked. In the middle mutilation finds a new home. When you can no longer recognise it as human it just becomes another piece of meat.

The trees have died. Petrified by the bomb blast they stand as testimonies to a better time. Grim monuments to laughter and love. Pray here at my shrine. Pray to the gods of yore, for they will deliver you to instinct.

Screaming and raging, frothing at the mouth the beast inside slavers at the bonds. It would break every convention, it would destroy every norm. Letting it free would end me. Thousands of miles of chain span the width of my understanding, weaving together my reality in a web of bondage and restraint.

Death had a cousin. He was the black sheep of the family, often sitting for days on the couch, beer in one clawed talon, the remote in the other, zapping through visions of alternity. The eyeless corpse stares right back. There is no hint of recognition, there is not even a hint of awareness, but you sit frozen in fear.

A lone crow caws its annoyance.

Message in a Bottle

In two days I leave for India. I’ve been in Sri Lanka for 18 days now. It will be 20 by the time I leave.

For the last few days I’ve been down south, eating, drinking, smoking and being merry. It was a strange experience, just hanging around, chatting and not doing much of anything else. The guest house we were staying at was fantastic, as it had these lying areas covered with mats and cushions that we just felt no urge to leave. Add to that great food, a view of the beach and smoke and you’ve got a very centralised holiday, but one that is memorable nonetheless.

India I will do alone. I’m looking forward to that. I had a great time hanging out with my buddies, but I didn’t really meet anybody except for them. In the first week I met half the city, while for the next ten days I don’t think I really met anybody new that I wasn’t introduced to by those people I met in the first week.

When you have no choice but to be social, you suddenly find that it’s not to hard to strike up a random conversation. When you already have your established group, on the other hand, you approach less people and generally become less approachable. That’s a fact of life and one that can only be avoided by travelling alone.

So India, here I come!

For the next four months I probably won’t be meeting anybody that I knew from before this trip. Only at new years will friends from before come out to meet me. That should give me enough time to really get to know myself again. In the last few weeks I’ve come to the conclusion that some things in my personality can be improved upon and I think it is easiest to do that in an environment where nobody knows you. At least in that way they will simply accept you for who you are and not judge you by who you were.

What I want to focus on is being more consistently outgoing with the people around me. I want to stop paying quite as much attention to the little guy on my shoulder who always whispers in my ear ‘you shouldn’t say that, that’s stupid, it will only make people laugh at you’. I think ultimately it’s okay to look stupid sometimes, as long as you accept your stupidity gracefully.

I also want to bring my self consciousness under better control. There is no need for me to worry so much about what other people think. What’s more, I find that those people that seem to care the least about what other people think are often the people best (or worst) at interacting and entertaining the people around them.

I don’t have to be so reserved all the time. It gains me little and probably loses me a lot of opportunities.

Island Mentality

Sri Lanka has truly amazed me. It’s fascinating to come here from squeaky clean Singers. The people have been wonderful, the weather has been great, the women beautiful and the life easy.

Yet nothing really works. The government is horribly corrupt (with many of the locals complaining that they have yet to see any of the Tsunami charity money), with the ministers being some of the worst criminals in the country. The sons of the ministers are the ones that perform the most crimes and run around with armed bodyguards (there was a big fight in one of the clubs before we went there on Friday, apparently with drawn guns). The people are inefficient as hell (they love to stand around and watch others work) and everything takes about four times as long as it should.

To give you an example, we went to a supposed western style coffee place and ordered coffee. There were three customers in the whole coffee place, one person before us and the two of us. There were ten staff members standing around, seven normal workers and three important looking people, wearing ties.

It took them ten minutes just to take the order before us, while we stood there waiting.

Ten minutes for ten staff to fill one person’s order, before it was even our turn to order! Why? Well, everything that was ordered had to get written down (in duplicate). This was all being done by one staff member. Of course, he had to write slow and exactly, as this was the receipt. While he wrote, nobody else did anything. They just stood there and looked at us, at the man and at the other customer. Only when the order had been finished, did they bother to start making the coffee.

That is, the normal seven staff members. The guys in ties didn’t do anything, except kept looking at us. I think that as soon as you wear a tie you’re no longer supposed to use your hands, just stand around and try and look like you’re actually helping through your presence alone.

The thing was, the person I was with (who was Sri Lankan) didn’t even notice. I told her what I saw and how it amazed me that they didn’t just get another person to start writing receipts and she said ‘yeah, you’re right. Why don’t they do that?’ but it had never crossed her mind that this might be a problem, until I pointed it out. And this wasn’t the only time. This has been going on everywhere.

Not only are the Sri Lankans inefficient as hell, they are also completely unaware of it. I guess it brings a certain rustic charm to the island, even if it keeps out prosperity.

Saturday on the beach

Saturday on the beach is probably one of the nicest things imaginable. Two mates have come down from Singapore for ten days for one final blow out. Yesterday we tried the clubbing scene and ended up in a very nice club called Ds, where they played trance and we grinded our teeth.

We went home late, spent a couple of hours calming down and finally crashed out with the sun well and truly up. A few hours later, with the sun at its apex we rolled out of bed again and decided to spend the day being lazy on the beach.

Breakfast consisted of beer (Breakfast beer!), tea, a club sandwich and some sort of fish (I didn’t eat the fish). We were happy to notice that we could eat.

Some random local passed over a spliff and talked to us about government corruption, the tsunami and the rich. We listened, understanding at most two out of three words. That didn’t matter, though. It seemed the man just wanted nodding heads to talk to, which would make the appropriate impressed sound at the right moments.

We went swimming (the water was wonderful) then spent a good hour tossing a ball around. Somehow the locals got involved and it turned into a giant free for all game of rugby-catch.

Now we’re back home, chilling out, listening to ambient music and smoking. Tonight there will be a party around the corner from us, where apparently all of Colombo will be coming, well the good bits anyway.

If everything goes well, we’ll party well into Monday and then head back down to Hicks on Tuesday (with a dentist appointment snuck in for one of our company, the poor fellow).

And then?

Well, we’ll see then.

Meat Hooks

‘The murder of conscience is a difficult thing’, he explained as he drew the blade down his arm, ‘it requires a great deal of suffering on the part of others’. The blood flowed freely, in weeping tears from the torn flesh. The brambles had dug their way inside and now hurt her, which ever way she turned.

Loyalty and desire fought ten rounds. It was a dirty fight, with neither listening to justice, or reason. They pummelled and smashed at each other, secretly gaining enjoyment from the pain the other caused.

The signs were there, they had been there from the beginning, he just didn’t notice. He was too busy following the dark flame that he knew shouldn’t be allowed to be his guide. But its call was irresistible, with thoughts of ‘what if’ and ‘maybe’ it provoked him to pursue.

They should have known better.

They did, but they just didn’t listen.

The little men sat on their shoulders, high as kites. They had rolled a joint and laced it with his reason. They had cut up a line of her self-control.

And they just couldn’t stop looking. The intensity of their gazes disturbed some. They found it vulgar, in a way. It brought back memories of sensation and seduction, secrets and sin, things they didn’t want to consider under the neon lighting of everyday life. That night, however, they satisfied themselves with memories of those charged stolen glances.

It was intoxicating, it was ephemeral and it is no more.

Colombo again

The last few days have been a little unexpected, to say the least. On Friday night I saw a couple of pretty cute chicks on the beach in Hicks. I didn’t talk to them, though, because I was trashed out of my skull. The next day I was sitting somewhere, minding my own business (still not completely a hundred percent) and one of the girls suddenly bounced up to me and sat at my table.

‘Hey, do you remember me from last night?’

I was a little shocked, to say the least, as this was possibly the most beautiful woman on the beach (not at that time, not in the bar, but on the entire beach for that entire weekend). Swallowing me heart, I made conversation, without making an ass out of myself (surprise, surprise).

I spent the entire weekend with her and her friend, hanging around bars, clubs and cafes and on Sunday they said ‘hey, why don’t you come back to Colombo with us?’. We were, I had already found out, kindred spirits (With only some of you knowing what the hell I might mean with that). So I said ‘yeah, why not?’ Hikaduwa looked to be dead for the next week, anyway (only parties on the weekend). So I’ve spent the last few days back in Colombo.

It has been strange.

Their wavelength is so different from my own. I watch discovery channel, they watch Sponge Bob Square Pants. I like to play chess, they prefer to play Snakes and Ladders (while cheating). I talk about world politics, they talk about local modelling politics (the really cute one is a model, I might add).

But before you think so, they aren’t stupid, just constantly intellectually unchallenged. The potential is there, but the provocation never was.

So was it worth coming to Colombo? Well, hanging out with hot modelling chicks is probably a great deal more fun than hanging out with beach boys (who only come as close to hot modelling chicks as their cat calls do). It hasn’t been bad. I’m going to have to get used to feeling that my time is not being optimally spent. I think that’s a given when you’re travelling.

My mind has been spinning. Seeing this completely different world has sent my mind a reeling in many different directions. There is something to be learned here, for sure, about the human condition.

What I’m not sure, but when I am, I’ll give you a yell.

The Waiting Game

Replaying, repeating, cycling through my head the same scene from different angles, over and over again while the second hand takes an infinity to run its race. What now?

The dream scape is cluttered with vague recollections of things said, unsaid and better forgotten. Analysed and inspected, every piece discarded to the garbage dump of the soul. Merging, fusing, recalibrating and fermenting into something unfamiliar, something frightening. A daemon of the mind raging through the fragile logical framework erected there by man.

Madness never knocks.

The uninvited guest who eats your food, consumes your drugs and drinks your booze. The lodger, too terrifying to chase out. His arguments and eyes too intimidating to challenge. He is chaos. Worship him, for he will release you from your bonds. Worship him and be spoiled.

Hope cried herself to sleep. She was near the snapping point. The hooks in her flesh tearing her in a dozen different directions. Her emotions leaking out through the holes in her skin. Tears and tears mingling into a ghastly roadmap of the cosmos. Purity is nowhere to be found. She ran at the first sign of trouble.

What now? Now we wait. Is there anything better to do? Sometimes we must believe the lies, swallow the discomfort and accept the deception. Good things come to those who wait, they say. Well it must be true, sometimes.

Hikaduwa duex

I just sat in my room and typed an entry for my blog on my laptop. Then, I pull out my disket, which I had cleverly brought to transfer my files from my laptop to the internet cafe. i life up the laptop, with the intention of slotting in the disket when I realise something quite significant. My laptop has no disket drive.

Drat.

I need to buy a thumb drive, but I don't know if they sell those here in Hikaduwa.

Anyways, so I'm in Hikaduwa. I'm staying in the infamous 'Why not?'. When Banana and myself were last here we spent quite a few hours there drinking their liqour. Now, with it being low season, the Why Not? is closed.

But not to worry. The people that run it in peak season are still around and have absolutely nothing to do for six months. They are up for anything, which fits quite nicely with my current mood.

I've met Rasta again (he was mentioned on Banana's old blog) and we hung out on the beach for a nice civilized cup of tea. We had a tray with a tea towel, tea pot cups, saucers, sugar and milk; but we had no table. Instead we just sat in the sand.

It was one of the best cups of tea I've had in a long time.

I have to say, I love the horizon. They couldn't understand what I was babling about when I talked about how nice it was to see a horizon again, but then none of them have ever lived in a city. Singapore is in large parts horizonless. I wonder what that does to our thinking process?

I'll keep writing to this blog and I'll soon find a way to transfer text from my lappy up here, in which case it will be even easier to get stuff out.

PS: I will send a card and I did bring my underwear.

Final Preparations

Two packed bags behind me, butterflies in my stomach and a head full of ideas. Four hours before I fly. What have I packed?

-Clothes (one neat shirt, lots of t-shirts, swimming trunks, etc.)
-toiletries (wax, shavers, shampoo, real poo, aerosol, etc.)
-A laptop
-Two laptop batteries and a power cord
-One diskette
-Five books (Lonely Planet, the ‘Leviathan’ by Thomas Hobbes, ‘Why I’m not a Christian’ by Bertrand Russell, ‘The Meme Machine’ by Susan Blackmore and ‘Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus’ by Wittgenstein)
-A deck of cards and poker dice
-A note book
-Enough store bought drugs to (humanely) kill an elephant
-my writing samples
-my lucky (security?) blanket
-condoms
-swiss army card (like a swiss army knife, only flatter)
-flip flops, timberlands and some brandless pair of running shoes
-two locks and a chain
-LED flashlight and reading light
-universal power transformer (Transformers! Power sockets in disguise)
-perfume as a present for Shazam’s mother
-traveller cheques
-a wallet full of cash, credit cards, bank cards and other stuff I probably no longer really need
-passport
-print out of my online flight ticket
-a new hand-phone
-and more

Sounds pretty prepared, right?

So why do I feel completely naked?

The Growing Storm

Last day in Singers. Tomorrow I’ll be leaving the country at 2:30. Sorting out my last little details. Saying my last goodbyes. It seemed years away, two weeks ago. I can’t quite believe that it will all be over tomorrow. Goodbye Singapore.

And what next? Well, first a little beach in Sri Lanka. Then? I have no idea. It’s brilliant and frightening at the same time. A little like being in love, except less sex.

In my story I’ve also progressed to the leaving day. That’s moving along quite nicely. Only 15 pages, so far, but I’m quite happy with (some of) what I have. I’m sure it will all change before long, but at least I’ve got an idea of what I’m doing.

People have started asking me what I’ll miss most from Singapore. I have answered back that except for my family and my friends I really don’t know. I guess the efficiency might be sorely missed. I missed that when I went to Australia. Of course, is Ausie land I was very much dependant on efficiency in order to survive (I was that poor). This time it’s a different matter. This time the cash is there.

Am I prepared for my trip? Physically, I’m more prepared than I’ve ever been. I’ve got cash, equipment, virtual copies of all my documents, I’m in good health, I’m physically fit and a I’ve got a goatee. What more could I need?

Mentally? Well, I’ll just have to wait and see.

Many people have expressed their admiration and concern over the fact that I have absolutely no plans. They say things like ‘I can’t travel like that’ or they just look at me strange after I shrug my shoulders to their question ‘so, where are you going?’. It might have something to do with the fact that I’ve just killed the conversation (very unsocial of me, I freely admit), but I think it’s more than that.

‘If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favourable."

-Seneca

That is, of course, unless you’re just willing to go where the wind wants to take you. Where, I wonder, will this gale blowing through my life take me? Where will I be beached next?

I’m still alive (I think)

The last few weeks have been very hectic. I’ve been in a sort of frantic pause, in between my old job and my new journey. It’s been wild. I’ve basically been trying to say goodbye to everybody, with many people more than once. It’s a time consuming, energy eating and liver killing process.

The drinking has been horrendous. Last night, on yet another alcohol accompanied goodbye, I was looking at my beer (a Kilkenny, I had had quite enough of Tiger, Carlsberg and Heineken all) wondering to myself ‘how the hell am I going to get you down?’.

On Monday I went out with a friend from Holland who’s in town for a few days, after which he will go back to China. We started at two thirty and finished a bottle of vodka, with a bigger group (not just the two of us) at about 12:30 that night. I went home and felt pretty crappy the next day.

On Wednesday, however, not having learned from my Monday, I did it again, only this time I started at noon and ended at four in the morning. I didn’t have time to feel crap yesterday, however, as there were yet more people that wanted to say both hello and goodbye, so I was forced to rely on hair of the dog.

Hair of the dog is the trick where you drink to get over your hangover. Yes, those sound like the words of a true alchy, but I promise you, it actually works pretty damn well. That first beer is a rough one to drink, too. Every part of your body is screaming ‘no, not again!’, but you do and after that you do ok.

But anyway, I have no idea what is in store for me today, but it’s going to be another hectic one, by the look of things. It is Friday, after all. My last Friday in Singers. Groan.

Exerpt from Chapter 1 of 'The' story

Disclaimer: This story is fictional. None of it is real, even the bits that are. None of the characters mentioned, discussed or ridiculed actually exist; even if you think you do. If you think that these characters are based on you, it's not true but thanks for inspiring me. If you see anything up here that seems to be directly quoted from you, that's just a coincidence and I'd already thought of it long before you said it, so there. If you have any complaints, suggestions or ideas; don't hesitate to keep them to yourself. Thanks for your time and enjoy the story. Or else...

The story starts on the seventh day, of the seventh month, of the seventh year of the second millennium. According to some people since it was Saturday it was even the seventh day of the week, with the week starting on a Sunday, according to them. Of course, that was a bit strange; after all, God is generally described as a hardworking fellow and probably didn’t start with his day of rest. That is, unless he invented pot first, in which case all seven days would probably have been days of rest and none this would have been around in the first place, something that would certainly have cut down on the suffering.

The reason the story started on that day was that a few days earlier, on his farewell lunch (a pleasant affair, including another teacher that was leaving, the boss and a fourth person, who wasn’t actually sure why she was there but wasn’t complaining as the company was paying), events had been kick started by food poisoning. It wasn’t intentional food poisoning. According to the words spoken that day they actually rather liked him at his job. It was food poisoning, however, and not just a mild case of it either.

When he reflected on it later he came to the conclusion that it had probably been a bad idea to order the lime crab. It was a strange combination, with the lime’s overwhelming strength hiding the taste of the crab, something he remarked on during the lunch (he wasn’t always the most tactful of people). He had said it could just as easily have been chicken. Of course it could have just as easily been bad crab, which is exactly what it was, but he hadn’t thought about that while he was wolfing it down.

He became fully aware of this on that most auspicious of days, his first day when he was no longer working, when he was forced to sit on the toilet, bucket in hand, heaving and spraying. The reason he needed the bucket was that people had not yet bothered to put two toilets close enough together for just such an emergency. That wasn’t really that surprising, as this kind of a situation wasn’t really that common, but it was still inconvenient for our poor main character. Not that he was really giving what had and hadn’t been invented a great deal of thought at this time.

No, his mind was elsewhere, leaping from topic to topic, sometimes dwelling on his discomfort, sometimes on what was at the bottom of the bucket and sometimes on rather deep philosophical subjects (in order to not think about what was at the bottom of the bucket).

In between bouts of self-pity and moans he slowly but certainly came to a realisation. The world was screwing with him. Something, somewhere, had it in for him. These kinds of things always seemed to happen and he always ended up in situations that were massively humorous for other people, but rather painful and embarrassing for himself. What was it about him that made him so susceptible to providence’s evil stare? What provoked the world into making sure nothing was ever just normal in his life?

It wasn’t that he was unlucky, that wasn’t it - though he was often unlucky, he was just as often lucky – it was just that he was such an outlier. It was like fate had picked him to suffer through a great deal of the unusual situations, so that others, elsewhere could lead a more normal life. Someone, somewhere, he realised, must be in exactly the opposite situation; they must be wondering ‘why is my life always so normal, why is my life always so plain?’

‘Something’, he realised with absolute clarity between spasms, ‘is fucking with me.’

A moment later the thought was driven from his conscious mind as he projectile vomited largely into his bucket, but also partially onto the dingy mat at the foot of his toilet. The thought was replaced by a slightly more practical one, which went ‘Does bile wash out?’

But just because the idea had momentarily submerged, it hadn’t disappeared. This idea, though not yet fully conscious, was a patient idea. It could bide its time. There was no rush, there was no over urging need to push ahead too fast. It was better, according to this idea, to nudge than to dictate. It believed in guerrilla propaganda. It would gather intelligence, make occasional surgical strikes at essential mental processes, it would scout out the mindscape, find evidence and other ideas to support its cause. Then eventually it would emerge with an army of arguments at its back, too powerful to be ignored.

This thought would eventually provoke a chain of events that would ultimately lead to his true discovery of his own nature, a discovery that would have massive ramifications for both him and this story. But we’ve jumped very far ahead. At this point he hadn’t even left on his trip yet.

Distracted

Last Friday was my last day of work. Today is the first day that I can make myself sit down and actually write on my blog. How, in fortune’s name, did I manage to find no time while being unemployed to write on my blog? I’m not exactly sure, but time has flashed by.

Saying goodbye, I’ve found out, is a time consuming (and money consuming) business.

Writing on my story has also been a very good way to take up a great deal of time. When I want to write, it’s now a choice between writing on my blog, or writing on my story. Today, fortunately, I’ve hopefully found time to do both. That is, if my laptop battery doesn’t run out. Mental note to self, buy an extra laptop battery.

I think in the future I’ll just start posting short excerpts from my actual story up here. I realise that’s a bit of a cheat, but nobody ever said I have to obey some set of rules when I’m writing for my blog.

As for the deep thoughts that I normally (try to) write about, I’m a little too busy living my life to think about too many other things. That, and the book I’m currently reading (Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond) isn’t that inspirational. It’s interesting, granted, but it is very repetitive (as a colleague warned me when she found me reading it). The author apparently thinks it’s a very good idea to hit you repetitively with the same fact in different forms, in order to make it sound more convincing.

All I’ve noticed it making me is sleepy. Every time I pick it up, within half an hour I need to take a quick nap (which is kind of nice). So read, nap, wake up, yawn, read again, nap again, get coffee, read a little longer, get up from the couch, shuffle around, check E-mail, try reading again, throw the book away in disgust, go over to the corner, pick it up, try reading it again, realise I’ve read a page without remember any of it, realise that it probably said the same thing as the page before, shrug, keep reading, fantasize about beautiful lesbians suddenly deciding they are bi in my presence.

You get the picture.

I love my life.

Why I'm against the death penalty

The Death Penalty (DP from here on in) is a barbaric, archaic, cruel and unnecessary form of punishment. It is morally abhorrent and, what is more, largely useless as a deterrent of crime.

Let's start with the moral argument. The state says to us 'don't kill'. There is no 'unless' or 'however' involved. They just say it to us and expect us to obey. In almost all countries Euthanasia is illegal. In a large number abortion too is still outlawed. What ever you may believe about the rightness or justness of those two forms death (murder?), they are pretty obvious examples of how the state demands that we respect human life, whatever the circumstances.

So from where does the state then take the authority to kill its own citizens? The DP is, to strip away the euphemism, murder. It is taking the life of a defenceless individual (death by combat has been all but eliminated worldwide), however tainted his or her soul might be.

Now many might argue that an army should then not be allowed to keep an army. That is something completely different, however. It would be nice if our neighbours wouldn't want to invade, but sometimes they do and there is no deterrent, other than force, that will keep them away.

Not so for the death penalty.

There are equally useful deterrents, such as prison sentences or (and I'm not for this) corporal punishment, which are equally effective and don't require the ending of human life. So why do we have the DP?

There are four perceived reasons why we have incarceration and the DP. These are:

Deterrent (i.e. 'if I do that, I'll die!')

Punishment (i.e. 'if he doesn't suffer he won't understand it was a crime')

Prevention (if he's dead he can't do it again)

Revenge (i.e. 'if we kill him, I'll feel better')

Many people have long contested whether the DP works as a deterrent. If we look at states in America where there is a DP (such as Texas) we find that many of those states also have very high murder rates. What is more, many people have argued that most people do not think deeply before they perform a crime. Only a criminal that calculates and considers very carefully would be deterred by the DP. Criminals who act on impulse wouldn't consider the consequences and would therefore not be deterred. Some people even argue that subconsciously people might reason 'if the state kills, then why can't I?'.

In terms of punishment I really wonder if the DP is really that effective of a punishment. If you believe in the afterlife, well then a few more years on this planet won't matter all that much, considering that the person is facing an eternity of damnation. If you don't believe in the afterlife, on the other hand, then the DP is better than life in jail. After the DP that person won't care one whit about what happened (after all, he doesn't feel anything), while he'll have a whole life to regret his actions in jail.

In terms of prevention, a lifetime in jail is just as effective in stopping somebody from committing further crimes as their death.

As for revenge, that is a base emotion that shouldn't be encouraged in any form, especially not by the state.

The DP is, in most cases, more expensive than life long incarceration; so that too is no argument in support of the DP.

The strongest argument against the DP hasn't even been mentioned, however. That argument is: what if the state is wrong? It has happened on numerous occasions that later evidence proves an executed person innocent. When that happens the state has murdered an innocent person. Let me say that again, they have murdered a perfectly innocent individual. How would you feel if you knew you were innocent and were still being executed, regardless? If that man was in jail he will have lost a number of years of his life and that's bad enough, but if he's been executed the best the state can do is say 'oops, we made an error there, sorry about that dear fellow.'

The state, too, is made up of normal people. They make mistakes. Those mistakes shouldn't cost lives. The arguments against the DP are numerous and convincing. Fortunately, slowly the world's politicians are being convinced and the DP is being phases out in most places. Hopefully the DP will disappear completely in my lifetime. When it has, we will have taken a large step forward in our development as a species.

Crossroads

Not even a full week of work left. A little more than three weeks left in the country. Am I ready to go? There’s really little choice in the matter, the ticket has been bought and the plans have been made.

There’s a lot left to do. Today I went out to buy a new backpack (a small one, I’m going to continue to use the large one that I’ve had for more than fifteen years). I tried finding a bag that doesn’t shout ‘rob me, I’m rich!’ though I guess my face already does that. After all, in most developing countries just being white is the equivalent of being rich.

I also got my visa, which unfortunately ends just a few days before the new years (it’s a six month one). That’s really annoying, as I’m supposed to be spending my new years in India with some mates. One friend did have a good point though, I should see it as an opportunity, rather than as a draw back. In this way I’ll have extra motivation to visit a neighbouring country (I’m not allowed to extend my visa in India. I have to leave the country first, for some odd reason.)

What I’m worried about right now is that I won’t have enough to do while I’m there. I’m so used, now, to working ten to twelve hours a day, how am I going to cope with having so much free time? Won’t I feel like I’m wasting it? That’s a real concern for me, the idea that time is being used inefficiently.

For that reason I’ve started writing a fictional semi-autobiographic story. It will incorporate elements of me, but will not really be me. The character will be a more extreme version of myself, incorporating some elements in my character that I’d like to have and some other elements, which I would like to avoid.

The reason for that is that I want to be able to write, without always having to worry about modesty, decency and expectation. In this way I can write something and say ‘but it’s fictional! It’s not really me!’ I can steal ideas from other people, change elements in my story so that it becomes more exciting than real life, and so forth. Still, by keeping it close to my real story, it will be easy to include my own thoughts and ideas into the storyline of my tale.

Will that be enough? I’m not sure. The last time I was in Thailand I was never really bored, but at that time I didn’t feel guilty about doing nothing. Maybe I’ll adapt soon enough to a life of leisure. Maybe I’ll find ideas inspiration on the road, that more than balance out the supposed time I’m ‘wasting’. I mean, really my time teaching wasn’t the most efficient way of spending time, either. It was repetitious and largely a routine (I’m convinced routine teaches a great deal less than original and unexpected situations).

So I guess I’m really not sure what to expect. I guess the best idea is to expect nothing and prepare for everything.

Of course, that’s a lot easier said than done.